Color Management Principles for LED Panels in On-Set Virtual Production

The goal of color management is simple: a displayed image should look the same wherever it is viewed: on-set, on production monitors, in visual effects (VFX) on an artist's desktop monitor, in the Digital Intermediate (DI) suite on a reference monitor, on a cinema's screen, and so on. If the image is displayed correctly and consistently, color management maintains the filmmaker's creative intent. If a filmmaker approves an image color from a display that is not calibrated to a known standard, there is a potential that the colors seen on that display cannot be communicated correctly to image consumers downstream. Correcting these image color errors may be challenging, time-consuming, and expensive. These errors may accumulate, with the image colors deviating further from those originally established as the image proceeds through the uncalibrated workflow. Color management is not a novel concept in creative industries. Numerous tools and best practices have been developed for decades, with modern technologies requiring new techniques and workflows to maintain creative intent. Virtual Production (VP) techniques are some of the latest additions to a filmmaker's toolbox, surfacing new questions and needing new recommendations to maximize effectiveness. This paper from SMPTE Rapid Industry Solutions (RIS) provides introductory material to support future efforts that focus on specific color workflow applications using LED panels for On-Set Virtual Production (OSVP), such as performing color calibration for in-camera visual effects (ICVFX) and image-based lighting. This paper covers color engineering principles that are well-known in traditional color work-flows but expands upon their new roles within OSVP color workflows and their challenges.