Apple Final Cut Pro 5 - Manual (Page 1201)

414 Part II Project Interchange
Managing Color During Postproduction
The way you manage color in your program depends on whether your source video
was transferred from film or shot on tape. There are several ways to color correct a
project. The one that works for you depends on how you’re finishing your program, as
well as your project’s postproduction budget.
Telecine Color Correction
If you shot your project on film but you’re editing on video, you must first use a
machine, called a telecine, to take the images from your negatives and convert them to
the videotape format of your choice prior to editing. Any colorist running this first
telecine session will be performing some level of color correction as the video is
transferred, to ensure that the editor has the most appropriate picture to work with.
Using a Chip Chart in Production
In many productions, a chip chart is placed next to the slate at the beginning of every
shot. This chart can be used during postproduction to unambiguously correct each
shot so that the color balance of your images can be perfectly corrected. This then
gives the colorist a good neutral starting point for the color correction process.
Chip charts are especially useful during multi-camera shoots with consumer grade
camcorders. The white balance settings on such cameras often won’t precisely match,
even if manually adjusted. This can make cutting back and forth within a scene
problematic because you’ll be cutting from one color temperature to another. If,
however, you shoot a chip chart along with the slate at the beginning of each shot
for each camera, you can use this to color correct the footage from every camera
used in the shoot, so that all your shots match.
Example of a clip chart used for
color calibration. Chip charts can
be obtained at a professional
video store.