I was watching No Country For Old Men and was amazed at the color of the film. I know they used Color for it since they are featured on apple's final cut studio page talking about color but I wonder how do you they grade a picture like that?
What I mean is, how could I get a film I shoot in the desert or a place that can sub as desert look like the look of that film? any tip or colors my color wheels should lean towards?
As with After Effects and as Andrew Kramer says the best way to learn something is when you watch a movie, think of how they did it and then do it. Well, I would really like to start applying that to color, if that makes sense.
Re: No Country For Old Men - Walt and Everyone by Paul Nordin on Mar 19, 2008 at 9:03:48 am
The secret is not so much in how Color contributed to the film, but in the brilliant cinematography of Roger Deakins. On his forum www.rogerdeakins.com/forum/ he described the lighting and shooting style which he used to create the basic look in camera.
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Re: No Country For Old Men - Walt and Everyone by Dan Marlow on Mar 19, 2008 at 11:03:23 am
It is very unlikely that No Country was graded on Color (or even Final Touch). This is slightly duplicitous advertising on Apple's part. Just as they use "Oh Brother Where Art Thou" to highlight the DI process whilst avoiding mentioning that it was of course graded on a Spirit or Da Vinci system. I like Apple and I like Color (FCP is still not good enough), but it cant compete with high end dedicated Grading hardware.
Re: No Country For Old Men - Walt and Everyone by walter biscardi on Mar 19, 2008 at 12:21:36 pm
[Dan Marlow]"It is very unlikely that No Country was graded on Color (or even Final Touch)"
Why? It's been used on films in the past including the current Matt Damon Documentary "Running the Sahara." No reason they wouldn't use Color on this film, especially since they were taking about it at last year's NAB. Not Apple, the Coen Brothers.
[Dan Marlow]"(FCP is still not good enough)"
For color grading? I agree there, but for editing it's been used on quite a few films. The most obvious are the Walter Murch films. Might not be good enough for you, but for folks like me, it's more than good enogh.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media HD and SD Production for Broadcast and Independent Productions.
Re: No Country For Old Men - Walt and Everyone by Martin B. Wehding on Mar 19, 2008 at 1:36:51 pm
>>Apple hadn't released Color until after No Country For Old Men wrapped, but, I was curious whether it would play a roll in future Coen projects. According to Ethan, "We really leave the final look to our director of photography, Roger Deakins, working with Michael Hatzer, our colorist at EFILM. So, to date, [Apple] Color hasn't played a role for us as we cut.<<
Re: No Country For Old Men - Walt and Everyone by walter biscardi on Mar 19, 2008 at 12:14:11 pm
To get that look just requires patience along with trial and error.
Obviously you have to start with footage that is well shot. If you don't have proper lighting, then whatever you do, probably won't be able to achieve that look.
Then you start by balancing the shot in the Primary Room and from there, you play to your hearts content in the Secondaries and Color FX room. Though I think you could probably achieve pretty much that entire look just in the secondaries.
Also consider the Coen brothers most likely had a lot of help in achieving the looks. I would not be surprised if Apple sent some folks to assist them in working with Color and how to use it to their best advantage. The beauty of Color is that once you get some grades established, then you can copy and paste them to all similar shots for tweaking.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media HD and SD Production for Broadcast and Independent Productions.
Re: No Country For Old Men - Walt and Everyone by Dan Marlow on Mar 19, 2008 at 1:20:08 pm
I'm not saying its impossible to grade a feature on Color, but at that level of budget it is "highly unlikely". Are you saying then that it is likely that it was? Comparing a National Geography doc to an OSCAR winning Feature film is not a even evaluation, an compounds my feeling that few features are graded on Color.
I am not snobbish about Color, i like it and use it myself,
however it is unlikely a post-supervisor would decide to opt for Color over a Da Vinci, A Pogle, A Finalizer.
With regards to FCP i am talking about its capabilites as what it is- an NLE. It is still a frustrating piece of software still in need of some revisions before it can really compete with Avid MC- which by the by is coming down to a more affordable price soon.
I enjoy using Color and feel it is a great bit of software. Walter I found your expertise, via you DVD very useful in diving into the application and respect your knowledge in the field, but i cannot agree with you on this point.
