Telling the Story - The Art and Technique of Digital Color Correction - page 342

When I'm looking at this shot, it's asking for much more mystery
than the way it comes up, to me.

- Pete Jannotta, Filmworkers Club

“I'm just looking at the vectorscope now and pulling the vectorscope
away from yellow, without making it overly blue, which it looks like it's
getting. I constantly go between looking at the image and looking at the
vectorscope . . . and the waveform.”

D e f i n i t i o n
ENR: a film process
originally developed by
Technicolor for cinematog-
rapher Vittorio Storaro for
the film “Reds.”

The Director Speaks: Chasing Ghosts

Kyle Jackson, the director of Chasing Ghosts, gives some backstory and look direction.
“We wanted to create a kind of a noir look, letting it fall off, letting it be kind of a ENR
skip bleach kind of look. It's supposed to look like New York, but we shot in Los Angeles.
“The basement scene was supposed to be an old museum that had long since been
shut down. High contrast. We wanted to show that the place was long-abandoned.
“Throughout the film, there are basically four looks. There's the police station look
that should apply to that 'banker's light' shot. It's a look that we went for any time
Michael Madsen's character was alone at his house or in the police station. It should be
kind of a smoked tobacco look. Like a refined cigar. Then the exteriors kind of did their
own thing because they were less controlled because of the budget. So that was just
trying to give it a grit. Then there are a bunch of flashbacks that are super contrasty and
grainy, with Gary Busey and Michael Madsen,” Jackson explained.
“The SWAT scene was just a basic exterior. But it should look like New York.
“The green cast to the film was the result of a bad film scan. That bad scan is one of
the reasons that Tunnel Post bought their own film scanner.”

Jannotta is getting comfortable with where he's taking the image,
except for the wall in the foreground. But he decides to attack that in sec-
ondaries instead. “Maybe push a little blue in the grays, this way. Because
that's mostly the middle of the grayscale,” he says, pointing to the shad-
owed foreground wall on the right side close to the camera. “Also I see
that this blue waveform”—indicating the RGB Parade scope—“is, or was,
a little more compressed than the other two channels in that area,” he
adds, indicating the shadows. 'So that's a pretty good spot for just a gen-
eral balance, I think. Let's see if I can put a little more blue into it, 'cause
I don't mind if he's a little cold.
“Then maybe compress the grays a little bit,” Jannotta continues, mov-
ing the gamma lower. “I want to make it look a little more mysterious.”