In film-making, post-production is a very imperative stage. There are tons of professionals involved in the final step. It is their work that helps make the film presentable to the audience.

After a film is made, you can’t market it in its raw state. To make the film successful more processes are carried out. They help increase the quality of the film. This is done after perfecting the color grades, adding background music, picture editing, and many other processes.

These post-production processes increase the marketability of a film so that it receives more box offices.

Post-production includes a multitude number of processes. Professionals like editors, sound engineers, VFX artists, colorists, etc come together to use their skills to completely transform the raw film into the final product.

The post-production process is highly collaborative and may last for a long time between a few months to a year. The quality of the final product depends on the need of the film and the budget. If the budget of the film is high, the final product’s size and quality will on a higher level when compared to a film with a lower budget.

Every element of the post-production stage is important and will have an impact on the film’s exposure and success. For example, when making the trailer or poster, they need to be having the right mood and tone. If a horror movie has a light-hearted trailer, people will find the film ambiguous. This is direct damage to the director’s reputation as he will lose credibility.

Steps of Post Production

For a more complete view you can read our article on the Post Production Workflow, but here is quick summary:

When it comes to post-production many processes are depending on the specific project type and its budget. However, there are typically six basic steps when it comes to production. These steps are:

Step 1: Choosing the right software

Before going for the final editing, it is vital to choose the perfect software that will meet all the demands related to the film. The software will help maintain workflow efficiency and maximize the speed of the work processes. Unnecessary software will be waste of time and money invested. The editing software must be chosen only after knowing the creative editor’s demands. The original format the film was filmed in should also be noted.

Step 2: Editing the film

Post-production typically begins with editing. The raw footage is pieced together and the films are made sure to be synchronized to each other. Inappropriate scenes are removed while important scenes are further glorified by adding more scenarios to them.

The editing is typically not completed in a single step. First, a draft called the rough draft is formed. Then a few additional edits are made to the film. The second one is the last version and is called the answer print. If the director is happy with this edit, it will be made official. If it does not meet his demands, more edits and improvements are made before the answer print can be used.

Step 3: Creating sound and music

Sound editing is done after the film has been edited and made official. Sound editors are responsible for assembling the audio tracks of a film, cutting dialogue tracks, removing unwanted noise, and even enhancing the movie with sound effects.

Often foley artists work as the sound editor for a film. They manually create the sound clip or recreate the sound from an old clip. Some improvements are usually made to the new sound from the old clip. The artists think of new ideas to make them sound more fascinating and captivating

Sound editors work together with sound engineers and music composers on any soundtrack and music. This music helps create certain moods in the film. Although musicians are hired to sing, pre-recorded music is also used sometimes.

Step 4: Adding VFX

In this stage various artists, engineers, and CGI professionals work together to develop computer-generated visual effects. This allows filmmakers to achieve things that would be considered impossible otherwise. For instance, aging an actor or creating a massive explosion. Besides VFX are very vital when it comes to any sci-fi or fantasy films. VFX is also widely used for animation movies or unbelievable acts of war or scenes of homicides.

Step 5: Color Grading

Working with the colors can be done before adding the VFX, but since it requires a lot of time and careful observations, it is done after the VFX is added. Color corrections include the process of adjusting the color of the light with digital filters to match with one another.

During this process, the color editor goes through the movie film by film. They lighten frames and adjust the hues to reflect the scene’s tone. Color grading creates consistency across shots and can establish the mood of the scene or film. In short, the color editor polishes the final visual of the movie

Step 6: Campaign image/poster and trailer

This is the most important part of the post-production that will determine the fame your film will receive once it gets released. The public will see some posters and images. If they find them attractive, they might they will watch the trailer.

Trailers aren’t meant to spoil the film. They are intended to increase the hype of the film among the people. That’s why the first impression is always the best impression. A good trailer will result in more people, full of hype, buying tickets for the film, once it hits the cinemas.

Tools used for post-production:

There is a range of tools that are used in the post-production process. Most of these tools include various software that serves many functions for editing, music-making, CGI, etc. Some of this multi-task software includes:

• Adobe Premier Pro
• Final Cut Pro
• Apple Logic X
• DaVinci Resolve

Conclusion

A film project might not require a lot of plot twists, alluring designs, and interesting characters to be a hit. With the appropriate post-production editing with ample amount of budget, the film will be a hit.

Do you dream of making your film one day? Perhaps become the next Tarantino. Even if you do not want to direct a film, you want a career that directly correlates to cinematography. If you are serious about pursuing a career in cinematography, you will need more than just sponsors, gear, and technical knowledge.

What are the Elements of Film Making?

