DRAMA | THE END OF THE F * * * I NG WORLD
The Alexa LF protects highlights and has a lovely filmic look
RIGHT The Arri Alexa LF gave the series its filmic aesthetic
I straightaway said that I wanted to use the Alexa LF. Luckily, Clerkenwell Films was keen to do that, because it recognises that the Alexa is a superior camera system and the LF is approved by Netflix.” He continues: “I have shot on Red a number of times, but I always push for Alexa, because it protects highlights, has a lovely filmic look – which Red has less so – and is much faster on-set. I find that the Alexa, of any kind, allows a speed of working that makes the difference between getting that extra shot at the end of the day and not.” Spence paired the camera with Zeiss Supreme Primes, which he says was a “no brainer,” owing to the lenses’ sharp, but creamy and filmic look. Spence only had one day to do his camera lens tests, but this was ample time, since he was already well acquainted with the Alexa sensor. “One thing I did want to test, though, was the sensitivity at which we could run the camera, because the LF has twice as many pixels as the normal Alexa. Its noise floor is lower, so in theory you can run it at higher sensitivities, and, after some testing, we realised that we could run the camera at 1600 ISO, which is actually double what Arri says the LF can do. It produced a nice level of grain, but also gave us an extra stop of headroom in the highlights, which was really handy
for a show that’s meant to look as if it was shot on film.” Toby Tomkins of Cheat was tasked with putting the finishing touches on the show. He had graded Series 1 and wanted to keep the second series looking equally lovely and filmic, which was quite the challenge with its new Dolby Vision delivery. He says: “We didn’t want to go too HDR-y, because we were worried it wouldn’t stay true to Series 1. But we found a nice middle ground in using HDR to increase the texture on the top end, while staying true to the filmy soft- shoulder roll-off of the SDR grade in Series 1. And even though it’s subtle, it’s really sort of liberating for me as a colourist, to be able to have shape in the midtones and also shape in the highlights, because normally you have to compromise one or the other to have a natural image.” Tomkins recreated the film emulation look-up table that was used on Series 1 to work in HDR, and this also provided reference for Spence on-set. To do this, he studied Blu-ray stills of films shot and printed on film and replicated the look with grading tools. He says: “About 90% of this look is done with grading tools, and it’s only the last 10% where I used a film emulation transform. If I toggled the
film emulation transform on and off, there were slight changes in the density of the green and blues and a little bit more colour separation on the warm and cool axis. But even if I turned that off, it still felt filmic. That’s because of the curve that I drew, and the green, red and blue keys that I put in the skin tone.” When it came to skin tones, Tomkins pushed gold into the neutral colours, where faces looked a little pale, to give them a sort of rich, leathery feel. He explains: “Again, it stems from emulating film. The white balance of film stocks traditionally go from a cooler colour in the shadows, through to a warmer colour in the highlights, with less colour separation. When you’ve got pale faces in the white sky, skin tone tends to get washed out, but on film, they are more separate.” Spence says that having Tomkins on board, someone who has a history on the show, was “integral” to preserving the unique tone of the first series. And it’s quite clear, after watching the second series, that it is, just flawlessly, recognisably, The End of the F***ing World . THE END OF THE F***ING WORLD IS NOW AVAILABLE TO CATCH UP ON ALL 4
34 DEF I N I T ION | JANUARY 2020
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