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Editing: Color Grading

Lesson 41 from: Filming Families: The Modern Family Video

Courtney Holmes

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Lesson Info

41. Editing: Color Grading

Lessons

Class Trailer
1

Class Introduction

09:38
2

The Spark That Inspired Me

13:50
3

What Are Family Films?

06:15
4

Gear for Family Films

11:50
5

Camera Settings for Video

02:56
6

Frame Rates & Slow Motion

20:48
7

Picture Profiles & Color Grading

06:47
8

Settings for Audio Capture

14:13

Lesson Info

Editing: Color Grading

So when I'm going through all of my clips I've moved over here to the color work space, (laughs) Sometimes I just do things out of habit and here's what I did: moved over here, color work space. This is called lumetri, lumetri color panel. The first little basic correction part right here is really similar to Lightroom so if you're familiar with Lightroom, you're probably gonna be pretty good here. Again, you are not gonna have much flexibility. I'm going to turn this off and lock it real quick. By locking it means I'm not gonna be stuck clicking on that, ok. So, the first thing that I might would do would be to go through and adjust things like while balance and exposure on each click individually. So, I'm gonna show you though, like look at what exposure does. It really doesn't, it doesn't do the same as what you get with a raw file in Lightroom. So you might can bring it down a touch but not a whole lot. (soothing music) And then- (fast forwarding video) So I might would look at hig...

hlights here but they're probably too far gone, which I'm- I don't really mind because I really wanted to make that be exposed. (fast forwarding video) I don't do- I don't have to do a lot of adjustments because it's like of perfectly exposed for what I want which is why I keep talking about how it makes you a better photographer because you just get good at- I also think it's a lot easier to look and check exposer on the live view screen. On this, I'm gonna show you if I was gonna pull a color out. (fast forwarding video) I might do it on this just because it- (fast forwarding video) (cough in the audience) So I might would warm up a little bit here. (fast forwarding video) Let's do green. So, under basic correction, you have creative, which is where your- what are called "luts" look, that stand for "look up table" and in this drop down here, there are a bunch of different ones that are already built in to Premier Pro and you can choose one. I would not recommend you doing that on an individual clip, ok? I'm gonna get to that in just a minute about where- that's where I would use the adjustment layer but on the individual clips, this is where I would make your individual adjustments all the way across so any white balance issues that you might have, any exposer issues that you might have, you fix those on the individual clips first, and then when you're ready to apply a color look overall, then you create the adjustment layer, have that be over the the top and then add your preset, your lut, to that adjustment layer, ok? What's great about that is that you can turn it off and on and you can test that out and see what you think, see if you like it. So- To pull out, you wouldn't want to pull out a color overall. If you did, and maybe you would, (laughs) maybe you would, then you would do that on an adjustment layer, too but if it's just a clip here and there, then you're gonna look at that on the individual clip. So, this right here, under curves you've got the hue saturation curve right here and yeah, go ahead. I'm just curious how you get the adjustment layer there. Ok, I'll come back to that. Ok, thanks. I'll pull the- I'll push the color out first and then I'll come back to how you get the adjustment layer. So you would have the clip selected and then over here, the way that you choose a color is you set three points on this little circle here and so a quick way to do it would be to choose the color on the bottom right here and then it sets the points for you so you can see they're there now. By pulling the one in the middle, it's gonna pull this color out wherever that is set so you can see that happening barely. In order to pull a specific color out, you have to have three points so if I wanted to then pull this like more neon part of it out, then I would need to add in another point there so that I can pull this down. You can- if you pull this down, you're pulling like the whole circle level down so you can see how that's changing the saturation overall so that's adjusting all of the colors. So sometimes, it's just a matter of like trying to work out exactly where that green is or where that- that neon part of it is and when you've done it, you can hope over here to this- this tick mark and see that turned off and off as well so there's not much of a difference there. If you ever wanted to go back, you double-click on the middle and it removes them all. Yep? Could you counter so if you couldn't find that exact green, would you go to the other side of the color wheel and pull something up to counter that color? You could, I've never done that but, yeah, I mean I don't- I don't think the- no, I don't think that would work like that. It's not like the- the green- the tint slider. It's not- it's not like that. It- Because if the red's not in there to begin with, it's not going to help you so the color needs to already exist so I- I don't think it would work like that. But let me see if I can do it on- on something that's a little bit easier to find; a red so if I wanted to pull the red out of that shirt, do you see how it's taking it out? So you just don't- you just wanna make sure you don't go too far with it but you can see how it's making a really slight adjustment. So if you find yourself in mixed lighting, you're gonna hang out right here in this orange and you can pull that down just a little bit and it's going to reduce the orange overall. It's really helpful to know. I'll go over to the outside. Let's see if I can find some grass. (fast forwarding video) So like if I wanted to kinda pull this yellow out, maybe that- I can change that a little bit, too. So I've just pulled the yellow down. So the question was about adjustment layers and how to- add those. (fast forwarding video) So, back over in your work space, you would right-click New Item Adjustment Layer. Make sure that's all right, it should be. Then you just pull this onto the timeline and then you extend it out. Writing notes. (laughs) So- (laughs) it's alright, and then, once you have that, you can cut it, too. So like here, I might have applied an overall look but it doesn't work on one clip so I might take- I might come over to the one clip like for example, yeah so for this one, I think- It might have less of something. That's because it's not- I've changed the- that's right. What I did was I added- So I have a saved preset that has worked in a lot of my stuff so I didn't color grade this one from scratch, I used that lut and I had applied it and I had reduced the intensity of it because it was too dark when I first put it on so I just reduced the intensity of it. The difference between adding a lot to your Premier Pro footage and adding a preset to- to Lightroom is that you don't get to see all the changes that are included in it. All you can do is reduce and increase the intensity, ok? So you- If you're wanting to make those individual adjustments the you're better off color grading it from scratch but you can apply a preset and adjust the intensity and just do a little bit more to it if you need to. (fast forwarding video) That's one thing to note. So I'll delete that and so what I have done- then you can see, is I made a cut so to do that, you just go to your little razor tool and then slice it up by clicking wherever you want and then it makes it cut there and then you can adjust whatever's in that middle part there as much as you want, like changes there. I think that was pretty much the main thing that was asked about colorating specifically. There's- I mean there's a lot. I've only really just started getting much more in depth with this myself but it's sort of just things like- I don't want that, I want the select tool. (fast forwarding video) I'm gonna go back and do this So I'm in basic correction. I might just drop it. (mumbles) (cough in audience) Usually kinda overall, I'm looking for more of a darker, a more contrastee so I'm usually adding in contrast because I shot in neutral right? So I'm usually adding in a bit of contract. This is something that I'm gonna do on the adjustment layer, not the individual clips because I know this is gonna be applied to all of it so I'm gonna just contrast under creative. Sometimes I like to play around with the highlight tint a little bit and the shadow tint as well and this one is a little bit challenging to move around and it's like you need to look for really settle changes and settle differences between them. Under curves, you can make some changes, you can add an S curve, you can make specific changes to color overall if you're wanting to pull out something throughout the entire thing. You can add a vinyette if you want it to be more like centralized, focus into the one area. There's so much you can, crush the blacks if you want and this faded film look adds this mat. It's not something I'm a huge fan of. I can- sharpening, vibrance, saturation overall, so there's a lot of options that I think that people are like, really terrified of the colorgrading stuff and Premier Pro and you don't need to be. There's a lot that you already know about. It's really just playing with the tools that are there and seeing how you might be able to replicate what you- what you do on your photos. So, a lot of times, I'll also pull in a photo that I've edited and work with that side by side, the footage and edit as best as I can to kind of match that and that really helps me as a guide. But yeah, so that is- pretty much it. I'm gonna remove that. Once you have created a lut that you like, what you would do is you would go up to the lumetric color up here and then export .cube and then you'll have that. It's usually saved to your desktop. You can add it in, there's tutorials on that online for how to do that. You can add it in so that it shows up in your drop down menu in the look section, in the creative section. There's also ones that you can buy online and try out and see what you like. So we're gonna (laughs) export media. These are my export settings so if you click on the output name, that's gonna tell you where it is going to save on your hard drive so you wanna make sure that the formate is eight two- h point two six four. You wanna make sure that this all is just matching the footage that you've pulled in. I usually tick render at maximum depth. I choose VBR two pass. I use a 20 point seven six target bit rate and maximum bit rate they just match and I leave the rest. Audio should be at 48, yeah and that's all good. Use maximum render quality, frame blending, make sure that this is sequence in to out. If you have accidentally sent an in setting on your time line, it's gonna just do that, alright? So be really aware of that. If you find it's only exporting part of your film, that's probably why. It might be set to sequence in point out. Either change those or go to entire sequence and that's going to give you everything in this sequence. And then you just hit export, ok? So those are my settings that I do. I think you can also check with the file size it's gonna be here but this is the- this is the export that I do for what I show on social media and also what I give to the client.

