Hi everyone, I'm Kali Bateman for Mixing Light
and I'm here today talking with Aurora Shannon
who's a colourist at Company 3 in Vancouver. We met
each other many years ago now when she trained
me when I was working for DNEG. We both worked
there at the same time and I was really fortunate
to be trained by Aurora. She's extremely clever and
has an amazing eye. So she taught me everything
I know about VFX colouring and I'm extremely
grateful to her. And I'm talking to her today
about the work that she's been doing with Company 3
but also the other work that she's doing as a
mentor to up-and-coming filmmaker colourists and as
well sort of how she got her start and where
her amazing career has taken her so far. So
recently I've watched a few things that Aurora's
graded and they're absolutely beautiful. Some
recent series work that she's been doing through
Company 3 shows like Sweet Magnolias and Under the
Bridge and they're both absolutely stunning.
They've got gorgeous contrast, they've got
beautiful saturation levels. So yeah why don't
we start there? I would love to know anything
you're able to share about the grades for those
programmes. So they're both really really nice
shows to work on. They're both quite feminine
shows like Sweet Magnolias about these three women
who are best friends who live in this
fictional small town which is like it's essentially
it's a fantasy of American suburban life and they
have their ups and their downs but you know it's
always good in at the end of the day kind of thing.
Under the Bridge in some ways is almost the
complete contrast. It's about a group of teenage
girls. It's set on a set about a really horrific
true story that happened here in British Columbia
and it's almost a total opposite. It's not
wholesome, it's teenage
friendship gone bad, gone very
very as bad as it can get. So you've got these two
kind of very contrasting stories but what they
both have is they both have this quite beautiful,
gentle, feminine cinematography
and that's just literally that's just what we
follow through in the grades.
So for both of those shows they both have their own
bespoke LUTs which is obviously the starting
point of any look. The Sweet Magnolia it was a LUT
that I inherited. It was my first project here
season three when I came to company 3
Vancouver and it's a very soft just the right
amount of contrast, just the right amount of
saturation, warmer tone. It is shot and set
in Georgia so it's got that kind of that warm
southern american tone and that was developed
by the DP Brian Johnson with Colourfront for the
show. Both HDR shows so obviously
have a HDR version of that. And then the LUT for
Under the Bridge is a bespoke company 3
LUT. I'm not going to say which but it's featured
on quite a few company 3 shows
as a starting point for the developers. So you
start with that LUT and then it gets
developed towards that vision. In this case the
main creative is the EP and the show creator Quinn
who also directed a couple of the episodes. And
this is, I kind of don't really like
using the word filmic because film is a format it's
not a colour palette. But it is that kind
of that typical filmic kind of Kodak look. So the
story is set in the 90s. In the 90s if you went
to the cinema your film would be shot and projected
to you in celluloid. So I think it was really
you know she really wanted the film to not only be
set in the 90s, look like it's in the 90s,
but almost feel like you're watching something from
the 90s. The attention to detail is amazing.
So as someone who grew up in the 90s I'm like I had
that, I had that, I had that.
It really really is quite amazing. But again you
know she had this really really dark story
and it would have been so easy to go dark with it
and she didn't. She wanted to go soft and feminine.
She wanted to have those moments of femininity,
fairness in the photography and in the grade.
There are all these pastel tones throughout so
pinks and yellows and blues and
and mints and wherever it is in the art direction
of the cinematography it was just my job to
let it come through and emphasise it. Well I think
you succeeded beautifully.
It's got that lovely softness to it but it also has
this gorgeous curve that has a real contrast
through the mids. So the skin always looks right,
it always looks dimensional and 3D
and yet the shadows never get too
low. Yeah I've begun to describe,
one of the things that's really nice about working
for a company at Company 3 is you just have this
catalogue of LUTs. It's extraordinary things have
at your disposal and when I've you know
raffa it just being like this is the show, this is
the LUT use it. You're actually picking and
developing the LUT and I've begun to talk in very
untecknical terms about LUTs in terms of
thickness and thinness. It's something I feel like
I've become quite sensitive to and I think it's
what you're eluding to is sometimes you feel like
okay it's low contrast but I'm not feeling it.
There's kind of not something in the middle of the,
there's not this richness
in the middle of the image. It kind of to me, the
only way I can describe it is it feels kind of thin
and then on the other hand it's like well I'm
looking at my waveform and it's flat but it
doesn't look flat so it doesn't feel flat. Yeah I
completely understand what you're saying there
with the thickness it's got like a real presence to
it and it's got a density in the colours and
yeah just stunning. So when you work with those
LUTs are you working underneath or over or
combination? I tend to always have my LUT at the
very end so I'm always working underneath my LUT
obviously unless it's an input LUT but I tend to
always have it at the very end and I'm also
beginning any grain so under the bridge we use
grain extensively throughout it and actually
different types of grain. You don't actually change
the LUT or the colour palette or even the
look that much because we go back in time we then
we go to the 70s and we go to 50s
we have even flashback sequences within the 90s so
we use grain to signal, try to signal to the
audience that this is a different time but without
doing a really obvious look. So one of the things
that I was playing around with is do I put my grain
before or after the LUT and what I really
came to the conclusion with on this show is I think
now I prefer it after the LUT so I'd go
grain, LUT, grain. Yeah perfect so those texture
elements aren't being given the same curve as the
colour elements that kind of makes sense in terms
of you know if it was a celluloid process how it
would kind of work. It's just yeah gorgeous work so
with the Sweet Magnolias where you inherited
the look was it a matter of kind of working out
what the colour journey of the previous seasons
was and staying quite close to that or were you
able to deviate a little bit? So Brian decided
that he wanted a new look from season three going
forward he wanted a new LUT this was the new LUT
so I actually graded episodes one and two to match
to match the previous season and we went
through the reviewing so that isn't what I want. So
which was completely fine you know it was a
learning curve for me you know it was literally my
first job it was my second week. Oh wow. So
yeah that that before you start phone
call with the DP is really important
but it's totally new look and honestly you know
Brian knows what he wants so the LUT was what he
wanted the CDLs were what he wanted I mean I was
for the most part on that show I'm really just
polishing the CDLs like I'm polishing the CDLs I'm
you know just some windows to bring down
the light he's very sensitive to anything he feels
is over lit or kind of studio lighting or anything
like that a few little fixes here and there I don't
really don't think it's a show I can take
very much credit for.
