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shooting at 6K, the resolution is incredible, so we very subtly added some grain to break it up. I’m also not a fan of deep blacks, so I like to push a grey or a milkiness back into the shadows.” Irvine finishes: “I pushed some quite offbeat colours into the exteriors. For instance, I shot one scene in a council estate at night where I added a blend of greens and reds to give it a sense of uneasiness and also to accentuate the feeling of mixed fluorescent, tungsten and mercury lighting. I didn’t want it to feel like there were a lot of modern LEDs everywhere, I wanted it to be more timeless – and that’s what we got.” When you’re shooting at 6K, the resolution is incredible, so we subtly added some grain
IMAGES The edginess that Irvine wanted from the show’s dark scenes was protected in the grade
in the shadow. I could see that everyone thought it was a bit too edgy, but I just went for it and it looked great.” Irvine’s hankering for a slightly edgier image also came through in the grade: “I wanted to protect the darkness of the dark scenes and luckily I was able to. There can be a tendency to raise overall brightness as a default, despite the fact that there was initial support for a darker, more contrasty image. Fortunately, that wasn’t the case with Wild Bill .” The grade was done on Blackmagic’s DaVinci Resolve at Goldcrest, by multi award-winning colourist, Jet Omoshebi. She’s also a friend of Irvine’s and they shared a partiality towards the final look of the series. He explains, “we wanted to keep it quite filmic and natural. When you’re
are the shots?’ and it’s not constructive to stand there, in front of everybody, and list off the shots. Streeter was great, though, he supported my preference of being able to get stuck into a scene and start shooting to find out what it needs.” FRESH OUT OF HOLLYWOOD If you have watched the series, you will know that Lowe plays a modern cop with modern tools: well, algorithms. They crop up a lot over the hour. Even if you don’t include the algorithm that crafted his matchlessly chiselled face. “Before shooting had even started, I thought a lot about how to show Rob as this character who is completely out of his comfort zone, but that happens with the writing. The mistake comes when you try to force it and accentuate it more. We didn’t really have to do anything with him because he looked like what we all expected, he looked like a Hollywood star and that fitted his character.” In his office at the police station, Lowe’s character – Bill Hixon – is surrounded by numbers and calculations on screens at either side of him to create the image of a man who has hidden his true self behind the technology his whole life, and who – when brought to this new place – is forced to open up. “He’s a number cruncher and that doesn’t quite fit into the British cop aesthetic, so he’s forced out of his office to work on location and become a detective. It’s the mystery of place, the characters, the unusual accent; these are all factors that bring out a new side to him.” Irvine would sometimes create shadows on Lowe’s face because – referring back to that Hollywood chiselled-ness – “he’s got a great face to work with and it helped emphasise the mood of certain scenes. For instance, in episode four, Lowe’s character is sitting at a bar in a working man’s club, and I wanted to use a somewhat bluer light and a toplight to get his eyes
WILD BILL IS AVAILABLE ON ITV DRAMA’S CATCH-UP SERVICE, ITV HUB
34 AUGUST 20 1 9 DEF I N I T ION
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