Colour is a very vital component of a film. It not only affects the look, but also contributes to the film’s tone, complexity, and emotional depth. Colour grading is the process by which a footage’s appearance is altered, enhanced, or manipulated, by tweaking the colours within it. While quite a technical process, it definitely has a lot more creative input going into it than its preceding process, known as colour correction. The latter is more of a technical process, where the colour in the footage is fixed to mimic what humans would see in reality.
As colourist Walter Volpatto (Interstellar, Dunkirk, Green Book) says, a colourist has two main responsibilities. One is to create a world that is compelling for the story we want to tell by co-ordinating with the cinematography, set design, costumes, etc. Secondly, every scene has to be coherent inside that world and with each other.
While grading is a process that takes place during a film’s post-production stage, it is also one of the more overlooked aspects of filmmaking during pre-production. Quite a lot happens on set that can influence the final look of a film. How do we plan for colour grading in advance? Let’s take a look.
Let the story influence the scheme
The story or screenplay provides the groundwork of what emotions are conveyed within each scene. As a filmmaker, one can break down scenes by what sort of mood each one brings out. Learning colour psychology can go a long way, as it can help filmmakers identify what range of emotions can be conveyed by various colours in the spectrum.
Additionally, delving into character can inform the colour schemes which could be associated with their wardrobe or styling. This in turn can affect the lighting and cinematography for the scenes they inhabit. Marvel’s The Defenders does this to great effect.
Pick your colour palette
Once you’ve identified the emotions and potential colours that they could go hand in hand with, take a look at what’s already been done. Reference stills from films which you find inspiring. Going through material that already exists can be utilised to create a sort of a scrapbook, normally defined as a moodboard. Once completed, a moodboard can thereafter serve as a good idea of the colour palette for the movie.
Everything you see on screen…
According to production designer/researcher Whitney Donald of the upcoming Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021), production design is everything you see in front of the camera that is not an actor…which is a lot.
The production design contributes a lot to the world of a film, and taking into account how much of a scene is production design alone, this ultimately affects the colour grade. Having an idea of the colour palette can help your production designer create sets targeting the final look you wish to achieve in post. The same goes for other departments such as costume and lighting.
As colourist Chris Ryan admits, he can work to make a scene “blue” in post, but if you’ve already worked with the cinematographer, gaffer, and the art director to establish a number of blue elements on set, the finished film is going to be so much richer. Which brings us to…
Unite the three
As a filmmaker, it is more than advisable to converse about the look of your film with three key personnel in your team before you roll cameras. They are:
- Cinematographer
- Art Director
- Colourist
According to Akash Sunethkumara of High School Junkies, uniting these three during preliminary production meetings has been key to helping them achieve the look that they want for a film, as the conversations and creative decisions are shared between departments that overlap, making the colourist’s life easier during post.
Filmmaking is not an island, and with so many moving parts, it is prudent to include the relevant creatives to co-operate and collaborate to produce the best results.
It is nearly impossible to come into post-production requesting the colourist for a particular look if your locations and sets were not planned for the required look. Begin and prepare with the end product in mind.
Things can undoubtedly change along the way, but planning for what you want makes your post-production stage so much easier.
In 2015, filmmaking collective High School Junkies started creating short films out of passion and soon gained momentum as a film production house that championed frugal filmmaking. Their second short, EIDETIC, became the first-ever Sri Lankan film to be screened at the San Diego Comic-Con, and has subsequently been screened all over the world. They host guests from Hollywood on their webinar, Junkyard Theory.