Welcome to our community

Be a part of something great, join today!

Log in
  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

A book about "Looks" and creating them in telecine ?

Dominik Muench said:
hi guys,

I was wondering if anyone can recommend a book that deals extensively with the creation of a certain look through the means of colour correction and digital post production ?

thanks
Click to expand...

Dominik

You might post this question on- Ask Dave Mullins anything thread also. It's a good question. My guess is, he'll have a good answer.
 
Color me interested

Color me interested

Good thought. It would be particularly illuminating to study on set choices and their influence on the grading process.

Would the digital equivalent of a thick neg give the colorist more "meat" to work with? I am a big advocate of adding more fill light to reduce the noise in the shadows and then remapping those densities in the grading to restore the proper ratios - is this causing more havoc than I realize? Would love to hear from a top colorist on the subject.

The evolution of our tools has the potential to dramatically change the way we work. With a camera like the RED and the availability of low cost tools like Apple Color (with all its faults), free apps from RED like RedCine and Red Alert, and more robust tools like Scratch/Baselight/et al I have come to regard digital intermediate / color grading as a standard step in the process - not just a luxury for the big budget crowd.

Now the challenge of making this more of a positive than a negative is upon us. An authoritative reference work on the subject that addresses the modern toolset would be most welcome. Inevitably the proliferation of amateur colorists will yield some horrid dreck, but:

I HEARBY PUT OUT A CALL TO SOMEONE IN THE COLORIST COMMUNITY WHO CAN CLEARLY EXPLAIN KEY CONCEPTS TO STEP UP AND WRITE A BIBLE FOR COLOR GRADING NOOBS.

Like it or not the cost of a proper colorist will be out of reach for many shows, so please think of the poor innocent images that are at risk :wacko:
 
Blair S. Paulsen said:
I HEARBY PUT OUT A CALL TO SOMEONE IN THE COLORIST COMMUNITY WHO CAN CLEARLY EXPLAIN KEY CONCEPTS TO STEP UP AND WRITE A BIBLE FOR COLOR GRADING NOOBS.
Click to expand...

I second that....unfortunately private pictures that show me and my RED scantly clad in intimate moments is the only motivation I have.....write the books or they get released here in the forum :shifty:

no seriously....that would be a pretty sought after book I reckon.

I have hardly any knowledge on that topic apart from what I learned when sitting in on a the grading sessions I had so far.

It would drastically change the way I currently shoot, if I had a full understanding of what's, for example, possible in a da vinci suite.
 
Blair S. Paulsen said:
Would the digital equivalent of a thick neg give the colorist more "meat" to work with? I am a big advocate of adding more fill light to reduce the noise in the shadows and then remapping those densities in the grading to restore the proper ratios - is this causing more havoc than I realize? Would love to hear from a top colorist on the subject.
Click to expand...

I'm not a name colorist, but I know from my own work that lighting flatter and then trying to create mood and contrast in the color is not the same as lighting it that way in the first place.

Just like if you want something crunchy contrast wise in the final, you might say "oh, this HV20 will work fine because it's crappy latitude...we want it all contrasty anyway"...would not be at all the same if you shot with the Red and created that contrast later. That's not a crazy concept, right?

I think there's some merit to raising fill ratio a little to combat noise, but maybe only a percentage, not by lighting say 2:1 and then trying to create 5:1 later. There will be parts of the frame that will not be privy to your lit key/fill ratio, and those parts of the frame would become much crunchier than your subject...resulting in a certain unique look.
 
Dominik Muench said:
It would drastically change the way I currently shoot, if I had a full understanding of what's, for example, possible in a da vinci suite.
Click to expand...

Dominik,

Honestly, I would suggest getting a copy of Apple's Color, and digging into that. Even if you never got good or fast with it, you'd answer your questions eventually of what's possible.

Even through the internet you might learn what primaries are for, what a secondary is, black point/white point, etc, but getting a handle on what is really possible through those tools is hard to describe with words. I still come up with new ways to use what's given to me in that program (not that that is some surprise, it's not like I'm Curreri or Leon!)

Anyway, having and understanding Color has helped my photography immensely. I'd recommend it to anybody.
 
