EP044: Listener Submission – Trends In Color Grading

00:00:00:01 - 00:00:14:02
Robbie
Hey there. Welcome to The Offset Podcast. And today we're taking a look at a viewer submitted question about trends and current looks. Stay tuned.

00:00:14:04 - 00:00:32:20
Joey
This podcast is sponsored by Flanders Scientific, leaders in color accurate display solutions for professional video. Whether you're a colorist, an editor, a DIY, or a broadcast engineer, Flanders Scientific has a professional display solution to meet your needs. Learn more at Flanders scientific.com.

00:00:32:22 - 00:00:41:05
Robbie
Hey everybody, welcome back to another installment of The Offset Podcast. I am one of your hosts Robbie Carman, with me, as always, is Joey D’Anna. Hey, Joey, how are you?

00:00:41:07 - 00:00:42:16
Joey
Hey, everyone.

00:00:42:18 - 00:01:00:12
Robbie
Hey. So, Joey, as we have mentioned a couple times in previous episodes, we, do take a viewer or user or listener however you want to phrase it. Submissions. You can head over to the offsetpodcast.com, and at the very top of that page, there is a button that will bring you to a form, to submit your own idea.

00:01:00:12 - 00:01:17:23
Robbie
So if you haven't been over there before, we encourage you, to check that out and to submit an idea. If you have a topic that you'd like us to explore on a future episode of the offset podcast. And it just so happens that today we are doing that, we are discussing, a viewer submitted question. This one comes from Jon

00:01:18:01 - 00:01:21:16
Robbie
Joey, why don't you tell us about Jon’s question? And what it's all about?

00:01:21:16 - 00:01:51:21
Joey
Yeah. So our topic, for today comes from Jon and he's asking us to talk about kind of where we've come from in terms of color palettes and styles and where we are now. You know, what is currently popular? Where do we think things are going, what's happening across different genres, essentially talking about both, you know, styles and trends, because those are very, very relevant to what we do.

00:01:51:21 - 00:02:17:17
Joey
And it's actually something I've been thinking a lot about somewhat recently as we've been exploring some of the, you know, everybody knows we just had a real bulk of beautiful new film emulation tools released from various vendors. And as we've been exploring some of those, it's kind of gotten me thinking about what are the trending looks, what looks good, what doesn't look good, what things used to look like versus what they look like now.

00:02:17:18 - 00:02:29:18
Joey
So it's a it's a really good topic for us to discuss, especially in light of kind of all these new features getting to us in terms of software. So yeah, I'd love to dive into that.

00:02:29:21 - 00:02:55:14
Robbie
It's a good topic. I mean, I think that this is, you know, it's always a hard one to kind of be, you know, completist on or totally accurate because, you know, the, you know, the idea of trends is that they've already been established and people are looking at them and following along. Meanwhile, there is, you know, a colorist and, DP or a director in some dark room somewhere coming up with something completely new and different.

00:02:55:14 - 00:03:13:20
Robbie
Right? I mean, so every time I think of everything, I, every time I think of trends, I, I naturally kind of drag because of my, music background. I kind of naturally gravitate towards that kind of same, you know, trends and music styles. Right? And you might have like, you know, this genre, this kind of production technique is popular or whatever.

00:03:13:22 - 00:03:29:19
Robbie
But then next thing you know, somebody comes out with something that you've never heard before and it's mind blowing because it's like, oh my God, this is crazy. And I think, you know, in our industry, it's it's definitely one, it's a little bit of a copycat industry, right? People, you know, trying to follow the trends.

00:03:29:19 - 00:03:53:20
Robbie
Oh, I want this look. I want that look. Did you see that movie? You know, we've talked about this in various ways in past episodes. We've talked about references. We've talked about look sighting sessions, you know, these tangential things that are kind of related to this. I would just put a big ask before we dive in. I'd put a big asterisks by saying all of this, by saying that, you know, the best looking projects are the ones that the look matches the project.

00:03:53:20 - 00:04:13:18
Robbie
Right. And that might be bits, you know, parts that you borrowed and grafted on from trends and looks. But it might be something trying something completely crazy and different and, you know, throw it up against the wall and see if it sticks. And maybe it does for that particular project. So I would just warn our, our listeners and viewers that, you know, trends are cool.

