Controlling Apple's Color
From Mouse to the EclipseCX Control Surface
by Patrick Inhofer, Finisher-In-Chief,
Fini.tv
January 25, 2007
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Day 5 - Getting Back On Schedule
My deadline still looms. After color-correction I have another two days of finishing to do. Render times have proven to be a beast as 50% of the footage is 1080i and I'm using a Dual 2.5 G5. I definitely need to upgrade to a Mactel next month. I'm fond of this CPU, as it's seen me through quite a bit of growth - but now, in an HD world, it's holding me back.
More to the point, today is Saturday - I need to get a lot of work done today and tomorrow to make sure we stay on schedule. I'm walking into today's session very comfortable with the control surface. Today is showtime.
About an hour into the session I make one last major discovery: The "Speed++" button also works with the trackballs! I don't have the words to describe the difference it makes. Large corrections can be made quickly. Looks can be discovered, tossed, re-engineered, and then (turning off "Speed++") fine tuned. I quickly jump into a Secondary, enable a mask... it is also turbo-charged with the Speed++ control. No need to go back to the mouse - with footage playing back I can easily reposition the mask, adjust rotation and softness, and do it with relatively small turns of the knobs and moves of the trackball. Excellent.
6 hours into the session and I've finished Reel 2 - including taking time to relight all interviews. Although by halfway through the day I'm seeing advantages of scale and can re-use many of the saved interview grades. Still... by the end of this 8 hour day I've color corrected almost 40 minutes of the show - nearly doubling my best output with a mouse during a 10 hour day. Not only am I back on schedule. I don't even need to color correct tomorrow. I'll start rendering Reel 2 tonight and come into the office for 20 minutes on Sunday to finish rendering out Reel 1.
Even better... the contrast wheels on the Eclipse feel like they're opening up on me. The Mids wheel is definitely spinning much easier now. It requires less effort to turn it. I'm digging this control much better and looking forward to when the Shadows and Highs wheels loosen up as well. Funny though, a colorist friend of mine took a look at the panel. He liked the tighter feel. Go figure. I know it'll take a lot longer for the other two wheels to free up, since the Speed++ button doesn't require me to pound on them nearly as much as I had been.
Day 7 - Wrapping Up
I finish color correcting Reel 3 this morning. 15 minutes in a few hours. I'm amazed. And a bit dazed. I spent some time yesterday and this morning analyzing how I got so much done in so little time.
Is it as I heard? With a control surface does Color feel like a different app?
I was definitely in a different kind of zone on Saturday. I spent far less time looking at the Color interface, instead focusing on the reference monitor and scopes. Nor did I sacrifice quality for that speed. The ability to play back while grading helped keep me from having to re-do my work.
Most importantly, once I starting getting a feel for the layout of the controls of the Pages buttons - I rarely had to look down at the buttons, except to see if the Speed++ was turned off when I didn't want it. And that's where the speed comes from. I could navigate rooms, dig into otherwise buried tabs, manipulate keyframes, and perform copy/paste operations while barely taking my eyes off the picture.
This is the power of an outboard control surface. It allows me to shift my attention from the interface and onto the picture. The EclipseCX makes it feel like the Color interface has been made tactile.
Of course, I have a total sample of one job. This is my first show using this panel. But even if some of my speed gains are from working quickly with a tight deadline - I haven't been working that quickly. I'm impressed.
Conclusion
Have I mentioned that I really dig control surfaces? The EclpiseCX follows smartly in that tradition. Leaving the keyboard for things like text entry, it (mostly) pulls out all the useful commands and puts my focus back where it belongs - on the picture.
My only criticisms have to do with Color's default settings for the JL Cooper (which is how the majority of users will interface with it). Important keyboard commands are missing, as well as the missing Master Gain/Gamma/Lift controls. Moving quickly between shots using the transport buttons is too unresponsive. When copying and pasting grades there are too few buttons chasing too many controls (which, if you ask me, should be placed on the F keys, using the shift button for Copy commands and unshifted for Paste). Keyframe management is clunky and should work better if placed elsewhere on the panel (M3, M4, M5 buttons?). Overall, I think the Color team really should to take another look at their control surface support for the JL Cooper and tidy things up a bit.
JL Cooper's custom software looks interesting, but is quirky. Over the next few weeks I'll see if I can get it up and running. It offers the promise not just of customizing it with Color, but getting it to communicate with Final Cut Pro as well... If I manage to get that working, definitely look for a companion article covering those experiences.
The hardware issue with the reset buttons activating randomly has been a hassle to deal with. I spoke to a colorist who also has the Eclipse CX, he's not having the same hardware problem - it looks to be a problem unique to mine... after contacting JL Cooper they have me sending it to them for warranty repair.
Overall the Eclipse CX control surface is a thrill to use. I don't know that Color feels like a completely different app with a control surface - I think there's some hyperbole in that statement. But the productivity gains are enormous. By pulling the Color interface out from a 2D display and out onto a real world controller a Color'ists eyes can focus where they should be - on the reference monitor. Accessing menu items, shifting between tabs, and changing multiple parameters simultaneously is now an exercise in muscle memory - my eyes are watching one thing while my hands are doing something else. That's a difficult feat when relying solely on a mouse.
Having been uninitiated to colorist control panels, at $7,000 I was reluctant to buy into the Eclipse. I service more modestly budgeted series, docs, and indy productions. Every dollar I spend needs to scream in usefulness. The EclipseCX screams. Knowing what I know now, I would have loosened up those purse strings. A control surface is a competitive advantage. Yet, at $7,000, it's a bit painful to shell out that cash. Perhaps for someone like me, a boutique owner, it's priced above my pain point. A panel priced in the sub-$4,500 range should easily fly off the shelves. At a larger facility where several offline/online rooms are feeding a Color'ing suite, it's a must-have.
Of course, there is one downside - with these massive productivity gains I'm going to need a bunch of new clients to fill my schedule. With a typical session going from 2-5 days down to 1-3 days... .
In the meantime, if you know someone looking for color correction work - my schedule has suddenly found some new holes in it...
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- pi
Patrick Inhofer is an editor, Color'ist, and nice guy. He has 18 years experience in post-production and broadcast graphics. He is also the guy in charge of Fini. You can praise him or flame him at articles@fini.tv.
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