Cinematography-Theory-And-Practice

Figure 12.22. Careful color coordinationof location selection, wardrobe,and props on the John Saylesfilm Honeydripper.The alternatives are:this we avoid killing the tungsten lights with a heavy blue gel,stop off the windows, which may help keep them more in balance.This is actually a more naturalistic color effect.Light Balancing Gelsand their variations. Light balancing gels are used when only a slightcorrection is needed; they may also deviate from the strict blue tocooling filters, and those that begin with 81 are warming filters.Color Correction GelsCC or color correction gels deal with the magenta versus greencolor range, the other axis that we measure and utilize in production.These primarily come into play when dealing with sourcesindustrial sources such as mercury vapor and sodium vapor lights.Dealing with Fluorescent LightOne of the most common color problems we face today is shootingin locations where the dominant source is fluorescent light. Theproblem with fluorescents is that they are not a continuous spectrumsource: in most cases they are very heavy in green.Another problem is that even if they may appear to be approximatelycorrect in color, their discontinuous spectra may cause themcannot be corrected only by changing the color with a gel on thelighting unit or filter on the camera lens. All of this also applies tosources such as orange sodium vapor lights (often used for street lights)and blueish mercury vapor (frequently used in parking lots and otherindustrial areas).These are all classified as discharge sources because they produce lightdiscontinuous spectra, discharge sources can’t be considered to haveFigure 12.23. Comparison of thespectrum of daylight and tungsten,both of which are fairly continuousand smooth and a typical cool whitefluorescent — a discontinuous spectrumwith big spikes in the greenregion.IntensityTunstenDaylightFluorescent400 500 600 700RedGreenBlueWavelength /Colorcolor241