I have recently returned from Vancouver, where I was asked to talk about color as part of a mini conference. The weekend was organized by the IATSE669 camera union who managed to pull together some fantastic talent to join me for the panel discussions.
Lots going on in Vancouver, far more than I expected, think they have nearly run out of talent and kit! It was great to see so many people give up their weekend to learn more about color and workflows. All the people I meet over the weekend were truly passionate about their craft and really embraced the discussions and training tips offered. It reminded me of the crews here in Australia.
It was interesting how heavily Pomfort’s LiveGrade and Silverstack is used in Vancouver. There seems to be a push for a more ‘true to the finish’ look for the dailies which seems to be more and more finished on set, bypassing the traditional dailies in a post house route. Remember, this is still only for dailies and editorial, all shows are still going for a final grade.
Saturdays panel moderated by DIT Luke Campbell
DP Greg Middleton csc talking about his recent work on Game of Thrones. A fantastic insight into the HBO series filmed on location in Ireland. Greg walked us through the show’s color workflow from set to Final grade.
Andrea Chlebak Colorist showed scenes from the feature film Chappie. She broke down scenes which were shot on the RED Epic, through VFX updates then onto the final grade using Baselight working with 16bit EXR files in ACES color space.
Video Selection from Greg’s presentation
Video selection from Andrea’s presentation
Sundays panel
DP Craig Wrobleski csc and DIT Ryan McGregor talked extensively about their work on the TV series Fargo. Pictures looked very well crafted from set to final grade. Great insights into their workflows.
Frank Robinson Colorist at Vancouver Post House Finale talked about the booming local market for both dailies and final grading.
A popular workflow seems to be to grade on set in LiveGrade, the look flows live to the video village/iPads etc. The CDLs and LUTs created there are then fed to Resolve or Colorfront Dailies for additional grading and making deliverables for editorial and web upload. The same CDLs or LUTs Resolve Powergrades can then be used for the final grade.
The DPs and Directors are very keen on this workflow, maintaining the nearer they can get to the desired look on set the happier everybody is.
Their main concern was that the hard work to establish a Look on set was sometimes being thrown away at the final grade.
One of the biggest things people took away from the weekend was the better the communication and the better the collaboration, the better the show looks.
Video selection from Craig’s presentation
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