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The story contiunes

I can’t believe it’s already almost 5months since I last document here. Certainly I haven’t given up, nor have I lost the will to log here. The only reason for my absence is laziness. 

So what happened in the last 4 months and what brings me back?

Nothing really decisive but a lot about colour is happening. With the help of Katie, I got to know another 5 colourist in Auckland. Katie send them through an email, with praising words of me that I feel so flattered, and I got the chance to meet Clare Burlinson, the colourist of Hobbit, and Alana Cotton again, sitting in with Julian Dyson for a day, who worked in Department of Post(my dream company in Auckland), and Dave Gibson, a really nice freelance guy. Talking and being with these colourists are really a pleasure, as they are not just professionally great, but also good human beings. So I’d really love to be one of them, and be praised by someone junior in the future, by helping them.

So how did I get the chance to be introduced to so many? I guess it’s persistence, the persistent chasing for grading as a career and one little opportunity showed up the other day, when Katie was posting her BMD Micro Panel on Facebook for sale, so I instantly bought it, and got the chance. You may say that’s the ticket I bought to meet those ones.

And then, with the courage of these seniors, and the great experience grading with this panel, I kept on grading. Mostly, no, all free jobs. But I enjoy doing that. Grading is another skill that you can’t fool others, just like any other art works. If you don’t even feel satisfied with the work, don’t show others. I’m still junior and make lots of mistakes, including that one. But that’s ok, consequences of mistakes make me get better next time. And I’ll keep on doing this.

What brought me back to the blog? It’s just because I’ve caught a cold and decide to go to bed early after a hot shower. I sit on the bed, and start to blog.

[becomingacolorist]

Recap of 14, Dec

1-Be back to the normal life to learn color for a whole day. Still behind my heydays but feel the acceleration and I hope I can do better tomorrow. 

2-Finished Dan Moran’s videos in 2014. Here I come 2015!

3-Rob’s blog is really amazing, I read 2 blogs today. 

4-I have no idea how much longer I can hold to wait for any opportunities in color grading post houses, and I have concerns if I give up other opportunities I may end up losing both. But I’ll keep going at least for this year. If I give up this quickly, I may regret in the future that I haven’t tried my best.

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Talk with Alana Cotton

Had a wonderful time talking with Alana this morning at her luxury high end office, where she was doing her Baselight color grading works. 

Before I meet her, I searched her website, social media and the only podcast hosted by Warren, who I think has not done the hosting job properly, as he talked too much about his own idea other than simply, sincerely ask the interviewee and dig. I have listened to that 50mins long podcast twice but rarely find something pleasing, and I feel Alana’s tone is quite conservative.

I wish Alana can be interviewed by Josh Petok someday, who hosted the colorist podcast and I’ll be definitely ten times more enjoyable, not only because Josh is such a good listener and understands questioning and guiding, but also I really think Alana is an amazing great artist, not subject to color grading but also the personality and the communication really make her a master of artist to create things.

I try to memorise everything that I learnt during that 2hours as below.

1-It’s my great pleasure to be able to have her precious time, especially 1hour longer than we planned. I told my friends that I’m going to have 1 hour with Alana, which is 30mins longer than a general meetup, but to my surprise she spent 2hours with me and I feel flattered.

2-It’s super great to see and feel in person how a master of motion manipulator try to greet, entertain, educate and encourage you. I truly believe as a good colorist it’s half the technique side and half the communication side. She made it perfectly combined and I feel that is exactly the right performance, even though I’m a freshman. I want to be as good as she in the future and I’m sure my clients, colleagues or whoever sits beside me would feel great because of me.

3- I appreciate my hard work before meeting her up, especially finishing all 23 episodes of colorist podcast, in other words I already have a basic idea of what the industry language is like. Therefore by understanding some cold facts such as don’t just be a button operator, train for the eye and so on, I save my brain to absorb other useful and unique information, such as she did shown me the curtain near the monitor, showing that the light is not always “clean-like”, there is dust in it. This really makes me think.

4-How do you decide how much green is enough, for example for day1 you believe this is the perfect one but day2 you don’t like it. She explain a lot and my understanding to this is believe in yourself while having good conversation with the DOP so this won’t happen. 

5-The water scene, a girl floating on the water, showing only her face above the water, the mood set is anxiety, and the first instinct of color would be over exposed, or dazzling red, things like that. But she instead use some purple in the highlight, I feel it subtle yet effective when I give me a few seconds stimulating I am watching the actual film. This is something that colorist or dp wouldn’t have come out in the first sense, I guess. At least for me, I’ll go for something extreme, but definitely not creative. Train for the eye. I guess there is nothing I can do but just keep viewing good works.

6-Amazed by over 30 layers in one shot. But each one is subtle. But the combination of 30+layers really has created a look.

7-There is not so much diffuse light here in NZ, light situations can differ widely so making a good shot match is essential.

8-Score and sound would be preferable in the process of color grading as they should match each other. But it’s not always 100% garenteed that the score is finished while color, so she will adds at least some reference or whatever is ready for the picture.

