I am practicing on how to get a loot for my first feature I want to do, and it seems to me as long as you white balance, and your lighting is decent, that color grading in post is really not necessary in making a good movie. The movie already looks good, why go through it shot by shot, just to make it different. Or am I wrong and it is essential in order to attract distribution?
Is color grading really necessary on making a good movie?
- Thread starter ironpony
- Start date
There's a difference between color correcting and color grading. With color correcting you get the correct white balance/exposure (curves) between your shots as to assure that they "flow". Color grading is to create a more aesthetically pleasing image, relevant to the narrative and scene. For example, there's a distinct feeling to The Machinist (2004), brought across partly through color grading.
If you feel that your film appears visually stimulating without color grading, then I suppose it isn't necessary. But I feel that, if used correctly, color grading can really help in creating a certain atmosphere for your film.
If you feel that your film appears visually stimulating without color grading, then I suppose it isn't necessary. But I feel that, if used correctly, color grading can really help in creating a certain atmosphere for your film.
hscully
Veteran
I'm in the process of educating myself about color correction and grading. One seminar I went to opened my eyes as to how much color graders do including masking areas for highlight, managing exposure hot spots, color contrast control in secondary color correction. It's a grand world! If you're shooting log it gets even wider. I'd try to build it into your project if you can.
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No. Although Technicolor's CineStyle is considered the primary flat picture profile for Canon DSLRs, it doesn't help much thanks to the H.264 codec in use.
Shooting on a T2i essentially changes things when it comes to grading. Unless you're being really careful, you're more than likely to bring some serious ugliness in your image. I usually try to get as close as possible in camera when shooting on Canon DSLRs because of this reason.
nycineaste
Well-known member
forgive me if you know this already, but:
this falls into one of those BIG BASICS that NO cinematography book tells you. I learned it from a PHOTOGRAPHY book. I shoudlve already known it since I trained as a painter, so it was dumb of me to not figure it out.
A COLOR PHOTOGRAPH NEEDS A COLOR SCHEME. Thats on eof the things (including composition- aka no distracting junk in the background) that makes a color photograph a PHOTOGRAPH, and not a SNAPSHOT.
UNIFIED (restricted) COLOR.
MOVIES HAVE COLOR SCHEMES (or rather, most do).
(movies being moving photographs).
(PS this is why people always say instinctively that black and white looks "artsy". It takes any random footage one small step closer to "art" -a photograph, by UNIFYING/CONTROLLING the COLOR.)
Unless you had an art direction budget and knew about making colors on your sets and costumes match, you likely have uncontrolled color in your movie. You know that shot with the big red spot in the background from the car driving by? yes, thats uncontrolled color, it draws your eye away from the subject and makes your movie look like home footage and not a movie.
grading can help you towards gettiing more of a color scheme. I, personally, am practicing grading for color temperature (warm for tungsten, green for flourescent, etc), but thats not for everyone. You can grade to emulate a film stock, I'm sure. I dunno. Im not a pro at it, but I see the path ahead.
so yeah, controlled color= (moving) picture= "movie"
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Bruce Watson
Veteran
You clearly need a copy of Van Hurkman's book. Find out what color grading is, and what it can do, before you dismiss it so cavalierly.
Color correction (as opposed to color grading) will almost certainly be needed, no matter how well you white balance and light. If you move the camera at all, it sees different light and different conditions. And this can cause white balance shifts, exposure shifts, crushed blacks or blown out highlights, etc. So yeah, you're gonna have to go through your final edit clip by clip looking at waveform monitors, vectorscopes, and RGB parade monitors (and perhaps several more), if for no other reason than to ensure that your image is "safe" for whatever distribution medium you choose.
I just shot a simple class that used some props printed with an ink that fluoresced under the classroom fluorescent lights. I couldn't see it by eye, and the camera's monitor didn't show it to me either. But they surely did throw a small range of blues well beyond broadcast safe. Seen on a plasma HDTV, these colors just bloomed. Very distracting, really ugly. And all it took to calm them down was some simple secondary color correction action (see Van Hurkman's book).
I'm just sayin' that even if your footage "already looks good" you almost certainly need to color correct it.
