color correction?

[unknown232]

u know how on the movies how they have the raw footage and it looks ok and then they have the finished footage and the color is much better, how do they do this? i think its called color correction or digital grading? because i have a cheap $1200 camera, canon 630i, and i was wondering how i could make the footage look better.

[NorthernLights]

There's been a deep conversation about the colour correction in the Aviator movie that you can read here:
http://www.vfxtalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=3515

How you can make your footage look better? It all depends on what you're looking for. For our movie called Slutna Rum we did a couple of different things. For the dark scenes we raised the contrast a bit, tinted it towards colder colours and brought out the red to improve the look of the blood.

Basically speaking, it's about contrast/brightness and tinting the colour.

What program will you be using?

[unknown232]

i'll be using one of the following...can u tell me which u think is best?

adobe premiere pro
adobe premiere
avid xpress pro

i think pinnicle liquid is supposed to be good, a friend of mine has this so i can use that as well...

[Hugh]

I don't know what kind of colour correction facilities Premiere or Premiere Pro have - last time I looked at Premiere, there wasn't much (brightness/contrast was about it...)

Avid Xpress Pro has a nice colour correction tool - it's really easy to use, and has great controls to make sure that you are matching sequential shots the same way... I'd definately recommend using it for this kind of thing (at least over Premiere or Premiere Pro...)

[unknown232]

also its a horror movie that i'm filming, so lots of dark scenes, my camera when filming in the dark isn't the best, any tips? also any tips with color correction for dark scences?

[Hugh]

Get a better camera?

Or (and I'd suggest testing this out first), you could overlight and then pull the levels down in post. Your danger here is that you shoot it and it's too dark - if you have to bring the light back up in post, you're going to be bringing a lot of grain out, which is not a good thing.....

[unknown232]

also do u know any good sites that can help with short film making, editing, color correction. thanxs so much for all your help

[unknown232]

thankyou!

[ShadowMaker SdR]

But remember - and I suspect that's why Hughs suggests to test - overlighting is not the same thing as overexposure. If you get blown out high lights, you'll not get it to look like night/dark too easily. Also, but I am not sure it feels as if videocameras are more sensitive in the dark areas than they are in the lights (maybe it's a gamma thing?)

[Wahookah]

one thing especially with cheap video cameras is that you get a lot of noise, when you are filming in a dark environment, so that you´ll have trouble in Postproduction.

As said before, one option is to shoot with more light and reduce it in postproduction, without having issues with e grain...

[NorthernLights]

I haven't worked in Avid Xpress, but I suggest that you use that if you can. Avid is the program most companies use to cut movies, at least here in Sweden. So if you're looking for experience in that area, Avid is the way to go.

[SalaTar]

Even a Canon XL1s sucks in low light.
I have wedding movie to prove it..never hand a camera to a friend at dusk on a beach at your own wedding..
Worst part was a 2nd 400$ Sony camera did better..I digress
As for Avid, you can do it in Canopus or Adobe just do a test run and learn the in/out of what you want

[Vinteg]

http://www.adobe.com/products/premiere/overview.html

Premiere didn't have much and was quite buggy, however the rewrite in Premiere Pro is pretty good from what I've seen on Adobe's site. If you're use to color correcting your digital photos with Photoshop then the color coloring tools in Premiere Pro are similar. Plus, if you register your copy of Premiere Pro, you get a limited version of the Magic Bullet Looks for one click color correction, giving you that "instant film look."

However, I too heard that the color correction in Xpress Pro is far better.

Whatever you use, make sure you know about staying broadcast legal, how to read a vectorscope/waveform and make sure to use a TV monitor to color correct, preferable a broadcast monitor (even your regular TV should be much better than your computer monitor for viewing color correction).

[SalaTar]

I just assume "pro", these days as all companys now add "pro" to software
idisagree that avids cc is better than...

[Hugh]

Vinteg: That looks nice - Premiere Pro looks like it's got very similar colour correction tools to Avid....

From the look of it, though, it doesn't seem to have the same kind of comparison feature that is so useful in Avid (I can't find a screenshot, but when you're colour correcting a clip, it will also show you the previous and next clips...)

Salatar: But you always dislike the mainstream software - a classic underdog supporter!