Apple Final Cut Express HD - Manual (Page 834)

834 Part IX Effects
The overall process of color correcting different shots in a scene to match one another
involves five steps.
Step 1: Pick the master shot of a scene to use as the basis for color correction
If you’re color correcting a scene consisting of a single shot, then your job is pretty
easy. All you need to do is find the settings that work best for that one shot. Most
scenes, however, cut between a variety of different shots using close-ups, medium
shots, and wide shots. In every scene, there is usually a single wide shot that
encompasses the entire scene, called a master shot. Traditionally, this is the first shot
that is taken for a scene and used as the basis for that scene. After the master shot,
you’ll typically use a series of medium shots and close-ups. These other shots are called
coverage, because they’re often used to cover different edits made in the scene.
When you color correct a scene, you begin with the master shot, since that’s usually the
establishing shot of your scene. Using the master shot as the basis, you can then make
the colors of the coverage shots match those of the master.
Step 2: Perform primary color correction
Primary color correction refers to two basic steps that you take using one of the
Final Cut Express HD color correction filters. After you apply the Color Corrector or
Color Corrector 3-way filter, you’ll perform two steps:
 Adjust the blacks and whites to maximize the contrast of your clip.
Essentially, you’re mapping the blackest black in your clip to 0 and the whitest white
to 100. By doing this first, you widen the luminance range that an underexposed
image covers, or bring down overly bright (or super-white) areas of overexposed
video into the range considered to be broadcast safe.
 Use the appropriate Color Balance controls of the color correction filter to make
adjustments to the balance of reds, greens, and blues in your shot.
As you make these adjustments, you’ll want to view your clip on your broadcast video
monitor as well as check the clip’s luma and chroma levels in the Video Scopes tab to
make more informed modifications.
Step 3: Match the coverage of the scene to the master shot
Once you’ve finished defining the look of the master shot in your scene, you can move
on to the rest of the shots. It’s easy to copy the settings of the color correction filters
you’re using to other pieces of the same master shot that you may have used in the
same scene. For example, if you cut back to the master shot five times in your scene,
you can simply copy the filters from the first piece of the master shot you corrected to
all other instances used in your sequence.
Remember, once you finish correcting one segment of a given clip, you can apply those
same settings to all other segments in that scene from that same clip. If you apply
multiple color correction filters to one clip, you can also apply them all to other clips.