HOW DOES OUR SERVICE WORK?

 

There are two ways in which you can enlist Scarlet View Media to handle the grading and look build of your project. You will either commission us prior to production to handle all colouring duties when that part of post production comes around, or you will approach us with a completed edit to correct, grade and stylise. We will ensure full communication during the grading of your project, regardless of how you approach us, however, each way of commissioning us to work on your film will differ slightly in how we feel is best for us to approach it in order that you get the most out of our expertise.

 

Commission Prior to Production:

 

If you commission Scarlet View Media prior to your project going into production, we will sit with you and discuss exactly the kind of look you want and why you want it. This will involve discussing the main themes in the project, the development of the story and any back story relevant to any characters. We also like to know what reference points in film and television you have along with your influences and why you want the look you do, this all helps us understand the motivations for the grade you want and gives us an opportunity to offer advice in relation to specific elements of the process we feel we can add to enhance your project .

 

We will also discuss formats, cameras and production specifics, are you shooting full HD, 2K or 4K? Is your project high medium or low budget? Are you shooting on DSLR or are you shooting Red Epic? Knowing all this helps us prepare fully to make our workflow as efficient as possible and also to advise on aspects of the productions media management, such as suitable editing codecs, for example, we would always recommend that if you are shooting on DSLR cameras, to convert the footage to either Cineform Film Scan 2, Pro-Res 4:2:2 or Pro-Res HQ as this will ensure your project will be able to withstand potentially heavy manipulation and processing.

 

If you would prefer and you have a studio already arranged, we are happy to work on site with you, although we are fully set up in a home studio from which we do the vast majority of our work.

 

The workflow on a commission like this, requiring a stylised grade and look build will often involve the following steps in this, or a similar order;

 

  1. Denoising and De-banding
  2. Colour Correction
  3. Primary Grade
  4. Secondary Grade
  5. Sharpening
  6. Film Emulation
  7. Visual Effects & Stylising
  8. Delivery

At this stage we will deliver you the final grade, in a hi-res format to review, before final delivery of all DaVinci Proxy files and an XML of your timeline which you can then load into your edit suite with the graded graded footage included.

 

Completed Project Commissions:

 

You may be approaching us to grade and look build a project which you have already shot and edited together, this often involves a slightly different approach from us to ensure we are getting the bet out of your footage. One of the main aspects may be that having not been involved in the pre-production aspects of your project, we have had no input into codecs/formats, picture styles or media management and as such, occasionally, this can mean we have a lot more cleaning up of footage we many not have to do on a commission prior to production. This is no problem though, it just means our workflow is a little different. Using the same example as above;

 

  1. We review all the footage making detailed notes
  2. We then report back to you with corrections and cleaning of footage that we feel may be needed prior to starting the grade, if you agree to the changes we suggest, we begin by cleaning and correcting the clips before we do any colour correction
  3. Denoising and De-Banding
  4. Colour Correction
  5. Primary Grade
  6. Secondary Grade
  7. Sharpening
  8. Film Emulation
  9. Visual Effects & Stylising
  10. Delivery