Let’s crush all the shadows, push the highlights into clip and over saturate all the colors, the film director said. Let’s really make this thing sing.

No, let’s keep it real, the agency creative countered. There’s a lot of color and contrast going on already. It’s supposed to be breakfast for kids, not every drug addict’s favorite morning fix.

How about we split the difference? I offered, and see where we land. I guess you could call it compromise, but I prefer the term “creative arbitration.” So I made three quick different color set-ups for the guys to consider: Straight Out Of The Can, Pushed Just A Tad, and Really Singing.

Everyone’s perception of color drifts over time, especially when they’re sitting in a dark room, staring at a studio monitor for hour after hour. Before you’re aware of it, what once was aqua now appears to be teal; blue begins to seep into the blacks; the grays are somehow greenish-gray. Of course, this may be what you want if the client has given you artistic license to create a look. But not if your brief is simply to reproduce what was envisioned on set and what the DP shot. And if you ask me, neutral is where you should start anyway, even if the brief is actually something avant-garde.

This is why the wise old engineers of the past gave us Vectorscopes and Waveforms. They’re incredibly useful tools if you know how to read the strange squiggly lines they produce. In fact, you simply cannot color grade video without consulting them. Unless, that is, you’re an arrogant color suite hotshot who thinks he knows everything because he’s sprawled in the Top Gun swivel chair plowing his way through ski footage. After all, who needs scopes when it’s mostly just plain white that anyone with a good eye can see for themselves?