This week we had our tuts in the suits, and Paul introduced colour grading to us. I’ve heard about colour grading before so it wasn’t that new to me, however I didn’t know how to use it in my videos so I wasn’t really sure what it could offer.

Through the exercises in class, I realised that colour could really change the whole look of my scene. This interested me because it was similar to what I was doing with lighting. The change doesn’t need to be very bold or loud, it could be a small tweak to the footage. Yet a subtle colour grade could have a profound impact on the scene.

Came across this video of comparison between the original footage and the colour-graded footage. Watching this masterpiece made me the realise how colour grading can influence the look and feel of a finished piece.

Colorista split screen of before/after color grading from Bill Voelker on Vimeo.

Seems like in the world of video, colour grading is an art form all its own.