Star Wars: The Last Jedi - Technical Breakdown

At a recent Blackmagic conference in Los Angeles, I was thrilled by the opportunity to learn some of the inside secrets that went behind the making of Star Wars : The Last Jedi, specifically the color and finishing process. Fotokem's Senior Colorist Walter Volpatto and Lead Color Scientist Joseph Slomka presented a deep dive into how they approached the process:

The overall creative vision was set by Director Rian Johnson, with "The Empire Strikes Back" as the general reference for the look and feel, one that was "historic and lost". Director of Photography Steve Yedlin executed Rian's vision by implementing a highly technical and "evidence-based decision process" for implementing a film look and pipeline. The film was shot on a combination of 35mm film, 65mm film, Arri Alexa, Alexa 65 and Sony F23. The film look wasn't just color but halation, gate weave, grain and matching to the numerous digital cameras used alongside traditional celluloid.

Getting into the color aspect of the film, Walter emphasized several points that really made an impact on me as a colorist, and has lead to some changes in the way I've approached my own color grading a bit:

• Respect the cinematography - don't adjust contrast unnecessarily and needlessly "for the sake of it", as that does not respect the cinematographer's original intent. 
• Respect the vision
• Use the right color tools for the job
• Use the visual language of cinematography - a colorist is similar to a virtual cinematographer, in that they should manipulate the image in a way that emulates how it would have occurred if done in-camera \ on-set. 

For the dailies work, the team used RGB CDLs (color decision lists) only as Walter emphasized they did not want to "fix problems in dailies color". The production relied heavily on Fotokem's nextLab on-set DIT workstation system to create deliverables for VFX, the studio, DP, and Director. The team needed to perform a few tests on-set in order to ensure everything looked okay going forward. With HDR distribution becoming more common, so they monitored on-set in HDR for about a week before feeling confident enough to move forward with traditional SDR on-set reference displays. 

“We didn’t want to fix problems in dailies”

— Walter Volpatto

As we got more into the workflow methodology, Walter shared that all major (color) decisions were made in the first two weeks and they used an "answer print" method of coloring remotely at Skywalker Ranch in Northern California, syncing with Fotokem's servers in Burbank 600 miles away. DI Editor Phil Beckner manned the Resolve workstations in Burbank while Walter was working on-site at Skywalker Ranch. Editorial was located in Pinewood, Burbank and Skywalker Ranch. 

The collaboration between Phil and Walter was especially critical, as Phil was taking care of all non-color tasks in the same project, while Walter was working on color simultaneously and both were getting real-time feedback from the client. They had the additional responsibilities of grading all the tv spots, trailers, behind the scenes documentaries, and deleted scenes, "cause its bloody freaking Star Wars", per Walter.  Phil took on the color tasks for the BTS documentaries, which you can view on the BluRay & DVD or streaming. 

The team used three start-of-the-art DaVinci Resolve workstations, each with six Nvidia Titan XP Graphics Cards and 20TBs of local storage, with one workstation dedicated to nothing but rendering, review, and QC duties. The show used a full OpenEXR workflow for both 2D & 3D deliverables. Fotokem used a Nuke render farm directly connected with the SAN for film emulation, grain, localization, titling and more. Nuke was used because it could be set up in a render farm configuration and because it was "open and configurable". Walter graded the film in Blackmagic DaVinci Resolve 14. 

Film Emulation and QC in The Foundry's Nuke (labels added for clarity)

The team took a very interesting approach to Quality Control, which took place over three parts. The first level of QC (QC 1) was done immediately after the film was scanned \ cards ingested into a Resolve workstation, where it was put through an HDR pipeline in an attempt to "break it before anyone else sees it break." The team used HDR  to "amplify any possible image issues"  and addressed them immediately. Any dust or scratches were cleaned up in Nuke at this phase, which you can see in the node graph above. The second level of QC (QC 2) is a single HDR10 export out of DaVinci Resolve, which was QCed at DIsney and in-house at Fotokem. Every subsequent version originates from this master HDR10 "QC root" file, appropriately dubbed "The Mother". This workflow allows for easy propagation of fixes throughout all the masters by simply fixing "The Mother" and recreating everything down the chain. The third level of QC (QC 3) occurred when creating all the localized versions along with the huge variety of final deliverables for home video and streaming releases.

One of the localization comps in Nuke for Star Wars: The Last Jedi. Couresty of Fotokem

The deliverables list for large studio tentpole features is usually quite extensive, but for a Star Wars film it was on another level. Just for the theatrical deliverable, I counted eight different variants (and I'm sure I missed a few). They also had to prepare the Blu-Ray (Original Aspect Ratio + 1.78), UHD HDR Dolby Vision and HDR10 (O.A.R), 3D HD (O.A.R), UHD (O.A.R) deliverables as well. Everything also had to be done in more than 40 different languages, just to make things a little bit more complicated.

In order to process this magnitude of a film, Walter broke down what it took in terms of equipment, storage, and collaboration:

Walter's Node Structure in Resolve, which was consistent over every shot (even tho most were rarely used). 

• "Designing resiliant workflows and habits"
• "Communication along all vendors" 
• Two film scanners on location (one for 35mm and one for 65mm)
• 3 full high-end Resolve workstations, one constantly being deployed off-site 
• Multiple SANs
• 1.1 PB on location and more in-house at Fotokem
• "All in a foreign country with no office on international hours" 

Here is a quick video interview with Walter on a variety of subjects, thanks to PostPerspective:

Thanks again to Fotokem Colorist Walter Volpatto & Color Scientist Joseph Slomka for the amazing information that made this breakdown possible. 

