Scopes!

Ok, film's not dead yet, but it's getting pretty damn close—at least for the Indie filmmaker. So where does that leave those of us who have to shoot digital?

First off, film has some great things about it—not only the quality, but also the consistency. Whenever we go see a film, we get what the filmmaker wants us to see. But with people making movies on everything from high-end digital cameras to cell phones, the range of what we see, whether it's YouTube or your local Indie production, is up for grabs.

Most of it looks like hell, at least if you're trying to make something that looks like a movie. That's where scopes come into play. Scopes are key to making sure your images look the way you want them to— wherever they are seen—Web, TV, film festival. You're never going to have complete control, but making sure your pictures are scoped out is a big step in the right direction.

Most people think, "Scope? Yeah, I looked in the back of a news truck once—no way!" And yes, most hardware scopes are at least a few thousand bucks. Definitely more than I want to spend. But now there are a variety of software scopes, and they'll make a huge difference in the quality of your productions.

I use Test Gear 2 by Synthetic Aperture. $100 bucks. It's a plug-in for After Effects and gives you a decent picture of what's going on. I'm also partial to Colorista, another AE plug-in that comes with the Magic Bullet suite.
With those tools and a little tweaking, I brought this:

—a scene I shot with no lights under trees—run and gun with an old TRV-900;
—to this—
which is much closer to what I was thinking about before I shot...
And it's legal (consistent wherever it's shown). I know because the scopes are showing me what's going on.

Scopes = friend.
Use 'em.