Joker Color Grade in Final Cut Pro: Step-by-Step Workflow

The 2019 Joker film has one of the most recognisable colour grades of the past decade: warm, golden shadows pushed into amber and orange, highlights that pull slightly desaturated and cool, and a gritty, high-contrast aesthetic that feels both nostalgic and oppressive. Here's how to recreate it in FCP.

Understanding the Joker look

The film's DP Lawrence Sher and colourist worked in 2-perf 35mm film, which gives the footage a natural warmth and grain that's distinct from digital. The grade pushes this further: golden-amber shadows, slightly cooler and more neutral highlights, strong mid-tone contrast, and a restrained, slightly desaturated overall palette punctuated by bold warm colours (the Joker's suit, certain practicals).

The key tension in the grade is the split between warm shadows and relatively neutral highlights. It reverses the typical cinematic split-tone where highlights are warm and shadows are cool. This inversion gives the film a specific psychological heaviness.

Step 1: Build the contrast

Start with a strong S-curve in the Color Curves. Pull the shadows down firmly (the Joker grade has deep, dark shadows) and lift the highlights just slightly. The midpoint should sit at about 45% (slightly below centre) to push the image toward darker mid-tones. This creates the compressed, heavy contrast foundation of the look.

Step 2: Warm the shadows

In the Color Wheels, push the Shadow wheel toward amber/orange. This is the signature move of the Joker grade: warm, golden shadow tones. Don't go too far into yellow-green; stay in the orange-amber zone. The exact amount depends on your footage, but if you're looking at a concrete wall or a dark interior and the shadows have a golden-brown tint rather than true neutral black, you're in the right territory.

Step 3: Cool the highlights slightly

The highlight wheel should go in the opposite direction: a very subtle push toward blue-grey. Keep it conservative; the highlights in the Joker grade aren't dramatically cool, just slightly less warm than the shadows. This creates the split-tone tension without making the image feel teal-and-orange, which is a different aesthetic.

Step 4: Reduce overall saturation

The Joker grade is not highly saturated. Apply a global saturation reduction of around 15 to 20% in the Color Board. Then use the Hue vs Saturation curve to selectively bring back saturation in the warm hue range (orange-red), which preserves the richness of skin tones and warm practicals while keeping the overall palette restrained.

Step 5: Add grain

The film was shot on 35mm, so film grain is inherent. Apply FCP's Add Noise effect with the type set to Gaussian, the amount between 12 and 18%, and tick Monochrome. This adds the textural noise that ties the digital grade to the film aesthetic of the original. Apply it as the final step so it sits on top of your corrected image.