Color Grading “Cumulonimbus”: Layers of a Chromatic Narrative (Case Study: Landscapes)
- This series of articles will be facilitated by the film crew, in order to serve as case study material for junior students, film enthusiasts and explorers.
- The color grading was signed by Lucian Iordan, whom we thank and admire deeply. The process took numerous days and revisions and it was explored along with Radu Voinea (DoP) and with myself (writer/director). This is my subjective perception of it. Lucian and Radu will bring up their own perspectives into the mix hyper-soon :)
“Cumulonimbus” is a short film (part of a transmedia journey) focussing on a group of children that aim to revolutionize an archaic Rroma tradition in their remote community.
Attitude-wise, it all began as a non-judgemental film process. How can we narrate a story with distance and intimacy? How can we depict the layers of a Rroma tradition, without claiming that we “know” more than we do, without stigmatizing or idealizing it? How can we add improvisation into the process, without becoming over-chaotic? How can we maintain both playfulness and profoundness? How can we add layers to the story, to the filming, to the editing process further?
The color grading process was, more than anything, a proto-spiritual process. We re-watched, we re-questioned everything. We stopped and made choices.
We learned to forget. About the script, about the editing, about ourselves.
As the film process evolved, our consciousness evolved. We had numerous chromatic drafts. Lighter, darker. Punchier, gentler. Many “-ers”. We developed chromatic fetishes. And chromatic fallouts.
To what extent can colors alone narrate? To what extent can colors alone bring us closer or further apart — as characters, as artists and spectators, as human beings?
This process made me a strong believer towards what I provisorily call “chromatic narratives”. I believe colors add a massive amount of depth, challenge perspectives, add intentioned and un-intentioned plots in a film. Chromatic narratives are cinematic narratives in which color play a pivotal role in relation to the previous (written or edited) drafts.
The whole grading process gained a thelos: curating emotions. However, without turning them into hierarchies. Keeping them in a gentle state of weightlessness.
Blues, reds, yellows. Greens, greens, greens. At first, little did I know how these ingredients can create a narrative tsunami within a film.
Story-wise, I have cherished from the beginning a fictional world rich in contrasts (and gaps) that allowed us enough freedom to wonder chromatically.
We designed a bold/edgy/daring chromatic vision du monde, however without becoming unfaithful to the spirit of the rural world. We aimed to conserve the bitter-sweetness encountered in the village, empowered by selective imagination.
Each scene has a distinct chromatic backstory and an evolutive meaning.
In this article, I will focus on few landscapes key-shots, for the beginning, and on how their chromatic layers redefined the narrative.
Can we create a chromatic grammar that adds consistent sensorial, narrative layers to a film?
Originally, we have filmed this shot during an early winter morning in Frumusani. This is the first shot of the short film, that sets up the borders of the village - its remoteness and transition elements.
Through color grading, we have multi-layered this shot into a flux, into a pulse. It encompasses a vertical cycle of life: darkness of the land, emergence of pulsating light followed by waves of an undecipherable above-ness. This is our both spatial and dramatic genesis. The main character’s journey is a mirror of this flux. Once she challenges her community, she enters the (undecipherable) labyrinth. How will/can/shall she navigate it? Is this cycle a loop or an open playground? Can it be escaped? Can it be avoided? Can it be embraced?
The gradually turquoise sky is impure. Remixed micro-skies. Blending elements of lightness and darkness, of serenity and disillusion. This is only an instant. For now. Waiting to be filtered and weighted further.
Originally, this shot was filmed close to the entrance in Frumusani village. In the editing phase, we used it for the prologue scene, in order to set up the premise of the film. Plants covered by icy water drops. Frozen in time.
Chromatic-wise, we aimed to model it towards a believable fairytale. Is this world real? We are unsure. The camera movement feels doc-driven, almost journalistic and amateur, while the careful composition of each shot heightens a fictional euphoria. The color grading makes it more vivid, almost surreal. A hybrid : summer-winter-esque. Multiple times converge into nowness.
