Kraken is a classic sci-fi thriller set against the dramatic natural backdrop of Norway’s Sognefjord; a majestic fjord that cuts 205 km inland from the sea. Jutting out into a peninsula deep inside the fjord is the fictional village of Vangsnes where the story is set, but it is in the murkier depths of the fjord where the plot truly unfolds.
Without giving too much away, the film offers a suspenseful tale of unexplained disappearances, suspicious activity at the nearby fish farm, and, as the title would suggest, an enormous tentacular deep-sea monster lying in wait.
The feature blends intimate human drama with visceral horror scenes, moving between sunlit fjord exteriors, industrial fish-farm environments and dark underwater sequences. “Kraken embraces all of the good qualities of what an exciting character-driven sci-fi thriller should have,” explains senior colourist Dylan Hopkin. “There’s human suspense, gritty aesthetics, jump scares, fast-paced action and creepy but, to a certain degree, poetic creatures.”
The film is Hopkin’s first collaboration with director Pål Øie, whom he describes as a dedicated filmmaker with a taste for visual stories about people under emotional and physical pressure. “He is great fun to work with due to his artistic viewpoint,” says Hopkin. co-director/cinematographer Sjur Aarthun FNF was a more familiar face. “We worked together on five seasons of the Netflix show Pernille which meant we could hit the ground running as I already knew Sjur’s visual taste. But Kraken was a completely different type of project.”
Designing the show LUT
Hopkin’s initial preparation for this challenging project was all about narrative context. “I read the script to become familiar with the characters and to understand the universe in which the narrative unfolds,” he explains. He would spend most of the look development and main grading process in close collaboration with Aarthun, who provided a number of visual references before they met to design the show LUT.
“I prepared a number of looks that I felt met the brief. We landed on a look with creamy blacks which were pushed slightly colder, with a slight punch in the highlights, pushed subtly towards green-yellow, deep saturated hues and slightly compressed hue range around the yellow-red/cyan-blue axis.”
The overarching theme was defining a timeless cinematic look that paid homage to modern Hollywood blockbusters but with a visceral Scandinavian twist. “Having a dense negative, creamy highlights and well rounded saturation was really important. Sjur [Aarthun] is a huge fan of bringing depth to his images while leaving elbow room to add grittiness by skewing certain parts of the tonal range when needed.” This would be especially important for textures such as skin tones, “making sure they had the elegance they needed, even in harsher lighting”.
A challenging part of the process was the variety of contrasting scene locations and backdrops that the show LUT needed to accommodate: from panoramic vistas of the fjord to murky, menacing underwater shots. “I always approach show-LUT-design as a broad-brush: it’s the larger context of the visual language that is centre stage, not the tiny details. However, there is room for adding details, for example the special hue-shift across the exposure range to mimic 35mm film response.”
For the camera tests, Hopkin provided Aarthun a wish list of shots he required during look development, so that they could cover as many bases as possible. “He was able to shoot many of these on location, including colour charts at the start of each take.”
Resolving the workflow
Kraken was graded entirely in DaVinci Resolve Studio on macOS using a DaVinci Resolve Advanced Panel, with Christie projection for theatrical monitoring. Hopkin worked in a DaVinci YRGB project rather than full project-wide colour management, performing colour transforms manually through nodes and DCTLs (DaVinci Color Transform Language). “I’m a big fan of using DCTLs for look development. For Kraken I used several DCTLs designed by Kaur Hendrikson for manipulating cross talk, hue density and contrast.”
The VFX pipeline ran in ACEScg using EXR sequences, while the main grading timeline remained in S-Log3/S-Gamut3.Cine, matching the primary camera’s native colour space. Consistency was maintained through a fixed node tree used across the project. “My initial node tree was quite large,” Hopkin admits, “but every node is pre-labelled with a specific purpose. That helps with muscle memory so I could work quickly without constantly adapting the structure.”
Before tackling the feature itself, Hopkin graded teasers and the main trailer. “That process was extremely useful,” he says. “It allowed us to refine the look, but also understand where trailer aesthetics diverge from the needs of a full-length narrative. Context is everything.”
Throughout the grade, DaVinci Resolve Studio’s grouping architecture played a central role. Shot-level balancing was followed by scene-wide adjustments in Group Post-Clip nodes, allowing Hopkin to maintain continuity while responding to location-specific demands. “Maintaining continuity is one of the most challenging aspects of grading,” he notes. “Choosing a common reference image for a scene and sticking to a consistent toolset is critical.”
Creative tools and problem solving
DaVinci Resolve Studio’s AI-assisted and effects toolsets were used extensively during the Kraken grade. Hopkin explains: “I am thrilled with the increasing amount of AI powered tools in Resolve. For me it’s all about being able to get good results in an effective manner, without compromising the image quality.”
One of those tools, Magic Mask, became a central part of Hopkin’s workflow. “I started using this a couple of years ago and it has changed the way I create selections,” he says. “Tasks that used to involve complex tracked windows or rotoscoping can now be solved much more intuitively.”
Hopkin used Magic Mask for relighting faces, isolating creatures and excluding actors from background colour manipulations. “What surprised me most is how well it holds fine detail, especially hair. Combined with keys and windows, it becomes extremely powerful.”
Cinematic Haze OFX was used to support both atmosphere and continuity, particularly when VFX resources were stretched. Hopkin estimates that he added fog or haze to around 40 shots. “Fog follows the creature throughout the film to help reinforce presence and proximity.”
In one canoe sequence, only certain shots contained fog added by VFX. Hopkin tested Cinematic Haze on the remaining shots and presented the results to the director, DP and producers. “They were enthusiastic straight away,” he says. “It helped marry the whole scene together and led to me handling more shots directly in the grade.”
The DaVinci Resolve Studio toolset also enabled Hopkin to take on additional clean-up tasks. These included removing moiré from LED-volume backgrounds using channel-specific adjustments, debanding and directional blur, as well as object removal via node sizing within compound node structures. “Solving these issues in the grade is far quicker than exporting plates back to VFX,” he notes.
For action sequences, Hopkin added further camera movement using the Camera Shake OFX and custom Fusion set-ups. “The advantage is immediacy: the client sees the result in real time and understands how it affects the flow of the scene.”
Delivery, Dolby Vision for theatrical release and final outcomes
The film was delivered in a 2.83:1 image within a 4K 2.39:1 container, with theatrical masters created for P3 D65 and Dolby Vision. SDR Rec.709 versions were also supplied for television.
Grading in Dolby Vision for theatrical release marked a first for Hopkin. Kraken is the first Scandinavian feature to be mastered in the format. The Dolby Vision grade took place at Dolby’s Barnes Theatre in London, with technical support from Dolby and Hopkin’s colleague Ole-André Hestetun. “The image quality was extraordinary,” Hopkin says. “Rich colour, refined highlights, deep blacks and near-black detail I’ve never experienced in a cinema before.”
DaVinci Resolve Studio’s HDR Grade tool proved central to the Dolby Vision grade. “It allowed precise control of micro-contrast and saturation across custom tonal zones, making the transition between versions far more predictable.”
Looking back, Hopkin sees Kraken as a project where creative intent and technical execution remained closely aligned throughout. “A good grade should serve the story and characters first,” he says. “What I do should feel almost invisible: a colourist’s work should not draw attention to itself.”
Image credits: Sjur Aarthun FNF / Nordisk Film Production AS
