December 22, 2016

Amazon Series’ Bold Rewrite of History Reverberates in HDR

The alternate reality of The Man in the High Castle is heightened with HDR color grading, VFX support, and sound services by Technicolor.

  • Technicolor provided SDR, 4K, and 4K HDR color grades, using Technicolor HDR ITM.
  • Sound services included mixing two dozen tracks of production dialog, ADR, group records, and the show’s score.
  • Technicolor’s Mark Intravartolo and VFX Producer Caprice Ridgeway provided extensive VFX support across multiple episodes.

What would life be like if the Allies had lost World War II instead of defeating Germany and Japan? That’s the frightening scenario posed by Philip K. Dick in The Man in the High Castle, an alternate history being explored by Amazon in its adaptation of the novel, now in its second season.

As Amazon continues to expand into content creation, Technicolor has been expanding its role as creative partner on original series, as well as other new ventures. For The Man in the High Castle, Technicolor provided a full mix of services that included sound, VFX, and color grading.

Colorist Roy Vasich, working on the HDR color grade, explained: “I used the Technicolor HDR Intelligent Tone Management plug-in with the original SDR grade as my jumping off point. From there it was all about polishing the image and allowing the HDR "wow factor" to give the viewer a true HDR experience.”

On the color grading, Vasich also worked with two different DPs, one in LA and the other via streaming sessions in Vancouver and NY. In this way, he said “both cinematographers were able to participate in the color process and put their seals of approval on all episodes.”

Providing sound services was the team of Sound Supervisor Tom Younkman and Sound Re-recording Mixers Kevin Roache and Pete Elia. Says Elia about the experience, “We had fantastic creative direction from producer/editor, Marta Evry. To help push some of the emotion, we leaned at times towards stark or "vertical" moves, as Marta describes it. The final mix track works at keeping the emotional subtexts alive.”

Watch as Marilyn Monroe kicks off the official trailer for The Man in the High Castle, season two.