POST-PRODUCTION
Entry-level HDR Remember, your hardware needs to be an Apple iMac Pro, iMac or Mac Book Pro, an HDR monitor, and an output hardware device to process the digital colour signal. Most importantly, your footage needs to have been recorded in Raw or Log. Creating an HDR library In Final Cut Pro X, the default Library is set to a Standard Dynamic Range (SDR), so let’s create a new HDR Library. 1 Go to File > New > Library. Call it ‘HDR’ and then save. 2 With the new Library selected, choose File > Library Properties, or click on the button to reveal the Inspector. 3 Press the ‘Modify’ button and select ‘Wide Gamut HDR’. 4 Your library is now set to use the right colour processing for HDR content. Now do the same for the Project. Creating an HDR project 5 Select the Event in the library, right click and choose New Project. By default, the new project is primed to create a Rec 709 SDR result. To make this HDR: 6 Select the ‘Colour Space Mode Pop-up List’ to see your options. Two HDR output options Wide Gamut HDR – Rec. 2020 PQ is arguably the most dynamic. This is the option to choose when you’re delivering a Dolby Vision HDR10 master; an output format optimised to work well in the controlled lighting environment of cinema. Wide Gamut HDR – Rec. 2020 HLG is best when you want your HDR content to play on both old SDR and new HDR televisions. This works well in the less controlled lighting environments where broadcast content is normally viewed, ie. at home. Although the colour space setting only affects the final stage of the workflow, it’s best to make this decision at the start. Changing it will affect your camera Look Up Tables (LUTs), effects and colour corrections. It’s also better to grade to the HDR standard required and then make your deliverables from that master.
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Beware the NITs! An important consideration is your HDR monitor and its NITs. A NIT is the value of brightness of a single candle over a square metre. Older televisions display a maximum of 100 NITs brightness, and good HDR televisions display 1000+ NITs brightness. Apple displays max-out at 500 NITs, making them unsuitable for grading an HDR project. The HLG standard displays up to 1000 NITs, and the PQ standard up to 10,000 NITs. This despite the fact that the only monitors capable of displaying 10,000 NITs brightness are still in the research and development stage, although they do exist! Tone mapping How does a 1000-NIT display manage to play a 10,000-NIT master then? The answer is quite smart. When you screen a master on an HDR monitor incapable of displaying that absolute brightness, the picture is tone- mapped to the colour and light limitations of the display.
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“Older televisions display a maximumof 100 NITs brightness, and good HDR televisions display 1000+”
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WINTER 2018 PRO MOVIEMAKER
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