00:04:13:18 - 00:04:38:04
Robbie
They're good. Like it's almost a requirement to know about them to put in your toolkit. But at the same time, and we've discussed this in various ways over various episodes, you know, you don't want to be just a straight copycat, right? You know, people are hiring you to bring your opinions, your feelings. And the reality of it is, is that, you know, take whatever look treasure might be popular out there.

00:04:38:06 - 00:04:54:06
Robbie
It's oftentimes hard to grasp that 100% to your particular project rate. And so you can be influenced. That's the way I like to think about it by current trends and looks. But I think there is danger in straight up copying works.

00:04:54:08 - 00:05:24:20
Joey
Yeah. And you know, another part of his question was what is popular now? So let's start with that because I think there's a very, very clear answer to this. Whether you look at kind of prestige films, ads, prestige TV, what is popular right now without any shadow of a doubt in my mind is a Soft Shadows film print, low dynamic range look.

00:05:24:22 - 00:05:55:14
Joey
And what I mean by that is a couple of things. I mean, usually the black levels are just above zero, right? We're never really hitting true black. So we're getting a lot of shadow detail, which is nice, especially with modern televisions being able to show so much shadow detail. Then, you know, color wise we're usually somewhat desaturated and we're pushing volumetric changes to be kind of not having a full gamut of color.

00:05:55:14 - 00:06:20:21
Joey
What I mean by that is there's a lot of teal ish blues, so where everything from magenta to green is pushing a little bit towards teal, and if you kind of take the other side of the vectorscope, you're pushing a little bit towards a pretty yellowish red, very, very reminiscent of printed film projection. And when I say low dynamic range, I don't mean low contrast.

00:06:20:21 - 00:06:48:07
Joey
I mean we are not in HDR projects or even SDR projects really hitting high brightness values. I think there's a lot of, you know, kind of medium to lower dynamic range stuff happening these days. That in general looks really pretty, though we we've made no secret of the fact that we love this look. We love print emulation. We usually don't like super clipped highlights or super clipped shadows.

00:06:48:07 - 00:07:13:16
Joey
Right? I love teal in anything like teal blues. I love yellow, you know, for a while it was the teal and orange. But to me it's kind of the yellow and green axis. But it's the same idea, right? We're volumetric, compressing the gamut to look more like what a lot of film prints look like. You're not seeing a lot of true magenta, for example.

00:07:13:18 - 00:07:14:03
Joey
And.

00:07:14:05 - 00:07:40:08
Robbie
I, I agree with the general sentiment that the idea of emulation, lo fi is another kind of phrase that comes to mind when I, when I think about kind of these popular looks. It's funny, we were, earlier this summer. We were, you and I were both, along with some, colleagues. We were at, in Beijing at beer TV, which is a big conference, doing some presentations for our sponsor.

00:07:40:08 - 00:08:03:00
Robbie
Thanks. Big shout out to Flanders Scientific, doing some, some some education classes for our sponsor, FSI and their, manufacturing partners. And it's funny because, you know, we'll get to this a little bit about different markets and different, you know, locales and stuff, how they feel about this stuff. But, you know, I felt I'm sure you saw some of this a little bit too, in your sessions, right?

00:08:03:02 - 00:08:27:09
Robbie
That, you know, I was doing things film emulation things, grungy things up, giving texture, etc. and it was like the general feeling was like, why are you degrading the image? Right? Like, why are you making this worse? And I'm like, oh man. So I mean, I do think that there's there is a certain love affair with low fi throwback where, I mean, and you see this a lot.

00:08:27:09 - 00:08:36:06
Robbie
You even see this in framing, right? People doing a lot of, you know, things that, you know, four by three type looks or, you know, not even, you know, you know.

00:08:36:08 - 00:08:39:06
Joey
I really kind of weird aspect ratio. Yeah.

00:08:39:06 - 00:08:51:05
Robbie
Weird aspect ratios. I've even seen people like honestly like not not do squeeze properly anamorphic footage because they like, oh cool. Look. It gives everybody this tall skinny look we like.

