Pro Colorist Reacts to Top Gun: Maverick Grade
So this video today is about my reaction to the Top Gun: Maverick. This isn’t more of a breakdown, but an explanation/reaction. I am looking at this from two lenses: a viewer and a colorist.
Now as always, let’s start off with a quick research. The first thing I am going to do is look at the technical specs on IMDB. The main thing I want to see is what it was shot on.
You can see it was shot on a Sony Venice. It’s their highest end digital camera right now. 6K, full-frame, and capable of iMax screening. I’ve worked on a couple spots for Vizio that were shot on this. It was great, but I still prefer Alexa’s color science.
Obviously it was graded by Company 3. A guy named Stefan Sonnenfeld. If you don’t know him, look him up. He’s worked on so many major movies and he is a true trend setter.
Now this one, I have to say, was hard to tell if it was graded by him because look where everything is sitting. This is the first shot on one of the trailers that came out about a year ago.
There’s not a lot of saturation, which is not Stefan’s style. Usually his grades are pushed.
But moving along, I really love the color of these mountains.
It’s so perfect and then you look at how the jet and plane pop out of the background. You’ll also notice and pick up on a pattern that everything is sort of sitting in the left quadrant.
The greens are up above, instead of balanced at the top. You can see if we balance it out, it looks neutral.
Compared to this:
But he went with this. In cinema and Hollywood, things tend to lean a bit more green, but it looks good.
Moving on, we got this shot.
But if we balance it out and kill some of that yellow, we get this:
You can clearly see that the bike is getting a proper black and it’s cleaning it up, but it’s stripping away its personality. Again, this is what you’re going to get through the entire trailer. Everything is leaning green.
Like even this shot. If we balance it out, like this:
It loses that edge. That personality. I like the way they went.
Now, let’s start introducing some of the stills from the previous Top Gun. Let’s take this shot.
We can see there are some nice complementary greens in the back, a little bit of that complementary color scheme here. The skin tone is sitting nicely, but again, there’s not a lot of saturation. On its own there looks to be a lot of saturation, but let’s compare it to this shot from the original movie.
Just look at how much more saturation there is. Like even comparing them side by side you can see the difference.
It’s night and day. Same with the contrast. It’s so much more pushed in the previous one. The new one is more opened up, less saturated, sort of like Batman. It almost seems to be a new thing. That’s just the new look. I don’t know if I like it more than the original. There’s something crazy about the original that I really love. It’s pushed in all the right ways. Again, choices that the colorists are making to differentiate the two looks. But that’s the beauty of color grading.
Let’s park it on this frame and talk about the skies:
Now compare it to this:
Look at how this blue is familiar to us from movies like Terminator, which had this blue. But in the new Top Gun, the new “blue,” is this cyan blue. That’s the new thing. Again, we can subtract green and add some blue to make the blue more neutral:
But we need to leave it how it is and respect the grade. But then let’s look at these side by side:
They just couldn’t be more different. Even comparing the dirt, it’s drastically different. So it’s up to you on which one you like. I feel the thing I am picking up here is this:
It is very much like a close to life/realistic contrast. It’s not too soft or pushed, but the colors are still cinematic and not over the top.
Let’s keep moving. There’s almost something effortless to the skies, but what’s really cool is like in this shot, the black points have tons of green, but it’s contrasted by the warmth coming in from the windows.
Compare it to this, you can see it’s not a clean white:
I mean just look here at the saturation.
So much less than the original, but that’s what the colorist chose.
Now this is one of my personal favorite shots:
I love the way it breathes, the warmth that’s coming through the window, and everything in this shot is pure perfection. But once again, everything is leaning towards that left quadrant. Like look at what happens when we lift our blues and take away that warmth:
This way we neutralize our whites. But that’s not graded.
Okay, look at this shot:
Then, look at this shot:
I mean come on. Look at the difference. I mean yes the time of day is different, but what I’m picking up on is that it’s very close to reality. We aren’t breaking that wall and going there, whereas before, they just went nuts. There’s something so magical about it that it’s been forever since I watched the first one.
Now let’s look at these two shots.
You can see that the sky behind him is pure blue in the old one and more of that cyan color in the new one. Looking at stuff like this is cool because there is no right or wrong. Ever with color grading. This new one is just impeccable. Like look:
There’s so much separation between the skin, helmet, and background. Everything just belongs and it feels like this is what it looked like out of camera.
Let’s compare these two shots:
I’m showing you this because they are both close ups. But look at the saturation and contrast differences. In the new one, everything breathes and sits on the left side a bit. I do agree that the old one went a bit too far on this, but still has that movie magic.
Sidestepping a bit, let’s dig up the actual Top Gun and go to the tech specs, I want to show you this.
This movie was shot on Eastman negatives and when you search that stock on shotonwhat.com you can see that some of these movies were pushed.
This is incredible because Apocalypse Now is one of those movies that really jumps out from the looks. It was just absolutely insane.
Just look at these colors. This color separation is the signature of the negative. It’s extremely cool to me. It’s fun to look at these things and sit on them and compare them.
Even taking a look at what a hot and sunny day looks like:
It’s just so cool. It’s unreal.
Here’s another good comparison:
Here you can see the old movie leans a bit more magenta with teals in the back, compared to the new one which is more subtle and the skintones lean a bit more on the yellow side.
Now this one right here is interesting.
When I look at this, I feel like it’s really good and I like it and it’s staying true to the theme of sort of natural looking and a bit of cinematic zing. Whereas with this one:
Crazy. Look at the skin tones and how pushed they are. Same with the contrast. It’s nuts.
Now let’s park it here for a second.
You can see these are supposed to be in a similar context, right? But two completely different grades. Now I do love how this new one is. But again, I can’t hate on the old one.
Now this is the depiction of the cooler tones today that live in a more cyan space:
Compared to the older one:
These old ones are just very unapologetic. Again, the color density you get with film is unparalleled. This is the reddest red and look at all of this color that’s in this frame. The new one is just a very different look. This is one of the only shots in the new film that looks like a movie, compared to something that you’d see in real life.
Now overall, it might come off as I’m just crazy psyched about the old Top Gun look. But personally I will almost always like the unapologetic looks. That gets me in trouble with my clients because when I do that, it’s almost always a no. But I think Stefan absolutely killed it with his look and where we are in the film industry and where color grading is, it’s still gorgeous and sort of life-like with a touch of cinema. Overall it’s a beautiful palette in a view like this.
Now remember, work hard, get obsessed and get possessed.
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