Why Monitor Calibration Matters in TV and Film Editing & Grading

In the world of TV and film production, your monitor isn’t just a screen—it’s your window into the final product. Whether you’re editing a fast-paced action sequence or grading the atmospheric shadows of a drama, the colours, contrast, and luminance you see dictate the decisions you make. That’s why monitor calibration isn’t optional—it's essential.

What is Monitor Calibration?

Calibration is the process of adjusting your monitor so that it conforms to a known and consistent standard—like Rec. 709 for HD broadcast or DCI-P3 for digital cinema. This includes tweaking brightness, gamma, white point, black levels, and colour primaries. The goal? To ensure the colours you see are accurate and reproducible, no matter where your project ends up being shown.

Imagine working on a scene lit with warm, golden-hour sunlight. If your monitor skews cool and you don’t calibrate, you might “correct” that warmth away—flattening the mood and ruining the intent. Calibration ensures that the image you're crafting reflects what the audience will see.

Matching vs Calibration: What’s the Difference?

These two terms often get used interchangeably, but they serve different purposes:

• Calibration is the measuring and adjustment of a display, to make it match a reference standard. It is required for consistency at different locations.

• Matching is applied to displays after calibration to make them as similar as possible to the eye even though the technology, design and age may be different.

  
  

You might have a reference display that’s perfectly calibrated, but if your client monitor or assistant editor’s screen isn’t matched to it, you could end up in an endless game of "Why does it look different on my screen?"

In a professional production or post-production environment, you need both:

• Calibration ensures each monitor individually meets a known standard.

• Matching ensures consistency across your setup—whether it's two side-by-side displays on set or multiple workstations in a facility.

  
  

Why It’s So Crucial in On-Set and Post-Production

1. Colour Consistency Across Devices The purpose of a color-managed workflow is to enable non-destructive image consistency from on-set to editing, VFX and color grading so that each person can see and discuss media with confidence even when viewing remotely. Calibration and color management also makes it possible to view the same content on a television, cinema projector or even HDR display to compare content for different markets

   
   

2. Client Trust Clients generally want to see content as it should be seen. Explaining that there is no need to worry, it will look alright in the end is a quick way to lose trust and cause doubt. Calibrated images show professionalism and breed confidence. Problems, changes and ideas can be discussed and addressed all the way through production and post without any unpleasant surprises along the way

   
   

3. Creative Integrity Imagine mastering to a display that is not calibrated. That means that the only way to see the content correctly is on that one monitor. Nobody else will ever see it the way you intended. That would be like displaying the Mona Lisa behind yellow glass!

   
   

4. Pipeline Efficiency in collaborative environments, having matched and calibrated monitors means creatives can discuss very specific changes remotely and with confidence.

   
   

How to Do It Right

Proper calibration often requires:

• A colorimeter and spectrophotometer

• Professional software like CalMAN or LightSpace

• Understanding of your output specs (Rec. 709, Rec. 2020, DCI-P3, etc.)

• Regular recalibration (roughly 6 months depending on the age of monitor, its working environment and panel technology)

  
  

Some methods also use LUTs (Look-Up Tables) to match displays after calibration, especially if they’re working with different monitor brands or technologies (like OLED vs LCD).

Mission’s Calibration Services

Our colour department offers full monitor calibration, both calibrating internal LUT’s and white point alignment, for productions or individuals.

Using the most advanced probes and equipment, Mission ensures that all your monitors match, to ensure the colour pipeline is kept throughout all screens, including on set and editorial. We have plenty of experience in calibrating and testing HDR monitors

Mission is also proud to be a certified calibration partner with both Flanders Scientific and Sony.

Email production@missiondigital.co.uk for more information or a quote for our calibration services.