A good filmmaker must have a good grasp of the elements. These elements are the building blocks of a film. Filmmakers cannot create movies without having a good sense of these elements. The elements are:

• Plot
• Attraction
• Theme
• Acting Dialogue
• Editing & Effects
• Cinematography
• Sound & music

Some Basic Filmmaking techniques

To be a good filmmaker, you need to be highly knowledgeable in the type of film you intend to make. Directors have a clear goal towards their goal from the moment they make the storyline and will not move away from it. If you intend to become a filmmaker, you need to have resolution and determination. If you are serious about filmmaking, learn the techniques. You would need to use them accordingly when making films as both a director and cinematographer.

Zoom

Zoom shots are one of the more basic techniques that most beginners use when they are just starting to make films. Zoom shots relay a sense of urgency, focus, and connection with the subject matter. They often happen at core intensive scenes in a movie. Zooms are often kept to a minimum in most films- at only 2 to 3 times.

Dutch Angle

It is a technique where the film is shot from an angle that gives a more dramatic view. A Dutch angle is used to disorient the audience, giving them a general feeling of uneasiness towards whatever is portrayed on screen. The audience shares the same feeling as the ones felt by the characters in the film. Just like zoom, Filmmakers should also use dutch angles more sparingly.

Rack Focus

Rack focus is a simple focus point change from a foreground object to a background object or vice-versa. This is used to reveal more details, no matter how subtle they are, to the audience.

To effectively use the rack focus, you also need to know the variety of styles accompanying this technique. Also, rack focus is considered more of an intermediate technique due to all these accompanying styles. Due to its complexity, a completely single specialist called a focus puller works on the rack focus footage. The styles included in this system are:

• Follow Focus
• Wireless Lens Control System
• Servo

Shot reverse shot

This is one of the most vital techniques in filmmaking that is used for coverage purposes. In this technique, a sequence of shots, which are cut together, is cut together to create a sense of conversation between two characters.

By shooting a scene from each character’s perspective, you give your editor a greater sense of control over the final result of the film. He will have more maneuverability on how to enhance and produce the footage.

Bird’s eyeshot

This is an impressive viewpoint in not only filmmaking but also photography. The bird’s eye shot shows massive scale but from a much higher angle to the point where the land starts to show abstract shapes and lines out of roads, buildings, and trees. It is also typically used as an establishing shot for introductions and scene transitions. The audience tends to find such transitional shots to be very interesting.

High-Key Lighting

High key lighting is a style of presenting the lighting on the subject so that the face f the subject is not exposed to shadows. It is mostly used in talk shows and sitcoms. A major advantage of high key lighting is that the sets are pretty cheap and easy to use. This makes this type of lighting one of the most used lightings in films.

Low-Key Lighting

This is the exact opposite of high key lightings. In this case of lightings, the subject is exposed to very low lighting, and the background tends to have low contrast. This is used in films that require certain moods like horror, suspense, or edginess.

J Cut

J cut is an intermediate editing technique. Editors use this technique so that the audience can hear sound from a different source before seeing the accompanying scene from the video source. It is slightly uncommon for most narrative films and features a dissolve in transition from one scene to another.

Keying

Keying is an important technique for VFX. It is simple and is just a single part of the entire VFX process in a film. It usually involves editing out the background from your subject. You could also add other backgrounds or new tones.

Green screen keying is the most common form of keying due to being an easy option for keying backgrounds. The green color tends to be less reflective of light, which sets it apart as a color for keying compared to another color keying.

Composition

Composition is the act of compiling and adding multiple digital assets to a film scene. It is mainly used to give the film some visual effects that make it more appealing to the eye and more interesting. The most common compositing software in filmmaking is After Effects and Nuke, with the former representing the go-to tool of choice for indie-VFX artists

Conclusion

So what is your favorite film making technique? Most of them are hard to master but with enough practice, and the right amount of talented people by your side you will get to understand them slowly.

One last advice if you intend to pursue a filmmaking career- make sure to build up a network/ Only then would you receive sponsors and have talented people working for you on various roles and posts.

Colorists are those who are skilled with editing color tones of films. They work on the color of the final product before mass production.

Colorists in film-making use digital tools to edit hue, tone, contrast, and pallets. Their settings can completely change the look and story of a film.

The role of colorists in film-making may appear quite small, but they add the most value to a film. So what do colorists do and how do they add value to a film? We are going to discuss them in this article.

What does a Colorist do?

So what does a colorist do in filmmaking? Depending on the decision of the filmmaker/ director, a colorist can be involved in various levels of filmmaking.

Usually, the florists work on the raw footage that is being shot and work on them as per the director’s instruction. He/she changes, tunes, and modifies the balance of colors in the footage to match the theme of the story.

With advanced technology available on-set, the colorists can now work with the camera director and director on-set. He/ she can change various settings in the camera to let the director and cameraman see an approximate illustration of what the final product will look like after it has been color edited.

By working on these levels of filmmaking, a colorist uses the balance of colors to psychologically engage with the viewers.

