Before and after Colouring

These two images show the before and after of the colouring process, which I used Final Cut Studio's colour grading program 'Color'. 

As you can see, this image is very plain, washed out and slightly overexposed. The skin tone is dull, and although very clinical I would like to create more atmosphere for the opening scene. This is just as I shot it though the camera. When colouring, I feel that it's better to over expose and turn it down, than to over expose your shot. 

As you can see, I have added contrast to really bring out the detail in the face to make the Elder look ill. The contrast also helps to bring out the light and darks in the hair to create even more interest. I darkened this clip down to really contrast with the clip after it when the Elder wakes up in a really bright, bleach bypassed scene. More tonal colour is brought out too, such as the wall behind and the red on the neck, which really gives a great effect. In photoshop, I created two black horizontal lines with no background, which I imported into Final Cut Pro as a .psd file. Then I scaled it up to re-create a letter-boxing technique that I then applied to the whole film and adjust the clips framing accordingly. This in turn creates a wonderfully cinematic feel, which fits in well with all the short films I have analysed.