The Look of Midnight in Paris and To Rome With Love

[Atina]

It probably is. It's very unlikely they simply tweaked WB as the greens go all icky if you simply up colour temperature.

I was afraid that it is so.

I am a bit surprised that it is this difficult to pinpoint in a bit more detail than just simply changing the colour temperature.

I even thought that there were plugins with effects that produce similar results to the two looks of these two films.

[kirkt]

Try the LUT I made and see if it works for you.  There are plug-ins for Photoshop and AfterEffects/Premiere, etc. that provide the user with the ability to generate "looks" that are filmic, etc.  Red Giant Magic Bullet Looks is the typical example.  There are gazillions of preset combinations of tools in Looks that instantly give you a look you can tweak. 

Color grading is an art and it is highly unlikely that a link for a film is simply a white balance tweak.  Watch some color grading videos on Stu Maschwitz's blog "Prolost"

http://prolost.com

to get an idea of the thought process and implementation of grades that you probably see a lot in feature films, etc.  This will give you an idea of how to reverse engineer (think about) the grade you might see in an image and then you can translate your analysis of the grade into a look that you can apply in any software you choose, as long as that software provides tools to do what you want to do.

kirk

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

... it is highly unlikely that a link for a film is simply a white balance tweak...

No one said it is all it takes. But it is a good starting point.

[Atina]

These photos don't look like they are pulled from the movie, but made by the set still photographer.  And they don't look very good do they?

Why do you think so? I love them. Which is obvious, since I started this whole thread.

The screenshots are a warmer, but not that preposterously far from the colour of the images in the film.

The warmth makes Paris and Versailles and especially Rome cities on a hot planet somewhere in the Star Wars Universe. Rome is scorching. Just look at that image of the poor lost Milly in Piazza del Popolo! It must be a million degrees, one thinks, when watching that scene.

One area where the orange hues don't work is Il Vittoriano: that tint just doesn't look good on a white-marble monument. And take a look at that screenshots of the traffic policeman and how the orange facade of the building on his left reflects on the asphalt below – it so intriguing how the policeman splits that image in two, as if it were some sort of montage or something like that.

[jjj]

I was afraid that it is so.

I am a bit surprised that it is this difficult to pinpoint in a bit more detail than just simply changing the colour temperature.

Why? If that wasn't how it was done, that wouldn't be the solution.

I even thought that there were plugins with effects that produce similar results to the two looks of these two films.

Thinking you can easily replicate the look of other people's work is optimistic.
Working out which one of numerous methods that could have been used is even harder.

Re plugins, unless you had one to create the look of the specific films in question they probably aren't going to be of much use.
Not to mention presets/plugins can have very different effects with different lighting, exposure, camera, ISO etc.... You need the right starting point first.

[jjj]

No one said it is all it takes. But it is a good starting point.

Not if it's the wrong one.   

[Atina]

Why? If that wasn't how it was done, that wouldn't be the solution.
Thinking you can easily replicate the look of other people's work is optimistic.
Working out which one of numerous methods that could have been used is even harder.

Re plugins, unless you had one to create the look of the specific films in question they probably aren't going to be of much use.
Not to mention presets/plugins can have very different effects with different lighting, exposure, camera, ISO etc.... You need the right starting point first.

“Thinking you can easily replicate the look of other people's work is optimistic.” I only keep realizing this slowly now. I thought that someone might suggest something else besides white balance. But it seems no one can really think of something.

Here is what Darius Khondji said in an interview for the American Cinematographer from August 2012:

You created the warm colors with dimmers, but also with gels?
Khondji: I used CTO and CTS on the keylights in a scene. I also like Bastard Amber, Magenta, Pink and Mauve. I often make the shadows a bit cooler, often by bouncing blue or green from above. Then, in the digital grade, I mute the highlights a bit, bringing them down in intensity and adding a bit of gold. In the toe of the curve, wherever the blacks catch a little bit of color, I add some blue. I use color contrast a lot. That’s how my eye functions.

What does he mean by bouncing the blue or green from above and how is he adding gold to highlights? I would also like an explanation about those blacks and how does one add blue to them.

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

... I thought that someone might suggest something else besides white balance. But it seems no one can really think of something...

