grading to a certain look

[thomas-english]

OK, my next promo I want to achieve this silvery look on this polish ad campaign. I appreciate that diligent use of a huge HMI to replace the flash fill on a nice big silver reflector board when shooting but what do you do in the grade to achieve that look? I am unable to describe it...

 

 

I generally blag best lights and steam in to attend it so if I can say exactly what I want, I ll get away with it. How do I describe these colour correction settings.

 

Thanks

 

Thomas

 

 

polish ad campaign

http://www.re-reserved.com/swimsuits/

[rory hinds]

Hey Thomas

 

How you doing?

 

What are you shooting on?

 

The link just too me to a still, is that what you are after.

 

Regards

Rory

[thomas-english]

dude, pretty good as it goes, pretty good. Still in da Brixton? Let s hook up for a beer in your jacuzzi!

 

Yeah, shooting on s16. Probably fuji... as slow as I can get it on the day. TK on a spirit at ILAB s (who I have just started using and get great results).

 

So that link should be to a flash set of stills with this weird silvery look to them. My main problem is describing that look. low contrast and slightly warm? I would love some much more technical descriptions of the grade achieved so I can wack out straight off the neg an approximation in the best light.

 

Hows the grading suite getting along?

[rory hinds]

Hey Thomas

 

The suite is busy and I'm loving grading. We are gearing up for our RED camera so am really looking forward to getting out and shooting 4k. We are set to be the first in the UK to have the camera so can't wait to capture and manipulate the images.

 

The example stills look like the yellow has been pushed a bit and I'd say the colour you are after has a lot to do with the location they are taken in. I'd suggest you show your colourist these examples as most sessions are driven on creative descriptive with no technical standing, its all about expressing your wants and having a good communication with your colourist.

 

I've been colouring 8 years now and the words used to describe looks amazes me still it also does comes down to body language, which I guess is what makes one colourist better than another.

 

Whats your treatment for your video? These beach examples don't look like a very taxing grade.

 

Lets do beers soon, contact me rory@minefilms.com

 

Regards

Rory

[Michael Nash]

The best way to describe the look is to grab some of the frames and show them to your colorist.

 

It looks like they desaturated the color, pushed up the gamma and dulled the peak whites a little. There's also a slight warm/amber color tint that's made subtle through desaturation. But much of that "silvery" quality is from the lighting (very soft reflectors; some of them gold) and the makeup on the models that gives a good "sheen" or reflectance of the lighting. It's the combination of all those elements, not just the grade.

 

Incidentally, sometimes you can "reverse engineer" a color grade you like by taking a sample frame grab and trying to correct it back to "normal" in photoshop (or similar). That can at least get you pointed in the right direction.