00:08:51:06 - 00:09:15:15
Joey
And I'm like, you know, can I mention one thing here related that I am going to get crucified for? But I firmly believe it. Some of the top Hollywood directors, the greatest films made in the past 30 years are doing this thing now. That I think is utterly stupid and I wish they wouldn't do. And I understand why they're doing it, and I understand that it can be a cool thing.

00:09:15:19 - 00:09:42:09
Joey
Right. But the variability or expanding in and out of aspect ratios where like we go from a widescreen 16 by nine and then oh, we're going to bring it up. So now it's a more four by three Imax ratio when it's bigger. Like to me I know I know why they're doing it. Because maybe they might not want to film an entire thing in Imax and four by three.

00:09:42:13 - 00:10:01:18
Joey
Or they have a lot of different markets to get to. And I know it's more complicated than kind of what I'm reducing it to. I hate the trend of switching aspect ratio mid film and not the other, not the other. Something like if you're cutting into a television screen from the 60s, yeah, you're going to go to four by three because that's what it was.

00:10:01:23 - 00:10:07:11
Joey
Right? But like it takes me out of the film when I'm like, oh, do you see the letterbox move?

00:10:07:13 - 00:10:31:18
Robbie
Yeah, I, I, I agree, I think that some of that stuff's a little, little cliche, a little campy, but I mean, I think when I think about the, the current, you know, kind of state of, you know, saw, I think there's also like to use some color words. I think that there's, you know, there's, there's a push towards some sort of, pastel kind of more muted, like they're still saturated, but they're just softer colors.

00:10:31:18 - 00:10:53:09
Robbie
Right? Like. And I think you pointed that out with some of the sky stuff. I see that also even with just like things that, you know, traditionally have been pretty bold, right, like reds and yellows and stuff like that, they're just a little bit more muted. They're a little softer going along with the contrast. And I think when I think about this kind of current state of affairs, of the emulation kind of look, the print type of look, I think it's more of an evolution rather than a revolution.

00:10:53:09 - 00:11:10:13
Robbie
I mean, I think for, you know, we joke, you know, but ten years ago, 15 years ago, it was, you know, Log love, right? Where everybody was shooting with, you know, oh, for the first time, we were using, you know, cameras that, you know, did log encoding. People would fall in love with it during the offline and then be like, yeah, no, we just want it flat.

00:11:10:14 - 00:11:33:03
Robbie
We just don't want any contrast. And and like, this feels like a little better than that, but kind of an extension of that. We don't like I. So somehow somehow some way I feel like contrast especially coming like I think it's largely a reaction to some of the things that we saw in the 90s and early 2000. You know, music videos come to mind.

00:11:33:03 - 00:11:38:06
Robbie
Michael Bay comes to mind, who is one of Joey's, by the way? Joey's like intellectual film. Yeah, that's.

00:11:38:12 - 00:11:40:18
Joey
Just my little list of things to talk about in the 90s.

00:11:40:18 - 00:11:59:03
Robbie
So Joey is an expert in the 90s, by the way, just FYI. But I think that, you know, a lot of that, you know, so we saw a heavy, deep contrast. You know, I'm thinking like one of one of the classic even going further back than that, I rewatched the other day, I watched, because my, my, my son had never seen it.

00:11:59:03 - 00:12:38:05
Robbie
I rewatched the original Top Gun and like the I mean, it's awesome, right? But like that opening scene on the on the aircraft carrier, I don't remember it being as crunchy and as deep and as, you know, as crushed as it was. And like the film grain just being like over the top, like it was just it was like kind of nasty, like dirty, like, I mean, don't get me wrong, I love I love it, but I think that we saw this progression from deep, heavy contrast, strong highlights and and to be fair, a lot of that was because the process of what we do was very basic, very limited.

00:12:38:05 - 00:12:48:06
Robbie
I mean, we're talking about, you know, basically two on a tape deck or we're talking about simple, you know, one light kind of things on a, on a, on a towel scene. Right. It wasn't until you.