Colorists are still very insular about their craft. I don't blame them, there are a lot of people who want to be colorists but it takes years of experience to get to the level of competence and speed needed to do professional grading. Just like editing or shooting, it's not just about learning a tool.

There is a book out by Tashen called "Cinema Now" that kind of does what you ask.
At least it has some of the most creative styles depicted in still from movies that you can use as reference.

http://www.taschen.com/pages/en/catalogue/film/all/04421/facts.cinema_now.htm
 
Shades

Shades

There are shades of colorist skill level, the really good ones are gold and deserve a good rate. The reality is that proper information could improve the learning curve for the thousands of noobs who will be manipulating images in the near future. Will a lot of their tweaking yield abysmal results - highly likely. I am just looking to reduce the height of that hurdle a bit, it will still take effort and skill to get over it.

Thanks for the reference Evin.
 
Blair S. Paulsen said:
Would the digital equivalent of a thick neg give the colorist more "meat" to work with? I am a big advocate of adding more fill light to reduce the noise in the shadows and then remapping those densities in the grading to restore the proper ratios - is this causing more havoc than I realize? Would love to hear from a top colorist on the subject.
Click to expand...

If you like what you're seeing come back then you're probably OK.

I've graded a lot of stuff in Color now but I'm not a top colorist. My guess is if you're really altering the final look so that areas that should be crushed are now lit up then you've added trouble. The problem with changing lighting ratios on the set is "are you changing all the ratios everywhere in the shot the same amount?". Are you now requiring the colorist to isolate something with a secondary that would have been an easy correction otherwise.

I completely hate to give away this book title 'cause it's so good I want it to be my secret. But someone will eventually...

http://www.amazon.com/Art-Technique...bs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1230418424&sr=8-1
 
Blair S. Paulsen said:
I HEARBY PUT OUT A CALL TO SOMEONE IN THE COLORIST COMMUNITY WHO CAN CLEARLY EXPLAIN KEY CONCEPTS TO STEP UP AND WRITE A BIBLE FOR COLOR GRADING NOOBS.
Click to expand...

Steve Hullfish already wrote one that's now in its second edition. It's a good introduction, and he quotes a number of cameramen (Dave Mullen among them) and colorists (Bob Festa, Randy Starnes, and numerous less talented ones like me). You can find it on Amazon ("The Art and Technique of Digital Color Correction").
 
Evin Grant said:
Colorists are still very insular about their craft. I don't blame them
Click to expand...

There are tricks that I've discovered after years of playing around that I only see in certain looks, things like flattening out skin tones (reducing chroma variation) and subtle addition of blue or cyan in the toe of the image to play against warm skin tones. Things I only see in high end music vids/fashion/car spots.

Colorist techniques like this are so esoteric that I think it's hard to describe to another non-technical person (a director, for instance) what it is about what they're doing that makes it "magic".
 
Fishing

Fishing

mmost said:
Steve Hullfish already wrote one that's now in its second edition.(snip)
Click to expand...

I went to one of Steve's lectures at NAB/Post Production World or DV Expo a few years ago that was pretty weak, and that has put me off buying any of his books. However, Mike's recommendation was enough to get me to investigate further and it turns out the book is $33 on Amazon and a quick browse of random pages was promising so I ordered it.
 
NateWeaver said:
There are tricks that I've discovered after years of playing around that I only see in certain looks, things like flattening out skin tones (reducing chroma variation) and subtle addition of blue or cyan in the toe of the image to play against warm skin tones. Things I only see in high end music vids/fashion/car spots.

Colorist techniques like this are so esoteric that I think it's hard to describe to another non-technical person (a director, for instance) what it is about what they're doing that makes it "magic".
Click to expand...

Yes. It seems the colorist has become the new director - in terms of what everyone wants to be, myself included.

Hullfish's book is great.
 
The best book

The best book

Hello Guys

here goes my first post.

I am an aspiring colourist, I do use Color, Film Master and have assisted with Baselite, like in Cinematography, in Grading you have to train to improve. And the key to this is to grade with good image reference, if you are grading 2k/4k you can not use a CRT, not even a 1080 monitor would do. Trust you eyes.

Best book that I have read about the subject is " The Art and Technique Of Digital Color Grading" by Steve Hullfish
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top