Mixing Light Interview Series

Hi everyone this is Kali Bateman for Mixing

Light and today I am thrilled to be talking

with esteemed colourist and colleague of mine

Daniel Stonehouse who has been colouring in

Melbourne since I started and probably well before

and we were always very aware of one another

as we were coming up and is now the founder and

owner and colourist at Crayon which is a studio

that is also representing

myself so full disclosure everyone.

Nepotism alert.

Yes that's right so I'm very thrilled to be on the

books at Crayon now and Dan and his team have

made me feel extremely welcome and have looked

after myself and my clients very very beautifully

through the transition so I've been a Crayon

colourist now for coming up to six months which

is hard to believe how quickly

that's gone. Six months already.

Amazing.

Yes it must be coming up soon and so yeah just

absolutely thrilled to have Dan here today to talk

to me about running a boutique colour shop that not

only has a physical presence in Melbourne but

also is remotely representing a growing roster of

colourists including myself and doing a beautiful

job at it so welcome welcome Dan

and thank you so much for joining me.

So I'd love to know you know we came up together I

remember always seeing your work as a junior

and an aspiring colourist and thinking wow this

guy's got it and how does he do that and I wish

I could do that and always

being slightly jealous as one is.

Well look vice versa I can I can remember a

particular music video that you did I think

for Courtney Barnett I'm

remembering probably. Oh yes.

The very gritty dark one in the caravan and I was

like why didn't I get to you know I do all this

bloody happy shiny shiny colourful stuff you know

and you get the like the dark bleak you know

depressing one why didn't I get to do that you know

so yeah I think I think we're of a similar

generation and a similar set of experiences is

coming up. I always date my start to about when

Apple Color came out I'm sure a lot of people in

my generation do too I always think of that as

sort of being around the time the Canon 5D came out

as well and those two things are quite linked

you know that there were all of a sudden a lot lots

of new DPs and directors and also

lots of new colourists and we all sort of work

together in the early days doing our best with

Canon 5D footage you know. That's right yes it was

the beginning of the democratization

of colour grading I suppose because you know all of

a sudden there were new emerging cinematographers

who had this sort of easier entry into the market

didn't have to buy a hundred thousand

dollar camera to start shooting and so they were

able to work with people who weren't as established

like yourself and myself giving us the the very

important 10 000 hours that we needed to become

good at this crazy personal job. Absolutely and the

fun task of just seeing what we could do with

fairly low bit rates h264 footage. Absolutely and

I remember those days the sort of the

digital revolution was happening and there was a

new digital format every sort of other day and I

remember being given hard drives and told hey we

need this in the system tomorrow and you'd be

like oh well there's no programs that I know of

that can read this file format and it doesn't seem

to have time code or real names so it was a period

of great trial and error and stick to itness

I seem to recall. Absolutely if I scroll all the way

back you know I'm one of these people that has

my iPhone photos going back you know pretty much to

the dawn of time but there's a a particular

image of a one of the old Apple cinema displays

with an early version of Red Cine on it holding

up an iPhone you know a very early iPhone for

some banking ad so you know we were trying to

work out how to use red footage and how to

transcode it and how to get the best out of it

you know before you got it into the grading system

because you couldn't work with the

raws and yeah it was it was a time of a lot of

experimentation a lot of learning for everyone.

Yes and I think it produced people who are good

problem solvers didn't they? Well you had to. And

you were willing to sit down and just nut it out

but just for the just the listener or the the

audience out there so to give a bit of context

would you say this is roughly sort of 15 years ago

that we're talking about? I mean I've been look

I've been saying 15 years for probably longer than

15 years I should really I should really get my my

dates and time straight look I think

I think Apple Color came out around 2007 which

was a big deal because Apple just bought

the whole company and chucked it in with the Final

Cut suite and so all of a sudden you had

you know like a commonly available program that

could do secondaries that wasn't just

the old three-way color corrector in Final Cut

or whatever After Effects like to think of as

color tools you know so all of a sudden there was

this readily available program that was enough

like you know the big things that the the

posthouses were spending millions of dollars on

where you could actually really sink your teeth

into and learn the craft I mean I'd done so

I had worked in an animation studio I was working

in an animation studio at that time that was sort

of had evolved from being very scrappy and doing

some production and doing some animation and

basically winning jobs and saying yes to things and

figuring out how to do them on the fly so I

definitely graded footage before without really

knowing what it was you know I'd taken stuff and

made it look better but then all of a sudden there

was this sort of context to do it in

and it just really felt like a great fit you know

like the the time scale the collaborative

nature of it the fact that there wasn't really a

right answer but there was there were answers

that were righter than others yeah I just sort

of did it and did more and more of it and fell in

love with it and realized that there was like a

like a craft depth there that I could

quite happily explore for a really long time

yeah so that was kind of my start and

you know working in an animation company it sort of

started to not make sense to say like oh hey

we're so and so and we represent animation

directors and then there's Dan who does all

this other stuff as well so my employer and I

decided to start a sort of a sister company

that I'd be a partner in and around that time as

well you know my my a building was bought

that we're still in to this day and that was a

big part of sort of the the birth of crayon as a

company we were big fans of BEAN in Sydney,

Ben Eagleton and Andrew's company they were very

forward thinking they were doing things like yes

sending hard drives to clients you know like they'd

send a big a big raid over so you know they could

you could get the footage on something fast enough

to work with and and they just had this very sort

of modern and nimble kind of

brand and reputation and that was a big

inspiration for us you know in some ways

we were trying to do a version of that in

Melbourne but with a colorist who is a little

bit less experienced which was stressful you know

for me but stuck at it yeah BEAN, BEAN is a

company in Sydney Ben Eagleton and Andrew Clarkson

and if anyone listened to my interview

with Fergus Rotherham those are his mentors

and if if you're Australian or potentially

anyone would know Ben Eagleton's work I'm not

sure if BEAN was before or after Ben's stint in LA

do you know Dan? I can't remember the exact

timeline of it but you know they've had a

beautiful reputation they did and still do to this

day even though I don't believe BEAN is is still

the same scenario that it was Ben is freelance

now and I believe he has just BE

so I may edit this out because I should get my

facts straight before I open my mouth

in any case they're they're colorists who have

had a huge impact on the Australian industry

and also in terms of philosophy to be role models I

think that generation of colorists were role

models for mine and Dan's generation coming up

they were people that we could say well look here

are people who are really doing it to a world-class

standard and you know there's absolutely nothing

that can go wrong if we aim for that and I think to

us especially they represented a new way of

doing things you know I never worked in a post

house I sometimes that's good good distinction

because being... being a boutique.

