Blackmagic Design announced that its DaVinci Resolve Studio and DaVinci Resolve Advanced Panel were used to complete picture post in Ultra HD 4K on the third season of award winning Canal+ French drama series, “Le Bureau des Légendes.”
Postproduction for the 10-part series now available on Amazon Prime was completed at Paris-based Digital Factory by freelance colorist Guillaume Lips. “Not only did we grade the entire series from beginning to end in Resolve, but we also delivered in Ultra HD 4K for the first time,” he shared.
The turnaround for completing the DI on each episode was incredibly tight according to Lips. “With only two days to complete an episode, our workflow needed to be both fast and efficient. Not only did Resolve’s realtime performance provide first-class shot tracking but it also meant that we could work with the project native materials in 4K.”
While the main unit captured to ProRes 4444, there was a whole raft of smaller cameras used by the production’s second unit to shoot the action scenes. “Resolve’s extensive format and multi-codec support proved invaluable,” explained Lips. “We carried out a basic technical grade to adjust contrast levels and correct for the differences in color space and that gave us our starting point for the final DI.”
When grading scenes from Syria, Lips drew on DaVinci Resolve’s extensive toolset and a series of power windows to unlock the rich deep tones and add a large amount of contrast while still retaining enough detail in the highlights and shadows.
“In order to achieve that, I used the HDR capabilities in Resolve to finesse the midtones,” he said. “And when it came to skin tones I wanted to bring back as much softness as possible to mitigate any over-definition resulting from the 4K delivery which Resolve proved highly adept at handling.”
Lips concluded, “As an experienced colorist I have worked with a lot of different grading systems in my career and I firmly believe that DaVinci Resolve remains one of the very best in the market today. Used alongside the DaVinci Resolve Advanced Panel you have a very efficient way of working, which allowed me to complete the grade on this particular project in record time.”
Funny and Feminist Fashion Advances The Storytelling In “Palm Royale”
When Kristen Wiig steps out of a vintage Rolls-Royce in the opening scene of Season 2 of "Palm Royale," she's sporting a tall, yellow, fringed hat, gold platform sandals and sunny bell bottoms, with fabric petals that sway with every determined step. It's the first clue that the costumes on the female-driven comedy are taking center stage. The Apple TV show made a splash in its first season with the starry cast, high production values and ubiquitous grasshopper cocktail. Wiig's character, Maxine, tries to break into Palm Beach high society in 1969 and bumps heads with co-stars Carol Burnett, Allison Janney, Leslie Bibb and Laura Dern. But also playing a starring role are the vintage designer frocks that reflect each character. For Season 2, which premiered this week, Emmy-winning costume designer Alix Friedberg says she and her team coordinated "thousands" of looks that reflect the characters' jet-setting style. She says 50-60% of the brightly colored and graphic print costumes are original vintage designer pieces, sourced by shoppers and costume designers. "The looks are so iconic. Sometimes Kristen will walk in in something, and it brings tears to my eyes," Kaia Gerber — who plays Mitzi — said in a recent interview. The creative process entails more than shopping If not original vintage, Friedberg's team builds the costumes, and if a character has to wear an outfit in multiple scenes or in big dance numbers, the team may create duplicates to preserve continuity. Friedberg says she was lucky to find so many vendors with vintage designer pieces in great condition. "(Bibb's character) Dinah wears a few original Oscar de la Renta pieces that are really so perfect. Bill Blass was a big one, Oleg Cassini," Friedberg says. "There's a... Read More