Finding New Ways to Set Looks and Transcode Assets on Set

Blackmagic Design made waves in the industry when it bought Da Vinci’s flagship color-correction system, Resolve, and then made it desktop-friendly by releasing a Mac OS X version at a dramatically reduced price point – $995. The move was widely seen as a bid to steal some thunder from Apple’s Color application, and to win the hearts and minds of desktop Final Cut Pro users. But the new availability of inexpensive but high-end color grading options is also having an effect on set, where savvy productions are using portable versions of the Resolve to set looks during the shoot.
“It’s cost-prohibitive for many [color-grading] systems to be used as on-set or near-set support,” says Light Iron Digital’s Michael Cioni. “Resolve’s competitive edge is that it’s inexpensive but it’s not watered down.”

Light Iron outfits productions with portable digital labs called OUTPOST Mobile Systems that can be placed on-set or near-set to process footage as it’s acquired. The cart can be loaded up with 2K monitors, NLE and other image-processing software, GPU accelerators, and up to 60 TB of RAID storage, all controlled by a Mac or PC at the heart of the system. The cart can be loaded up with multiple systems all at once – Resolve alongside RedCine alongside The Foundry’s Storm alongside CineForm’s First Light. Pick your favorite.

But Cioni says Resolve is a good choice. “Resolve supports almost every popular codec and format,” he explains. “Not only is it a trusted name that people are familiar with, but chances are whatever you’re shooting can be accelerated and optimized through the Resolve system. If you’re shooting RED, we’ll put in a Red Rocket. Shooting Alexa? We’ll remove that Red Rocket and install a faster graphics card, like the NVIDIA Quadro 4000.”

You can even run two Resolves simultaneously on an Outpost cart to render the equivalent of 90 frames per second – a defense mechanism if you’re forced to keep up with the higher shooting ratios of directors who have become empowered by the transition from film to file-based acquisition.

Notes from the DIT

DIT Michele de Lorimier used an OUTPOST loaded with the Resolve on a recent four-day shoot for Chrysler. She acknowledged that the presence of yet another piece of equipment complicates her job on set. “I’ve got to think about where that station can be where it’s not in the way,” she said. “It needs to be someplace where we won’t have to unplug it in the middle of the transfer, but it needs to be close enough to get the DP over there to sign off. If I can’t get him during a slow moment or a break in shooting, they’ll say, ‘We’re moving on.'”

But at the same time, she says the process takes a load off her mind. On this shoot, the production was running two ARRI Alexa cameras. The master, a flat-pass Log C ProRes 4444 file, was handed off to online editorial to preserve the maximum possible latitude. To make sure editorial was working with something that more closely resembled the final look, she used the Resolve on set to apply preliminary color-correction, get sign-off from the DP, and then match the color scene by scene. Those settings were used to create DNxHD 115 files that were delivered to the offline editor with the look baked in.

More Foolproof than LUTs

Generally, looks are managed through the use of LUTs, which are created as sidecar files that stay with the flat-pass footage. In theory, this use of metadata ensures that color decisions are maintained throughout the production and post process in a non-destructive way. In practice, de Lorimier says, plenty can go wrong. “So many things can fall through the cracks,” she says. “If we’re shooting in an extended range but the interim color-correction facility doesn’t have the correct settings, the LUT won’t look right. Sometimes editors say they can apply LUTs, but they actually can’t. So it’s nice to have confirmation. We did the color-correction on set, we had the DP sign off on it, and we personally handed off [the corrected footage] to editorial.”

Cioni agrees that bringing the Resolve on set gives the production extra degrees of control. “I find that LUTs are restrictive to creative possibilities,” he says. “If you go to color-correction with the Resolve, we can use the same raw media with the on-set color-correction as a starting point. A LUT is more macro than micro. You can’t tweak the LUT for every single look. But with the Resolve, we can create 90 different looks, and there’s only one file that has to exist – the Resolve project file.

“The idea with LUTs is that you can do it one way [on set] and then go to post and color-correct it in a different way. We say that’s playing toward the lowest common denominator. We want to use the highest-common denominator. Let’s be as specific as we possibly can in order to get the best performance.”

For more information: www.blackmagic-design.com; lightirondigital.com.