Violence, Coarse Language, & Technology : Behind the Editorial Workflow of Deadpool

In February 2016, Marvel Studios released another blockbuster hit, shattering both box office records and our imaginations with the foul-mouthed, violence-prone, & culturally aware Deadpool. I personally thought it was one of the most fun "rides" I've had in a movie theatre in a long time. If you are curious what a "gratuitous comic book movie made for adults" might looks like, this was made for you. I would add more, but it is a ride best experienced and not read.

I was invited to attend a fantastic Q&A screening where they shared technical details from the workflow and post production process of the film. Being the second major "studio tentpole" film to be edited in Adobe Premiere Pro, both Adobe and the filmmakers were excited to share the workflow and answer our questions. Similar to my previous Gone Girl post, here is everything I could gather from Q&A and chatting with individuals. 

Consultant Vashi Nedomansky, First Assistant Edit Matt Carson, Post Production Supervisor Joan Kelley Bierman, Host Mike Kanfer (Left to Right)

On the technical side, the film was directed by Tim Miller. While a first time director, Tim and his wife, Jennifer, run Blur Studios, a highly-established visual effects and animation company, whose previous work including the impressive title sequence to David Fincher's "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo". After seeing the film, you'd never guess it was helmed by someone who was new to the directorial chair. The film was shot by DP Ken Seng on a wide variety of cameras and formats, the main being the Arri Alexa capturing 3.5K "Open Gate" ARRIRAW, with additional coverage shot with RED and Phantom High-Speed cameras ranging from 2K to 6K. I believe they even squeezed a few DSLR shots in there, if I heard correctly. 

The film was edited by Julian Clarke, with 1st Assistant Editor Matt Carson, Post Production Supervisor Joan Bierman, and Editorial Consultant Vashi Nedomansky answering questions about the editorial workflow at this event. The film was cut using Adobe Premiere Pro 2015, not using any pre-release version(s) with additional features requested from the production team. The variety of raw media was transcoded to 2K ProRes "proxies" for editorial and given a "dailies" style color grade that was locked until the final digital intermediate at EFILM. Adobe After Effects was used heavily for extensive repositioning, temporary visual effects, green screen keying, other tricky editorial tasks like speed ramping. The Dynamic Link and Render and Replace features were key to keeping the edit "live" yet nimble. For a great article focusing more on the editorial switch from Avid to Premiere Pro, check out this post by Editor Shane Ross. 

The film had approx. 1200 visual effects, with about 500 being green screen keys \ rig removals. Blur Studios was outfitted with five high-end editing bays to work on the edit in-house, as is becoming a fast growing trned. The bays were originally powered by MacPro "tubes" which had to be cycled out 10 times due to a now well-known GPU defect, and were subsequently replaced by HP + Nvidia based machines. While the majority of shots were eventually composited in Nuke by several outside visual fx companies, the production greatly utilized After Effects for temporary VFX, rough tests, animatics and even some final FX, such as the cab ride scenes. Original plates were always kept, and ongoing revisions placed on top for easy comparison. Final VFX shots were delivered as 4K OpenEXR files. For more info on the amazing visual effects process, check out this article from FxGuide.

Similar to Gone Girl, the production relied heavily on OpenDrives for all storage needs, which ranged from a 180TB SSD RAID to even larger to handle the media. It was made very clear that without such fast and responsive storage, the entire workflow would have collapsed. Mike Kanfer described 10Gb level networking being an absolute minimum requirement, not a suggestion, to handle this workflow. As Mike stated, "a single machine at idle, simply 'breathing' can easily saturate a 1Gb network connection". 

The final digital intermediate was completed at EFILM by colorist Tim Stipan, who finished the film in 4K HDR. While there was some re-framing done during editorial, the director saw additional creative opportunities for re-framing in the color suite and spent two weeks doing so before actual color began. While the film was originally set to be graded & finished in Blackmagic DaVinci Resolve, Bierman comments, "we ended up on finishing on a [Fimlight] Baselight system using as much camera RAW as possible and OpenEXR for VFX."  The final audio mix was delivered in Stereo, 5.1, 7.1, Dolby Atmos, and IMAX, if that wasn't enough variety. 

With a fairly low $58 million budget (compared to $195 million for Guardians of the Galaxy and $90mil for the last Wolverine), I would say it is incredible what Tim Miller and team pulled of with this film. The biggest question many pose jokingly is "Can I tell that it was edited on Premiere Pro?" or "Is there anything that could not have been done on an Avid?" and the answer to both is nope. What I can tell is utilizing the latest tools and technology allowed this group of talented artists, engineers and designers to make an amazing film for a fairly cheap "cost" in an age where both are becoming increasingly rare. 

The result of all this hard work & dedication is a highly entertaining, adult targeted Marvel film that breaks the out of the mold set for "comic book" films. Check out Deadpool on BluRay & DVD for a fantastic commentary track with Director Tim Miller. 

5 Tips on Noise Reduction

If you have ever shot with a digital camera in dark conditions, you understand how devastating video noise can be. It can take a beautiful performance and render it useless, being only viewable as dancing colored dots. While many things can be done to reduce noise while the material is being shot such as additional lights, black balancing, etc, there will always be a few times when some noise reduction is post is a necessity. 

