Jon Holmes - 'THE KNOCK' (2016)

In 2016 I had the pleasure to work as Colourist on the poignant, award winning short film 'The Knock', written and directed by Philip Stevens and starring a very talented cast including BAFTA nominated Actor Nico Mirallegro, 'Vikings' star Maude Hirst, Robin Laing from 'Band of Brothers', and Max Willis.

Colourist

Based in 1986, Eight-year-old Eddie’s life is changed when a stranger from his mother’s past arrives at the door and invites himself in.

Having worked previously on Philip’s last film ‘The Last Viking’ (2016), I worked closely within both the director and the DOP Stewart MacGregor to chiefly accentuate the look established in-camera.

Fundamentally, the Look for the film was inspired by films of the 1980’s era. I began by analysing a number of stills from key works that influenced the DOP. These key signifiers were then applied as a series of secondary nodes following the Primary, neutralising stage.

Chiefly, all of the films sampled had a slightly lifted black point and a fractionally lowered white point when analysed via a Y-Waveform. Additionally, reds and blues were particularly well saturated, with mid tones shifting slightly towards the red channel; shadows towards the ultramarine blue; and, highlights towards the yellow amber.

As the film passes from early evening to night, the saturation levels increased slightly to mirror the style of many of the films studied, particularly the work of Spielberg. The morning shots then return to the neutralised 1980’s Primary Look developed in the first few nodes.

The film has been selected for a number of festivals and competitions, and is supported by Creative England.

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