Thanks for sharing.

Oh, I also watched this tutorial on color grading. At 11:10 into the video, the colorist separates the skin tones from everything else in the picture:

The Summer Blockbuster Colour Grading Tutorial - YouTube

So by isolating the skin tone, he is able to give everything else in the picture one color, in this case, a teal color.

So should I do something like that, if I have unwanted colors, is to isolate the skin tone, and then make the background all one color, to make everything blend more, like he's doing?

There are lots of tutorials on using Resolve, I suggest you use Google and search for them, rather than expecting people here do the work for you. Steven Hullfish has a book on Digital Colour Correction and some videos online.

I think he's asking more of an artistic question as opposed to a technical question.

I used color grading this way (controlling unwanted colors) on one of my recent projects, BUT, I am not trying to produce a professional film project to sell or distribute or use as calling card. It was a silly music video for my band. If I were you, I would, as everyone said, try to control my set better.

Please also note that this stuff is not as easy as this guy makes it look. Notice how even in the ungraded shot, except for his skin tones, it's almost monochromatic to begin with. The walls and environment, even his suit is basically black and white. In addition, he's/his skin is lit and pops out from the background. THAT's why this works so well. If we you were trying to get this look on some shot with green trees and red brick buildings and purple cars, you're going to have a much harder time.

So you STILL need the right set/wardrobe/lighting to make this stuff work or risk tedious rotoscoping unless you get really lucky.

Okay thanks. I tried doing the grade myself before on a short film, but the skin did not isolate the best way and there was some definite noise for sure. Some of the objects in the background were a similar enough color to the skin and they stuck out like a sore thumb I thought as a result.

I am just trying to come up with more creative ways to control the color in the background on sets, where I cannot control the color, budget wise.

You've clearly got a very different idea of grading to me. I'm rather bad at it, but using it to change the colour of the set is a new one on me. Is that not more of an effect rather than a grade?

That book on colour correction goes into that type of stuff, however, it's a lot easier to use gels on your lights. There's a full range of colours available, check out the Rosco Laboratories and the Lee Filters web sites.

You've clearly got a very different idea of grading to me. I'm rather bad at it, but using it to change the colour of the set is a new one on me. Is that not more of an effect rather than a grade?

Oh I'm not sure, I was just going by that tutorial.

That book on colour correction goes into that type of stuff, however, it's a lot easier to use gels on your lights. There's a full range of colours available, check out the Rosco Laboratories and the Lee Filters web sites.

Well I thought about that, but when I asked about that before, other filmmakers said it would be strange to light a certain color, rather than painting the walls. For example, let's say I wanted the wall to be blue instead of white. If I light it so that it's blue, I would then have to make sure that the lights on the actors, are brighter than the lights on the wall, which means even brighter lights, if that's okay?

But I was told by others not do that cause the walls being lit blue would look abnormal compared to paint, if that's true? Or at least that is what I was told before on here, in a past thread as well.

Yes, lit blue looks different than painted blue or grading for sure. Lit blue is going to literally look like you have blue lights on it. Sometimes that's what you want. Sometimes it isn't.

I think of grading as the more artistic side, bleach bypass look, sepia, teal and orange, etc. "color correction" is the problem fixing, shot to shot matching etc. to make it look neutral/"correct". So yes, you can significantly alter the image with grading and it is a valid approach...SOMETIMES.

Da Vinci and probably any other CC program wants contrast between the things you want to separate from each other (e.g. skin and background). That means color contrast as well as luminance. Either one of those being too similar to the areas of the image around it will cause problems when trying to separate like you want. It also wants a lack of contrast in areas you're trying to make look the same. If you want the background all one color, it needs to be fairly narrow in its color range to begin with, same with skin tones. You can keep applying qualifiers when the differences are too great for one to handle and have them overlap but sometimes it doesn't work well and gets noisy.

I messed with all this on the aforementioned music video and that was my experience. Of course you can mask/power window to isolate, but then you are looking at, again, rotoscoping or at least doing some keyframing if subject/background moves in the shot. You almost have to light everything/dress people/have art direction and set design with the grade already in mind to have an easy time of it ("that red robe won't grade well, let's switch it out for green" or whatever). Fixing it in post on a feature length project will make you want to fling yourself out the nearest window.

