Hi, I'm Ed Woo of WooHawk Productions.
Each film has its own distinct look because of the film stock that they used or the color
grading that they used.
In today's tutorial, I'll be going into color secondary and grades room to show you techniques
that will make your film look more cinematic.
Let's check it out.
So here we are in Apple Colors Secondaries room.
We're going to go into the timeline three different clips that have different movement
or different fields, different cinematic fields from the same film that I just shot in January.
So we're going to look at these clips, the first of which is a jib crane shot that ends
up pretty high up and the next clip is a static shot of a woman picking up a toy telephone
and then the last shot is a dream flashback sequence of a little kid that is listening
to a conversation of his parents fighting.
So let's go to the first clip we have on the timeline and we're going to start jumping
into the color grading and making it look cinematic.
So the first thing that I would do is look at the clip from beginning to end.
Like I said, this has a lot, a lot, a lot of movement.
The beginning of this clip looks very different from the end.
Over here we have an over the shoulder shot at the end.
He's really small on the screen.
So the amount of color grading that we're actually going to do to this image is not
too much just because of the amount of movement that's in this shot and how much is changing.
This clip is already color corrected so the white balance is good and the contrast is
very dynamic.
We have a dynamic range from 0 to 100 throughout the entire clip basically.
So we're going to jump into the secondaries.
So the secondaries room like I went over in my overview of color is very similar to the
primary ends.
So the first thing that I'm going to do is we're going to use this first secondary right
here.
So we have eight secondaries that we can do.
I have never gone up to eight.
The maximum that I've really gone up to would probably be five on a really heavily graded
image but on this first image, on this first secondary, sorry, I usually use the first
secondary as the overall image.
So if I want to do a complete grade to the entire image, if I want to affect the saturation
or the contrast of the entire image, this is where I would do it.
So the first thing that I'm going to do is I'm going to bring down the saturation.
So I'm going to scroll this down here on the saturation just because I would have previously
talked to the director or the director of photography and kind of got a feel for what
part of the story this is or the type of mood that this scene is supposed to be in.
So I know that this is a very depressing scene and as I can see from the shot, he ends up
in a very isolated shot.
He's really small on the screen so I'm going to bring down the saturation and around there
point eight six, generally, I'd probably go around there.
So I look in my clips, see if there's anything different, the histogram of the vector scope
and there's nothing that different.
So I'm pretty satisfied with the saturation there.
Now I know that this clip is very somber like I said.
So typically, a somber feel would be a bluer tone, a colder tone.
So we're going to bring down the shadows to the blue area.
So I'm going to exaggerate this for a second and we can see the entire image change and
you see a lot of these darker areas are really affected and we see on the histogram that
the blues have gone up.
And typically, I mean, we could see that this could be like a Hollywood blockbuster type
look, but that's not what we're going for.
This is a very independent film, very somber scene.
So we just want to add a tiny bit of blue in the shadows here.
So I'm going to go around there and this button right here, the HS Reset.
This will reset you to back to normal.
This is kind of like an undo.
So I'm going to undo that.
And so now we can see the difference between the two.
We see up here in the grass and the mud that we can really see that difference.
So that's the first thing that I would do and we're going to look back at the beginning
of the clip and look at the end.
That looks pretty good.
So on top of that, I'm going to go into the highlights and this is what we call bracketing.
So when we bracket, we are going to even this out in the highlights.
So because we brought the shadows down into the blue area, I'm going to even out the highlights
and warm it up so our mid-tones are evenly spread out within the colors.
So I'm going to move that over there and if I undo that, we can see that especially in
the highlights up here in the sky that there's a warmer tone in there.
So now if we watch the clip, yeah, and that's a more cinematic feel.
It tells the story through the color and that's what this program is designed to do.
Tell a story with the color.
On the mid-tones, we just kind of adjust for his skin tone, which looks pretty good.
Maybe we'll cool that down a tiny bit, give it even more of a depressing look to it.
So that's looking pretty good.
And now that we've graded the overall image, we are going to go into this and really isolate
some certain areas.
Like I said, because this has a lot of movement, we can't do too much vignetting or yeah, too
much vignetting.
Typically, I would vignette if this was a static shot like this, I would highlight his
area and bring the surrounding area down so that he's lit a little bit better and he's
the sole subject of the image.
But because there's so much movement, we can't isolate just that one area.
So I'm going to go into my second secondary now.
So we moved from this first secondary, which is our overall image, to our second secondary.
And I'm going to start with a vignette.
So when I click that vignette button right here, you can see that it pops up a circle.
Here we can go, we can change the shape to a square if we wanted.
We can make a user shape, but I typically like to use circles.
This is kind of a personal preference here.
So what I like to do is with images that move a lot, is just kind of give an overall vignette,
not an oval vignette that you typically see.
I like to increase the size of this and then increase the aspect where it is wider, almost
like a square or rectangle, but still rounded edges.
