PLEASANTVILLE EFFECT

For our thriller opening sequence, I used Pleasantville effect to highlight the colour of the fake blood on Johns shirt,in contrast to the desaturated background and surroundings seen within the clip. Using the editing programme Final Cut Pro, I selected the clips in where I wanted to keep the colour of the fake blood, which was the colour red. I had to ensure that the clip I wanted to use was loaded onto the time-line and that the clip was visible to the viewer.

By clicking on effects , I then clicked on Video Filters from the drop down menu then selected Color Correction then Color Corrector. At the top of the viewer , I then opened the ' Color Corrector' tab. In the time line, the playhead had to be positioned to where the object or colour that I wished to keep the same , is in a full view in the canvas.

By selecting the eye dropper tool, I then clicked and selected the colour I wanted to sample from the canvas. On the Limit Effect Slider, I had to adjust the slider so it covered the majority of the colour that I wanted to sample in the spectrum . In the saturation slider , I had to move the slider all the way to the left. The sample area selected on the clip  turned to grey.

By holding down the shift key I was able to sample other areas. By clicking on the key button next to the limit effect , this would change what I could see in the canvas to a black and white image and the mask will be clearly visible. By using the saturation and luma spectrums under the limit effects spectrums, I had to adjust the spectrums to make the sample completely white. By clicking on the Invert button, the whole shot will desaturate in black and white except for the selected area. The selected area remained red to show the fake blood on Johns shirt and the red of the floor in the lift.

Below shows a screen shot of the finished product of the clip which uses the Pleasantville effect.

When using this technique , I found it quite difficult to begin with as it was quite complex to do , but after a while, got the hang of it as I played around with the effects and read through the instructions more thoroughly.