How a colorist grades a film by pretending it's still 1990: printer points before windows and keys

Yvan Lucas, who worked on the color grade for Killers of the Flower Moon, describes a workflow in American Cinematographer that is essentially an act of deliberate self-constraint. He spent years as a timer in Paris at Éclair, where cinematographers chose film stock and the timer contributed through printer lights. When he moved into color grading, with its lift, gamma, gain and far more, he kept working the way he had as a timer.

The method: build custom LUTs that function much like custom film stocks, then begin by using only printer points inside Baselight, because that retains the qualities of a film finish. His stated reason is that printer points do not affect contrast or add windows or keys. All of that can be done later. He prefers to do a great deal of the work upfront in the LUTs.

Lucas says Rodrigo Prieto likes to work the same way, and that the two think similarly about color for films — which is why Prieto has wanted to work with him over the years. The interesting bit isn't nostalgia. It's that a digital grading suite contains every tool needed to make a shot look synthetic, and the discipline is in choosing the smaller set first.