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www.postmagazine.com 25 POST OCTOBER 2014 ith the fall TV season underway, viewers are tuning in to new shows and old favorites. Post facilities and VFX studios coast to coast have worked their magic to bring high-profi le politicos, troubled towns, superheroes, post-apocalyptic castaways and pictur- esque whodunits to living rooms nation- wide. Here's a look at what some of the studios have to off er viewers this season. HARBOR PICTURE COMPANY — MADAM SECRETARY Female Secretaries of State are nothing new in government, but now a fi ctional one has her own TV series. New on CBS, Madam Secretary looks at how a US Secretary of State strives to balance her high-profi le professional and family lives. The show is shooting in New York City on Arri Alexa, and Harbor Picture Company in town (www.harborpicturecompany. com) is handling color for the series in one of its three color grading theaters. Harbor colorist Joe Gawler, who is a studio partner, along with Zak Tucker and Theo Stanley, graded the pilot for Madam Secretary in LA, however. "We worked out of Modern [VideoFilm] in Burbank to be in the same room with the director and producers of the show," says Gawler. During production in New York, "I sat with cinematographer Jonathan Brown — we've worked on features together — to create a LUT, a master look, to use on the set." The pilot set the look for the series and garnered "great feedback" from the producers and director David Semel. "We have freedom to keep the show dark and moody," says Gawler. "The show is not overlit by any means. There's a lot of coolness in the shadows and warmth in the highlights. We've continued with that aesthetic." Now that color grading is done at Harbor and the show is shot in and around New York City, Brown some- times comes in late at night or on week- ends to spend time with Gawler. "He's so busy, but he can drop by when he's available and we'll play with footage he's sent," says Gawler. "But Jonathan and I are at a point where he's comfortable with me grading the initial pass unsu- pervised and bringing him in for the fi nal polishing of the look." Modern VideoFilm sends a ProRes 444 QuickTime of the conformed show in Log C to Harbor as a longplay via Signiant fi le sharing. Gawler grades with Blackmagic's DaVinci Resolve 10 on Mac using the EDL supplied by Modern to notch the longplay into individual shots. He monitors in Rec.709 on a Panasonic HD plasma monitor. "I moved to Resolve when we opened Harbor two-and-a-half years ago, and I've been blown away by it," Gawler states. "The amount of control the color tools have, the fantastic tracking tools, the structure of the nodes I developed to give more fl exibility and speed. For Mad- am Secretary I've developed a custom LUT to put log footage in the aesthetic we're looking for, then it's a matter of windowing certain areas to knock down the exposure to keep with the darker aesthetic Jonathan wants." He notes that Brown's "beautiful and inspirational" cinematography "makes it easy" for him to deliver the desired look. Sometimes it takes a while to fi nd that sweet spot, but Brown and Gawler were "very much on the same page" from the start. Future plot lines may dictate other approaches to color, he acknowledges. "There will be things that come up in the show — perhaps an international cri- sis — that we'll push in another direction with a diff erent look," Gawler says. Gawler renders fi nal color as ProRes 444 at 2K to send back to Modern Vid- eoFilm for fi nal mastering. He also sends the Resolve project to allow Modern to apply the grade to any VFX shots cut in after grading has fi nished. Harbor Picture Company off ers com- plete post production, including 70 offl ine edit suites and its Harbor Sound division for sound editorial and mixing and "the best ADR in New York," says Gawler. STARGATE STUDIOS — HAVEN "Haven" is a picturesque Maine seaside town where real-estate values must be plummeting, and one of Syfy channel's most watched shows. Many of its resi- dents are supernaturally "troubled" and bizarre weather events, environmental disasters and weird deaths are the norm. Haven has even leapfrogged the space- time continuum. "We've brought down the lighthouse more than once," laughs Sam Nicholson, founder and CEO of Stargate Studios (www.stargatestudios.net), which has been the sole VFX vendor for Haven since it began its run on Syfy. "We're blowing it up again this season." The series, which is shot in Nova Sco- tia, just started a 26-episode fi fth season, which will be split between 2014 and 2015. "Our Toronto group does the heavy lifting" for the show, Nicholson says. Kris Wood, president of Stargate Canada, which has offi ces in Toronto and Vancou- ver, is Haven's VFX supervisor. The show off ers a "challenge of the week" for VFX artists, Nicholson notes. "It's not a show that's very repetitive; you can't build something and amortize it. Each episode is totally unique — whether it's raining frogs or there's some bizarre kind of energy — and at Stargate, we're really good at creative problem solving." Season 5 promises new troubles for Haven residents and more imaginative VFX. "One of the cooler new eff ects has laser beams bursting out of a woman's W BY CHRISTINE BUNISH Harbor Picture's colorist Joe Gawler (inset) relies on Blackmagic's DaVinci Resolve 10 for work on CBS's new Madam Secretary. POST FOR TV SERIES