I know instinctively that a warmer image will make the viewer feel more comfortable, while a cooler image will make them feel more unsettled. This removes a lot of the guesswork, and helps me get to a final grade much faster. I try to tap into my mind’s perception of a color (or color combination) before pushing around my palette without any real direction. This is why I find it helpful to visualize a color palette in my mind before even using DaVinci Resolve to color. The feelings any given color evoke in an individual will be similar whether they read the word, hear it spoken, or see it visually on film. The emotional undercurrent of color has nothing to do with cinema and everything to do with our own natural psychology. It might make you think of a blizzard, icy roads, a shiver down your spine.Īnd that’s just based on the word itself, without a visual component. The natural emotion of the word cold is very different. For me, it’s a sunny beach, a hot shower, a relaxing day. Think about what comes to mind when you hear the word warmth. Just looking at the images next to each others creates an entirely different emotion –īoth images above were colored using my CINECOLOR professional LUTs. This is why a romantic comedy is more likely to lean toward warmth, while an action thriller may lean toward cold.īelow is an example of the exact same image graded twice: #1 with a warm palette and #2 with a cool palette. Warm color palettes typically feel inviting and soft, while cold palettes feel more clinical and raw. The further your image’s color balance is skewed in either direction, the more obvious the difference in emotional tone. On the most basic level, you have warmth (orange) on one end of the color spectrum, and cold (blue) on the other end. One of the easiest ways the skew the emotion of your audience is by simply favoring one side of the color spectrum over another. More-so than any other variable on this list, color temperature has the most obvious and immediate impact on the audience’s emotional experience. There is perhaps no better starting place for this discussion than an overview of color temperature. I hope that you use the principles that follow as a guide, but also develop your own methodology through experimentation. Ultimately, you have to follow your gut to arrive at the optimal color palette. It is based on my experience color grading thousands of hours of film, tv, and digital media, but that does not make it absolute. Keep in mind what follows is my personal opinion and philosophy. Just as some create a nostalgic atmosphere while others evoke tension and grit.īelow I’ve broken down each major component of the color grading pipeline – from color temperature to color contrast – explaining how each variable plays a unique role in the emotional experience of your audience. I would place color second only to musical score with respect to its influence on the audience experience.Ĭertain color palettes draw the viewer in and create a sense of comfort, while others isolate the viewer and make them feel disoriented. They must be in creative harmony with the story you’re telling. To leave the biggest mark on your audience, your images can’t just be accurate, they have to say something emotionally. I don’t mean to discount the importance of the technical aspects of color…īut technical accuracy is a starting point, not the finish line. What the audience really cares about, is how your color grade makes them feel. Ultimately, your audience doesn’t care which software you used to color grade your film, or how many hours you spent tinkering with power windows and tracking.Īs filmmakers, we get wrapped up in these technicalities, and they often distract us from the bigger picture. It’s one thing to understand how to color grade on a purely technical level, but it takes a deeper understanding of the psychology of color grading to achieve the greatest emotional impact with your audience.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |