EP064: From Staff Colorist To Facility Owner PT 1 With Nick Hasson
Guest
A Two Part Chat With Nick Hasson
In this episode of The Offset Podcast we’re joined by friend, amazing colorist, and all around great human Nick Hasson.
We’ve been wanting to have Nick on for a long time and we’re excited to finally get the opportunity. Nick has spent the past 25 years at some of the biggest postproduction & color companies in the world including ILM, Technicolor, RIOT, Company3, Light Iron, Modern VideoFilm, and Harbor Picture Company. He recently opened his own studio in Burbank, CA called THE END
In this first part of a two part series with Nick we talk about his background, what larges facilities taught him and more.
Specific topics include:
- Joining ILM & launching a professional career
- Moving to L.A. and joining RIOT & Company3
- Developing ‘soft skills’ while at Technicolor
- Camaraderie & the early days of D.I. at Light Iron
- The pandemic and launching a freelance career
- And more!
If you enjoy the topics and discussion of The Offset Podcast you can join in the conversation with our new Discord community
You can also follow us on Instagram & Facebook – just search for The Offset Podcast.
Be sure to like and subscribe to the podcast wherever you found it and be sure to check out our growing library of episodes. If you like the podcast it’d mean the world to us if you’d consider supporting the show by buying us a cup of virtual coffee –https://buymeacoffee.com/theoffsetpodcast
See you again in about two weeks for a new episode!
Video
Transcript
00:00:00:03 - 00:00:13:04
Robbie
Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of The Offset Podcast. And this week we have an awesome special guest. Stay tuned.
00:00:13:05 - 00:00:35:08
Joey
Support for this episode comes from Flanders Scientific and their DM series HD monitors. From set to post to broadcast. These versatile HD monitors are equipped with an industry leading array of features and capabilities, making them indispensable to DITs, engineers, editors and colorists. Learn more at FlandersScientific.com
00:00:35:10 - 00:00:43:09
Robbie
All right, everybody, welcome back to another episode of The Offset Podcast. I'm one of your hosts, Robbie Carman. And with me is Joey D’Anna Hey, Joey. How are you, man?
00:00:43:10 - 00:00:44:17
Joey
Hey, everyone.
00:00:44:19 - 00:01:02:14
Robbie
Joey, believe it or not, we have a guest this week. It's not just our bloviations. We're joined by, a good friend and colleague, Nick Hasson, who's going to share some some great insights with us about sort of his career, the state of affairs. This is going to be the first part in a two part series we're doing with Nick.
00:01:02:20 - 00:01:21:01
Robbie
We're going to the first part. We're going to cover sort of his big facility career in that path. And then in part two, we'll discuss sort of the challenges of becoming a freelancer, opening your own facility and some of the stuff that goes on with that, including things like coding and AI and things he would wish he had known as a as a younger colorist.
00:01:21:01 - 00:01:40:17
Robbie
But before we begin some housekeeping things, as usual, you can always follow the show on Instagram or Facebook to search for The Offset Podcast. You can find our complete catalog of episodes by visiting offsetpodcast.com. We'd love it if you would consider purchasing a virtual cup of coffee with this link right here on screen. Every dollar pledged goes directly to supporting the show.
00:01:40:20 - 00:01:57:13
Robbie
And then, as you might have heard us say over the past couple episodes, we've launched our own Discord server. The Offset Discord is public and available for anybody to join. We have about 70-80 members so far on there and some great conversations already happening. So you can join that Discord. Just buy the link right here on screen. Alight Joey.
00:01:57:13 - 00:02:02:07
Robbie
well, without further ado, let's bring on our pal Nick Hasson. Nick, how are you doing, man? Hey, guys.
00:02:02:07 - 00:02:03:11
Nick
Thanks for having me on.
00:02:03:13 - 00:02:23:13
Robbie
Oh, man, we're stoked to have you as I as a sort of teased in the opening there. You have been someone I've wanted to get on the show for a long time. We we first met on a discord community, of all things. Yeah. And it was. We were lucky that our buddy Adam Hockey was like, hey, we got to bring this guy Nick into the community.
00:02:23:13 - 00:02:42:10
Robbie
And once you joined the community, it was great. Great getting to know you there. And I think that, one of the things I appreciate about you, Nick, is that you just have sort of an open, fresh kind of feel to a lot of these topics, not one to hide behind, you know, that's dark art. We can't talk about that.
00:02:42:10 - 00:03:08:06
Robbie
And I'm also really interested in just sort of, you know, your take on I feel like you have a good sensibility about the scene, whether that be technology, whether that be, you know, technique and trends, whether that be the business part about it. And so we're going to dive into all of that. But before we do, why don't we start out kind of just giving us, you know, the elevator pitch on who you are, where your, you know, career trajectory has been so far.
00:03:08:06 - 00:03:10:02
Robbie
And we'll dive into some of the particulars.
00:03:10:03 - 00:03:31:03
Nick
Yeah, sure. So my name's Nick Carson. I'm a colorist in Los Angeles. I've been in Los Angeles for the last 22 ish years. Prior to that, I was in San Francisco. I started my career in the commercial scene. In San Francisco, and then was lucky to go to Industrial Light and Magic, where I got to kind of get into the infancy of D.I.
00:03:31:05 - 00:04:00:16
Nick
And the first kind of digital cameras with the F9 5900 and the very early beta versions of the Quantel IQ wasn't even a Pablo yet. And then after that came to LA, and I've been doing mostly just picture finishing, but I've had roles as, online smoke flame, VFX type work as well as colorist work. And now I do kind of a little bit of everything from start to finish.
00:04:00:16 - 00:04:18:11
Nick
So, I stick to, you know, conforming optical effects like that we have affects people we send the heavy stuff out to and then do all the color and deliverables and all that stuff. So it's it's been a good thing to have a background with a little many different paths.
00:04:18:13 - 00:04:39:02
Robbie
Yeah. And for those listeners who can already tell the attraction that we have to to Nick in talking to him because he mentioned the word Quantel, he mentioned old tape decks. This is in the realm of of Joey and me specifically, but also Nick didn't mention that he's also a car guy, which you know, him and Joey, forget about it.
00:04:39:02 - 00:04:45:04
Robbie
It would be like an hour or so. We have to we have to put that off for another. Another day, in another conversation, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:04:45:04 - 00:04:46:02
Joey
But I will just say.
00:04:46:02 - 00:05:05:09
Joey
It's it's great to have you here because I think your background, like you said, having dipped into so many different things in the industry, both on the technical and creative side, I think is really advantageous. And I'm saying that somewhat self-serving because I feel like I've kind of done the same thing. I started in the early days as well.
00:05:05:11 - 00:05:18:01
Joey
And, you know, those systems weren't perfect, but you learned a lot. Kind of getting into those and figuring out and problem solving with what you could do with digital images that people hadn't really thought about in the past.
00:05:18:02 - 00:05:21:05
Nick
Or one level of undue. Yeah.
00:05:21:07 - 00:05:22:11
Joey
And one video track.
00:05:22:12 - 00:05:23:22
Nick
Yes. And one video track. Yes.
00:05:24:02 - 00:05:29:06
Joey
I still I mean, I still say editing happens on one track. And if you need more than that, you're doing it wrong.
00:05:29:08 - 00:05:32:01
Robbie
But you do say that weekly. Yeah.
00:05:32:03 - 00:05:50:15
Joey
But I think there's a lot of value in that, that I, that some people that and granted, I'm not disparaging anybody who's like I only do color grading. I only do it on this platform. I am very comfortable in my lane. I'm very talented at this. I've got my clients, I love it. I know disparaging someone, taking that approach.
00:05:50:18 - 00:06:18:01
Joey
That hasn't been my approach. I've used every system under the sun, from Sony Linear to Smoke and Flame to Quantel avid DS now to Resolve, and I feel like I've learned something from all of them along the way, whether it just be not just color stuff, but conform stuff, little visual effects stuff, little tricks here or there. When a client throws you a curveball, you can say, oh yeah, I have a solve for that, because that came up 15 years ago in a smoke session.
00:06:18:04 - 00:06:37:23
Nick
Yeah, yeah. I think learning all those software is great. You learn something different every time, different approach. It makes your brain work in a different way. And even in our current situation of like Resolve versus Baselight, right. And they're two totally different things. The way those two softwares make you think is completely opposite. Like when I'm on a Resolve, I'm thinking like like just for instance, I'm making changes in a client session.
00:06:37:23 - 00:07:03:12
Nick
It's make the change, do a ripple, you know, check out the ripple worked where, you know, in Baselight you're thinking ahead. It's like, okay, turn on the grouping. Get everything offset on, do it all live at once while, you know, literally twisting the whole scene around. Live once and then hit play and go through. So it's like just does the way those two things think like I'm thinking after, I'm thinking before, even the way things get selected, you know, different groups and Resolve versus categories.
00:07:03:12 - 00:07:19:01
Nick
And basically they just make you work in a different way. And sometimes it's really frustrating because you come back to the one software and you're like, why can't I just categorize this and do this? But you know, often your workflow becomes better as you, you know, hop between, you pick up little things and you merge it into one.
00:07:19:03 - 00:07:48:01
Joey
And I've always said that the more different platforms, systems, techniques, disciplines that you learn and immerse yourself in, even if they don't become your full time gig, it helps you learn to learn. You know, if you have figured out if you've jumped from ten different platforms over your career when the next hot thing comes out, it's a lot easier for you to pick that up and learn it because you've already figured out how to kind of I consider it almost abstracting the technical usage from the creative desire.
00:07:48:02 - 00:08:06:19
Joey
Right. You know what I want the tool to do now I just need to figure out how to get the tool to do it. You know, I the the people that I think are the best colorists, the best visual effects artists don't ever say I'm a Resolve colorist. I'm a bass like colorist. No, they know what they want to do, and then they use the system as an extension to make that happen.
00:08:06:21 - 00:08:34:07
Robbie
Absolutely. So let's put our, our, you know, time machine hats on here and go back to, you know, younger, younger Nick back in the day teenager early 20s. Like, you know, I always find it interesting talking to to colorists and people in post-production because there's a lot of similarities in path. You know, some people come to it from, hey, I liked the gear and the technology and, you know, the engineering part about it.
00:08:34:09 - 00:08:52:16
Robbie
Some people come from it from a, you know, a pure artistic point of view. I'm always surprised. I shouldn't say surprised, but I'm always it's always interesting to see how many people have music paths getting into post-production as well. Whether that might have been, you know, as a performer or player, whether that be audio engineering. What's your path?
00:08:52:16 - 00:08:58:22
Robbie
Where did you know when, when, when you were a young man? What was what were your interests? Where did you think you were going to be and how did you get here?
00:08:59:01 - 00:09:19:14
Nick
Yeah, so I was the teenager with a camera. I always had a camera. I always had stills at that time, you know, everywhere I went, every party, everything. So that started my kind of passion for imaging, I would say. And then after, after high school, I was in college and I got a chance to be an extra on a commercial.
00:09:19:16 - 00:09:31:16
Nick
And so I thought, okay, why not? I'll try this. Somebody had asked me on the street, they're like, hey, you know, we need some kids, would you do it? And at the time it was like 150 bucks a day, which at that time was, you know, a lot of money for a 19 year old, 18 year old. So I went there and it was funny.
00:09:31:16 - 00:09:49:04
Nick
I was sitting on set and we're waiting and I'm going, what are all these? All these people are doing stuff and I'm just sitting here, this is so boring. What are these guys do? And I got my first look at a real film camera. I want to say it was a Panaflex Gold, okay? And I was just fascinated by the size and the organization.
00:09:49:04 - 00:10:08:04
Nick
It felt like a Ferrari team in a pit stop that's, you know, when I first saw it, that's the way I felt felt about it. And so I kind of changed my trajectory. At that time, I was in San Diego and I really wanted to, to, you know, accelerate that. So I ended up going to Orlando, where I went to both the University of Central Florida and Full Sail.
00:10:08:07 - 00:10:23:17
Nick
So I got a little bit of both sides where I was able to, you know, do some of more of the theory. And then at Full Sail was was great. It didn't wasn't much theory, it was more hands on. So they were like, here's a Panaflex Gold, figure out how to thread it. Here's a SRW three airy. Go do it.
00:10:23:17 - 00:10:43:17
Nick
Here's a beta cam, you know. So it was good. I got to learn that and that vernacular and learning acronyms surprisingly was a huge help. So I was able to go into a professional environment and know, you know, what's was all these things that are probably simple. Now that, you know, people here at the time, there wasn't the resources of the internet to learn that.
00:10:43:17 - 00:11:05:09
Robbie
So can I tell you that every single kid that I've met that has gone to Full Sail and has had that experience, I have been nothing but impressed, and I think it speaks a little bit to the, you know, kind of in as a society, I think we put a lot of onus on sort of like the traditional education, traditional college path or whatever.
00:11:05:11 - 00:11:21:05
Robbie
And like I'm not saying that like full sails vocational institution or it's not like, you know, becoming, but it has some similarities there. And I think that that's, it's, it's it's astounding to me when I, when we look to hire people or talk to like, there's a clear difference between the person that's like I call them beret filmmakers, right?
00:11:21:06 - 00:11:40:15
Robbie
You know, the people will walk around like this all the time, and then the people who just get stuff done right. And it's like, I've always been impressed by that path with, especially with this film school kids, because as you said, a lot of that hands on practical training is usually something that you don't get until after college in that first couple jobs, and you screw it all up.
00:11:40:15 - 00:11:54:16
Robbie
And I've always thought that that's kind of interesting, that path, because it sounds like, I think you would say this, that you got a lot of hands on experience, that kids, that young people at your age didn't necessarily have unless they were working at a, you know, a larger facility or something like that.
00:11:54:17 - 00:12:11:06
Nick
Yeah, absolutely. No, absolutely. I mean, at the time they had a quantile edit box and and that was very rare. I think they were over $1 million at that point, and which was a great thing the school went to and said, give us $1 million, you know, and we'll we'll give us the million dollar box and we'll teach all these kids and they'll go out in the world and they'll know quantile.
00:12:11:08 - 00:12:24:22
Nick
So that worked out really well. At the same time I was in bands like you mentioned, music, music's always been a big thing for me. I play bass, I play guitar, and I try to play keyboard. So I played bass through through high school and college and bands, and Full Sail was like a great extension of that.
00:12:24:22 - 00:12:36:14
Nick
I was actually going to double major in film and recording engineering, and once I got through the film program, I realized that, you know, I probably didn't really need to go through the engineering department because that wasn't what my path was, and.
00:12:36:16 - 00:12:50:22
Robbie
That's exactly where I ended up to. I actually thought that was my big plan was, well, first my plan was I was going to be a rock star. And then that didn't really work out. And then I was I was really, really pulled into audio engineering and the recording arts and sciences. But I had a similar path I had.
00:12:50:22 - 00:13:09:19
Robbie
I was recording a band in college, and they, you know, one of the guys in the band was like, oh man, we should do it. Like, this is still the days of MTV and, you know, music videos and dating myself a little bit, but they were like, hey man, we really need to do a music video. And one of the guys in the band had this little hi8 camera and he's like, well, how can I be in the music video?
00:13:10:01 - 00:13:29:18
Robbie
And, you know, also like, I'll record it and like one thing led to another. And I've always found that intersection to be really interesting because I think that there's, you know, you could argue that we do visual mixing is, you know, kind of is kind of what we do as colorist. Right. And I think that's a it's an there's an interesting, you know, synergies between the two, the two paths for sure.
00:13:29:19 - 00:13:49:06
Joey
I've always kind of, in a very slight way, felt inadequate in the color grading world because I don't have a music background. I do have a little bit of an audio background. I did some recording and some mixing back in the day. But Rob is right, there are so many musicians that went into into this business. I kind of look at them like, well, wait, what's wrong with me?
00:13:49:06 - 00:13:53:12
Joey
I could never I, I tried in like middle school to play an instrument and that was terrible.
00:13:53:16 - 00:14:00:11
Robbie
Well, when you realize when you realize that you don't look good in leather pants and, like, totally open shirts, it limits yourself.
00:14:00:13 - 00:14:02:08
Nick
And no one was going to pay you for it, right?
00:14:02:09 - 00:14:05:04
Robbie
Right. Exactly. Yeah, exactly. I think.
00:14:05:05 - 00:14:30:08
Nick
So, you those days, though, with the music stuff that really helped me to was all musicians want to be filmed. And so the amount of music videos that I made for friends and that's where I really like, you know, while I was working, you know, maybe at a post house or something, I was taking anything from a 16mm camera or a mini DV camera and going shooting these music videos with friends, because they were really simple productions where I didn't have to have sound, you know, I could we could just goof off.
00:14:30:08 - 00:14:44:08
Nick
We could do a couple performances here and there and run the whole thing and then just have fun. And it was about the fun of it and the art of it, and about cutting that together, learning how to cut it together, learning what works, color grading it, getting it out to everyone. So that was kind of the that like infancy.
00:14:44:08 - 00:14:50:19
Nick
And then while I'm while I'm, you know, working on higher end productions, learning higher end, you know, workflows and routes.
00:14:50:21 - 00:15:12:01
Robbie
Yeah, for sure. You know, and it's it's interesting to me too, that the, the things that you learn about that goof off stage, I think is, is, is equally as valuable as like the time that you probably had in your early career at ILM or these other facilities, because it's like you're not like you're not under the pressure performing for somebody else.
00:15:12:01 - 00:15:39:12
Robbie
You're you're taking risks. You're trying things and like, it's just it's low stakes but still important education, right. Like that's I think if you talk to a lot of the best DPS, gaffers, colorists, directors, I mean, they all have a similar experience. Hey, I was just goofing off with my friends and doing this stuff and that, like that body of work in some ways is more valuable than their professional work could have ever been in terms of in terms of their overall learning.
00:15:39:13 - 00:16:02:14
Nick
You know, yeah, you need to learn like that in those those projects taught me that how I'm creative and how I have to translate that into working with other people. And what I mean by that is I often don't know what's right. I will admit that first, but I almost always know what's wrong. And so in that creative process, that's what I learned, which is like, I don't need to be right the first time I can find it, you know, you can go.
00:16:02:15 - 00:16:05:20
Nick
I know that's wrong. Okay, let's try this. I know that's wrong.
00:16:05:22 - 00:16:36:19
Robbie
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00:16:36:19 - 00:17:08:02
Robbie
Built by post professionals, Conform.Tools helps editors, colorists and conform artists move faster and finish stronger. Let it handle the tedious stuff so you can focus on the creative. Start a free seven-day trial at Conform.Tools and it's also about that's where through that process where you develop preference and the taste and all of that kind of stuff, the things that now in your career, you know, 20 or 30 years later, I'm sure you, you lean on all the time because of those experiences that you had, you know, way back then, right?
00:17:08:02 - 00:17:28:20
Robbie
Yeah. So you go to Full Sail, you, you you you get out into the world. Tell us about joining ILM, because I think a lot of people think about ILM as kind of like, you know, the holy grail of visual effects. And certainly, you know, over the decades, it's been it is that way. I mean, they've been innovated, innovative on so many levels.
00:17:28:22 - 00:17:34:12
Robbie
Tell us a little bit about your time there, what you kind of Gronk from kind of the experience of being at LM.
00:17:34:14 - 00:17:57:18
Nick
Yeah. So I moved to San Francisco. I had a family member that lived there. So I moved there, was living with him and my brother and I got a job at a very small commercial production company, Commercial Post House, called varietal at the time. And it was cool because I got to split my time between telecine. I'd come in and help the online guys finish from 4 to 8, and then I would go sometimes help the city guys start dailies and get going.
00:17:57:20 - 00:18:11:00
Nick
Which is how I got into color. So that was the first start. Shout out to my homie Chris Martin, who dragged me into this business. And so while I was there, I was talking to ILM the whole time, because that was really why I moved to San Francisco. I really wanted to go there. So I got a job there.
00:18:11:00 - 00:18:28:03
Nick
I got a job in editorial there, as a technical assistant. And in those days it was a lot of tape based things, and they had a ton of proprietary technology. So, you know, when you went in there, you had to learn all these things. And that was a new thing to me that they were like, were taking this investment in you and we're going to teach you all this stuff.
00:18:28:04 - 00:18:51:06
Nick
Like there was no GUI on anything. Everything was an Irish shell. And so you had to learn how to do that. You had to learn how to get around. And so it was a really great time because I got in just at the end of model making, which was one of my favorite things to watch, was how these guys would spend months building these detailed, intricate miniatures and then blow them up in a second, which was always great.
00:18:51:06 - 00:19:05:11
Nick
And ILM was great for like bringing everyone out. It'd be like, all right, we're like Pearl Harbor. They're like, we're blowing up a one tenth scale of a Japanese city. Everybody come out at lunch and we'd get to watch them flying a, you know, 35mm camera on a wire while, you know, all this pyrotechnics.
00:19:05:14 - 00:19:26:17
Robbie
I remember those mocha days, like the physical mocha setups were just so impressive that you'd have, you know, these big you said these big miniature sets, and then they're just like, I mean, you think about it now, like what the NFL does or, you know, those league with all the cable cams and stuff and like it's just like it's amazing that that stuff holds up and it looks so good.
00:19:26:17 - 00:19:42:09
Robbie
I had a I met a Douglas Douglas Trimble one time at a, at a, an event and he was super, super sweet, nice guy, you know. And he was like, it was a little bit of like hero worship, right? Because everybody's like, oh, he's the VFX guy. And he was just like, I remember him saying something paraphrasing here.
00:19:42:09 - 00:20:10:08
Robbie
He was just like, yeah, comparatively, it doesn't look very good. But like, you have to remember the innovation that was happening at that time. And that's just like I think about that all the time with things like miniatures. I think about it because some of my favorite movies are the Indiana Jones movies, and I think about like, all of the Matt work, like the, like the background painting work and all of that, the carpentry, all of those other trades that went into that, that now we just like, we'll just do it on a computer.
00:20:10:08 - 00:20:16:02
Robbie
But like the real physical aspects of doing that back then, we're just their mind boggling today.
00:20:16:03 - 00:20:32:21
Nick
Yeah I think it's some of the cool things they did with, one of the things I remember was Pearl Harbor. They did wet for dry, dry for wet, and that was something I'd never heard of. And so I was like, how are they making it look like we're underwater in the middle of a soundstage? And then you go see it and you're still like, I don't know how this is going to look.
00:20:32:22 - 00:20:36:10
Nick
And then you get the film back and you're like, wow, we're underwater. This is amazing.
00:20:36:12 - 00:20:37:03
Robbie
Totally.
00:20:37:05 - 00:21:11:14
Joey
Can I just say there's two things that I recently learned that that, ILM did for Star Trek The Next Generation that I thought was just the pinnacle of motion control and model work. I never knew this, but for next generation, they had for every space scene where they had ships moving in, cameras moving, they would turn off all the lights, rerun the camera with black walls around everything with little pinholes stuck in them so they would get a 3D perspective star field that match their exact move.
00:21:11:16 - 00:21:27:13
Joey
The other thing I thought was really fascinating that they did, and it's just indicative of the level of thought that goes into some of these productions. I never knew this as being a Star Trek fan in my entire life. It never even struck me until someone pointed it out to me. The viewscreen in Next Generation is three dimensional.
00:21:27:15 - 00:21:49:09
Joey
It's like a hologram, so if they're showing it from Dead On, it looks like a like a projection screen. It looks like you're there. But then they cut to another angle from one of the other stations of the bridge. They they would match their photography in whatever insert they were doing to put on the screen. They would match that exact angle to all three dimensions.
00:21:49:12 - 00:22:07:18
Joey
So the screen, the viewscreen, when they Compton in would look like you were cutting angled angle inside the bridge and it was holographic. And I'm like somebody thought, well, wait a minute, it's the future. Of course we have holographic view screens. How do we do that on a technical level for this entire series? Yeah. And they just did it.
00:22:07:20 - 00:22:26:07
Nick
Yeah. It was very much like an environment of like I was I was talking to someone recently when the ILM documentary came out and and watched it, and it kind of went, the first season goes up until just about the time I started. And then the second season is right about the time that I was there. And one of the things that was interesting seeing in so many years later was, you know, back then we knew what the creative was.
00:22:26:08 - 00:22:36:02
Nick
We knew what we wanted. You just didn't know how to get it. You had to create that part. And now it's the opposite way where we have all these tools and we have all these things, but we seem to be working, but, you know, harder.
00:22:36:07 - 00:22:56:23
Robbie
But but the process is not that much different, right? It's still problem solving. It's still it's like you just move it from the physical. Like I remember the first time. So I live I live near by the, the National Air and Space Museum out here in the Dulles area of Virginia called Uber Hazy, which is like a I think it's the largest hangar in the world, actually.
00:22:57:01 - 00:23:18:08
Robbie
And, we have a friend that works there who had given us a sort of behind the scenes tour, and I saw the first time I had seen the, the 11, it's I think it's 11 or 12ft long model of the original USS enterprise from the the original series. Right. And first of all, it's gigantic and it's, it's on this really cool, like kind of gimbal contraption.
00:23:18:08 - 00:23:37:16
Robbie
So they can they can rotate it and get under it and all that stuff. But the thing I was struck by was that it was kind of green, and I was like, I was like, why is it kind of green? And then it was like, oh, well, it's because the tube cameras that were used, you know, at the time in the film, or there's a whole thing about like we had the bias out the color cast.
00:23:37:18 - 00:23:59:11
Robbie
So when we recorded it, it looked, you know, that gunmetal gray kind of color because it didn't show up that way. And it's like that kind of stuff again, like we think about, okay, we'll just move the color wheel around now and balance it out and it'll be fine. I couldn't really do that back then. Right. You had practical problems that you had to solve, and the only way you could solve it was through, you know, physics, you know, to, to to make things different.
00:23:59:11 - 00:24:02:15
Robbie
And that area of things is always definitely been fascinating for me too.
00:24:02:20 - 00:24:20:14
Nick
It was great to see. It was great to see how much effort went into that. And the model making was fantastic. And ILM had a great Halloween party every year where they would give away pretty big gifts. Yeah, and one of the years the two model makers made a model of the Titanic. I mean, complete with lights and the little people and the band and everything on it.
00:24:20:14 - 00:24:31:05
Nick
And then halfway through the night, another guy showed up as an iceberg and they ran into it and the ship model broke apart. And they spent the rest of the night in two pieces, which is.
00:24:31:09 - 00:24:32:04
Robbie
Oh that's hilarious.
00:24:32:05 - 00:24:33:05
Nick
Yeah.
00:24:33:07 - 00:24:38:20
Robbie
So. So you do your tenure at IOM. What what what was next on the path?
00:24:38:21 - 00:24:55:22
Nick
Yeah. So ILM was a funny place because back then, movies kind of. Had you had two big film releases, you know, a year. So it was like you released it 4th of July or Memorial Day and maybe something in the fall. Yeah, exactly. So a lot of times in the summer we would be like, go for 3 or 4 months at a time.
00:24:56:00 - 00:25:13:20
Nick
And so after a couple of years of that, I decided that I didn't want to do that as I was, you know, getting into my mid 20s and wanted to actually make a consistent living. So I moved to Los Angeles and, my friend Chris Martin knew somebody at a place called riot. And so I called up riot and said, you know, here I am in LA.
00:25:13:21 - 00:25:22:13
Nick
They said, come meet. And next thing I know, I was working for them as a senior, changing roles for, you know, some at the time, some of the biggest colorists.
00:25:22:14 - 00:25:28:13
Robbie
Didn't riot, do a lot of the HBO like shows, like the early days of HBO series like Rome and those kind of shows, too?
00:25:28:14 - 00:25:50:02
Nick
Yeah. So when I got to riot, their big two big things were there was a lot of music videos. Music videos were big music video budgets were $1 million. They were very big. So there was a lot of guys there that were doing music videos. They also had a big commercial hold. And then up on the top floor there was a couple guys, Scott Klein and Pong Kosh that were doing, you know, starting to do shows.
00:25:50:02 - 00:26:07:22
Nick
And it was, you know, The Sopranos and Deadwood and, you know, a lot of those. So they, they that was the start of it. And that company actually had two different buildings. One was just for color and one was just for VFX and finishing. So it was a really cool environment. And so I worked there for a little while at night doing, you know, doing assisting during the day.
00:26:07:22 - 00:26:20:09
Nick
And then once they got their trust with me, they would do some dailies transfers and things at night. And then it got slow. And when it got slow there, you know, I was like, oh, is there anything else I can do? And they said, you know, we had this sister company, company three. Maybe you should go talk to them.
00:26:20:11 - 00:26:38:08
Nick
Yeah. And so I went over there and I talked to a gentleman, Stefan Velde, and he put me to work like five minutes after meeting me. So getting the machine room machines rolls. And so that was how I ended up at company three. And I was there for a while, freelance that at that time they didn't have a die department.
00:26:38:09 - 00:27:03:14
Nick
So it was I was just doing commercial dailies in the evenings and helping the, the guys during the day. They had maximized that game at that point. So no film was transferred during the day. You would just throw rolls up, you would color them, you would pull them off. Then the colorist would go home at 6:00 and the junior colors would come in and put the rolls back up and lay off all the tapes because, you know, sometimes it was 2 or 3 hours of runtime, you know, that you're laying the tape and you're sinking audio.
00:27:03:14 - 00:27:22:12
Nick
And so it could, it could be a while. So they focused on the grading in the day and making everything else in the evening, and then a couple months, maybe even a little longer than that. They they started building a die theater. And I had worked with some of the guys prior at ILM and, and a place in between.
00:27:22:12 - 00:27:39:09
Nick
I worked at a place called The orphanage in between going from ILM to LA. And so the guys came down there to install the IQ and they were like, hey, this guy knows this box. And, you know, companies said, well, you can you can do online, Stu. And I said, yeah. And so I started with, I think there was about three of us in the D.I.
00:27:39:11 - 00:28:06:09
Nick
Department, and we started with the Quantel IQs and the Da Vinci two case, doing that path where the IQ would play and record. And then, that was kind of the start of doing die in LA. And I stayed there for another year or so and then ended up hopping over to another company for a while. And that was kind of what got me out of being, you know, kind of a junior guy and assist into fully doing Quantel and did that for a while, just doing that.
00:28:06:11 - 00:28:30:19
Robbie
So lots unpack there because you, you, you, you just casually name dropped the, you know, the biggest facility in the world. You also said something interesting to that. I thought I didn't know this about you, about the orphanage. I don't know if you know this, but Joey and I both think Stu Masher, which is like, you know, Jesus level intelligence in this in this John Ray, he's he's such a smart guy, have admired his work for years.
00:28:30:20 - 00:28:39:02
Robbie
I had no idea that you worked there. That was a cool company. That was, like early 2000, right? Like, so, like Sin City, that kind of like that. Kind of that kind of era.
00:28:39:03 - 00:28:51:22
Nick
Yeah. We were doing when I was there, we were doing, Charlie's Angels two. Yeah, I think Hellboy. What was the other one? Oh, Robert Rodriguez's The Spy Kids 3D.
00:28:52:00 - 00:28:52:13
Robbie
Oh, yeah. Yeah.
00:28:52:13 - 00:29:03:11
Nick
Yeah, sure. So we were doing those and and, you know, a lot of times at those days, the house was shared projects. So it was like, you know, everybody in the Bay area, there was them ILM escape. There was a few other small places.
00:29:03:11 - 00:29:23:10
Robbie
Now company three obviously has the reputation as the, you know, the biggest, largest, most well known facility in the world. And, you know, I'm sure it's ebbed and flowed over the years, but like walking away from it because I think it's on it's on the it's on the dream career path for a lot of, a lot of young colorists says, hey, I want to go work at, you know, the best place in the world.
00:29:23:12 - 00:29:45:20
Robbie
And, you know, you were there for a while, like, what can you what can you say that you pulled like all these years later? What did you pull from that experience? Like, what did company three teach you as as an operator, as as a colorist. But but even more so, like, I guess I'm asking about a little bit about the soft stuff because I would imagine, you know, running down those hallways, you're bumping into big time DPS and directors and all that kind of stuff.
00:29:45:22 - 00:30:02:13
Robbie
And, you know, we always say on the show that, you know, hey, anybody can really learn how to push buttons, right? It's that it's that soft stuff about kind of the mechanics of dealing with the personalities and all that kind of stuff is that, you know, a large part of what you learn from working at a, you know, a giant facility like that.
00:30:02:14 - 00:30:09:05
Robbie
And was it also, you know, where you were at your career at that time? Do you think it then affected you later on for the rest of your path?
00:30:09:06 - 00:30:26:16
Nick
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, one of the biggest things being there was that I got unfiltered access to everything because I was able to conform paint. You know, when we first started, we were doing trailers. I would conform a trailer, I would dust bus the trailer, I might, you know, then get it into the Da Vinci, make sure it was all notched and okay.
00:30:26:17 - 00:30:45:03
Nick
Somebody would come in and color it. They would leave. I would do the text list. Do any, you know, additional cuts, the color for render it all. And in those days we were so small I would actually copy it to a FireWire drive and drop it off at Ethan for the film out on my way home, because I lived in Hollywood, so that unfettered access to everything was really good.
00:30:45:07 - 00:31:05:22
Nick
I think you also learn about personalities, good and bad. Yeah, and how to deal with that and and how you also see, you know, there you see all these different colors in a different way of dealing with it. Like you're talking about the soft skills. Some of them have no soft skills and are very hard in the room, and other ones are like a mayor running for reelection.
