The SDR-First Workflow Trap

Why starting in SDR shortchanges your HDR

Picture this:

Your DP and director walk into the grading suite for their first HDR review. Instead of excitement, you see confusion. The shadows feel “off,” highlights seem “aggressive,” and the contrast ratio jars their vision. They’re not reacting to HDR-they’re detoxing from SDR.

This is the inevitable result of an SDR-first workflow. As colorist Matt Wallach (Don’t Look Up, 2021) admits:

“I’ve never had a project where filmmakers walk in, look at HDR, and say ‘This looks exactly how it’s supposed to look.’ It’s always disarming… They’ve been looking at Rec.709 for months.”

“Everything I’ve worked on that’s shot on film… we [do] our theatrical grade first. I feel it’s kind of important to work that way… there’s a logic to it in your brain. 

There’s a real disconnect… if you’re monitoring your Rec.709… then you show up into the grade and the first thing you see is HDR… I’ve never had a project in HDR… where filmmakers walk in and they look at it and they go, ‘This looks exactly how it’s supposed to look, this is great [1].’ 

…it’s always a little jarring to the filmmakers, because they’ve just never seen it this way before… when you’re finishing in Rec.709 or in P3 and you are looking at it in the way that these filmmakers have been used to looking at it for… six months to a year – that way you’re able to get everything locked in and feeling correct and then you can move on to HDR [2] and you do a trim pass and you can be that voice of reassurance and say, ‘Hey, this is what this looked like. We kind of have to forget about that now. This is a translation of it to this format and we’re optimizing it this way [3].’ 

And whenever I worked on something in that method,  it’s much more warmly received by directors, DPs, editors… whoever is involved in the finish.  Everyone tends to be more of a fan of it than when they’re just showing up and being shown HDR first [4] and going ‘What happened here?’”  

1.  Client disconnect

• Reason it doesn’t work optimally: failure to establish HDR intent from the start. Lighting decisions made for SDR ratios cripple HDR’s potential. But that disconnect vanishes when HDR drives creative decisions from day one.

2.  “Hero Grade” is theatrical SDR

• Reason it doesn’t work optimally: Locking the creative intent for SDR first means the HDR version is starting from a compromised position. SDR lighting ratios are inherently conservative. 

3.  The jarring first HDR viewing 

• Reason it doesn’t work optimally: Late-stage appraisal reveals unforeseen problems, forcing reactive fixes. The “reassurance” Wallach provides translating SDR to HDR is often necessitated by problems created by the SDR workflow.

4.  SDR-first leads to better reception of HDR trim 

• Reason it doesn’t work optimally: Warm reception of the trim pass masks underlying creative & technical compromise and underutilization of HDR. Risks delivering technically compliant but artistically compromised HDR. SDR-first workflows don’t “preserve tradition” – they preserve constraints. 

The verdict

Matt Wallach doesn’t grade HDR—he performs triage. His clients arrive in shock, unprepared for the ‘jarring’ reality of their work in high dynamic range. This isn’t workflow. It’s institutionalized malpractice.

Why This Matters:

Creative Bankruptcy: When HDR is a trim pass (Wallach’s workflow), it becomes a technical conversion, not artistic intent.

But there’s a better way: Erik Messerschmidt, ASC (Mindhunter, Fargo) shattered the SDR-first cycle: 

• “For Season 2, we finished in Dolby Vision HDR from day one. We monitored in HDR on set using Dolby PQ gamma and Rec.2020. Why? Because HDR directly affects lighting ratios and exposure.

• On Season 1 [graded SDR-first], we stretched highlights to fill HDR’s space-resulting in odd-looking night interiors. 

• My lighting choices were handcuffed by SDR monitoring. With HDR monitoring? I used more of the sensor’s dynamic range. Less fill light, more ‘expose to the right’- all while keeping shadows intact. If you finish in HDR, monitoring HDR on set is non-negotiable.”