Color: Visual Music
O Brother Where Art Thou? (2000) - First Feature to use DI Process
By: Kyle Prohaska
Color is a powerful tool in creating your films and videos. Lots of beginners just assume that having a certain look in your film means success and that simply isn’t the case. Color can make or break a film. If implemented poorly, your viewer (regardless of the other factors quality) can become distracted. I have a very sensitive eye when it comes to those things. For the average joe I think the effects of color on the brain is unknown to them. They don’t know why certain scenes or looks in films make them feel things. It goes over their head. Regardless it does its job when done properly, subconsciously or not it means a great deal for your film.
The ability to push color in post is so much easier than it used to be. Film used to be chemically altered to achieve certain looks, and some people prefer this method still. A DI (Digital Intermediate) is much more common and used almost all the time now. This allows the film (or if you shot digitally your already in the digital world) to be altered in the computer using software to change colors. It might be as simple as a saturation boost, but the fact you can pick a slider and instantly alter your footage for the better or worse means you have a powerful tool in your hand. Just a tweak here or there can mean big things for your footage.
If you shot flat on you camera then there are some things that are common to change. Shooting flat means shooting your footage with lowered contrast and color, more in a neutral setting. Normally flat footage isn’t the most beautiful stuff to look at and looks bland. However it allows a lot more control in post to adjust your values.
What can you do to instantly make your footage look better? This is a tough call because it depends on what your looking for but if your just looking for nice rich looking shots your best bet is to optimize the contrast in the image, crushing blacks if necessary…and adjusting saturation to your liking. If your white balance and other things are correct this really gets you a long ways in terms of making the footage more beautiful. In my opinion there is nothing worse than flat, milky looking footage with no contrast and grey looking blacks. I like deep, rich color.
Pleasantville (1998) - One of the first films to use selective CC using
Rotoscoping & other advanced computer techniques.
As the title of this article states, color is visual music. Remember the last time a sunset made you all fuzzy inside? It looks beautiful because the mixes of oranges, reds, and yellows gives your brain something to respond to. The same goes for your film/video. Just like a film score fits the story and sets a mood, the color does the same. A film set in the wild west probably wouldn’t look right if it was given the “Saving Private Ryan” look with tinted grey scales, adding slight desaturated and green to the image. It might fit but odds are it doesn’t. Pick a color scheme in your film that fits the story and the movement of the story.
Lighting is a big part of making this successful but that’s a different article. Use the power of color to create contrast in your story. If your hero is being beaten up by the enemy only to die and end up in heaven, wouldn’t it be very effective to light/color your footage gritty and darker only to present the audience with well balanced, brightly lit, rich and saturated visuals afterwards? It would be like a punch in the face. Tell the story with color, present what you need to say just like you do with actors and with camera movement, but use color. Factor it all in, and don’t leave anything to chance.
Do your film a favor and consider what kind of color the film should have. Don’t just assume you’ll figure it out later, bring it in beforehand. Your lighting and color will go hand in hand towards the end. Make sure you decide what is best for your film and stick to it. Only so much can be done in post. Color correction can fix images but only in certain circumstances. Color-correction won’t really fix bad lighting or lighting that doesn’t gel with the kind of correction you want to add later.
Don’t forget to consider the format you are shooting in. This will depend on the kind of camera you have and the settings you choose. Some codecs are limited in their ability to be corrected. Sooner or later, some codecs fall apart and show digital chunks and other exciting anomalies. Keep this in mind as well. The Canon XHA1 (used to shoot Standing Firm) had a custom preset applied that was to my liking. This way the footage turned out almost 100% like I wanted before it hit the tape and became compressed with the HDV codec. This was the ideal way to go since correction on the film is minimal. Using the preset also saved time in post that would be spent color timing the entire film. For those of you that are on a tight schedule or are spending more money on films, saved time = saved money.
Other factors that can affect the color in your film is your environments, production design, and clothing. It’s interesting how film brings in all other forms of art into a sort of community. Every factor hangs on another. Where you shoot will determine a lot in the end for your film. Keep in mind the texture and atmosphere your sets/locations give away in terms of their color (shape as well and structure). What people where will be a big deal. Does it work well with the locations you’ll be putting them in? Would it be wise to put your male lead in a green shirt among the jungle leaves? Unless you want a floating head bobbing about I suggest not. Create contrast within the frame as much as you can before you hit the editing suite. Being a tech geek will only get you so far.
Color is just another tool a filmmaker has in his arsenal to tell his story, so take advantage of it. With the many different tools available in your editing packages already there is no excuse. Approach the color used in your film just like you would any other aspect of it, with purpose, intelligence, heavy thought, and with strong ties to your story.
