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Mooseboy018
Grey Havens
Mar 23 2015, 11:45pm
Post #1 of 14
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The Battle's Color Palette/Grading/Color Stuff
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Am I the only one that was a little disappointed with the overall look of the Battle of Five Armies itself? I was intrigued by the winter setting, but I wasn't very impressed by the baige and light-blue/greyish look. It was just so bland. Although, I find that I really enjoy still images of the battle. But something about actually watching it in motion doesn't leave me as satisfied.
This isn't an exclusive issue for BotFA. I felt similarly about the Siege of Minas Tirith. I've never really been a fan of the boring daylight look of that part of the movie. I preferred the way the siege looked in the Rankin/Bass movie and in the Brothers Hildebrandt artwork.
Anyone else wish they'd done it slightly differently?
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Magpie
Immortal
Mar 24 2015, 12:07am
Post #2 of 14
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Pretty much, I didn't like much of the (deliberate) color grading of LOTR and TH
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... but esp. so TH. (There were many scenes in LOTR that I thought were beautiful but, if they were color graded, the were done with a very subtle touch)
(exception, I didn't mind the supersaturation of color in The Shire)
I once remarked that, even though I don't relate to or like the Narnia stories, somehow, the set ups for the battles moved me way more than those in LOTR (movies). I half attribute it to the fact they show the scene with blue skies and green grass and *color*. It creates a juxtaposition that makes the horror one anticipates coming all that more horrific.
Taking the color out of the movies to the extent they did TH trilogy just mostly left me a bit depressed and detached.
I've also thought that, years down the road, this fascination with color grading is going to place some movies squarely in the time they were made. You know, like how big shoulder pads or bell bottoms do. :-)
LOTR soundtrack website ~ magpie avatar gallery
TORn History Mathom-house ~ Torn Image Posting Guide
(This post was edited by Magpie on Mar 24 2015, 12:07am)
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QuackingTroll
Valinor
Mar 24 2015, 12:30am
Post #3 of 14
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TH had much more colour than LotR...
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There are scenes in LotR when it may was well be black and white. Especially dark scenes, like in Moria, where everything just looks blue. Compare that to Gollum in The Hobbit - or even compare the two "Bilbo finds the Ring" scenes from FotR and The Hobbit and it's obvious TH has a much brighter aesthetic.
I feel there's a middle-ground between LotR's under-saturated monotone look and The Hobbit's over-saturated, Photoshopped look that would work well. But I suppose PJ doesn't really go for "naturalistic". The digitally stylized look of film, I think, is a fad that will eventually pass in favour of something more subtle.
(This post was edited by QuackingTroll on Mar 24 2015, 12:30am)
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Mooseboy018
Grey Havens
Mar 24 2015, 1:18am
Post #4 of 14
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One of the problems I had with BotFA specifically is that it seemed like they weren't completely confident in the direction they wanted to go with the color. Even though LotR had a slightly desaturated look (at least in some scenes), I think it worked for the most part because they were going for a specific look. AUJ's saturation was a bit on the high side, but at least it felt like it was done on purpose to give it a more "fairy tale" vibe. BotFA was just...bland. It wasn't extreme enough in either direction to even feel that stylized, and yet it still didn't find a middle ground to have a more natural look either. If that makes any sense...
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Goldeneye
Lorien
Mar 24 2015, 2:48am
Post #5 of 14
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The color grading did change randomly with each Hobbit film. AUJ was very oversaturated with a heavy orange/teal push. DOS brought the saturation down and went for earthier tones (browns and greens). The scenes with Smaug and his gold are almost completely colorless, which is inconsistent with how Thorin's treasure is colored in the other two films. I agree that BOFA was not pretty to look at color-wise, but I think that reflects the darkening subject matter. Also, the insane amount of green screen shooting necessitated a flatter lighting scheme in BOFA, so that didn't help it either. This is also the case in the Pelennor Fields and Black Gate battle in ROTK. Flat, boring lighting.
I've done some color grading on my Hobbit fanedit, attempting to get a consistent look across all three films. Playing with AUJ's color in particular has been rewarding...after desaturating and bringing the shadows up a bit, the images look much closer to LOTR. The CGI blends in a bit nicer too.
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Arannir
Valinor
Mar 24 2015, 8:52am
Post #6 of 14
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Yes, I also did not care for the color and the look of many scenes surrounding the battle... very often there also seems to be a heavy bloom effect on everything which gets even worse in PJ's obsession with sun sets and rises.
In general the battle didn't transport the feeling of a chaotic battle fought on the slopes of a snowy and icey mountain which I had hoped for.
The color grading of the Pelennor Battle was great, imho. Yes, it was pretty colorless but somehow it fit. Of course, in making the Pelennor a plain makes one wonder where all the food for the city comes from ;)
The battlefield between Erebor and Dale imho looked way too much like the Pelennor - a plain. I simply do not get any unique feeling from it that would have come from making the battle more chaotic and really set it ON the mountain.
"I am afraid it is only too likely to be true what you say about the critics and the public. I am dreading the publication for it will be impossible not to mind what is said. I have exposed my heart to be shot at." J.R.R. Tolkien
We all have our hearts and minds one way or another invested in these books and movies. So we all mind and should show the necessary respect.
