THE LOOK in Lazareth
Given the high contrast scenes in the movie, and the Day for Night, I decided to create two custom LUTs for the movie. One was the main film’s look, the other was just for Day for Night. I was able to borrow a camera and lenses during prep, which I took to the location with the 1st AC Eric Macey, and the director Alec Tibaldi. We filmed a variety of shots that we then worked on with our colorist Sebastian at Tunnel Post. The last day of prep we had Ashley Judd on location for her fittings, so we used that day to test the Look we created with hair and make-up. We made tweaks from there and after the first few days of shooting we kept adjusting the LIT a bit more to fit in better with the lighting.
The main goal for the LOOK was to create a cinematic yet naturalistic tone that was soft and flattering but also moody. I knew I would be in situations of high contrast so I set out to create a look that allowed me to dig into the shadows and highlights a bit more. The interior of the cabin was extremely dark, with very bright windows, and I wanted to make sure the exterior wasn’t blown out, since it’s such a big part of the movie.
For the day for night, we used different par cans and HMIs to test how bright I needed to go with the practicals and off-screen lighting to be able to overpower a cloudy day. This allowed me to severely underexposed the available daylight, rendering it into a soft, moonlight glow, and expose for the talent and the areas of interest in the shot.
We also tested for the candle lit scenes, and played with hiding LEDs behind the candles to add more light to the scene.
The following are some frame grabs from the video footage of the camera and Hair and MU tests.
