Conan The Barbarian :::
 

I got to sit in yesterday and watch a professional color corrector / color grader work his magic on a new "Conan The Barbarian" movie trailer. Amazing to see how the footage looks with no color correction -vs- what it looks like after the colorist does his magic to it.

What was even more eye-opening was watching a rep from Lionsgate Films and the director of special effects debate over adding or subtracting a couple of points of blue from a piece that'll be on screen for about 1 second :1orglaugh

that would be interesting for sure...

who they got to play conan?

was it that bad to begin with? with all that schnazzy camera equipment and the experts behind it all, it never occurred to me that the footage would need color correction.

I always wonder how they do all the magic when we, simple people, watch, cry and get excited about things in the movies. I mean the process, liek they sit and talk which thing would stay or go.

Jason Momoa from Stargate Atlantis, good to see him in something like this, should be good

Sounds like Big Time Pros, nice experience to have :thumbsup

Yea, it's pretty bad. The movie is shot over a period of months with different lighting setups, different film stocks and cameras. Everything has to be color graded to make it all look consistent.

One take in particular had a very cyan flavor. It was dark, creepy and mysterious looking. I asked if I could see the original footage without all the correction and I was amazed at the difference. The footage out of those movie cameras is typically dark, flat and life-less. It's the colorists job to snap it up, bring it to life and stylize it.

<--blown away. i had no idea. then why all those fancy cameras touting their 4:2:2 color space or wtfever it is and cine this and cine that? :1orglaugh

So how was the actual content of the footage, technical details aside? Does it look like it will be a good movie?

Yea, they shoot it "flat" on purpose because shooting it that way retains the most information in the highlights and the shadows. That way, when the graders start working on it - it doesn't fall apart on them. If they shot it snappy & contrasty, they have very little room in post to manipulate it. Made sense to me when I heard that....

I'm not a fan of the series so I couldn't tell you if it's going to be good or not. The color grading looked fantastic though :winkwink:

trailer didn't help much, barely could tell what was going on...

It's useless to fight remakes ...

That trailer sucked. The one I saw them working on yesterday was much better. Should be in theaters soon :thumbsup

Color correction is a must... I've been blown away in this industry how few are willing to put the time into their own product to properly color correct vids, let alone photos even.

Sort of like shooting pics in raw.

Equally amazed how few will even take that step...

"It's just going to web, jpg is fine."

Retards... every goddamn one of them.

I remember watching the extra DVD's with the collectors set of lord of the rings. The part about fixing colors and adding lighting and such with before and afters was cool. Like photoshopping every single frame.

I agree.

I started learning about color grading about a year ago. Befriended a guy who color grades major motion pictures and he really has taught me a lot about the craft. I even set up a color grading system.

http://deancapture.com/pics/workstation.jpeg

I don't get a chance to use much of the knowledge that I've learned because it's just a terrible waste of time...since clients don't care about the quality of their footage. Any video, no matter how good the cameraman... can benefit greatly from even the most basic correction. Stuff like adjusting the color, contrast and brightness takes only minutes and can have a significant impact on the quality. But I think the mind set for most companies is: "If the member isn't complaining - don't worry about it" :1orglaugh

It's a shame that more companies don't take pride in their products and try to set a standard for quality. Instead, it's more about turning a quick buck.

Exactly :thumbsup

gotcha! :thumbsup cool stuff for sure! i shoot in the raw as well. :winkwink:

Jesus, big enough speakers?

Wow that's cool. Think it would be possible to do it in porn without adding too much expense?

id totally be interested in something like that...

Also... is that your setup there Dean?

Whats the big mixer doohikey in the middle of the desk there?

Dean. I Noticed you are running Apple's "Color" in your set up there. Were they using that to grade Conan as well?

Nawww man, they were using DeVinci Resolve software with a $30K hard surface control system. The trailer was projected on a HUGE screen with an amazing sound system. The studio execs sat in big LayZboy styled seating....down close to the screen and I sat up top with the colorist... looking over his shoulder as he made corrections.

Every 15 minutes a lady would come in and ask the execs if they wanted anything to drink or eat. There was a kitchen so the ladies could cook up just about anything that the execs wanted. To see how much they cater to the studio execs was cool :1orglaugh

It's a controller for color grading. Makes it easier and faster to color grade when using that because you can use both hands at the same time.

sweet set up man!

do you get all eye achey sometimes and swing over and let out a rousing refrain of great balls of fire every now n then on the keys?

Yea - they sound good :winkwink:

Dean,

is color correction done frame by frame? seems like you could do some basic overall corrections to a clip but anything significant would have to be scrutinized closely eh?

A friend of mine used to work for HBO and used to do color correction for movies they produced. He tried to show me a few things but it was way over my head at the time.

Sounds like you had a good time. During my short time in the movie business I too was amazing at how much catering and ass kissing goes on. Someone told me if they offer food, take it, it may be all you get. But it seemed like you couldn't go anywhere without people offering food or drinks and if you were someone who was known or an executive it was ten times more impressive. They did everything but ask if they wanted a blowjob. :)

Turn and burn... we got x-sells to worry about.

:thumbsup

Dude. What you mean?? Had lots of Boom boom music and plenty of smoke and effects.


:)


Totally agree about it.

NICE! Brought out the big guns. I love grading with Color, but man to play with a da Vinci set up would be awesome.

I helped out with some very minor grading on the latest MushroomHead video. Overkill for what they wanted really, but sure was fun.