COLOUR GRADING MAISIE BUCK A2 MEDIA STUDIES
In trying to develop my editing skills, I have practiced with colour grading on Final Cut Pro X; this is the software I plan to use when editing together my music video. I decided to learn how to colour grade footage as I believe videos look far more professional and filmic when graded. The test footage I have used comes from the rushes of a short film I am making; all footage is my own.
This is the first original shot from my test footage. It is lit primarily with the artificial light of the kitchen, plus a few additional lamps.
This is the shot after I have colour graded it. With this image I wanted to make it seem more dark and dismal, therefore I desaturated it to eliminate the warmer colours in the palette.
I have made the overall tone primarily blue by taking the global colour section towards dark blue. Similarly, I have put the mid-tones and shadows in the blue area, but made the highlights slightly red in order to give it a filmic quality, whilst keeping some colour in the shot. I am quite likely to use a similar colour scheme in my music video as it seems to be in-keeping with the melancholic tone of the song.
This is the second shot I used to practice colour grading. It is lit solely with the natural light shining through the large window on the left of the screen. Because the original colouring is already quite dark, I decided to completely transform the finished product.
I wanted to make this shot look like it was filmed in the morning, as opposed to late evening. I am attempting to learn this skill in case I encounter problems in the filming of my music video and have to alter the colouring of a sequence to look like it’s been shot at a different time of day.
The way I did that for this particular shot was by taking the highlights and mid-tones into the yellow section of the colour spectrum. This made the once dismal colours seem warmer, therefore changing the tone. I kept the global colour section in blue, to create a nice contrast, and made the shadows slightly pink in order to make the shot look cinematic. This could come in handy as a practical technique when editing my music video, but I may also decide to use a lighter colour scheme overall. Although the song I’m using seems slightly melancholic, it is of the indie-folk genre, which is typically associated with a lighter colours.