Demo: color correction/'poor man's grading tool' ...

I'm really impressed too by the color-correction tools in iMovie '08, Karsten. I played around with it recently and was really impressed.

I like how it lets those of us who haven't yet invested in HD cameras adjust video that was shot with less-than-perfect white balance and exposure. It gives new life to video shot with older/modestly-priced cameras. It lets us improve the quality of not-so-great video.

It's a HUGE feature, and like so many other editing features in iMovie '08, works so fast and so well. I love that there's no waiting to render and no disk space required. It just works.

It has occurred to me that iMovie '08 has essentially all the tools necessary to produce 99% of what I see in movies and TV. This is one of those really big features.

Karl

I too am very impressed with this feature, I've been working on some old cine film over a period between 1956 and 1984. The later footage benefits tremendously from colour correction whereas some of the older footage shot in B & W and poor lighting conditions which couldn't be seen at all on the original, can now be seen. I'm not saying it's great, but it means I can save some old nostalgic moments I would have otherwise thrown away.

I hope you realize that few of your corrections are "improvements" because they distort both the grayscale creating too much contrast -- like a cheap camera -- as well as making the color totally unnatural. Do dinner rolls really look like the After shot. No way!

Second, you may have pushed luma and chroma beyond it's legal limits. (Especially if your video comes from a consumer camcorder that records peak luma at 110IRE.) Did you convert to video and use a waveform and vector scope to check? If not, how do you know it can be recorded let alone broadcast. Moreover, since the vast majority of folks run their TVs with Saturation cranked-up -- your "corrections" may truly look horrible when viewed.

Grading is not done simply to create a look. It's done to create shot-to-shot consistency. And, whatever is done is always checked to be sure it's legal.

I'd suggest recording back to video and then capturing with FCP and checking the Before and After luma and chroma levels. A tiny bit of correction goes a long way.

Message was edited by: Steve Mullen

I don't think Karsten's intending to broadcast his videos.

I think he's just making them look the way that he'd like them to look ..and why not? Painters do it all the time. Photographers "dodge" and "burn" to increase or decrease the light from negatives onto positive prints; anyone shooting photos or video - or film! - may use filters to enhance colours or contrast, or remove visible reflections ..anyone's at liberty to make their pictures look however they'd like them to look, and not necessarily be bound by what the hardware delivers, or what "broadcast" specifications may be.

If I want to paint my iPod tartan, then I'm free to do it!

And if Karsten wants super-contrasty super-coloured, hi-intensity video, then why not?

Film-makers use bleach-bypass, pre-flashing, etc, to alter the characteristics of the images they shoot so that they're no longer "naturalistic"; Derek Jarman made a film which was all just completely blue; the Coen Brothers made "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" - using Macs - suffused with gold all the way through..

Well done, Karsten: it may not be "broadcast color (or white) legal" ..but why worry? ..looks good to me!

You have no idea who will read your tutorial.

There are lots of folks who use 06 to make productions that will go back to TAPE. Tape has the same limitations as broadcast -- because, of course, who knows if a tape will be broadcast. DV is VERY often used for broadcast, especially by the BBC and US networks. So not EXPECTING something to be broadcast is not a good assumption.

So the fact things look like how you want -- doesn't mean they are legal video.

Distorting color is the least good use of color CORRECTION. Before it became popular in horrible music videos, it was used to fix things -- not distort them. There's way way to much pointless image distortion used today.

So it's a matter of both what's legal and tasteful.

"... but taste or creativity were NEVER measured on scopes. David gave you some examples, Soderbergh's Traffic is another example, and you can not tell me seriously, that the offices of CSI in Miami are THAT colorful."

Both are exactly what I mean by "horrible" CC work.

08 can't export to tape, but it can export to a file. Once to a file it can go to tape or DVD. Tape and DVD have identical limits. You simply can't get away from the need to be legal except on the web where any crap is fine -- e.g., You Tube.

DV is used extensively for broadcast (not just B cam) and for movies. However, its 480-lines did cause productions to be rejected because they were not legal in a 486-line NTSC world. Over time folks found ways to overcome the problems -- which were very real.

The industry does adapt to new technology, but not to "bad practice." That never becomes acceptable.

"..The industry does adapt to new technology, but not to "bad practice." That never becomes acceptable.."

..But it does! ..It was bad practice to have dirty, scruffy, scratched film onscreen (..in cinemas or on TV..) but now look at all the video plug-ins which create a scratched film look! They're there in iMovie '06, and there in Final Cut Pro, and there on TV screens every night of the week.

