Correcting the white point.

[spaulgal]

We shot some footage in the wrong white balance setting. It was shot in a daylight camera preset and a tungsten lit set. Obviously, everything looks super yellow.
It wasn't our main camera/footage -- it was our BTS crew's footage so save the sarcasm (that we still well deserve lol)
What is the most straight forward way of correcting this scene in FCPx using native tools?
Can someone toss some settings at me?
It is panasonic GH4 Vlog footage.

 

[ericyoung]

If it was a Red, it'd be a none problem. But a GH4 white balance will be baked in, and is going to need a fair bit of blue added which will definitely increase noise in dark areas, so you may need a pass with a really good denoiser like Neatvideo or Davinci Resolve.

Not a FCPX user, so can't help further than that.

 

[Brendan H. Banks]

Were you shooting internal 8bit or external 10bit? If you were doing external, then cool. If you were doing internal, I would suggest using an intermediary codec to edit/color, even if just for this project..something 10bit (422 or 422hq will work well). That's step 1 and I highly suggest because you're going to be pushing your colors potentially further than you would normally. If you already know this, then great!

Though you are not in resolve, you can still use the 3-way CC and scopes in FCX (I think, never used the program, but it's a very basic filter) and follow some steps found in this tutorial (feel free to skip to the 3min mark when it really starts): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SM1YQvRm1OE
I am not a pro colorist, but do color for my own work and I believe the key to WB is luminance values in your RGB channels. This tutorial can help with some basic corrections. Just how far off did your BTS team go?

FYI there are now sliders inside of Premiere's Lumetri panel that handle White Balance offsets that would be very, very helpful here. If you have a friend or colleague who could export the footage back to you at a proper WB, that could be easy as well.

 

[Daniel Reed]

since its behind the scenes stuff, why not just make it B&W?

 

[Mike P.]

Reed's idea is definitely the easiest. You can try rebalancing by eye in resolve or using FCPX's tools.

You could also render out a tiff/dpx/jpg sequence and batch re-whitebalance using Adobe CameraRAW (assuming you have it)... Yeah, just going B&W would be easiest/quickest.

 

[Steve DiMaggio]

I have this problem all the time with my gh4 going into the pix e since you cant set a custom white balance with hdmi out, I suggest using something like colorfinale cine lut to squash the footage even flatter then bring to rec 709 using another lut or maybe another emulsion style

literally go through this every single weekend shooting with 3 gh4's

 

[Dan Kanes]

Use Davinci resolve...

super easy tools to get what you need.

 

[Louis Maddalena]

since its behind the scenes stuff, why not just make it B&W?

This is probably what I would do. I'd make the whole BTS piece BW, and make it look like a stylized choice.

 

[Steve DiMaggio]

Use Davinci resolve...

super easy tools to get what you need.

I have really been considering moving to resolve, I do quick turn around for event films, usually 3 days that include highlight and 1-2 hour doc feature, 4K footage in fcpx, I find the editor is super easy as I come from a pro tools background. How is resolve in these regards? downloading lite version now

steve

 

[Marc Wielage]

I have really been considering moving to resolve, I do quick turn around for event films, usually 3 days that include highlight and 1-2 hour doc feature, 4K footage in fcpx, I find the editor is super easy as I come from a pro tools background. How is resolve in these regards?

I'm rare in that I've been a Pro Tools user for more than 10 years and have used Resolve for 7 years. I'd say they're similar in that they're very, very deep programs with steep learning curves, but if you just need to do the basics, you can learn that in a day or two. The problem happens when the situation becomes complex and you have to work very fast.

Changing white balance is not that hard. But there are limitations as to where you can go in mixed lighting conditions. And 8-bit images can only be yanked on so hard before they start to fall apart.