EP017: Tips For New Colorists

01:00:00:05 - 01:00:17:00
Robbie
Hey everyone, welcome back to another installment of The Offset Podcast. And today we're talking about our top tips for new colorists and those who want to be doing more color. Stay tuned.

01:00:17:02 - 01:00:35:22
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 DIT, or a broadcast engineer, Flanders Scientific has a professional display solution to meet your needs. Learn more at Flanders scientific.com.

01:00:36:00 - 01:00:54:21
Robbie
Hey everybody, I'm Robbie Carman and that is Joey D’Anna and Joey. today we're going to be talking about something that it's actually not an idea that we came up with. It's an idea that we got from our buddy Josh. Josh is a awesome colorist based out in L.A., does a lot of reality stuff. We've known Josh for, I don't know, probably a decade plus.

01:00:54:21 - 01:01:17:23
Robbie
And he's, he's always just a good font of information. And he had some, some great ideas for some various podcasts, but one of the ones that he suggested and I think we, gravitated to pretty quickly, was the idea of our kind of tips for people who are new to the color industry are also those who might be doing something else in the industry, but have an affinity towards color.

01:01:18:01 - 01:01:38:00
Robbie
Want to be doing more? I'm thinking of editors, DP's, etc. who all dabble in color. It's a great it's a great topic from Josh, and I think we have, a lot to say on it. But before we actually dive into those tips and those those things that we think are, important, I did want to say one sort of table setting kind of thing.

01:01:38:00 - 01:01:59:04
Robbie
And that is the industry is very different than when we came up in at 20 or 25 years ago. Right. You know, when we started, you know, in our early 20s at some of these places, there was there was, I don't know, this thing called a facility that doesn't exist as much as it used to. And at those facilities, there was heavy iron equipment that cost hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars.

01:01:59:06 - 01:02:17:12
Robbie
There really wasn't, you know, freelance colorist in the sense that we have today. There really wasn't, people doing color correction in their bedroom, their basement, their laptop, all those kind of things. Partly because of technology, partly because of cost. You had to go to a facility, you had to work on one of these big iron, systems.

01:02:17:12 - 01:02:33:01
Robbie
And kind of I think the biggest part of that is that when we were coming up 20, 25 years ago, there was also a much more robust mentoring system than there is today. Right? You know, you start with somebody, you learn the ropes, you go, you went and got coffee. You you got yelled at all those various things.

01:02:33:06 - 01:02:52:11
Robbie
So it is a very different world. And I think we just owe it to our listeners to say that we come from that other world. Right. Where, you know, we don't have all the answers for the new colorists of those who aspire to do color. But I think, you know, we have some interesting perspective on this, right?

01:02:52:13 - 01:03:17:05
Joey
Yeah. And, you know, I think, you know, as you know, like you said, these things have been democratized, especially over the past, like ten years. And so one thing that hasn't been democratized as much is that mentoring pipeline. As we get further away from the facility, we get further away from really solid mentorship. And that's something that I hope I know we both hope that we can kind of help with things like this podcast.

01:03:17:05 - 01:03:42:20
Joey
So let's just jump into some tips. Yeah. Let's say you're new to color grading, or you are starting to move from another field in post-production in the color grading, the first tip that we really want to talk about is less is more. As a overall concept, you in most cases want to try to do the least to an image to make it look correct.

01:03:42:22 - 01:03:57:09
Joey
And what this means to me is a lot of times you might be looking for a really big A B toggle, right? You turn off the grade, you turn on the grade. Wow. I did a lot. It's really different.

01:03:57:11 - 01:03:58:01
Robbie
Yeah.

01:03:58:03 - 01:04:08:16
Joey
I just want to tell everybody and I'm sure you'll agree, being different, it doesn't always mean a proportionally amount better.

01:04:08:18 - 01:04:42:17
Robbie
Sure. Yeah. I mean I think, you know, one of the things that, is funny to me is that this is an instinct that turns up a lot in coloring and a lot in the finishing stage of post-production. It's exciting. And we've talked about it before in other shows about HDR and cranking it to 11, and it just seems like the temptation to do a lot, because you can do a lot with the tool sets that are in modern color, coloring applications just seems like this, like free fall pass for a lot of people who are getting into it and related.

01:04:42:17 - 01:05:03:03
Robbie
We've talked a lot about how like, oh, it doesn't matter. There's no, you know, there's no score card. While it matters is that you're fine, likes it, it ends up on TV or whatever. But I have found that especially when interfacing with people who are new colorist or new to doing color, that that temptation to overdo it is something that you have to, like, break early on in somebody.

01:05:03:05 - 01:05:17:00
Robbie
It's almost like training like a horse or, figuring out a new race car or something like that to put it in your terms. And I think that, you know, a lot of people look at the tool sets in front of them and go, oh, well, I can do a key, I can do a curve, I can do this color warper thing.

01:05:17:00 - 01:05:38:00
Robbie
I can do x, y, and z, and then they end up with not just an overall complication in terms of the tools that they're using and overall complication in their node or layer structure and overall complication of what is actually doing, what. And the end of that, to me, tends to be images that you can tell are over engineered.

01:05:38:00 - 01:05:52:21
Robbie
Right. And there's a there's a lot of tools to that. But like I had somebody the other day on Facebook, you know, it's one of those groups where they they posted something and they're like, tell me what you think about this. And I'm like, well, my first instinct was, I have no idea what your client brief was. I have no idea what the context is because it's just a steel frame.

01:05:52:22 - 01:06:18:01
Robbie
But looking at the single frame, it feels very engineered to me. They had done something, you know, pretty robust with the sky and some colors that didn't feel natural. So I think that that's in one way, I think less means literally doing less. But I don't know, I just think that this is something that I think has to be, kind of, over time, kind of taken out of people's instinct to do.

01:06:18:01 - 01:06:19:20
Robbie
I don't know. I don't know what you feel, how you feel about that. Yeah.

01:06:19:20 - 01:06:44:08
Joey
And that's an important thing to mention is the instincts. Right. Because when you're just getting started in this and you haven't been looking at images critically in detail for a very long time, your eye and your taste might not be sensitive to some of the damage you're doing to an image. When you make these broad changes, you could make a really aggressive white balance change, for example, and 80% of the image could look great.

