Color correcting, neo noir and swinging bulbs

In order to get some ideas for neo noir color grading, I watched a bit of The Matrix and Dark City, both significant influences on our film (though ours doesn't look anything like those). I noticed that noise film's small sets contribute to its appearance. I often used shadows to obscure the empty or uninteresting areas. The Matrix and Dark City don't shoot around these limitations and consequently, don't use as much black. I also noticed that all three of these films have swinging light bulb scenes (or did).

When the bird scene was still in the church, Ben was going to recoil in terror and cause the chandelier to swing creating eerie moving shadows. In The Matrix (top), Trinity leaps into a building through the window causing the hanging light to swing back and forth. In Dark City (middle), John Murdock awakens naked in a tub with a light swinging above him. Notice the interesting tile floor. One thing I neglected to do in noise film was pay attention to ceilings and floors. The red room doesn't look quite as full as it ought to because the ceiling details (the hanging tapes and room deodorizers) are too small.

I read a book on Psycho that went into quite a bit of detail on the scene in which mother is revealed. The author suggested that it was Saul Bass who came up with the idea of using a swinging light bulb to create a sense of movement (bottom). I've been thinking that the swinging bulb fits into my scheme of animation falling under the category of physics-based animation.

As I try out options, my ideas about the color grade have changed quite a bit. At first, I was trying to use my "Ben's emotional POV" idea. That is, the beginning would look warm and wonderful, the next sequence would look mysterious and blue, etc., changing according to how Ben is feeling at the moment. I realized that not only is this too much to do in a short film, it doesn't really look good. When I color the footage too much, it looks forced. So I've been coming up with a simpler scheme that stays truer to the way I shot the film. The palettes are more subdued and more monochromatic.