Blue/cyan typical movie look how to?

[kunal Jankee]

Hello dear folks,
First my apology if this has been answered before, I was just wondering how to achieve those nice blue/cyan toning in shadows and highlights found in almost all American movies and without sacrifying other colors like skin tone etc,sometimes you can still find the presence in very warm scenes,I know there are some very high end color timing solution involve,but does someone know any cheapy method to achieve the same look with softwares like photoshop video function or aftereffects,movies I took reference are" Knowing" and partly "Che",
Thanking in advance,
Excuse my English
Kunal

 

[kunal Jankee]

Surprisingly both movies I did mention were shot on RedOne

 

[Adrian T.]

http://library.creativecow.net/articles/maschwitz_stu/red-giant-blockbuster-film-look/video-tutorial.php

 

[kunal Jankee]

Thank you very much Adrian T. you make my day

 

[Pietro Impagliazzo]

Study digital color correction, practice, practice.

http://www.amazon.com/Art-Technique-Digital-Color-Correction/dp/0240809904

 

[Emiliano Ranzani]

In Apple Color, I generally obtain it by twiching the bottom of the Red Curve in the Primary Out - by doing so, you reduce the amount of Red in the blacks and shadows, thus leaving only Green and Blue (and the mix of the two of them approximatively gives you Cyan). You can then keep grading the amount of "cyan" (more blue or more green) by working on the two remaining colours curves. The final output of course depends on how much saturated is the clip (if you reduce saturation, the Cyan shadows will pop out more).

Or, at least, this is the way I do it - any other suggestions?

 

[Stefan Christou]

I think gradient masks are a great way to grade stills (by using masks and adjusting the fill), not sure how that translates in to programs like Color, but what Stu M illustrates is the artistic principles behind the grading choices that are made, which is the most important thing, because any grade is technically possible (within reason), as long as you know what you are trying to achieve.

 

[Emiliano Ranzani]

but what Stu M

Who's Stu M?

 

[Pietro Impagliazzo]

Who's Stu M?

The guy from the tutorial posted up there.

 

[Emiliano Ranzani]

I see.

 

[Justin K Phillips]

So wait...they're grading today's summer blockbusters to look like old 2-strip technicolor?

 

[Emiliano Ranzani]

So wait...they're grading today's summer blockbusters to look like old 2-strip technicolor?

We're talking about the shadows, not the whole curve.

 

[DCC Erickson]

http://library.creativecow.net/articles/maschwitz_stu/red-giant-blockbuster-film-look/video-tutorial.php

Great tutorial

 

[Justin K Phillips]

We're talking about the shadows, not the whole curve.

Maybe so, but take a look at Mystery of the Wax Museum (1933) and tell me you don't see any similarities. I'm comparing to the clips in the tutorial video a few posts back.

 

[Emiliano Ranzani]

Maybe so, but take a look at Mystery of the Wax Museum (1933) and tell me you don't see any similarities. I'm comparing to the clips in the tutorial video a few posts back.

You mean this?

http://http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=utBRHZLuMco

Well, despite the improvement in film-stock and post-production tools in general, I'd say many modern movies are ripping off that look, consciously or not...and I guess nobody can deny it looks cool.

As for the stuff showed in the tutorials, yeah, that's pretty much it, even though I am not wild about the skin tones.

 

[Pietro Impagliazzo]

I'd say all the looks the guy did there lacked the natural skintones the big movies had (even though they were all nice).

Post time and budget to roto every face in every shot to tone down the grading on the faces a little? Lighting with the look already in mind on-set? Crappy video footage with crappy chroma compression? I don't know... Maybe all of this.

 

[Pat]

Post time and budget to roto every face in every shot to tone down the grading on the faces a little?

Actually, it's called "secondary color correction". You squash the colors all around, then grab the original skintones and move them back towards more normal colors.

Nice post about secondaries and their overuse here:
http://prolost.com/blog/2008/3/23/save-our-skins.html

Todays film frames are full of multiple secondaries, something Stu unfortunately didn't demonstrate in that tutorial.

 

[Pietro Impagliazzo]

Thanks for the reminder Pat.

And he didn't demonstrate because those applications are not natively capable of secondaries, however I'm pretty sure within AE that wouldn't be much of a hassle.

 

[Emiliano Ranzani]

Actually, it's called "secondary color correction". You squash the colors all around, then grab the original skintones and move them back towards more normal colors.

Nice post about secondaries and their overuse here:
http://prolost.com/blog/2008/3/23/save-our-skins.html

Todays film frames are full of multiple secondaries, something Stu unfortunately didn't demonstrate in that tutorial.

Yeah, one of the reasons why I love Color is its step-based interface (primary in, secondary in, primary out etc.), forcing you to keep the various cc's in consideration.

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Todays film frames are full of multiple secondaries, something Stu unfortunately didn't demonstrate in that tutorial.

He didn't demonstrate, but he did mention that the big film guys are not shy about their power windows / secondaries, etc.. You have to take the tutorial for what it is, a basic introduction of principle. You're not going to grade a shot to have the over-saturated, high-gloss look of Transformers in just 30 seconds with Colorista.

That said, I don't think the Transformers look has truly natural skin tones, they are a bit over-amped. The grade used on Pelham 123 looked like crap, IMO and Stu's quick approximation wasn't that far off other than fine-tuning skin tones..

It also helps to shoot for the desired look.