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What do you think of these color graded looks?

H

harmonica44

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A lot of the shots look good and the color grading is great , but Frankly it really all depends on your story .

Is it a dark thriller ?

Is it a comedy ?

Is it a drama or a horror ?

I know you said it is a thriller but really it is not enough , you really need to decide what look you are going for , for example in The Matrix everything is kinda green , but in a J.J Abrams movie like Super 8 everything is blueish .

Also in the first shot the blueish tone might work but once you get in the trees for example it really looks like your white balance is off .

We need more information buddy .
 
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sfoster said:
You don't even necessarily need a tripod..
People that are filming wildlife need to set up very quickly, and they carry around a camera attached to a single pole.. then they just stab that into the ground and hold it from falling sideways
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For DSLR video, you need some sort of stabilization system. A tripod is a good place to start, but it really depends on what and how you shoot.

Also, I believe the pole you are referring to is a monopod. That works fine as well.
 
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Well most DPs and camera operators have tripods, so I figure when it comes to getting one to work with me, we might as well use theirs. I already know two already who have their own, so I figured at this point, their is no need for me to purchase my own, when they will use theirs, which they are experienced with, come production time. The reason why I am practicing my own looks, is so I know what I can get for the locations I have available.

The two people I know are good at moving the camera and operating it, but they don't know a lot about color, so I want to explore the looks I want to achieve on my own, so I can make sure it's being done right later.

I thought the video around 0:59 was possibly the best of those looks as well. It has a little less blue in compared to the first.

In the second video, I like the first look. However when I (that's me), walk from one light, then into the next, in between lights when it is dark, the color becomes almost completely desaturated into black and white almost. You then see the blue form around my eyes, and slowly grow around my face, as I walk into the blue light. This looks unnatural and just off. Would I have to color grade, in between the two lights so it's not so desaturated in the shade areas, if I choose to film a scene there with that color grading?

As far as more information goes, not sure which thriller short yet, but me and my collaborators have writing a couple and deciding on things like the look as we go. I will be directing so I get to choose the look. I don't see a reason to make it all green like the Matrix or all blue like Super 8, but the blue I experimented with there, will just help give a thriller a more gritty look, or at least that's what I aim for. That's just one look I like, but I wouldn't use it for a whole movie. The sunnier looking graded shots will be used for scenes of different tone. I want to aim for gritty and dark suspense thrillers, especially on a microbudgets where you need drama over action to engage. I figured that if I want to work in a certain genre of film in the future, I should aim my shorts towards that genre. Which is why you never see people like James Wan directing comedies and romances for example.
 
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Color grading is a tool to help further push tone, time, and environment of the film.

If you made a short film using the grading techniques in the video, then maybe it would be easier to give an answer.
 
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Exactly. It looks like you did a good at subtly altering the colors. Many users go way too overboard IMO in grading. Every now and then you get a film that makes sense to do it in, see 300.

All in all everyone is right, without context we can't really tell you how 'well' you did. But the art of subtlety is a fine skill to have.

ChimpPhobiaFilms said:
Color grading is a tool to help further push tone, time, and environment of the film.

If you made a short film using the grading techniques in the video, then maybe it would be easier to give an answer.
Click to expand...
 
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Okay thanks. Before I do a short film though, I would like to have an idea of what it should look like beforehand though, so I get it right. That's why I posted them as sort of a pre judge, before I get cast and crew and shoot it.

I just wanted to know if the color grading looked good, or looked professional enough. Like I mentioned how when I walk into the shade in one, the color almost goes to black and white, and looks off, until I go back into the light. I thought that one might be a 'fail', for example. I just wanted to know which ones are good, which ones would not pass with people critiquing it, if I stuck a short film in a demo reel. I was hoping to get answers not based on so much on the context of the look, but based on what did I did in the grading technically.
 
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I think I said this in another thread. I don't think you fully understand the art of color grading. There are so many different ways to achieve looks, it's not necessarily a tweak a few colors and go. There are "Primary" corrections, and "secondary" corrections. You can use different tools to grade the background, while still maintaing nice skin tones. I'm only saying there's more to it, then just adjusting colors over the whole shot.

