Category: Learning
Is one of the reasons you subscribe to this feed (and if you don’t, 
here’s the link to do so) because you want to learn about the art of Color’ing? If yes, then I have a great treat for you today!
Go: here
Stu Maschwitz of the ProLost blog (being the least of his credits) has a great posting on colorists’ herculean efforts to maintain skin tones while pushing radical grades.
As always, a great posting – he even provides some homework material. ProLost is a must in your RSS Feed.
Enjoy!
Have a great weekend.
- pi
Whatever your business, I believe there’s huge upside to specialization. Not only does it allow you to become really good at something – it increases your value and helps you differentiate from your competition.
But don’t take my word for it…
One of the students in the last Color Correction Workshop I helped teach emailed me the other day. Here’s the last line in his email:
Btw, I did a CC job last week on a tv spot…the skill has allowed me to charge an extra $15 per hour.
Yay!
Woo Hoo! Go Harold!
Yes I’m training my competition. As did the editors who trained me 18 years ago… I do this in honor of them.
- pi
Hate Mail!
I finally got one, sent from the Contact form on this website. The sender was complaining about finding “another editor claiming to be a colorist” and mentioned something about the real-time nature of his color-correction hardware and how he charges “$1000 per hour” (sniff, sniff).
On the one hand, I love the fact that I got hate mail from a “professional colorist”. It means the software is starting to make the hardware-based folks nervous enough to start Googling us. And that means our tools are getting powerful. Though not quite there yet – as evidenced by his ‘real-time’ comment and another comment he made that Apple Color’s “secondary tools are crappy”. Gee, I guess he cracked open a copy to check it out (though I’d counter than Color’s secondary tools are far less crappy than FCP’s non-existant secondaries – we’re moving in the right direction).
On the other hand, I’m annoyed by My First Hate Mail. Where did My First Hater get the idea I claim to be a Colorist? Certainly this website makes it clear, my finishing skills are broader than just color correction – but color correction is my specialty. I have grown tremendously in that skill set over the past 7 years. I read everything I can get my hands on and then I do it… over and over and over and over and over again.
Yes, I enjoy color correcting 1200 shots in a few days. Tweaking contrast, balancing tones. Yes, there isn’t a single show I’ve worked on that 6 months later I don’t look at and say, “I could do that better today.” But heck, if there’s *any* professional working today who thinks all their work is perfect and they have nothing new to learn – they’re on a professional decline or delusional or both. They’ve definitely stopped growing.
Color correction – and Final Touch (now Color) – rejuvenated my enthusiasm for my career. I originally renamed and refocused my company to specialize in Finishing and Color Correction for very pragmatic reasons (easier to differentiate myself from every other FCP owner working in his mother’s basement). 18 months later I discover I love this focus far more than I thought possible. It blends my dormant Director of Photography gene with my Editor gene and gives balance and indulgence to each.
In the end, the writer of My First Hate Mail and myself have this in common: We both make pictures look better. And, ultimately, who decides if our pictures indeed look better and our services worth paying our asking rates? Our clients.
I’ll let My First Hater claim the mantel of “Colorist”. I’m on the road to Craftsmanship. I’ll continue to grow, learn, and occasionally teach. I’ll keep trying to base my business on my Skills. I just hope My First Hater does the same or he’ll get Moore’s Law’ed out of the business. When today’s iMac can handle 1080p, how much longer before it can run his DaVinci? In Real-Time? Something to think about…
- pi
Saturday, November 3, NYC – Color Correction Masterclass
I’m teaching a color correction class in a few weeks. If you’re interested I suggest you sign up now – it’s a small class size (20 enrollees, max).
I kind’a hate the name of this class, since I don’t consider myself a Master – just someone who has taken a keen interest in the topic and pursues it professionally. This class is a full day seminar covering the theory behind video-based color correction techniques and then the application of those techniques to Final Cut Studio 2.
This seminar is a collaboration between myself, Mopictive (a 501(c)3 non-profit (I’m a board member)), and Manhattan Edit Workshop (Jamie Hitchings, who is an Apple-Certified instructor and will cover material contained in the Apple Pro Series book Advanced Techniques and Color Correction in Final Cut Pro). It’s a jam packed day. I last did this class in the Spring and it was pretty well received. This time around I’m going to add more material on properly setting up lighting as well as providing a list of online retailers to help you execute a lighting plan.
Cost: $300 with 50% of the proceeds going to Mopictive (the NY Final Cut Pro User Group) and the remaining split between the facility providing the equipment (every enrollee gets their own workstation) and the instructors. You can sign up over at Manhattan Edit Workshop’s website.
Sign-up: Call Amber 212-414-9570
Place: MEWShop, November 03, 10a – 5p
- pi
It’s how we do the little things – shift an edit 2 frames, finesse an audio transition, or kern our type – that takes us beyond being professional and into “craftsman” status. To become a craftsman requires persistence over time, inquisitiveness, and a healthy dollop of passion.
If you need a little inspiration this (Friday) morning – maybe you can feed off the passion on a posting about… Copperplate Gothic. Yes, that’s right – a font:
“Copperplate Gothic’s default ubiquity and, by consequence, broad misuse, has procured it a place among The Designers’ Holy Hatred Font pantheon reigned by Papyrus and Comic Sans — and while there is still no campaign to ban Copperplate Gothic, it does have its detractors. Yet, to this more prevalent Mr. Hyde side of Copperplate Gothic, there is a valiant Dr. Jekyll ready to shine from its own evil cast.”
Passion can be infectious… so if you need to catch the flu this morning (as I did), it’s a fun read, if maybe a little cerebral.
HT: Daring Fireball
- pi
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Meet Your Colorist: Patrick talks Color Grading, Finishing, Workflows, Final Cut Color
via Digital Production Buzz