1. Focus on reducing "chroma \ color" noise before "luminance" noise to maintain detail. 
   • Our eyes are much more sensitive to luminance detail than chroma or color detail, so overdoing noise reduction on the luminance channel tends to result in a overly smooth "plastic" looking image. 
2. If possible, apply noise reduction first, prior to any color correction or other effects.
   • While there are exceptions, I generally recommend applying any noise reduction prior to doing any color correction or effects, so you have a "clean" source image. The benefit is the NR helps during color and effects, especially if keying is involved . The downside is noise reduction is a resource hog and can require a fast computer to get real-time playback. Caching can help, but it still slows the process down, especially with high resolution media.
3. Adjust Temporal before Spatial
   • Although the best noise reduction is usually accomplished using a combination of both methods, temporal noise reduction usually retains more detail, at the cost of being slower and using more video RAM. Temporal NR works by comparing details between a set number of frames, and eliminating per-frame changes, such as video noise. Resolve Studio's built-in NR allows up to 2 frames (forward and backward), while 3rd-party effects like NeatVideo support up to 5 frames, if your hardware can handle it. Spatial NR looks at details in nearby pixels to figure out what is "noise" and averages certain areas of pixels. While useful in small amounts, it can dramatically reduce the "sharpness" and results in a artificial "plastic" look to the image if overused, but faster than temporal. 
4. Apply a fine level of noise or "film grain" to dither the image and eliminate banding
   • After any noise reduction, the image is likely to look a little "off", even if a very light level of noise reduction was used. You may even see some banding in areas like skies and shadow areas, especially if the source was heavily compressed such as H.264 \ AVCHD. However, we can add some "life" back to the image in several ways: mixing back a slight level of the original noise, adding noise via an effect, or overlaying synthetic or scanned film grain over the image, reduced in opacity until it is barely visible, usually between 15% and 45%. The intended effect is dithering of the image, which blends together areas that were banding and adds some texture and localized contrast back to skin and other areas with fine details. You can add more grain for creative effect, but only a very small amount of noise \ grain is required for this technique to be effective. For HQ grain, I highly recommend RGrain (for synthetic grain ideal for invisible dithering) and CineGrain (for more filmic grain scanned from real film). For the budget conscious, I also created free film grain that you can download here to experiment with. 
5.  Less is More
   • When even my favorite plug-in includes an Auto button,  I feel it is important to always remember that ANY noise reduction is technically "damaging" the footage and the less we do, the better. Before blindly dragging a filter to every clip and using "auto", really zoom in and evaluate if noise reduction is necessary on each clip. If it is, tune it so you are doing the least amount of "damage" to your image with the best results. I guarantee you can do better than ANY auto or "one click" button with a few seconds of customization. 

While noise reduction and texture management is a huge subject that can't be completely covered in a single blog post, these are a few tips I find hugely useful when working with noise reduction in general. If you have any additional tips or questions, please post a comment, send me a tweet, or post to our facebook page. 

-Jason

Wipster : The next generation of video review & delivery?

SPECIAL FOR BLOG READERS: Wipster has been kind enough to offer Cinetic Studio blog readers a special coupon code that extends the trial period by an ADDITIONAL MONTH. Use code CINETICSTUDIOS and check out why we love them.  

   Driven by the latest "cutting-edge" technology, our methods of working, collaborating, and communicating seem to change on a daily basis, especially in the field of video production. While that innovation brings a consistent stream new hardware, software, and workflows that can contribute to our efficiency, I do not feel it always does. How efficient it can be is based on how well that technology is implemented, in my opinion. Working in freelance requires both your work and your tools to be smart and efficient, so the search is always on for the next great tool \ service.

When I started working as a freelance colorist, I was surprised regarding the number of clients that were perfectly happy & satisfied to work completely remotely, with some type of accurate review (of course!). In fact, my first job as a professional colorist was acquired through a conversation on Twitter, and everything was handled remotely. With my background in IT, I've had plenty of experience working with clients remotely, but working with computers is a farstretch from the creative work of color grading or editing. With something as subjective as color and editing, communicating effectively and efficiently remotely is absolutely crucial to avoid issues and miscommunication(s) when it comes time to final delivery. Uploading a client review  to YouTube \ Vimeo with a password not only looked unprofessional, but wasn't efficient aside from getting an overall opinion. I would get feedback such as "It's looking good" or "it needs a little more work", but I did not get those crucial shot or scene specific notes and timecodes, unless I asked for them or they happened to provide them.  I was then introduced to the video review service, Wipster.

I was immediately impressed from the moment I logged in for the first time. It's unique and friendly user interface was very appealing,  and the "pop-up" style FAQ guides you through the entire service immediately upon logging in for the first time. It was more than I personally needed, as it was simple enough to figure out within a few minute, but it's nice to see the effort to be so approachable.

Once signed in, uploading videos for review and delivery is simple. You can upload video files directly from your local computer or connect to Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive, Box, Amazon Cloud Drive, and even FTP (which opens up the possibility of a neat "render to Cloud, auto upload to Wipster" workflow), . Once uploaded, videos can be neatly organized by folder(s) and you can "archive" them once a project has been completed. As there will inevitably be several versions \ revisions of an edit or color grade,  newer "versions" of the same video can be uploaded and tracked, without discarding any previous versions (and anything attached to them, such as comments).

WipsterUI

Adding a recipients \ reviewers to a video is as easy as adding an email address to a list, and Wipster even provides an appropriately named "nudge" feature for those clients who require a little reminder to review and comment. Moving on to the actual "review" functionality, comments are as easy to add as a click of a mouse at the moment and physical location on the video where you would like your comment to appear. They even appear color coded by user, as you can see from the screenshot below. Each comment can actually be an entire conversation, marked consistently at the timecode and location on the video. You can only imagine how useful this can be with the intricacies of color grading and editing, for example: "that cut is a little too soon" or "please brighten up her face".

Finally, once the comments and conversations have been worked out, its time to get back to work on the revisions, based on the provided feedback. While I would like Wipster to have the ability to export the comments as markers that could be imported directly into my NLE (as some other services do), it does a great job of providing either a digital checklist or a printed list of all the comments with exact timecodes.

I personally load up this digital checklist, and go down issue by issue and check off the comments when they have been completed. It still gives you that good "I get to cross that sucker off" feeling after completing a task too!