If you can paint the set that's fine, but you can do a lot with lighting.

Ryan, I suspect you've got little experience with lighting, you can change everything with the lighting. It's how they did it before Resolve etc.there are various shades of blue available and various methods of creating blue on the walls.
If it's a feature film find another location if you want a painted blue wall or paint the wall, Resolve won't do that for you either, since their walls were originally neutral in colour in their example.

Having been in the Bradbury Building, it looks nothing like this in reality:

Blade Runner Bradbury Scene - YouTube

Well it's just that I was told before in another thread on here, not to light the walls as oppose to paint cause lighting needs to be motivated. A lot of scenes in my script are set in an office building, so if the walls are lit blue, behind the actors, instead of painted, would that be bad motivation for the lighting, or could that work? Plus I want the background to be darker than the actors, which means the lights on the actors that are not blue, would have to brighter then, right?

There are literally almost an infinite number of approaches to lighting. Its all about what works in each case.

Some gritty cop shows have ugly flo lighting, some have it where all the lights are off and sun is pouring in. Why are the lights off in the police station???? WHO CARES! It works in that circumstance. Look at CSI. that is NOT what a lab looks like. Its a stylistic choice to make everything “cool”.

Bottom line as long as audience buys it and doesnt find themselves taken out of the story and asking “why does that look so weird?” its all good.

Moonlight isnt really bright blue and people dont have little toppy hair light glints in a pitch dark room but no one complains do they (other than other filmmakers)?

Oh okay, thanks. It's just that when I asked about it before to other filmmakers they said that lighting walls looks unnatural as oppose to paint. I also asked about it on here before, and Boyd Ostroff's comment made me think there will be problems:

https://www.dvinfo.net/forum/open-dv-discussion/536755-painting-location-walls-colored-light-when-not-allowed-paint.html

Does Boyd have good points though?

You've given an example of a white wall that has been changed to blue using colour correction. It's basically the same thing, the wall hasn't been painted, you can do a similar thing with light. It;s basically setting the camera colour temperature towards the tungsten end and lighting the faces with the correct light, while the rest of the room is towards daylight You need to be careful with the light level hitting the walls and light the character separately. which would involve controlling any stray light with flags It's the same as a night time office.

"I was told before in another thread on here, not to light the walls as oppose to paint cause lighting needs to be motivated" you are mixing up two different things. Coloured light can be motivated, it can be a style decision based on the world of the film

If most of your filming takes place in these offices I would paint the walls blue for the film and then paint them white again after you've finished. Given that you've got a tight schedule and probably don't have an experienced colourist, this is a no brainer. Give it to the art department, it's their job - find a location where you/re allowed you to do this, it will save a lot time of time in the long run.

It's possible to do a lot of things, but since you seem to be making police procedural, slightly grimy painted walls would be the way to go. I'm surprised you're even considering anything else.

Oh okay, it's just I wanted a cold blue look or at least that is the way I am picturing it. However, I cannot find a location where the owners are okay with me painting, even if I paint it back after. But if I were to light it instead, should the fill light and back light be daylight balanced light, while the key light is tungsten balanced?

It's more complicated than 3 point lighting.

Put cool blue practicals into the shot, the white walls will pick up the colour.

The Bradbury building made me smile. One of my clients always asks me to photograph the set for each production for their archive. They have always asked that it is taken with white light, not production light. Last year they changed - they asked for production lighting and they had totally unusable pictures because they were either bright and cheerful, mean and moody, hot and cold in terms of brightness and colour. They couldn't;t make any sense out of them from a set perspective. They often decide to get things made by reference to these pictures and they were useless for that. Great pictures, but hopeless. Give a real lighting person a bland set and they can do wonders. Have you looked at the Lee filter and Rosco stuff mentioned above? HUNDREDS of very subtle and similar shades but in the hands of experts, pure magic. One I work with has a kind of rule - light the people well, don't light the set. Then, if something can't be seen, only then light it!

It's more complicated than 3 point lighting.

Put cool blue practicals into the shot, the white walls will pick up the colour.