Well I think that sometimes
knowing when not to do something
can be actually harder. Yes it does take a very
light touch. Yeah yeah yeah beautiful and so for
those listening the CDLs are the files that come
from set and so if you've listened to the interview
that I did with Fergus Halley who is an amazing
dailies colourist out here
he or a dailies colourist
would be grading everything on set and usually
having conversations with the DP around that
and then we're seeing here what happens in the DI
sometimes those CDLs are blown away
but sometimes and ideally really they're brought
into the DI and used either as inspiration or as
a starting point. Yeah so I will always use the
CDLs for a starting point if I feel that they're
useful and I think all Mads all of the time they
are useful particularly when you're doing
the dailies and the finishing as part of the same
company and you've been able to be part of that
initial kind of camera test, look day, set the LUT
before the daily starts.
For me personally why would
I not use them you know like it's work. Absolutely.
It's been done someone spent time on this it's been
paid for and for me personally it really does just
give you that head start really.
And it's sort of when the system works you know
because that's the idea isn't it that's why people
do dailies it's not to throw it away it's not just
you know lip service to the production it's
actually to start that creative thought and you
know when it works it does carry through and those
conversations from the very beginning become part
of the end. It does and also I think it's I mean
this isn't the main reason but it is a nice
consequence of it you know it's so much nicer
for the people doing the dailies knowing that their
work is being used and not just being thrown away
and you know when I'm in early to get a head start
and they're leaving a bit later and we cross
paths I can be like you know yeah we're using the
CDLs and they're great thank you you know.
And that's part of coming up in this industry isn't
it because a lot of people cut their teeth
in dailies and when you get a chance to get that
kind of feedback I imagine it's quite satisfying
and also gives you a chance to help them if it's
not landing if you don't get that feedback how
are you meant to improve? Yeah exactly I mean if I
had my way and I've discussed it but it's just
not possible I think the scheduling points of view
you know I would I would hand the project
over to them first to kind of you know almost like
finish their job you know their path
um because they do do a tremendously good job but
obviously when you're grading entire
takes rather than whatever seconds get picked in in
the cut it's never going to be
perfect you know but it doesn't mean that they
can't do perfect once they've got a path.
Oh well that's a lovely idea and hopefully the
scheduling works out and you can do that at some
point and I think that just goes towards your
nature as a mentor and somebody who's very very
good at training people I've been on the other side
of that and you've got a real skill for it.
So while we're talking about it can you tell me a
little bit about the mentoring that you're doing
through your old university and also through the
Vancouver post-gi. Yeah so I was very very
lucky I got to go to Ravensbourne which is part of
the university London now in the UK really really
good university I owe a huge huge debt to I
wouldn't have even known
that colour grading existed
or the lab where I first started existed if I
hadn't have gone there and they're really lucky
to have the same tutors that I have so they're
still there. They have several mentoring schemes
and I've participated in several of them the big
one at the moment is called SEEDS
so it's for people I'm not sure exactly what it
stands for it's basically with people
additional barriers entering the industry so it
could be minority it could be neurodivergence
it could be disability for example just people that
need a little bit of extra bespoke guidance
just for them. But I've also done a lot of
unofficial mentoring like I don't want to get
completely undated but I usually reply to every
message I get on LinkedIn for example
and you know I usually especially when I was in
London was going for a lot of Coffees
because I get bored and I like to talk to people so
people usually ask me for a Coffee I'll go for one
so I did a lot of unofficial mentoring and I also
did a lot for other students at Ravensbourne
unofficially as well and I'm now doing the same
thing here in Vancouver the Vancouver
Post Alliance so their mentoring is a little bit
different it's usually for people who are a few
more years into their career than students or
graduates. I've got to be honest it's probably
students and graduates who enjoy mentoring most
just because I feel like there's more
there's more advice to give and the advice makes a
bigger impact you know. I understand completely
you're taking them from the exponential curve you
know it's really really sharp but whereas
when you get a little bit further on your gains are
smaller. Or sometimes it's like yeah just
hold on in there and that's all you can do. Yeah
keep going. But there's a few things that I've
noticed that kind of bit the do's and don'ts. So
one of the things that I've noticed unfortunately
is I feel a lot of young people are getting not the
best advice from their universities
on let's say for example somebody wants a job they
want to become a colourist and they want to do it
what I guess now is the old-fashioned way of
assisting colourists you know make client services
at IO, assistant colourist, unicolorist daily is
the effect of colourist. You know the kind of path
that we've both taken and what a lot of these
colleges and universities tell them to do is
to send the CV out saying that they are colourists
and it's all about the demo reel. And I met this
young one woman say for a whole year she'd been
trying to get a job in London it's just a runner
like anything and she couldn't and she was
convinced it was because
her reel wasn't good enough.
And I was explaining to her no one cares what your
reel looks like. Like at that point when you're
like wanting to enter the industry to get a job to
then get a job as an assistant colourist.
It's nice if you have one you know it shows an
interest probably no one's even gonna like it.
What I want from you is a CV that
shows me you can hold down a job.
So put your one year of working a TesCo in
there because that shows you turned up and
followed instructions and held down a job for a
year. And I want to know what your skill set is.
Do you know what time code is? Do you know what
frame rates are? Do you know what raw camera
codecs are? You know can you import and export a
CDL or an EDL? What software do you know? Rate?
Do you have an understanding? Have you used it? How
much have you used it? And really what this is
is this is all the skills that I'm looking for in
an assistant colourist. All the skills that I'm
going to have to teach that assistant colourist.
They don't already have done. So I get a CV like
that and it's the same for assistant editor jobs as
well. I can look at that and say I can have
them where I need them in three weeks or four weeks
or two months. When I get a CV that says
I've graded 12 music videos I have no clue as that
person's actual technical skill set.
I've got no idea how long it's going to take to
train them. If they've graded 12 music videos
as well, great. That kind of indicates what the
usage of that software package has been.
But it's almost a checklist. So anyway I gave her
this advice. She redid her CV. She sent it to me.
