By Randi Altman

In the summer of 1969, the same summer as Woodstock, a six-day concert series took place in Mount Morris Park in Harlem. The story of this festival has finally been told thanks to the film Summer of Soul, which won an Oscar in the Best Documentary Feature category.

Gladys Knight & the Pips

The Harlem Cultural Festival was a celebration of Black music and culture, and it featured iconic musicians such as Sly and the Family Stone, B.B. King, Aretha Franklin, Nina Simone and Stevie Wonder, who rocked the hell out of a drum set.

While the entire event was filmed, the footage sat in a basement for 50 years, essentially ensuring that the Harlem Cultural Festival would only be remembered by those in attendance. In fact, first-time director Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson subtitled the film, “Or, When the Revolution Couldn’t be Televised,” a nod to the classic Gil Scott-Heron song.

Summer of Soul features performances and crowds from the festival interspersed with newly shot interviews with musicians, promoters and some who attended. Summer of Soul premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, where it won both the Grand Jury Prize and the Audience Award.

To help give that long-ago-shot footage a new life, the filmmakers called on New York City-based colorist Yohance Brown to color the film for Outpost Digital, working with director Questlove to get the right look and feel. We spoke to Brown, who works on all types of projects but specializes in documentaries, about the challenges of working with older footage and the importance of sharing this particular part of history.

Yohance Brown

Brown, who is a freelancer and worked on Summer of Soul from his home studio, started just after the files were digitized. “I  began on the color as soon as I was booked by Outpost Digital. I had about three solid weeks to work on the film, starting with promotional materials.”

Let’s find out more from Brown…

How did getting involved when you did help your process?
By starting with the promos, the team and I were able to set looks on interviews and test how far we could push the old footage with color. It was at this time that we were able to see the limitations of the digitized files and establish the look of the film.

What were you told in terms of look? What were the references?
I was directed to have nice, strong saturation throughout, to keep the colors bold but realistic and to mirror the energy of the crowds with color.

Abbey Lincoln

Working with aged footage is tricky because the footage tends to have limited dynamic range. The focus of the color correction on documentaries like Summer of Soul is more about balancing the color across multiple scenes and maintaining the integrity of the image.

How would you describe the look of the documentary?
It has a warm tone through much of the film. There is a vibrancy to this documentary that comes from the rich colors and slightly raised black levels. The video also has its own texture, similar to film but different. It has that ‘70s feel, with all the charm and nostalgia of that time period.

You were working with a lot of old footage, and earlier you mentioned the limited dynamic range. What other challenges were there?
Aged footage tends to fall apart and block up pretty quickly in color correction, so it’s important to use restraint when correcting this footage. I try to only use the primary color tools in Resolve when working on projects like this. Imperfections in the footage can show up very quickly when using secondary color tools, like keyers, so I try to avoid using those tools if possible.

Did you have to do any restoration on the footage?
Surprisingly no, I didn’t have to do any restoration work. The media was expertly digitized by a number of people, including Maurice Schechter of Schechter Engineering. I had pristine video to work from and was able to concentrate on the color.

You were also dealing with newly shot interviews. Did those have a separate look? What were those shot with?
I believe the interviews were shot on the Alexa Mini. We wanted the film to flow between the festival footage and interviews without it being disruptive. We went for natural, beautiful skin tones and balanced contrast — the trick was to add a very small amount of film grain. This helps bridge the gap between the newly shot interviews and the festival footage.

Can you walk us through your process? How did you begin? 
First, I watched the entire film without interruption. Just took it in. I took note of shots or scenes that stood out as needing special attention and organized them in order of importance. Then I went through the film, addressing these notes in the order of their importance until I had a first pass of color done on the entire film.

The 5th Dimension

Can you give an example of one of these notes you took down?
A good example of this is around 26 minutes into the film, when The 5th Dimension is performing “Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In.” There was a significant color shift when you cut between cameras in that section. This was a very important performance in the film, so I prioritized it and spent a bit of time to make sure it flowed seamlessly.

You use Resolve. Are there any favorite tools in that system that you find yourself calling on a lot? Anything in particular for this film?
One of my favorite tools to use in Resolve is the “Hue V Hue” curves tool. You can use it to change a specific color or range of colors. While I don’t usually use that tool on aged footage, I did find myself using it quite a bit on this film.

Any parts more challenging than the others?  
I remember dealing with some particularly tough chromatic aberrations in the Sly and the Family Stone performance. One of the cameras was misbehaving, causing a red and green haze around Sly’s outline. I used the “Hue V Sat” curves tool to pull back the saturation of the aberrations. I then used Power Windows to confine these corrections to the portion of the screen where Sly was most affected.

Sly Stone

You worked on this from home? Can you talk about the tools you used and how you and Questlove communicated?
Yes, I worked from home. I used a combination of Frame.io and Streambox for color review and feedback. When I do live Streambox sessions, I usually use Zoom or a telephone call to communicate.

Was your process more difficult while working from home?
It was not difficult at all. The team sent me a Pegasus RAID with the fully conformed media. I used Streambox for the live sessions so everyone involved could see my work in real time and give feedback. It was also helpful that both the monitor at the office and my monitor at home (Sony BVM-X300) were calibrated by the same person. We had complete confidence that we were seeing accurate colors.

Working from home has evolved significantly between the time I did Summer of Soul and today. These days I remote into the computer of whichever facility I’m working with and stream the video from that location to my X300 at home. This eliminates the need to have a drive sent to me and improves security.

Gladys Knight & the Pips

What were some notes you got back from Questlove about the look as you were working?
I found him to be very measured. This was his directorial debut, but he didn’t nitpick with unnecessary color notes as less seasoned filmmakers tend to do. He was very focused on keeping the film as natural and authentic in look as possible. He was concerned about things that he thought might pull the viewer away from the experience, like unnatural skin tones or oversaturated colors.

You specialize in docs. What do you like about working on these types of projects? What unique challenges come with them versus a narrative film?
I do specialize in documentaries, and I enjoy them primarily because of the purpose of the form, I guess. They’re usually about interesting or important people or events, and I find I always learn something new when I work on a documentary. With that said, they do present some real challenges, like dealing with wildly different media sources or having to start color with chunks of the material missing because archival material has not come in yet.

Mavis Staples and Mahalia Jackson

There are also some benefits you get with documentaries that you don’t get with narratives. For example, interviews can be graded before the edit is locked. This is helpful because many times the cinematographer’s schedule and the color correction schedule are just not in sync; having the ability to meet and collaborate when the cinematographer is free is invaluable.

Stevie Wonder. Marilyn McCoo and Billy Davis Jr. Mavis Staples. So much history. What was it like working on those scenes?
The music and fashion took me back to my early childhood, for sure! My dad was a bell-bottomed pants and afro-wearing man of the ‘70s and an audiophile if ever I met one. I remember rummaging through his vinyl collection and seeing album covers with people like Stevie Wonder and Gladys Knight. These real iconic covers, you know? Working on the Nina Simone performance reminded me of the times my dad would put on her records, and I would just feel her sorrow bleeding through the music even though I wasn’t old enough to understand. It is really special to connect with a project in this way.

Main Image: B.B. King

Randi Altman is the founder and editor-in-chief of postPerspective. She has been covering production and post production for  25 years.