ADVERTI SEMENT FEATURE | F I LML IGHT
MAN IN THE MIRROR UK colourist Alex Gascoigne has risen quickly to the top of the grading tree and sees the depth of innovation within FilmLight’s Baselight as a huge driving factor
ALEX GASCOIGNE MOVED UP THE RANKS in the colour grading world after studying fine art, painting and graphic design at university. He then went on to study film and completed a Masters. “At that point I was thinking of moving into cinematography. It felt like a natural progression from photography,” he says. Alex’s graduation project was shot on 16mm film and he remembers that there was just a one-light transfer on it coming back from the lab. “You really got whatever you shot; there wasn’t a lot of colour manipulation happening when we got the transfer back on Betacam SP. Then in Avid, I learned how to manipulate colour with the controls inside the software.” Gascoigne learned his grading trade at Pepper Post in London. “There were great colourists there like Jet Omoshebi and Chris Beeton, and high-end TV drama like Spooks and Life on Mars still shot on film.” The company, luckily for Alex, had invested in some early digital grading equipment, which he quickly learned how to use. “I essentially set about learning that kit as best as I could, really just to make myself as useful as possible to the colourists that were already established there,” he explains. BLACK MIRROR For a while, Gascoigne enjoyed working on independent films and some inherited TV dramas until he reached his current home at Technicolor, where he has been for five years. Now he works on major TV dramas, such as Black Mirror , and more recently he has worked on The Two Popes , in tandem with Jean-Clément Soret, which is a new Netflix film shot by César Charlone, the cinematographer behind the film City of God .
“I love the system, but perhaps what I like most is the colour management in the software”
“ Black Mirror has been an interesting show to work on. Every episode is a stand- alone film with a different director and DOP so you’re starting from scratch each time. The move to Netflix from Season 3 led to increased budgets and attracted more feature directors, like Jodie Foster and John Hillcoat. The Bandersnatch episode took this idea to another level being interactive. This required us to build whole new workflows within Baselight,” says Gascoigne. “When it comes to the look, it’s really different for each episode and is very much driven by the storyline. I have done two episodes now with Lukas Strebel who shot the Hated in the Nation and Smithereens episodes and we approached each one
slightly differently. It’s really a case of sitting down with the DOP early in the process and discussing what they’re trying to achieve. Smithereens , for instance, has locations in the UK, California and Utah (actually Spain) so you’ve got these pretty distinct different looks defined by the landscape.” More and more with TV now, colourists are getting involved earlier in the process. “When I started, you would come in on a Monday morning and start working on something and it might be the first time you’ve seen the show,” says Gascoigne. “These days, we’re involved around a month or two before production starts with discussions on look development and maybe camera tests that need to be done or
68 DEF I N I T ION | SEPTEMBER 20 1 9
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