Creating a Summer Blockbuster Film Look

Red Giant Tutorials from Creative COW

Stu Maschwitz
Red Giant Software

©2009 Stu Maschwitz and CreativeCOW.net. All rights reserved.

Article Focus:
In this action packed episode of Red Giant TV, Sin City's Visual Effects Supervisor - and the new Creative Director of Red Giant Software - Stu Maschwitz, shows you how to get the Summer Blockbuster look seen in Transformers 2, Terminator: Salvation, and The Taking of Pelham 123. Stu shares valuable techniques for enhancing your footage with Magic Bullet Looks and Colorista - the technologies he invented for his own use on feature films.

This is part of a Red Giant TV series here at CreativeCOW.net. Red Giant Software products are available as plug-ins for popular video editing and effects applications, including Adobe After Effects®, Adobe Photoshop®, Adobe Premiere Pro®, AVID®, Sony Vegas® and Apple Final Cut Pro®/Motion®.

Comments

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Re: Creating a Summer Blockbuster Film Look
by Riat Ramadani

Great stuff Stu! All these years I wanted to achieve these kind of looks and It seemed impossible but here comes the game changer.

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Thanks again Stu
by Justin Russo

Stu,

This tutorial helped me make my bland XL2s footage and made it very beautiful by today's film standards. I'm firing the guy who's done my color corrections in the past because I'm having better results on my own and he refuses to accept it can be this easy.

My short film project is set apart now from other indie filmmakers thanks to you.

Thanks,

Justin

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Thanks again guys!
by Stu Maschwitz

Max, the footage was shot with a 5D Mark II.

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eye opening
by Mike Cohen

Stu, thanks for the lesson and the useful links. While I generally stick to the fast color corrector in Premiere to fix slight white balance issues, I now see how you can adjust the whole look of the shot. It was also interesting to learn how costume selection fits in with color grading.
Mike Cohen

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Mojo
by John Fishback

Stu got me going seriously learning Color. Then just a week ago I discovered Mojo. I had a pro bono project I was working on that and I thought Mojo might be perfect. I was right. I tried it out and was blown away (and I purchased it). You get tremendous control and can create looks quickly and easily. Obviously, it's not as deep a program as Color, but for quality and speed, it's great.

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Hey Stu, please write Abraham if you are having account issues
by Ron Lindeboom

Our apologies if the mechanism is somehow causing you issues with your account. Please feel free to write our technical director, Abraham Chaffin (abraham AT creativecow DOT net) and he will work through any issues with you.

Thanks for popping by and for a great tutorial, Stu.

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Hey all, thanks for all the
by Stu Maschwitz

Hey all, thanks for all the kind comments! I'm really glad you liked the tutorial. By now you've probably seen the new Magic Bullet Mojo that takes some of the concepts here and bottles them into a plug-in -- if not, check it out here.

Matthew, is there one scene in particular from WATCHMEN that you wanted to try to match? That film has a number of different looks, but they are all variations on the ideas in the tutorial.

Thanks again guys, and sorry that I didn't comment here earlier -- I'm having some trouble updating my Creative Cow account.

-Stu

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Thanks Ron! Oh, and I forgot
by Stu Maschwitz

Thanks Ron! Oh, and I forgot to paste the Mojo link into my last comment:

http://prolost.com/blog/2009/9/9/magic-bullet-mojo.html

-Stu

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Compelling.
by Nathaiel Sticco

Excellent tutorial. A nice combination of theory and application. Also you gave some great tips that might not be obvious even to those with some color correction experience (expanding the teal pallet, de-saturating everything but skin tone, over brightening and then reducing contrast).

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The best tutorial yet...
by Justin Russo

I honestly think this is the best tutorial I've seen for anything film related. With just this one tutorial alone, I can see how my Canon XL2 footage can be manipulated to look like a blockbuster film.

Unbelievable. I've already applied some of the color corrections and they look flippin' sweet.

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Thanx
by Analía Orfila

Thank you so much for this, you made my day.

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This is a great tutorial and very well taught.
by Matthew Serna

I liked the diffrent movie looks but I was wondering how to get that Watchmen movie look. Its such a good look and I just wanted to know how to get that effect.
please reply back, Stu. Thnx.

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So Kuler
by Optimator

This is so kuler man, so cool!
Thanks a lot for this tut.

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Creative Cow - Better'n Ever!
by Lance Drake

Creative Cow - in concert with the RedGiantTV folks - are doing a wonderful service for and helping to to grow the capabilities of the community of digital artists.

The colorist tutorial I just watched with Stu Maschwitz was an incredibly valuable experience for me - I will be buying several Red Giant products as a result - and, of course, I love recommending CREATIVECOW to all my techno-friends as a rich source of information and inspiration.

Like I said - it just keeps getting better - thanks so much!

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Great tutorial, what camera was used?
by Max Heidenfelder

Hi Stu,
great tutorial! Made me wanne go out right now, shoot some footage to try it out!

What camera did you use to shoot your sample footage?

Max

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Outstanding!, Incredible!, Amazing!
by Luis Cosme

Super incredible!
I'm definitely going to watch this one a few times.
You are my new Idol! :)

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Superb!
by steve martin

Can't wait to try some of this stuff out looking forward to more tuts, thanks.

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Awesome!
by Anders Hattne

This is what gold is made of!

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Just watched it again...
by Josh Paulson

I was gonna ask you to do more of these, then I saw you have a book out on the market and decided I needed to get my hands on that until you come back to the Cow. Thanks a ton for that tutorial! It made me look at coloring from a much more educated and conscious perspective. You get 5 moo cows from me.

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Superb. Completely fascinating and even for
by Ra-ey Saleh

Superb. Completely fascinating and even for those of us who have read your book, still enligthens you.
Kudos!
Ra-ey

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Must See
by John Fishback

This is a must see tutorial that de-mystifies the process of creating a look for your film regardless of the tools you use. Thanks very much.

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Great!
by Peter Mervis

I love this tutorial. Thanks, Stu! You took a very simple concept that tends to mystify a lot of us on occasion and took us through step by step. I thought making us "endure" your keyframing and slight color adjustments was a good thing. Also, pulling out your hue and saturation tip for expanding the range of your teal pallet was nice.
Come back and do another sometime.

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