A common piece of feedback we receive in early edit rounds is “this video is washed out?” The washed out look is known as LOG. LOG formats are low in contrast and saturation providing detail in the shadows and highlights. Shooting footage in this format provides us the most control over the final look of the video.
LOG is corrected in one of the last steps of our post-production process known as “color grading”. At this stage we enhance the appearance of video by adjusting contrast, color, saturation, shadows, and highlights.
Reasons we choose to shoot LOG:
We start our video edits in Adobe Premiere Pro. Color is done in an industry leading color grading software known as DaVinci Resolve Studio. When editing in Premiere, a cut is “non-destructive”, meaning nothing actually ends up on the cutting room floor. It’s all preserved and accessible until the very end letting us rearrange or extend edits until final approval.
After we color grade in DaVinci Resolve, the trip back to Premiere is “destructive”. The color is only applied to the final sequence (from the in point of an edit to the out point). Consider an interview video clip. We might record an hour of answers and only select two minutes of talking points to include in the final sequence. DaVinci Resolve will only apply the color to the two minutes of talking points when returning to Premiere for final assembly. Therefore, it’s best practice to receive final approval of the content and edit, commonly referred to as “picture lock”, prior to color grading. The same is true for final audio mixing, which happens concurrent to the color grade.
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Taking these extra steps can dramatically alter the look and feel of a scene. In the PSA we created for Welcome House, a birthday scene unfolds while the viewer learns the mother and her two daughters are living in a storage unit. We pushed warm tones into the scene to aid in the misdirect and imply, despite the hardship, this is a happy scene.
While I could continue to dive into more aspects of color grading, let's conclude the subject for now and chat color on your next Spotted Yeti video project.