Wanting to achieve a simliar look to this. Ideas?

Awesome Box

Awesome Box

Active member
Hey guys,

So I have this shoot coming up in about a week and the Director would like to get a similar style to that of the recent Sherlock Holmes films.

She wants they old filthy sort of look that you see in the film. The desaturated greys, browns, blacks and greens.

Here is an example of the look.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGCMfprPJoA

From what I have gathered by reading about the style, they achieved it through a combination of set dressing, wardrobe and post grading. They also mentioned that to keep the skin tones from going weird in the grade that they added yellow tint to the lights hitting the talent. And this is where I have gotten a little confused as I would have thought that to compensate for the green push in post that you would need to add magenta to the talent to cancel out the green.

I plan to light all the scenes using tungsten lights as the budget doesn't allow for HMI's or any rentals at all. I have a bunch of redheads, two blondies, a Fresnel kit, a dedo and two Kino Flow Divas as my lighting kit for this shoot and was wondering if that style would be achievable with the gear.

I had originally thought to light the scenes normally but just add magenta to the lights hitting the talent directly so that in post we can push the green without the skin tones going green. What are peoples thoughts on that?

I haven't been to the locations yet, so I provide any pictures of what they look like, but I'm not really worried about the lighting design, more how do I achieve this style.

Here are a few pics from the promotional photo shoot the Director did without me. This is an over exaggerated version of the style she wants but might help give a better idea of what we want to achieve.

https://fbcdn-sphotos-g-a.akamaihd....0x720/1016253_333382263459970_703350983_n.jpg
https://fbcdn-sphotos-f-a.akamaihd....s720x720/1559_333381510126712_712990352_n.jpg
https://fbcdn-sphotos-h-a.akamaihd....20x720/933873_333381386793391_903478488_n.jpg
https://fbcdn-sphotos-e-a.akamaihd....0x720/1011514_333382093459987_354731048_n.jpg

Any advice you can give me on this would be a great help. As I'm unsure if I'm on the right track with achieving this style.

Cheers
 
Do some tests. You may get a page full of "maybe this might work" or "well, I'd try this & see...". None of which may apply to your gear & lights.
 
Normally I would test this sort of thing before hand, but unfortunately I am so busy in the lead up to this film that I don't actually have the time. I was hoping that someone might have experienced something similar in the past and could at least give me a few ideas as to if I'm even remotely correct.

The thing that confuses me the most is the whole yellow gel vs magenta gel thing. My knowledge of lighting tells me that magenta should be used to compensate for green, but from what I read it seems that they used yellow instead.

I will probably aim to do as much research as I can before we shoot, even though I won't be able to test it due to time and financial restrictions.

Worst case scenario I attempt to convince the Director to change her idea of the style because it probably isn't going to work if we don't test it first.
 
Absolutely do as much extensive testing as you can. I am kind of confused about what you are asking. Just to clarify, so you want to shoot your project with a lighting style as in the "Sherlock Holmes" video, but you feel that you have to maintain the spectrum of light that was used in the promo photos?

Take a deep breath.... this is not a big deal. Modern color correction software lets you adjust the color of specific parts of an image without very much of an impact on the other parts of the image. Don't gel your lights. Shoot white balanced to you tungsten sources then in post you can adjust the green level in the "Secondaries" or shadows and this should not impact your skin tones.
 
Okay to clarify, the Director wants a look similar to that of Sherlock Holmes, but between it and the promotional photos she took.

In my research they mentioned that they added yellow gels to the lights directly impacting the talent so that when they corrected in the grade, adding the filters to achieve that look that the skin tones remained the same.

I was under the impression that if you were to add green in post that you would have to at least add some to the mid tones and that would then dilute into the skin tones and make the talent look sickly. I thought that to compensate for any green added in post that one would need to add a bit more magenta to the lights impacting the talent so that once you add green in post it sort of equals itself out and the mid tones stay the same while the rest gets that green hue.

I personally don't like the greenish look, but it's what the Director wants so I'm going to try and achieve it.

I am not that familiar with how colour grading programs like Resolve work, as I normally tell me colourist what I want and she just does it.

On this particular project, I don't think there is going to be a final grade in Resolve or anything similar. At most I think it will be done in the same editing software they use and will probably just shift the highlights, lowlights and mid tones into the greener side of things. This is why I'm hoping to get it down in camera so that if they do the grade without proper software and without me then at least they won't completely wreck the images.

I guess I should just stick to doing things as per normal and hope that they can grade to that style without ruining the images, but I just thought it pays to be prepared.
 
Awesome Box said:
I guess I should just stick to doing things as per normal and hope that they can grade to that style without ruining the images, but I just thought it pays to be prepared.
Click to expand...

Being prepared!!!!

They didn't just show up to an unseen location and hope for the best when they shot Sherlock Holmes. Countless hours went into set design to give the feel needed.

If it were me, I would visit your locations with the producer in advance of your shoot!

Nothing like arriving on location to shoot a film with a dark gritty look, only to find the locations are all bright cheerful colorful completely opposite of what you need to pull of the look.
 
On a limited budget and with a minimal light kit such as yours...you should find that most of this can be done in CC & Grade.

Most of it is selective chroma desaturation in shadow, gama and highlights then secondaries for the hues.

Hopefully the art department can provide the controlled color palette to suit.

Appears that a fog/smoke / atmosphere was created inthe set.

If you cant test...get the colorist to test. Maybe even do a test in photoshop.

You might even consider spiking the set with fluoro tubes if you want to burn in a little "look"
 
I've no info on how they created that specific look, but something to think about is, film is subtractive colour where yellow and cyan make green.
 
Liam Hall said:
I've no info on how they created that specific look, but something to think about is, film is subtractive colour where yellow and cyan make green.
Click to expand...

Well that would be if doing a film finish color timing. Most modern movies, even if shot on film, are digitally graded during the digital intermediate process.
 
learn color theory; this Sherlock Holmes footage is clearly 99 percent wardrobe and set. Desaturated colors (greys and browns), there's an odd spot or two of "wine" (a desaturated red); an artist's trick to make the color scheme not look too artificial or unaccidental. Clearly there was post done 'cause the skin tones are desaturated but there sure as hell wasn't a colorist futzing around with color correction trying to turn a bright blue shirt into a brown or grey that would be goofy. edit: learn color theory or have someone who knows it; there is a such a thing as a desatured light blue. don't wanna confuse ya.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top