PrintOut

Now, I just found out about this feature this past week and it adds an entirely new level of usefulness to Wipster. I previously only used the service as a video review platform, but after clarifying with their fantastic support team, they confirmed Wipster is fully intended to be a review and delivery platform. That means if you upload a high resolution "master" file, such as one encoded as ProResHQ or DNxHD, your client can download that EXACT file by simply clicking a "download" button underneath the player. No need for additional FTP hosting space, sharing over Dropbox, shipping hard drives, or any of the previous delivery hassles associated with remote creative work. Review and delivery consolidate in one platform, which is efficient and smart.

DownloadHQ

Now, what does it cost and will it be accessible to me? A thought I usually whenever I hear about some cool and new, but different. In this case, you can use Wipster for the whopping monthly cost of free. Yes, they honestly offer a free account with 15 minutes of video upload a month completely free (up to 45 via referrals), which you can sign up for right here.  Should you require additional minutes per month, personalized branding, HD, or the wealth of other features they offer, it is $15 per user a month. 

Overall, I've been using Wipster for almost a year now and I'm very happy with it. They have extremely responsive support, an easy to use user interface, a complete review and delivery system, and competitive pricing compared to similar services. I highly recommend you check out Wipster.io for your video review needs, even if just to try the free account to see if it fits your needs.

Portent - Teaser Trailer

We've been hard at work on an incredible new short film, "Portent",  and we're thrilled to  share the teaser trailer. First, If you are not familiar with Director \ DP Phil Artnz, this post will hopefully give you an introduction. An incredible, up and coming director and director of photography, I met Phil online through a private Facebook group for filmmakers after being amazed with some of the work I was seeing from him. Consistently stunning and unique, I reached out to him and we started chatting. It wasn't long before we both realized we were on the same page creatively, and we started to discuss color grading a short film he was currently working on, titled "Portent". After some discussions about the emotional impact of the story, how to best visualize it, and a few tests, we settled on a very restrained look: using a 35mm Kodak print stock as a reference, which gives the super clean 6K image from the RED Dragon some texture and adds a bit of an analogue feel, without feeling vintage. 

Please check out the teaser trailer and leave a comment. We're love feedback, and we can't wait to share more as we can. 

Be sure to follow Phil on twitter and Vimeo , and keep an eye out for more articles on Portent from both Phil and I as post production progresses. 

Our Thought on Looklabs Speedlooks

In the world of color correction and grading, 3D LUTs are hot and in demand. Its no surprise, as 3D LUTs can be an effective tool to simplify the color grading process and provide sophisticated looks quickly and easily. However, there are a huge variety of high quality products available to serve a similar purpose, such as Filmconvert, Koji, Visioncolor, and others available freely on the web. If so, why  consider investing in yet another color solution? Simple. When it truly stands out and find a permanent spot in your toolbox after one use.

COLOR-BY-LOOKLABS-WHITE-H CROPPED

LookLabs SpeedLooks Studio is a package of 3D LUTs (or look-up tables), based around six distinct looks, intended to assist with color grading. The six looks, named SL-3500 Clean, SL-3535 Big, SL-3530 Matrix, SL-3522 Noir,SL-3527 Blue and SL-3528 Gold provide quite a variety, and even have several variations within each look (such as Kodak and Fuji variants of my favorite SL-3500 Clean, differing intensities of SL-3527 Blue, and  low and high contrast versions of  SL-3535 Big). This makes the "six" looks closer to 50, and covers the gamut of popular styles you might consider applying to your footage.

Image courtesy of LookLabs

With it's fourth generation of SpeedLooks, LookLabs continues to develop their unique approach to camera matching and color management. While other packages provide numerous versions of each LUT (one for every camera model and profile) , LookLabs re-thought the process and delivers an innovative solution that simplifies the previously painful process of matching cameras in  way that is friendly to colorists, video editors, and even those completely new to color grading.

Raw Ungraded C-Log from a Canon C100, Footage courtesy of Cinema Mercantile Films

After Camera Patch to SpeedLOG

Looklabs includes "Camera Patches" for almost every digital camera available on the market today (GH4 and A7s soon to be released), which when applied, normalizes each image to a universal LOG gamma curve, which is remarkably similar to Arri's LogC. The camera patches do a good job of matching the footage shot on various camera, from my Blackmagic Cinema as my A-Camera, my GoPro Black used for slow motion and strange angle shots, and my Canon Rebel as a B-camera, so when I get to grading, the colors are already fairly evened out. Combined with the fact it "standardizes" all the footage into the colorist-friendly VS-LOG, I find the approach a very effective solution for both matching numerous cameras and preparing your footage for color grading using the other other aspect of the package, the six looks (ala 50 variations).

Before I  start discussing the looks, I would like to mention that I feel color grading, in general, is a very personal and subjective process. One person may love a look, while another person may downright hate it, and that should be expected for any creative craft. A good example: Hyper low contrast seem to be all the rage in many music videos, films, and commercials, but I personally do not  find it visually appealing. Just a thought.

Raw Ungraded sample (aside from basic balance), shot on a RED Epic, Shown in REDLogFilm Gamma

Overall, I found the various looks in this package to be subtle, varied, and useful in a wide range of situations. SL-3500 Clean is likely to the most used, due to its ability to "breathing back life" into dull and muddy footage. It's punchy and saturated (depending on the variation), and provides an excellent starting point for further grading without being overbearing.

Kodak Clean HDR_1.26.3

Of course, when you want that stylized color contrast of the Hollywood Blockbuster look, SL-3535 Big makes your images pop even more than Clean and adds a hint of the familiar cinematic teal\orange. As the teal\orange push can occasionally become a bit overbearing, LookLabs even included a "MINUS BLUE" variation, saving you a small bit of manual adjustment.

Sample from the BIG look. You can see some of the popular teal\orange look peaking through.