Class Materials

Bonus Materials with Purchase

Shot List Worksheet Template
Shot List Worksheet Example
Ideas for Your First Film
Discount Code

Ratings and Reviews

Adam Nicholls
 

Worth a watch! Courtney provides a clear and organised class, she is also very passionate about what she does which is always nice to see. She has a great back story which is fantastic. This course is good for beginners who have some knowledge in photography and want to learn more about video. I would recommend that people do not refer this class to the bible of filmmaking as I feel you can expand further on what Courtney teaches. Some useful tips for beginners but some methods I personally feel can be taught differently. I feel a gimbal is a useful bit of kit if used correctly. You can still use a gimbal when in manual mode providing you follow the basics rules! Obviously if Courtney prefers not to use a gimbal then that's also fine but I wouldn't discourage students from exploring useful filmmaking tools. Slow motion can be achieved with 50/60fps however I feel other frame rates should have been discussed like 120fps. I liked that Courtney engaged with the students as it gets them involved and will help them remember what they have learned during the class. Thank you for taking the time to share some of your knowledge

a Creativelive Student
 

Courtney's work is absolutely amazing and inspiring. I feel lucky that she has chosen to share her process and that this class is available! After watching all the videos and trying my hand at this video thing, I am feeling really encouraged and inspired to do more- both personally and professionally. I appreciate the way that she breaks things down in the video and that she shares her thought process. A really great course!

AShley
 

Courtney’s course completes me! I have storytelling “holes” in my film previously, but this course helped fill those holes to create a flow and a film with emotion. Not only is the course wonderful (and well worth every penny) but Courtney is wonderful as well! I had such an amazing experience at Creative Live!!!!

Student Work

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