You may have seen some Youtube videos where they demonstrate how color pallets can completely change the theme of the same footage. That is the psychological effect a colorist has on the film and its audience.

So what a colorist does is change the balance and mixture of color in the film footage to make it psychologically and visually more engaging for the audience.

Roles of a Colorist

So the basic role of a colorist is to change the mixture and balance of colors in the film footage to make it visually and psychologically match with the story. For achieving the final result, the colorists use various types of digital tools such as editing software.

The work of a colorist is not simple at all. It requires high skills and imagination. But we can divide their work into three basic steps. They are Color correction, Color grading, and Color Swapping. We have described these procedures in more detail below.

Color correction

The first task of a colorist is color correction. It is the very first thing every colorist does when they are given raw footage of the film.

Basically what they do in this step is to match the exposure and color of the shot to match with the story of that particular scene. They also use color correction to fix distracting objects in the background of the footage. The focus is kept in the foreground by making their colors attractive to the eye.

Also, there is some footage where the director uses natural light sources. Nature cannot be controlled, thus there are some unexpected changes in exposure in a scene. The colorist will have to work on fixing that. Besides exposure, hue, ambiance, and color temperature need to be controlled as well.

You may think that the use of a controlled lighting environment may reduce the work of a colorist, but no. The director can indeed achieve the best result with controlled lighting, but they too need to be edited by a colorist. Because sometimes the controlled lighting can bring unexpected changes in the color temperature.

That is one part of the equation. The other part comes from the camera used for shooting. There are different types of cameras used to shoot in one film. These cameras made by different manufacturers have different light sensors. And so the color produced by these cameras do not match exactly with each other.

So again, the colorist will have to work with all the footage from different cameras to make them match each other. The goal is to make sure all the shots in the film have the correct amount of exposure, hue, white balance, and ambiance.

So basically these are the work a colorist has to do in color correction. Next, we have color grading.

Color grading

The next work of a colorist is color grading. Okay, so what is color grading? It is the manipulation of color in a shot. The reason for such work could be to bring an artistic style to the footage or make it match the visual aesthetics of the story.

Color grading is not as simple as swapping the colors of a shoot. It requires a strong understanding of color theory. Because based on the color grading, the theme of the footage will respond with the psychological effect it has on audiences.

Color grading has a much larger area of use. Color grading can be used to completely change the shot. Turning day-shoot footage into night-shoot footage can be the perfect example.

Other examples include changing the psychological mood of footage. Color theory suggests that the mixture of color in a theory can make a happy scene look like a sad scene

You can see visual examples of this theory. Watch a film and you will see that the happy scenes have an orange color theme. Suspense scenes have a bluer tone with black. There is more to this color grading. It is perhaps the biggest work of a colorist. This whale process of color grading can take three or more weeks.

The colorist will have to match the color of every footage in the film and then shoot it to the director to match the aesthetics of the film with its visual representation.

Color Swapping

One interesting work of the colorist is to swap colors. For example, swapping red with blue, yellow, or black. It is not usually used. But sometimes they are necessary to remove distractive objects from the backgrounds.

Conclusion

So that was all about a Colorist in film. They are an important part of filmmaking. They add value in the film which is not possible to achieve with traditional means.

We hope that you have understood the role and work of a colorist. If you are more interested in the work of a colorist, we suggest you start with color theory.

The dictionary definition of cinematography is “the art and science of making motion pictures and telling a story visually by recording moving objects in a camera.” To simplify this, cinematography is a roadmap for the audience to guide through the story and expression. Cinematography gives a script a whole new meaning rather than just the visuals and makes it presentable to the general audience. In this article, we will get to know more about cinematography including how to become one.

What is a Cinematographer?

A cinematographer is an artist who is responsible for the entire process of cinematography. It is the job of the cinematographer to turn the director’s imagination into reality by actively governing the entire process of the video recording. A cinematographer has to overlook the entire video recording process and pay close attention to some particular details, and some of them are:

• Camera Positioning: Determining where the camera should be placed is very important because it can set the dynamics of the scene. Different camera placements are suitable for different expressions and for reflecting various characters. A cinematographer has to make the decision of the camera positioning according to the scene.
• Focus: Focus is an important aspect of a scene that can pinpoint the focus of the audience towards a character or object. It is also important how fast or slow the focus will be. It can also represent some particular character’s viewpoint or current state, such as intoxication, drowsiness, etc.
• Shot Arrangement: Every shot needs to be composed or arranged according to the scene. A cinematographer has to determine what characters or objects should be in the shot and how many in one frame.
• Distance: In some particular scenarios, a distant shot is required, and in other, close-up shots. For example, if the shot is about the expression of the subject while talking or in a particular moment, a close-up shot is generally used. On the other hand, a long-range shot is effective while showcasing a particular environment.
• Lighting: Lighting might sound very simple, but this is one of the most tricky elements of cinematography. A good shot is impossible to achieve without good lighting. Big production companies often hire a separate crew for lighting, but a cinematographer must have a standard knowledge of

Cinematography vs Videography

Cinematography and videography may be used interchangeably. You might not know the difference between them. However, if you don’t know the difference, know that they are different and used for different senses in practice.

