What do ballerina vampires, Xenomorphs, and Satan-loving motivated serial killers all have in common? Besides a general spooky vibe, they all could share over a beer that each of their respective, recently released genre vehicles Abagail, Alien: Romulus, and Longlegs were beautifully colored by Mitch Paulson with DaVinci Resolve.
One of the most appealing aspects horror movies is that they tend to come with a look and feel that is unique to just about any other genre. Sure, these looks and feels tend to differ wildly by project, but it goes without saying that horror more often not brings the goods when it comes to style.
Considering Paulson’s extensive color background we were delighted to pick his brain regarding everything from technical workflow to his artistic approach when attacking a project.
Check out our interview below! And be on the lookout for more of our Horror Week pieces for more from some of the most talented horror filmmakers out there. And happy Halloween, or whatever.
Editor’s note: the following interview is edited for length and clarity.
NFS Interviews Mitch Paulson
No Film School: How did you get into color grading and what do you love about it?
Mitch Paulson: Back in 2003, I had just finished with school and got a job as a compositor, mainly doing movie trailers. They were color timing them at Deluxe. My boss decided that we should start doing color in house and went out and got a Nucoda Filmmaster.
I had to spend a lot of time teaching myself how to use it, since not many people had one yet.
What I love about color grading is taking an image and being able to create a feeling or emotion using color.
NFS: Tell me a little bit about your general workflow—and feel free to be as technical as you please!
Paulson: I’d say no movie is the same. I deal with them in many varying setups. But ideally, it goes like this:
First, the director & DP will send me a look book so I have some references of what they’re going for. I’ll send them a few LUTs that they test out on either a lens test or hair and makeup test. If they need to tweak anything, we’ll do that before they start shooting. I pretty always have one LUT for the whole movie, unless it’s a different camera or file type from the main camera.
Then, once shooting starts, I’ll usually see the first few days of dailies and make sure things are coming in as expected. After shooting is done and editorial gets a cut put together, I’ll watch it down before we start the final color. That way I know the story and how it’ll all be put together.
Then the final color starts.
Depending on people’s schedules, they decide whether or not they want to sit through all of it. If not, I’ll go through the movie and set key shots. They’ll leave and I’ll fill it all in, and [production and the director] come back to review. Others love doing color and we’ll just start at the top and do multiple pass through the movie. I like to think in broader strokes in the beginning—you don’t want to get tied up on small details right away. Usually by the second or third pass, the smaller details are taken care of.
NFS: As a professional colorist working predominantly on genre films, what’s the most important thing to keep in mind?
Paulson: I try to ignore what genre a movie is. I don’t think your looks should be constrained to them. Just because something is labeled a “horror movie”, doesn’t automatically mean it should be blue or green.
NFS: Considering horror movies tend to lean towards darker lighting, how do you handle that as a colorist?
Paulson: I always tell the DPs to add more light than they think. I can always bring things down. But if it’s shot too dark, then we lose stuff and I have nothing to bring out if I need to.
NFS: When coloring for different genre creatures—for instance aliens and vampires—is there any sort of different approach?
Paulson: It varies movie to movie. But one common practice is I do a lot of work to hide things. The characters are usually lurking in the shadows and aren’t revealed right away.
NFS: Are there any expectations when coloring a legacy movie like Alien: Romulus to maintain the same look and feel within the franchise? How do you tackle that?
Paulson: Absolutely. When we started Romulus, Fede said he wanted to be able to take stills from this movie and be able to put them up on a wall with Alien and Aliens and have it all blend together. Our director of Photography, Galo [Olivares] and I looked at a ton of reference frames of both films on Shotdeck. We would look at specific colors and made sure they matched.
We also used Livegrain and had them create a grain that matched what the original film had.
NFS: Longlegs is a deeply bleak movie but somehow still has some beautiful imagery. How do you balance the bleakness with the beauty?
Paulson: Andres Arochi was the DP on it and did a beautiful job shooting it. He gave me a great place to start. It was an interesting film, to have such beautiful shots, yet such a dark story. We really just embraced both aspects of it.
NFS: What was the strategy coloring for a teenage vampire in Abigail?
Paulson: The big thing on that movie was balancing the warmth of the house. It had so much wood and warmth going on in the main parts. It need to feel different from when they’d do downstairs and specially into that pit of bodies. Aaron [Morton, DP] did a great job adjusting the lighting so I didn’t need to push the grade too far to get it in each section. It was only one LUT for the whole movie.
NFS: Anything interesting you came across on Romulus, Longlegs, or Abigail you find interesting but haven’t mentioned?
Paulson: These three movies are very different in their stories. One thing they all have in common though, is that everyone involved are true fans of horror films. I was very lucky to get to work on all of them. It honestly never felt like work. It was more like getting together with friends and making some bad ass horror movies!
NFS: What’s your advice for aspiring colorists?
Paulson: Work hard and practice as much as you can. Find a senior colorist you can train under and learn from. Everyone can watch YouTube to learn how the tools work. But practice to know when to use each tool.
Also, learning how to run a color session is probably the hardest part. You have to learn how to manage a handful of personalities. You have to learn how to read a room and know how to respond. It’s hard to teach so that’s where practice helps.
Let us know what you think in the comments… or else.
Author: Grant Vance
This article comes from No Film School and can be read on the original site.
