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Happy NY BA3 editors - a fireside message

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SW2 Duty of Care Companion Video tutorials 

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SW2 Duty of Care Companion Video tutorials 

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10 videos dropping every Monday and Wednesday from 18th Jan for 5 weeks.

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Project file and script available 18th Jan.

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SW4 Session 19 - Mastering and Deliverables

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Session 19 making DCPs and web deliverables. Software + how to video

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Session 19 making DCPs and web deliverables. Software + how to video

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Stable release: 2.14.46

Released on 28th November 2020. Look at the list of changes.

Windows 64-bit

macOS 10.9 and higher (Big Sur, Catalina, Mojave, High Sierra, Sierra, El Capitan, Yosemite, Mavericks)

macOS 10.6, 10.7 and 10.8 (Mountain Lion, Lion, Snow Leopard)

AppImage

Ubuntu 20.10

Ubuntu 20.04

Ubuntu 18.04

Ubuntu 16.04

Mint 20

Mint 19

Mint 18

Debian 10

Debian 9

Fedora 33

Fedora 32

Fedora 31

Centos 8

Centos 7

Centos 6

Mageia 7

Live image ISO

Source code

There are some installation notes in the manual.

Distribution packages

Test version

A test version is available from here.

Older versions

Some older versions are available here. If you require an old version that isn't listed, please get in touch - I have versions that I don't keep online due to the costs of hosting them.

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create convert dcp digital cinema dcinema dci dcp o matic digital cinema package

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Released on 28th November 2020. Look at the list of changes. Windows 64-bit macOS 10.9 and higher (Big Sur, Catalina, Mojave, High Sierra, Sierra, El Capitan, Yosemite, Mavericks) macOS 10.6, 10.7 and 10.8 (Mountain Lion, Lion, Snow Leopard) AppImage Ubuntu 20.10 Ubuntu 20.04 Ubuntu 18.04 Ubuntu 16.04 Mint 20 Mint 19 Mint 18 Debian 10 Debian 9 Fedora 33 Fedora 32 Fedora 31 Centos 8 Centos 7 Centos 6 Mageia 7 Live image ISO Source code There are some installation notes in the manual.

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I had written a whole post on turnovers, but quickly found that it went out of date. So here's my attempt to write a more future-proof guide to getting the materials of your film turned over to all the various departments that editors and assistant editors interact with. This post primarily deals with turnovers to sound, music, and DI/online. There will be another post dealing with VFX.

For the TL;DR crowd, see my normal spec list

What Is A Turnover?

When you hear someone referencing a turnover, it simply means the handing off of all or part of the film from Editorial to another department. Since the other departments on your project (sound, music, vfx, digital intermediate/online conform, etc.) don't generally have access to your editing system and all of the media you're using, you have to give them the material to work from in the appropriate format for what they need to do with it.

How Do I Know What To Turn Over?

Once you do this a few times it'll become an easy and predictable task. The first time you do it, it may be a little intimidating, and you may have lots of questions that even the people you need to turn over to can't answer. To help, always think of what your turnover recipients are going to do with your materials once you hand them off. What's most useful for them? What would get in the way if it was done wrong? Putting yourself in their shoes can help you answer a lot of questions on your own.

For example, sound and music departments often ask for split audio Quicktimes. For sound, this means dialogue on the left channel and sfx/music on the right. For music, however, this means they want dialogue/sfx on the left channel and music on the right. If you pause to think about why these specs are that way, it will help inform any other questions that come up. Sound departments' primary concerns are cleaning up your dialogue and adding a great sound effects track. So it makes sense that for their offline reference they'll want to be able to hear clean dialogue, and mute your temp sound effects and temp music if they want to. For a composer, many of them have no interest in hearing your temp music, so they want to be able to keep your dialogue and sound effects while composing a new score in place of your music track. As I mention below, though, I now tend to make stereo WAVs of dialogue, sfx, and music all separate from the Quicktime so that I don't have to deal with panning a stereo QT and they have even finer grain control over the audio they hear.

On the picture side, an example might be the request not to letterbox your reference Quicktime when turning over to the DI. If you think about it, the DI facility is responsible for recreating your cut using your RAW footage or scanned film frames. The more information they can get about how you cut the film together, the faster they can work and the more accurate their timeline will be. EDLs go a long way, but sometimes you just have to go frame by frame and see what's in the cut. If you matte your reference Quicktime, they might have to eye-match to your footage, which is time-consuming and error prone. By not matting your reference Quicktime, they can see the source filename and the timecode burn-in of each frame, and cross-check that with their online edit.

Components of a Turnover

These are most of the common items you'll need to generate for a turnover. You need a set of these for each reel unless otherwise noted.

Quicktimes

First and foremost, a turnover generally requires a visual reference of your project, and this is usually a Quicktime rendered out from your editing application. For a film project, which is what I'll focus on here since that's my primary area of work, this usually means one Quicktime file per reel. Before you render a Quicktime out, you should check a bunch of things:

Do your reels have head and tail leader?
Head leader is an 8-second countdown with a one frame audio pop on the 2. Tail leader has a Finish frame and pop 2 seconds in, but can be of varying length after that. I usually go with a 10 foot (160 frame) tail leader. Get in the habit of putting your leader and audio pops on every track in your sequence, not just V1 and A1 (but do lower the volume of all the pops to a comfortable level).

Do your reels each start on the right hour?

Film reels start on the hour according to their reel number, including head leader. So Reel 1 should have a Start TC of 01:00:00:00, Reel 2 at 02:00:00:00, etc. On your head leader, the hour mark would correspond with the Picture Start frame, and your first frame of content would be at 8 seconds flat.

While checking Start TC you should also verify that your Footage counter is zeroed out. In Avid, if you right-click on your sequence and go to Sequence Report, you can check the starting Footage (or EC, for Edge Code) count of the sequence and reset it to 0+00 if need be.

Does your sequence need a matte?

Most departments will not want to see all the burn-in information such as filename, source timecode, audio timecode, etc., so you'll want to keep a matte handy to cover it all up to the appropriate aspect ratio of your project.

Some departments will want to see this information, and you should be sure not to matte your burn-ins for them. When turning over to the DI or to anyone in Marketing (trailer editors, e.g.), don't include a matte.

Does your sequence need additional burn-ins such as TC or Feet & Frame counters?

Most everyone will want a visible timecode counter on every turnover you make. I usually put sequence TC in the upper left and F&F in the upper right corners of the letterbox, and I make the font size pretty big so it can be read at a glance from far away.

There is a school of thought that you can export QTs more quickly by adding these counters with other software (Compressor, e.g.) after the initial export from your NLE. I really disagree with this approach, because the burn-ins you add directly into your sequence serve as a good double-check that everything is as it's supposed to be. All of your other deliverables (AAFs, WAVs, EDLs, etc.) will be wrong if your sequence TC is off and you didn't notice that because you just exported your video without a burn-in and pasted one on later.

Have you burned-in the name and date of your sequence somewhere in the frame?

You'll send lots of turnovers over the course of a film, and you need to give your turnover recipients a way to talk with you about a particular version. If you put the sequence name and date visible on screen, that gives them multiple ways to refer to a particular version or a particular date. For example, R1_v20_SOUND_140204 might be how I'd name a Reel 1 (version 20) sequence for Sound that I delivered on 2/4/14.

Sometimes, as with trailer editors, you'll receive Quicktimes back that have been cut together using multiple turnovers and asked to reconstruct that edit in the Avid. In this case, knowing exactly which turnover sequence each shot is referring to and what timecode a shot was pulled from will help you to quickly do your overcut, so having a lot of information burned-in can help you later on as well.

What kind of security markings do you need to add?

I usually keep a bin of title templates handy that add things like Property Of Production Company, the date, and the name or initials of the person receiving the file. These burn-ins go in frame, not in the letterbox, so that people can't crop them out as easily. I put security titles on my topmost video track so it doesn't get buried by anything. If you have subtitles in your film, make sure you're not covering them up.

Some studios have a spec sheet for how they like their security markings, and others just want something but aren't specific about what or where in the frame they want it. It's all pretty standard, but I like to have my text be partially transparent so as to be very visible but not super annoying to watch.

Does your Quicktime need embedded audio?
I personally prefer to export audio separately and leave my Quicktimes mute. Most of the time this is ok, but sometimes you'll need to embed audio. If you need to embed split audio (Left channel: dialogue, Right channel: music/sfx, e.g.), I usually recommend against doing this in Avid since it involves re-panning your sequence. Avid doesn't do well with re-panning, especially if you've used AudioSuite effects in your timeline. In that case I export dialogue, music, and sound effects separately as mono WAVs and then add them to the exported Quicktime using Quicktime Pro, panning them there as necessary.

Is there a specific codec required? If not, what is the best codec?
EDIT August 2018: This paragraph used to recommend codecs that are now outdated, and since it's now much easier to transfer large files and more applications support DNxHD, I use DNxHD for everything. Probably within a couple years that will include DNxHR, which as of this writing I am only just starting to try out. H.264 is still a no-no for turnovers for a variety of reasons including that it does frame interpolation, color often gets crushed upon export from Avid, and H.264 is meant mainly as a playback codec and not as a means for actively working with video files.

Here's an example of what a fully prepped Quicktime could look like. I didn't have much content I could post publicly, so instead you get to see me solving the Golf Ball Water Globe. Notice the tracks are split, too. The burn-in is maybe a little big.

Guide Tracks

This is self-explanatory, but it's one of the main reasons to try to keep your audio tracks organized. When you get into post you'll have to turn over a set of audio files (usually WAV or AIFF) that contain only dialogue, only effects, and only music. The only way to export these files is to keep the audio clips on separate tracks, so I usually do the work of splitting my tracks out in a duplicated sequence for the first turnover and then copy the split tracks back into the main reels so that my work is preserved even as the edit changes.

Each guide track should be exactly the same length as your Quicktime, and have a 2-pop and finish pop as described above so that the guide tracks can be lined up with the Quicktime in an audio editing application to assure the sound team that everything is in sync.

AAF (a.k.a. OMF)

An AAF is a file that allows you to give your timeline to other applications. For example, an AAF of your audio tracks can be imported into Pro Tools where a sound editor can work with your clips exactly as you've cut them in your NLE. At the minimum, AAFs contain metadata about your timeline and the clips in it. You can also choose to include the media that those clips reference inside of the AAF, or you can have the AAF link to an external media directory. Either way, you would usually export an AAF with media handles, so that the person receiving your file has a bit of extra media on either end of each clip's in/out points.

If you're making an AAF for ProTools, make sure you have AAF Edit Protocol set. This will allow your AAF to exceed 2GB in file size if it needs to. I also usually set the options to Render All Effects and Include Rendered Effects. Be a little careful with this, as you might run into the same problem with AudioSuite effects that I mentioned above. It's best to make sure all of your AudioSuite effects are rendered in your timeline before starting to make any turnovers. You can render them globally using the fast menu of the AudioSuite window. If there were unrendered effects in your timeline, check that they rendered correctly before going further.

The terms AAF and OMF are mostly interchangeable, or are at least used interchangeably by many people including myself. This is because OMF is the original file format everyone used, but now the AAF file type has superseded it. This is in part since OMF files are limited to a maximum size of 2GB, which isn't enough if you're embedding a full reel's worth of audio. If you're running a newer version of Avid, you will only be able to export an AAF. FCP7 will only export OMFs natively, and AAFs with Automatic Duck. I have no idea what FCPX can do, but you probably need to buy a plug-in to get AAF functionality. In any case, the two files are almost the same thing, and a lot of people will still ask for an OMF even though they actually need an AAF.

Also, if your project is still using OMF audio media, which is different than making an OMF files, that can cause some weird problems with AAF exports, among other things. There are many reasons why you should not have any OMF audio in your project, and there is not a single reason why you should. Consciously using OMF audio in Media Composer is like willfully using Windows 95 when a new Mac is available. Don't do it, go MXF/PCM all the way and you'll save yourself a lot of headache.

Cut Lists, Change Lists, and/or EDLs

Cut lists and EDLs tell other people and other applications about the order and duration of clips in your timeline. For Change Lists specifically, even though every department we interact with relies heavily on our ability to make them, they are currently a nightmare to make in Avid Filmscribe. The program has been super buggy for years to the point where it's almost unusable, and it can require you to spend a lot of time simplifying your sequence before Filmscribe will make a change list without crashing. I can't accurately describe the loathing I have for Filmscribe. That said...

Cut Lists

Cut Lists are good for giving to DI companies when doing your conform. They can reference either source timecode for tape or file-based footage, or list keycode for material originating on film. Fewer and fewer companies are using Cut Lists, though, and instead opting for other methods involving EDLs.

Change Lists

As soon as you turn over your movie more than once, you'll likely need to hand over a change list. As you would suspect, this tells the person receiving your turnover how the edit changed between the last time you gave it to them and now. For sound and music departments, this helps them conform their ProTools sessions so they can update and smooth over their sessions to match the new version of picture. For the DI, a change list helps them match their online sequence to your offline Quicktime reference, and then determine if there's new material they need to get from you in order to recreate your cut.

Until Filmscribe gets a total rewrite, it's best to thoroughly scrub your sequences clean of complexity before loading them into the app. By this I mean you should reduce your sequences to the fewest number of tracks possible, save one layer out of any collapsed clips before removing them, and then remove any additional effects. Since you need Filmscribe to tell you only what's changed, be sure to reduce the complexity of your sequence the same way every time. For example, if you pull the V1 layer out of a collapsed clip the first time, make sure you do it the second time, too. Try to make the sequences as similar as possible, so that the change list only reflects actual changes instead of having a lot of events in the list that look like changes but aren't.

Once you've got your sequences set, drag the appropriate sequences into the Old and New sections, set your settings and click Preview. I usually like to do a Columnar or Optical Block list with Master Durations and Ignore Color Effects set (though you should've removed all of these already). Under the Change List options I select only Name, and KN Start if applicable. Save it out as a .txt file and you're good to go. If the app crashes instead of giving you a previewed file, you might still have an effect in your timeline that it's too dumb to handle.

Rebalanced Change Lists are made when you've moved a chunk of footage from one reel to another. To make one of these, first make sure your sequences have the Reel column filled out in your bin. Then in Filmscribe, drag your two old sequences and two new sequences into the appropriate spots and make your list. If you don't do this and make only single change lists from each version, it won't be clear from the change lists that material was moved between reels. It will just look like you deleted a bunch of stuff from one reel and added a bunch of other stuff to another.

EDLs

EDLs are a timecode-only (no keycode) list of "events" that describe, in order, the clips in your timeline. They're a relic from the days of tape, but they're surprisingly useful for all sorts of other things. Most editing and finishing applications take them, and they provide a simple and standard way to define a timeline and the material in it. For example, color correction software can use it to notch a timeline, so that if you give them a Quicktime to color-correct, you can also give them an EDL to tell them where each shot starts and ends. You can also use them to get a source list of the files used in your edit, or to get information out of Avid and into another form, such as a Subcap file. I also sometimes receive them, as in the case where you're finishing a DI and the DI company sends you an EDL of all the VFX shots they've cut into their timeline so you can check that all the shots are there and are the right version.

Normal options for EDLs are to include the Source Clip Name, Locators, and Effects. Make sure to use the File_16 or File_32 list format if your source is an Alexa/RED/Sony/etc. so you can fit the full filename in. For digital cameras you should always have your full filename in the Tape bin column. DaVinci Resolve, which many DITs use to transcode footage for Editorial, does not have that option turned on by default, so make sure the DIT turns it on in the Timeline Conform pane in Resolve. If you get footage without proper info in the Tape column, I usually recommend duplicating the filename from the Name column into the Camroll and Labroll columns before renaming the Avid clips into Scene/Take format. The Camroll and Labroll columns are more easily changed than the Tape column, but if you're careful it should work fine, be redundant, and either of those two columns can be used in EDL Manager in place of Tape.

Audio EDLs are useful for dialogue editors to go back and get the original audio file's iso tracks, and most will ask for a set of EDLs on your first turnover to the Sound department to help them. In this case you would turn off all the V tracks in EDL Manager, turn on all A tracks containing your dialogue, and use the Soundroll column as your source tape setting (if you have Soundroll and Sound TC filled in). If you don't have Soundroll and Sound TC info, adjust these settings to match whatever metadata you do have.

One word of advice: always check the Console if EDL Manager gives you a warning message. It looks daunting but it will tell you what clips didn't have the metadata it was expecting, and you can use that to see if you have a problem or if you can ignore it and keep going.

My Usual Specs

Unless I hear otherwise from the departments I'm working with, here are the specs I will give them for each reel:

Sound

Mute Quicktime - 1080p DNxHD 36 or 115. QT is letterboxed with sequence TC and F&F burn-ins, along with sequence name, date, and security markings. Sometimes you may want to leave it unletterboxed if there is audio timecode that the sound department wants to see.

Stereo WAVs - one each for dialogue, music, and sfx tracks

AAF with 96 frame handles, AAF Edit option checked, media embedded if necessary. Render All Effects and Include Rendered Effects options checked, but no others

Audio EDL of each reel's dialogue tracks (usually for the first turnover only)

Change List (from the last version they received to the current one. They might not be sequential versions)

Music

Mute Quicktime -1080p DNxHD 36 or 115 unless otherwise requested by the composer. QT is letterboxed with TC and F&F burn-ins, along with sequence name, date, and security markings

Split Stereo WAVs - one each for dialogue, music, and sfx tracks

AAF with the same options as above, if requested.

Change List (from the last version they received to the current one. They might not be sequential versions)

DI

Mute Quicktime - 1080p DNxHD 36 or 115 (or whatever is Same as Source). QT is not letterboxed, but still has sequence TC and F&F burn-ins, along with sequence name, date, and security markings

EDLs of split video tracks, so that's one EDL per camera type (35mm, RED, GoPro, etc.), one EDL with all VFX, and one EDL with any opticals (resizes, speed effects, dissolves).

Stereo WAV, not split out, for reference and so they have something to play during reviews

Avid bin containing your sequence(s), if requested

Change List (from the last version they received to the current one. They might not be sequential versions)

Pull List and Cut List (for film only)

Marketing

Mute Quicktime - 1080p DNxHD36 or ProRes (Gamma Correction Off), no fast start. QT is not letterboxed, but still has sequence TC burn-in with sequence name in large font, plus date and other security markings. I usually make security markings for Marketing turnovers big and annoying, since these often get forwarded on to multiple companies out of your control or contact.

Split Stereo WAVs - one each for dialogue, music, and sfx tracks.
If embedded audio is required, dialogue on Left channel, sfx and temp score on Right (or sometimes full mix on Right, if requested)

ADR

Mute Quicktime -1080p DNxHD 36 (unless ADR requests otherwise). QT is letterboxed with TC and F&F burnins, along with sequence name, date, and security markings. For ADR, don't have a center security burn-in since it can get in the way of an actor's ability to sync to their mouth onscreen. If you must have a center burn-in, make it center-ish with partially transparent letter outlines only and no fill.
If you're only getting ADR in a small portion of a reel and are worried about security in the ADR studio (especially for remote sessions), trim the export sequence to only the necessary scene, but make sure that the timecode is still correct. In Avid if you make a subsequence, it will keep the timecode it came from originally, which is what you want. Make one QT for each scene that you need. Alternatively, you can export one Quicktime of the whole reel but lift out the portions of it that are not needed so there's just black inbetween. This isn't totally necessary, but why have more material floating around than you have to?

Dialogue WAV only

MPAA

For delivery to the MPAA, either DVD, some tape formats, or DCP (2D or 3D) is allowed. 2D Blu-ray is ok also (but risky in my opinion), and no 3D Blu-rays are allowed at all.

Property of Production Company burn-in only, no bigger than 10pt font, located at the very top or bottom of frame

No other burn-ins allowed

Total Running Time printed on the label

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I had written a whole post on turnovers, but quickly found that it went out of date. So here's my attempt to write a more future-proof guide to getting the materials of your film turned over to all the various departments that editors and assistant editors interact with.

