Louis C.K.'s new show "Louie"

[Rudi Herbert]

saw a couple of episodes of the show...

Louis is a great talent and I love him. With much respect to the obvious talent and dedication of all the people involved in creating the show, I have to say I hated the look of the show. Yes, it was pretty sharp, thanks to the Mysterium's real estate, the MP lenses and the great DP shooting, but the show looks flatter than a recently pressed sheet of aluminum foil. The prevailing brown/sepia tones may indeed convey a sense of realism, but the mono tonality also robs the images of the sense of depth so desperately wanted by shooting at such wide apertures. Skin tones look fake and the color grading actually calls attention to itself, and when you do realize the colors shave been tweaked, you notice they don't look all that great. But then again, Louis is very funny and once I got over how boring the look of the show was, all I was doing is pay attention to the jokes, so perhaps the look worked after all...

[C.H.Haskell]

I noticed some off skin tone choices in the grade. I agree it does call attention in the early season....but I notice they go away. Also I believe they were not working with RAW (budget reasons) so ended up grading the pro res, I am sure that limited them. In the end content is king.

[Paul Koestner]

Did you do a lot of scenes without rehersal? I assume you light those scenes to allow the actors to move where ever they see fit in the moment. Ricky Gervais especially seems to be riffing and improving with a pretty long leash.

Are the scenes ever tightly scripted or written more as a general overview, like what Larry David does?

Louie virtually always likes to "roll on rehearsal". Most scenes are rather straightforward, and don't require ornate blocking. I'm certain that Louie likes the "let's see what happens" spontaneity of the first take. This is where we technicians get a look at what's wrong on our end and attempt to fine tune lighting and focus as we go. I tell my guys not to worry, we'll get another shot at it. Let's just make the corrections quick and nonintrusive. Once Louie gets going, he does not like to be held up by technical tweaks.

If you notice, Ricky's office is generally lit. I try not to add too many units that will restrict movement. Louie has really trained me to look first at the available light. I think ahead of time what will be wrong with it, and how I might convince him to add something, sometimes as little as just some fill. I have those units standing by if he gives me the nod. He's got a great eye, and he'll listen to reason, but it better be a good one. He's got material to cover, and he doesn't want his actors to be tripping over recently added paraphernalia.

Regarding the scripts, they are in fact very tight. Actors come to set knowing their lines. From there, you never know. We may shoot it as scripted, or Louie will start changing things on the spot. Throw in five other comedians and you may shoot a whole other show by the end of the day.

[Paul Koestner]

saw a couple of episodes of the show...

Louis is a great talent and I love him. With much respect to the obvious talent and dedication of all the people involved in creating the show, I have to say I hated the look of the show. Yes, it was pretty sharp, thanks to the Mysterium's real estate, the MP lenses and the great DP shooting, but the show looks flatter than a recently pressed sheet of aluminum foil. The prevailing brown/sepia tones may indeed convey a sense of realism, but the mono tonality also robs the images of the sense of depth so desperately wanted by shooting at such wide apertures. Skin tones look fake and the color grading actually calls attention to itself, and when you do realize the colors shave been tweaked, you notice they don't look all that great. But then again, Louis is very funny and once I got over how boring the look of the show was, all I was doing is pay attention to the jokes, so perhaps the look worked after all...

So you're saying the look complimented the material. That's good to hear.

[Jason Madeja]

It feels like the clubs are more warm and inviting than most of the other locations. Was that a choice you guys made or am I just imagining it?

Also, you said red wasn't your first choice. What did you want to use and why? What about the red package didn't feel right at first on this project?

And thanks for taking the time to answer these questions. I really look forward to the show and hadn't really paid much attention to Louie before it.

[Milan Spasic]

Louie is the funniest show on television at the moment.
Though different show altogether, I never understood HBO's move to cancel Lucky Louie.
Perhaps it needed to happen in order for Louie to come to FX. :)


Great insight about the methods behind the making of the show, thanks Paul and Clayton for taking the time to post here. Reduser forum is full of surprises sometimes.
I loved the poker scene and was kind of hoping that this will be a common thread in the series - that every show will open with a little poker table improv (at least I thought it was an improv). Great stuff.
Fingers crossed for season two!

[Blair S. Paulsen]

Those of us that make a living by knowing how to "sex up" the look to make pretty pictures often have a hard time appreciating the value of matching the look to the material. To my sensibilities the "Louie" character is a Charlie Brown who lives in a world where hair lights, rims, toned edges, kickers, etc would seem out of place.