01:06:44:09 - 01:07:06:16
Joey
But then you're also introducing some real crunchy or noise in the shadows or in a detail somewhere else. And if you're not experienced, you might not notice those problems. So you might. Look, I made this big change. My before and after was like, amazing on the best colors in the world, but your eye might not be sensitive enough to to really see the entirety of the impact that big, big, big change of the image has.

01:07:06:21 - 01:07:31:16
Joey
So when you're getting started and just in general, no matter how experienced you are, the less you can do to the image in general, the better. Obviously, there's exceptions to really advanced grades or things that need heavy compositing or stuff like that. I'm not saying, you know, cut yourself off at the knees, but just always being mindful of if you feel like you're working too hard for it, you probably are.

01:07:31:16 - 01:07:33:12
Joey
And you might want to try a different approach.

01:07:33:14 - 01:07:50:12
Robbie
Yeah. And I think the I think there's three things that come to mind that I rip on this particular one number one, we heard it a lot from a lot of experience colors. We say it a lot. I think we owe this, this, this phrase to our power, Walter the Apollo. But it's the idea of respecting the photography first and foremost.

01:07:50:12 - 01:08:07:01
Robbie
Your job is not to reinvent the photography. You're an idiot. Your job is to enhance or, you know, correct small problems. The photography. I, I agree with you. If you're finding yourself totally reinventing the image, chances are it's not a very good production. And now.

01:08:07:01 - 01:08:25:06
Joey
With one caveat here, and I think we're kind of bouncing around it, but if you are new, you're not likely getting the highest quality starter images either. So like anything else, it's a balance. You might find some of these things you do need to hit with a pretty big hammer, but just always be mindful.

01:08:25:08 - 01:08:46:06
Robbie
Yeah, I think the the the other thing that comes up, not the second because this is like the ninth, but the other thing that comes to mind about this is that I think there's so much talk about precision like, oh, it's 32 bit float, you can do this, you can do that, you can do this. Which, which leads people to, I think have the idea that coloring in no way is a destructive process.

01:08:46:06 - 01:08:48:01
Robbie
And I disagree with that because.

01:08:48:01 - 01:08:48:08
Joey
Yeah.

01:08:48:13 - 01:09:16:00
Robbie
At its heart, you are changing, fundamentally changing what the pixels are doing in the image. Right? And because of the math involved, because how all these tools work and all the various, you know, edge cases and, and, you know, sort of potentiality of some of these tools that they work, you are doing something destructive to an image. And the more that you do that, the potential for more degradation in the image is possible.

01:09:16:00 - 01:09:36:17
Robbie
I mean, you see this all the time where things like bad keys, you see this all the time with curves that might have control points that are too tight together, and there's not enough, you know, bit depth or color information in the image. So you're getting banding or noise? I mean, it is. Yes. The tools are amazing what they can do and present us a clean, finished image.

01:09:36:17 - 01:09:53:13
Robbie
But there is still some destruction are possible. And I think that the more that people bend and push and pull on the image, that's that's the other thing. And then the last thing about this one that I'll say that I think less is more. And we I think we made a joke about this in, another episode we did on color about, color grading.

01:09:53:13 - 01:10:11:07
Robbie
Myth busting was the idea that, like, you know, I gave this story about a client, came over behind the desk and said, well, obviously you don't have enough nodes, right? And if I you see, one of the things that's happening to a lot of new colors, is, again, that inkling to do a lot more than they really need to.

01:10:11:09 - 01:10:33:00
Robbie
But there's also this idea that just like, hey, well, if I have a big, complicated fixed node graph, that means I'm doing it right. And I think you often see with new colors of people just getting the color, they'll have a node that, let's say, set some initial contrast, and then they'll have a node like 3 or 4 nodes down that kind of cancels out and like, you know, softens the contrast.

01:10:33:01 - 01:10:48:09
Robbie
Right? And they have all these nodes where like even from an organization point of view, it's like, what the hell is going on? But in reality, from a pure technical point of view, they have a lot of canceling out going on because they're they're not, you know, they're trying to do too much in the image, in too many places.

01:10:48:11 - 01:10:50:05
Robbie
And that can also be a danger.

01:10:50:06 - 01:11:03:20
Joey
Yeah. And that kind of brings me into our next topic. And this is going to sound a little funny because we literally just said less is more, right? Right. Well, it's going to sound like we're crazy when I say you need to do the big moves first. 100%.

01:11:03:20 - 01:11:04:21
Robbie
Yeah.

01:11:04:23 - 01:11:36:13
Joey
It sounds like we're saying the opposite, but we're not what I mean by saying do big moves first is do an all. Change the image. Don't focus on tiny detail. Your first pass through a piece or for a show and that really applies to your node structure building as well. Like, you know, it's it's easy to build a really over complicated node structure and do a little minus one plus one, minus two plus three to get back to one.

01:11:36:15 - 01:11:59:08
Joey
That's just going to confuse you. So if you take a mentality of I'm going to go shot, do one overall adjustment right. White balance and exposure. My basic grade. Just do that for the whole piece. Then watch it again and refine. Watch it again and refine. And every time you watch it down, you can add more value and add more improvements to smaller parts of the image.

01:11:59:14 - 01:12:23:04
Joey
But I'm a huge fan of working in passes. I've always worked like this. It is, you know, your first pass. The goal should be to get through that first pass almost as quickly as possible. You know, go in balance exposure next shot, balanced exposure, next shot. Make one big move to get the, you know, big hammer mode, the shot into the ballpark and move on.

01:12:23:04 - 01:12:39:09
Joey
We can get to the other little tiny nitpicky details later. So in that big move we still believe less is more. You don't want to break the image totally, but condense it into, if possible, one big move in your initial pass.

01:12:39:14 - 01:12:57:03
Robbie
Yeah. So there's there's some sort of like some parts of that I think are worth talking about. So and we'll get to another one of these things about adaptation and that kind of stuff in just a second. But I, I agree with you, because I see a lot of new colors for people who, you know, editors who are jumping in to do color.