00:12:48:07 - 00:12:55:15
Joey
Get where you need for the bulk of the image, you might have to sacrifice shadows or highlights. Right? You necessarily need to make those sacrifices anymore.

00:12:55:16 - 00:13:10:22
Robbie
Right? And there wasn't a lot of control, and a lot of that was just decided in camera. And then, hey, that's what we shot. Cool. Let's roll with it. And I get that. But I think that that kind of extended out until you know, years later, you know, you know, mid 20s extended out to the, the popularity of the log look.

00:13:11:00 - 00:13:29:18
Robbie
And now what I look at it as it's like an evolution of okay, so we went heavy. We went really super light. And now this kind of punchy, slightly degraded, texturized kind of look, that's it's ever so popular is largely a reaction coming out of those two trends. Right. And these are probably, you know, ten year, ten year.

00:13:29:20 - 00:13:55:00
Robbie
So trends and I like it. However, I want to stand on and die on a hill, for one thing, I just I live my life in fear of contrast now. And I really I really hate it. I really hate it because it's like, I know that when I get to that point where I'm like, this is bold, deep and punchy, I know somebody is going to say something about it right?

00:13:55:02 - 00:14:15:08
Robbie
And it's just like so much of the discussion and feedback and stuff we have back and forth to clients has nothing to do with shot. The shot continuity has nothing to do with skin tone or other details. It's like the discussion seems to always revolve around contrast, right? And it just.

00:14:15:08 - 00:14:17:00
Joey
I don't know right now.

00:14:17:02 - 00:14:21:21
Robbie
Yeah, I think people have gotten afraid of contrast a little bit and push it in there.

00:14:21:23 - 00:14:48:13
Joey
All right. So I'm going to talk about two things. Both related to contrast. One, you mentioned the log. Look, this I think is an example of a trend that was without redemption. There was nothing good about it. It was horrible. It was a dark age for what we do. It was accidental. It was a technical error in that a lot of workflows hadn't figured out digital cinema yet.

00:14:48:14 - 00:14:48:18
Joey
I don't.

00:14:48:18 - 00:14:49:13
Robbie
Want to. I want be.

00:14:49:13 - 00:14:52:16
Joey
Talking at log images and falling up with them.

00:14:52:18 - 00:15:09:07
Robbie
I want to interrupt for one second, because I had somebody say something to me the other day that I loved, and they they, because we have said it probably about 500 times over the course of the series of podcasts, we have often said respect to photography. And I had somebody go, what's more respectful of the photography than lock?

00:15:09:13 - 00:15:11:00
Joey
So I was like, yeah.

00:15:11:00 - 00:15:12:02
Robbie
No.

00:15:12:04 - 00:15:12:23
Joey
Way.

00:15:13:01 - 00:15:15:03
Robbie
No, no, no, no, no.

00:15:15:07 - 00:15:21:11
Joey
So, you know, we've heard of happy accidents. The log look trend was a very unhappy ax.

00:15:21:11 - 00:15:22:04
Robbie
I agree.

00:15:22:06 - 00:15:54:17
Joey
But as I mentioned, the this is and this is something I, we've talked about this this is something I've been thinking about creatively for a long time. And I haven't found the right project to really dial it in. And I want to explore it more in my projects. Kind of to get out of that lower contrast film printed kind of trendy look is from the mid to late 90s and early 2000, as I like to think of it, the peak of humanity.

00:15:54:19 - 00:16:34:14
Joey
Yeah, it's kind of all been downhill from there. All of the best movies and shows and everything happened right around 1995, 1996. Look up IMDb for 1995 and 1996 and look at all the movies. It's all the best movies in history. Came out in like a 30 year period. Okay, here's some bangers. And yeah, along that time period we had, as you mentioned, a huge cultural shift in terms of music videos coming to the forefront, which brought us really innovative directors, because there was there's a lot less risk in doing something wild for a three minute music video than there is doing so.

00:16:34:15 - 00:16:40:14
Robbie
Because it's artists. It's it's outside of the bar. Yeah, totally. All the all right. All the tribes you could put to it. Yeah.

