The Smell of Success

Lensed by David Mullen, the Polish Brothers’ The Smell of Success (aka Manure), presented the difficult challenge of replicating a particularly delicate digital negative on a 35mm print.

Colorist Milton Adamou crafted the final grade on the project, using Mullen’s original dailies as a guide for the overall tone and color palette.

“I wanted to keep the eye ‘entertained’ so I experimented with adding graduated pinks in the dramatic skies, as well as subtle glows to the ‘golden hour’ highlights in keeping with the whimsical nature of the story,” says Adamou. “I also had a little fun with the ‘high-on-mushrooms’ night scene,” where Adamou played with a stylized violet blue wash and stark contrast to create an overall painterly quality.

To preserve these nuances, a customized emulation LUT for Kodak 5218 stock was employed during the DI to identify potential areas of mistranslation in the recording process.

The end result: some additional texture from the film grain remains the only way to tell the film and digital negative apart.

Images courtesy of Initiate Productions