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There have been a lot of articles written about exactly what a DCP is, but here at Cinematiq, we still get asked the question all the time. Is a DCP a drive? Is it a file? For a lot of filmmakers, the first time they hear the term DCP is when they are accepted to a film festival that requires it.

What Is A DCP?

The word DCP is an acronym that stands for "Digital Cinema Package." What does this actually mean? The words Digital Cinema are easy enough, but what about the term package?

This is what a DCP looks like on your computer:

A DCP is simply a folder containing a set of specific MXF and XML files.

At the highest level, a DCP is a collection of various files that when combined into the same folder, allows the playback server in the theater to play your movie. It's the digital equivalent of a 35mm film print. Each one of these files has a very important role, and without all of them, the package wouldn't be valid and the server won't recognize or play it. This multi-file approach is very similar to how DVD's and BluRay's work. That's because the DCP standard was created by many of the same engineers who created the DVD and BluRay standards, with a lot of the same requirements from the big Hollywood Studios.

There's a common mis-conception that DCP is a physical format. Filmmakers and festivals alike confuse the delivery medium for the actual message. Since a DCP is just the collection of files in a folder, and as long as the server can access all the right files in the right place, the DCP will work. In truth, you could compress the DCP into a single .zip and send it across the internet like you would a QuickTime movie. There are a couple of reasons that this isn't a more common practice.

Loading your DCP onto a Theater's Server

A DCP needs to be ingested (copied) onto the theater's hard drives before it can be played out to the projector. This means that the files need to be copied from somewhere. Since most digital cinema servers are not connected directly to the open internet (for security reasons), and cannot download directly from the web, most DCPs are copied onto some sort of storage device, and then physically plugged into the server or library management system (LMS) that needs to ingest them.

When DCP was first born, Hollywood standardized the way digital files were delivered to theaters. The engineers chose to ship films via the CRU drive carrier. First developed for military applications, the CRU is a rugged drive carrier that accepts regular SATA hard-drives.

The industry standard CRU drive in a shipping case.

There's nothing special about it except that a CRU drive can slide directly inside most digital cinema servers, instead of connecting over USB. This means that the drive is treated like an internal drive rather than an external one, and the end result is that the files can be copied much faster. If your DCP is 150GB, using a CRU can be ingested and verified in about 20 minutes, which is quite fast when compared to a USB 2.0 drive which might take as long as 90 minutes. If the projectionist needs to ingest an entire day's worth of film festival content the night before, the CRU is the fastest way to do so, which is why most festivals require CRU drives for feature films.

So as long as you can get the collection of files copied to the server you'd like to play from, and your DCP is a valid DCI compliant package, your film should play. Sounds simple right?

In the next article, we'll dive a little deeper into the geeky tech side of things to look a hard drive formats, and why you can't plug your DCP drive into your Mac.

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There have been a lot of articles written about exactly what a DCP is, but here at Cinematiq, we still get asked the question all the time. Is a DCP a drive? Is it a file? For a lot of filmmakers...

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A digital lab service providing cost effective DCP solutions to the independent film community.

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Most editors would agree that if they weren't being paid to edit, they would do it anyway because they love it so much. I feel incredibly lucky earning a wage spending hours doing something I would do anyway as a hobby. The magic of cutting one image to another and the emotional response you can create in an audience as a result of that is something you discover at some point in your life, and grow to love the more you do it.

For me, I became obsessed by movies and wanted passionately to work in the film industry from the age of seven. Pretty young, I agree, and many people will get infected by the film bug later than that, but the more films I watched as a teenager and the more books I read about the process of film making, the more I wanted to make movies. It's something I simply have to do, and when you meet people who feel the same way and are as dedicated and passionate about their commitment to the film industry (from cinematographers to sound designers, composers to make-up artists) you instantly feel a connection.

When I was around eighteen I started editing on two VHS machines linked together and discovered that hours would fly by while I was lost in the creative process. The combination of storytelling challenges and technology really appealed to me, and I found artistic fulfilment in the process of film editing.

I edited constantly, whether it was recutting other Hollywood movies I had on VHS, editing holiday videos, shooting and cutting little short films, or working with friends on student film projects. Over three years at university (studying Psychology!) I literally spent four hours a day (minimum) editing student film and TV projects.

If you want to work in a film cutting room, some of this should sound familiar to you.

If it doesn't, you should reconsider if the film industry is for you.

You will not succeed if you think that making movies "might be fun". Doubtless the long hours, the lack of job stability, the impact on your personal relationships, the enormously technical computer knowledge you must learn, and the many other challenges you'll face on your journey through the industry will eventually get the better of you.

For those with a true love of film making, none of those things matter. We have to do it, simple as that. If you're reading this nodding in agreement, then... hold on to your potatoes Dr. Jones, get your flux capacitor... fluxing... and read on.

Here's my advice for how to get your first break in a feature film cutting room. While this is targeted at people wanting to work in the UK, most of the theories will also apply in Hollywood or Paris or Bollywood or wherever you want to get started.

My feeling is that if you're already convinced that an editing career is for you, film school might not be your best option. It costs money, and it will delay your entry into the professional industry by however long your course is.

You see, what matters in this industry is how much professional experience you have on your CV, and film school does not give you professional experience. Sure, it gives you access to free equipment, you'll meet many fellow film-makers and you'll learn some theory and practise for sure, but you'll leave the course back where you started... with no professional experience (and probably poorer too).

However, if you seize the scary challenge of getting started in the industry today it won't cost you anything, and most likely within a few weeks or months you'll have an entry level job. Then you'll start learning how films are really made, working alongside professionals and seeing the challenges they face and overcome every day in pre-production, throughout the shoot, in the cutting room during post and beyond. And you'll actually be paid for this (although very often almost nothing on a micro budget feature, but that can only increase as you prove your mettle and gain more experience). All these people you meet will create a network of contacts, and if you did a good job, you'll be offered more work.

Film school is useful if you're not 100% sure what area of the industry you want to work in because while you're there you'll get to try everything: writing, directing, producing, cinematography, focus pulling, clapper loading, sound recording, assistant directing, script supervising, editing, sound design and the many other jobs that a film crew performs. Then you'll get a feeling for what you like (and might develop a lifelong passion for), and you can start looking for that kind of work.

Film school is also seductive because you'll delay the act of getting stuck in to the scary big wide world. Understandable, but you're going to have to take the plunge sooner or later.

(Of course there is always the very small chance that you'll work on an Oscar winning short film at film school and the director will go on to direct a feature and invite you along for the ride, but the odds on this are vanishingly small.)

So if you're leaving school and already thinking "I want to be an editor", I wouldn't recommend any kind of film or media course because it will cost money and you'll get no professional experience.

Get a job in the industry right now.

Firstly, you need a great CV. If you haven't got one, take a couple of hours to create one right now.

The following advice will apply to almost any area of the film industry that you might want to get started in, whether it's the camera department, hair and make-up, visual effects, production design or the cutting room.

Your first film industry CV should have the usual things: your name and contact details clearly at the top, a personal statement about your strengths and achievements, a section about education, your previous work experience (if any) and some references. Keep it to one page.

However, the most important thing it should have right under your contact details is a box with the words "CURRENT CAREER OBJECTIVE" and a short sentence about what kind of work you're looking for.

For example: "CURRENT CAREER OBJECTIVE - To find a job as a runner in a post production facility with a view to becoming a trainee edit assistant."

That way, if anyone finds your CV they will instantly know what kind of job you're after.

Now spell check your CV, ask a friend to proof read it, save it as a Word document and PDF and give it a useful filename like "Eddie Hamilton - assistant editor CV.pdf", then make sure your printer is full of ink and paper.

The next stage is to write to as many people in the industry as you can (in your chosen field) and introduce yourself with a polite personally written letter, enclosing your freshly printed CV and explaining that you're looking for some advice and possibly an entry level position if they know of one coming up.

You can find personal contact details in The Knowledge, both online and in print. Sometimes people list their business or home address (in which case write to them there), or sometimes they list their agent (in which case write to their agent asking them to forward your letter to their client,which they will almost always do).

A printed or handwritten letter is usually better than an email in the first instance. People will pay more attention to a personally written letter than an email. But if you can only find an email address, write an email and attach your CV as a PDF.

I expect you to send out at least 50 letters.

You'll be surprised how nice people are in the film industry (remember they all started somewhere, probably by doing exactly what you just did). Very often you'll start getting replies quicker than you expect, mostly with advice and encouragement, but if you're lucky you might be asked for an interview, in which case it's up to you to prove you want the job more than anyone else out there.

But, while this may work for other aspects of the film industry, if you're specifically interested in editing you are unlikely to get offered even the lowest trainee cutting room position if you have no experience working professionally with Avid Media Composer, the world's leading editing software.

But there is a way to get this experience.

If you're not from London that might sound scary but the simple fact is that most post production facilities are based in London so if you're here you'll stand the best chance of finding work.

It may be that if you ask around your friends and family you'll find someone who is connected to the film or TV industry in some way, however remotely. Buy them a coffee and ask if they know someone who knows someone in a post facility who could put in a good work for you. Personal contacts are often how this industry finds new people.

Either way, make a list of every single post production facility in London. Make sure the company does Avid offline editing (not online editing or visual effects or colour grading). Offline editing is where the creative storytelling decisions are made during the post production process, and this is how you'll get professional experience with Avid Media Composer.

Phone each company, explaining that you're looking for a job as a runner, and ask who you can send a CV to. Make a note of the person's name and ask how it's spelt if you're not sure.

Now, write letters to all these people introducing yourself and explaining that you're looking for a job as a runner in their facility. Seal up the envelopes, write names and addresses on the front, but don't affix any stamps because you're going to deliver these letters personally.

Next day, wake up early, take a shower and get dressed fairly smartly (but not in a suit).

Then visit every single editing facility one by one. Not only will you get to see their office and their working environment, you'll also start to find your way around Soho (where most of the companies are based). You may also discover companies you weren't aware of before, or see a small sign up in a window saying "Runners wanted" in which case, today's your lucky day (and your first break will often require luck alongside stubborn persistence).

It is absolutely true to say you make your own luck in this industry. Or, put another way, luck is where preparation meets opportunity, and after the preparation of your CV and all those phone calls, here's your opportunity.

Go up to the receptionist, smile, and ask if your contact is in today. If they are, explain that you're looking for a job as a runner and that you'd like to give them a CV personally. That way, you can meet the person in charge of hiring runners and start to make a good impression. If you're incredibly lucky, they may be actively looking for someone and you'll be interviewed on the spot. But usually they will thank you for coming, take your CV and be in touch if something comes up.

If you want, try something original. When I was applying for runners jobs in editing facilities, I enclosed a Kit Kat with every letter (very envelope friendly). When I went for interviews they always remembered me. But this only works for entry level jobs... when you're job hunting higher up people are rarely impressed by this, they just want to know what previous projects you've worked on and if you have a good reputation.

Once you have visited every editing facility in London and given them your CV, keep your phone on and check your email regularly so you can seize the opportunity if someone gets in touch.

In the meantime buy or borrow every book you can on film editing and post production and read them from cover to cover. Surf editing websites. Watch lots of films and TV. In your interviews people will ask what you've been watching recently.

If you hear nothing after a week, go and visit every company again doing exactly the same thing, explaining that you're still looking for work and are checking back just in case anything has opened up. They won't be annoyed, once a week is fine, and you'll win points for your polite persistence.

Eventually all this hard work will pay off and you will be offered an interview somewhere.

It's up to you to convince them you're the right person for the job, but here's some tips:

If you get offered the running job, congratulations! You've taken your first step into a larger world.

Once again, this is up to you, but here are some ideas:

Remember, the job is what you make of it. If you simply do all your duties then go home, you will not succeed.

All the editors in the facility will have started as runners so will be watching to see how you make the most of this opportunity you've been given. Make friends with them, ask questions, and be nice to clients who pass through the facility.

If you work very hard and smile every day, eventually you'll be offered the chance to train as an edit assistant. Well done.

But be under no illusion, there is much to learn both creatively and (as important) technically about professional standards within the industry. Digitizing or importing hours and hours of footage and making hundreds of Quicktime movies will get tedious, but everything you learn will eventually become second nature, and this will stand you in good stead throughout your career. And remember, you never stop learning in this industry.

In the meantime, keep an eye on the various film-making websites. People are always looking for editors to cut their films for free. And guess what? You can help them because you have access to all the facilities your company has to offer. And usually if you're working on a personal project your boss will let you use any kit you want for free in downtime.

After a year or two of digitizing, troubleshooting and EDL creation you should have enough Avid experience to start looking for work as a trainee in a feature film cutting room. And if you've been editing in the evenings and weekends you may even feel ready to cut a micro budget feature.

You're now in a great position to look for work on a movie. You're earning money, you have lots of technical and creative experience on Avid Media Composer and you're more passionate about editing than you were a few years ago.

Update your CV with all your achievements, but now your CURRENT CAREER OBJECTIVE box will read "Looking for work as a trainee / second assistant editor in a feature film cutting room" or "Looking for an opportunity to cut a micro budget feature" depending on who you're sending your CV to.

Firstly, consider all the people you've met in your facility over the last few years. Are any of them now working on films? If so, get in touch and ask if you can help them. What about all the film-makers you've helped for free? What are they working on now? Is anyone producing a micro budget feature in need of an editor?

If nothing comes of this, find contact details for every film editor and first assistant editor in the country, especially if you particularly admire their work in films you've seen. Write a letter/email explaining that you've been working in a post facility for a year or two and are looking for some advice and a chance to work with them on a film.

Once again, you'll be surprised at how nice people are. You'll get encouraging replies, and, if you're incredibly lucky, your CV may hit someone's desk at exactly the right time and they'll call you in for an interview.

Also, there are many websites which list all films in various stages of production, along with production company contact details. Write to these productions, asking for your CV to be submitted to the cutting room team when they're hired.

In the meantime you're still learning and working hard in your day job.

Keep your ear to the ground and eventually an opportunity will come along. Bear in mind that you'll probably have to take a pay cut when you get a break working on a movie, either as editor on a micro budget indie, or as an assistant on a bigger budget feature.

Congratulations once again, you have succeeded in getting your foot in the door.

There is still much to learn, but you're one step closer to becoming a professional feature film editor.

Welcome to the crazy world of the film industry.

When I was a runner I spent every evening and every weekend teaching myself how to use Avid Media Composer. I would take a week's annual leave and spend it in a cutting room working on my own little films. I strived to work harder than anyone else. One day a freelance editor didn't show up, leaving their clients editorless, so I volunteered to step in. Luckily all my hard work on the Avids paid off because I flew through the session.

Then I was promoted to edit assistant, and about three months later, to editor. This was summer 1995.

For the next 18 months I worked long shifts on the Avid, editing (among many other things), Portuguese and Spanish sports TV shows. Now I don't speak either language, and I'm not really keen on sport, but nevertheless I worked hard and fast, learnt an incredible amount, and soon found myself with a deep knowledge of the Avid editing system.

During this time my love of movies was still pumping in my veins, and I was reading film books non-stop, including one called The Guerilla Film Makers Handbook, written by Chris Jones and Genevieve Jolliffe. I read that they were planning on making their third low-budget feature Urban Ghost Story, so I emailed Chris to ask if they had an editor. He replied no, so I immediately made my way to their production office in Ealing Film Studios and introduced myself. Chris, Gen and I hit it off immediately, and they offered me the job. This was the start of a lifelong friendship.

I handed in my notice and started to work at Ealing Studios two weeks later. I remember the first time I walked in to the studio gates like it was yesterday. I was so excited. The crew were all paid very minimal wages, but none of us cared, we were young and wanted to make a movie.

So from spring 1997 I spent around a year working closely with Chris and Gen cutting their movie on an old Mac Quadra Avid bought from the company I'd just left. Then after locking the picture I tracklayed the entire movie, creating all the sound design, cutting all the ADR and fitting the foley and music, in readiness for our final sound mix. I wanted to learn about film sound, and there was no better way than actually doing it.

Once Urban Ghost Story was complete in 1998, I went on to cut two further no-budget features for free. Yes, for free.

I supported myself with two days a week freelance editing at the Paramount Comedy Channel, which just about paid my bills.

Now I was starting to build a network of friends and contacts, and gradually people contacted me about cutting short films and other features, and the pay started to improve. And the more people I met, the greater the chance of a personal recommendation to someone else who was looking for an editor for their project.

On my first ten features there was no budget for an assistant editor. I was my own assistant. Digitizing, synching rushes, logging paperwork, cutting the film, doing playouts, creating EDLs and generally overseeing the entire post on the movie. That is how I learnt my craft.

I've now been editing profesionally for 17 years and have cut over 20 feature films as well as TV dramas, documentaries and award-winning short films.

And I love the craft of cutting picture more every day.

Good luck with your own adventure finding a path into the industry.

Let me know how you get on.

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Most editors would agree that if they weren't being paid to edit, they would do it anyway because they love it so much. I feel incredibly lucky earning a wage spending hours doing something I would do anyway as a hobby.

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Halation on Film & Digitally Imitating It

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Halation on Film & Digitally Imitating It

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Specifications

The three Free Look LUTs are supplied in a number of standard formats.

LUT Information

The film profiles built into ColourSpace, which form the basis for the Free Look LUTs - Kodak Vision 2383, Kodak Premier 2393, and Fuji Super F-CP 3510 - are based on real film colourimetry data, measured from the specific film stocks using a highly accurate hybrid spectroradiometer & densitometer combined with an extremely stable and fully automated stepper motor controlled film transport system.

Both the film measurement system and film transport are Light Illusion developed, and have provided the majority of the film emulation data used by the world's leading studios, film labs, post-production facilities, and companies those providing genuine film emulation LUTs.

LUT Generation Guide

Free Look LUTs Design

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The three Free Look LUTs are supplied in a number of standard formats. The film profiles built into ColourSpace, which form the basis for the Free Look LUTs - Kodak Vision 2383, Kodak Premier 2393, and Fuji Super F-CP 3510 - are based on real film colourimetry data, measured from the specific film stocks using a highly accurate hybrid spectroradiometer & densitometer combined with an extremely stable and fully automated stepper motor controlled film transport system.

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1. SW4 Film Emulation Installing Film Convert.mov

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2. SW4 Film Emulation Using the Film Convert Plugin.mov

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Film Emulation - software camera packs, exercise video Resolve project

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Film Emulation - software camera packs, exercise video Resolve project

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Celluloid film, and the creation of motion pictures utilizing the photochemical process, has a highly specific and very nostalgic quality for many filmmakers, myself included.

Even in the era of all-digital acquisition and production, getting that "film look" is still a top priority for many directors, DPs, and colorists. Thankfully, even though our workflows are mostly digital now, there are plenty of tools out there to help you emulate that highly sought-after look.

In this article, we'll look into the past to learn about the photochemical process, and use that knowledge to gain a similar look and feel for our footage. Even though I will be using Blackmagic Design's DaVinci Resolve, the concepts and techniques we'll explore are applicable to all NLEs.

Starting in the late 1990's, something revolutionary in art of filmmaking began to develop-the creation of the digital intermediate process. Creative filmmakers were scanning their film into a computer, manipulating it digitally, and outputting it back to celluloid film for projection.

But there was one huge problem-predicting how the image would look after being printed back to film was very difficult. The images shown on the bulky CRT monitors did not accurately mirror what would eventually be projected at the cinema. The only solution was to develop a new method for previewing the final image before it was printed to film. Enter film emulation.

By technically and visually profiling specific film stocks, color scientists were able to create specific film emulation LUTs, or Look-Up Tables, which post-production artists could then use to simulate what the final image would actually look like once printed back to film. Most theaters at the time still projected movies from 35mm reels, but as DI began to take hold, the high costs and logistical burden associated with transporting, managing, and caring for 35mm reels became an sticking point in the minds of many.

