I'm shooting my first internet video tomorrow. It has a spaceship chasing and shooting at a superhero in it. With knowledge accumulated between ~a year ago and now and more focused research over the past week, my idea of post-production workflow for a VFX video in the style of FreddieW or Corridor Digital YouTube channels is something like this (prerequisite: I am talking about color correction as getting all shots into a uniform look color-wise, and color grading as getting the feeling you want from the color):
- Edit raw shots into a sequence, and lock them there.
- Do music, sound and VFX. Go through each shot in the video and add VFX elements, matching them to the shot's lighting, exposure, color, shadows, ...
- Go through each composited shot and color correct and grade it.
- Replace shots in locked edit with composited and color corrected and graded shots.
I have now these questions:
- Is this workflow "correct"? Are there many "correct"'s (is it mutable)?
- You're supposed to shoot in as low contrast and saturation as you can (this is called flat?) to make color correction easier, like you have a blank, unbiased canvas to "pull" the colors out of, right?
- This is the real core of my question: how can you match VFX elements to flat footage when there's no amplified color detail to work with? Can I color correct before VFX, and leave color grading where it is?