Creative Grading – Retro Sci-fi Look

Close Encounters Of The Grading Kind

In this Insight, we are going to look at creating a Retro Sci-Fi grade which is steeped in nostalgia.

After almost 5 months I am now back at home and starting to return to normal life!

I still don’t have my desk, computer or even chair back but I’m still celebrating.

This insight is recorded at my kitchen table as I thought it would be great to jump back into my creative grading video insights as a celebration.

I recently had to do a very fun grade for a flashback section in a brand film for a football club.

The lighting is perfect for a throwback to the classics I grew up on like ET and Close Encounters Of The Third Kind

Beam Me Up, Scotty

Here is some example of where we’re going to take the grade :

As you can see it’s a pretty cheesy but fun grade.

In the original grade, I used tools like:

• Resolve FX Tilt Shift
• Resolve FX Glow
• Resolve FX Grain
• All the regular grading tools

As not everyone has access to these tools I’ll show you how to build this grade in the non-studio version of DaVinci Resolve.

If you have any requests for more looks please let me know as I had a lot of fun creating this insight.

If you’ve got any questions, be sure to leave a comment!

-Dan