Grading The Handmaiden, scene by scene

Scene – Wide view of Kouzuki’s countryside palace

At the start of Part One, we see a wide view of Kouzuki’s countryside palace. CG was used to add a little bit of cloud, and I added a little sunset mode to create the two different tones in the sky. 

MASK - Wide view of Kouzuki's countryside palace
Mask for wide view of Kouzuki’s countryside palace
CG COMPOSITE - Wide view of Kouzuki's countryside palace
CG composite of wide view of Kouzuki’s countryside palace

Scene – An annex road 

The main lens used is the Hawk Vintage 74 Anamorphic. The combination of camera and lens clearly differentiated The Handmaidenfrom other movies in terms of texture. I thought it might be just one specific look, but it was a good combination and the best reflection of the texture of film in the digital age as I have ever seen. 

It was also impressive to create images while zooming in and out deeply with the anamorphic camera showing the depth of field and image texture.  

Before

One disadvantage of this lens, however, is that in a wide zoom shot the focus is distorted on the edges and in the corners. In the mask area shown below, blurring is strongly applied everywhere except for the centre of the frame, and the focus is soft.

Mask – Out of focus area
Mask – Out of focus area
Improved sharpness 

I tried to give the images sharpness by using the fast tracking and keyframe together around eye of an actor. However, in such a wide view shot, it just wasn’t possible to focus on the upper part of the heroine, even when raising the sharpness value of the whole image.

Left and right 10% cropped image
Left and right 10% cropped image

Despite these disadvantages though, the filmic texture is fascinating.   

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