We wanted to deliberately stylize it chromatically, in order to accentuate the fictional layers, the subjective lenses. We are about to enter a personalized “unknown”. It might feel darker than it is, it might feel lighter than it is. But how dark or light is it? And who is able to weight it fully?
Originally (edit-stage, not script-stage), the shot was used as a punctuation mark in between the collective classroom scene and the individual bonding between the main character and her mentor. The sky was a separation, a border.
After color grading, the shot became the core-statement of the film. This is a moment of discovery for the main character. A pause from the mundane. A pause invaded by vastness, darkness and shades of well-hidden sunlight.
The children are invited to explore the clouds through a (fictional) device. The mediation is not accidental. Would they have seen it differently if they would simply go out and look up? Would they have seen it exactly the same? The professor trains them to decode the abstraction. Exactly as society trains us gradually and mediates our reality. How much guidance do we need and how much guidance becomes counter-intuitive? Hard to say. Even harder to see.
The children are asked to identify the shape and type of clouds. Andreea is the first one to explore it, while everyone else waits in line for his or her turn.
Silence emerges. Later on, she is the only one impacted by what she has experienced. She draws (almost compulsively). Her interpretation of the clouds, though, is over-genuine. She reduces this vastness to some sketchy linear lines. These lines are far from authentic, far from vast, but these lines are hers.
[*In the original script, her drawings were perfectionist, idealist, as if she would try to emulate the intangible. The sky represented an ideal of the main character. After the process of collaboratively working with the children, the drawings themselves became a rebellion, almost anticipating the revolt.]
Originally, this shot was our visual homage for the tree, for its intricacies, for its labyrinthine patterns. In the editing phase, we wanted to begin the improvised wedding sequence with an abstracted segment of the tree. This is the first micro-shot out of a gradual triptic.
Context-wise, the “tree spot” will become the emblematic space in the village, where the children are free. Free to improvise, free to play, free to make mistakes, free to create their own rituals, free to escape their own rituals. There is no mediation, other than themselves.
Through color grading, the branches of the tree seem elevated almost into a cloud-esque architecture. Where are we now? Up above? Down below?
We feel suspended.
Originally(editing-wise), the shot aims to reveal a provisory “answer”. The children are seen as micro-particles running towards a safe/brave space: the tree. They seem to plan something in this deserted space.
After the color grading, the land, the tree and the sky become more boldly unequal, mythical characters. The tree links dimensions. It elevates the land and it lowers the sky. It blends both. The tree hosts a form of fluid magic.
Originally, the shot elevates the ritual of the children. As if nature almost responds to their game. There is a form of generalized harmony. Synchronicity.
Through color grading, we intensify this dialogue between their joyful ritual and a responsive surrounding.
By this time we may ask ourselves — is nature or any element we perceive just a state of mind?
Originally, this shot was filmed in an afternoon spent in Frumusani. In the editing phase, it came towards the end in order to continue the sky triptic and to help it evolve towards a more upbeat ending.
Through color grading, it now resembles a pre-evening shot. The birds seem almost mobile particles of the branches, rumbling as free-spirited life-forms. As Maharaja, the found dove gets healed, this shot becomes a multiplicity of hope.
Originally, editing-wise, the shot was an epilogue (introducing the credits). It was filmed in the same forest as the first scene with Andreea and Iosif, aiming to spherically return to their entry point.
Only this time, after being graded it becomes suspenseful and it connects more to the last shot in the film. The stakes are higher. Are the two soul-bonded characters evading the village? Or are they simply trying to say good-bye?
The branches and the turquoise sky renegotiate their postures. A chess game of contrasts. How about the next shot? Which element will dominate? Or is it about domination at all? Maybe this is simply another way of perceiving harmony.
By this time, we have re-defined a narrative grammar heightened by chromatic layering.
(to be continued)
*Cumulonimbus is a Best Short Film Nominee @ The Gopo Awards 2018. If you want to empower this journey further, feel free to support it.