01:12:57:05 - 01:13:23:06
Robbie
They, you know, we look at like, you know, a typical like long form timeline for us might be thousand shots, 1500 shots, something like that. And we have 2 or 3 days to get through the show. Right. And I see a lot of these new people to color a intimidated by the sheer number of shots, but be getting stuck on this idea that, like, okay, I'm on shot number one, I have to perfect shot number one before I can move on to shot number two.

01:13:23:09 - 01:13:46:19
Robbie
Right? And not only is that shooting yourself in the foot, for some color science psychological reasons that we'll talk about in a second, that's also slowing you, massively slowing you down. Right. It's also, kind of giving you kind of like image bias, right? You're trying to perfect this one image. You're. And I know this sounds counterintuitive, but the longer you look at something, the worse you're going to make it.

01:13:46:20 - 01:14:09:19
Robbie
And I also I also think often about, there's, color is, she now she's not based in LA, but, Andrea Claybrook is her name. And I had the pleasure of interviewing, Andrea, maybe 5 or 6 years ago, maybe a little more even. Actually, now I think about it, she had, she had done a lot of work with Neill Blomkamp, the director who had done district nine, Elysium, that kind of stuff.

01:14:09:19 - 01:14:31:19
Robbie
And this was right after, she had done Elysium, which was one of the first films, by the way, done in ACS, which was a big, big, big, cool thing. But she talked about working with Neil and, you know, the, the, the stakeholders in that film and watching the film hundreds of times. Right. And I think to a new color is they're going, well, I just want to get through this and be done with it.

01:14:31:19 - 01:15:02:04
Robbie
Like, why would I watch a film 100 times? Like, it feels like torture, right? Because of what you just said matters. Because context matters, passes matter. You notice different things at different times. The flow of shots from one end to another, what precedes it, what follows it, all of that context really matters. And if you're trying to perfect an image one shot at a time and do very small minutia kind of things in that initial first couple passes, you're going to just paint yourself into a corner and have a problem with it.

01:15:02:04 - 01:15:23:09
Robbie
Right. And then I think the other part about this is that some of those detail things that you think matter might not matter, right? In other words, like I see a lot of people getting caught up with like, oh, I'm gonna, you know, tweak this pixel and fix the pixel, right? And it's like in the context of flow, you never notice it right now.

01:15:23:09 - 01:15:38:12
Robbie
I know I keep bringing up Walter because he's, you know, one of my intellectual heroes, but, you know, he he did this film Dunkirk is Christopher Nolan film. Right. And if you know anything but Nolan Nolan's a big film fan, you know, all that kind of stuff, right? And I remember watching this film in the theater and going, nothing matches.

01:15:38:12 - 01:15:55:20
Robbie
This is like the worst grading ever. And you hear Walter talk about it and he's like, dude, it's just it's it's about story. It's about flow. It's not necessarily about every single, you know, people were getting on about like, well, in this reverse, the sun's at a different angle and it's like, dude, it's was it a good story or not?

01:15:55:20 - 01:16:14:02
Robbie
And I think a lot of time new colors get so caught up on. And we've talked about this in our MythBusters episode about things like skin tone line and stuff like that gets so caught up with these, these things that they've heard, but they forget to watch the film in context as a film. They're so caught up on details that might not really matter.

01:16:14:02 - 01:16:17:03
Robbie
And again, that's a that's a speed and slow you down thing.

01:16:17:05 - 01:16:48:23
Joey
So yeah, let's take that kind of hypothetical. You're new to this. You're going shot by shot and you're trying to perfect every single shot. You're spending five minutes on a shot, six minutes on a shot. Let's talk about why that's never going to work. One. You can never develop efficiencies. Right. If I'm going through the same thing on every shot, my quick balance first pass, I'm going to get into a flow where I've got in my head the overall balance of the scene, and I can go shot the shot, the shot and match it every shot quickly.

01:16:48:23 - 01:17:07:11
Joey
It's muscle memory, right? You're going to just get into a zone where you kind of feel that overall first adjustment, and you're going to get through those shots so much faster than if you had. Even with your additional passes, you're going to get through faster and have more time to perfect everything than if you tried to sit on each shot for five minutes.

01:17:07:13 - 01:17:42:04
Joey
But the real science behind this is something called adaptation, and it is a real thing that happens to all humans. Because remember, our eyes capture light, our brains assemble images no longer. You look at an image even in the most perfect calibrated, controlled environment, your brain will subconsciously fix that image for you, right? So if you're staring at the same shot for five minutes straight, you're going to push yourself into some wacky direction.

01:17:42:04 - 01:17:55:01
Joey
And when you come back and look at it a couple shots later, or maybe the next day, you will be like, this isn't even the shot I remember looking at, because it isn't your click to you by looking at that image for too long, I.

01:17:55:01 - 01:18:17:14
Robbie
Cannot tell you how many discussions I've had with people. And I think this. I don't mean to pick on photographers, but this is just an easy way of saying this. This feeling is that a lot of photographers then look at a frame and they perfect that frame, right. And that's great. And frame based corrections, right. Like you don't necessarily have to have one frame matching another frame.

01:18:17:14 - 01:18:36:19
Robbie
And so on. Right. Unless it's, you know, a triptych or some sort of series or whatever. So a lot of people take that, you know, again, that whole, you know, thing about, hey, I'm going to focus on this, make it perfect or whatever. And not only is it the time suck that we just spoke about, right. It's the adaptation is that the longer you look at something, the worse you're going to make it.

01:18:36:21 - 01:18:54:15
Robbie
And it's like they get. I mean, we say this all the time, right? Like anybody can make a single shot look great. What the challenge in doing what we do is making the next shot and the next one and the whole scene and the next scene and the whole movie feel like a cohesive thing, like they all belong to each other.

01:18:54:17 - 01:19:19:01
Robbie
And you're 100% right about this, that the longer you look at things, the worse you'll make them. And that plays into the big moves add value, you know, move on thing. Right? It's like, you know, I didn't say this when we when we talked about a second ago. But the other part about working in passes, that is an adoption fighter, I mean, that's really what we're talking about, is fighting adoption by working in passes, you're you're fighting that process of adaptation.

