Woman in the Yard: Colorist Mitch Paulson balances light & dark for this Blumhouse horror film
As a mother and her children set out to rebuild their lives, an ominous presence lingers just outside their front door in the psychological horror film, Woman in The Yard. Shot by DP Pawel Pogorzelski ( Midsommar, Holland) on Red Digitial Cinema’s V-Raptor [X] for director Jaume Collet-Serra ( Unknown, Carry-On), from a script by Sam Stefanak, the Blumhouse hit relied upon the naturalism of its rural farmhouse setting, which belies the increasingly unsettling atmosphere.
Mitch Paulson of Picture Shop was the supervising colorist. In discussing his work, he said, “A lot of horror movies tend to toward blues and greens, but Pawel wanted warmer tones to match with the sunset scenes and the family bonds. Even when the story moves inside the house, we maintain that warmth.”
Paulson, whose credits include Longlegs, Alien: Romulus and Abigail, knew Collet-Serra through their work together on the Walt Disney fantasy adventure Jungle Cruise (2021), but this was his first time with Pagorzelski. The cinematographer had created a LUT to photograph the film and joined Paulson in discussions before the grade began.
“Pawel sent me a look book of references and shared what he wanted. We spent time during a few remote sessions so I could show him the direction I was taking. He loved it all. Essentially, we wanted to keep things looking natural. It wasn’t a stylized look or anything that you’d immediately label as a horror genre.”
Paulson had the offline as a reference but says he didn’t need to check them when the 16-bit EXR files were transferred to his Resolve.
“Pawal did such a great job shooting it that we didn’t need to do anything crazy in color,” recalls Paulson. “It was very, very close. There were some shots with sun in the background that needed to be rolled down a little bit, but with the range of the camera, that was no problem. Towards the end of the movie, in the attic of the house at night with no lights on, the scene is naturally very dark. It was a fine line because we wanted to keep it dark but still see what’s going on. Again, the Red had such great range on both ends that I never felt like I was struggling to bring down highlights or to open-up shadows. Actually, Jaume kept telling us to go darker because we were opening it too much. That’s always a good problem to have.”
The trickiest part of the job was balancing the picture’s light and dark areas for a consistently natural feeling.
“When they’re inside the house during the day, they spend a lot of time looking out of the windows,” Paulson notes. “When the power goes out, they no longer have lights, yet the windows still throw light into the house. So, finding that balance was hard. We also did a lot of work to make sure when the shadows start creeping in from the woman, they did so in the way that Jaume had envisioned.”
For most of the grade, the colorist and cinematographer worked together in theater.
“I always prefer people to be in the suite with me,” says Paulson. “Then I know we’re looking at the exact same thing. If someone’s remote on an iPad, I can’t control what they’re seeing and they have to remember to close the blinds or turn lights off. Even if it’s remote in another theater, I’m trusting that it’s calibrated correctly and that it’s going to match.”
Paulson finished the film in 4K and delivered an HDR master.
“I made the SDR version first for theatrical release and then made the HDR pass. I would prefer to start with HDR as the highest, brightest, most colorful version and then go down to everything else from there, but not every workflow wants to do that just yet.”
Ultimately, Woman in the Yard is a chilling and elegant story of which the visual storytelling was critical to the filmmakers’ vision. With a brilliant cinematographer, supported by a talented colorist, Woman in the Yard delivers on every level.
Credit to POST Magazine
