Graphics Reference
In-Depth Information
you work in extremes unless you're being told a very specific thing. But if
it's up to you to kind of come up with a look, then making extreme, radi-
cal changes is sometimes helpful. It may not be helpful to the people sitting
behind you, but it helps you kind of see where an image can go. How much
it can handle. If you really do make those extreme changes up front, I quite
often see things that I didn't think of. Like maybe this image looks really
good pink and I never considered that. Or maybe hi-con (high contrast) or
way more crushed than you would have ever thought would look good.
Well, I think it's always a process of working wider and then
narrowing.
- Craig Leffel, Optimus
“You say, 'Holy moley, that looks great. I didn't really mean to do that.
I was just kind of rolling through my ranges but that looks really good. I
think I'll work towards that.' Because quite often that first impression of
an image, no matter who you are, no matter how experienced you are,
no matter how much background you have, the first time somebody says,
'Do something really cool with that.' That first impression that you have
may not be the one you really want to go with. And you kind of have to
be willing to let yourself find where you might want to go. And obviously
it's a collaborative effort with the people behind you, but quite often, if
I'm by myself, I don't like to trust my first instinct. I like to kind of chal-
lenge myself and see if there's something I didn't think of. I call it 'going
through my ranges.' You know, really pushing it around: light and dark,
pushing it all the way around the vectorscope.
“If I have a huge time crunch, I don't do it and if I've got someone
behind me saying something very specific, I won't typically do it, but I
will push for a little bit of time with the film by myself where I do run
through those ranges. Especially if it's kind of open ended, like 'Do some-
thing cool with this.'
“So that's my trick,” concludes Leffel. “Push it around hard at the very
beginning and then narrow down and narrow down and narrow down.”
Enough Is Enough
They say that great art is all about knowing when to stop, so I ask Leffel when
he knows to stop. “Certainly in my line of work, knowing when to stop . . .
there's a point of diminishing returns. I think I'm usually done when I don't
see anything objectionable in the picture any more. If everything has lived
up to what I was trying to do and I don't see any objections, then I'm usually
feeling pretty good about being done. The truth is, you could keep working
forever and you'd never be done. You'd just keep going and going and going.”
Search WWH ::
Custom Search