Technical Review: Second Trailer for 'I Can Only Imagine 2' Reveals Production Nuances

By BlockReel Editorial Team Post-Production February 6, 2026

Technical Review: Second Trailer for 'I Can Only Imagine 2' Reveals Production Nuances

The second and final trailer for "I Can Only Imagine 2," the sequel to the 2018 faith-based music drama, has been released ahead of its theatrical debut this month. Lionsgate’s distribution of this follow-up, again centered on musician Bart Millard and his band MercyMe, prompts an examination of its visual presentation and the technical considerations inherent in crafting a music-centric biographical narrative. Co-directed by Andrew Erwin and Brent McCorkle, with John Michael Finley reprising his role, this film continues the story established in its predecessor, focusing on Millard’s personal challenges amidst professional acclaim.

FirstShowing, which released the trailer today, February 6, 2026, highlights the film’s narrative arc: Bart Millard faces a crisis following his success, navigating internal struggles and a search for faith. The story is presented as an adaptation of the true events behind MercyMe’s single "Even If." The production features a cast including John Michael Finley, Milo Ventimiglia, Sophie Skelton, Arielle Kebbel, Sammy Dell, and notable appearances by Trace Adkins and Dennis Quaid. A distinctive production detail noted is the utilization of the Red Rocks venue in Denver, Colorado, as a performance backdrop.

While the trailer content focuses on narrative beats and character development, the underlying post-production work responsible for its aesthetic impact warrants discussion, particularly concerning color science and visual grading. The depiction of concert footage, intimate dramatic scenes, and emotional arcs, all conveyed through the trailer’s visual language, relies heavily on precise color manipulation.

HDR Saturation in DaVinci Resolve: Precision over Broad Strokes

When grading performance-heavy films like "I Can Only Imagine 2," achieving nuanced and consistent color renditions for skin tones, stage lighting, and natural environments is paramount. DaVinci Resolve's HDR Saturation tool offers a sophisticated approach to managing chrominance. Unlike a global saturation adjustment, which can indiscriminately affect all colors, HDR Saturation allows for a more controlled manipulation by separating saturation based on luminance values.

For instance, in a concert sequence within the "I Can Only Imagine 2" trailer, stage lights often push colors into highly saturated realms. An indiscriminate saturation boost globally would likely lead to clipping in these bright, vibrant areas, creating an artificial, garish look. Conversely, simply desaturating the entire image to mitigate this can flatten the overall impact. The HDR Saturation tool directly addresses this by enabling adjustments to saturated colors in specific luminance zones.

- Targeted Chrominance Adjustment: This tool allows colorists to increase or decrease saturation selectively in shadows, midtones, or highlights. For example, hot stage lights might benefit from a slight desaturation in their highlight zones to retain detail, while less intense colors in the midtones of the musician's attire or instruments could be subtly enhanced for impact.

Perceptual Control: It operates on a perceptually uniform color space, meaning adjustments tend to feel more natural and less prone to introducing color shifts or artifacts compared to simpler HSL-based controls. This is crucial for maintaining authentic skin tones across varying lighting conditions, a common challenge in musical biopics where performers are subjected to diverse illumination.

Managing Over-Saturation: One of the most common issues in less controlled environments, or when shooting under mixed lighting, is channels pushing too far. HDR Saturation can pull back these overshot channels without globally softening the image. This is particularly useful for footage from locations like Red Rocks, where natural light interacts with stage setups.

A common workflow in my experience involves using the HDR Saturation tool as an early stage in the primary grade, especially when working with LOG footage. After a basic lift and gain correction, applying subtle HDR Saturation adjustments can establish a more robust color foundation before moving to secondary corrections. It's about building a sense of color depth without sacrificing naturalism, a balance that trailers often strive for to convey production value.

The Color Warper: Flexible Tonal Manipulation

Beyond global or luminance-based saturation, the Color Warper in DaVinci Resolve provides an exceptionally powerful two-dimensional control surface for color manipulation. This tool maps hue and saturation to a grid, allowing for highly specific and localized adjustments that are difficult to achieve with traditional wheels or curves.

Consider the Red Rocks concert footage glimpsed in the "I Can Only Imagine 2" trailer. The interplay of natural rock faces (often ruddy or orange-hued) with artificial stage lighting (which might be blue, magenta, or amber) presents a complex color palette. The Color Warper excels here:

- Targeted Hue/Saturation Shifts: If the warm tones of the Red Rocks stage feel too dominant, a colorist can select that specific hue on the Color Warper grid and shift it cooler, or reduce its saturation, without affecting other colors like skin tones or instrument finishes. This level of granular control is crucial for maintaining separation between elements and preventing a muddy overall look.

Controlling Complementary Colors: Often, stage lighting introduces complementary hues that can create interesting contrasts or, if not handled carefully, distracting visual noise. The Color Warper allows for precise adjustments to these relationships. For example, if a specific blue stage light is making skin tones appear too sickly, that blue swatch on the Warper can be delicately pushed towards cyan or even subtly desaturated, while leaving other blues in the scene untouched.