And then I'll change the angle.
So I'm going to actually type this in and I'm going to make this 35.
We're going to guess here.
So that's a little bit too much, so I'm going to go to 25.
And that's about where I want.
I'm trying to get this angled right here and vignette the sides up here.
So I'm going to increase the size again.
That's looking better.
And now I'm going to increase the softness.
So you see when I increase the softness, this is kind of like feathering in Photoshop.
And I increase that softness, instead of going a harsh change, I'll show you here, instead
of going from a harsh change of zero, where it goes directly from white to black.
Now if we increase the softness, that is making it nice, a nice gradient going from white
to black.
And we're going to increase this here.
So now we're going to go back to this full color here.
So now we're going to affect the inside and outside.
So there's a control up here on inside and outside.
So what we're going to do is go into the outside.
So the white part is representative.
What's the inside?
And the black part is representative.
What's on the outside?
So what I want to do, I'm just going to give it a small vignette.
So I'm going to bring down the lift on the edges.
I'm going to bring down the gain on the edges.
You can see on the histogram over here that it's going down, and then I'm going to decrease
the gain with a tiny bit, and maybe we'll make the size of this a little bit smaller.
So we're going to see what this looks like.
We're going to un-enable this and then re-enable this.
So we can see in those corners that we really adjust it up here and down here, we can see
the difference.
I'm going to bring down the softness, and this is kind of when your eye just kind of
use your eye to figure out what looks best.
I'm going to enable that.
So I'm liking that.
So now let's look at what happens when we go up.
So let's take away those yellow lines.
If we click this button right here, and that will take away those yellow lines so that
we can actually see the image.
So remember, we affected these side areas, the top left and the bottom right.
So we're giving up.
And because there's no difference, there's a big difference in the shot, we can't really
tell because we've had such a soft vignette on it.
So let's see the difference here.
This is un-enabled, and then this is enabled.
It's extremely subtle, but you can tell the difference, and it definitely enhances the
mood and the story because it isolates him.
So I'm pretty satisfied with this shot.
I really like this color grade.
So let's look at the color grade, graded and ungraded.
So here is the graded, I'm sorry.
So let's look at the graded image.
So we're going to disable the grade here, that is option G.
So we can option G, I'm sorry, control G, and if you can see on this image up here that
we've changed a lot to it.
This is ungraded, and this is graded.
All right, so now we're going to go into the next clip here.
So this clip, like I said, is a static shot of a woman picking up a toy phone.
So she's reminiscing about the past and her son's childhood here, so this is kind of a
happier moment, a warm moment, and if you saw the rest of the film, I graded this basement
footage, I gave it all a certain look, I gave it a little greenish tint to it, but a warmer
feel as well.
So we're going to do that here.
So again, I'm going to go to the first secondary room here, because that's always my overall
look, and I'm going to bring down the saturation a little bit, and we're going to bring this
down to 0.95, it's just a very subtle desaturation, but I feel like that looks a little better.
So now we're going to go into the color again, we're going to add a warmer amber tone here
in the shadows, and then we're going to add a little warmer tone into the skin tone,
into her skin tone.
So again, I'm kind of eyeballing this on what I feel looks right, and we're going to go
around there, and then we're going to bracket this a tiny bit with the blues so that the
whites in here on the telephone are whiter so that we know that white, white is actually
truly white.
So I'm liking that, I'm liking that.
So let's look at that ungraded real quick, and now graded.
So you can definitely see a complete change in the image.
This is a much greener tone, very white balance.
If we add this warm tone, it completely changes the mood.
Now you can see her emotions, you can feel that she's a little reminiscent, a little
happy with this warm tone to it.
So I'm going to tweak her skin tone a little bit.
So now the next thing I would do is I see that this left side was kind of improperly
lit.
It's a lot brighter on this side than it is on the right side.
You can see this on the preview monitor up here.
So we're going to fix that, and how we're going to do that is with a vignette.
Like in the first clip that we color graded, we use that vignette to kind of decrease the
amount of light in the edges, in the top left and the bottom right edges.
So in this image, we're going to vignette solely this left side.
So we're going to create that vignette again.
We're going to increase the size, we're going to increase the softness, and we're going
to increase this aspect.
I'm going to go up this way.
Now we're going to increase the angle and see, estimate where we want to go.
So I see it's kind of a slight slant to the upright.
So it's going from bottom left to top right.
So I'm going to go negative here, negative, let's say 15, and that's pretty close.
We're going to bring this over to the side, so that we're only affecting this side over
here.
So we're going to control the inside this time, not the outside, because the inside
of the vignette is right here.
So we're going to bring that over here, and set that around there, and then we're going
to bring down that master gain like we did before, because I know this is white, this
was white area, so we're going to bring that down.
So that's looking pretty good.
So let's see what we just did.
We just brought down that side of the image, and that looks a lot more natural.
