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how would you grade this?


a_reynolds
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Hello. I've been following this blog since last year and it was such a big help to decide which serious video camera to choose! so, thanks guys.

I have a GH4 and today I got my first video freelance interview and that is something that my film school just isn't preparing me for. The job is to cover outdoors events, focusing on people. So I went out and grabbed some footage outdoors in direct sunlight.

Now, how would you, experienced people, grade this? 

I've been reading a lot of books and experimenting but just seeing your colours would really help mainly because of the skin tones. 

71VCRAV.jpg

https://www.dropbox.com/s/know5akvpklxzqv/P1010768_teste.mov?dl=0 

GH4, internal 4k UHD and Natural profile. 

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EOSHD Pro Color 5 for Sony cameras EOSHD Z LOG for Nikon CamerasEOSHD C-LOG and Film Profiles for All Canon DSLRs

Your footage is overexposed (clearly visible in the scopes as lifted shadows and clipped highlights), and the white balance is off (too warm and too green). If you record internally, I'd really take care of good exposure and white balance since 8bit material can't be corrected that much.

Here's an attempt to normalize the picture, correcting lift + gain and color offset, followed by attempt of a more stylized look (still based on the previous normalization.)

 

1_1.1.1.jpg

2_1.1.2.jpg

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Its not clipping. In fact its perfect. With any digital image you really need to expose as hot as possible without clipping. When you pull the exposure back down to normal...all the noise that would have been there gets crushed and goes away. You did everything right. Here is a video of what I would do. Even have a way to give it a "look" at the end if you want. You really nailed the shot actually. Looks great. 

 

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Of course it is clipping, just look at the highlights in the RGB parade (there's a hard clip in the peaks) and look at the roof of the booth on the left where all detail is blown out. And no, exposing to the right (ETTR) is not what you should do with an 8bit Rec709 image because you will get less than 8bit in your grade. An 8bit Rec709 image should always be exposed as the final image. It's a different story with 10bit, Log and Raw.

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Untitled_1.1.1.jpg

Quick balance with my normal Panasonic workflow Premiere Pro - Neat Video with a little sharpen, .4% guassian blur, Film Convert gh4 profiles, about 40% grain and 80-90% film colour, quick balance in the lumetri panel on this one to kill the highlights/whites a bit - then to Resolve for RGB curves, more highlight/contrast/black balance, lum/sat and sat/sat curves.. this one I cooled the colour temp a bit, no windows or sharpening in resolve - barely touch the colour wheels anymore, prefer to play with colour temp and saturation curves only these days. Quick worklflow now it's up and running, even with this rescue job a few minutes got me to a good starting point.. having to squash the highs on these cams tends to kill the mids alot too..

Source footage definitely way overblown:) was fun to try and tame the highlights on this one!

 

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I desaturated to b&w to correct exposure, then raised the saturation to -5, and balanced the mids, then did a curve and raised my blacks a touch, then pulled my lows a touch towards yellow and my highs a touch to blue. Of course i have a sneaking feeling I may need to calibrate my screen...

Screen Shot 1 2016-07-07 at 5.27.24 PM.png

Screen Shot 2 2016-07-07 at 5.28.55 PM.png

eoshd - grade.jpg

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I dont know. I was taught to always expose to the right but I was taught that om RED. With Sony SLog too that is obviously the case. Granted...if youre not in your base ISO anyways its pointless. When we shot on 5d2 we all under exposed because the DR was crap. I know now with my Canon Log I get the best skin tones when exposing to the Right. 

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1 minute ago, DPC said:

Very quick grade in FCPX + https://www.fcpeffects.com/products/white-balance-plugin (which I like a lot).

I would suggest using Paul Leeming's LUT and following his advice on exposure. This will correct the Panasonic oranges that are clearly seen in your footage. It looks pretty soft to me too.

 

 

 

Untitled Project.jpg

Looks good. I have that wb plug in as well but I haven't tried it in a while... but i remember having the same opinion. My friend loves their grain, but i haven't tried it yet.

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wow guys, THANK YOU so much for all your answers and your grades!!! I will take in consideration all your advice!!!

I noticed that i tend to overexpose because I'm always afraid to underexpose and then I'm in trouble but I will set the zebras a little lower for 70% for scenes like this! 

DaveAltizer, you even made a video!!! wow, thank you so v much!!!!!!!

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This is a personal taste, of course. And not only that, it should be related to the mood of the piece, So here's my attempt at that, just some basic correction, boost on skin midtones, muting the rest of the colors and adjusting blues and greens slightly to the teal. All with Color Finale in FCPX.
 

Captura de pantalla 2016-07-08 a las 10.50.41.png

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