01:19:19:01 - 01:19:37:16
Robbie
But the other thing you're also doing is like a value add, right? You know, if you have a 1500 shot timeline and you have three days to do it, if you're stuck on each shot, you're not going to get to the end. The whole thing I always want to be I never want to be in a position where I've graded 70% of the shots, and I ran out of time for the last 30% of the shots, right?

01:19:37:21 - 01:19:59:08
Robbie
So that big honkin moves thing also just lets me touch every shot. So if somebody pulls the plug, I run out of time or whatever. Well, guess what? I at least I've touched every shot. I've improved slightly every shot, even if they're not perfect matching or whatever, I've done something. That's something I wanted to mention earlier, but from an adaptation point of view, that workflow passes helps you battle adaptation.

01:19:59:10 - 01:20:25:00
Robbie
And I think to a lot of new colorists or those who trying to do color more. It's not just that part, Joe, that focuses on adaptation. There's other color science cycle science or whatever that phrase is about effect this. When we've talked about these things before. And room environment, big one. Right. It's crazy how many people try to do color critical things in rooms that have, like, you know, the pink spill on the wall, like you have for the podcast, right?

01:20:25:02 - 01:20:50:21
Robbie
Or they have windows where lights constantly changing or all that kind of stuff. Right. So those are those are all contribute to that. I would also add to the fact that adaptation is not a weakness because it happens to everybody. And one of the ways that I think we get, you know, the higher end professional colorist, you know, fight this, the things that we just mentioned, but also a big one is taking a break.

01:20:50:23 - 01:21:09:07
Robbie
It's amazing how often and this is the situation that I hear all the time from people, new colors, they go, all right, man, I got resolve or I got whatever, you know, my tree. And I'm getting to the shot and, you know, pulling the thing. Everything looks killer. Like I'm going to win an award. This looks awesome. Let's go and take a break.

01:21:09:07 - 01:21:36:00
Robbie
Let's go grab some lunch. Right. They come back, they sit down in front of the machine and they go, wow, that looks horrible. Like, did something changed? And, the balls on the color panel start moving. Did somebody sit down at my desk and tweak something? No, that's not what happened. The fact that you were adapting to that image, as you just said, your brain was making you think that it was all right, and you sit back down in front of it and go, well, now it's yellow, now it's green, now it's too contrasty or whatever.

01:21:36:03 - 01:22:02:08
Joey
But a lot of colorists will get egotistical and say, I'm a colorist. I have perfect vision. My eyes are my living. I'm a wonderful. You can exercise your sensitivity to perception, and the more you do this, the more you can spot things. But the best colorists are the ones that understand that all human vision is fallible. Yeah, and we can take steps in intentional steps in our workflow to minimize that.

01:22:02:10 - 01:22:04:01
Joey
That's how you get the best results.

01:22:04:01 - 01:22:27:00
Robbie
Now, I'm not saying that I have not been victim to just pushing through and getting something done. And it's midnight, 1:00, whatever. And I'm just I got to get it done. But nine times out of ten, probably 9.5 times out of ten, the play that I would suggest for everybody, including us, is at a certain point, go home, go to bed, come back the next day.

01:22:27:06 - 01:22:57:19
Robbie
Fresh eyes, new feeling, break that adaptation. But if you don't have that time, even taking that five minute break, walking around, coming back in and that's this is actually a big one. When you come back into your room, like give yourself a few minutes to just kind of get settled before you bite back into it. Because if you're like outside grabbing lunch or in the hallway and there's tungsten lights and it's bright or whatever, and you sit back down in that room for that first few minutes until you kind of get used to that environment again, you're going to be making similar, bad decisions.

01:22:57:19 - 01:23:26:05
Robbie
Right? So that's that's a, that's a bad thing as well. Another one that's related to all of this that I see. And we talked a little bit about this in our myth busting episodes about the skin tone line, but I think that new colorists and new, people getting into this game have been brainwashed to a certain degree that if the scopes look right, that means that I have a good looking image.

01:23:26:11 - 01:23:56:02
Robbie
Right? And I have to I have this really funny anecdote about this that I did years ago. I was leading the class, and I had this exercise where I, hid the viewer basically so nobody could see it. Right. And I just showed them the, showed them a scope and said, tell me about the shot. Right. And just, you know, to visualize this for our listeners and our viewers, think about a vector scope being pushed heavily towards yellow, red, right.

01:23:56:03 - 01:24:15:07
Robbie
And the, waveform had, you know, a big peak, right? Kind of in the middle. That was a little clip. Right? And I said, what what are we looking at? Right. And they're like, oh, well, we're looking at, you know, it looks like it's it's warm. It looks like it's bright. It's probably, you know, people on the beach at sunset.

01:24:15:07 - 01:24:35:14
Robbie
Right? And I'm like, okay. And so people kept guessing about what it was. And I turned the I turned the viewer on and they go, oh, right. And it was this guy sitting in a desk chair with a big tungsten light that was Clippy, right? And had this big orange thing. Right? And I said, what do you think?

01:24:35:14 - 01:25:03:23
Robbie
Now? They're like, well, that's not what I was expecting. And so I bring that up because people look at scopes thinking that it tells 100% of the story. All scope does is give you information that you, as the user, need to interpret and adapt to how you want the image looking right. So to play that out further, if my client brief was I want everything to be cool and blue or whatever, right.

01:25:04:01 - 01:25:21:08
Robbie
Like you look at the scopes and you go, that's not the story that I'm telling, and you just push everything blue. Guess what? Like it could look terrible because you're not actually looking at the image. You're looking at scopes and you're going, well, this is perfect skin tone. This is perfect contrast, this is perfect flow. And I just think that's a mistake.

01:25:21:09 - 01:25:40:14
Robbie
I used to be of the attitude of like, oh yeah, so I can do anything with scopes and more and more and more and more and more like I just, I don't even like look at my scripts all that often. I mean, I do, I do for technical things like if we're doing something, the HDR, I'm trying to hit a thousand nits, or I'm trying to hit exactly a brand color or something like that.

