In the world of post-production, few settings can elicit the vivid excitement or intense envy of the professional color grading suite. With enormous displays, cushy chairs, perfect mood lighting, and oh so many buttons and knobs, they have an almost mythical reputation among those who can only peek inside their secluded walls.
But high-end grading theaters are more than just luxurious indulgences—they’re a critical part of professional color workflows. Well-thought-out color grading suites allow colorists to work faster, more precisely, and with much more creative control than they could otherwise.
That said, the utilitarian function of grading suites doesn’t subtract from their often impressive visual form. In fact, the tools and venue of a proper color suite can add value far beyond simple workflow efficiency. If your talents are high-dollar, clients expect that your tools should look the part, and impressive facilities give an appreciable sense of confidence to clients entrusting you with their project.
But what if you’re a mere mortal without a Hollywood budget to build a massive DI theater?
Thankfully, it’s now easier than ever to build a pro-level color grading suite for a reasonable cost. If you’re looking to upgrade your personal color workflow, or your team wants to handle color work in-house, here are the basic requirements you’ll need to build a color-suite of your very own.
The Suite
The first thing to understand is that the color suite is a specialized, highly-controlled environment built for a very specific purpose—to work with color as efficiently and precisely as possible. This purpose brings with it special requirements that will not make as much difference for other parts of a post-production workflow, like editing or VFX.
That means building out a color suite is a significant investment that really only fulfills a single function. You need to determine if such an investment will pay off for your project/workflow before you even get started. Of course, tools are only as useful as the person using them. Any filmmaker considering such an investment should already have sufficient coloring talent to justify it, or have a plan to gain the requisite skills.
Space
Assuming you can justify this investment, the first task is to select an actual physical workspace. Color grading suites can be almost any size or shape, but your post-production context will dictate exactly what you need. If you’re planning on having 10 or more clients in the room to review color, then you will need a large space akin to a small theater. But if you only plan on having 1 or 2 reviewers in the suite at any given time, then a nominally-sized office should do just fine.
There is also the option of setting up your suite(s) for real-time remote color grading, where others can watch you work without actually being in the room with you. This type of advanced functionality involves building out multiple spaces in separate locations for color work, in addition to requiring robust AV equipment and networking infrastructure. This is an expensive solution, but might be worthwhile if your team or clients spend a lot of time and money travelling to your suite.
Light
Once you have your space selected (or constructed), your next task is to control all ambient outdoor light. Light control is the first, fundamental step to creating a color grading suite. After all, colors are just bits of visible light, so any stray light that enters the suite introduces stray colors that will interfere with the image on screen.
You might think you’re safe as long as sunlight doesn’t hit your display, but alas, it’s not so simple. Ambient light influences your brain’s perception of color, and because natural light changes throughout the day, your eyes automatically adjust without you realizing it. Even a little light reflecting off the back wall of your suite can be a problem.
The straightforward solution to ambient light pollution is to place your suite on the interior of a building with no windows to the outside. This is great for maximizing light control (since no sunlight can leak into the room), but such room placement has downsides. Lack of exposure to natural light can have negative emotional/physiological effects if you work in it for most hours of the day, so if you go this route be sure to go outside every once in a while.
But, it’s not impossible to turn a room with windows into a color suite. All you have to do is make sure there a substantial blackout curtains, or even hard shutters, to block out as much sunlight as possible.
Once you have complete control over ambient light in your suite, it’s time to add your own. Every bulb in your suite should be balanced to a 6500k color temperature. This balance corresponds to the D65 white point of your computer monitor, which will prevent your eyes from adjusting to an off-colored light source.
You also need to make absolutely sure the bulbs have a Color Rendering Index (CRI) of at least 90. The higher the CRI of a lightsource (up to 100), the more accurate colors will appear under their illumination. In general, it’s a good idea to make sure all the bulbs/fixtures in your suite are the same model, to eliminate any inconsistencies in your light source.
