Look Matching

While using Silverstack together with Livegrade on set to manage clip data and looks hand in hand, you surely want to combine the created information afterwards.

Silverstack offers a solution to avoid assigning looks to clips manually. You can connect them based on the metadata you already created while generating them.

The looks/shots can be transmitted

Get Looks via ShotHub

You can retrieve shots from Pomfort ShotHub that have been created and uploaded with Livegrade to match them to clips in Silverstack.

NOTE: If you are not using the same Pomfort account in Livegrade and Silverstack, you need an invitation of the admin to the Shothub project containing the grading information that you want to access for look matching.

The steps to match looks from Livegrade to Clips in Silverstack via ShotHub are:

  1. Upload shots from Livegrade to ShotHub (more information please see the article Connecting Livegrade to ShotHub)
  2. Log in to ShotHub in Silverstack with your Pomfort Account credentials (more information please see the article Connecting Silverstack to ShotHub)
  3. Click the “Match Looks…” button in the color panel toolbar or select “Match Pomfort Looks” from the Import menu in the main toolbar.
  4. Click “Fetch Looks from Cloud” and select the bin with shots to be fetched:

5. Match by desired criteria and apply looks (and metadata)

 

Get Looks via File

It is possible to automatically match a package of looks created with Livegrade Pro to the according clips in Silverstack.  A Look Archive (.pfla) containing several different looks can be exported from Livegrade Pro.

This Look Archive can be imported into Silverstack to then match the looks to the according clips based on different metadata.

The steps to match looks from Livegrade to Clips in Silverstack via a Pomfort Look Archive File are:

  1. Export a Look Archive from Livegrade Pro
  2. Import the Look Archive into Silverstack
  3. Match by desired criteria and apply looks (and metadata)

 

1. Export a Look Archive from Livegrade Pro

A Look Archive can contain one or multiple looks along with all the further metadata acquired in Livegrade Pro.

To export a Look Archive put all the desired looks into one folder in the Livegrade Look Library. Perform a right click on that folder and choose “Export Look Archive” from the context menu:

 

Figure 1: Exporting a Look Archive from LiveGrade Pro

Exporting a Look Archive from LiveGrade Pro

Save the resulting .pfla (Pomfort Look Archive) file to the desired destination.

2. Import a Look Archive into Silverstack

Make sure you ingested all the clips that will get a look into one bin in Silverstack. Learn about offloading media from the article Parallel Offloading.

Figure 2: Bin with clips that should receive matching looks

Bin with clips that should receive matching looks

Make sure to have the according bin selected prior to starting the import.

To import a Look Archive into Silverstack go to the Main Menu. Choose “File > Import > Match Pomfort Look Archive (pfla)”:

Figure 3: Importing a Look Archive for Matching

Importing a Look Archive for Matching

3. The Look Matching Wizard

After that a wizard window will open. Select “Choose Look Archive…”.

 

Navigate to the .pfla file you saved from LiveGrade Pro, select it and click “Open”.

4. Match by Desired Criteria and Apply Looks

From this step on the process is identical whether the looks come from a file or via the cloud.

You can choose between different matching criteria:

Set the look matching criteria

 

• Match by Timecode

This criterion will match the looks by timecode. The look will match to a clip if its TC In is before or within the range of the TC of the clip. Additionally the looks will be applied to all clips that follow until the next look with a subsequent TC In. If a new look has a TC In that is inside of the TC range of a clip (so the look before ends within the clip) the matching wizard will suggest two looks but preselects the latter by default.

 

• Match by Creation Time of Look

This criterion will match the looks by their creation time. The look will match to a clip if its creation date is before the time range of the clip. It will match to all following clips until a new creation date of a look is found that is placed inside the time range of a clip. Additionally you can shift the timezone if the camera setup was wrong at the time of recording:

Adapt the timezone offset if needed

• Match by Episode, Scene, Shot, Take

This criterion will match the looks by the episode, scene, shot and take metadata values. The look will match to a clip if the metadata for episode, scene, shot or take is equal.

• Match by Clip Name

This criterion matches the looks by Clip Name. The Clip Name of the look has to be equal to the Clip Name in Silverstack or you can select to only match by the first characters of the Clip Name.

Match only the first 8 characters of the clip names

 

 

• Match by Clip Identifier (with Clip Name) 

This criterion matches the looks by Clip Identifier. The Clip Identifier of the look has to be equal to the Clip Name in Silverstack or you can select to only match by the first characters of the Clip Name.

 

Additionally to the three different matching criteria, for each of them you can:

• Match with Camera

Additionally to the selection of your criterion among the three criteria you can choose if the looks should be matched to the clips by the camera metadata value.

Example:

If you have Camera A and B and match looks by timecode the looks may apply to both of the cameras if they have the same TC. If you then enable the checkbox “Match with camera” the camera value will be considered on top of the TC and will then match the correct looks to the camera specific clips.

Taking Over Metadata from Looks to Matched Clips

The PFLA (Pomfort Look Archive) enables you to take over metadata from the Livegrade Pro looks (from the Shot Library) to the matched clips in Silverstack

In the lower section, the option to take over metadata from Looks to matched clips is enabled by default via its checkbox. If checked, the “Continue” button will lead you to the next wizard page, where you have several options for importing of the metadata. Also, you can preview the metadata import.

  • Insert / Update Behavior: Insert if empty only fills metadata in Silverstack if it is not set and prevents metadata to be overwritten. Overwrite forces the metadata from the Look in the PFLA to be written in the according Silverstack metadata field.
  • Import Content: You can deselect certain metadata categories that you do not want to be imported. The tooltip of the label shows the concrete metadata fields that are included within each category.
    • Slate Info: Camera, Season, Episode, Scene, Shot, Take, Reel Name, Int/Ext, Day/Night
    • User/QC Info: Flag, Rating, Comment, Caption, Distance to Object, Custom 1-6
    • Exposure Info: ASA, Whitepoint, Tint, ND Filter
    • Lens Info: Lens Model, Focal Length, T-Stop, Focus Distance, Filter
    • Production: Shooting Day, Crew Unit, Location

 

To learn how to simply transfer looks from LiveGrade to Silverstack please refer to this article Transferring Looks from LiveGrade Pro to Silverstack.

 

Matched Look Details in Header Tab

More details about the matched look can be found in the header tab of the right bar: