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If you’re scanning the negative and not printing it, there’s no need to have a predetermined and consistent printer light. One of the things that will be important is that the settings on the scanner are carefully defined to maintain accuracy in digitally reproducing the negative.
The closest equivalent in digital color grading to printer lights is the use of the “offset” wheel, which adjust the offset of the individual RGB channels in a linear fashion in log gamma. This method, coupled with the enabling of “Printer Light Hotkeys” (in Davinci Resolve)—which allows for more precise adjustment of the offset wheel—adjusts the balance of the image in a simple but precise fashion. I would say that, although not printer lights in the photochemical sense, the offset wheel is still often used by colorists to this day.
When you expose for the camera (if it’s an Alexa, a Sony, Red, or Film), you have to “choose” an area for which you would like to expose for—just because the log encoded image has detail in the highlights or above middle grey, doesn’t mean any of those areas of exposure will be “selected” to be the primary area for which the image was exposed for—when not in log, the brighter exposure of the sky will be “brighter” and less “detailed” than it may appear in log gamma.
In the case of this, the human face, and how people on the ground are exposed are dictating how the exposure is set—after that, the sky will land where it may, depending on that exposure, and depending on how the tonal curve of a LUT may affect the image. If the sky was the more important area of exposure, the people would appear darker, and the sky would show more “detail.” I’m not sure of any of this makes sense, but that’s what I would say to this.
That really is a shame. I didn’t really consider the logistics of working on projects where there is little direct communication with a DP in relation to post-production.
It’s unfortunate because, for both the cinematographer and the director, the relationship with the colorist is incredibly important—the final “look” of the film depends greatly on how it is interpreted in the color grading stage. It’s a major and, dare I say, definitive part of the work of a cinematographer; and to know that kind of creative control can be “held away,” in that way, really is a shame.
I’m currently a college student, hoping to be writer and director (and to do my own cinematography and color grading), with very few projects under my belt, and everything I do permits that kind of control—due to working at a very low level. It makes me fear working on bigger projects: losing a certain level of creative control.
I think that beginning a grade by making sure all exposure values match the camera manufacturer’s 18% middle gray specs is completely unnecessary—there’s no sense in doing that, in my view. A cinematographer will have made deliberate exposure choices on set; such as choosing to overexpose, or underexpose everything (or certain scenes).
There may even be some mistakes, or exposures that a cinematographer would want to fix in the DI: these should be discussed on that basis, with the colorist and the cinematographer. If adjusting the exposure in the DI is done correctly—by adjusting gain in linear gamma (as it does in RAW); it will match what can be adjusted with T-Stop; this is what it would alter—how that then effects the technical and aesthetic decisions, is something that should be considered, I think. If exposure is adjusted using gain in LOG (or on a Rec.709 transform) or in the Offset, it will affect the image in a different way.
At the end of the day, the exposure should be adjusted in accordance to the taste of the cinematographer and the colorist, based on the context of the shot, and the overall film (or piece). I am no where near as experienced as you or everyone else here, but that’s what I would say about this!
