Okay, so I’ve been messing around with this idea of recreating that “North Korean film” look. It’s been bugging me for a while, you know, that specific aesthetic they have. I didn’t really know where to start, to be honest.
First, I just started looking at a bunch of screenshots, just staring at them. Trying to figure out what makes them look, well, different. It’s not just one thing, it’s a combination. The colors are definitely muted, but not in a simple desaturated way. There’s this kind of… washed-out, almost faded feel, but with some specific colors popping a bit more than others.
So, I started experimenting with color grading, messing with the curves in my editing software. I focused on lifting the blacks, crushing the whites a little, and then just playing around with individual color channels. I found that pulling down the blues and greens in the shadows helped. And then, boosting the reds and yellows, but only slightly, in the midtones. It was a lot of back and forth, really.
My little “Recipe”
- Lift the Blacks: Not too much, just enough so they aren’t pure black.
- Crush the Whites: Bring them down a bit so they aren’t blown out.
- Shadows: Cool them down, less blue and green.
- Midtones: Warm them up a tad, a bit more red and yellow.
- Overall Saturation: I didn’t want it totally * is needed to keep a little bit of “pop” that is in there.
I think that the biggest thing that I was focusing on was not to do a lot, but to keep playing with the curves and saturation.
Then there’s the film grain. I added some, but not too much. It needed to be subtle, not like some crazy old-timey effect. Just enough to give it that texture, that feeling of not being perfectly clean and digital.
Honestly, it’s still a work in progress. I’m not 100% there yet, but I feel like I’m getting closer. It’s all about tweaking and * are all kinds of film emulation options but that’s not what I was going for, that’s too polished. This needed to be, I don’t know, rawer?
I spent the whole afternoon just tweaking, it is far from perfect.
