The first ever film I shot with my RED Scarlet-X was Sissy Boy, written and directed by Cameron McColloch. It was a tight scheduled short film with some ambitious shots to boot. The opening shot of the film was supposed to be a wide shot of the suburbs which cranes down into a medium of the "bully" riding his bike past camera on the local bike track. With a short film, self funded indie budget, a shot like that aint easy! Or is it? Cam and I made a trip to the local hire center and jumped in the tallest most stable scissor lift they had. Perfect :) All we needed now was a jib and some balls ;)
I didn't grade the film (which is playing at festivals right now) but I recently pulled up some footage and had a play. There were a few shots that I thought would be good examples of how RAW footage can be transformed into almost anything you want!
Above is the protagonist of the film, Shayne Donghi. The before and after (RAW vs graded) really shows what you can do when you understand color and start thinking about what you do and don't like about a shot. What needs fixing? What do you enhance? Where do you want your viewer to focus? These are some great questions to ask yourself when looking to grade any shot.
For an in depth tutorial on how I achieved the above grade, check out the tutorials section at the top of the page, or simply follow this link :)
Here are a couple more frames from the film which I graded in resolve using similar techniques....
The opening shot of the film can be viewed at the Sissy Boy facebook fan page :) Cheers!
