During the downtime created by Coronavirus (what day is it again?), I’ve been editing a short film, A Change in Time, which has finally reached picture-lock. It feels good to know, that all those hours put in to crafting the edit and working (remotely) with the director, it’s now in a place we’re happy with.
But it’s not job done. I took on the film because it’s a great showcase and potential stepping stone for me to get even more creative projects to work on as an editor, but also as a colour grading artist. So, the next step is to colour the film, and help tell the story even more through the visuals. You can’t just go in blind: as with all things creative, research is key.
There are multiple scenes across the film and each one requires its own feeling and tone. The central theme of the film is time travel, which also opens doors to grade each of the different eras in a unique way.
Scene 1: Near-Future Research Institution
First up, we have a scene set in a near future, scientific research institution. I want the scene to feel bright, clean and somewhat sterile, but with it being set in the future to also have a dream-like quality to it. My immediate thoughts for reference were Westworld (TV Series) and Ex Machina (2014), which also led me on to finding a still from Annihilation (2018).
Scene 2: Present-Day Park, Winter Evening
Next, we have a couple of scenes set in a present day park during a winter’s evening. The narrative in these scenes is all about warmth, family and connection with the here and now; it is important that the colour grade also reflects this. My research trail started with Kings of Summer (2013) and led me onto finding images for Moonrise Kingdom (2012).
Scene 3: Government Organisation Office
Then we move into the office facility of a faceless government organisation. There is a lot of tension, jeopardy and sadness in these scenes, so it is important that the colour grade also represents these emotions. Straight away my touchstone for this kind of tone is Mr Robot (TV series), one of my favourite all-time series about an emotionally detached hacker.
Scene 4: 1940s Interior Location
The last scene I needed to get references for was an interior 1940s location. When we think of this era, we think of sepia tones: warm, old, worn, but homely. Luckily, there’s plenty of great films set around this time, so I had lots of places to find reference images. Often war films are filmed outside across big battlefields, so interior references were more what I needed here.
Overall, this was just my first round of research, but I feel each of the above references offer a very strong foundation for me to work from when colour grading A Change in Time. Now I’ve done the research, I can’t wait to get started.