Importance of Color Correction
July 25 2008
They say sound is 50% of your movie experience and that filmmakers often overlook the importance of spending extra time sound editing. I couldn’t agree more - sound or lack of it is one of those things that can quickly make your film feel boring or cheesy. Another often overlooked task is color correction.
Unseen Abilities was shot in HD and most of the footage looks pretty decent without color correction, but after I started applying it, I quickly discovered its power. Take a look at the following shot, before and after using the FCP color program:
Notice how much the image improved? The hand pops out, has depth and the car door now has some color to it. The color corrected version tells much more of a story than the original image captured through the HD camera.
Another way to quickly understand the power of color correction is to watch the behind the scenes footage on a movie. Look for clips that show a movie being filmed and the corresponding scene in the movie to see how vibrant and stylized the movie version is. It’s not just a difference in the camera used, colorists are playing a big role as well.
Of course, small independent filmmakers don’t have money to spend on a colorist, but they still can do amazing things with the Final Cut Pro Color program, which I heard was a $50,000 each-license program before Apple acquired it and added it to the FCP Studio. Don’t be intimidated by it: give color a try or at least the 3 way color corrector in FCP.
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