Color Grading Ain't For Me

Actually, let me rephrase that: editing ain't for me. 

Today was SAT day at school so instead of like idk going out with my friends since I'm a senior, I decided to stay home and edit. Honestly, I'm complaining now, but I won't be next Wednesday, so I think it's a fair trade. I can hang out with my friends once this project is over. Either way, I tried to get as much editing done as possible today which honestly wasn't a whole lot because I'm a slow editor but it's fine. I worked on leveling the audio and making a more dynamic edit than the original line edit with inserts and voiceover. I feel like the first minute ish is better and a little more interesting. I tried to work on sound design but it was so unpleasant. I think I used about a hundred different risers and none of them matched what I wanted. So frustrating. And don't get me started on music. Everything involved in the post production process is just so stressful and frustrating. But anyway, this blog post is supposed to be primarily about color grading since it was what I worked on the most. 

Enjoy this stupid minion meme that I found on the beautiful thing known as the internet

When we first started pre-production, we had intended to have this very hospital, cold look to the piece. But when we started shooting, we realized that it made the actors look very washed out and the color just looked ugly. I realized it was better to go with a darker, black, white, and gray color scheme. Once I started editing the footage, I realized it looked a little to bright (?) and I wanted a bit of a more moody look. 

For example, the still below is from the final scene of the film. This scene is definitely more depressing, and I felt like the color just doesn't capture that look. I decided to bring the exposure down a little bit while raising the contrast and whites. The highlights in the whites were a little too strong so I brought the highlights down a little. Then I played a little with the temperature and tint to get that color that I wanted. And I think it came out pretty cool. Final result:

It's quite subtle and not very stylistic, but I think it captures the tone of the scene so much better. 

Then I moved to color grading the opening which was a PAIN in the you know what. We shot the scene with this red light that looked good in practice but the second I opened up premiere, I realized it looked absolutely horrendous. 

UGLYYYYY

I realized pretty early on that fixing it wouldn't be possible. So, I decided to embrace that red and just work my best to white balance it as much as possible just to make that red a little more subtle and a little less of an eyesore. I started off with the automatic white balance tool on premiere which is usually pretty reliable. Only problem was that there was nothing actually white in the shot so I had to go with the metallic thing on the clipboard. Luckily, it did actually fix the color a lot. I brought down that exposure a little for that moody look and brought up the contrast for stronger shadows. I also brought up the greens a little to contrast the reds, which I don't fully love the greens but I think it balances out those reds a lot. Either way, I think it looks SO much better now and I can look at it without wanting to vomit on my computer. Final result: 

Little fun story time. When I was at STN, I had a free day and decided to attend a workshop. But on the way there, I got distracted talking to some college representatives of a school that I got accepted into and was considering. When we finished talking, I realized that the workshop was supposed to start in two minutes so I ran over to the room and it was completely full like not a single seat empty. Since I had nothing better to do, I ended up walking into a random other workshop without knowing what it was. I accidentally had walked into Color Correction on Final Cut Pro. Mind you, I've never opened Final Cut Pro in my life. But I decided to stay. Mostly cause I felt bad leaving mid workshop. And to be completely honest, it taught me a lot. I feel like my color grading skills still aren't incredible, but they're so much better than last year. Yeah, I'm pretty proud of these final results.