Cinematography has been defined and described earlier. One thing it has not been mentioned earlier and which sets apart cinematography from videography is the crew or the scope. Cinematography is part of a larger crew and cinematographers usually work in a large crew and follow the instructions given by the director. A cinematographer mostly overlooks the entire filming process and hardly works behind a camera. They select things such as the shot, positioning, or other things mentioned above. On the other hand, videography refers to a smaller crew and usually works on videos or small projects directly behind the camera.

How to Become a Cinematographer

Cinematography is a form of art rather than just an act and you cannot just learn it just by doing a course or two. Anyone with a camera cannot become a cinematographer. A cinematographer needs to make the right use of a camera using other knowledge. Let’s get to know some of the things that you can follow to become a cinematographer.

• Learn the fundamentals: There are some fundamentals of video production that a cinematographer must know. These are some of the things that have been discussed earlier, such as Camera positioning, lighting, shot arrangement, focus, etc. You can watch different videos from youtube to learn these things. Just learning them, in theory, won’t do. You need to experiment with them as well.
• Video Gears: To practice filming and the technical things that you have learned or are learning, you need the appropriate video gears, a camera most importantly. Get a decent camera and play around with it by taking different shots from different positions, angles, and lighting conditions.
• Course: No specific degree is required to become a cinematographer. You can try doing a bachelor’s degree in arts and taking relevant courses to get to know the theoretical aspects of art better. There are dedicated cinematography degrees as well, which you can opt for. Other than that, there are many independent academies or institutions that offer cinematography courses from a beginner to an advanced level which would be great for you if you are not willing to get a formal degree.
• Watch and learn: Watch as much as films or works of established cinematographers. Pay close attention to the details of the work that is put behind the cinematography. If you are well taught about the fundamentals of cinematography, you will be able to assess the job and even critique. This will help you a lot in your projects and overcome future mistakes.
• Internship opportunities: Different media groups provide internship opportunities for promising beginner cinematographers. An internship opportunity will probably be the best opportunity for you to watch and learn from professionals in person. By doing this, you will get to know better how things work in real life and expand your experience. Some internship opportunities also hire interns if they are satisfied with the performance. So this is the best time to put your knowledge and skills to the test.
• Make connections: Social skills are very important here. Get connected with the filmmaker, cinematographer, videographer community as much as possible. Familiarize yourself with them and build a network. This will significantly benefit you while working.
• Build a portfolio: Make a compilation of your best works and the projects you have taken an active part in. This can get you into new gigs, casts, or even new employment. This will give the opportunity to the employers to understand your caliber and help them come to a clear decision.

Conclusion

A film is nothing without cinematography, and with the proper ambition and skills, you can make yourself into a great cinematographer within the next couple of years.

If you have worked on photographs before, you should have seen the potions for the colors and brightness. You might have even worked on them, changing the tones till you found the one befitting your photograph. The process of improving the appearance of a media through color and tones is called color grading.

You may be doing color grading every day without even realizing that you’re doing it. Color grading is a central part of content creation. It’s also how videographers adjust the colors of their footage to achieve a visual mood or tone.

Color grading is the series of the process by how you enhance or alter the color of a motion picture, video image, or still image. In the past, it was called color timing, when the professionals did film edits manually without the help of special software.

Professional color grading is more of a technical skill in filmmaking and usually involves looking at what color grading is in the appropriate video format. They help create the mood and tone through which the director can convey his ideas about the setting and characters. For example, a higher level of contrast and spookiness would be a horror film, while lighter tones and contrast would be best for romantic comedies.

Examples of Color Grading

Color grading is a vital element in the content creation world. It has a lot of usages and would be directly influenced by the grading specialist’s preferences of colors. The places where color grading is used are:

• Still Photography
• Movies/ Films and videos
• Advertisement posters and pictures

What software is used for color grading?

There are a lot of tools that editors could use for color grading. Many of the tools are multi-tasking programs that come together with other filmmaking issues like music, VFX, and video. However, there is also quite some industry favorite software made for a specific task.

Blackmagic Design’s DaVinci Resolve is one of the most popular software used for motion pictures. It has an advanced selection of a wide range of options on various preset data. It also has VFX editing capabilities that make it a powerhouse creative tool for most professional.

Snapspeed is software perfect for photographers. It has a wide range of tools available to meet every demand related to color grading a still life photo. Snapseed is the perfect multi-tasking tool for photographers in both android and IOS with various options and capabilities.