Yep that's great. It was two or three weeks later
she was offered a job at Envy as an assistant colourist
not as a runner. Yeah so and it was just it was
frustrating for me because I see this she's just
been given the wrong advice you know. And with
the right advice she got immediately because she
had every skill. I'm like I want you as my
assistant colourist. You know she had all the
skills but to her she also wasn't valuing. You know
she didn't know that this list of skills
actually has a value because it's just normal
right. You just import it, you export it.
No it's not the necessary this big thing but it is
but it might not feel like it you know.
Right yeah and I think that's something that people
who know quite a bit fall for all the time
is that the more you know the less you think you
know because you're aware of what you don't know.
Whereas if you just know like one tiny little thing
you're like I'm an expert.
Yeah and then the other thing is the reels. Like I
said at that point in your career a reel
probably doesn't really matter. It's not that
important. Obviously if you're a freelancer
trying to get work especially commercials working
it's absolutely vital. It's your
bread and butter. But I was talking to some other
colourists about okay so you're applying for
jobs in assistant colourist. You have the
opportunity to submit a reel. Of course you want
to submit a reel because you want to take that
opportunity to show your work. Well what is a
useful reel? Because the other thing I then find is
the reels I'm like okay there's a series of
images. I've got no idea what they are. I've got no
idea what they look like. I don't know what
you've done to them. I don't even know how many
projects I can't. I literally can't make any
assessment of skill from from this. Whereas if you
have a reel where let's say you have a flow of
reel. Again this is for assistant colourist work
not colourist work. Let's say you have four or
five shots taken from a scene and next to each
other in the scene. Now I know if you can balance
and match up. I can look at that and see it's very
good. Now let's say we have a longer form project
and you've taken a shot from each thing and you put
the next to each other. I'd be like
oh you've made a number of variations of the same
look which are both different and consistent.
Another skill set has been demonstrated. Then you
have some mishmash of lots of different looks.
I'm not so different but okay yeah you can do lots
of different phrases. I've got some sense
and I've also had enough time on each project. I
think sometimes there's this idea that
shows have to be really really quick and really
fast paced. Sometimes I do think it's good to
give people a moment to actually register what it
is that you've worked on.
Even if it's just three or four projects that's
fine that's okay. I mean I think some of the things
that you've covered there are really interesting.
So in terms of the skill set of an assistant
colorist it's less about that artistic creative
kind of vision which you can develop over time
and you can develop your eye and you can develop
those techniques. But it seems that you're sort
of saying that the more fundamental things there
are matching, balancing, consistency,
being able to work to a brief.
These things are quite technical and dry
and you're not necessarily going to learn them on
your own doing music videos in your bedroom.
What I see is when I started there was only one way
to become a colorist. That was to join a company
like Company Free as a runner, work your way up,
try and get in the grading suite, get a position
as an assistant colorist. That was the only way to
do it because there was no kit at home.
You couldn't do it at home, there were no courses,
there were no online resources. That was the only
way you could do it. Now there are these two
pathways. There's this old school pathway
which still very much exists. There's this newer
pathway where you can do these online courses,
you can use online resources. There's so much
content being made, there's so many content
producers. I see students working on advertisements
for social media for really big brands and they're
getting paid for it. There's this other pathway as
well and they both have pros and cons.
The con of that second pathway from the work that I
see is the discipline, the consistency,
the balancing, the matching, all that really really
boring stuff is not impossible but it's
it's harder to learn because where are you learning
it from? You haven't got a senior or a mentor,
you're not sitting in a chair, you know, checking
shots, comparing new VFX shots against old VFX
shots and then matching the new VFX shots in or
doing dailies. You don't have that experience.
Again it's not to say you can't have a career going
that way, lots of people are and do
but I do tend to see it's did
more towards the short form.
Yes I couldn't agree more because also in short
form you can use a lot of maneuvers
to get somewhere but in long form there's often
restrictions on the workflow.
So if you're working on CDLs you've got your 10
values and you can't go outside of that,
there's no secondaries, you know, you can't muck
around and go oh I'll go cool this way and then
warm that way and then I'll come back to the
center. You just have to go straight to the goal
and same when you know we were VFX coloring there
were restrictions around what tools you could use
and how you could implement them so you had to get
really good at getting straight to the point.
You couldn't kind of meander around to get to a
good balance. And you've also, and this is one
of the most challenging parts I found of going from
a junior like this the biggest challenge
I had as a junior colorist having come up with the
assistant colorist in a DI finishing environment
which at the time was quite unusual, usually was
more difficult to be in a daily environment,
was I had a client next to me telling me what they
wanted, validating what I had done,
I had a grade, no problem. At the moment I didn't
have that person next to me, I didn't know what to
do. Like I've got an image, I've got the tools, how
should it look? I don't know. Does it match? Well
I kind of think it does, it does on the waveform
but does it? Is it good? No idea.
And then that was a lack of experience, right? That
was a lack of time in the chair,
the specific time in the chair alone. And that's
one of the reasons why I went into the effects
grading because I knew I was going to get that
time, I was going to be forced,
I was going to be forced
to figure it out by myself.
So let's talk about that start of your career and
how you came up in the DI suite as an assistant.
I mean we've talked about this previously and
you've got some amazing stories of the people
that you worked with at the time and you know the
rooms that you were in are pretty phenomenal so
anything you can share about that I'd love to hear.
Yes I had probably the most extraordinary timing
and luck I've ever heard of the start of my career.
I was doing work experience at a small
laboratory off of Border Street in London and I
went there because they had the lab timers,
the telephony, colorist and the DI colorist, it was
the only place I had all of this. I
was like this is where I'm going,
this is where I'm going to land. So I went there
and a runner walked out, they didn't even walk out,
they just texted that they quit and I asked for her
job and the guy who became my boss didn't
really want to give me the job. I think he thought
I was a bit of a precocious brat which I probably
was. Nothing wrong with that. But anyway he was
kind of desperate so he gave me the job
and my chief's were like yeah sure
just as long as you submit your work.
I had a term left on my degree, go work, this is
the point of the course. So I was supposed to be
looking after the telephony suites but of course I
didn't want to be in the telephony suites, I wanted
to be in the DI suite. So I was always in the DI
suite and the first colorist I assisted was Robin
Pipsi who is just an absolute phenomenal legend of
a colorist and he was doing or they were doing,
this was like just a room in the back of a lab that
almost everyone ignored. I knew what was in there.
