Taming the Blue Hour: Color Matching with a New Monitor

Posted by Elena Rodriguez in Color Grading & Finishing 3 views · 1 replies

I recently handled post-production for a short documentary where we shot almost entirely on an ALEXA 35, capturing incredible dynamic range during blue hour. My goal was a moody, slightly desaturated look, but the first pass back from the colorist felt off, too magenta, especially in the shadows. What worked was getting the colorist to calibrate his EIZO ColorEdge CG319X using our on-set stills, which I’d taken with a calibrated Sekonic C-800. What didn’t work? Simply giving vague notes like 'less magenta.' The specific numbers from our reference stills, combined with a fresh calibration, immediately put us on the same page. We used a LUT for initial correction, then fine-tuned specific ranges in DaVinci Resolve, focusing on the mid-tones and shadows to pull out the magenta cast and push a subtle cool blue back in. This small investment in on-set data saved us days of back-and-forth later. I'm curious, for those working on tighter turnarounds, how do you ensure color accuracy translates across different grading suites without on-set calibration?

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