Lowepost

Independence Day: Resurgence was my third collaboration with DoP Markus Förderer. I was introduced to the project very early on. Markus was in LA shooting a camera and lighting test (a 15-minute sequence) and took the images to various post production houses to see what kind of look they could come up with. He also came to me in Munich. I knew very well what he wanted to see in this look. He was looking for a film emulation look and knew what was possible to achieve with film emulation from our last two projects. The second installment of Independence Day built on the look of the first movie. We reviewed a lot of images from it for inspiration. We looked especially closely at the look inside the alien space ship. We didn’t want to break with the aesthetics of the first movie but still wanted to give the new movie its own world of look and feel. We graded for half a day to find a look that we liked and went to ARRIS's cinema (a public 400 seat cinema that let us stream 4k uncompressed from the grading suites) to review the images on the big screen. I think it was very helpful to see the images in a final environment very early on. We used a couple of hours to fine tune the look and were very confident that the look-LUT we created would work for the whole movie. The look-LUT could be created using the DaVinci Resolve's LUT feature, but I have my own LUT-Template file ( TIFF file ) that incorporates a 65 size 3D LUT and a 16 bit 1D LUT. I normally use this file because I get the more precise 3D LUTs out of it. DOWNLOAD: Blank LUT template file made by Utsi Film look introduced by the print stock The look-LUT we came up with was based on a Kodak film-print emulation. A lot of people have analyzed negative stocks and tried to make their digital images look like film scans, but have only taken into account the look of the negative. It's important to understand that the film look is really introduced through the print stock (Fuji or Kodak for example) because that has a huge impact on film. At ARRI we had a product a few years ago called „ARRI Cube“. It had a film analyzer at its core we built to reliably scan negatives and prints. The LUTs I am still using today are based on this data. One LUT for any situation The look-LUT for this movie was used for monitoring on set and throughout the entire post production process. Having only one LUT made things a lot easier. Everyone involved knew how to use it. We looked at many different lighting scenarios when generating the LUT so we knew it could hold up for any situation. If this had not been done carefully, people would have started to generate specific LUTs for specific scenes and we could have easily ended up with 30 to 50 LUTs. Such a large number would have been difficult to work with through post and would have required a lot of additional management of the look pipeline. On top of using only one LUT, Markus tweaked the RedRAW settings on the camera to fine tune the look on set. This way the files were always rendered straight through the LUT for dailies with no further corrections necessary. Everyone was looking at the image the way we wanted, no CDL values needed to be carried around, and it made the color pipeline even more streamlined. READ: Daniele Siragusano about CDL Blending LUTs I have different creative LUTs I use to create a new look. I often blend them together depending on the client’s wishes and add some grading steps to them in the different stages, meaning before the creative LUTs or after. All these creative LUTs let me stay in the same color space and are not doing any tone mapping to the image. It means that if you have a creative LUT simulating a film emulation and the input you are giving the LUT is Redlogfilm the output is also Redlogfilm. This way you can actually start blending in different things and only using fractions of a 3D-LUT. They can be dissolved using the opacity or can be blended using the layer nodes in Resolve. It is also possible to do really soft keys and use these for getting film emulation only in the highlights, etc. Lense characteristics Independence Day: Resurgence was mainly shot on a Red Epic Dragon in 4k and 6k. Red Weapon was also used in some scenes, and the lenses were mainly Vantage Film 2x anamorphics Hawk V-Plus zooms and Hawk V-Lite primes. We came up with certain look stacks for certain lens characteristics, as the look of the lenses often needed to be applied to the big VFX shots which were entirely computer generated. This would incorporate the oval bokeh, light distortion, flares and streak. Grading technique The grade was performed at FotoKem and we used DaVinci Resolve. We ran debayered OpenExr-files through the Resolve set to Redlogfilm color space. Printer lights are for me 90 % percent of the balancing of the shots. I then move to lift and gain for contrast in combination with an S-curved contrast. The benefit of that combination is that you get two different methods of increasing or decreasing contrast for a shot. Using the lift and gain will clip values really fast by