This post is my first opportunity to conduct research to advance my project and expand my knowledge of media. In hopes of aiding my project's creative expression, I want not only to improve my editing skills but also to really show my skills and hard work. Again, editing is what is able to assemble raw footage in order to create something impactful. I want my editing to be an art in itself and bring my project to a masterpiece level.

Color Grade

The way the audience sees the film determines the tone and can enhance how people feel about the actual film. Color grading relies on how it makes an individual film. Therefore, it is extremely important to have not only the perfect balance but also to be able to harmonize the story with the color. Color palettes can influence an individual's feelings, making their effects each and extremely different experience from one another.

“One of the easiest ways to skew the emotion of your audience is by simply favoring one side of the color spectrum over another.” Kroll, N. (2020). The psychology of color grading & its emotional impact on your audience. The more this is done, the more intricate the emotional tone is set out to be. Therefore, as you skew the different balance of colors and go either towards a warmer spectrum rather than a cold one (vice versa), the more different they are from each other. Warmer color palettes will in fact feel more inviting and older while cold palettes will feel more raw, unsettling and futuristic. In order for the audience to relate the color temp with the time period it has to be extreme.

Stylization is what helps differ the colors used in a documentary from those used in a horror. A visual aesthetic allows people to stray far from reality and suspend disbelief. This allows them to go far away from the norms and to see a film with an open mind. Some important things to know about saturation is that when you remove saturation from a film, the audience is forced to activate their mind differently. Instead of paying attention strictly to the color, the audience is now more open to composition, framing, and maybe even contrast. Again, I want to enhance my viewers' visual experience, so maybe I am going to put the saturation up. Additionally, contrast is connected to tension. So, for example, lifted blacks and the lack of sharp whites create a dream-like quality.

Now that I have seen some of the color grading techniques. For my short I hope to use low contrast and warmer tones in the flashbacks, and cooler and super saturated for the present with heavy contrast.

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