Paul mentioned that he tries to sneak in some "help" for the female love interests which is exactly what I would think to do. If you accept that content is king, and that a key element of the show "Louie" is his struggles with the day to day world, then the naturalistic look helps sell the comedic perspective. That said, a few "moments of beauty" can provide a valuable counterpoint to the more mundane elements, which provides context and adds more depth. Just MHO.

Cheers - #19

[Ravi Kiran]

First off, I have to say that I love the show. Louis CK is one of my favorite comedians. I've seen him three times live and talked to him briefly. Nice guy. Also, I like the cinematic, yet, slightly rough look you've created.

I have a couple of questions?

1) Do you shoot with multiple cameras?

2) On what system is the color grading done? Since the grading is done using the Pro Res files, is a one-light being done before transcoding to (what I assume is) Pro Res 4444? Is that what Louis edits with?

[Paul Koestner]

It feels like the clubs are more warm and inviting than most of the other locations. Was that a choice you guys made or am I just imagining it?

Also, you said red wasn't your first choice. What did you want to use and why? What about the red package didn't feel right at first on this project?

The two clubs featured thus far (Comedy Cellar and Carolines) were both essentially shot using existing light. We dropped the light levels a little using the house boards so we would be shooting closer to full aperture. Certainly that would warm things a bit, but I think the lion’s share of adjustment came in post.

This might seem remarkable, but I had no influence on the post look. While there was a Red learning curve for all those supporting Louie in post (not to mention pre), it is more remarkable, I think, to realize that Louie exercised rare and near total control of this project from beginning to end. I honestly do not know to what extent his editors provided creative input, nor to what extent Terry Brown and the folks at Mega Playground worked their very capable magic with Louie overseeing them.

I agree that there is a warm cast to about everything I’ve seen so for, which I personally do not find unappealing. Further, colors do seem muted. Were my hands on the knobs, I think I’d time a few things differently. Certainly I’d like to play with exposure and contrast in a few scenes. Let’s face it; each of us, given the opportunity, would time it to our own preferences. Furthermore, if I went back into the field to reshoot everything, the show would doubtlessly come out looking different the second time around.

I’m not unhappy with the images the Red puts out. Having gotten through the pilot last summer, having seen the heft and complexity of the system when it is in full working mode, and knowing that this show would ultimately air in 720 (for that segment of the population that watches high def), I thought a lightweight HD camera outfitted with a zoom used as a variable prime (per Louie’s taste) would move us along quicker and provide suitable images to support his stories. Just switching back and forth between hand-held and otherwise was a hassle. Now try rigging quickly for a moving cab scene with the sun going down.

Specifically I was given the opportunity to do side-by-side tests of the Red and the Panasonic 3700. In addition I looked at a slew of prime lenses, as well as some remarkable zooms. Of course there are differences among the formats and manufacturers, but I believe the value of a given product can be overstated when placed in the context of “We have to get this done today. We can’t afford to come back tomorrow.”

Listen, I’m a pragmatist. I still shoot standard definition for some of my clients because they ask for it, and the footage airs. If we have time and the right tools, we make the pictures look good. I’ve occasionally had folks ask how I got to shoot film on a project, to which my response was, "You were looking at video." This is simply a testament to the technology and to production value. By the way, Mr. Herbert made generous mention of the Mysterium sensor’s "real estate". I’d guess that roughly 95% of Louie was shot with the old sensor. The MX wasn’t made available to us till near the end of our run, and came at painful cost to the production, so we used it only when it made compelling sense. I don’t believe anything you’ve seen yet is Mysterium-generated. What you’re looking at, as my AC Alex might echo, are Master Primes running “wide spanking open.”

[Paul Koestner]

Louie is the funniest show on television at the moment.
Though different show altogether, I never understood HBO's move to cancel Lucky Louie.
Perhaps it needed to happen in order for Louie to come to FX. :)


Great insight about the methods behind the making of the show, thanks Paul and Clayton for taking the time to post here. Reduser forum is full of surprises sometimes.
I loved the poker scene and was kind of hoping that this will be a common thread in the series - that every show will open with a little poker table improv (at least I thought it was an improv). Great stuff.
Fingers crossed for season two!

I'm certainly glad you like it, Milan. And yeah, my sister says the same thing about the poker scene. Frankly, I got a huge kick out of the therapy scene. Louie had just one scripted. The actor (the infamous Sully from Commando) just had me in stitches. We got behind, as per usual, but that didn't stop Louie from scripting maybe three more scenarios on the spot.

I'll tell Louie you need more poker stuff. And my fingers are crossed too.