Behind the scenes: Vigil

IBC

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To embrace the stark, crystalline reality of the Arctic, Blazing Griffin’s Gareth Bishop leveraged colour compression techniques, LED volumes, and plates captured on an archipelago in the Arctic Ocean.

After the claustrophobic submarine of season one and the Gulf tensions of season two, the BBC’s Emmy Award-winning thriller Vigil heads for the Arctic in its third run. With Suranne Jones and Rose Leslie reprising their roles as DCI Amy Silva and DI Kirsten Longacre, the new case takes them to a remote research station in Svalbard to investigate the murder of a scientist.

Produced by World Productions (also known for Line of Duty) in association with ITV Studios, and directed by Gareth Bryn and Faye Gilbert, the six‑part series was shot on location across Svalbard and Scotland, combining photography with practical sets, virtual production, and VFX.

Bishop worked closely with DOPs Ryan Kernaghan ICS, Emily Almond Barr, and Nic Lawson, as well as Producer Marcus Wilson, to build a visual identity that felt both new and continuous with Vigil’s world when he graded the series in DaVinci Resolve Studio.

A stark landscape 

Despite the icy environment, Vigil S3 is not a VFX‑heavy show. Some snow was added in post, and a few buildings were removed to enhance the sense of remoteness. There is an explosion, a gunfight, and several car chases, but no major VFX set pieces. 

According to Bishop, the central research hub’s Bond-like sleekness is much the same in person as it is on screen.

“There’s very little Arctic stuff that’s actually visual effects,” he says. “We used simple grain techniques and Luma keys in the highlights, just to make it look a little frostier in some close-ups, but honestly, it really is that cold. Sometimes, even BBC execs thought things were VFX, and they weren’t.” 

The key difference, he notes, is the behaviour of light. “The ice doesn’t reflect very much when you’re up there because it’s so cold. When it’s that frozen, it doesn’t reflect like we’re used to. Plus, the air is so clean, so when you see DI Longacre on the boat travelling to Svalbard in episode one, that clarity is just how it is.” 

This natural contrast shaped the grade. Exterior material from Svalbard, largely shot by Kernaghan (who was also DOP for Kneecap), arrived with crisp edges, deep shadows, and minimal atmospheric haze. “There’s so much contrast in the image already,” Bishop adds. “You don’t get mist or cloud. It’s beautiful contrast.” 

Building an Arctic LUT

Working in DaVinci Resolve Studio with an Academy Colour Encoding System (ACES) workflow and HDR delivery in mind, Bishop and Kernaghan developed a single LUT for the entire series, using camera tests shot in Glasgow ahead of production. 

 “It wasn’t anything complex,” Bishop says. “Maybe a little bit of film emulation blended in, but mostly it was something we built through grades.” 

On the other hand, the Arctic palette required careful control. Bishop leaned on Resolve’s colour compression techniques to tame colours that felt too saturated for the environment. “You don’t want extreme colours in the Arctic,” he insists. “I use tools that let me ease colours off, compress things. It keeps everything in that world.” 

Although Vigil has an established visual identity – steel, chrome, and clinical surfaces – Bishop and the DOPs were not asked to replicate previous seasons. “We took a guide from the offices, but really, this is a new story in a completely new location. We weren’t going to do anything crazy, but we weren’t matching seasons one or two.” 

Producer Marcus Wilson provided direction while giving the team space to explore. “He’s very hands‑on but gives you creative space,” Bishop recalls. “He keeps it on track.” 

Virtual production that feels real 

Virtual production supervisor Ben Saffer and the team at Supervision VP captured plates in Svalbard, a Norwegian archipelago in the Arctic Ocean, using the URSA Cine 12K LF to bring the Arctic environments back to Scotland for use on the LED volume. 

The decision to shoot extensively in Svalbard paid off. “They realised it was going to be cheaper to go out and shoot it for real than spend a lot on digital effects,” Bishop says. “And the show is much better for it.” 

For Bishop, one of the most striking sequences is of a car driving across the Arctic landscape in episode one. The opening wide shot from Svalbard sets up the sense of place, but the close-ups of the actors in the car were shot in a volume.

“That’s because they went out there and shot plates,” he explains. “They captured a lot of reflections, then set the camera in the volume so it would flare off the windows, and you’d get the background on the screen. It helps massively.”

Volume material can present challenges, though, according to Bishop. “Sometimes you get strange colour shifts off the windows. You can have issues with the brightness of lights hitting the screens. Sometimes plates offline aren’t in Rec.709, and you have to push them. Sometimes you see grain structure coming through because you’ve pushed it so much.” However, these issues were minimised because the production captured such high-quality plates.

“Often in these kinds of shows you’d expect things to be incredibly complex. [However,] this was very well organised. Trying to shoot practically and match cameras as much as possible made a big difference.”

Minimal VFX, maximum reality 

Back in Scotland, interiors including the Svalbard police station (shot at Stirling University, Scotland), offices, and homes required another approach for the final touches of the show. According to Bishop, the grade for the Glasgow police office needed to be “quite strong” to achieve a clean, consistent look, but overall, the work was straightforward.

Beyond that, Lewis Carmichael, Finishing Editor, Blazing Griffin, handled the online element, adding snow, screen replacements, and environmental tweaks. 

“I think the success of the show lies in the simplicity of the approach,” Bishop concludes. “They shoot as much as possible for real. We built a LUT that respects the environment and let the Arctic speak for itself.”