Altering the Colour

As we've said in previous posts, one of the major parts of our ideas for our opening was for us to mess around with the colouring in the film. We both thought it would give our film a unique style, make it look more professional and would be quite a lot of fun. These are a few screengrabs of before and afters:

We decided to do different settings depending on which character was in shot. For the shots with Al we brightened up most of colours particularly the red as that appeared the most in our shots with her, as she is wearing a red top. We toned up the colouring in the shots with Al to make them stand out and seem more vibrant. To the right you can see the before and after, of in our opinion one of the most noticeable changes and has now become one of our favourite shots in the opening. 

For the shots with Mal we decided to do the opposite and tone down the colouring, this gave her shots a gloomy, miserable tone. For these shots we alternated between which colours to tone down depending on which every one had the largest effect, in the screen grab to the left, it was the green due to the large open field in the background. We felt that the two lead characters having contrasting colour schemes, really emphasised the contrast between them and gave our opening the sense of something not quite right as it was cutting between them.

We've decided to show the shot to the right, because it is the only shot in the opening that has Mal and the colouring toned up. We decided to do this because it is the last shot of our opening and just before the two leads meet. We were very happy with  how it worked in the context of the film as you can clearly see the difference between the shots.

We realised that later on there were several scenes where both characters were on the screen at the same time, and then perhaps one of the characters went off frame. One of these examples is shown to the right, in this case it is Mal that walks off frame leaving Al. What we decided to do was split the shot into different parts, shown by the first picture. The first part was when they were both in frame together, then the second part was when Mal walked off and then the third part was a shot with them both again, as it was a smooth cut it felt very natural.

For the sections were they were both in frame together we decided to not alter the colouring, the first and third pictures, we did this quite clearly because on their own they have opposite colour schemes so when put together it cancels them out. This worked as it creates a clear contrast between all the different types of shots and is obvious to the viewer. For the section when it's only Al in frame, the secound picture, we decided to raise the colours up again, like in all of her other shots. When played together we were extremely happy with the result as the cut in the shot wasn't noticeable as it was always the same shot, this means that the colours get enhanced without the audience particularly noticing and then go back again without a huge discomfort to our audience.

In summary I think I can speak for myself and Diana when I say how delighted we both were with how the colouring has worked our as it went exactly how we wanted it to. Throughout we both also learnt several things about colour alteration; the right levels that we needed (+/-50% seemed to be our go-to value, as it gave the perfect mix of noticeable enhancement without being over-the-top) and what colours make up certain objects (green had a large effect on several shots without any noticeable green in, mostly shots including brick). Looking back at the our opening without colour alternation is now extremely surprising as shots that previously seemed bright and loud now seem dull and boring as we have got so used to seeing them with the enhanced colours.

AF