9-She’s given opportunity when starting off, so she did the good to freshman like me. I will go this to the others too whenever I have the chance, so I went talk to someone really junior after I met her. I bought him coffee, listening to his trouble recently and share my experience to him. The great thing is, that was his birthday and I didn’t know until we said goodbye to each other.

10-Final inspiration. I still got an impression on how the images had made me feel while watching the films in the suite. Just as she said, AI definitely had an impact on color grading, but it’s the human’s eye that had been trained for years had the unique and seasoned taste. I recalled a scene in the game<DETROIT>, where in the central square there is a busker singing for coins, and the post in front of him says, MUSIC WITH SOUL.

[becomingacolorist]

Recap 9th, Dec,2018

Video Tutorials from Dan

1-Finally I come across something I do understand totally and no need to go over.

2-cool to go over all the tutorials in 2013-2018, consider them as the ones I missed during my career.

3-keep setting no limits on myself and I watched 30 tutorials today, which is 3 times of what I thought I am capable of.

[becomingacolorist]

Recap 8th, Dec

<Dunkirk in 70mm> by Rob Bessette

1-Film is so great in the following ways: Skin tones are flattering, highlights  roll off better and it’s easier to go into the image.

2-I just took the lowest out of my daily check bookmark and as Rob recommended this I just put it back.

Video Tutorials from Dan

1-building a look could be so much work just for a single shot

2-reddit could be a great place to practice my English and communicate with aspiring filmmakers and younger generations or whoever needs my info and help. Just registered it!

3-Experience: 1-use window other than keying everything 2-HSL works better than picking colours 3-key before LUT 

4-I think I’m getting gradually on the right track by so hungry for techniques and so eager for good images.

5-After 24 video tutorials again, I got really tired and feel hard to suck in the knowledge anymore.

[becomingacolorist]

Recap 7th,Dec, 2018

<The Value of an Apprenticeship> by Rob Bessette

1-hands on experience is so important, and the instinct to an image is what just comes with years’ experience.

2-It’s sad to know that assistant colourists are not the way it used to be like before, when it’s popular to have assistants besides.

Video Tutorials from Dan

1-Overlay “10-stops” grey scale on top of an image.(overlay means anything behind 5 goes darker, above 5 goes brighter) This is the way to audition different luminance of the skin tone by navigating through the strips.

2-For commercials there is a common direction goes into each category. For instance Insurance, banking customers always love a soft image.

3-Love your job, be good at it so you become confident at it enough to deal with fussy customers.

4-I should start learning from beginning, basic&easy techniques so I change to learn from 2013.

A quick list of Dan Moran:

2013:46videos, 2014:37. 2015:36. 2016:28. 2017:27(finished), 2018:20(finished)

Of course by finished I mean just watched. I still need to watch a second time to get my hands on while learning.

5-grade B&W isolating RED channel only

6-Don’t set limitations on yourself! I watched 24video tutorials today, that’s 2.4times than my daily target.

[becomingacolorist]

Recap of 6th, Dec,2018

<Revisiting Past Work and the Lessons Learned> by Rob Bessette

1-revisiting works at early age always end up catching yourself passive, conservative and naive. As you grow, you will be bold, creative and know the key like popping out the brand.

I think it’s like any skills, say cooking.

Video Tutorials from Dan

1-I start to think this again, after all building a look is to analyze a look you want, and try all techniques to achieve that.

2-There is limitations out there even Dan has difficulties creating a look. 

[becomingacolorist]

Recap of 5,Dec

Audio& Article<Color Suite Etiquette> by Rob Bessette

He’s talented and doing lots of extra works like his great articles that are worth reading or even reciting for English terms learning. I plan to print one article out per day to read carefully.

Finish all Dan Moran’s articles and videos in 2018 for mixinglight, and 5 more years to go, 2 more constant contributors to follow.

Shadow is easy to fix so always work on the mid tone color matching first.

Inspiration:

1- Practice like PS a photo helps curating the “EYE”, maybe I can PS one photo per day.

2- To master the skills shown on tutorials I need 3STEPS:1-watch it to get a general idea, 2-watch it again to see the detail 3-practice it myself

[becomingacolorist]

After 3 days break, I return to the learning today. Begin with the colorist podcast found on mixinglight.com, but also on iTunes podcast. Always paying more attention to how these colorist got their first positions!

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Slateblue

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Fuchsia

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Plum

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Thistle

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Lavender

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Pale Violet Red

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WHY this and when stops

I can’t remember since when did I have this constant warning to myself before I start on anything, which is a simple question “Hey Jack since you start on this, when and how would you like this to the end?”

8 out of 10 will that lead to imagine mocking myself ending like I’m going nowhere except for having the time, money and energy wasted. But I’m quite happy with this as this simple question helped save my time, money and energy. 

And I’ll never start on Fingerstyle, Bicycle, six pack plans...etc before I am so ready for them. I confess, I simply lack the dedication, gut and patience to have those great things in my life.

But not this time, when I have no way back. I have to get a job here in NZ, otherwise I won’t have the chance to even have those dreams. Therefore, as my aspiration is to be a colourist, I’d better be damn good about it.

So there we go. I have started on learning, and I will not give up. This blog will document the way through the journey until I made it with the prove of a permanent contract as a colourist.

Good luck to me.