The Master Guide / 04 The treatment and presentations · Writing the treatment
The light and colour sheet
The light sheet names every source and the film's palette, and ends with one line on texture.
The light sheet names every source and the film's palette, and ends with one line on texture.
Per scene [proven], write the motivated sources, the key's direction and quality, the ratio (2:1 soft, 4:1 dramatic, 8:1 noir), the colour temperature in kelvin of key, fill and practicals, the shadows and the time of day.
The scene's first shot shows or places its key. Later angles may go contrasty, with an edge on the face.
How the key moves during an arc.
Skin, fabric, glass and metal each answer the same source in their own way.
Speaking shots keep the mouth lit; products keep the label lit.
Also per scene:
Light events inside a shot are tied to a moving source.
A change of world inside one shot (day to dusk, lights off) is a treatment choice, made in the plan as a designed transition with a fallback real cut.
Whole film: a named palette tied to material and light, each leading colour with its material, source and place. The 60/30/10 split with placement when you or the brief ask for it; a ratio per scene only where it shapes the look. For product and brand films, the hero colour that leads every frame. The grade in values; the colour journey.
The texture line [proven] names four things:
grain: none, fine or visible;
highlight roll-off;
halation, on highlights only: yes or no;
softening of digital sharpness: none or slight.
No glow without a source. Grain is applied once, in finishing, one brightness-following grain per film; gate weave only where the treatment wants a film-era look (decided) (see The grade and texture → Texture once).
On the client page: a palette strip and two or three frames of the light, with plain lines: "late sun from the left, warm faces, deep but never black shadows". The values themselves go into prompts through Light and look → The look line.
Sources
Grain that follows brightness, and halation only on bright edges: the colourists of The Holdovers (No Film School) and Dune (American Cinematographer); Mark Horrobin on restraint in grading (LBB).