Getting that "BLUE" look

[jdmoviemaker]

Thats a really nice look, you can mess with the hue, blacks and gain a bit in post

 

[jaket]

And lighting. You'll see in Potter & Underworld all the time where the walls are kissed with blue light and the fill on the actors is gold.

For the blue look you usually see in films, all three conspire together for maximum impact - art direction, lighting, post. Also in post you can do selective grading.

Here's my stab at it from my film BONE HAND.
Basically I restricted the palette to blue ad gray as much as possible. Then I used the selective color tool in FCP's Color Corrector to select skin tones and exclude them from the blue tint.
I then used another FCP Color Corrector to again select the skin tones and tweak them without tweaking the blue.
Wood and Red will also be selected unless you use masks and layers to exclude them, as you will see below.

"Chinc and gook very different dumb ass!"
This was a great little movie, I love that line.

 

[Noel Evans]

And in addition to the great points already mentioned - not sure what camera the OP is using, but on the HPX500, I use eyeball shown on the dropdown here ---> http://www.panasonic.com/business/provideo/scene_files.asp?model=HPX500 as a start point. Have to really watch the magentas though, but this can be tweaked.

 

[Kholi]

Wonderful article link!

For those who are curious about doing this in camera, it can be done, although with increasing difficulty the wider the shot. I've shot films where I know the colors were going to go warmer in post production, to attain a certain look to the characters world. These were exteriors where I couldn't light the face balanced and the background warm... so we had to warm it in post.

Knowing the skin tones would go with the slide toward warm, I cooled down the light on the actors faces. (the only element I could control.)

In post we saved power windows and colorist time, because we shot daylight balanced, with the background reading correctly balanced, but the light on the actors was extra cool. When we slid the overall look to warm, the background turned warm while the cool faces balanced to correct balance or slightly warmer depending on how much we cranked it.

Absolutely, Patrick. Totally agree on this. Although it's limiting to post, if you know what you're going after in the first place then it saves a LOT of time.

 

[jaket]

So I went outside and messed around with some lights and this is what I came up with without spending to much time, I was just really excited to light someone orange during the day to get a really cold look.


The original

after a quick color corection

Split screen

This was using some blue gels to try and make a warmer environment, but i think I would need to go a lot bluer to really effect anything since the outdoor light is already blue.

After CC

This is exciting stuff for me, I'll be doing some more tests in the near future.

 

[Ryan Patrick O'Hara]

Great!

I see the first worked fairly well.

You can see some great results where your 'warm' light was striking her face.... and the 'shadow' side, which didn't have much of the warm light, went cool with the background.


The reason your second image didn't work out so well is exactly what you said.

I am going assume and guess that you were using a 1k Tungsten unit? If so, CTBing it to be the same as daylight takes 2 stops of light.... and then CTBing it again for a "more then blue" takes another 2 stops... there lies your problem. The damn thing is probably strangled by gels.

If you have a large mirror, some blue gel and light diffusion, I'd bounce some direct sunlight through diffusion and CTB. It's your most powerful source. Next time I get the time, I'll be experimenting with this again.

(Plus I'm getting Apple Color soon, a program I know so well, but have never owned myself!)

 

[jaket]

I was using 2 750watt tota lights, I placed 4 CTO 1/2s in front of them.
My wife didn't like the blue shadows on the right side of her face, but I thought it looked pretty cool, (no pun intended).

I will have to try the mirror, I have a big one in my front room, hmmm now how to mount it?