None of the other runners knew or cared. So I was
in there and I was talking to him
and then Quantum of Solace comes up. So this room
in the back of this lab becomes company 3
London. Eventually it goes through a few names
first but it's associated and he basically,
I think he wanted me as an assistant colorist but he
basically says we're going to need our own
client services. This was the end, this was the
excuse. So then I became their own dedicated
client services. Then Laurent Rohan, the color
scientist and technical director was like
I'm not having you sit around making cups of tea.
He gets me in the scanning and recording room and
I'm doing all the dance, matometer readings and I'm
changing lab roles for the lasers and
lacing the Arri scanners. So I'm having a whale of a time.
So much fun. I've just about graduated,
not even had the ceremony and then it's like right
you're going to be Stefan Nakamura's
color assistant. He's coming over the finished
Quantum of Solace and he has to have an assistant.
Now I have no assistant skill set whatsoever. I
don't know how to do anything on resolve
because it's fine. Just go sit next to him.
So my job as assistant colorist was essentially
just always just sit there and talk.
But of course in all of that I just absorbed so
much information and he has one thing Nakamura
has is the most phenomenal, I mean he has a huge
amount of skills and talents. The one thing he has
is the most phenomenal work ethic. You know you
want to work on these kind of films, this is the
work ethic that you have to have. So he really
impaired that on me and yeah it was just
extraordinary just watching this film being made
from the very start. Literally the lab roles of
film coming in and being scanned. To the very end
sitting with him and he actually taught me how to
calculate how on or off paying the print was and
I'm sitting there with my paper.
So it was unbelievably lucky. It's almost like
doing a master's or something.
But at that point then that was it. I was an
assistant colorist. I was able to assist Rob
Pitsy on many films. I think I did another one with
Nakamura. I did a couple with Stefan Sonnesfeld.
I did one with Mitch Paulson. Yeah and then later
we were joined by Adam Glassman and then later
from that was a junior then but Greg Fisher and
Paul Ensey. So yeah it's like a really amazing
group of people and it's not just the colorist but
it's also you know Lauren was an amazing technical
director. Then I was joined by John Cortell who is
absolute legend. I think even the
Academy Award winning color scientist.
You'd never know to meet him. He's so humble but
he is. And then you know it's engineers and it's
editors and then the client. So you know
like sitting in a room next to Anson Dove-Mantle
who's basically telling you how he sets up his
shot for lighting. And then the next day someone's
like oh you know he's doing a talk at the BFI and
it's only 30 pounds. And I'm like what's even a
suite with him all afternoon? Why would I pay
30 pounds to go? But I was realizing moments like
that you really realize what you're just getting.
It's just part of your kind of daily working life.
It's stuff that people would
you know go out for the evening to go and listen
to. But that's just
absolutely the best start anyone
can hope to have. And I think it really speaks
volumes about what you get as an assistant
and why working for bigger companies even if it
takes a little while to get to that goal
is a really solid way to get there. Because you
learn so much clearly. You get so many
opportunities to understand different parts of the
process and you get a chance to get good at
it without all of the responsibility being on your
shoulders. Because you hear stories about people
getting an amazing chance but it's very sink
or swim. And I think it really depends on the day
of the week for anyone whether or not they've got
the ability to get through that kind of
it's not a sustainable way to work. It's not me. I
just know that's not me. That whole
being a freelancer particularly trying to learn
your craft and develop your status and your
profile is a free that is not me. It's just it's
not my personality. I know it's not.
I did have a moment so I left company 3 for about
seven years. I just hit a ceiling where it's like
I'm not going forward. I'm not learning anything.
If anything I kind of feel like I'm drifting
backwards because ultimately you can only progress
as far as the work that there is and the work
that's available to you. And I was in that spot I
think a lot of people can find themselves in
where you're like well I'm too experienced to just
be doing assistant work. I'm
too ambitious. I can want to do more and I can do
it but I can't do that just yet. There's got to be
something in between. And it was a really good time
to be a freelancer in London because the
kit had just become available but very few people
knew how to use it yet. So you could make a lot of
dough. I was just like I'm tired. Like I'm worn out.
I'm tired. I don't want to be running my own
business and invoicing people and chasing money and
chasing work and going into one place one
day and putting this hat on and go and there's also
this underlying thing of kind of just knew
I wasn't quite ready. Like I could probably blag
it. I could probably do a good enough job.
But I knew that there was a block missing to my
experience that I had to fill in fast. And I think
that's when Binn Rona came back to finishing. I'm
still completely terrified. Like that sink or swim
feeling I just don't think it ever leaves you. I
get it at the start of every single show I do.
I'm like this is it. This is it. This is going to
be the one that ruins me. You know.
But I at least knew I had all of the pieces. I'm
like okay I know I can do the clients stuff. I
know I can do the social stuff. I know I can do my
balance. I know I can do my match. I know I
can do my windows. I know I can. I've got all the
pieces. I've just got to put it together.
Yes. And I hate to bring it back to gender. But I
have noticed and I also have experienced this as
a woman is that sense of I'm not ready. I need a
little bit more. I need to be better educated.
I need to get that experience first. Whereas I find
that a lot of men will jump a little
jump a little bit more like head first into those
single swim moments. Like even you know
hearing stories of people who don't know a grading
system particularly well and just kind of talking
their way into a suite and saying oh yeah I can do
it. No worries. I would be absolutely beside
myself. I wouldn't be able to sleep at night. I'd
have to go in for a month
unpaid to get up to speed.
And I don't know like I hate I hate to bring it
back to gender but I do think that there is a
gendered element there of feeling confident and the
point at which you just say I'm good enough now.
I'm gonna do it. And I suspect that you were
probably good enough at that point.
But it's everything you did in between gave you
even more. Yeah I mean I think on the gender
thing I mean there are literally studies that say
that you know if a guy fulfills 40% of a job
description he'll apply for it. And if a woman like
90 she won't because she's missing 10 or something.
So there's definitely something there. It is always
hard to know what's personality and what's
gender. But there's also a little element of and
this was really when I was at DNEG. I spent
a lot of time at DNEG. I was very happy there. I
got to live a lot of life. I got to travel.
I got to have weekends. It was wonderful. But there
was also an element of I was waiting for
the right opportunity. I kind of knew I could I
don't want to be rude but this is how it is.