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dormouse
Half-elven
Mar 24 2015, 8:53am
Post #7 of 14
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I don't think the colour grading was random
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Back in the days when Guillermo del Toro was directing he talked about the colour palette changing from the bright colours of the Shire through to the darkness of the final battle. It seems to me that the changing colour palette was one design idea they kept following the change of directors.
Doesn't mean you have to like it, of course, but I think it does mean it wasn't random. It was meant to be that way to reflect the changing mood of the story.
And when it comes to the battle, snow does leech the colour out of any scene, as does winter light.
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Goldeneye
Lorien
Mar 24 2015, 12:51pm
Post #8 of 14
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Sorry I should have clarified in my post. I know they were making progressive change in color as the story moved on, but what was random to me was how certain scenes/locations were colored inconsistently, even when they were shown more than once.
For example, Thorin's treasure hoard is shown in bright greens and golds at the beginning and very end of AUJ. When we see it in DOS, it is completely washed out and almost colorless. Then in BOFA it is once again colorful. Mirkwood is another example- there are at least four different color grades in that sequence. Bluish-silver when they first enter, then brown and gauzy, then extremely green-teal during the spider attack, and finally brown-silver when the elves capture them.
I'm sure the filmmakers had their reasons for this but it seemed a bit excessive and random at times.
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Voronwë_the_Faithful
Valinor
Mar 24 2015, 1:36pm
Post #9 of 14
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Enough complaining about Orlando already!
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Oh wait. 
I love the bloom effect that you describe, but then I am equally obsessed with sunrises and sunsets. I thought BotFA was the best looking film of the six, though I understand why you were less pleased, particularly if it did not accord with your expectations.
'But very bright were the stars upon the margin of the world, when at times the clouds about the West were drawn aside.'
The Hall of Fire
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Ilmatar
Rohan
Mar 24 2015, 10:37pm
Post #10 of 14
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Missed chances in winter battle
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I can appreciate that as the story progressed from the light, adventurous beginning to bleak and joyless ending, the color palette was designed to match the atmosphere.
Having said that, I would have liked to see a few scenes where the specific lighting and coloring of winter would have been taken into consideration, and taken advantage of. The battle lasted for a long time and on several fronts, so even if the general tones were kept greyish, how about...
- Deep blue shadows on a freshly fallen snow - possibly with shadows of the battle (you would recognize a line of archers, or Thranduil on his elk, or a battle troll just by a flash of shadow)
- Close-up of a character fighting, with the clear blue winter sky as a backdrop
- Real feeling of it being cold - frost, icicles, breath in puffs of steam, footprints on the snow, deep drifts of snow where it's hard to even walk, let alone fight
- Sunlight glinting off the armour and helmets
- Bright red blood on the snow... The whole battlefield at first in untouched, dazzling white - and in the end, trampled to a mash of mud and blood
- A sudden blizzard where it really snows a whole lot in a short period of time - would have created interesting fighting scenes where you can hardly see who you're attacking... Everything a blinding vortex of white
There was some snow and ice in Ravenhill, but otherwise it didn't seem like winter at all. Or not like winters look like where I come from.
(This is not where I come from - just an illustration of deep blue mountain shadows.)
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dormouse
Half-elven
Mar 24 2015, 11:02pm
Post #11 of 14
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I suppose it depends where you come from....
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Winters like that photograph, with snow on the ground and an intense postcard-blue sky, are very rare here. In fact, I don't think I've ever seen one in real life. The grey overcast sky, sometimes with mist also and a general lack of colour are far more common here, so to me the colouring of the battle scenes looked very natural - like our real winter lighting and colouring.
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Ilmatar
Rohan
Mar 24 2015, 11:28pm
Post #12 of 14
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Certainly it depends on location. Here (Northern Europe) winter days are often grey, but there are also some clear sunny days when it's usually very cold, the sky is an endless expanse of the most amazing blue, the ground and trees and everything is covered with a blanket of white where millions tiny ice crystals shimmer like diamonds of Erebor. Not to boast, sorry  but knowing this kind of winter days, I couldn't help missing at least one scene like that in a film where there is "winter battle". And when we look at the map of Middle Earth, the Lonely Mountain is quite far in the North, so our "northern winter" at its best might have created some impressive visuals.
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Bishop
Gondor
Mar 25 2015, 1:37am
Post #13 of 14
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I was also disappointed, and the color pallette/grading was certainly part of it
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But there are many reasons. And of course I recognize that there is no single way to do it that is perfect or that will satisfy every fan. There are lots of ways to bring intensity to a battle, especially considering the epic description by Tolkien. But IMO the battle never achieved the dramatic heights it needed.
For example, Tolkien describes a near blackout with creatures filling the sky. While that is not something that might have made complete sense on film, instead Jackson and his VFX team opted for one kind of light from the very beginning of the day to the very end of the day. A sort of perpetual sunrise/sunset. I love your idea of a transition of a clean snowy battlefield to one covered in mud and blood also, but there was no clear visual indication of the results of this epic fight. Then there are smaller things, like a strange hazy mist floating over nearly every image of the film (not a bloom effect, but something like wisps of smoke). This is especially apparent in the behind the scenes VFX videos where you can see it added as a final layer.
Of course all this said, I think it's entirely possible that I might feel differently about it all if there was a more robust conclusion for many of the events and characters in the film. Even something as simple as the shot of Balin weeping at the end of the Azanulbizar sequence speaks volumes.
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. But I understand what folks are saying, re the main battlefield around Erebor, there's a color-leeched look. 