Color Correction Starts During Your Shoot
It’s important to remember that the process of determining the overall look of your
video begins when your scenes are lit and shot during production. To have the
maximum amount of control over your clips in post-production, you need to start out
with footage that has been exposed with your end goals in mind right from the
beginning. Color correction in post-production is no substitute for good lighting.
Optimistically, the process of color correction can be seen as extending and enhancing
the vision of the producer, director, and cinematographer or videographer as it was
originally conceived. Often, the cinematographer or videographer gets personally
involved during the color correction process to ensure that the look he or she was
trying to achieve is perfected.
At other times, the director or producer may change his or her mind regarding how the
finished piece should look. In these cases, color correction might be used to alter the
overall look of the piece (for example, making footage that was shot to look cool look
warmer, instead). While this degree of control is possible, it’s still important to start out
with clean, properly exposed footage.
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Part III
Color Correction and Video Quality Control
Managing Color During Post-Production
The way you manage color in your program depends on whether your source video
was transferred from film or shot on tape. There are several ways to color correct a
project. The one that works for you depends on how you’re finishing your program, as
well as your project’s post-production budget.
Telecine Color Correction
If you shot your project on film but you’re editing on video, you must first use a
machine, called a telecine, to take the images from your negatives and convert them to
the videotape format of your choice prior to editing. Any colorist running this first
telecine session will be performing some level of color correction as the video is
transferred, to ensure that the editor has the most appropriate picture to work with.