I could go down a level in calibre of work and and
be a finishing. I kind of knew that option
was available to me. But I knew once I did that it
would be really really hard to get back up
to what I actually wanted to work on. Same thing.
You know I spent longer being an assistant
colourist before I became a junior. I probably
could have gone down a level. There's always this
option when when you're working for a top tier
company or a top tier calibre production to go
kind of down a level in calibre and upper level in
job title. There's always there's often always
this option and sometimes it's the right move to do
right. But for me personally I never felt
it was the right move. I felt like this is the
calibre of work that I want to work on
and I'd rather have a lower job title and even
potentially lower pay to be on that rather than
you know to be in the top seat but on something I
don't really want to work on. And there's probably
an element of status there as well. That the
calibre of work that you
work on it gives you status.
Sure I mean I feel
like there are different worlds in a way
and you could either be like big fish in a small
pond or small fish in a big pond
and you chose small fish in a big pond but while
you were that small fish you were actually
getting bigger and bigger and bigger. Yes and I
sort of by chance and accidentally found myself
being a big fish and actually in a bit of a small
pond. So Vancouver is not a crowded market for
colourists or color grading. You know there's
pretty much there's ours there's picture shop
both employ a max of three or four colourists at
any one time. That is pretty much the population
of finishing colourists of Vancouver. There's a
couple of smaller companies but again you know
going back to this luck and timing I just happened
to physically be in Vancouver when they needed a
colourist and they kind of weren't any like I'm not
saying they weren't any other candidates but
you know the big company you know if you're a dailies
colourist it's very easy to get shoehorned as
you're a dailies colourist. You're a VFX colourist
that's what you do. You're an assistant, you're a
junior. It's always an element of luck about how
you come up to the next level. Sometimes it's
moving country you know I went from junior to the
VFX by okay it was an open job and a website I
typed it but I moved country. That's how I went up
that level. This was a case of being in the right
place at the right time and again sorry to bring it
back but with a certain caliber of
employment history and credit list which brings
about an element of trust. You know it's the same
thing if I'm you know if I'm looking to hire an
assistant because probably more now we're talking
about a colourist you know I look at their CV and
I'm like oh well that was on the TV right so I know
that they can work till that's done. That was in a
cinema. I know they can work till that's done.
That was for Netflix. I know
they can work till that's done.
And I think at that level there's more technical
processes to understand and to
you know shepherd the project through. You
mentioned before that the
two series that we discussed
were HDR, SDR. So knowing those workflows if you've
done jobs that are for Netflix or Hulu or
what have you you're probably familiar with Dolby
Vision workflows and HDR XT and
you're on top of these new workflows and these new
technologies that seem to be
moving at lightning speeds.
Yeah and again it's you know
let's say you're someone you've blagged your way
into the suite, you've got your little box of
tricks, you've made this thing look spectacular,
you've got all the social skills and the client
skills and everyone loves you and then it goes off
and it gets rejected by the network. Every
shot has a QC error, the HDR gets rejected on
technical grounds. I mean it'd be a complete
enough a disaster.
And can you tell me a little bit about when you
moved to Company 3 for the second time
in Vancouver in your current title. I noticed that
on one of the shows that you were on
My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3 that you were grading
along with Stefan Sonenfield
Did you find that there were a lot of opportunities
for learning these workflows and you know
obviously understanding the Company 3 way of doing
things. Was that an enriching experience for you?
Under the Bridge is also a shared project with
Stefan's. He did episode one and I did
Am doing two to eight. One of the things I found at
Company 3 is in terms of like the editorial
side of stuff, everything outside of the grading
room there is a Company 3 way of doing it right
and of course it changes with technology but it's
pretty consistent and it's pretty consistent
globally and it has to be because projects are just
Pinging all over the place. Inside the grading
room every colorist gets the grade how they grade.
There is a lot of difference between how different
colorist grade. Even the things that you consider to
be technical but still are subjective like doing
your Dolby Vision trim. Do you analyze each shot
separately? Do you find one analysis you like for
the scene on one shot and apply that? I heard
something about someone analyzing a
grayscale chart and applying that to the whole
thing. The colorists have the freedom to work
how they work. There's also a huge amount of
opportunity to learn from other colorists as well.
Sometimes you do an indie film and they
want it to look like an indie film. Sometimes they
want it to look like a glossy Hollywood film.
Sometimes they want it to look
like a glossy Hollywood film.
And you're like what do you mean look like an
indie? Well there are kind of
things. So you know sometimes
they're a little bit grungy, a little bit
mushy or whatever that kind of
trend is or something like that.
But I have noticed the tendency and is with these
kind of higher budget, higher status,
is the importance really really
really seems to be on colour separation.
