Overview

Unlike Transitions that go between clips, Filters are applied to single clips, or parts of clips. FCP offers a great variety of excellent effects, including Color Correction, which is a new collection of filters available in Final Cut Pro 3. We ll look at the other filters in the next lesson, but this lesson is primarily for image control, color, and luminance and how you can manipulate them. Because keying uses many of the same controls as the Color Correction filters, we ll also look at that here as well.

Good exposure and color begins in the shooting. It s actually easier and always better to do it right to start rather than trying to fix it in post. That means lighting the scene well, correctly exposing it, setting your white balance correctly and not leaving the camera s auto white balance to guess , recording camera color bars, and finally shooting a chip chart that shows a full gradation of pure white to pure black without any color cast (Figure 10.1).

Figure 10.1: EIA Chip Chart

In Hollywood there is a job called colorist, one that is part art and part science. It requires great skill, talent, training, and experience to do well. Whole books have been written on color theory, and books could be written on the art of the colorist and on color correction. Because I am not nor do I aspire to be a colorist, you will be getting only a rudimentary look at the...