Major Production - Colour grade on first edit

So after some extensive research of how to colour grade Log footage, i've been lead to these things called LUTs, (Look Up Table's) now what these things are, are different aesthetics and colour schemes that you can apply to your footage, and then manipulate that even further. These LUTs go hand in hand with Log footage, as shooting in Log increases your dynamic range, (which is basically just heightens the contrasting shadows and well lit areas of your shot by adding more depth & colour to them).

 What is a LUT?

A Look-Up Table (LUT) is a file with .CUBE or .3DL extension, containing maths instructions
to replace a colour (based on RGB value) by another one. It's like a colour grading preset.
This process is done pixel by pixel with a very high accuracy.

These LUTs are compatible with images shots from all cameras.

There are a lot of websites which offer these LUTs, but it's about finding the right one that will fit our piece tonally and crucially add more to the narrative as colour plays a pivotal part in doing that.

(Helpful colour chart found on my researching trails)

Coming into the studio since being back after a few weeks of absence due to health - I'd already done a lot of research on what LUTs would be effective and how to get the best out of them. I'd watched a lot of tutorials as well on how to get the best quality out of overexposed and underexposed images too. It was time now to start applying this research to my actual project. It helped though that I had done some extensive research on how to approach the LUT selection process and how to grade footage, here were the few simple steps I followed. It helped though that I had done some extensive research on how to approach the LUT selection process and how to grade footage, here were the few simple steps I followed.  

 1) Adjust colors and tweak your image BEFORE the LUT. Your LUT is adding a certain style to the footage, if you don't want to mess with the style, tweak your image before the LUT so that the LUT is the last thing the colors hit.

2) If you want to change the style of the LUT, adjust AFTER the LUT. But, be careful as most LUTs will do some kind of limiting to the image and may "Bake in" certain colors or lose detail in the highlights that you can't get back while grading after the LUT.

3) There are no MAGIC LUTs. There isn't a LUT out there that can make all of your footage look great 100% of the time. LUTs are designed for ideal WB and exposure. That means if your image isn't exposed or balanced correctly, you'll have to adjust the image before the LUT.

4) Don't use a LUT for no dang reason. Know why you're choosing a certain LUT or look. Be informed and make creative decisions. If you don't know why you're using a LUT, maybe consider if it's good for your camera, lighting, and feeling you want the viewer to experience. Remember, LUTs are just a part of color grading, which is a very artistic medium. Don't slap any old LUT on your shots and call 'em good.

I came in the studio with lots of LUTs to apply to the project and knew it would be a trial and error process. Here are the downloaded LUT batches that I started out with at first, each one had about 30 - 50 different LUTs within them. 

GSG - LUT sample
FG - LUTS
LUTS for Adobe premiere 
PB - 17 Luts
Cinematic LUTS 
Wanderlust LUTS
GrayScaleGorilla LUTS

The luts that I acquire from the wanderlust and GrayScaleGorilla set were really dynamic and tasty, so I thought i'll keep to these ones and figure out a way to manipulate them even more to fit the tone of our piece. A lot of my colour grading knowledge had came from Youtube video's which I watched constantly throughout when I was back in Manchester recovering. A great one that really allowed me to focus on what I should be striving to achieve was this - 




This video gave me a greater insight into the workings of making a great colour grade for my piece. I know our piece wasn't necessarily wanting a cinematic aesthetic but from learning how to achieve this, I can manipulate that look to my particular style that we want so that it reinforces the narratives themes and tone. 

(LENOX 340) - Temperature + 41.

Tint  +12 

TONE 

Exposure 0

Contrast +14 

Highlights 0

Shadows 0 

Whites 0 

Blacks 0 

I tried out atleast 70 different LUTs from several websites to see which one would best suit our piece and convey the same tone as the narrative holds. Unfortunately there were only about 5 LUTs that I felt did that and so with these 5 I began to manipulate the colour grade even more on them. 