Yes. Exactly right I sometimes like to joke I've never

been in a grade before because I haven't you know I

I was definitely of the generation that was sort

of completely self-taught and you know I could I

can remember you know in the early days the other

colorists I encountered you know like on on one

hand I could count them and some of them wanted to

talk shop and some of them didn't some of them very

much didn't you know so that was also

that sort of another thing that shaped my thinking

is the difficulty of sort of doing it on your

own and the solitary nature of our work

sometimes and how to sort of encourage solidarity

and sharing and sort of escape the competition

mentality you know that that crafts people can

sometimes have with with others in their field you

know yeah so I'm not sure if I answered

the questionnaire with no no no all kinds of

tangents no I think there's a few really

interesting points there because you know we

touched on it earlier that you and I had a bit

of healthy jealousy of one another and I think

that's part of being in the same generation as your

colleagues and you know especially in Australia

sometimes you can feel like there's quite a small

pie and there's not enough slices to go around and

you know there's always people with opinions

about whether or not you can or should be pursuing

this very niche career and some people aren't

particularly shy about letting you know whether or

not they think you have a place in the industry

and I don't know whether or not that goes away or

whether or not you just develop a tolerance

and a thicker skin to it as you mature but it is

something that can shape you as a colorist and

you know whether or not you get one of those

coveted assisting roles in the big facility or not

there is a pathway there and not everybody needs

to do the same color job or have the same

approach because if we all did you know every

client would also have to be

the same and they're not so

you know there was definitely a niche for crayon in

the market that you found and modeling it on

BEAN like what a great company to say hey they're

doing it let's do it too so you know you really

did go straight into that boutique market and dealt

with the challenges that anybody has

coming up which is you know how do I find somebody

who's willing to teach me and how do I teach

myself and where do I find those resources so you

know did did that what kind of effect did that have

on your sort of approach to grading or your

philosophy around grading

did that shape that at all

I think going back even further you know I've

always been the kind of person where if I if I'm

interested in a subject it just becomes all

consing and I will follow my taste I'll

explore it and you know I'll usually there's

there's a famous Ira Glass lengthy quote about

creativity essentially being that the problem is

when you start your taste exceeds your ability

and maybe you actually never catch up you know in

some ways but you you can get a bit closer

after after your 10 000 hours you're you you might

admit to yourself that some of your work is is

actually okay but yeah I guess in high school I

got really into photography I was a I was a

terrible skateboarder so I got into photography so

I would have something to do while everyone

else was doing more impressive tricks than me

but then that led into working as a photographer

shooting local bands working for street press

and things like that funnily enough to the point

where I felt quite jaded by about sort of 16 or 17

like I'd been I'd been spat out by the industry

and you know 50 bucks for film and and a and a name

on the door wasn't quite enough anymore

and then I sort of followed my interest into

graphic design similar kind of thing just sort

of got quite obsessed with it self-taught

thought I was going to study design out of

uni but then maybe didn't realize that those

courses were actually quite hard to get into

there's a little bit cocky about my

chances but my point being that

when color came along you know I'd sort of been in

this I don't know like this long period of

of finding new loves new crafts

and teaching myself about them so

in that era resources were very scarce I was

saying to someone the other day like there

was that one blue book you know the art of color

correction did you ever see that it was about the

only thing the Alex Van Herkman one yeah a classic

of the genre you know every very small genre

yeah but I mean that was that was like I don't know

that was like discovering treasure or something

because you know yeah there'd be the odd tutorial

or the odd website and you'd pick up bits and

pieces and you'd read manuals for software like

like like they were novels you know hoping

someone had slipped in a little bit about you know

the actual work we were doing not not just

the technical but the process the why's that

that information was extremely hard to find

but there were bits and pieces here and there you

know so I guess I just sort of took that

kind of quiet desperation and and kind of

hunger for education and I just

move it up absolutely everything I could you know

and would piece bits and pieces together and

and just try and make it work you know you'd

you'd you'd get a little

hint about a technique like

and and you'd implement it you'd you'd go what

the hell is cineon space oh okay it's how film

scanned why is it so soft oh you've got to use an

s-curve you know you just piece all these things

together and and put it together but yeah it

was it was pretty slim pickings in terms of

resources for learning wasn't it I seem to

remember it kind of it was fx phd that blew the

lid off it for me yeah because I'd always had

this interest and I'd been looking for

ever since I was at uni and got to go and get my

films graded at what was it called that place

in south melbourne where Vincent worked no no it

wasn't that's Complete Post Complete Post

of course yeah Dean McClellan and Vincent Taylor

were working oh lovely other amazing

colors working there I know and I remember Dee

graded this really terrible zombie movie that

I was short film that I made and she made it look

so much better it was shot on mini dv and she made

it look like it was something and I remember

thinking my goodness how do you do that but like

you you know I was sort of out there on my own

going where do you find the information and I

think now with you know websites like Mixing Light

and the availability of being able to reach out

to actually ask colorists internationally on you

know panels and social media and just just how

sort of global it's become and how accessible it's

become it really was a different world when we

started out so I'm just having like a secret

society you know it really was a secret society

and you were sort of knocking at the door like

thinking you're wearing the coste the right way

and then being scared that you weren't you know and

that you weren't gonna get laid in with the

stone cutter's handshake but I mean that it's still

something I sort of tell people these days

especially younger people who who want to break

into the industry who want to be a colorist like

the trick is really just not stopping you know like

there's no there's no other way to do it

apart from that like you are a colorist until you

tell yourself you're not and inevitably

opportunities will come your way with persistence

but I mean sometimes it takes a lot of

persistence you know the you know it is certainly a

bigger field than it was and you know the sort

