The two studios delivered post-production work on the third season of His Dark Materials.
The third season of Bad Wolf’s fantasy drama television series, His Dark Materials, aired recently in December 2022 on HBO and BBC One. Based on the popular trilogy by Philip Pullman, the show follows Lyra, played by Dafne Keen, as she searches for a missing friend in a world ruled by the sinister Magisterium and discovers a kidnapping plot related to a mysterious particle called Dust. The post-production was done by Picture Shop and Formosa Group, with Picture Shop’s Sam Chynoweth as the Colourist and Formosa Group’s Gareth Bull and Will Stanton as the Re-Recording Mixers.
Grade
Picture Shop Colourist Sam Chynoweth, graded the series in UHD SDR and HDR using FilmLight’s Baselight.
Season three of His Dark Materials travels back and forth through a variety of new and familiar worlds. Each of these worlds demanded its own distinct visual signature to excite the viewer and help guide the narrative. Whilst these worlds all needed to feel unique, they had to remain true to the established look of the previous seasons.
Creative look development began in pre-production, working closely with Producer Stephen Haren. Knowing the scale and complexity of the VFX involved, Picture Shop adopted an ACES workflow to create a unified, tracked colour-pipeline for all the looks used on-set and for dailies, VFX and the final grade. Each Cinematographer had the opportunity during pre-production to create their own twist on the show LUT. For Gary Shaw, Chynoweth softened the contrast to cover the wide scenario of setups. Chynoweth also digitally recreated Petra Korner’s glass filtration ideas to tint the ‘suburbs of the dead’, enhanced the warm lantern light in David Johnson’s rendition of the ‘land of the dead’, and provided a vibrant backdrop for John Lee’s ‘Mulefa’ world.
Being able to carry these crafted looks through from set proved invaluable for VFX Supervisor Russell Dodgson to preview and present the visual effects in the context of the final colour. This feat began on-set with the DIT passing camera details to the Picture Shop front end services team, who processed the dailies and uploaded the LUT and CDL information on to the PULSE platform. When the VFX vendor pulled VFX elements from PULSE (over 2000 VFX shots pulled via PULSE), they received a colour package containing the matching LUT and CDL. Likewise, Picture Shop conformed episodes in Baselight for final grade, accessing the full colour history and creating timelines which
matched back to what the creative team had seen on-set. Chynoweth then leveraged the full gamut of Baselight’s tools and colour management to sculpt the final images and deliver SDR and HDR masters for HBO and BBC.
Audio
As with previous seasons, the challenge in season three was to create a cinematic mix which suited the contrasting deliverable specifications of the show’s two main broadcasters: HBO and BBC. With no downtime during the mixes, Formosa Group Re-Recording Mixers Gareth Bull and Will Stanton frequently utilised multiple theatres simultaneously to ensure the main mixes could continue, whilst other complex deliverables and versioning were completed. With the production company, Bad Wolf, based in Wales, the team also facilitated large simultaneous mix reviews between Formosa Group facilities in London and Cardiff, with members of the creative team able to join via Sohonet’s Clearview platform.
While the first two seasons of His Dark Materials were primarily mixed in 7.1, the final season was natively mixed and delivered in Dolby Atmos, in the newest Atmos theatre at Lexington Street – specifically redesigned for this project. From a sound perspective, the scale of the final season was greater than ever before, with several new characters and locations. The series features a wide array of fantasy creatures, including Daemons, Angels, Witches, Polar Bears, Harpies and Mulefa (Elephant/Tapir-like creatures), all of which required their own specific dialogue treatment. In many cases the mix team was encouraged to be as creative as possible in their approach, as there was no ‘real-life’ rulebook to follow. Throughout the season, the characters navigate through several worlds, each requiring a unique and distinctive soundscape – from the complex echoes of the desolate ‘Land of The Dead’ to the lush habitats of the ‘Mulefa’, the show provided various opportunities for Gareth and Will to shape the complex environments of these new locations.
Episode 7 was seen as the showcase episode – revolving around a final battle of epic proportions and multiple sound-led scenes, it required an extensively detailed Dolby Atmos mix. From warring angels in the sky, to visceral ‘cliffghast’ attacks on the ground, Gareth and Will had to strike a balance between Dillon Bennett’s detailed Sound Design and an incredible score by Lorne Balfe. On top of this, the team had a number of complex dialogue challenges, for example, designing the voice of a high-ranking Angel called ‘Metatron’. A multi-layered processing chain was achieved in tandem with Producer Stephen Haren, consisting of multiple pitched layers, subtle reverse reverbs, complex 7.1.2 delays and object-based panning, ensuring the character’s status was reflected by his voice.
The series was post-produced at Picture Shop by Alec Holroyd-Doveton and at Formosa Group by Sam Stubbing.
It was an absolute pleasure to work with Picture Shop and Formosa Group on bringing the third and final season of His Dark Materials to the screen. The creative contribution made by Sam Chynoweth, Gareth Bull and Will Stanton was exceptional. Their work was detailed, sophisticated and passionate throughout, and key to the success of the finished show. I, and the production, could not have asked for stronger collaborators – in this case, only superlatives will do.
Stephen Haren, Producer of His Dark Materials S3
