Event Summary

Technical presentation

Anyone who goes to the cinema will notice the vibrant colours and the way the mood of the movie is maintained by how the colour and hue are harmoniously transitioned from scene to scene.

When a film is shot, the lighting conditions are always different from one scene to the next. The film director and the cinematographer may also want to give the film a particular look (for example, The Lord of the Rings had a dark look whereas a romantic comedy may have brighter colours and a sunny look). Whilst this is addressed by lighting the scenes when they are shot, to create an overall look and balance, the film laboratory uses operators called colour timers. These colour timers work with the Cinematographers and vary the film development process in order to give the whole film the balanced, but vibrant or dark look that improves the enjoyment of the film.

With the advent of digital special effects, it was possible to create not only a balanced look, but allow creative freedom to polish individual elements in a scene (for example the facial tones or the colour of the eyes). In order to do this, the film is digitised and then processed electronically to give the desired colours and look.

This lecture introduced the concept of digitising film to first retain all the information that was shot and secondly, how it is manipulated to give an amazing and creative mood to a film to enhance the creative look. Kevin Shaw, an experienced colourist, also gave a live demo of how a dull and flat look that is the starting point of film can be transformed to create a stunning piece of imagery.

 

Speakers

Kevin Shaw, Freelance Colourist