increasing the contrast. Using an S-curved contrast the clipping is kept to a minimum. So I can decide what control to use for a contrast change depending on the result I'm trying to achieve. This is often appended by changes using Highlight/Shadow control and the custom curves. In the fine tuning stage I would then move to RGB curves and hue curves. I like to think of what tools can best solve a grading problem and then try one, two, or maybe three different approaches to see which one works best. Often I like to go back and try to solve things a second time to see if I end up somewhere different. And then I think it is important to also look at images the way they came into the system without the corrections to really see if the grading is helping the story. Skin tones I think the better the skin tones look and the more they look the same under different lighting conditions and exposures, the better an overall look will work. So having a consistent skin tone when someone is coming out of the shadow and walking into a light is very important. If the skin tone seems greenish or something else in the shadow, this will put the viewer off. On most digital cameras, two caucasian skin tones are often rendered further apart from each other then what we are used to seeing on images shot on negative stock. Therefore, I normally have a skin tone cleaning step in my look stack. This step basically grabs these different hues and places them closer together, but the variations in the skin tones will be retained. I have stored this cleaning step in a creative LUT, but it can also be reproduced by using a keyed primary grade and hue curves. Dark Scenes You always need to consider that not every cinema will show the film at the proper brightness it was graded for. We watched very dark scenes at different light levels to see what was still visible when we dropped the brightness of the projector. We didn’t want to grade too dark in a grading cinema and then have a lot of people not see anything at all. So there is a limit on how dark you can grade. Having this filmic LUT for the DI helped us with this problem, because we built it with a very filmic black roll off where we could feel and see into the blacks. In general, when grading dark scenes it's important to see faces. Not all the time, but you need to know who is in the scene and you need to see the eyes. Color grading for me is not so much about numbers and scopes. It’s more about creating a feeling in a shot and replicating it in the rest of the scene. To help accomplish that I always keep stills of every shot for reference. That said, it's easy to focus too much on still images because that's the way we set up grades. A movie is dynamic so it's important to review the scene running every now and then. To run the whole movie with sound every few days is also very important. That is the only way to really see what is working and what is not. I worked on the project for three weeks grading the Cinema DCP master. I then gave the project into the good hands of Walter Volpatto at FotoKem in Burbank who graded all the missing VFX shots and the additional masters: DolbyVision Cinema, HDR10, HD-TV, Imax and Imax3D. Florian 'Utsi' Martin All images and clips copyright © 2016 20th Century Fox

Sully was my third collaboration with the Malpaso team and I got involved from the very beginning supervising the dailies. This allowed me to get very familiar with the material and gave me an opportunity to discuss certain scenes with them prior to the main grading session. Since the event depicted in the movie was set in more modern times, we aimed for a look that would reflect that. I did look at some footage of the actual day of the crash to have a feel for the whole thing. It was a cold day in New York when they landed in the Hudson River and it was important to see how difficult it was for the people that went through this miraculous day. Overall, the movie has a nice natural feel. Some looks were falling into place pretty nicely as Tom Stern is very good at exposing and lighting things in a way that makes the DI more straight forward. Then it’s a matter of nuances and color rhythm to suit the narrative of the movie. I must say it’s been a real delight to be able to collaborate with Clint Eastwood and Tom Stern on these movies. Color space management Baselight has a built-in color space management that can convert between logarithmic and linear color spaces. It does the mapping pretty accurately without having to trim too much from one color space to another. What I like about it is that you are not confined to a LUT profile and it gives you more control over the color science itself. I addition, I use a special DRT (Display rendering transform) flavor made by our color science team, here at Technicolor. DRT happens before the color space transform is applied and helps to smooth the curves depending on the color space journey and RAW camera data. FORUM: Discuss DRT in this thread Once the color space management is established I can debayer the material in real time and always