Here’s a quick tip we wanted to share to help you avoid one of the most common mistakes made by amateur colorists – Stop working “against the grain” of your footage.

Most indie productions, documentaries, and lower-budget projects have big ambitions for the grade, but often also have unrealistic expectations.

They want to emulate a specific look, style, or color palette but don’t have the footage to match it. For instance, they really want a teal-and-orange blockbuster look, but none of those colors exist in their source footage.

9 times out of 10, they will try to force the footage into that palette, even though it can’t accurately represent those colors.

This almost always results in over-cooked shots, with the right colors pushed into the wrong areas, leaving shadows muddy, highlights over-stylized, and skin tones feeling unnatural.

A much better approach is to simply go “with the grain”. Think about what your footage needs to look its best.

That may require that you adjust your creative vision. For instance, using a bleach bypass look to desaturate colors that aren’t conducive to a more vibrant palette.

Much like a good editor will (at a certain point) throw out the script and let the footage speak to them in order to piece the puzzle together, you can do the same with color.

In a best-case scenario, you have thought about your palette from the beginning and can achieve your vision because it was baked into your lighting, production design, and wardrobe.

But when you’re working under sub-optimal conditions, forcing it never works. It only cheapens your footage.

It’s always better to let your footage speak to you. Assess what it needs to look its best, and where the limitations may be.

Then, apply a color palette that leans on the strength of your raw footage while mitigating any weak areas.

You may not wind up with the exact palette you had in your mind from the onset of the project, but it almost certainly will look better to the viewer, and deliver a more professional finish.

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