Oh okay, but I thought I should probably gel the blue practicals still, to make them more blue perhaps, no?

If you're shooting tungsten, daylight CTB would look pretty blue, it really depends how extreme you want to go and how much stray light is around. An office won't look like a night club.

You can tell on the day by looking at the monitor, discuss this with the DP.

Okay sure. I don't want the blue light to be really saturated, I just want it to be a darker blue, darker than the actors if possible. So I thought that CTB gel, would maybe make it darker, but yes do not want it saturated like a night club.

youre getting way into micromanaging things that would be handled by your dp and gaffer. Your role should basically be “I want it blue. No too blue. Now make it darker. Great. Let’s shoot.” All the specifics of lighting units etc would be handled by them.

You seem to be confusing saturation with brightness, leave this to DP as Josh says.

Sure I can leave it to the DP. It's just I've been told before by a DP even that lighting walls certain colors looks weird, if there is no motivation for it, so I wanted to be better prepared with the idea of the look.

Ryan - you don't understand it. Your friends give advice that you take out of context. They don't understand what you want. Lighting walls a colour can look weird. So can painting them with that colour paint.

Colour can be a tool. If you understand how to apply it.

Heres an idea... find visual references to other films/tv shows that have the look you want, show THOSE R I used to have

Oh I've tried that but it's hard cause every movie that I thought of seems to have painted walls, instead of lit walls. I can keep looking.

You need to use your imagination. Here are all kinds of colours on walls:

Storaro on Color: Bulworth on Vimeo

Okay thanks. Well, the script is a police procedural thriller to a degree with a lot of it taking place in the police station. One option for a look, I was considering is something similar to Seven. Here's a scene from Seven, where the walls are painted brown:

Seven office scene - YouTube

But if for mine, I cannot paint the walls of the location, and I lit the walls brown instead. Would that come off as strange at all?

Usually films are shot in unused building that are awaiting development, where the owners don't care about you repainting walls etc.

You won't get that grimy police station look with lights to colour all the walls like paint, you can get pools of light. Is this your rape film?

Oh okay, what do you mean I can get pools of light? Yes this is the same script.

What you think pools of light are? Films are full of them.

I would imagine he's referring to things like this The light source doesn't necessarily have to visible in shot but overall effect will be much the same.

Oh okay. Do you think that if for some scenes, I want that brown wall look, like in Seven, then I could light the walls with a brown light?

You won't get the precisely the same as "Seven" because it's painted , however, not many places use brown light, at least, not many modern police stations. Why are you changing from blue to brown walls?

If you're not allowed to paint any locations. you'll probably have to go with the white walls and keep as much stray light from the walls as possible. I did a corporate where the director didn't want to see the white walls, which was a bit unusual, since it was supposed to be in their offices, all of which have white walls.

You may be then able to be able to put slashes of a suitable colour onto parts of the walls using flags or gobos on spots.

In the end, with your low budget, you'll have to go with what you can get. As a film maker the real world kicks in and you have to roll with it. It forces you to be creative, quite a few great things in films aren't what they originally planned to do, but lack of money forced them to come up with something new. That's what indie film making is all about.

The usual method is to find an old building in a run down area, rent it for a month or two and let the art department do their stuff. I've filmed in empty old houses, stinking of damp, which look like plush houses on screen. Don't go for commercial buildings, unless you've got the budget to get control.

If you just want one room to have brown walls, talk to your art department, they may be able to build a small set with brown coloured walls built at low cost fitted against the room's usual walls. However, all these things have associated costs, even lighting will take longer if you want to do more than an extremely basic 15 minute lighting job. If your police station is a modern building, you can't suddenly put brown walls in because they had them in "Seven", because it will look out of place. .

Oh okay, but Seven took place in modern times and still had that brown look though. I thought I could have some walls be brown, some be blue, etc.

That's why I thought of lighting the walls, instead of painting, because of low budget. I can try to find a rundown building, maybe something like that will turn up.

Seven is set nearly 25 years ago, the police station is an older building somewhere in an US city (inspired by NY), not a modern police station (it looks like the 1950s since the last refurb).

