exosing right

Charles, I hear what you're saying but, the term "correction" is outdated and has been replaced with "grading" for good reasons.

CORRECTION: a change made to something in order to correct or improve it, or the action of making such a change.

I don't know about other people, but when I run all my footage through Resolve it is not for the purpose "correcting" anything. I am not fixing mistakes or errors. I am completing the final step of a planned, predetermined workflow. As a successful DP yourself, I'm sure you would not consider the lighting you do on set to be "correcting the illumination". Lighting, shot blocking, and grading are all part of a process that is partly technical but mostly creative.

10+ years ago we didn't have Resolve. All we had was some crude sliders or wheels in our NLE that were only good enough for making corrections to our WYSIWYG footage. We didn't have powerful shooting modes like RAW or LOG that need to be finsihed in post. But now we do, so the terminology needed to change to better reflect what is being done in post. "Correction" implies fixing mistakes. "Grading" implies a creative process -- that may also include fixing mistakes, but it is more than that. If you have a better term than grading, I'm all ears.

No one ever described a photographer who was printing his negatives in the darkroom as "correcting" his film. It is a part of the process. RAW and LOG are the modern equivalent of negatives.

On a similar subject, I really dislike the term "filming" when it is used to talk about recording with an electronic camera. There's no film involved. I've resisted it for years, but now I find myself working on a wildlife project where I decided to give in an use the word "filming" instead of "shooting". Shooting wildlife just has a bad sound to it. I am open to alternative ideas for a better term if anyone has one.

And yes, I realize that even the term "footage", "dialing a phone", etc. are all outdated but we still use them. But "filming" feels in a different class. I don't like it.
 
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Ive always thought it close to imposible to shoot 'correctly'

firstly your tools in the field are typically small and poor (scopes monitor et al) lack of a 27in monitor and a thick black easy up

and also life gets in the way. the clouds change as the evening comes it gets warmer K

no movi lights have a 100% accuracy to natural light

differet scenes have different contrast ranges

All these things means IMO a good doco operator will get within 5-10% of the target

The footage will then need correcting

But the aim of the correction would in the main to get a grey card reading an equal set (100-100-100rgb) ect

Which is different from application of a grade which might be teal and orange, light blue shadows or whatever.

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To me a director of photography will run the camera, light and grip departments, a wide skill starting from budgetting, historical knowlege throuh to commuicating with other department and motivating ones staff.

Most under 30s have not even been lucky enough to try that, let alone suggest they are competent at it.
 
Doug Jensen said:
On a similar subject, I really dislike the term "filming" when it is used to talk about recording with an electronic camera. There's no film involved. I've resisted it for years, but now I find myself working on a wildlife project where I decided to give in an use the word "filming" instead of "shooting". Shooting wildlife just has a bad sound to it. I am open to alternative ideas for a better term if anyone has one.
Click to expand...

I've started saying "carding" but might have to change it to "clouding" soon.
 
Doug Jensen said:
Charles, I hear what you're saying but, the term "correction" is outdated and has been replaced with "grading" for good reasons.

I don't know about other people, but when I run all my footage through Resolve it is not for the purpose "correcting" anything. I am not fixing mistakes or errors. I am completing the final step of a planned, predetermined workflow. As a successful DP yourself, I'm sure you would not consider the lighting you do on set to be "correcting the illumination". Lighting, shot blocking, and grading are all part of a process that is partly technical but mostly creative.

10+ years ago we didn't have Resolve. All we had was some crude sliders or wheels in our NLE that were only good enough for making corrections to our WYSIWYG footage. We didn't have powerful shooting modes like RAW or LOG that need to be finsihed in post. But now we do, so the terminology needed to change to better reflect what is being done in post. "Correction" implies fixing mistakes. "Grading" implies a creative process -- that may also include fixing mistakes, but it is more than that. If you have a better term than grading, I'm all ears.
Click to expand...

I hear you. It's a shorter term anyway, so that's fine.

There is a significant part of grading that is still "correction". Matching cameras, matching shot to shot, matching changing daylight...the entire first pass a colorist does is a balancing pass. I used to pay a lot more attention on set to delivering more technically correct raw footage, but have learned that it isn't really worth the time and effort because it will be quickly fixed in the pipeline and that energy is better put elsewhere. That includes dialing in color temp/G-M shift to match between cameras and lenses (I try to keep my lens sets in a similar color cast family, but there are always differences) and nailing exposures precisely, which I do with close attention to scopes and comparing with frame grabs from previous setups brought up via switcher. But yes, once that's done there is the creative aspect of the grade, of course.

I would also describe the power window process as falling into "correction" as well. Much as I don't have the time to balance completely on set, I don't have the time to nuance most setups as much as I'd like and I leave more and more to post, like it or not. I just have to be conscious of how much time something will take in the color room and not complicate things, but darkening walls and popping faces is scandalously fast now with auto-tracking, so I have to let a lot of things slide on set knowing they will be fixed--corrected--later. Don't love it, but dem's da berries...

"10+ years ago we didn't have Resolve. All we had was some crude sliders or wheels in our NLE that were only good enough for making corrections to our WYSIWYG footage." That's a little short in the timeframe (yes I know you hedged your bets with the plus sign), although if "we" means the average budget-minded user, that's a fair enough statement. DaVinci features such as secondary correction, cruves and power windows have existed for 30 years or more. I'll never forget my first tape-to-tape color session in the early 90's where the colorist immediately improved the skin tones with a few knob turns and I was blown away--he explained that the Sony cameras all biased green. Once I saw that, it changed everything and I began cheating the color balance with 1/8 or 1/4 green and CTB held in front of the lens from that point on. Even on the home front, I did a fair amount of noodling to my footage starting in Final Cut in early 2000's (mostly those crude controls as you mentioned) but switched to Color when it was added into the FCP Suite in 2007, then a few years later moved to Colorista from Red Giant. The tools have been out there for a while! Likewise, RAW and LOG are past 15 years old now.
 
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