Looking to stylize a black & white film noir about an ace detective gone awry? SL-3522 Noir provides you an ample variety of super-stylized black & white looks, and even a film stock emulation for the classic Kodak Tri-X. Although a very easy look to get by simply reducing saturation, these LUTs offer some neat film-like looks that would be hard to recreate manually without some heavy tinkering.

Get your NOIR on! Sample from the NOIR look, 1965.

If you are looking for a nice punchy blue look for your image, SL-3527 Blue gives you a several choices. Some are quite mild, while others, like the heavily stylized "Day for Nite", are intended to completely recolor your image for dramatic effect. This look was so useful, I even used it in my workflow as a professional colorist to strategically add blue to several scenes in a project I was color grading at the time. It's not that I couldn't add blue tones using a variety of other color grading techniques, but the fact that this look LUT combined with some manual color grading resulted in a unique image that felt more natural and less processed than using my other more manual techniques. It was a surprising result, which you can view in its entirety below. I was very pleased with the final look, and most importantly, so were my clients.

Sample of BLUE from Rival Bros Coffee : Ungraded on the Left, Graded on the Right

Sample from the BLUE look, Day for Nite

Final Thoughts: If you couldn't tell, I really like LookLabs Speedlooks. Color correction and grading can be done without any LUTs, powergrades, presets, or plug-ins, but having them certainly provides some great starting points or some quickly applied looks, if you don't want to go further than shot matching & balancing. Color correction packages are becoming increasingly common in post-production, and LUTs packages are a dime a dozen, but I found Speedlooks consistently stood above the crowd and I highly recommend them. Lastly, I found the sales and support team to be friendly, responsive, and very well informed on their products. They were able to handle all my questions about their products, no BS or marketing elevator speeches.

LookLabs offers Speedlooks in 2 different packages, Studio Log, which includes the camera patches, and Studio Linear, which is purely Rec709 LUTs without the conversion to LOG (no camera patches). While I personally always like working in log, its an additional level of control not always needed to create beautiful imagery and a decision that's up to you. Check out their website and see which is more appropriate for your workflow a budget, which starts at $99.

SpeedLooks in Use 

Rival Brothers Coffee - Many shots used Speedlooks V3 SL-3527 Blue at various intensities to help establish a consistent blue look that the client liked.

Color Grading Breakdown - Part 2

Sometimes it takes a bit of good, old fashion inspiration from others practicing your craft to spark a bit of creativity when you are stuck at a wall. As a colorist, I find video breakdowns off all kinds absolutely fascinating, as it highlights not only the work but also how that individual works: What tools do they use, what are they doing first as opposed to last, what do they avoid doing and what do they do habitually. These little traits are interesting trends that you can sometimes pick up on by looking at an artist's breakdown.

Another benefit of visual breakdowns is that it helps those not so intimately involved in a craft to quickly understand what is possible, how a final product could look, and generally encourages them to participate in the creative process.

Embed Block

Add an embed URL or code. Learn more

In a follow-up article to the original round-up, I've gathered more color breakdowns to satisfy your curiosity. Here are several breakdowns from colorist Chris Hall. He provides narration for the grading breakdowns, making them even more informative, and appropriately named "Anatomy of a Grade". Be sure to follow him on Vimeo, so you can keep up with the ongoing series. I've posted a link to each specific breakdown below the videos. Anatomy of a Grade - Episode 01 - Manzanar

Embed Block

Add an embed URL or code. Learn more

Anatomy of a Grade - Episode 02 - Manzanar - Focus on Skin Tone

Anatomy of a Grade - Episode 03 - Underexposure Correction with RED RAW Footage

Anatomy of a Grade - Episode 04 - The Ring "Look"

Anatomy of a Grade - Episode 05 - Digital "Relighting"

Anatomy of a Grade - Episode 06 - Day For Night

Anatomy of a Grade - Episode 07 - Sunset Grad

Anatomy of a Grade - Episode 08 - "Digital Relighting / Repainting"

Embed Block

Add an embed URL or code. Learn more

Anatomy of a Grade - Episode 09 - The "Bleachy Western Look"

Anatomy of a Grade - Episode 10 - Gettin' That Cyan Swing

Anatomy of a Grade - Episode 11 - Keepin' It Consistent

 (Personal favorite! Check out the film for a very cool and stylized color grade - "The Scribbler")

Anatomy of a Grade - Episode 12 - Bringing Interest and Depth to an Overcast Day

I hope these color breakdowns have been educational and inspired you to pick up a style, technique, or tool  you never previously knew used or knew about. Its this reason I find breakdowns and behind the scenes so useful, as they seem to become more useful as you learn more about your craft and can pick up small, subtle techniques used by others more talented in that area, whether it be color, editing, or learning non-film related skills in your everyday life.

How to use Magic Lantern RAW for Maximum Quality

EDIT: Updated to reflect new options for profiles \ gamma settings. Slimraw Reference added - 10/2015

I personally feel Magic Lantern is the best thing to come to Canon DSLRs since sliced bread, especially it's ability to shoot in 14-bit RAW at 1080p HD. It's truly incredible that an open-source software "hack"  can bring life to an aging camera line that allows it to outclass even some newly released cinema cameras, both in image quality and flexibility in post production. They can not shoot 4K, but Magic Lantern RAW can produce some incredible imagery that truly prove that expensive gear does not define a cinematographer. Unfortunately, anyone who has worked with the format can also attest to it's long winded post conversion workflow. This article aims to help you through that process, so you can capture images like the below (Just look at the detail in the fire!).

In a previous article, I detailed how you can work with Magic Lantern RAW quickly and easily, decoding almost directly to the high quality edit-friendly Apple ProRes format. My purpose for that experiment was both to see if I could figure out a "simple & reliable" workflow to use for ML RAW (mlv file format) and to see if it would hold up during post production processing. This follow up article aims to refine that workflow for more control over your color correction, at the expensive of processing time and storage space.

