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Rough average for hours to grade a feature?


Mike Nichols

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Let's say you have a 90 minute feature and you are grading on a Quantel with a serious technician. How many hours are you looking at?

 

Never done it before!

 

What are you grading from? Scans of original negative? Partially color-timed HD transfers? Something shot in HD? 10-bit LOG or gamma encoded broadcast video, like Rec 709? Just depends on how close what you are working with is to the final product.

 

Generally I've done home video transfers to HD for features in about four to five days (32 to 40 hours) working from color-timed IP's. For a D.I. working from original negative, I'd give myself twice that at least, 10 days (80 hours). But working from HD tapes from an HD camera, especially if shot in Rec 709, it tends to go much faster since the recording is so close to the final look.

 

The more latitude and information your original has, in some ways, the more time you have to give yourself to color-correct it. But you also have more flexibility.

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Let's say you have a 90 minute feature and you are grading on a Quantel with a serious technician. How many hours are you looking at?

 

Never done it before!

 

 

Lot's of variables, depending on the source material, the speed of the operator and most importantly, your budget. I'd say 6 to 10 days (10 hours) would be a comfortable start. You can always do it in less of course, so Im starting from ideal.

 

jb

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Guest tylerhawes

80-150 hours for DI, depending on lots of factors, mostly closer to 80 than the other way. That is color time. There's also conform time and other ancillary work... Also, hopefully you're working with a serious Colorist, not a technician :)

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I'm going to make all this worse. How many edits do you anticipate? For example, a 120 minute feature with a fast edit pace (1 cut every 3 seconds on average) will result in around 2,400 edits. A medium pace (5 seconds) can put you around 1,440 cuts. A slow pace can leave you with 500 to 1,000 cuts. (These figures aren't precise and standards vary)

 

The point is- the more cuts you have, the more matching back and forth you have to do. As well, the more normal variation between shots and especially between lighting set-ups. That means more time in both editing and color timing.

 

Directorial style has some to do with it. If the director likes old, TV style coverage and can shoot the whole scene all the way through from three angles, then that's easier. If the director likes a unique angle for every cut, boy, oh boy, you've got some work ahead of you with color.

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Lot's of variables, depending on the source material, the speed of the operator and most importantly, your budget. I'd say 6 to 10 days (10 hours) would be a comfortable start. You can always do it in less of course, so Im starting from ideal.

 

jb

 

Sorry, should have been more specific! The files are 2K 2perf scanned DPX files that I assembled in Final Cut Pro with Gluetools. I guess the workflow would be exporting out scene stacks to drives and getting the corrected files back to conform.

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I'm going to make all this worse. How many edits do you anticipate? For example, a 120 minute feature with a fast edit pace (1 cut every 3 seconds on average) will result in around 2,400 edits. A medium pace (5 seconds) can put you around 1,440 cuts. A slow pace can leave you with 500 to 1,000 cuts. (These figures aren't precise and standards vary)

 

The point is- the more cuts you have, the more matching back and forth you have to do. As well, the more normal variation between shots and especially between lighting set-ups. That means more time in both editing and color timing.

 

Directorial style has some to do with it. If the director likes old, TV style coverage and can shoot the whole scene all the way through from three angles, then that's easier. If the director likes a unique angle for every cut, boy, oh boy, you've got some work ahead of you with color.

 

 

I have 1100 edits.

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Let's say you have a 90 minute feature and you are grading on a Quantel with a serious technician. How many hours are you looking at?

 

Never done it before!

 

For a feature we got graded at Gold Crest (with their colorist John Dowdell and the Quantel system), we did 8 days and have two more for some further editing done. So 10 total.

 

100 minute film. 1080p, 10-bit footage... With a guy who seriously knows his way around that thing.

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For a feature we got graded at Gold Crest (with their colorist John Dowdell and the Quantel system), we did 8 days and have two more for some further editing done. So 10 total.

 

100 minute film. 1080p, 10-bit footage... With a guy who seriously knows his way around that thing.

 

John Dowdell is AWESOME! Great dude too. I am going to Goldcrest. They did the scanning. Chris in the machine room was really cool in helping me out, Ben Lay was always there to help me out with a technical question and Tim Spitzer took care of me from the on set. Now, forgive my lack of knowledge on this, but when you say 10 days total, does that mean 80 hours?

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John Dowdell is AWESOME! Great dude too. I am going to Goldcrest. They did the scanning. Chris in the machine room was really cool in helping me out, Ben Lay was always there to help me out with a technical question and Tim Spitzer took care of me from the on set. Now, forgive my lack of knowledge on this, but when you say 10 days total, does that mean 80 hours?

 

Yes, generally a full-day session is 8 hours.

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John Dowdell is AWESOME! Great dude too. I am going to Goldcrest. They did the scanning. Chris in the machine room was really cool in helping me out, Ben Lay was always there to help me out with a technical question and Tim Spitzer took care of me from the on set. Now, forgive my lack of knowledge on this, but when you say 10 days total, does that mean 80 hours?

 

Yeah, John's incredible. As is the rest of the team.

 

Yeah, 80 hours sounds about right. Including some compositing and text work done by the Graphic FX guy. Love that Quantel. Incredible.

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Yeah, John's incredible. As is the rest of the team.

 

Yeah, 80 hours sounds about right. Including some compositing and text work done by the Graphic FX guy. Love that Quantel. Incredible.

 

Yikes! Not sure if the budget can accommodate 80 hours of grading! Maybe I will pull select scenes for the quantel and work with Color for the rest.

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Yikes! Not sure if the budget can accommodate 80 hours of grading! Maybe I will pull select scenes for the quantel and work with Color for the rest.

 

Yeah, it can certainly add up. I believe we got some off because someone knew someone at Goldcrest, but don't quote me :)

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