Colorist Advice

[Craig Swanson]

I color corrected a short scene I edited for an actor friend in Color. Would anyone be willing to take a look and critique it? I had trouble with skin tones and scene to scene balance. I also noticed a couple other issues after it was rendered. I pushed a couple shots just to see how far I could go with it. The workflow I used was the prores offline then re-conform to use the r3d files in color. I appreciate any help or guidance. The clip is 1:37 trt.

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Craig Swanson

 

[Uli Plank]

Hi Crag, without looking over your shoulder while you are working it's hard to comment. I'd suggest an excellent book: " The Art and Technique of Digital Color Grading "…

 

[jake blackstone]

I color corrected a short scene I edited for an actor friend in Color. Would anyone be willing to take a look and critique it? I had trouble with skin tones and scene to scene balance. I also noticed a couple other issues after it was rendered. I pushed a couple shots just to see how far I could go with it. The workflow I used was the prores offline then re-conform to use the r3d files in color. I appreciate any help or guidance. The clip is 1:37 trt.

Crappy Flash Video
Quicktime Download 82 MB

Craig Swanson

Hey Craig.
If you'd like, you can just bring over to my office your r3d files and the EDL and we could just grade it on Lustre together. Would that work for you?
And, hey, this music sounds familiar. Check this out http://web.me.com/jake4n/Red/Long-form.html#0

 

[Peter Moretti]

I am not a colorist, but I'll give my opinion FWIW. Of course I like it a lot. here are some comments.

1) The beginning looks car commercial-ish. Mostly because the car is light and shiny and the sky is a very nice blue. I can see having a nice sky, kind of representing where the car was coming from as nice, but then the destination should be darker, IMHO. It would probably work best just to make the sky darker and pull out some color.

2) I'm not sure if it's part of the transcode to QT, but the transitions seemed very long, too much looking at black frame.

3) The color matching seems to be most an issue when they get to the location where the man in the white suit is to be shot. I found all white = good guy, all black = bad guy at little cliche. But again I really like what I'm watching. The other places I feel you can get away with the skin tones not matching b/c they are moving or different spots. But once they get stationary, you should decide on how rich/de-saturated, light/dark it should be.

4) I'm not really sure what the scene with him in front of the blinds does, but it looks dark. And I'm not sure what the light source is.

5) I'm also not sure about the guy driving the car while using his cellphone. Is this a flashback? Is it the same time of day as the shooting? It looks like late afternoon.

Please don't take my observations for more than they are worth. They are just one person's opinion. Very nice work.


P.S.

Jake,

That's a very nice offer.

 

[Chris Vrakotas]

Hi Craig,

Its a nice short film, I liked the music and the way the man in white acts just before he's been shot.
Some comments, just my personal opinion
1. The whole look at the place of the execution could be more de-saturated and brown-reddish to emphasize the mood. So there would be more "opposition" (sorry if this is not the correct word) with the other shots.
2. I would prefer the skin tones less reddish

Keep up the good work

 

[Craig Schober]

craig,

the only shot that stuck out to me (in a bad way) was when the guy in white goes down to his knees with his hands behind his head (the c.u. 60 seconds into it). his skintone is wildly uneven and seems over saturated. it looks more like a compression artifact than anything you did wrong but you might want to dial back a bit on the secondary corrections because something was pushed too hard in that shot. maybe if you isolate his skintone and desaturate a bit, you could not only even out the harshness but also create a little dramatic foreshadowing concerning his impending end.

it looked like the guy in white got some kind of sunburn but it reads uneven like a rash. is that what you were trying to smooth out or correct for? in some other shots, the both actor's make-up seemed a little "caked-on" but it wasn't too distracting.

overall, i liked how it felt even though i wasn't sure what it all meant or added up to. seemed more like an exercise or an item for your friend's reel than a finished short to me. too many focus racks for me and it all felt a little too "commercial" but the scenery was great and i liked the pacing. i know you weren't looking for non-color opinions but i couldn't resist.

thanks for sharing.

 

[Zakaree Sandberg]

too many focus racks for me

I know we are talking about color and not story/ cinematography... but I would agree with this statement.
I felt like I was watching a student film, where the school had just purchased a 35mm adapter.

(although yours looks better, of course)

Just the amount of shallow focus shots and racks kinda felt unnecessary

 

[MichaelP]

I have the rack focus discussion all the time with filmmakers when I am on panels and such at festivals. As much as everyone want to have that shallow depth of field, how to use it as part of the storytelling technique is key. I find a lot of first time filmmakers with this control overuse it for the sake of the effect and not to support the story or some emotional arc of the moment, scene, film.

Michael

 

[MichaelP]

By the way, as far as color correction goes, I thought it looked great - good balancing form shot to shot. Of course there is color correction as in "correcting" then color correction for creative support of the story (the fun stuff). All of that is up to the director and DP and the intent of the scene - but something to play with and consider is as the scene progresses to the assassination, the scene become moodier, darker, etc, not "bash over your head obvious", but enough to support the emotional tension that is building.

