Grading the look.

[Ryan McNeal]

I am always pushing the filmmakers I work with to be more bold. Bold styles are rewarded over and over again and set new trends. Most people want to play it safe. You need to find a way to be bold and still have the content be watchable in terms of not alienating your audience, but, even then, making the audience uncomfortable is a tool for the right project. If it serves the story and the psychology of the characters, go for it.

At first glance, I love the intensity, my gut is telling me maybe it's a bit too sharp. I dislike feeling sharpening as an effect, for me it breaks the immersion when I become over-aware of one tool or technique being used. But if you and the filmmakers love it, it's perfectly valid. One technique I have used is one I stole from the hobbit films, but I thought it was interesting. I qualify the top highlights at the end of my look and sharpen them slightly and boost them slightly. If you look at some stills from the Hobbit films, you'll see the effect. Its a slightly nicer control on sharpness so that it doesn't feel over-all.

On a technical note, heavier looks like this require a lot of work to sculpt per setup. I've done a lot of indie features, and a few of them have had incredibly heavy looks and they can easily take me 10-15 days to finish on time, vs a more standard look film usually takes 5-7 days for me to have polished and approved. On the business of color, always something to consider unfortunately. You don't want to paint yourself into a corner on the work, especially if it is a team of filmmakers that won't appreciate it.

 

[Rajneesh Kassin]

The question that bothers me is, what is my suit when I take off all the suits I have worn?

I have no idea what that means. Use the Still-Frame Look sites as inspiration. You don't have to slavishly follow everything they did. I had a director late last year tell me, "we want this to look like John Wick," and I almost laughed in his face. I explained to him they had 40 or 50 people on the lighting and grip crew on that film and 5 months to shoot it. They had a little indie film shot in 3 weeks -- it's not the same thing. He seemed unaware that a lot of the great looks in John Wick were actually done on set, like colored slashes of lighting on the wall, heavy color-contrast gels on the faces in the foreground, etc. It's not all done in post, though certainly colorist Jill Bogdanowicz did a great job on those movies.

I try not to have a style myself, but instead find what the cinematographer's style is, embrace that look, and then do everything I can to bring out the best in it and make it absolutely consistent. If they want a radical change during final color, that's a different story, but it'll take a lot longer.

 

[Rajneesh Kassin]

I am always pushing the filmmakers I work with to be more bold. Bold styles are rewarded over and over again and set new trends. Most people want to play it safe. You need to find a way to be bold and still have the content be watchable in terms of not alienating your audience, but, even then, making the audience uncomfortable is a tool for the right project. If it serves the story and the psychology of the characters, go for it.

At first glance, I love the intensity, my gut is telling me maybe it's a bit too sharp. I dislike feeling sharpening as an effect, for me it breaks the immersion when I become over-aware of one tool or technique being used. But if you and the filmmakers love it, it's perfectly valid. One technique I have used is one I stole from the hobbit films, but I thought it was interesting. I qualify the top highlights at the end of my look and sharpen them slightly and boost them slightly. If you look at some stills from the Hobbit films, you'll see the effect. Its a slightly nicer control on sharpness so that it doesn't feel over-all.

On a technical note, heavier looks like this require a lot of work to sculpt per setup. I've done a lot of indie features, and a few of them have had incredibly heavy looks and they can easily take me 10-15 days to finish on time, vs a more standard look film usually takes 5-7 days for me to have polished and approved. On the business of color, always something to consider unfortunately. You don't want to paint yourself into a corner on the work, especially if it is a team of filmmakers that won't appreciate it.

Great advice from Ryan as always, and I agree 100%. What also helps is for the filmmakers to have a clear vision of what they want to see. If they start out the conversation by saying, "show me something interesting," I know we're in trouble. A lot of what I do has challenging schedules -- it's rare that I get 100+ hours on a feature -- but if the budget allows it, I'll do the work.

I constantly complain about neophyte DPs who basically light the room but not the people in it, and I wind up having to essentially relight every single scene so we can see the actors. And I have to flag off a lot of spill light in the backgrounds, which should have been done on the day, on set. This can get agonizingly slow, but generally the filmmakers do see the improvement and they are very grateful.

 

[Michael Weinheim]

What's your approach Al? I always love hearing from people who have a track record of great work in their field of expertise (and I don't even mean winning awards).

I recently watched a series of podcasts with top music mixing engineers, who all worked on some of the most popular music and albums. They all agree on certain fundamentals but also all have their own ways of getting there. I find this to be the case in most creative fields of expertise. The problem today is identifying the ones with actual competence, e.g. YouTube is flooded with posturers and even con-men.