of customers the consers the clients like have a

much better understanding of what it is we do

and why it's necessary but you know we're still

specialists you know so really

anything you can do

I couldn't agree more and not

listening to the people who tell you that you

shouldn't or can't and you know getting back up

when you fall down is all a major part of it

I'd say maybe 80 percent of it but I mean just

thinking about the difference between that and now

you certainly wouldn't have had a client pull out

resolve on their laptop or ipad and you know

grade a couple of shots in your session and say hey

can you make it look like that you know

it was a lot it was a lot more secret yes and

the systems were extremely expensive and yeah

fortunately apple color came out and and gave you

that in and I mean it's it's all about

the color not the tool right so if you're an

amazing colorist it doesn't matter what you're in

it doesn't matter what tools you're using you're

going to get results that pleasing whether

it's in apple color or resolve or well yeah I mean

you know you're grading with your brain and

your eyes ultimately you know sometimes

dismissively when mostly when I'm trying to

encourage editors to use DaVinci Resolve I jokingly

say it's well it's just rectangles in a row right

like does it you know like does it really matter

what program you're using but color is kind of

the same I mean look there are niceties to

different systems there's performance benefits

there's some tools that are just brilliant and

wonderful and open and you know other things

where you find yourself little dead ends and

cul-de-sacs but ultimately it's your eyes and

your hands you know and your brain that's the

those are the tools you're color grading with

and you can adapt you know like no one likes that

period of time where you're like oh I know

there's a button for this somewhere I just don't

know where it is that's never a fun week but that's

not really the big problem of our work right the

big problem is like why like why are we doing what

we're doing how are we corralling all this sort

of technical knowledge and this instinct and

you know perception and taste how are we corralling

that all into sort of getting from one end of a

project to the other you know successfully with

with happy happy clients who feel listened to and

like they've participated that's really the the

tough part probably tougher than the more

obvious part of technical knowledge you know but

yeah you just have to keep on doing it

and then eventually you hit a point where you're

like oh this is less stressful than it used to be

not always every now and then you know you have a

you have a day or you have a week

or a project but mostly it does get better

but yeah these are just yeah so tell me about

like how you transitioned from colorist and partner

in a sister company to an animation studio

and then had this current iteration where crayon is

yours and you're an artist but you're also the

business owner which I have to say from the side

of somebody who's represented by a company

it does have a different feeling to to being

represented in a business where the kind of

top-down ownership is an artist it feels a lot

different to the top-down ownership being more

producer or production based you know not to say

that one's better than the other but it

certainly has a different flavor and it is quite

lovely to know that it's the artist concerns

that are the most I don't even know what the

right word is but they're they're top of mind

really artist concerns yeah exactly how did you how

did you find crayon's current iteration

yeah it was an evolution I mean there's there's

some stuff that's just sort of in our DNA

so you know crayon was originally founded by a

director who became an entrepreneur

you know who and and a colorist and I think the

idea was to to create a space that clients

actually wanted to be in you know to you know

you'd hear like a lot about people going to the

big the big main post houses and essentially not

having a good time you know and we wanted to

be sort of new school and nimble and you know

leverage that our experience you know like our

background and experience was broader than just

color you know that that I we both had design

backgrounds essentially and and we sort of use that

sort of foundational way of creative thinking

we could we could sort of translate that into

different jobs but at the same time it's like

someone needs you to type set a title you can bust

out the old design skills you don't have to go

okay well you need half a day in smoke and that's

going to cost you and your producer needs to talk

to my producer like we could just be a bit more

nimble and fluid and and kind of client friendly

so that's in our DNA

and then sort of the evolution of the business

my business partner ended up heading overseas

and starting an absolutely

huge successful tech company

which definitely took up most of their time so

there was a period of time where crayon was

sort of just it was what it was it was what it was

designed and it was continuing in that direction

you know there were some times where we we

dabbled with representing editors for a while

and sort of being end to end but we also always

sort of came back to this idea of being

you know what we'd like to call these those color

focused right that we it's not only color but it's

it's it's it's a business that's sort of focused on

that part of the process and the things that

surround it and you know after a few years of

me being the only colorist here I started to

think really heavily about new models for how

crayon could grow you know we were in a world

where almost every colorist in Australia was

freelance you know there were there was a time

where I'd joke and say like I'm the only colorist

with the job left you know...

It is true...

yeah the industry had sort of you know

we'd we'd left that big post house era

and we were in a new world where everyone was

freelance and so everyone was sort of on their

own you know and already kind of at times lonely

or at least you know individual job

sort of I felt like we were getting broken down

into smaller and smaller pieces you know and

I think there was some good stuff you know some

that was lost in the move away from the big

post houses yes you know like a certain amount

of like just pressure caused by money

you know caused by costs caused by the costs

of the rooms you know the kind of rock star

mentality you know I think I think it's good that

we've sort of moved on from there but you know

we sort of threw out a whole bunch of stuff at the

same time like we threw out institutional

knowledge we threw out you know the glue in between

all the stages you know you you see

it now sometimes where where like in ad agency for

example we'll sort of throw a an editor a

colorist and a you know an online or a flame or

a smoke artist together and it's sort of like

that's not a post pipeline for a job like I mean

we're used to it we can talk to each other and we

can make it work but it's not the same as you know

the glue that holds it all together and I

mean I think another thing was I'd always had the

benefit of having a producer my entire career I

had some form of producer in the early days when

I was dabbling we had people who you know

like I never had to send an invoice in in my

entire career which was a great luxury and yeah

as the industry sort of got it gotten broken down

into into freelancers I was like how do how do

people do it you know like how do you...

a stressful full day in a commercial

and at lunch time the job from yesterday is

hassling you about a new shot and someone wants

to shift the booking you know from tomorrow to

the day after meaning you have to shift another

book like I just didn't understand how it was

possible and certainly it is possible because

people do it but I don't know I just yeah it's

also not a skill set like personally that

producing skill set it can seem easy when it's

being done well and you know I I came up in

facilities and I was used to producers who are very

very good at their jobs managing everything

and so you would think well what's the big deal it

can't be that hard and then of course when I

had to start doing it for myself I was like oh my

god this is really difficult it's a full job with

a full set of skills that aren't in my wheelhouse

and I've never learned and I just don't even

know where to start like put me in front of an

excel spreadsheet and I'll you know I'm a bit

better now but at the beginning I was like I felt

like a newborn baby like what do I even do here

where do I click so you know and those are the

sort of things that you don't think about but

recording you know and this is like a little bit in

the weeds but when I was doing my own producing

I would always do the bare minim that was

required to secure a booking and then invoice

at the at the end but I didn't take down job names

properly or the names of people who were

in the suite so when it came time to be like oh wow

I did this thing and now it's been released

how do I go about promoting that on social media

well I don't even remember the director's name

so now I've got another big job of trying to work

out and backtrack and retrace my steps and you know

just those systems right that producers just think

to do in the moment I learned a lot doing it

myself but I never got good at it ever well it's

impossible it's impossible to be good at it as a

as a busy colourist right because it is a

specialist skill and there's just not enough

time in the day to do it effectively and as you

know our lives change and we get older and we

have kids and all the rest of it I mean I just I

just sort of saw things being made very

difficult for people in our role and I guess I

wanted to think about like how could

how could I add people to the

roster how could I grow the business

but also how could I make that a fair exchange you

know like what can I offer colourists

what can we do together that is

is impossible on our own you know so

I was very very lucky in that I met an incredibly

talented young colourist Abe Wynen

and I had a theory about a model

a business model that was sort of

you know still allowed the colourist to be you know

like their success to be connected to money

to you know to to not be this kind of old model

of like here's a salary and then we're

gonna work you to the bone to make that money back

you know so yeah an experimental model

Abe came on board and this was sort of around

the same time where I took over the business

fully and always going great and then of course

COVID happened about a bit less than a

year after I'd fully taken over so that was fine I

mean look especially in Melbourne where we were

I don't know I think I think in terms of like

lockdowns and you know stopping of work and all

that kind of stuff I think we were one of one of

the more impacted places around the world like

COVID so that was obviously a bit of a setback

you know when you know when you're not allowed

to leave the house you're obviously not shooting tv

commercials but you know we got through that

and we're even able to grow a little bit

adding producers working with two colourists

and just sort of like push things forward from

there the model seemed to be working

you know Abe was Abe's career was

was just absolutely taking off

you know I would like to talk about Abe a little

bit just as a sideline because he's

somebody whose work I really admire and he seems

like a really nice person absolutely which I think

goes a long way and he's actually somebody I'd

really like to speak to yes he'd be a great

person to speak to so he's over in Canada now

he's a senior colourist which to be honest

personally is a term I've never liked because it's

a to me it's you know implies a a wise old old

man or woman you know like a Gandalf type you

know like you're shaking your fist at clouds maybe

but I mean hey if you're going to be a senior

colourist I'm pretty sure before he's 30 that's

that's a pretty good that's probably a pretty good

title I know unbelievable I can only think

of one other person who's pulled that off and she

also was a Toronto based colourist ex-melbourne

Toronto based colourist yes exactly yes yes it's

absolutely kicking goals for anyone who

might know the secret code but Abe has recently

taken on the heading up the

Colour Society International Canada chapter yes

yeah with Eric with Eric Whipp another

another guy good guy to be hanging out with yes

so congratulations to both of them yes

and you know congrats Abe if you're listening yeah

for just yeah kicking so many goals I'm really

following with interest all the cool stuff yeah and

incredibly incredibly talented and dedicated

colourist and you know I'm super proud to you

know to have like kind of to work to work

alongside him and to share ideas and to learn from

each other and yeah super proud of everything

he's doing now but yeah so he that was sort of

an experiment that worked you know I had

I had a model that I could see a future in

and then the next challenge was thinking about

I guess I guess one of the problems of our

industry has always been that it's it's it's

traditionally local right like and that goes back

to the big post house days where

you know you'd spend a million or two fitting out

of room and people would come to it local

people necessarily would come to it but you know

in you know in a modern world it's interesting

to think about like how you break down those

geographic boundaries of our work right it's

happening organically COVID the COVID time sort of

advanced it but we don't have to be limited

by our location anymore either where the

colorist is based where the clients are based

and and as we're learning where the production

team is based versus where the colorist is based

so I spent a lot of time thinking and

planning and building infrastructure that would

again you know like I always wanted this to be

almost a collective right like to

a way of pooling resources pooling connections

pooling influences to sort of be able to

the colors to be able to sort of achieves more than

they could on their own yeah so spent a

lot of time planning workflows and you know kind

of boring database infrastructure and things

like that just just to allow that to work and

it's been you know really thrilling for me to

to see it working that's one of those things

that not every colorist is interested in and it's

something that as a freelancer because I'm tech

savvy to the extent that I need to be but I'm

certainly not excited about SQL databases and you

know it's it's just not a itch that I feel I need

to scratch and I think that's one of the things

that was lost in the the move to freelance was that

IT department that the big facility had that

that could go and glue everything back together

again so you know that is of a huge benefit to

the the less it's not even about technical

aptitude because everyone can do it but it's how

interested you are in it I suppose yeah and if

you're not interested in it then you know to have a

broader team and I know that I certainly

utilize this on our slack channels you know like

hey I want to do this but I have absolutely no

idea how can somebody who's interested in this

stuff give me their

opinion and when you're treating

other colorists as competition instead of

colleagues you don't get that cross pollination

so it is very nice to to shift that thinking a

little bit a pivotal thing for me about that

that type of thinking I think you've talked

about it with a few other people from

Melbourne we have a really good culture here the

colorists we get together once or twice a year

we we drink a little bit too much we have some

nerdy conversations you know we share some

mutual grievances maybe and try not to turn into a

winch fest but yeah we we get together and

we talk and we we we know each other's spaces we

know each other's names and just through that

it really helped me realize that we're not as in

competition with each other as we might think

you know like a lot of it is just sort of the

psychology of a craftsperson right of

it's almost like the dark side of of appreciating

the craft is that you know you can get jealous

or you can you can see other people getting

opportunities you want and and wonder why it

isn't you or you can see a beautiful piece of work

and you could doubt that you'd ever be able

to do it and just through you know having that

connection to fellow practitioners

that yeah that was like a big seed in my thinking

because it made me realize that you know

especially in the short-form world right we have we

all have these like intense hard won

forged in the fire relationships with clients you

know we're we're all people's go-to's you know

like we have we all have clients who trust us

implicitly and you know absolutely

are at the top of their list for every job you know

because we have the power to stuff up

a project you know like we actually have like a

really a really intense responsibility

sometimes when you think about the labor and the

creativity that's gone into any project that

we get to touch you know just the person hours

and the care and the sacrifice and

you know we're the ones who are responsible for

making sure all of that turns up on screen right

and and when we're when we're doing well we

actually have the power to sort of amplify that

but at least at least we have the responsibilities

when sure it turns up on screen so I think

I think we all have these like really intense

trust relationships with our clients and

that when you get a group of colorists together who

are like-minded you know that those

that influence those relationships they kind of

amplify rather than just stacking up on top of

each other yeah and like a lot of that came from

yeah just just those Melbourne meetups with

colorists of yeah of of realizing that we're you

know that there's this kind of solidarity there

that's really nice and it's not something that

we you know for people listening overseas who have

an experience of of still having those

post-facilities or those grading

shops that have a stable of maybe you know 10 local

but possibly 50 international colorists

who are at your fingertips it's it's not

something that in Australia we have anymore

and I think there are pros and cons of course to

both but it is nice that you know even if you're

not in a facility or if you're working as a

freelancer or maybe you're emerging in your career

you can try to think of of people who are doing

the jobs that you want to be doing

not as somebody who's blocking your ability to

succeed but as somebody who can help you get there

a bit of healthy jealousy a bit of healthy

competition never hurt anybody because it

helps you raise yourself but there's a difference I

think and this is getting a bit philosophical

between going oh gee I wish I did that cool thing

hey well done mate like good job I loved it

there's a difference between that and the moments

that I think we've all had where we're looking at

our work and we're going my god I just have no

place here you know like there's this is terrible

and how could anybody you know possibly want me on

their job and it's and it can be very difficult

to pull yourself out of that spiral when you're

soloed you know when you're just on your own

and and you've got no one who you can say hey

like sos I feel like shit you know I need I need

to remember why we're all doing this crazy thing

that we do yeah absolutely so mental health shout

out there but it's just better together I think

yeah yeah and and I think I think it's it's it's

not just colorist I think it's quite common across

like most creative industries or practices

there's certain core things like you lack

perspective on your own work or you have too

much perspective on your own work you know you're

just dealing with a different set of information

to everyone else the comparisons are always tricky

you know insecurity can manifest as jealousy

or yeah or resentment you know very early

on I identified like I have this I have

this emotional arc about my work which which

actually doesn't really happen anymore but in

the early days you know it was very predictable

about four o'clock I'd be thinking okay maybe I

can talk to my producer maybe I can start again

tomorrow we'll just throw the whole thing out you

know like like hard work about that time that's how

I would feel and then you know the next day

I'd feel like oh I barely got away with that and

then down the track I'd feel like oh maybe I did

get away with it and then three months later I'd

look at it and I'd go oh that's pretty how did I

how did I do that I don't know how I did that you

know and so you just identify your emotional arc

and that can help you just put it out of your minds

you know because it all goes back to just

keeping on doing the work you know and that idea

of getting away with it I've heard that from

other colorists as well that I've assisted and yeah

I'm not I'm not sure how many people have

that feeling of like they've just robbed a building

as they leave this session but you know

we've definitely all been there we are lucky in in

our work that there is a tradition of limited

time I think right yes I think that is actually a

blessing although sometimes it can not be but

you know the fact that it's like do what you can

given the circstances given the you know the

individual problems and the personalities of every

job do what you can make it look better

and get it done by five o'clock you know or six

o'clock or you know maybe seven sometimes but you

you know it sort of I also freeze you from like

having to do a perfect job you know like you

you've got these boundaries and you've got to

you've got to do it within those boundaries and

yeah I think it's actually a blessing good

pressure yeah as well like I know that I'm

certainly all revved up and ready to go when I know

that I've got a four-hour session and I've

got more to do than I can possibly do in four hours

and then somehow somehow you called off

you know caffeinated and I am feeling good I am

like we're gonna smash this and if you don't think

too hard sometimes you get out of your own way when

you just have to get it done

sometimes you go you know I certainly know that

when I've got all the time in the world

I'm there doing what Dave McClellan

calls fiddling yourself into a corner

which you know I think is it's really stuck with me

yes you just get out get out of your own

way and let your hands do it like you're an amazing

surgeon who doesn't even have to think

anymore just put your playlist on and go there's a

there's a lot that's been written you know

about the flow state and I think we get we get

to spend a lot of time in that state right like

I love it possibly I mean I don't know I don't

know what it feels like to be a painter or to be a

sculptor you know but I imagine we get a little

taste of what that's like you know it has our

jobs you know and we're getting paid for it it's

pretty incredible like we're quite lucky

do you have any just speaking of flow states do

you have any sort of hacks or techniques that

you use to get into that flow state because I know

that when you've got a certain time

restriction on your session you can't muck around

for three hours and then get into it you have to

get into it I actually actually think that the time

restriction is the the best one I used to be

a classic procrastinator a creative procrastinator

you know all of my school projects were the

night before and you know I was somehow able to

pull it off and do okay but I think color taught

me how not to be a procrastinator because for

one it's very hard to procrastinate when someone

is literally in the room with you you know like

there's not a lot of like doing your usual lap of

the websites you like to check out you can get away

with when when people are in the room and

expecting results yeah so I think the the time

limits actually really help music is is a great

tool and to be honest it's probably one of the best

things about our jobs right like I always

feel for editors you know we we actually get to

listen to music while we work which is incredibly

lucky and we also get to inflict our taste in

music on other people which is always fun too so

certainly there's sort of different types of

music I go to at different stages of the process

different times of day you know it could get

pretty intense towards the end that little last

push before getting render what's intense what's

intense for you oh I mean it can get pretty intense

like like like very very aggressive rapping but I

have to just make sure everyone in the room

knows I'm not necessarily agreeing with the

sentiments you know like Kanye said it not you

well I can't Kanye might be a little bit of a

bridge too far these days but yeah or like

some fairly intense electronic music yeah you

know the start of the day can be kind of

instrental or piano or but yeah I think that's

always fun too the the room management

side of the work can also help you get into that

flow state of the actual you know work on the tools

I would encourage you to make a crayon Spotify

playlist yeah or crayon mixtape maybe you know

yes I would love to hear what everyone else is

listening to in their session oh look you could

always make a film and I'll grade it for you that's

that's that's an option I want to put

that out there to anyone listening as well if you

have a really great grading playlist I would

love to know all about it because I'm the same as

Jan and I I turn to music for that flow state and

I'm always looking for something new because I

often will reuse the same playlists just to get

into the flow state there's one called Unwind 80s

that I think I must listen to like daily for maybe

five years now yeah that is just way too too many

80s songs so I'm looking for something new everyone

I mean these days I have like an Apple TV on my

client monitor and I will quite often

launch into you know a history of the best music

videos of the past 20 years or you know if anyone

shows a vague interest in skateboarding it's like

I'll check out these skate videos but

you know I think I think it's they're all like your

clients should should enjoy coming to see you

right like they should have a good time and you

should gel with people and you should be able to

talk about the references they're talking about and

you know photographers filmmakers TV

shows music culture art you know my favorite

references are when people talk about

painters or sculptors or you know because

it's it's it's not specific and it is at the same

time you know so I think yeah you've got to be a

good host as a colorist as well that's really

important and you've got a painting and

photography as references is I love them because

they're such distilled ideas you know when you're

given like a feature film as a reference

and it's like well which shot you know which scene

yeah how specific are you being you know

like are we whereas if you get like a painting you

can be like well I can see exactly what you're

after here and we can look at you know you can go

from there you can go outwards instead of going

from something large back in yeah yeah whenever I'm

given stills like TVs or TV shows or

movies stills I'm always trying to extract ideas

from them I always prefer it where someone

will give me you know a folder full of images or a

pdf you know with with a couple of things

tiled and then you can kind of navigate them as a

story and take ideas from them because I mean

this this this circles around nicely to a very

antique look right like I don't like the idea of

looks in grading you know interesting I think the

look is a result rather than

an element of the process you know if that makes

sense you know it's almost like

if you're sort of I don't know I feel like for my

work if I'm if I'm thinking about a look

it's like I've got hold of the wrong side of the

equation or something you know to me

to me it's like a look is sort of like it's your

taste applied to the project in an appropriate

way if that makes sense and you know you can

certainly have elements or ingredients you know

you can you can talk about contrast and you can

talk about saturation and density of colors and

you can talk about techniques and approaches you

know but the way like my favorite my favorite

projects are the ones where my work disappears into

the project does that make sense where

no one's looking at and saying like what a

beautiful grade I mean maybe they might say that

to me if I'm lucky but you know just being

polite but you know like like good color grading

really looks like great cinematography you know it

looks like great filmmaking you know so I

think I'm always very wary of style you know sort

of applied on top of things right I mean yeah

I would love to explore this a little bit further

because I think that it's like a very

oh a philosophy based kind of thing but also like

super tangible to what we do

and it's not something that I've really been

able to have a huge conversation about before

often I will grade under a look so I'll have

everything grouped and that group is my look

and I even call it look and I'll have you know I'll

look at the references and I'll use a few tools

to generate like a contrast level across the board

and maybe like a certain treatment of

a primary like okay for this look we've got a deep

filmy kind of ectochromey red but only in the

reds because it's digital and we can do whatever

the hell we want so you know then maybe I've got

instead of that kind of like yellow green that you

would get an ectochrome maybe I keep like a nice

fresh green that I'll use a few nodes or a layer

or two to give us that look and then

underneath that then I'll do the grade basically

yeah yeah and I'll balance and I'll match and I

might be pushing it in the wrong direction to make

it look right under the look if you were to

take the look off you'd probably go oh my goodness

what on earth is that terrible looking thing

but because it's all graded under the look it's all

integrated look I'm doing the same I'm doing

the same thing I'm just probably using different

terminology but so the way I think about it is

gosh how do I think about it I okay so like as a as

a as a baby colorist I think you know your

first aha moment right is when you realize that to

get a bunch of stuff to look the same you need

to do different things to all of it right like we

all start out we all start out with looks right

you know applying a transformation across a

scene or across an entire project

and then you know and then as a baby colorist you

then discover like oh okay I've got to go on I've

got to go in and balance it all so it makes sense

you know and then you start to realize like oh

okay this scene needs its own treatment it's it's

underwater it's it's a cool moonlit night it's

you know and before you know it you're sort of

doing all kinds of different things to all kinds

of different shots or scenes or elements you

know to get them towards this ideal thing

that is the result you know so

I always try and work from sort of

the decisions of of broadest impact down to the

small details but I'm also not scared of small

details like I spend a lot of time on small details

so you know like when I'm starting

a project probably the first decision I'll make

it's akin to a look but it's sort of I think of

it as the transform like how are we getting from

what was shot to a result that has the

characteristics we want in broad strokes you know

and then I'll usually start trying that out on

different shots refining things again broad

strokes and then you know then you go through

and you start balancing things underneath that

but a lot of a lot of what I do I think is very

photographic and subtractive right is the word I've

been thinking of a lot about lately I mean

there's you know like the apocryphal story of of

like you know how do you make a sculpture of

someone will you take away all the bits that aren't

the sculpture but I do think about that

in my work a lot like I am not scared to jump

straight in and put a tiny window in the corner

of frame to move something that is very distracting

and very much dragging the attention

in the wrong place you know

you know I try these days instead of bringing

things up you know to be taking things away if

that makes sense and then the other thing I'm

always thinking about like I think color grading

is this dance between you know especially in this

modern era where you know we understand

color management and we understand color spaces and

you know a lot of that kind of color

science fundamentals you know it's a dance between

you know people in a room under light over time

you know and you use that to

you use that to help things match essentially you

know you you I mean C-mode is one of my favorite

buttons in Resolve which is where it sorts the

timeline you know into you know the you

know the project order into the shooting order

essentially and you can use that to kind of

oh okay that's why that shot doesn't match it was

actually shot at the end of the scene where the

life had changed but then at the same time you've

got to be comfortable throwing out that

relationship completely when it makes sense you

know for the story for the projects and

especially for the relationship like I think I

think fundamentally what we're doing

is is about relationships between shots you know

like I think I think if you imagine

you've always got to remember that this thing will

be watched sequentially and that we're the

ones you know jumping around and looping and

jumping from the start of the scene to the end of

the scene you've got to remember that everything we

work on will be watched linearly and so I always

kind of imagine this little diminishing graph of

relationships between the shot I'm working on and

the shots around it if that makes sense you know

