Film Coloring - by scene or entire film?

[ChristopherArter]

Hello!

I'm doing some test shots with a few new lenses, my first footage coming from my first decent camera (GH2) and doing some screen tests for my first short. Lots of firsts!

When I'm doing color grading, is this done on a shot by shot, scene by scene basis, or is a universal grade created and applied to the entire film? How do you tailor the grade for certain scenes, yet keep the look consistent through the film?

Could anyone direct me towards some info on this? Thanks!

 

[TheArtist]

First you do color-correction to match shots in the same scene.

Then you do color grading to give it the feel you want. And then I guess it's scene by scene since there is no reason what work for an outside night scene will work for an inside day scene.

 

[RED ROBOT]

Hey.


What you do is after you edit your movie , you start to color correcting every one of your shots until they look ''right'' . Maybe the first shot is a bit underexposed , you correct it to look just fine ,etc.


Then you start the grading process ,you grade your shots one by one and you try to make them look consistent .

You never ever ever apply color grading to the entire film because if you apply color grading to one scene it might look amazing but if you copy the same settings on another one it will probably look horrible .

 

[LordxxAnonymous]

nicksys is pretty spot on. lock in your scenes, get them corrected and balanced then go for the overall look. I use After Effects, I use an adjustment layer to house my "look" and then I animate the parameters to make each piece of the film consistent and balanced.
what software are you using?

 

[LordxxAnonymous]

NickysFx*

 

[jax_rox]

If you have a proper colour grading suite, you can 'correct' and grade at the same time. Grading is creating a look for each scene and film.

Generally, you're colour grading from the original raw files, linking via EDL or XML, so colour correcting in your NLE would be pointless.
You're grading shot to shot, but you're grading to give the scene and film a 'look' rather than simply correcting it to be proper exposure etc. (though you might do some correcting as part of your grade).