Michael

 

[Craig Swanson]

Great to get this much input from everyone. Thanks for all the suggestions. And yes it's a demo that I recut for someone so I could work on r3d files and more thoroughly learn Color. I didn't realize I used so many rack focus shots though, maybe I didn't do the cinematographer justice. Anyway, all production comments always welcome.

Craig Swanson

 

[Loren White]

Looks nice, good detail all around, good balance.

At 01:11 the plant caught my eye, when I should have been watching the guys. It looks like your did a secondary on the plant and pushed the saturation, it looks neon. Careful about those little things.

Its hard to judge color grading without a before and after, but best of luck with your learning.

 

[Tyler Black]

MichaelP

I find a lot of first time filmmakers with this control overuse it for the sake of the effect and not to support the story or some emotional arc of the moment, scene, film.

This is a very constructive critique, but you stopped 1/2 way. Can you give examples of how you can use soft focus for each of these situations? i.e. what would be happening on screen when a DP would think "a soft focus background here would be perfect."

 

[Ramesh Jai]

OT but in Color the option for changing framerates is greyed out. It is permanently on 23.97 fps. Is there any way to change framerate to 25fps? Thanks

 

[Chris Vrakotas]

OT but in Color the option for changing framerates is greyed out. It is permanently on 23.97 fps. Is there any way to change framerate to 25fps? Thanks

You have to set fps when you start a new project, before you import any shots. Afterwards its not possible to make such changes.

 

[Zakaree Sandberg]

MichaelP



This is a very constructive critique, but you stopped 1/2 way. Can you give examples of how you can use soft focus for each of these situations? i.e. what would be happening on screen when a DP would think "a soft focus background here would be perfect."

for example.. there was a shot of them getting out of the car/walking towards the camera.. and there was a rack from a cactus to them.. theres no motivation for that imo.. i dont care about the cactus.. it holds no value to the story.. so why even start with focus on it.
thats my thought.. but that was just ONE shot i could remember.
make sense?

a rack should have motivation.

 

[Peter Moretti]

MichaelP



This is a very constructive critique, but you stopped 1/2 way. Can you give examples of how you can use soft focus for each of these situations? i.e. what would be happening on screen when a DP would think "a soft focus background here would be perfect."

I hope Michael is too busy adding better CC features to MC and Symphony to handle such questions, LOL! But I MEAN IT! :couch:

I think a film that used racks of focus and shallow DoF very well is "The Lives of Others." It is about invading privacy and takes palce in East Germany. The style created a voyerisitic effect that worked perfectly with the storyline.

Many times soft focus is used because the background is unintersting or poorly composed; so just blur it. Similar to "When you can't resolve it disolve it" in editing. Not really a good idea most of the time.

As for a more general rule on when to use shallow DoF and when not to, a more experienced filmmaker could add a lot to this disucssion.

Michael, sshhhhhhh. You have go back to getting MC and Symphony up to snuff vis a vis the competition when it comes to color correction. No more cutting in Avid finishing in FCPS allowed. Go on now, hurry up :auto:.

:wink:

 

[Hrvoje Simic]

- First shot - midtones a tad too high - look is closer to commercial (highly subjective)

- Wide shot with a mountain in the background - background is very distracting, you lifted the mountain too high, IMO + the overall look differentiates from the others. Use Still Store in Color to compare grades, the more you use them the more you will learn how to match a picture "feeling".

- In car shot - hand goes through the mask - soften the mask and decrease the difference between inside and outside ("outside" too low)

- Bathroom - women looks like she tanned her right hand - same as previous - soften the mask and decrease the difference (if you really need the mask there)

- Execution scene - bush is over saturated and lifted - no need

- Women's face - actress moves through the mask - similar solution as in the bathroom and car (if you really need the mask there also)

 

[Zakaree Sandberg]

On my comment about focus racking.. of course i forgot to add.. sometimes its just a stylistic thing.. so it doesnt always have to have meaning.. so basically im negating my previous post.. but it can still be overused.

 

[Tyler Black]

I'm not a huge fan of focus racks in general. I'm just saying it doesn't do a whole lot of good to tell someone what's wrong without telling them how to correct it. What's the point of saying anything at all?

 

[Craig Swanson]

Hey Craig.
If you'd like, you can just bring over to my office your r3d files and the EDL and we could just grade it on Lustre together. Would that work for you?
And, hey, this music sounds familiar. Check this out http://web.me.com/jake4n/Red/Long-form.html#0

I'd like to thank Jake for his offer and you can bet I didn't turn it down. He really knows his stuff and it was an eye opener to see how a colorist works. In a short session he was able to bypass what took me a couple days. Anyway, here's a look at his version:

Flash Video
Quicktime 141 MB

Sorry about the large file size. I'm still on a compression learning curve.