Umbrella Academy lighting/grading

J

Josh Bass

Veteran
I think this show is pretty solid (especially season 2 which I ain't finished yet so no spoilers). Love the look, and I'm curious about it. Strong colors, mostly blue and yellow/orange. Wondering if anyone knows for sure or has insight into how they achieve it. Obviously some of it is production design/wardrobe, but some of it is surely lighting and grading. I guess I'm wondering how close the final graded look is to the original footage, if they simply using grading to add more separation between colors and create more contrast, i.e. the set and talent lights are already strongly colored, or if it's a much more neutral look out of camera and they use qualifiers/power windows/etc to achieve the final look. I would THINK strongly colored lighting pushed further in post but really can't find any info. Be cool to see something like straight-from-cam footage (but not in a grey/washed out LOG format, like an otherwise ungraded 709 or similar look) compared to a graded look of same frame.
 
Looks like the standard teal and orange in my opinion...maybe a little warmer here and there.

Shot on the LF (which adds a lot to the unique look).
 
Same color contrast concept, but more of a pure blue and more toward yellow than orange, which makes it a little different than your Transformers/Taken etc. look. Less "edgy" and "action-y". Or maybe you're right and the TV I'm watching it on really sucks.
 
Honestly o would say 95% of what you see color wise is certainly the production design over grading. Most of the times we think the look is grading but unless colors are heavily casted Im the shadows mid tones and highlights, simple color correction might have been all they did here. Helps to shoot on an overcast day as well. Love the look of that show myself.
 
Thanks. I'm thinking more of the interior colors than the exterior stuff (although that certainly looks nice as well). Are we seeing all keys were tinted toward orange, backgrounds blue (obviously some were) on set, and to the degree they appear in the final product? That's kinda what I'm getting at.

I've also noticed, watching Altered Carbon currently, how much more "real" and "immediate" it looks. Not necessarily a bad thing, but Umbrella has a more "removed-from-reality" look that I (perhaps incorrectly) associate with aggressive grading. In Altered Carbon you can really see how it looks like footage from a digital video/cinema camera whereas Umbrella is more..."how did they get there?" I don't know if any of that makes a lick of sense, just something I've observed. Another example of the "removed from reality" look would be Handmaid's Tale. Or at least some of the interior stuff.
 
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