MovieChat Forums > A Most Violent Year (2015) Discussion > The colors and "look" of this film

The colors and "look" of this film

posted 10 years ago by psedge
2 replies | jump to latest

First I'll state that I absolutely loved this movie. I'm thinking about writing another post about why, but for now, a specific point/question:

I'm not in the business, so I don't know if this is a function of the cinematographer, editor, lighting, or the type of film used (or something else) but I thought the "look" (soft, dim light and muted colors) in this movie set the mood and gave us the 1980's feel perfectly. Can anybody tell me who/what is responsible for that? Know of any other good set-in-that-period movies with a similar look/feel?

And... did anybody else think that having at the opening Marvin Gaye's Inner City Blues also set the tone perfectly for this film?

[–] Loomis79 10 years ago

It's a combination of the cinematographer and the way it's lit on location and the post production process of color grading.

[–] yang_em 10 years ago

Some people hated it but I'm in the same boat as you. The cinematography and color grading was superb.

The effects are mostly done in post production, color grading. Very few mainstream film are graded like that. If you want to see more of this, head over to vimeo and check out some of the videos on there. They have a lot of indie filmmakers who utilize similar techniques... I.E. Salomon Ligthelm, Phillip Bloom, Norman Bates...