post workflow

[Travis Cline]

I have a question about workflow. I posted about this befoer and I want to get confirmation about it at this point. We have a cut negative, but we are not making an answer print(at least not at this time). We are taking the cut negative to telecine and we are going to do a best light to HDCam and then tape to tape from that to get our final color correction. We are doing the best light and then the tape to tape to avoid moving back and forth on the original spliced negative. However, aren't we going to have to go back and forth on the negative anyway for our best light? The telecine house tells me it will be better this and such and such, but I don't want to drop to a tape format if I don't have to. I'm all for putting it to tape first since I am worried about my neg coming apart in the telecine, but if we are pulling the negative back and forth anyway, shouldn't we do our final color correction from that? Let me know. Am I wrong, am I paranoid?

Thanks

 

Travis

[David Cox]

I have a question about workflow. I posted about this befoer and I want to get confirmation about it at this point. We have a cut negative, but we are not making an answer print(at least not at this time). We are taking the cut negative to telecine and we are going to do a best light to HDCam and then tape to tape from that to get our final color correction. We are doing the best light and then the tape to tape to avoid moving back and forth on the original spliced negative. However, aren't we going to have to go back and forth on the negative anyway for our best light? The telecine house tells me it will be better this and such and such, but I don't want to drop to a tape format if I don't have to. I'm all for putting it to tape first since I am worried about my neg coming apart in the telecine, but if we are pulling the negative back and forth anyway, shouldn't we do our final color correction from that? Let me know. Am I wrong, am I paranoid?

Thanks

 

Travis

 

Normally for a best light, quick tweaks are done to the grading by the operator in the lead up to each shot - i.e. the bit after the clapper board and before the useful part of the shot. This way they can usually just keep running. If your neg cut is just an assembly of selected takes with a good run in to each shot, they will probably be able to do this. However, if your neg cut is a final edit, then they will ideally need to grade for each shot and run back and forth. What is your telecine house's view about handling negative and what is their liability if your neg does come apart?

 

In either case, because you are using a tape format for your intermediate rather than a file format with greater bit depth, I strongly suggest that you start your colour grading in telecine by at least setting the black and white points (contrast) as you would like your final to look. Although this will then limit further correction to contrast in your tape to tape session, it will mean that you are using the entire bit range of the tape format and this will give you better results. If you were to transfer a low contrast "flat" image to tape, adding in the contrast later would mean that you are only using the middle range of the tape format and then expanding this to get the contrast you want. This could lead to artifacts such as "banding" and restricted colour picking opportunities in your tape grade.

 

As for the tape format, HD CAM SR would be a better choice if possible, followed by HD D5, followed by HD-CAM. These formats are mentioned in the order of image resolution, highest first.

 

David Cox

Baraka Post Production

[Joshua Reis]

David gave you a great response. I agree, if you decide to go with a tape to tape for the final grade, use D5 or HDCAM SR as the intermediate tape formate. HDCAM is way too lossy and compressed to go through twice. However, you should be able to get your final grade right off the negative using the image bank in the telecine (Spirit) to match scenes and shots. This will obviously give you technicaly the highest quality results. Best of Luck