Time to talk about the color grading! I’ve just recently come up with yet another wild idea for the color grading, and I figured it wouldn’t hurt to test it on this edit! I don’t know if I’ll stick with it or not, but I like seeing what others may think about it, as my latest approach is quite different. However, fans of 35mm film will probably understand where I’m going with this.
Let’s start with what I’ve cooked up. First, here’s the 2007 US blu-ray:
I started off by adding a node to the timeline, and using the curves, I reversed the colors and gave things a negative effect, like so:
Next, I created three more nodes. I adjusted the offset color wheel on all three nodes. One was changed to yellow:
One was changed to cyan:
And one was changed to magenta:
Next, I added a parallel mixer node, right-clicked it, added a third input, and then combined all three of these nodes together:
Then, I added one more node. This one inverts the color scheme yet again, resulting in a positive effect:
And finally, I went back and readjusted the yellow, cyan and magenta nodes again until we end up with the final result:
I might decide to go back and use the same methods that I’ve used for my Star Wars edits, because if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Still, it never hurts to experiment and see if there is another way to grade a film. And that’s what this new process is: an experiment. Maybe it’s better, maybe it’s not. Only way to be sure is to listen to what others have to say about it. As is always the case with my comparisons, the 2007 blu-ray is the top screencap and the latest grade is the one on the bottom. You can find the rest of the examples in the spoiler tag below:
