case study / colour and psychological perspective

Solitary (2026) / Psychological short film / Colourist

Solitary

Colour and psychological perspective.

production role

Introduction and credits

Solitary is a psychological short film following Roland, a military veteran whose experience of the wilderness becomes unstable after the disappearance of his dog, Shepard. Memories around Zack's death intrude on his perception of the present.

Colourist: Sophie Joyce

Full credits are listed below.

responsibilities

My responsibilities as colourist

I was responsible for the look of the film in grade: building the colour approach, applying it consistently across scenes and keeping it in service of the story. That covered shot matching, exposure correction, skin-tone accuracy, foliage treatment and the integration of stock footage.

02.1

Creative objectives

Colour separates three states: the real world, traumatic memory and distorted perception. The grade changes enough for an audience to feel the difference, without overriding the natural look of the photography.

02.2

Technical workflow

Software: Adobe Premiere Pro
Grading tool: Lumetri Color
Colour space: Rec.709
Project: An organised grading project holding successive grade versions, chart references for each movement and for the show look
Movement LUTs: Grounded, Threat, Rupture and Re-entry
Unifying look: One show look held across the film

02.3

Four narrative grading movements

GroundedThe film's recognisable physical world.
ThreatTension enters the same environment.
RupturePerception breaks from the present.
Re-entryThe return from distortion.

02.4

Movement LUTs and one show look

Each movement has its own LUT treatment. A single show look holds them together, so the film still reads as one world.

Graded still from Solitary: a watchful face in a car rear-view mirror, slate-blue tones — Roland Reflection / Solitary / graded still

02.5

Matching and accuracy

Shots were matched and exposure corrected so cuts held. Skin tones were kept accurate, foliage was treated so the forest stayed credible, and stock footage was brought into the same world as the original photography.

02.6

The daylight flashbacks

The bright daylight look of the flashbacks to Zack's death was a particular problem: it had to feel different from the present without becoming a separate film.

02.7

Memory, distortion and apparition

Three things needed to read differently on screen: traumatic memory, present-tense perceptual distortion and the apparition of Zack. Variations in contrast, temperature, saturation and tonal separation were the tools explored.

02.8

Feedback and revision

Where the finished cut differs from the original vision edit (the V3 cut by the film's credited editor), I worked on how the reaction and memory passages are selected, timed and finished. In the Roadside Distress passage, the memory images fall from 242 frames to 110 frames, about 10.09 seconds to 4.59 seconds. Reaction framing, existing speed changes, zooms and blur effects remain.

The original MP4 was baked, so the editor's original effect settings cannot be recovered from it. These comparisons show different selected frames and timing, not recovered settings.

evidence of practice

Evidence: the grade, measured

The four movements were allowed to change the mood of the film, but not its black floor, whites, skin or neutral axis. Each rule below was tested against the show look in every movement.

Check	Rule	Result across the four movements
01Black floor	Scene black set to #0A0A0A (10/255), neutral, in every movement	Held at 10/255 in the show look and all four movements
02Bone white	Scene white identical to the show look (ΔE00 of 1.0 or less)	0.00 to 0.02 across the four movements
0318% grey	Within ±3 L* of the show look, chroma 4 or less	Within tolerance in all four movements
04Skin hue line	All 8 skin patches within ±6° hue of the show look (±8° in movement 3)	Maximum 2.9° to 3.9°
05Skin colour	Dark and light skin ΔE00 against the show look within set limits	ΔE00 1.3 to 3.1
06No magenta	Magenta, purple and blue-flower chroma at 75% or less of the physical chart	49% to 66%
07Neutral axis	Grey ramp tints stay subtle: chroma 7 or less anywhere on the ramp	Maximum chroma 3.4 to 6.7
08Contrast budget	−2 to +2 stop span within 0.88 to 1.20 times the show look	0.97 to 1.03 times

Source: Sophie's grade tracker for Solitary. Colour measured against a ColorChecker chart.

Before and after: Pre-correction and retained correction

The same frame from Solitary, lifted slightly, with more detail in the hair, face and plaid shirt — Left of the line: the pre-correction frame from the Directional Lighting test. Right: the retained correction, the version kept in the film. Shadow detail in the hair and shirt is lost before correction. Comparison frames are not pixel-aligned colour measurements.

