Colourist Gary Curran talks to TVBEurope about his work on the hit BBC drama
By Contributor
Published: July 10, 2020
Colourist Gary Curran talks to TVBEurope about his work on the hit BBC drama
target=_blank title=Share on LinkedIn class=share-linkedin> Colourist Gary Curran talks to TVBEurope about his work on the hit BBC drama
https://www.tvbeurope.com/production-post/case-study-the-making-of-normal-people title=Share via Email class=share-email>
Affording viewers a much welcome distraction from the global pandemic, the release of BBC and Hulu's romantic drama series, Normal People, couldn't have been better timed.
Produced by Oscar and BAFTA award winning production company, Element Pictures (The Favourite, Room, The Lobster) the will-they-won't-they relationship between Irish teens, Marianne and Connell, was highly praised when first broadcast to US and UK audiences.
In fact, the BBC revealed that Normal People has beaten Killing Eve's record in terms of total viewer requests on iPlayer, already reaching 54 million requests.
Starzplay has now acquired the series, where it will be available to watch across Europe this summer.
Staying True to Fiction Adapted by Sally Rooney alongside writers Alice Birch and Mark O'Rowe, Normal People tracks the tender but complicated relationship of Marianne and Connell from the end of their school days in a small-town in the west of Ireland to their undergraduate years at Trinity College.
Staying true to Sally Rooney's book, body language, gestures and looks were all key parts of the storytelling. Ensuring viewers were always present with the actors, and almost observing them, directors Lenny Abrahamson and Hettie Macdonald created an intimate, tight, interior world for the couple's turbulent romance to play out, with the camerawork sometimes being placed very close up.
The series was shot by DP Suzie Lavelle BSC and Kate McCullough, using the ARRI Alexa with Canon K35 Vintage Primes. Irish facility Outer Limits completed picture and sound post.
Gary Curran, colourist and company director at Outer Limits, enjoyed the effect the glass had on the final look. They flared quite a bit, and had a real softness to their highlights and contrast. I didn't actually have to do very much in the DI as there was just this beautiful filmic quality already.
He continues: Grading is an instinctive process for me, and I've been lucky to work with Lenny for more than 20 years, so there wasn't a formal or prescriptive brief. We wanted to keep things as natural as possible, and just embellish on the amazing work that Suzie and Kate did.
Catering to Locations Throughout the series, each location and point in time has its own world. This wasn't just in the grade, but in everything; from production design and costume, to cinematography and direction. Curran adds: When the characters are in school, we reflected the greys and blues of the uniform.
Then the story evolves to their university years at Trinity, where the colours get richer a warmer hue of reds, oranges and browns. The following sequences in Italy were bright and sharp, which made a stark contrast to when Marianne's character is in a dark place in Sweden.
Curran explains that many of the interior shots in Sweden were actually filmed in Dublin, so there was some shot matching to the exterior scenes, which were graded with low, bleak light, reflecting Marianne's state of mind. I used DaVinci Resolve's offset button to get a base grade as a first step, which is almost equivalent to the printer lights in the old way of doing things. You really find the sweet spot of what the DPs have captured, and after that it was about allowing the footage to sing.
A Timeless Classic Looking back we had a feeling that Normal People might be a show that lasts, reflects Curran. And I'm not surprised at its success, it was a very talented team. I made the decision early on to grade in the ACES colour space so that we had the option to go back to it in a couple of years and remaster the footage in HDR.
He adds, ACES is excellent for future proofing, but it does get a little difficult with bright lights, such as on a police car or with fairy lights. I used the colour space transform node in DaVinci Resolve, which was particularly handy in terms of managing the extreme brightness and colour in ACES. That was the only real technical challenge during post.
Normal People was the first time Outer Limits has handled all aspects of post production. We did the VFX, the offline edit in Media Composer, the sound mix in ProTools, as well as the online and final deliverables in Resolve. It was a big step in terms of being a one-stop shop for us, says Curran.
The series has become such a phenomenon, and as a smaller company, it's amazing to have something like this on your profile, on your resume.
When potential clients are coming and looking at our work, we can say not only do we do big projects - we did Normal People.
SubscribeFor more stories like this, and to keep up to date with all our market leading news, features and analysis, sign up to our newsletter here.
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
07/10/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, today announced the latest Long-Term Supported (LTS) release of Dalet Flex. Build...
06/09/2026
June 9 2026, 23:00 (PDT) Dolby and MagentaTV Bring Fans Closer to the FIFA Worl...
04/08/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...
23/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
23/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
23/07/2026
David Dvir, 2D founder (left), Sundeep Reddy (center), and Jean-Marc Bouchut (right), both of Zeiss...
23/07/2026
Screen Australia announces new national documentary accelerator program 23 July 2026
Screen Australia has today announced the Above the Line Documentary Accel...
22/07/2026
Among other tweaks to coverage, the broadcaster added announce positions in the ...