Like that's that's if someone wants to ask me what
makes a Hollywood film, a Hollywood film
from a colour grading perspective, I would say it
doesn't matter how strong the look is,
it doesn't matter how grungy the blacks is, how
indie look they've gone or how much they've
dirtied up in the LUT or the dailies. When
you look at that end result you're going
to have perfect colour separation every single frame
That's a really great tip for anyone who's
colouring and it comes right back to those
fundamentals of balancing because when you
have a well-balanced image you can then do what you
want to it because you've got that foundation
there and you have created that colour separation
and you see it you know on a parade if you get
your scan or your original material and
everything's in the red
channel and then you pull it down
and pull some some cyan back in and all of a sudden
everything just is revealed. Well sometimes you
know sometimes you go a bit further than that you
know there's there's a colour there's an inherent
colour separation which is in a perfectly balanced
shot and then you can always go for a slightly
high part which is where you're actually separating
the colours further and one of the
ways really really simple is you just key your
blacks like key your blacks put a little bit of
blue in them pop pop now if your shot isn't
perfectly balanced it's not gonna react in that
way the other thing is if you haven't learned how
to match and balance naturally you're using your
keys to match your balance I mean I'm of the
opinion there's only so many keys and windows
you can put on an image and tell it just kind of
falls apart or looks really digital in place
so you kind of already use it up you know yes I
call that overcooked yeah I and I get there all
the time especially doing short form because
everyone from the agency is like oh that thing
there and that thing there and individually yeah
individually you go okay all of these are good
corrections but you step back and go oh it's really
overcooked now and it's really not tied to what
was shot anymore so I completely understand what
you're saying there and I think it comes back to
that idea of complexity not being better than like
sometimes you need to be complex but in an
ideal world I don't I don't think that adds
anything yeah especially with material it's very
well shot yes I mean the difference I mean the
difference between I've done quite a variety of
work and in and the wide variety of work in the
last year and a half as partly because of the
strike the strike really affected us here up in
Vancouver so it got to a lot more indie work and
I mean like real indie work which was great and it
was really amazing to work on some films that's
really great stories but they you know they were
more challenging to grow like there is a big
difference between something that's been shot with
tens if not a hundred or something million
plus dollars spent on it and something which is
grading with us because they want to voucher
a film festival you know there's a big difference
but I think it is it is absolutely doable
you know if you know how to do the tools that's
doable but yes you've often got to do
much more to the image and you've got to do much
more on to each individual image and which is
bespoke to each image yeah so having like a scene
instead of saying everything's already pretty
pretty good you might you might need a bunch of
windows or keys to just match one angle to another
before you look at the scene absolutely but each
one of those should have a point and purpose to
them which couldn't be achieved in a different one
at least for windows and keys some people
like to be very very clean and only have one or two
nodes that have any kind of offset or lift
down a game right like no no you can't have more
than that I don't see any reason to not have as
many as you want I often have a lot I find it very
useful for myself to be able to toggle something
on and off and I especially find clients like to
see stuff being toggled up you know they want
they've made their note they want to see the before
and the after another thing I find very
useful with doing that is let's say I'm really
struggling to match two shots because they're
just so inherently different if you know like oh
I'm too warm I'm too cool you know like
the this perfect line is so thin you can't hit it
and then I'm like okay let's go a bit too far
going to key bring down the gain and start to
dissolve I love this so much dissolve that
nodes opacity and with it the intensity of my
correction and that's how I'm gonna get it but
I can't do that if it's in a node do something so
that we'll find I'm tuning um I've got no
problem with having lots and lots of notes and then
of course you get it right and then
you can apply it to the rest of your thing um but
you don't want to get in a pickle
that's the other thing and I think so I think a lot
of lots of it and again the working with
other colorists working under other colorists the
experience of working on more projects I mean
ideally the aim of the game I think or the aim of
my game is developing a methodology right so
that doesn't mean that you're doing the same thing
on every show or in every shot it's not
you know bunging a bullet grade on or like your
version of a space but it's having some
sense of process of how you approach something I
think this is really important for long form
and the more long the long form for episodic it's
essential I don't know how anyone could grade
a series without having some kind of methodology um
I think you're getting a real pickle there so
you know like this is what I'm gonna do if you're
on resolve on the group grade this is what I'm gonna
do on my clip my first notice my CDL I often end
up especially on the higher budget
shop stuff even ended up with a kind of a no graph
template once you've figured out what the client
wants and what they tend to bump up against in the
review you know you know what they don't like
about what's been shot it even ends up with like a
bunch of turned off nodes kind of doing the same
things which you turn on and off or um other things
on resolve I found really useful that
times per methodology is there's this thing where
you preserve a number of nodes right so it means
you can pop in case grades but you can save nodes
say one and two which is your cdo and your match
or you can do it in your group which is great if
your group's like you're seen by scene um
so I find figuring out how where you want to put
things how you want to put them
because what you really don't want to be doing is
spending time dragging and dropping nodes
onto each individual shot or getting into a pickle
and you're like oh I did it in the group
for this scene but I did it on the clip that's
enough I want it panning off that's all that kind of stuff
I think that's so useful it's that's the
craft side of it I think and every colorist is
going to have their own methodology but you're in
the process of refining yours yeah and with
every show it changes you know every show every
person I work with you know it I feel like it
deepens my understanding of an image like you know
on under the bridge sometimes their eyes
catch the lighting the the not the practical
lighting the set lighting and it creates this
really small but really intense especially in HDR
kind of thing of light I don't like that and I
was like I haven't noticed that but now you mention
it I'm like yeah it is better with that reduce so
then I'll go to the next HDR show and if I see the
same thing I'm gonna see it and and I'm going
to address it immediately and other things like
sometimes you feel so silly afterwards you're like
how did I not notice this but of course you're just
looking at you're like oh does their skin
tone match you're not looking at what their
eyeballs are doing.
and one thing I noticed on another show is I'm like
I'm lowering the contrast
and my saturation's going down but my client hasn't
asked me to put the saturation up so now I feel a
bit like you know am I allowed almost you know the
note is not to take the contrast down and put
the saturation up can you know is it rude or are
they going to be asking what I'm doing if I put
the saturation up back up then they go oh we've
lost the saturation let's put it up you know
lovely but but then from that I'm like well
actually hang on a minute maybe I should have a
node prepared to my little gallery that both brings
the contrast down and puts the saturation
up so the saturation stays exactly even and then I can dissolve that on and off with my gain
and that way I've almost invented a new tool
because in resolve you can't
my knowledge anyway do both at the same time right
but then that's my tool which does both at the
same time and then you can end up with like this my
almost like a gallery of these tools which you can
jump to really quickly and they're going to do exactly what you want they're going to behave
exactly how you want them you know while you're in this live session
Yeah and when you are in the
live session I mean I've just from my experience
I've used resolve for close to 15 years and I
feel like when I'm on my own or with clients that I
know really well the tool disappears but I did
the tool disappears but I did a film with a famous
director and all of a sudden I felt like a
newborn baby and everything I was clicking buttons
wrong I was like pressing the wrong
thing on the control surface because I was nervous
and if you're working at that caliber all the time
I imagine that little toolkit that power grade
gallery or whatever it is
is really useful for doing those
quick confident client reassuring moves
because like you don't you don't want to move in
any way that spooks them you've got to keep their
confidence even more so when you're doing remote so
a lot of my grades in this remote I have zoom
I have the iPad and they can't see what's going
on like they can't see if it's crashed or saving
menus come after it's stuck in some mode usually
when someone's in the room they're like oh okay
you know I'll give her a minute it's it's doing
something you know it's fine but when you're in
the flow of a session multiple people in the room
in a hay or something and you're like
not doing what I want it to do and the panic can
kick in pretty quickly yeah
and that's not an ideal point from which to make
creative decisions you know when you I hate that
feeling and I think everyone's been there of like
oh my god I just want to show the swan on top of
the water and they can't see the legs but the legs
are going you know it's just not fun yeah
sounds you can always feel a bit worried I mean
there's an element of I guess performance
yeah to a live section you know how have you
performed did that go well of course the work's
fine but did the experience of that section hit
where you wanted it hit you know yeah and there
is a lot a lot to that and sometimes just get a day
and everything seems to be stacked against you
it does feel like that sometimes I often feel like
that if I'm having a technical problem
I remember recently I was in a session and I was
meant to have a particular plug-in licensed but
there was a problem with the license and there was
so much backwards and forwards around that
that I just couldn't focus on the creative and I
couldn't even be that you know fun person in the
suite and yeah it can be a problematic moment. Yeah
one thing I found different is say when I
first started features and broadcasts were two
separate divisions completely separate
separate clients, separate DPs, separate colorists
almost at some point even within the whole
asset the like company 3 separate companies now
it's just it's long form right episodic and
features pretty much together it's long form
colorists clients DPs
writers are moving through them
there's no barrier but what I have found is still a
very big difference is when I do a
Episodic generally speaking I'll grade the episode
and then we review the episode there's probably
some look there right at the beginning and then
there's a little bit of time for some notes and
that's the episode finish you go on to the next
episode and you do it over whereas with features
particularly indie features if they've got a 4 CR
package or they've got an 8 CR package they
want to be in that room for 40 or 80 hours.
