picture canning
DRAMA | PEAKY BL I NDERS
I N ASSOC I AT I ON WI TH
PAUL STAPLES, SENIOR COLOURIST,
ENCORE POST PRODUCTION
Anyone whose career started in photochemical film still enjoys a measure of respect based on that. Colourist Paul Staples started working at the Todd-AO film laboratory in 1998 when the it was still based in Camden Town, grading dailies on the night shift before graduating to a more senior position. In 2008, he moved to St Anne’s Post, which would become Encore, and specialised in long- form high-end drama. Staples met Anthony Byrne and Si Bell working on the historical drama Ripper Street , a partnership that he remembers “was referenced in my initial meeting with Anthony” for this project. “I worked on a lot of drama projects,” Staples continues, “and generally kept busy, but it was Broadchurch that really changed things for me. Originally I was given an open brief by director James Strong to ‘show him something different’ – which I think I did.” Staples had previously won a Royal Television Society award for his work on White Heat , shot by Broadchurch DOP Matt Gray, BSC, and finished Hanna in HDR10 for Amazon Prime. “I’ve been a fan of Peaky Blinders and always thought it was a stylish show,” Staples says. “Anthony and Si were very clear, though, that Series 5 is set in a later period. They were very keen for the grade to reflect that in terms of look while still retaining its trademark cool style.” Staples worked in Blackmagic’s DaVinci Resolve, producing a Dolby Vision master using the Sony BVM-X300 OLED display, and describes the experience in glowing terms. “Grading was unlike any other project I’ve been involved with,” he says. “Every time I applied my base grade, I’d get goosebumps. The images are so beautifully iconic. It’s unlike anything else.”
tight schedule’. I was worried about using these anamorphic lenses with the close focus issues. I’d never shot a TV drama on anamorphic, but it worked out really nicely and had a nice look to it.” Bell chose Cooke’s anamorphics, particularly the 65mmmacro, “which we did a lot of development shots on. It got us out of any problems with the close focus”. There were flame and fire tests done for flaring and the team decided on the Cooke S6s, partly because it was a bigger set. Larkin explains how the final choice of camera was made from the usual drama suspects, including new full-frame models: “The size of the body of the Alexa LF was inhibitive in the end, mainly as there was so much Steadicam. The Sony Venice was nice, but at the time the firmware was still quite limiting in terms of frame rates and other settings. They liked the Mini over the Red Helium, but once Si saw the Monstro, he was sold on it.” MORE GRIP FLEXIBILITY With an eye on grip, director Byrne was, Bell says, a big fan of the flexibility provided by Arri’s Trinity stabiliser. “We had a Steadicam, but we also had the Trinity, so you can boom the camera low and then jib up to head height. We had that for some development shots. The shot in the Garrison where we reveal the pub and the little lad comes in; that big development shot was done on a dolly with the Trinity. That was a really difficult shot to light as well, but you can get the camera in places you never would be able to achieve with Steadicam or dolly alone. Anthony loves that,” says Bell. The schedule involved around ten weeks on location, with the balance on set. Despite the long run that Peaky Blinders has enjoyed, very few standing sets exist: “They had one set that was reused, which was the
IMAGES Production on Peaky Blinders Series 5
£100m Cost of the new Birmingham- based Peaky Blinders production space 40 Number of acres the new site will be in total
26 DEF I N I T ION | OCTOBER 20 1 9
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