Many of our clients request “raw” footage that we have captured so that it can be used in a variety of different ways. Most often, clients wish to use that raw footage to create their own social media videos or reels. While it may seem straightforward for those that are adept at using simple tools to create social media content, there are a couple of roadblocks to be aware of when planning to use raw footage.
Why does it look so bad?
Raw footage tends to look “bad” to untrained editors at first glance. Desaturated, soft, and low-contrast is how raw footage looks when it comes straight out of the camera. This is because most of our raw footage is shot in a professional format called LOG that is meant to be “color graded” in the editing suite.
Color grading means applying various tools to the footage to make it look beautiful and cinematic. Often, we start with a “LUT” (look-up table) to translate the LOG footage into something that looks “correct.”
But most non-professional editors don’t know where to begin with color grading. Here are some tips.
How to grade the footage
The best free video editor with grading capabilities is Da Vinci Resolve. Even though it’s free, this is one of the most powerful color grading apps on the market. However, the learning curve is steep. We recommend searching for YouTube video tutorials on the subject if you’re planning on doing your own grading.
For those that own the Adobe suite, Premiere Pro has the color grading tools you need within the Lumetri panel. Again, YouTube is the best resource for learning this process.
Why is the footage not graded as part of your workflow? Don’t you need to grade it all?
Since color grading can be a time-consuming process, no, we do not grade all of the raw footage by default. With any editing workflow, much of the raw footage gets left on the cutting room floor, so it would be a waste of resources and budget to grade every single clip if many of those aren’t being used in a final deliverable. So we only grade clips that are going to be used in a project, meaning most of the raw footage never gets graded unless we come back to it at a later date.
I’m not doing that. Can you do it for me?
Yes, we can. We can create a basic grade for your raw footage and export the files for you in a format that’s ready for further editing as part of your social media workflow. However, it does take time and labor and expertise and subscriptions and other resources to get this done, so we do charge our standard hourly rates to prepare raw footage into graded footage. Feel free to reach out to us if you need a price quote for this service that is not typically included in most project budgets unless specifically requested in advance.