- There's so much more to color grading
than just making your
footage look cinematic.
Take a look at this shot
and let me know how it makes you feel.
(tense music)
Now let's take that same shot
and do a little bit
different color scheme on it.
(upbeat music)
Now there was a huge difference
between both of those scenes,
and you don't have to be filming a movie
to use color to help enhance your story.
I know many of you are
YouTubers and creators,
and understanding color theory
is really gonna give you
that emotional punch to
make your videos stand out.
(upbeat music)
So I've been watching a ton
of the color theory videos
that I've found on YouTube,
and everything's kind of
skewed towards like Hollywood
and big cinema.
So my goal with this video
is to bridge that gap
and show you what color theory
is and how you can apply it
to the videos that you're creating.
Whether you're doing some
big Hollywood blockbuster
or you're just editing your
vlog that you shot yesterday.
So in one of my recent videos,
I did a color transition
and this is one of the
tactics that you use
to be able to make your video stand out.
I started out the video with cool tones
and I layered in sound effects
to feel like I was waking up
in the outdoors in a tent.
Now the twist is that I was
actually in my backyard,
and so I transition the colors
from blue to more oranges
to warmer colors so that it
hits you on an emotional level.
And the cool thing about it is I saw
this transition actually having an impact
with the viewers that were watching it.
Down in the comments,
I saw multiple people talking about how
the intro caught them off guard
or like just kind of was
something different and stood out.
It's because of the color transition
that I used along with
sound effects and music
and all of that.
If you've seen the YouTuber Josh Yeo,
his channel MAKE.ART.NOW.
He uses a triadic color
scheme in some of his videos
to like help give it that cyberpunk feel.
So the reason that you would
use specific colors in a scene
is to give some sort of impact,
whether it's mood, feeling,
or you're just trying to
show some sort of transition
from one state to another.
And color is a great way
to kind of hit people
on a subconscious level
where they don't really
think about the color,
but it's there and it's causing
them to feel a certain way.
So for example, in Star Wars,
as soon as you see the lightsabers,
you know good versus
evil, blue versus red,
however, you look at a film like Her,
and the color red
becomes a symbol of love,
because he's falling in love
with his operating system.
So specific colors can
take on different meanings,
depending on the
situation you use them in.
However, how you make it work
is that you associate a color
with something in your video,
and then when this color changes,
say it goes from a blue to an orange,
that's called a transition
and it hits people on this different level
where they feel like
something has changed.
So in movies, a lot of
times they will use this
as a character transition.
It's also used as simply as
transitioning from one scene
to another you're gonna use
associations and transitions
to help move the story along.
And you don't have to be like
a huge Hollywood director
to be using these kind of
principles in your videos.
Even just here on YouTube,
the choices you make in your background
or the clothes you wear will
have a significant impact on
the people on the other side
of the camera, you guys.
Now to understand how to
use color in your videos,
we first need to break down
some different elements
on how color works.
So first is hue, and
this is the actual color.
So when we're talking about the color red,
then that is the hue.
On a color wheel, each color
is a hue, whether it's yellow,
orange, red, pink, blue, green, et cetera.
Next is saturation, and that's
the intensity of your hue.
So little or no saturation is
gonna give you a pale color,
and if you completely pull
out your saturation it'll turn
into a gray whereas in comparison
with lots of saturation,
you're gonna see an extremely vibrant hue.
The third thing is value,
and this is the lightness
or darkness of a hue.
So how bright or dark your color is
and you change that by adding
white to make it brighter
and black to make it darker,
and this does not affect the saturation.
So you're gonna use a combination
of these three elements
to create your color grade.
So let me just show you a quick example.
This is a shot that I
just pulled off Artgrid,
which is a great place to
grab some stock footage,
and they allow you to
download LOG and raw footage,
so it's a great tool to use
to practice color grading.
Let's take the LOG and
bring it to Rec. 709.
This is just a base correction.
It looks good, but we can
use hue saturation and value
to create a different
feeling out of this scene.
Right now there's a complimentary
color scheme going on,
that's kind of how this scene was shot.
Let's make it analogous
by bringing the blues
into the greens and the
oranges more into the yellow.
From here we'll de-saturate
and we'll add some white
into the value and give
it a nostalgic feel.
Now let's go to the completely other way.
I wanna emphasize the contrast
with the blues and the oranges.
So let's focus all the
colors into the blue
and the orange spectrum and
then boost the saturation
and add a little more black
into the values of this color.
And now you can see, we have
a completely different look
and feel than the original Rec. 709,
just standard color grade.
So your probably are wondering
what are these different
terms I'm talking about?
Analogous, monochromatic, triadic?
Well, these are color schemes.
Color schemes create
harmony in your footage,
and it's pleasing for the viewer to watch.
And so I wanna go over a
few different color schemes
that you can use in your videos
and some that are very popular,
and you'll see time and time again.
So a monochromatic color
scheme uses one color,
but then they change up
the saturation and values
to produce all the colors in a scene.
