Low-Budget Color Grading: Are You Really Saving money?
How much do you really save by choosing a low-budget color correction/color grading service, and what are the possible risks?
Usually, clients who choose a low-budget service fall into one of two categories:
1- They don’t have a large enough budget to allow them to entrust the project to a professional colorist.
2- Budget isn’t a problem, but they don’t believe in the added value that professional color correction can bring to their project. They prefer to entrust their project to anyone who’s got “/Colorist” in their LinkedIn or Instagram bio and who doesn’t charge much. The important thing for these clients is to save money.
What are the risks?
I’m going to be honest with you here: it’s an extremely long list.
Here are a few examples:
1. Lack of preparation and experience
Most of the time, choosing a low-budget colorist means entrusting your project to someone whose training consists of free YouTube tutorials, or a 2-3 day color correction course.
On that note, I recommend that you read the following articles:
YouTube color grading tutorials: are they reliable?
Color correction courses: are they really useful? How do I avoid scams?
2. Non-professional equipment
A professional colorist invests thousands and thousands of dollars in their computer, a calibrated monitor, control surfaces, calibration sensors and software, backup/archiving systems, etc.
When you choose a low-budget option, you can expect old computers, cheap and uncalibrated monitors, hacked software and so on.
In short, you can just imagine all the problems that working like that creates.
3. Lack of security and professionalism
Professional colorists work using a solid and well-structured workflow system.
I myself have created my own personal workflow system to ensure that I provide all my clients with security and the highest quality results.
In this workflow system, I take great care of the client’s project, from managing the incoming files all the way through to archiving the final result.
I put a very high value on good results and client satisfaction.
Unfortunately, I can’t say the same of the low-budget sector of the industry.
I’ve seen kids working with the same $50 hard disk that the client gave them, or working with RAID 0 with no back-up copy, and so on.
To give you a real-world example, I was recently contacted by a producer asking for a quote.
In the end, the producer decided to entrust the project to a colorist who charged a lot less.
Guess what? A few days later, the same producer contacted me again because the kid had made a mess of the project.
4 . Approach to color
A professional colorist works with obsessive attention to detail on every single clip in the timeline, using all the knowledge that they possess to analyse and resolve every problem.
When you choose a low-budget colorist, don’t expect them to do anything more than apply a LUT to the whole timeline.
Are you really saving any money?
I really don’t think so. Actually, to speak plainly, you’re slowly killing your business with your own two hands.
Why do I say this?
Does the following soud familiar: “I just can’t attract big clients!”?
The truth is that all brands have a maniacal obsession with bringing out every detail of their products.
They have to sell their product to as many people as possible and to do so they need to present it in the best possible way. It's simple business.
Imagine a Ferrari commercial where the classic Ferrari red has become a faded red, almost orange....
No brand would ever entrust a project to a company that neglects the aesthetics of its product.
It doesn't make sense to spend thousands of dollars to shoot with high level cameras if the color correction phase will be skipped or, even worse, entrusted to an improvised colorist.
Professional color correction raises the quality of your product and positions your company in a higher segment of the market, with larger, higher-paying customers.
I’d like invite you to reflect on the following question:
Are you really saving money, or are you simply publishing low-quality material that will just alienate those bigger, higher-paying clients that you want so much?
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