Let’s call a spade a spade here. I still feel like I totally suck at this color correction and color grading stuff. But it does look better than it did before and I did learn a ton from taking this Skillshare course with Jordy Vandeput. The more I watch this guy the more I think he’s great. He’s a goofball. And errs on the side of corny, but it’s all in good fun. Fact is when it comes to knowing things about filmmaking Jordy knows this stuff inside and out. He’s passionate to the maximus. And as for his joy to teach other people things, there’s something truly pure about his energy and enthusiasm. It’s so genuine it feels rare and special. If you’re learning like me, he’s extremely helpful.
Working through this has made me realize I’m on the opposite end of the part of the process that I truly enjoy. My natural joy comes from the ideas, the story, being a part of the magical production process, but here, staring and adjusting color wheels and making sure waveforms are in scope. I would totally pay someone to do this stuff if I could. But I also appreciate learning all aspects of the process and understanding why color is important.
The first thing to figure out is what kind of emotion do you want to send? Because color has a lot to do with that. Generally, a fire should feel warm with orange and red, and a frozen lake should feel cold with blues and darker colors. As for Blue Apron Youtube videos I want them to feel fresh and bright, but the kitchen should also feel warm and cozy and the food should look appetizing. And as a character in these little films, I also want a warm glow to look like a friendly human, and not like a freaky hulk chef or cold blue perverted smurf.
I also took away an understanding of how to approach the process. There’s color correction and there’s color grading. Color correction is simply fixing shots to make sure they look natural and right. Color grading is more of an art form, applying stylistic contrast and color to communicate a certain type of emotion to the viewer. That’s key.
So here’s a first go at trying to color correct and grade. You can already see how much the color and warm tones pop on my skin from the preview. When you get into the video you can see the richness of the colors in the food, the red peppers, the freshness of the green spinach. It looks so much better. Working in Premiere Pro I followed a workflow of running through each clip with basic corrections then applying an adjustment layer over top with a creative look or LUT. So while I’ve huffed and puffed, putzed around, and put off doing it, I now know it’s something I need to master and incorporate in my work.
And here’s the original version I posted without corrections.