TALECRAFTERS
GLOSSARY · POST · PRODUCTION

COLOUR MANAGEMENT

Keeping colour consistent from generation through grade to delivery, and the reason a set of individually good clips can look like nine different films.

ALSO CALLEDcolour pipelinecolor management

Generated clips arrive looking finished, which is a trap. Each one was optimised to look good alone, so a sequence of them has nine slightly different blacks, eight skin tones and a colour temperature that wanders shot to shot.

The fix is ordinary post discipline that generative work routinely skips: grade the sequence as one piece, from one reference frame, after the edit is locked. Not per clip, and not before.

Record the colour space in the delivery specification. A campaign delivered in mixed colour spaces looks broken on exactly one platform and nobody can work out why.

QUESTIONS PEOPLE ASK

Why do my generated clips not match each other?

Because each was graded, implicitly, to look good on its own. Grading the assembled sequence from one reference frame after picture lock is what makes them a set.

When should grading happen?

After the edit is locked, never before. Grading clips individually and then cutting them together guarantees the mismatch you are trying to avoid.

THEORY IS FREE

Knowing the word is the cheap part.

Running it on a deadline, at volume, without burning the budget is the expensive part. That is the bit we do.

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