Color Grading - From Juan Helps a Ton

[Ed_David]

for me this is one of the most useful color grading videos I have seen - the amount of work he does in each scene is remarkable.

 

Basically he throws a lut on the end - even though it feels like it throws it on first - it's an output lut.  

then he makes the shot overall color, then tweaks the low, mids, and highs.  he adds power windows - brings down the window - lowers exposure on stuff you don't want to see - other than where the action is - and in these shots it's the person talking.

then he goes into the faces - he usually adds a power window to bring up the exposure on the face where he wants it.

then he isolates the skintones, gets those to look healthy, then he does secondary correction, like making the lips more red and adding some highlights to the head.

God, overall, as I say it again and again, as long as you are shooting with as much color information as you can on the camera you can get - the colorist does a ton of heavy lifting in addition to how well the DP can light the scene in the time alloted.

but the difference between hollywood and small films is usually in the grading, beyond good lighting, composition, etc - this is so often forgotten.

And this is why I go bonkers when I shoot something on the alexa and it comes out and looks bad.  I mean, I screwed up in how I shot it and lit it - I can't free myself of blame, but many times the piece goes to a colorist and I have no way to communicate with that person on style and look and it comes out screwbally.

I wish production and post worked together more.

But anyway I guess this is a weird way to learn about film worked since I have hardly shot anything on film.  Film hits the telecine since the 90s and is turned into a log called cineon and from there gets tweaked and then put out on an answer print - and back then they would simulate the answer print with a LUT.  

So I guess all this is part of how people have been shooting films for a while now.

[mercer]

Yeah, there is an insane amount of work going on there.

To be honest, I'd be happy with his second or third layer. At that point there's a nice, calm, muted color to the shot and the skin tones look good.

Then when he dives deeper, the skin tones get mucked up, but the rest of the shot gets more dramatic. Then, wait for it... he fixes the skin tones near the end...

Very nice.

I feel inadequate now... Thanks for that. 

[Jonesy Jones]

My question is, how much tracking is involved and how does that look? The grading of 1 frame is hard enough, but with a moving camera or tracking the motion of something on screen, that complicates it right? I would like to see this.

[mercer]

I guess you key frame the masks?

[Ed_David]

yes you track the skin tone masks and in resolve it is super accurate.

Also watch the behind the scenes of coloring birdman - it's amazing how that guy did it 

These guys are unsung heroes - 

 

[AaronChicago]

My question is, how much tracking is involved and how does that look? The grading of 1 frame is hard enough, but with a moving camera or tracking the motion of something on screen, that complicates it right? I would like to see this.

which nle are you using? It's super easy in Premiere and of course easy in Resolve.

[Nikkor]

Oh yes, the juan melara stuff, it kind off started all the lut stuff (at least it did it for me).

[Jonesy Jones]

which nle are you using? It's super easy in Premiere and of course easy in Resolve.

Premiere. I eventually want to move to Resolve but it's such a mind bender for me.

[AaronChicago]

Premiere. I eventually want to move to Resolve but it's such a mind bender for me.

If you have the 2015 version you can keyframe masks which was a lifesaver for me b/c I used to bounce back and forth between After Effects for that.

[Ed_David]

here's a grade I did today using Juan's guide to help me on my way

 

The original footage is here: vimeo.com/110498281

Trying to figure out how to grade footage. How to make stuff look good and not weird like most of my other grades.
Resolve.
Using Impulz luts - 50d - 5203 CINEON
did basic color, contrast, saturation. playing with midtone detail - that is awesome - it's on the color wheel thingy - tab 2.
added sharpness
Did some secondary color correction on faces and brought out lips.

Had to shift white balance pretty big on shot of woman - I think for some reason color temp when they shot it was off. But hey, thanks for the free footage! Why should I complain?

Final node was finishing to Juan Melera's - Kodak 2393 answer print ConstrastL It's free to get on the internet this lut. Impulz has one but his has less contrast. juanmelara.com.au/print-film-emulation-luts-for-download/

Juan is a really nice guy for sharing his knowledge to the world. Thank you Juan for caring!

This was shot slog.3 sgamut3.cine I think.

I like using Impulz film luts - they feel like the closest to film for me, when I watch hollywood or other stuff shot on film, I feel like they get there. Are they always one size fits all? No. This is an artform. And for colorists who say, "I don't use LUTS" - good for you colorist. There is no one way to do anything and Luts save time, I think, at least that's what the propaganda tells me from the Impulz FAQ.

Using luts is KOOL. If you don't want to use them, so be it. Also it's kind of interesting to try to figure out coloring. What a crazy artform, trying to make stuff not feel digital and crappy.
Please ask me questions or make fun of my work.

[sam]

  After seeing this post and Gordon Willis (reincarnate) posts on Dvxuser, I checked some personal projects, and the 50d 5203 (FC) is what I gravitate towards more often then not. I wonder what has made all of us arrive at the same starting point lut wise ? 

[Ed_David]

50d is pretty nice - I think maybe just trying to make it all look like the movies we see - or it feels natural to us how it handles skin overall.  500t is also pretty popular and I like to mess with the fuiji ones as well.