Jump to content

Diagnosing 16mm Color Correction Issues - with screen grabs


Aaron Martin @ OH

Recommended Posts

Hello -

 

I'm in the process of finishing up a documentary that I shot last year. I'm almost at picture lock and it's time for me to start thinking about color correcting and grading my project. My film was shot on two different film stocks, Kodak's 50D 7203 and 500T 7219. Both films were processed normal and were given a flat pass telecine on a Baselight system to HD ProRes422HQ files.

 

I've tried some correction tests with this footage and I am having a devil of a time getting everything to balance out. The transfer is obviously lacking in contrast, and when I try to correct that it knocks the color and saturation all out of whack. According to the scopes I am using (inside color and FCP) I have to drop the blacks way down and stretch the whites and the midtones way up in order for the spread to register correctly. In fact, it seems to take too much correction to add contrast to my footage.

 

Is this the case? Am I doing to do much? I'm turning to you guys for some help and advice. Right now I'm not worried about grading the footage - just correcting it so it doesn't look flat.

 

Below are some screen grabs from my project which should give you a good idea of what I'm dealing with. If you have any suggestions or comments please feel free to share them with me. I'm also happy to provide more screen grabs or answer any questions if you think it will help.

 

Here's some shots from the 50D footage, all take in full sun around f16.

 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/25291579@N00/9007383279/

 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/25291579@N00/9007384281/

 

Here's some shots for the 500T footage. Two were shot under fluorescent light at around f2, the last was shot using a practical tungsten fixture at around f4.

 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/25291579@N00/9007385761/

 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/25291579@N00/9008568480/

 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/25291579@N00/9007388485/

 

I should mention that these screen grabs appear much darker than my actual footage. The blacks are not as strong in the 7219 footage as shown here, but they are very strong in the 7203 footage and these stills make them look even darker. I should also mention that this project will most likely be corrected using Apple's Color.

 

Thanks in advance for your help,

 

Aaron Martin


 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...