00:31:06:04 - 00:31:25:21
Nick
You know, the kids, the babies, they shake the hands, you know, they get everyone to like them. So you definitely learn a lot about that stuff. But I probably learned more about those soft skills at my time at Technicolor because company three is very competitive. You know, you talk about that old at that time, very closed off. Everyone was, you know, had their own thing and was sticking to it.
00:31:25:23 - 00:31:37:20
Nick
But Technicolor was a little bit more of an open door. And the, the, the bigger names that I got to work with, there were a little more open to share the process and see those things. So learn. Definitely learned a lot more of that.
00:31:37:22 - 00:31:41:08
Robbie
Did you go from company three then to Technicolor? Was that was that the jump?
00:31:41:10 - 00:31:49:14
Nick
No. I did a little stint at a place called Modern Video Film for. Oh, yeah, sure. 11, ten years. Yeah. Which is where I met my wife. So that. Yeah.
00:31:49:15 - 00:31:50:23
Robbie
Hey, that worked out. That worked out well.
00:31:51:01 - 00:31:54:09
Nick
And a lot of a lot of really great friends from they're still still.
00:31:54:11 - 00:32:11:20
Robbie
So modern and then Technicolor and then I think we're, I don't, I don't fill in the gaps. For me, I think were you kind of for me anyway, kind of kind of came into my, my worldview was your time at light ion was that, was that following your Technicolor experience or was there something? Okay.
00:32:11:21 - 00:32:33:09
Nick
Got it. Yeah. So it was a Technicolor for, I think seven years, and was still really struggling in the big facility. One of the bad things about being able to do a lot of things in the big facility is that you don't build your own identity. So what happens a lot of times is they're like, hey, you're going to get this small show and you're going to conform and you're going to color because you're capable of that, but tomorrow you're going to go do editorial for this show, or you're going to go do home.
00:32:33:11 - 00:32:33:17
Nick
You're just.
00:32:33:20 - 00:32:34:23
Robbie
Not right. Yeah, yeah.
00:32:34:23 - 00:32:57:00
Nick
Yeah, yeah. And so that's fun for a little while. You get that experience and then you realize, you know what I try to tell a lot of colors these days is that it's all about relationships. And you realize that you're doing all this work, but you're not building long term relationships there. So that's what left me to leave Technicolor and go to light iron, because I knew Katie Phelan, who was one of the founders of Light Ion, and that was one of her specialties.
00:32:57:00 - 00:33:03:20
Nick
Her strong points was really being able to get a colorist together and build that, that relationship with the VP's and the studios.
00:33:03:23 - 00:33:25:10
Robbie
It's something that we talk about ad nauseum on this show is that it's a people business. It's a relationship business. And, you know, I think that's I think that's something that's lost a lot of the time that I think if, when, when these companies are, when smaller companies, midsize companies are talking about technical capabilities and that kind of stuff, it loses sense of that.
00:33:25:10 - 00:33:46:00
Robbie
Know, like, you know, you might not be the best colorist in the world, but you have a great way of handling yourself. You're honest. You have a good candor with clients. Like oftentimes that can be ten times more valuable than somebody who can run circles around you and Resolve, right? I mean, it's like that kind of stuff that builds up the trust factor that you can only get through those relationships.
00:33:46:03 - 00:33:52:21
Robbie
You don't really earn trust by. You know, I rotate the offset knob just a little bit better than you, right. Like that does. That doesn't really happen, right?
00:33:53:00 - 00:34:15:19
Nick
No. You learn the especially on the big end. The big the big high end colorists get by on 1 or 2 things. They're either incredibly talented and not that great in the room. So it's completely 100% the work that they're putting on screen is getting them those jobs. And then there's a good section of them that get the jobs because they're so personable and they make these relationships and maybe they're not they're great colorists, but maybe they're not the best.
00:34:15:21 - 00:34:35:11
Nick
But that relationship is, you know, they want to work with you. And, you know, I always say it's like, you want them to. It's like having someone want to date you. That's the way the client relationship is. It's like you need to have them want to be with you. You know, even if you look at it from our side, pick someone you want to spend eight hours in a dark room with.
00:34:35:13 - 00:35:08:07
Joey
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00:35:08:09 - 00:35:13:14
Joey
Learn more at FlandersScientific.com. I think.
00:35:13:14 - 00:35:46:14
Joey
The value, especially for the younger colorists or the younger anybody in post-production, is a lot of times now, you know, the going up through a big post facility is not the only option like it used to be. And it might not be the best option for everyone. But I will say this, having kind of grown up in what was at the time the largest post-production facility in Washington, DC, all of those things really helped me transform from having almost zero people skills.
00:35:46:16 - 00:36:10:10
Joey
And, you know, I've talked about this a lot in the past. I, I tried to evolve my people skills as best I could, and I think the big facility environment one forced me to, but two really, really helped me in that particular regard. So if you are, you know, a young colorist, but you're also just a really personable kind of kind of person, and you get along with everyone.
00:36:10:12 - 00:36:28:16
Joey
Maybe you don't need that big facility experience. I was never that. I like to think I'm much closer to that now, but the big facility experience and seeing all of those different personalities and how they bump into each other and what works and what doesn't work on that soft level was invaluable to me.
00:36:28:20 - 00:36:29:13
Robbie
Yeah, yeah.
00:36:29:14 - 00:36:46:20
Nick
I think the big thing that I would tell any, any colorist, Young Color is coming up, you know, about going and working in one of those big houses is go there for a year, maybe two. It'll instantly teach you a lot about workflow, about what works. And that will also help you filter the noise on the internet. Because, you know, that's one thing.
00:36:46:20 - 00:37:03:11
Nick
I don't think you need to work out a facility anymore to be successful, but I think for someone coming up through that, not through that path, it's hard to know when you watch some of these things online. Is that real? Is that really going to work? And sometimes I see those things and I think, wow, that's really going to get somebody in trouble.
00:37:03:13 - 00:37:13:11
Nick
And there's a lot of great information on the internet too. So I think that little bit of experience in that environment can help you, you know, kind of for the rest of your life, filter out what what noise is.
00:37:13:13 - 00:37:26:05
Joey
And that's the hardest thing about learning stuff from the internet is you're right. There's there's stuff that's really valuable and there's stuff that's complete garbage. But the problem is, if you don't already know the stuff, you really don't know what's what. And that can be really difficult.
00:37:26:06 - 00:37:44:23
Robbie
Well, I also I also think that the one thing that is missing from our current sort of pedagogy of education in the postproduction world is that and I'm sure, Nick, you had this at all of these facilities you were at. You had somebody who was senior to you, probably snap at you a couple times for a mistake, kind of slap you on the hand for something dumb.
