Acolytes now in competition in Worldwide Film Festivals

MIFF (Melbourne). Premiere 1st August at 9:30pm
BIFF (Brisbane), Premiere Friday 8th August, 9pm
Toronto Film Festival, Screening 8th September, midnight

Horror film-goers worldwide will soon be able to experience the chill of the Brisbane air. Well, the visual chill, anyway, when director Jon Hewitt’s Acolytes hits theatres.  The film, which follows three teenagers who blackmail a serial killer, relies on a digitally-‘chilled’ colour palette to build tension and underscore the movie’s dark theme. 

Acolytes, a Stewart & Wall Entertainment production starring Joel Edgerton and Belinda McClory, was the first major feature in Australia to shoot with the Thomson Viper digital 2K camera. Right from the start, Hewitt and Cinematographer Mark Pugh planned to enlist a digital intermediate process (DI) to help create the film’s look, and they looked to Brisbane based post production company The Post Lounge and their Digital Vision Film Master system to bring their vision to the screen.

Cooling Colours Down

“This movie is all about look creation,” said Digital Colourist Kevin Shaw. “The key looks are very much influenced by (Australian photographer) Bill Henson.  The DP really liked the cold blue-blacks and heavy shadows in his photos.  The challenge became in how to get images that were shot in the bright Brisbane sun to have a cold, oppressive feel.  The director’s style relied on a lot of hand-held, on-the-go camera work, so the content and energy were there from the shoot – but the lighting was a different story.”

Shaw used the Film Master system’s multi-layer capabilities to establish an efficient digital process for stylizing the bright images to make them look and feel dark. “On the first day of grading we created a complex layer in Film Master that we called the ‘Henson filter.’ Once it was established as a layer and applied as a default to every shot, we simply used the Opacity tool to apply more or less of that filter.” He added, “A single layer in Film Master has an enormous amount of controls, so you can easily manage sophisticated looks that also process in real time.”

Shaw used Film Master to enhance the mood of each scene. “The kids’ bedroom is their sanctuary, so we gave those scenes a warm, cosmetic red tone.  In the woods, we wanted a nightmarish feel so we applied the Henson filter at its strongest.  We graduated the degree of darkness to create an increasingly heavier feeling as the kids got deeper into the woods.  At its most extreme the trees are a cold, cyan blue color and we used a lot of silhouette shots for weight. ”

Getting Themes Across

Shaw also used the digital grade to build tension and suspense and support the film’s themes.  “The movie has a series of critical reveals where things happen very suddenly. There were music and edit cues to enhance these scenes, and we added colour cues as well, using sleight-of-hand, windows and keying to move viewers’ eyes to particular parts of the screen.”  

Colour also adds to the effectiveness of one of the film’s key visuals – the long view of the mountain outside the teens’ suburban town. “Throughout the movie we see this mountain from the distance several times.  The first time it looks fairly normal and you can see trees on it. Each time after that we made it darker and darker to lend to the feeling that something sinister is in there.”

Fixing Images and Streamlining Processes

Film Master’s multi-layer capability helped Shaw to correct, as well as create looks. “You always need to apply a LUT (look-up table) to normalise images from the Viper camera,” he said. “Film Master is fantastic for this. Typically you would apply that LUT at the start of grading. But if you do that, the LUT clips the image because of the contrast.  In Film Master we were able to apply the LUT as layer one, and use the base layer underneath to pre-grade the image. This let us restore a huge amount of highlight detail. Sometimes we even used two layers to split the dynamic range down so we could restore detail in particular elements of shots, like actors’ clothing. Having unlimited layers in the Film Master meant that we never had to compromise in either image quality or creative experimentation. ”

One of the film’s critical scenes, a nightmare sequence, is an example of multi-track mastery.  Shaw explained, “The editor had created a sequence with a strobe effect where every black was a cut. In the Avid it was 300 cuts. We were able to bring that sequence into Film Master as a separate track, grade three elements, and apply them to all of the cuts.  Applying the strobe cuts the bright level in half, so you have to grade it twice as bright. And you need to be able to see it.  If it was on one timeline we’d have to grade every single frame. But because Film Master let us put the strobe effect on another track, I could apply it and see it in context.  I can’t imagine trying to do that any other way.”

Shaw noted, “Even the simplest scenes in this film had at least four layers – a pre-transform layer, a LUT, the Henson layer, and a basic grade.  Many had more—up to eight.  With Film Master we were able to work with layers to achieve this complexity efficiently.”

Attending to Detail

Shaw noted that both Hewitt and Pugh (Director and DP) participated in the grading sessions nearly every day.  “They were there representing the original intention and the creative approach, and both were very pleased with how flexible and efficient the process was. They had experience grading in hardware suites, but this was their first experience with a DI.  Now that they’ve seen what can be achieved in software, they said they’ll both absolutely use Film Master in the future.”

Managing Director of The Post Lounge, Steve Cooper, was extremely pleased with the Film Master’s performance on Acolytes.  The company brought the system in 2007 as an expansion to their already extensive linear grading capabilities which include a Spirit Datacine and davinci 2K plus. Their digital grading theatre is equipped and supported by H-Digital. It includes a JVC 2K projector, colour calibration from Rising Sun Research, the Film Master system, and 16 TB of digital storage capacity.  “We’ve been getting an amazing response from filmmakers who have done DIs here,” Cooper said. “They’re just stunned by what’s possible creatively.  We’re thrilled by how efficient the system is, and pleased with the level of support we’ve received from H-Digital and Digital Vision.  The demand for DI services is absolutely growing, and with the Film Master, we’re in place to fill that need.”

Images:

Look creation from camera to screen

This series shows the colour transformation of a shot. Here’s the original source from the Viper camera.

The colourist first normalised colour using a look-up table in Film Master.  Because he applied the LUT as a layer on single shots vs. across all of the footage, he was able to use the base layer underneath to pre-grade the image and restore highlight detail.

Then he applied the “Henson filter” – a complex layer he created in Film Master to give shots a cold, menacing feel—to create the look

Multi-Layering

This shot is typical of the grading work on Acolytes. It’s a final grade that used five layers – 2 pre-transform layers, the Viper LUT normalise layer, a scene grade layer, the “Henson filter” layer and finally the filmout LUT layer.

The series below shows the original source frame viewed through the filmout LUT (1) the shot after 2 layers were applied to correct the dynamic range into the Viper correction LUT (2) and after the Viper LUT was applied (3).

Other shots

Joel Edgerton as Ian Wright                                The emblematic mountain

Colour contrast between warm bedroom ‘sanctuary’ scenes and cold, sinister forest scenes.

--ENDS--

About The Post Lounge

The Post Lounge is one of Australia’s most experienced post production companies with offices located in Brisbane’s Creative Industries Precinct and at the Warner Roadshow Studios on The Gold Coast. The Post Lounge is recognized internationally for its exceptional post production capabilities and in particular the ability to maintain high creative standards.