SO today was the first day of color correction work on "Last Day of Summer" a feature-length film i shot a few months back with 2 Panavision Genesis cameras. We are using a high end post place to do the cc work and they are using look-up-tables to emulate transfer to film. Basically what we are seeing coming out of the projector is what it will look like when printed to film. So i was late today and the producer and the director started the process without me and the first thing i notice when i came in is "Wow, it's so contrasty!"What we forget about is that the reversal film stock has certain latitude and in reality the contrast to any film is really added when printed back to film from negative. Now we are using high end digital "negative" coming from the Genesis camera (4:4:4 with Panalog -- meaning tons of details) but still when transfer back to film there is only so much the film stock can hold.
Since most of us are not planning to transfer to film (if anything a DVD for film festival, youtube, or the web is all we'll go for) then the footage that we get out of camera is all we care about. It's our negative that we later cc however we like and if it looks good on the production monitor/computer screen then we are good to go. Still this isn't the case if you are planing to go further with your film. The producers of this film are planing to do limited-theatrical distribution of this film (and because of some star power and high production value they have a good chance of doing so) thus they chose to cover their ass and do the CC that would work both for film and any other media -- something that would require re-cceing whole film if only done with the intention of going to video and then by change getting theatrical-distribution.
Anyway just wanted to let you know that when u think of transferring to film then it's a whole different kind of ballgame and you can't really do your CC DIY way because you will be color correction something totally different then the way it will look like on film (unless you can get the LUTs for your CC software that replicates the look you are going for). Another lesson learned is that if you plan to do the film transfer (whatever your acquisition medium is) your image needs to be way flatter then you would normally want it to be because the film stock you are printing to will add tooooons of contrast to it. And yet 3rd lesson is to be careful of your interaction with your DIT guy. On this production he would show me some simple image modification of what can be done to it in the post instead of running the image through LUT of the film stock thus showing me what the image would look like when transfered to film.
Thought, some of you might want to know.
Since most of us are not planning to transfer to film (if anything a DVD for film festival, youtube, or the web is all we'll go for) then the footage that we get out of camera is all we care about. It's our negative that we later cc however we like and if it looks good on the production monitor/computer screen then we are good to go. Still this isn't the case if you are planing to go further with your film. The producers of this film are planing to do limited-theatrical distribution of this film (and because of some star power and high production value they have a good chance of doing so) thus they chose to cover their ass and do the CC that would work both for film and any other media -- something that would require re-cceing whole film if only done with the intention of going to video and then by change getting theatrical-distribution.
Anyway just wanted to let you know that when u think of transferring to film then it's a whole different kind of ballgame and you can't really do your CC DIY way because you will be color correction something totally different then the way it will look like on film (unless you can get the LUTs for your CC software that replicates the look you are going for). Another lesson learned is that if you plan to do the film transfer (whatever your acquisition medium is) your image needs to be way flatter then you would normally want it to be because the film stock you are printing to will add tooooons of contrast to it. And yet 3rd lesson is to be careful of your interaction with your DIT guy. On this production he would show me some simple image modification of what can be done to it in the post instead of running the image through LUT of the film stock thus showing me what the image would look like when transfered to film.
Thought, some of you might want to know.