Need some color correction advice at DVinfo.net

Dan Brockett · February 1st, 2016, 10:51 PM

Hi all:

Shot an interview at an ad agency a few days ago. Talent lit by daylight balanced LED panels, talent looks fine. BG looks nice compositionally but is way too orange as it was lit with a combo of 3200k tungsten track lights and about twenty pendant lamps with "warm" fluorescent bulbs (probably about 4k to 4,300k temp). The LEDs did not have enough output for me to gel them to 3,200k so I shot with what I had, made the talent look good but the BG is a mess as far as color. I should have brought my Arri tungsten kit and lit with tungsten but other visits to this ad agency have shown a lot of daylight from skylights that bleed in, hence my choice to bring daylight balanced lighting. A location scout would have saved me but scouts are rare just for an interview. It's just that the BG the client wanted to use was a room with no windows and really warm lighting. Talent is mostly stationary on a stool. I just know the basic three way color corrector in FCP studio so I am not of much help in advising the editor how to fix this. Editor is also editing is FCP 7.02 so no great, sophisticated color correction tools available. Editor's computer and OS is older (Mountain Lion?) and not fast enough to run newer software like Davinci Resolve. I believe she has Magic Bullet Suite and just the FCP three way CC.

Is there a non-high horsepower program (she also has After Effects and is decent at it) or plug-in that she either has or can purchase that would let her "Power Window" the talent and apply a heavy CC on the BG only? Preferably something that doesn't cost a fortune and have a steep learning curve? She is upgrading to a new iMac 5k soon but not in time for this project/edit/deadline. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

William Hohauser · February 2nd, 2016, 09:49 PM

Can you create a mask so the background can have a color correction filter applied while the subject on a separate layer is untouched? This is relatively easy in After Effects and Final Cut X but I can't remember how easy it is to do in Final Cut 7

February 1st, 2016, 10:51 PM	#1
Dan Brockett Inner Circle Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: Los Angeles, California Posts: 2,109	Need some color correction advice Hi all: Shot an interview at an ad agency a few days ago. Talent lit by daylight balanced LED panels, talent looks fine. BG looks nice compositionally but is way too orange as it was lit with a combo of 3200k tungsten track lights and about twenty pendant lamps with "warm" fluorescent bulbs (probably about 4k to 4,300k temp). The LEDs did not have enough output for me to gel them to 3,200k so I shot with what I had, made the talent look good but the BG is a mess as far as color. I should have brought my Arri tungsten kit and lit with tungsten but other visits to this ad agency have shown a lot of daylight from skylights that bleed in, hence my choice to bring daylight balanced lighting. A location scout would have saved me but scouts are rare just for an interview. It's just that the BG the client wanted to use was a room with no windows and really warm lighting. Talent is mostly stationary on a stool. I just know the basic three way color corrector in FCP studio so I am not of much help in advising the editor how to fix this. Editor is also editing is FCP 7.02 so no great, sophisticated color correction tools available. Editor's computer and OS is older (Mountain Lion?) and not fast enough to run newer software like Davinci Resolve. I believe she has Magic Bullet Suite and just the FCP three way CC. Is there a non-high horsepower program (she also has After Effects and is decent at it) or plug-in that she either has or can purchase that would let her "Power Window" the talent and apply a heavy CC on the BG only? Preferably something that doesn't cost a fortune and have a steep learning curve? She is upgrading to a new iMac 5k soon but not in time for this project/edit/deadline. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

February 2nd, 2016, 09:49 PM	#2
William Hohauser Inner Circle Join Date: Dec 2005 Location: New York City Posts: 2,650	Re: Need some color correction advice Can you create a mask so the background can have a color correction filter applied while the subject on a separate layer is untouched? This is relatively easy in After Effects and Final Cut X but I can't remember how easy it is to do in Final Cut 7 __________________ William Hohauser - New York City Producer/Edit/Camera/Animation