Grade School: Watch a Senior Colorist Grade in Real Time

[@PalmTVNigeria]

I think you should do more of this grading from start to finish. It's always educative learning from your workflow. You deserve an award as the best color grading teacher on KZbin.

[@pauls1ngh]

I love different textures of film grain. So what you said about grain & getting a feeling was very eye opening & ballsy to me and I like it. Cinematic to me: Evoking a feeling to a point that it takes me to another world. Michael Mann’s style does this for me a lot. The scenes in Heat that I love: McCauley in his apartment staring out at the sea; the helicopter flight & night cityscape & Vincent driving on the freeway; the shootout near the bank & Vincent shooting Cherrito between the eyes. So many more from the movie Collateral & the Miami Vice TV series. Thanks for this Grade School. It’s fantastic to watch. And I love learning the thought process & the mastery behind the knobs, dials & luts.

[@ethelquinn]

This just feels like I'm going through a mentoring session. Thank you so much for helping us get better understanding on your personal workflow and thought process. And this would be so much resourceful for all the self taught editors and colourists out there.

[@elcasanelles5806]

I've learned so much in this channel that I bought the voyager pack as a way to pay you back. But when I used it yesterday I got the same feeling you had on that family shot of how great things looked, kept on playing the timeline over and over just to enjoy the result and how things looked.

[@welchworks]

Cullen, thanks for another top-shelf video! So so good!

[@adsmithtx]

Yes, would like to see more of your Grading Technique. thank you for your time and Talent share!! TechmickTechmick

[@CodyMadewell]

I need more of this. Love watching a master at work

[@sumantamunda843]

Cullen there is shotcut alt +d if you want to switch on and off all the nodes at once

[@kaktus.studio]

It was a great session, definitely would like to see more of this kind! Thanks a lot!

[@graemetowner7257]

really enjoy how you explain what your thinking before you approach each shot to grade...thanks

[@jparrieta]

Great session. Definitely would love to see more of your process. Thanks!

[@_trismegistus]

Love seeing your enthusiasm, it is motivating :D

[@zonatourvirtual2959]

This most be one of my favorite grade school sessions. Thank you Cullen

[@outdoorsinontario3037]

Fantastic session dude! Learned a lot on what to do and showed me what I was doing wrong for one of my own look I created, thank you !

[@redstoneranger1404]

One of your best sessions so far and I'd love to see more like this. Just watch you going through your shots, doing your thing and explaining why and how you do it.

[@jseamans]

So great. Thank you, Cullen Kelly!

[@conortychowski]

Unfortunately, I missed the seminar that came with the voyager LUT pack but absolutely loving the results I'm getting with the LUTs. Worth every penny!

[@HenryBobeck]

Thanks Cullen :) Would love to see some more look dev content, or how you go about implementing more punchy, stylized music video type looks

[@JonPais]

View > Window Outline > Only UI seems to have disappeared with recent updates to Resolve, unless I'm going crazy, which is also possible!

[@villepakarinen]

Thought seasoned colorists do some crazy color magic and PUFF amazing shots just appear out of nowhere. Then, watching this, I realized the process is like 75% my current process 😅 (right down to the "wait... should this have been the look all along??) with the remaining 25% filled with amazing nuggets of color wisdom

[@kirankiranmishra]

12:13 - being as beginner it’s heart breaking to see luts doing all look creation for the film, and I know that’s the right way. And it always works when DOP as shot everything under same mood and lighting condition, but I wonder how hard it would be use that looks to do grading on films, commercials, music videos which are not shot keeping 1 look in mind. Do we have to tackle the look creation manually?????

[@_Danielkblack]

I dont know how you dont have way way way way more subscribers

[@boomfestival2023]

Can i ask, to show more of the wheels and how they change.. I could learn more visually.

[@ameramdouni3584]

At 24m , DPs usually tweeks and refine lighting in close ups , i've notice always when watching movies/tvshows as i'm a cinematography student and shifting to color grading What i think is matching to the environment would give a better continuity and ppl wont notice the exposure on talents as much as overall environment

[@JimRobinson-colors]

The big thing is that a lot of the look is in the lighting - so a wide shot is near impossible to get the intended look. When they do the close up or even the wide. They don't just move the cameras, the light movers in as well. The wide ( long ) shot hides a lot of things by being far away and less distinguishable to the scrutiny of the viewer.

[@bobtronic73]

great session, Cullen. learned tons of stuff again

[@janxyc]

Since i am a total beginner and don't have a blackmagic panel, i wish to see what your panels are doing in the program.

[@SimonAbele]

What a great session! Many thanks for all your efforts and for giving an insight into your workflow. It is always a pleasure to see various creative people approaching the same matter in different ways. Looking forward to see more of this. Unfortunately I could not yet buy the Voyager LUT Pack, I used RCM and DWG quite a lot and now switched again to ACES 1.3 for personal projects, as my camera is not supported by Davinci Color Management. Would love to see the Voyager Pack also be available for ACES.

