Behind the Scenes

For one reason or another color correction may be necessary. Other times it is used to add some sparkle to an image.

DV and Mini DV both have limited color rendering capabilities. This is due to the compression used at the VTR, and the way the camera samples color. Even larger and more expensive formats such as HD have limited color capabilities. Larger formats just aren't as noticeable as some of the smaller formats. When the medium is always working against you color wise, color correction can be used to give the image more life and sparkle.

It takes someone with a keen eye to do color timing. Most of color correction is in the details. It takes someone with patience and with a sense of what looks good on screen.

Examples of Our Color Correction Work

As Shot	Color Corrected
Screen shot from A Life Story. The problem here was this was shot in the magic hour. The rest of the shots that take place around the same time were shot at night. Color correction was needed to get them to look like the same time of night.	The first step was to make this look like the rest of the shots. Next, I took out some red that was there because of the size of the shot and the difficulty in getting a correct white balance from that distance.
Screen shot from Pleonexia. The problem here was to get a correct white balance due to the size of the shot. The lighting here also caused a problem since each light did not produce the entire color spectrum.	The first step was to take out the red tint. The next step was to adjust the gamma in order to make it look as if it fit with the rest of the film. Lastly, due to this being shot on video, a slight blur was added to give it a softer focus and therefore look closer to being shot near the open side of the lens like the rest of the film.
A shot from Behind the Scenes of China With Jeff Wray. The problem here was thet white balance gave us a very flat, dull image.	To fix this problem, a small amount of red was added to the image. Next, the gamma was adjusted and the saturation was increased.