stylize a grade, how and when

[Orash Rahnema]

Hi all!

in the colour lounge facebook group a pretty interesting topic was recently diccessed.

Something that cought my eye was this post from Walter Volpatto.

I'm not sure if he's part of this forum, here it is:

Quote

In big productions, you almost NEVER stylized a grade: you rely entirely on the set lighting. 

Of course I could have asked him but I thought it could be useful to discuss it here.

I'd love to know what's your thought and experience on this. 

When I see movies that have a very define style, other then art direction, styling and lighting, grading wise are there look created specifically for the show?
this looks are created by whom? colour scientist + colourist and dops prior the shooting or at the first grading sessions? 
This looks do they come to the grading room in a LUT form or luts are generally avoided in order to preserve the whole signal and avoid artefacts?
 

Well, as usual way too many questions

thanks,

Orash

 

[Thomas Singh]

When I started out I always wanted to impress the directors and took the first opportunity to go in extreme directions. I soon started to realize that it was shot the way it was for a reason, and most directors were more happy when I presented a well balanced copy of their images. Lesson learned. It is always room to enhance the images in the second pass but getting the most out of what is shot without any extreme tweeking is always what I'm aming for.

Edited May 19, 2018 by Thomas Singh

[Anton Meleshkevich]

I think, typical workflow for big movies is:

1. Set up contrast (I mean all luminosity things like exposure etc)

2. Tint picture mood using printer lights.

3. Optionally Shift blue hue a little to a complementary color of the skin tone (line).

4. Log-to-whatever LUT or custom curves and gamut conversion

May be a little bit of LGG toning.

As far as I know, all teal orange things made using color temperature, saturation and some FPE LUT that slightly shifts everything complementary from gray to cool and warm sides.
Qualifier for teal orange is a very time consuming process. So I guess it is avoided every time it's possible to avoid.

If you got a good contrast, it seems like no matter what you do with colors - it's still looking good.