It's called 'nostalgia' ..and people purposely try to re-create the look of poor quality and "bad practice", specifically for the emotional response it invokes (..oops; am I getting too Blade Runner-ish?..)

What's "bad practice" one year is all the rage the next! Artistry is not bound by what's "currently acceptable" ..remember the Apple ad? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4oAB83Z1ydE

Steve,

Anything is just a tool, you can use it however you like.

The whole legal colors thingy was to prevent colors with hot frequencies from damaging signal transmitting equipments. Broadcasting companies would be fined for this, so I don't think they'll hire anyone who uses iMove or anyone who didn't know how to do their job correctly.

Plus, I doubt iMovie's usable color gamut is that wide. Most in broadcast will also be doing color correction with an external monitor that costs about the same as an iMac. You're basically telling people how to write email to their friends by citing what's valid and sound in the world of journalism.

And please don't just jump in and claim only adjusting to truthful colors are good practice, and that any other tones are horrible color adjustment work. Keep in mind film makers decide the tone BEFORE any shooting is done, and everything, lighting, props, costumes, weather of location, were chosen and worked on to achieve that tone. You can't get that colorful Miami if you didn't populate your set with punchy colors, no matter what you do in post. There's nothing white in the Matrix set, everything white had to be dyed a bit green. Those "horrible" tones aren't after-thoughts.

To read what others think of current color practices: http://archive2.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=585416

Shark's Mexico shots makes the show into even more of a cartoon.

So what is it you are saying Steve?

Some of the b & w cine film that was shot at the evening event on my mothers wedding was so dark it couldn't be seen, it's not great now but it was the first time Mom was able to see those shots of her wedding after 50 years, she was delighted, even burst into tears, should I stop her from watching them because it fails testing on a vector scope.

She was equally delighted when I altered the colour on the cine film of my Christening, should I now explain that I have deleted this footage because while she could now see the blues in her frock just as she remembered them (instead of the grey's they had become), the reds in our faces were a little too saturated and the whole movie didn't meet broadcast standards.

Last week - or was it the week before? - I was at a recording of a topical-news BBC TV quiz show; "Have I Got News For You". Sound in the studio (..in from panellists' lapel mics, out from studio "foldback" or audience loudspeakers..) was "natural"; loud when participants spoke loud, quiet if they mumbled or whispered.

Back home the next night I watched and recorded the show: all the audio was "companded" ..compressed (limited) if louder than a fixed level, and boosted (expanded) if quieter than the same standard level ..this is normal in most radio shows, unless they're orchestral concerts in which a difference is usually maintained between quiet passages and the loudest horn blasts, so that the music sounds like the composer intended.

The companded TV audio gave the show a more "urgent" and "punchy" sound, it boosted the level of audience response (laughter, giggles, applause) and made the whole thing sound more "involving" - as distinct from the ordinary "conversational" live sound within the studio.

The production company was shooting a programme which was intended to grab the TV audience's attention, and be "larger than life" ..which was why the audio was adjusted to sound more "forceful" than ordinary live speech ..and, of course, why any pauses in the repartee were edited out, so that the whole programme seemed to show the participants as having split-second responses, being able to create jokes instantly, and to think faster than other "mere mortals".

But if you're using a video editing program, Steve, you're probably manipulating your 'raw' video anyway; perhaps cropping out bits which you don't like, maybe adding a transition here or there - whereas "real life" doesn't normally have "dissolves" and it runs in real time. (I know of only one film which runs in "real time" .. Agnes Varda's "Cleo from 5 till 7", whereas all other films - that I know of - chop up "time" and present it differently from "normal" progressive, serial, continuous "real time". I wonder if you disapprove of that.)

(Incidentally, Alfred Hitchcock's "Rope", which was shot in a succession of "real time" 11-minute takes which are just spliced together, nevertheless has a "forced" artificial time superimposed onto it, as the sunset visible through the apartment's windows happens faster than "real time".)

If you can cut and paste video to create something different from actual "real life" ..or different than the video as it was shot.. why not adjust the colours to be different from "real life", and the audio to be different from "real life"?

Some - or maybe many - people don't like video, TV or film colours to look "un-lifelike". But I can watch lifelike real life out on the street, in a bus queue, in a supermarket, or down by the river, or in a doctor's waiting room, etc. What I want from film, or video, is a change from what I'd see in my normal "real life".

If it's simply the same, why watch it?

(..When you see a picture of Naomi Campbell, that's my Alex's work: hair and make up ..and Jamelia, and Heather Small, and many more too numerous to mention!..)