Greenish '90s music video look

[leevun@gmail.com]

Hi Everyone,

I love the nineties, and the greenish look which was often used in  music videos.
I'm especially interested in the green digital  light look a fluorescent light will give.

I give two examples:

Kosheen - Hide U
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfIrJ29Rjf0

UNKLE - Be There
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUubW5szdwA

For several other professional projects now, I need to achieve a similar look.
My color grading, experience is small, but not non existant. I'm a beginner and an autodidact, so after a basic color grading, I would add green filters, lower reds and blues, change the contrast and the exposure.

But I never googled it, or checked it with someone else. How would you guys do it?
Are there any other good start points? presets? (as a beginner, I work already with magic bullet looks etc.)
Is this also a matter of having the right lights at the filmset? I mean: you'll never achieve this look by filming a fire-place...

Thank you,
Lieven

 

[Amada Daro]

The old music videos are shot on film, meaning it's a pure signal run through a film stock with defined qualities.

Today we mimic the way things were done earlier by running the digital signal through a curve at the end (or a LUT). That way the corrections done prior to it will fall into the ranges defined by the curve and at the same time keeping the blacks and whites more or less untouched. By using this method you can push greens quite hard and it will fall nicely into those areas you see is affected on your references without getting the washed out look. I suggest you have a look at the professional color grading course here on Lowepost to learn the basics of how you can work the image to look the way you want.

[Tom Evans]

Agree with Amada. Looks like rather hard offset adjustments + saturation through a curve with rather flat ends so that mainly the mids are affected. 

[Tom Evans]

Not sure if I'm allowed to share this but this is the result of the low sat green technique demonstrated in the color grading course. 

[leevun@gmail.com]

Hi Amada & Tom,

Thank you!
I'll take a look at that course, and will try it in on a test image.
I'll film this on a DSLR camera, but would you use a different LUT then the one of the camera? And if so, does it matter which one you use? Any advice?

Thanks,
Lieven

Edited September 4, 2020 by leevun@gmail.com

[Tom Evans]

The course will answer these questions, it's a large topic and you need that basic understanding to pull this off properly.