With the rise of telecommuting, in-house grading and evaluation are becoming more important. You would not be the first to consider setting up a modest color suite. The world of color; however, has always been deceptive.
You may spend hours reading forum discussions debating the appropriateness of different shades of paint, lighting types, and acceptable monitoring levels. Let us go straight to the point. You should engage an engineer instead of reading this article to learn how to build the ideal high-end finishing facility for big motion movies. Instead, we will make something simple that serves a valuable purpose and does not break the bank for you.
Why Is Color Grading Necessary?
You need a camera that exposes the most data possible. You will have to sacrifice some of that information to draw the viewer’s attention where you want it to go. Cameras expose the greatest dynamic range possible to delay discarding the data for as long as feasible. The second justification for grading is creativity. It turns out that the definition of “looking good” varies from person to person and project to project.
Your romantic comedy might benefit from a warmer color palette and higher saturation, while a thriller would benefit from a cooler one. The camera’s menu has no “genre” choice; you may choose between romantic comedy and scary movies. Therefore, color grading ensures the visuals fit the narrative perfectly.
Why A Compact Color Grading Suite Is Essential
Color grading setup is primarily motivated by independence. Booking a color suite before a color grading session is a common practice in post-production. This is OK as long as everything goes according to plan, but if the edit takes longer than expected, you may have to pay more to book the suite on a different day. Or, if the edit is completed ahead of schedule, everyone has to wait for the scheduled colorist to show up.
This is at odds with the realities of today’s on-demand market, where deadlines are shorter and more fluid than ever before and where production firms, post facilities, and even advertising agencies all want a hand in the color grading service process. This might include an editor doing a rough color pass during the early editing stages or hiring a freelance colorist for the final color grade. The need for settings that allow for adequate content assessment is growing with the requirement for solutions that enable you to color grade to current standards. The good news is that with careful planning, you can now save tens of thousands of dollars on what used to cost hundreds of thousands.
Is Color Grading Really That Important?
Mood, personality, and chronology may all be indicated via color grading. It is crucial to plan the overall color scheme of a creative endeavor before beginning production. Before production begins, Pixar, a company widely regarded as a narrative expert, develops a variety of color scripts to outline the specific colors to be utilized in each scene. This makes the color supportive of the narrative rather than disruptive.
Color grading in filmmaking is making artistic decisions about how different hues and tones might be used to convey a sense of mood or theme. Naturally, choices made on set by the DOP and the director significantly affect the final color grading company grade. Decisions about color grading may be made at any point in the editing process if the production pipeline has assured that the shot has been done in the most flexible manner possible (for example, by recording in RAW or shooting in LOG format). As a result, CG artists employ file formats like EXRs, which hold a broad range of color data, to provide room in their pipelines for color grading.
The ACES (Academy Color Encoding System) workflow and others aim to standardize color encoding across as many input formats as possible, making color correction unnecessary and allowing colorists to focus on grading instead. Many feature films delay the color grade until the end of production since it serves mostly as an emotional gloss. The director and the colorist (or the editor for smaller productions) will meet in a dark room to adjust the film’s overall tone throughout the video color correction process.
Color grading in the movies (and on TV) is a contentious topic, particularly as more and more productions aim towards high dynamic range (HDR) formats. The Long Night from Game of Thrones is an episode that may have used a color grading that went too far. In this case, viewers at home were treated to a muddy and blocky version of a show that had been expertly graded in the color suite.
How Much Does Professional Color Grading Cost?
Studios employ some colorists on a salary, while most of the professionals operate on a contract basis. Location, years of experience, and scope of projects all play a role in determining salary.
- 5-minute colours-grading project- 200$
- 15-minute short film Colour Grading Project 350$
- 30-minute Documentary Film Colour Grading Project- 500$
- 1-Hour Documentary film Colour Grading Project-1000$
- Music Video Colour-Grading Project 350$
Conclusion
When it comes to making the most of your film, Motion Grades providing color correction service can be hired. Even if you are not interested in becoming a colorist, familiarizing yourself with the process can help you hire a professional to conduct a grade on your film.
Learning the fundamentals of color grading will allow you to execute a fast and dirty grade on smaller projects without needing a professional colorist. Becoming an expert offering professional color grading might take years, but hopefully, this has given you a solid foundation to build.