Unless you have the luxury of illuminating the scene the way you wanted, that "something else" is called post-processing in still photography or grading in movies. You start with WB. There are hundreds of things you can do in post or grading, and how you do them is quite individual. You want a formula how to replicate something, and the whole point of post/grading is to come up with something unique and individual.

As for "bouncing blue," what he probably talks about is illuminating a scene with blue-gel lights by bouncing the light into shadows. As for "adding gold to highlights" in grading, he adds a yellow/orange cast to highlights.

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

Speaking of a particular cast in movies (color cast, not acting), I just watched on Netfix this one: Welcome to the Punch. It is done throughout  the whole movie with a strong blue-green cast. You can see stills from the movie here:

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/welcome_to_the_punch/pictures/movie-100758/

One way to do it is to illuminate actors with a normal or slightly warmer light, and the rest of the scene with a blue-green filter.

[Atina]

Unless you have the luxury of illuminating the scene the way you wanted, that "something else" is called post-processing in still photography or grading in movies. You start with WB. There are hundreds of things you can do in post or grading, and how you do them is quite individual. You want a formula how to replicate something, and the whole point of post/grading is to come up with something unique and individual.

As for "bouncing blue," what he probably talks about is illuminating a scene with blue-gel lights by bouncing the light into shadows. As for "adding gold to highlights" in grading, he adds a yellow/orange cast to highlights.

You will have noticed that here I only pretty much focussed on the outdoor scenes, even though I might have not emphasized it as I should have. I haven't touched the night-time scenes. That would be a nightmare to reproduce without doing it exactly as it was done in the film.

I also am not looking to create something unique, but exactly the opposite. That is, I'm not trying to create my own look, but to come as close as possible to the ones shown in the films.

So my line about something else wasn't a jab – because I am thankful to everyone here – it is just that I thought someone might suggest something else about tone curves, saturation, or tone splitting. Or any of the other devices available.

It is really striking for me to see the still photograph from the move in the above-mentioned American Cinematographer of the scene near the Trevi Fountain and to see it in the film. The difference is really noticeable.

[jjj]

“Thinking you can easily replicate the look of other people's work is optimistic.” I only keep realizing this slowly now. I thought that someone might suggest something else besides white balance. But it seems no one can really think of something.

Er, other things have been suggested.

Here is what Darius Khondji said in an interview for the American Cinematographer from August 2012:

You created the warm colors with dimmers, but also with gels?
Khondji: I used CTO and CTS on the keylights in a scene. I also like Bastard Amber, Magenta, Pink and Mauve. I often make the shadows a bit cooler, often by bouncing blue or green from above. Then, in the digital grade, I mute the highlights a bit, bringing them down in intensity and adding a bit of gold. In the toe of the curve, wherever the blacks catch a little bit of color, I add some blue. I use color contrast a lot. That’s how my eye functions.

As I said it will be a complex process.
Also when dressing the set, the colours on set and the costumes will often have been carefully chosen too. So the lack of say red in a scene/film may be because there was no red in shot.
In fact the film Slobodan mentions above Welcome to the Punch, they avoided or digitally removed any iconic London buses and London transport signage.

[jjj]

Speaking of a particular cast in movies (color cast, not acting), I just watched on Netfix this one: Welcome to the Punch. It is done throughout  the whole movie with a strong blue-green cast. You can see stills from the movie here:

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/welcome_to_the_punch/pictures/movie-100758/

One way to do it is to illuminate actors with a normal or slightly warmer light, and the rest of the scene with a blue-green filter.

I saw that last week actually. Some interesting bits in a somewhat flawed script.
The grade on that is very Matrix like, which very much looks like it a lit by old school fluorescents and then desaturated. The colouration would be far more likely to be done more via grade than the method you suggest which is far harder to do with subjects that move in and around frame than it is for stills work.

Here's a shot that is similarly graded to the police van shot [which oddly looks more saturated in the thumbnail preview than it is]. The red hat/shoes of the guy in middle and blue jeans of chap on left show why you need to also dress sets and actors appropriately to get the right look as those colours take away from the grade.

[Atina]

As for "bouncing blue," what he probably talks about is illuminating a scene with blue-gel lights by bouncing the light into shadows. As for "adding gold to highlights" in grading, he adds a yellow/orange cast to highlights.

