Stylistic Influences and Post-Production in Utopia

Utopia is notorious for its comic book look, and its thriller hyper-real violence along with its use of colour like no other programme. The director, Marc Munden is like a comic book artist, using bright colours to create a techni-colour 1950's Hollywood look to the programme. The bright colours give a unique look to the programme.

Most days, the skies weren't even blue (they were typically grey as it was filmed in Britain), but due to the incredible amount of work in post production, the skies are shown in a vibrant blue colour, adding to the comic book look. Aiden Farell precisely colour corrected each shot, using dynamic colours, like bright yellow and turquoise, and painted them into the shot during post-production.

Normally stylistic influences affect a piece of cinematography by almost instructing it to use blues, reds and greens, but the 'individuality' of Utopia shows them using cyan, yellows and magentas adding a distinct element to the series.

The colour palette is for series 2 is said to be bolder. Marc Munden said that this time they are not trying to find the aesthetic anymore, and it is no longer difficult to manipulate colours in a shot that weren't part of the palette. This time they can afford to dress the sets in yellows, cyans and magentas, so in post-production we can make them bolder, due to the success of the past 2 series, it is no longer hard to produce the colours.