Colour.

I went into some of the stuff I'm doing with colour in the post COLOUR CORRECTION about creating tension with tone.

I'm still new to colour, one of the reasons I chose to do it on this project. I have been teaching myself Red Giant's MAGIC BULLET: LOOKS. This program is very easy to colour correct and style. I have been using it for over a year now. Everything I shoot goes through a Magic Bullet session. The software is set out with an easy-to-use interface and the effects and tools are split up so a novice could find their way through it.

I've been colour correcting images for years using Photoshop, transferring that knowledge over was relatively easy.

Neither of the two sequences needed a whole lot of colour. We wanted to achieve good colour on set through good lighting of the actors. The lighting on the Torture sequence was pretty much how we wanted it. There were only one or two shots that needed correcting. As for the NN sequences we did the best we could with the location. As mentioned in the previous Colour Correcting post the location was very dull.

For the Torture sequence we wanted a sore colour palette. When preparing for the shoot we looked at films such Saw and Hostel. When Saw has a doctor style setting it uses a blue sterilized look, but when it has a dirty surroundings lots of reds, yellows and greens are used. This creates a scab looking palette. That is the look we are going for.

In the colour edit I only used two tools. A colour filter and crush. I used the colour filter to increase the red tones, and crush was used to push out some of the blues.

On the NN I used the same two tools, but also adjust the curves. I used the CF and Crush in the same way as the Torture. I adjusted the curves to increase the shadows. The picture was somewhat monotone and changing the curves brought out the blacks. Giving the image more depth.

The two shots at the end when Eric is walking away from the house needed the most treatment. Just before these shots Sally looks through the blinds, in this shot the outside as a blue/green tone. When we shot Eric the outside had a really nice colour palette of natural browns and creams. Unfortunately it didn't match the shot looking out the window. They needed a grad exposure and colour contrast to darken the image. On Sally's shots the colour filter was in the golden cream area, but Eric's were in the blues. I did this to create tension.

I also tried this tone tension when Sally is hiding behind the wall and you can see Eric at the door. Her side is bright and warm and his is dark and cold.

(there are screenshots of MB and image comparisons with the hand in)