When it comes to light placement, it all comes down to preference. The only specific requirement is to ensure none of your lighting reflects directly onto your picture. Other than that, you can distribute fixtures around the suite as needed, so that other tasks (like walking around or reading) are not impeded.
One specific fixture placement many colorists endorse is a bias light or backlight. This is a light that goes directly behind your monitor and illuminates the area around your image in your peripheral vision. This might seem unusual, but there is strong evidence such light provides tangible benefits to the user, like reduced eye strain and increased perceptible image contrast. It also has the extra benefit of looking really darn cool.
Dimming lights can be useful feature for most suites, but you will need to buy fixtures and bulbs with this capability (not all CFLs and LEDs can dim). On top of that, you’ll need to make sure the dimming hardware is high-quality. Anyvisual flicker or audible buzz from dimming will seriously degrade your working experience over long hours. (Do note, some lights change color when dimmed, which will disrupt the lighting balance of the room.)
Paint
The final step in building your color grading suite is to establish a neutral color environment. How do you do that? By painting the walls neutral gray, specifically 18% gray or middle gray. The name of this color is derived from it’s position on CIE lightness scale, roughly halfway between absolute black and white. The “18%” refers to the amount of visible light this color reflects.
This color gray is optimal because it keeps your perception of color constant. If your walls were bright yellow, your eyes would compensate somewhat, and you wouldn’t see yellow in your footage quite as much. That might mean your actors come out looking a bit like bananas, which your client might not appreciate. So, gray walls serve as a neutral point on which your eyes can establish a baseline of color and brightness.
This paint can in some cases be mixed at a local store, but the results are rarely consistent or accurate. The best option is to order the paint from a specialized manufacturer. Keep in mind this paint can be very expensive (~$80 per bucket), but the results are difficult to match.
However you source your paint, get a sample and test it in your suite to make sure it’s suitable. Once you have selected a paint, any wall that is in your view (including your peripheral vision) needs a coat.
After all of this is done, your suite will be a conducive environment for color grading and correction work. Now, you need to fill it.
The Screen
The first thing you will need in your suite is a viewing device (though, don’t forget you’ll need an ergonomic chair and desk too). Your projector screen or monitor is the digital window into your creative world of color. But, some windows are better than others, so here’s how to pick the right one.
Display Size
Despite what some might think, bigger screens do not always equal a better experience. Don’t think you need to buy the biggest screen you can afford just to make your suite look impressive to clients. In might not help your work, and in fact might make it more difficult.
Determining the ideal screen size for your space might seem ambiguous. Obviously, a single 24-inch display is insufficient for viewing in a theater-sized suite, and a 12-foot projector screen is overkill in a room built for 2 people. So what’s the ideal size?
Believe it or not, ergonomically ideal screen size is mathematically determinable based on the size and layout of your workspace. There’s even a SMPTE Standard for it. For professional post-production environments, SMPTE recommends a screen should have a maximum vertical height ⅓ as tall as the distance from which a user intends to view the screen.
Before you reread that last sentence again, here’s an easier explanation. Most of us normally measure screens by their diagonal length (corner to corner), rather than their vertical height (top to bottom), so it’s understandable to be confused by this standard. But there is a reason SMPTE uses this different measure.
Diagonal screen length changes relative to the aspect ratio of an image, so you can’t just rely on that measurement alone to determine ideal screen size. Vertical screen height, on the other hand, easily translates across screen sizes of any aspect ratio, so it’s a more fixed reference point for how “big” a screen is, ergonomically speaking.
To give an example with the SMPTE method, imagine you sit 4 feet from your screen. That’s 48 inches of distance between you and the display, so the ideal screen would be 48 divided by 3, or 16 inches tall (vertically).
But manufacturers don’t always advertise the vertical height of a display, so here’s an easier method to figure out the ideal screen size/viewing distance.
Just like before, take the distance your eyes will be from the display, but this time divide it by what we’ll call the aspect ratio factor. This is just an approximate value derived from the heights and widths of common aspect ratios.
Source By: frame.io
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