Aside from proper lighting, the most important thing a colorist can do is choose a good palette to work with. By profession, I am an inker so it seems a little odd for me to be writing a tutorial about coloring considering that I work strictly in black and white about 98% of the time. However, I did graduate from film school where I specialized in cinematography so I do know a thing or two about good colours and colour choices.
Below is a list of some of my favorite cinematographers and movies that I highly recommend you check out for colour ideas. If you want something a little more hardcore and technical, check out the nearest Chapters in the magazine section for American Cinematographer. You may not know what a 1K light is, but it has some interesting articles.
Janusz Kaminski
This guy seems to pretty much work exclusively nowadays for Steve Spielburg. My favorite movie of his is Minority Report. I really like the intentional over exposure that sort of makes it look like the sun is just outside every single window creating an intense glow throughout the film. The film also has a really gritty grainy feel to it. It sort of just further emphasizes this whole bleak future where a few people read your thoughts and report your crimes before they happen. Also look out for Artificial Intelligence. The movie sort of sucked, but it’s great reference if you’ve got any sort of futuristic looking stuff to colour like The Filth.
;)
;)
;)
;)
Christopher Doyle
This guy is a colour master. Finding his work will probably be slightly difficult because pretty much all the stuff he does comes from Hong Kong, but you should be able to find the Quiet American at your local video store. But I’m going to talk about Hero instead. No, not the one with Dustin Hoffman from 1992, but the recent one with Jet Li. Gorgeous film, with beautiful colour. The film does a nice transition from green-ish grey tones, to red, back to green, blue… It’s all over the place really, but it’s done in a very smooth fashion. The key thing to note in this film is the use of the colour white. It represents the truth. This film is worth a purchase regardless because it’s all so stunning.
;)
;)
;)
;)
;)
;)
Don McAlpine
If you’ve seen anything from Baz Lurhamm, you’ve seen this guy’s work. Again, another guy that does wonders with lots of bright and vibrant colours. Just pick up Moulin Rouge and watch the Can-Can scene. But one thing that I love with this guy is any shot at night. He uses a gel (thin piece of coloured plastic that’s placed over a light to change the colour of the light) called Daylight Blue to create all his moonlight, which makes for a very vibrant and rich blue tone that just floods over the whole scene and works well in contrast with reds. Romeo+Juliet is also noteworthy on his list, as well as Stepmom. Stepmom has a really nice pink/orange tone to the movie which just makes it warm, and the “feel good” movie of the year. Having said that, there’s a reason I’ve only seen it once.
;)
;)
;)
;)
;)
;)
Guillermo Navarro
This guy has done some really spectacular stuff lately, particularly with HellBoy. HellBoy is a difficult character to light and render properly because he’s red, and red is one of the worst colours to work with on film. But he did a great job of getting the colours to look good, especially at night. Most of the time in night scenes, the colour used is blue, because that’s the colour of light that the moon gives off. But if you’ve got a scene in a public place with lots of tungsten lights around, it makes sense to go with gold. He did just that in HellBoy and the scene outside with the cars at night looked fantastic. He has worked with Robert Rodriguez a lot, and did Spy Kids and Desperado which are awesome movies. Another kickass movie he did was The Long Kiss Goodnight. This is actually one of my all-time favorite movies. It’s big, it’s bad, it’s cheesy, but damnit Geena Davis makes one badass assassin.
Robert Richardson
How could I leave this guy out? With the recent Kill Bill movies, finding his work should be a breeze. But I would recommend those movies to see for reference first. The scene with The Bride fighting O-Ren at the House Of Blue Leaves is probably my fav colour wise. He did a great job in that scene, and the one before, of making sure the Bride in that bright yellow suit blended in with her surroundings well. She could have easily stood out and been too dominating, but she wasn’t. This guy’s list of credits just seems to go on and on, but of noteworthy you should check out Casino, Snow Falling On Cedars, Bringing out the Dead, and Natural Born Killers. He has one distinct trademark which you can see in most of his films. Whenever there is a sink in the shot, or something very white, he’ll take a strong light and place it facing straight down to create a glowing pool of light. It’s noticeable in Kill Bill (bathroom scene with Sophie Fatale, kitchen scene where Budd prepares the frozen drink for Elle), but it’s more noticeable in Casino. If I had to pick an all-time favorite cinematographer, it would be this guy.
;)
;)
;)
;)
;)
;)
;)
Philippe Rousselot
He recently did Big Fish, but I’m going to talk about Interview With The Vampire instead. The movie is getting a little old now as it was made back in ’94, but it still has a lot of artistic merit. The problem with this movie is that it was set in a time where a lot of the light was provided by candles. So naturally the film has a very orange look to it. He used a lot of Chinese lanterns when lighting the sets. The paper around the light diffuses the light and allows it to be spread around softly. He’s done a lot of work recently with Tim Burton including Planet of the Apes and the upcoming Charlie and the Chocolate factory.
;)
;)
;)
;)
Emmanuel Lubezki
Speaking of Tim Burton, here’s another guy that has worked with him. He did Sleepy Hollow. Sleepy Hollow was interesting because it had an extremely washed out look. The film practically looked like it was shot in black and white, and then trace amounts of colour appear here and there and remind you that the film is indeed in colour after all. Excellent film for reference. It could be a great reference for anything horror or gothic related, or even a good crime story.
;)
;)
;)
;)
;)
;)
Okay so now you’ve got a decent sized list of reference to start working from. Another good way to get to know the cinematographer is to get to know the director. Directors will often find someone that they really like to work with who can achieve their vision and will use them over and over again in their productions. So cross reference the director which the cinematographers that he/she likes to use.