I heard someone in the film industry say recently that the lifted blacks, lowered highlights look that's been popular for the last decade in colour grading is because some director looked at RAW footage on a monitors and said "that's what I want."
Nope.
Nope.
The lifted black look has been popular for a decade because people like David Fincher do it.
And the last thing you can call Fincher is a uneducated director.
And the last thing you can call Fincher is a uneducated director.
And this look is in direct contrast to the colour grading process that completely dominated the late 90s and early 2000s -- the bleach bypass look with heavy contrast and deep blacks. Guess who popularized that look in the 90s? Yup, David Fincher.
Fincher and his colourist basically set the decade long trends in popular looks in films that everyone chases after.
Who did it before Fincher? Well, no one really. Because color grading didn't work like that before the mid-90s.
Who did it before Fincher? Well, no one really. Because color grading didn't work like that before the mid-90s.
Digital colour grading has really only been popularized in films for the last 20 years. It got used in music videos and commercials a lot, but before that it was a photochemical process that basically required saying "add 1 more unit of red to this shot."
The look of the film was mostly crafted by the DP on the set and trends in color came from whatever new process Kodak, AGFA and Fuji were using to make their negative film stocks.
This is why you'll see huge shifts between the way films the 60s look from films in the 70s from films in the 80s. It's due to advancements in film stocks and how they behaved towards light.
And that's also why you see more playing in what a film looks like than you ever have, because we've largely abandoned the photochemical process, even as a starting point. Shooting digital opens up so many options in post.
