1 The Director of Photography – an overview

90 Practical Cinematography
Film grading
It is quite common to find in a DP’s contract either for a cinema film
or a major television drama a clause stating that, subject to their
availability, they will be asked to attend, indeed usually supervise, the
grading at the laboratory.This is the moment for the cinematographer
to add the final polish to the film.
The process usually takes the form of the DP and the grader from
the laboratory sitting in a viewing theatre and looking at the cut rush
print, and from this deciding what changes they wish to make in order
to strike the first answer print overnight from an A and B roll cut negative.
This answer print will be viewed the following morning and may,
with luck, be perfectly acceptable. More likely, at least a second
answer print is needed. If too many answer prints are ordered, then
beware, the producer may start to question the quality of your master
negative or whether you are being just a little too fussy and consequently
spending too much of their post-production budget.
The film grader will be taking notes during the viewing in order to
be sure of the changes the DP wants.These notes are most often a plus
or minus sign in front of a printer point change number with the
colour shown. A very experienced DP may be able to communicate
with the grader directly in printer points, but this is not essential nor
always preferable. It is quite acceptable to ask for a picture to be a little
more green, say, or less magenta – which, though technically being
similar, sound different and might communicate better your impression
of what is needed. Asking for a little more warmth is also perfectly
acceptable. Remember, graders are very experienced and very
much on your side, so just about any means of communicating your
feelings of how you wish your pictures to look is fine. It can be hard to
communicate feelings with printer light numbers.
Unfortunately, there is one absolute fact attached to film grading –
if it’s not on the negative there is nothing you can do to get it onto the
print.You can only change the brightness of three colours as they pass
through the negative on their way to the print stock. You cannot, as in
still photography, modify in any way the contrast of the print stock or,
other than in exceptional and expensive circumstances, change the
way the print will be developed.
Telecine grading
All film, from whatever source, that is to be shown on television must
be converted from a real image on celluloid to an electronic image
stored on videotape. This is achieved by passing the film through a
device called a telecine machine. Simply, this scans the real film image
in the format to be transmitted, say 625 lines in the UK and 525 lines
in the USA, and then this signal is recorded onto a conventional
videotape machine.
Between the telecine machine and the videotape machine is a control
desk, with which many adjustments to the image may be performed.
The telecine can, by the flick of a switch, be converted from
transferring a positive image from a photographic print to transferring
from the master negative, inverting the image to a positive electronically
so that the grading and recording are both a positive image.