work directly from the RAW camera files accessing the full resolution and color range. This is particularly handy if you’re working in HDR. Another important fact is that good color mangement ensures that format, color, and sharpening levels all match when exporting LUTs for the VFX teams. A combination of tools I’m really “old school” when it comes to balancing the picture. I still work in film grades using RGB, contrast, and density color controls to bring the scenes into uniformity. READ: Dan Muscarella about Printer Lights Then, as a second pass, it’s easier to ripple across more intricate looks. By the time the DP comes in, the heavy lift has been done so he can concentrate on the things he has in mind, finessing the movie and the detailed work. His time is precious and I want to ensure he can use it towards the things he cares about. This is where the “fun” begins in some ways. I tend to prefer to build color, meaning, use multiple layers that can either add or subtract to itself. I’m conscious of using tools that will move colors in a healthy way and I like to think that my color work will survive time. I use a combination of tools, and composite grading is one of them. I do composite grading in the traditional sense but I also like blending layers, subtracting, adding and playing with the opacity to create a unique feel for certain scenes such as flashbacks, etc. I’m personally not a fan of the curves and what they do, they are definitely a last resort for me for very particular situations. I use windows on almost every film I work on and I prefer custom ones to pre-define ones. Once we’re done polishing the image, Clint usually comes in to review and give final notes. At this point, his notes are typically easy to address since the image is in a very good place. It’s an efficient way to work. Skin tones There are so many ways to treat skin tones. If there is good color separation in the shots, you might adjust hue levels separately. Or keying would be easy as well. If the shot has an overall dominant hue, for instance, yellow, you may want to roto the faces or modify the overall shot in a way that introduces color separation. Every scene setup is different and one trick doesn’t work for all. VFX This was one of the most VFX intensive titles I’ve done with the Malpaso team. I used mattes to color the background, foreground and specific elements of the plane separately. Sometimes we had up to 8 RGBA channels for each shot. I also worked with VFX supervisor Michael Owens to ensure that everything tied together well. Colorists often have to deal with object removal, beauty work, and small comps. One example of this on Sully is that I changed the gold ring into white gold for the entire movie. It was a lot of tracking between my assistant and me but Baselight has powerful tools that make this type of work way easier and faster than it would have been 10 years ago. Feel what works As the cut gets locked and your looks are more established, you can play the movie with sound and have a feel for what works and flows well or what might need fine tweaking to serve the narrative a little better. Again, this is very intuitive and something you experience with the filmmakers. It's always a moving target until you get all the pieces together. I always build a long play before we sign off so we really have a feel for the whole movie and how it flows. We sometimes repeat this a couple of times before making the final DCP. Imax Delivery Resolution is everything for IMAX delivery and having the majority of the movie shot on the ARRI 65 helped to give this great definition. It was framed for 1.9:1, but we also did a 2.4:1 pass with Tom Stern for the non-IMAX release. If you want to see the movie in its original format, IMAX 4K is the way to go. The VFX pulls were done at full resolution (6K) and delivered as such to MPC which in return did the 1.9:1 extract and delivered the final VFX shots in 4K. This way we maintained resolution quality and consistency throughout the movie. Having the IMAX laser projection in mind we reviewed all the graded VFX shots at the IMAX post-production image and quality control facility. This way we could see how the image would hold up. We could also determine if my grading matched what I was doing at my 4K Christie projector. Back in my Technicolor suite I pushed the lamp on my projector to 20fl and simulated what I was experiencing at IMAX as a guide. This was just an extra tab on my Christie for guidance only and mostly to see where highlights and blacks would end up (roughly). At the end, I did a final color pass for the IMAX version with the colorist at the IMAX facility. It helped that they were also using a Baselight. Stay on top of your game A colorist needs to actually see colors and differentiate hues. There are tests out there, X-rite for example, that can show your color perception and acuity. Test yourself at least once a year. It's also good to be able to have an intuitive understanding of what your clients want. Also, it’s important to use your knowledge to give advice in case potential issues arise. It's about collaboration and exchange of ideas where a colorist needs to have a good ear and be receptive to what is being said but also needs to be able to have his voice heard in the most respective way. Finally, having technical understanding of new technologies is definitely a plus. You have to stay on top of your game. Maxine Gervais All images and clips copyright © 2016 SF Norge / IMAX