01:25:40:16 - 01:25:51:04
Robbie
But to me, the bigger thing is that that feel in that flow works. It's less about perfect skin tone, perfect contrast, that kind of thing.

01:25:51:05 - 01:26:13:22
Joey
So to me, I'm a little bit different in my attitude here because I do look at the scopes constantly. If I am grading something and I don't have the scopes up, the second I make an adjustment, I feel uncomfortable because I don't see it changing in a scope. But to me, the scope is a tool to visualize those perceptive things where your brain is playing tricks on you and that's it, right?

01:26:13:22 - 01:26:29:06
Joey
So when I'm grading a shot, I'm looking at the image, and then maybe out of the corner of my eye, watching the scopes to see how big of a percentage change I'm making and just feeling that out. So when I go to the next shot, I can kind of match it, you know what I mean? It's all relative generally.

01:26:29:06 - 01:26:30:04
Joey
Yeah, I agree, I.

01:26:30:06 - 01:26:42:11
Robbie
I certainly agree with that part. I'm not I'm not saying that like I don't use scopes like in shot matching is a perfect example. Right. You're trying to match contrast between two shots. You're trying to match peak luminance saturation and that kind of stuff. I'm just I'm just.

01:26:42:11 - 01:26:54:03
Joey
Saying where you get into trouble is like, I have to hit 100, right? I have to hit zero. I need to have this ratio between this, to this, to this, and that has no validity at all in anything to make an image look.

01:26:54:03 - 01:27:09:22
Robbie
Well maybe but but again, like the skin tones up a good one like all the 0 to 100 is a is a great is a great example. I just think that people get so dogmatic about what a perfect image looks like that they, they, they use that as a crutch to the destructive things that they're doing to, to a shot.

01:27:10:00 - 01:27:21:10
Joey
Because also if, if a perfect image, if all perfect images looked the same on the scope, if all the best images had the same scope output, there would be no artistry in this, right? We might be wrong on.

01:27:21:16 - 01:27:24:22
Robbie
I think the other thing that bothers.

01:27:25:00 - 01:27:26:13
Joey

01:27:26:15 - 01:27:51:04
Robbie
I think bothers new colorists and people that are getting into this is that sometimes the intent, the intent of especially when it comes to color balance, but also somewhat to, to contrast as well the intent sometimes if you are not on the same page as the people in production, right, that the idea of intent can get lost.

01:27:51:05 - 01:28:13:05
Robbie
And I think that that comes in a couple of ways. Right? I think that people have been conditioned that neutrality is correct. And, you know, a shift towards a particular hue or saturation or whatever can be incorrect. So like give you, you know, let's say you get a shot and it's really, really, really warm and yellow or you get a shot that's really, really cool and blue and purple.

01:28:13:05 - 01:28:33:10
Robbie
Right? I think the new user is going, well. That is not neutral. I need to fix that right now. And I think that goes back into some of the engineering thing that we're talking about a little bit before, like that kind of stuff. Right. Like if I get an image that is really blue, my first question is, hey guys, this was intentional, right?

01:28:33:12 - 01:28:51:02
Robbie
And nine times out ten. Yeah, yeah, that's we were going for this like cool morning thing. Like whatever okay cool I'm going to enhance that. What you got I'm going to go with it. I think a lot of new people try to correct those things that they see out going, assuming that it was a mistake that was made in production.

01:28:51:07 - 01:28:53:12
Robbie
Bad white balance, but nobody the monitor bad.

01:28:53:12 - 01:28:56:17
Joey
What are you saying that they're chasing that before after feeling right.

01:28:56:17 - 01:29:14:08
Robbie
Exactly. They're chasing that before and after feeling. And so they're doing things that are destructive to that image to give them because it's like it's a little uncomfortable. I get it right. Like if you're looking at your vectorscope and everything is hanging out over here on the left hand side of the vectorscope and nothing's in the center of the scope, you're going, well, cool.

01:29:14:08 - 01:29:32:01
Robbie
I have a, you know, yellow wash on the image, but like, think about some of the color over the past, you know, decade that has had the, you know, rave reviews and people just love. Right. I'm thinking, the Blade Runner 20, 49 stuff when they're out in Vegas. Right. And, you know, Deakins lighting this with a million sky panels and everything.

01:29:32:01 - 01:29:38:04
Robbie
It's freaking orange, right? Could you imagine the color is just going, okay, we're just going to slide to the right balance.

01:29:38:05 - 01:29:41:11
Joey
This, you know, the best colors in the world, right?

01:29:41:11 - 01:29:46:19
Robbie
Because you have a cool you have a cool before and after. Now it was yellow and now it's not.

01:29:46:20 - 01:30:08:15
Joey
Just like we've been talking about. Less is more. I promise you that if you were to open up that project, there's probably less going on in those grades than you might initially think. I'm not saying that there wasn't a lot of effort put into it. Yeah, yeah. But I bet you if you did your little before, after that we keep talking about, you'd be surprised how much of that was intentional creativity on the.

01:30:08:17 - 01:30:29:15
Robbie
100%. So I think the other thing that really gets people like, kind of stopped in their tracks when they get into color and we, I mean, we well, I mean, it's like ad nauseum is not even the right description of this, but like the idea of, like monitoring and what's good enough and all that kind of stuff. And I don't want to debate the merits of different technologies.

01:30:29:16 - 01:30:48:20
Robbie
That's not the point. My whole thing about this, when I talk to new users, is simply use the best monitor that you possibly can at that point in time of where you're at, right? Yes, you can talk to purists who will argue, you know, we'll say things to you like, you'll never get good results on your Legoland or whatever, right?

01:30:48:21 - 01:31:08:14
Robbie
Like, I get it, there's certain things that are limitations of certain display technologies, and there's certain things you might not see, like at the very high end. Yes, we want to have true reference and be 100% accurate in every measurement that we can possibly give. But to the new user, I wouldn't let this be a crutch. Right? You can make nice looking.