Thank you.

What about adding blue to the blacks?

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

Thank you.

What about adding blue to the blacks?

The same as with highlights: you add a blue cast in post processing. Now, understandably, you can't add any cast to pure black, but what he had in mind are deep shadows. Outdoor shadows are by nature bluish, by the way.

Most raw converters and post processing programs have a way to add a color cast separately to highlights and shadows (and even mid-tones). In Lightroom, I used Split Toning tool. In Photoshop, it could be done with even more precision. On the left is out-of-camera file, on the right is a golden-blue version.

[jjj]

Just remembered this demonstration of grading footage that was shot in LOG so it looks flat until graded. You may find this illuminating or possibly depressing Atina as there is no simple quick tweak to get end result.

[Atina]

Here's a shot that is similarly graded to the police van shot [which oddly looks more saturated in the thumbnail preview than it is]. The red hat/shoes of the guy in middle and blue jeans of chap on left show why you need to also dress sets and actors appropriately to get the right look as those colours take away from the grade.

Yes.

Woody Allen talked about this precisely in one of the interviews:

It has an effect on me, I like it. When I see cool films, no matter how beautiful they are, there's something off-putting about them. I have all my characters—or 99% of the characters—dress in autumnal clothes, beiges, and browns, and yellows, and greens. And I have [production designer and long-time collaborator] Snato Loquasto make the sets look as warm as possible. And I like the lighting to be very warm, and I color-correct things so that they're very red.

http://www.rogerebert.com/interviews/simply-do-it-talking-with-woody-allen-about-directorial-style

[Atina]

Thank you to you both. I must say, Slobodan, that the right image looks much better to me. I'm grateful for the illustration.

Jjj, I'm still torn: I don't know if I find it depressing or illuminating.

But may I be a little more ignorant again: this whole colour grading process, how similar is it to developing still images? The colourists tweak the same things as a photographer or retoucher does when processing still images: white balance, colour channels, tone curves, saturation, vibrance, shadows and highlights?

I re-read your post about how if you simply changed white balance, "the greens would go all icky" and then looked, for example, at this screen capture from one of the films, and even though the greens are different, they aren't icky and the sky's colour is great:

https://filmsatmidnight.wordpress.com/2013/01/18/the-cinematography-of-darius-khondji/

You can see the same happen if you look at the Movie Tourist's blog and check the image of Milly on Piazza del Popolo.

[smthopr]

Grading digital movies is very close to photoshop for moving images. Sometimes the controls have different names, but they do the same things.

[Atina]

Oh, that's a relief. I got it right.

So how does it work? Do they correct scene per scene? I.e., they pick a frame from a scene, fiddle with it, and then batch-process the whole scene based on that one frame?

Would you say that colour-correction software is more or less powerful than its still-images counterparts?

[jjj]

So how does it work? Do they correct scene per scene? I.e., they pick a frame from a scene, fiddle with it, and then batch-process the whole scene based on that one frame?

Would you say that colour-correction software is more or less powerful than its still-images counterparts?

Depends on what you mean by powerful. They both do fundamentally the same thing, even if they may use different terms for the same adjustment.
The main difference with motion grading is the ability to key areas, such as a face or a window that will then be affected by whatever treatment is applied as the camera or subject moves. The software can smartly keep the adjustment to just the defined area even as it changes shape/size. This saves having to mask the area in each frame individually.
You can use DaVinciResolve for free if you like, very well regarded software for motion work. They only charge for the control hardware to run it, which any serious user will buy.

What is also very important is that different shots from the same scene match. Particularly if using different cameras in say an action scene with disposable 5Ds and GoPro being mixed with Alexa footage.
Even different lenses on same sensor can give different results, particularly if different brands. This is why you tend to use a set of cine lenses that have t-stops and not f-stops and the same colour rendition, as well as same sizing to allow quick swapping between takes without re-rigging camera.
Re F + T stops, think o f them as fictional and truthful. An f-stop is the theoretical transmission of light, the T-stop is the actual transmission of light. My f2.8 24mm prime is much brighter than my f2.8 16-35mm L lens for example so if shooting a scene with both set to f4, then the exposures will be quite different.