Colour Grading Workflow

Colour grading is an important step, and usually one of the final steps before the film is completed. Since the digitalization of film, colour correction have become easier to access, and a lot easier to manage. But the word easy and colour correction are still two words you should not use in the same sentence. Colour correction has got a lot of different aspects to it, and I will look into some of these aspects here.

 

DaVinci Resolve is one of the most in-depth programmes used for colour correction and grading. It works by allowing the user to grade the footage in different layers also known as nodes. Nodes are like layers in Photoshop, and you apply a layer after the previous one, or in between the shots depending on what kind of picture you are trying to achieve. The different types of layers allow separation of different aspects of the image for cleaning up and detailed tweaking. 

Through nodes, it is possible to create a natural looking image, before it undergoes intense colour grading. Fixing whitebalance is usually one of the first steps to correct the image, and since it can be done on a seperate node, it is always possible to "go back" and make changes to this specific part of the image. DaVinci also allows the user to tweak the colour space for more detailed handling. This process will often secure better highlights and shadows, since all channels are separated in the program. 

One workflow I have found interesting is to separate the luma and the chroma channels in davinci resolve. When seperating these two aspects into seperate channels, it allows the user to clean up colour noise, without affecting the luma. 

After the final lock of the picture in the NLE software, it is possible to import aaf, edx or even xml files into the project, and thereby round-trip from one program to the other. This creates flexibility in terms of colour grading, since it is always possible to return to resolve for later colour tweaking.

Sound Post-Production

As a part of the post-production program we were introduced to Avids professional sound editing software Pro Tools. I was already familiar with Pro Tools when we had the introduction, but since I started with the version 7 a lot of new functions have been added.

Pro Tools is widely used to produce sound on films, because of its many functions relating to film such as a build in timeline for the video files. External hardware can be added to a computer, to improve the speed and workflow. Pro Tools can handle many tracks at the same time, and is in a lot of ways the best possible solution to use for sound editing. Avid is known for its very own plug-in format called the RTAS format. This format both index and improves the plug-ins when used in Pro Tools.

The workflow is in many ways similar to Media Composer. But instead of video tracks you edit with soundfiles. When jumping from Media Composer into Pro Tools, the programmes integrate with each other, to import both the final video edit on to the tracks from Media Composer, and the audiofiles on the sound tracks. Sound can then be imported and mixed for the desired result. When importing in to Pro Tools, the timeline is kept, so that the edit made in Media Composer is the exact same in Pro Tools.

Looking at the interface can be very distracting to the untrained eye. The interface is complicated, but offers every possible function to suit the users needs. Therefore training in the program is required in order to use it properly. Media composer offers a vast amount of effects, all in very high quality. When editing for a film, it is possible to make micro adjustments to the tracks, and enable or disable effects as desired. 

Through our Pro Tools tutorial, we were given a brief introduction to the interface and the workflow. We got to edit a (danish made) commercial, and could take it apart and assemble it as we wanted to. We were taught how to apply simple effects to the tracks, to give the sound a completely different feel and structure. 

I found the tutorial interesting, as I would like to pursue a more in-depth knowledge of the programme. Since I had been working with the programme before, I already had a feeling of how I could mix the sound. I found it to be a very interesting lesson, and I would definitively like to do more research on how sound can alter the image in a film. Small changes can make a huge difference!