Lighting and Colour Grading

"Color has always been an obsession in movies. Before movies could be shot with color film, colorists hand-tinted, dyed, and stenciled film in order to satisfy the filmmaker’s vision <...> Color continues to be an obsession for filmmakers today because we now have the ability to not only shoot in color but also digitally manipulate any image to any color range our minds can imagine."(Andersson, 2015:337)
For our film, we ended up using one light in the office bit to create a shadow behind our character. Initially, we wanted to film that scene at night but had to compromise for our actress who couldn't stay late. Thus we ended up with a pretty well-lit room where we tried to block out the sunlight. In a way, it worked to our advantage as we wanted that red hue in the office shots. Other than that, for the bar, we ended up using only the lights that were in there as the image looked good and didn't need any changes.
When we were discussing lighting for this project we really wanted to make it more dramatic and colourfull to reflect the character's emotions. After doing some research we decided that the safest bet would be to colour grade it in post rather than try to achieve the wanted look during the production as it would give us more flexibility to make sure that the shots go well together after the edit, as the colour changes throughout the film. To do so we decided to film it quiet flat, especially the office scenes. "A flat image or flat picture style means a setting or image that has very low contrast and low saturation. The point of having less contrast in the original capture footage is that you retain detail in the highlights and shadows that would not be there if it were captured as a highcontrast image"(Andersson, 2015:97).

Figure 1

Our initial mood boards (figure 1) came in handy when making a decision when we were doing colour grading. Our director, Lauren, has also made a colour grading plan to make it easier and to make sure that the instructions are clear (figure 2 and 3).

Figure 2

"As you make decisions regarding coloring for the project, remember that the whole point is to add dimension to your image, tell the story through color, and create a look that fits the project’s style and dramatic tenor. Through symbolic uses of color and controlled color planning, you can tell the story through image alone. Color decisions will show the audience where to look and how to feel and can ultimately shape their entire experience." (Andersson, 2015:344). Personally, I think we managed to do that. You can see the shift in emotion the character is feeling not only through acting and sound but through the colour in the shots.

Figure 3

 Before this project, I've only done some colour correction, which is mainly fixing the footage if the lighting or exposure was bad. Before I wasn't sure about the difference between colour correction and colour grading. Colour grading is more about the creative vision and trying to visualise that using colour(Andersson, 2015:357). Whether it be putting on a red hue to symbolise anger or lowering down the saturation to show how drained the character has become. Colour grading is all about the emotion you want the film to embody and colour correction is about fixing white balance and skin tones.

Bibliography:
Andersson, B. (2015). The DSLR filmmaker's handbook. 2nd ed. Indianapolis: John Wiley & Sons.