Color grading for finishing in film NOW?

[Esteban Sosnitsky]

Hello everyone!!!

We are about to start the color correcting process for an independent feature that is going to be finalized for FILM and the DVD will come afterwords. With the new exciting solutions like the FCP+COLOR and the latest plug in from adobe for AE, I wonder what you guys think about what's the best workflow path for this situation. For those of you who'd say, what about scratch? I dont own a scratch, and the producers dont have the money to put into a scratch room

So, for the film thing we need to send DPX files to the Lasergraphics. Thats how they are gonna transfer the video file towards film. For the DVD I think we will be fine with quicktime movies.

What would you suggest me to do? I believe they have already cut the project in FCP with the proxies. My guess was to either CC in AE or Color and replace the footage in FCP. I also know that if I go this way I could grade in 4K and then when replacing in FCP transfer to 2K.

Thoughts, suggestions?
Thanks a lot.

 

[Bruce Allen]

My suggestion is this:

- Find a good colorist who can work within your budget. Go with what they want.

If you happen to be a good colorist yourself, but don't own fancy gear, then I suggest this:
- Do the majority of the grading work at home. Focus on keeping colors consistent. Leave a little headroom (don't totally clip highlights or crush blacks)
- output to HDCAM SR / D-5
- take this to a high-end online facility with good operators, good calibrated projection, etc
- do a DaVinci tape-to-tape. There you can compensate for most deficiencies in your home system

But this relies on you being a really, really good colorist. So I'd probably go for the top option - find a good colorist and go with what they want.

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com

 

[BigLu]

Bruce nailed it.

I know your possibly out in Colombia, but if you dont find a colorist you want to work with.
I can help you with your project and if its in Spanish im fluent.

Good luck.

 

[Esteban Sosnitsky]

Thanks for the feedback guys. Luis, I appreciate your offer, but this is a low very low budget film that I helped on; so I think they dont even have $$$ for a couple hours in scratch Where do you work? Where are you located? What software do you use? Maybe we can work something out? Even some feedback on some stills sometime?

I am confident I can do a good job with this feature. I am an advertising photographer so I have a high standard to meet... my own...
My question was more on the tech side, in terms of where to CC the takes they choose to use in order to export a DPX sequence. I have worked with both of them software (color and AE) and know certain pros and cons from each. I really think we dont need too much CC either, the look is great with the photography we did on set, and after playing a little with RA and RC the look is so filmic that I dont need to touch the image that much. Moreover, we did a quick test while shooting: We grabbed a night scene, no lights, just available light on the street, and CC in scratch with very little corrections. We printed out that to 35mm Kodak stock 50D and saw it projected. It looked so awesome! So I now know what to look for in the process of the project. I just need some guidelines based on your experience on what pros and cons will I find if I choose that or the other workflow path.
Thanks again~!

 

[Esteban Sosnitsky]

No more thoughts guys?

 

[John Tissavary]

The biggest issue for you is going to be getting a quality film print. It's really easy to get great looking images in a grading tool like Color or Scratch or whatever, but it's much harder to get what you see there onto a film print, which has VERY different response to light than Red, LCD or CRT monitors, and software.

Hopefully whomever is doing the film recording can give you a print emulation 3d Lut for whatever film stock you are printing to - you'll use that to view in, and grade accordingly. Highlights and shadows fall on very different parts of the luminance curve (different for each color!) in film, and without a LUT you will be grading completely blind.

Some film recording facilities have predesigned rec709 to film transfer curves, so if you grade in rec709 you'll get a decent result, but it won't be as good as if you grade using a proper color management system (LUT, Truelight, Cinespace, etc...) as you'll be working in a reduced color matrix, and some colors that are legal in rec709 are not legal in all film stock.

You best bet, BY FAR, is getting an experienced colorist to be part of this process, especially when it comes to color management. If you have any specific questions about what I posted here, feel free to PM me.

cheers,

JT