01:31:08:14 - 01:31:46:14
Robbie
The images on displays that are maybe not perfectly reference iPads come to mind, Lego labs come to mind that kind of stuff, more so than the actual brand, monitor, etc. used calibration and environments are the two biggest parts of this, right? You can make great looking images are not a perfect reference monitor. If it's pretty well calibrated and you're in an environment where you're not being influenced by the environment, I mean, it would surprise a lot of people that some of the, you know, biggest, top grossing films were in rooms that are just kind of so-so.

01:31:46:19 - 01:32:06:05
Robbie
If you want to go look at, like, you know, simply specs about what a color room should be or whatever, they're kind of like, yeah, all right. And they still make images. So like, I just don't think I think people get too caught up in this part of the discussion. Not that I'm not discounting me, it's important. But the fact is, is that like, don't let the technology be a crutch to creating nice images either.

01:32:06:07 - 01:32:30:14
Joey
Yeah. And you can do this not completely on the cheap, but you can do this smartly, right? If you have a decently high quality monitor, you will get better results. If you maybe hire a professional calibrator to come calibrate it for you, then if you just spent more money on a more expensive monitor right, you'll spend less money hiring somebody to do a proper calibration.

01:32:30:17 - 01:32:51:17
Joey
And then also you'll get a report knowing how close to reference you are, you know, so you don't need to learn calibration techniques and everything initially because you're trying to learn to color gray, right? You're not learning to be a display calibrator. Just hire someone to calibrate the best display you can afford. But get it calibrated. The next thing is think about your environment.

01:32:51:17 - 01:33:12:14
Joey
You don't want color or stimulus in your environment. You want a neutral gray wall. You want a bias light, and you want no colors anywhere. And not a lot of any not no light intruding from the outside world. Like you said, with the sun changing color and stuff like that, there's lots of information about, you know, building color neutral rooms.

01:33:12:14 - 01:33:33:03
Joey
In fact, we've talked about it a lot in previous episodes talking about room design. But I'll say this the room you're in and how it affects your goes so much further to how good of a grade you're going to get out of it. Then the last 5 to 10% of perfect reference calibration.

01:33:33:04 - 01:33:52:12
Robbie
And listen, I mean, I'm guilty of this. I mean, I, I, I mean, I'm really bad with my OCD about this that like, I chase perfection a lot of times with it. Like, you know, I talk to calibrate or friends or display, you know, people in the display space. And I'm like, well, you know, I, I have a, you know, .0.4 average delta.

01:33:52:12 - 01:34:22:02
Robbie
It'd be great if I could get that down to 0.2. And they look at me like like you can't even see that. Like what? Like stop it. And so yeah, I, I agree with all that. And I think the other thing too is that, the, the fact of the matter is that you can only like even the best rooms with the best technology and the best colorists can only get so far into what's going to be seen in the wider world.

01:34:22:02 - 01:34:41:02
Robbie
Right? We've talked a lot about how on wanting to work for reference and why reference is important, and I'm not discounting that. Right. But the idea of that quarter percent difference or whatever the percentage is as a game stopping kind of thing, I, I disagree with, I think that there's plenty of people who treat.

01:34:41:02 - 01:34:57:17
Joey
Who shot the shot. Right. We get we get those clients all the time. Right. How are you sending things to a client if they're not looking at it on a reference monitor? No, they might not be looking at it on the reference monitor, but within reason. If you have a rapport with that client and they trust you, they're looking at it on the monitor that they're used to, right?

01:34:57:20 - 01:35:27:22
Joey
So if they say this one shot is super red, can we adjust that? They're probably right. Reference or not. That shot is probably super red. If they say, why is everything super red, then it's a monitoring issue, right? But people are used to the wrong that they're used to. So, you know, that room matters, I think more than anything else, because the room having stuff in it that will affect your perception will change the way you're looking at the image shot.

01:35:27:22 - 01:35:35:02
Joey
The shot, right. Yeah. I'll calibration on a monitor that isn't 100% is not going to change. Shot the shot.

01:35:35:02 - 01:35:48:08
Robbie
Yeah, right. If you're if your monitor is, you know, is at 107 nits versus 100 nits, you know, the tangible difference between that and getting a good grade and a bad grade is not because your monitor is doing 107 nits versus 100 nits, you know.

01:35:48:13 - 01:36:04:05
Joey
No. But if you have the window, if you have the window not blocked and the sun changes, 180 degrees around the time that you're grading over the day, you're going to be hit a really, really, really bad place, even if you have the most calibrated in the world. Perfect monitor.

01:36:04:09 - 01:36:41:10
Robbie
Totally. I think related to that is, and I think this is a relatively new thing since we've seen the introduction of color management pipelines. In tools. And this kind of is related a little bit to, node structure and overcomplicating things and that kind of stuff. But I see a lot of people getting into the unbelievable amount, like, like in the weeds, like just whatever analogy you want to give, like getting into it with color science pipelines, that number one, they fundamentally don't actually understand how they work.

01:36:41:12 - 01:36:42:08
Robbie
Oh.

01:36:42:10 - 01:36:50:19
Joey
You phone these seven people said these seven things on these seven Facebook groups. I'm gonna put them all together. Why is it working?

01:36:50:20 - 01:37:15:10
Robbie
I mean, I, I read one the other day and it was just like, well, the guy is like, well, I turned off the OTF and then I inverse that. And then I did, you know, it's like, dude, if you don't understand what's going on with these sliders and these buttons, like, don't touch them, right. Like I just see these people getting so complicated and it's just like it's like we mentioned before, the tools and being, you know, some tools are more destructive than others, that kind of thing.

01:37:15:10 - 01:37:40:02
Robbie
The same is true with the color color pipeline. Right? If you don't have an understanding of what the color science is doing, then you're not. I think this is a hard one for a lot of people to understand, because you're not under any requirement to be in a seen, referred, color managed pipeline at all. Right? For 30 years, 40 years, everybody was in a display preferred pipeline.

01:37:40:02 - 01:37:58:17
Robbie
And guess what? You the colorist for the color management pipeline, right. You were looking at a screen, the CRT or whatever going, okay, I'm making decisions. You can still work that way. And a lot of times, you know, I get, people asking questions about like, whoa, whoa, what pipeline and what you know, what, oh, you know, OTT or whatever.

