FAQ NO. 6 - Colour Correction / Grading in my videos

[teunv111]

I'm going to give this a try..

[SpiderCheezles]

you should be so much more well known dale

[aljevans]

This was interesting to find out how you altered and changed the way you looked on the video dale, It looks much better than the original footage! I have two questions though. Firstly, can you automate the settings on the software you installed, because the spot exposure on your face seemed a bit too obvious at times, but I think it was the settings on the face spot exposure. Secondly, like your digi-recorder and it's wind deflector, would you consider using live filters and camera lights? 

[DaleCampbellAcoustic]

@aljevans Glad you found it interesting. You can automate some of the settings but not the individual filters within looks, having said that you could do a sort of keyframe automation by cutting the clip at certain points and changing the settings for each to suit what is going on.

I agree about the spot exposure on my face and did notice it at the time when my head moves from the centred position especially, but by the time I had edited it and render it out to a point where that was

[DaleCampbellAcoustic]

@DaleCampbellAcoustic ...obvious I wanted to upload asap as I was touring at the time and needed to move onto other footage asap. Perfection is always possible with hindsight I find : )

I do use specific lighting at home for videos and I made an on cam led light, though I rarely have occasion to use that.

I have a couple of bounce boards/reflectors which would have been handy here but didn't have them with me in Japan. Also as a one person camera crew it is difficult to set all that up.

[aljevans]

@DaleCampbellAcoustic ...thats the problem I had ^^ When I was first learning how to mix properly, I found that I over EQ'ed everything and I had little idea of how to compress tracks, so I just left it to the automatic settings (GASP!)....now however, when I look back on it all, I'd like to think that I can do SOOO much better! I also see the problem of carrying around loads of equipment. Certain equipment can make the shoot so much better, but thats hard on the move, as you have demonstrated

[aljevans]

@DaleCampbellAcoustic ...also (an extension to my previous comment), my HNC tutor constantly tells me "Alex, you can't polish a turd!". I suppose he's right with some of my earlier mixes. On this though, you managed to get a decent shot without all of the filters! You were using a HD cam and it wasn't blurry, so not a turd, but maybe there were too many light altering filters. It's really good for what you were dealing with though! I still like it ^^

[DaleCampbellAcoustic]

@DaleCampbellAcoustic As for filters do you mean 'real' filters as in ones that change the path of the light before it gets to the sensor? If so yes I do use various filters including Polarising, Neutral Density and some graduated filters. But again carrying everything is the thing, in the situation above I would have needed a reflector to light me better and a graduated ND filter to knock the sky back a bit.