The Look of 'Watchmen'?

[Mathieu Ghekiere]

Hello,

a while ago I saw Watchmen and I was pleasantly surprised by the movie - after hating 300 and finding it to be one of the most overhyped movies ever.

I really liked the look of the movie. I know many of it is of course set design and choosing the right colors in costumes and sets. But it had a pretty distinct look too, and if you look at the making of footage, there seem to be a whole lot of color correction done too. It's especially there that I'm interested in.

Can anyone say, maybe in general terms, how to get that look or what they probably have done to get that look? I'm not necissarily looking how to replicate it, but I'm curious to know what are for instance the things the colorist did to get the look. Skin tones seem desaturated, and it seems to have a pretty high contrast.
But are there other things? I'm not a professional colourist by any chance, just interested.

Thanks and best regards,

 

[Robert Trim]

I'd be interested in this as well. I have a student who wants to shoot a short and have a very stylized look. He's interested in what to think about on set lighting and then post processing.
Thanks.

 

[Manuel Wenger]

The look of Watchmen follows the look of some other Comic novels wich got to big screen. Of course set design and lighting allready plays a major role in this, i can´t think of any red or orange props in the movie except in the scenes where there is fire involved.
The chose a muted color palette through the whole production. You´ll see mainly blueish, greenish and a lot of muted colors.
In color correction I´m quite sure they crushed a lot of blacks to get that dark feeling.
Highlight got pushed in the blueish direction and midtones as well.
You´re right with the desaturation, look at the sequence at the funeral when they show the US Flag close, there is almost no red in the flag left over.

A good start for getting deeper into looks and coloring take a look here:
http://www.redgiantsoftware.com/videos/tutorials/#magic-bullet-looks

search for Episode 22, creating a summer blockbuster look

hope that helps to get you started
Manuel

 

[Mathieu Ghekiere]

Thanks Manuel.

I already have Magic Bullet Looks, so the video is definately interesting.

 

[Jeffrey T. Morgan]

damn damn damn. just wrote a huge answer, all proud, then web glitch. I will now sum up:

Manuel half way there, IMHO

secondary color scheme ( orange, green, purple ) high saturation, medium brightness, matte clothing and backgrounds.

Noir Lighting (watch in Black and White to seperate that aspect for study). Textures. Dirty Frames. Strong clean image, mess with in post.

Magic Bullet Looks and Color great.

sample of clean image having most latitude:

http://www.redgiantsoftware.com/products/all/magic-bullet-looks/

 

[Jeffrey T. Morgan]

That magic bullet link that Manuel gave is as perfect a link as ever given for a question, good one!

Jeff