Cold Look Flesh Tones

Hello all,

I am shooting a TVC where I want to keep the exterior scenes looking cool as it will be raining courtesy of a rain machine however I would like to retain some acceptable skin tone( not warm but not cold/blue either). I am thinking of shooting this on 5248(100t)with no correction and just adding a 81ef and/or an lld filter. The 81ef (+62 mired shift,) brings the 3200k rating to 4000k.the forecast is for overcast weather which I believe is about 6000-6500k. The TVC will be posted in 'flame'.

Question : am I on the right track? Any suggestions/thoughts appreciated.

Question : is it easier to shoot this clean (ie: correct colour temp) and try to achieve look in post or is it better to help with the look in the field on the original neg?

Through all this it would be great to still have some colours looking good (ie: red). thought is to add an enhancer to this.

Would an enhancer work against the cool image?

Regards

David Paul,
DoP
New Zealand.

How about lighting the actor/actress with some tungsten fill, if that was too warm throw 1/4 or 1/2 CTB on?

This would leave you subject with more of a proper skin tone wile throwing your back round to the colder side.

Joe Farris
DP-Chicago
www.visionsoflightinc.com

You will get nice cold flesh tones with 81EF-filter and Tungsten balance film. You can shoot without filter and correct the blue when you transfer the film to video, but I pre-fire the look you get with 81EF-filter.

Its better to help the look in the right direction in the field on the original neg.

Good luck

Hans Hansson, FSF, Sweden

Yes, it is better to help the look as much in camera as you can. The 81ef as has been noted, will be a good choice. It will render the overall tonality as cool, without allowing the excess UV that has a tendency to overexpose the blue layer creating a purplish skin tone and shadows.

The lld will be ok too, but I think the 81ef will be closer to the look you envision, especially with the projected overcast conditions.

Ed Coleman, President Â SuperDailies, Inc.
Cinematographer Supervised Video Dailies
http://www.superdailies.com

The 85C filter is generally nice in these situations, it will correct 5500k to 3800k and will have a much better UV cut-off (380 nm) than the 81 series filters, which as "light balancing" rather than "color correcting" filters have none to speak of.

You could use an 81EF or even a lighter 81 in combination with a UV or LLD as well.

Best Regards,

Anders Uhl
Cinematographer
ICG, New York

Thankyou to all who replied.

Some good notes and suggestions. A couple of replies mentioned the effect of uv light when shooting in this scenario, that's is very curious. Anymore info on uv light would be great i.e. how to measure the effect of UV?

Thanks again

Regards

David Paul
New Zealand

>Thankyou to all who replied. Some good notes and suggestions. A >couple of replies mentioned the effect of UV light when shooting in this >scenario.

You could use a UV meter, but there really isn't any reason to in this situation. UV isn't visible light but can cause visible effects with film stocks. The effects can be a murky haziness or color anomalies. Tungsten balanced film is much more sensitive to UV than daylight balanced film. A UV filter has no detrimental effect since it is only filtering invisible light, so there is no reason not to use one when you can.

Best,

Anders Uhl
Cinematographer
ICG, New York