POST- PRODUCTION | ACES
ACES is a not-for- profit, built upon the knowlege of colourists, colour scientists and other industry pros
notoriously lax when it comes to updating their software, and reasonably so. As Soriano states: “You don’t want to be the first person to find a bug when you’re working with David Cameron on a mega- production that’s paying thousands and thousands of pounds per minute.” It’s also important to point out that ACES is a not-for-profit, built upon the knowledge of colourists, colour scientists and other industry professionals who are committed to its development, all by working on it in their downtime. “There are people from Disney and Netflix, but they’re not there to represent the studios; they’re there to represent themselves. It’s a great community, but since it’s individuals and not companies working on ACES, its development is slow,” says Soriano. There’s still a lot of work to be done. This is felt particularly in the delivery of ACES, because the Output Device Transforms (ODTs) aren’t perfect. “There’s no one way of transforming creative intent between two different display technologies, because it’s dependent on perception,” says Soriano. “And it’s for this reason that the future of colour needs to be democratic and kept separate from manufacturers and marketing. It needs to be run by initiatives like ACES, where the creativity and decisions are left up to the creators.”
cinematographers will attest that they like the look of Arri, so why not just use the Arri colour space from the start? Soriano clarifies that, “with a good colourist, any manufacturer’s look can be created within ACES – and by using it, you allow yourself the freedom to get creative with your tools. For example, if you’re doing a flashback sequence and want to achieve a softer look, you can choose a different camera package for that sequence with a sensor texture allowing you to achieve that”. He adds: “Or, maybe it’s not a creative choice, but a limitation. Maybe you’re filming a scene in a country that only has access to Red cameras, when previously you used Arri, because that can often happen. With an agreed standard, mixing cameras for one project is much easier.” A COLOURFUL FUTURE With all cameras converted into an ACES colour space, the DIT onset can take the material through a Colour Decision List
(CDL). This determines simple parameters, such as lift, gamma, gain and saturation, and it’s necessary for adjusting the balance between camera A and camera B, since two sensors are rarely ever the same. The process is known as a live grade. That CDL then goes to editorial, but this is where issues start to arise. Soriano explains: “Editorial is often forgotten about, despite it being where so much of the storytelling happens. Many editors are still using outdated versions of Avid, which lacks the power to apply live grades on playback. So, the CDL information has to be ‘burned’ into the picture, and when you do that, there’s no way of isolating the elements. “The goal is to have colour grades constantly evolving during the shoot and the edit, rather than having them burned in for Avid dailies. This ensures the DOP sees the latest grade during the edit, leaving only the secondary shapes for the final grading pass.” It’s this adoption by manufactures – or lack of – that contributes to ACES’ development. Manufacturers are
LEARNING YOUR ACES If you want to know more about ACES and be kept up to date with how its developing, head over to acescentral.com, where you can see upcoming meetings and get involved. It’s a growing community, dedicated to expanding on people’s knowledge of the system, and its members are always available to help with any questions.
ABOVE The ACES AP0 colour space encompasses all the colours humans can see
22 DEF I N I T ION | MARCH 202 1
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