MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS | SHOOT STORY
MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS IS ON RELEASE IN THE UK FROM 18 JANUARY. try to just impose a style. You may have 1000 buttons in front of you that can affect the image but if you can make it work as intended with five of them, that’s an approach John and I enjoy.” Ensby is not averse to using his Resolve toolset to build elaborate looks but as a rule, he generally likes to start out with the most straightforward approach of using the “printer light” function, especially when working with a cinematographer with Mathieson’s aesthetic. Ensby suggests his years in the lab as a photochemical timer inform these instincts. “I don’t use lift, gamma and gain tools extensively,” he says, “and certainly not at first. I want to keep true to what was in the camera for a first pass so the cinematographer doesn’t lose the ‘plot’ of what he’s shot. If it came out of a camera, I want to k now what was in the camera and what was the intention before we start to work with all the bells and whistles that are available. “I teach people starting out to simplify the work. They might spend ten minutes working on an image first thing. It’s easy to lose your way. Your eye is constantly adjusting to what’s on the screen. It’s daft to
just gave it a bit more of a push in post. Mary is exiled in Scotland and the viewer is meant to feel that Elizabeth’s England is a nicer, more hospitable, place and her cousin inhabits a world that’s colder and darker.” Costumes were obviously a very important aspect of the look and very slight changes in lighting could have a significant effect on a garment’s appearance. Director Rourke was very specific about costumes, which would sometimes look quite different on screen than they did on the set. So they did a costume pass, in which Ensby would pull keys to isolate areas and very subtly tweak them. “Depending on the kind of light on it,” Ensby says, “it looks massively different. John sourced the material and brought it into the colour grading theatre so we had it right there in front of us.” Ensby has a strong appreciation for Mathieson’s aesthetic and the two share a fondness for the look of celluloid, even though much of their work has been entirely digital. Mary was shot on Panavision’s new DXL digital camera and Ensby and Mathieson created a film emulation LUT to infuse the images with filmic attributes. He used the LUT as a starting point in the final grade and also added some digital grain via DaVinci Resolve’s Open FX toolset. “It’s very subtle,” he says of the grain he layered in, “but it’s there.”
BELOW Saoirse Ronan as Mary Queen of Scots and Jack Lowden as Lord Darnley.
FEBRUARY 20 1 9 | DEF I N I T ION 21
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