Frame from Solitary: a young man's face, head bowed, in near-darkness with a blue cast, before correction — Left of the line: the pre-correction frame from the Directional Lighting test. Right: the retained correction, the version kept in the film. Shadow detail in the hair and shirt is lost before correction. Comparison frames are not pixel-aligned colour measurements.

Before and after: Blood and Sap

Slide with four frames of a tree trunk wrapped in vines, comparing the editor's V3 cut and the revised excerpt, for apparent blood and real sap — Blood and Sap frame breakdown. Left: V3 cut. Right: revised excerpt. Narrow dark-red enhancement supports the apparent-blood reading, and amber-brown sap restores the physical reading of the tree. Different selected frames show equivalent story beats.

Slide comparing two close-up frames of a man in a camouflage cap and backpack, V3 cut on the left and revised excerpt on the right — A tighter return to Roland. Different selected frames and framing for the corresponding dramatic beat. The facial refinement is retained on the clear close-up, and the eye-rub shot uses an even balance with no spatial face mask.

Premiere Pro timeline strip with eight labelled picture clips, from Approach to Exit, over a continuous green audio track — The Blood and Sap v03 timeline: eight labelled picture cuts over one continuous stereo mix. v03 is 453 frames, 91 frames shorter than the earlier 544-frame working extraction, with four short ambience bridges.

00:00 / 00:00

Blood and Sap v03, an 18.9 second excerpt with sound. It is a dedicated portfolio re-edit using rendered custom finishing assets. Those controls are not Lumetri slider values. Published with the permission of the Solitary production team. Press play to watch. It does not start by itself, and sound stays off until you press sound on.

Blood and Sap is a dedicated portfolio re-edit that uses rendered custom finishing assets. Those controls are not Lumetri slider values.

Before and after: Roadside Distress

Slide with four frames from the roadside scene: a man leaning in a vehicle, and two figures in a field, V3 cut left and revised excerpt right — Keeping the reaction and memory connected. Left: V3 cut. Right: revised excerpt. The first distress reaction uses the same camera angle. The memory passage concentrates on the carrying image.

Slide with four frames from the roadside scene: a close-up of a man in a cap, and a dog beside a man in a plaid shirt, V3 left and revised right — Recovering continuity across the angles. The two images use independently timed source frames. The roadside recovery keeps the original shot's physical daylight, and existing speed changes, framing and zoom effects are preserved.

Premiere workflow screens

Premiere Pro Lumetri Color panel with Basic Correction controls beside a program monitor showing a close-up of a man in a cap, in the Roadside Distress sequence — Real Premiere screenshot: Lumetri Color correction controls on a Roadside Distress shot (temperature 12.0, tint -24.0, saturation 94.0, exposure 0.3, contrast 2.0, highlights -15.0, shadows 26.0).

Premiere Pro timeline of Solitary_Grade_v09_GRADING with six video tracks and fifteen audio tracks — The full film timeline in Solitary_Grade_v09_GRADING, a crop of a real Premiere screenshot. The project contains the grading timeline plus SOL_PORTFOLIO_WORKFLOW_v01 and SOL_PORTFOLIO_SCENE_Roadside_Distress_v01.

Premiere Pro timeline for the Roadside Distress sequence with labelled shot-match adjustment layers above the picture and audio tracks — The Roadside Distress timeline. Shot corrections sit on separate, labelled shot-match adjustment layers above the picture and sound.

Directional Lighting test (rejected)

Frame from Solitary after a Directional Light test: the face and hair are brighter, with visible grain — Research and development. The Directional Light test increased chroma noise and mottled texture, so it was rejected. No Directional Lighting effect is in the final film. Its source colour profile is unverified.

Items on this page are stills and screenshots only. The teaser keeps its earlier treatment and is not a fresh render of the v09 pass. Audio was measured but a full real-time listening review is not claimed. Source media is linked in the Premiere projects, not collected. The only film excerpt published is Blood and Sap v03, with the production team's permission.

creative outcomes

Graded stills

Graded still from Solitary: close portrait of a grey and cream dog against a soft blue background — Shepard / Solitary / finished camera-source still photograph.