[@MichaelKaykov]

Epic!!!! I love the real-time grading stream… gives me a better sense of time management and strategy. This is GOLD. I think these clips were shot on vintage lenses, right? Got some of that moody (Super Baltars?) look right out of the box.

[@rodricfrancis2281]

This was awesome! More please ☺

[@DayoDeLeon]

31:06 I thought my washing machine suddenly made a sound at 12.06AM OMG 😂

[@winwin_yt]

When you work your windows and the mask outlines are distracting you can also switch off the overlay on the bottom left of the viewer where the little mask icon is. It’s always been bugging me too. Would be nice if they would automatically turn off during adjustments and reappear once you’re done.

[@TheKillingTreeTT]

Can someone explain what the reasonings behind changing the timeline luminance is? I don't really understand that and am wondering if it makes a difference when using a SDR monitor. Thanks

[@RafRafaRafRafa]

Hi Cullen, of course you're stoned ;) and I love it, it's inspiring to see how much you love what you're doing ;)

[@TheL1nkin]

Soo gooood!!! More and more please! 😍 Fixed the grain/blur issue? 😂

[@joshuamyers5694]

so - long shot question...but Im looking for content about rendering the same project in different gammas. Like one documentary that will be played in rec709, streamed/web and released in a few theaters. RCM is crucial, I'm sure. But Id love some help finding this. Thanks everyone! Thanks Cullen for all you're doing for us on here!

[@joshuamyers5694]

@@CullenKelly Dude! That's what I thought I had gleaned from your classes, but I'm never sure if its that simple. haha! Thanks again man! Im planning to sign up for the career accelerator class this spring, so I look forward to learning more! Peace brother.

[@richmarino2642]

Thanks again for another great tutorial! Having and definitely appreciating your ProPack LUTS it would be interesting to know which ones you are using and the order by see the LUTS names (ex: Hyperion) instead of the Tone/Palette/Foundation labels? Might be too much of a hassle :)

[@richmarino2642]

@@CullenKelly Sounds good thanks! Also I create groups for feature length films based on scenes. If different LUTS were desired for individual scenes would you apply the LUTS with pre-clip nodes instead of timeline?

[@agudal8503]

Thanks for this one

[@donnanorth7324]

I took photos with a Canon AE-1 35mm film camera. If I digitally scan the prints on a HP scanner, what would be my color space when I import them into Davinci Resolve? I am supposing the scanner has a color space?

[@tmj-ml5134]

I still can not find the answer why when setting up a project Davinchi color managed, layer blend mode behaves differently. For example, the same block when Cullen added grain in the overlay mode and this affected the brightness, in the case of the standard mode Davinchi YRGB, overlay it works correctly.

[@pingopallo1]

Hi Cullen, thanks for this very useful video! I have a question that I would've liked to ask live: How do you apply this upstream method of grading when you have footage that's way off balance and needs a lot of different adjustments? (edit: ok you basically answered at 33:20, ty) Btw, It would be great to address the whole look-creation process and how to get an overall creative adjustment that doesn't break your footage

[@kudobeats]

Hi Cullen, I've been working on making an efficient workflow with the help from your videos. I have an issue with tedious issue with color management. I have set the input and output etc in the project settings, but I have to individually right click on a clip in the media pool and set input color space to "Same as timeline". Is there a way for it to be always set to same as timeline every time I import a clip? Thank you

[@joenicklo]

Great session Cullen. Sorry if I missed it but someone in chat asked "when using R3D or another raw format, wouldn't it be better to change temp & hue in the RAW tab?" I'm very curious of that as well. I feel one of the biggest benefits of shooting raw in the first place is having the ability to change the temp/tint and other parameters. That said, I'd absolutely love to see you grade some RED footage at some point.

[@JeremiahBostwick]

55:05

[@helle_larsen]

This is awesome!

[@adeepoberoi1130]

Hi Cullen, Nice video once again, I was wondering if you use groups when shots are similar and shot in the same light and surroundings?

[@monkynutzuk]

When working colour managed are you still effectively working in log but the image just appears in rec709?

[@doronbenzvi8290]

This was my favorite grade school sessions! I really appreciate your approach to color grading, and i would love to see more grading in real time videos! i have a small question about the raw tab, you were talking about the same effect of the temp and tint (fascinating to know it's a similar effect!) but what about the ISO change in the raw tab? does it have an important effect on the footage? do you use it? thank you :)

[@TheRealBarkinMadd]

Thanks for another great grade school, Cullen! I have a question regarding your project-level color management settings. You disable Input DRT and what I've noticed is that without this Input DRT set (to Luminance, for example), a render-in-place displays an incorrect image because the rendering occurs in Rec709 gamma 2.4 and without that input DRT, you would need to then add a CST to adjust the luminance mapping, etc. Do you not use render-in-place (not sure if it also affects render caching) or did I miss something? I asked this of you in a previous video but where I first noticed your project level settings was actually in the Voyager LUTs grading session (watching it after the fact). If you could help me understand this, I would be most appreciative. Thanks. Add - It seems this only affects 'Render-in-place'. I tried with optimized media and render caching and neither of those exhibit the issue when Input DRT is set to None. Only 'Render-in-place' shifts for some reason. I'm still looking into this but thought I'd ask in case you have an answer. Thanks.