00:16:40:16 - 00:17:01:22
Joey
Same thing with some of the TV at the time. So a couple three examples I want to bring up just to look at and think, okay, there's aspects of this look that we don't see anywhere on TV now that I'd like to bring back, music videos from the 90s and 2000. So like I said, huge contrast almost to a fault.

00:17:01:22 - 00:17:23:06
Joey
I would like to see an explorer getting back into the weeds with the dark blacks. But maybe let's skip the clip. The clipped, saturated highlights video look right now, right? Maybe we can not have that part of it, but get back to those deep, deep, deep blacks. Examples to look at this one. Anybody who's watched it is going to crack up.

00:17:23:06 - 00:17:58:01
Joey
When I even mention this, because it is a early 2000s like 2002 fever dream buddy cop TV series that only lasted one season, that is, basically every episode is an hour long or TV hour long music video. With these crazy looks. And it was you're going to last. Do you remember Fast Lane? I was like a buddy cop show where the premise is like, we confiscated a bunch of fast cars from drug dealers.

00:17:58:01 - 00:18:00:22
Joey
Now we're going to do cool cop shit with them, right?

00:18:00:22 - 00:18:02:14
Robbie
Right up your alley.

00:18:02:16 - 00:18:14:04
Joey
Oh, yeah. It was conceived and directed essentially by music video directors from the era. And it is there's not a good transfer of it. Was it was it was.

00:18:14:04 - 00:18:21:05
Robbie
It was this like, this is like, like, precursor to like Fast and Furious type works. Is that, is that where you go and.

00:18:21:07 - 00:18:26:09
Joey
Hold on. I said three things. We're getting there.

00:18:26:11 - 00:18:47:12
Joey
But yes. Yes. And it is. Yes. There's tons of clip highlights, but there's deep shadows. And like you mentioned, with the first Top Gun, there's something that you see in a lot of 90s music videos, a lot of oath two, early 2000 music videos that we don't see anymore, which is incredibly dramatic. Tinted scenes like that opening sequence.

00:18:47:12 - 00:18:54:05
Joey
Right. It's completely yellow. It's like they went into the RGB mixer and just said, we're only doing the yellow.

00:18:54:05 - 00:18:56:12
Robbie
Today, you know? I mean, I make fun of that with I make funny.

00:18:56:17 - 00:18:58:20
Joey
Moves and reds in certain scenes.

00:18:58:22 - 00:19:18:04
Robbie
Yeah, I make fun of you a lot for some of the 90s, love, but I will, especially the the the idol worship that is the Michael Bay shrine that you have on the other side of your room there. But, I will say that one thing I love from that era is I do love the tinting. I love like I watched the other night.

00:19:18:04 - 00:19:29:12
Robbie
I watched it was just on TV. I watched Bad Boys. Which is another great example of this, right? Where it's it's just like, you know, you have this, you know, this, this sky. And it's like it's like straight up, like purple, like.

00:19:29:13 - 00:19:29:19
Joey
I.

00:19:29:19 - 00:19:54:08
Robbie
Loved the like the early days of Top Gear, right? Where they're like, hey, it's England, it's a flat gray sky. We got to do something to make it exciting. Let's just make it neon orange, because that's the reality, right? It's just like, I like I loved I loved those, I love those guys. But you said, I want you to continue on, but you said one thing that I want to, just clarify, because I do think that it's it's an interesting segue.

00:19:54:13 - 00:20:18:14
Robbie
Yeah, I think you're right, largely about the 90s contrast, like the difference between black and white. I think that that, that kind of thing, you know, we're saying like, oh, it's all about pretty and flat and pastel or whatever. I will argue that shows like Game of Thrones, Stranger Things, some of these, some of these show like, what's that one glow that we really like from and, and board of back.

00:20:18:16 - 00:20:44:10
Robbie
There's a couple of ones like that. I think there are big budget television series that have explored dark and deep very well. Yeah. I think the problem with them, though, is it's not that we're not the problem, but the, the the the the disconnect is that it's not necessarily contrast. It's a lot of deep dark, which I think a lot of places have explored really well over the past decade.