00:37:44:23 - 00:38:02:23
Robbie
You did. Right. And one of the problems with the internet only education path these days is that you don't have somebody slapping your hand and telling you that you're an idiot and you ruin their day and all that kind of stuff. And that sounds like a sounds like a toxic bad workplace. And I'm sure in some cases it might be, but like what I'm speaking to is more of that.
00:38:02:23 - 00:38:19:03
Robbie
That hands on teachable moment is harder to get now outside of that big facility path than it's ever been. And I look back on those opportunities in my life and I go, man, that guy was a real ass. But you know what? I learned a lot from him.
00:38:19:05 - 00:38:40:11
Joey
Also, just to add on to that, a lot of times in that kind of environment, that mentor is taking some of the hit for you. You might not realize at the time, but they're going to smooth over your mistakes with the client. They're going to smooth over your mistakes with the management, stuff like that. If you're completely on your own, sometimes your mistakes kind of have sharper teeth.
00:38:40:13 - 00:38:59:12
Nick
Yeah. So the best thing about being on your own and the worst thing about being your own, the same, which is it's all on you. But sometimes it's great because you're like, I can do this my way. I don't have to have management involved. I want that $50 plug in. I don't care, and you can do it. But then when things are going wrong, it's, it's it's bad.
00:38:59:14 - 00:39:13:20
Robbie
So you go from sort of the, the high pressure high stakes, you know company three I always think about company three, by the way, as like a lawyer's office. I don't know why I think about it like that. I think about it like, remember that show suits that was on for popular for a number of years? That's how I think about company three.
00:39:13:20 - 00:39:45:02
Robbie
I think that like, there's a Harvey and then there's like the lower like, I don't know, maybe that's wrong, but you make the jump from there, you go to light iron. And I remember being so like I remember I saw Michael speak one time at NAB like, like right after Light Iron had launched. Right. And I remember being so because this was the days of, you know, here's the red camera and it seemed like, you know, the red and the dye workflows and then the Pablo and like, some fancy marketing, it just seemed like that was the future.
00:39:45:02 - 00:40:11:10
Robbie
It just seemed so cool to me as a as a bystander from the other side of the country watching that kind of developed. What was it like being in that time in it? Because I imagine it was exciting and it was also stressful, of course, but speak a little bit to that experience, because I've always been fascinated about about that, because light ion at the time, to me seemed like a disruptive force in kind of the, the, the model that was Hollywood post at the time.
00:40:11:12 - 00:40:12:21
Robbie
What was your experience like there?
00:40:13:03 - 00:40:38:14
Nick
I really I actually really, really liked my experience at Light Iron. Can't say enough about, you know, the color of their comradery. It was the first facility I'd ever walked into where I didn't instantly feel like I was in competition with everybody. And you. Instantly your shoulders went down, your guard, you know, came down, and it was about the work and not the office politics, which was great.
00:40:38:15 - 00:40:52:09
Nick
Yeah. You know, every morning I would come in and sit with Ian and Corinne and numerous other people, and we just have coffee and we'd be around, you know, 20 minutes before our session started, we'd be talking about what we were working on, or maybe a cool little trick that we found and, you know, there in base light.
00:40:52:09 - 00:41:05:05
Nick
And I was in Resolve at the time. And so that was always kind of an interesting thing. How do you do that? Okay. So can I go back to the Resolve and figure that out. Or I would mention things and you know, so it was this great like volleying of ideas. And so I really liked my time there.
00:41:05:07 - 00:41:20:04
Nick
It was also a very different feel in the sense that they were doing that high end work, but they didn't have the background of some of the facilities. So things were done differently, a little more scrappy. You know, so it was it moved a little bit faster than some of the other facilities, which was great at the time.
00:41:20:06 - 00:41:26:06
Nick
And yeah, it's still I wish those guys, I hope those guys, you know, now it's under new ownership and I hope those guys kill it.
00:41:26:11 - 00:41:27:03
Robbie
Yeah for sure.
00:41:27:04 - 00:41:52:12
Joey
Let me ask you this about that kind of general era of light iron and those years, because that kind of really, like Rob said, coincided with the beginning of the transition to digital cinema cameras. Right. The red was coming out and just becoming, you know, from early beta as just a concept to the red one, which, you know, red was like, this is the replacement for film, but it wasn't quite there yet.
00:41:52:14 - 00:42:13:04
Joey
You know, like you mentioned earlier, some of the earlier Sonys that were not really ever going to be a replacement for film because they didn't really shoot in any kind of raw or, you know, camera negative format. But on the technical side, we saw this explosion of early digital cinema cameras like the Red 20, the D21, the the Red camera, Genesis.
00:42:13:05 - 00:42:14:13
Nick
Yeah, Genesis. Yeah.
00:42:14:15 - 00:42:35:19
Joey
A lot of them were they had a lot of hype behind them. They were amazing new technology, but at the time they were not really on the same technical level as well. Exposed, well acquired, well scanned film. How was that going from a primarily film background of everything? Kind of.
00:42:36:00 - 00:42:36:14
Nick
Everything was.
00:42:36:14 - 00:43:02:22
Joey
I won't say looks. Obviously there's bad film, you know, there's badly there's problems to solve, but your problems now become one across the board no matter what, because it was inherent to the technical format of the cameras, but also visually. How do you how did you bridge that gap between, okay, we're used to film. We don't really want to change our esthetic and have it look drastically different, but we've got this new technology that we're really championing and we're really bringing into the workflow.
00:43:03:00 - 00:43:13:18
Joey
Was that difficult? I remember because I just, I remember my very first read one project and trying to make it look good, and it was my ignorance, but the other half was it was really tough.
00:43:13:20 - 00:43:35:02
Nick
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you're always only as good as what's shot, right? That's always the key. But I think, you know, in those days we did a lot of testing. Testing was like weekly probably, you know, when I got to light ion, that was the first time that we were really. I had really had a place that was like, you're going to set the looks for these shows and you're going to we're going to do that before daily start, and we're going to test these things.
00:43:35:07 - 00:43:52:00
Nick
And so we would find that, you know, and I think when you find that with the client and they're part of that process, they get to that end point and love it with you even maybe if it's, you know, not as good as film, you know, or not as good as what they thought. But you've gone through that and you know you've gotten the best you can and and then together, you know, march forward.
00:43:52:00 - 00:44:09:23
Nick
But that that was it was just always testing. I mean, at that time it was like every week you'd have another it got to the point where you'd done so many of these tests that's, you know, another DP would come in and go, I'm going to test the red versus the this Sony versus the area class. And you'd be like, I can already tell you, you know, yeah I can tell you what's gonna happen because we've done it.
00:44:10:01 - 00:44:14:18
Joey
And now today it's just all the cameras are great, you know, cameras, which is a luxury.
00:44:14:19 - 00:44:20:04
Nick
Yeah, yeah. I mean, now I'm always telling people it's about lensing and lighting. You know, it's that's.
