Before & after color grading comparison of flat scanned 35mm on the Outpost DVD

The British independent low-budget (£200,000 according to wikipedia) feature Outpost directed by Steve Barker achieved something pretty extraordinary– it rose above the endless flood of made-for-straight-to-DVD movies that belong to what I call the “post-Alien subgenre” (a group of soldiers/technicians who don’t like each other are stuck somewhere isolated/dark/claustrophobic, waiting it out for a specified amount of time until rescue/safety, while being killed off one by one by a mysterious & obscured creature/entity)… by being bought up by Sony and given a limited theatrical release in the UK.

Ok cool story, brodawg. Yeah so on the DVD there are deleted scenes that appear to be from an assemblage edit of the flat transfer film scan footage. Which means you can directly compare that to the look of the color graded final feature, if you’re into that kinda thing. It was shot on (Fuji) 35mm, so the flat transfer holds 13-14 stops of dynamic range (good prosumer video cameras and DSLR/DSLRish cameras hold 7-10 usable stops). The color grade’s bleach bypass/ENRish look is kinda par for the course considering the genre, but it’s definitely well crafted. And if you wear an eye patch, have a parrot on your shoulder, and use the word “booty” in a non-hiphop way, you can even rip the deleted scenes and try mimicking the final result… which would be pretty useful for anyone who’s learning to color grade. BUT THAT WOULD BE ILLEGALZ.

Here be the Outpost DVD on Amazon.