Grading A Short Film – Download The Footage

Day 17: 24 Insights in 24 Days 2018 New Year Marathon

‘On Foreign Soil’ Part 1: Creating Looks Prior To A Client Briefing

I’m incredibly excited to kick off a new series here on Mixing Light where we are going to look at a real short film that I graded called On Foreign Soil.

My great friend and longtime collaborator Phil Hawkin has agreed to let me record one of our grade briefing sessions via Google hangouts and share it with you all. This briefing will appear later in this series.

Phil directs both commercials and narrative projects. We work together on a huge variety of projects which is great as we get to experiment with many different styles and looks.

You can find more of his work on his website.

Sharing the Client Brief

We will start with the client brief. This is something I’ve always wanted to share, as working with clients is 80% of our job as Colorists and rather than trying to write out the brief myself I thought I’d share a real-world one – direct from the client.

The benefit of a real-world brief is it has both positive notes on the look and feel, but also thoughts on problems that need to be corrected during the grade. Before we get to that grade briefing I’m starting by supplying you some of the very footage for this project  to play with, yourself.

Download Footage For You To Experiment

For Premium members, in the link for additional downloads you will find 4 .r3d files. Consider this what happens when I get a new job. Frequently I have time to experiment with the footage before the client ever walks in the door. It helps me get a quick feel, so I’m not 100% cold. This is your opportunity to do the same, before my (our) client talks to us on Google hangout. Your job is to experiment with the footage and get to know it. Then, in the next Insight in this series, watch and listen to my conversation with Phil, having already gotten your hands on a few shots.