behind the scenes

Strong winds are blowing in Reno today and I’m in our upstairs edit bay, color correcting a project for the Tahoe Forest Hospital’s cancer program.

It’s always interesting finding ‘the look’ for a project.  This one, in particular, needed to be soft yet real.  Not as soft as you’d make a leading lady or a pop diva, but approachable and warm.

In contrast, we had another recent project which required the exact opposite.  It was a large-scale original artwork commissioned by the Nevada Museum of Art.  The piece was based on legendary Texas poet Buck Ramsey’s Grass, and the coordinating artist Nik Hafermaas wanted the faces to look like road maps, so I increased the contrast to give them more weather.   Here are a few of the images from the cowboy poetry piece: 

Joel Nelson, cowboy featured in "Grass"

Joel Nelson Close Up

Here’s the final cowboy poetry piece by FLF Films in its entirety.

For comparison, here are some stills from the cancer piece.

Before Color Correcting

After Color Correcting

Notice the added warmth and contrast in the “After” still.  I also softened the edges and a bit of the underlying gamma channel.  

You probably won’t cry as much seeing the stills as I did while I was editing it.