Color grading is an important aesthetic element of film, probably only second to sound. You can use color grading to effect lighting, the color of the film and subsequently the mood of the film. Different films have different color grades that help express the emotion of the film. Here are a few examples.
Terminator Salvation:
Notice how the colors are washed out. I believed some type of bleach bypass look was used. The stark coloring helps sell the story of a post-apocalyptic earth.
Where the Wild Things Are:
The colors are saturated to the point where people are flesh colored and the rest of the world has a teal tint.
The Matrix
The saturation is turned down, almost to a black and white. The movie takes on a very dark and stark tone, which help sell the setting of the movie.
As you see, color grading is an important aspect of film. Imagine watching The Matrix where all the colors pop off the screen and everything is in great detail. It would take away from the movie.
In this era of HD video, everyone is going for the 720 HD look, however HD video is almost too clean for movies. I shot my documentary “The Bay” in 720 HD however I used color correction and a Gaussian blur to diffuse the look of the movie. If I knew what I know now, I may had had done even further color correction to create a tone of the film with color grading.
As independent filmmakers we have access to color grading software as part of the editing suites we posses or as stand alone products. I advise you to use color grading in your future projects to help tell your story. We are in an era in which cinematography and color grading are merging to create the same effect on a film.
Now go make a movie!
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