01:37:58:19 - 01:38:20:09
Robbie
Yeah. Or whatever. Did you use? And oftentimes I'm like, I didn't I just, I just graded it and then they're like taken back. They're like, what do you mean you just graded it? And I'm like, well, like I didn't know what the cameras were being use. The client was in a super rush. It was a mess. So yeah, I just graded it and it's almost like this look of like, you second class citizen, like, what are you doing?

01:38:20:09 - 01:38:36:06
Robbie
Right? And then you start talking to these same people, and then you're like, okay, well, tell me how you would have done it. They're like, well, I would have like first transform this into I would have transformed this into linear, and then I would have taken it from linear and put it into like a Cmyk node and like, I'm like, I don't have time for that, dude.

01:38:36:06 - 01:38:51:14
Robbie
Like, you might be getting paid for every, like, nuance that you're doing this. I'm getting paid by busting it out and finishing the job and having the client give me the thumbs up. Right. And so I think a lot of time when it comes to color science stuff, people know enough to be dangerous, which is part of the part of this.

01:38:51:16 - 01:38:59:06
Robbie
But people also insert color science as a complication layer that might not be needed for what they're doing.

01:38:59:08 - 01:39:13:16
Joey
100%. Now, I'm going to contradict you a little bit here because we are talking about the new colorist. Yeah. And I do think in most cases new colorists are going to find advantages in working seen referred.

01:39:13:18 - 01:39:14:19
Robbie
Okay. Where can you.

01:39:14:21 - 01:39:30:10
Joey
When done right helps a lot of things right and makes it easier to focus on the actual grade. But that is to say go back to less is more. You don't need a huge node tree. If you've seen any of my node trees and you're just getting.

01:39:30:10 - 01:39:32:06
Robbie
Started, don't emulate.

01:39:32:08 - 01:39:38:06
Joey
Like them. Go nowhere near them. I do some crazy stuff. But do you.

01:39:38:06 - 01:39:39:10
Robbie
Understand what's going on and.

01:39:39:10 - 01:40:07:14
Joey
Off? Yeah, right. Camera space, intermediate space output. Transform those three things. Nothing else is necessary. Three very, very, very solid seen, referred workflow. Keep it to that simpleness. So you can, you know, have all the advantages of working seen, referred, having it handle things like the input transforms and the balance and the matching and stuff like that.

01:40:07:14 - 01:40:44:00
Joey
So you can focus on the grade, but do not go trying to break that workflow apart and reinvent your own unless you are really advanced at not just color grading, but color pipeline management specifically, right? There are theorists who are some of the absolute best creative colorists in the world who know nothing about color management because they have a team of color scientists that handle that for them, and they let them do their job, and they come in and they make the most incredible grades you'll ever see, because they're just focused on that creative.

01:40:44:02 - 01:41:09:02
Joey
You do not need to dive into massively deep color science immediately. Just like I said, you don't need to dive into being a display calibrator immediately or ever, right? Yeah. Focus on the creative and technical aspects of grading instead of trying to learn 50 other disciplines that are related, but not the actual grade at the same time.

01:41:09:04 - 01:41:51:13
Robbie
Yeah, and I think the last thing I'll say in this conversation is that it sounds like. It sounds like we don't allow for time to experiment and try things or whatever. And I actually think that that is, the a great way to kind of end this discussion is that to get into color as a new user or somebody who wants to be doing it more, you do actually have to allow time the way that you get better at this stuff and the way that you understand things like node, tree structure and color pipelines and all that kind of stuff is to actually allow for some experimentation time and to build that, build that into

01:41:51:13 - 01:42:17:14
Robbie
your workflow. Right? Because the reality is, is that when you're stuck in the thick of it with a client, with a project and it's deadline driven, we all tend to go with what we know, right? And we can get in big trouble when we want to experiment. I mean, I remember, I remember a, a project where I brought somebody on to, to work on the project, and they did everything in, what is it called?

01:42:17:14 - 01:42:39:06
Robbie
Lab mode. Lab mode? Right. Just because, like, it seemed cool. Right? And they painted themselves into such a corner that it was just like, well, how do I get out of this, right? That time for experimenting with stuff like that. I mentioned linear before and those workflows color, color pipeline, management pipelines, like the time to do that is when you're not being hammered by a client to deliver something.

01:42:39:12 - 01:42:59:12
Robbie
And you can really get a feel for what works, what you like about it, what you don't like about it. Great pacing, but, you know, like, people are like, whoa, you know, top end colors don't do that. They just work. No, it's not true at all. Where they do it often is in their downtime, maybe regrading a project that they've already graded so they're comfortable with what the end result was.

01:42:59:16 - 01:43:16:17
Robbie
Can they get to that and can they get to that end result in a different way? Or like I think you and I do this all the time, right. Big software release, new tools come out well over on my assist station. I'm going to install that new software, play with those new tools, get familiar with them, get the pitfalls of them, that kind of stuff.

01:43:16:18 - 01:43:37:12
Robbie
Before I put it on my main workstation, to put it in reality. And part of that process too, is figuring out where, how, when you can use new tools, new parts of the pipeline you're under. Like, I had this discussion with some of the other day, Joe, it was really funny. I'm actually curious if you've used this. So somebody was like, well, I use the color warp on everything.

01:43:37:16 - 01:43:40:06
Robbie
And I said to them, I was like, I don't think I've ever used the color.

01:43:40:06 - 01:43:41:07
Joey
Warper I've never used.

01:43:41:07 - 01:43:54:01
Robbie
It. And they looked at me like, what do you mean? How could you have never used the color warp? It's a new tool and resolve. And I'm like, yeah, I know what it does. I understand how it works. I just I just never found it good for me. And there were.

01:43:54:03 - 01:43:57:13
Joey
The big moves first, because the color wheel was a very targeted adjustment.

