How to do blue night lighting without day for night?

Report · Oct 14, 2018

So tonight we were watching Flatliners 1990 and I was really impressed with the how the color is done in the movie. The night time shoots have this blue tint to them, but still allow other colors to be shown so everything isn't black and blue. For anyone that grew up in the 90s James Cameron movies would usually do this kind of color process when filming night time scenes, go rent Terminator 2, and I understand that these are giant multi million dollar movies, but with processing the footage they were doing it digitally.

So does anyone have any tips about achieving this look? I know it won't work with all types of footage shot, but is there a way give footage this type of feel?

Here is a clip of Flatliners. Skip it to the 58 second mark.

Rachel decides to flatline - 2/2 - "Flatliners" - Julia Roberts, Kiefer Sutherland - YouTube

Report · Oct 15, 2018

First, bare in mind that so much of the look is determined by your footage and the way it was lit on set. They most likely had blue lights which will determine largely how well the effect works.

Try putting your footage on a timeline with some clips form the film and compare the waveforms and RGB parade. Play around with the Lumetri controls to get your footage closer. Look at the shot of the guy with glasses at 1.28 - the background is much warmer than his face. He probably had some blue lights pointing at his face - you could emulate this by selecting his face using masks or secondaries and cooling it down whilst adjusting the background separately.

Alternatively, try some of the creative looks in the Lumetri panel if you are struggling. You might get something which works ok with your footage.

Report · Oct 15, 2018

Old but still valid I think.

VIDEO COPILOT | After Effects Tutorials, Plug-ins and Stock Footage for Post Production Professional...