Rise of Digital Acquisition

In the early 2000s, digital camera technology was quickly maturing, and began to attract the attention of professional users, including George Lucas. Lucas had long dreamed of digital production, and decided it was time to put the rubber to the road for his second Star Wars prequel, Star Wars: Attack of the Clones, which was shot using the experimental Sony HDW-F900 camera system. In fact, Attack of the Clones was the first major Hollywood feature film to be captured digitally, at 1080p HD resolution 24 frames per second, which of course matched the rate used by film cameras.

Digital acquisition became more common over the next several years, with other big-name trailblazers like James Cameron experimenting with the technology. In 2009, Slumdog Millionaire became the first digitally captured feature to receive an Academy Award for Best Cinematography. The next year in 2010, industry heavyweight Arri introduced their Alexa digital cinema camera system, which finally persuaded many hold-outs to join the digital acquisition club.

It's also worth mentioning that the digital intermediate process had become a lot more sophisticated by that point, allowing filmmakers much more control over the final look of their images during post-production.

Now even with the rise of digital acquisition, many filmmakers still desired the visual qualities they were used to with film. Some filmmakers even lamented that high-resolution digital systems from RED, Arri, and Sony captured images that appeared "too pristine" and "clinical" compared to film. This is when the art and science of emulating the look of celluloid film stocks really kicked into high gear.

Unique Characteristics of Film

Film stocks are incredibly varied and unique, with each different type providing different effects on an image's color, contrast, and texture. A scene shot using Kodak Vision 3, a modern low-grain color negative stock, will look very different than something shot using Kodak Ektachrome, a classic saturation enhanced color reversal stock. Essentially, each stock has a unique contrast curve and color profile.

To complicate matters further, celluloid film is available in a variety of different sizes: 8mm, 16mm, 35mm, 65mm, 70mm, etc. When a larger film negative is used, for example when Christopher Nolan used 65mm IMAX cameras on his 2014 space epic Interstellar, the color and contrast of the 65mm IMAX shots might mirror it's smaller 35mm cousin, but the visual texture will vary quite a bit.

Between the two images, you're likely to see a pronounced difference in sharpness and grain. A larger negative is likely to produce images that have a smaller grain structure and appear sharper when compared directly against its 35mm counterpart. Due to that increased quality, large-format stocks were used for VFX plates throughout the 1980's and early 1990's to great effect.

Now that we have some background knowledge on celluloid film, let's jump into how we can emulate, or recreate these unique qualities with a modern non-linear editor and apply it to footage captured on a recent digital cinema camera.

To emulate the unique characteristics we discussed above, we're going to rely on a variety of tools, including LUTs, curves, plug-ins, and stock footage. That said, no matter which NLE or OS you utilize, you'll find at least one of the below solutions is applicable to your work.

As a starting point, we'll be utilizing the following shot courtesy of RED, which you can download here. It was captured on a RED Dragon at 6K resolution, and for the sake of simplicity, processed using REDGamma4 in Blackmagic DaVinci Resolve 16.

Emulating Film Contrast and Color

In order to adjust the contrast and color palette of our digitally captured material, we have several options but we'll start by using LUTs.

Film Emulation using LUTs

All our favorite NLEs can utilize LUTs right out of the box, with Adobe Premiere Pro, Avid Media Composer, DaVinci Resolve, and Apple Final Cut X (as of version 10.4) all support LUTs seamlessly. Other applications, however, might require a plugin or workaround.

As a starting point for this example, we'll use a freely-available Kodak Vision Film Emulation LUT from the nice folks at Light Illusion. This LUT was profiled using the very popular Kodak Vision stocks, and it provides an ideal starting point for many film emulation looks.

As you can see in the example above, the waveform scope shows a subtle adjustment to the contrast (bottom-left)), while the vectorscope shows a compression of the color palette towards cyan and orange (bottom-right).

While the film emulation LUT provided by Light Illusion is very useful (and quite affordable!), it certainly isn't the only option when it comes to emulating the color and contrast via a look-up table. A few other commercially-available options I'd suggest are ImpulZ, Celluloid, KojiColor and Lutify, just to name a few. That said, it doesn't really matter what you use, as long as it preserves the visual quality of your footage and you like the end result.

Unfortunately, most LUTs are limited in that we can only control their strength (via opacity controls), but not anything "underneath the hood" if we want to adjust the contrast or color of the emulation. In other words, you can turn a LUT on, off, and "split the difference" by applying it at half-strength, but that's about it. Luckily, we've got a few more adjustable alternatives.

Film Emulation using Curves

While it's usually not as technically accurate as using a film emulation LUT, using curves adjustments can be useful for getting that "filmic" look.

Using only curves, let's see how we can grade the image to give it a more filmic look. I'll be working in Adobe Premiere Pro 2019, but this process can be applied using any NLE that has a curves tool.

First, let's apply a traditional S-Curve to each of the color channels, adjusting for slightly cool shadows and warm highlights. By adding a slight touch of green and blue to the bottom half of the curve, we can add a nice cool tone to the lower midtones and shadows of the image. The exact color of the shadows is completely up to your taste, but I would suggest aiming for something near teal-ish blue.

On top of the curve, adding a slight touch to the red curve while reducing blue adds a nice warm yellow-orange hue to the highlights. Next, we'll adjust the top of the Luma (or Y) curve to soften the highlights and raise the lowest point slightly to add a soft "matte" quality to the shadows.

On the Hue v Hue. curves, we'll adjust the hue of yellow to a warmer orange-tinted yellow, green to teal-green, and red to a warmer orange-tinted red.

Each of these curve adjustments are very slight, but when combined, they make a major difference. On the Hue v. Sat Curves, we'll adjust the saturation for each color to taste, somewhere around 75-90%. And on the Hue v. Luma curve, we're lowering the luminance (or perceived brightness) of many colors slightly, which makes them appear "deeper" and more vibrant without increasing saturation.

Next up, we'll utilize the Luma v. Sat curve to neutralize the deep shadows and bright highlights. By lowering the Luma v. Sat curve at both ends, we can obtain clean shadows and highlights. Of course, while we do want our highlights and shadows tinted to a degree, we still want the deepest shadows to be clean black and the specular highlights to be clean white.

Last but not least, we'll utilize the Sat v. Sat curve to reduce the saturation in the higher midtones to highlights, mirroring the color response of film which tends to hit its max saturation levels in the midtones and stays consistent all the way into the highlights.

In order to simulate the changes to grain and texture, we have to go beyond LUTs. Believably simulating the moving grain of celluloid film is far more than a color tweak, so we'll need to utilize real scanned 35mm film that we can overlay over our graded footage.

If you'd like to follow along, you can download free 1080p 35mm film grain here, thanks to HolyGrain. And if you'd like a bit more variety, I highly suggest the products from CineGrain, RGrain, Rampant Design Tools, and ShutterStock.

To apply the scanned film grain, all we need to do is drag the stock footage clip to a new track in your non-linear editor and set the blending mode to "Overlay". As most grain clips average a short duration (usually ~15 to 30 seconds), you'll have to copy/paste the grain clip until the end of your timeline sequence. While some applications, like DaVinci Resolve, offer a more streamlined approach to looping grain, this method will work universally in most NLEs.

If you want to emulate the texture of a film stock size smaller than 35mm, you'll need to make the grain larger and more pronounced by scaling it up and adding contrast. You may also consider adding a very slight blur to the image, to mimic the fact that smaller sized stocks aren't as sharp and detailed as larger stocks.

Pro Tip: Less is more with film grain. Use the opacity control until the grain appears natural, integrated and not sitting on top of the image.

This example shows the clip before and after the scanned film grain has been applied. Notice how the added grain influences the color, contrast, and sharpness of the image.

If you'd prefer to use a more streamlined, plug-in based approach instead of using LUTs and stock footage, you'll love this next part. Some color and finishing focused applications, such as Blackmagic DaVinci Resolve Studio, offer a full suite of effects for texture management, such as Film Grain, Film Damage, and Sharpen & Soften, while other needs some third-party assistance.

Luckily, the awesome teams at FilmConvert, KojiColor, ColourLab and Red Giant have created incredible plug-ins that make the emulation process more streamlined. Let's take a look at the recently released FilmConvert Nitrate, a complete revamp of their incredibly popular FilmConvert plug-in.

FilmConvert Nitrate

As you can see from the UI screenshot, the developers of FilmConvert listened to user feedback and now provide significant control over the look and feel of the grain simulation. Similar to the previous version, we can select from a wide variety of sizes, emulating stocks from 8mm all the way to 35mm, with control over the size, softness, strength, and saturation of the grain.

Most notably, in this new version, they've added a grain response plot (essentially a curve), which allows precise control over how much grain is applied to the shadows, midtones, and highlights with smooth transitions in between.

Also, unlike look-up tables, we have complete control over the film emulation luma and chroma with independent controls, allowing even finer customization of how the selected stock's contrast and contrast curve is applied to our image.

However, if we REALLY need a look-up table of the created look you designed in FilmConvert Nitrate, you can easily export a 3D LUT directly out of the plug-in, for use in another application or in-camera. While we could take the exported LUT and use that going forward (to speed up the final render), the plug-in previews and renders in real time, so it's not really an issue here.

Red Giant Magic Bullet Film

Aside from FilmConvert, we will also be taking a look at the Magic Bullet Film plug-in from the fine folks over at Red Giant. As is usual with Red Giant tools, this plug-ins offers a nice variety of controls, while also maintaining a level of ease and simplicity you'll find familiar if you've used other Red Giant products.

What's unique about their offering is Magic Bullet Film allow you to realistically simulate the photochemical development process in that you have independent control over which negative and print stocks to emulate, allowing for some very creative combinations.

As you can see below, I created a custom look using a Fujifilm Eterna negative printed back to Kodak 2383 print stock. While there are a lot of possibilities for unique looks, I can't say the same for the film grain emulation. Limited to a single "Grain" slider, you're able to specify the level of grain, but you have no additional control over that texture. It would have been nice to have a few more independent controls for the grain, such as size, softness and strength options, but it's not a dealbreaker.

Conclusion

If you've made it to the end of the article, you're officially a color scientist! Well, not really, but hopefully more well versed about film emulation and how you can successfully apply it to your next project. Whatever your chosen method of film emulation, go out and create something awesome!
Header photo credit Mark Todd Osborne, Senior Colorist/Founder of MTO Color

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How to Emulate the Look of Film in Any NLE

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Celluloid film, and the creation of motion pictures utilizing the photochemical process, has a highly specific and very nostalgic quality for many filmmakers, myself included. Even in the era of all-digital acquisition and production, getting that "film look" is still a top priority for many directors, DPs, and colorists.

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SW4 Session 16 - Discussion with editor Sarah Peczec

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SW4 Session 16 - Lecture Dialogue Editing+ Colour Looks 1

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SW4 Session 16 - Lecture Dialogue Editing+ Colour Looks 1

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Colour Looks 1 @21.30

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SW4 Session 16 - Lecture [Editors Directors] + Colour Looks 1

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SW4 Session 15 - Lecture [Building Sequences] + assignment comp 1 briefing

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SW4 Session 15 - Lecture [Building Sequences] + assignment comp 1 briefing

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[Building Sequences @ 4.00
Assignment briefing @1.20.00

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SW4 Session 15 - Lecture [Building Sequences] + assignment comp 1 briefing x

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Editing PracticaL Theory - Creating Sequences

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A great tool for researching imagery.

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SHOTDECK :: Fully Searchable High-Res Movie Images

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ShotDeck is an invaluable research and educational resource that makes life easier for anyone in Film, Media, Advertising, and Education.

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SW4 FT TVC Workflow exercise - colour grade DS walk and talk PART 2.mov

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SW4 FT TVC Workflow exercise - colour grade DS walk and talk PART 2.mov

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SW4 FT TVC Workflow exercise - colour grade DS walk and talk PART 1.mov

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SW4 FT TVC Workflow exercise - colour grade DS walk and talk PART 1.mov

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SW4 FT TVC Workflow exercise - colour grade DS walk and talk PART 1.mov

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SW4 Lecture Powerpoint - Editors and Directors

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SW4 Session 14 - Lecture [Editors+Directors] + Colour Grade on the FT TVC

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Web of Stories - Life Stories of Remarkable People

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Walter Murch - Both editors and directors feel their ways in darkness (245/320)

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What Is the Ideal Relationship Between an Editor and Director? Sundance 2015 Editors Weigh In

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Web of Stories - Life Stories of Remarkable People

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Walter Murch - The relationship between a director and an editor (244/320)

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Greenscreen keying, theory and background.

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Project files, footage and how to videos

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Green Screen Keying - My Go To Effects to Key Anything!

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Green Screen Keying - My Go To Effects to Key Anything!

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Green Screen Keying - My Go To Effects to Key Anything!

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Introduction to AFX + 2 further exercises. Tutorial videos inside the zip files.

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SW4 Session 11 - lecture recording/assignment brief part 1

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SW4 Session 11 - lecture recording/assignment brief part 1

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Download for a better viewing experience.

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SW4 Session 11 - lecture recording:assignment brief part 1.mov

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SW4 Componet 2 Assignment Assets - colour grade short film.

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SW4 Componet 2 Assignment Assets - colour grade short film.

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See SW4 session 10 recording for brief.

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Click and then select open in new window to stream or download.

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Click and then select open in new window to stream or download.

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HBO’s The Defiant Ones and the Trend of Editor As Writer

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HBO’s The Defiant Ones and the Trend of Editor As Writer

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Interview with Doug Pray and Lasse Järvi, editors who were also credited as writers on HBO’s hit documentary series “The Defiant Ones.”

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The editor of a film or television show shapes the very core and fabric of the program in so many ways. Nowhere is this more prevalent than in documentary filmmaking.

But did you know that as a documentary filmmaker, even if you're editing a documentary driven 100% by interviews and archival footage (i.e. there is no narration to script), you can lay a valid claim to the credit Writer?

The question of the actual "writer" credit can be, as with all credits in the Hollywood system, a bit political (Google the topic and you'll soon find out what I mean). But politics aside, how similar are the creative processes of the writer and editor on a documentary film? Strikingly similar, it turns out (albeit with a couple significant differences).

To find out exactly how an editor can also be writer, I interviewed Doug Pray and Lasse Järvi, the two main editors who were also credited as writers on HBO's hit documentary series "The Defiant Ones."

HBO has a reputation for creating groundbreaking programming on both the narrative fiction and documentary fronts. They've done it again with the "The Defiant Ones", the visionary brain child of Allen Hughes (co-director of "Book of Eli"), who in addition to directing the series, is also credited as a writer and executive producer. The series tells the parallel stories of how Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine came up through their respective careers to form a music empire that included Beats Music, which Apple eventually bought for $3 billion in 2014.

I've never seen a more revealing and raw documentary about the music industry with unprecedented access to literally the biggest rap, rock and pop stars on the planet. From Bruce Springsteen to Bono.; Lady GaGa to Sean "P. Diddy" Combs. Over a dozen living icons bore their souls to talk about the lives and careers of two equally iconic artists: Dre and Iovine.

A Reverse Writing Process

But how in the world do you go about culling through, organizing, and editing 35TB of 2-camera interviews, b-roll and archival footage? And how does that process essentially make you a writer?

Executive producer, co-editor, and co-writer of the series Doug Pray has long been a proponent of editing as writing, particularly in documentaries. I talked with him about this massive project that took about three years to complete.

"Documentaries are so much about editing." he told me. "Not to take away from the shooting. The editing is the writing in documentary films."

While most dramatic films start with a script, the documentary builds the script in the edit.

" It all sort of crystallizes at the end and not at the beginning. And therefore it's sort of a reverse writing process. When it's all done, you finally have your script and then the film is done."

Basically the "script" does not exist apart from the edit.

Controlling the Narrative

Doug's partner in crime in editing this magnum opus was Lasse Järvi. Lasse got connected with Doug when he was a student of Doug' s in 2001 when Doug taught his class on, you guessed it, "Documentary Editing as Writing." Doug was immediately impressed with Lasse's talent. After that, Lasse edited a number of doc shorts and features for Doug in the mid to late 2000s, and so he naturally brought him on for this project. Lasse Skyped with me from his current home in Finland.

I was curious to know how they came to be credited as writers. This was the first instance where I personally saw a doc project with no narration where someone was credited as a "writer." So I asked Lasse point blank, "What exactly is it that you all are writing? Are you writing the b-roll scenes?"

"We're not writing the individual words, but we're writing the structure, for the large part. The flow of information. And through that we can control the narrative. With any documentary, there are hundreds of different stories you can tell, depending on which topics you're interested in exploring. Then it really comes down to the individual choices. What is the most relevant perspective to our narrative."

The more Doug and Lasse described this process, the more I was buying into it.

Doug commented: "It's the ultimate creative act. You can go anywhere you want in a documentary. You can put together any images, and music and quotes and make it into what you need to make it tell the story."

Plotting the Story on Index Cards

On a narrative film, the writers (often with input from the director) plot out the story on index cards. In this case, the editors were the ones who carried out that process, and they did it after the film was shot.

But before starting that process, they need to know the ultimate direction of the film. Doug explained the beginning of the process.

"You have to have an overall outline, and that's where the index cards come. Overall, what is your director trying to say, and what's the basic goal of the film? In the case of Jimmy and Dre, they've had so many successes, that we knew in almost every scene we wanted to show how hard it was to get there, what the struggle was. Otherwise, what's the point?"

So Doug and Lasse begin combing the interviews to find story beats and key elements. Doug continues:

"It's like you're in a grocery store and you're going down the aisles and you're only pulling the things you know can possibly contribute to that scene. Then we take all those things, and lay them out, and we'll make index cards that are loose. And then on a table, we start linking things together. Maybe we have b-roll of storms and lightning, and over here we have dark quotes where some guy is talking about the death of his parents or something. Well, those might go together. So we put those cards together. And those cards might be language, dialog, or they could be verité scenes, documentary moments that actually happened in front of the camera. And then I approach those cards that are lumped together as a 'scene.'"

And it was here when Doug made a point that has been a common theme in so many of our interviews with A-list editors.

" One of the hardest things about editing is not putting things together, it's about omitting. In the end you're getting rid of 98% of what was shot. 98% of your time spent on a project is actually deciding, 'No, that's not necessary here. It's really an excellent shot, an excellent quote, an excellent something, but it's actually getting in the way of this other scene working that I'm trying to make right now.

You have to think and speak like a writer

"[When writing a screenplay], writers often have a process of using index cards, moving scenes around, analyzing what's missing from a character's development, and then trying to figure out 'Wait a minute, for this scene to work, we must know this information,' there's not one piece of language in those conversations, those story sessions, that doesn't happen verbatim in the editing room of a documentary. It's the exact same conversations. The only difference is that they have a typewriter and we have an Avid, and we're forced to use dialog that already exists."

Organization and "Writing" the Story in Avid Media Composer

You often hear drama editors say that watching all of the footage is very important, but it's even more important for the documentary editor to watch everything.

When watching the takes from a scene, the drama editor already knows pretty well what lines and beats are coming, and so he/she is watching for slight variations and subtle moments in between the lines.

For the documentary editor, however, there is no script...yet; and so a little moment or phrase might unlock an entirely new storyline.

"Let's say there's an hour-long interview. I go through the whole thing. And it can't be an assistant. It has to be me. I have to actually hear the whole interview and feel and be moved by certain quotes or see the joke or see the glint in somebody's eye if they're emotional about something."

Breaking down the "scenes"

Once they'd gone through the footage and organized their index cards, they began picking selects and organizing them into "islands". These are grouped clips that relate to similar themes. These islands will eventually form the basis for the edit. Doug explains.

"From that, I break up everything they're saying in the interview into what I call 'islands.' And so, an hour-long interview might have ten islands. One island might be all the quotes where he talks about his mother. Another might be quotes where he talks about how he got into the business. And they're not in order yet, but they're at least divided up."

Doug and Lasse will work this way, back and forth, each going through a scene, creating these islands, which practically speaking are just grouped together in a sequence. It's a long and tedious process, and is truly akin to the writing process of a traditional script. But it is absolutely crucial.

