Showing posts with label temperature. Show all posts
Showing posts with label temperature. Show all posts

13.5.09

Peter Menzies Jr: Color Temperature

From American Cinematographer, A Few Bad Men by Jay Holben (July 1999)

"We went pretty saturated with our colors. Sometimes I'd put three of four layers of full CTS on a lamp so it would go into a really weird orange-red spectrum that was close to sodium-vapor in color. As the film went on, we added more color as we got braver about the look, always keeping the actor's skin tones around 2400*k so that they maintained that nice warm look.

I love mixing color temperatures. For the last couple of years, the boys have made fun of me for not using any two lights of the same color. When you do walk down the street in real life, though, nothing is perfect-- there are weird fabulous colors all around you. In my opinion, using something other than white light all the time just makes a scene more realistic. We used a lot of theatrical colors, too. I haven't used traditional CTO for quite a while, since I prefer to use CTS. It drops the color temperature down another 400*K and has a bit more yellow in it than orange."

- Peter Menzies Jr, ASC

12.5.09

James L. Carter: Color Temperature

From American Cinematographer, Tuned In Talents by Christopher Probst (May 1999)

"I'm a heavy mixer of color temperatures. I truly believe in letting things go. If the outside was slightly blue and the inside was really warm, that was great. When I did daylight scenes, I'd make the sunlight slightly warm. When we'd go out on the streets at night, every so often I'd let things in the backgrounds go that fluorescent blue-green. I felt that made things look a little more real, a little more like New York, instead of always trying to correct everything out. I have a gel pack for a sodium-vapor effect that I call 'moldy pumpkin.' Depending on how I feel on the day I'm shooting, it consists of 1/2 CTO and pale or light salmon. I like that weird orangy-pink color. I remember reading a study about streetlight colors, and it said that there is more crime in areas lit by sodium-vapor lights. With that in mind, whenever things got really gritty, or we were in a scuzzy area, I would use those sodium-vapor colors. I think it's an oppressive look."

- James L. Carter, ASC