Fast color correction in premiere pro

Question

Hi, I'm having a problem using Fast color correction with two different clips which show the same picture and are of different colors. here are the frames:
This is the correct color; checking the white balance it's perfectly white when check with the front of the raft. Perhaps the saturation should be slightly modified but over all this is exactly what you see when arriving at Red Cavern (the name speaks for itself) on the Colorado.
Here is the same shot taken at the same hour by a friend of mine who gave me some of his footage; everything is either white, pink or grey even the yellow raft on the left has not its true pure yellow which it is in reality:
Although taken at 20 years interval, the shots were done most probably at the same hour. The only difference being a more important set of trees due essentially to the level of water higher on my trip in 1995 than 2 years ago on my friend's one. The beach on the right side of mine being under water or having formed later. Of course the second shot is done with a digital camcorder which did not exist 20 years earlier.
As one can see the reds are washed out  and do not correspond to reality. The footage is taken at the Red Cavern on the Colorado
The problem is to correct the second footage to get the same reds as both footage cross dissolve from one to the other and that I  wish of course to be nearer as possible of the true colors. I can't check the white balance using Fast color correction on the second footage because there is no pure white visible anywhere. The sand at the base of the cavern or on its right is not white in reality as it consists of deposits either of mud from the river or sandstone of the cavern and the redwall above. Which effect would enable me to correct the second footage to approach as much as possible to the same color of the first one. Most probably FCC is not the right effect to choose.
Thanks in advance for your suggestions.
Claude

Answer 1

I think that's about as nice as you can expect ... years apart, or even just hours apart with sun coming in a different angle on the same rocks (not even depending on any reflection changes!) can oft get massive shifts in "apparent" color. Which is ... real? Either, both, neither? It's actually one of the things that makes going back & shooting in the same place over & over interesting ... it's never EXACTLY the same ... or rarely so.
Ahh, now we're almost into a discussion someone will moan about needing to be continued over on the Sg forum ... tee-hee.
From your comment about transferring clips ... are you using an EDL process? When using "Direct Link" (the "direct to SpeedGrade" command) normally all the "stuff" from the PrPro project are included. There have been the odd instances where Sg doesn't "see" something, but ... I'm curious, I've not run into this for most anything I've done "direct". Either direct or EDL can work, but it does change your work-patterns a ton depending on which you choose.
SpeedGrade is an amazing tool ... and is designed to give a very good basic correction and then allow one to step off the deep-end into stylin' your shots. Especially with the large collection of "legacy" clips you've got from your friend, that seem to be of a similar "look", you can correct those for basics (WB, dynamic range, blacks & whites, hue shifts) using a Primary or two or three and then a Secondary for the hue-shifts. Then save that as a "Look" and anytime you run more of those clips, you can just in a couple clicks throw that Look over top of them and have all your previous work on that footage done bang. Slick as all get out, and I think you'll love that part of it.
Just a bit on my process that has come about since going so heavily into DL ... it used to be enough "work" to export an EDL, load things into Sg, then export out to re-import back into PrPro that like most I did pretty much to edit-lock & then to Sg. That is pretty much History ... it's so fast that when I start putting together a sequence for a new project I'll just throw a number of clips onto the timeline ... DL to Sg, do a Basic grade on them (especially if there's significant skin as I've got a GH3 and it naturally makes skin un-natural so I've a Look to recover skin-looking skin) and go back to PrPro. Now as I'm editing I've got a feel for how good a visual I'll get off that group of clips. Mostly finish my editing, with maybe an occasional minute or two over in Sg (quite literallly) doing something like making something a Master Clip so the other bits of that one get the same grade automatically). Before doing the final export out of PrPro I'll go to Sg and do the rest of the "style" work.
Then back in PrPro thow on my titles & such, pop in any fixed audio from Audition, & out it goes.
I do use some "adjustment layers" added to sequences in PrPro simply to use for additional grading layers to utilize in Sg over groups of clips or occasionally one if I'm doing enough I want to put it "up" on a different layer. Not always ... but sometimes.
Pretty slick for the most part.
Neil