If you can get the hang of using color gels to change the background color in your videos, which you’ll see isn’t that hard and is a lot of fun, then you can add color anywhere. I’m going to break down color effect gels, their two main uses in video, and show you how to pick which of these 100’s of colors to use. I mean where do you start? Don’t worry, I’ll show you.

We’re going to talk about color effect gels for lighting but to do that, we first need to be clear about what white light is in video. That’s why there are two main types of color gels: color correcting and color effect.

Rosco Color Correction Kit which includes grades of CTO and CTB for white balancing lights.

Color Correcting Gels

Color correcting gels correct the color of your light, which makes non-white light white. Wait, none white-light?

All light has a color but to our eyes, it’s white because our eyes auto white balance for it. The sun and daylight are around 5000 to 5500k on the kelvin scale where its color temperature is measured, which can be blue, while tungsten lights are 2800 to 3200k, which is yellow/orange. That’s why we have to set the white balance in our cameras to match the main light source we’re using, usually daylight or tungsten. They’re so common they even get their own icons.

Color correcting gels correct the color temperature of a light source, pushing a tungsten bulb towards daylight, 5000-5500k, or a daylight bulb towards tungsten, 3200-2800k. CTO and CTB are the two main types of color correcting gels. Check our video on these gels and color-correcting for more info and detail.

For this video, my camera is white balanced for daylight and I only used daylight balanced bulbs to keep it simple. Mixing white balance settings and bulbs can get confusing fast.

Color Effect Gels

Color effect gels, on the other hand, change the color of our lights to any color of the rainbow. Instead of color correcting a light source to white balance it, that is make it white, they do the exact opposite, they make it one color. That’s the whole point.

Ok, go it, so we have all these color effect gels to play with. But where the hell do we start?

Let’s break it down more. There are two categories for effect gel use, to create an emotional, aesthetic effect or to simulate a real-world light, like yellow/orange for early morning sun or blue for moonlight. In this video, we’re just focusing on the emotional, aesthetic effect, we’ll cover simulating light sources in another video.

Painting with Color

We want to put a color gel on our background. One-color is fine but note, it’s not as bright as the bare bulb because the gel has to absorb the other colors of the rainbow to leave you with one color. In this case, blue is subtracting red and green.

The lighter a gel, the more light it allows through and the more pastel the color. The stronger the gel color, the more color it absorbs the less it lets through, therefore the more saturated and truer color it produces.

Gel manufacturers refer to this as the transmission value, how much of the original light will transmit through the gel. So you need to keep this in mind when using darker color gels. You may need a stronger wattage light.

What if we want to get creative and add two colors. Now it gets exciting but what should the other color be?

Color Theory Save Us

Let’s look at color theory for some help. You may have seen the color wheel, may have even heard of complementary colors, primary and secondary colors, and color schemes. Usually, those are referring to painting. How do we apply them to video and light?

Here’s how. Complimentary colors are the opposite of each other on the color scale like orange/blue, green/red, yellow/purple.

This means they’re so opposite they don’t share any similar colors, unlike red and orange which do by being right next to each other on the color wheel.

Choose any color on the scale and you can find its opposite and being opposites, they have the maximum amount of color contrast.

We play with contrast with our light levels, white and black being the max with shades of gray in between. Well, we can do the same with color gels but based on their color.

By using these opposites colors together, they intensify each other to the human eye, make them seem more vibrant like black and white do. Hence the “compliment” name.

We see this in the real world with that warm morning sun against a blue sky or late evening sun reflected on blue water.

The reds and greens used during Christmas, the yellow of the sun against a purple cloud.

Because of this contrast, a complementary color scheme can create a vibrant, exciting look but can also create tension.

If complimentary colors are opposites and have the most color contrast, what are the colors right next to each other, like the red and orange I mentioned earlier? Can we use them together?

Sure. They have the least color contrast because they share some of the same hues and are called analogous, and create a calming effect.

There are many other color schemes used in the art world, too many to go into but a great area to study how color and color combos may work for your shot.

One tool I like using is the site paletton.com. You can set it to show many types of color schemes, fun and useful.

Now you found a color scheme you like, and Paletton gives you the RGB color values, red/green/blue, so let’s use that value to find a gel. Well, you can’t. Remember how we talked about different light sources are not white light? You will get a slightly different color from a gel based on your light source so it’s not an exact science. show tungsten and daylight bulb.

So how do gaffers and lighting directors do it? By eye, and experience. I recommend getting the gel swatch books from both Rosco and Lee, the largest gel manufacturers.

Note they also make gel packages of effect and correction gels and that’s a great place to start as well.

If you have a video or camera store near you, they probably carry the various gels in single sheets as well.

Neewer also makes a small gel set, it’s very affordable but the sheets are a bit thick, smaller, and not heat resistant like standard film and theater gels. But a great set to start.

Tricks and Tips

Shot tests on your background. I did a bunch for this shoot. If you’re not getting a deep enough saturated color, either lower the light level on a dimmer or double on the gel.

Remember, the deeper the gel color, the more saturated the color.

I like to use dimmable light sources so I can adjust the light level to the subject in the frame relative to my subject.

I use spotlights to create spots of light on the background, her I’m using LED par bulbs.

When aiming your lights, if they overlap the colors will blend a bit. If you like, great, but if not, pan one of the lights on till they mix, then pan off. You see you get a nice dark area to appear between them that helps differentiate the two colors.

If the area the lights cover are equal, they’re balanced but you can make one light larger and the other smaller. Sometimes this makes the smaller light stand out and can make for an interesting composition.

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Neewer 12 x 12-Inches Color Pack of 8 (note, they label them color correction incorrectly, they’re just effect gels)

https://amzn.to/3dcvLBq

Rosco Color Effects Filter Kit (12 x 12")

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1100309-REG/rosco_110124120001_color_effects_filter_kit.html

Lee Filters Master Location Pack

https://amzn.to/3tZsZXc

Neewer 6 x 9FT / 1.8 x 2.8M 100% Pure Muslin Collapsible Backdrop

https://amzn.to/3dryTtm

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