After The Cut: Color Correction & Export

[Dominic Domiac]

Hello,

I am editing a feature shot in 2:1 4K. We are very close to picture lock, and it's time to start thinking about the color correction (which we are doing inside AE) and export workflow.

Our Premiere project consists of eight sequences (or "reels") which average 11 minutes. Am I right in assuming that the best workflow for color correcting in AE is to import these eight sequences and then color correct each on a shot-by-shot basis?

And then, in order to export the film as a whole, is it then best to take these color corrected sequences back into Premiere and join them as a 90 minute whole in another "master" sequence?

As far as final export goes, we definitely to export both to DVD and Blu-Ray. But is it best to export the film to an uncompressed (we are on PC) AVI first and then do all subsequent exports from that?

The test exports of color corrected footage have been daunting--anywhere from 40 to 90 minutes for EACH minute of export. Is that normal? I am working on an Intel 920/12GB RAM PC. I can't believe that it's going to take five or more days to export the final movie. Is it?

[Edgar Pitts]

Hello Dominic. We recently completed a 1080p feature (non-red) that was edited in Premiere and finished in After Effects using the Cineform codec.

We broke the film into 10 reels (projects) and locked our edit in Premiere. We then imported each project into After Effects and did all of our finishing work (reframe, stabilization, color correction, denoise, etc.). Color correction was done on a shot-by-shot basis.

After many iterations, we then exported each project in After Effects in 32-bit depth. This was brutally slow as you described. It took over 120 hours to export our 2 hour film. We exported to Cineform 1080p.

We then took the 10 full resolution exported clips back into Premiere. Using Frameserver/AviSynth/Virtualdub, we created a high-quality downsample (Spline36Resize) for DVD saving to Cineform. You could save to uncompressed if not using Cineform, but you will need to manage the color space.

Hope this helps.

Edgar