Ryan, is there not a Canadian Film Commission, or Canadian Production Guide, or something, a place where all the pro production personnel list their contact info? In Houston we have the houston production guide (google for website).

If you have a resource like that I would look through and start calling the location scouts, whose entire job it is to find places for people to shoot, and tell them your needs. I dont know how/what they charge for their services but gotta be better than banging your head against wall and going in circles like this.

This looks like the type of place to be looking: https://www.thelocationguide.com/film-vendor-directory-search/Canada/Film%20Commissions/Saskatchewanselected/

Oh yes, I know of that, but I don't think they deal with location scouting particularly. Perhaps I'm wrong...

Yes but there simply has to be some location somewhere that knows the Saskatoon area.

Yeah I can advertise for one, instead of doing it myself like before. So many of the buildings here have white walls.

If you advertise they might think youre trying to hire them i.e. something that costs you money. Great if youre looking to do that, but you might be able to get some pointers for free if you contact them yourself. I dont know for sure.

Oh I thought that was the idea. I could contact them myself, I just don't know where any are. So I thought I would most likely have to advertise to get them to contact me. But I can try to look for them, if that's better.

However, this would probably be after I have picked a DP, right?

If the location is critical, then it's an early decision. If you can't find the location your DP cannot light it. When you wrote it, did you not have a location in mind?

You can spend weeks looking for the right location, find that first. As a DP I've usually been brought on board after the location has been selected, then go on the recce. DPs can change because of circumstances, so don't hold off on decisions because of them. I've been rung up the day before the shoot because the original DP wasn't available for the film.

The state/local film commission etc may have a list of places that are available as locations, it's worth checking. I know lots of shorts here have used locations on our local database, you'll probably have to negotiate lower location fees with the owner, if they're used to bigger productions.

It can also involve driving around possible locations and checking with estate agents who handle commercial properties or empty houses that might be slow movers.

You have to be extremely proactive, nothing will happen unless you make it happen. On your budget, you can't turn down a great location because the walls aren't brown or blue, you have to be flexible and go with the best you can find.

If the location is critical, then it's an early decision. If you can't find the location your DP cannot light it. When you wrote it, did you not have a location in mind?

I wrote it with almost all the locations in mind, accept for one of the big ones being the police station, and certain rooms in the station, which is still up in the air to find.

You can spend weeks looking for the right location, find that first. As a DP I've usually been brought on board after the location has been selected, then go on the recce. DPs can change because of circumstances, so don't hold off on decisions because of them. I've been rung up the day before the shoot because the original DP wasn't available for the film.

The state/local film commission etc may have a list of places that are available as locations, it's worth checking. I know lots of shorts here have used locations on our local database, you'll probably have to negotiate lower location fees with the owner, if they're used to bigger productions.

It can also involve driving around possible locations and checking with estate agents who handle commercial properties or empty houses that might be slow movers.

You have to be extremely proactive, nothing will happen unless you make it happen. On your budget, you can't turn down a great location because the walls aren't brown or blue, you have to be flexible and go with the best you can find.

Oh okay, I just thought the movie might turn out bad and people will notice if the locations are not the best. But hopefully the acting, story and everything else will shine through.

I thought about getting a DP first, because in my experience, location owners have changed their minds a lot, so when you get one, I have to shoot their quickly, before any mindchanging in the past.

On a feature film you can be at your main location for a number of days, so you have to ensure that you can stay for the full period. You'll also need the full paperwork with location releases, this will be required by the distributors etc . The only way you can get the best locations is to be ahead of the game, that means you can have A, B & C locations in case things do go pear shaped.

DPs will work with whatever is handed to them, however, knowing the locations in advance will allow them to plan better.

Okay thanks. In past experience, location owners didn't like the idea of being a B or C. They wanted their location to be used, and not just be a what if. Is there anything I can do to get a B or C more successfully for next time?

Why tell them they are third choice at all? If you go to the third because first and second bombed out, don't mention it to them. Just get confirmation in writing or at least an email .

Yeah I thought of that too, but does it look bad if you don't show up and then later say, 'oh you were only a back up'? plus is it worth paying for renting for two back ups though, when budget is tight, if you're paying?