I think your on the right path, trying to figure things out. But as I said before, there's so much more in the colorist toolset, that can help achieve looks.
 
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taylp said:
Exactly. It looks like you did a good at subtly altering the colors. Many users go way too overboard IMO in grading. Every now and then you get a film that makes sense to do it in, see 300.

All in all everyone is right, without context we can't really tell you how 'well' you did. But the art of subtlety is a fine skill to have.






Taylor

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Hello Taylor! Welcome to IndieTalk :cool:
 
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Jeff Troiano said:
I think I said this in another thread. I don't think you fully understand the art of color grading. There are so many different ways to achieve looks, it's not necessarily a tweak a few colors and go. There are "Primary" corrections, and "secondary" corrections. You can use different tools to grade the background, while still maintaing nice skin tones. I'm only saying there's more to it, then just adjusting colors over the whole shot.

I think your on the right path, trying to figure things out. But as I said before, there's so much more in the colorist toolset, that can help achieve looks.
Click to expand...

Yep you said that before. I am far from advanced though and still getting the hang of it. Since I am taking on a lot of the tasks myself, I don't have as much time as a larger crew would. I don't want to spend months in post or even a year on one 10 minute short of course. I was told before that on microbudgets you have to compromise and I think not taking as long on a lot of the tasks is part of the compromise.

My friends who are making their feature, have to shoot for 3 hour day shoots, instead of a 12-16 hours on bigger budgets for example. I don't want to put off the work that is required but I don't want to take a whole year for a short as well. If I make a feature, the post work would take a lot of years in comparison.

Not that I can't do more with the grading of course. I will try more in my looks. I kept on expirementing with these shots before I posted them. But a lot of what I played around with in color grading, either I couldn't make look good, or it did look good, but didn't really add anything significant, so I just decided to leave a lot out. I could do more with the background though, but that would take a lot more time, to work on the background and foreground separately and I would have to take a lot of time off for that, and would miss out on helping out on other people's projects as well. Once I get more experienced, color grading should come faster to me, but I want to get making movies, and not spend a lot of my life learning the grading. I don't mean to sound lazy, but I just want to start making shorts and completing them, whilst gaining experience with others as well. What if I keep playing around with the color grading, but still can't come up with anything that adds anything significant, do you just decide the look is done and move on?
 
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You say: "it doesn't really add anything."
That's because there is no context of story and/or sound.
It's within a story that color 'adds' to it.

Like I've suggesting for years by now:
make something really short (1 or 2 minutes) that can be shot in 1 day with 1 or 2 actors.

And/or:
make something without actors and without cameramovements, so you can use a cheap tripod.
Make it a poetic portrait of your town waking up in the morning.
Keep it short.

It will give you real footage to play around with grading and it increases your credability during casting/recruiting.
As a bonus you'll get more experience in every aspect of filmmaking without spending a year on it.
Challenge yourself and make something within 5 weeks.

Timetable:
1 week writing a simple story. (Like: sad girl wanders in the street, a short flashback tells you what happens: it's moe about creating a mood that a round story. Or: guy needs to be in time for a date, but a lot of obstacles are in the way.)
During the proces you start contacting actors you already know.
2 weeks for casting, recruiting and fixing locations.
1 day shooting.
1 or 2 weeks to edit and finish.

And a week later you write down what problems you ran into, what you want to do differently next time and what went well.

(In artschool we often got 2 or 3 weeks to produce something, during our first year. At the same time we had to go to 36 hours of class a week, make all kind of other assignments as well and we had no clue about colorgrading...)
 
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But H44 we had a long thread about shooting neutral and I'm sure you can guess what I'm gong to say - shoot your short in neutral. I would not worry about color grading yet.

As others have said, the story is key. Combine a killer story with good acting, visuals and audio and you'll have a damn good short.

I may read this thread later but I won't be contributing more - you need to get away from the tech.
 
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