Oh okay thanks. What I could do is ask a DP to light so that the skin can be separated in post later, as long as a DP can light that way, and maybe just leave it up to them? And yes, I tried to follow the videos instructions, just kept getting noise in the footage when I do it.

NO NO NO - That is not what I'm saying. It is perfectly possible to do almost anything - the question is in the detail. Just look at the thumbnail for that video. The colour, the definition, the lighting, the contrast - but most of all, the skill of the operator. Presented with lower definition material, more noise, and a poorer source material in general, then the result would be as you discovered - less good.

Show me a you tube video where there was zero budget and beginner calibre crew where it works and doesn't look like it's been fiddled with!

You are taking things to excess. In that video, the colour shifts he carefully calculates and inserts are subtle - the skin tones get enhanced just a bit, and the cyan (which is what teal is) gets deepened. The video world seems to be preoccupied with this effect because it makes pinky colours more obvious.

Subtlety, care, love and attention to detail. You just made it a feature. Subtlety isn't on your agenda. Yours is effect vs their realism.

From what I know of colourists, their job is not to repair faulty shooting, it's to make good video even nicer to watch.

Please don't reply starting "OK thanks, but ......."

Oh okay. Sorry if I start a lot of my posts that way.

How come a movie like Ghost Protocol doesn't just get the actress a teal colored coat, or actually paint the street teal, instead of doing in post then, since they have so much money?

So for my next project where I want a teal background from the actors, let's say I light white walls to be darker than the skin tones. Will this help get the background to be able to be graded to teal and will it work, or could it?

You seem to be stuck, this effect appears to be a style to get something like the visual style of the old black and white thrillers for an audience that won't sit and watch a black and white film. Turn off the colour on your TV and see what it looks like.

Unless you've got the lighting resources to get tonal separation, as in a black and white film, don't go down this route. You usually do have the walls with a bit less exposure than the characters, however, white walls will reflect back any light that hits them. That is an issue that the DP has to address and it can eat up the lighting time.

They do NOT paint things cyan, because it's not pigment it's a shift in colour balance. We are talking subtle Ryan. Do you not watch these videos and try to understand? It's not about the colour, it's about the colour 'world'. Infinite shades, and with black and white we change contrast to make the light stand out from the dark. In colour we shift one part of the scene one way, and the rest the other. Moving something neutral towards green would make magenta the right complimentary colour. You could dye a coat a tiny bit blue/green, and put some more makeup on the actress. Painting the street would not remotely work, and would look cartoonish. Think subtle - this is what the colourist is doing. You changing a T-shirt from blue to green, or a grey wall to blue is an effect. This much change creates the blandness in the colour range and the noise.

If you have light, white walls, then that's going to look false doing it by adding that much gain and change. You seem to totally misunderstand what they are doing. How exactly would you light a wall to be darker than skin? Skin is not white. It is less in every colour component and luminosity. If you want the wall darker - do NOT light it, light the subject!

You also need to ask yourself WHY you would want to tint it cyan. Certainly not for realism. I suggest you stick to things critical to moviemaking - like real basics (composition, story, camerawork and audio capture) and when you have mastered these, move onto the subtle stuff. It's like a doctor getting paranoid about the neatness of their stitching, without learning how to actually remove the appendix!

Oh it's just that since my next project is more of the thriller suspense genre, I though that coloring the background a more cyan/blue would give it a more cold feel and is what I want for that genre, if that makes sense? I could just light the white walls then and not use a fill light, or at least a very dim one, if that's better? And yes, I am not going for realism but a more cinematic experience.

There are other methods of getting a cooler look, it depends if your film is more about style or realism, if it's an action film or more about the dialogue. Just because other films use something, it doesn't mean it's right for your film, there's no magic bullet for a suspenseful thriller.

Yeah that's true, I just feel that the cold steel blue look would be best for this next thriller project.

The choice is yours, I suspect this has gone as far it can in a forum, it's up to you to do the full tests with the gear that will actually be used, otherwise this will end up going around in circles in the forum.

So Ryan what are you really asking us? Clearly you want to do this orange/teal effect. You’re are going to need at least a 10bit 4:2:2 capable camera. You will also need to lean how to do this in Resolve.

Honestly if you can master this I think you would be better off as colorist than a director.