"Let's say I'm editing a 5-minute short and it takes me five days. Three of those five days are spent just organizing and structuring. Way more than 50% of the time I'm just organizing things. And it's really boring and tedious, and if anybody's sitting in my editing room they're just going nuts. And I am too. I just hate it.

"But I know that I can't get into the kind of open-minded, free editing without being hyper-organized. So that when I get an idea, I can say, 'Oh, you know what might work?' and within five seconds I can grab those four quotes, and they're totally ready to go and already trimmed down and ready for action.

"I always tell that to new editors that I'm supervising. They want to get to the glory right away. They want it to be sexy and fun and cool and all smooth and stylized, and I'm like 'You don't even know what quotes you're missing.' " Doug laughs.

As he says this, I can't help but think about editing as writing again. You have to have your "script" in place first. Doug continues.

"I like to use the metaphor: editing is like building a house, and too many editors want to start putting curtains in and literally the studs aren't even up! If I have a 3-hour interview, that's for sure a full day of organizing, if not two. "

This can now start to give you an idea of the painstakingly long process required to cull through, organize, and edit a 4+ hour docu series.

Where the F- Did You Come Up with That Idea!

A key talent of any writer is the ability to conceive of new ideas that breathe life into your film. For traditional writers, much of that comes in the screenwriting phase. For the documentary editor/writer, there is a unique opportunity to take what you're given in footage, and be just as creative with the manipulation of that footage. Doug commented that Lasse was a genius in that regard.

"Lasse is literally an artist, in the sense that, when he takes a scene, he doesn't take a scene and just fix it. If there's a scene that isn't working, I'll tend to get very academic about it. Like 'I need to fix this one quote, and I need to fix that transition, oh, and by the way, let's change the music. It's the music that's screwing it up.' Lasse will take a scene and his version of fixing it is more to go out into the 'field' with his 'canvas' and 'paint brushes' and he'll take it into some completely different stratosphere and bring it back and you're like 'Oh my god. Where the fuck did you come up with that idea?' He'll just put together two things that nobody would ever put together. He's highly experimental."

As I watched the doc, I recall several times when the camera would linger on an interviewee just staring, looking at the camera. Meanwhile, some voice-over either by or about that person is happening. Something profound or poignant. It was actually quite beautiful. To my pleasant surprise, Doug began to explain the origin of this technique without me even having to ask.

"One of the things Lasse did on this project was invent, or at least further, some really fresh and different documentary editing styles and techniques. We named this one kind of edit the "Empathy Cut," where you take footage of somebody who's deep in thought or listening or just about to answer a question, but they're not actually talking. We do that throughout the film. I've certainly used off-camera moments in my documentaries, and I've seen other films where they rely on voice over, and during the voice over, you'll maybe see the same character not talking. We certainly didn't invent that. But Lasse took the idea so much further. It became a whole new meaningful layer of picture over the narrative."

Doug described the scenes in question, where there's a person who is talking on camera, then they pause. As they are paused, not talking, we hear another quote from that same person in voice over-something they said in another part of the interview. So it almost appears as if they're thinking about it and we hear their thoughts. Doug was ecstatic when he first saw this.

"Lasse sprung that on me three or four times in the first year and I was like, 'That is amazing!' "

HBO Collaboration in the "Writer's" Room

When I hear about this editing as writing process, I can't help but think about the metaphor of a television show's writers' room. You have a show runner with an overall vision for the show, and the writers make it happen. In this analogy, Director Allen Hughes is like the showrunner and Doug and Lasse are the writers-as well as their assistant and co-editors Philip Owens and Eric Alexander-Hughes (Allen's son). And like any television show, those writers also have to work with a network.

Lasse concurs. "Working with HBO was the greatest thing. And that's what I've always heard. They give a lot of freedom to the filmmakers. Freedom for the project to be what it needs to be. Once we demonstrated to them, what can be done with it when given the space and the time, they were always on board."

Doug made a point to say that it wasn't always roses. Naturally, there were some challenging times. Not the least of which was convincing HBO to let this go from a 90 minute special shot and edited in six months, to a 4-part mini-series that took over 3 years and included: a full time archivist and researcher; over 3,000 clips that needed to be licensed; and per an interview I heard with Allen Hughes himself, the largest music licensing budget in HBO's history.

But Allen was a bold and determined "showrunner" who fought hard for his vision. Doug laughed and commented, "It was not surprising to me that Allen Hughes directed a project with the word 'defiant' in the title." Doug has a long history with Allen, dating back to when he edited the 1999 doc "American Pimp" (co-directed with Allen's twin brother Albert Hughes.) So he knows of what he speaks.

But another part of Allen's boldness was to empower his "writers" to take this film to creative heights. Doug commented on how there was a meta aspect of editing project. There wasn't a scene they worked on that didn't in some way relate to the creative process of the project itself.

There's a scene in the series when Iovine says "When working with a genius, you give them the keys to the car and let them drive." Allen was to Doug and Lasse what Iovine was to artists like Trent Reznor and Dr. Dre.

Giving Credit Where Credit's Due

At the end of the day, this idea of editor as also writer on a documentary is about recognizing art, passion, and creativity. It's about looking at the work of artists who are in essence doing what another artist does, and acknowledging that. And it isn't always the editor. Doug explains.

"Sometimes a documentary director will take a writing credit. The term written by as it applies to documentaries, over the past decade, has only begun to be accepted. When it was first tried, writers understandably were offended. But as you get involved in documentaries and you realize how many hundreds and hundreds of hours you spend moving scenes around and structuring the narrative, you really want to apply that to something. When I first started, no one used the term written by in docs. Even I thought that was inappropriate.

"The Sundance Film Festival has always given a writing award for dramatic films, but now they are giving out special awards for documentary editing, and even documentary writing, and that recognition really means a lot to me. Films are written. Period-whether fiction or non-fiction."

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HBO's The Defiant Ones and the Trend of Editor As Writer

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The editor of a film or television show shapes the very core and fabric of the program in so many ways. Nowhere is this more prevalent than in documentary filmmaking. But did you know that as a documentary filmmaker, even if you're editing a documentary driven 100% by interviews and archival footage (i.e.

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Director Allen Hughes ("Menace II Society") traces the rise of music moguls Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine and chronicles their groundbreaking partnership.

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How to use the Resolve Tracker [and how to fix bad tracker results]

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How to use the Resolve Tracker [and how to fix bad tracker results]

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Good tutorial by Darren Mostyn. Check out his other videos on his channel - Resolve Killer Tips.

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How to get good tracking in Resolve - HOW TO FIX BAD TRACKING!

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In due course you will be able to register for a licence through LBU.

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Video Editing Software - Media Composer - Avid

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Work the way you want to work, with a modern interface that makes editing easier and more fluid. Task-oriented workspaces-Edit, Color, Audio, and Effects-provide just the tools you need. You can even resize, rearrange, and hide panels.

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Ex student - now a prime time documentary editor.

https://www.imdb.com/name/nm3582246/

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Race Across The World Series 2
BBC2/ Studio Lambert

Ambulance Series 6
BBC1/ Dragonfly

The Claim episode 2
BBC2/ Two Four/ 6x60

Britain's Youngest Football Boss episode 9
BBC3/ Curious Films/ 10x20

Misadventures of Romesh Ranganathan Series 2
BBC1/ Rumpus Media/ 5x60

Race Across The World: Series 1 BBC2/ Studio Lambert/ 6x60

Celebrity Hunted: Series 2
Channel 4/ Shine tv/ 5x60

Alone at Home
Channel 4/ Electric Ray/ 4x60

How the other Kids Live: episode 1
Channel 4/ Firecracker Films/ 3X60

Bride and Prejudice
Channel 4/ 7 Wonder/ 4x60

The Real Marigold Hotel: Series 3
BBC1/ Two Four/ 4x60

Child Genius Vs Celebrities Christmas Special
Channel 4/ Wall To Wall/ 1x60

The Real Marigold On Tour: Series 2
BBC1/ Two Four/ 4x60

Annie: Out of The Ashes
BBC3/ BBC1/ October Films/ 1x50

The Real Marigold On Tour: Series 1
BBC2/ Two Four/ 2x60

Back In Time For The Weekend
BBC2 / Wall To Wall/ 5x60

Back In Time For Christmas
BBC2 / Wall To Wall / 2x60

The Queen's Country
BBC1/ 5x60

Child Genius Series 5
Channel 4 / Wall To Wall/ 6x60

Child Genius Series 4
Channel 4 / Wall To Wall/ 4x60

Bus Pass Beauty Queens
Channel 5 / Wall To Wall/ 1x60

Urbex - Enter At Your Own Risk
Red Bull TV / Keo Films/ 8x45

My Big Fat Gypsy Fortune
Channel 4 / Firecracker Films / 1x60

My Sex Life & Everyone Else's
MTV International / Firecracker Films / 1x60

2,000 Tattoos, 40 Piercings & A Pickled Ear
Channel 5 / Firecracker Films / 1x60

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Broadcast credits The Real Marigold Hotel: Series 3 BBC1/ Two Four/ 4x60 Child Genius Celebrities Vs Christmas Special Channel 4/ Wall To Wall/ 1x60 The Real Marigold On Tour: Series 2 BBC1/ Two Four/ 4x60 Annie: Out of The Ashes BBC3/ BBC1/ October Films The Real Marigold On Tour: Series

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All video and audio assets for todays session.

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SW4 Bonus Episode Adding a Rainbow to shot 13

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SW4 Bonus Episode Adding a Rainbow to shot 13

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SW4 Bonus Episode Adding a Rainbow to shot 13.mov

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If the node structure I showed you is not in your project. Download and unzip attached. Right click in the gallery and select import. Navigate to the unzipped folder and select the .dpx file. You should be good to go.

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DaVinci Resolve 15 - The Art of Color Grading

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DaVinci Resolve 15 - The Art of Color Grading

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Exploring secondary color correction techniques

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Exploring secondary color correction techniques

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Course details

Do you want to make your video footage look more vibrant, more accurate, or better fit the mood and themes of your project? Color correction helps you accomplish all these goals and more. In this introductory course, staff author Ashley Kennedy explains the concepts behind color correction and color grading, and guides editors through the process of correcting contrast, color balance, and hue/saturation. She also discusses how to enhance and stylize footage, and provides a "cookbook" of solutions for the most common color-correction problems that editors encounter. The course focuses on using the toolset in Adobe Premiere Pro, but also addresses workflows in other software programs (Avid Media Composer and Final Cut Pro X).

Instructor

Ashley Kennedy

Managing Staff Instructor, Business and Creative Libraries at LinkedIn

Ashley Kennedy is a managing staff instructor at LinkedIn Learning.

In her current role, Ashley leads a talented team of staff instructors in the Creative and Business libraries. She also creates courses for the LinkedIn Learning library on the subjects of video editing, filmmaking, and various business topics. In addition to more than a decade of creating online courses for Lynda.com/LinkedIn Learning, Ashley has deep experience leading face-to-face classes and large-scale trainings-as a freelance instructor, and previously at Columbia College Chicago and Avid Technology. She's also written two successful textbooks on video editing. Ashley holds a BS in broadcast journalism from the University of Illinois, and an MFA in film from Boston University.

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Exploring secondary color correction techniques - Introduction to Video Color Correction Video Tutorial | LinkedIn Learning, formerly Lynda.com

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Do you want to make your video footage look more vibrant, more accurate, or better fit the mood and themes of your project? Color correction helps you accomplish all these goals and more. In this introductory course, staff author Ashley Kennedy explains the concepts behind color correction and color grading, and guides editors through the process of correcting contrast, color balance, and hue/saturation.

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Original .r3d files used in todays exercises.

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Javascript is disabled on your browser.
To view this site, you must enable JavaScript or upgrade to a JavaScript-capable browser.

LEGAL DISCLAIMER: All footage is provided "as is". Use of the footage is for internal testing purposes only, and may not be used for any other purposes, whether commercial or non-commercial. RED retains all copyrights in the footage.

Footage from the EPIC-W 5K S35, WEAPON 8K S35 and WEAPON 8K VV are shot on the same sensors found in DSMC2 GEMINI, DSMC2 HELIUM and DSMC2 MONSTRO respectively.

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5K FF (5120 x 2700)

24 fps

REDCODE 5:1

Standard Mode

DSMC2 Standard OLPF

GEMINI 5K S35
5K FF (5120 x 2700)

24 fps

REDCODE 5:1

Low Light Mode

DSMC2 Standard OLPF

GEMINI 5K S35
5K 1.7:1 (5120 x 3000)

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REDCODE 5:1

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DSMC2 Standard OLPF

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Javascript is disabled on your browser. To view this site, you must enable JavaScript or upgrade to a JavaScript-capable browser. LEGAL DISCLAIMER: All footage is provided "as is". Use of the footage is for internal testing purposes only, and may not be used for any other purposes, whether commercial or non-commercial.

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Just a little survey to gauge you reaction to the sessions as we are up and running. I know that the situation is not ideal but if there are any suggestions that I can implement to make it better for you I am more than happy to adjust the way sessions are structured. So please respond to this anonymous survey.

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Please install this Chrome extension - send real-time reactions during meetings on Google Meet.

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Please install this Chrome extension. - to show a notifications for when someone uses the chat so you don’t need the chat window open and can stay full screen.

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SW4 Session 5 Disunity Sequence Part 1 Matching Shots

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SW4 Session 5 Disunity Sequence Part 1 Matching Shots

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SW4 Session 5 Disunity Sequence Part 1  Matching Shots

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SW4 Session 5 Wyoming Sequence Part 2. Matching Shots

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SW4 Session 5 Wyoming Sequence Part 2. Matching Shots

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SW4 Session 5 Wyoming Sequence Part 2. Matching Shots

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Download  files separately to avoid GDrive pain.

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How to use resolve SCOPES - In-depth with a Pro Colourist

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How to use resolve SCOPES - In-depth with a Pro Colourist

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How to use resolve SCOPES - In-depth with a Pro Colourist

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STILLS - (Top Tips from a Pro). Killer Tips DaVinci Resolve

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STILLS - (Top Tips from a Pro). Killer Tips DaVinci Resolve

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STILLS in DaVinci Resolve - (Top Tips from a Pro).

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DaVinci Resolve 12 Essential Training Shot match workflow: Matching exposure

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DaVinci Resolve 12 Essential Training Shot match workflow: Matching exposure

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Shot match workflow: Matching exposure - DaVinci Resolve Video Tutorial | LinkedIn Learning, formerly Lynda.com

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For over a decade, DaVinci Resolve has been the go-to tool for colorists working on Hollywood films, commercials, and professional corporate video. Now it's available to anyone on a Mac or PC. The latest version, DaVinci Resolve 12, combines its high-end color grading tools with a full-featured nonlinear video-editing environment.

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DaVinci Resolve 12 Essential Training Shot match workflow: Matching color

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DaVinci Resolve 12 Essential Training Shot match workflow: Matching color

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Course details

For over a decade, DaVinci Resolve has been the go-to tool for colorists working on Hollywood films, commercials, and professional corporate video. Now it's available to anyone on a Mac or PC. The latest version, DaVinci Resolve 12, combines its high-end color grading tools with a full-featured nonlinear video-editing environment. You can edit, color correct, color grade, and render a video project without ever leaving the program.

In these tutorials, professional colorist Patrick Inhofer guides viewers through the basics of using DaVinci Resolve 12. Get a look over Patrick's shoulder as he touches on key features in Resolve, while introducing the lingo every colorist needs to understand the program and the workflow. He shows how to import footage, keep it all organized, edit clips in the timeline, and start color grading your project: applying primary and secondary corrections, vignettes, looks, and Power Windows. He also shows how to target corrections with shapes and keys, match shots, and create "hero shots" to jump-start discussions with directors, clients, and colleagues.

Most of the tutorials are compatible with both DaVinci Resolve and DaVinci Resolve Studio, the paid version of the software. If you have already watched DaVinci Resolve 11 Essential Training, check out "What's New in DaVinci Resolve 12" to brush up on the updates, as well as the new chapter on DaVinci 12.5.

Instructor

Patrick Inhofer

Digital Colorist | Evangelist

Patrick Inhofer is a professional colorist and owner of Fini.tv.A 20+ year post veteran, his experience working at New York City post houses is delivered to low- and mid budget productions. He works on films, documentaries, television series, and corporate videos-and graded for directors Barry Levinson, Bruce Sinofsky, and Dorothy Lyman. Patrick founded the color grading website TaoOfColor.com, publishing a free industry newsletter, The Tao Colorist. In 2012 he cofounded MixingLight.com. Patrick is an adjunct professor at Hofstra University, teaching color correction. He contributed to the book Color Grading with Avid Media Composer and Symphony 6.

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13,427 people watched this course

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Shot match workflow: Matching color - DaVinci Resolve Video Tutorial | LinkedIn Learning, formerly Lynda.com

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
For over a decade, DaVinci Resolve has been the go-to tool for colorists working on Hollywood films, commercials, and professional corporate video. Now it's available to anyone on a Mac or PC. The latest version, DaVinci Resolve 12, combines its high-end color grading tools with a full-featured nonlinear video-editing environment.

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DaVinci Resolve 12 Essential Training Overview: The Gallery

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DaVinci Resolve 12 Essential Training Overview: The Gallery

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Course details

For over a decade, DaVinci Resolve has been the go-to tool for colorists working on Hollywood films, commercials, and professional corporate video. Now it's available to anyone on a Mac or PC. The latest version, DaVinci Resolve 12, combines its high-end color grading tools with a full-featured nonlinear video-editing environment. You can edit, color correct, color grade, and render a video project without ever leaving the program.

In these tutorials, professional colorist Patrick Inhofer guides viewers through the basics of using DaVinci Resolve 12. Get a look over Patrick's shoulder as he touches on key features in Resolve, while introducing the lingo every colorist needs to understand the program and the workflow. He shows how to import footage, keep it all organized, edit clips in the timeline, and start color grading your project: applying primary and secondary corrections, vignettes, looks, and Power Windows. He also shows how to target corrections with shapes and keys, match shots, and create "hero shots" to jump-start discussions with directors, clients, and colleagues.

Most of the tutorials are compatible with both DaVinci Resolve and DaVinci Resolve Studio, the paid version of the software. If you have already watched DaVinci Resolve 11 Essential Training, check out "What's New in DaVinci Resolve 12" to brush up on the updates, as well as the new chapter on DaVinci 12.5.

Instructor

Patrick Inhofer

Digital Colorist | Evangelist

Patrick Inhofer is a professional colorist and owner of Fini.tv.A 20+ year post veteran, his experience working at New York City post houses is delivered to low- and mid budget productions. He works on films, documentaries, television series, and corporate videos-and graded for directors Barry Levinson, Bruce Sinofsky, and Dorothy Lyman. Patrick founded the color grading website TaoOfColor.com, publishing a free industry newsletter, The Tao Colorist. In 2012 he cofounded MixingLight.com. Patrick is an adjunct professor at Hofstra University, teaching color correction. He contributed to the book Color Grading with Avid Media Composer and Symphony 6.

See more See less

Skills covered in this course

Viewers of this course

13,427 people watched this course

Related courses

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Overview: The Gallery - DaVinci Resolve Video Tutorial | LinkedIn Learning, formerly Lynda.com

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For over a decade, DaVinci Resolve has been the go-to tool for colorists working on Hollywood films, commercials, and professional corporate video. Now it's available to anyone on a Mac or PC. The latest version, DaVinci Resolve 12, combines its high-end color grading tools with a full-featured nonlinear video-editing environment.

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DaVinci Resolve 12 Essential Training Gallery: The Reference Wipe

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DaVinci Resolve 12 Essential Training Gallery: The Reference Wipe

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Course details

For over a decade, DaVinci Resolve has been the go-to tool for colorists working on Hollywood films, commercials, and professional corporate video. Now it's available to anyone on a Mac or PC. The latest version, DaVinci Resolve 12, combines its high-end color grading tools with a full-featured nonlinear video-editing environment. You can edit, color correct, color grade, and render a video project without ever leaving the program.

