Color grading for an indie documentary film - a job post by Alan Brain

About the job

Hi,

This is a completely remote position, please disregard the Washington DC location. 

We are looking for a color grading professional for an independent documentary film. You can watch the trailer below:

The documentary has been filmed with the following cameras and formats (next to it I put the percentage of footage filmed with each set up):

Canon C100 with Atomos Ninja in Pro Res HQ, 25 fps: 20%

Panasonic GH4 at 150 mbps, 25 fps: 10%

Sony FS100 with Atomos Ninja in Pro Res HQ, 25 fps: 20%

Blackmagic Cinema Camera in Pro Res Internal HQ, 25 fps: 12%

Blackmagic DNG RAW 3: 1, Ursa (only the intro of the film) 3%

GH5, 400 mbps, 25 fps: 15%

Pro Res 4444 XQ (file): 3%

Film / TV Archive of Low/Medium Quality in Black and White and in Color: 17%

With the last item on the list there is not much to do. Probably, only unify all these files of low quality, but the headroom is really minimal due to the quality.

This is an approximation, in which I have not incorporated the animated photos that will be in the film. The photos have been scanned in super high resolution (more than 500mb per photo).

Everything will be consolidated to Pro Res HQ before delivery for color grading.

Everything else, as you well know, also does not provide much headroom to for color grading.. Being the most Pro Res HQ, there is some latitude before the image deteriorates but there is not much. The only optimal material to color grade is the Pro Res 4444 XQ, the Raw from the Ursa, and somehow the 400mbps of the GH5.

Having said that, I believe that the work is fundamentally to color correct and grade, as much as possible, all the footage to make it look as good as possible. Surely, a good amount of shots will need a certain level of sharpness and denoise. Then, it is the usual, work in layers, creates masks if necessary, to affect certain parts of the image and create a unified color proposal/look

It is a standard color grading gig with the only difference that 70% of the film (approximately) will not provide too much headroom due to the formats involved. Having said that, we can try a color proposal that organically arises from the look of most of the material, so as not to force it too much.

The entire film has been edited in Adobe Premiere. 

We will be ready to deliver the files and locked picture around beginning - mid August 2019.

Please send me a message with a sample of your work and a budget estimate if you are interested in working in this project.

Thanks

Alan