DET TREDJE ØYET (SEASON 1)

Four years ago police detective Viggo Lust went through his worst nightmare, his daughter, Christina, disappeared without a trace. The case was never solved and Viggo is now about to lose everything – his wife left, his job is in danger and he is losing his mind trying to find Christina.

“The Third Eye” will be spearheading Norwegian TV2´s drama slot the spring of 2014.

I had the pleasure to grade the complete series (10 x 46 minutes) in collaboration with the directors, cinematographers and producer. We are talking about colouring over 6500 shots, which is a fare amount of imagery.

The conceptual look was developed in cooperation with conceptual director Trygve Allister Diesen and conceptual cinematographer Pål Bugge Haagenrud. They were responsible for episode 1 - 4. One of the main keywords that surfaced early on was “amber”. (A great interview with Allister Diesen can be found here.).

There was a wish to take the look in a different direction than the usual desaturated-low-contrast look that has been popular in crime stories. The production design and costumes all had elements of orange and yellow. This was backed up by pushing vibrant, warm hues in the grade. Which in turn gives the series a fresh distinctive feeling. Even exterior winter scenes have this amber touch. There are several dream-sequences throughout the series, these needed a unique look that differed from the normal world. We tried different approaches, and ended up with a twisted look that hopefully portraits the characters minds-eye.

Later on in the series, in episode 5 - 10, the main character Viggo, struggles even more with his demons. He has difficulties differentiating between dream and reality. Director Gunnar Vikene and Cinematographer Håvar Karlsen wanted to enhance the psychological imbalance by slowly transitioning towards a grittier color palette, where we embraced more cyan and green hues.

The challenge for me was to unite the warmer amber look with the cooler hues of the approaching darkness, all of which help support the progression of the story. Luckily enough, there was a plan. Basic colour theory supports that contrasting colours like yellow and blue work very well together, making images "pop" even more.

I really enjoyed the creative freedom that the client gave me throughout the project. But as with every production, it´s all about great teamwork and dedication.

The series has already been sold to several other Scandinavia countries, and premieres on Norwegian TV2, 24.02.2014 at 21:40.

TV2 will be releasing episodes at a faster rate on their online-streaming service "Sumo".
Check out one of the TV2-promos here: