The Mad Hatter

Here's a spot that I graded a few months ago with Director Bruno Miotto for Hogan Rebel's "Dream, Believe, and Create" instadiary series. Shot by DP Benjamin Kitchens, on the Red Epic, the piece is a poetic and whimsical look at hatter Nick Fouquet and his process in creating custom hats in Venice California. Part fashion showcase, part doc, part music video, this piece was a true joy to color as it is all about pure visual poetry. The look we created in the grading suite can best be described as "vintage, low-con, fashion" (or at least that's what I call it). I found myself creating false flares, and reducing contrast wherever possible to better accentuate the vintage feel of the piece and the overall softness of the original photography. I also found myself using a few different selective keys to pump a bit of blue into the shadows, some magenta into the mids, and some dull yellow in the highlights to give everything a clear and consistent color tonality while keeping overall saturation relatively low. What evolved was a look that is full of soft pastels, silky smooth skin tones, and very soft blacks. I love it when directors want to push the envelope and embrace a strong look. In this particular case the original photography lent itself purposefully to this direction and the subject matter fit perfectly with the visual tone. What more could a colorist ask for?

Grading "Rich Hill" for Sundance 2014

As a colorist I send up seeing A LOT of content throughout the year. Movies, commercials, music videos, short films, PSA's, web spots... you name it - I grade it. Unfortunately because a colorist has the unique position of being on a project for such a comparatively short period of time than other crew positions, that means that we go through many projects in a relatively short span of time. And sometimes... its very easy to become immune to the content of what you're actually grading. In many ways you become a bit more callously engaged with the content your grading... you look at it as 1 and 0's, pixels, bits of data that need to be molded into visual uniformity... you stop seeing things as unique stories and instead view them as well... "just another pretty picture to make better." As a result I sometimes find myself needing to step back and re-watch many of the feature films that I grade to "re-ground" myself in the emotional arch of the story and the characters and get a better feel for the mood and tone of the story that I'm trying enhance visually. For some films this can be a difficult task... as watching and re-watching sometimes less than exciting material can just become... well tedious. However, very rarely, a colorist is offered a true gem... a film that is so emotionally stirring and visceral that one can't help but want to watch the film again and again to live in the world of its characters one more time. These are rare treats, and I have to say they don't come around often. But this year I had the privilege of working on a few films that were just that, and Rich Hill was one of my personal favorite.

Rich Hill, which is in competition this year at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival in the Documentary category, tells the stories of 3 youths growing up in the rural landscape of Rich Hill, Missouri, a small forgotten town that has experienced its share of economic hardship throughout the years. Directors Andrew Droz Palermo and Tracy Droz Tragos both grew up in Rich Hill and decided that they needed to tell the often times forgotten story of the effects of urban poverty on today's youth. The film that Andrew and Tracy have pieced together over more than 2 years worth of filming is one of incredible intimacy with families that desperately want their stories to be heard. Poignant in both its narrative structure and its hauntingly beautiful yet painful visuals, Rich Hill was film that left off the screen and into my heart for two weeks in November as we graded the final cut. Check out this clip from the Sundance Film Festival's website as Andrew and Tracy talk about their film:



Shot on Red's Scarlet camera, Rich Hill posed a number of unique challenges from a colorist's perspective as much of the footage was very free-form in nature using only available lighting and single camera coverage to cover what often becomes very visually complex scenes spanning huge lengths of time. Often the footage was shot at very low light levels in the interiors of many of the film's locations which really played havoc with the colorimetry of the camera and led to some very unique grading tasks in the DI suite. This was a film where the color grade needed to be subtle and refined as the movie itself was already such a powerful vehicle both visually and narratively. My job was to make everything seamless, and as clean as possible. Whether it was reducing noise in a low-light interior or counteracting the effects of an untreated fluorescent light dominating a scene, I tried to make Rich Hill flow seamlessly from shot to shot and more importantly scene to scene. Ultimately I was very pleased with the grade that Tracy, Andrew, and I came up with huddled in our little theater in Santa Monica for two weeks. Having watched Rich Hill about 20 times now I can honestly say that it is one of my favorite films of 2014, not just from a coloring perspective but as a fantastic piece of film-making plain and simple. Rich Hill was truly a privilege to be a part of.

Anatomy of a Grade - Episode 10 - Gettin' that "Cyan Swing"

Well spring is here with summer soon around the corner and although business has been bristling as of late, I've finally found a bit of time to add the latest edition of "Anatomy of a Grade". Its hard to believe this series has been 2 years in the making and at 10 episodes is still going strong on both youtube and vimeo. Thank you to everyone who's subscribed via those services and via the blog as well. You have my promise that there are many more in the making!



For this episode I finally decided to tackle the rather popular topic of the "cyan/orange" look, which I like to refer to as the "Cyan Swing" (just sounds classier doesn't it?). This look has been made popular by numerous hollywood films such as Michael Bay's "Transformers", and this year's  action/crime thriller "Gangster Squad", amongst many others. This is definitely a look that is "in vogue" in the world of color correction nowadays, and I have to say, I get asked to do this one quite a bit in the color suite. My usual tendency is to try steer clients towards a more customized version of the look that is inspired by the visual design and aesthetic that they hopefully started in the initial photography and production design of the film. The "Cyan Swing" works best when a shot has been conceived or photographed in such a way to take advantage of the use of complimentary cool shadows and warmer highlights and/or skin tones. The look works great, when you're enhancing a basic palette of colors that's already there inherently in the image, or in an image that might be more tonally neutral that could be "nudged" into this world from a more muted palette. Where it doesn't work so well... when slapping on an aggressive color preset or "look" with no regard for customization to the actual footage in front of you; and with no clear choice for visual interpretation and aesthetic by the filmmakers.

I truly believe that a colorist's job is to enhance and further refine the visual aesthetic set by the director and cinematographer during principle photography and NOT to completely rebuild the ship so to speak from the ground up (although it seems now more than ever we're being asked to do this more and more). Great looks in the color suite BEGIN IN PRINCIPLE PHOTOGRAPHY, period. Every element of the picture from costumes, to lighting, to makeup, to filtration, to production design, to shot composition establishes a "look" from the very moment the camera rolls. If forethought hasn't gone into these elements, then cohesiveness in the color suite can become a bit underwhelming as the "look" of a movie is unfortunately simply "stumbled upon" during the grade. Usually this process happens more by happy accident than by intentional choice. Although we must always leave room for "happy accidents and discoveries" at every stage of a film's development; depending upon them can often times lead to lackluster results when the creative sparks aren't igniting, so to speak. A look like the "Cyan Swing" works best when its implanted in the minds of every department from the beginning of production.

This particular example from a commercial spot that I did for company Metis Creative http://www.metiscreative.tv/, demonstrates how simply this look can be achieved when the elements are there in the beginning thanks to a well conceived plan from production. Take a look at the finished piece here as well and you'll see how multiple locations utilize the key colors in the look in different ways (its not always cool shadows and warm highlights, but its always blue and orange in some combo!). You can see how customizing this look to bring out specific element of the principle photography that was already there (ie the blue of the "Giant" logos, and warm skintones) made the grading process very clear and allowed us to get REALLY specific on the day instead of spending time trying to impose a look on the piece.


Giant Propel Advanced SL from Metis Creative on Vimeo.

Grading "Anita" - Sundance 2013

Earlier this year, I got the chance to work with the team at Bandito Brothers and Oscar winning documentary director Freida Lee Mock on her latest documentary entitled "Anita" destined for its Sundance 2013 premiere! The film takes a retrospective look at the story of Anita Hill more than 12 years after her testimony at the Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings, regarding the sexual harassment allegations aimed at the soon-to-be Supreme Court Justice during her years working under him. This is Freida's 12th film, and her strength and passion for the subject is as strong as ever (Freida won the Oscar for her 1995 documentary "Maya Lin: A strong Clear Vision").

From a color grading perspective, the film offered some unique challenges as it combined recent interview footage of Anita and other subjects shot on Panasonic cameras, as well as numerous amounts of archival material pulled from every imaginable analog format from the early 90's. The footage ranged from Betacam SP broadcast tapes to master-less VHS grabs from the time. From a visual continuity standpoint there was a lack of cohesion in the original un-color corrected cut. Working with Freida, we decided to bring the dull and colorless archival footage too life, by giving it a gamma curve and color palette that more matched the feel of the modern interview footage. While each and every format took a different technique to get there, we were able to greatly enhance the older news footage to give it a "more filmic" contrast along with "punchier," "more saturated", colors that brought it more to life. What we found that there was actually an incredible amount of information available in these old analog formats and we were really able to make shots that had seemed so lifeless on C-SPAN and other news outlets, really come to life with a vibrancy that I think surprised me more than anyone else!

For the interviews we employed a number of techniques to enhance the interview lighting to really flatter the subjects even more. Using power windows, highlight retention techniques, and even a subtle "post pro-mist" filter or two, we were really able to give all the interviews a much softer feel than was achievable on set at the time of production. Overall, I have to say this project was one of my favorite projects of 2012/2013. Working with Freida the post team at Bandito was an absolute joy, and being able to work on a film that I believe contains major relevance to our cultural and social perceptions today was truly a gratifying experience.

Basher Films Joins Prehistoric Digital!

After 4 years of working out of Pasadena, first with founding partner Phan Tran, and then on my own for the past 2 years; I've finally decided to join forces, so to speak, with a larger operation! After a lot of contemplation and discussion with numerous folks, I've committed to joining the team of colorist Kevin Canon, producer Will Adashek, and assistant Joe Sipkins at Prehistoric Digital in Santa Monica. Basher Films will officially become part of Prehistoric Digital and merge its operations under its roof! Although it means a big move for me across town, I couldn't be more excited about the chance to work with a larger team in a bigger, better, space! The facility that Kevin and Will have set up on Colorado Ave is a beautiful, custom-designed theatrical grading house, specifically tailored to do precisely what I believe a boutique, client-oriented, post-house should do; make clients comfortable, keep overhead low, provide the highest level of technical and artistic service possible, and do so in an environment that encourages creative decision-making at every step of the process.

I started Basher Films wanting to "buck the system" of expensive over-priced post houses and work "one on one" with clients, providing the attention to their projects that they deserved for a price that was a fraction of the bloated fees that the large color grading houses have to charge due to unnecessary equipment, overhead, and staff costs. Kevin and Will had started Prehistoric Digital with the same notion, and had originally run it out of a guest house as a single theater for 2 years! Eventually, they, like me, had reached over-capacity with their work, and needed to expand to a larger facility. When they stumbled on a recently vacated former "finishing" space in Santa Monica, they asked me if I might be interested in joining them and bringing my clients along as well; and needless to say, I jumped at the chance.

The two grading theaters at the Santa Monica location are absolutely beautiful and feature first class digital projection in both 2K DCI, and 1080P Rec709 depending upon client budget. I also brought along my plasma suite, upgrading my monitoring in the process as well, and added what we now call "color suite 3" to feature 3 total grading suites for clients. We offer three different grading environments from 2K DCI on a Barco Projector, all the way to a 55" Panasonic Plasma, with different size rooms for different size projects with varying needs. I really love the fact that we have a solution for every project at the new space and can literally accommodate larger budget theatrical release films as well as the lowest budget student films and shorts. That excites me as a colorist, and allows us to work with a wide variety of clients. So check out the new website at www.prehistoricdigital.com and take a look at the new grading theaters, and feel free to give me a call or come by and take a tour of the new space. We give tours all the time and would love to have you over to show what we're all about. No pressure, no sales pitches, no "BS", you can get a feel for how we do things over at "PhD".

Black and White for Eboost

I really enjoy getting the chance to work in black and white every once in a while, and I got the opportunity to do so a few months ago on a commercial project with Malibu based photographer Jack Guy www.jackguy.com. Jack has been one of my favorite clients to work with over the past year as he has a fabulous eye, and always bring incredibly strong images into the grading suite on every project. Amongst his vast array of work, Jack has a knack for the human form and capturing vibrant and dramatic portraiture, and I'm always excited to see what he's brought in because, quite literally, every shot will stand on its own two feet as an incredibly strong image. Jack's projects are always immensly enjoyable in the color suite as we can really "tweak" and "maximize" the image instead of wasting time trying to correct "mistakes" or just "balance it". Jack's images are always so strong and striking to begin with that we really just end up adding additional "punch" and "enhancement" to what he's already started withe lighting and composition. In this spot, we added some heavy contrast, a bit of grit, and some deep blacks to create a very dynamic look for this energy drink spot. Check it out, and enjoy!

Free Samples

Earlier this year I had the privilege of working with director Jay Gammill and cinematographer Reed Morano (Frozen River) on the indie feature "Free Samples" that recently made its debut at the Tribeca Film Festival. The films stars, actress Jess Weixler (who made a name for herself with the indie feature "Teeth" a few years ago), Jesse Eisenberg (Social Network), Jason Ritter (NBC's parenthood), Halley Feiffer, and veteran actress Tippi Hedron (yes, THE TIPPI HEDRON from Hitchcock's classic "The Birds"). The film takes place over the course of one day, in a hot frozen yogurt truck in central LA. Check out the trailer below!

The Prototype - Trailer

So a few months ago I had the privilege of working on a trailer and short film pitch for writer/director Andrew Will for his feature "The Prototype" which is currently in development with Cantina Creative, Bandito Brothers, and Variant Films. Its a sci-fi thriller with plenty of action, some amazing visual effects (courtesy of Cantina Creative) and features an appearance by one of my favorite on screen personalities, actor Neal McDonough. The principal photography on this was shot by DP Bridger Nelson on the Arri Alexa, and was an absolute treat to grade. The look we came up with plays off of a few key hues (mainly the greens, cyans, and blues) and deep rich blacks to give this world an "eerie/unsettling/futuristic-urban feel" (hows that for a description?). Check out the trailer above and hopefully you'll be seeing this in movie theaters in the not too distant future!

Anatomy of a Grade - Episode 09 - The "Bleachy Western Look"

Well, it's been a crazy 5 months since my last post here on the blog, lots of work and a bit of travel to boot have made my web updates a bit infrequent alas. BUT, I've got plenty of content to post and hopefully will be adding a number of new entries over the next two weeks here in between projects. So without further adieu, I give you the latest of the Anatomy of a Grade series:



I often get asked to do the "Beach Bypass" or "Bleach Reduction" effect in the color suite (and by often, I mean, every other day, by practically every other person). The problem is that these terms mean a million different things to a million different people and no two are ever the same. Someone may reference "Saving Private Ryan" as their idea of bleach bypass while another may reference "Three Kings", both use varitions of the "bleach bypass" technique but both look very different and used different methods (both photochemical and digital) to achieve their looks. I'm always wary when someone says they want this look as its never as easy as pulling in a "preset grade" and slapping it on. So I ALWAYS make sure to ask, "What does bleach bypass meant to you? Can you give me a film or reference image that conveys the "look" you're thinking of." Once we start to narrow down the specifics, then we can start designing "our vesion" of the bleach bypass effect for the particular project at hand. Beacause of this I have about 20 different variations on the "bleach bypass look" that I've used and probably about 20 more spinoffs from a handful of those as well.

For this particular shot, DP Andrew Russo want a more aggressive look, and I immediately thought that a "beachy, contrasty" look for the scene might play well with the subject matter and the overall mood as well. What we came up with was a hybrid "bleach/sepia spinoff" that I really fell in love. You don't often see a western done in this particular style and its always great to come  up with something fresh in the grading suite.

Keith Urban's "For You"

Well here it is, in all its explosive promotional glory: Keith Urban's "For You", which I had the privilege to color corrected last month at Bandito Brothers with DP Shane Hurlbut and director Scott Waugh. The video features some great practical explosion effects, a fantastic performance by Keith (and yes I'll admit, I'm a fan), some really great visuals out in the California desert, and some selected clips from the film "Act of Valor" (some of which you can't see in the theater...).



The project was shot on multiple formats including Arri Alexa, Canon C300, and the Canon 5D Mk II to name a few. Balancing multiple formats was a bit tricky at first, but eventually they all fell in to line (multiple formats was a staple on the film Act of Valor as well, so the music video stayed true to form and gave its colorist a bit to sweat over!). The Alexa especially shone beautifully as it captured a vast amount of shadow and highlight detail that I pulled directly from the Log-C material to really enhance the sky, the desert, and most importantly, Keith himself. Shane and Scott were looking for a punchy warm look so we pushed the contrast to the edge of blowing out, and really focused on working the highlights as much as we could to make everything feel really vibrant and sunlit (even when it wasn't, ahh daytime exteriors...). Obviously talent is important in a project like this, and Keith's performance is really strong, so we needed to make sure that he looked as good as he sounded, and the Alexa gave us amazing flexibility to reshape lighting across his face when we needed to, and even add a light glow to the highlights on his skin for an extra pop when the weather wasn't behaving.

The footage speaks for itself, and the video has been climbing the CMT charts (currently at 12 at only week 2!, we'll see how high it can go). All in all, really proud of this piece; great song, great concept, great cinematography, great performance; not even a crazy hypercritical colorist could mess that up.

Act of Valor - Grading Real Navy Seals in Action

Happy 2012 to everyone! The New Year has come and I found myself dumbfounded that somehow another year has passed us by and a new one is beginning. A cliche' to be sure, but it never ceases to amaze me how fast time flies when your busy! And 2011 was a busy year for myself and Basher Films to be sure! Full of projects both big and small and clients old and new, 2011 turned out to be busiest year I've seen to date, which bodes well for a supposedly "recovering" economy!

As is always the case, many of the projects that were graded last year won't be released or seen until this year, so I've had to hold off on commenting on them on the blog. But the time is finally arriving (to brag a little of course)! One of the first projects in line to be released this year is the Bandito Brothers / Relativity Media Production of "Act of Valor" releasing nationwide in theaters in February. I had the privilege of serving as an additional colorist on this project, picking up where Company 3 lead colorist Stefan Sonennfeld left off on the initial grade early in 2011. I spent about two weeks late in the year tweaking and re-tweaking a number of sections of the film with Cinematographer Shane Hurlbut (Terminator Salvation, Drumline) updating some additional new scenes and building on the initial grade. The film is quite unique in that it was shot primarily with the Canon 5D Mk II camera as well as 35mm film and a few other HD cameras as well! Mixing formats and footage proved a unique challenge, that was resolved with specific color treatments on each format and the removal and addition of uniform film grain across the entire piece. Check out the trailer above to get a taste of some of the incredible visuals in the film... and see if you can tell what's 5D and what's film... you might be surprised!

Crashing Through Walls and Spinning Death Defying "Donuts" with BMW

Here's a fun spot that I colored a few months ago with Culver City based production/post-house Bandito Brothers for BMW Canada. The spot features the brand new BMW 1M sedan flying through concrete walls out in the desert. All I can say is... I want one... and in the snappy "Valencia Orange" option for that matter... that is one good lookin' car with some really good lookin' moves.



Here's another spot featuring the 1M circling on top of LA's highest man-made structure, with a beautiful "dusky-gold" look to it. I really enjoyed how pushing some gold tones into the mids and highlights to bring out the sunset really ended up played nicely with a bit of blue punching through in the shadows... and of course all playing second fiddle to that iconic orange and red of the 1M!

Anatomy of a Grade - Episode 08 - Digital Re-lighting Part 2

Well its been a few months but I've finally gotten around to posting the 8th installment of the anatomy of a grade web series. My apologies to everyone who's been asking for this sooner, but work has kept me ridiculously busy (and for all you fellow freelancers out there, you know how grateful we are when that ACTUALLY happens).

This Episode focuses on a tough "pickup shot" from the Bollywood feature film "Chittagong", that was shot well after principle photography (by a completely different crew). The closeup shot had completely mismatched lighting from the wide and required some serious "digital re-lighting" to accomplish the task. Once again, a combination of basic primary color correction and some animated "power windows" did the trick and allowed the shot to fit in nicely with the sequence. Take a look: (please note, the shot in question is rather dark and contrasty so be sure your monitor isn't "crunching your blacks" and heightening contrast too much, in order to properly view the layers of the grade)

Yokohama Tires Duck Duck Goose Commercial

So this is a 30 second spot I graded at Bandito Brothers a few months ago for Yokohama Tires. The spot features off-road racing star Cameron Steele along with his wife and fellow off-road racer Heidi Steele in a spirited game of duck, duck, goose using some sleek transportation (all sporting yokohama tires of course).



This was a really exciting piece to work on from a color correction standpoint as the client was willing to go for a really aggressive look featuring bold saturated colors on the car with a high contrast black and white background around them. It makes for a really "punchy" look with the bright colors of the cars screaming around a stark monochramtic background. VFX rotoscoped the horizon and the skies and also gave me some really useful alpha mattes of the cars in each shot. From there I used a combination of power windowing, and selective chroma/luma keying to achieve the look (and of course do some enhancement work on product logos, tires, etc, its a commercial after all). This was by far one of my favorite color grades this year; its always a pleasure when clients want to push the envelope and really commit to and embrace a sylized look like this.

And if you'd like a little behind the scenes on the "on-set" production of the spot check out this great video: