Create a cinematic film look in Premiere Pro

Published on August 28, 2014

Adobe Premiere Pro Tutorials

Cinematic, Color Grading, premiere pro

There’re enough presets online to make your videos look like a blockbuster movie. But those presets don’t always tend to work out perfectly. In this tutorial video you will learn how color grading works. Not only the technical part, but also artistically.

To make a cinematic film look we must add lots of contrast. But when we increase the contrast, the detail from the blacks and the whites will overexpose. So we have to make the impression that there’s a lot of contrast without pushing the blocks too much. This can be done with colors. Contrast defines two opposites, like black and white. But that could also be two colors.

When we take a look at the color wheel we can find blue and yellow being a contrast upon each other. And from a creative point of view, we can say that blue is cold and dark. And that yellow is bright and warm. So when we add blue into the shadows and yellow into the highlights, you will notice that your video has more contrast while still keeping its detail in both levels.