Filming & Production

Colour temperature

Also called: Kelvin, color temperature

Household bulbs sit around 2700K to 3000K and read orange. Daylight is roughly 5600K and reads blue beside them. A camera's white balance setting assumes one temperature and corrects for it, which is why a face lit by a window on one side and a desk lamp on the other ends up orange on one cheek and blue on the other.

The fix is to make every source in the shot agree. Gel or dial the lamps to a single temperature, or close the curtains and light it yourself. Mixed colour is one of the fastest ways for good footage to look amateur, and it is painful to correct afterwards.

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