Stills are finished camera-source photographs, separate from the scene comparisons. The film itself is not published here.

04.2

Credits

Opening credit: Solitary

Closing credits

Director: Keeley Cawte
Writer: Noah Sharling
Producer: Kiera Hill
Director of Photography: Liberty Clark
Production Designer: Kosmas Vorgias
Art Assistant: Jade Bindon
Editor: Georgia Barrett
Editor: Imogen Zanella
Assistant Editor: Monica Ciobo
Sound Designer: Imogen Zanella
Composer: Felix Wise
Casting Director: Liberty Clark

Cast

Roland Wilson: Michael Hawkins
Zackery Williams: Ryan Hisco
Shepard: Aurora
Podcast Host: Tayla Redford-Bell

Crew

Production Manager: Thomas White
First Assistant Director: Kirsty Barnes
Camera Operator: Thomas White
First Assistant Camera: Aiyana David
Gaffer: Monica Ciobo
Gaffer: Jay Switzer
Gaffer: Lucy Egan
Sound Recordist: Jackson Gibbens
Boom-operator: Rocina Ward
Colourist: Sophie Joyce
Title Design: Monica Ciobo
Production Assistant: Tristan Pinna
Production Assistant: Tex Hansen
Production Assistant: Liam Austin
Virtual Production Environmental Artist: Brayden Bagley
Virtual Production Environmental Assistant: Luca Griffo
Virtual Production Camera Operator: Jay Kesby
Virtual Production Gaffer: Tristan Pinna
Virtual Production LX Assist: Jordan Nichols

Script consultant

Script Consultant: Sue Cake

Executive producers

Executive Producers: Jason Tolsher; Phoebe Hart

Special thanks

James Paramour; Rob Matthews; Allan Bremner; Rhys Tyack; James Debenham; John Wang; Annabelle Rogan; Mia Cameron

A production of QUT School of Creative Arts. Filmed in The Palms QLD and QUT Virtual Production Studio.

Thanks to our donors

Noah Sharling; Don Philip Alabata; Liberty Clark; Evan Cosson; Rocina Ward; Arielle McCaul; Rob and Tanya Ward; Imogen Zanella; Keisha Rohweder; Kiera Hill; Tayla Chiu Chong; Nana Hill; Julian Hill; Bels Baker; Daryll Kinivan; Amelia McNally; Anthony McLaughlin; Josh Hill; Aretha Hill; Paul Sharling; Lily Smith; Tristan Pinna; Ronda McDonald; Annabel McCarthy; Abi Hill; Iain B MacDonald; Georgia Barrett; Conrad Cowlrick; Cathy Palmer; Sally Broad; Tulip Heuser; Sophie Joyce; Kirsty Barnes

Credits as listed in the film's end credits. The stills and the excerpt on this page are published with the permission of the Solitary production team.

professional reflection

Colour, context and perception

Across narrative and experimental filmmaking, my interest lies in how audiovisual choices transform the meaning of recorded images.

My approach to colour grading is informed by a broader interest in how images acquire meaning through their relationship with sound, editing and context. I am particularly interested in the capacity of visual manipulation to alter an audience's understanding of material without changing what was originally recorded. In Solitary, this became a question of psychological perspective.

The forest remains a recognisable physical environment, yet its emotional significance changes as Roland's traumatic memories and distorted perceptions intrude upon the present. My colour-grading approach explored how variations in contrast, temperature, saturation and tonal separation could communicate those changes while maintaining the credibility of the original photography. These concerns also informed my earlier experimental short film developed in conversation with Emily Kame Kngwarreye's Earth's Creation I (1994).

Although the project had a different conceptual and ethical framework, it allowed me to investigate how recorded natural imagery could be transformed through altered temporality, chromatic abstraction, layering and the relationship between sound and image. The distinction between these projects has been particularly valuable to my development. Experimental filmmaking encourages me to question the representational limits of an image, while narrative colour grading demands that such interventions remain accountable to character, performance, continuity and the intentions of the wider production.

Together, these experiences have shaped my understanding of colour as more than an aesthetic finishing process. It is one of several interdependent elements through which filmmakers construct meaning, influence perception and guide emotional experience.

Read the professional reflection