Hollywood Colorist Walter (CSI) about his color grading process

Hollywood Colorist Walter (CSI) about his color grading process

xap54.221.43.155


 

W alter Volpatto (CSI) is one of Hollywood's most successful colorist and some of his movies include Green Book, Dunkirk, Star Wars: The Last Jedi and The Hateful Eight. He primarily works in DaVinci Resolve and uses a fixed node structure that he has developed over the years. 

Lowepost visited Walter at Company 3 LA with our camera team to learn in detail about how he builds his grades.

Get access

Become a premium member to access the full video and Walters node tree (*.drx).

Become a Premium Member

 



  • Like 57
  • Thanks 21

User Feedback

Recommended Comments



Thank you so much Walter for sharing your hard-earned wisdom and experience. This is incredibly valuable.

I think you usually work with a timeline set to Ari LogC so that the tools behave closely to how they behave with Cineon log film scans..?  Where do you do the color space transform for clips that are not in Ari LocC (other camera types, VFX shots etc)? In a pre-group node perhaps? And the final color space transform is on a timeline node probably?

Edited by François Dompierre
  • Like 1
  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thank you so much for your insight Walter! That was very informative!! You said that you never have to key skin if you've done the balance and scene node right. Can you please expand a bit on this? 

I am learning color grading and I thought when pushing a look far it's often the habit to key skin.

Many thanks!

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites
44 minutes ago, Walter Volpatto said:

Either as DCTL on the media page (preferred) or  it depends.

if the shot is already in a LOG like i usually put it on the first node, a OFX color transform will act before the primaries in a node (order of operations) therefore your correction will still be in LogC.

if the shot needs some hard transform, i might put it in the second node, (repurposing) so i can color some in the original space and then transform it.

Ah that makes sense. Thanks Walter!

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites



Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Add a comment...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.