00:20:44:12 - 00:20:59:12
Robbie
But that pushes back, you know, that's all sorts of you have problems, right? We've in the Game of Thrones, one probably the most famous, but you know, they've done a lot of really good things, deep and dark, which I think is different from what you're saying of hundred percent, the whole huge contrast ratio.

00:20:59:14 - 00:21:05:14
Joey
Yeah. All of these examples from the early 2000s and 90s. Basically you look at them on a on a waveform.

00:21:05:15 - 00:21:07:03
Robbie
It's whites here, blacks here.

00:21:07:03 - 00:21:34:00
Joey
Right there are there are massive swaths of shadow detail that are just gone. Do I want to go back to that? Probably not. Do I think it's worth looking at those trendy stuff from 90s music videos and kind of incorporating more aggressive contrast into some grades for the right project? Yes. Next example, I want to talk. And the cool thing about all these things from the 90s, 2000, they were all film originated.

00:21:34:01 - 00:22:08:21
Joey
We talk about film look, but film can look like anything. Film can look like a 90s fever dream, or it can look like Game of Thrones. It doesn't. There's no rule. Right? So another like early 2000 is kind of prestige TV that I think is really emblematic of that look that I'm kind of longing for. The short lived but masterful James Cameron attempt into sci fi television that was dark Angel.

00:22:08:23 - 00:22:11:17
Robbie
Oh, that was a pretty good one. I was just before very Deep.

00:22:11:20 - 00:22:24:17
Joey
Shadows, but with a much better technical execution where the exposure was perfect. The photography was beautiful, but it still had that more aggressive contrast look.

00:22:24:19 - 00:22:46:19
Robbie
Yeah, there's two that popped to mind that are in that similar vein. For me, and it was both both series that I loved. I was a big fan of the sci fi series fringe, which was kind of like an X-Files type kind of thing. I love fringe, that had, a lot of look, this kind of deep kind of looks, a lot of, like, a lot of wacky things going on.

00:22:46:20 - 00:23:03:12
Robbie
They did a lot of cool things with topography and all that kind of stuff, too. The other one that I really liked, that I thought was was bold, like, that was Sherlock through the the Benjamin, comeback, installment of that, which I thought was was really good. I mean, so, I mean, I don't think there's there's always been outliers to these, these trends into these looks.

00:23:03:12 - 00:23:26:18
Robbie
But I mean, I think, I think what I hear and to answer Jon’s kind of question, I think that, you know, color correction and color grading has always been about incorporating inspiration and incorporating, you know, things and feel. So I think that what we're currently seeing is a little bit of contrast sphere. I to, you know, sort of an extension of that log kind of thing.

00:23:26:20 - 00:24:08:14
Robbie
But I do think that some of the things that we're longing for this 90s, you know, 2000 looks, I don't think it's in small part they are parts of them are coming back in some supervisions. And clearly I think that we're we're like, as you said just a moment ago, that film can be everything. With the bulk of so much work being done with film emulation techniques, stock emulation, green, elation, all of this kind of thing, I, I don't think it's unreasonable to expect that people will start doing throwback to 60s, 70s, 80s film.

00:24:08:14 - 00:24:23:12
Robbie
I mean, like I was watching a couple weeks, a couple weeks ago because, you know, this time of year, as you get closer to the holidays, right, you get, you know, these movie marathons, Indiana Jones, back to the future, The Godfather or whatever, just, you know, turn on TNT or TBS on the Saturday and you're bound to find one of those series.

00:24:23:14 - 00:24:48:19
Robbie
And I was watching The Godfather the other day, and I was really I was like, man, a lot of this film is deep, dark, hard to see into the Shadows kind of crushed. And I mean, that's obviously, the film originated film. And so I think that I do think that we're going to we're going to reach a soft, a soft landing spot with this over the next couple of years where I think that.

00:24:48:21 - 00:24:52:10
Joey
Just in time for the next trip, to completely change it up again, I guess.

00:24:52:11 - 00:25:17:19
Robbie
I guess what my point is, is that it's not it's not an event or that it's or, you know, a binary thing. It's a it's more of a, it's more of a library, right? It's more of like, okay, we like this kind of like it exists on a, on a range. So yeah, I mean, I think that one of the things that we're going to see undoubtably is somebody somewhere in some genre breaking the mold of all of this, it always happens.

