As a director or editor supervising a color-grading session, your goal is to make sure your final master looks as you intended it to look. For example, you might have a scene that was intentionally shot with unnatural blue levels. Unless you are there to tell her otherwise, the colorist will probably try to correct this “problem” by taking down the blue. Most projects will include situations such as this so it’s important that you sit in on the session.

Putting Audio and Video Back Together

Your audio is off at the sound mixer’s workstation and your video is over at the colorist’s; that means that when they are done, the audio and video will have to be put back together before you create the final master.

If you are finishing in a file-based format, you’ll simply import the uncompressed color graded video and the uncompressed mixed audio tracks back into your editing software and put them together in a new sequence. You’ll want to make sure nothing has gone wrong with the sync and watch the new version from beginning to end.

If you are finishing on videotape, you can choose to marry the sound and picture together in your editing application, the same as for file-based finishing, or your post facility will lay the color graded picture off to videotape and then separately lay back the audio. For 35mm film prints, the picture and audio will stay separate until the very end when the audio will get converted to an optical soundtrack and printed on the final release print, along with the picture.

Digital Videotape Masters

There is no good reason to make a videotape master unless someone requires it of you, but if your film does well, odds are high that you’ll have to deliver it to someone on digital videotape. Digital videotape is still a viable way to master your final product, and HDCAM-SR mastering is a commonly required delivery format for television networks, VOD distributors, and film festivals.

If you need to make an HDCAM-SR master, you need to decide whether you want to do it yourself using your editing system and a rented video deck or go to a postproduction facility.

If you shot on a digital format, you can save a lot of money by creating a master yourself. The quality of your master is entirely dependent on how well your footage was shot and how much care you took with your finishing and color grading.

You’ll also need to add some hardware to your system. First, you’ll need a video card or breakout box that adds HD-SDI outputs to your system (see Figure 18.10). Second, you’ll need to rent an HDCAM-SR deck (Figure 18.11). To really do things properly and to ensure the best quality, you should also have a mixing board for audio and a hardware waveform monitor and vectorscope. In Chapter 16, “Color Correction,” we talked about how to read waveforms and vectorscopes. In addition, there is a more detailed discussion on the Web site at www.thedigitalfilmmakinghandbook.com/chapter13.

Head Room

Avoid using the first minute or two of the videotape for your project. This is the part of the tape that is most prone to physical damage. Instead, cover the head of the tape with bars and tone followed by a head slate and a countdown. Most videotapes are a minute or two longer than their stated length, so don’t worry about wasting a little tape.

436 The Digital Filmmaking Handbook, 4E

Figure 18.10

If you plan to output full-quality HD 2K or 4K video to HDCAM-SR, you’ll need a video card that has HD-SDI outputs like this DeckLink HD Extreme 3D card from BlackMagic Design.

Figure 18.11

You’ll also need to buy or rent an

HDCAM-SR VTR.