3rd Year Project - Colour grading the edit

Original shot

On the various edits that I had done in the past, I had not realised the importance of colour grading. When I first attempted it on my edit, I was having difficulty in making the colours the in the same scene look similar, as the two camera shots were from two different cameras, so the footage was quite different. The scene took place in an interviewee's house, and I thought that the footage would look good, as she had a red sofa, so I though that the contrast between that and the cream walls would look good. However, when I came to do the colour grading, I thought that I would start with these scenes, as I wanted to see how they looked afterwards. It was here that I realised how difficult it can be to colour grade, as I found it difficult to match the sofa colour between the two camera shots, due to them being different makes of camera as mentioned before. Also, when it seemed that I was starting to make the colours seem similar, the shot would become darker than I wanted it to be, and changing the exposure caused the red to change brightness again. 

Colour Graded shot

Original shot

Because of this problem, as well as a couple of others I encountered, I decided to leave the colour grading until I had gotten the shots that I wanted all together to make the story that I wanted to tell. It was a little while later that I found out that someone called Nathan Caws was going to be coming in to teach us some colour grading tips and techniques, plus get an hour on one-on-one time with him to have a look at out projects. This was really helpful as he is a professional colour grader, so having him have a look at my documentary, and talk me through the processes of colour grading, was very insightful, and afterwards I was able to colour grade the rest of my film with a lot more confidence. There were some shots that I thought looked perfect after being colour graded, such as some of the panoramic shots of the club, which looked very yellow. By reducing the saturation levels and  highlighting the blacks and shadows in the shot, we managed to make these shots look a lot more natural. Also, I asked Nathan to have a look at the shots that I had already attempted, the interview on the red sofa, and we managed to make them look a lot better, again by changing the saturation levels and adjusting the vibrance of the whites and shadows in the shot

Colour Graded shot

Original shot

Colour Graded Shot