Director Richard Lagravenese on the look of A Family Affair

Now streaming on Netflix, the feature A Family Affair follows Zara Ford (played by Joey King), who works thanklessly as the assistant to self-absorbed movie star Chris Cole (Zac Efron) — who, in turn, ends up falling for Zara’s widowed mother, Brooke Harwood (Nicole Kidman), with comic consequences for all.

"This story highlights main characters from three different generations," says director Richard Lagravenese. Describing the movie's look, Lagravenese continues, "The color brings out beauty, romance and comedy, which creates a unified world that all the characters live in - and that an audience can submerge themselves in and accept to live in for a couple of hours."

Behind the scenes, Lagravenese teamed with cinematographer Don Burgess, ASC to help create that unified world. With principal photography taking place in Atlanta, Burgess turned to Panavision Atlanta for his camera and lens package, which included Primo 70 optics as his primary lenses. Light Iron provided dailies throughout production and offline editorial rentals during post, with Lagravenese’s editorial team setting up at Light Iron New York.

For the final grade, Burgess reteamed with his longtime collaborator, Light Iron supervising colorist Corinne Bogdanowicz. “Richard and Don wanted to look to be fairly natural, warm and filmic,” Bogdanowicz says of their early conversations on the project. “We really wanted to make the characters look great and play up the beauty of the locations.”

"Don chose Corinne [for the final grade] because she's someone he has worked with many times before," Lagravenese shares. Reflecting on his time in the grading suite with Burgess and Bogdanowicz, the director adds, "Whatever fix or change we want to make, she goes right forward - she does not resist anything. She tells you what the limitations are and what the possibilities are and gives you the best vocabulary for how to get the best look that you want. She is wonderful."

Burgess and Bogdanowicz’s previous collaborations include the features The Muppets, Flight, 42, Allied, and The Christmas Chronicles and its sequel, The Christmas Chronicles: Part Two. “We’ve done maybe 12 or 13 features together,” the colorist reflects. “We definitely have a trust built from working together for so many years.”

That established rapport made for a smooth transition into the color grade for A Family Affair, which was performed out of Light Iron New York, allowing Lagravenese to move freely between the grading suite and the editorial team just down the hall. “We had a quick look-setting session and conversation before I got started, but I was able to fairly quickly get things dialed-in before Don joined me for the grade,” says Bogdanowicz. “It's nice to have a good pass to start with, because then we can maximize our time together and really finesse the images.

"We did our main color pass in HDR, and to achieve the desired look, we had to find a soft contrast level," the colorist explains. "Creating a softness to the highlights makes a nice, filmic image. We also allowed enough richness and color to come through to help the images feel really dynamic and beautiful."