After spending a small fortune buying the latest technology in televisions, we calibrated them and hope they its image quality is spectacular. And in fact this is the case when we play content such as demos created by manufacturers, trailers, some video games and movie scenes or series designed to impress us.
There is another type of content in which the image quality does not stand out or is not as striking, as in conventional programming, but even so, it usually maintains a some showiness in the general colors of the recording.
Finally, there is a third group of content where, due to the intention of its creators, it is committed to some different colors than usual in an attempt to transmit through the image a series of shocking sensations for the viewer, such as fear, overwhelm, etc., something that they do not always achieve and that can cause our interest in said film or series to suffer.
In this third group we can classify ‘Silo’, one of the, in my opinion, best bets for the science fiction series of this year 2023 and that tries to convey different sensations to the viewer by retouching the image that presents certain tricks that are very well known to filmmakers.
A faded image for a dystopian future
The first thing that catches your attention when you start watching ‘Silo’ from the first minute is your color palette. Off, with a certain retro touch that tries to emulate the 70s and early 80s in something we already saw in the most spectacular ‘Stranger Things’.
However, unlike other creations where it is about darkening the image as much as possible, ‘Silo’ tries to offer at all times a “sufficient” display of the sequences (for now all indoors), even despite the poor light conditions that supposedly exist inside the silo, where everything is artificial light and what’s more, little.
It achieves this with a dim global illumination control that is aided by points very localized small ones with a great light intensityin the form of spotlights, lamps and lanterns that accompany the characters at all times and that they help from HDR (in this case Dolby Vision) to increase that sensation of contrast between the dark and bright areas of the image.
What do its creators get with all this? Well, unlike other films and series that we have already discussed here in its day, we find ourselves in a universe where there is hardly any ambient light (in fact they are still in an underground bunker) but where most scenes can be seen clearly.
Nor does it skimp on the sharpness of the sequences, being possible to appreciate in detail the clothes, beards, structures, objects, textures of the walls, the accessories of the characters, etc. It is something that is maintained in a good part of the footage and that is only limited on some occasions in certain scenes, I suppose to hide the shots with poorer special effects.
Is ‘Silo’ a series with a spectacular quality and image? Well yes and no, or rather it depends. If we understand screen quality as some spectacular and striking colorsvibrant and saturated that call our attention at all times, we will not find this here, or at least not in the 5 chapters that I have seen so far.
However, it does have a good management of contrast and light in the image that maintains that retro-futuristic feeling of the plot (which by the way has some questionable points, but it is pointless to comment on them now) and a remarkable sharpness by showing the details of each sequence, despite being in a complex environment where light should be conspicuous by its absence.
And perhaps this is one of the strong points of the series, since its creators have found the sweet spot in color palette editing and light management so that we can immerse ourselves in this dystopian universe but without being tempted by the classic off, almost dark sequences and without detail that other series with scenes in dimly lit interiors have accustomed us to.
That there are times when the sets and post-production special effects “sing” a bit. Well yes. It is something similar to what happened with the first trilogy of “The Lord of the Rings”, something that on the other hand gives it that certain texture to “fantasy” to the tape. However, I think the overall result is good and has been achieved keep feeling overwhelmed before a very dark universe.
Of course, ‘Silo’ is a series that I recommend watching at nightwithout light in the room in the case of having an OLED TV to be able to enjoy the contrast to the maximum, or with some ambient lighting if our model is LCD so as not to appreciate the possible problems of blooming in the image.
Images | Manzana
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