Color-correction vs. Color-grading

The terms color-correction and color-grading have interloping properties, so people tend to make a mistake to think that they are the same. There are quite a lot of differences between these two terms.

Color correction includes the touch-ups like editing out blemishes or removing dust particles that made their way into the shot. Even the work of an amateur can be categorized as color-correction. Color-grading, on the other hand, is more professional. It is about editing the visual for stylistic purposes to give the image a particular feel and mood. Color grading makes use of render CGs that allows the maximum amount of flexibility in all color processes.

The 4 Steps of the Color Grading Workflow

Step 1: Color Correction

The first step that comes to the color grading stage is color correction. As we mentioned earlier, it is merely a simple primary touch up. This step plays the role of ensuring that all of your shots have a matching and consistent look. It’s possible to do this step manually, but too much time and effort will be consumed. So professional software is preferred to increase work efficiency.

Step 2: Color Grade Your Footage

Once you are done correcting all the clips on your footage, you need to work while looking at the entire footage as a whole in your next stage. Although editors can do this step manually, professionals choose to use digital programs to do this process.

This is an important step to ensure that there’s no single shot breaking the clip’s overall consistency. If there is, the only way to correct it is to move back and use a reference image for the sequence that you can use to match all of your shots to.

The aim of this step isn’t to match every shot color for color. Its main point is to find the contrast points that are continuous enough so that the audience won’t find transitions between clips jarring.

Step 3: Matching Skin tones.

Skin tones are an important part that needs to be controlled. It is something that our brains are most sensitive to. Monitor calibration and ambient lighting can alter the way you see the video being displayed. To ensure that this does not happen, a lot of effort is made after getting the correct and most befitting skin tone.

Vectroscopes are often used to get the perfect color for your tone. It usually shows what color tones are available and how saturated they are.

Step 4: Final Color grading

Once all the steps have been followed, in the last step, your work is to check the color schemes one last time. If they end up okay, you can start to develop the stylistic color grading. While enhancing the colors, factors like contrast and balance need to be kept in mind. You can keep twitching and adjusting these factors’ levels until you find the right adjustment that will suit your clip or photo.

Conclusion

Professional color grading is an important element in post-production. For any videographer who wants to publish quality content, they need to think of many factors. The frames, picture quality, tone, color contrast, etc., all play a major role in attracting the audience. That’s exactly where color grading plays its role. Whether for films, photographs, or even advertisement posters, it is important to hire an appropriately experienced color specialist.

Technicolor is a famous name in the cinema industry. It is a film color processing company. Technicolor shaped the entire world of cinema with vibrant color films way ahead of its time.

Technicolor was founded in the early 20t century. The company took some time for development. After nearly a decade, they came to shape with their sophisticated coloring process that changed the film industry.

Their processing of color for motion pictures was so sophisticated that they were the only ones to process them. You will need to see a Technicolor film by yourself to truly admire them.

History of Technicolor

Technicolor was founded in the early 20th century. Technicolor was part of its parent company Technicolor SA (Founded on February 27, 1893, in Paris).

With some interesting folding of events, the company drove its focus into the art of filmmaking. This led to the creation of the Technicolor in 1914.

Technicolor did excellent in the color department of motion pictures. They had 4 methods of coloring. The first three steps are their two-strip method and the final one is under their three-strip method.

Technicolor Inc was purchased by MacAndrews & Forbes in 1982. They purchased Technicolor for $100 million.

Then in 1988, Technicolor was sold to Carlton Communications PLC  for $780 million. In 2000, Technicolor bought Consolidated Film Industries, a film processing company to expand its operations.

Technicolor did face a lot of competition during its era of color capturing in motion pictures. But the company was able to move on. Technicolor technology is still used in Hollywood. But not as a mainstream method.

But their real three-strip method is now extinguished. It is possible to restore, but that will take millions of dollars.

The Process of Technicolor 300

During its peak time in the early and mid 20th century, Technicolor had two main methods. Their journey began with the two-strip method. After two improvements, they moved to a three-strip method.

Two Strip

Technicolor started its journey with the two-strip method. The two-strip method originally had a two-color system. Red and green.

In the very first version (Process 1) the camera will have a prism beam-splitter behind its lens. The prism will split the coming light into a red and a green projectile.

Films made with this method require extra effort for angling the camera. Then it would also require a special type of projector to show it to the audience.

The Gulf Between was the only film made with this process. This process did not make it because of one fatal issue. It required a skilled projectionist to align the beams perfectly.

 

So Technicolor worked on developing a better method which is known as process 2. Process 2 was marginally more successful than process 1. It was developed in 1922 and many Technicolor films were created with this method.

Process 2 used an identical method of beam splitter as process 1. But this time the negatives from the two strips were used for color prints. The two-color prints would get cemented together. As it has two prints cemented into one, the strip would get thicker compared to regular film strips.

