In-camera grading in action: An interview with DIT and colorist Justin Paul Warren 

If you’ve been following our three-part series where we explored the concept, practicalities, benefits, and challenges of in-camera grading, you’re in for a treat! We’re excited to add a real-world perspective to our theoretical exploration of the topic: In this interview, DIT and colorist Justin Paul Warren shares his experience on a recent production where he strategically chose in-camera grading to meet the project’s demands. Although he’d only tried this approach once before, his cross-departmental experience helped him recognize its potential to streamline workflows and simplify his many responsibilities. Ready to learn from Justin’s firsthand experiences? Let’s dive in! 

Justin’s journey to becoming a DIT took a few twists and turns, as he reflects: „My path to DIT was an unusual one.“ Starting out on set as a Best Boy Electric and gaffer, he also wrote, directed, and produced his own short films. His career then took an unexpected turn when his self-taught VFX skills caught the attention of Robert Rodriguez’s Troublemaker Studios, leading him to work as a VFX artist. This detour into post-production offered invaluable lessons, as Justin notes: „I received a tremendous education in digital filmmaking, digital artistry, and node-based workflows“. However, despite the opportunities, something was missing: „Working in a cubicle wasn’t my cup of tea, and I needed to get back on set“.

Lucky for Justin, the advent of the original RED One camera created exciting new on-set opportunities: „The need for on set data management and DITs was absolutely exploding and looked like something I would love.“ His previous career paths and experiences naturally drew him to color correction, finally allowing him to combine his different passions: „It used a little bit of everything I had learned and loved. So, I dove in head first and started DITing on small indie movies and, eventually, commercials and music videos. I was even an original beta tester for Livegrade!“ Fast forward to today, Justin works on a wide range of projects in and around Atlanta. The film we’re discussing in this interview was a smaller-tier production with limited resources, requiring him to juggle multiple roles at once. 

Wearing multiple hats: Justin’s responsibilities

Justin’s combined experience in post-production and on-set work has sharpened his awareness of the importance of streamlined, integrated workflows. For this particular film, his role extended beyond the typical DIT duties, as he explains: “This was a smaller tier movie without a post facility at the time of shooting, so a lot of responsibility fell on my shoulders. I had to create the dailies on set, in addition to all my usual DIT responsibilities of live grading and exposure control. This meant the data management also needed to be handled by me since I needed constant access to the material.“  With so much on his plate, efficiency and foresight became key: „I needed to do all this as quickly as possible, so I needed the fastest workflow I could think of. I am also the one who will be doing the final color for the movie, so I wanted to create a workflow I could jump back into again later after the edit is ready.“ That’s where in-camera grading came in. 

Why in-camera grading? 

Once Justin learned they’d be shooting on ARRI Alexa 35s, the choice to use in-camera grading was obvious to him: „It was clearly the best choice for the task at hand. The in-camera grading on Alexa 35 is a very streamlined and time-saving process.“ A previous experience also influenced his decision: „I had done in-camera grading on only one project a week prior, a one-day single-camera commercial, but the quick and automated transition into post was an eye-opening experience for me.“ Encouraged by that success, he applied the same workflow to this larger project, which involved three Alexa 35 bodies across a two-camera team.

The in-camera grading on Alexa 35 is a very streamlined and time-saving process.  

The approach proved beneficial for Justin because of a key  characteristic of in-camera grading that we quickly want to recap from Part 1: In contrast to traditional live grading via LUT boxes, in-camera grading lets you load a look file directly into the camera and apply it to its signal. When accessing and changing this look file with Livegrade, your adjustments will get saved as separate metadata alongside the original camera footage. Without the need for manual look-matching, the look automatically travels alongside each copy of the log-encoded OCF and becomes quickly accessible for further processing during dailies creation or in post-production.

This possibility made a significant difference for Justin: „Being able to import the footage directly into Silverstack and it already looks exactly like it did when I was grading it in Livegrade was a huge sigh of relief for me.“ He would then export high-res stills directly from there to share with the crew. For dailies creation, he opted for a workflow in DaVinci Resolve 19: „I worked in Resolve because I knew that I’d likely be doing the final color for this project, and if any additional tweaks were made afterward, I would need to use ColorTrace on my daily timelines after onlining the edit. In some cases, this did happen, so I’m glad I did this.“ For his workflow with Resolve, opting for in-camera grading was a clever move, especially since they were working with multiple LUTs: „I traditionally work a pretty standard CDL + Show LUT workflow, with a single LUT that either I or a final colorist creates. However, this movie features five distinct time periods across a 50-year stretch of time, and my DP German Valle (a brilliant artist who is also a great friend of mine) and I decided early on in our talks that it would be really fun to use multiple base LUTs.“ 

[In-camera grading] greatly speeds up the post process and can guarantee nothing gets lost in translation or missed by human error or communication. 

As they were changing LUTs frequently, opting for in-camera grading made it easier (and faster) because not only the CDL corrections but also the specific Show LUTs were already aligned with each clip, as Justin points out: „By the time prep was finished, I had created eight LUTs. This was another great reason to use in-camera grading—that’s a lot of base LUTs to keep up with while also making CDL adjustments for every take, amid everything else, too! In the end, the in-camera grading saved me literally hours in Resolve each day, so I didn’t have to manually relink CDLs and try to recall which base LUT I used at the time.“

Inside Justin’s toolkit: The setup behind the workflow

For his in-camera grading workflow, Justin combined Livegrade with the following setup: „My setup employs an M2 Mac Studio on an Inovativ Echo 36, with the Small HD 4K OLED 22’s as my grading/reference monitors. I used four BitBoxes to connect via CAP grading to the cameras (one on each camera and one at my cart). For capturing stills, I used my UltraStudio devices and sent the stills straight to a Dropbox folder that the relevant people on set could get instant access to, like the script supervisor and production designer, and the studio. I also linked a BoxIO to each slot (just to prepare for something going wrong with the wireless connection and still needing to grade without connection). Fortunately, that didn’t happen! Ian Edwards and Damon Meledones have really created something wonderful with their BitBoxes. I could be in a different house, the house next door through brick walls, and I’d still have my connection. That’s impressive.“

I foresee in-camera grading becoming the standard.

While the usefulness of in-camera grading depends on the specific project and its requirements, Justin’s experience was so positive that he predicts a bright future for this workflow: „I foresee in-camera grading becoming the standard. It greatly speeds up the post process and can guarantee nothing gets lost in translation or missed by human error or communication.“

A big thank you to Justin for sharing his insights! If you want to dive deeper into in-camera grading with Livegrade and the Alexa 35 workflow, be sure to check out our three-part content series.