That's true, perhaps I should stick to directing and leave it up to a separate DP. Should I just tell the DP i want the teal and orange look and light for that, so it can be pulled off properly in Resolve with no noise or artifact issues?

This discussion should involve both the DP and the colourist, so that there is joined up thinking.

Okay but I wanted to color myself to save money where I could. I will get a DP to shoot it properly but was hoping I could handle the grading. I was told the things the projects I colored before looked good for what they were, but I haven't separated the skin tones in those ones, and want to do this for future ones.

I can follow the davinci resolve tutorial exactly, and I think it will work if the movie was shot right for that type of skin tone separation in davinci. So can the DP just be knowledgable that he doesn't have to speak to a colorist, and I tell him/her what I want and he/she would know how to do it?

Then ensuring your Resolve skills are up to the required level is entirely up to you, You won't get those on the forum, but only by lots of practice and developing your eye for detail.There's no [point in asking questions here, this all has to be discussed with the DP.

Is the cameraman/DP trying to get consistency in what is shot and shooting for 'normal', and then the colourist works their magic on 'perfect' material.

Why would you want to follow the tutorial exactly - that only works on that material. You will have something different, so need to adjust the process to produce what you want. Are you certain that your movie suits it? Or maybe you will find something similar but better.

Youtube videos are for process and technique - very rarely for following to the letter.

Yeah I actually have an idea for a similar look but modified. The thing about the teal and orange look is that if you do it in a trees, which is where I want to shoot, the green is depleted out of the trees and grass completely, which I don't like. I also do not want faces to be orange. I was thinking they could be more on the normal skin color range.

So instead of a teal and orange look, I want something similar that is a normal skin color and teal, and green look, if that makes sense? So it's a similar concept with the skin tones isolated and colored differently than everything else, but with different colors more so.

I also do not necessarily need the type of lighting used in the video. I may go for less soft, more high key lighting, if that's right term.

Just be aware that the costumes will be a different colour if you start changing things between scenes.

Oh okay, but wouldn't the costumes be the same color between scenes if they are the same costume?

Not if you're changing the orange and teal settings for different locations. The costumes are affected by the latter, so if you change the strength of the teal for the locations that will influence the look of the costumes. You can see the costumes being changed compared with the original video in your test with the fighters.

Oh yes, I would have apply the same levels of color grading so the costumes stayed the same yes.

However, what if during shooting, if I want the background to be teal, we just put a teal gel on the background backlights?

Keep the keylight on the actors faces white, with no gel, but gel the background fill lights teal. Would that be better?

Adjusting different selected areas of the frame is going to push your skills with Resolve.

What is possible with the lighting will depend on the locations. the action within the scene, plus the lighting and grip kit you have available on the production. The trick is making it look natural. using blue LED practicals would motivate the walls to be blue.

Oh okay, are you saying to isolate different parts of the frame and color grade them differently, aside from the skin tones?

Unless you're prepared to put in months (if not years) learning the deeper aspects of colour correction, I would avoid doing so. Especially since it involves an entire feature film.

Oh okay sure. I can light the walls to be blue then, but when I asked about it before, I was told that it would cause two problems.

1. It would look unnatural cause the audience can tell that the walls are lit blue, as oppose to painted blue.

2. If I light the walls, I will have to use brighter lights on the actors, which would make things harder on the actors.

Are these two points true?

If you've get blue LED practical lights in shot lighting the walls, that will motivate the walls to look blue with your lighting.

Since I doubt you're shooting with 40 ASA or 100 ASA film, there's no reason to have bright lights pointing at your actors unless you're trying to balance the daylight outside the windows. Just try and avoid pointing them directly into their eyes (unless there;s a good reason).

Oh okay, I was just told that if I light the walls, then the actors have to be lit brighter since the backgroung should be darker than the actors, is what they meant. Is that true?

When you say that blue LED lights will motivate the walls, where would the motivation of the color of the light be coming from?

It's all relative, the actors will be lit to a higher level than the walls, but if the light levels on the walls aren't high, the lights on the actors don't need to be that powerful.

Do you think things out? If the wall have blue LEDs in shot as practicals lighting them and the rest of the scene has tungsten lighting, what to you think is motivating the walls to be blue?

