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  • 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 :)

How I would have colour graded the footage

I was going to say the same thing- the highlights are now blown on the rolling papers, the soldier's teeth, the sky behind the biplane, the front of the rifle, the muzzle flash of the machine gun, etc.

Use the waveform monitors and the luma and chroma range check in FCP to keep these items under control.

-Noah
 
blowing out the highlights is a bit of a style i've been working on. i like it mostly, but it just doesn't work in some shots. i don't mind losing some details. People don't really need to see all the scratches on the blade to know it's a blade :)

and flameop, i have a 12" ibook :( but i plug in my 22" CRT for editing
 
I don't think that the REDteam wanted to be to much in what style ever, they wanted to show the lattidude of the REDcam from black to white. To shut the the black and white levels, to go to much contrasty would have bring up to much discussion, if RED will have this 11,5 ore 12 stops, everybody want at least.
 
I am the opposite I guard the high lights and the shadow detail unless I am going specifically for a very blown out look, in which case I would want to shoot with that in mind and then take it a lot further, but It's all subjective of course.

M
 
i find there's a real aesthetic quality if you blow the whites as much as possible then crush the mids to compensate. you lose detail in the whites, but you gain more in the mids, especially in skin tones.
 
I have to say I really like the job you did with them! The stills feel grittier and more realistic, to me... less Hollywood.

Of course, color grading is entirely subjective. There was nothing wrong with the original stills in the first place, it just depends on the look the director and DP are going for. Blown-out highlights don't bother me at all, as long as the transition from color to white isn't "video-harsh ugly". In this case, I think jenningsp was very successful in making them look like something out of "Letters From Iwo Jima" or "Saving Private Ryan". Clearly that wasn't the intent of the filmmakers when shooting and grading the footage initially, but that's what jenningsp wanted, and that's the beauty of what the modern NLE can provide for us all.

Nice job.
 
Film does not have one monolithic "look" -- not when in the history of cinema, you've got movies shot on film that range the gamut from "Singin' in the Rain" to "Saving Private Ryan". High-con, low-con, saturated, desaturated, warm, cold, sharp, soft, grainy, fine-grained, widescreen, square-screen... movies have done it all.

Technically, all that really matters when designing digital photography to look like film is to eliminate uniquely digital attributes and artifacts that film couldn't have. For example, interlaced-scan video artifacts are unique to that process. In more subtle ways, chroma clipping (one channel clipping before the others) is also a tendency that film emulsions don't suffer from.
 
David Mullen ASC said:
Film does not have one monolithic "look" -- not when in the history of cinema, you've got movies shot on film that range the gamut from "Singin' in the Rain" to "Saving Private Ryan". High-con, low-con, saturated, desaturated, warm, cold, sharp, soft, grainy, fine-grained, widescreen, square-screen... movies have done it all.

Technically, all that really matters when designing digital photography to look like film is to eliminate uniquely digital attributes and artifacts that film couldn't have. For example, interlaced-scan video artifacts are unique to that process. In more subtle ways, chroma clipping (one channel clipping before the others) is also a tendency that film emulsions don't suffer from.
Click to expand...
absolutely. the amount of film stocks and unique attributes alone should put to bed the phrase 'singularly filmic'. that's what's so exciting about RED ; you should be able to achieve many subtle styles/film stocks.

jennings, sorry but your color grading seems amateur hour. it looks like you just applied preselected looks, like on dv footage or sumptin'. the bests colorists adjust in a wide array of areas. sorry , if that's harsh but we're dealing with a pro camera here. keep trying, though. :-)
 
I like the bleaker and overall gloomier tone for the setting. I'd like to keep a little more white detail though. FCP CC as it stands isn't capable of the nuances you can get with "pro" systems.
 
Wait till you try COLOR !
-A
 
artbeatsart said:
I don't think that the REDteam wanted to be to much in what style ever, they wanted to show the lattidude of the REDcam from black to white. To shut the the black and white levels, to go to much contrasty would have bring up to much discussion, if RED will have this 11,5 ore 12 stops, everybody want at least.
Click to expand...

Once we left NZ and handed over the redcode footage, everything was (thankfully) done by Peter Jackson's excellent team. Editing, conform,
vfx, grading, audio, and output were done in NZ. The first time
we saw the footage playing was Sunday at 3pm (yikes). The only
thing we did do was sit with the DP, Park Road Post's colorscience guy,
the editor, and the sound guy on sunday and try to get the sony 4k
looking as close as we could to what they saw in NZ. There's not
alot one can control on the projector so we got it reasonably close.

Deanan
 
Part of the problem with color grading is that everyone has different tastes. My favorite color is blue, and I'm sure there's lots of people who don't share my favorite color.

2- If you look at the whole film, the tone is pretty light-hearted... so that's why it is lit bright, sunny (and I think they were going for early morning) instead of a gritty war look.

If you look at the images out of context, it might violate your expectation of what a "war" film should look like. Because PJ's short is more of a comedy/light-hearted piece than a war film.
 
Well the shot with the guys behind the machine gun looked a lot better. pretty simple stuff.
 
jenningsp said:
some of the people in this forum are saying that the stills don't look all that filmic. I tend to agree with them.
Click to expand...

Well interestingly enough I was watching The Lord of the Rings DVD today and then came across the posted stills. Some of the scenes in the movie have almost the exact same grade as the posted stills. I assure you if you watched it in a big theater and the story's good enough you think it was plenty "Filmic".

I've even had plenty of projects I've graded and felt that it looked very clean and digital and then been blown away at how "flimic" the print looked.

I've been hearing the "HighDef(digital) dosent look like Film" complaint for about 6 or 7 years now and I believe its just down to conditioning and familiarity. People are used to epics looking a certain way. Well they should let go of that idea (which I know you guys are embracing)

Offtopic: I think its funny that less info (24Fps) is considered better then more info (30Fpr and higher) Thats conditioning for you. But it works out better for me because I have less frames to worry about :biggrin:
 
I also felt as if the scenes looked similar to how LOTR was graded, slightly less greenish though, but really similar. Stunning if anything.

LOTR is probably my favorite film, color grading wise (and also story wise for that matter, Peter Jackson and his team rule!) They did an excellent job that cannot be put into words - they have inspired a whole generation of filmmakers.
 
GlennChan said:
Part of the problem with color grading is that everyone has different tastes. My favorite color is blue, and I'm sure there's lots of people who don't share my favorite color.
Click to expand...

Color grading is part of the story telling. You must ask yourself why, what is the purpose of this or this Color grade, what is it bringing to the story, how will feel the audiance, etc...
more than apply your "favorite" color on all the movies you color grade.

antoine.
 
Another thread back from the dead. :blink:

But I second your opinion, antoine.
 
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