Storyline Studios recently installed Baselight colour grading systems, along with
Baselight for NUKE plug-ins to provide workflow links between effects and finishing.
Storyline wanted to find a more efficient way of incorporating VFX into its colour
workflow. The solution lay with Baselight for NUKE, a software plug-in that provides
complete grading capabilities within the VFX environment. A complex grade and
associated colour space transforms published in the colour suite can be imported
into NUKE allowing the compositor to see precisely what the colourist sees. The
plug-in also gives the NUKE operator access to the Baselight user interface to tweak
the grade if necessary to make the effect more seamless, as well as providing
colour re-mapping and a final output.
Baselight provides a metadata-driven, renderless process. Grading decisions and
colour space transforms are maintained in the FilmLight BLG file format and applied
accurately at the moment of viewing. This allows BLG files to be shared with other
systems – like NUKE – where they can be updated and returned to the colourist for
final adjustments.
“When it comes to feature films it is easier to do the VFX work from day one, from
right after shooting,’ explained Torulf Henriksen Storyline’s CTO. “In the past we
had to decide when to do the grading – should we do VFX before or after? With the
BLG workflow that issue is resolved: compositors can work on VFX even after
grading, they can keep track of colours along the BLG journey and finesse the work
as the look of the film develops. That was the reason the VFX department selected
Baselight within NUKE.
Storyline also installed two Baselight ONE grading suites, one with a Blackboard
control surface and one with Slate.’
