Colour Correction gamma curves

I have been learning a lot about using different colour controls in adobe premiere and after effects in order to get the best picture out of my footage. I found an interesting article entitled "Simulating 35mm Motion Picture Color Saturation
an article by Daniel Broadway" that can be found here http://dvinfo.net/articles/filmlook/broadway2.php From which i have learned about traditional techniques of colour timing in cinema and how to achieve a similar look with DV footage using after effects and the colour curve controls. Applying an s shaped curve makes blacks deeper, and highlights more soft.



This is before The Adjustments were applied



And this is after



As you can see footage that suffered from a poorly lit face has now been fixed. I have also been looking at much more advanced colour correction techniques on www.videocopilot.net these include reversing the gamma levels of an individual layer of an image and tracking them to certain colours and many things i am still struggling to understand but these are all things i am very interested in and intent to continue learning about.

Film name Ideas

I have had a few ideas for possible name ideas, I want the title to incorporate the idea that the character is going mad but also relate to the content of the film. This is prooving quite difficult. here they are;

Mad in white linen

Taken from an old phrase originating from a satirical 18th-century play by Richard Brinsley Sheridan called "The Critic". however this seems very obscure and my film contains no white linen. Although i did like its connotations towards men in white coats however this also is a very loose reference

Climbing the walls/ climb the wall

I prefer this one as everyone understands this phrase however it has no other reference to my film other than it concerns madness.

Stark Raving

I like this one as it incoporates madness and also beckons towards the musical element of my film, however it does make me think of someone dancing in the nude!

A box of frogs

Again an obscure phrase about madness and again my film contains no boxes or frogs.

At the momoent the winners are climbing the walls and stark raving although im not entirely happy with either of these. Im considering using something much more obvious or maybe a line taken straight from the film, however for the time being i will remain undecided, any advances on this i will write into this post.

Filming

I have now finished filming. The first location was in my basement at home and required only me and my actor so was relatively easy to film. I had already planned this scene visually by making a short clip previously as can be seen in my post titled "Film test 1" so I was confident about what needed to be done. And also the effects that’s could be achieved in post production. As this is the most visually intriguing part of the film I wanted to make sure I got it right. The most technically difficult thing about this scene was getting the lighting right. I needed very small amounts of light to only illuminate very small parts of the characters face to achieve the effect i had envisaged. I ended up using a small desk lamp and holding it myself whilst constantly monitoring the screen on the camera. I am happy with the footage for this scene although i don't plan to begin editing this until after my first hand in. This is because this is not the part of the film I want to use as my pilot and to get the desired effect as seen in my pre visualisation I will need to do a lot of editing. I am also thinking of following a tutorial from www.videocopilot.net to generate "Light Streaks" But this seems like a very complicated process and will involve a lot of learning on my part.
The next scene was filmed out doors in a wood. My main worries were alleviated when the horrible weather we had been having cleared up and left us with a very still day although a little over cast. I had a little trouble lighting the hiker characters face against the sky as he looked down and had to get someone to constantly hold a reflector to try and get more the light from the sky. This is still my main concern about this footage as his face still has some shadows but I think there is enough definition there for this to be acceptable. Other than that everything went to plan. The woods we filmed in were very hard to walk around as the floor was covered in bracken and hidden holes but we managed to film all parts without injury, including making my actor run around carrying a HDV camera! Something I was particularly concerned about. I have captured all my footage now and am enjoying seeing it come together as I begin to edit it and see it in context. Here are some stills from my shoot.