Colour Grading Examples:

Maybe its me, or has the user not posted anything but an update on the link? You have all our comments and praises, NOW SPEAK :)
 
the only one that is REALLY TRICKY for me is HEAVEN. all the other looks I could TRY to emulate, but HEAVEN, man, i don´t even know how to begin
 
I'm getting

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OK everyone. Very sorry for the delay; I just finished exams for the term and i havnt had a chance to check everyone's posts and PM's.

Let me first say the link is back up, check the first page of this thread for details.

In regards to the process, i can describe how i handel the workflow:

First, everything is edited in FCP. DVCPROHD, DVCPRO50, HDCAM, DVCAM, i create all my edits first. Its always best to hammer down the temporal and scriptual feel of the project before you go and enhance it thru CC. Make sure you have a script handy, or storyboards, it helps communicate the emotions the writer/director/producer is trying to get across.

Secondly, after the edit is completely polished (and i mean completly, because theres no slipping or slidding on edits once youve hammered your master in AE), you can bring your footage into After Effects... People do this many ways, i happen to use Automatic Duck AE pro importer. This allows you to 'transfer' your timeline's into After Effects from Final Cut Pro (or avid, whatever your pick). Dont export/import your footage, the less rendering, the better the image. Especially in DCVPROHD- though its a reasonably good format for acquisition, dont be rendering and re-rendering with it.

Once your footage is in AE, you can use a variety of tools to get the color you want. For most of the effects i created, it was simple color grading, RGB values and curves. For the more complicated ones, i brought in a variety of image effects, i dont like revealing my secrets, but just play around, give it a shot; it cant hurt to try...

Once you are done with your work, you can render out a master in the 'animation' codec- this is probably one of my fav's since it is an uncompressed format yet it preserves Hard Drive space. You can bring your master back into FCP add it to a different sequence, or change some edits, but dont re-render into DVCPROHD (once youve captured and edited in DVCPROHD, be done with it); or master/remix your audio, you now have a final color corrected work of art!

Rhydon
 
Great. Thanks for explaining your process. I render out ANIMATION from Motion2 and the LOSSLESS+Alpha a lot and I notice the quality is really clean. Never thought about using it for such a thing.

I also think your workflow is plenty logical. Edit first, then CC.

I wonder if the color correction in Motion2 can do something similar to this. Friday tomorrow! I'm going to give it a shot with some test footage!
 
The noise people are seeing the blacks of the HVX are probably compression. I have seen a lot of HVX footage that has no visible noise in it, although a lot of those clips are less compressed than this one.

Check out the test's done by Jarred (the sticky thread on page 1 of the "HVX Clips" forum). Tell me if you see any of this "noise" in the blacks of either of the 720p or 1080p test's.

Also check out the trailer for Midnight Chronicles, it has none of this "noise" either.

To me, seeing as how this noise appears only in the higher compressed files, I would associate this noise with compression or an artifact of the compression software used.

I also seem to notice that this noise is less present in .H264 codec than .mov or .wmv... HD seems to get rid of noise more than SD.
 
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I think it's already been established that there IS noise in the HVX. It's in every clip you've just mentioned, more so in Midnight Chronicles than Jarred's. But, no need to turn this thread into one about it.

MOTION2 does a good job of the process that Rhydon described in After Effects. I have yet to try after-effects but I'll be following in his footsteps for post CC. Thanks Rhydon.
 
Rhydon, what were the raw footage settings? Would love to know what they were, to have a frame of reference as a starting point.
 
I perform a quicktime ref export - then cc in combustion and then export Targa images from combustion and import back into avid to layback with sound. I think this is NEARLY lossless but heavy on disk space
 
I don't know how many of the people replying to this thread use AE for timing and grading, but I use it heavily myself. Most of the time I just use color balance, which in itself is very powerful becasue it gives you control over the shadows, mids, and highs on a per channel basis. I always use master curves as well. But here is a cool trick...

Colored solids!

Most people have a particular color cast they want, some like warth, others want cold, and some want out there colors. Make a solid layer and have it on top of your hopefully high quality raw footage. Right click on the solid layer, and select blending mode > color. At first you'll see a really weird image, thats ok, just open up the transform menu and adjust the layers opacity. Viola! I've only been using this technique for a short while. when combined with curves and other tools in AE, its pretty poweful, much more powerful than Avid or FCP in my opinion.

Also, remember that there are other tricks in AE, masks are awesome. It can take some time, but you can create power windows in AE with some dedicated attention. For those who don't know, power windows are areas where you selectively adjust the image. Its like traditional doge and burn but on steroids because you can also get into the colors too, and its capable of moving.

Color issues with extreme post processing? Create an adjustment layer, add a sleight gaussen blur (vertical and horizontal), and then set its blending mode to color. What happens is it smooths out color noise (ie, blocking, artifacts, ect...) by smearing your color only, not the luminance, so the image remains sharp. Go EASY on this one. It can really make your colors go weird if you over do it. Be subtle, its like adding salt to a recipe.

Hope that helps :)
 
Power Windows are great. I actually tried some in motion and it works out pretty well!

Thanks for offering the tips. Blend Modes and adjustment layers are nice, but I never thought about that. I'll have to try it!

Great thread!
 
Most people have a particular color cast they want, some like warth, others want cold, and some want out there colors. Make a solid layer and have it on top of your hopefully high quality raw footage. Right click on the solid layer, and select blending mode > color.
Click to expand...

Glad someone mentioned this - I use this technique all the time. It's great because you can use other blending modes to for some neat looks.
 
Thanks for sharing the process. I can respect a person's desire for secrecy to their methods, but my most revered mentors have always had a flair for sharing (Joe McNally - National Geographic, Gordon Willis - ASC, etc.)

Highly appreciated, my man.
 
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