To facilitate the transfer of colour intent from the production to the post-production world, many productions do on-set grading. This means that simple colour grading is done at the same time as production. Here is a simplified sequence of events explaining the process:
- Production is shooting content on film or digital.
- Film is processed.
- Film is scanned.
- DPX files are copied to FireWire® drive for production.
- Colourist on set uses third party application to grade DPX.
- CDL data is created (as EDL comment or XML files).
- Post facility receives CDL and starts dailies grading/preview or DI based on CDL (on-set) intention.
- Offline editorial receives dailies for editorial.
- EDL are generated for conform.
- Colour grading process starts.