Painted Smile LUT

A Joker-inspired study in urban unease

Painted Smile translates the unsettling colour world associated with Todd Phillips’ Joker, starring Joaquin Phoenix, into a distinctive authored Cinema Look. Faded neutrals and warm light move towards tobacco yellow, while shadows, blues and cooler environments develop a dense cyan-green character. Deep reds and burgundy tones remain as controlled accents against the dirtier surrounding palette.

This is a deliberately pronounced look. Blacks gain density, lower midtones feel heavier and clean digital whites take on an aged yellow-green bias. Skin loses some of its rosy warmth and becomes more muted and slightly olive, integrating faces into the environment without removing their separation completely.

The result is tense, weathered and unmistakably urban—designed for stories that need psychological pressure, isolation and period-inflected decay rather than a clean, contemporary finish.

What you will notice

• Pale yellow to tobacco warmth across highlights, practical light and faded neutral surfaces.
• Cyan-teal and green colour through shadows, blues and cooler architectural environments.
• Dense blacks and firmer contrast with greater weight in the lower midtones.
• Muted, slightly olive skin rendering with less pink and orange warmth.
• Deepened reds and burgundies that remain powerful accents within the palette.
• Strong separation between dirty warmth and cooler urban colour.

How it was designed

Painted Smile was developed by studying the recurring colour and tonal relationships visible throughout Joker: stained yellow warmth against cyan-green environments, muted skin against deep red accents, and dense contrast across weathered interiors and urban textures.

Rather than matching one individual frame, these relationships were translated into a repeatable colour design that can respond across daylight, tungsten, fluorescent and mixed-light footage. The look remains intentionally strong, but its character comes from the interaction between colours rather than a single green cast applied uniformly across the image.

Painted Smile is an independently developed Cinema Look, not a film-stock emulation or a reproduction of the exact colour pipeline used for Joker.

Best suited for

• Psychological dramas, thrillers and character-led narrative work.
• Urban exteriors, public transport, institutional spaces and weathered interiors.
• Scenes combining fluorescent, tungsten or mixed practical lighting.
• Period-influenced stories requiring a worn, uneasy colour world.
• Music, fashion and editorial work that benefits from pronounced green-yellow colour separation.
• Footage containing red, burgundy, yellow, green or faded neutral production design.