Apple’s Color, my thoughts

[Byrd Mcdonald]

Walter –

Disagree, but I feel your pain.

I think that a big problem with “color correction” in general is a lack of education in this arena. Certainly in my market in Portland, Oregon, there isn’t another discipline more shrouded in mystery than that of a colorist. I know what a colorist can do – it’s amazing and worth every penny of a a da vinci rental. S

o, a bunch of kids will get color and create a bunch of “looks” that will ultimately be schlock, and the talent will reign, per usual.

And everything will be right in the world.

[Dom Silverio]

Unfortunately, with bundled products and actual practice by editors you are unlikely will be able to ‘bill’ that much. Many of us already use Soundtrack, Motion, and Photoshop to our daily workflow – yet we do not bill the client. The perception has become that it is part of the entire service. It is only the high-end that still compartmentalizes each phase of the workflow consistently. This is rare in my experience at low to mid-level. An editor could spend a day on Photoshop and AE and yet not bill seperately (or allowed to).

DVD SP authoring is maybe the only exception at this level. Then again, that can take several days.

.02

[David Roth weiss]

Walter,

The fact that FCP 6 now supports 5.1 surround raises similar issues to those you’ve expresed regarding Color. Its certainly possible that many 5.1 mix facilities are suddenly freaking, however, I’d be willing to bet that the two biggest things to come out of FCP’s new 5.1 capabilities will be 1) lots and lots of new speakers sold, 2) the use lots and lots of uneccessary and very cheesy sound effects flying all around in a lot of videos.

DRW

[Bob Roberts]

Walter, I’m going to pile on…

I am an African-American male from an environment that, let’s say, traditionally doesn’t have access to the types of creative tools produced in the price range of Discreet and Avid. Since Apple, Quicktime, and Final Cut came along the game has changed entirely and now rests on one thing:

Creative talent.

If you have IT, you have now worries. If you don’t, I’m going to eat your lunch. Evolution doesn’t stop just because you found a nice place to rest.

[Rene Hazekamp]

Most young directors I know see a da Vinci as an intimidating and very expensive all leather espresso bar. Because they can spend so little time in that room (to keep it affordable) and are so depended of this wizard behind the colour wheels it can take them ages before they can discern a good colourist from a mediocre one. It’s a good thing that Colour could change this. And there is no reason to pity the mediocre colourists, there will always be enough work for them as well, they only might be forced to brew their own coffee.

Ren

[Jeremy Smith]

Hiya Walter and everyone reading/responding to this….

I fall into line with just about everyone’s thoughts. I see your points Walter but I also think that over time people will realize the talented ones and not the people who just grab a preset and call themselves a colorist.

Personally I think it’s both good and bad. Good because it gives folks the opportunity (me for one) to get their hands on some high end tools when they wouldn’t have been able to before. BUT I see the bad. This I guess agrees with what you were saying. When Final Cut came out and everyone and their dog had a dvx100 there was alot of crap that got produced and labeled “professional.” I see what some folks do and I have to cringe. The problem though I feel is more in the general public’s acceptance of said crap as good work. I lose track of how much makes it to the airwaves each day. Expectations these days are so incredibly low….To me being in the middle, neither the top end but still no slouch, is the most difficult.

I have to admit, when I first saw the video explaining Color I almost fell out of my chair. I would NEVER get the chance to work on a high end system like that. But not because I don’t want to. It’s just amazingly difficult to get started and still put food on the table. But with color I get to now explore an area I really really like. Part for my own curiousness and part for my own resume and toolset. But overall this has always been something I’ve wanted to try…Will I be any good? Who knows but at least now I get to try 🙂

Well, there’s my 2cents. Maybe I shouldn’t have had that 4th cup of coffee.

Best wishes
Jeremy

[Rcpics]

Walter,,,in regards with htis ecerpt from your blog:

“What I fear is that with simply giving away Color, Apple has actually made it very difficult for estabilished professional artists to differentiate themselves from enthusiasts and beginnners. By having a price point of $995, $5,000 and $25,000 Final Touch required the user to invest into an application and allowed the end user to promote something that was not available in every single edit suite out there. Now Apple is going to completely dillute the Color Correction market by handing the tool out to everyone.”

I think this is exactly what’s been going on or some time now with FCP itself. It’s the other side of the coin of making an NLE of FCP’s abilities so ‘accessable’, and it’s often hard for people doing the hiring to differentiate between a hobbyist and a pro, especilly in smaller independent film productions. I often feel that I’m auditioning/interviewing THEM when they express interest in my editing their film and guiding it through the post process to finishing….and the concern is over hitting an impasse when explaining why you are charging what you are….especially when they haven’t actually worked with you before. It’s still astonishing that some folks feel that saying “I know someone else with Final Cut Pro” levels the playing field. I always take the stance that I know someone with Microsoft Word…but how good of a writer is he/she?

I feel your concern over color, but in so many ways, it’s just part of the trend that’s been happening for some time now, which makes actual talent and experience even more important. I still feel that the right people will recognize it and hire the right people…it’s just a larger and more crowded pool to wade through.

[Rcpics]

“he fact that FCP 6 now supports 5.1 surround raises similar issues to those you’ve expresed regarding Color. Its certainly possible that many 5.1 mix facilities are suddenly freaking, however, I’d be willing to bet that the two biggest things to come out of FCP’s new 5.1 capabilities will be 1) lots and lots of new speakers sold, 2) the use lots and lots of uneccessary and very cheesy sound effects flying all around in a lot of videos.”

Absolutely. It’s really been the same with sound design in general…in that perfroming the edit and design in, say, Pro Tools LE/TDM et al is only a step in the process. There’s still a final mix and mastering to get it to sound the way it should…like all those studio-released CD’s and DVD’s sound. And it takes some serious facilities with real pros to do that. With sound, especially…since it can work so subliminally with picture and all, the differences between a mix straight out of a Pro Tools editing session and a proper final mix and master may seem technically subtle…but the effects on the overall finished product are major once taken in altogether. 5.1 introduces all kinds of issues with phasing and such…things that need to be addressed on a controlled system in a properly calibrated and treated setup. Lot’s of people who do the 5.1 in their all-in-one apps just try to make it sound cool, arbitrarily placing things in funky image locations…and the result is mud and anomalies that an experienced pro mixer and masterer specifically adresses and fixes…a per their job specs. 5.1 capability in FCP or STP can’t really teach you to do that.

That’s why one of the hardest parts of a small independent film budget to address with inexperienced producers is the sound mix. They can’t understand why they need to pay for a sound mix and master, when they think it sounds ‘just fine’ after the design and edit.

[Mark Raudonis]

Walter,

Let me be the 20th person to disagree with you. (Notice a trend?)

I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and hope that you were just trying to spark a dialogue. If so, good job. If not…. whoa! Time to think about selling real estate.

mark

[Pasi Koivisto]

Hmm….

I was kind of thinking, I’ll do the job I always done but Color will make it easier for me (3D scopes, hopefully set a “rough” primary for a reel, easier to manage which “filter” I set in what order) so I can get more time to get the stuff done well. Tried working with nested sequences and not get a nervours breakdown?

I for one welcome this as I’ll have the chance to make good stuff without forcing my clients to buy extra plug-ins etc (I work primarly as a freelance online editor).

I think it’s like when I did online for a show a couple of months ago, they had an “entry-level-grade” person doing color correction. I did twice what he did in one day and it looked better. Turns out he was using the “point there to balance that color cast” “features”.

https://kanalje.se – site in Swedish