A spin-off of reality show Laguna Beach, The Hills follows Lauren Conrad, a character from a past season, to Los Angeles. There, she is an intern with Teen Vogue, dropped into the frenetic world of fashion, nightlife and urban Hollywood. Whereas Laguna Beach was lauded for a warm, luscious, “honey-drenched” look, Adam DiVello, who executive-produced and created The Hills, wanted a distinctly different look for the new show.

“We weren’t shooting in paradise, in a perfect beach town,” he says. “Lauren was going into the big city and we wanted to give it a cooler, maybe not as welcoming palette. At the same time, we were showing viewers the same character they were familiar with, so we didn’t want to stray too far from the formula.”

Cinematographer Hisham “Sham” Abed used the same camera and lenses as he did with Laguna Beach: the Panasonic 480-line resolution SDX-900 in 24p mode and native 16:9 aspect ratio and a range of Canon HD lenses. Using the HD lenses gave him more resolving power, with a visible increase in sharpness when focusing, Abed says. “Especially with our intention in obtaining a limited depth of field, the HD lenses were a good choice,” he says. “The critical range of focus is much sharper and the fall-off can be further exaggerated.

“Compared to most ENG cameras, it lets the subject stand out more from the background. The idea is that this is a 180 in terms of the visual approach with a lot of reality shows, where you use a wide-angle lens and follow the subjects closely. We use longer lenses and stay away as far as possible, within limits, to give the subjects an emotional distance from the camera and make them more free to speak.”

That was the same animating concept behind camera and lens choices for Laguna Beach, but The Hills differed in one major aspect: locations. “Laguna Beach is very sunny and warm with an orange cast,” says Abed. “We wanted to make L.A. a little cooler in tone, more blue. If you make the black areas a little more blue, that adds to the effect.”

That’s where color grading comes in. In his da Vinci 2K suite at West Post Digital in Santa Monica, colorist Paul Roman notes that the basic philosophy for both shows was the same (Laguna Beach was colored by Randy Starnes, now president at WestWind Media, and Roman). “Every shot should be a postcard,” he says. “The idea was to have rich looks but be more urban, with cooler blacks.” With a background in commercials and rock videos, Roman says he’s learned that “it’s all about faces.” “I use Power Windows all the time to paint the girl’s face first, make it extraordinary, and then window everything else out and defocus,” he says.

Defocus is used consistently throughout the show, says Roman, to emphasize the feature-film look. “Sham shoots with long lenses, the HD lens, and then I give it the treatment so it looks like a long film lens,” he says. “He’s trying to catch little moments, getting the lighting and framing right. For him to compose the shot and get light on it at all in no time is an enormous feat. I sit in a dark room to polish everything he’s done and take it to a new level.” Roman says executive producer DiVello also plays a big role in approaching “perfection.”

“Adam has an incredible eye,” says Roman. “He picks up nuances, which is unusual. He has an innate skill, and it’s quite interesting to watch his attention to detail.”

“I think a lot of shows depend on the color-correction suite,” says DiVello. “It adds another layer that helps with the storytelling and gives it consistency. Color is as important to this show as it was with Laguna Beach. And we’re happy ‘ and so are the characters ‘ with the way it’s turned out.”