Apple Final Cut Pro 7 - Manual (Page 1340)

Managing Color During Post-Production
The way you manage color in your program depends on whether your source video was
transferred from film or shot on tape. There are several ways to color correct a project.
The one that works for you depends on how you’re finishing your program, as well as
your project’s post-production budget.
Telecine Color Correction
If you shot your project on film but you’re editing on video, you must first use a machine,
called a telecine, to take the images from your negatives and convert them to the videotape
format of your choice prior to editing. Any colorist running this first telecine session will
be performing some level of color correction as the video is transferred, to ensure that
the editor has the most appropriate picture to work with.
The goals of color correction at this stage depend on the length of the project.
• Short projects, commercials, spots, and very short videos may get a detailed color
correction pass right away. The colorist will first calibrate the telecine’s own color
corrector to balance the whites, blacks, and color perfectly. Then the colorist, in
consultation with the cinematographer, director, or producer, will work shot by shot
to determine the look of each clip according to the needs of the project. As a result,
the editor will be working with footage that has already been corrected.
• Long-form projects such as feature-length films and longer television programs probably
won’t get a detailed color correction pass right away. Instead, the footage that is run
through the telecine will be balanced to have the best blacks, whites, and color possible,
and left at that.
In both cases, the transferred tapes are then edited the same as any other project. Once
editing has been finished and the picture is locked, a list of selected shots called a cut list
or pull list is created that details exactly which shots were used during the edit. (The shots
used during the edit are matched with the original shots using edge code numbers that
are transferred along with the video.)
Using the cut list, the post-production supervisor has the option of pulling only the film
negative that was actually used. Because this is usually a minority of the footage that was
shot, the colorist now has the time to perform a more detailed color correction pass only
on the selected footage. This is accomplished during a second telecine pass.
Although this might seem redundant, performing color correction directly from the film
negative has distinct advantages. Because film has greater latitude from black to white
than video has, a colorist working straight off the telecine has greater control of color
and exposure than one working only with videotape.
1340 Chapter 79 About Color Correction