you can you can you can feel the importance of

matching kind of trailing off either side of it

yeah so I mean I think I think that's something

I think about a lot is is context and relationships

but ultimately the big thing I'm always

thinking about is story right like yeah I'm not

actually a particularly visual person I've been

in these visual fields my whole life but I'm you

know I'm very narrative based I'm very word based

so I think story is like a superpower as a

colorist understanding filmmaking understanding

the language of cinema understanding the language

of editing understanding composition and color and

you know all this great stuff that we we absorb

from the other other craft disciplines

that can actually be your superpower as a colorist

because generally that's the language

that cinematographers and directors think and speak

in if that makes sense so as a colorist

if you can understand that if you can read that if

you can speak that then you know you'll have

collaborators for life right because you they might

think of you as a technician and all of a

sudden you're a proper collaborator you know like

you are invested in the same things as they are

and you're making decisions for the same reasons

that they are you know so I think that's story is

kind of a superpower so just watch a lot of films

you know I love that so what I'm what I'm seeing

and and I think this is very much a you thing

overall is that it's a very pragmatic approach

to the shot where maybe if you if you looked at it

as like oh but there's a look for this whole

thing so this shot needs to have cool shadows and

warm highlights but that's not actually serving

the story or that doesn't look good on that shot

that you're willing to sort of throw out the look

and serve the story serve the serve the shot as

long as there's a coherence and a thru line

that you can that you can weave so maybe that's

something in the contrast or maybe it's a

particular color that can take you through from

shot a to shot b over to shot c even if they have

different really different ways of of getting to

that end result yeah absolutely not going to be

limited by a workflow and go well computer says no

that's it no I mean no one looks at your resolve

projects you know like once it's done it technique

and neatness and proper workflow and order of

operations all of that stuff matters a lot right up

to the point where it doesn't you know and so

I remember spending you know a fairly tortured

period early on like wanting to do everything

properly wanting to do everything properly and

you know I remember I'd often I did a lot of

surf projects and things like that and so you

know you'd often encounter footage underwater and

footage underwater it never works with a look you

know like it it is you just have to grade it you

know the the person in one shot can be 10

centimeters further away from the camera and

the color of their skin completely changes it's

just how water works you know and so like

a lot of that water stuff taught me that there are

times when you just have to chuck it out

and put some nodes in a row you know and that's not

cheating or lesser or a bad workflow

you know you're working on images and the images in

the order that they're going to be seen like

that's the ultimate result you know so yeah don't

be afraid to sort of chuck it all out

when you need to you know I think that's great it's

sort of that whole thing of learn the

rules and then break them certainly know why

it's important to have one contrast curve or one

transform across the board but remember that it's

about your eyes and it's about what

the audience is seeing at the end of the day it's

not about how clever you might be as a colorist

and all of those are really important philosophies

that you have drank the Kool-Aid for

you know just because that's the style at the

time it might not be it might not be what's

appropriate for the image so I think that's

great advice to anybody and I know that I can

certainly get myself wrapped up in but like oh what

if you know they cut another version

and the shots are in a different order and I better

make sure that they match even if it's

making one shot look less aesthetically pleasing on

its own I better really make sure that you know

shot two matches shot 47 just in case I mean

look sometimes you do have to kill your darlings

you know like sometimes the most beautiful shot in

a scene needs to come down a bit to be closer to

you know the one that's not so great but yeah I

mean one of my least favorite things is just

being given a bunch of footage out of context and

saying like great this it's like well the reel

yeah like how well why like I can yeah I mean okay

it's all a bit magenta I can sort that out

but that's not really what I'm interested in doing

right I want to make these images sort of speak

to each other and if they're not in order how can

you do that you know it's very it's impossible

you know like you don't have those relationships

and that's kind of one of the most important

things and one of the things that we haven't

mentioned but is really implicit in everything

that we're just talking about is that Dan a

majority of the work that you do is in the TVC

space where you have the time to finesse one shot

and and really work it yes I

definitely came up sort of mostly doing short form

yeah I remember you do you do crossover now

oh yeah yeah yeah I think I think we're sort of

we're past those days where it's so segregated

which is great I mean I've been doing a lot

more long-form stuff recently like a

a couple of feature docos and a couple of

feature narrative projects and you know I was

I was definitely nervous at first because you

know you you you look at the shot count and you

look at the time you have and you do some maths and

a number comes out that just seems ridiculous

and so you ignore it but you do start grading

straight away yeah yeah but it's all just

grading right like like you you know you can be

working on the most technical dry thing it still

has a story and it still has a coherence and it

still has scenes and I think yeah all

the different disciplines sort of have you know

they use the same muscles in different ways

you know you have to change your emphasis a

little bit you know certainly on a on a long-form

or an episodic project you know you you lean a lot

more on structure and on

you know setups and you're very happy when

you encounter those things that are just

two shots of people talking to each other for a

long time because you're like wow okay I just

graded 80 shots and that's you know yeah but

yeah I think I think one of the things is I've

gotten more experiences as a colorist that is hard

to put into words I don't I don't know

how I do it but I just sort of it's easy to land

jobs in the sense that you know you might finish

you finish on time or you even finish early

sometimes that never used to happen to me

I think it's just sort of experience and like

making the right decisions

more than the wrong decisions getting caught up

less you know getting stuck on small details

that don't matter and sometimes getting stuck on

small details that really do matter you know

it does I think it just goes back to that idea

of like it's what we do is is technically very hard

and it's a lifetime craft but it does get

easier after a while you know like if you just

keep doing it it does get easier yeah I know

keep doing it it does get easier yeah I know

exactly what you mean about landing a project

and and being surprised when you get to a point

where oh my goodness we're approved

and I'm happy with it and what am I going to do but

then it does it does come out of the blue

every now and then and I had this the other day I

was working on a motion control tvc where they'd

shot with a robot program for camera moves

and they'd done a couple of takes that

needed to be stitched together and there were

several versions of it and it was all a one take

shot but there were maybe eight different

- versions of the TVC... and I thought well
- Sounds like fun

how hard could that be you know we've we've only

got 16 shots to get through and we've got a full

day to do it and you know I was sweating at five pm

going oh my goodness I'm gonna need more time

and you know it hasn't happened to me for a very

long time that I've had to message a producer and

say hey how do you feel about me wrapping at seven

instead of six because I reckon by the time

I finish these tracks I'm still going to have an

hour's worth of handles to do and it took it

took me by surprise but I realized well I don't do

motion control jobs very often and I've made

decisions to put 25 windows into this shot

- And you realize there's 17 passes you need to
- And I need to get those tracks to match

