Hey there, gorgeous, yes you, you sexy color corrected scene, you...

Yesterday my friend showed me the first two scenes of Diving Lessons that she "took her pass at" with "less orange".

Dude.

It looks awesome. One shot almost looks three dimensional.

This makes me rethink my "fix it in post" negativity. I've begun to wonder, is it possible that the orange was planned all along, fully knowing that it would be toned down in color correction, thus creating what now exists AFTER color correction? Is it because of the hard orange that our actors are now able to have dramatic contours and not read as simply flat? Or am I just a lucky jerk with a good colorist?

It's something I want to do some detective work on. I know when I worked in the theater, the lighting designer would put up one colored light here, and a different colored light there, and when the two mixed it was "good for skin tone". Is it the same in film? I guess that all depends on the look you're going for - realism or stylized. As a director, I can say things like "this character's an icy person" or "this scene should feel like a fruity cocktail" and a lighting designer or a dp or a gaffer gets to interpret that on so many different levels. If got to know more about lighting, I'd be able to either shut up or speak up about what's going on before we shoot. Now all I'm capable of saying is, "it looks a little dark over there", but not know what's going to really come out on the other end (meaning AFTER color correction). Folks, that's suddenly not enough for me anymore.

Get me to a lighting for camera class, stat.