Editing Blog: Color Grading

    

Color tab in Davinci Resolve

    The next thing I did was to color grade all the shots, using the color tab in DaVinci Resolve. I had to watch a YouTube tutorial on how to use the color tab in DaVinci Resolve, as I had forgotten some things since the music video project. I also did research on suspense color grades in order to get a sense for how I would like the opening sequence to look like. Once I found a reference image I was happy with, I pulled it up on my second monitor and opened Resolve. First, I had to do some basic color corrections. I went through each shot and adjusted the white balance, contrast, and saturation. Although I tried to get the white balance right during the filming process, a few of the shots had the white balance too warm, so I had to correct for that. I wanted the color to change throughout the opening sequence to emphasize the strangeness of what is going to the audience. I therefore chose to keep the first couple of shots to look natural, and color graded all the shots after the character realizes something isn’t right. I thought this would be a creative way to add meaning to the color grade. It also wouldn’t make sense to use moody colors when nothing has happened yet. For the color grading, I used a LUT that I found on the internet as a starting point. A LUT is an easy way to provide a color filter to footage, as many are available on the internet for any look you are going for. 

    Not all the shots looked the way I had envisioned, however, so I then took creative freedom in adjusting each of the shots to my liking. I found that the saturation was far too high for how I would have liked, luckily, I was able to compensate for this. I made the saturation of each of the shots decrease as the opening sequence progresses, to further emphasize the strange atmosphere. I also made the shadows darker and adjusted the offset to an appropriate brightness. I also brought down the red light in the shadows in some of the shots, to create that dark teal look. Once I had was satisfied with the colors, I sent what I had so far to my groupmates for feedback. They pointed out that the teal color was somewhat exaggerated in a few of the shots. Having agreed with them, I made sure to make the appropriate changes. Below are screenshots of a shot before vs after the color grading process.

Before Color Grade

After Color Grade