Curated by Salvatore Landi CCS, the project’s cinematographer
From 14 July, Netflix will include among its new releases the documentary Pino, directed by Francesco Lettieri, which explores the life and work of the legendary Neapolitan singer-songwriter, marking the 70th anniversary of his birth. With Collettivo Chiaroscuro, we take this opportunity to delve into the fascinating visual research I was involved in. The film… …traces the artistic journey of Pino Daniele, from his early beginnings to his untimely passing, through a rich tapestry of archive footage, previously unseen interviews, and the… …creation of music videos, each one dedicated to a key track from Pino’s repertoire. When Francesco invited me to work on the film, he explained that he had a clear vision of how to guide the viewer through this journey in time, alternating between the Naples of the past—documented through archive materials—and contemporary Naples, seen both through the eyes of Pino Daniele’s lifelong companions and through characters we created based on the protagonists of his songs. The aim was to blend everything into a stream of lived images, weathered by time, blurring the lines between past and present. Our first thought was to shoot on Super 16. The crew setup was minimal, and the style of the sequences we had in mind followed a documentary approach, so it seemed like a perfect solution. Unfortunately, the cost estimate turned out to be incompatible with the project’s budget. That’s when Red and Alessandro suggested a hybrid workflow. …called Analog Intermediate – a process that involves transferring the digitally shot footage onto film, developing it, and then scanning it back to digital to begin the colour grading. It’s a technique used by many labs. In the United States there’s Fotokem, and in Europe at least two other labs, in addition to Augustus Color, use this system.
Andrea Red, would you like to sum up the approach we took to working on the film?
Red: The main challenge was to harmonise the aesthetic of the archive material with the new digital footage, preserving the authenticity of the past while also giving the film a contemporary visual identity. To achieve this, we adopted a workflow that involved transferring the new footage onto Kodak daylight 250 ASA film stock, followed by development, 4K scanning, and colour correction. The first and crucial step was a careful analysis of the available archive material. This consisted of various video formats (mainly VHS and Betacam), Super 8 footage, and a large collection of photographs. The quality of this material was highly variable, with often grainy images, faded colours, and stability issues. Yet it was precisely these imperfections that contributed to an authentic, nostalgic atmosphere, inherently tied to the time in which Pino Daniele lived and created. These characteristics became our reference point in defining the aesthetic of the new digital footage. Our goal wasn’t to replicate the archive look exactly, but rather to create a visual dialogue between past and present.
Alessandro Pelliccia, come responsabile Augustus Color del processo Analog Intermediate, ci puoi raccontare come nasce questa idea?
Alessandro Pelliccia: The idea was born out of tests and failures. In 2019, Daniele Ciprì asked us to run a test for Piranhas by Claudio Giovannesi. We used Kodak Intermediate stock, but the results were disappointing—minimal changes and no real added value compared to digital. Then Michele D’Attanasio came to us with Caravaggio’s Shadow by Michele Placido. For that film, we experimented with direct printing onto positive film. The look was intriguing, but the loss of resolution was huge. The real breakthrough came when Maurizio Iacoella, our chief technician, and Joao De Oliveira, one of the world’s leading experts in cinematic imagery, suggested using camera negative stock. That’s when we started testing the ArriLaser, a machine designed to write onto Intermediate film, which we modified to work with negative stock—much more sensitive. We had to calibrate everything: the film stock, the curves, the processing. But the result opened up new aesthetic possibilities.
Why does this process need to be done before colour correction?
Red: After this upgrade and many hours of testing and calibration, the process can now be done on two daylight negative emulsions—50 and 250 ASA. Unlike other transfers done on internegative stock, writing onto camera negative must necessarily happen before colour correction, in its most basic LOG form. This is because the negative, with its 50 or 250 ASA, is more sensitive to development and therefore doesn’t guarantee a faithful reproduction of any colour grade applied beforehand. Moreover, grading after the process enhances all the characteristics and textures of the analogue image.
Alessandro Pelliccia: Between the two emulsions, the 250 ASA offers richer saturation and more pronounced grain—ideal for skin tones and cyan. The 50 ASA is finer but less intense. As for the intermediate film stock, it hasn’t yielded particularly interesting results so far, though we’re keeping an eye on it for future experiments (such as bleach bypass or cross processing). Speaking of bleach bypass, we did a test on negative stock in search of a more extreme look, but the outcome wasn’t great—the contrast remained unchanged and the colour all but disappeared. Perhaps we’ll achieve better results in the future using the other film stock. After Pino, for another project where we wanted an even more extreme aesthetic, we also experimented with simulating a 16mm print look on 35mm frames—with surprisingly good results in terms of grain and resolution. The most common concern raised, especially by producers and post-production managers, relates to timing: this process requires a locked picture, with all VFX in place, before work can begin. Pino was the perfect film for this workflow, since it consisted of six separate sequences that could be processed as soon as they were ready.
Red: The production timeline is extended due to the transfer, development and scanning stages, but there are many advantages:
Grain: as with the old DI process, the grain undergoes all the same transformations as the image itself, because it is part of the image—its texture and soul. No plugin that adds grain can truly replicate this condition.
Definition. There is a decisive reduction, which brings the image much closer to the analogue medium onto which it is transferred. In the highlights, there is an almost magical effect, which softens all the harshness of contrast that we are familiar with.
In conclusion, the passage through the Kodak Daylight 250 film was a crucial element in defining the final aesthetic of the project. Ultimately, the choice to embrace a hybrid workflow, combining the precision of digital with the poetry of analogue, made it possible to overcome the limitations of both formats, creating a unique and distinctive aesthetic that celebrates the beauty of imperfection and the evocative power of the image.
The most fascinating thing about all this work is that a director’s idea sparked a creative process involving various professionals and technologies. It only remains for me to thank everyone for making this film an opportunity to experiment with new languages and to tell the story of a legend in a non-traditional way, seeking an original and honest point of view because…
Nun è overo, nun è sempre ‘o stesso
Tutt’e journe po’ cagnà