As a dramatic show, "Empire" combines many genres and cinematographic styles, but also pulls from diverse styles as a highly sophisticated 'music performance' show. The rhythm of these scenes and stories fusing together gives a great opportunity to tell the story through color-correction! Empire's Cinematographer Paul Sommers and I have collaborated for years. Paul took over the show after Season One and brought me on board. Paul increased the dramatic and stylized look of the show ten-fold. He is a master of building and balancing tension in the scenes. His courage and sense of style also comes through in the staged performances. He is not timid. References I think Paul and I both draw on our diverse histories in television, features, and music videos for references and inspiration. We want to use the various looks of the scenes to telegraph the changes in mood and create foreshadowing. The looks can be subtle or more evocative. We use a range of vocabulary, from benign and hopeful to polluted, toxic, dangerous environments, and/or anything that matches the feel of the episode. On some shows, I have the creatives in the room with me. I can suggest my own ideas in real time and they are right there to respond. On Empire, I’m left alone to color the entire episode with Paul’s written tone notes and the dailies color as a guide. Looking at the dailies, can see how the creatives have been viewing the cut and the direction so far. I might throw out what’s in the dailies and do my own feel but I will always keep the dailies in my head so I know what’s been set. If I make a strong change in a scene it will make a big impact, so I need to be ready for a reaction. Hopefully, I'm moving things in a positive direction more often than not! It's my job to ride the edge to make the show as punchy as possible. That said, the story comes first. The rhythm of the show may indicate that we relax the contrast or starve out the saturation for the feel of a certain scene. Set up Empire is shot on Alexa and color corrected on DaVinci Resolve. I work from the Alexa RAW files and work without using any LUTs. I use the color-corrector to bring the color from raw to finished and stylized r709. I prefer to go from the raw on each clip and just beat on the controls until the picture has the correct contrast and tone. While I know many colorists use a LUT in line, I feel this affords the best chance to maintain image purity and headroom when I need it. To start each scene, I look for a few wide shots to color to establish the geography for myself. I approach the entire image as if we were in an old school print lab, and go for the strongest "full page" color setting. I may make the broadest grading strokes (including the raw to r709) in one node and then use another downstream one for fine trimming. I look objectively at the color-graded image and then use shapes, tracking and other isolations to punch up the image and focus on the drama. I might place and/or track flags and add or subtract brightness from an area of the frame to guide or focus the audience's eye. Then I fill in the in between shots and adjust the overall look for that scene. After the "1st pass" of the entire show is done, I play the show for myself from the top, and trim for continuity. Running with the "finished" color in place as opposed to stopping on each cut affords me an objective look at the piece as a whole. With this new perspective I might adjust the overall tone/ contrast of a scene or change the level of a flag or 'topper'. At this stage I can also further smooth out whatever color continuity bumps come up in the cut. For moody performances, I might track eye lights on cast members so that the overall contrast stays strong but the viewer is still getting all the performance that's there. We try to 'ride the line' so the network does not ask me to bring the whole image up brighter. Skin tones When working on skin tones, I try to look carefully at the color temp difference between the key and fill light (since my DP would not usually pull this color temperature apart unless there's a specific practical source indicated), how backlight flaring affects things during performance in a given location, and the overall mood. I want to walk the line between making faces stand out and a blended organic image. Sometimes we're trying to create a mixed color-temperature in the scene. Driving coolness into the lowlights may involve having unique control over the skin-tones and introducing warmth as a counterpoint. Mood I always listen to the soundtrack which is on my timeline while I'm working. The dialogue and temp music