(AZRAEL 93) - Temperature 21

Tint - 0

Expo - 0

Contrast - 20

Highlights - 60

Shadows - 40

Whites - 60

Blacks - 0

(AMIRA Default LogC2Rec709) 
Temperature - -9
Exposure - 0.7

Tint - 0

Contrast - 20

Highlights - 60

Shadows - 40

Whites - 60

Blacks - 0 

This is the actual setting that I think we'll be using throughout our major project. The lut Panasonic Vlog is there lut that is actually build for our specifc log recording format. I haven't shown the rest of the crew yet how the footage looks with this particular lut but hopefully they'll approve. 

(CONTRAIL LUT) -

Exposure - 0.3

Tint - 0.4

Contrast - 50

Highlights - 30

Shadows - 45

Whites - 65

Blacks - 10

(Example of the adjustment layer being used and layed over the top of the images)

For this to be to be achieved effectively and efficiently, I dragged an adjustment layer across the top of all of our visual clips, and then applied the colour grade to this adjustment layer. Following on from research about how to colour grade properly, this is what I was instructed to do. This technique saves you from applying the individual LUT and all the manipulate attributes to each individual clip. Obviously though there were scenes that needed separate work on to get them to match up, so all you'd do it just cut the adjustment layer to match up to that specific clip size and then manipulate that adjustment layer accordingly. 

In this first colour grade session I did all of this colouring alone as I wanted to present what I felt was right in order to support the narrative from my perspective. I didn't want to be getting any constructive criticism yet as I wasn't even sure about any of these specific LUTs either, so it would of been no help to anyone if I received criticism as I hadn't selected any particular LUTs yet for the project. 

All I knew was that I wanted to give it a consistent colour grade throughout as many of the sitcoms I'd watched like People Just Do Nothing and Cuckoo, they have such a beautiful consistency to their pieces, that you can immediately tell what the show is, even if it was just an establishing shot you'd be able to know. People Just Do Nothing like's to accentuate it's blue's and navy's where as Cuckoo likes it's saturated oranges and yellows, giving completely different feels to their narratives. This is what I want to achieve through the colour grade, to apply one that conveys a certain mood that fits our tone of the piece, allowing it to support our narrative and give it more consistency. 

'Though often associated with warmth, energy, and humour, orange can also register a sense of warning and caution. The ancient religion Confucianism associates orange with transformation. The image above arrives at the tipping point of Beasts of No Nation — our hero is now a completely different person, almost unrecognisable as he trudges through the murky orange trenches.' (L.Baker.2016)

After some further research I've decided to try and incoporate the colour orange as stated above, it is a foreboding colour with a lot of hidden meaning behind it. It will serve well in the hallucination scenes I believe. So i'll see once I get to the hallucination scenes how best to approach them and how to incorporate. I also was trying to emulate a look from a film The Fall, as this has a very cool and interesting colour palette that I did try and emulate within this piece. The reason begin is that this film is quite surreal and trippy, so I felt with both the film and our project matching tonally, it made sense to try and make our visuals look very vivid and poppy with colour. 

(Panasonic Vlog to V709)

Temperature - 0.2 

Exposure - 0.1

Tint - 0

Contrast - 32

Highlights - 60

Shadows - 50

Whites - 80

Blacks - 0

I did some further research on this LUT, after watching a tutorial on youtube on how to get the most of out it. The video I watched also captured raw footage on the camera we were actually using, the Panasonic DVX200 so this really gave me a lot of faith in this LUT and it's capabilities. 

This specific LUT just felt right, but there was another default LUT that we tried whilst on set as we were filming the piece, called the Amira default LogC2REC709 which also had a similar aesthetic to this one. We'll have to see what Will thinks, if it matches our tone of the narrative.
Overall i'm happy with how the colour grading session went as it's the first of many, I've made a lot of progress and it's now just a waiting game to see if Will/Aimee/Callum are happy with these LUTs i've chosen to trial. I've got about 5 on my list out of the 70 I had at the beginning, so hopefully one of them will be good enough for the cut. 

Reference - 

https://www.premiumbeat.com/blog/manipulate-emotions-with-color-in-film/ - (L.Baker.2016)