some film critics believe that you can
oftentimes glance at movies color
treatment and instantly tell it sauna
warm red tones for romances D saturated
colors ripoff elliptic films blue cold
tones for Horrors fluorescent greens for
sci-fi yellow tones for film based in
the desert saturated vibrant red tones
for comedies and for everything else I
pick blue and orange drama blue and
orange bio blue and orange what emotion
are filmmakers trying to lead us towards
with this pair of opposing colors and
every other color treatment for that
matter consider the mood ring the hues
of emoji or even aura photography like
music in an elevator or a doctor's
waiting room color has the power to
influence how we feel without our even
noticing film directors have exploited
our color connection for decades in fact
there's a rule book of emotions that
colourists the people who manipulate the
colours of film follow our response to
color varies depending on culture and
context but here are a few examples of
familiar emotional applications of color
color grading is the process of applying
this understanding of color and its
power by altering and enhancing the
color of emotion more still picture
either electronically photochemically or
digitally back in the day filmmakers
could only achieve a stylized look if
they committed to using filters or if
they spent a ton of cash to alter
specific colors frame by frame you've
seen It's a Wonderful Life but have you
seen It's a Wonderful Life in color now
that everything is shot digitally color
grading is less expensive more
accessible and flexible
oh brother where art thou was the first
movie to be entirely digitally color
graded the story took place during the
Great Depression
so cinematographer Roger Deakins applied
a warm sepia tone to the whole movie to
make us feel like we were in the 30 30 s
since then
digital color grading has become
standard practice for filmmakers and one
color grading trend that seems to be
taking over Hollywood is blue and orange
there are a lot of theories out there
but one leading theory is that this
color treatment makes actors pop against
the background on the color wheel skin
tones are mainly in the orange range and
the complementary color of orange is
blue so when you take your orange tone
to actor and then push everything else
into the opposing color range
this contrast leaves you with the
Hollywood look now that you understand
the basics of color grading and some of
its more common uses you can try for
yourself using a variety of easy-to-use
apps such as the iOS app video grade we
decided to test out these color grading
theories with some of our own footage we
picked a shot and gave a different
treatments to explore how much we could
change the mood of the scene you be the
judge
you
of course it's not as important to know
how to manipulate color as it is to know
how color to manipulate you