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www.postmagazine.com 22 POST OCTOBER 2017 FALL TV he growth of the porn industry, the pursuit of the paranormal and the heroism of Navy SEALs are all on display in the new fall TV season. Post houses on both coasts have developed work- flows to handle the demands of HDR finishing and UHD resolutions and promote collaboration among their creative teams. Here's a look at some of the post pros behind HBO's drama The Deuce, Fox's comedy Ghosted and CBS' action series SEAL Team. THE DEUCE HBO's The Deuce, created and written by David Simon and George Pelecanos, tells the story of the legalization and growth of the porn industry, the on- set of HIV and the drug epidemic in 1970s New York City. It stars James Franco (pictured above), in a dual role, as well as Maggie Gyllenhaal (photo, top right), and is set in and around Times Square. Cinematographer Pepe Avila del Pino shot the pilot on Arri Alexa on the streets of New York. "We did significant testing with the creative team to develop a film look appropriate for the period," recalls Sam Daley, senior colorist at Technicolor PostWorks New York (www.postworks.com). "After the series was green-lit, Vanja Cernjul, ASC came on board to shoot it with the Panasonic VariCam 35. Vanja wanted to build on the existing look, so we adjusted the film-look to take advantage of the VariCam's low-light characteristics." Technicolor PostWorks handled the complete post workflow for Season 1 from dailies through conform. The company not only adapted to a change of camera from the pilot but also to HBO's choice of an HDR finish for the series. "We retained as much of the standard dynamic range workflow as we could, but for the finish we modified the look to account for the wider tonal range and color gamut of HDR," notes Daley. "We graded the show in HDR first on Blackmagic Design DaVinci Resolve to Sony X300 HDR monitors under Vanja's supervision," says Daley. The Deuce was Daley's first HDR series and the facility's first show where DolbyVision HDR was the primary grade. "Vanja had done Marco Polo in HDR first, so he knew what was possible," Daley says. "He wanted to carefully retain extra highlights of infor- mation so that as much detail as possible captured in HDR would be maintained in the SDR version." The colorist notes that the "gritty urban look" of Times Square in the 1970s, which is the hallmark of The Deuce, might seem the "antithesis of HDR, which you think of as glossy and bright. We didn't want HDR to distract from the essential character of the series. So we strove to retain the filmic quality of the show while embracing some of the visual benefits of HDR." Those benefits are most evident in the night scenes on 42nd street, where the old theater marquees now "pop and dazzle," Daley says. "The production design really stands out; it doesn't lose details in color and highlights. You can see further into the frame." To work from the modified film LUT, Daley made use of Technicolor's proprietary ITM (Intelligent Tone Management) software, which dynamically maps source imagery to HDR scale. "It was important to keep the integrity of the col- or and contrast of the SDR image in the new HDR grade," says Grady. "The end result almost feels like a print of an early '70s movie that we remas- tered in HDR. It's gritty and grainy and stretches tastefully into the new technology." Daley calls himself "a conduit" for Cernjul who "drove a lot of the look" of the series, a look that was enhanced with the application of LiveGrain. "It's the Cadillac of film grain, the best grain rep- lication software available. It reacts intuitively to the exposure and doesn't feel like an overlay. I appreciate the subtleties it brings to a project." "Resolve had great flexibility when we switched from SDR to HDR and back again," notes Daley. "The platform allows plug-ins and nodes to be T Technicolor PostWorks handled the complete post workflow on Season 1 of The Deuce. The pilot for The Deuce was shot on Arri Alexa.