Editors have you ever recieved this request?

[jake blackstone]

About 10-15 years ago I was working at Modern Videofilm. At the time, I believe, we did more network shows, than pretty much anyone else. The shows were multi cam and single film cameras. We had two final colorists working in tiny rooms with DaVinci 888. Pretty much every final grading was done tape-to-tape. Yes, at the time "Friends" show was done from D2 tape-to-tape For obvious reasons, film dailies had to be very consistent, no secondary adjustment whatsoever. With this kind of material Rick Dalby, one of the two colorists working at Modern, would just fly through those shows. It was a sight to behold. Every time I would watch him working, I just would marvel at the speed and the precision. Very little grading was actually done. Most of work was just recalling previous events. It would go something like, recall 2 events ago, 5 events ago etc. He just kept all those grades in his head! And then he would do just tiny grading adjustments, if needed. Needless to say, dailies had to be great. When they were done less, that perfect, they would certainly hear from Rick
In a million years I could never do that. Those guys are very few and very select group.

 

[M Most]

Very little grading was actually done. Most of work was just recalling previous events. It would go something like, recall 2 events ago, 5 events ago etc. He just kept all those grades in his head! And then he would do just tiny grading adjustments, if needed. Needless to say, dailies had to be great. When they were done less, that perfect, they would certainly hear from Rick
In a million years I could never do that. Those guys are very few and very select group.

That's about the only way to get through shows in the time we're given to do them. Even when I was doing dramas, and regardless of whether they were tape to tape or from cut negative (yes, we did that for quite some time, especially at Encore), I would set colors for the primary angles in each scene and just keep recalling them. This is a method I used from the Pogle, to the Renaissance, to the 2K, and ultimately years later on both Baselight and Resolve. I would usually store the master in store 1, the over on one actor in store 2, the over on the other side in store 3, and the closeups in 4 and 5 respectively. I would jump from cut to cut, popping in the appropriate correction and when I had them all, I'd play back the scene and do any necessary trims. DaVinci made this even more efficient on their systems by including the "last correction" and "2 corrections back" shortcut keys on their panel, which continues to this day. I know a lot of colorists who work that way because it's the only real way to get through it all, but you have to put yourself in "machine mode" to really pull it off. Today it's actually much easier because you're almost always working from the camera originals, at least in terms of color. That gives you consistency because lighting is usually pretty consistent, particularly in television production. We tried to mimic that years ago at Encore with our VIP system, where we used two feeds out of telecine for dailies, with an "uncorrected" feed going to the master and used for the conform. That took the "bad dailies" out of the equation. Personally, even though I was at Lorimar when we largely invented what became "standard" video post techniques for film shows, I never believed in the "time the final show from the dailies" approach, which is why I came up with what became VIP, and was lucky enough to be working for someone who was willing and able to try it (Larry Chernoff).

As a sidelight, Rick started in the business as my tape op at Bluth Video Systems (his brother Joe had that job before him....). I won't talk about what year that was. I did see him a few years ago at Universal, I assume he's still there...