Behind-the-Post
Find out what our team of creatives had to say about their work on the project.
Sonny Sheridan, ENVY Senior Colourist
“The Manhattan Alien Abduction consisted of a combination of master interviews, dramatic reconstructions, archive material and GFX. With all these different elements, it was crucial to make them all uniform to fit the overall look of the programme.
The DOP on the project was Tim Cragg who had a set idea on how the series should look and feel which was reflected through the lighting and his beautiful cinematography. I made sure that this look was maintained in the grade and the visual style was enhanced.
At the start of the grade, the director, Dan Vernon and I discussed the look we wanted to create. We decided tungsten skin tones with had hints of cyan and sodium orange running throughout was the colour palette we wanted to use across the series. The cool cyan was a nod to science fiction and ufology whereas the oranges were made to look like street lights from a gritty New York City. I then really played into the contrast which added a filmic look which added depth to the pictures.
We also collaborated with a VFX company on the series, delivering VFX pulls to them and once they came back to us, we kept the final versions tracked so we could easily switch between different versions of a shot.
One of the challenges of a series like The Manhattan Alien Abduction is that the grade didn’t need to be pushed further than required. With all the elements working in perfect harmony, such as the set design and the cinematography, it was easy to potentially go too far with the grade when really, I just needed to lean into these elements that already worked well together.
This was a special series to work on and I’m incredibly proud of the final result. We wanted to make it look like a feature film and I feel like we achieved this.”
Adam Grant, ENVY Senior Online Editor
“My brief was to enhance the overall look of the series, making adjustments so the series was reflective of the style in the 80’s.
There was a lot of archive and home video footage woven into the documentary to help add extra layers of depth to the story. The archive had a variety of different formats so I performed a clean up of these archive shots to maximise detail whilst preserving its original authenticity. For the archival photos, I created transitions that mimic the feel of a camera roll, with frames clicking into place.
As part of the interview and reconstruction sequences, I worked on screen replacements, utilizing Flame’s keying tools to achieve the desired effect. With shots involving camera movement, I used advanced masking and tracking to keep the screen replacements steady and worked around any people or objects in the foreground.
The screens themselves were classic 1980s television sets, so to match the set design, I added compression artefacts and dropouts to the footage for an authentic vintage look. Since the screens were filmed blank, I could use the natural light spill and reflections in the final composition, adding realism to the effect.”
Matt Skilton, ENVY Senior Dubbing Mixer
“My involvement in the series began when the series director Dan Vernon called me to ask if I’d be interested in his new ‘Stranger than Fiction’ series. There was a real opportunity to get creative, especially in designing the soundscapes for the reconstructions.
It was a really collaborative process between Dan, the Composer Andrew Phillips, and I. From start to finish, we were in conversation about how different elements for the abduction and other recons should sound. I would send Dan different sound files to help him in the edit and then would pass these onto Andrew to help with the score.
I looked at existing SFX in our sound libraries and anything else we wanted to experiment with, I would record sounds myself in the recording booth and then use Pro Tools’ plugins such as reverb to transform the sound into something more abstract like an alien or a UFO.
There was a lot of prep work that went in prior to the final mixes but once we had decided on certain effects, we were able to have a lot of fun and spend more time finessing the sound. The series was mixed in Dolby Atmos, which allowed us to get really imaginative with sound movement and spatial effects. For example, we were able to match the movement of the spaceship and give it height to make the audience feel they’re sat right below it, to provide an immersive experience.
The series really comes together with the master interviews, Andrew’s beautiful score, the SFX and atmos layers. We sometimes found that less was more, pulling back certain sounds to create a punchier impact.
As well as the reconstructions, there was a lot of archive to help paint the story. I cleaned this up using DX Revive, however, I found that keeping in some of the tape noise really gave the footage character and authenticity.”
