Light Illusion's Steve Shaw Grades South Indian Feature Film Ninaithale Inikkum

In a continuing and growing relationship with India, Steve Shaw, CEO of specialist UK-based digital film consultancy Light Illusion, has acted as Chief Colourist on the Indian feature film Ninaithale Inikkum at Gemini Film Lab, Chennai.

Under an agreement with Gemini, Shaw acted as DI supervisor and chief colourist on the project, setting the film's look with cinemtographer Balasubramaniam, in conjunction with the film's Director GNR Kumaravelan.

Shaw commented: "Ninaithale Inikkum was a great film to grade, with a lot of heavily creative image manipulations needed to help bring the DoP and Director's views to the final image. There were many layers of grading, including far more image manipulation than is common in colour correction. For example, we used a lot of VFX techniques."

As with many Indian films, there are a number of songs in the film's storyline, and one in particular stands out as it uses a unique approach to grading for Indian film making, and demonstrates the benefits of a DI-based approach to film grading. Shaw said: "Initially, we were due to have a fairly obvious, and rather vibrant grade, but as DoP Balasubramaniam became more aware of the capabilities offered by Gemini's new DI operation, we experimented with various ideas to define a far more subtle, but far more impressive, alternate grade. This consisted of the image being forced to black and white with a lot of added shading and highlights, while skin tone remained coloured, but with added softness and 'illumination'. This was especially difficult as the field where the majority of the song was shot contained a skin-coloured crop!"

After association with numerous Bollywood productions and DI operations Light Illusion has become more involved in South India, known within the industry as Kollywood. Ninaithale Inikkum is the first of a slate of films to all on Shaw's expertise. He commented: "At a time when many Indian operations are looking to gain global exposure, with a number of Indian facilities purchasing UK and US-based operations, it's an exciting time to be providing technical and creative consultancy services to some of the major players in India."

Light Illusion's Steve Shaw has provided DI and grading services for film production and post-production operations around the globe at locations including Los Angeles, Moscow, London, Bombay, Rome, Cape Town, Wellington and Toronto and is presently splitting his time between the UK, India and Italy.

Aazeek