Norsemen Graded on DaVinci Resolve Studio

Published: 01 February 2018

Norway and rsquo;s and lsquo;Norsemen and rsquo; Graded on DaVinci Resolve Studio

NRK’s Viking comedy-drama, ‘Vikingane’, which is broadcast internationally as ‘Norsemen’ on Netflix, has been graded by ShortCut Oslo’s colorist Dylan R. Hopkin using DaVinci Resolve Studio.
The show, which centers around a small Viking settlement of villagers and warriors, is shot simultaneously with Norwegian and English dialogue. The two versions share around a third of non-dialogue footage, with Dylan using Resolve’s ColorTrace feature to copy grades over from the Norwegian episode, to produce a consistent starting point for the international version.
“As with all episodic drama work, our timescales for post were incredibly tight, so Resolve’s flexibility allowed us to develop plenty of shortcuts to help meet deadlines,” explains Dylan. “Its node based system allows you to build a grade up, as well as borrow, reuse and connect different states of a grade within a node tree. It’s visually easy to understand both from an artistic and technical perspective, which makes it a very flexible and functional tool."
Complementing the attention to detail produced by the cinematography, costume, makeup and location teams, Dylan created a filmic, gritty grade, with cold, bleak exteriors and saturated, warm interiors lit by firelight.
As the action in season two moves to new locations, the directors, cinematographer and Dylan decided to expand the grade to emphasize certain emotions; for example, a lush, rich color palette for the English villages that the warriors pillage. “I tend to use offsets together with lift, gamma, gain, temperature and tint for the heavy lifting, and then when I’m managing saturation and hue shifts, I always reach for the curves and vs-curves,” he explains. “They offer a clean and intuitive behavior for further look development.”
As well as the grade, Dylan was able to use Resolve to help complete some finishing tasks, such as occasional sky replacements and object removal. “Resolve has the speed and the flexibility to solve an increasing number of creative finishing tasks to a very high standard. In the right hands, it gets the job done on time, without compromising on production values.”
The second series of ‘Vikingane’ is currently being broadcast on NRK, with the first series of the English version ‘Norsemen’ available now on Netflix. The second series of the English version is currently in post production.

Related Listings

Related News

Related Articles

Related Videos

© KitPlus (tv-bay limited). All trademarks recognised. Reproduction of this content is strictly prohibited without written consent.