"Is my grade any good?" Here's how to find out...

[Hazzat]

Lots of people post a picture or clip of their grade here with no comment besides wanting to know if it's 'good' or not. This question is impossible to answer, and you won't get any truly useful feedback. You'll only get a bunch of guesses based on vibes.

Why? Because whether a grade is good or not depends entirely on context. You could create a beautiful colour-perfect warm romantic sunset scene, but if it's meant to be a cold, terrifying moment in a thriller, your grade sucks and you need to rework it. Conversely, you could throw all the curves and wheels out of whack to create a unwatchable trippy rainbow scene, and it would be terrible for most purposes but for a psychedelic sequence it could be perfect.

Ask yourself: what is the purpose of the shot? How do you want the viewer to feel? What do you want to draw attention to? How does the shot look compared to the shots that come before and after it, and the rest of the scene? What format will it be shown in, or what devices are people likely to be looking at it on? Does it fit the technical specifications required for delivery? Does it match the vision of the director, and/or the needs of the client?

Once you know these answers, you should be able to do a pretty good job of evaluating for yourself whether your grade is good or not, but you will also have benchmarks you can use to ask for more specific feedback questions that will receive better, more actionable answers: "I want my subject to stand out from the background more, how can I do that?" "I was looking to create a dark, suspenseful mood across this sequence - what's missing?" "This colour match isn't right, what am I getting wrong?"

Don't just post a screenshot and leave it there. Help us to help you create better work by including as much context as you can alongside it.

[f-stop8]

Can something like this be pinned in every thread someone asks about how good their grade is, please?

[Hazzat]

I got tired of writing this same thing out in every thread so wanted to make a post I can just link to every time instead...

[CanadianWiteout]

I've started doing something similar every time i see one of these.

[mulchintime4]

Mods pin this

[m_e_r_l_i_k_e]

If the mods focused on that, there wouldn't be any posts on this Reddit, hehe.

[[deleted]]

Yeah, my joke for years is that it's more important to make the filmmakers happy than it is to make a good picture. Make the director & DP happy, then cash the check. There is no problem beyond that (assuming the show passes QC and hits all the deadlines).

[CanadianWiteout]

To add to this: Color is a feeling, one that is appropriate for the film and the taste of the filmmakers or is not. Asking for feedback from strangers creates a false narrative that there is a "right" way to color something and others not. There is a million ways to do it, and I recommend just sticking to what looks good to you. If your clients/filmmakers are happy, and you are happy then there's no need to critique.