The ‘Glossy’ Look & Grading With A Color Pallet

Day 6: 25 Insights in 25 Days Holiday Marathon

Episode 27: From The Mailbag

Creating A ‘Glossy’ Commercial Look & Grading With A Color Palette In Mind

The 2015 Holiday Marathon is underway and what better way to enjoy a lazy December Sunday than listening to an Episode Of ‘From The Mailbag’ ?

Other than doing a detailed reading of this weeks Tao Of Color’s Colorist Newsletter of course!

In this Episode, we’re back to taking member questions and we have two great ones from Mixing Light members Jon and Glenn.

Remember, if you have questions that you’d like to get an opinion on please use the contact form.

Your questions can be aesthetic, technical or even client related. We’d love to hear from you, and your question might make future episodes of From The MailBag.

How Do You Get That ‘Glossy’ Look Seen In So Many Commercials?

In our first question, member Jon asks:

This is hard for me to put into words that hopefully make sense but I will give it a go. What are some suggestions for achieving highly polished, glossy look of commercials especially in terms of skin tones. I am sure much of this has to do with lighting and using a very soft quality of light. Here are some spots with the look I’m talking about (see episode notes below).

The ‘commercial look’ is a question that we get often.

In Part 1, we discuss what goes into creating a commercial look (hint: it’s almost always lighting) including a discussion of on-set production techniques but also how a colorist through detailed secondary grading, can enhance and adjust details – especially perfecting skin tone.

This is a pretty long MailBag at 23min but we break down 3 spots in a pretty detailed way in a roundabout way answering Jon’s question. If you want to follow along be sure to check out the links to the spots in the episode notes at the bottom of the page.

How Do You Grade With Using A Specific Color Palette?

Up next, we got a question from MixingLight member Glenn who asks:

Studying grades in movies, I often see a fixed limited palette of color that has been carefully chosen. How do you effectively grade using a palette and make sure all colors in the material nicely fit into that palette? What sort of workflow makes sense? Of course I know that it’s mainly DP’s work to light and produce into that palette, but still lots can be, and is done.

Glenn goes on to ask about using tools like 3D Lut Creator/Lattice and other color manipulation tools to shape images into a specific color palette and how we might use them.

We dive into Glenn’s question hitting on the recurring theme about set design, makeup and preproduction techniques as well as explore some specific grading techniques to help you adhere to a chosen color pallet.

As always, enjoy the MailBag and please use the comments below if you have more to add to the conversation or have other questions. 

-Team Mixing Light

Episode Notes

In Part 1 of this MailBag we reference three spots that MixingLight member Jon mentioned.  Here they are:

Kia Ad

Chevy Ad

Emirates Ad

In Part 2 we referenced an Insight that MixingLight contributor Josh Petok authored on deconstructing a look with curves in Resolve.  You can find that Insight HERE