So I finally embrace the LUT and want to try the cool LUT I just found here but the Speedgrade manual and Adobe help aren’t exactly helpful. What is a LUT? This Wiki will explain it.
After playing around in various forms, a restart and lots of worthless Google searches I stumbled on the solution by accident. In the lower left corner, click on the + icon to open a menu and select FILM and choose LUT.
This will allow you to select the LUT you have downloaded, is available as a default or something you have created in another application.
If you are looking to try out a LUT without paying, try out the Instagram looks I found here.
This week I have been thinking a lot about color correction and color grading. Probably because I had a lecture on it in two classes and I’m finishing up post on two projects. I’ve always enjoyed color grading and what you can do with the final image. My first visit to the color suite was in 1995 in film school. We shot color neg and took it in to get transferred and they used a telecine with a Davinci color corrector. It was amazing. And expensive. Fast forward 20 years and we have so many options for color correction that it is dizzying. Davinci, as Resolve, is still in the picture. The color correctors in the NLE programs are very powerful. What is the point of this post?
I thought I had a point when I was thinking about writing this post, but mostly it was random thoughts on color correction. We are in a period where the look of the film belongs to the colorist. As a DP this is very scary, but also freeing in that everything I do on set is not the final look. Small HD has released a monitor that allows you to load a custom LUT so you can view your RAW/Log files with a defined look. That is really cool. The cameras that have that ability are available at prices that would cost less than my telecine session in 1995 without inflation adjustment! There has never been a better time to be a filmmaker. And there has never been a worse time.
Here’s the link I sent my students to for a primer on color correction.
Another article posted today about 4K and the arguments for and against, or rather digging into the hype. It is from the perspective of the team working on the Digital Bolex project. Joe makes some really good points about bit depth and comparing it to audio is a great way to understand it. It also reminded me of the Alexa demonstration where the guys from Arri were explaining why the Alexa’s 3.5K sensor was the right choice for digital cinema. Beyond the numbers and specs they were after a pleasing image which includes sharpness, color, clarity, definition, dynamic range, resolution and any other word one may want to use when trying to achieve an image as good as or better than motion picture film. Give the article a read and dig deeper into any new tool before touting it as the next big thing.
blog about things cinema related
