Coloring Fox: Season IV

Written By: Brian Alcazar

Los Angeles, CA - I was a part of the show since Season II and learned the majority of tips and tricks while working with Monroe Hayden during my time with SkySoft. I did not become the colorist until Season IV. She explained to me how the colors needed to be rich and help tell the story by representing a location. We stayed in the forests of Rizandor throughout Season III but Season's II and IV were scattered across Gan Adan which meant the colors would be more important than ever for those seasons. I would not have learned as much as I did if I had not applied via the Dreamers of Tomorrow Project nor would I have known how to navigate the advanced software without Monroe's guidance and owe a lot of my accomplishments to Fox. I am very sad that the show has ended but am very proud of the final season and how it looks onscreen.

Colors Represent Seasons and Countries

The different color pallets takes you on a journey and allows the viewer to know exactly where they are throughout Gan Adan and what season they are currently in. For scenes taking place on Mt. Rizandor, the colors would be more brighter and warm due to the desert hues. The warmer hues would represent the mountain's hot temperatures. Monroe, the director and creator, also reminded me that this is where the finale took place in Season II, so it was important that audiences could connect the place with the colors used in that season.

I tried my best to replicate it while also adding my own bit of flare. I relied on DaVinci Resolve’s custom curves, secondaries, keyer and compositing to help create the nuanced looks and colors of the show. And I was able to show different looks in real time. For scenes taking place in the mountains of Viscardia during the winter, we focused on the grey's and blues. The cooler tones represented the areas colder temperatures. In the third episode we see both Viscardia and Mt. Rizandor back to back, so the colors had to contrast each other in order to represent the different locations.

While nuanced color is important for distinguishing between locations and storylines, for the overall look of the show, I was tasked with delivering a very rich film look. Regardless of the theme of the episode and whether we are going for a vibrant or muted color, I always tried to give the footage a real film look; the highest possible feature look you can get without actually shooting on film [since everything was shot digitally]. The most difficult task was perhaps keeping a consistent “filmic” look while still trying to maintain this diversity for each district [kingdom].

The Technicalities

When working with LOG material, you need a great starting point to give it a film look. The ability to use the LOG rhythmic side of color correction in harmony with linear, regular color correction to manipulate the whites and the blacks is a tool in Resolve that I used constantly.

Color grading is a bit of push and pull until you get the look you want, on top of that, there is a lot of variables you can play with to get a super precise grading. There are some loose trends we can pull out of Fox' overall color story. But before going any deeper, let’s back up a bit: To fully understand what’s going on here, it’s helpful to know how color is represented.

One of the ways to convey color in a digital image is by breaking it into its three properties: hue, saturation, and lightness. This is called the HSL color space.

When we name colors, we are usually referring to their hue. Red, blue, orange, pink, etc. are hues. Hue is measured in degrees, starting with red at 0 degrees, transitioning to cyan at 180 degrees, and then coming back full circle to red at 360 degrees. Colors in the top half of the circle are considered warm colors, and those in the bottom half are cool colors.

The show's final season was its coldest and darkest its ever been, ironic since the titular character is promised to bring the light and her daughter is set up to keep the light shining.