Re: No Country For Old Men - Walt and Everyone by walter biscardi on Mar 19, 2008 at 1:32:12 pm
[Dan Marlow]"With regards to FCP i am talking about its capabilites as what it is- an NLE. It is still a frustrating piece of software still in need of some revisions before it can really compete with Avid MC- which by the by is coming down to a more affordable price soon."
Well, here I'll respectfully disagree with you. It has been competing with and in many cases eclipsing Avid. If you look at the companies that have dropped their Avids in place of FCP (CNN Atlanta with well over 200 workstations as one example) there's no question the app is having no issues competing with Avid.
And since you mention an OSCAR winning film, it should be noted that Walter Murch was nominated for Editing on Cold Mountain which he cut on Final Cut Pro. The Coen Brothers were nominated for Editing on No Country for Old Men which they cut on Final Cut Pro.
Avid still has a place for some folks, but Final Cut Pro can hold its own against that product and quite honestly it's up to the user to decide which product suits their needs.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media HD and SD Production for Broadcast and Independent Productions.
Re: No Country For Old Men - Walt and Everyone by Mike Most on Mar 19, 2008 at 1:57:43 pm
"No Country" was color corrected and finished on a customized version of Lustre by Mike Hatzer at EFilm in Los Angeles. While Joel and Ethan may have "played" with Color during editorial, it played no part whatsoever in the finishing of the film.
Re: No Country For Old Men - Walt and Everyone by Dan Marlow on Mar 19, 2008 at 2:48:27 pm
As you point out it is up to the user to decide. But Walter Murch won the Oscar, not Apple. I agree, that an editor will use what he/she prefers, be that Avid, Final Cut, Steinbeck, Moviola or pair of scissor (but probably not adobe premiere).
Places like CNN will fill their buildings with FCP, because it is cheaper and because they are producing short newsreel pieces. The BBC adopted a similar policy, but nearly all longer form projects will end up at a post house running Avid kit.
Now, I dont have a bias on way or the other. I like Apple, they make great hardware and for the most part great software. We may have to agree to disagree. I must however redress the idea that FCP is cutting swathes through Avids market share, it is a capable bit of kit for its price range, but people need to stop believing (or propogating) Apples hype that they are conquering the post production world.
Thank you Mike for reiterating my intial point that the marketing of Color is dishonest and deliberately misleading.
Re: No Country For Old Men - Walt and Everyone by walter biscardi on Mar 19, 2008 at 3:31:04 pm
[Dan Marlow]"As you point out it is up to the user to decide. But Walter Murch won the Oscar, not Apple. I agree, that an editor will use what he/she prefers, be that Avid, Final Cut, Steinbeck, Moviola or pair of scissor (but probably not adobe premiere)."
My point being that the film was cut on Final Cut Pro, as was No Country. Yes, the editor is being recognized as they should, but the tool used in the Post was Final Cut Pro.
[Dan Marlow]"Places like CNN will fill their buildings with FCP, because it is cheaper and because they are producing short newsreel pieces."
CNN was full of Avids in Atlanta and dumped them because of the poor tech support they were receiving. Obviously Apple is much cheaper. As for short newsreel pieces, they have units that cut up to 2 hour documentaries. The Environment Unit which I was a part of for three years, cut 30 minute shows and up to 1 hour documentaries. At that time, it was all linear, tape to tape based. So yes the bulk of programming for CNN is 2 - 6 minute stories, but there is plenty of long form work going on over there.
[Dan Marlow]"
Thank you Mike for reiterating my intial point that the marketing of Color is dishonest and deliberately misleading."
You could say that for just about every press release and marketing promo issued during the week of NAB.
To say the Coen brothers finished the movie in Color would be dishonest. To say the Coen brothers "used" Color in the movie would be honest. The reader could then infer that the film was finished in Color and this would be misleading, but I do recall seeing scenes from the film shown at the Apple Event last year and they looked very similar to the finished product. So the Coen brothers were definitely experimenting with looks in Color that they could not have achieved just using Final Cut Pro.
Thanks to Mike for that link to the article showing how the film was fully finished.
But back to the original question of this thread. Can that look be achieved in Color? Absolutely. Could that film be finished in Color? Absolutely.
Your choice of tools and budget are up to you.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media HD and SD Production for Broadcast and Independent Productions.
Re: No Country For Old Men - Walt and Everyone by Russell Lasson on Mar 19, 2008 at 9:48:22 pm
[walter biscardi]"Could that film be finished in Color? Absolutely. "
I agree with Walter that the film could have been finished in Color and with the right Colorist, it would have had the same creative impact, but...
