Colour Correcting Wedding Footage

T

thundermonkey

Active member
Hey all, so I am in the process of editing a trailer before I get into the main wedding and I have been using MBL for a while, but I would really like to get an understanding of what is the proper thing to do. The footage is 60d/T3i and I would like to liven it up a bit but maybe avoid just throwing some preset on there. Will I have to manually edit each clip (which will take forever) or is there something I can safely do to the entire sequence in premiere? I know for film you can grade stuff with a sort of green or blue tint to give the look you want (just generally speaking) and I'm wondering what sort of "rules" apply to wedding footage. Do I just pump the saturation up a bit and apply that to all the footage? Really would love some help to make this DSLR footage look a bit more special. Thanks!
 
Well as in all video there are no "rules", theyre more like highly advised guidelines that you can brake for a reason. But IMO blue/green tints are "cool" colors, usually suggesting sad, sinister (usually with more green), cold moods. "warmer" colors are usually more friendly, nostalgic, good feelings. For our DSLR weddings we usually have them saturated (depending on your camera settings, they may already be saturated enough), high contrast, and whatever the shot is we just try to make it as pretty as possible. Check out our video below for an idea:


The thing about weddings videos, or at least our philosophy, is that every shot must be beautiful. So we color correct/grade each shot for its potential. Basically a montage of pretty shots. Some call for blues, some reds. If you have similar shots, you can grade one, and then drag and drop the same grade onto the others to save time and for constancy. For example, if you have four shots for make-up, and you find a look you like for one, just drag the grade onto the others and make small adjustments if needed, and save yourself a lot of time.

But the one "rule" that we hold ourselves to is we make sure that the people's skin tones are not really off. Thats our rule, some people don't have to do that for their look, but we try to make sure that their skin aren't green or magenta, etc.
 
Ryan-Guy said:
Well as in all video there are no "rules", theyre more like highly advised guidelines that you can brake for a reason. But IMO blue/green tints are "cool" colors, usually suggesting sad, sinister (usually with more green), cold moods. "warmer" colors are usually more friendly, nostalgic, good feelings. For our DSLR weddings we usually have them saturated (depending on your camera settings, they may already be saturated enough), high contrast, and whatever the shot is we just try to make it as pretty as possible. Check out our video below for an idea:


The thing about weddings videos, or at least our philosophy, is that every shot must be beautiful. So we color correct/grade each shot for its potential. Basically a montage of pretty shots. Some call for blues, some reds. If you have similar shots, you can grade one, and then drag and drop the same grade onto the others to save time and for constancy. For example, if you have four shots for make-up, and you find a look you like for one, just drag the grade onto the others and make small adjustments if needed, and save yourself a lot of time.

But the one "rule" that we hold ourselves to is we make sure that the people's skin tones are not really off. Thats our rule, some people don't have to do that for their look, but we try to make sure that their skin aren't green or magenta, etc.
Click to expand...

What beautiful work! :)

I agree with you, grading a series of shots will make it a bit easier. I was just wondering if there was some theory to weddings specifically, but I suppose going warmer tones and eyeballing may be just about it for some. Will take your skin comment into consideration, I agree with that a lot.

I have the cinestyle profile installed but don't shoot with it yet, since I have other things to perfect before I get there, so just shooting standard for now. Some stuff already looks warm, so maybe punching up the saturation a bit is all I might need.

If I may veer off my own topic, what's the best workflow you found to work with? I'm currently editing a wedding that is basically 2 folders from 2 DSLRs, meaning tons of tiny clips. And I wasn't there, so I am finding it a very tedious process to make this work. Is there an ideal way to shoot/store footage for editing in a more timely manner? I will be doing some shooting myself and am thinking to invest in 32 GB cards and use cards specifically per event so I can have folders that are for makeup, ceremony, reception.

Appreciate your input :)

Again, great work!
 
Ryan-Guy said:
Well as in all video there are no "rules", theyre more like highly advised guidelines that you can brake for a reason. But IMO blue/green tints are "cool" colors, usually suggesting sad, sinister (usually with more green), cold moods. "warmer" colors are usually more friendly, nostalgic, good feelings. For our DSLR weddings we usually have them saturated (depending on your camera settings, they may already be saturated enough), high contrast, and whatever the shot is we just try to make it as pretty as possible. Check out our video below for an idea:


The thing about weddings videos, or at least our philosophy, is that every shot must be beautiful. So we color correct/grade each shot for its potential. Basically a montage of pretty shots. Some call for blues, some reds. If you have similar shots, you can grade one, and then drag and drop the same grade onto the others to save time and for constancy. For example, if you have four shots for make-up, and you find a look you like for one, just drag the grade onto the others and make small adjustments if needed, and save yourself a lot of time.

But the one "rule" that we hold ourselves to is we make sure that the people's skin tones are not really off. Thats our rule, some people don't have to do that for their look, but we try to make sure that their skin aren't green or magenta, etc.
Click to expand...

Holy crap...that shot at 12 seconds, did you really get that kind of sky or is that sky replacement? Beautiful!
 
Wow. Clearly, I need to go to Hawaii. I would show you what a sunset looks like here, but I live in Beijing and right now it is currently so polluted that you literally cannot see the sun (or anything else more than 30 feet away from you)
 
thundermonkey said:
Will I have to manually edit each clip (which will take forever) or is there something I can safely do to the entire sequence in premiere? !
Click to expand...

Doing clip after clip is the normal workflow in color grading.
Actually you do a first correction to nail whitebalance and levels, than you do a secondary correction to bolt on the look you want.
Some guys even do a third (master).

But you can also just make a new timeline, drop your old into that and do a global correction. Fast but less precise.

Frank
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top