01:43:57:15 - 01:44:27:18
Robbie
But they were flabbergasted that just because a new tool is there that I haven't, like, inserted it already into my workflow in my pipeline and I'm like, it just doesn't work for me and what I need to do. I depend on other ways of doing similar, similar things that I have muscle memory or whatever. Not to say that I'm pulling the color warp or it's just an example of just one example of this, but I think it's important, as you discover new tools, to also understand that a lot of these tools and a lot of these workflows, there's a tremendous amount of overlap, right?

01:44:27:18 - 01:44:52:11
Robbie
There's more, you know, there's more ways to do something. And modern color correction tools like there's not just one way to do it. You could accomplish what the color produce does with other tools, right? With, you know, secondary curves or whatever. Like there's novel ways you can insert it there. And so I just think that a lot of new users need to build time to experiment and find what works for them, but also just not feel that overwhelming requirement to use the new hotness.

01:44:52:11 - 01:45:10:15
Robbie
Right. You know, just just because something's new and cool, like, I've been experimenting a lot this past week with In resolve 19 with the new, node layer stack kind of thing. Right. And I'm sort of like, yeah, it's cool. I'm not sure if I'm going to integrate this yet into my workflow.

01:45:10:16 - 01:45:16:12
Joey
I'm going to use the absolute crap out of that. But I need to sit down and really figure out how to integrate.

01:45:16:12 - 01:45:18:13
Robbie
It in my in the time to do that, the time to do that is.

01:45:18:16 - 01:45:24:03
Joey
A real job in. So I've done ten experiments with it to try to iterate myself into a good workflow.

01:45:24:03 - 01:45:41:16
Robbie
Yeah. And so I think the new the and the endpoint here, the bottom line for the new user is build that time into your flow of a week. Right. 20 minutes to experiment with this, 30 minutes to experiment with that. Try some different shots. But don't be don't paint yourself into a corner by feeling. I got to use this new tool I don't understand.

01:45:41:18 - 01:46:13:05
Robbie
I picked somebody that I read on the internet, says I have to use it and then automatically put because that's where like you end up ruining your images. You get bad results, you get clients better. And so it's a confidence killer. And I think at the end of the day, that's the end of the story here, is that a lot of colorists, that I know you know, and I think a lot of our listeners and viewers know, they're good at their jobs, but they're one thing that defines all of those top colorist, and that is confidence in what they do.

01:46:13:10 - 01:46:46:15
Robbie
Right? That they never present this idea of, well, I don't know how to handle that situation or I don't know how to get to what you're what you want, right? Color is largely about confidence. It's about communication with people and and extruding confidence and displaying confidence. And so I see a lot of the top end colors in the world who might not know anything about XYZ tool or color pipelines or whatever, as you mentioned, but goddamn, they can exude confidence and make those clients happy doing what they know how to do.

01:46:46:20 - 01:47:07:02
Robbie
And that's a big part of it to new to new clients, if you haven't already, go back and take a listen or watch to our episode on assistants. Because we talk a lot about, this kind of thing, confidence, communication and that kind of stuff, with new users, because that's that's part of it for, for for a new user, I think for sure.

01:47:07:04 - 01:47:38:01
Joey
Yeah. I think just to kind of close out with my last final tip, and we've mentioned it on probably almost every episode of this podcast, and I mention it every chance I can get. All of the technical stuff aside, all the creative stuff aside, this is still a people business first. Yeah, and always be aware of that. Always be aware that how you communicate, how you talk about these technical things, how you discuss ideas and present things to your clients matters so much.

01:47:38:03 - 01:47:44:05
Joey
Just never lose sight of the fact that this is a people business and all of the other things that that entails.

01:47:44:07 - 01:48:10:13
Robbie
Absalom. Very cool. Well, for those who are new users, hopefully this has helped you get a little, some ideas percolating in your head about, things you need to consider as you're diving into color. I just think that, you know, the democratization of color tools is like, is is is amazing for creativity, for doing amazing things. And, you know, as you get into it, you know, efficiency, work, all of those things are important.

01:48:10:13 - 01:48:28:14
Robbie
But also just like, have fun with it. I see so many people getting so caught up with having to play by the rules and being dogmatic about it. Like there's again, I know I said, you know, we talked about the scorecard earlier, but there really is no scorecard. The only thing you have to pay attention to is not making bad images.

01:48:28:19 - 01:48:47:06
Robbie
And if you can work on making bad images, there's no there's no, checkbox on what's correct. It's just not bad. Right. And that's that's really all I come down to. Like, you can have a really cool images. It might not be my cup of tea, but as long as it's not bad, as long as it's consistent, as long as it flows, like you can make whatever you want.

01:48:47:06 - 01:49:05:05
Robbie
So it's very cool. For those of you who are new to the podcast, thanks for, for listening and checking us out on YouTube. You can always follow us on YouTube. Please like and subscribe there. That always helps us out. The podcast is available on major, podcasting platforms, including Apple Music and Spotify, Amazon and Google Podcasts.

01:49:05:07 - 01:49:23:19
Robbie
So wherever you see it, please like it. And subscribe. Tell your friends about it every little like and subscribe, goes a long way and really helps us out. You can also go over to the offset podcast.com, where you can find episodes. You can also find show notes. We don't talk about show notes ever. But that's another thing that really only appears on the offset podcast.

01:49:23:19 - 01:49:45:01
Robbie
Dot com is various links out to, show notes and other articles and stuff that we talk about. So feel free to go over there. We also have a submission button for new ideas, new topics, anything you want to add that helps us out. That actually goes right into a lovely monday.com board. The jury design, which we'll talk about on a future episode Monday for for a small post-production businesses.

01:49:45:02 - 01:50:02:15
Robbie
A big thanks, as always to our sponsor, Flanders Scientific. Without you guys, we wouldn't be able to do this. Big thanks to our editor, Stella, who makes us sound somewhat intelligible. And for all of our listeners, followers on Instagram, thank you so much for, for checking out the show once again. Again, please tell your friends if you liked the episode and you like the series.

01:50:02:15 - 01:50:09:01
Robbie
And, yeah, we'll be back in a couple weeks with another installment. So for the offset podcast, I'm Robbie Carman

01:50:09:03 - 01:50:10:17
Joey
And I'm Joey D’Anna. Thanks for listening.