Mike Jones Digital Basin
cinematic media rinse cycle

Colour Grading as part of Editing

One the most significant shifts brought about by evolutions toward digital cinema is not just sharper, bigger, better pictures, nor is it the flexibility of digital post or lower production costs, rather it comes in the tangible and profound changes in job descriptions and role expectations.

As a technology develops it invariably expands, it takes on new options, incorporates new features. And in so doing it changes the role of the person whose job it is to drive the technology.

We see this no more clearly than in role of the Editor whose job description, once upon a time, extended no further than the sequential and linear assembly of the images. If we wanted a digital software tool to perform that task we had it 20 years ago. But, of course, it wasnt enough and the tools of the editor kept expanding. Now there simply isnt a editing gig in the world where there isnt expectations that the Editor has working knowledge of colour and sound and compositing and....

The Editor may not necessarily be asked to do final work in all these areas but there is a broadly held expectation that they these options largely sit under the broad banner of the Editors role.

It really is absurd and pointless to argue over whether they Editor 'should' perform these tasks
the fact is that the Tool the editor sits in front of to perform their work Can do these tasks, and increasingly can do all of them very very very well. So whether the old-school folks like it or not, the job description has been re-written and the job itself evolves right alongside the technology.

There are many who find this idea scary, many who are afraid of a 'watering down' effect or an 'all-things-to-everyone' scenario that seemingly trades off quality. But there are two asusmptions here that bother me...

The first is the assumption that human beings working in cinematic arts have finite creative and technical capacity, a limit to how skilled they can be - "an editor couldn't possibly ALSO be a sound designer or a colourist...!" This is an idea I profoundly reject and indeed would argue human history of art and science and creative endeavor has continually rejected this idea. I see no precedent to put such arbitrary and artificial constrains on what a skilled artisan is capable of.

The second, perhaps less ephemeral, flawed assumption is the notion that skills of 'editing' and that of ancillary fields such as 'colour grading' are some how so distinct and apart - so un-related as to be dysfunctional if unified... What absolute rubbish! The role of the 'editor' is to assemble, reveal, craft and interpret meaning and story. is that not exactly the role of the colour gradist? Are the two roles not singularly focused on producing the same outcome?



This article from San Francisco filmmaker Eric Escobar, entitled WHY EVERY EDITOR IS ALSO A COLORIST, points clearly towards this idea of seeing editing as a broad umbrella of interweaved and inseparable elements. Elements that share a singular aim and in particular why Editor's should perhaps reject the idea that Colour is 'not their job' and embrace colour as a core part of their job description.

As Eric saids...

"That's the point of coloring. Its not just about correction, or balance, or a mechanical smoothing of any production issues that have found their way into post. Its about leading an audience through an emotional experience. Color matters, take some time to learn how to use it to tell your story."

Of course, on top of all that there is also the fact that tools like Magic Bullet Looks are SO good, SO powerful, SO flexible and such a dead set dream to use that its hard to imagine why on earth an editor wouldn't want to dive into colour grading!

Indeed, on a technical level, Magic Bullet's internal structure itself as a plug-in for NLE systems such as Final Cut Pro and Premiere Pro that you can run straight of the editign timeline, rather than as a external application separate and apart from the NLE, point's firmly towards the idea of colour being more tightly married to editing itself than as a removed and disparate process.

Magic Bullet Looks may well be a step ahead of the pack in its conceptual approach right of the bat. Certainly it makes for one of the most seemless grading workflows around and one that makes the convoluted trip from FCP to Apple Color seem positively archaic.

Posted at 12:00AM Oct 06, 2008 by Mike Jones in industry comment  |  Comments[1]