Do you actually have the budget to light the set a consistent brightness then add your acting light? The drop off on wide areas is quite obvious unless you have multiple light sources? If you are going to buy lights (I remember you not liking/able to hire) there are some variable colour lights available that let you dial in all the available hues at different saturations. With a decent large screen monitor you could simply light the set like that?

Do you actually have the budget to light the set a consistent brightness then add your acting light? The drop off on wide areas is quite obvious unless you have multiple light sources? If you are going to buy lights (I remember you not liking/able to hire) there are some variable colour lights available that let you dial in all the available hues at different saturations. With a decent large screen monitor you could simply light the set like that?

Oh okay, last time I checked, the lights were you dial in the hues, actually cost quite a bit more, compared to lights, where you put CTB gels on instead. But I can have another look in prices. I can get a DP, just like knowing my option and other opinions as well, if that's okay, especially if a DP becomes unavailable or something while shooting. What do you mean by 'drop off' in this context?

It's all relative, the actors will be lit to a higher level than the walls, but if the light levels on the walls aren't high, the lights on the actors don't need to be that powerful.

Do you think things out? If the wall have blue LEDs in shot as practicals lighting them and the rest of the scene has tungsten lighting, what to you think is motivating the walls to be blue?

The blue walls would just be there to help separate the background from the actors, cinematography wise. That's the motivation really. Is that not enough? But you see this in movies like in that tutorial I posted where they show the background being blue/teal, and the actors are more warm in the skin tones.

Yes, but the costume also has a teal tone in the tutorial. This is more about a "look" rather than separating the actors from the background. You don't need to use colour for that, they did it all the time in black and white movies.

If using blue lighting on the walls, you probably would need motivation, because they probably won't look like painted walls. Neither does the wall in the video tutorial, it looks like a colour correction effect, rather than paint.

Oh okay. Does the costume have to be teal though, as long as the background lighting is? Isn't that enough teal to create a contrast from the actors?

Don't forget that what is being done in the grades that use this cyan/pink split is the trick of using bluey light to evoke cold/fear/tense and the pink flesh tones being warm/friendly/happy type emotion split - not just a colour contrast.

Drop off is the phenomena you get when using too few light sources to light a larger area - double the distance, quarter the brightness - so the way will drop off in intensity, then go back up again as the next fixture takes over - so to light a 20ft wide wall, you might need 3 or even 4 light sources.

There's bit of a problem with gel. CTB OR CTO is colour correction, so won't give you the cyan colour you want. Lee and Rosco have plenty of gels in that rough category of cyan-blue/green. The only slight issue is that when you stick these onto LED light sources, the colour is often not exactly what you expect due to the phosphors in the LEDs, but tinting the white light on the scenery/set is possible, but you'll need to experiment to wash a set with the right colour - hence why colourists do it as shown in the tutorials. The gels reduce the light levels quite a bit anyway, so it will be more dark than you imagine, so you might not need the deep colour versions. Here's some of the range.

Oh okay. Does the costume have to be teal though, as long as the background lighting is? Isn't that enough teal to create a contrast from the actors?

You're going to get teal on the costumes if you use colour correction, unless you're going to get into really involved work doing more that using just the skin tones.This is all part of an overall look and has nothing to do with the walls being the blueish colour. If you do it, the whole film should probably have the same look.

If you light the background walls using coloured gels, you can light the actor separably from the wall, so the costumes are their natural colour.

Oh okay thanks, and thanks for the gel options!

If I color the movie to have a very teal look, do you think that the audience will think it's motivation-less though, if the color is not coming from a source in the story?

Also, the thing about clothes, is, is that it's hard to get teal costumes. For example, the project I am working on the characters will wear business suit type attire, but no normal store sells teal colored suits, fashion wise though.

Ryan, people wear normal clothes. I don't think anyone does this trick with the physical people, it's post effect because to do this kind of thing is absurdly complex. You're the first person who's trying to create looks, LUT changes or colourisation by really changing the colour of the things in shot. What are you trying to do? There are fashions in cinema, but would you not edit the video with proper colour balance so white is white, and then when the edit is complete and you can view everything, look at the product and try some different looks - especially as there are so many just as presets before you tweak things.

I just don't see what you are trying to do by even considering trying to get clothes in non-normal colours.

