Balancing the soundtrack or white balancing isn’t going to get you anywhere, as the sensor response is far more complex than a simple RGB curves adjustment will allow you to correct.
I didn’t say that it does, just that all professional scanning machines do a calibration prior to scanning, meaning once you’ve calibrated one reel all reels using the same film can be corrected with a common LUT.
So, adjusting colors watching a projected print may seem like a good idea, but in many ways the way our eyes and brains sense and interpret colors is quite similar to how a scanner sensor works. You might adjust the colors to roughly match what you personally are seeing, but someone else may sense and interpret these colors differently.
I would believe that those that do professional colour correction would have taken perception tests, as well as a robust colorblindness test to ensure they don’t have even a hint of mild colour deficiency. Although I do think you’re overstating the problem, especially since colorblindness is hereditary on the sex chromosome and consequently affects only 1 in 200 women. Other than that, yes of course we all have individual perception of colour, but that’s because we will have a unique number of photoreceptor cells in a unique ratio of S, M, L type cones and rods, and the photoreceptor cells can have different biological characteristics in each person making them sensitive to slightly different types of light. Bad diet can adversely affect photoreceptor cells. But if you have 20/20 vision and no signs of colour deficiency it shouldn’t matter.
Now, the scanner detects the light after it has passed through the dyes and film. This light has a specific distribution of wave lengths, depending on the combination of dyes and film, and thus determine it’s color. While it is true, that a different film stock will alter the colors, this should not affect the color calibration, which is simply mapping the colors detected by the sensor after passing through the dyes and film onto a reference file, which was also calibrated based on a combination of dye and film.
I disagree, and I’m sure poita knows far more about this than I do as a layperson. The issue is that colours are not on the film, the colours are produced by shining a carbon-arc lamp through the film and then projecting it onto a particular type of screen. Represented by this easy to remember formula:
colours = print + light source + reflection surface
When you scan a film it has a different light source, a different sensor and no reflection surface, what you’re trying to achieve is how to make (argument’s sake):
print + LED light + Colour CCD sensor + calibrated monitor + LUT = print + carbon-arc lamp + cinema screen
What your argument is is that the print doesn’t matter because:
LED light + Colour CCD sensor + calibrated monitor + LUT = carbon-arc lamp + cinema screen
But how do you know that’s true?