In these tutorials, professional colorist Patrick Inhofer guides viewers through the basics of using DaVinci Resolve 12. Get a look over Patrick's shoulder as he touches on key features in Resolve, while introducing the lingo every colorist needs to understand the program and the workflow. He shows how to import footage, keep it all organized, edit clips in the timeline, and start color grading your project: applying primary and secondary corrections, vignettes, looks, and Power Windows. He also shows how to target corrections with shapes and keys, match shots, and create "hero shots" to jump-start discussions with directors, clients, and colleagues.

Most of the tutorials are compatible with both DaVinci Resolve and DaVinci Resolve Studio, the paid version of the software. If you have already watched DaVinci Resolve 11 Essential Training, check out "What's New in DaVinci Resolve 12" to brush up on the updates, as well as the new chapter on DaVinci 12.5.

Instructor

Patrick Inhofer

Digital Colorist | Evangelist

Patrick Inhofer is a professional colorist and owner of Fini.tv.A 20+ year post veteran, his experience working at New York City post houses is delivered to low- and mid budget productions. He works on films, documentaries, television series, and corporate videos-and graded for directors Barry Levinson, Bruce Sinofsky, and Dorothy Lyman. Patrick founded the color grading website TaoOfColor.com, publishing a free industry newsletter, The Tao Colorist. In 2012 he cofounded MixingLight.com. Patrick is an adjunct professor at Hofstra University, teaching color correction. He contributed to the book Color Grading with Avid Media Composer and Symphony 6.

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Gallery: The Reference Wipe - DaVinci Resolve Video Tutorial | LinkedIn Learning, formerly Lynda.com

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For over a decade, DaVinci Resolve has been the go-to tool for colorists working on Hollywood films, commercials, and professional corporate video. Now it's available to anyone on a Mac or PC. The latest version, DaVinci Resolve 12, combines its high-end color grading tools with a full-featured nonlinear video-editing environment.

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All video and audio assets for our teaching sessions.

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Solutions to Resolve 5: Taming Color Management – Part 1

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Solutions to Resolve 5: Taming Color Management – Part 1

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Color management in Resolve can be frustrating. In theory it should be a great alternative to using LUTs, but in practice it can produce surprising results with the blacks lifted and the whites going through the roof. Here's an example of a Log encoded Arri Alexa clip:

You can manually correct this, of course, but it's complicated and takes time, and time is a luxury for a colorist. When you're grading several hundred clips a day, you want a decent image "out of the box" so you can get on with the creative work.

These two articles are about getting Resolve's Color Management to work as efficiently as LUTs. In the second article, I'll be proposing two methods to do this, each with slightly different results. But for either method to work you need to get Color Management set up correctly, so that's what this first article is about.

Don't be put off by the length of the article, by the way. There's nothing complicated about using Color Management. On the contrary, it's dead simple, as you'll see if you skip to the "To sum up" section at the end. But to get the most out of it, there's a lot to explain!

The basics of color space, LUTs and color management

There's neither the time nor the space in this article to explain color spaces in any depth, but here's a very brief summary of what we're trying to deal with.

Color Management is all about converting from one color space to another. A camera's color space is the range of colors and contrasts its sensor can capture (see the footnote at the end of this article for a fuller explanation). Consumer cameras have a small color space, high-end cameras have a much larger one. Camera sensors differ from one manufacturer to another and the technology improves all the time, so there are a bewildering number of camera color spaces around.

The color space of a display (TV screen, monitor, cinema projector, etc.) is the range of colors and contrasts the display can reproduce. Unlike cameras, where the unique capabilities of a sensor are a selling point, display color spaces are defined by international standards. The standard color space for broadcast television is known as Rec709 2.4, and for cinema projection it's P3-DCI.

When the camera color space and the display color space are the same, nothing needs to be converted. That's the case for most cameras, including smartphones, DSLRs and even some professional models. They all record in Rec709 2.4 color space, so they don't need to be color managed.

The problem is that the color spaces of high-end cameras are larger than both Rec709 2.4 and P3-DCI. Recording in a small color space would limit their performance. The solution to that is Log encoding, essentially a method of conserving the full range of a camera's color space for both contrasts and color. The Log footage then needs to be converted in one way or another to the display color space, either by Look Up Tables (LUTs) or by Color Management.

LUTs are versatile and easy to use, but using a table with a limited number of input and output values to convert a large color space to a small one is like pushing the signal through a grid. A lot of information in the original signal gets rounded off or clipped.

Color Management uses math equations rather than tables to do the conversion, so the full, original signal remains available throughout the grade.

Color Management in Resolve

Color Management is applied to the entire project, so it needs to be activated in the Project Settings.

To do this, go to Project Settings > Color Management, and change the Color Science drop-down menu to DaVinci YRGB Color Managed. The Input, Timeline and Output settings all then become active. Each one has a drop-down menu with a list of color spaces to choose from.
Setting the Input color space
The Input color space is the camera color space, the color space your footage was filmed in. In previous versions of Resolve, you would usually change the setting here to the color space of your source clips. All clips in the Media Pool were assigned by default to the Project input color space, so whatever you chose here would automatically be applied to them.

In Resolve 15, there's been a major change: clips imported to the Media Pool are assigned by default to Rec709 2.4, so the Project color space doesn't automatically apply to them. You have to manually assign the color space for each clip. That means there's not much point in changing the Input color space in Project Settings, you can leave it at the default Rec709 2.4.

To manually assign a color space to a clip, right-click on the clip either in the Media Pool or in the Color page timeline and choose the appropriate setting in Input Color Space (this option only appears in the contextual menu when Color Management has been activated in the Project Settings).

The process may sound laborious, but in practice it's not. You can select any number of clips and change the Input Color Space for them all at the same time. If you have sources from different cameras, you can probably separate them out using Smart Bins based on the codecs. For any clips that are natively Rec709 2.4 (usually any clips that aren't Log) you don't need to do anything, they're already assigned to the correct color space.

While you're grading, this should correspond to the color space of your display. That's true whatever kind of project you're working on and whatever display you're using, be it a monitor calibrated for Rec709 2.4, a cinema projector working in P3-DCI, or an iMac (usually sRGB color space). That way, you can actually see what you're doing.
Setting the Output color space
If you decide to switch to a different display in the middle of your grade - you may have done some initial work on an iMac, moved to a professional Rec709 2.4 suite, then want to see what the grade looks like on a P3-DCI projector - change the Output color space each time to match the new display. Resolve's Color Management will take care of the necessary conversions, and the grade should look the same on each of the displays. That's the beauty of Color Management, and one of the main advantages of using it.

Similarly, once you've finished your grade you can change the Output to deliver to different standards. For example, if you've graded in Rec709 2.4 for broadcast TV and want to export a version for the web you can switch the Output color space to Rec709 2.2 or to sRGB.

The Output color space is also the color space of your scopes, so the signal on the scopes will change when you select a different output. This is normal behavior and nothing to worry about!

This is Resolve's working color space, and I've left it till last because it's a strange beast, very different from the other two.
Setting the Timeline color space
If you haven't done any grading, it's transparent. You can change the Timeline color space as much as you like, nothing will change in the picture. It only kicks in when you start grading.

While you're grading, the Timeline color space affects everything you do. It defines the range of colors and contrasts you work with, and it's the reference color space for all your controls. Any changes you make to gain, contrast, saturation, etc. are made in relation to that color space.

If the idea of a reference color space sounds obscure, think of it this way: When you adjust a control like Lift from 0.00 to 0.05, those numbers need to refer to something if they're to make any sense. To draw an analogy, imagine opening a spreadsheet with numbers on it but no mention of whether these numbers are yens, dollars or euros. You need to know which currency the numbers refer to to know how much they're worth. And switching from one reference to another - dollars to yens, for example - would change the amount considerably!

Similarly in Resolve, when you adjust a control, the reference for the numbers is the Timeline color space. If you change the color space the same numbers will give a different result.

Here's an example with some Log footage. The two images below have exactly the same correction applied to them: Gain reduced to 0.40. To the left, the Timeline color space is Rec 709 2.4. To the right it's been changed to Rec 709 (Scene), which has a lighter gamma of about 1.9. The grade is the same but the result is very different.

The crucial point to take away from this is that you must never change the Timeline color space once you've started grading. If you do, it will alter every single grade you've made.

It also means that the Timeline color space will influence the way your grading controls behave and feel. You may have to push a contrast or adjust a color balance differently to achieve the same result in another color space.

So which Timeline color space should you choose? The obvious answer is to set it to the color space you're delivering to: Rec709 2.4 for broadcast TV or P3-DCI for cinema.

Those two color spaces are interesting to compare as choices for a Timeline color space because they don't have the same white point. The white point is the starting point for any changes you make to color, so if you grade in one of the two color spaces and then switch to the other, you'll see a shift in the hues. This will be more or less pronounced depending on the amount and type of changes you've made to the grade.

Resolve's default color space

Resolve needs a color space to function, even when Color Management is turned off. All media has a color space of some sort, the Timeline controls need a reference, the Output color space has to be something. Resolve's default color space when Color Management off is Rec709 2.4 for everything: Input, Timeline and Output. That's also what's assigned by default to all three when you turn Color Management on. It's also the default for all imported media in version 15.

That means that Color Management is "transparent" when you first turn it on. It won't alter anything you've done so far. You can activate it at any time to use the Output color space for a new display or to export to different versions. You can also activate it and assign an input color space to just a few clips. Mix and match as you wish, with some clips color managed and others using LUTs.

To sum up

After the detailed explanations, here's a summary of the standard set-up:

In Project Settings > Color Management, switch Color Science to DaVinci YRGB Color Managed

Leave Input color space set to Rec709 2.4, set the Timeline to Rec709 2.4 for broadcast TV or to P3-DCI for cinema, and the Output to the color space of your calibrated display. Save settings.

In the Media Pool, select all clips with the same color space, right click and assign the correct color space in Input Color Space. Repeat for clips with a different color spaces. Do nothing for clips with native Rec709 2.4 color space (the usual standard for any clips that aren't Log).

And that's it. Well almost. The result you get is the one shown at the beginning of this article. It doesn't always look good "out of the box", so that's what we need to fix next and the subject of the second article. It's surprisingly easy, by the way!

My explanation of color spaces in this article uses the terms "colors" and "contrasts" to simplify things. By "range of colors", what I mean is the range of hues and saturations, also known as gamut. By "range of contrasts" I mean the range of light from shadows to highlights that a camera can capture without over or underexposing (a.k.a. Dynamic Range) as well as the type of contrast applied to it. In color management, this is generally referred to as gamma.

Color space is both gamut and gamma, but whenever Resolve separates the two with individual controls for each one, it labels them "color space" and "gamma" respectively. So in these cases, "color space" means gamut only. This is fairly common practice, by the way. A lot of articles and tutorials use the term "color space" to mean gamut only and treat gamma as something different.

Other articles in the series Solutions to Resolve:
A footnote to clarify technical terms for color spaces
Support ProVideo Coalition
A French version of this article can be found on the author's website, www.pixelupdate.com at the following link: http://www.pixelupdate.com/color_management_1/

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Solutions to Resolve 5: Taming Color Management - Part 1 by David Hover - ProVideo Coalition

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Color management in Resolve can be frustrating. In theory it should be a great alternative to using LUTs, but in practice it can produce surprising results with the blacks lifted and the whites going through the roof. Here's an example of a Log encoded Arri Alexa clip: You can manually correct this, of course, but [...]

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Solutions to Resolve 5: Taming Color Management – Part 2

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Solutions to Resolve 5: Taming Color Management – Part 2

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To pick things up from where we left them at the end of the previous article ( Taming Color Management - Part 1) here's the problem we need to resolve: even with Color Management correctly set up, the results "out of the box" rarely look as good as they do with the equivalent camera LUT. Here's an example of Log footage from an Arri Alexa camera.

The blown out whites and lifted blacks in the color-managed image are not in fact a mistake. Color Management is doing its job. It's designed to do what's called a Color Space Transform. "Transforming" doesn't mean reducing or adapting a large color space to fit inside a small one, it means matching up whatever's equivalent. Anything that's not equivalent, anything that falls outside the limits of the destination color space, is out of range.

In the example above, the highlights captured by Arri Alexa camera go well beyond the limits of the display color space, Rec709 2.4, so they get blown out. They're not clipped - color management doesn't clip anything - but you have to adjust them yourself.

Camera LUTs like the one supplied by Arri don't just transform the color space, they also reduce and adapt it. It's called mapping. The camera color space is remapped to fit inside the display color space. Anything that's out of range is compressed down and some of the in-range signal is compressed as well to make space for it. (Not all camera LUTs do this, by the way. The standard Blackmagic camera LUTs transform but they don't map.)

For Color Management to produce similar results, it needs to be able to map as well. Starting with version 14, DaVinci Resolve has provided several tools to do exactly that.

Method 1 - Gamut Mapping OFX

The first method uses an OFX called Gamut Mapping. Despite its name, the OFX provides controls not only for out-of-range saturation ("Gamut Mapping") but also for luminance ("Tone Mapping"). The "Gamma" option lets you choose the color space you want to map the luminance to.

Once you've applied the OFX to a node, under Tone Mapping Method choose Simple, and ... that's it! No more blown out highlights. That's all you have to do. Well, almost. The blacks are still too high, but that can be cured by changing the Gamma option to Use Timeline. And while you're here, it's a good idea to activate Saturation Compression in Gamut Mapping Method to control any out-of-range saturation as well.

So what's happening here? The Simple option in Tone Mapping is essentially a contrast curve with an S shape, so it compresses both highlights and shadows. It's designed, like the Arri LUT, to remap a large color space into a small one.

This contrast curve means that working with the OFX is similar to working with a LUT. Changes to the way the highlights and shadows are compressed should happen before the OFX, normal grading can proceed after it. But unlike LUTs, which are applied as the last operation inside a node, OFX are applied as the first operation, so you have to add a node upstream of the OFX node if you want to tweak the signal feeding into it.

Once you've set up the OFX, you can save the grade and copy it to all Log clips in your sequence, whatever the camera (Sony, Blackmagic, Arri, Canon, RED, Panasonic, etc.). You don't need to readjust the settings each time: one size fits all. That's because the Color Space Transform for each type of camera is managed by the Input color space you've assigned to the footage, as explained in the previous article ( Taming Color Management - Part 1). All you're doing with the Gamut Mapping OFX is to add mapping for anything out of range. You may find footage that doesn't use the whole tonal range a bit dark, but in that case, just correct the Gain.

If you want more customized control of mapping for certain clips, you can switch the Tone Mapping Method to Luminance Mapping and adjust the Max Input Luminance level. Be aware that you're setting a maximum input level here, so it will clip anything you leave out of range. Method 2 - Color Space Transform OFX

This method uses another OFX that also contains mapping controls: the Color Space Transform OFX. You can use it just to map the signal, but in that case the results are not quite the same or as efficient as the Gamut Mapping OFX. Where the Color Space Transform OFX shines is when you use it as a stand-alone to do everything, not just mapping.

Using it as a stand-alone means that you don't assign an Input Color Space to footage with the right-click contextual menu for clips in the Media Pool or in the Color page. Leave all your footage at the default Rec709 2.4.

The Input Color Space is assigned inside the Color Space Transform OFX itself. You have to assign both "Color Space" (this is in fact gamut - see the footnote in Part 1 for an explanation) and Gamma. Leave Output Color Space and Gamma on Use Timeline, the default setting.

Change the Tone Mapping Method to Simple and activate Saturation Mapping, and you're good to go. In terms of workflow, everything is exactly the same as for Method 1, just remember to change the Input Color Space and Input Gamma when you copy the node to clips from a different camera.

With this stand-alone approach, you don't even have to activate Color Management in the Project Settings. The OFX will work fine by itself. You only need to activate Color Management if you're not working in Resolve's default Rec709 2.4 color space or want to deliver to a different color space. If, for whatever reason, you decide to activate Color Management after you've started grading, just remember not to change the Timeline Color Space from its default Rec709 2.4 (See Taming Color Management - Part 1 for an explanation of all this).

Tone and Gamut mapping in the Project Settings

The Project Settings for Color Management also offer mapping tools. They don't produce exactly the same results as the two methods above, but they're interesting for an editor because they affect all footage in the project. Clips in the Media Pool will be acceptably mapped, even if they're not perfectly mapped, and you won't have to add an OFX every time you add a clip to the timeline.

If you want to use Tone Mapping in the Project Settings, you'll need to experiment with the various options. They won't work in quite the same way as they do with the OFX. For example, the Simple option depends on the Max Timeline Luminance level. A good starting point for Log footage would be to set this somewhere between 300 and 500 nits and then switch back to Simple. You should also be aware that Tone Mapping in the Project Settings will affect all your footage, including clips that are natively Rec709 2.4.

Avery Peck has made a good video tutorial about a Project based approach to Color Management on YouTube:

Legalizing saturation

Here's a final tip given to me by colorist Donovan Bush.

The Saturation Mapping function in the Gamut Mapping OFX is invaluable for any project, not just ones that are color managed. It's takes saturation that exceeds the range of your color space and compresses it down until it's in range. In other words, it "legalizes" the saturation, compressing the peaks so that they fit into broadcast Rec709 2.4's limits (or whatever your Output color space is).

This is essential for any grading, not just for Log footage, and I systematically add it as a Timeline node so that it acts on all the clips in the sequence I'm grading. Just add and activate it, that's all you need to do. The OFX has controls for a maximum level as well as a knee (the point at which the compression begins) but in my experience the default levels don't need to be touched.

This doesn't mean you no longer have to watch out for illegal saturation - you can still oversaturate, it's a compressor not a limiter - but the OFX does 95% of the work for you with smoother and cleaner compression than you get with, say, the sat-sat curves.

And that wraps it up for these two articles on Color Management! It's a powerful tool and I hope all this will help to make it efficient and easy to use in your grading.

_______________________________
A footnote to clarify Rec709 gamma
Rec709 has a confusing number of different gammas. The gamma for camera sensors is around 1.9, a fairly light gamma. This is referred to in Resolve's Color Management as Rec709 (Scene). For displays there are two possible gammas: 2.2, intended for viewing in a well-lit environment like an office (the same gamma as sRGB); and 2.4, intended for viewing in a darker environment like a living-room in the evening (but not in the dark, like a cinema). The standard for grading broadcast TV is Rec709 2.4, i.e. Rec709 with a 2.4 gamma.

When Resolve's interface mentions just Rec709 in relation to gamma, it means Rec709 (Scene). If you want Rec709 2.4, make sure you choose the option that says 2.4.

That's why the Gamma setting in Method 1 had to be changed to Use Timeline (or to 2.4): With the default Rec709 the OFX assumes you want to map the luminance to Rec709 (Scene), so the blacks are too light.

_______________________________

A French version of this article can be found on the author's website, www.pixelupdate.com at the following link: http://www.pixelupdate.com/color_management_2

Other articles in the series Solutions to Resolve:

Support ProVideo Coalition

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Solutions to Resolve 5: Taming Color Management - Part 2 by David Hover - ProVideo Coalition

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To pick things up from where we left them at the end of the previous article (Taming Color Management - Part 1) here's the problem we need to resolve: even with Color Management correctly set up, the results "out of the box" rarely look as good as they do with the equivalent camera LUT.

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SW4 Session 3 Image Technology Cine Edit

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SW4 Session 3 Image Technology Cine Edit C.pdf

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If you work with video, it's vital to understand how codecs work and how they change your image. In this tutorial, I cover all of the big concepts behind codecs, breaking it down into understandable pieces. While the nitty-gritty of compression algorithms can get complicated, all of the main ideas are quite simple.
Part two of this series is here: https://vimeo.com/115534648

Follow me on facebook.com/davidkongfilm for the latest updates.

