Look Development

Look development happens before the first day of principal photography. It sets the look that every later choice — camera, lens, lighting, wardrobe, location — is measured against.

For shoots in Peru, that means testing against the real palettes you meet on the ground. These include the warm adobe and stone of Cusco colonial walls and Sacred Valley terracing, the desaturated grey-blues of Lima's coastal fog known locally as garúa, and the saturated turquoise of Máncora and Paracas Pacific water. They also include the deep emerald-and-black canopy of the Madre de Dios rainforest, the silver-white altiplano light around Lake Titicaca and Puno, and the dramatic vermilion oxides of Rainbow Mountain. Our colorists run camera and lens tests with the cinematographer at Cinesphere DI Lima, Tondero Post, or on practical-location scouts. They develop many look options on sample footage and refine the chosen direction until the visual brief is settled with the director and DP.

The development output is more than a single LUT. It is a complete style guide that includes tracking LUTs for set-side reference on Peruvian shoots, dailies LUTs for the post pipeline running through Audiovisual Project Perú Post or La Mecha Post, a base CDL for the colorist to start from in the final grade, and written notes that log the creative intent behind each decision. This guide travels with the shoot from pre-production through wrap-out. It keeps the DP, on-set DIT, dailies colourist, and final-grade colorist all aligned on the same target.

References can be drawn from today's Peruvian canon: Inti Briones's work with Claudia Llosa, recent Festival de Lima selections from PUCP, the visual languages of Lombardi or Mario Bassino, photography, or early concept art. But the deliverable is always a distinctive look tuned to the story and footage in front of us, never a derivative copy.