In this exercise, the goal was to take a flat, and almost colorless shot, to grade a muted green look from it. The original footage had a blown-out white sky and very little color separation, so the first challenge was deciding where the mood would come from.
I chose to tint the sky toward a pale green and let the rest of the image follow it. The wardrobe (olive, sage, beige and linen tones) was already close to that palette, so the grade could feel natural instead of forced. The difficulty was the skin: any push toward green made it look sick, so I had to isolate it constantly to keep it natural. The grass was also a problem, because too much saturation competed with the clothing and too little lost the sense of place.
The lesson I learned is that the best grades start from what was shot. The orange hair against a green environment gave me the contrast for free, and the look worked because the ilumination (and exposure) from the footage was already excellent and consistent.
Footage: Pexels (free license)