Whether you need to color grade it or not depends on your artistic vision and how you intend to express it. Similar to, but different from, the justification of and choice of music.
pveal
Well-known member
Your statements are so naive I can't believe you're even considering a "first feature".
maranfilms
Veteran
Well your statement sounds rude and jerky!!, god forbid he ask for some input from a community of people that are here because most enjoy helping others with questions just like this his. Not everyone color grades, if your shooting with an actual camcorder, most have enough control to get a look your going for with minimal adjustment in post. But if your dslr, your most likely going to have to spend some time grading out your footage. Some people still use filters and gel lights for look and not just for balancing color temp. There's a lot you can do to get a look while shooting to avoid endless hrs grading in post. I myself grade all my footage, but thats just me. If you like what your getting straight out of your cam then thats all that matters. And good luck with your feature, there's people here that like to see others do well and succeed. Don't listen to people like pveal, they just bring you down.
Egg Born Son
Veteran
If one has the means and the will to see it through, why not do a feature? A glorious failure is a massive learning experience. A moderate success a great achievement. If I could find the time, wrangle the people and line up the resources I'd happily jump into a doomed feature project.
ironpony asks a lot of questions. a lot of questions and whether he takes the advice or flies in the face of it doesn't matter if people are happy to keep answering and guiding him. When something doesn't work he'll know why because someone told him, and learn the lesson later. He has a lot to learn and like all of us sometimes misunderstands the things he reads and gets the wrong end of the stick. But the fact he asks questions demonstrates a commitment to improvement and an acknowledgement of the journey ahead of him. I doubt he'll get distribution for a first feature but I've lost count of the number of times members have surprised me after following their threads. And there's nothing wrong with rampant optimism.
Okay thanks but I have never noticed color changing in camera while moving the camera around, and I use a DSLR. The only time I have noticed this is if the white balance was not set, or the image is underexposed, causing noise to change color. But as far as proper exposure and white balance go, I do not see any distracting color problems of any sort, as long as they are preset, which I always do.
As far as objects being a distracting color, a lot of the locations I plan to use in the future, will not let me for example, take down curtains that are a bad color and put up my own. Or something like that. I have to go with the colors of the location that is given on my budget. Does the book talk about how to deal with being forced to use colored objects that are out of my control?
Also no one else has ever said to me that certain colors of objects, can be distracting in a movie. Is this something most people actually notice, or only a few people who are really paying attention to it?
And as far as distribution goes, how many features would I have to make to get it? I have a good budget for one so I figure I might as well put it all in a good product, rather than deviding it into a few smaller films with even less budget. I and some friends are doing a lot of practice shots in our meantime, but still not so savy on the post production computer side of things yet.
As far as objects being a distracting color, a lot of the locations I plan to use in the future, will not let me for example, take down curtains that are a bad color and put up my own. Or something like that. I have to go with the colors of the location that is given on my budget. Does the book talk about how to deal with being forced to use colored objects that are out of my control?
Also no one else has ever said to me that certain colors of objects, can be distracting in a movie. Is this something most people actually notice, or only a few people who are really paying attention to it?
And as far as distribution goes, how many features would I have to make to get it? I have a good budget for one so I figure I might as well put it all in a good product, rather than deviding it into a few smaller films with even less budget. I and some friends are doing a lot of practice shots in our meantime, but still not so savy on the post production computer side of things yet.
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I've read that book as well as every other color correction book out there. Yes it is possible and the book does cover it to some extent. If conditions are right, you can in theory change the color or curtains and props shirts, etc. This effect requires secondary operations, isolating the specific hue and/or saturation and/or luma (shadows/midtones/highlights), and if not done right can be more distracting then the original. It is a great starting book for understanding the principals.
One thing to point out is that color in film has much much more impact then simply being distracting. It's an active force, meaning that it can have a huge effect of the mood and interpretation of the shot/scene/act/film, as opposed to only being something can distract the audience. I HIGHLY recommend If It's Purple, Someone's Gonna Die: The Power of Color in Visual Storytelling for all directors, DPs, colorists, wardrobe and set designers.
Okay thanks. Me and some friends have shot my a short film and we are looking to enter it into a local film festival possibly. We do not have a lot of time to color correct it ourselves, as we do not have that part down yet. Someone who has color graded projects before gave it a shot, but the whole thing came back dis-colorized and de-saturated and I possibly thought it looked worse. We will probably take our chances and send it in without much correction or grading, yet I did add some blues and greens subtledy which helps a bit. Which off those books is better? I will buy the better one to start! Thanks!
