The origin of the idea is to preserve skin tones and other "memory colors" (stop signs, taxi cabs), regardless of how the rest of the scene is rendered (bright or drab).
So it's not that film colorists are intentionally making everything teal and orange (or actually maybe the lazy ones are now that's it's become something of a cliche.)
I knew the gray-tone checkerboard but this is a very surprising illusion. I opened the image in Photoshop and had a hard time believing the effect: http://screenjel.ly/oHDkBcDFnoQ (video, no sound)
I found the head color correction interesting. I would say he used and overall filter rather than doing a spot correction on the head. The head becomes lighter, but it's still gray, not a Caucasian color. The sky has gone from blue to a mog induced green The most interesting are the copper pipes which have gone from copper (a memory color in my book) to a bright red.
I have watched mv GF produced stunning paintings from a limited palate of 4 to 6 colors for a painting. Once she has a sketch of a painting her next major step is designing a palate for it, including the grounds, which get completely covered up to the layers that build up the image. It's really an elaborate illusion. Is violet a skin tone? Yes, when it's a shadow that complements orange red of the skin highlights.
The origin of the idea is to preserve skin tones and other "memory colors" (stop signs, taxi cabs), regardless of how the rest of the scene is rendered (bright or drab).
So it's not that film colorists are intentionally making everything teal and orange (or actually maybe the lazy ones are now that's it's become something of a cliche.)