Colour Grading

The director, cinematographer and I discussed the colour grade for Daniel's Kite throughout the whole filmmaking process so we could all be clear on what would work best for the film. We all gave our own opinions on what would work best for individual scenes and then tested them out on Media Composer to see what worked and what didn't

Testing a warm, yellow grade for the bedroom scenes.

Although we haven't stuck to any specific rules in our costume or location colour scheme, minus the reds of the kite and balloon to signify Daniel's imagination, we still wanted the overall grade to be representative of his emotions throughout the film. “… Color correction is more than ensuring that you have a consistent white balance. You can use color (or the lack thereof) to emphasize parts of you story.”[1]

Our original idea in the way we wanted to visualise this was by making the grade very warm and uplifting by bringing out yellows, oranges and greens when Daniel is happy with his imagination at the start of the film. Moonrise Kingdom (2012) by Wes Anderson is a good example of the grade we aim to replicate as it brings a very naturalistic style to the film as well as combining with the themes of youth and childlike wonder.

Moonrise Kingdom's warm grade.

Our plan for the school scenes was to desaturate and wash out all the colours, apart from the red once again to keep it as a visual motif, as well as turning the blues up slightly. This was to make it seem like a boring and drab place, the way Daniel sees it, so the audience can empathise with him more.

Moonrise Kingdom's blue grade.

When I got the film to a picture lock stage, after clearing it with the director, I started to prepare for the grade by creating a new video track above the rest of the visuals and added edits in, separating each clip from the next.

Setting up the sequence for colour correction.

After continuing this method through the whole sequence, I started to look at the shots that I had perviously identified as being visually different, in terms of colour and exposure, and started correcting them where possible.

Spot colour correcting anomalies in certain parts of the frame to match the rest.

Correcting the exposure to match the rest of the scene.

After doing these corrections I showed it to the director and cinematographer once again and we started going through the first 3-5 shots of each scene, applying the grade we discussed to see if it gave the desired effect. When we achieved the colour we wanted, I enlarged the video window and changed the middle screen to 'reference' which allowed me to select any shot on the timeline and use it to match the colour of the other shots in the scene.

Matching the colour from a reference shot.

I used the colour template icon to drag and drop onto the rest of the clips in the scene to give the same colour grade, altering each slightly depending on the shots framing or exposure. I did this scene by scene, starting at the beginning.

The colour grade for Daniel's bedroom.

I kept to our original plan for the opening sequence by turning up the yellows and saturation slightly to give the room a more warm and childlike feel. I didn't want to make it too extreme and over-exaggerate the yellows too much like in Moonrise Kingdom because it wasn't going to be consistent enough throughout the film. "...a 'less-is-more’ approach in which subtle changes in colour could become more powerful..."[2]

I also stuck to the plan of making the school scenes washed out by turning up the blues in the gym sequence, as well as turning down the saturation.

Attempting a washed out effect in school scenes.

As we did pick up shots for this scene there were some obvious disparities in colour due to the white balance being different so I had to be careful when just dragging and dropping the colour template on each of the shots.

Matching the pick up shots to the rest of the grade.

I originally tried the same grade from the gym scene in the classroom but decided against it in the end as the rushes were very white and quite bright to start with and the grade over exposed them drastically. After talking to the director we decided to match it more with the headmaster's scene by giving the classroom a green tint with a little desaturation to continue with the washed out, dull visual style.

The colour grade for the classroom scene.

I also matched the dream sequence in this scene with the earlier one by saturating it heavily and making the colours more vibrant.

In the headmaster scene I slightly exaggerated the grade from the classroom by highlighting the greens, turning the contrast and saturation up slightly to highlight the colour scheme used in the scene.

The colour grade for the headmaster scene.

Once again I continued the vibrant grade when Daniel attempts to escape to his imagination in this scene to allow the audience to see the story from his perspective.

Turning up the saturation and yellows to give the shot a dreamlike feel.

The close up of Daniel in this scene has always been problematic due to the mismatched eyeline and lack of backlighting, so getting this to match the rest of the scene was difficult. In the end I turned the contrast and brightness up slightly, upped the saturation and added a green tint so it fit with the rest of the shots.

Daniel in the headmaster scene.

The original shot of the clouds we had, that appear straight after this scene, were very grey and washed out which we decided to change as we wanted them to contrast with the shot of Daniel looking up at them. To do this I heavily increased the blue mids and highlights as well as the saturation to give them a near un-naturalistic feel.

Heavy blue grade on clouds.

I did this to connote Daniels longing to keep in touch with his imagination by making it seem like it  was out of his grasp.

I originally made the next park scene relatively warm, turning it down gradually in the scene shot by shot until it looked more washed out at the end when Daniel lies down on the floor in a huff. However after collaborating with the director, we decided this gradual shift in colour was too subtle to make it look like an intentional feature so we chose to desaturate the whole scene to reflect with Daniels emotions of feeling let down and alone.

Washed out wide by turning down saturation heavily.

We were already quite happy with the colour in the living room scene as it was quite warm in the close ups but slightly less vibrant in the wides which represented the lack of chemistry between the father and son. I did change the exposure on the close ups, as I mentioned previously, as well as making the wides match slightly better with them.

Slight increase of colour and yellows.

The next scene when Daniel tries to escape to his imagination again was a little tricky as the background was extremely different to the rest of the film visually. To make it slightly less jarring I colour corrected the green screen shot of Daniel to make it match more with the background, using the blue colour scheme in the 2nd Moonrise Kingdom shot above as a template.

Altering the brightness and contrast to match the background on the green screen shots.

I used the same desaturation template from the 1st park scene in the playground scene to once again reflect Daniel's emotions.

Desaturating to reflect mood again.

Finally in the last park scene, I over exaggerated the yellows and saturation to the same sort of levels as the dream sequences to connote Daniel's happiness and intentions to get back in touch with his imagination.

Bringing out the naturalistic colours, yellow, green and browns, mimicking Moonrise Kingdom.

I'm happy with the colour grade overall as I have been very careful to make each shot reflect Daniel's internal emotions, as we had planned from the start, to allow the audience another window into his world, which hopefully allows them to empathise with him more.

Bibliography

1. Pete Shaner (2011); Digital Filmmaking: An Introduction; Virginia: Mercury Learning and Information

2. Scott Higgins (2003); A New Colour Consciousness: Colour in the Digital Age; http://con.sagepub.com.lcproxy.shu.ac.uk/content/9/4/60.full.pdf+html; Last Accessed 17/05/15