Artistic Stylization: For a film rooted in music and emotion, the ability to subtly push color palettes to evoke certain feelings is invaluable. The Color Warper can be used to create distinctive looks by remapping entire sections of the color spectrum. Imagine a dramatic flashback sequence where the present-day scene has a slightly elevated, warm bias, while the flashback is desaturated with a subtle shift towards cooler greens or magentas. The Color Warper enables these nuanced stylistic choices with remarkable precision.

In practice, I've found the Color Warper invaluable for tackling color casts that refuse to yield to more conventional tools. It’s particularly effective for isolating and adjusting specific color mixtures that exist outside the clear boundaries of primary hues. When a specific "off-color" appears, say from a practical light source or mixed stage gels, the Color Warper provides the surgical precision to correct or enhance it without ripple effects across the grade.

Color Slice: Isolating and Enhancing Specific Ranges

While the Color Warper handles hue and saturation in a 2D plane, the Color Slice effect in Resolve is designed for even more targeted, three-dimensional manipulation, using 3D masks to isolate specific color volumes (hue, saturation, and luminance) within the image. This is where truly minute adjustments can be made without impacting surrounding elements.

For a music film like "I Can Only Imagine 2," the Color Slice could be employed for:

- Refining Instrument Finishes: A guitar's specific wood grain hue or the metallic sheen of a microphone stand might need a slight bump in saturation or a subtle shift in hue to make it pop against a busy stage background. The Color Slice can isolate that exact color volume while ignoring similar colors in the backdrop or clothing.

Accentuating Narrative Elements: If a particular prop or costume color holds symbolic weight within the film’s narrative, the Color Slice allows it to be subtly emphasized. For example, if Bart Millard's microphone has a specific color that signifies his craft, that specific color could be subtly brightened or saturated without affecting any skin tones or other elements in the scene.

Dealing with Brand Logos/IP: While not explicitly mentioned in the trailer notes, often in films featuring real-world elements or product placements, specific colors need careful management to match brand guidelines or legal requirements. The Color Slice provides the precision required for these tasks, ensuring only the target color volume is affected.

The strength of Color Slice lies in its ability to create extremely tight, non-rectangular masks in the 3D color space. This moves beyond the limitations of traditional qualitative keys, enabling a colourist to target specific color 'blobs' that are defined by their unique combination of hue, saturation, and luminance. It's an indispensable tool for achieving a polished, detailed look in high-end projects, ensuring that every element on screen is rendered with intent.

Density Controls and Extended DCTL Capabilities

Beyond these interactive tools, advanced color workflows often require a deeper level of programmatic control, particularly through Density Controls and the ability to author custom Resolve FX (often via DCTLs - DaVinci Color Transform Language).

Density is not a single control but rather a concept relating to the perceived richness and depth of an image. In film, it historically referred to the opacity of a negative or print. Digitally, achieving "density" often involves carefully managing contrast, saturation, and luminance ranges to create a sense of three-dimensionality and visual weight. While the aforementioned tools contribute to this, sometimes an overall, subtle shift in density is desired without affecting individual hues.

- Film Emulation LUTs and Density: Many film emulation LUTs are designed to replicate the density characteristics of specific film stocks, providing a rich, organic feel. However, these often require finessing. A colorist might use density-like controls within a DCTL to soften highlights or deepen shadows in a non-linear way that emulates print processes.

Custom DCTLs for Bespoke Looks: For a project striving for a unique visual signature, like a biopic covering a specific era or artist, DCTLs can be written to create highly bespoke color transforms. For instance, a DCTL could be developed to simulate the color response of vintage concert film, or to introduce specific chromatic aberrations that evoke a particular aesthetic. This goes far beyond what built-in tools can offer, allowing for complete control over the color science.

Managing Dynamic Range with Density: In HDR workflows, managing density becomes particularly critical. Pushing highlights too far can flatten an image, while restricting them too much can lose impact. A DCTL can be written to handle specific highlight and shadow rolloffs, emulating the natural falloff observed in film, which often maintains a sense of density even in extreme dynamic ranges.

In the context of "I Can Only Imagine 2," an experienced color team might employ DCTLs to ensure a consistent look across different shooting environments, from intimate interior scenes to the expansive Red Rocks concert. This could involve DCTLs that normalize color response from various cameras or apply a unified filmic curve that serves as the project's base grade. The power of DCTLs lies in their ability to implement complex mathematical transforms, ensuring repeatability and precise control over the image pipeline. It's the kind of intervention that distinguishes a carefully crafted visual narrative from a default application of presets.

No single tool provides a magic bullet. The art of color grading in a professional context, especially for a feature like "I Can Only Imagine 2," involves the judicious application of a suite of tools. The HDR Saturation, Color Warper, and Color Slice each serve distinct purposes, from broad, intelligent color balancing to incredibly precise, surgical adjustments. Knowing when to deploy each, and understanding their hierarchical interaction within the grading pipeline, is essential for translating a directorial vision into a compelling visual experience. The second trailer for "I Can Only Imagine 2" provides a glimpse into these complex considerations, showcasing a blend of dramatic intimacy and performative energy that only a meticulous post-production process can fully realize. The film is set to open in theaters nationwide on February 20, 2026.

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Originally published on BlockReel DAO.