Could that film be finished in Color without making sacrifices compared to the feature set of other high end tools. I'd say absolutely not. I think the biggest sacrifice would be time. Color isn't geared for large finishing houses like Lustre and other tools are. It doesn't have the huge expensive hardware infrastructure like network rendering and assistant stations. Nor can it import custom masks from other compositing programs.
Talking business, I don't see any reason why companies like EFILM should adopt Color. Color isn't the best out there. These companies get paid the big bucks because they can give the best quality that technology can give at that time.
If it's even going to be a consideration, Color needs to take some more steps in the right direction.
So, Color could have been used, but why other to say that they did it. There's really no advantage when they have that sort of money to spend.
Re: No Country For Old Men - Walt and Everyone by Aaron Neitz on Mar 19, 2008 at 6:54:01 pm
Just to throw something into the hat:
We often work with a high end colorist who does a fair amount of DI for big studio films... typically he works on a DaVinci. Recently he did a grade for a friend's no-budget indie feature all on Color. His comments were basically "the coloring is fine, dissolves are messy, and rendering is completely broken.. give it another version or two with better FCP integration"
So the tool is solid - they just need to really fix the in and out technologies.
Re: No Country For Old Men - Walt and Everyone by walter biscardi on Mar 19, 2008 at 7:43:37 pm
[Aaron Neitz]"So the tool is solid - they just need to really fix the in and out technologies."
Yeah, they've needed to fix major stuff for about 2 years now. It works so long as you absolutely follow the proper workflow. That is one of the disappointments with Apple purchasing the App. Silicon Color was getting ready to go to Version 3 of Final Touch with many new features and fixes planned.
Then Apple purchased it and so far they've added Curves to the Primary In room and ProRes support. We really need the tool to better integrated with Final Cut Pro so you don't spend as much time prepping the timeline as you do actually grading your project.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media HD and SD Production for Broadcast and Independent Productions.
Re: No Country For Old Men - Walt and Everyone by JP Owens on Mar 20, 2008 at 4:30:56 am
I'd beware of making statements like, " oh, a quick primary grade and a few secondary qualifications" and it'll be a snap. Well, at least until you've got a couple of dozen A-List features under one's belt. Then you can be Sonnenfeld-casual, or Doyle, or a very few others... not me, for sure. Hey, I'll bet there's a "No Country for Old Men" plugin in the COLORFX room!
Picture is a picture, sure... like sailing a Sunfish on a puddle compared to captaining an ocean liner. Yah, its just another boat.
Thanks for clearing that up, Mike. In a lot of cases, its the carpenter, not the tools -- this is a very old and boring argument -- but the tools have to fit the environment.
Sadly, following these fora for a few years now, the general posting goes like this: "I'm new to COLOR and I'm having problems getting my HDV project done with FireWire on a consumer monitor". This is the general constituency, by far the bulk of users.
Meanwhile Apple is actually claiming full DI-flow on the BEST PICTURE of the year (at least according to AMPAS)? Interesting, interesting.
They're not going to get there like this, certainly not at this pace or with the product the way it is. FilmLight, Iridas, Autodesk,... they're all snorting into their beer, and it ain't Budweiser.
What I'm curious about is, where is the investment going to come from that will be required to fund the further development of this app.. when there is basically no traceable revenue stream. It come fo'free wid FCP. FT was expensive. It came with support, but no more. Apple is going to keep bulldozing money at it without charging for it? How's that going to go down with the shareholders?
Re: No Country For Old Men - Walt and Everyone by walter biscardi on Mar 20, 2008 at 6:39:17 am
[JP Owens]"What I'm curious about is, where is the investment going to come from that will be required to fund the further development of this app.. when there is basically no traceable revenue stream. It come fo'free wid FCP. FT was expensive. It came with support, but no more. Apple is going to keep bulldozing money at it without charging for it? How's that going to go down with the shareholders?"
Isn't THAT the million dollar question?! Go way back to my postings when Apple first rolled Color into Studio 2 and I've been wondering on that since Day 1. You take a $25,000 app, give it away to anybody with $1,200 and then what? Do you just let it stagnate? Kind of like it has for the past 12 months?
Or do you really beef up R&D on it for absolutely zero return on the dollar? To this day I think rolling Color into Studio 2 was a huge mistake on Apple's part. At the very least it should have remained a $2,500 stand alone application so at least the people who really wanted to use it, had to make an investment in it.
