Creating Looks - The Art and Technique of Digital Color Correction - page 428

When Pep realizes that some posterizing was starting to happen in
his correction, he stops to refine the qualification of the HSL key, saying,
“I always want to push the limit and then come back, because I want to
know what my range is. I reference it to a golf club. You swing a nine
iron. You swing it as hard as you can. You know how far you're going to
hit it. And then, when the target is closer, you soften it up a bit. You don't
swing as hard until you get the right distance.”
Chris Pepperman
Chris Pepperman joined NFL Films in 1993. In addition to working on NFL Films television
series and specials, Pepperman's list of credits include national TV spots, Survivor: Africa
for CBS, and numerous other documentary and film projects.
Pepperman's partial client list includes: NASCAR, HBO, Harley Davidson, Sprint,
Walmart, Comcast, Pepsi, and the US Army.
Before joining NFL Films, Pepperman worked as a colorist for Manhattan Transfer in
New York. He has since joined NASCAR as senior colorist.
“What I've done here is just create a contrasty image, and I just desat-
urated the red a little bit, and I'm really pushing the blacks and I'm giving
it a very contrasty look ( Figure 10.53 ) 'cause this is for an open and they
tend to be glossy. I might add some blur to it. I might add some grain. I
might add sharpness to it. Make it sizzle a little bit. So it gives it a very
gritty 8-mm-type look. I see grain structure. I see maybe film scratches.
I also like to do desaturated looks where you desaturate everything and
then just feather back in a little bit of color. That might work very well
here too. Keep everything black and white, then just add a little of the red
and black back in” ( Figure 10.55 ) .