and I remember one of the things we spoke about
was how in an ideal world
you would balance the shot then match your
balance shots and you then apply your grade because
that way you're not kind of a lot of it
comes back to color separation you're not you know
what's the difference between a grade and a watch
kind of thing so a lot of what that means is at
least I found that you end up doing all three of
those at the same time in the same process so
you're doing your your balance your match
and you're kind of LUT and sometimes you're
finishing as well kind of all in the same
path with a live studio audience which can feel
quite high pressured at sometimes but I think
again that's just an experience being a need to get
used to it because you know when I started
out and I was sitting next to people who had been
doing you know color grading for 20 years and who
had been doing finishing for 10 of those years I
mean that was Monday you know like that that's
just what they did day in day out whereas for me I
went from it's quite funny actually I went from
really struggling to grade without a client being
next to me so learning how to grade
without a client next to me
now having to almost relearn
not in terms of the skill set but kind of like the
time management and the okay yeah I remembered
that note we'll jump to that but I'm just going to
finish the shot here kind of again
I think everyone's going to relate to
that I think you've actually hit on a journey
that a lot of people go through right because
there's a massive difference between putting on
a podcast or putting on your favorite album being
snug in the room by yourself you control
the environment you've got some snacks it doesn't
matter what your face is doing doesn't matter what
you're saying you don't have to say anything and
you can just go right into those pictures
and go for it and if you want to get up and go to
the loo or if you want to walk around the block
and refresh your eyes yeah you can and then you
bring the client in and it's a whole different
ball game I actually so I didn't do it this year
which I actually really enjoyed it so it was a
bit disappointing but last year I did something
called we haven't made people crazy eight so it's
a filmmaking competition and what happens is people
pitch their short film ideas and the eight winners
get to make their films in I think it's eight days
which sounds like a lot but they're like
building sets and stuff these are properly made
films and then people like our companies they get
some funding and they get kind of gifted services
and stuff like I did two of them and they were
two short films you know it's been five and seven
minutes long I had four hours to grade them
so four hours to grade one one
day four hours to grade the other
which would not be crazy except you get five
filmmakers come in and they're all sleep
deprived and delirious because they've almost
finished and they've all got so many ideas and
honestly the projects are absolutely fantastic I
really really loved them we ended up with two
really really good looking pieces of work those
were crazy like you literally got someone with
you know you're going to be disqualified if you
don't stop and why should it be red it should be
exactly that was not good I kind of
came out this sweet in another color
so previously was like how
was I was like yeah that's crazy
well it's good to mix it up a bit and I mean
working through the strikes and working on a
bunch of indie projects and working on a bunch of
shorts I imagine that it gives you quite a breadth
of experience that at other times perhaps you
wouldn't be getting in that role
totally I mean totally if it wasn't for like the
quick clean anxiety of that situation
I would have really enjoyed it but um no it was it
was a really good opportunity for me to do
a much broader range of work I mean I was basically
hired to increase capacity on
episodic grading for what at the time was a
streaming boom and was
projected to be a continually
exponentially growing streaming boom so after I
joined about two months later the boom ended
and then there were the strikes um so really what
I'd signed up to do was was to be doing
you know episodic shows one episodic show after
another episodic show and what I ended up getting
to do was to do two really phenomenal episodic
shows and a bunch of features of very varying
budget you know all the way from Big Factory
Wedding to I'm trying to think what my lowest
budget was I think it's probably Takes the Village
um because the documentary set in
East Vancouver about a refugee Gansan family
growing up um which I think was sponsored by Telus
and kind of everything in between um and yeah again
you just learn something from from every
project and every person that I work with
especially DP always always learn something
can another little node goes in that gallery of
something to pull out um and another kind
and another kind of luck goes on the favorite list
of like okay this is a good luck for this but
this is how I grade with that lot um so yeah
because I've never done documentary before that
was the first documentary I'd ever done um Party
Pirate had some sections of claymation I've never
graded animation I've never graded animation
literally into a live action scene like it's
the same scene it's like whoa how how do I do this
you know um so I I did benefit a lot and also yeah
I got to do some music videos and commercials and I
think one of the things that I really loved is um
one of the features I did Valiant 1 which I think
is going to be released this year so it's certain
north-south chris minstler but was shot in BC so
that was it was quite a challenging grade from
making it look not only like different country um
but also completely different weather conditions
because they shot in BC thinking well we're
guaranteed to be overcast and rainy and it was
like blistering heatwave so it was a very
challenging grade but really phenomenal um
DP who actually shoots only on red which is
interesting because I feel like not a lot of
people are shooting on red at the moment or at
least here what we're getting in Vancouver
um and a very strong look he's a commercial DP um
so he came back with a couple of strikes
of strikes he came back with a couple of
commercials during the strike um which were
much appreciated and great I was like yeah he would
be fine um and tell so on that film where
it was red my understanding is that you created a
bespoke LUT for that one using the
red creative kit what was that process so it was
quite interesting so what happened was
this was another LUT originally that had been done
either by or for our dailies department
um which I had inherited but when I came and the
dailies looked absolutely fantastic
and it was originally going to be a HDR stream so
we would have just had a
HDR version but when I made
Converted it to P3 and I looked it in the theater
by the time we came to grade the one that's been
actually it just wasn't working it was it was too
heavy you know you can always like you can always
add contrast in it's very hard to kind of take it
out you know and I was like I love like how