Regarding orange and teal motivation, a whole raft of films have been made with that look, however, if you look around in the real world it doesn't exist, I suspect that it's taken as a visual style that's in at the moment by the audience. There are lots of different looks used in films and the director has to decide which is appropriate for the story and the way they're going to tell it.

If you have doubts about the motivation don't use it

If you have doubts about the practicality of the process, don't do it.

From your replies, you sound like someone way out of their depth.

Okay thanks. I have no doubt about the motivation, I was just told by a couple of others before when I asked about it, and they said that lighting the walls behind the actors to be blue, would look too strange. But if that is okay, cause cinema is not reality, than I am okay with it.

Ryan, people wear normal clothes. I don't think anyone does this trick with the physical people, it's post effect because to do this kind of thing is absurdly complex. You're the first person who's trying to create looks, LUT changes or colourisation by really changing the colour of the things in shot. What are you trying to do? There are fashions in cinema, but would you not edit the video with proper colour balance so white is white, and then when the edit is complete and you can view everything, look at the product and try some different looks - especially as there are so many just as presets before you tweak things.

I just don't see what you are trying to do by even considering trying to get clothes in non-normal colours.

Oh it's just you said make sure that the costumes were teal to, so I thought you were talking about during shooting, since we were talking about getting it right in camera with lighting the walls to be teal.

With regard to LED lights, a lot has changed in the past few years. Besides getting less expensive, the color has got better, and color temperature is adjustable. One thing I don’t think has changed is the amount of light that gets lost with a gel. I’m appalled at how much is lost even with a 1/8 or 1/4 magenta. It’s an awful lot. This is based on my 600 LED Cool Lights.

Speaking of teal and that green color, in looking at the news from the Oscars there was a picture of Jennifer Lopez from an earlier Oscar presentation wearing a nice green dress. Besides being a singer and actress, she is also a producer. It’d be really nice to team up with her on a film and add some stardom to gain publicity.

Jennifer Lopez's Oscar dress: https://static1.therichestimages.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/thefuss.co_.uk_.jpg?q=50&fit=crop&w=738&h=1125

This is about lighting, costumes, and color so it's on topic, right?

Edit: One more thing. Thinking about lighting, one needs lots of room. In Hollywood they have sets set up do do all this stuff. The walls are higher and there's room to move the camera further back so there is frame to work with. When coming up with the script and visualizing the the movie, one needs to be planning for the place where this will be filmed. There's a lot of work to do. Might even have to adjust the script to fit the available set. Just thinkin'

With regard to LED lights, a lot has changed in the past few years. Besides getting less expensive, the color has got better, and color temperature is adjustable. One thing I don’t think has changed is the amount of light that gets lost with a gel. I’m appalled at how much is lost even with a 1/8 or 1/4 magenta. It’s an awful lot. This is based on my 600 LED Cool Lights.

Speaking of teal and that green color, in looking at the news from the Oscars there was a picture of Jennifer Lopez from an earlier Oscar presentation wearing a nice green dress. Besides being a singer and actress, she is also a producer. It’d be really nice to team up with her on a film and add some stardom to gain publicity.

Jennifer Lopez's Oscar dress: https://static1.therichestimages.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/thefuss.co_.uk_.jpg?q=50&fit=crop&w=738&h=1125

This is about lighting, costumes, and color so it's on topic, right?

Edit: One more thing. Thinking about lighting, one needs lots of room. In Hollywood they have sets set up do do all this stuff. The walls are higher and there's room to move the camera further back so there is frame to work with. When coming up with the script and visualizing the the movie, one needs to be planning for the place where this will be filmed. There's a lot of work to do. Might even have to adjust the script to fit the available set. Just thinkin'

Oh okay. Unfortunately I am forced to use real locations with lower walls, of course... I know the gels cut down the lights quite a bit, and have used them before on a couple of projects so far. However, if I am lighting the walls in the background blue, and the lights on the actors are suppose to be brighter than the background, then does it matter if the background wall lights are cut down, therefore?

Oh okay. Unfortunately I am forced to use real locations with lower walls, of course... I know the gels cut down the lights quite a bit, and have used them before on a couple of projects so far.
Granted, you hav used gels, but dang, on LEDs it's mind boggling how much light they suck up. I'm thinking of the throw of the light that's needed to wash the walls behind the actors and how far away the actors have to be from the walls to get the wash without shadows.

