HBO knocked it out of the park with their adaptation of one of the most popular video games of all time: The Last of Us. This show is a straight 10 and I don’t give out 10s easily. Especially the color grading. And it’s graded by the legend himself: Stephen Nakamura.

He’s known for a lot of amazing trendsetting shows/movies.

This show was filmed on the Alexa Mini and Cooke S4 lenses.

Alright this story is set in a post-apocalyptic world where humanity is on the brink of extinction.

This is beautifully and clearly portrayed through the use of muted tones throughout the series. The only time we see rich tones is in the pre-pandemic world. A lot of the color separation was done on set, and further enhanced in the color grading phase.

I cannot stress enough that the best orange and teal look is created on-set. That goes for any stylized look because fix it in post is not a motto productions live by.

I love the heavy use of yellow tones where we discover the virus for the first time.

Yellow in this instance symbolizes sickness and is a bullseye choice for this scene. If I take out that yellow, it might look prettier, but it completely misses the emotion and the direct message created through color.

This yellow is continued through the series as we go on the adventure with the characters.

Then there is the heavy rain look, which is on the complete opposite spectrum.

Again, if I were to balance this scene out, it could look proper but it strips away the magic.

But you may be picking up a theme here. What makes rockstar colorists so special is not that they have access to more tools than you, but they are comfortable going to uncomfortable places for the story.

This giraffe scene was so beautiful.

This scene stayed true to the more muted colors in the show.

The dark scene obviously takes place in the dark, which brings panic and fear.

Even I struggled to notice what was going on, but that added more chaos and drama.

Especially this scene. Nothing was sitting high on the scopes and no spotlights were hitting them to create this perfect night setting.

Color grading plays a much more vital role in a sci-fi, post-apocalyptic world as opposed to a present day drama where colors are supposed to be on the natural side. And too many people think color grading is a science but what you see here is the work of a true master making art.