Here are a few things you can expect when shooting Magic Lantern RAW, not matter your post workflow:

1.  You will need a massive amount of hard drive storage on set. Each hour will eat up around ~350-400GBs, depending on the exact resolution & if sound is recorded. Make sure you have a few HDDs to offload and back-up footage. 

2. You SHOULD have a DIT on set who does nothing but offload cards and check the MLV files, if the production has the budget or you can wrangle someone to handle this very important task. Its not very glorious, but if you need to reshoot something, it is FAR easier knowing that fact a few minutes later instead of while watching dailies.

3. Each 64GB card will only hold between 11-22 min of footage, so you will be switching cards quite a bit. Think of it like you are shooting film, and you have to plan more carefully. It may be a limitation and CAN kill time, but not if you plan around it. Bring a least 3 1000x (or faster) CF cards and\or have an organized and efficient cycle of downloading the CF cards to avoid too much downtime.

4. While the camera could have the occasional "crash", no need to panic, as cycling the camera on\off or pulling the battery will almost always fix it. Some models (5D Mark II, III) are far more stable than others (7D, 6D). This article is written from the perspective of working with the least stable model, and I've had only a few issues.

I had done plenty of testing in preparation while testing the previous workflow, so it wasn't new of territory this time around. After going on a trip to Alaska and shooting a short nature film, I designed a higher end "feature" workflow using CinemaDNG as the "online" format instead of ProRes444 to retain the most information captured by the camera. The "Quick & Easy" workflow worked flawlessly, but I knew I was throwing out a lot of control in color correction by simply converting to ProRes. As this was a creative passion project, I wanted every bit of visual information I could capture.  Here is that CinemaDNG workflow, and it happens to work for both Mac and PC, although you use a different program for the initial conversion. It's fairly straightforward, with many steps the same as before.

1. Copy your .RAW or .MLV Files from your CompactFlash card to two hard disks while on-set, one for back-up purposes. I suggest you establish a "cycle" of checking, dumping, and formatting the CompactFlash cards if you do not have a DIT, to avoid any  data "accidents". 

2. Review files on-set with MLRawViewer (Latest Version as of writing is 1.3.3). This software is great, as we can use it to review shots on a laptop on-set if needed for focus. This will also confirm if any files are corrupt or damaged, as the on-camera raw playback is still finicky. 

3.  Once back at your main editing computer, it's time to decode the proprietary RAW \ MLV files to standard CinemaDNG images sequences. If you are on Windows, I recommend you use Raw2CDNG, which happens to be free and open source. If you are on Mac OS X, I recommend RawMagic Lite \ RawMagic, which will do the same conversion to CinemaDNG. If you are ready to "wash your hands of it" and be done about now, I suggest you take a look at Pomfort Cliphouse for a quick way to finish your RAW files without going into additional applications, but it is another software package you would need to purchase.

4. Awesome! Now that you have successfully converted your proprietary .RAW or .MLV files to standard CinemaDNG sequences, we can get started color correcting or editing. Most computers aren't fast enough to edit CinemaDNG sequences in real-time, so we'll be using an an "online\offline" workflow. It sounds fancy and complicated, but it simply means you edit with lower quality  "proxy" files that you "relink" back to the high-quality CinemaDNG files during color correction \ online finishing. More information about creating proxies files in DaVinci Resolve can be found here, as that's not the exact focus of this article.

5. If you have successfully converted all of your footage to CinemaDNG without any errors, you can likely delete the MLV \ RAW files, if you find yourself needing storage space.

6. Next, we interpret our footage as "LOG" so we have the most color range to work with. If processing in Resolve, you won't need a LUT or ACR profile. If you would like to process in Adobe After Effects, Download and install VisionLOG or purchase BMDFilmVC (recommended for Adobe Camera Raw workflow). This ACR profile will convert our footage to have a "logarithmic" (aka "LOG") gamma curve, which allows the use the entire dynamic range captured and give you a lot more "head room" to color grade, despite now looking "flat" and "washed out". 

 If your brain is spinning, it's totally understandable, but it will make sense shortly. This conversion also makes your footage compatible with a large variety of plug-ins, LUTs, film stock emulations, and any color grading options that supports a LOG style input, similar to cineon (how film was digitally captured when scanned), Arri LogC, and Red Log Film. Of course, you can also grade the footage completely manually by hand, with the enormous flexibility allowed using RAW CinemaDNG sequences. 

rec709

visionlog

6a. If working in DaVinci Resolve, make sure to go to the camera RAW tab in settings, select CinemaDNG, and change "Rec709 "to "BMDFilm". This is how we tell Resolve to interpret the CinemaDNG files as "Log", similar to the BMDFilm gamma curve Blackmagic cameras shoot in.  Also, in newer versions of Resolve (11.1 and later), there is an additional option called "pre-tone curve". For best results, disable "pre-tone curve" unless matching to older material. 

7. Color grade until satisfied in Adobe After Effects of DaVinci Resolve. You can  color using tools like the 3-way CC, Curves, LUTs, plug-ins such as FilmConvert, etc.

8. Export back to your editing platform of choice using XML or AAF OR export single final master file using ProRes, DNxHD, GoPro Cineform, or your choice of high quality master format. I highly recommend you master & archive your projects using a high quality intermediate codec, and not a highly compressed format such as H.264 or MPEG-4. Export both if you must, but keep a HQ version. Perosnally, I am using GoPro Cineform HD or ProRes444 to archive my projects, as they retain almost all of the quality of the original. 

