Color Correction Workflow

Where have I been? Well, I’ll tell you. Between my day job as a technologist, my night job as a post-production zombie and being a dad and friend, there hasn’t been much time to keep things up-to-date.

I mean, hell, sometimes I don’t even have the perceived time to come up with 140 characters for Twitter, much less the order-of-magnitude more required for what may or may not be a compelling blog post.

The last few nights I’ve been color correcting/grading a film. This film will be premiering soon, and this is a bit of a rush job. I’ve had to pare down my workflow to the essentials in order to get the product out in time. This has been a frustratingly rewarding process.

Instead of thinking “how do I come up with a look that indicates the different moods or time periods of the characters on screen” I’ve been forced to really look at the basics: white balance, skin tones, contrast, exposure.

This has been liberating, in a way. It’s called the primary color correction for a reason - I see that now. Being forced to rely on my eyes and to make subtle changes rather than splashing sweeping bleach bypasses or committing a multitude of Instagram-y crimes has made me more careful and more discerning (I think!)

This is an exercise I would recommend to others. Put away your Magic Bullet Looks and focus on the color wheels for one whole video. Use only the native color correction tools in your NLE of choice. Focus on shot-to-shot matching. Really nail it.

I’m hopeful that I will emerge from this exercise a better colorist overall!