The colour bible, and you balance

One still per scene, in story order, on one sheet, so you see the film's colour at a glance before you touch it.

Build the colour bible [proven]: the middle frame of each scene's longest shot (or the shot you choose), in story order, on one contact sheet, with one plain line under each still: "Scene 3 about 400 K warmer than scene 2; blacks lifted."

Every scene is on the one sheet, numbered in story order (steps below).

Then you balance the flagged shots [proven], per clip, in Premiere's Lumetri Color under the look's adjustment layer. Shot matching is a declared grade on that clip. Measure the balanced export again, and quote the outliers before and after in your gate report (the written record of every check; see The quality bar → The gate report).

Do it yourself

Build the contact sheet (DaVinci Resolve, Photoshop, ffmpeg)

1. Use Resolve's Gallery in Lightbox view, Photoshop's File › Automate › Contact Sheet II, or ffmpeg's tile filter on the exported stills, numbered in story order:

ffmpeg -i bible_%02d.png -vf "scale=480:-2,tile=4x3" -frames:v 1 bible.png

1. A 4 × 3 sheet holds twelve scenes. For more, raise the second number, so every scene is on the one sheet.

2. Add the line under each still in Photoshop.

Sources

• Tom Poole (Televisual) (a colour bible from a loose first pass, strung in sequence).

• Toby Tomkins (LBB) (scenes may contrast but stay in one world).