desaturated colors-cold atmosphere

[Pavlos Sifakis]

Hi there.

I'm going to shot a movie with HDV or miniDV and I want a realistic

approach with cold wintery atmosphere and cool desaturated colors (green-gray-blue)

which will make contrast with vibrant reds (clothing)

I am just a student and I have always trouble controlling the color while shooting and not in the post.

If you have any suggestions on how to achieve this look on a digital camera and not on a PC

please help...

[David Mullen ASC]

You can cool off the image many ways with a video camera, from white balancing tricks to using filters, depending on how blue you want it to be. Some cameras also allow you to lower color saturation in the menu, otherwise, save this for post color-correcting (although you can also make the image bluer in post as well.)

[Leo Anthony Vale]

Hi there.

I'm going to shot a movie with HDV or miniDV and I want a realistic

approach with cold wintery atmosphere and cool desaturated colors (green-gray-blue)

which will make contrast with vibrant reds (clothing)

 

Whatever happened to silvery winter days?

[Pavlos Sifakis]

Whatever happened to silvery winter days?

 

Well, I live in Greece and clouds is a luxury I don't really have.

Of course I intend shooting on cloudy-moody-wintery days (if that's what you mean), but most of

the times even when it's really cold it's still sunny. Propably Novedmber is the best month for the job, but I cannot really rely on the weather, it might be

a long waiting!

Edited October 13, 2007 by Pavlos Sifakis

[Matthew Espenshade]

Hi there.

I'm going to shot a movie with HDV or miniDV and I want a realistic

approach with cold wintery atmosphere and cool desaturated colors (green-gray-blue)

which will make contrast with vibrant reds (clothing)

I am just a student and I have always trouble controlling the color while shooting and not in the post.

If you have any suggestions on how to achieve this look on a digital camera and not on a PC

please help...

 

I just finished a short shooting on a DVX-100 going for a similar look. I created the look for the interiors through filtration and camera settings. I bounced lights off of white cards, gelling tungsten lights with 1/2 CTB, I also took the master ped on the camera to a plus 5 to soften the contrast, the results were nearly colorless, and the skin tones were grey.

 

It might be harder for your exteriors depending on time of day. I was shooting in Southern California so in order to make it look like a grey winter day we had to shoot in the early morning under natural cloud coverage, given the low budget we weren't able to build big diffusion frames. Basically, the difficutly really wasn't the color, but a cold wintery look requires soft light, and usually very little contrast.