Should I farm out color correction?

Amadou

Amadou

Carbonite Member
We just finished a movie for a theatrical release cut on CS5. The audio is done in a specialized post production facility. We did not feel we could handle quality audio any other way. But its costing us industry rates, namely, at our scale, an arm and a leg.

There are two other items we have to get done:

(1) Chroma keying
(2) Color correction

If we go to specialized post production facilities, both of these will be very expensive. We are therefore going to do chroma keying in house, using After Effects and Keylight. We feel we can do this right.

The second item is color correction. Initially I thought the color correction would take a professionnal posts production place 3 or 4 days on a Da Vinci. Now I am told it takes closer to 3 to 4 weeks do do it right. This means major budget. The question is: how important is it to do this with a professionnal post production house on a Da Vinci etc.? How credible is it to do it in house by using Colorista type software and purchasing a professionnal monitor? In other words, is the farming out really necessary on this step?

Any advice or opinion on this matter would be useful. Thank you.
 
I find color correcting really easy.Just take the eye dropper tool and get your blacks black and whites white using RGB curves. Color grading is a whole other issue.
 
Have not heard much about
Panasonic monitors, NEC seems to be a popular choice. Eizo if you have deeper pockets.
 
Amadou said:
I'm thinking of doing the entire color grading and color correction of the movie myself using this software:

http://www.redgiantsoftware.com/products/all/magic-bullet-colorista-II/#tabs


And this monitor:

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/search?Ntt=pabtl2150&N=0&InitialSearch=yes



What do you think? Any better suggestions?
Click to expand...


The monitor looks good, but you forgot one thing. In order for it to be a grading monitor, it needs to be calibrated. I see no mention of this in the specs. Also, it is a video monitor, not a computer monitor. A real calibration cannot be done with a cheap monitor puck despite what many think. Nor with crappy blue gun calibration. (That is a leftover from the CRT days). Different beast when it comes to real grading. There are plenty of services available with serious calibration units (we are talking $20K units, not $100 ones), they can cost up to $500 for a calibration. Otherwise try looking at pre-calibrated FSI monitors. They are Grade 1 and are quite inexpensive.

In terms of grading software, the best deal going is free. The Davinci Lite software is so much better than the Colorista route, it just makes me laugh. This is the same software which cost tens of thousands 3 years ago. It would be helpful to become proficient in it.

You will need a blackmagic card as well for HD-SDI. Even the cheapest Decklink card will do ($280), you don't need the Extreme Blah, Blah card. Just hype.

You may also need a control surface to speed your grading along. The cheapest most multi-functional one is the Tangent Wave panel. It is plastic, but actually quite good. It is USB and you just plug it in. Forget the Eucon surfaces like Avid color panel, the whole ethernet thing is a pain. I have found with Davinci though that the whole 3 ball thing is not as necessary as on other apps, but that is just me. You may be able to get away with just using the other controls like the curves and not need a control surface in the beginning.

Get the Alexis Von Hurkman book already mentioned here in the thread. It is clear, concise easy reading and very thorough. Excellent, and THE reference book today.

Lastly, a serious post house will not take months to grade your film. It should take days, not weeks. If not there is something wrong. You are paying for efficiency and time. Ten day to two weeks, maximum. For you, as a newcomer it will take weeks, maybe a couple of months. By the end of the process you will probably have to go over and retweak the stuff you did in the beginning. But you will have saved a lot of money, have a lot more creative control over your content and learned a new skill to boot.

Good luck.
 
Last edited:
Thank you Yoclay for this very useful advice.

Here are a few follow up questions:

(1) What monitor(s) do you recommend (taking price into account).
(2) Why do I need a Decklink? My Graphic card (ATI HD 5750) has DVI and HDMI out.
(3) Do I need to purchase a Decklink to download DaVinci Lite?
(4) Why is DaVinci so much better than Colorista anyways?

Thank you.
 
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