 

[Bogoljub Milovanoski]

I would blur this heavily and focus on the colors since the sharpening is distracting. The lighting itself would have to be stylized. Key yellow, fill red. You couldn't really do this in post without a lot of work, however once you light it well, you can grade the extreme intensity in with the new Color Slice Tool in Resolve and then overcook it with strong values. and finally, add sharpening if desired. Honestly though, I think something that sharp would cause a headache as it crosses the uncanny valley into stylized anime.

Thank you so much, Chris. Apologies for the delay, I've been a bit tied up, but this was important for me.
I’ve been thinking a lot about how to pull this off practically. Baking those extreme colors in on set with the lighting is exactly the route I'll take, and I will test out the Resolve workflow you suggested. I will be careful about the uncanny valley and the sharpness as I test the look.

I am very grateful for this advice, as I really needed a clearer direction on how to actually execute this approach. Thanks again.

 

[Bogoljub Milovanoski]

A bit late to the discussion, but I'm with Alastor, I like it. With these types of strong looks it's often more challenging to achieve some level of consistency across shots and scenes but that should not stop you, especially if it's your own project. On 'client work' we sometimes lean into something more familiar, conventional, conservative. But also safe. Not every film needs or could tolerate an adventurous visual approach, but if it's on, go for it. I'm somewhat reminded be the work of my friend Reinier van Brummelen who recently passed away but as a cinematographer and colorist was always pushing the boundaries - sometimes leaving me a little uncomfortable in a good way, but always pushing me to go further.

I was trying to find examples from the dutch film Ataraxia (2013) but there's not much around.

Stichting Xpositron » Sander Blom

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2195418/mediaviewer/rm3747949312/

One thing you'll find is that heavy treatments are 'easier' to achieve on stills vs moving images where temporal instability may result in all kinds of artefacting which may lead you to toning it down. Shooting as clean as possible, avoiding noise, compression, and further denoising prior to grading will help a lot.

Good luck, and have fun!

Oh, and as I tell my students all the time: if you like what you see (assuming you can trust your display...), it's good. There is no right or wrong.

Thank you so much, Barend. I am very sorry for the loss of your friend, Reinier van Brummelen. I would love to watch some of his work to appreciate his vision. I found his IMDb page here (https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0115956/), and if you have any personal favorites of his that you recommend I watch, I would be very grateful.

I was searching for Ataraxia (2013) last night but couldn’t track it down. I will search for it again today.

I am trying my best to respect all the technical directions given to me here, though my time is limited with other responsibilities. I will follow your specific advice on “shooting as clean as possible, avoiding noise, compression, and further denoising prior to grading” for sure.

I am very thankful for your encouragement to experiment and be free. It truly puts a smile on my face.

And YES!!! I will definitely have fun!

 

[Bogoljub Milovanoski]

I am always pushing the filmmakers I work with to be more bold. Bold styles are rewarded over and over again and set new trends. Most people want to play it safe. You need to find a way to be bold and still have the content be watchable in terms of not alienating your audience, but, even then, making the audience uncomfortable is a tool for the right project. If it serves the story and the psychology of the characters, go for it.

At first glance, I love the intensity, my gut is telling me maybe it's a bit too sharp. I dislike feeling sharpening as an effect, for me it breaks the immersion when I become over-aware of one tool or technique being used. But if you and the filmmakers love it, it's perfectly valid. One technique I have used is one I stole from the hobbit films, but I thought it was interesting. I qualify the top highlights at the end of my look and sharpen them slightly and boost them slightly. If you look at some stills from the Hobbit films, you'll see the effect. Its a slightly nicer control on sharpness so that it doesn't feel over-all.

On a technical note, heavier looks like this require a lot of work to sculpt per setup. I've done a lot of indie features, and a few of them have had incredibly heavy looks and they can easily take me 10-15 days to finish on time, vs a more standard look film usually takes 5-7 days for me to have polished and approved. On the business of color, always something to consider unfortunately. You don't want to paint yourself into a corner on the work, especially if it is a team of filmmakers that won't appreciate it.

Thank you very much, Ryan, for all the advice in your comment. I am going to check out The Hobbit films to see if I can find some ideas for the sharpening. I’ve been kind of obsessed with hyper detailed, dirty, rough images lately.

I am most thankful for your point about “becoming over-aware of one tool or technique being used.” I had forgotten about that. I never like it when I observe an art piece and I immediately figure out the process. You want to know how it was made. You see a piece that is awesome (complicated or not), and you want to know the artist’s process, tools, and techniques behind the work. It reminds me why I don’t like Ai now. There is no human cleverness in the process, no matter how good the image looks. There is no one to admire.

You gave me a lot of good advice and ideas, support to experiment, and a reality check to keep in mind the practicality of the task I gave myself. Apologies for the late response, I've been buried in work. Thanks again, I hope this reply is respectful of the advice you shared.

