DEFINITION June 2018

SHOOT STORY YOU WERE NEVER REALLY HERE

like he didn’t do anything, which isn’t true at all because of course there’s a huge amount of incredibly subtle balancing going on, especially when a sequence is cut and also just with the nature of the lenses we were using, changing from one focal length to another – you get different colours and different contrast values. All those little things really need to be ironed out, and I was more than happy to leave him to his own devices in that respect.” For Technicolor’s Jean-Clement, his first, pre-Cannes meeting covered balancing events such as lighting on location. “Sometimes you are caught out by the lack of light, or too much light. I reassured Tom that I could help or disguise that. After the film came back from Cannes it was a luxury to revisit it with Lynne and be able to change my mind about scenes. We changed a bit on the black and white sequence, adding more grain and pulsing to the camera, which Lynne supported and Tom explained how realistic that could be.” As Tom had mentioned earlier, Lynne was surprised how close they

could get to a film look having shot digitally. “I have graded thousands of projects, including film, and I could give her something as if she had been shooting on film. That really comes with experience, and if you’re careful not to crush blacks and keep highlights soft – some of the characteristic of film. Also how you reintroduce grain is of great importance: for instance, grain in the highlights is slightly more yellow and grain in the low lights is slightly more blue. You can then really fool your audience that the film was shot on film. “The minute Tom and Lynne came in to the room they said that they had wanted to shoot on film but weren’t able to, so that was the

ABOVE LEFT The film contains little dialogue, so visuals did much of the heavy lifting. ABOVE RIGHT Only two interiors were built sets, to take advantage of New York tax breaks.

brief. Interestingly, that request is something I hear a lot, still. But I think it depends on the projects. I work in advertising a lot and some projects which are sharp and high- tech embrace the digital look; people who perhaps want more warmth and humanity usually choose the film look, and sometimes look to degrade the image to achieve that.” With some movies taking six weeks to grade, having two weeks really demanded that the group of creatives realised, from day one, what they wanted. This was the case with You Were Never Really Here , Jean-Clement again: “Lynne and Tom knew exactly what they wanted and came straight to the point, which is just the opposite to the advertising world where you need to see everything as you’ve only got 30 seconds, so need maximum impact. “The grade didn’t major on the power window-type work but there was a little tracking for stabilisation purposes; with a two-week window you have to tailor what you can do in post. Normally, you set the look for the first two weeks then adjust the details for the rest of the process.” PEOPLE WHO PERHAPS WANT MORE WARMTH AND HUMANITY USUALLY CHOOSE THE FILM LOOK

BELOW Phoenix and Samsonov share a tense scene as the film’s plot begins to unfold...

DEFINITION JUNE 2018

DEFINITIONMAGAZINE.COM