Look Development

Here is how this works in practice. Our team sets up look development for shoots preparing to film in Iceland, where calling the visual way before the camera rolls is above all valuable. We arrange camera, lens and lighting tests, ideally on or near the intended locations, so the cinematographer and colourist can see how a chosen look responds to the country's specific conditions: the flat overcast that dominates many shooting days, the long low light of the Midnight Sun, the high-contrast interplay of snow, black sand and dark water.

Here is the short of it. We set up creation of tracking LUTs for on-set displays and dailies, so each department previews the intended look from day one, and we capture the result in a logged style guide and tech specs. The country's domestic grading skill supports this groundwork well. For projects whose final grade will be completed overseas, we make sure the look-development LUTs and reference frames travel cleanly to that site so the senior colourist starts from the agreed direction rather than reinterpreting it. The deliverable is a defined, logged look ready to guide steady image capture across the whole shoot.

Here is the breakdown. Iceland rewards careful look development because its conditions are both spectacular and unforgiving. The island sits on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge and a single production may move from the glacier lagoon at Jokulsarlon to the geothermal Geysir area, the waterfalls of the south, and the volcanic Highlands, each with its own palette and light. Films such as 'Prometheus', 'Oblivion' and 'The Secret Life of Walter Mitty' set up strongly defined looks that the landscape then delivered always. This is only possible when the look is tested and locked in advance.

Here is what that looks like on the ground. The 25 percent reimbursement administered by Film in the country, rising to 35 percent for larger shoots, applies to eligible Icelandic costs, so camera tests and look-development work carried out in the country during pre-production can be logged toward the claim. Doing this groundwork on the ground, in the country's actual light, gives a production a far more trusted look than tests run anywhere else, and the records keeps that intent intact through to the final grade wherever it is completed.