HDR was monitored on a Canon 24-inch professional display in Dolby PQ (Dolby Vision). “This marked a profound change in the whole way I work,” Messerschmidt says. “The beautiful thing about this was being able to see images that were very close to the dynamic range of the sensor’s capabilities. When the sensor was clipped, the monitor and waveform was clipped so we were in a good position to protect highlights. The monitor might not be fully capable of showing the entire dynamic range – but monitoring in “near” rec. 2020 is substantively better than SDR monitoring in rec. 709. When it came down to the final color grade, we were able to pull the openEXR files up in ACES and see exactly what we saw on set.”

Messerschmidt maintained the original lens choice of Leica Summilux-C lenses (mostly using 29mm, 40mm and 65mm focal lengths) and eschewed use of Steadicam. “Working with prime lenses is great because it requires a little more discipline than zooms,” he says. “The lenses were very flat and clean and so worked really well for our aesthetic, even adding a touch of distortion characteristic in post as needed.” “I like to work with low light and a relatively minimal lighting package so we hedged our bets and shot 800 ASA. I was able to shoot most of the series at a T2-2.5 and never approached wide open on any of the lenses.”

“The ACES transform does slow the camera down a bit, but with the added benefit of fattening the negative and shooting in really low light I never felt challenged for exposure. We shot with the Skin Tone-Highlight OLPF and found it gave us great color separation in the grade with really low noise. In many instances we actually added grain in post.”