00:44:20:09 - 00:44:33:14
Joey
It always was. But at the time, those early cameras each had their own idiosyncrasies. So they might not have been the right choice for each project or each. You know, this lighting configuration might show up badly on a red one versus a Genesis or something like that.
00:44:33:15 - 00:44:34:06
Nick
Yeah.
00:44:34:08 - 00:44:37:01
Joey
That's really not a thing anymore. All the cameras are great.
00:44:37:02 - 00:44:47:19
Nick
Yeah, all the cameras are great. They really are. They all do so well. So that's why people focus on the lighting, focus on your lensing. You know the rest. If you have that down, everything else will be easy.
00:44:47:21 - 00:45:05:09
Robbie
Yeah. I mean those those days were were crazy. And I have similar experience. The joy of just like being like, this is supposed to be amazing. And it almost seemed like there was something like a lot of those camera companies, I think, like promise, there was a message messaging gone wrong. Like, it's like you have a camera now that can shoot raw.
00:45:05:11 - 00:45:15:01
Robbie
And a great many people took that as we don't need lights, we don't need, we don't need grip gear. And that it was it was ugly there for a while. All right.
00:45:15:01 - 00:45:16:05
Joey
So it's still a problem.
00:45:16:06 - 00:45:28:12
Robbie
Still it can still be a problem. Okay. So then I think, correct me if I'm wrong. You're you're you're you're stop after that was with Harbor Picture Company. Is that correct. After after.
00:45:28:14 - 00:45:50:10
Nick
Things have changed at light Ironwood management. And it was the very busy time and I was working way, way, way too much. And, you know, that's one thing I will say about the big facilities. Being a colorist in a big facility, you are a horse pulling a cart. You are the way they get their product out. And so, you know, all these companies, rightfully so, they're trying to get through, can sometimes push you too hard.
00:45:50:15 - 00:46:11:12
Nick
And my priorities in life changed drastically during the pandemic. You know, when I went home, I was at Light Iron. Everything was going great. And literally the pandemic shuts down and they're like, here's your X 300, here's your Mac Pro, here's your advance panel by Go home. And so all of a sudden I'm working at home. And I had a my daughter was three at the time.
00:46:11:14 - 00:46:24:18
Nick
Yeah. And so I started working this kind of different way where I would get up very early in the morning and I would work for four hours, and then I would go in the pool and play with her and do things, and I would come back at 2:00, 3:00 in the afternoon and see what was left and finish up the day.
00:46:24:18 - 00:46:41:11
Nick
So I my priorities started to shift. And, you know, things wanted to go back to the office at that time. You know, things were starting to move that way. So I ended up Harbor offered me an opportunity to work from home when I wasn't supervised. So I took that, and I did that for three years, which was a good time.
00:46:41:12 - 00:47:00:15
Nick
I switched to base light, so that was a big jump there. So learning that and spending my time there and yeah, and then unfortunately during the strikes things slowed down to the point where I didn't have enough work. And so I was furloughed for a while and then eventually cut, which was both a blessing and a curse at the time.
00:47:00:16 - 00:47:14:21
Nick
You know, so my path to from employee to freelance wasn't necessarily my choice, but everything after that was very deliberate and very, very, and, forceful. No.
00:47:15:00 - 00:47:31:10
Robbie
Yeah. And I want to we're going to do a part two just for those of you who are watching along, we're going to have so much more to talk about with Nick. So we're going to do a part two. But I want to wrap up this part by sort of sharing some, some sentiment about that error, too, because it was remarkably similar for us, obviously different, you know, being in a much smaller market.
00:47:31:10 - 00:47:53:10
Robbie
But, you know, we we invested in new office space in the fall of 2019. Right. Bill spent, you know, 100 grand or whatever it was for build out and this new facility. And then it's like, right when we got the permit sign off, it's like, hey, guess what? The world is ending. There's a global pandemic. And, you know, also forced us to change.
00:47:53:11 - 00:48:14:08
Robbie
And I wanted to ask you, just knowing what we know now, like, what is that scene like in terms of and just if you could generalize in LA, are there still a lot of colorists who are working from home doing their thing, or is everybody kind of moved back to. Yeah, no, we are we're full time back. The facility, just like it was, you know, 2015 or whatever.
00:48:14:12 - 00:48:33:23
Nick
I think it's like a it's a it's a big mix. So there is a lot of color. I mean, in LA traffic time is a thing, you know. So if you can avoid two hours, three hours in the car, you know, people will do it. So I think it's a big, big swing. You know, you'll see anyone that's obviously doing theatrical grading is in a is back at the office and they're there.
00:48:34:00 - 00:48:53:18
Nick
Sure. But I think a lot of people are doing the unsupervised at home and the client stuff in the office. I think that's probably the biggest thing I see is and the facilities I think like it because they can take the weight off of the rooms. They don't have to have as many rooms they can have, you know, six colorists at home and two, you know, three rooms, maybe four rooms, a little less rooms.
00:48:53:18 - 00:48:54:08
Nick
And they can rotate.
00:48:54:09 - 00:48:59:02
Robbie
It becomes like a present as like a presentation space rather than a working space necessarily.
00:48:59:03 - 00:49:13:17
Nick
Yeah, yeah. So I know there's a lot of, a lot of the guys at the facilities that do that. And then some of them, some of them go in every day. Some people prefer that. So I think everyone's kind of found a little bit of their balance, you know, and obviously the bigger name and the more money you make, the more weight you get to do what you want.
00:49:13:18 - 00:49:19:15
Nick
You find that. So you're of course, you're building $3 million a year. They're going to let you work at home, right?
00:49:19:19 - 00:49:35:12
Robbie
Exactly, exactly. Very cool. Well, I guess we're going to continue on this. We have a lot more to talk about with Nick. We're going to talk about the jump to freelance running his own facility and some of the the just state of the industry stuff. We're going to pick that up in part two. Just as a reminder, you can follow the show on Facebook and Instagram.
00:49:35:12 - 00:49:52:17
Robbie
You can just search for The Offset Podcast. You can go over to the offsetpodcast.com to find our entire library of of episodes. And of course, you can find the show on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and that kind of stuff. So stay tuned. We'll be back in just about two weeks for another installment with Nick talking more about some of that stuff.
00:49:52:17 - 00:50:03:18
Robbie
But Nick, thanks for joining us on this first part of the the conversation. Really, really, really interesting stuff and can't wait to pick it up with you shortly. So for The Offset Podcast. I'm Robbie Carman.
00:50:03:19 - 00:50:05:13
Joey
And I'm Joey D’Anna Thanks for listening.
Robbie Carman
Robbie is the managing colorist and Founder of DC Color. A guitar aficionado who’s never met a piece of gear he didn’t like.
Joey D'Anna
Joey is an in demand colorist and technologist. When he’s not in the color suite you’ll usually find him with a wrench in hand working on one of his classic cars or bikes
