BRINGING COLOR
TO LIFE & DEATH

Filmmaking technology is in constant flux. The imagination of visual storytellers sparks the creation of new tools, while potential profits supercharge their invention and adoption. Two of this year’s biggest feature film releases offer a fascinating example of the phenomenon. 

For Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon and Greta Gerwig’s Barbie, director of photography Rodrigo Prieto, ASC, AMC worked very closely with Company 3 Senior Colorist Yvan Lucas to develop a look that was redolent of each story’s time and place – and along the way a new, more accurate color control tool was developed. 

On the set of Killers of the Flowers Moon

The duo first collaborated on Alexander in 2006, and more recently crafted the images for The Irishman. Along the way they have developed an approach to digital image creation and manipulation that is based on the photochemical film workflow, where both began their careers.

Rather than extensive grading in post, the approach emphasizes the creation of LUTs that play the role of film stocks. Under Prieto’s supervision, Lucas grades using a digital version of printer lights, which doesn’t affect the “neg” in terms of contrast. Instead, the response curve is altered in the LUTs. The full range of digital grading tools are still available to them later, when needed. 

THE PRODUCTION TEAM RELIED ON PIX TO FACILITATE CREATIVE COMMUNICATION AND EXPERIMENTATION

Both Prieto and Lucas are among those who prefer the film-like discipline of this approach. The goal is to work out the broad strokes of a look early on in the process, and to keep it within a filmlike realm regardless of origination medium. Prieto often mixes film and digital origination, as he did on The Irishman. On that film, they discovered issues with digital color correctors, Baselight in Lucas’s case, which couldn’t latch on to sufficiently specific color vectors at that time. A change in reds might grab onto and alter certain skin tones, too, creating problems. To achieve the requisite subtlety, Lucas and Prieto saw the need for a more precise hue slider. 

Rodrigo Prieto, ASC, AMC on the set of Killers of the Flower Moon

To bring the idea to fruition, they enlisted Philippe Panzini, whose long experience in digital color includes chief technology officer at Discreet Logic in the 1990s, and major contributions to game-changing color tools like Flame and Inferno. Today, Panzini is Principal Interaction Designer with PIX and CODEX (both now part of the X2X Media Group). Prieto, Panzini and Lucas devised a hue slider tool they dubbed the PPL, which was used on both Killers of the Flower Moon and Barbie to create the various show LUTs. Cristophe Souchard then developed a custom Baselight plug-in. 

Panzini had worked with Prieto on The Glorias, creating an emulation of Kodak Tri-X and Plus-X film stocks for some black and white scenes. An Ektachrome look was also employed for certain ‘70s scenes. Early conversations about Killers of the Flower Moon began then, focused on very old color printing techniques like Autochrome and Photochrome. Prieto’s interest in these techniques goes way back. The Irishman, for example, also benefitted from Panzini’s Ektachome emulations. 

Released in October 2023, Killers of the Flower Moon centers on a series of Oklahoma murders in the Osage Nation during the 1920s.

The production team relied on PIX to facilitate creative communication and experimentation. The PIX platform delivers secure asset reviews and approvals, giving powerful collaboration throughout the production process.

DP Rodrigo Prieto, ASC, AMC and Director Martin Scorsese on set

When it came to Killers of the Flower Moon, Panzini says, “Rodrigo wanted something that was completely synthetic. 

What would color film look like in 1925, using the materials they had in those days, had they known how to put such an emulsion together? My thought process was that chromogenic film is essentially based on black and white emulsion, to which dye couplers are added. 

Silver halides in those days were particularly blue-sensitive and relatively less red-sensitive, which rendered skies washed out and skin tones tanned. That was the basis for the density axis – the hue-to-tone model. For colors, I knew how dyes in those days rendered primary colors. Greens are usually off towards cyan. Red and blue could be quite pure. Another important idea was that the inability to render subtle hue gradients is part of what makes film look like film. Hues that are close tend to converge towards a dominant hue. So, skies tend to become a pretty uniform color wash, for example.”

Director Greta Gerwig, Ncuti Gatwa and Emma Mackey on set

Set in a make-believe land of dolls’ house perfection and infinite varieties of pink, Barbie was Captured on CODEX with the ARRI ALEXA 65. The production used PIX for dailies, cuts, music, and VFX, and developed an entirely separate marketing project using PIX for their electronic press kit and screeners.

The PPL tool was extremely helpful, used to fine-tune the primary show LUT, for example. That combined a 3-strip Technicolor flavor with specific instructions to push the reds, pinks and blues of Barbie Land. Director Greta Gerwig named it the “Techno Barbie” LUT, and on-set images were displayed with that LUT applied. That allowed Prieto to light and other department heads to see how their work would read as they shot.

DIRECTOR GRETA GERWIG NAMED IT THE “TECHNO BARBIE” LUT

Dailies, seen through the PIX platform, were also graded with the LUTs applied. Panzini and Lucas agree that the complex final color grading process was streamlined thanks in part to the LUTs created with the PPL technique. Asked about Panzini’s contributions, Lucas says, “He is a genius. He knows so much about color science and has been involved in developing tools that have enabled so many people like visual effects artists and colorists to create things in ways we couldn’t before.”

Margot Robbie, Ana Kayne, Director Greta Gerwig and Hari Nef on set

Looking back on the endeavor, Panzini says, “I’ve been privileged to be invited in many three-way discussions with Rodrigo and Yvan, on topics that are impossibly abstract. It’s hard to talk about color, and harder still to build an image rendering strategy for a whole movie.” 

PIX WAS USED FOR DAILIES, CUTS, MUSIC, AND VFX ON BARBIE

“Other cinematographers can be very intuitive and essentially rely on pure skill to get a good image. Rodrigo goes beyond that. To him, the image doesn’t simply have to look good – it must serve the story. And it’s mind-boggling the extent to which he gets into these details.”