So we look at our image, it's looking pretty good.
And the last thing that I may do would be, I would highlight her face a little bit more,
just kind of boost a little bit of that light.
So I'm going to go make a third secondary here, and add a vignette on her face.
So we're going to adjust this size, I'm going to angle it, I'm going to see what 20 does.
Yep.
And we're going to go, and we'll say, let's say 30, I'm going to angle it right on her
face there, increase that softness, and we're going to adjust her contrast in her face alone.
So we're going to increase the gain, stretch that out, and then we're going to bring down
the master lift to compensate, and increase that up, and then increase the gamma a tiny
bit.
So now let's see what we do with that secondary.
So now you see her face is popping better.
The contrast in her face is looking a lot better, and now I think that's a pretty good
graded image.
So let's see what this looks like.
Ungraded, and graded, ungraded, and graded.
So you can see there's a lot more warmth in this image, but still there's a slight green
tone to it, and the green tone I use in a lot of the secretive areas, or where in this
story the violin kind of was found, and so that green tone was seen throughout the film.
All right.
So now we're going to move into the last clip here, and in this last clip this is a dream
sequence, a flashback sequence that goes back to a childhood flashback.
So we look at this image, it's got a slight dolly, and then ends in a static shot here
on the little kid.
So when I think of flashbacks, I think of possibly a sepia tone, or a warmer tone.
I know many flashbacks are completely different, and you want to create a look for your film
for that flashback scene that will fit in the overall film, but also split it apart
from the present time and the flashback time.
So what we did was we gave it a warmer sepia tone, and so what we're going to do is we're
going to start with the shadows again on the color wheel and bring that into a greenish
yellowish area, and I chose that because, again, that green tone always adds some sort
of eerie feeling to it.
A lot of horror films use the color green, it's kind of sickly.
So this flashback was an argument happening with his parents, so we're going to add a
little green in that.
And then in his skin tone, we're going to warm up his skin tone a tiny bit, and then
we're going to even this all out in the highlights, a little bit blue.
So we can see if we take that off, that the overall image got brighter because of the
green that we added to the shadows.
So let's decrease the master lift here in this overall image, and now we're a lot more
dynamically contrasted here.
So the next thing that we're going to do is, again, we're going to isolate some certain
areas.
See, I have messed up with my room.
So right now I am in room three, I forgot to go to the first secondary here, so now
my third secondary is my overall image grading.
So as you can see, it gets kind of confusing after a while, so you really have to be on
top of what rooms you're using, or just remember that your third room is your overall look.
So let's go to the second room, and we're going to add a vignette.
And the way that we're going to do this is actually not in the secondaries.
I'm going to go into the color FX room as it's called, and this is a very complex room.
I have not messed with this completely, but they have a lot of presets here, and then
a lot of effects on this left tab over here.
And this is very complex.
You can do a lot of things with this room alone.
So we're going to throw on a preset that comes with Apple Color.
It's called the Defocus Vignette Warm.
And the best way to learn this room is just through practice.
So I'm going to double click this to set this.
So as you can see, if we undo what we just did there up here, if we undo that up here
in the preview monitor, you can see that we're adding a lot of warmth to it.
There's a vignette, and it's giving the stream-like feel to the film, to the scene.
But still, that green and what we graded in the secondaries is still prominent.
So what we're going to do is we're going to tweak with the settings in this, because
the vignette is a little much and the blur is very heavy.
So we are going to go into the vignette here and go into parameters.
And we're going to increase the size of this vignette so that we can see more of his face.
And there we go.
And now if I de-click that vignette, you can see that that vignette is a little wider.
And you can also bypass the vignette so that you can see what you're actually working with.
And then we have a gamma, the second gamma channel that is used here in the street.
This is affecting just the overall gamma of the image.
And then we look at the blur, and like I said, we can decrease the blur a little bit.
And then we'll look at this gamma, and this is adding a greenish-orange tone to it and
then increasing the gamma.
So this alpha blend is a way for these parts of the tree, the blur, the vignette, the gamma,
to link and to only affect what is in this vignette.
So this blur in the gamma that we did and this gamma 2 is only affected in the dark areas
of the vignette.
So as you can see, if we take away this grade and look around these edges on the vignette,
if we delete this grade here, we can see that that was strictly working on the vignette.
So let's undo that.
Now we just graded that clip.
Let's look from beginning and to the end.
Now that looks like it's a flashback scene.
So that is the apple colors secondaries room and the color effects room.
And like you saw, we can do a lot with isolating certain areas of the shot like we did in the
second clip with her face or affect the overall image.
There's a lot more that we could do with all of this, but here are the basics of the secondaries
and the color effects room.
I hope you enjoyed this tutorial.
I'm Ed Woo for WooHawk Productions and go to my website, www.woohawkproductions.com to
see other tutorials and examples of my work.
Thank you for watching and I'll see you next time.
Bye.