Here's an overview of the topics covered:

 - What a codec is - And how it differs from a container.
 - Different types of codecs - And why I frequently use 4 different codecs on a single project.
 - Bit Depth - What it means and why it matters.
 - Chroma Subsampling - 4:4:4, 4:2:2, and 4:2:0, and when it becomes an issue.
 - Spatial Compression and Blocking - One of the most common artefacts you see with normal work.
 - Temporal Compression - Long-GOP codecs, inter-frame compression, and ALL-I codecs.
 - Lossless vs. Lossy compression - How image compression differs from data compression.
 - Bit Rate - How to calculate bit rates and the differences between kbps/kBps/Mbps/MBps.
 - Raw - Briefly, the difference between Raw, compressed, and uncompressed video.

Vimeo has sadly disabled the Tip Jar, but if this video was helpful to you, please consider sending a few dollars to david[at]davidkong.net via PayPal: paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_donations&business=david%40davidkong%2enet&lc=US&item_name=David%20Kong&currency_code=USD&bn=PP%2dDonationsBF%3abtn_donateCC_LG%2egif%3aNonHosted

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Taylre Jones Film and Video Colorist - Preview

(jazz music) - [Voiceover] Editors do a good job when you don't notice the edits. It's similar with a colorist. You don't wanna see a huge difference between shots within in a scene. (trance music) Color correction is fixing things like if there's an exposure issue and then color grading is more of a stylizing, giving it a certain aesthetic. Creating a type of film look that would be done through a chemical process but now it's digitally done. You have certain colors that are really complementary to other colors just in the human mind, so as you enhance those colors to really match, it really makes it the most pleasant looking it can look. (trance music) Before I was ever even considered being a colorist or anything like that, I was in school for genetics because I've always been intrigued by biology and all that kind of stuff. Took some video editing classes as fillers and from that point I kinda just fell in love with the film-making aspect and I was spending five, six hours a day after school just watching tutorials, studying, trying to learn as much as I could about cameras and sensors, and just all the different elements. I was always looking to bring my work to another level. I wanted to figure out "How do I make this look more professional?" "How do I make this look more high-end?" I learned about color grading and for me it was literally love at first sight. Became my obsession, of my obsession, if that can even be possible. And for me the process really was a growing process. I began just with the basic tools in Adobe Premiere, moving from there into something called Colorista, from Colorista to Magic Bullet Looks, but I knew it wasn't dedicated enough and so I went into DaVinci Resolve. I probably spent six months just to learn Resolve, learn the ins and outs of all the buttons, all the tools, cause I knew I wanted to be a colorist, and move into a color dedicated platform. So as I've been working as a colorist, I learned that from Alexis Van Hurkman's book, the Color Correction Handbook, he kinda talks about six key points of what a colorist's duties are. The first duty is that's he's doing is he's adjusting elements of your contrast, your exposures, you're correcting those types of things. This is part of the color correction process. And what we're starting with here first is I just brought in a little bit of contrast and saturation and then I adjusted my white balance and exposure properly. That's a correction. The second element is gonna be something called making your key elements look right. So a key element really is gonna be something like your skin tones. If you have bad looking skin tones, it's just not gonna look good. So here we see in this image I did a bunch of adjustments to the image but as I was making those adjustments it really pushed his skin tone to a magenta red, pretty ugly, I'm correcting that, getting that fixed to a proper state. Now we go into what's called color grading, where you're stylizing an image. So I've created more of a vintage, kind of a crunchier image, and obviously everything feels more warm, more sunset type of feel. Sometimes you've got shots that are kind of not matched. So here we've got a sunset. I enhanced it with some more warmth. Now we've established that warm tone, all those things, now I need to carry that throughout the rest of this scene that's happening. So we're gonna cut to the characters. They're sitting here on this boat. It's not very golden. It doesn't have that same tone, so I've gotta match those. First adjustment I'm gonna do, I'm just gonna bring in that warm tone in the highlights. It's a little blown out in the sky on the left so just dialing that down, bringing a little more saturation in there. And that pretty much sets it there. So now we go into what's called creating depth to the image. Creating depth both in the image itself, but also in the emotions that are happening with this character. So we've got this character here. Obviously you can see he has a look of agony, of pain, of sorrow, on his face. Beginning creating your initial saturation adjustments, creating that contrast that we want, and from that point, I'm creating some lighting adjustments, bringing more attention to the character's face, and then I'm gonna go in and create more depth with the color tones of the image. I brought in some cooler tones to bring a little bit of a sense of sadness, that it's late at night. And then from that point, increasing kinda that contrast in color, between the warm light that's shining on the wall, and the moonlight that's coming in from the windows and then adding just a touch more contrast to really feel more gritty for that character. So that creates a big depth of both emotion for the character, and we're creating depth of the actual visual image itself. My last step is quality control. There are quality control standards that a colorist has to live by. So when you're putting out anything for broadcast, if your saturations are too high, if you have luminance values that are too high, you're gonna get your stuff spit back. They're not gonna accept it, you're not gonna be able to broadcast it. So you have to make sure to keep everything what's called broadcast legal and follow the quality control standards. (banjo music) So when I was learning to color grade and kinda learning about color correction I did a lot of just Youtube searching, trying to look at what tutorials there were. There was a color program called Color Slide School, Patrick Inhofer, I believe he's with Lynda. Com, does tutorials for them. Patrick had some courses. I went there and did those and I kind of learned "Okay, I do know what I'm doing." "I have learned the technical elements correctly." "I am on track." And there's a point where you learn enough of the tools that, that only gets you so far. The rest becomes your own creative decisions that you're making. And so I went into the industry doing just production type of things, production assistant. I interned with some companies here in Kansas City. But I continued in my own spare time to continue to learn as much as I could about color. (banjo music) Really from there it was coloring a lot of people's just free work, or really low-budget stuff, just for fun, kinda getting my name out there. I knew a lot of em from being a production assistant. I knew a lot of different DPs and stuff like that. Having the people that are shooting say "Hey, I know this guy, he's really good, you should talk to him." And doing all that kinda stuff was really beneficial for me. Cause word of mouth was my biggest seller in the beginning, all word of mouth. (classical music) One big factor for me was there wasn't really anybody that specialized in color in Kansas City at the time. For me I'm born and raised here, so I have kind of a hometown pride, that I love to kinda like just say "Hey, I'm a Kansas City native." And so for me, I love being here. I love Kansas City and my other purpose in being in Kansas City was to be able to bring quality work to the local market to where they could come sit with me, we could really design some looks, really enhance the images, make the work that came out of this city just that much better. (country music) Anytime I see an image, what we're gonna think about first is what's the emotions of the character because that's the most important element, for me as a colorist, is to really help tell the emotion of the scene. So what's happening with this character at this moment, him and his brother kind of having a strange relationship and they're kind of distant from each other. The feeling that I was sensing was kind of this feeling of isolation, of separation. And so to me that had, in my mind, as soon as I think about that, I think about blues, as being kind of that loneliness feeling, that's a typical emotional feel for blue. But typically what I do as a colorist is I like to work in what's called red film log. So I'm gonna go into the camera metadata, I'm gonna change that over to red film log, so we see this here, red log film. Now the image looks even more desaturated, it looks a little brighter. And the benefit of that is I can see where I can truly stretch that full stretch to that image. So my first thought process was I really wanna give an interesting vibe to the background. And in this process we actually talked about utilizing LUTs and we actually decided upon kind of a Kodak LUT. So it kind of emulates the film stock of Kodak and so I'll go ahead and turn that on. So we see right off the bat, we're getting a nice, rich contrast. And it actually looks pretty good just right off the bat. The second thing I'm gonna do after that adjustment is I'm gonna go ahead and put in some saturation, kind of tweak the lighting just a little bit more. I kind of had the image in the general color tones that I wanted it to have. So then I wanted to just really bring my attention, my focus to the character. So I create what's called power windows to really draw and isolate areas of light and enhance areas of light or color or whatever may be. But in this instance, it's gonna be lighting. And so this first adjustment I'm doing here is real subtle, slight vignetting to just the tip edges of the image, very small to see, but it just kinda draws your eye in just a touch. Bringing some exposure up on the character. So you can see this window. I created this light pool here, or enhanced the light in that pool so you can see that. I did it again on the character specifically, just to make him pop just a touch more. Then this one, I'm isolating. This light's just a little too bright. I wanna really draw my attention on the character right here. So what I did was I drew a gradient here, drew down the light just a touch, and then last but not least, brought up just a little bit bit more of this foreground so that my eye doesn't draw too much into the background, but kinda draws more towards the foreground. So let me just give you an example before and after. This is our starting point. This is our finishing point, before and after. (trance music) What I'll find is they'll be films that I loved the way it looked, but I never get to see what did the colorist do to it. And I'm sure that's part of their secret sauce, they don't wanna reveal a lot of the things that they're doing, but for me, I believe that they could be real inspiring to the creative market if they would do those kind of things. So on Vimeo I've created different color wheels from different films I've worked on. And there was one film in particular, The House on Pine Street, that I worked on. That Vimeo video that I created was kind of just a breakdown of some the scenes I did and some breakdowns of the color in those scenes. And what happened was I posted it just for the cast and crew to see, and somebody posted it to Reddit and from there it became in one of the top five videos on Reddit and just blew up. It's got a good million views or so on it now and just continues to keep being an exposure tool for me. Since that Vimeo video went on the internet and went viral, I've worked for commercials in other countries like Australia, Kuwait. There's not a marketing tool that I could've used that would've been more successful at just getting my name out there. With this film, it was a lot of fun. It was just a great story. It's kind of a psychological horror. First adjustment I'm doing is typically my contrast and saturations. From that point, just increasing the contrast a little bit more, bringing out some of the detail of her hair and things. I'm bringing more attention to here face. From there, I brought in the blues. This is a very kinda teal and orange type of a film and so it creates more visual color contrast in the image, makes the palettes themselves are pleasing because they're opposite spectrum so they create more of a pop to the image, more of a contrast to the image. Now this shot here, this is during a nightmare scene. I really wanted to be able to enhance that but I wanted it to feel very scary, like it's in this really abandoned, scary hallway. So here we're working with the log. So the first thing I'm gonna do is enhance the saturations and the contrast like I always do. But it wasn't scary enough for me, I wanted to push it. This is surreal, this is a nightmare. And so I even pushed the contrast just a bit more, brought out more of the shadows around the door. I was getting way too much of my eye drawn to the foreground, these doors, and this beginning of the hallway. And I wanted to focus my attention on the actual door floating in the middle of the hall. So creating kinda that isolation of light, dropping down all that light, I'm drawing my eye to the middle. But now what happens is it's not the right tone. I want it to be scary, which to me was this blue tone that carries throughout the film. So I increase this blue tone into the shot. Now after doing that, this doorway's an red-orangish color. And that really needed to stand out so what I had to do was go back and isolate the reds of that door and pop it out, really make that door stand out from the scene, really make it pop and draw your eye and attention to that door. (clapping) (rock music) One thing that you run into as a colorist is an image is never good enough. You can continue to tweak an image for the rest of your life and never find like "This is perfect." Trial and error is your biggest teacher. Experimenting, trying things out, playing around, you start to learn how different camera types like react to your color. There's a lot of also Photoshop, like retouching types of techniques, just watching and looking at a lot of different photographer's styles that they do. All those kinds of things help me to kinda get that beginning process. And then in terms of technical elements, there's a lot that you can learn from just different color correction handbooks, or textbooks, or whatever may be about color correction. That really helps you to understand all the technical things that you need to know as a colorist. And so from that point, really the only end is whatever your creative mind can think up.

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Taylre Jones Film and Video Colorist - Film - Taylre Jones, Film and Video Colorist Video Tutorial | LinkedIn Learning, formerly Lynda.com

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(jazz music) - [Voiceover] Editors do a good job when you don't notice the edits. It's similar with a colorist. You don't wanna see a huge difference between shots within in a scene. (trance music) Color correction is fixing things like if there's an exposure issue and then color grading is more of a stylizing, giving it a certain aesthetic.

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Course details

Explore the art and science of color grading, an often underused aspect of filmmaking. Learn about why color is important in the filmmaking post-production process, how to adjust the grade to accurately reproduce the colors that were shot, and how correcting color can completely transform bland or poorly shot footage. See how the process of color grading can correct common issues, create a more believable composite in visual effects, and establish or alter the artistic intent and mood of a scene. Plus, find out how to solve real-world workflow issues when exporting nonlinear editor (NLE) timelines for the color grade. Along the way, instructor Chad Perkins explores some of the most popular color correction tools, including DaVinci Resolve, Adobe Premiere Pro, Adobe After Effects, and Redcine-X.

Note: This course is one of a 13-part series, showing the actual techniques filmmakers use to create cinema-quality films. Explore more of the series here.

This course was created by Chad Perkins. We are pleased to host this training in our library.

Instructor

Chad Perkins is an award-winning filmmaker and author based in Seattle.

He also has over a decade of experience with post-production software such as Adobe After Effects, and is the author of over 30 training courses on Lynda.com, as well as multiple editions of The After Effects Illusionist and How to Cheat in After Effects (both by Focal Press). Find him on Twitter @chad_perkins.

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About this training series

- [Chard] Hey folks, this is Chad Perkins, a filmmaker from Seattle. This training series is part of a collection of courses to teach you how to make a short film, start to finish. As part of this training, I made a short fantasy film called "The Assurance" and documented the entire process, from writing, and pre-production, to working on set, through post-production, to a screening in an independent movie theater in Seattle. In this training, you'll get to see how we budgeted, auditioned actors, set up lights and cameras, wrote and recorded the orchestral score, how we did all of our visual effects, everything. And, you know, filmmaking is really about problem solving. So we'll show you the first drafts and rough cuts, the challenges we had, the mistakes we made, so that you can avoid those pitfalls on your projects. This training consists of 13 separate training courses. Each course focuses on a component of filmmaking, and will be released in the general order of the filmmaking workflow. The first course is on producing. How do you get a project off the ground and shepherd it to completion? The second course is on writing. We get an understanding of how to tell a story, examining some of the best Hollywood films, as well as how he created the world of "The Assurance." Course number three is about pre-production, getting the script ready to film. We'll look at the meetings I had with our crew about the schedule, budget, designing the wardrobe from scratch, developing concept art, and more. The fourth course is on acting. We'll look at what acting is really about, and we'll show you our auditions and rehearsals and why we made the choices we did. The fifth course is about directing where we'll look at controlling the tone, running the set, and the many decisions that directors have to make. Course number six is all about working on set. What's that workflow like? What do all these people do? We'll look at all of that as well as a tutorial from my wife, Heather, about how she created the special effects makeup for our film. The seventh course is about cinematography. How can you use your camera and lighting to tell your story in the best way? Course number eight is about editing. And we'll see how we were able to re-edit our initial story, to tell a completely different and much better one. In course nine we'll start to look at visual effects, creating environments, adding elements to shots, and removing objects from shots. Course 10 is all about the stuff you think of when you think of visual effects, magic, particles, explosion, you know, all that pretty stuff. These are all things that you could do at home for little to no money. Course 11 is about color. This was a huge part of "The Assurance" and it's an often underused tool to transform blend footage, or even poorly shot footage. And is something gorgeous. Course 12 is all about audio. We'll look at recording audio on set, composing the score and recording it, sound design. (random sounds) And mixing it all together. And finally, we'll wrap things up in course 13 by talking about how to market and distribute your film, including how to make marketing materials, like logos and trailers, and how to get your film seen by an audience. I think it's a one of a kind experience to not just learn about how to make films, but to see what it's actually like to solve problems and struggle and fail and compromise during that process. Now this has been years in the making, so thank you so much for watching this. Enjoy the training. - That's a wrap! - [Crew] Yay! (claps)

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About this training series - Premiere Pro Video Tutorial | LinkedIn Learning, formerly Lynda.com

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Explore the art and science of color grading, an often underused aspect of filmmaking. Learn about why color is important in the filmmaking post-production process, how to adjust the grade to accurately reproduce the colors that were shot, and how correcting color can completely transform bland or poorly shot footage.

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As you might know, we offer a variety of workshops on DIT & Engineering topics, and we are often asked about what you might find on a DIT cart. Speaking with many DITs and building on my own experience, I put together a souped-up cart for demonstration purposes and created this video series on the Anatomy of the DIT Cart. On the cart you'll find a variety of hardware used on set today, including scopes, routers, monitors, and storage.

Watch the video above to learn more about the series, and check out the individual sections below.

Cart Components

In this section, I talk about the basic cart components, including the cart itself, racks, and power distribution. The cart I'm using is the Inovativ Echo Cart.

Here is the basic layout of the cart:

Video Distribution

In this section, I talk about video distribution on the cart using a matrix SDI router and computer IO. I'm using a Blackmagic Smart Videohub 40x40 on the cart, with a Smart Controller for distribution. Computer input and output is via a Blackmagic Ultra Studio 4K.

Here is a basic wiring diagram of the cart:

Scopes

In this section, I discuss various scope options that you might find on a DIT cart. Options shown include the Blackmagic SmartScope Duo, Leader LV5381, and Convergent Design Odyssey 7Q+.

On-Set Color Management

In this section, I discuss on-set color management hardware and software including Fuji's IS-Mini, Blackmagic's HD Link Pro, and Pomfort's LiveGrade software. I'm controlling the software and hardware with the Tangent Elements-TK panel.

Data Management

In the last section, I discuss tools for data management including card readers, RAIDs, and LTO drives. I show the Sonnet Echo reader, a Pegasus RAID, and the Mlogic MTape LTO drive.

If you're interested in diving deeper into the tools and technology and every DIT needs to know, check out our DIT & Engineering workshops coming up soon in NY, LA and Chicago!

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As you might know, we offer a variety of workshops on DIT & Engineering topics, and we are often asked about what you might find on a DIT cart. Speaking with many DITs and building on my own experience, I put together a souped-up cart for demonstration purposes and created this video series on the Anatomy of the DIT Cart.

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Course details

In this installment of DaVinci Resolve Guru, explore the concepts of log and raw footage. Colorist Patrick Inhofer underscores the disparity between the two recording methods and shows you how to tell the difference when using DaVinci Resolve. This course also shows you how to set your raw settings for a project and individually, shot by shot. Explore the concept of color correcting flat footage shot on a DSLR and how that differs from shooting log and raw.

Once you're familiar with the differences between log, raw, and flat recordings, explore two different methods for color correcting that footage. First, Patrick shows you how to color correct manually, using the traditional tools in DaVinci Resolve. Then, he explains how to use lookup tables (LUT), and discusses LUT strengths and limitations.

Instructor

Patrick Inhofer

Digital Colorist | Evangelist

Patrick Inhofer is a professional colorist and owner of Fini.tv.A 20+ year post veteran, his experience working at New York City post houses is delivered to low- and mid budget productions. He works on films, documentaries, television series, and corporate videos-and graded for directors Barry Levinson, Bruce Sinofsky, and Dorothy Lyman. Patrick founded the color grading website TaoOfColor.com, publishing a free industry newsletter, The Tao Colorist. In 2012 he cofounded MixingLight.com. Patrick is an adjunct professor at Hofstra University, teaching color correction. He contributed to the book Color Grading with Avid Media Composer and Symphony 6.

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Using creative lookup tables - DaVinci Resolve Video Tutorial | LinkedIn Learning, formerly Lynda.com

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Creative Lookup Tables (LUTs) are used to help you get your footage to a look that you like. Creative LUTs are better known for that reason. How do you apply a creative LUT in DaVinci Resolve? In this movie, author Patrick Inhofer explains what a creative LUT is and how to use it in DaVinci Resolve.

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I am not entirely certain whether this information should be a chapter of its own, an appendix, or be sprinkled throughout the rest of the text. For now, I'm going to treat it as an appendix to Chapter One. Maybe it will just remain as an article on the blog to which the main text will refer by link and reference.
It's tempting when someone starts going on about LUTs and gamma and gamuts to let your eyes just glaze over and then ignore them until they go away. Unless you're one of the nerdiest nerds who loves to talk about bit-rates and logarithmic response curves, you're probably eager to skip all of the color management stuff and jump straight to the Art.

