SHOOT STORY | BOHEMI AN RHAPSODY
Prior to commencement of principal photography, Greg Fisher of Company 3 in London, worked with Sigel designing LUTs that could be used on set, to allow all department heads to see their work reflected in the monitors and then in dailies with a rough version of the final look applied. Sigel discussed using different LUTs to represent separate sections of the film, so that the earlier portions of the story, set in the 1970s, have more of a film- like look and then the portions set in the 1980s, the band’s most successful period and when Freddie Mercury’s illness took hold, looks more ‘cleaned up, less like a print’, says the colourist. Fisher elaborates that the grade for those early portions was not based on what strictly speaking would be called a film emulation LUT. “We didn’t want to raise the black level to ‘film black’,” he says. “It was a genuine black, which provided us with more contrast than we’d have had without having to stretch the image a great deal. The idea was to suggest film.” The 1980s, which was essentially when the film jumped to the large-format ARRI, he notes, “was designed to bring out some specific colours, such as bold, primary reds and desaturated pastel tones in order to give it a strong look with skin tones and other, less pronounced, colours remaining neutral. In post, Fisher worked with Sigel in DaVinci Resolve in his grading theatre, always starting out with the appropriate LUT as a basis and then fine tuning, sometimes significantly, from there. GRADING THE RHAPSODY
ABOVE From left, cast members Joseph Mazzello (John Deacon), Ben Hardy (Roger Taylor), Remi Malek (Freddie Mercury) and Gwilym Lee (Brian May).
The DNAs are purpose-built lenses culled from old glass. They have a very handcrafted feel to them, each one with its own weird little characteristics. They tend to fall off toward the edges, and roll off gently in the focus. I shot most of the movie relatively wide open to emphasise this. I think that is part of what gives the film its naturalistic look. LIGHTING naturalistic for the drama scenes with plenty of practical lighting. How difficult was it to work with concert lighting? What other lighting did you use – LEDs and so forth? Can you talk about the general lighting design? It seems very
BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY IS OUT NOW IN UK CINEMAS. his life, as well as the evolution of the band. It’s subtle, but the look of the film at the end is about as far from the look at the beginning as you can get. I love the way it just grows on the audience without them realising it. The concert material was all lit with period-appropriate lights – basically par cans, ellipsoidals and follow spots. By the time the action got to 1980 we could introduce the Vari-Lite, the development of which had just been bankrolled by the band Genesis. That allowed us to introduce sweeping light and smoke effects. Concert lighting designer Tony Simpson and I studied archival footage and tried to reproduce Queen’s lighting as much as possible. As with any movie, small liberties were taken. For the dramatic scenes I relied heavily on LEDs: both the ubiquitous Arri Skypanels and custom lightweight LEDs that gaffer Lee Walters built. They were RGBW and we could control them from an iPad right next to camera. This was tremendously helpful, as I could do light cues at the drop of a hat in mid-shot. For the stage work, most of the through-the- window lighting was done with T-12s or 20ks. Did you produce a lighting design specifically for Freddie? I didn’t have a specific design for Freddie, but we did for each period in
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