This method eliminated the need for a special projector and so the skill of a protectionist was no longer necessary.

But it had some problems. The first issue comes with focusing. The two strips could not be focused perfectly at the same time. This puts a limit on the depth of focusing. Then there is the issue of cupping. The intense heat from the projector’s beam made the strips bulge after multiple uses. Those bulge strips had to be sent to Technicolor labs at Boson for flattening.

That brought up another issue. Scratching.

As the films had color on both sides, they were very vulnerable to scratching. The flattening process made a lot of scratches in the strips. They had to be repaired by adding in color. But those fixed spots would often appear brighter in the film.

Luckily Technicolor was already working on a new improved version, the Process 3.

 

Process 3 used the same method of process 2 for recording, but the strips were processed differently with gelatin. This solved the issue of cupping, but they were still vulnerable to scratching.

The strips created in the early versions of process 3 had grain issues. They were fixed in the next improvement.

Three Strip

The two-strip methods of Technicolor were very successful. The Process-3 was the most successful one and it was widely adopted by all film studios for producing films. Technicolor created its monopoly in the color motion picture market.

But after the great depression, things started to go down. To bring things back on track, Technicolor introduced their three-strip method.

The advantage of the three-strip method is that it is no longer limited to the red and green color spectrum. It can now produce natural films on the full spectrum.

In this three-strip method, the camera (made specially by Technicolor) would record three beams. One from the red spectrum, one green and the other blue. The negatives created from this would get positive copies.

The strips will then get soaked with complementary colors. The red spectrum strip will get soaked with cyan. The green stripe will be soaked in Magenta and the blue one will get yellow.

Then the dye will get transferred in a dye-transfer process

The process was so sophisticated at that time that only Technicolor was able to do it with their machine. The machine would take a whole facility.

The strips coming out of this method would be too thick. But the colors were natural and would not fade due to the heat from the projector’s beam.

You may have seen the Technicolor film, Wizard of the OZ. That film was made with this method.

Conclusion

Now the film industry works with more advanced color motion picture mechanisms for producing naturally colored films. The Three-strip method of Technicolor is an obsolete process of producing films now.

But this procedure was what drove the film industry in a different direction and it will forever remain an iconic process.

DP stands for Director of Photography. DP’s are responsible for the photography and cinematography of all films. If there is no DP,  there is no good film.

But you may ask that the directors are the ones responsible for how the movie is made. That is true, but a director of a film is not necessarily a specialist in film shooting. That is the job of a DP.

In this article, we will explain the work and role of a DP in filmmaking. We will also explain how a DP is different from a director.

Who is a DP in filmmaking and how is he/she different from the director?

As mentioned previously, a DP is the director of photography. You can also call them cinematographers. They are responsible for the visual look of the film. They oversee all operations of sets, visual settings, lighting, camera movement, and picking the best shots for matching the story of the director.

The difference between the Director and the DP is that the director is responsible for how the story of the film will unfold. The director of photography is responsible for how the imagery of the film will be recorded to best represent the story of the film. So that is the core difference between the two.

The work of the DP depends on the story choice made by the director. Thus the DP needs to work closely and side by side with the director.

What does a DP do in filmmaking?

A DP is responsible for the visuals of the film. All camera angles, lighting, set design, everything is decided by the DP. The DP does this to match the story of the director.

We have divided the work of a DP into the following.

Consulting with the director

One of the main tasks of a DP is to consult with the film director regarding various matters. The director hires an experienced DP for this reason. The director is the storyteller in the film, and the DP is responsible for best representing that story visually.

So he/ she needs to continuously work with the director on every footage. The director will tell the DP what he/she is expecting from this shot and the DP will prepare the shot according to the director’s description.

At the end of filming, the DP will sit with the director again on deciding which shots to keep and which shots to edit out of the film.

Selecting the matching visual styles

The director of photography will set the set style to match the description of the director. For this, the DP will collaborate with the production staff who are responsible for prop and set design.

How can visual styles make a difference in the story? Put a disturbing element in the background to create a suspense environment. Remove all distracting elements from the set to put the focus on the character. Make the set vibrant and illuminated for a happy scene. There are lots of ways of doing such shots.

You may recall that color grading is responsible for visual stylization. But without the proper visual set, color grading will have no effects.

Create the best lighting

The director of photography is also responsible for the lighting of the sets. The DP will consult with the director first for every scene. He/she will try to understand what the director is expecting from the scene.

Lighting makes a big difference in the scene. If you want to represent joy and liveliness, you need to put bright and warm light on the set. If it is a critical plot point scene, you need to put most of the light on the place where the director wants to focus.

