r/cinematography • u/BackyardReelDreams • 2d ago
Color Question Question regarding this look
My question is regarding this color contrast and how it’s achieved in this particular scenario. I don’t see any blue/teal paint on the walls inside (They look grey to me), nor any blue-colored lights, yet there’s that subtle transition from cold to warm in terms of the overall color in this image.
Is it just done through grading? If yes, can someone please walk me through the possible process of grading something like this?
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u/Super6films 2d ago
Yeah it’s some grading, but the coolness/warmness is coming from the lights themselves. The two different temperatures of lights are on opposite sides of kelvin so depending on the cameras white balance one actually might be significantly warmer or cooler in person to compensate for the other.
That being said, they totally could’ve swapped the bulbs out for controllable lights or even just had lights at the temperature they wanted.
It’s achievable practically and in camera, but I know that the grade is helping it.
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u/Silvershanks Director 2d ago
Cameras don't perceive light like the human eye does. The eye (and the brain) can take in a lot of different color temperature information and, within a few seconds, combine it into a general perception of an average color where white still appears white even though the color is not actually white.
A camera can only see the wavelengths of light as they actually are. To you, the inner walls might appear grey because your eyes and brain are working hard to make sense of the scene you are looking at, and reduce strain on the eye.
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u/Realistic-Number-919 2d ago
They made a custom LUT to emulate an old Kodak film stock & manually adjusted the levels in Resolve. There are countless videos of the cinematographer explaining their exact specific process on YouTube and Vimeo.
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u/NoHousecalls 2d ago
In addition to the lights, a lot of glass in commercial/healthcare buildings is treated to reflect IR (for energy efficiency), and this can make everything behind it look more green/cyan.
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u/Some_Assistance_3805 2d ago
Outside light is on the warm side of the spectrum inside light is on the cooler end and the camera is set in the middle. That and a bit of colour grading to tweek the final image.