How to effectively communicate a “Look” to your colorist in pre

In the last mile of post production one of the most frustrating walls to hit is a breakdown of communication between the filmmakers and the finishing team. Most likely this will be in the communication of the desired look of the film. The most common note many colorist receive is a variation of “make it look like *insert some other film here*. The problem with this note is that this is less a technical direction and more of a ‘vibe’ and what you feel watching whatever movie you are referencing will be subjective. Colorists are all very creative but we often think about your image in very technical terms so what follows are some tips to best communicate a creative vision to the person or team handling your final color grade.

First, build a look book early. Most productions will have some variation of this anyway but it’s often focused on production. Building it with the finishing process in mind as well can be extremely effective in communicating your look. High quality stills from a site like Shotdeck are wonderful but need to be paired with a description or annotation about what you like about this still. Why was it chosen? What aspects are you responding to that you would like to see applied to your film? A short description of emotional beats of the scene can also be helpful.

Second, use descriptive but precise terminology. When I’m training beginning colorists I often joke that part of the job is becoming a client-whisperer due to the incorrect usage of some technical terms. Some examples I’ve heard in the studio are people asking for more contrast when they really want to see the image darker, or asking to increase the saturation when they really want a brighter image. Here are some examples of some vibes I’ve been asked to create and the language I, as a colorist, am thinking in:

Punchy - Ask for more contrast and more saturation.

Vintage - Discuss cinematic elements like grain, or halation.

Dreamy - Ask about blooming highlights or lowering the midtone detailing.

Natural - Talk about skin tone and white balance/white point.

Third is to have some hero shots in mind. This is something I always focus on during a lookset session. I’ll ask the client to identify one or two shots from each scene that we can use as the benchmark for the rest of the scene. Once we establish the look of a scene its very easy for me to ripple those ideas across said scene and can minimize the back and forth between finishing and filmmaking.

Lastly (for this article) is focus. Discuss the focus of shots and scenes and a colorist will use their tools and experience to help guide the viewer's eyes to what’s important in a shot. This is the storytelling part of color grading.

All the best colorists are artists but they are not mindreaders. Having clear instruction and direction about your film will allow these artists to elevate your film instead of spending hours in grading trying to decipher each other's way of working through this process. This will be the difference between having a “good” color grade and a “cinematic” color grade.