Controlling Apple's Color

From Mouse to the EclipseCX Control Surface

by Patrick Inhofer, Finisher-In-Chief, Fini.tv
January 25, 2007


1 | 2 | 3 | 4

Day 4 - New Discoveries

Today I expect to put in a normal 8-hour day. I need to get through another 20 minutes of material. This is a very cutty show so I don't have time to get bogged down on any one shot. But there are interview shots scattered throughout this show and I'm determined to work in the secondaries and "re-light" those shots to help them pop a bit more.

I'm starting to get more comfortable with the Eclipse. Bopping between rooms using the buttons is definitely more productive. But I can't find three commands on this panel:

  • Control-G (which toggles off the entire grade to show you your original source footage)
  • The "Enable Secondary" button (a checkbox that is the bane of all Color'ists)
  • The "Inside/Outside" toggle (to quickly switch between correcting Inside a Mask or Outside a Mask). This command I know I saw demoed at NAB 2 years ago on the Tangent control surface.

I'm stumped why someone would forget to assign any of these commands... they are used constantly and there plenty of open buttons to be assigned. I check into it... another JL Cooper user confirms, those commands are missing. Bummer.

Today I needed to keyframe a few shots and I got to dig into the "F" keys. I don't particularly care for these keys or their layout. It's confusing and way too easy to delete a keyframe. Once memorized, it's a heck of a lot easier than all the control-clicking that needs to be done with the mouse to navigate these keyframes. But still... Once I figure out how to do so - I'll be remapping those.

I also discovered a new feature of the "Speed++" key. After scrubbing through the timeline with Speed++ enabled - I forgot to turn it off and I adjusted a rotary knob for the Red Gain... in one full turn of the knob the gain went through the roof! Whoa... cool. This button also effects the rotary knobs. Suddenly these things have become a lot more natural to use. With "Speed++" engaged the knobs move the way I want, giving me a full range of control. With "Speed++" disengaged the rotary knobs are in a Fine-control mode. The Eclipse has suddenly become much more powerful and natural feeling.

trackballs
Each trackball has its own pair of reset buttons
Upper Left: The missing Master Gain/Gamma/Setup knobs

Another nice feature I'm discovering, the R1 and B1 buttons above each of the trackballs... In the Color interface, doing a Reset simultaneously resets both color and contrast adjustments... together. On the Eclipse, R1 and B1 break them apart, with one resetting color adjustments and the other resetting contrast adjustments. On the negative side, the buttons are reversed from the order they appear visually on the screen - making the reset function a bit tricky. After a few hours my mind is re-wiring itself to handle the reversal between what my eyes see and my fingers must press.

I'm also discovering a potential hardware problem... contrast and color adjustments seem to reset themselves randomly without me touching anything. After an hour our two I realize it's related to my resting a hand on the surface of the panel. A firm finger tap on the surface confirms... too much pressure and a button gets activated. It takes me another full day to change my habits to prevent this from happening - but it's annoying because it's still a problem that occurs once or twice a day.

There's another feature that I'm still not used to - copying grades to the Memory and them pasting them back onto shots. Color provides for 5 memorized grades. The Eclipse only supports 4 memorized grades since it uses the "Bank 1-4" buttons. There's a fifth "Assign" button that toggles between Copy / Paste / Switch. I haven't yet figured out "Switch" and I've already Pasted when I should have Copied and Copied when I should have Pasted. At the moment I'm chalking it up to a learning curve. We'll see how I fare by the end of this job. I'm not happy that I've lost a Memory Bank.

End of Day 4 - Intial Thoughts

I've been using this panel for a day and half now. Clearly there are some things I really dig, others I'm not sure about, and a potential hardware-related issue. Does Color feel like a completely different app yet? Maybe. Am I more productive? It seems so. I finished Reel 1 and started into Reel 2 today. About 20 minutes of material. That's the same as the best I could accomplish in a very long session using the mouse. More impressive because I've followed through on the previous day's promise to make sure the interview footage is re-lit - and I didn't loose any time doing so.

I'm still fumbling a bit, deciding when to use the mouse / keyboard and when to use the panel. For instance, while the panel supports the manipulation of Masks using the rotary knobs, using the trackball for positioning is tediously slow... and once I grab the mouse for positioning, it's much easier to use it to also control softness and rotation.

I have been grading with moving footage most of the day. It's a great timesaver. I'll start doing the initial grade while the picture is playing and after it's looped once or twice I'll pause it on what I know is a representative frame and finish the grade. I'm almost never getting surprised anymore from the iris changing mid-shot and me missing it.

1 | 2 | 3 | 4