AI overview
Artificial intelligence (AI) is reshaping the role of the colourist in the film and television industry, bringing new possibilities and efficiencies to the post-production process.
Traditionally, colourists have been responsible for ensuring visual consistency, enhancing the mood and perfecting the aesthetic of a production through meticulous colour grading. With AI's increasing role, many of these tasks are being streamlined through automated processes.
AI-powered tools can analyse footage, recognise patterns and apply consistent colour adjustments across entire scenes or projects, saving time and allowing for quicker iterations during post-production. This efficiency does not necessarily replace the colourist but enhances their workflow, allowing them to focus more on the creative aspects of their role.
Beyond automation, AI is pushing the boundaries of creativity in colour grading. Advanced algorithms can suggest innovative colour palettes or simulate complex lighting conditions, providing colourists with new artistic options. AI can also perform tasks such as upscaling footage (both in resolution and in bit depth), matching shots with different lighting conditions, or even replicating the visual style of a particular film or director.
However, this technological shift requires colourists to adapt to new software and integrate AI tools into their workflows. While AI offers powerful enhancements, the colourist’s expertise remains crucial in guiding these tools to achieve the desired artistic vision.
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How can I prepare for the future?
To prepare for the future, colourists could consider how they might stay ahead of advancements in digital tools, AI and automation within the grading process.
An awareness of real-time rendering, cloud based workflows and virtual production colour pipelines are important to remain competitive and efficient in a fast-evolving industry.
Custom local AI tools trained on colourists' own datasets and ‘looks’ can also be created giving a colourist a unique capability. Investing time in learning new tools and techniques will allow you to enhance both your technical and creative capabilities.
Thought should also be given as to how AI can help a colourist working with other members of the production team. This could be particularly helpful where a quick response is needed to help visualise someone else's vision, or create similar styles and workflows from reference material given to a colourist by a director.
What AI tools can I use right now?
New workflows, such as virtual production, can require a greater level of creative decision making prior to shooting, unlike traditional green screen approaches where the majority of the work is completed in post.
Auto matching tools can allow you to quickly iterate and create, ‘show look’ LUTs - facilitating non-destructive on set workflows.
There are now a number of colour grading AI tools designed to help you achieve your creative goals. From automatic LUT generation, automatic grade matching, skin tone recovery, fast visual consistency and many other capabilities.
It also allows you to take inspiration from unusual places or looks and quickly iterate your own looks and creative ideas, giving you time and space to focus on critical creative decisions rather than simply following process.
AI tools can also be used for automatic data logging and labelling of existing films and work you have completed before. This enables you to quickly create a ‘toolbox’ of grade matches and reference data for future creative decision making.
New generative AI-based plugins are also starting to appear for video content, with significant benefits over traditional approaches in noise removal, banding and clipping reduction and many others.
Self-hosted AI models offer some new features, in comparison to simply uploading your work to the cloud and using ChatGPT.
Colourists are now able to create their own AIs, hosting them locally on their own computers instead of using cloud services. This can enable a colourist to work confidentially, or even developing their own unique AIs that have learnt from them directly acting as an assistant in their own unique style.
Meta (Ollama), Mistral AI and quite a few other models will allows this, although it does take a bit of training and learning to be able to set it up. It is even possible to use your own past work as a training data set.
AI-assisted colour grading: AI tools that help automate colour balancing and grading, suggesting adjustments based on scene content.
Real-time rendering: Technology that enables colourists to see immediate results of their grading decisions without waiting for long render times.
Cloud-based collaboration: Allows colourists to work remotely, sharing projects in real-time with directors, editors, and VFX teams.
HDR, 8K and 4K workflows: The growing demand for higher resolution and dynamic range requires specialised workflows and knowledge.
Virtual production integration: Colourists now collaborate with virtual production teams to ensure the correct grading of digitally created environments and characters.
Digital on set infrastructure: New systems such as SMPTE ST2110 are changing the way we distribute video data on set.
ScreenSkills offers a variety of training opportunities for people at all stages of their career. Explore all training, events and opportunities.
- ScreenSkills job profiles: colourist
- ScreenSkills job profiles: colourist post-production
Other resources:
- DaVinci Resolve and Baselight provide tutorials on their AI features
- Platforms like Unreal Engine offer free courses on real-time rendering workflows
- Software providers like Frame.io and Adobe provide tutorials on cloud-based collaboration
- SMPTE has courses on HDR, 8K and 4K workflows and digital on set infrastructure
- Unreal Engine and industry events like BSC Expo provide training on virtual production integration