Hollywood Colorist Walter (CSI) about his color grading process

Hollywood Colorist Walter (CSI) about his color grading process

Walter Volpatto (CSI)

xap3.23.101.60


 

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 58
  • Thanks 24

Go to home

User Feedback

Recommended Comments



HECTOR ANDERSON

This was great.  I had the opportunity to see Walter demonstrate this at a colorist meetup.  I was able to copy the node tree, but had since forgotten much of the details and reasoning behind the placement and creation of certain nodes.  Good refresher.  Thanks for making this happen.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Victor Riley
On 1/13/2021 at 3:58 AM, Walter Volpatto said:

the reordering of node in V17 is highly aggravating.....

Just a quick heads-up on that @Walter Volpatto: There's now a checkbox for this in Resolve settings: 

image.png.ed772534b258d4127104e6ff9a645dc5.png

 

Edit: This is Resolve 17 /17.1 beta 7 – and is even noted in the changelog for the release: Addressed user preference issue for fixed color page node numbering. https://forum.blackmagicdesign.com/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=132194

Edited by Victor Riley
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Walter Volpatto
On 1/19/2021 at 8:13 AM, Vincent Badia said:

Hi Walter,

May I ask you to clarify how you propagate/ripple the changes.

The way you describe it seems a very fast operation : Perform the change, select the shots to modify, propagate.
But since you don’t use pre/post groups for this, neither shared node. How do you concretely copy and propagate the changes that fast on so many shots at once ?

Thank you very much for your time.

 

In the color menu you have two ways to propagate: [ripple color change to current group] - or - [ripple color changes to selected clips]

  • Like 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Victor Riley

@Walter Volpatto You talked about using Group Nodes as a place for HDR trims and looks in case there isn't a timeline look. Could you elaborate more on the node structure you're using in Groups and Timeline? I reckon you don't use Pre-Group that much, but I'd be interested in your Post-Group trim node structure and your Timeline node structure.

  • Like 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites
  • Popular Comment
Walter Volpatto
  • Popular Comment
On 1/25/2021 at 2:50 AM, Victor Riley said:

@Walter Volpatto You talked about using Group Nodes as a place for HDR trims and looks in case there isn't a timeline look. Could you elaborate more on the node structure you're using in Groups and Timeline? I reckon you don't use Pre-Group that much, but I'd be interested in your Post-Group trim node structure and your Timeline node structure.

I think is too long of a discussion to be put in few sentences (i should do a color space/workflow with Lowepost...)  but the general ideas are that either (or) in the timeline and POST groups, you want to put two things: the main look of the movie plus any transformation to adapt teh master to a different spec, like HDR.

if you do a HDR mapping per scene, then it goes into the POST group, if you do globally, then it goes in timeline.

  • Like 8
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Jesper Hammarbäck

Walter, about the settings in the resolve color management when you work in log.  (the log space im working on)

Lets say I have Alexa footage, are these settings right then for Rec709.
See attached image. :)

Skärmavbild 2021-02-02 kl. 14.52.08.png

Edited by Jesper Hammarbäck
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Walter Volpatto
3 hours ago, Jesper Hammarbäck said:

Walter, about the settings in the resolve color management when you work in log.  (the log space im working on)

Lets say I have Alexa footage, are these settings right then for Rec709.
See attached image. :)

Skärmavbild 2021-02-02 kl. 14.52.08.png

I work in Unmanaged color, i do my own color management.

  • 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.

×