00:25:17:19 - 00:25:36:06
Robbie
Right? It's always we get into if we get into a trend and we get into a vibe and then somebody comes out and everybody's like, oh my God, mind blown. And I, I do think that there are some gatekeepers of this. I mean, obviously I think there's a lot of, you know, famous directors on this, like the one that, you know, at one end of the like the spectrum.

00:25:36:06 - 00:25:55:00
Robbie
Right? I think about Wes Anderson all the time. And like if you watch a Wes Anderson film, they're just they're just crazy in the way that they look. Right. But they're also awesome. And I think that there are plenty of directors like, like, Wes Anderson or whatever, who are pushing the boundaries with these kind of things and clearly not following trends.

00:25:55:00 - 00:26:07:20
Robbie
And that would be my advice to Jon is to, to to be inspired by trends, but not to necessarily follow trends, because I think that anytime that you're in a, in a copycat situation, you're not pushing ground yourself.

00:26:07:22 - 00:26:36:14
Joey
Yeah, I kind of to sum up my view on it. And, to answer the core question of, you know, current trends, definitely that kind of print look that we're talking about. Yeah, current inspirations, the best executions of anything in that ecosystem. You mentioned Stranger Things, love that. And of course, I've talked about it a million times on this podcast and everywhere else in terms of HDR, beautiful grades.

00:26:36:14 - 00:26:39:16
Joey
My benchmark is still glow. Absolutely.

00:26:39:20 - 00:26:41:18
Robbie
Just love them.

00:26:41:20 - 00:26:48:14
Joey
I cannot say how much I love the way that show looked enough.

00:26:48:16 - 00:27:25:09
Robbie
I mean, I just, I just, I mean, we've we've said this before, but the man crush on Ian's work is, is very heavy. He, tales from the loop that he did on Amazon was another one where I just think he he's. So I mean, I don't know the principal. I obviously we weren't privy to the principal photography, but based on the the look that he developed along with the creative, the, you know, creative production team that's another one where I just think that, like, he gets it, he takes bits and parts of things that he and the rest of the creative teams like, and he's able to very masterfully grasp those bits together.

00:27:25:11 - 00:27:32:22
Joey
Which and in a consistent, beautiful way that just puts you into the world. But with the feeling of this fantasy. Right? Right.

00:27:32:22 - 00:27:54:01
Robbie
Like you do if you were able to, if you were, if you really watched those shows like those shows, you're able to pick out bits and pieces and parts that you could point and be like, oh, this is that, oh, this is that. But it's on aggregate, like the combination of those things that I think, you know, why we admire his work in particular so much is that like, he's able to to stitch it together.

00:27:54:01 - 00:28:19:02
Robbie
And there are other people like that. I mean, I think, you know, comes to mind, like Joseph Bicknell at, at company three. Tom Poole obviously is another master of this. So, yeah, I mean, I just think that the best if I could sum up that string of that, that, that stream of consciousness there, I just think that some of the best, the best productions, the best artists, etc. are doing this.

00:28:19:07 - 00:28:55:20
Robbie
They're they're very knowledgeable about the history of film and TV, and they're able to pick bits and pieces from inspiration, from references, etc., and build those together to something that's new, different and cohesive versus a straight copy of something that's already been done. And I think that's why, personally, I've come to respect, you know, those are just a couple of the folks, you know, that I, that I would I, that I come to mind but like in particular I've come to respect those folks works was every time I see them every new project, I'm just like, wow, this is beautiful.

00:28:55:20 - 00:29:19:12
Robbie
Like, I'll give you one case and point and you have to go back and look at this. I think it was 2 or 3 years ago. I'll put it in the show notes, I'll find a link to it. But there was a an Amazon Christmas ad that Tom Poole, created, a couple of years ago that I, I can I don't know how to even describe it.

00:29:19:13 - 00:29:42:03
Robbie
It was just, like, the most perfect thing I've ever watched in my life. And when I, when I went back and looked at it time and time and time and time again, he was able to just incorporate so many pieces of famous photography and famous. And again, it's not all Tom Wright that's production. The gaffers, the set designers, you know.

