Where are the colors??

EDV

EDV

Well-known member
Somebody explain to me why am I seeing this kind on crap on TV every day. Have we moved backwards? Did everyone go blind? Where are the damn colors?! Cameras have gotten vastly superior in recent years haven't they? Color correction software is now included in every NLE package isn't it? Field Monitors are now finally accessible right? Then why? How did this horrible desaturated, flat look become acceptable in high budget TV Ads and Indy Films? How are these pale / opaque skin tones realistic ?

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It's just what's in right now. I think you could make somewhat of an argument that things like Instagram are to blame, but i'm sure it's more complicated than that. I wouldn't worry, it will probably go away in a few years.
 
I thought the "Shoot flat and grade it in post" was the way professionals did it these days. But somewhere along the line the "grade it in post" part got lost. Whatever happened to "painting with light"? Low light CMOS sensors seem to have done away with that
 
EDV said:
I thought the "Shoot flat and grade it in post" was the way professionals did it these days. But somewhere along the line the "grade it in post" part got lost. Whatever happened to "painting with light"? Low light CMOS sensors seem to have done away with that
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It is as much a fad as shallow DoF... Has zip to do with the ability of the sensor to record saturated color...
 
Sometimes I think it's monitoring RAW and slog that are to blame. Producers and directors see it and say... "hey, that looks pretty cool." I would swear that the first season of "Girls" were a result of something like that. Fortunately the trend is subsiding.
 
I know what RAW is capable of but I'm not impressed by this:

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And yes, there were several comments praising this color correction job when it was posted on facebook. I'm sorry but I've seen better colors come out of the venerable DVX.
 
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I have to admit I don't get it either. A long time ago we used to call it 'scandi grade', for awhile I sorta associated it with the cult of RED ( post 1) but now it seems like you can't throw a stone in any direction without hitting a camera that will do raw 12+ stops and everyone is doing pale watercolor washes. I really really like House of Cards but it is possibly the best/worst culmination of the look. I'm old enough to remember how we laughed our butts off when 'shaky cam' first showed up and then before long everyone had to have a sample on their reel, 20+ years later it hasn't gone away so maybe we are in for a long ride.

Alternatively. . .just because you see it everywhere doesn't mean there is any sort of conscious reasoned motivation for doing it other than people wanting to get paid for delivering what was expected.
 
Probably something to do with the proliferation of variable nd's as well, which are convenient, but are polarizers that will sap the shine and vitality out of skin tones.
 
Batutta said:
Probably something to do with the proliferation of variable nd's as well, which are convenient, but are polarizers that will sap the shine and vitality out of skin tones.
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This is part of it, on a no-budget, film bloggerish, run-n-gun scale. They're convenient, but not for footage.

The further I've got into post color, the more I've realized that the cameras HAVE actually gotten better, but so have the viewing platforms. And vastly different, at that. What looks great on one screen may look appalling on another. I've read from one or two bigger colorists, doing major pictures, that some directors demand to see their work on as many different sets as possible, and would actually adjust the look to balance between them!

You can also add color science to the list of reasons why... it's such a hot word right now that it almost sounds like "shallow depth of field". Someone makes a human orange and suddenly it's a good grade... add some teal and it's pro. Too each their own, it's a look, but humans aren't just orange. That's actually a bigger issue, some of these digital formats simply cannot handle saturation, they literally fall apart the moment you punch on anything.

I guess I'm saying in a lot of ways... some of the formats literally cannot go where you want them to without a great deal of surgery in post. That's a contributor to the dead, flat, souless looks everywhere. If it's not that, well, teal and orange please.

u_u
 
and it's about someone along the pipeline just not giving a sheet.

i typically futz with my footage till i find that pop, otherwise i look at it and get a meh feeling
 
I used to think " Oh well, at least you will never see this kind of thing in the movies ". Then I saw this... :huh:


So I guess studios are deliberately grading footage this way now to make a 4:4:4 camera look 4:2:0 ?
 
EDV said:
I used to think " Oh well, at least you will never see this kind of thing in the movies ". Then I saw this... :huh:

So I guess studios are deliberately grading footage this way now to make a 4:4:4 camera look 4:2:0 ?
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I don't think you get it. Its a period piece that happened to look great at the theatre. Hard to judge the quality of anything on YouTube.
 
You may not like it but it's been around as a creative choice for a long time. At least as far back as Antonioni's Red Desert (1964).
 
True, but it's kinda gotten out of control since CMOS sensors took over the world. And I don't think is a creative choice sometimes, it's just people shooting flat and cheap ( without a lighting setup ) on a DSLR and not bothering to grade it properly because it looks good enough.

Another example. Music Video from China.


 
Very low light levels and high ISO settings produce poor color too. No light means no color. Camera DR and color depth degrade as ISO increases.
For easy grading I think there is too much slavish dependence on getting "skintones" on the i-line on the vectorscope too. To me this results in flat lifeless skin values that look like announcer's pancake makeup. It all sits on the surface rather than showing the translucence and variability of real skin colors. Boring.
 
Kholi said:
I've read from one or two bigger colorists, doing major pictures, that some directors demand to see their work on as many different sets as possible, and would actually adjust the look to balance between them!
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THis is standard procedure when mixing audio. Listen to your mixes on as many monitors as possible in as many environments as possible.
I try to at least look at my jobs on at least both my Retina MacBook Pro screen and the crappy 24" LG monitor I have. Sometimes also on the iPad. Wish I had a TV or something as third/fourth otion.

Regarding, the no colours trend... I think it's the hunt for the "filmic look" that has led us there... Somehow somewhere down the road the log-look got confused with cinematic...
 
I like it. :)

Let me clarify. I like desaturated but not low contrast.

I think a lot of videos are, in fact, oversaturated. My television sets have their color tuned down 25-30% from the factory default.

I'm not sure we're talking about the same thing, and I don't want to start a heated discussion. If you're talking about, say, the bleach bypass look, like in Minority Report and Payback, I like it. If you're talking about a very low-contrast look, where it looks as if the actors are swimming around in some sort of haze, I hate it. But I like when they've desaturated a bit just to take the edge off. It feels better on my eyes and looks more realistic. It also resonates with my personal taste, understated elegance.
 
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combatentropy said:
I like it. :)

Let me clarify. I like desaturated but not low contrast.

I think a lot of videos are, in fact, oversaturated. My television sets have their color tuned down 25-30% from the factory default.
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I also turn down the backlight. I've noticed that if that is 'up', that 'blacks' take on a wyrd purplish twinge for some films.

I'm not sure we're talking about the same thing, and I don't want to start a heated discussion. If you're talking about, say, the bleach bypass look, like in Minority Report and Payback, I like it. If you're talking about a very low-contrast look, where it looks as if the actors are swimming around in some sort of haze, I hate it. But I like when they've desaturated a bit just to take the edge off. It feels better on my eyes and looks more realistic. It also resonates with my personal taste, understated elegance.
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I seem to have no problem with my GH-1 having 'saturated' colors... I think it's by design... So, I do turn down saturation... well sometimes even to the point of using channel mixer, monochrome, and 'black and white'... but I digress.

I also don't have a problem with desaturated but retaining 'contrast', depending on the 'story'...

The examples given and what I have seen of a current popular trend is destat + low contrast == muddy/mush/foggy to me.
 
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