Even geo-locations can be visualized with lighting. The best example could be the representation of Mexico in Hollywood films. In most cases, Mexican scenes are filtered with a warm orange color. It has become so repetitive that whenever we see an orange filtered scene and sand in the background, we think of that scene to be in Mexico.

That is the magic of the DP who chose the perfect lighting and filters for representing the scene.

Instructing camera operators

The DP is also responsible for instructing the camera operations of filmmaking. You can think of DP as the camera director.

The DP does not operate the camera. The cameras are operated by camera operators/ cameramen. It is instructed in the International Cinematographers Guild (IATSE Local 600) basic agreement

The DP will discuss with the director about a scene and then decide how to shoot the scene and how many cameras to use. Then he/ she will instruct the camera crew of the film about how to shoot footage and which direction to move the camera.

Selecting the best shots

You may have known this before. There are multiple alternatives shot in a film. You can see those leaked on Youtube. Many Marvel movies do this. But not all of them make it into the final product.

So which ones make it in the final cut? That is decided by the DP and the director. They both will sit together at the end of filming and examine each footage. From there they will choose the best footage.

Sometimes, a scene is shot again after the film has ended. That is to fix minor issues that are impossible to fix. The DP is responsible for identifying those errors and fixing them with the director.

Conclusion

So that was all about the Director of photography/ DP. They are the heart of cinematography in any film. Without their directions, no movie would have had perfectly executed shots.

A director can be a great storyteller, but without a Director of Photography, he/she cannot bring the story to the screen.

So yes, a DP is one of the most important parts of the filmmaking crew. Without their direction, the film could not be made perfect.

We hope that our article was helpful enough to introduce you to the role of a DP in filmmaking.

Filmmaking has a lot of individuals and departments involved. Directors, sound engineers, producers, actors, etc. Two of the most important individuals involved are the production designer and the art director.

Though they are very important in filmmaking, people often confuse the two to be the same. It is actually difficult to define a fine line between the two, although there is one predetermined line.

The reason why this confusion occurs is that most studios involved in filmmaking do not have the two at the same time. They will either have an art director, or just a production designer for their film.

So let us clarify this confusion and talk about the difference between these two different individual roles.

Who is a Production Designer?

Let us start by defining who a production designer is. The production designer, in our opinion, is an integrated part of filmmaking. The production designer, the director, and the director of photography are like a trio that provides a uniform look to a film.

The production designer will brainstorm ideas with the director before production. Then he/she will decide the budget with the film producer and line producer about the director’s vision of the film. After fixing all the budget and necessary agreements, the production designer will work on researching to accurately design sets and props based on the director’s vision.

The production designer will make basic sketches of the set and prop design to keep everyone in the art department on the same page.

The production designer is also responsible for hiring and managing the art department in filmmaking. He/ she will manage the budget of this department and prepare their work schedule.

One important relation between the production designer and the art director is that the production designer will hand over the set and prop design to him/her. The production designer creates a vision of the pieces in a sketch and the art director will work with that to come up with a finished product.

So if we summarize the whole production designer’s work, his/ her work is to direct and supervise all the production and art department. His/ her duty is more centralized. The goal is to match the director’s vision and expectations with the product made by the art department.

Now let’s have a look at who an art director is.

Who is an Art Director?

Now, who is an art director? From the previous section, you may have guessed that the art director works under the instruction of a production designer. Correct.

Although the art director works under the production designer, his/ her work is more tactical. The art director takes the basic scratching from the production designer and uses his/her instruction to give it a viable shape.

So basically the art director brings the vision of the production designer into life. That is basically it. But we can go deeper into the work of an art director.

The art director will also have to match the aesthetics of the set design and props with the expectation of the production designer. He/ she also has to go through the script to double-check if everything matches up.

Does this sound easy? The work may sound simple, but it is far from it. You will need to have a good eye for art to qualify for the work of an art director. You will need to understand all the elements of the project and prepare the best-representing design for it.

The art department not only consists of the art director. There are others working in the department. The art director will need to supervise all of them and make them follow his/her vision to design the set and props.

All of these had to be done by following the time and budget assigned to them.

So basically, the work of an art director is a more tactical approach to designing the vision of the production designer and making it into a reality.

What is the difference between a Production Designer and an Art Director?

Now that we know who a production designer and an art director are, let us shine some light on their differences.

Duties

The first difference is obviously their duties. We hope that you have already understood their difference in duties from the previous sections.

The production designer must consult with the director, producer to set a budget and research, design the sets and props for the production. He/she will also need to hire and manage an art team for handling all the affairs regarding design and production.

On the other hand, an art director follows the instruction of the production designer to design the sets and props and make them ready for use. His/ her duty is to encourage every staff in the art department and make them follow the production designer’s vision of set and prop design.

Goal

There is a clear difference in the goal of these two individuals. The goal of the production designer is to make everything work and follow the director’s vision. He/ she will try to give everything a uniform look so nothing doesn’t seem out of place.

