Day 8 of 20 Color Grading

So I've spent the last few months working on color correction and then color grading. You might ask if you've already color corrected the footage then what's the purpose of color grading? Let me briefly explain the differences between the two. Color correction is the process of relighting, and white balancing the clips to remove any unwanted color tint the footage may have picked up. Commonly footage will come onto the computer with a yellowish or blueish tint. These colors must be neutralized paying special attention to the skin tones making sure that they are the right color to make the actors look good. Color correction also aims to make sure each clip flows nicely and looks the same as the clip preceding and following it. Color grading is then taking the corrected sequences and adding artistic tints, color effects, or changing the saturation to achieve 3 different purposes.
1. Give it a look.
Often times when you go into a movie you expect that particular movie to have a certain look. Sometimes this is achieved by over or under saturating the entire movie or sequences in the movie. Sometimes it involves adding a tint of one color or another to make it look like it came from an different period.
2. Give it a mood.
Colors often affect our moods. The subtle addition of blue for instance reminds us of cold or even a lonely feeling. Red puts us in a state of caution or anger. And yellow/gold warms and makes us happy. These colors are often used to create a specific mood that the colorist wants you to be in at a certain moment.
And lastly,
3. It tells a story.
Along with putting us in the right mood often times colors are used to tell the story and keep things clear for the audience. For instance in our movie the color of Thomas's shirt change from to scene to scene showing us the spiritual place of Thomas's heart. Going from medium colors down to black colors then once again returning to the lighter colors. In the same way many of the scenes colors will give you cues as to the metaphysical meanings of the scenes so that you can discover more than just the action or dialogue in that scene.

As you can see color grading is a very unique and powerful tool to help create better, more emotional, and clear storylines. And though you may not always notice it the colors can help navigate your subconscious to the right emotions and feelings.