This post explains the process of color grading a commercial advert of night time shots for a client.
I was recently asked by Alt vfx (Brisbane Post house) to do a VFX pre grade on the new Tooheys Extra Dry beer Commercial directed by Garth Davis from Exit films. Exit are one of the biggest and most renowned production companies both here in Australia and around the world.
I had never worked with Garth before so the plan at that stage was to take the final grade to one of his establish graders. I was happy to work on any part of the advert especially when I saw the dailies, I knew it was going to be a huge ad. The commercial follows a group of deers/stags on a girls/boys big night out.
The commercial was shot on the Arri Alexa in Auckland, New Zealand by Ellen Kuras who credits include the movie ‘Little Miss Sunshine.’
The plan was to take the Alexa Log C ProRes images and do a balanced grade just to the 60 second cut. That would then give the VFX guys the chance to work with graded DPX pictures rather than the flatter looking Log C pictures.
Starting the grade
The first thing I did was conform the various EDL versions. The big trick here with Resolve is to make sure that the correct clip names come into the system when you add the footage to the media pool. Otherwise the conform will not work or will have many conflicts.
I called Garth and we had an initial chat about what direction he wanted the grade to go in. He had not shot with the Alexa before, nearly always preferring film for his spots so was keen to see it in the grading room. The brief was to keep the grade simple, so the VFX guys could get started, I also wanted to leave enough headroom so the look could be adjusted in the final grade.
I had obviously over thought this process a little because in a couple of days Garth was on a plane to Brisbane looking to adjust the dailies. He wanted to re grade some shots as 4 weeks of VFX would be based on this early grade – not to mention the work in progress (WIP) versions that would be sent to the clients on a daily basis.
Second go
Gareth and Ellen had spent lots of time lighting the commercial and liked the look they had created. I had changed things a little too much in my initial grade. Some shots were spot on, others needed work: these shots went back to the RAW image, then I applied the Log C to Rec 709 LUT in the second Resolve node. This brought the picture very close to what the guys had seen on set and in the offline. I then graded on top of this base look, but I really only did very simple things, never crushing or pushing the material in any way.
The commercial had to have a sort of velvety soft look. Garth used Rembrant as a reference a couple of time….lucky I am well up on my 18th century painters. I had originally graded more blue out of the aerial shots and had made those a little dark. We put them back nearer the camera original, and did a couple of things to blend them in with the surrounding shots as night starts to fall across the city. You can see in the 3 shot of the ladies, the slight green from the shops in the street lighting was left in, not graded out.
The second clip as the stags run around the corner was a joint effort between myself and the VFX team. The original shot had far too many shadows for the time of day. So I took it so far then the boys painted out the shadows and darkened the shot even more.
Garth and Colin Renshaw, the VFX supervisor, spent around 4 hours grading this 2nd pass with me – it was so much better to have Garth there in the room with me, rather than on the end of a phone. Even though we had spoken before, it had been very hard for me to gauge exactly what he had wanted. Color correction is such a personal thing, you get so much from just talking to the director in person trying different looks, then judging their reaction to your grades.
This is how you build a relationship making the grading experience much easier for both parties.
I added 25 frame handles, rendered the timeline to HD DPX, then started on the VFX layer. This had the pack shot at the end, some roaming deer and a few extra and alternative takes.
Finishing the job
A week later I was back in at ALT because the guys had gone back to NZ to shoot some pick up shots. I also graded some still Tiffs files to match the Alexa footage these would be used later by the VFX dept when it came to lighting their 3D models.
I must have done something right in that initial grade as Garth had requested I do the final grade at Alt after all the VFX had been finished.
“When is the final grade?” I asked. Problem …… I was going to be 2000ks away skiing with the family on the day of the final grade!
I really wanted to finish the job that I had started, so I made a plan to drive and fly home for the grade. The Alt boys wanted as much time as possible to get their final renders into the cut before the final grade.
We eventually started coloring at around 3pm. Flame exported the commercial as a 60 sec DPX sequence, which I then scene detected to break up it up into individual clips. My job now was to add some subtle windows and grads now that the 3D animals had been added.
I also spent a fair amount of time using subtractive windows, they are shapes that darken or de saturate the image in a window, rather than an additive window that you might use around a pack shot. We played with the beer bottle shots bringing them up and making them a little more readable. The helicopter shot with the deers on the balcony has a very soft hand drawn window bringing up that area. That needed both an auto and a manual track to sit seamlessly into the shot.
When Garth was happy we turned up the sound and did the final client approval screenings. After a few small tweaks, the 12 people in the room were very happy. I went home for a few hours sleep before getting a flight back to the snow.