00:29:42:03 - 00:30:06:02
Robbie
Oh, I get that. But I'm just saying, like in general, when I look at pieces like that and some of the work that he's done in son Joseph's done, all these people, it just they, they, they show a nod towards the trends and the history, but also the ability to reimagine what all of those things mean, which is I think is absolute.

00:30:06:02 - 00:30:14:08
Robbie
The sweet spot in is is is is clear. It's clear proof why those people and others like them at the top of their game.

00:30:14:09 - 00:30:35:04
Joey
Yeah, absolutely. I love the idea of yeah, we are knowledgeable of the trends of the past and the trends of today. I'm going to take that and make something cohesive that is also creative and new and unique and appropriate to the film. Not just, today we're doing teal and orange because that's cool. You know?

00:30:35:10 - 00:30:36:02
Robbie

00:30:36:04 - 00:31:08:15
Joey
So to to sum up, the last part of Jon’s question was, what is influencing you now? I would say I am kind of desperately looking for the right project to bring some of the higher contrast 90s music video, action movie style into, but modified with more detail and less clip highlights. I feel like we've kind of lost that really punchy, as you said, Michael Bay slash fast and furious slash stuff.

00:31:08:15 - 00:31:33:23
Joey
I love, look. And it's funny, if you go back and you watch seven fast seven furious at the very end, they do a beautiful tribute to Paul Walker, who had passed before that movie was finished, and they go through really nicely scanned shots and moments from every movie beforehand, and they didn't do like clean up work to make the grain match.

00:31:33:23 - 00:31:45:02
Joey
They didn't, like, try to make it contiguous like that little like minute long section of that movie is a 20 year timeline of, you know, how Hollywood film looks.

00:31:45:03 - 00:32:05:06
Robbie
It's funny that you it's funny that you say that because I had a very I didn't I've never I'm not a I'm not a diehard fast and Furious fan like you are. I've seen a couple of them, but I, they did something very similar in the I think it's supposed to be the last one, the last Mission Impossible Tom cruise, thing where they went through.

00:32:05:06 - 00:32:34:22
Robbie
I mean, I think that was also 7 or 8 films, something like that, and kind of like these, these, montages of, you know, Tom and his team or whatever, you know, the characters in the movie over the years. And you look at some of it and it's it's wild to see just side by side the evolution of how that has from crunchy, deep, grainy to now super high resolution, you know, very like it's it's wild how that's the trends.

00:32:35:00 - 00:32:41:06
Robbie
And again they were hip. They were cool. They were the thing at that time and how they developed which is is wild.

00:32:41:08 - 00:32:56:20
Joey
Yeah. So you know no right answer to any of this. But it's great to explore all of these different things and then kind of use that as inspiration to come up with something. Like I said, unique. That also fits with the project and the vision.

00:32:56:22 - 00:33:19:00
Robbie
Very cool. Well, good. Good discussion Jon Hopefully this helped you out a little bit. Not sure. It's always, it's always hard to tell when these, these, user reviews are submitted, questions if we're actually answering the question or not. But hopefully, hopefully you get a little bit out of our take on this. Just as a reminder, you can, always find show notes or our library of episodes by heading over to the offset podcast.com.

00:33:19:05 - 00:33:38:05
Robbie
You can follow us on all major streaming platforms as well as, YouTube if you're watching there. And of course, if you do like the show, we'd really, really appreciate it if you'd, consider supporting the show, by heading over to this link here to, buy us a cup of virtual coffee. Every bit goes a long way into producing these shows and enjoy.

00:33:38:05 - 00:33:52:17
Robbie
I think in, our next installment in another two weeks or so, I think we should do another one of these. These are fun. We have a little bit of, a backlog of, of these episodes to do. So I think our next, next episode will also answer, or discuss another, user or viewer submitted question.

00:33:52:17 - 00:33:57:19
Robbie
So we will go from there. So for the ole’ Offset Podcast, I'm Robbie Carman.

00:33:57:21 - 00:34:02:20
Joey
I'm Joey D’Anna and I live my life a quarter mile at a time. Thanks for listening.