Mad Max: Fury Road - Recreating the look

[Gioacchino Gargiulo]

Good evening to all,

This is my first post here so I'll try to keep it short and relevant.

After reading the article about the grading of Mad Max: Fury Road, I tried to re-build it myself using some production stills found online.

Needless to say, the results are pretty bad, so I wanted to ask your opinion on how to better recreate the grade and whether I'm headed in the right direction.

This is the plate I started with:

This is the original grade (+VFX) :

And this is where my grade is at the moment: 

This is my node structure:

(As you can guess by the thumbnails, I worked on an image containing both the clean plate and the graded image, which in retrospect was a bad idea)

 

I'm not happy with both the hue of the sand and the shadows, which seem to me a bit more on the blue side in the original grade.

If you have any tips on these issues, and/or on other issues I missed, feedback is most welcome!

[Abby Bader]

The first thing to consider when approaching a look like this is the exposure. With higher luma levels you will get access to a color palette that is closer to the orignal look. I would also pay attention to the nice and rich contrast that is missing in your image. Give it another try and come back, ok? Abby

 

[Danial Thompson]

As someone starting out I am interested to see your node structure. I too am working on a similar project where I am trying to 'recreate Mars' with some landscape footage and I think I am running into the same uncertainties as you. Look forward to seeing how this practice comes along!

[Tom Evans]

I would start to balance the shot and match the contrast levels before even thinking about applying the look. Setting a good base layer of contrast is one of the most difficult things to master for a new colorist and requires a lot of practice. I just read Trish Cahill's article about The Hobbit and she has some very detailed descriptions that could help you deal with this. The movies are done on Mistika but you can find the same tools that she used in all of the color correctors out there.

[Gioacchino Gargiulo]

First, thanks to everyone for replying.

I've tried fixing the original grade, but eventually started again from scratch. 

I think it's a tiny bit better than the previous version, and I tried to simplify the nodes a bit, but I'm still missing a lot of the detail from the original shot for some reason.

Here are the second version and the node structure:

 

Any ideas of how I can fix it?

[Nicolas Hanson]

Can you upload your reference image? 

[Danial Thompson]

On 01/09/2016 at 11:05 PM, Gioacchino Gargiulo said:

This is the original grade (+VFX) :

I think in the original grade the shadows seem to have a touch of blue introduced into them, did you try that? Your second node structure looks a lot like mine, sometimes I wonder if for certain shots is such a structure too simple? Am I missing details? This is a problem I relate to.

Also can anyone explain to me the key difference between Layer nodes and parallel nodes? Maybe @Gioacchino Gargiuloyou can explain for me why you structured in that way and reasoning? 

[Gioacchino Gargiulo]

1 hour ago, Nicolas Hanson said:

Can you upload your reference image? 

I simply cut the bottom half of this image

[Gioacchino Gargiulo]

1 hour ago, Danial Thompson said:

Also can anyone explain to me the key difference between Layer nodes and parallel nodes? Maybe @Gioacchino Gargiuloyou can explain for me why you structured in that way and reasoning? 

The difference is that parallel nodes have equal "power" on the image, meaning that the order does not matter, while a Layer Mixer node prioritizes the node on top (or on the bottom, I can never quite remember until I try) and then the others come afterwards.

I hope this makes sense, I know it's not a really comprehensive answer but as you may guess I'm only a beginner.

 

As for my node structure, I used the first node to give the basic contrast and saturation, then added a layer mixer to warm up the image while keeping the shadows cool, then isolated the center to better match the original shot.

[Abby Bader]

On 4.9.2016 at 2:40 PM, Gioacchino Gargiulo said:

First, thanks to everyone for replying.

I've tried fixing the original grade, but eventually started again from scratch. 

I think it's a tiny bit better than the previous version, and I tried to simplify the nodes a bit, but I'm still missing a lot of the detail from the original shot for some reason.

Here are the second version and the node structure:

 

Any ideas of how I can fix it?

The devil is in the contrast, but you could be limited by poor dynamic range as you're not working on the original material. That said, I think you've done a great job! Congratulations, I'm looking forward to see your next project!

[Gioacchino Gargiulo]

7 hours ago, Abby Bader said:

The devil is in the contrast, but you could be limited by poor dynamic range as you're not working on the original material. That said, I think you've done a great job! Congratulations, I'm looking forward to see your next project!

Thanks Abby! And you're right, working on better material would surely help, I'll see if I can find something less compressed the next time. 

[Juan Melara]

I would look at using an FPE LUT. IMDB says it was printed on Kodak 2383. Looking at the stills on Bluray.com it looks like it has a D55 whitepoint. Resolve comes with a Kodak 2383 D55 LUT, so you should be good to go.

It also looks like there is potentially a bit of 3x3 matrix work, noticeable in the extra density and saturation in the reds. It's possible this was achieved with other tools. But its consistency throughout the film makes me think it's a matrix, possibly even baked into the Log-C to P3 LUT mentioned in the article.

[Nicolas Hanson]

FPE = Film Print: Industry standard Vision 2383 film print. Medium contrast/saturation print stock.

[Nicolas Hanson]

Hi @Gioacchino Gargiulo, did you finish the grade?

[Artemi Sintsov]

my take

[Nicolas Hanson]

Great work @Artemi Sintsov. But I think you should have retained more details. Looks like the dark parts in the right corner are clipped. It could take focus away from the other elements. 

Edited September 30, 2016 by Nicolas Hanson

[Artemi Sintsov]

On ‎30‎/‎09‎/‎2016 at 7:36 PM, Nicolas Hanson said:

Great work @Artemi Sintsov. But I think you should have retained more details. Looks like the dark parts in the right corner are clipped. It could take focus away from the other elements. 

Yeah, agree. Missed that one

[Misha Denisov]

On 9/3/2016 at 2:20 AM, Tom Evans said:

just read Trish Cahill's article about The Hobbit

Tom, could you please provide a link? Can't find it.

[Alex Winker]

On 9/6/2016 at 10:35 PM, Juan Melara said:

It also looks like there is potentially a bit of 3x3 matrix work, noticeable in the extra density and saturation in the reds. It's possible this was achieved with other tools. But its consistency throughout the film makes me think it's a matrix, possibly even baked into the Log-C to P3 LUT mentioned in the article.

Juan,

Could you elaborate a bit more on what exactly a 3x3 matrix is, how you think there is one at work here, and what effects it is capable of? I have come across a few references to these, primarily in terms of emulating film, but haven't been able to find a good explanation of the specifics as well as how it could be utilized in Resolve. My understanding is that you can do these with the channel mixers and by changing up the color spaces of the nodes, is that correct?

[Gioacchino Gargiulo]

On 6/11/2018 at 7:42 PM, Alex Winker said:

Juan,

Could you elaborate a bit more on what exactly a 3x3 matrix is, how you think there is one at work here, and what effects it is capable of? I have come across a few references to these, primarily in terms of emulating film, but haven't been able to find a good explanation of the specifics as well as how it could be utilized in Resolve. My understanding is that you can do these with the channel mixers and by changing up the color spaces of the nodes, is that correct?

You can find here a good explanation of the difference between the different LUT types

[Lowepost]

On 5/22/2018 at 3:43 PM, Misha Denisov said:

Tom, could you please provide a link? Can't find it.