Digital color grading in Moria

[PRH]

What do you all think of the digital color grading in the Moria sequence?

PJ and Andrew Lesnie love to talk like 'well, we wanted it to feel like when the Fellowship entered this place that it just sucked the life right out of them so we color graded it until it was almost monochrome saturation.' Well, that's a nice explanation and it's all well and good but what does it leave us? An extremely boring color palette in my opinion. I think if you compare the earlier shots from the trailers (and from behind the scenes footage) of Moria pre-color grading it just looks much more interesting. I think this extreme desaturation they did in Moria was a bad move. The color grading was absolutely excellent in most places of the movie, but not in Moria. They went too far.

This applies most dramatically to the Chamber of Mazarbul scene. The staircase and the bridge scenes didn't have such a monochrome look, due to the fire.

[FREEDOM!]

Thats a good point! i hate it when directors are like "oh we thought it would be better", in this case it just sucked!

[Phee]

Originally posted by PRH
PJ and Andrew Lesnie love to talk like 'well, we wanted it to feel like when the Fellowship entered this place that it just sucked the life right out of them so we color graded it until it was almost monochrome saturation.' Well, that's a nice explanation and it's all well and good but what does it leave us?

I admit that their explanation wasn't something I'd considered before while watching the Moria scenes. I never got the whole "having the life sucked out of them" impression at all.

However, I do think the monochromatic colour scheme was appropriate. It created an environment that was cold, dark, and foreboding. It was a pretty miserable place to have to be, and I thought the monochromatic look just added to that feeling.

[Talimon]

I didn't really notice it, which is perhaps a good thing. I did like the washed-out look right at the beginning of Moria, where we see all the dead dwarf bodies. That's about the only point where it really stuck out for me, and I liked it's use. I don't think the color scheme was good/bad, but rather unique in the sense that it helped personify Moria. I think we get somewhat subconciously used to it, because the first shot outside of Moria has this really vast, "open air" feel to it. From a creative stand-point it helped give Moria an ancient and abandoned feel, which I think is fitting.

[joxy]

Originally posted by Talimon
I think we get somewhat subconsciously used to it, because the first shot outside of Moria has this really vast, "open air" feel to it.
The huge expanse as they left Moria is magnificent, and yet there was a superb sense of space INSIDE Moria also - Sam was certainly right to be impressed!
Strictly speaking it's TOO light in Moria, but somehow that very first scene inside DOES quickly get the eye used to the idea,
and the fact that so much is in shades of dark grey really doesn't detract from the effect at all.

[elf boy]

I didn't notice that until the last time i watched it, because i had stopped (ok I fell asleep on the couch) the day before when they were about to fight the cave troll. When I turned it on I thought that something was wrong with my tape (yup still using good ol' VHS) because it was all black and white! Some degree of that is ok, but black and white is a bit to far....

[PRH]

Have any of you seen what it looked like before the color grading? There are bits of it on behind the scenes material and a little bit in the trailers. The almost monochrome bluish/grey just sucks all the splendor out of the production design.

Saying they wanted a look that implies that Moria 'drains the life out of the Fellowship when they enter it' as a justification for making the look so mundane is akin to saying 'we wanted it to feel like Sam was really poor so we dressed him in a potato sack.' Both may get the point across but they both make for lousy visuals.

And the big shock when they finally exit Moria has much more to do with the sudden brightness rather than the sudden presence of color saturation.

[FREEDOM!]

U know i had never really thought about it like that it makes sense after hearing all these thoughts. i kinda thought of it as kindof a place that was redish blackish greayish.