DRAMA | THE CROWN
My philosophy is to keep the set simple, with two cameras, two dollies and a few cranes The Crown , therefore the grade didn’t vary much from Seasons 1 and 2, other than the primary delivery now being HDR. This was perhaps the most dramatic and, at times, controversial new tool at our disposal. Adriano embraced it as it added an extra dimension to the viewing experience; an immersive 3D quality. But it has to be used subtly, so as not to become distracting. We didn’t want the actors to have to compete with the lights.” He continues: “We found that establishing a shot of a vista across a city, such as in Athens, where we follow the story of Prince Philip’s mother, had such depth that it could easily be held for another five seconds as our eyes were drawn to different details within the image. We therefore suggested the editors should be able to view the dailies in HDR so they could have a similar experience during the edit.” Series 3 is naturally more colourful, because the period is more colourful, so this led to a conversation about saturation and whether or not it needed to be enhanced
ABOVE The new Queen and her prince, played by Olivia Colman and Tobias Menzies
Cineos and the Hudson Spider. He explains: “I really like how quick and easy it is to adjust the intensity and colour of LED lights, so that helped me keep the pace up. We shot about 25 set-ups a day, so we needed to be able to move quickly in order to deliver the footage on time, and switching up both our lenses and lights meant we could do that.” Lighting through the windows of grand buildings and placing the equipment well away from the talent demanded a huge chunk of the budget for cherry pickers and genie booms (and getting permits for these enormous machines to be outside on the street). “On the set, there’s always two Pee Wee dollies and five or seven (usually 50ft) cranes. Either technocrane or Scorpio. But there are a few locations, such as at Wilton House, where there are weight restrictions, because of its old, wooden flooring. In these instances, we brought a 22ft technocrane, which is a very small, beautiful piece of gear. I know the show looks expensive – and we do have the resource, but my philosophy is to keep the set simple, with two cameras, two dollies and few cranes.” BROWN-EYED GIRL Much as we, the audience, love a good side- by-side of actors and the historical figures they portray, we accept the inevitable differences. But not the makers of The Crown , who sought so desperately to match Olivia Colman’s likeness with the Queen through cosmetic and visual effects. The feature in question was Her Majesty’s blue eye colour, which the Oscar-winner’s predecessor in the role, Claire Foy, was fortunate enough to share. Colman’s tawny-coloured eyes were initially fitted with contact lenses, but that idea was quickly abandoned because they made the actor appear “zombie-like” and as
though she were “acting through a mask”, says Goldman. Furthermore, when shooting Colman up close, her contacts were visible on screen. Recolouring Colman’s eyes using VFX was also vetoed, because it didn’t seem like her when she was acting. Goldman explains: “You lose something when you watch Olivia with blue eyes, something vanishes, and it really damages her performance.” He adds: “If you’re making a sci-fi movie and you need a character to have red eyes, that’s one thing – it’s part of the construction of that character. But, you know, we’re not making a documentary here, and we’ve been bold enough to change an entire cast, does it really matter if Olivia has brown eyes?” Continuity was also questioned when the footage came into the grade, but it was decided that most of Series 3’s “new feel” would be achieved by the changes in cast, costume, sets and lenses. Colourist Asa Shoul explains: “We wanted to anchor the look so that it would be unmistakably
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