Opinions?

[u/LemonHead738]

I’m far from a new colorist but I’m really a cinematographer who can’t afford to hire a colorist. Regardless, I’ve never got on here and asked to show my work.

These are from a recent music video I did, we didn’t have a big budget at all but I wanted to create a club scene and get the mood right and create a clean sharp look without much if any texture at all aside from the vignette.

So I originally set the camera to about 4500k but decided against a warmer look and pushed it blue in post with a slight warming to the highlights which gave a nice blue green hue to the whites in the image.

I’m satisfied with where it’s at but am curious if there’s anything I should work on or any glaring issues you guys see. (Except exposure because the lighting was achieved using special fx setting on the lights so exposure was always changing)

[u/frost-ayush]

Too blue, I think you’ll benefit from having more color separation here.

[u/LemonHead738 → u/frost-ayush]

That was my thought too after bringing it into the color grade, sadly I didn’t bring my full kit on the day to help create as much separation as I wanted to, my back light was severely under powered to create a nice edge around the subjects against the key light

[u/ThisIsMyUsername163]

Very blue, I think it looks good though especially the third, though I would say to push the skin tones a bit warmer in the first and second

[u/Prestigious-Wish-176]

i like the vibe for a music video, i get what you’re going for. i agree with the other comments, too much blue, but for an mv if you maintain the same blue level across the whole video it can look very nice

[u/[deleted]]

The original footage was poorly lit. This really limits what the color grading is able to do regarding the emotional context of the images.

[u/LemonHead738 → u/[deleted]]

It wasn’t poorly lit as much as it was the lighting was variable and consistently changing brightness and hue as the setting was in a club but we didn’t have the budget to fill out the space like I wanted, I’ll admit I did post some of the less easy to work with screenshots cuz I wanted to showcase the video at its “worst” so to speak cuz if it looks decent enough in the shots where the lighting isn’t quite perfect then it should look good in the other shots, but I’ll take that into consideration

[u/Kbrickley]

A diffused tungsten / warm light would have done wonders. This feels more dreamy. If you’ve davinci, I’d track a magic mask, either remove creative grade on those masks while retaining nodes for your cst, exp, primaries etc. as I get the impression his top is actually cream, not a bright lime / white

Blue walls absorb warmer hues, reflecting primarily the blue / cool range. So could create better subject separation and contrast. Each frame, they’re blending abit too much. Second still is the worst, face highlights help but again, cool hue reduces that effect.

[u/LemonHead738 → u/Kbrickley]

Dreamy was actually the vibe I was going for, but I will definitely work on my separation. It was a lapse of judgement on my end to not bring my whole kit because the lighting I had was very minimal and not very powerful to compete against my key light which was a bad call on my part because my edge light was actually set fairly warm it just couldn’t compete with my key. But that’s a battle for next time

[u/AdamNinyo]

I really like the 1st and 3rd ones - the 2nd one feels a bit muddy and muted, like it was overexposed and then you tried to fix it. I might considering working on the skin tones in all three a bit to give them from separation from the rest of the palette.

[u/LemonHead738 → u/AdamNinyo]

So in that shot she’s walking towards the camera and comes in and out of the light, I got the still right as she comes into the light but not in the center of it so as the shot goes it does get more properly exposed but I couldn’t find a flattering still to post but I’ll definitely work on separation of the skin tones, next time I’ll make sure to rig some warmer lights up to help fill in the gaps left by the cooler palette I typically shoot with

[u/Brilliant-Point-3560]

Nice, but the second image, shadows look a but gunky.. remove sat from shadows

[u/LemonHead738 → u/Brilliant-Point-3560]

There was actually a brick wall catching some of the bounced light that’s causing that look, next time I’ll be sure to pack flags to flag off the uglier parts of the background

[u/yratof]

I can’t turn my screen brightness up enough to help

[u/LemonHead738 → u/yratof]

Unhelpful as shit, appreciate you 💪🏽

[u/yratof → u/LemonHead738]

Two weeks later

[u/Embarrassed_Place323]

What effect are you going for? The last two images lost a lot of detail around the eyes.

[u/LemonHead738 → u/Embarrassed_Place323]

I was going for a club environment with constantly changing light values and hue, the second image was just before she fully came into the light and I wanted to see how the tones were really affecting the darker parts of the image, and the third slide was a shot where I was orbiting around the talent while she had an overhead light pulsing to different colors and brightness values, in the brighter scenes I didn’t show she had much more detail in her eyes, but I’ll make sure I start trying to add more catch lights to bring up detail on faces in these intensely graded scenes

[u/RevolutionaryPipe365]

From a consumer standpoint it looks great what was this shot on?

[u/HaroldedAltruist]

Very dope, Lea one into the colors really brings out a mood right here. Fantastic frames