Bad news: You're going to have to learn at least some of the tech stuff if you're going to be a good compositor. You can be an adequate compositor without all of this, but who wants to settle for merely adequate? You don't have to learn it all in one huge bite like I'm giving it to you here. Read through it, but if you don't understand something right now, don't worry about it-you can come back and read pieces of it again once you've got some better context.

Resolution

First let's talk about what a digital image is and how it's constructed (all of this applies to video also, since a video is just a series of images). The most common type of digital image is known a raster image, which is a grid of very tiny dots. These dots are called pixels (short for PICTure ELements). The word raster refers to the grid of dots itself-an effect that is happening outside of the image's boundary can be said to be "off raster." To "rasterize" is to convert a vector image (another type of digital image that we'll deal with later) or effect into a raster image.

The size of a raster, or the number of dots it contains, is commonly referred to as its resolution. There's a good deal of argument among pedants about the correct definition of that term; you will find people who claim that the way I use it here is incorrect. By a strict technical definition, resolution requires two pieces of information: the number of samples (pixels) divided by a measurement of the window in which those samples appear (usually a length, but if you're talking about music it could be a time. 44.1 khz is the resolution of CD-quality music: 44,100 frequency samples per second.) Usually, though, when someone talks about an image or video's resolution, they mean the number of pixels it contains, typically by describing its width by its length. The most common resolutions in film and television production these days are HD (High Definition) at 1920 x 1080 pixels, 2k at 2048 pixels wide, Ultra HD at 3840 x 2160 pixels, and 4k at 4096 pixels wide. 2k and 4k don't have any kind of standardized height because filmmakers are free to change the frame aspect ratio to make their movies fit nicely on a television or make them super widescreen, or anything in between (or technically even pull the sides back in to 4:3 like a standard definition TV, but I've never heard of anyone doing so).

Digital still cameras often express resolution in megapixels, which is an absolute measure of the number of dots the camera can capture without regard to aspect ratio (the ratio between the horizontal and vertical measure. Sometimes expressed as a ratio like 16:9 and sometimes as a decimal like 1.77.) A megapixel is 1,000,000 pixels, and the number can be determined by simply multiplying the image's width and height. So an HD image is 1920 x 1080 = 2 megapixels. The biggest (not so) common feature film resolution out there is 8k, or 8192 x 4608 = 37.7 megapixels.

In Fusion you can see the resolution of your image in two places. In the upper right corner of the image in the Viewer, the resolution and bit depth is displayed. If you hover your mouse over any node in the Flow View, the tool-tip that appears will give you quite a bit of information about the image. If you need to force your image to a particular resolution, you can use a Resize node to explicitly set the resolution to your desired values. Remember, though, that changing the size of an image always degrades its quality.

A side note: Some people will insist on specifying the print resolution for an image, such as 300dpi or 72dpi. If the image is never going to be printed (and a video can'tbe), this number is meaningless. It's just a bit of metadata on the file, though, so it doesn't hurt anything to set it if you're in Photoshop. The idea that screen images are 72dpi is a long-standing myth. It was true for one particular Macintosh model back in 1984. The world has moved on, but for some reason that piece of misinformation continues to plague us. If someone makes an issue of it, it's usually not worth the effort to try to correct them.

Channels

We're going to take a slight detour into some color theory here in order to give context for the discussion of channels. Computer images use an additive color model called RGB, which stands for Red, Green and Blue, the primary colors in the model. The RGB model is called additive because when you mix colors together, the result gets brighter. Contrasting with this model is the subtractive color model used in paints and dyes, where mixing together pigments creates a darker color. The primary colors in a subtractive model are Cyan, Magenta, and Yellow. Adding Black ink (necessary because real inks never actually combine perfectly) thus gets you the CMYK model used by most printers.

In the color wheel above, you can see the additive model illustrated. Notice that the subtractive primaries are complementary (straight across the wheel) to the additive primaries, and the colors blend together into white in the center. This property of complementary colors is useful if you ever find yourself wishing to add yellow to an image, but you don't have a yellow control. Since yellow is complementary to blue, you can reduce the blue control, and that will make the image more yellow. Now that that's out of the way, let's talk about how this information is used in a digital image.

Every pixel in a color image contains a value from 0 - 1 for each of the primary colors. 0 represents no brightness, and 1 is full brightness. These values are called the channels, and you can view them independently as grayscale images by selecting the Viewer and using the R, G, and B keys to toggle between the respective channel and the full color image. You can also use the pop-up channels menu button at the bottom of the Viewer to select the channel you wish to see. When the three channels are mixed together, you get a full color image. The value of an entire pixel is usually given as a triplet like so: 0.5, 0.5, 0.5 is 50% gray. 0.3, 0.6, 0.3 is mint green.

There is frequently a fourth channel available, as you can see from the image. The Alpha channel controls the opacity of the pixel. Pixels with 0 in the Alpha channel are transparent, and pixels with 1 in the Alpha are completely opaque. Usually, the color channels are premultiplied by the Alpha, which means that each color channel's value has been multiplied by the value in the Alpha channel before being displayed. As a result, pixels with 0 Alpha will be black, regardless of the actual values present in the color channels. Pixels with 1 Alpha are unchanged. Pixels with an Alpha between those values will be darkened.

An image that has been multiplied in this way is said to have an associated alpha. Some images might have an unassociated alpha, which is sometimes called unpremultiplied. Yes, this terminology is confusing. To make it just a little bit worse, Fusion uses a variant on these terms, with some switches in the color controls labelled "pre-divide / post-multiply." If you pay attention to what's actually happening with the values, though, you can maintain clarity: To disassociate an alpha from its color channels, you divide RGB by alpha (areas of 0 alpha are ignored in this operation). This creates the "unassociated," "unpremultiplied," or "pre-divided" image. The edges will look pixelated. To reassociate, multiply each RGB value by alpha. The image is now "associated," "premultiplied," or "post-multiplied," depending on who you're asking. The edges will be nicely anti-aliased. If you multiply by alpha again, you will get a dark fringe.

I will say more about the interaction between the Alpha and color channels when I cover Merges and mattes.

Bit Depth

The amount of storage space allotted to these numbers is determined by the image's bit depth or color depth or, confusingly, color resolution. That's why it doesn't seem worthwhile to get too excited over the definition of resolution-we use it to mean too many different things. Since a computer's native language is binary, bit depths are always expressed as an exponent of 2. A bit is a single BInary digiT, which can have a value of only 0 or 1. An 8-bit channel uses, as you might expect, eight of these bits to store its value. 2^8 = 256, so an 8-bit channel can contain only 256 possible levels. If we double the amount of storage available, we don't simply double those levels to 512. Since it's an exponent of 2, a 16-bit channel can have 2^16 = 65,536 levels. In short, a higher bit depth means much much finer gradations in color.

If we store our images with these simple integers, the values run from 0-255 for 8-bit channels or 0-65,535 for 16-bit. You may have encountered ranges like these in Photoshop or After Effects, which typically display the integer values of the pixels. This makes doing math on the images inconvenient (more about that when I talk about Merges and blend modes!) Fusion therefore performs a process called normalization, which remaps the values into that 0 to 1 range we mentioned earlier. Normalization of images is an easy process. Simply divide the pixel's integer value by its maximum possible value. For instance, a 50% gray pixel's value is 128, 128, 128. To normalize it, divide by 255 to get 0.502, 0.502, 0.502, which is as close to 0.5 as an 8-bit integer will get us.

The problem with integer bit depths, even when they're normalized, is that you can't store values below black or above white, and even though 65 thousand levels is quite a lot, it's still a finite quantity, and very dramatic color corrections can still potentially destroy some of the color information.

In the image above, I have two Fast Noise nodes. One is set to output 8-bit integer color and the other to 32-bit floating point. The first Color Corrector in each flow reduces the gamma, and the second returns it to its original value. I have indicated with the ugly black lines which Viewer is looking at which node, and if you look at the upper right corner of each Viewer, you can see the bit depth of that image.

The histogram overlay shows the distribution of values in each image-more pixels means a taller line in the graph. The FastNoise produces a nice Gaussian distribution of values. In the lower left, where I reduced the gamma, you can see that the "hump" has been pushed to the left, and it's taken on a comb-like appearance. The tall spikes happen because there aren't enough different values available to hold all those pixels, so some values get doubled up-twice as many pixels as the values right next to them. The empty parts of the graph happen because there weren't enough values to start with to provide a continuous series.

When the gamma is pushed back to 1 by the second Color Correct as shown in the upper right, those gaps and spikes, which represent data that's been destroyed, come along for the ride. Although the overall distribution should now be exactly the same as before, the histogram shows that much information has been lost. The image in the lower right, though, shows the same color transforms happening in floating point space. The final histogram remains solid, with a Gaussian distribution similar to the original (it's exactly the same as its source histogram, but I didn't show the original floating point version).

So what is this floating point thing, anyway, and why is it so much better? A full answer to that is beyond the scope of this book, but the short form is that floating point numbers are a way for a computer to store extremely large ranges of numbers without needing correspondingly huge memory registers. Floating point lets the computer easily use negative numbers (a signed integer sacrifices a bit for the sign, halving the maximum value in exchange for access to negative numbers: -32,767 to +32,768), store a scientific notation exponent for extremely huge numbers, and place a decimal wherever it likes for extremely small numbers. The trade-off is that floating point numbers in a computer may have tiny inaccuracies. 0.0001% is usually the largest deviation you'll see in Fusion. It's not enough to be concerned about usually, but every once in a while you might get better results by adding 0.0001 to a number or reducing a scale by 0.9999, and occasionally an operation that should be mathematically perfect, like subtracting noise from an image then adding it back later, introduces very small (and visually undetectable) errors.

This access to values below 0 and above 1 is important because it lets an image contain data that is outside of the visible range but that might still affect things. A bright sky might appear to be completely white, but a color correction could reveal that the camera captured a nice blue and clouds. This extra detail, even if you do not choose to show it in the final image, can be used in CG reflections or to create an accurate color cast to other elements. It also gives much more flexibility if you decide to do a different color correction later on-an integer image would simply clip that information, leaving you with no choice but to use the white sky.

There are two available floating point bit depths in Fusion: 16- and 32-bit. The default depth is 16-bit float, although as I demonstrated in the histograms above, if you start with an 8-bit int source, that depth will be carried into the comp. The image will always take its color depth from the Background, so doing all your compositing on an 8-bit source image is not ideal. The simplest solution is to change your preferences so that Loaders always switch to the Default depth instead of keeping the Format depth. The Default depth itself can be set in the Frame Format section. Generally speaking, 16-bit float is sufficient. You can force an image into 32-bit as needed with a Change Depth node. I usually only find that I need 32-bit accuracy if I am dealing with motion vectors (a pair of channels that describe how far a given pixel will move in the next frame in the x- and y- screen directions) or a z-depth channel (shows the distance of a pixel from the camera). We'll talk more about these special utility channels in the chapter on CG integration.

There is one other common color depth you will run into: 10-bit integer. This is the storage format for some extended-range cameras and the Digital Photo eXchange (DPX) format. 10-bit color allows significantly more latitude, typically in the brightest parts of the image, allowing storage of a wider range of values and permitting more control in post-production over the look of the final image, even if it will ultimately be displayed only in 8-bit. Fusion will not work in 10-bit mode, so a Loader with a DPX will be converted to 16-bit int if the Preferences do not tell it to do otherwise. Likewise, a Saver set to DPX will automatically convert 16- or 32-bit color to 10-bit, although this conversion can be overridden in the Format tab.

One final piece of confusion before we close up this section. Most of the time, when someone talks about the color depth of an image, they're referring to the depth per channel. 32bpc means "32 bits per channel." Occasionally, though, someone will describe an image as "32 bits per pixel," or 32bpp. That means that there are four 8-bit channels (RGB and Alpha), making it the same as what can also be called an 8-bit per channel image. And an 8-bit per pixel image is one with paletted color, meaning that the file header contains a table of 256 pre-selected colors, and every pixel must use one of those colors. GIF and some PNG files use that bit-depth, which is why GIFs made from photos always look horrid-there aren't enough colors to create a pleasant image.

So if a client asks for 32-bit deliverables, you may need to clarify what exactly they want since there are two formats that will fit that description.

Color Space and Gamut

A digital image is not usually stored with a physically-accurate luminance response.(luminance is the brightness component of an image, as opposed to the chrominance, or color component) That is, while in the real world twice as many lights produce twice as many photons to hit a camera's sensor, when the camera stores the information, it doesn't simply record the number of photons that hit a particular sensor site. Instead, it allots more of its dynamic range (the difference between the brightest and darkest things the camera can record accurately at the same time) to the brightness range where the human eye is most sensitive-the mid- to dark-toned areas.

This remapping of values is performed by applying a gamma curve. The image is brightened by raising every pixel's value to the power of .4545. When it is displayed, the operation is reversed by raising every value to the power of 2.2. In this image, you can see the two curves produced by the gamma operation. This is something of a simplification, and even when computers were using this system, not all of them agreed on the preferred gamma settings. For a long time, Macintosh screens used a gamma of 1.8 to better match a particular line of laser printers, while Windows computers always assumed 2.2. These days, the common sRGB color gamut that your monitor is probably using has a curve close to 2.2 (we usually refer only to the expansion gamma -the curve required to display the image), but not quite, and each channel gets a slightly different curve.

There are a couple of additional related terms to talk about now. G amut is the collection of all colors that a device is capable of displaying. It is dependent on the actual physical properties of typical screens. A color space is a mathematical model of color. RGB and HSV (hue, saturation, value) are color spaces, while sRGB and rec.709 are gamuts. In practice, "color space" is frequently used to refer to both concepts. Not every color that can be described by the RGB color model can be created on a screen, so the gamut remaps the numbers from the color space into values that can actually be displayed. Printing and projection gamuts are even more limiting. Let's go through a few different gamuts you are likely to encounter on the job:

sRGB: The most common image gamut, consumer quality computer monitors use sRGB. If you have a jpeg, tga, or png image, or a video intended to be shown on the Internet, it's probably sRGB.

Rec.709: Also known as BT.709, this is the gamut specified for HDTV. Most HD video cameras store their images in Rec.709 for best display on television screens. Stock video is very likely in Rec.709.

Linear Light: Ideally, images for compositing should be linearized-that is, any gamma curve has been removed. The gamut of a linear workspace is theoretically identical to the RGB color model. OpenEXR images are usually assumed to be linear. I'll go into more details about the linear workflow when I talk about CG integration.

Log: There are several different logarithmic conversion curves. The "standard" is the Cineon log curve, which is used to approximate film density. Most cinema cameras have their own curves, so you might encounter ARRI LogC, Panalog, REDLog, or ACESLog, among others.

Values from the perfect linear gamut are translated into and out of these gamuts using a Look Up Table (LUT). The LUT is usually applied right before displaying the image in order to make it match the gamut of the viewing device. Sometimes you will also get a LUT or a Color Decision List (CDL) from the client that modifies the image according to what the colorist or cinematographer has done so that you can view the image as they intended. This second LUT may or may not translate the image into sRGB or rec.709 for your monitor. It is therefore possible to have chained color transformations. For instance, you might have a LUT to turn the linear data to rec.709, then a CDL to apply the colorist's work, followed by a Viewer LUT to turn rec.709 into sRGB for correct display on your computer monitor.

File Formats and Compression

Finally, let's talk about the different types of images you can use in your compositing. The primary difference between most image and video formats is the method and amount of compression used. Compression is used to reduce the size of a file for storage and transmission. In the section on color depth, I talked about how many bits are used to store a pixel's information. If you have, for instance, an RGBA image with 8 bits per channel, it requires 32 bits per pixel. An HD image (1920×1080 pixels) has 2,073,600 pixels, and therefore requires over 66 million bits to store. That translates to 8.3 megabytes (MB) for one HD frame. Now consider if you're working on a television program running at 24 frames per second. Assuming a 43-minute show, storing the entire thing requires 513 gigabytes (GB)! My largest hard disk is 4 terabytes (TB), so I'd be able to store only 8 episodes of that show on a single disk. Compression reduces this enormous amount of data to save both space and time, sometimes at the cost of quality. A Blu-Ray disc is only 50 GB, but it can hold four or more episodes of The Flash.

In broad strokes, there are two types of compression: l ossless, in which the original pixels can be recovered with mathematical perfection, and lossy, in which some data is discarded, usually in such a way as to be visually undetectable. Lossless compression usually works by finding duplicated information and replacing it with a smaller block of data. There is a hard lower limit on how small a file can go with lossless compression. Lossy compression analyzes the image, determines what pieces of information the viewer is unlikely to notice changes to, and deletes them permanently. Repeated recompression with a lossy format will very quickly degrade the quality of the image. Generally speaking, you should only use uncompressed or lossless compression for working images, saving the lossy compression for final output.

Let's go through a few different file types and examine the advantages and disadvantages of each:

JPEG: The acronym stands for Joint Photographic Experts Group, and the file extension can be either .jpg or .jpeg. Jpegs are the most common image format found on the Internet, and they are best for photographs. Jpeg uses lossy compression with a variable quality control. Sometimes the control goes from 1-12 and sometimes it is a percentage. Usually 80% quality or better is visually indistinguishable from the original. Jpeg works very well on noisy images, but large expanses of flat color and high contrast edges, such as text, will show artifacts. Compressing too much will reduce the number of colors, creating banding in gradients. Jpeg cannot carry an alpha channel, and it is limited to 8 bits per channel.

JPEG-2000 is an update to the jpeg specification that adds some additional features, including alpha channels, high bit depths, and an option for lossless compression. It is used in Digital Cinema Packages (DCP), a common format used for digital theater projectors. It is technically superior to jpeg in every way, but it currently has limited compatibility with existing image viewers.

GIF: The Graphics Interchange Format is an 8-bit per pixel format (256 total colors) that can assign one of its colors ( only one) to be transparent and can also be animated. It uses lossless compression that works by finding horizontal blocks of repeating colors and replacing them with one pixel and a code for the number of repeats. Due to its very limited color depth, GIF is unsuitable for most purposes and is mostly obsolete, except for its use in Internet memes.

PNG: The Portable Network Graphics file type is a substantial upgrade to GIF. Png uses a lossless compression method similar to GIF, but it works vertically as well as horizontally, more than doubling its effectiveness. It has two variants: Png-8 is an 8-bit per pixel image similar to a GIF, but more than one transparent color can be designated, allowing for translucency (partial transparency). Png-24 is 8 bits per channel (24 bits per pixel), and can additionally carry an alpha channel (for another 8 bits, making each pixel 32 bits, but it's still called png-24). Most png's are of the png-24 variety. Png-8 is rare since the file size savings are insignificant compared to the disadvantages.

PNG is an unassociated alpha format, which means that the color channels have not been multiplied by the alpha. In most software, this multiplication happens upon import. Fusion does not make that assumption and leaves it to the artist to determine whether and when to associate the alpha. Note that this property means that PNG cannot be used for glows or other emissive effects because those elements use RGB over 0 alpha, and the colors will therefore be destroyed upon import.

Targa: With a typical file extension of .tga, targa is a very old but still useful file format. It can use lossless compression, but it usually works better uncompressed. It is an 8-bit per channel format that can carry an alpha. Its greatest advantage is that almost everything can read it. Targa is therefore popular for textures in 3d software and may even be used as a final delivery format if 8-bit color is acceptable.

TIFF: Tagged Interchange File Format. Tiff files are extremely versatile, with many features. Unfortunately, this flexibility comes at a cost of compatibility. A tiff created in one system may not be readable on another. Tiffs can use color depths from 8 bits to 32 bits per channel, either integer or float, and can carry an arbitrary number of channels (including alpha). PSD (PhotoShop Document) is a variant of TIFF that uses the extra channels to hold its layers.

DPX/Cin: The Cineon file format was created to hold the logarithmic color film scans from a process called telecine. It was eventually replaced by DPX, which added a few more features. It's fairly unlikely that you'll encounter a Cineon file, but DPX is very common. These are uncompressed and typically have 10 bits per channel (30 bits per pixel). Although a DPX with an alpha channel is unusual, it is permitted in the specification. A DPX file will almost always be in log color.

