By technical editor Matt Allard:
The annual ICA (International Colorist Academy) survey has been published and it gives a detailed view of trends in the world of professional colour grading. More than 400 colourists from 60 different countries took part in the survey.
World renowned colorist and Davinci Resolve trainer Warren Eagles has posted a video giving his thoughts about the results of the survey. I’ve put a brief synopsis of questions and responses below Warren’s video.
Q. What camera/cameras were used on the job you were grading?
Conclusions: The Arri Alexa was number 1, followed by the Red Epic which was last year’s poll topper. Other cameras that made up good percentages were Canon DSLR’s, the Canon C300 and the GoPro Hero.
What Film or TV genre are you grading?
Conclusions: There has been shifts in the types of project that are being graded. While TV commercials came in at number 1, documentaries and online web productions overtook corporates.
What grading system are you using?
Conclusions: Unsurprisingly the majority of colourists used the full version on Davinci Resolve came in at number one, with Davinci Resolve light at number two. Then there was a huge gap between these two and the next system which was Baselight.
What Codec are you rendering to?
Conclusions: ProRes 422HQ was number one with ProRes 4444 coming in a close second, the followed by DPX.
What frame size are you outputting to?
Conclusions: Despite the push to 4K, HD still completely dominated. 4K came in at only 14%.
What editing system was used to cut the show you are grading?
Conclusions: Adobe Premiere just edged out Final Cut Pro 7, with Avid not far behind in third. It is quite interesting to see Final Cut 7 still being so widely used. Final Cut X lagged behind but moved up to 17%. It was 3% last year.
What type of files are you grading?
Conclusions: RAW files were number one. Files recorded in a form of Log were number two, and original camera codecs and camera originals transcoded to ProRes, DNxHD or DPX were tied for third.
It is interesting to see the results from this survey. With new cameras being added all the time the type of material being graded is shifting. Despite this the edit systems, codecs in use and the colour grading suites seem to be remaining unchanged.