score focus me on what the show is doing, and give cues to what the mood is supposed to be. I try to work in the organic flow of the show: what came before and what comes next. I try to strike a balance between which scenes to deeply manipulate and when to let the photography be what it is. I might invent a polluted look with green elements etc for dark and dangerous scenes or manipulate the highlight color separately to indicate a different time of day from what was scripted at the time. I maintain all my stills as a reference for locations and looks or moods we've used before. That way I don't have to reinvent the wheel each week. Make the show work for everyone Color correction is a great fusion of styles, and also a fusion of art and business. Anyone doing this over a period of years knows that we are required to simultaneously address the taste of a range of all the creatives on each show. The look all the creatives want and what the look needs is not always the same as what I'd like the see on my personal reel. Both Paul and I work in the world of images but we may sometimes need to temper our sense of the visually graphic to make the show work for everyone. It's always a healthy interplay between the cinematographer, the colorist and the creatives. It's a team sport and it's important to remain open! (Good coffee helps). Scott Klein All images and clips copyright © 2016 20th Century Fox Television

I was brought on board when they started scouting. I spoke to the DP, Adam Arkapaw during the testing stages and he sent various looks that he liked and thought would work for the show. We also had some in-depth conversations about what he was looking for. One of the references we spoke of, was the movie "Seven". I didn't have any interaction with the director, Cary Fukunaga prior to him coming to NY to do post. Grading Technique True Detective was shot on Kodak negative, mostly 5219 and 5207, and color corrected on DaVinci Resolve. I chose not to use any LUTs for the show as we wanted to have the most flexibility and didn't want to fight any curves. We scanned all the negatives to 2K DPX frames which I then graded. I work differently depending on the show, the look and feel they are going for. For this show both Cary and Adam wanted everything to be very real and organic. After sitting with both of them I found it faster to use printer points and basic Log controls to get the primary balance done. Once we had the primary balance where we wanted, I then watched it back with audio to see if the look matched the tone. I then used Linear controls to dig in and create some subtle differences in the separate areas of the image. As well as adjusting exposure and color temperature. Matching shots After I had what I felt was a good overall balance of color and brightness, I started paying attention to skin tones throughout. I was also looking if I needed to shade, vignette or pull anything out of the image. Matching skin tones is a big part of making the scene look good. When you are watching these scenes, the object you are focused on from shot to shot is the actor's face and expression. If they are not matching from shot to shot, it's going to be very noticeable and quick for any one of us to point out. I didn't do much beauty work in color on this season. We did an occasional sharpening of eyes or softening of backgrounds but that was about it. The most challenging scene was probably the one in episode 4. Cary and Adam did an amazing shot that lasted 6 minutes without a cut. They were going in and out of apartments, thru windows, in the light and dark. Cary had a very specific thought for how he wanted every turn to look. So needless to say we had a lot of color rides and tracking windows and dissolves throughout that scene. Organic feel Every scene is different. Whether it be the lighting, atmosphere, exposure or temperature. So my technique changes depending on what's needed. I try to use windows more than keys. I feel like when you over use keys, it takes you away from the natural feel of what the DP actually captured. I think most people can feel when something is over keyed and too perfect. I prefer the organic feel myself. That's not to say I don't key and won't. Or that I didn't on this show. I definitely did. My preference is to get a good balance of color from the primary balance and then use shading and subtle windows or keys to just accentuate what the DP has done. I also always try to maintain some shape in my highlights. I do everything in my power to not have a clipped white sky or highlights. This obviously depends on the scene and how it was shot. A softer highlight at times is nice. Again it's all personal preference and the feel of the scene. Every colorist works a little different and there is no one way to get something done. We work in a very subjective field. It's all about helping the director and DP see their vision in the end. This was an amazing series to be a part of. From the DP and director to the editors and post staff. Steven Bodner All images and clips copyright © HBO