However, if I am lighting the walls in the background blue, and the lights on the actors are suppose to be brighter than the background, then does it matter if the background wall lights are cut down, therefore?
This is not my expertise area but having worked with lights in what I'd call less than friendly spaces, because of limited space, it's amazing how much room is needed to get the cams, actors, and background the way one visualizes it in their head. Regular rooms and ceilings aren't your friend when one needs separation to avoid shadows. Hollywood has sets designed to be able to do this sort of thing but reading about all the importance of the background walls, finding something indoors that will work in the typical script, I think might be tough.

In your area, finding something outdoors with temperatures one can work in will be limited and then there will be longer days with many hours of daylight to further complicate things. Again just thinkin' ahead.

Okay thanks, and yes that's a good point as I never attempted to light an entire background wall a certain color before.

As for shadows, what if I just let the shadows remain there? I mean since my next short film is a crime thriller script anyway, maybe shadows are okay, especially since a lot of old crime film noir movies have shadows all over the walls? I watched Mildred Pierce (1945), and it's loaded with shadows. So I wonder, maybe that's okay for a crime genre, and I can just let the shadows be therefore?

I would test all this out before doing it on a film. It's probably the best way for you to see what happens to shadows etc when using different colours on lights. Plus the limitations that you'll have doing this on real locations and how long it'll take to get the look you want.

Shadows are good - they create suspense, add to mood and often look good. Alien would not have been so scary if you could see everything. Then of course you get the kinds of shadows that happen when you have bad lighting, or not enough lighting. One is good lighting and one is bad. One old lighting designer told me that he'd made his career in lighting people, not scenery. If you light the people properly, wherever they are on the set, that will always light the scenery in interesting ways.

Oh okay, thanks. Let's say the background is too much to light blue and I should grade the background separate from the skin in post, like in the color grading tutorials.

So it was said before that in order to do this to make sure that the wall is a neutral color so it could be separated correctly. Now I read that white counts as a neutral color. However, even when I tried separating on white walls before, the skin still did not separate successfully. So in order to do this, do the walls have to be really really white?

Ryan - how many different walls will there be in this script that need to be colored in order to get this background teal look?

Will some have to be painted then re-painted to match pre-existing conditions (color match)?

And there is one more thing ... have you started to put together a budget for this movie?
One can spreadsheet it out scene-by-scene with materials, equipment, staffing. man-hours, rental, etc.

I have budgeted some of it so far, but trying to keep it from going. I am assuming I won't be allowed to paint the locations at least not without tempting the owner with a lot of money... more than it would cost to paint it back, which is why I was asking if these alternative solutions would work.

You really need to budget the entire film, otherwise you can get into fantasy land.

A building with painted blue walls is different to you applying an orange and teal colour correction, because the latter is a "look" that has to be applied to the entire film and it affects more than just the walls.

Using lighting can give blue walls, but it may not give the feel of a real police station if overused.

On a very low budget film you have to keep things simple. If you wish to change the colour of the walls, ask the owner, the worst he'll say is no, however, he may insist on professional painters doing the work, You need to cover all the bases and you haven't covered this one. You can't make assumptions.

Blue walls aren't going to change the dramatic content in the film, so you have to be prepared to drop things that aren't proving practical within your budget. Not doing so can involve losing something that's key,

The audience don't know what the director would've liked to have in the film, they only see what is actually in the film and react accordingly.

Unless the script and the acting are really, really good - do not waste money on small things most viewers would not notice. What I mean is that if they spot bad acting, or unrealistic dialogue, or poor characterisation there is no point even thinking about grading and painting things. You have priorities all wrong.

Oh yeah, I know, it's just I was told in the past that my locations sucked and the walls were to white, in past projects, so I wanted to improve that, even if it's through lighting.

I don't know who commented on your locations, but you don't need to have blue coloured lighting on the walls to make them better. Keeping the lighting off the white walls can make a big difference.

Throw this at the art director and the DP, tell them you don't want flat lighting on the walls and you want interesting dressing on the sets. It's not your job to work these things out, it's their job to come up with proposals.