Jim
Allen has been professionally producing video and films for 20 years.
During that time he has studied and worked in many areas of production
including Director, DP, Camera Operator, Lighting Director, Editor both
linear and non-linear, audio mixer and mix down engineer. He also has
several years of experience in multi-camera production and live event
coverage.
In the article Camera Tricks, Part One, we looked at warming and cooling your image to gain a desired result. In Part Two, Jim Allen discusses softening or diffusing your image and a few other special effects that you may like to try. For most of these, it will be necessary for you to have a camera that allows you to perform manual white balance, manual irising, and manual shutter speed adjustments. With some of these ideas, the automatic functions will automatically overcome the effect you are trying for.
If you are an avid moviegoer, you've probably noticed that the psychology of the movie is not only in the script and the music, but the quality of the picture as well. In simplest terms, a picture slightly reddish and/or yellowish tends to give the viewer a warm, friendly, emotional feeling and a picture with a slight bluish cast tends to give the viewer a cold, heartless, emotionless feeling. In many drama type films, the use of warm footage with cold footage helps the viewer distinguish between the hero and the villain. In this article, Jim Allen explains color temperature and how to achieve this quality in your video.
