There are countless ways to make your footage look weird and trippy, but if you're particularly drawn to the look of infrared -- and don't have the cash to drop on a camera that is capable of capturing infrared in-camera, like the ARRI Alexa XT B+W -- our buddies at Film Riot have shared a tutorial that walks you through pretty simple process of creating this look in post.

Technically, the look in the video isn't completely IR (as they point out, it's a mixture of IR and lomochrome), but chances are you're just looking for something that looks otherworldly and dreamlike -- something that'll communicate to your audience that, "No, this isn't reality, guys."

All you're going to need to follow along with the tutorial are color correction tools that include curves, diffusion, a 4-way color tool that allows you to modify the highlights, mids, and shadows, and master image. Film Riot uses Magic Bullet's Colorista plugin to control specific colors, as well Adobe Premiere's "in-phase chrominance" option.

Certain steps might be different depending on which programs you use, but the basic process is the same: 

  • Invert your image by cranking shadows up and highlights down, adjusting saturation, and pulling curves to the bottom
  • Adjust exposure
  • Add diffusion if you want to make it more dreamlike
  • Adjust specific colors to preference (if you want your skintones to look more normal and less smurf-like)

Granted, this is a very specific look that you probably are not going to use very often, but if you do want to use it, this is one way to do it.

Source: Film Riot

tutorialsinfraredfilmriot
Editing & Post-Production