David W. Jones
Veteran
Not being able to see the footage I can't really respond except to say that it has been my experience dealing with less experienced individuals during a color correction and grade session, is that they don't usually understand when I desaturate chrominance levels during a primary color correction session to bring their video into spec. The usual response is... I liked the colors better before. Yes but the reds were illegal. Well if the color was illegal why did my camera shoot it that way?
Chris Adler
Veteran
Color correction can change a production that "looked great" and "just how the director wanted it to look" into something significantly better and more effective. Haven't seen a case where this wasn't true. Ever.
Jordan Scott Price
Veteran
Jordan Scott Price
Veteran
My answer to the OP:
Yes, you need to color correct AND color grade to make the most of the art form. It is a part of the image creation process - from dressing and lighting a set, to setting and moving the camera, to adjusting the colors and levels of the image. You would not skip art direction or neglect to set your T-stop and shutter, so why skip color timing? I get that you may have footage out of the camera that looks good, and that color is the subtlest of the three, but it is necessary, even for HDSLRs that don't shoot LOG or RAW. (I don't shoot flat, either, when I use a DLSR; I shoot Portrait and still need to color correct, see below.)
Now, I do understand: With so many tools available to color correct/grade footage, everybody gives it a shot, and most people without experience will overdo it. Understand that it does take time to learn how to properly color correct/grade, like any craft, knowing to use the right tools and having a working knowledge of color science.
That said, hiring a good colorist is not something you should skip in your pipeline just because friends have let you down. It should be a budget line item; if it's a micro- or no-budget film, you should still find someone. And to save yourself heartache, shoot test footage and experiment with grades BEFORE you shoot your film. It will save you time and money in post when it matters. Color grading starts in prepro, not after you get all the footage out of the camera.
Color correction, however - not color grading - will always be necessary to match footage shot with different lenses. Unless you're shooting with Master Primes, your contrast, tint, and even exposure will be different between shots of different lenses/focal lengths. It's also needed to bring levels to broadcast legal.
Yes, you need to color correct AND color grade to make the most of the art form. It is a part of the image creation process - from dressing and lighting a set, to setting and moving the camera, to adjusting the colors and levels of the image. You would not skip art direction or neglect to set your T-stop and shutter, so why skip color timing? I get that you may have footage out of the camera that looks good, and that color is the subtlest of the three, but it is necessary, even for HDSLRs that don't shoot LOG or RAW. (I don't shoot flat, either, when I use a DLSR; I shoot Portrait and still need to color correct, see below.)
Now, I do understand: With so many tools available to color correct/grade footage, everybody gives it a shot, and most people without experience will overdo it. Understand that it does take time to learn how to properly color correct/grade, like any craft, knowing to use the right tools and having a working knowledge of color science.
That said, hiring a good colorist is not something you should skip in your pipeline just because friends have let you down. It should be a budget line item; if it's a micro- or no-budget film, you should still find someone. And to save yourself heartache, shoot test footage and experiment with grades BEFORE you shoot your film. It will save you time and money in post when it matters. Color grading starts in prepro, not after you get all the footage out of the camera.
Color correction, however - not color grading - will always be necessary to match footage shot with different lenses. Unless you're shooting with Master Primes, your contrast, tint, and even exposure will be different between shots of different lenses/focal lengths. It's also needed to bring levels to broadcast legal.
Really? I believe that to be true for almost every legitimate feature and most shorts where care was taken, but, err... Magic Bullet presets anyone? I've seen decent looking shorts go to horrible and beyond, but those were only poorly executed shorts.
The Color Correction Handbook should be your first book definitely. The "Purple" book should be something once you start to really understand how color works, and will be some what useless for color correction/grading if you don't understand the basics.
I, and many others, have different definitions for color grading and color correction. Correction can be defined as fixing contrast, white balance, and saturation (importance in that order) to match the other shots in the set-up and scene so that each shot flows together without any "jolts" that can take the audience out of the moment. Grading is creating a "look." IMO correction should always be attempted; grading should be highly considered, but not necessary.
One thing that helps get the look you want from a colorist is to give him/her some references of other films you want your film to look like. Your colorist may have had no idea what you wanted, and was pretty much shooting in the dark.