Then we would not have all these threads on here that go something like "Well if they want this thing to support Final Cut Pro it sure as heck should support all the features in Final Cut Pro, don't ya think?" Those folks looking for that "No Country" plug-in so they can just slap that on their clips and call it a day.
Here's another question. What in the world am I'm doing up at 2:38am?! Too many deadlines. not enough hours.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media HD and SD Production for Broadcast and Independent Productions.
Re: No Country For Old Men - Walt and Everyone by Martin B. Wehding on Mar 20, 2008 at 9:15:03 am
I have always seen Apple as a company, wich primary goal was to sell hardware, for that they need software?.
[JP Owens]"What I'm curious about is, where is the investment going to come from that will be required to fund the further development of this app.. when there is basically no traceable revenue stream. It come fo'free wid FCP. FT was expensive. It came with support, but no more. Apple is going to keep bulldozing money at it without charging for it? How's that going to go down with the shareholders?"
I remember 10 years ago when rumours said that companys like autodesk and Alias where "leaking" "pirate" versions of max and Maya, so the kids at home could learn the software. Avid tried to do the same a couple of years ago where you could get a free limited, but working, version of xpress on their website.
I'm not saying thats apples strategy, but it could very well be: Cheep software gives more users to the software that is LOCKED to specific hardware.
Re: No Country For Old Men - Walt and Everyone by walter biscardi on Mar 20, 2008 at 1:06:17 pm
[Martin B. Wehding]"I have always seen Apple as a company, wich primary goal was to sell hardware, for that they need software?."
That's spot on. Why else would Final Cut Studio be priced at $1,200 or $1,300 when it could easily be priced much higher. Especially with the addition of Final Touch. They're a hardware company first. Exclusive software sells hardware.
[Martin B. Wehding]"I'm not saying thats apples strategy, but it could very well be: Cheep software gives more users to the software that is LOCKED to specific hardware."
A lot of us have been saying this for a long time. Personally I would love to see Studio go cross platform and allow users the choice of which machine to run it on and also open up the product to anyone who wants to run it.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media HD and SD Production for Broadcast and Independent Productions.
Re: No Country For Old Men - Walt and Everyone by Kyle Troxell on Mar 20, 2008 at 3:49:14 pm
This was all really interesting read. I was not aware of eerything you all were saying: "Sell hardware, they need to sell software", that's exactly true. I wanted FCS2 because I wanted a "legal" version of FCP and to do that, I needed to send 2,700 to buy a new laptop for it. But I can't complain though, It's done everything I've needed.
Yes that is Andrew Kramer's Day For Night tutorial footage. It's all I had on my computer. If you guys have any tips or so that will make the look look better, I'd love to hear it.
I balanced in the primary and did some red (white) and green (mid) for secondary 1 and in secondary 2 I did yellow/Red (white) and yellow/green (mid) with Film Look and Saturation at .75
Re: No Country For Old Men - Walt and Everyone by Andrew Kimery on Mar 21, 2008 at 7:11:55 am
Not only are the Pro Apps loss leaders to sell hardware (which is why we'll never see them go cross platform) but I think they also act as prestige pieces for Apple (which is another reason why I think the rumors of Apple wanting to sell them are just idle speculation). It's kind of like how car companies, Ford for example, are involved in racing. Even though it's a money pit, if a Ford car wins at Daytona or consistently runs well in F1 that's a marketing gold mine for the company.
Of course, as previously stated, the question still remains of how much effort Apple is going to put into Color and how much it's going to coast. Will it be a regularly developed app like DVD SP has been over the years or will it be like Shake or LiveType and not get much upgrade attention at all?
Re: No Country For Old Men - Walt and Everyone by walter biscardi on Mar 21, 2008 at 11:19:15 am
[Andrew Kimery]"Will it be a regularly developed app like DVD SP has been over the years or will it be like Shake or LiveType and not get much upgrade attention at all?"
You mean like how DVDSP received zero upgrades last year while the rest of the suite received significant upgrades? Ok, it got some new templates, but that was it.
I think NAB in a few weeks will be a very telling on how much investment Apple intends on putting in to Color. If they bring in significant improvements to the workflow between Color and the rest of the suite, then that's a good sign. If they add more ways to use the curves but don't address the workflow between the other apps, then that's not really a good sign.
When Apple purchased Silicon Color that team was very excited because they said the biggest issues they had were with the XML communication back and forth with FCP. They felt that now with the FCP team working directly with them, they could solve all the XLM issues and make the app work much better with FCP. So far we've seen a new codec added but as far as how it works with FCP, it's about the same as Final Touch HD.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media HD and SD Production for Broadcast and Independent Productions.
Re: No Country For Old Men - Walt and Everyone by Andrew Kimery on Mar 22, 2008 at 5:09:41 am
Yes, touché, DVD SP hasn't received any love for a while. Hopefully that changes soon since the HD war is over so Apple can stop waiting it out on the side lines.
Re: No Country For Old Men - Walt and Everyone by Michael Sacci on Mar 24, 2008 at 5:58:18 am
I don't think FCP is by any means a loss leader. Apple does invest a lot of time and money into the pro apps, save DVDSP :-( , but it is balanced by them being just one of the many areas of their business model. So they are probably not as focused as a software only company but when you look at the major companies out their Apples upgrades and patches are on pace with them.
Of course there is a lot of room for improvement, as with every app out there.
Apple is a software/hardware company, they are woven together to push sales of each other. One takes the lead and the other catches up and passes the other and the wheels keep turning.
Re: No Country For Old Men - Walt and Everyone by Andrew Kimery on Mar 25, 2008 at 7:04:19 am
By "loss leader" I don't mean that pro apps are crappy "freebies". I mean that Apple willingly takes a loss for each copy sold because they (the pro apps) move hardware which is where Apple's margins are. Just like the iTunes Store wasn't designed to generate a profit it was designed to sell hardware (iPods and AppleTVs) that generates a profit. It's the old "give the razor away but charge for the blades" business model.
Obviously I don't have access to Apple's books, but I just don't see how Apple could sell FCP, Cinema Tools, LiveType, Motion, Color, DVD SP, Compressor, and Soundtrack Pro for $1299 and generate any sort of meaningful profit. Apple's SOP seems to be buy existing software and then drastically reduce it's price (Shake, Color, DVD SP, LiveType, Logic, etc.,.).
Re: No Country For Old Men - Walt and Everyone by Michael Sacci on Mar 25, 2008 at 1:56:09 pm
Never thought you meant loss to mean cheap, I took loss to mean profit loss. Which I totally disagree with. Which do your think apple makes more on, a seat of FCS2 for $1300 or a MacPro for $3000, my guess is the software. My point is Apple doesn't have to make as much on their software because it pushes their hardware. Apple benefits from their hardware sells because it pushes there software sells.
Same goes for the iTunes store and iPod. If the good was to just sell iPods why not open the format to other online stores, they would sell a lot more iPods. But apple does make money off of the iTunes store, always has, they just had the luxury of not having to make it their only profit stream, Apples model mixes hardware and software, hardware and content.
To use a buzz word Apple's business model is a synergy. the total is much stronger than it's parts, that's why it is a locked systems.
These are just my thoughts and opinion, I too have no access to Apple's books.
Re: No Country For Old Men - Walt and Everyone by Andrew Kimery on Mar 25, 2008 at 4:53:30 pm
I think Apple makes more profit selling a $3k Mac Pro than selling FCP, DVD SP, LiveType, Cinema Tools, Soundtrack Pro, Motion, Compressor, and Color for $1300. I mean, just looking at Color alone, how can Apple buy Final Touch, essentially give it away, and turn a profit on that acquisition?
Apple makes its profit selling hardware, not software. They always have. They are a hardware company that, due to 3rd parties abandoning the platform around a decade ago, had to start making it's own first party software in order to stay in business. It's one reason why they won't license OS X or the Pro Apps for non-Apple machines. Back in the 90's Apple did license other companies to make "Apple clones" and it almost killed Apple because the clones could be sold cheaper and undercut Apple's hardware sales. The only software Apple has made cross platform (iTunes and Safari) is software that runs w/its cross platform hardware (iPods and iPhones).
Due to the huge success of the iTMS it's turning a profit, but when it was first launched Jobs said if the iTMS broke even they'd be happy. He said he didn't think other music stores could survive long term because there was little/no profit in it and that was fine w/Apple because their goal wasn't to make money selling songs it was to make money selling iPods and the iTMS was a "feature", if you will, of the iPod.
