HOLLYN-wood (Norman, that is)

I’ve got a post percolating about the use of the iPad in education but it’s not really ready yet. In the meantime, I wanted to spend a post or two talking about some more tech-y things.

It’s so damned easy to get swallowed up by the technology in post production nowadays. About five years ago, no editor that I know was using the term “workflow” and now it seems that that is all we talk about. Codecs?  Why should I know about them?  Well, honestly, it’s because that knowledge helps us to do our job better.  When I was a wee assistant editor, I made it my business to learn how the film optical houses did their job, as well as the labs.  I learned about white core mattes and black core mattes, so I could talk more intelligently about them when I was conveying our requests.

Now, take that and multiply by a thousand. I’ve talked before about how we need to know VFX, sound design, color correction and much much more in our editing rooms. Sometimes it seems overwhelming. Luckily, there are tools out there to help us do our jobs better.

Color correction is one thing that continually stumps me.  My wife, in fact, thinks that I’m color blind; she often stops me as I am on my way out the door in the morning with a “You’re wearing those together?”.

So, when Christian Förster, over at Avid Screencasts podcast, recently posted three separate vidcasts about color correction on the Media Composer I devoured them.  I waited until all three were released so I could watch them at one sitting and it was well worth the while.  You can go to his website, Avid Screencasts, to see them (as well as a number of other valuable episodes) or go directly to any of the three episodes here:

Color Correction Basics I – Laying the Groundwork

Color Correction Basics II – Manipulating Contrast

Color Correction Basics III – Manipulating Color Balance with Curves

Hey, Christian, you should put these three casts together into one, add some deeper discussion (primary vs. secondary for instance) and then sell them.  They’re that good. I’m going to put the three together for some of my classes.