Do a lot of movies use this 3 color rule?

[Ryan Elder]

In this video, they talk about this 3 color rule:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TTnwYmEWvPI

However, do a lot of movies use this though? A lot of movies I watch are from the 90s and before, but the video only talks about post 2000 movies. Was this look popular before that even?
I am planning on the look of a current project, and for example, it takes place in the forest so their is going to be green trees, but does green have to be one of the three colors therefore?

Or is that just the color of trees unintentionally, and does not count as one of the 3 intentional colors therefore? I was also thought about using grey as a color, but does that not count, and grey is just a shade, and therefore, I still have 3 to pick, excluding grey?

If I were to go with the three color rule, I can get the actors to wear wardrobe that is only those 3 colors. But would have to control the background more as well, that cannot be changed. I could use qualifiers in da vinci resolve to separate it, or I could just make a LUT with three colors in it, so that everything comes out only in 3 colors if you apply the lut if that would be more controlled. But what do you think?

Thank you for any input! I really appreciate it!

[Christopher Young]

This is an old well know practice from the world of fine art painting. Great artists knew this technique intuitively. Complimentary colors and non-complimentary colors. Subtle but subliminal massaging of your brain's response to colors working with and against one another. Complimentary colors being the ones working with one another. Prior to around 2000, the imaging world of grading was primarily that of film grading. The ability to manipulate and color grade the way we do today with digital technology didn't exist. Well, it did but it was a very expensive process reserved for very large budget movies. Star Wars in 1977 being an early example of this type of digital grading. So as I said it was around but very expensive to carry out. Today a different story. Check out the following videos as they may give you a better idea of how complementary colors are used in image grading. Juan Melara's good tutorial shows how effectively the complimentary technique can be used.

The Adobe "Kuler" page that Stu Maschwitz refers to in the video has been replaced by the following Adobe link where you can play to your heart's content to work out what colors will work for your grade.

Chris Young

https://color.adobe.com/create/color-wheel

Red Giant | Episode 22: Creating a Summer Blockbuster Film Look - YouTube

The Summer Blockbuster Colour Grading Tutorial - YouTube

[Ryan Elder]

Thanks for youe videos. I actually watched those two before. Those videos only seem to talk about movies with two colors in grade though, orange and teal. Where as if I go for the 3 color rule, I will need 3 of course.

I was thinking of brown, red, and blue, but I might replace the blue with green though.

[Christopher Young]

Working with a Triad a combination of Brown/Red/Blue can work and work well together. Brown/ Red/Green a bit harder to grade to because it means you will have to isolate and grade the areas that require a green bias as there is no direct natural visual transition across those colors in the RGB circle. Can definitely be done but more work required. Miller used a pretty saturated version of Brown/Red/Blue in Fury Road to good effect. Right against the recent trend to lower saturation images that tend to rule the movies over the last few years. Miller said it was a conscious decision to push those colors and higher saturation levels mainly to combat the washed-out low sat film looks of late which he didn't like much. Again play around with the:

https://color.adobe.com/create/color-wheel Triad selection.

A quick tickle came up with these three that work easily together, Brown/Red/Blue but trying to get Green in the mix with a natural blend to Brown/Red I found somewhat tricky. I did like the look of "Amalie" which used a Brown/Red/Green grade to great effect.

Chris Young

[Pete Cofrancesco]

Haven’t we already had a similar discussion before? I find it funny Ryan always gravitates to the most difficult effect to achieve, in this case a tri color grade. What happened to using a blue or star filter? Sounds like you have a lot of time on your hands. Why don’t you film some test footage and practice these techniques instead of asking us? Don’t you have all of winter to figure this out?

[Paul R Johnson]

I often wonder why cameras have a white balance feature any longer when after spending ages getting what to be, well, white, you start to make it blue. Since we invented the new job role of colourist, people sat around wondering which film emulsion to buy, ordered it, and made the movie. Now we have the most bizarre colours, tints and faces. Each movie seems to be coloured to be 'trendy' or 'arty' or just damn odd. I'm often wondering if I shot some video through almost random bits of gel sitting on the shelf, I could pretend it was art?

[Pete Cofrancesco]

Movies have always looked for ways to separate themselves from tv. Movies also serve as an escape from reality it’s not surprising that you’d want to alter what you get straight out of camera. I don’t have a problem with color grading but like most technologies that become affordable low budget productions there is always lots chances for abuse in the hands of the novice.

[Ryan Elder]

Originally Posted by Pete Cofrancesco

Haven’t we already had a similar discussion before? I find it funny Ryan always gravitates to the most difficult effect to achieve, in this case a tri color grade. What happened to using a blue or star filter? Sounds like you have a lot of time on your hands. Why don’t you film some test footage and practice these techniques instead of asking us? Don’t you have all of winter to figure this out?

Oh I didn't know I was trying to achieve the most difficult effect. I just thought it would be a good idea, the 3 color method.

Well I am finding it difficult to practice because I cannot seperate colors in da vinci resolve because I was told before I need a 10 bit camera to do that.

When I bring a DP on, they will probably have their own camera to use, so I need to wait for that 10 bit, before I can separate the colors in post successfully. But I was just planning on the look beforehand, and thought I could put it in the storyboards as well in a storyboarding program. But after looking at more movies, I think I will use blue instead of green.

[Paul R Johnson]

You're joking? Please say it's a joke - you're going too colourise your storyboards?

What on earth would be the point - nobody is interested in grading on a storyboard. I knew you'd misunderstood totally their purpose, and this proves it.

What exactly are you trying to separate the colours for? I'm not an expert in this area at all, but 10 bit does is gives you more data to wrangle. It's similar to when people said you cannot green screen properly in Composite, you needed component. Then we went digital and you couldn't do it properly in SD, you needed HD, you couldn't do it properly in a single chip camera, you needed three chip ones, then we moved to needing 10 bit processing.

They're talking about when you want to work with less than ideal material, so exposure issues, lighting problems, deep shadows - that kind if thing, and if you have noise, because the actual subject didn't translate well to being shot, then the better the subject material technically, the more scope you have.

People with material that is NOT ten bit can still grade it. If you remember you wanted to change the colours of walls and stuff like that - and went on a crazy quest for colours not sensible at all. We thought you had given up, but clearly not. You spend so much thinking time on minute detail and hardly any on getting a good story, a good cast and good locations - these are always compromised, so why start thinking about the grade on a bad production. Get this right and you might not even need a grade!

[Ryan Elder]

Originally Posted by Pete Cofrancesco

Haven’t we already had a similar discussion before? I find it funny Ryan always gravitates to the most difficult effect to achieve, in this case a tri color grade. What happened to using a blue or star filter? Sounds like you have a lot of time on your hands. Why don’t you film some test footage and practice these techniques instead of asking us? Don’t you have all of winter to figure this out?

Oh okay, I don't have to color the storyboards, it was just an idea for wardrobe and all, and for my memory but I don't have to. Bun in framforge, the storyboards are colorized, so if it's done in frameforge, than is it such a bad idea?

Well I want to be able to seperate skin tones, so they do not get colored the same thing as other things I want to color. But in order to separate the skin tones, without noise and artifact issues, I need 10 bit, or so I was told here before.

[Paul R Johnson]

Ryan - do you EVER experiment? Instead of misunderstanding what people say, actually try it, and base your opinion on what happens. You have the software, so take a clip and practice. The trouble is sometimes people say things that are funny, and are obviously not meant to be taken as fact - or they same something that is accurate in a particular context, but you add it to your rule book as a generic answer.

There are sources on the net of virtually every format you could want for download - so for goodness sake, try some, test some and produce a conclusion for yourself.

Why on earth would wardrobe want a colourised storyboard. They take great care with colours, and need to deal with real colours, not tweaked ones! Plus of course, print dyes are very different from screen colours.

[Ryan Elder]

Originally Posted by Paul R Johnson

Ryan - do you EVER experiment? Instead of misunderstanding what people say, actually try it, and base your opinion on what happens. You have the software, so take a clip and practice. The trouble is sometimes people say things that are funny, and are obviously not meant to be taken as fact - or they same something that is accurate in a particular context, but you add it to your rule book as a generic answer.

There are sources on the net of virtually every format you could want for download - so for goodness sake, try some, test some and produce a conclusion for yourself.

Why on earth would wardrobe want a colourised storyboard. They take great care with colours, and need to deal with real colours, not tweaked ones! Plus of course, print dyes are very different from screen colours.

Yes I experiment. But the software cannot separate colors if it was shot in 8 bit, so I have to wait till I a DP comes on board with a 10 bit camera.

Wardrobe does not have to be colorized on a storyboard, but programs like frameforge, have color on the character's clothes, and on the locations. I don't want the DP or PD, becoming confused, when it comes to what colors, so shouldn't I pick the right colors in frameforge, otherwise it will give me the standard colors it starts out with and possibly confuse people?

[Paul R Johnson]

You confuse people all the time. Storyboards have been black and white for years. I have three printers here, they all have different colours, so even if they printed your colourised sheets out, what would be the point.

I’m intrigued by your experiment. You say it couldn’t do it. Explain please. Did it do it badly, if so what did it do. I wonder if you are expecting something you have read or been told about that is impossible with your footage. What I mean is like my comment on keying. People say you need X to be able to key properly, but the real killer is lighting, poorly lit material just wont key properly in any software at any resolution in any bit depth.

If I understand you correctly, you want to take a shot, retain the face colour, but shift a particular hue to a new one, leaving the face untouched? If the face is lit properly and continually then all should be well. You test could simply have been flawed with contamination of the skin colour, and a ten bit camera would have been the same. Let’s have a look at the clip that wont work, and we can all advise.

[Ryan Elder]

Oh, but how do other movies do it when move and walk through lighting and the lighting shifts? How do the programs still retain the face color?

Well here is an example of me removing the face skin, but I colored the background blue:

skin tone qualifier test - YouTube

However, when I upload to youtube a lot of the noise cannot be seen, on youtube for some reason. But when the movie is in it's original form before it hits youtube, there is a lot of noise in it.

Here is also an example of what the qualifer does to the skin. The first half of this clip is the footage without the skin separated with the qualifer. The second half is the skin separated. Notice how there is black designs throughout the face, because the skin does not seperate properly:

Qualifier test 2 - YouTube

Thanks again for the help! Happy New year everyone!

[Paul R Johnson]

Is this not just the gradients in the selection - have you tried this?
https://www.reddit.com/r/colorists/c...lve_qualifier/