OT: Anybody else bored with the Teal n Flesh look?

ushere wrote on 12/27/2010, 3:09 PM

eye candy everywhere you look.....

watched csi miami (?) the other day in b&w. quite enjoyable really. might start doing so with a few other programs.

have a great new year grazie....

Chienworks wrote on 12/27/2010, 3:47 PM

It's only because the oompaloompas were so popular.

I wonder if it's an area thing. Lots of the USA shows i watch are pretty decent, but most of the Britcoms i tune in are washed out and teal-ish.

Kimberly wrote on 12/27/2010, 4:12 PM

Okay give me a pointy hat and put me in the "slow learners" group but what is the Teal N Flesh look? Yes, I'm a novice. Ha ha.

robwood wrote on 12/27/2010, 4:33 PM

when skin tones are pushed towards the orange, the complementary (180º) color is teal... using complementary colors is common in film noir as it quickly creates the chroma equivalent of a high-contrast look.

its also called teal & orange. a collection of images can be found here:

http://theabyssgazes.blogspot.com/2010/03/teal-and-orange-hollywood-please-stop.html

in the above, the writer suggests (possibly for humor) it was caused by computers making it too easy to create a look... but this look has been around longer than the last decade: look for Supersonic by Oasis (1994)... older (and vaguer) instances include Blade Runner and Chinatown (both film noir and not pushing anywhere near as hard)... Matrix pushed closer to green rather than teal allowing complementary reds instead of orange for the skin-tones.

another trick was to fill shadows with deep blues, allowing warm yellows to be increased in the highlights.

farss wrote on 12/27/2010, 4:34 PM

"Anybody else think it's time for a change?"

Yes.
What new horror will they dream up to replace it, that is the question.

Bob.

musicvid10 wrote on 12/27/2010, 7:04 PM

"OT: Anybody else bored with the Teal n Flesh look?"

No, it's not OT, and no, I'm not "bored" with it.

john_dennis wrote on 12/27/2010, 8:45 PM

Been to Miami numerous times. It doesn't look like that.

JJKizak wrote on 12/28/2010, 4:33 AM

My Sony XBR does not look like teal & orange with live news OTA broadcasts but on a lot of the recorded tv shows they will be tilted toward yellow, orange, green, blue, and more. I compare flesh tones to Kodak Ektachrome target prints which are comparable with the old 3 color technicolor film results.
Some of the CSI series are awful as a few of the NCIS. Most of the big time movies are just fine as the uncorrected results of my Sony Z1. I have no problem with flesh tones most of the time.
JJK

Paul Russell wrote on 12/28/2010, 6:39 AM

I have a couple of Panasonic HDC-SD700s for handheld throwabout stuff and it seems that they pre-grade to Teal/Orange for that cinematic look for home video. Trying to mix the footage with EOS5D and GoPro HD is a grading nightmare.

Jay Gladwell wrote on 12/28/2010, 11:25 AM

I'm right there with you! Just goes to show how little they actually understand the potential of color.

An excellent example of the truly artistic use of color, beyond the orange and teal, can be seen in the film Raise the Red Lantern, by Zhang Yimou. I highly recommend it.

im.away wrote on 1/7/2011, 5:33 AM

Sorry to "bump" a thread that is getting old but I've been watching a "movie marathon" over the past 8 days and the predominance of teal n flesh movies is staggering. Has no-one got any imagination any more? In the end I just stopped watching a movie if it was "teal n fleshed". It got to the point where I just couldn't stand it.

Cheers

Russ

musicvid10 wrote on 1/7/2011, 5:40 AM

I think the mentality is, "If it looked good in Lord of the Rings, it will make my movies gross $3 Billion also."

But actually, the technique is almost as old as color cinematography itself. Many of the night-for-day scenes from the 1950's look surprisingly the same as today's overuse of colorization.

OTOH, more recent work in the warm spectrum looks pretty blah, even on HDTV.

Grazie wrote on 1/7/2011, 5:50 AM

Russ, it's not that old, added to which you know what yah know. And your feedback is always being honed.

Russ this is Style-over-Narrative, or worse, Style instead of narrative or even worse than that, it's
Style instead of Creativity. And why would that be? 'Cos employing the best/creative/urgent talent costs money.

The other issue is very soon we're going to get blanded-out by the irrepressible, seductive, blind march/lurch forward to complete CGI, where we're unaware of the sophoriphic effect on us all it'll be too late.

In the Land of CGI no one will hear your screams. And Russ, you're screaming now. And for the moment I can just still here you. Russ? Russ? You still there? …

Grazie

robwood wrote on 1/7/2011, 8:04 AM

"this is Style-over-Narrative... Style instead of narrative.... Style instead of Creativity." - Grazie

yes.

i recently watched the Coen's True Grit and there were scenes which had that teal/orange thing happening; it never stuck out as a look or drew attention to itself... the characters faces remained above the palette and didn't end up as abstract shapes inside it... and the use of palette was selective.

the opposite might be The Unborn (2009), a supernatural thriller where every shot is saturated with teal and all skin-tones are subdued orange/reds; there are no other colors... would def qualify as style substituting for narrative/creativity... this movie sucks deeply.