 

[Clark Bierbaum]

@Bogljub Milovanoski always serve the story. I watched “Oh Brother Where Art Thou” on Criterion Channel for the first time in a long time and still love the grade and the movie, it was pretty mind blowing when it came out but it holds up. The intensity in the scenes is matched by the intensity of the grade and the fantastic nature of the story is shown in the visuals as well. As someone that grew up in the southeastern US and lives here now the oppressive heat when outside in the country in the summer dialed into the grade can be felt on the screen by someone watching in Northern Europe in the winter, this serves the story well.

I wasn’t often able to explore as my clients were pretty “down the middle” but always enjoyed the chance to explore with those that were more adventurous.

The grade you presented would likely work for a spot or short but for long for might become visually tiring. Also may cause “ringing” as others have said.

Keep experimenting and growing!

 

[Michael Weinheim]

always serve the story.

That's how it should be but then I tune in any Netflix Originals show and it seems they all just serve the same network guidelines.

 

[Bogoljub Milovanoski]

@Bogljub Milovanoski always serve the story. I watched “Oh Brother Where Art Thou” on Criterion Channel for the first time in a long time and still love the grade and the movie, it was pretty mind blowing when it came out but it holds up. The intensity in the scenes is matched by the intensity of the grade and the fantastic nature of the story is shown in the visuals as well. As someone that grew up in the southeastern US and lives here now the oppressive heat when outside in the country in the summer dialed into the grade can be felt on the screen by someone watching in Northern Europe in the winter, this serves the story well.

I wasn’t often able to explore as my clients were pretty “down the middle” but always enjoyed the chance to explore with those that were more adventurous.

The grade you presented would likely work for a spot or short but for long for might become visually tiring. Also may cause “ringing” as others have said.

Keep experimenting and growing!

Thank you, Clark. I share the same fear. The story I'm writing is an existential, psychological, absurd, soft tragi-comedy about the boredom of life without meaning. The look should be surreal, but I worry that combining that with a heavy, hard color grade might make it very uninviting for a viewer.

Sometimes I look at the script and think about the reality of getting a feature funded. People need to be paid, and it is a huge challenge to convince a fund to back such an extreme experiment. Do people have the patience for these kinds of movies today?

Tomorrow there is a film festival with indie moviemakers from around the area. I’m going with my friend to meet and debate with some of them about the practicality of experimenting, hoping to find some kind of solution. How extreme can movie experiments be today and still be watched or desired?

By the way, last night some clips from a Hong Kong director Wong Kar Wai popped up on my feed. Oh my god, I haven't seen such beautiful, wild shots in a long time. He seems to be from the 90s. I wanna watch some of his movies now. Thank you again, Clark, for the advice and the support to keep experimenting and growing.

 

[Clark Bierbaum]

That's how it should be but then I tune in any Netflix Originals show and it seems they all just serve the same network guidelines.

I’ve graded several TV movies for Hallmark, IYKYK, and the check cashed. It is, and always will be, the Entertainment BUSINESS. Accept and look for indie projects and drop your rates to stretch your creativity, some of the work I am most proud of I billed the least for. This takes a careful qualifying of the client up front to determine if they are looking for a collaborator or a button pusher / dial turner.

 

[Clark Bierbaum]

but I worry that combining that with a heavy, hard color grade might make it very uninviting for a viewer.
I can only say that some of the best cinema / TV grades were ground breaking. “No Country for Old Men,” “Black Hawk Down,” “Band of Brothers,” “Three Kings,”Amélie,” “Scindlers List”, the original and on and on, I know I’m older but these were some of the films and series really got me thinking about grading and story telling. Recently I saw, for the first time, “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,” crazy film and the grade matched the madness. If the subject matter is uninviting, the grade should cause stress as well, IMHO. Not that the stress should be maintained throughout but, like a music score, should heighten the audience reaction.

As we enter an era of entertainment AI enshittification I think audiences will reward REAL emotion expressed by real humans in all aspects of a production and a few will push those boundaries. The reward may not be immediate but will be appreciated long term. I know this may not feed your family or put a roof over your head so make sure that you have other projects to pay the bills.

Best to you on your journey!

 

[Bogoljub Milovanoski]

As we enter an era of entertainment AI enshittification I think audiences will reward REAL emotion expressed by real humans in all aspects of a production and a few will push those boundaries. The reward may not be immediate but will be appreciated long term. I know this may not feed your family or put a roof over your head so make sure that you have other projects to pay the bills.

Best to you on your journey!

Thanks, Clark. I'm already working on other projects. There is no escaping reality, but I keep pushing the experiment. Gotta respect the 'AI enshittification' hahaha. That is funny.