the LUTs going it's just it's too strong to keep
so I took some advice and again this is one
thing that's wonderful about working with a company
you can knock on a suite and and go to a colorist
it's more senior than yourself and I worked
with an absolutely phenomenal um
cover called Anne Boyle and she looked at it and she
went that's worth a creative kit that's I reckon that's
what so we found the creative kit and we were able
to completely reconstruct the LUTs that
have been made essentially like a base LUT and a
bunch of input LUTs with different names some of
them are a touch odd um so we we rephrased it and
then we were able I was able to adjust how much of
each of these input LUTs and which base LUT these
input LUTs were going on to to create a more
bespoke version of the lot for the fee free but
then also I could adjust it on a person
basis as well what an amazing amount of control so
unbelievable I will now actually I did do
another short which was red now I get any red
project I'm straight for that phrase because
you know if I go to our I mean our imagery and
science team at scene one I go I want
a LUT that does this is in this is
RED they'll give me whatever I asked for
but I can't adjust it literally live in the room
with on on such you know on a scene by scene basis
And to have that skill which
is more of a color science skill
and you've brushed up against color science your
whole career and worked in very technical roles
that have required understanding of it and to be
able to get hands on with it and see how it can
be like an actually creative solution to a problem
as opposed to a bunch of like really scary
formulas in a white paper yeah I think I still find
it kind of scary I I've yet to meet anyone
that I think has an equal handle on both the
technical color side side of color and then
the subjective creative side of color you know I
think they're just fundamentally different types
of brain um I once considered I was like maybe I
should put the color scientist and I think it
lasted about one afternoon um that also goes along
with when I decided I was going to learn how to
use python that also lasted one afternoon um but
yeah I kind of the necessity of needing to
understand something in order to do what I want to
do creatively seems to kind of push
push me through it so I always say it's my
understanding of that extends as far
as it needs to and it seems not an inch more but um
I think that's um I think that's really
practical though because you've only got so many
hours in the day and there's only so much
bandwidth any one person has and if you're really
focused on your goal of being an incredible
colorist then going off and getting sidetracked
becoming a color scientist is not necessarily
going to get you there I also think it's it's how
you learn so like if something's abstract but I'm
trying to learn python it's like if you write this
script you'll be able to tell the time on this
clock to go back by 10 minutes what I don't want to
so therefore none of this is making any sense
to me whatsoever if I actually wanted to do that it
would probably make enough sense that I would
be able to do it but if python was going to help
you with that you know setting up your node graph
for something really practical I imagine you'd get
it if anyone can write python and can write that
please message me on linkedin and
we'll go for coffee and I'll buy it this time
well there you go you heard it here first and um if
anyone in the Vancouver area feels like buying
Aurora coffee it sounds like you've
um you've got a potential coffee date
so um can you tell me a little bit I feel like I've
taken a lot of your time up and I will wrap
things up quite shortly my first mentoring session
I ever did was supposed to be half an hour and it
lasted three hours so don't worry oh they're so
lucky um well I did want to just hear a little
bit about so you've obviously done some amazing
things and since we last saw one another
you've been kicking huge goals and doing beautiful
work now that the strikes are over in productions
ramped up again I know there's quite a few shows
that you've graded that haven't been released yet
but I also imagine there's a huge amount of stuff
coming up oh wow so what are you excited for so
the plan is I'm finishing under the bridge um sweet
magnolias is coming back to me for season 4 which
is a massive massive privilege because it's I think
the first show it's the first show that's
come back to me rather than been given to me you
know like it didn't have to come back to me it did
um so I'm hoping to manage as much of that as I can
and then I'm taking a year off to have a baby
that's what you do when
you're at the top of your career
oh well that's so awesome
oh any congratulations oh well that's I don't even
know what to say I'm just so excited for you
so yeah so that's my next year and we're hoping
we'll probably be spending a chance a bit in Europe
um kind of that's where our family is and maybe
even a little bit traveling
while we get we'll see. Oh you always manage to
squeeze a bit of traveling
So that's very exciting,
and then yeah I guess kind of after that my slate
is pretty pretty blank really um
I guess I just have to hope that
I've made enough good work now that
it speaks for itself in the year and a bit some
yeah I look it absolutely will. Talking as a mother
of a three-year-old now um when I came back from
Vancouver um I was seven months pregnant and I'd
been away for about a year and a half
and I was like oh my god I'm about to take another
six months off and everyone will have forgotten me
but you know as soon as I was back
everyone was ready to jump on again
and I think people actually love it
when you're a little bit unavailable
I'm just so excited for
you and I'm all about the working mums
fantastic. We'll see how it goes but you know I
think it's you know it's it's very easy
to always think of work in terms of work and only
work um and I think when you're first starting
out kind of going all the way back to when you're
first starting out it really is because that's how
you do it you don't make something of your career
by being one foot in and one foot out you know
you're all in but you know at a certain point life
has to happen or should should happen
or otherwise it's like well what's
the point in working hard you know
that's absolutely right yeah and when it comes to
family I just think you know
all of those previous generations problems of you
know oh I'm having a baby so I can't have a career
they're gone now and we can we can do both so why
why not why not be happy in both areas
well I think that's a really nice point to wrap it
up um I'm absolutely thrilled on all points
I'm so excited with the amazing career that you're
making for yourself and watching the beautiful
work that you're working on um and I'm really I
think I'll talk to you offline about your
mentoring because I really back that awesome all
mentoring because I really back that awesome
All right well thank you so much for having me
and um thank you for listening if
you've managed to get to the end of this
yes thanks guys thanks so much for joining me and
for Mixing Light I'm Kali Bateman