[@joyKafka]

It was an absorbing session, a pity that I couldn't watch it live. I wonder if you've ever come across problems like how to colour grade the still images? When I shoot an event, I'd like to use some still images (sRGB) in the timeline. Also I'd like to match the look of my still image collection and that of the movie. But they are of different colour spaces, and I am thinking to send all the still images in DaVinci Resolve to get the same look (particularly with your LUT collection). Would you give me some advices?

[@MintPixelStudio]

Awesome video @cullenkelly. Quick question. Is a graphics card a must have for color grading in da vinci resolve? I have integrated graphics on my computer. Been reading online but still not sure.

[@faizanansari12313]

I trusth you much more than any other colorist if you would sell any course I will be the one to buy your course

[@vivekjoshi115]

I am new to Resolve hence I have a very basic doubt, I hope that you would help me resolve it. I have started using Davinci Color managed workflow as suggested by you and have saved the same as the default project settings for all my projects. It's a great color space to work in and extremely helpful to me for both color correction and grading as well. However I do face a problem when I import any png/jpg files on my timeline as the color of the photos/these files totally changes. How can I overcome this issue. I have tried to use CST on the png/jpeg file's node in the color page and tried with all the combination of the inputs and output color space settings however iy doesn't work. Will you please help me overcome this problem.

[@Marina120785]

Hi Cullen, great session, thank you! Question: Is it safe to use LUTs that work great on most shots, but make some of them look worse, and then make corrections on clip level? It seems like an easy way to break an image, especially if it is rec709. A lot of action and counteraction. And also, do you have a different approach when grading 709 material?

[@EmilyLeishman]

Hi Cullen, I’ve watched a few videos from you. I have a question… Are the looks you are putting on the clips camera looks ? I’ve met colourist’s who don’t like when assists puts an out on they would prefer to build it themselves.

[@CullenKelly]

Hm, can you clarify what you mean when you say 'camera look'?

[@EmilyLeishman]

@@CullenKellysorry Cullen I just saw this comment. I mean to say a combination lut. ( technical and colour lut).

[@paulg3388]

Hi Cullen thanks for the Video. I have a question and I literally cannot find the answer anywhere and trust me I have tried. I have started to work in a Groups process using Davinci Wide Gamut as per your Video and it was looking great for awhile until I hit an issue. I followed your setup exactly but I have a bunch of photos and also some DJI DLOG-M footage in amongst my Sony and IPhone log footage that needs a LUT "only" with no color management apart from small tweaks to exposure etc. The issue I have is that I cannot dis-associate the photos and the DJI footage from the final CST Timeline conversion so they of course are cooked and red. Is there a way to dis-associate or ignore selected clips from the timeline to ignore/bypass the timeline CST conversion to Rec709? It may just be a no and I need to go back to a copy of this Project without a Group approach but ideally I would like to stick with this if possible. I can't be the only person who imports photos into a Project along with a LUT only set of clips :) thanks for any help I appreciate you are a busy man.

[@CullenKelly]

Great question! If you right click on your clips, you can change the individual input for the clip, and individually manage the input and output of the clip. This is for if you're using Resolve Color Managed. Hope that helps!

[@paulg3388]

@@CullenKelly thank you for replying ! I’ll give that a try today. Thanks ever so much.

[@natepotter6911]

Cullen, how do I get that DWG gray?

[@dineshfilms566]

Lg cx oled hdr tv as secondary display to my benqpd2706u hdr wide colour gamut 99srgb rec709 monitor can we get Hollywood range colours to my theater films pls say

[@StefanRingelschwandtner]

Nice one.

[@jhonastt]

AWESOME

[@salalaluzproducciones9079]

50 C = 122 F

[@gabehobbs]

MORE MORE MORE

[@marc-antoinenadeau]

Is it oly me or his guy looks like Travis Pastrana

[@natepotter6911]

Cullen: when you're switching back and forth between clips to compare, the playhead is staying in place on each clip. HOW IN THE WORLD ARE YOU DOING THAT!!!??? Mine jump to the beginning of the clip, super annoying!

[@JimRobinson-colors]

You can set up the Active playheads and then go from one to another - they can be set up on a panel or on a stream deck or even with keystrokes.

[@natepotter6911]

@@JimRobinson-colors only 4 though. Markers, perhaps? Actually, no, because he's jumping to hero frame across non-adjacent clips. Hmmm...

[@natepotter6911]

Oh, never mind, it's a wipe, duh lol

[@JonPais]

@Nate Potter Mine too!

[@Popartastic]

If you want film grain shoot film

[@CullenKelly]

Lol, I think you just pitched the first episode of “Things I said to my client right before they fired me”

[@Mauriciovideomaker]

Why is this so underexposed ?

[@LevaniTavberidze]

watched lot of clips from Cullen,IDK why people are crazy about it,he talks a lot nonsense over and over again but does almost no grading.