9. Kick back and enjoy your footage.

This workflow might require a lengthy RAW/MLV to CinemaDNG conversion, but we end up with beautiful, uncompressed CinemaDNG sequences (which can be further compressed WITHOUT losing data with a utility like SlimRaw).  Next, we color grade our CinemaDNG files in DaVinci Resolve or Adobe After Effects (via Adobe Camera Raw) using whatever methods you are most comfortable with, whether 3-way CC, Curves, LUTs, plug-ins such as FilmConvert, Magic Bullet, other built in tools, etc. My point is you can color grade however you choose, in either application. DaVinci Resolve is my personal choice for professional color grading, but After Effects is plenty powerful, requires far less of a computer, and especially now with mask tracking, is quite capable of being used to color correct (Just ask Stu Maschwitz....).

Shooting RAW provides numerous benefits, such as an amazing amount of precision in color correction and visual effects (such as green screen keying), while also working in several applications, so you aren't locked down to a specific color grading platform. The negative side of working with RAW is the additional storage and processing power required, as most RAW formats typically require a very fast computer in all areas (CPU, GPU, and HDDs) to debayer & playback raw media in real-time.

I hope you found this overview of the Magic Lantern Raw to CinemaDNG workflow useful. Please leave any comment or question below.

Refer to the the specific application's websites\ forums for more information, shortcuts, and updates to the software.

Thanks to MTS Films for the footage example and HackerMovies for the photos.

Disclaimer: Although I feel this should be assumed, I am in no way affiliated with any of the software packages I mention in my articles. Anything I mention about a product, service, or individual is completely my own opinion.

Color Breakdowns - Part 1

Like many artists, I find inspiration when I see really great work from others. It's very interesting to see how others work in a craft that has almost limitless options and tools. In the arena of color correction and grading, I feel one of the more interesting demonstrations are color breakdowns, or layer by layer deconstructions which show the creation of that specific look. I've gathered a few interesting breakdowns as inspiration for how a look is build up in layers, and not applied all at once. This is a new style of post, so please let me know if you like it by leaving a comment.

Here are several breakdowns from talented colorist Charles-Etienne Pascal. Be sure to check out his great website, ISEEHUE, for more information on each step of the grade. I've posted a link to each specific breakdown below the videos. ISEEHUE - Grading Steps of Bellevue

ISEEHUE - Color Breakdown - Two Mean Cops

ISEEHUE - Color Breakdown 4

ISEEHUE - Color Breakdown - Zombies

ISEEHUE - Color Breakdown - Meet Adrien

ISEEHUE - Color Breakdown - Flying

ISEEHUE - Color Breakdown - Marked for Murder

ISEEHUE - Color Breakdown - Dance Club

ISEEHUE - Color Breakdown 10

I hope these color breakdowns have been educational and inspired you to pick up a style, technique, or tool you saw that you never previously knew about. Its this reason I find breakdowns and behind the scenes so useful, as they seem to become more useful as you learn more about your craft and can pick up small, subtle techniques used by others more talented in that field, whether it be color, editing, or learning non-film related skills in your everyday life.

A Whole LUT of Fun : Using LUTs creatively

Photo courtesy of Spectracal

UPDATED: 7/27/2015 : Many EVF (electronic viewfinders) and on-camera monitors (such as those from Atomos and SmallHD) have built-in technology to allow the use of LUTs on-set. The use can range from simply providing a display LUT, so you can focus and expose properly while recording a log \ flat image, to actually burning in a creative look into the footage being recorded. 

The word LUT may have lost all meaning to you, or it may mean numerous things, aside from it's actual definition of "Look Up Table". I'll try & explain it before we move forward, as it's important to realize how limited LUTs are. A LUT is nothing more than a massive set of pre-calculated numbers for both input and output colors, or a long list of "this green #1 turns to into green #2" style equations. I am simplifying this significantly, but I am trying to make a few points about LUTs in general before I go forward and abuse them for our creative intentions. You give a LUT a color and it mathematically hands back another color, no matter if it's applied to Canon DSLR, RED, Alexa, scanned film footage, etc. A LUT is a stupid mathematical conversion & has no idea what it's being applied to. They're created for ONE specific purpose, whether to emulate\prepare for a film print (sample LUTs, FilmConvert, Impulz), convert between a LOG format and Rec709 (HDTV) for a specific camera, or provide a creative look (OSIRIS, Blockbuster LUTS, ). Okay, long story short: LUTs are stupid math-based color conversions that don't know anything about what camera or format we're using, what color space we're in (LOG or REC709),  how the footage was shot\lit\exposed yet many believe they are "magical one-step color correction" machines. Now that we know that's not so, how can we use them creatively while understanding their limitations?

Note: I wanted to mention FilmConvert at this point, as its essentially a on-the-fly LUT generator that's been programmed to adjust it's curve based on the input camera and the "output" film emulation (so actually 2 LUTs), but its still essentially a LUT for our purposes.

LOG OR NOT? - With YouTube, Vimeo, and forums galore spreading different information, this has become a very confusing subject.  If your footage was shoot on a Canon or Nikon DSLR, even with a picture profile like Cinestyle, VisionTech, Prolost, or many of the others low contrast picture styles, I highly recommend you do not treat this as "LOG" and treat it as Rec709 footage when choosing "creative" LUTs that require a choice. That being said, if  there happens to be a specific option for that profile\setting, proceed to use that one, of course. The exception to this is some of the newer cameras like the Sony A7s, which comes with proper S-Log2 can be treated as LOG. You can tell because the feature is ALWAYS inherited from the higher end models from that manufacturer.

