The movies Pleasantville and Schindler's List have scenes that appear in black-and-white while exposing one color, such as red. You don't need a big budget to use this effect in your movies.
It is rare you will ever want to remove color from a shot, or an entire movie. Yet, in some instances, it makes sense within the story you are telling. Using the following technique, you can create a black-and-white scene, while allowing one color to "pass through," known as a color-pass effect. The figure below shows an original and a completed image using the color-pass effect. |
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Watch this clip to see how to make your entire video black and white except for one color.
When using this technique, limit the exposed color to the object to which you want to draw attention. For example, if you want to focus on a girl in a red dress, avoid having other red-colored objects in the frame.
Adobe Premiere includes a color-pass effect, which makes creating this look ultraeasy. You just drag and drop the color-pass effect onto your footage and select the color you want to expose. In two steps, you're done.
Layer your video
In order to create the color-pass effect, you will need to create two layers of video. One will contain the image as a black-and-white composition, while the other will contain just the image/color you would like visible. When combined, they will create a single image with only one color visible.
The method you use to create two layers will depend on your editing system. For most systems, you should be able to drag and drop footage onto the timeline. You can then repeat the process; however, you should drag your footage either above or below your first layer.
Create a black-and-white image
The first step in creating the color-pass effect is to completely desaturate your lower-level track. This will create the base image for your composition as black-and-white and allow you to work more efficiently. To desaturate your image in Avid and Final Cut, do the following:
Avid
Tools > Effects Palette > Image > Color Effect (Chroma > Saturation)
Final Cut
Effects > Video Filters > Image Control > Desaturate
Even though you've now removed all of the color from your footage, you have affected only the lower track. Therefore, your image will still appear in your record monitor (a.k.a. Canvas or Program View) in full color. Don't worry; that'll change soon enough.
Choose a color
In the next step, you choose what color you would like to keep. You can do this in a number of ways, but using either a chroma key or a color key is the easiest. You should apply this effect to the top layer of your composition:
Avid
Tools > Effects Palette > Key > Chroma Key
Final Cut
Effects > Video Filters > Key > Color Key
Some systems enable you to simply click in your image to select the color you would like to use. If not, you will need to use the controls provided to locate the color you want to expose. As always, don't worry about being exact because you'll be able to change any selections you make later in the process.
Expose the color
After choosing your color, you might notice that you accomplished the exact opposite of what you intended. Instead of exposing the color, you removed it. Fortunately, you can invert the key, thereby exposing the color and removing everything else. You should select the clip and effect/filter you've applied and click the invert check box.
After inverting your key, you may notice a few spots in your image where the color exists in unwanted places. For these spots, you can simply crop or mask them out of the image.
Hack the hack
Another approach is to maintain color throughout your image but emphasize a specific color. To accomplish this effect, instead of converting your image to black-and-white, reduce the saturation on the bottom layer and increase the saturation on the top layer. This will cause your chosen color to subtly stand out from the rest of your image.
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Tip 1: Expose only one color
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