Using Color Correction Gels with New Digital Cameras

thehurlblog.com/lm-education-using-color-correction-gels/

18/09/2013

I am sticking to my promise and delivering content that many of you requested in the survey a few months ago on blog
topics. This is an interesting one that not many people talk about. It is absolutely one of the most essential tools for a
cinematographer. Color correction gels can be used many ways, but what I will discuss is how to use them in subtle
ways to create color contrast with the new digital sensors.

Giving Your Story an Early Morning or Late Afternoon Tone

When I rst became a cinematographer, there were two companies in the gel manufacturing business, Rosco and
Lee. A few years later, a new kid on the block emerged, GAM Filters. They had been big on party colors, aka theatrical
colors, and jumped into the color correction gel business as well. Back in the day, CTO was the only way to warm your
lights up in increments. You had: 1/8, 1/4, 1/2 and Full CTO.

In the mid-nineties, Rosco introduced a warming gel called CTS, which had more yellow than orange in it. I prefer
yellow over red and orange as a color on skin tones. The CTO line seemed to deliver more red and orange. With the
digital sensors, I nd that the CTS works the best on skin tones, giving that vitality and golden glow.

When I use HMI lights, they all tend to be a little cold to my eye so I warm them up a little bit to start. Mornings are
more calm and clear, which gives you that greener, cleaner look at sunrise. Sunset is a more an orange feel and tone,
mainly because all the particles that have been stirred up during the day add a warmer feel. Obviously this is just my
personal observation. I prefer to use the best aspect of CTS and CTO and not just one gel for all looks.

Early Morning Sunrise

When I lensed this scene in The Greatest Game Ever Played, I used CTS to deliver a more yellow tone, which I felt t
the morning light that we described above, with that green at sunrise.

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It is really important to experiment with your color temp meter and watch the sunrise and see what your Kelvin does.
Then do the same at sunset. Notice your green levels as well. This is where I came up with the whole thing, baseing
decisions on science and observation, not just creative choice. Great lighting is the synergy between Art and Science.

Full and CTS used to deliver the early morning sunlight in Greatest Game.

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 Minolta Color Meter II

Late Afternoon Sunset

When it was time to pull o a late afternoon dinner scene in Greatest Game, I turned to CTO with its little extra orange
to deliver the mood and tone. This required me to combine Full CTO and CTO on my 18Ks out the windows. This is
where GAM Filters got really inventive. They did gel combos where instead of using Full CTO and 1/2 CTO, they made
one gel that did that combo called extra CTO. Better for the environment and cheaper. Now one gel did the work of
two. It also helps with heat. When you put two gels together without an air gap, they burn up, plastic to plastic. This
costs more money as well because you have to replace more gel, so it is a win win. Save the environment and save

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production money.

Full and CTO added to HMIs outside windows to deliver a late afternoon tone.

Creating the Look and Feel of Warm Practicals

Using CTS and CTO on tungsten sources is so important. As mentioned previously, I feel most HMIs are a little cold to
my eye. I feel the same with tungsten lights. They are too cold, so warming them up a little bit is key.

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Creating the Look of Sodium Vapor Street Lights
This has been my mission for years to nd a gel pack that emulates the High Pressure Sodium street lamp, the
warm looking one. You can get close, but it never looks totally right. (See a previous post on color temp.) So I
engineered these lights to give the exact color. Urban vapor is a match to low sodium lights, which do not exist much
anymore because of their power ineciency. So that one is no good. You can play with it, but I have found that when
using the light that you are trying to match, gels can only go so far in matching the Metal Halides and the Sodiums.

400 Watt High Pressure Sodium street lights mixed with the storefronts light Mollys journey in Swing Vote.

Color Correction Gels That Many Never Think Of

Before Kino Flo existed, (wow I am dating myself) you needed to use a specic gel called minus green. This gel would
color correct your cool white o and take the green out. By doing this, it would also warm up your o. I remember
crews going into oce buildings and for days adding minus green gel to all of the xtures. What a time consuming,
inecient process. Then some manufacturers started to make some os that were tungsten based, called Optima
32s, and daylight balanced, which were Chroma 50s. You would now send a crew in to change all the bulbs instead of
cutting the gel and placing them in the xtures still very inecient.

I am a big fan of using the color of the lights that exist and timing the green out later in post if that is what is best for
your story. Maybe you want the scene to be a pea green or a minty green to assist the look, mood and tone of your
lm. Whatever the case may be, if you want it neutral, then using the same colored bulbs that are in the ceiling and
correcting it later is one approach.

Going About It Another Way

The other approach is using the beauty of plus green color correction gels to aid your look and feel. How do you do
this? Say you are shooting in Walmart. They have seven thousand cool white os in the ceiling. If you do not have cool
white Kino Flos at your disposal, you can use HMI lights with Full Plus Green on them. It gets your light very close. It
will not look promising to your eye, but it will look good in the camera.

An HMI is what you want when you are doing any interior store photography with Cool White or Warm White os.
Tungsten units take way too much gel to get them to the color temp of a cool white and then when you get there, you

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wont have much output. It will take Full Plus Green and usually 3/4 blue to match a cool white tube, which is usually
around 4400 Kelvin. So imagine a tungsten unit being 3200. When you add the Full Plus Green, your color temp drops
to 2800 Kelvin and now you have to cool the light to reach 4400. If you are matching a Warm White o with a tungsten
light, this will require Full Plus Green, which lowers your Kelvin to 2800, then 1/4 and 1/8 CTB, which is Blue gel, to
get you to the 3400 Kelvin.

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Filtersgels

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