Currently I am color correcting a short film shot on DVCPRO HD…this while I am working full time editing a Discovery Channel series. But that is par for the course…main project, occasional side project. ANWAY, I want to mention a pretty vital part of my color correction arsonal. The book THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF COLOR CORRECTION by Alexis Van Hurkman.

Now I have a couple tutorial DVDs on how to use Final Cut Pro’s built in 3-way color corrector to match hue from shot to shot, and how to white and black balance, and some color correction tips. This book covers all of those basics and takes it a step further to go into advanced color correction techniques….and gives some pretty cool tricks too. My favorite is KEYFRAMING color correction, and making footage DAY FOR NIGHT. The book contains several tutorials in just about every chapter…and my favorite is the one that deals with turning out a light.

The tutorial shows a hand turning off a light switch, and you see that indeed a light does go off, but the change isn’t all that great. The director wants more. So this is something you fix with color correction. The tutorial shows how you set keyframes in the 3-way color corrector and shows the settings you need to use to make the room look very DARK…so when the light switch is flipped, the change is more drastic. VERY cool. It also talks about color correcting and keyframing from when you go from a well lit shot to a prety darn one.

And many more. This book is great because it will explain the theory, then show an example that you not only follow along you DO IT so that you retain the information better.

This book does go pretty in depth into the technical aspects, why the monitor needs to be a certain color temperature and many theories and tech talk about color and light. Now, I am not a very technical person, I know how to ONLINE a show, but I am no colorist. So there is technical jargon that I catch only about 50% of what is being said…but that is enough to understand what the author is saying.

ANYWAY…it is a good book. If you have any desire to color correct, you have to read this book.