Do this for more impactful grades
Hey everyone!
Today, I'll share a strategy with you that will help you to achieve more impactful grades more easily.
And along the way, we will discover why your colour grades don't feel as impactful as the ones you see in the movies.
The thing is, if you watch a short film on YouTube, they are limited by the same set of rules as you: It's SDR rec709. So, why does their short film look so striking compared to your colour grades?
To answer this question, we need to conduct a little experiment. Read the following two examples:
Emily walked through the howling storm, drenched and shivering. Her lantern she held barely pierced the darkness. But then she saw the warm inviting light of the cabin ahead filled the darkness.
Emily walked through the storm. But then she saw the light of a cabin ahead.
Which one felt more impactful? Number one, right? You could almost feel the warmth of the cabin light.
What good storytellers and good colourists have in common is that they know how to use contrast.
As colourists, our job is to enhance the story through colour and one of the most crucial skills to learn is working with contrast. However, this does not mean you have a fancy contrast plugin or you create the most complex curve. It all comes down to understanding contrast as a concept.
This is where my system comes into play:
Step 1: define the brightness of the most important part of the story
Step 2: anchor everything else around that
Click, click, click ... all the dominoes fall into place. No more wondering how bright things should be.
To visualise this better, let's imagine the x-axis is time and the y-axis is brightness.
Once I defined that the cabin should be around 70IRE, I know for a fact that Emily's lamp cannot be brighter than this. Because the story said, "it barely pierced the darkness".
Of course, the values are a bit arbitrary but you get the idea.
Identifying and establishing visual anchors is a fantastic skill to learn.
See you next week!
Eric
