How to Prepare Your Project for a Color Grading Session

The single biggest factor in how good your grade can look is the material we start from. A grade on camera-original RAW or log footage has enormous room to move. A grade on a compressed H.264 export has almost none: highlight and shadow detail that was discarded in the export cannot be recovered in the suite.

Our workstation plays most camera RAW formats in real time, up to 8K, so there's usually no need to make proxies or pre-compress anything. Bring the originals.

Deliver media on a fast external drive (SSD strongly preferred) with a clear folder structure, and keep a full copy of everything at home. We handle media carefully, but no facility should ever hold the only copy of your project.

If your edit used media from multiple cards or drives, consolidate everything the timeline references onto the session drive before arriving. Offline media discovered mid-session is the most common avoidable delay.

The fastest sessions are the ones where the direction is clear. Bring two or three references for the look you want: frames from films, commercials or photographs. "Like this" with a picture communicates in seconds what adjectives can't.

If different scenes need different treatments, note which references apply where. And if you don't have references, that's fine too. Describing the mood and the audience gives us a starting point, and we'll explore options together on the reference display.

Where the project will play determines how it should be finished. Broadcast, theatrical, web and social each have different specs, and HDR delivery (Dolby Vision, HDR10, HLG) is a different mastering process from SDR.

Confirm your delivery requirements with your distributor, network or platform before the session. If you need both HDR and SDR masters, we build the grade so both come from one session rather than grading twice.

For supervised sessions, you sit in the client seating with a full view of the reference display. We typically start with a look-setting conversation on two or three key shots, lock the direction with you, then work through the timeline. You approve as we go: what you sign off on the Flanders Scientific is what your audience receives.

For dry hire, arrive with your own project workflow ready. Tell us your setup in advance and we'll have the room calibrated and the workstation prepared to your requirements.