A super prominent example
of this is the matrix.
They use the green hue
to give you that feeling
that you're in a computer simulation,
and then they use saturation and value
to give the scene its depth.
An analogous color scheme
is where a group of colors are used
from the same part of the color wheel.
And you'll see this used all the time
whether it's pushing
into the blue spectrum
to really make things cool or
you push more into the yellows
and the oranges and it
really gives a warm quality
to the footage that you're watching.
The next is a complementary color scheme
and this is where you're using colors
on other ends of the spectrum.
One of the prime examples
of this is Mad Max
because they push the
color and saturation so far
into this contrast look
that you really see like
this huge color contrast
between like the sky and what's
going on in the foreground,
super orange and teal.
Now this is like your
standard color scheme
that you'll see across all cinema.
And the reason for that is orange
and teal work super well for filming.
Skin tone pushes into
that orange color hue,
and so when you wanna make a
complimentary color to that,
across the end of the spectrum is teal.
So that's why you see orange
and teal, all over the place.
Now there's obviously different variances
on how you use your orange, teal,
how much you bump up your
saturation, pull it down,
but that's why that look is so classic
and why it's such a popular look.
It's just an easy way to
create more of a cinematic feel
in your videos, if you add more
of this orange, teal quality
to your footage.
A triadic color scheme is
where you use three colors
that are spaced out
evenly on the color wheel.
And a lot of sci-fi movies
will end up using this color scheme,
but it's obviously not limited to that.
Now, it's important to understand
these types of color schemes
that you're gonna see again and again,
but one thing that you
really need to think about
is how you use a color
that's kind of outside
of a color scheme.
This is called a discordant color scheme,
and that's where you're taking a color
that doesn't fit within
one of the schemes.
And oftentimes, you'll see
people use like a yellow jacket
in a very blue environment.
And the reason is the yellow really pops
because yellow is not exactly
across the color wheel
from blue and really catches your eye.
So using a hue that doesn't
fit within your color scheme
is really gonna drive
attention to that object.
It's a lot of times why
I'll wear like a red jacket
when I'm out in nature because
your eye gets drawn to that.
So understanding color schemes
is really gonna make your videos
stand out and understanding
when to use a color that doesn't fit
into the color scheme is
gonna drive more focus
to that object or that
thing that you're using.
So having a color scheme
to your videos is really
gonna help hit your audience
on more of an emotional, psychological
and potentially even physical level.
And then using a color that doesn't fit
within that color scheme will
help make something stand out
in your video, and you can
use that to transition a scene
or you can use it to
move your story forward.
So let's put this into
practice, and I wanna show you
how you can use your
color correction tools
to change your color
scheme within a scene.
Now you can use any color grading software
to do these kind of edits.
However, the one that I
use is called Cinema Grade,
and if you guys are interested in this,
there's a free trial,
I'll put a link down
below in the description.
It works with Final Cut,
it works with Premiere
and it works with Resolve.
It's a different approach
to the color grading tools
and I like how the interface works.
It makes it super easy
for me to do my grades.
So here's another shot
that I pulled from Artgrid.
It has a ton of different colors in it.
Now I wanna create a few
different schemes out of this,
let's first make an analogous look.
And I wanna push it into the warm tones.
So I'm looking for reds,
yellows and greens.
First, what I'm gonna do is
shift my hue of the scene
towards the warm end of the spectrum
and I'm gonna play around
with saturation to bring up
or take out other colors
in the background.
Now we have an analogous look.
Next, let's transition this
and let's make a complimentary
classic orange teal look.
And I'm gonna push all of the colors
into either orange or
teal by adjusting the hue
and then I'm gonna use
saturation and value
to play around with any other colors
that I'm seeing in the
background, pull things out,
make them a little darker
and then really push it into
the orange teal classic
complimentary look.
Alright, let's get a little more complex.
Let's do a triadic look.
So my goal is to push into
pink, blue and yellow,
and I'm going to adjust
the different colors
that I'm seeing in the scene
until they fit one of these color hues.
And then I'll play with
saturation and value
to finish up the look,
so it really has that pop
of those three colors.
Now let's do a monochromatic look
and I wanna remove all color
out of this image except
for blue and I'm gonna
do this by changing hues,
bringing down the
saturation of other colors,
and then I'm gonna play with the value
to really make the image pop
by adding more dark blues
and light blues into the scene.
Now let me give you my
biggest piece of advice,
cinematic color grading doesn't
come from one specific look.
What makes a color grade cinematic
is using your color grade
to help tell your story.
So giving meaning to the color
and using it to help
transition your scenes
and give your audience a
little bit something more
than just making your footage look cool.
And it could be as simple as
just changing up the color
of the background of your image.
And as you can see, here's
a few different YouTubers
that use color theory
when they've built out their background,
and each one has a distinct look.
Alright, now that you have an
understanding of color theory,
I highly suggest you check
out this video right here.
It's a step by step guide
to get you into doing more color grading
and start creating these
looks in your edit.