OpenEXR: A file format developed by Industrial Light and Magic (ILM) specifically for visual effects, OpenEXR usually holds 16-bit float data, but it can also hold 32-bit float. The usual assumption is that EXR files are linear, but you shouldn't take that as a given-not every CG artist understands linear workflow, so it is not impossible that you might receive EXRs encoded with the sRGB gamut. Like tiff, EXR can contain an arbitrary number of channels. Nuke is set up to handle these channels easily, but Fusion has some idiosyncrasies when it comes to the extra channels. There will be more information about that in the CG integration chapter.

EXR supports several varieties of compression, both lossless and lossy, and it can even compress individual channels with different algorithms.

Quicktime: Video files with a .mov extension are Apple Quicktime. Quicktime is not actually a format, but a "wrapper" that can contain one of dozens of different compression schemes, called codecs. Some codecs compress individual frames just like jpeg or png (spatially). Others can compress information temporally by identifying information that doesn't change from frame-to-frame and replacing the repeated pixels with smaller codes. Still others attempt to estimate the apparent motion of the pixels and reduce the file's size by generating motion vectors for large blocks of pixels (block-based motion estimation). I don't have the time to go through all of the options for QT codecs, but here are some you're most likely to encounter: H.264 is a lossy codec common for Internet video and Blu-Ray discs. Various types of Apple ProRes are typical intermediate and deliverable formats. ProRes is also lossy, but it can often be recompressed at least two or three times without any visible quality loss. DNxHD is a competing codec created by Avid, which makes editing software. Some varieties of ProRes and DNxHD can carry alpha, others cannot.

Avi: The Windows equivalent to Quicktime is the Avi wrapper. It is functionally identical to Quicktime, capable of using most of the same codecs (with the notable exception of ProRes). It is not at all common in professional work, but it does crop up occasionally.

Radiance/HDR: A special case format, Radiance is designed to hold High Dynamic Range images (HDRi). An HDRi (sometimes just HDR) can represent a much wider range of brightness values than a normal image, which are captured by making several exposures simultaneously with different shutter speeds. As such, they are usually only stills, but some recent video cameras have begun capturing HDR images. In visual effects, an HDRi is most often a panoramic image (360 degrees field of view) that can be used as a light source for CG objects. This topic will come up again in the chapter on 3D compositing, but in the meantime, I cannot do otherwise than to recommend my friend Christian Bloch's excellent book on the subject, the HDRI Handbook 2.0.

There are many, many more formats out there, not to mention all the different video codecs. Treating the topic properly would require a book of its own (a very dry book).

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I am not entirely certain whether this information should be a chapter of its own, an appendix, or be sprinkled throughout the rest of the text. For now, I'm going to treat it as an appendix to Chapter One. Maybe it will just remain as an article on the blog to which the main text...

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How Amazon Original’s “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” Gives Wireless Monitoring to the ENTIRE Studio

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How Amazon Original’s “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” Gives Wireless Monitoring to the ENTIRE Studio

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Credit: Amazon Prime Video

Monitoring for crewmembers on set can be difficult enough, but how about monitoring for the entire studio? And not just any normal studio either! We're talking Steiner Studios in New York City - the number 1 biggest film & TV production studio outside of Hollywood. The massive 580,000 sq. ft. building is decked out with soundstages, wardrobe rooms, offices, makeup rooms and everything a production could want to create the next blockbuster series. How can people on one side of the building monitor the shot from a camera all the way on the other?

Local 600 DIT Charlie Anderson makes it happen. Working on Season 2 of the Golden Globe award-winning show, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (which is an amazing show and everyone should get Prime to watch it!), Anderson handles all of the gear and media management on set, and acts as the de-facto repair guy for technical issues.

"I'm in charge of making sure everyone on set has something to look at, whether it's wired or wireless gear. If something breaks down, they come to me for it," explained Anderson. "This is a big project for Amazon, and producers want to know how we're progressing as we're shooting day-to-day. The problem is, they're in the offices on the completely opposite end of us. Even walking there takes a good 15 minutes."

The secret is in the building's internal WiFi and the Teradek Serv Pro! A new way to monitor on set, the Serv Pro connects to a video output source and uses WiFi to broadcast that feed to up to 10x Android/iOS devices connected to the same WiFi. Its companion app, VUER, displays the video feed, and provides a collection of professional monitoring features that are found on traditional hardware monitors.
How This Works

Steiner Studios contains an extended WiFi network which covers the entire building, allowing anyone in the vicinity to connect. Since the Serv Pro pushes the camera feed to the WiFi network, any phones/tablets connected to the WiFi can pull the feed and display it on the control surface.

Since the entire building operates with one high-powered Internet connection, anyone with an iOS/Android device in the building can load the app and monitor the shot. Of course, the feed is password protected with encryption, so special logins have to be given by Anderson.
The Setup

ARRI Alexa ProRes 3.2K

2x Paralinx Tomahawk II

2x Flanders Scientific CM250 monitors

2x SmallHD 1703 P3X video village monitors

SmallHD 2403 director's monitor

SmallHD 703 handheld monitor

Custom 80/20 DIT cart

The center of Anderson's workflow is the Inovativ cart, which all parts of the production setup connects to. Tomahawk IIs on set are feeding to the Blackmagic 20x20, which allows Andersen to route the video feeds to wherever he needs. Another Tomahawk II on the cart sends video to the Director's monitor. Other monitors on set are hardwired.

Behind the scenes of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. Credit: Amazon Prime Video

From his cart, the Serv Pro is taking a feed from the monitor's output and sending it to the Steiner Studios internal WiFi system. On the other side of the building (office section), producers connect to the same WiFi and pull up the feed in VUER, seeing a near-live feed and watching the progress of the production.

On locations, Anderson sets up his own WiFi network using a wide-range Ubiquiti router. This allows devices from over a block away to monitor the shot.
Monitoring For Everyone

Credit: Amazon Prime Video

It's important for producers and other contributing members to monitor the shot, but being on opposite sides of a massive building requires casting a wider net to reach everyone. By adding Serv Pro to the show's workflow, Anderson creates a way for anyone to monitor from anywhere in the complex, as long as they have access to the feed.

"The producers want to make sure everything's going according to schedule, but they don't have the time to be on set all day. Luckily, they're still in the building, which means I could use the Serv Pro to get that feed over reliably and quickly."

Credit: Amazon Prime Video

At the same time, with the Serv Pro connected to the monitor, Anderson is able to stream a post-LUT feed to the producers (LUTs are added from the monitor). Up to 10 people can monitor at the same time, meaning no one has to worry about sharing a monitor or traveling all the way to set. It's designed to streamline the production process, and allows the entire team to create a series worthy of an Amazon Original.

"As a DIT, I make sure to only invest in industry-leading equipment for my setups that ensure we get the job done. Clients like Amazon expect the best for their shows, so every bit of our production is designed to reflect that," said Anderson. "Serv Pro gives us an unprecedented way to monitor and is crucial to our workflow."

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How Amazon Original's "The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel" Gives Wireless Monitoring to the ENTIRE Studio

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Credit: Amazon Prime Video Monitoring for crewmembers on set can be difficult enough, but how about monitoring for the entire studio? And not just any normal studio either! We're talking Steiner Studios in New York City - the number 1 biggest film & TV production studio outside of Hollywood.

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Exploring the history of color correction

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Exploring the history of color correction

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Course details

Do you want to make your video footage look more vibrant, more accurate, or better fit the mood and themes of your project? Color correction helps you accomplish all these goals and more. In this introductory course, staff author Ashley Kennedy explains the concepts behind color correction and color grading, and guides editors through the process of correcting contrast, color balance, and hue/saturation. She also discusses how to enhance and stylize footage, and provides a "cookbook" of solutions for the most common color-correction problems that editors encounter. The course focuses on using the toolset in Adobe Premiere Pro, but also addresses workflows in other software programs (Avid Media Composer and Final Cut Pro X).

Instructor

Ashley Kennedy

Managing Staff Instructor, Business and Creative Libraries at LinkedIn

Ashley Kennedy is a managing staff instructor at LinkedIn Learning.

In her current role, Ashley leads a talented team of staff instructors in the Creative and Business libraries. She also creates courses for the LinkedIn Learning library on the subjects of video editing, filmmaking, and various business topics. In addition to more than a decade of creating online courses for Lynda.com/LinkedIn Learning, Ashley has deep experience leading face-to-face classes and large-scale trainings-as a freelance instructor, and previously at Columbia College Chicago and Avid Technology. She's also written two successful textbooks on video editing. Ashley holds a BS in broadcast journalism from the University of Illinois, and an MFA in film from Boston University.

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Exploring the history of color correction - Introduction to Video Color Correction Video Tutorial | LinkedIn Learning, formerly Lynda.com

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Do you want to make your video footage look more vibrant, more accurate, or better fit the mood and themes of your project? Color correction helps you accomplish all these goals and more. In this introductory course, staff author Ashley Kennedy explains the concepts behind color correction and color grading, and guides editors through the process of correcting contrast, color balance, and hue/saturation.

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"Knowing how to make the technology hurdles transparent on any set so your DP can concentrate on the work is critical to the role the DIT plays." - Michael Romano, Local 600 DIT based in Los Angeles & Honolulu.
As digital technology gradually entered the cinema world, demand for technicians grew alongside the fast-changing world of filmmaking. Productions were migrating away from film stocks and ushering in an age of digital cinematography which created a need for people to handle new, foreign tasks such as digital image processing and asset management.

That's where your modern-day Digital Imaging Technician (DIT) comes in! Realistically, the role of a DIT isn't always as specific as many other production roles such as the DP or 1st AC. Most DITs today are in charge of a plethora of responsibilities including video routing, image management, color grading, data movement, quality control, networking, and being integral to designing and implementing a workflow fine-tuned for specific projects. The simplest description of this position is that: a good DIT cuts the barriers put up by complex technology and extends the Director of Photography's vision and intent deep into post production. Basically, they're like IT professionals but with much cooler jobs.

This week we're looking at the inspiration and tech behind Michael Romano, a Local 600 DIT who's been in this business for over 10 years and worked on numerous feature films and scripted television series ( IMDb). Between moving hundreds of terabytes, live coloring and soldering his own cables, Michael Romano shares with us his path to becoming a DIT and his favorite gear to keep on his cart.
An Audio Background

"The funny thing is I actually started out doing audio post production, I have a degree in audio engineering. When I graduated college, all of my peers wanted to be sound engineers or producers in the music industry, but I felt the writing was on the wall for that industry so I focused on audio post-production for picture. I'd always been an avid fan of cinema and it felt right."

"That led to an internship at an audio post facility. Fetching coffee and lunch for the engineers and clients, just itching for a chance to spend time in front of the consoles became my day to day. As much as I loathed the grunt work, looking back, I think it's integral to succeeding in the entertainment, or any, business."

"The commercial audio post-for-picture facilities at that time were up against a lot of music studios moving in on the picture sound market. Everyone was trying to stay afloat in the wreckage of the music industry and they were all struggling to pay their staff people so no one was hiring interns into the fold. Before long, I found myself at a subcontracted production company for ESPN, doing not sound, but essentially post PA work. It was paid and at the time, that was extremely important. The company produced around 3 sports reality and documentary shows for ESPN a year. While there, they gave me a shot at, and I developed a real knack for, motion graphics. It was basic stuff like lower thirds, but we made, modified and tracked thousands of these graphics elements. It was the start of motion picture asset management and QC for me."
A Winding Path
"After a little over a year, the sports world started to wear me out. I loved the technical side of the work (and the travel), but sports docs just wasn't my thing and I needed a change. I decided to move to Hawaii. With a clean slate and suddenly finding myself in a smaller market, I found employment in the Grip department. My first union job was on as a hall call, they must've been pretty hard up! Outside the Grip gigs, and eventually Set Lighting gigs, I was doing a lot of commercials and indie projects, which more and more were skewing into digital directions."

"Around that time I was introduced to a company called Sight + Sound Studios, which, back then, was really just Bill Maheras. As a Director/DP who'd been working on mostly commercial projects since the 70's, Bill was in the midst of moving his company into more of a rental operation and we sort of just clicked on how to go about dealing with new technology. See, Bill really pays attention to what is coming and he never lost that vision. He saw the shift to digital cinema production and must have seen something in me as well. In 2007, the company bought one of the early-ish Red One cameras, shortly followed by a set of Ultra Primes and all the assorted trappings that those purchases lead to. I got to spend time figuring all of it out. In what other environment would you be afforded the chance to simply take a brand new, high end digital motion picture camera to your house, free of charge, for a week, just to see how it worked? He financed the equipment and I figured out the functionality. He'd have a question, I'd have the answer. Over the years, I was able to unbox Alexas, Amiras, Dragons, Cookes, Master Primes and all manner of support equipment simply to see how these things worked. If it weren't for Bill and Sight + Sound, I wouldn't be where I am today."
Into DIT Work
"Even with a deep understanding of the tools, I didn't really identify with being a DIT. I mean, what was a DIT anyways? I was still making a living as a Set Lighting Technician and most of the bigger jobs were still shot on film. I first came up to bat on some dinky, non-union commercial that I was actually gaffing: The camera assistant was a no-show and the DP literally asked the whole crew if anyone knew how to build a Red One and safely handle the media. Of course, I did, so I took it over and we got through the day. The success I found in that situation quickly got me interested in pursuing the DIT position seriously. I started doing local commercials, indie movies and handled all the technical aspects on personal projects I made with friends."

"There wasn't any training to be had, it was all just figuring things out. I read a lot online, in trade magazines, pestered manufacturers about the inner workings of equipment and always ran new cameras through their paces at Sight + Sound. This was a pretty volatile time where many veteran filmmakers were trying to transition from film into digital, so it was a scramble to come up with and solidify best practices. Most people on set had no knowledge of data security or asset management, so there was a sudden demand for people in film production with deep computer skills. Lucky for me, a lot of the same rules we started seeing in digital cinematography applied equally to music and audio post production. The data side of things was a very natural transition because, from a data security standpoint, sound files and picture files vary only by their size on disk. Hashes, content management systems, drive speeds - all this was familiar stuff because I'd done it all before, just never in a parking lot!"

"Eventually my name spread enough in Hawaii that I had the opportunity - which I seized - to become a Local 600 member as a DIT. From that jumping point I've had the opportunity to work with a great many talented Cinematographers from all around the world on features, commercials and scripted television. The work has taken me from my backyard to the other side of the globe and I wouldn't trade it for anything!"
Unique Challenges
A lot of times, in can be tricky working with Cinematographers you haven't previously. There are a lot of different perceptions of the DIT role and DPs utilize those skills in all kinds of ways. Some will have you calling filter changes to assistants and pulling remote iris while others only ask for specific color grade changes. Some sit with you at the cart the entire time, some you have to chase down on the set and others sit only with the Director, calling changes in to you. There's so many ways to skin a cat, I think it can confuse people sometimes. I just make sure I'm always ready to meet whatever needs arise and am a consistent, constant advocate for whichever DP I'm currently working with."
A Technical Challenge

"Basically, imagine a city block. The camera and Tx are on a vehicle that starts at one end of the block and drives to the other, filming a person on a bicycle. You can't use a follow vehicle because the camera will see all over the street but you can hide things in driveways, behind trees and telephone poles. Your wireless Rx can pick up the signal for about half the block length. I've seen all sorts of tricks like hand panning arrays (been there, done that) to just saying "Once it's gone, it's gone". I think that response is just lazy, there's always a way! I approach this scenario putting the village in the center of the run and string cables toward both ends with a Teradek Rx on each line. As the move starts, I'm feeding from the closest Rx and as that picture starts to fall apart, I switch over to the next Rx unit. There's about a frame lost during the change over but the technique works and the DP and Director can make a call on whether or not the shot was good or if we need to go again. I have this setup ready to go at every location we shoot at, every day. The city block is an extreme example but even a Steadicam move through a structure with heavy walls calls for these kinds of tricks."

"There are limitations to current technology, and sometimes it's up to us to explain those limitations in ways that aren't too technical. Before we even attempt these things I try and make sure we're properly equipped before hand. Sometimes though, the day just unfolds into a scenario that wasn't quite planned. When you're pushing the equipment to the edge of what it's designed to do, I always let the DP, AD and Director know that there's a likelihood we might be in and out of picture if we do things this way but I also always include a "best way" suggestion. "If the Director rides in the empty seat in the russian arm vehicle, range dropouts won't become an issue." These key personnel really appreciate the transparency, sans technical jargon, and it helps factor into the team's decision processes when looking at safety, timeliness, personnel placement during driving shots etc."
What's On Michael's Cart?
Inovativ Ranger 48 - "It's the perfect mix of size, weight and strength. The biggest thing about these carts are the hydraulic handbrakes. They're an additional cost from the standard foot brakes, but so worth the money! The rest of the crew is often struggling to get their gear down a hill backwards while I'm riding the brakes with one hand and steering with the other. It's not only easier but safer to have control of all that weight"

Blackmagic Smart Videohub 40x40 - "SDI routers are the heart of every cart. You need to get picture to every LUT box, waveform, I/O point and monitor on set and plugging and unplugging cables quickly falls out of favor. These devices can take a single SDI video source and send it to up to 40 destinations at once, or any combination of ins and outs thereof. One thing I love about the Blackmagic routers is the iPad control app which allows me to be anywhere on set within WiFi range and still control the unit. We often have multiple video villages and sometimes cables get crossed in the scramble. I just pop off the iPad, walk over and make it right without having to actually repatch any cables."

Leader LV3333 Waveform Monitor - "I've worked with cheaper waveform monitors and nothing can really compare to the Leader. The false color is my "always on" mode but the waveform really stands out when looking for practical fixture flicker. A lot of installed and cine lighting is now LED based and of wildly varying manufacture quality. Most of these lights look fine to the human eye but flicker or generate rolling bars of luminance through the camera shutter. A good waveform monitor is often the only way to detect the subtle ones. It doesn't seem like such a big deal until the DI when they try to pull clean HSL keys on the material and it's pulsing uncontrollably."

Tangent Panels - "I don't know how people grade with a mouse. To me, a control surface is mandatory. One can modify lift, gamma and gain using both hands simultaneously."

- "You can't shoot almost anything these days without wireless systems somewhere on the set, and the various flavors of Bolts are pretty much the industry standard. I have two masts with pre-wired power and SDI cables to accept the receivers on my cart. It's really great because I can roll around on battery power and still have a picture mid-move. The Teradek Bolt Bolts do a pretty good job of finding and connecting to the lesser-used frequency bands. If the area is RF saturated, it is what it is but I've mostly forgotten about manual channel assignment. If at any time the video starts falling apart, you can reboot the Tx and it automatically scans and adjusts to a new frequency. Lately I've been using the built in frequency analyzer to check out the RF situation on location but mostly you only look if the area is already problematic."

X-Keys Keyboard - "This is something new I recently integrated and it's simplified my task load immensely. It's an empty keyboard that you can assign macros onto each key via software. If you're in the middle of some other task and need to take a screen grab of a feed, there's a button that's preprogrammed to tab out over to LiveGrade and take a screenshot of a specific camera instantly - with only one key. It's a huge time saver and makes performing multi step tasks incredibly simple."

Decimator MD-QUAD- "Such a simple device. The MD-QUAD has long been a integral part of my cart. It takes four different feeds and displays them all at once on a single monitor. While not great for judging focus (it's like 4 SD streams) it can help make sense of multi-cam days and I always pipe it's output into the Leader for false color on four cameras simultaneously."

Robocups - "These are the only cup holders worth mentioning. Creature comforts are important so I always keep one on the DP side and one on my side of the cart."

Check out Michael's awesome work and DIT builds:

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"Knowing how to make the technology hurdles transparent on any set so your DP can concentrate on the work is critical to the role the DIT plays." - Michael Romano, Local 600 DIT based in Los Angeles & Honolulu. As digital technology gradually entered the cinema world, demand for technicians grew alongside the fast-changing world of filmmaking.