Color Correcting at Fotokem


At 8pm on a Monday night, our crew showed up to Fotokem in Burbank, CA to begin color correcting our semester film, “Crushing Violet.” We already spent 8 hours that day mixing the dialogue (read more about that here), and then drove straight over to Fotokem for 4 hours of color correcting. A full day of Crushing Violet!

The cinematographers, Michael Cox (middle) and Abraham J. Epperson (back), and Director, Joe Della Rosa (right) of “Crushing Violet” work with Ralph (left), a Fotokem colorist, to realize the color and tone of the school.

Mesmerizing

Watching Ralph, our Fotokem colorist, change the movie’s look was just amazing. I never knew there were so many options in color correcting. He even slightly blackened the sides of the frame in one shot to make our eyes go straight to the actors. Some scenes have a bluer undertone versus a more yellow in other scenes – something the average audience may not even realize, but it definitely draws an emotion subconsciously.


We all pitched in to figure out how best to color this particular scene. Ralph is really great at listening to all of our suggestions.


This is a screen shot of the high school hallway. The cinematographers have to remember how they lit the scene in order to tell Ralph the location of the main source of light. In this scene it is the sun coming from the window to the right of the actors; therefore, Ralph must keep that in mind when brightening or creating shadows.

Come see the final color correction of “Crushing Violet” at the premiere screening on May 9th at the USC campus.

-AM