22/07/2026
The Australian Sports Technologies Network (ASTN) has reported a sharp acceleration in Australia's sportstech sector, with revenue growth rising from 10% in...
22/07/2026
From a retrofitted broadcast bus to packed Match Day Live! events, Bennett detai...
22/07/2026
TMRW Sports has named Brendan Donohue as President, Flag Football, where he will lead the company's professional flag football business in partnership with ...
22/07/2026
Stephen Arnold Music (SAM) designed and produced soundtracks for nine projection...
22/07/2026
Harmonic has announced a $25,000 donation to Global Empowerment Mission (GEM) fo...
22/07/2026
Telemundo has announced it has acquired from UC3 exclusive U.S. Spanish-language...
22/07/2026
The Rest Is Football, hosted by Gary Lineker, Alan Shearer, and Micah Richards, ...
22/07/2026
Sports Studio has announced a partnership with TheSoul Group to distribute Free ...
22/07/2026
Daktronics has concluded its 2026 High School Video Summit, a two-day hybrid event combining virtual sessions with hands-on host school visits across the countr...
22/07/2026
FOR-A America will exhibit at the MMCA Show in Pensacola, Florida (July 21-24), marking the company's first appearance at the house of worship AV event. FOR...
22/07/2026
The New York Yankees have selected Lumen Technologies (NYSE: LUMN) to connect Ya...
22/07/2026
Calrec will exhibit at IBC 2026 (Stand 8.C47) with demonstrations of its IP-native audio ecosystem built around the Argo console range, and will announce two ne...
22/07/2026
Solid State Logic has announced the appointment of Algam EKO as its distributor for SSL large format consoles in Italy, covering the Live, Broadcast, and Studio...
22/07/2026
FloSports has announced the launch of the FloSports Channel, a free ad-supported streaming channel premiering on Prime Video in the U.S. on July 21. The channel...
22/07/2026
Banana Ball TV (BTV), the broadcast operation of the Savannah Bananas, has insta...
22/07/2026
SiriusXM and Audacy have announced an agreement bringing 42 Audacy sports, news, and talk stations from 29 U.S. markets to SiriusXM. Twenty-three Audacy sports ...
22/07/2026
The collaboration produced more than 500 short-form videos across four cities th...
22/07/2026
At 2,600 sq. ft., the new home of digital content houses a main studio, podcast space, and an auxiliary control room
NFL franchises are accelerating their prod...
22/07/2026
Library now available in Engine Player
Another of Eduardo Tarilonte's popular sample libraries has just been moved over to Engine Audio's Engine Pla...
22/07/2026
All-in-one mic & DSP interface overhauled
Cloudvocal have just refreshed the design of their all-in-one mic, audio interface and DSP processor, introducing ...
22/07/2026
The final boss of the lost dual-op-amp circuit
Electro-Harmonix have just introduced the Deluxe Big Muff Pi 2, which they say offers their latest take on t...
22/07/2026
eds3_5_jq(document).ready(function($) { $(#eds_sliderM519).chameleonSlider_2_1({ content_source:......
22/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
22/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
22/07/2026
Proven managed IP solution helps broadcasters confidently navigate the future of broadcast distribution
LTN announces it has completed successful satellite-to-...
22/07/2026
Today, Chaos announced V-Ray 7, update 4, eliminating the need for asset conversions and tool switching, which slow down media and entertainment pipelines. Arti...
22/07/2026
An AI playground for the Project Indigo camera app
Marc Levoy July 22, 2026
0 Comments
At left is the user interface of our Playground, running on an ...
22/07/2026
Custom Consoles announces the completion of a large technical furniture project for Radio T l vision Suisse (RTS) at the networks recently inaugurated productio...
22/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
22/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
22/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
22/07/2026
Culver City, CA, July 21, 2026 3D streaming infrastructure provider Miris today announced glTF intake, including the binary .glb form, to its spatial streamin...
22/07/2026
Documentary Lo Invisible Captured with Blackmagic PYXIS 6K
Brie Clayton July 21, 2026
0 Comments
Camera's versatile design allowed filmmakers to c...
22/07/2026
AAF Bridge converts AAF and XML Timelines to Ableton Live - and back
Jerome Gardier July 21, 2026
0 Comments
A two-way converter for macOS and Windows...
22/07/2026
From Class to Concert: Explore a Student-Led Production of David Bowies Work Thr...
22/07/2026
NVIDIA founder and CEO Jensen Huang today visited the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California, to commission an NVIDIA DGX GB300 system - bringing one...
22/07/2026
A poisoned spy, a secret war, and a small English city contaminated by a deadly chemical weapon. Available on Sky Documentaries from 4 AugustWednesday 22 July 2...
22/07/2026
Audio at Parity: Comscore Launches Transcript-Level Targeting and Measurement wi...
22/07/2026
Arvato Systems and Lobster Enter into a Partnership and Combine the Integration Platform and Managed Services
Flexible integration solutions for cloud, hybrid...
Colourist Gary Curran talks to TVBEurope about his work on the hit BBC drama
