May 11th, 2015 -This is how poor people like us have fun!!!
I shot this on my Sony a99 with both the Zeiss 85mm f/1.4 (first half), and the Zeiss 50mm f/1.4 (second half), and I color graded it in Davinci Resolve, of course! [Still arranging in Sony Vegas, too, because Resolve despite it's improvements is still a nightmare to arrange in!]
This is a new look for me (and I'm going to write a lot of notes here to help me remember later on): I was going for a gritty, quasi-bleach bypass look similar to the show "America Unearthed"! I think this is about as close as I can get to that (and I set the contrast too high on my camera, so this isn't the perfect test footage), especially since they are in locations that are a little more picturesque than my front yard, and they probably use much better cameras than I have (so they have a lot more dynamic range to work with --when they pull out those colors, a lot of magic probably happens that I can't quite do!).
The coloring here is kind of ironic for the subject matter -this gritty coloring would be better for, well, something OTHER THAN kids splashing around in a splash pool, but hey... I'm honing my craft! Well, "hobby"! :)
It's not exactly the typical bleach bypass... instead of "overlay" with a black/white node, I'm using "multiply". This darkens all the darks nicely but keeps the highs from getting blown out, which is similar to the show. Plus, I have the black/white layer only on about 50% gain (but I would have probably done a little bit more if I didn't have so much contrast on the original shot) -so it's definitely much less "harsh" (and in my opinion, "enjoyable") than full-bore bleach bypass.
So, it's all that plus shifting the mids and highs to brown, but only shifting the lows to teal a tiny amount because I found that at least the way I do it, if you push the teals in the lows too much with this type of coloring, it causes problems in the grade for some reason (blue-greens pop up in unexpected places, and the contrast gets whacky in spots)! I guess because there is so much more "low".
I warmed the skin tones, too -some scenes I've added contrast with only the Y channel. It was kind of hard to nail the skin tones because I have that massive fuchsia/magenta reflection from the pool reflecting in their faces! Plus, like I said earlier, there was a bit too much overall contrast. I wish that I had more shots of me (the first scene is dark, and the second scene I'm not in focus) because I would have been able to make sure I was properly grizzled and weathered looking like the color grading makes Scott Wolter and the other guys look on the show.
This part is for me for later on when I watch this years from now:
-I shot it at 1/100 shutter speed instead of 1/50 (the closest to 180 degrees my camera can get), and in retrospect I don't like it as much. Makes it look to harsh.
-Contrast was set to "2" on the camera, and that's too much for this type of coloring. Ordinarily, I like having the camera doing as much as possible, and I frankly LIKE the way it handles the contrast --but, with this quasi-bleach bypass look, it's just too much! Saturation and Sharpness were "0".
-When outside, I normally tweak the greens (grass/trees/etc.) a little bit more blue to "pop" the skin tones (make them opposites on the color wheel). I can't do that in this look because it kind of breaks the color grade.
-This video was shot in MASSIVELY BRIGHT SUNLIGHT, despite the way it looks! I got away with it because I used a Hoya variable ND filter. However, the "talent" (my two kids!) was initially too dark, and I adjusted the exposure in the camera to +1 to compensate and everything was fine. I've never heard anything about having to do this and I've never had to do that before, and I'm assuming that this is because with this variable ND filter, I could go down a lot more "stops" than I normally could with the typical .9 or 1.2 that I've used before. Anyway, I'm writing that so I can remember for next time!
Well, this is the last time I write a description while I'm waiting for it to upload because I've written too much, and nobody cares and will ever read it!!! :)