Original subtitles

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