Technical Conversions

One of the original "true" purposes of LUTs is to convert between video gamma formats, such as converting Canon C-Log, REDLogFilm, BMDFilm and LogC to Rec709 (HDTV standard). I've likely left out several LOG gamma types, but you get the point. Most camera manufacturers will provide a "normalization" LUT, or several in the case of Arri and Blackmagic, that allows a direct conversion of the image from the "milky", low contrast log footage captured in camera (which allows the camera to record the most image data) to a more "contrasty" and saturated Rec709 standard, WITHOUT any other changes. No creative additions are made by using these LUTs. These are very useful in establishing a good base image\set-up for grading a LOG footage, as you can simply focus on color having already converted the image from LOG gamma to Rec709.

If your are working with RED footage in REDLogFilm, Alexa footage in LogC, or any Blackmagic footage in BMDFilm, proceed to use LOG based LUTs for contrast expansion & the color effects in one step. If you'd like more control, you can use a technical LUT to convert your LOG footage to Rec709 and then use Rec709 "look" LUTs, as this will provide a more subtle look.

Here you can download a set of generic Rec709 to Log (technical) conversion LUTs, if you'd like to try working with your footage in true LOG but shot in standard Rec709 or if you're unable to shoot in LOG. Just be aware, 8 bit DSLR footage will not fair well with this harsh of a post correction. These conversions is best served for footage that is 10 bit or higher. Thanks to Juan Melara for the conversion LUTs and huge thanks to Stephanie Duchaine for being our model for these tests. We'll hopefully be seeing more of her in future content!

Example of a Technical Conversion LUT from BMDFilm to Rec709

Creative Use of LUTS

Now that you hopefully understand LUTs and some of the different types and uses for them, we get to step into the fun and creative aspect of using LUTs: establishing looks. I'll state this first: I feel there are better alternative to "look" LUTs, such as powergrades, plug-ins, presets, and other more configurable methods of sharing color manipulation. However, seeing as they've become popular lately, I figured I'd like to share some creative uses and "misuses" of LUTs that I've found through my work. These strategies will work whether you are grading in an NLE like Adobe Premiere Pro of Final Cut X, compositors like After Effects, and of course, color correction applications like DaVinci Resolve and Adobe Speedgrade.

Example of a Creative LUT (LOG version) in use, converting the image to Rec709 & adding a strong look.

1.  Set up LUTs on an adjustment layer in Premiere of After Effects, use a 3 node set-up in Resolve, or 3 layer set-up in SpeedGrade. This will allow you to separate. This allows you to make adjustments to the image using a basic three-way color corrector before the LUT and after, should you want to. They have very different effects, especially if you are working with LOG footage. Try to put any changes to exposure or color temperature before the LUT.

resolve 3node

premLUT

AELUT

SGLut

2.  Convert an image from LOG to Rec709, and try using a Rec709 based "look" LUTs instead of the LOG version for a slightly less-intense effect. This also separates the normalization and "look" process that are combined in a "LOG" based look LUTs so you can reduce\intensify the "look" using opacity\transparency controls on the Rec709 "look" LUT layer or node. You do not have this extra control when using a single "LOG" based look LUT.

3. Combining "look" LUTs with FilmConvert can yield very unique and pleasing results when done subtly with taste. As I mentioned previously, Filmconvert is essentially an "on-the-fly" film stock emulation LUT generator in the form of a plug-in, and it certainly can be combined with some light "look" LUTs, and even some grading to make everything fall together . I would highly recommend using some of the less intense looks (aka avoid crazy cross processed or hard teal\orange looks), or bring down the opacity on a super intense look like M31 from the OSIRIS pack.

4. Treat your film as if it were shot on film by using actual film print stocks. Try and emulate a different "film stock\style" for creative purposes, using one stock for one location and one stock for another to give them distinct looks. You can use the film stock LUTs provided by Juan Melara, who has provided a Kodak and a Fuji stock for us to play with, or even several that are included with DaVinci Resolve Lite. Use the "ConstLclip" version of the LUTs. While these are "technical" LUTs created to show what the film will look like after it will be printed back to film for projection in a theater, we can leverage them for a slightly different purpose. In recent times, as the majority of film projection and capture has gone digital, colorists began to use these technical "monitoring" LUTs as look LUTs to add a unique look to the generic "hyper-clean" image captured by today's high-end digital cameras. We can do that exact same thing, but just be aware these type of emulations tend to have some degradation on the image quality.

5. If your grading application allows for it, such as Resolve and Speedgrade, selectively isolate everything but the shadows or the highlights of the image using a secondary selection, power window, qualifier, etc and apply a look LUT to only a selective portion of the image. This works if a LUT is causing noise to appear in a specific area of the images, such as the shadows or highlights. This can help intense looks, such as OSIRIS M31, fit in and look less "slapped on". The "chroma - light & dark" feature is Resolve is especially useful for this use.

6. If you understand what a LUT was created to be used on, what it's intended to do, and where it's limitation is, your limit is simply your imagination and your scopes. I mention your scopes as LUTs break 32 bit floating point build into Premiere, Resolve, After Effects and most NLE\Color applications. Long Story Short: If your have image data below 0 or above 100 on your scopes, you MUST correct it to be within 0 - 100 before applying a LUT. Otherwise, anything above 100 and below o will be "clipped" out, never to be found again.

I hope you enjoyed this whirlwind article about using LUTs creatively. I literally just scratched the surface, but I wanted to share some of the techniques I found useful and see what tricks you guys use with LUTS, both technically and creatively. Please leave a comment below if you found this useful or if you have a technique to share!

Here is an example that combines a technical LUT (for conversion), standard grading (power windows, curves, three-way CC wheels) and a creative look LUTs (all adjusted appropriately) for a very unique image:

Stephanie - Film Look_1.25.1

Disclaimer: Although I do mention several specific packages in this article, I am not associated with any of them and I did not receive any compensation for their mention. I will only mention a tools if I personally find it useful in my work and I feel its worth sharing.