New short films

Richard, did you just buy FCP or FC studio? Color is included in FCS and is a great grader/corrector.

Richard,

Since you are fairly new to the editing process, I would suggest that you avoid using Color in your FCP Studio at this time. It is a very deep and complex application and there is very little that you can't do with FCP 7's own color correction tool. Learn the 3 way color corrector and how to use you waveform and vector scopes along with them and you will pick up on it pretty quickly. Drew and others are correct that there are certain shots that really need it...the moray scene is very red but that can be fixed once you learn to use the tools you have at hand.

Some really great clips there. I must be the only diver in the world not to have been to Palau....YET.

Steve

I'm playing with the 3 way in FC7 and haven't touched Color yet. Finding that often it takes a 3rd person to say, hey that shot is a bit........ whatever. I often can't see it, that's the way the shot was white balanced at the time. The whole consistency of color temp and hue across the edit is new to me, I'm now seeing it more and more. At least it can reduce "the shot on a different day" look.

I would say a new door has opened.

Thank you.

Richard

Steve, your not the only one who hasn't been to Palau....

Richard,

Here are two articles, while dated, will provide you with instruction on how to get comfortable with the 3 way color corrector.

http://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/cc_legal_fcp3.html

http://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/cc_legal_fcp4.html

While these articles came out with legacy FCP versions 3 and 4, the 3 way color corrector stayed the same.

Ripple Training also has a great Color Correction tutorial which can be downloaded via iTunes. I have the original DVD which I am not sure whether you can get anymore but here is their url for the CC tutorial. I can say that their production values are very high. http://www.rippletraining.com/categories/apple-pro-apps-tutorials/final-cut-studio-tutorials/color-correction-in-final-cut-pro-expanded-itunes-edition.html

Hope this helps,

Steve

BlueFace....we'll have to form a trip there then and cross it off our bucket list.

Thanks Steve

Say when Steve...

My wife & i would be up for that in a heartbeat. It probably wouldn't take much to get Jon Shaw over there also.....

Maybe a wetpixel video trip to palau is in order soon?

Maybe the end of next year?????

Cheers Pete.

Here are two articles...

Those are very useful articles Steve. The workflow is quite similar in Vegas, although that filter in Vegas does not have the luminance sliders built in. If I'm doing primary colour correction with a 3-way colour corrector I normally do the lows and highs first, then the midtones last. I find that works best. I pick with the complementary color picker and select a rectangular marquee to make sure it doesn't pick up 1 rogue pixel that is different from the surrounding ones. Is it possible to select a rectangular marquee with the picker in FCP?

Richard, if you're getting into this stuff, one of the first things you should look at is controlling the highlights. Sony HDV cameras shoot nominally 16-255 by default. The highlight values 235 to 255 are "broadcast illegal" and will be clipped to flat white when going to disc or broadcast or even YouTube/Vimeo. Sony DV, HDV and most AVCHD cameras just do that (see a list here). If I'm shooting wide on auto exposure with my Z1 I tend to set a negative A/E shift in its settings to try and avoid the blown out highlights.

Nick...I usually start with bringing down the blacks a touch before I move to the rest of the image. CC is especially hard for me as I am color blind in reds and greens but I have learned to compensate for it and to make sure I have someone check it out before I publish. The one thing I really miss in the FCPX color corrector is the auto white balance with the eye dropper and I never, ever use the auto color corrector in X. I think it actually can ruin the shot.

Happy Holidays

Steve

Nick, I've contemplated knocking back the A/E shift a tad but find that I need to swap back often, so tend to utilise the ND filters instead which is far quicker to adjust through the Gates, especially when I'm combining a wide shot in a cave (Blue Holes) without CC filter and with lights or when I'm shooting Macro.

As you can all tell, I'm new to post CC as most of the work I've been doing so far is run and gun.

Thanks for all the tips

Richard

I'll send you a PM Steve.

Put together a quick extract of the film showing before and after as a reference for future.

https://vimeo.com/55823805

Thanks - that side by side comparison was useful.

Original is now updated with CC version.

Thanks for all the links, tips and pointers.

Richard

That's some very mild CC. To my eye the difference is very slight. Shows that your MWB is pretty much spot on. But reducing that yellow hue in a number of clips definitely improves them. You could go further with it in the close up of the giant moray at 01:00. Also I think there is scope to generally darken the lowlights a little for a bit more "punch". But then it's all down to taste.

Editing is one of those things where I learnt quite early on that you can tinker and fiddle with it till the end of the world or you get as close as you can given the time constraints and publish it before everyone dies of boredom waiting for it.

Seeing as we only have a day or two left anyway. I'm having a beer and enjoying the outside world.

TTFN see you on the flip side!

Richard