Editing techniques: Colour Grading

An often less represented part of editing is the colour correction. The colour correction and colour grading applied can often change the overall feel of a film. For example if a film was light hearted it would have an overall bright colour grade whilst if the film was quite dark and gritty it will have a quite saturated colour grade. It is important to implement this as it can greatly impact the overall feel whilst not necessarily being noticed by the viewer. In my production, the use of colour will be used effectively. One of the problems I had was making it clear when the character had frozen time and when he hadn't, and this is where colour grading came in. For the parts where the character hadn't frozen time I saturated the colours 50% so that there was an overall gloomy look. However, when the character had frozen time I increased the brightness and contrast slightly as well as increasing the amount of yellow in the shots. This gave an overall brighter and enhanced look, which was effective as the character would also feel enhanced due to the ability that is available to him whilst he's frozen time. Overall, this was effective as the contrast between the two colour grades was greater than if I left one without any colour correction. Below is a preview of when the character first uses the pendant and it shows well the difference in colour between the two states.