How can I achieve this color correction style?

lightcameraction said:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKZfAQ7L_WM Please go to 5:55 .


This is a lot like some Wes Anderson look. I 'm not trying to be Wes Anderson but this is like a must for one of my scenes , I would love to get that look . Im shooting after 2 days and I would like you to give me some tips for set and post on how to achieve it .

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They used Magic Bullet's Looks for this film. It was a promo by the company to display the different styles that looks comes with. It is sold separately or as part of the Magic Bullet Suite. The Suite is $800 or $400 for the academic version. Hope that helps.

Looks like pretty standard secondary color correction you see in lots of films these days where the shadows are pushed into the blue color space, and highlights are pulled into the orange color space (to maintain 'normal' skin tones).

It also looks like the background has less contrast, and possibly lower color saturation. There's certainly additional compositing going on here (lens flares, and possibly the reactive lighting on his face for example) I am somewhat suspect of the latter portion of the clip you're referencing to actually be a total composite, with the main character acting in front of a green screen, and the BG footage added in post.


This kind of color correction is pretty easy to achieve with a 3-way color wheel corrector, but can be done with curves and whatnot as well. I suppose it would all depend on what tools you have available to you.

As the clip you're referencing is tagged at the beginning as being a Red Giant thing, almost certainly they used Colorista for the color correction, and various other plugins for some of the other effects.


Incidentally, if you have access to after effects, the DV Rebel's book comes with a preset called the 'Rebel CC' which gives you access to a lot of this type of color correction without additional plugins -- but the plugins make things easier, and since they operate in higher colorspace (32bit) they do a better job. But, here's a video about the Rebel CC: http://blip.tv/prolost-tv/pltv-0001-rebel-cc-93760 and the book, which if you don't have, you should buy...

http://www.redgiantsoftware.com/videos/redgianttv/item/140/

That episode they supposably talk about color correcting for the film.

Thank you very much for your fast answers you kind sirs !

Yes I do have After Effects , I actually have Magic bullet looks and colorista as well .

Yes in the Plot Device's BTS video they talk about the Color correction but they actually don't show a lot about that kind of style.


What can you say about this color correction style?


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=http://www.youtube.com/watch?annotation_id=annotation_448503&feature=iv&src_vid=e2TShycKpmE&v=7N8wkVA4_8s

lightcameraction said:

What can you say about this color correction style?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7N8wkVA4_8s

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Well, the image is quite warm. Looks like everything (shadows and all) are being pushed toward the yellow/green color space.

I would guess the use of warming filters and possibly emulation of color reversal stock. All of which can be done very easily with MB Looks to virgin footage.

Is there something in particular that you're trying to achieve?

Well I'm 16 and I'm currently doing my first short film .

It is like a fantasy/family and maybe 'creepy' film . The first part is outside a house ,where a girl is getting money for charity and knocks on every single door . It is 1960 style . I don't want dark horror look from the begining,I want warm and nice look just untill she gets into the house where the horror/creepy part take place.

I don't know if anyone else had the same experience,but 10 years ago there was a house in my street which just scared the crap out of me .So I decided that this will be a pretty good first story to tell . So I asked the people there,who let me use the house and what not .

Not sure you got anything from that..But that was my main idea.

I remember there was an animation 'Monster House' which had something similar .

A good resource on this is www.colorgradingcentral.com
Have a look!

For the first example you provided at 5:55 -- the contrast is taken way out of the image. Notice how the blacks are now grey instead of black. Also, the whites are pulled way down. There's no pure white whatsoever in the shot. These can both be done easily in the FCP 3 wheel color correction filter.

It also helps to shoot super early in the day, before the sun gets above you and starts to cast harsh shadows. Either that, or pick a cloudy day to shoot.

They also seem to have added a blue gradient over the image on another video layer, then they set the composite to Overlay. That's what makes the sky look very dynamic, but if you look closely you can see that it affects the trees too.