On the other hand, the goal of an art designer is to make the sets and props from the sketch made by the production designer. His/ her goal is to follow the production designer’s instructions and make sure every product is made perfectly and ready for use in shooting.

Authority

The production designer has to answer to the director and producer of the film. His/ her topic is usually limited to budgeting, special effects, and feasibility of the project.

On the other hand, the art director answers to the production designer. But in reality, some organizations don’t have a production designer. In those cases, the art director answers directly to the higher authorities(directors and producers).

Conclusion

So those are the differences between a production designer and an art designer. There are some clear differences. We hope that you will understand them perfectly.

But do remember that in reality these differences are not found correctly. It is because many organizations don’t have these two positions at the same time.

Filmmaking has lots of individuals and departments involved. You have the actors, the director, DP, the camera crew, the sound engineers, and the production designers. In most cases, the production designers get less credit than they deserve.

The production designers are responsible for creating the set of the film. Without the proper set, no one cannot bring the perfect look to the film.

So let us introduce you to the work of this important department of all filmmaking.

Who is a Production designer?

The production designer is the individual responsible for handling all the arts and products used in the film. He/ she works side-by-side with the director and the DP to create the set and look they are intending.

The director, the DP, and the Production designer. These three are the trio that gives the film a unified look and feel. The production designer will follow the director’s vision and create a set that best represents the environment setting and art style of the film. The DP will try to represent the scenes in the best way possible in the sets.

That is how the trio contributes to filmmaking. From their role, you can easily understand how important a production manager is in filmmaking.

What are the duties of a Production designer?

A production manager is involved in different phases of filmmaking. He/ she is involved in pre-production, production, and sometimes in the post-production period as well.

During these phases, he/she has to solve a lot of matters regarding filmmaking. We have explained them below.

Pre-production duties

Most of the work of a production manager happens during this phase. It is the important part of their job that includes consulting with the director and producer, budgeting, and others.

Consulting with the director

The first thing a production manager will do is to discuss with the film director. He/she will read the script and get a complete walkthrough of the script from the director. During this visit, the production director will brainstorm set designs and ideas with the director.

Some critical decisions will be made here such as whether to use CGI or real-life elements. Or whether to use a green screen or visit the real location for shooting.

The production designer will try to capture the vision of the director and then plan for the next.

Consulting with the producer

After discussing all the important matters regarding set design, the production manager will then consult with the film producer about their budget. They along with the line producers will discuss the budget and try to bring it down within their costs.

Budgeting is an important part of the production manager since it is directly related to the costs of set designing.

Research and Design

After discussing the set ideas and the budgeting, the production designer will now get down to researching.

The methodology of his/ her research depends on what the visual element he/she is looking for. The designer may need to read a book, consult other film directors who have done films of the same genre, or visit a museum for more compelling materials.

The goal is to illustrate the most accurate and visually compelling design for the set.

The researching process can be hard and sometimes, easy. For example, if the director wants a 1970s New York City environment, research materials can be found very easily. But if the director wants a pre-world war 1 Europe, the production manager will have a hard time getting reliable research materials.

After researching and gathering compelling materials, the production manager will then work on designing the sets and props. He/she will draw sketches and describe the lighting and mood they will have in his department. This way everyone will understand the production manager’s vision.

The rest of the set and prop design is handed over to the art designer. He/she will start working on the sketches and make them into practical pieces.

Hire and manage the art team

Hiring and managing a team is done in the middle of the research and designing process. The production manager will manage the budgeting and the work schedule of the art team.

Production duties

The workload of the production manager during the production period is marginally less. During this period, he/she will monitor the activities in the current set and oversee the future set plans for filming.

Monitor current set activities

The production manager will make sure that every element in the set is at their pace and all equipment is working perfectly during the time of the shooting.

Also, he/she will try to resolve any issue that happens during the shooting.

Plan for the future sets

During the current shooting procedure, the production designer will also maintain work happening on the next set. He/she will be in continuous communication with the art team and maintain the work remotely.

Post-production duties

Usually, the duty of the production designer and his/her team ends with the filming. All they need to do is just wrap up everything in the studio. They cannot just leave everything in the studio.

But sometimes they stay behind because of the director’s instructions. Because they may need to reshoot some scenes for the final cut. But the main duty of a production designer ends with the conclusion of the filming procedure.

Conclusion

So those are the duties of a production designer in filmmaking. As you can see, he/she is the one responsible for bringing the director’s vision to life. He/she and the art team design and prepare the set. This sets the stage for the actors to perform and the DP to capture that performance.

So without the production designer’s effort to create the world of the director, the film is not possible. This means the production designer is an important and integrated part of filmmaking. So they deserve more credit than what they get from us.

We hope that our article has provided you with the detailed work of a Production designer on filmmaking.