track them through with handles and the tracks

should match pretty well and well how do you

control that and so you know I I just had to say to

myself well next time I'll I'll remember this

and I'll say to myself this is motion control maybe

don't reach for the window see how else

you can solve that client request I'm a window

reacher I always reach the window I have I

have weaned myself onto softer elipses a lot more

though yes I like the softer elips oh just looks

like light doesn't it you know getting the darkroom

tools out yeah no I mean yeah anytime you find

yourself like semi-rotoing something

you're probably barking out the wrong tree but

every now and then you have to you know every now

and then no that's so right but just you know

you have to know when that moment is and I think if

you're doing similar types of work

you look at something and after you know your 15

years of doing this kind of work you can say

I know the client I know the agency I know the

director I know the DP I'm pretty sure they're

going to want this approach and you can get

cracking and you can get

to a point where everyone's

reasonably happy without having to get two hours

into the session and then completely reorient

yourself so you know there is a lot to be said

for just that knowing people yes yeah and sometimes

it's driven by the clients as well like sometimes

they know you and they trust you yeah true and

they're coming to you because they're like your

approach is what I want on this one absolutely

yeah yeah yeah and I think there is a bit of a

Dan Stonehouse look to be honest so well

it is interesting because I you know I do you know

I I am now recruiting colourists and so I

look at colourist work and I sort of I think you

know I don't look for style but I think everyone

has their tendencies everyone has their tastes and

if you look at a a large body of work from a

particular colourist a good colourist it won't all

look the same but you'll sort of start to

have an idea of their concerns of the things they

think about you know it's very hard to judge

colour even as an experienced colourist right

because when it's done well it sort of does

disappear and you don't have the context and you

don't have the offline so you know you don't know

whether it's one of those you know just beautiful

like passes you know I'm trying to think of the

sports metaphor here but I'm not a good sports

metaphor person you know like passing an alley

into the pool goes in the net or the hole or

whatever you know because the cinematographer

was just ridiculously talented or the jobs where

they've had to do absolute bloody surgery you know

but if you look at a colourist work together you

can see tendencies and you can see thought right

like you can see a point of view and I think that's

much more interesting than style you know

like style is a very sort of shorthand way of

summing that up you know but you can you can see

evidence of like of original thought or something

like you can see you can see handprints or

fingerprints or something it's a lot more slippery

than just style but but there's something there

you know so that's that's always what I look for

when I'm looking for colourists. I was having a

when I'm looking for colourists. I was having a

look at some stills from a recent job that you

posted on Instagram you'll have to refresh me

as to the name of it but it was a collaboration job

it was like Apple and oh yes yeah I mean I

think was Office Works first Apple seconds but

nonetheless okay I thought those stills were

so beautiful and I thought oh here's here's another

classic Dan grade where you've got really clean

pure beautiful colours like you've just thought

today I'm in love with yellow and I want a

symphony of yellow and I want it to be the most

enticing gorgeous yellow and it's not really

yellow is the colour I tussle with the most I think

yellow is the trickiest colour right I really do

I think I think it's the narrowest it's the

narrowest like technically

you know on one side you

have this sort of like yucky green sort of NTSC

kind of crevasse and then on the other side you

have this sort of magentery like magentery orange

kind of situation yeah actually I really spend

a lot of time thinking about yellow it's it's

troublesome I mean that's an interesting one

because that job yeah right that that job was I was

like it's a 15 seconder this is a bit of a

stretch you know there's not even enough shots to

get good stills out of you know like is it

really an apple job not sort of not really

but yeah no it's that's really nice

again it's that thing of you just don't have

perspective on your own work you know like

instagram is a funny thing to to throw your work

into because yeah every now and then something

will take off and you're like okay and then

something you think is fantastic will just

absolutely flop you know but of course there's

there's there's an algorithm you're

tussling with that no one really understands so you

can always blame the algorithm this is true

this is true you posted at 2 30 pm not 3 o'clock pm

or something yeah yeah so I should probably

wrap up shortly although I have been absolutely

loving every second of chatting with you

I suppose before I do

what do you see next for crayon and that's a that's

a bit of a wild card question right

and also an annoyingly open-ended one but where

where do you where do you want to steer this

ship that you've created the the thing you still

need a lot of money for is a theater

right so I can see that at some point in our future

because you know definitely as an

individual colorist you're not going to have a

theater but as a group of colors together

it's possible I want to keep on developing

cloud workflows sort of like both official and

unofficial I think you know look it's going to get

to the point probably in our careers where

we won't have a computer on our desks you know

we'll be spinning up a bunch of machines and

an underground lair somewhere with a zillion

graphics cards you know when we need to render

and and half a zillion when we don't but I think

I think there's a lot of interesting

stuff still to be done with technology but

technology like this was something I was

thinking about before but I don't think I mentioned

when you were talking about the technology and

being nerdy about you know Postgres databases and

all the rest of it I think colorists are extremely

good at thinking about creativity in an efficient

way about about workflow about getting to a

good result quickly right I think when you take

that mentality and you apply it to technology

when you really start to think about like how these

tools can be used you know from the

perspective of someone who you know like there are

tools I don't use on my panel because it's

two button presses instead of one you know like

that can be the difference between something I

use regularly and something I don't you know so

when you take that kind of hyper obsession with

like creative efficiency and you you you sort of

start looking at technology through that lens

you know it can it's not easy to come up with

new ideas but it can certainly be very interesting

to come up with ideas that benefits that benefit

all colorists right like that whether sort of

inside our organization or outside yeah so bore

like somewhat boring tools like databases

and things like that you know when you think about

them through the lens of ease of use and like

problems that we keep on facing it's it's yeah

it's really it's really interesting proactive so

we want to keep on coming up with like tools that

people would think are nerdy but other

colorists get excited about you know it's nice

having a captive audience to appreciate

invention in that area you know and I mean look

a big a big part of what Crayon does which

we have not really talked about is is the

production team is the producers right we have

we have a lot of producers and we have a lot of

sort of technology and infrastructure

that allow them to sort of effectively work with a

lot of different colorists and I think that's

probably like the secret source of of of what what

we're doing and and why it's working

you know it's about it's about helping colorists do

the things they're best at

and not have to do the things that they're not

the best at but it's also about

you know applying that kind of colorist thinking to

the producers roles and to the tools that we use

and and how to make that collaboration as

frictionless as possible right I think I think

that's a really interesting problem to solve you

know anytime anytime a colorist hits a problem

over and over and over again it's kind of you know

you can you can rail against it or you can

sort of turn it into yeah a problem to be solved

or something to adapt to or a workflow change

and it's it's it's sort of really interesting to be

able to apply that thinking to

yet to to all aspects of of the work we do right

like that it isn't just about

the grade session it's about sometimes the weeks of

discussions and negotiations and planning that

happened before and the stuff that happens after

you know from from invoicing to you know

making it easy for clients to pay versus tricky

like you know there's

there's all kinds of technology

you can use there to you know building workflows

to make sure you've generated the stills

for the the job the colorist really wants to post

and a way of getting that to the top of the list

so the producers you know can can action that

passively like all this all this pretty dry stuff

I find really interesting and it's a nice sort

of it's a nice way of of using that

colorist thinking but in a different context I

really enjoy it so lots more of that yes I

mean from from the perspective of somebody who's

represented by Crayon I have to say that that's

again nepotism alert nepotism alert well I know I

know but like I never say anything I don't mean

and yes I'm a I'm a bit I'm a bit like I'll say it

to your face but I I do think that that's been

one of the main benefits in coming on board as a

colorist as a Crayon colorist is

having those systems in place and it took me a

little bit to get on boarded.

It's a lot there's a lot of a lot of

- esoteric stuff we've developed
- There are systems, right ?

yeah and and I have to try to understand those

systems and you know there are still

a few things that I just put in the too hard

basket and I will get to once I have some brain

space but to to have a team of people who know

what you need as a colorist right now

which is beyond just getting the session booked in

and paid for but also that you need to have

some stills for for publicity afterwards you

need to know who to credit in those stills and

who not to you need people who understand why

you may or may not mention a director's version

to an agency what director's version yeah

exactly all of those sorts of things

and and to know that yes it's really important for

our for our brain space to see an offline

ahead of time at least the day before and so we can

you know be in the shower the following

morning and have you know those thoughts just going

through of like okay I see a challenge

here I see a challenge there I'll be able to

possibly use this tool to solve that yeah yeah

just being able to gently sneak up on a project is

so nice yeah rather than like getting dropped

in the hot seat on the day yeah and I know that

when I'm doing my own producing that's the last

thing that I'm thinking about I'm just like going

in you know it's it's like every day is just

putting out fires spot fire management and it's

like I all right I've got I've got it in the

schedule at the right time and I'm there job done

I'm not thinking about getting the off-lines the

day before I'm not thinking about recording any

information about the job itself it's just get in

there get out get it done is everyone happy okay

phew what's next so it is nice to have that

sense that you know there are people who are

recording important information and are thinking

about things that I don't want to think about

and who is the name of this director you know

well you know it sounds it sounds stupid right

because like I love the directors that I work with

but sometimes you don't know the people sometimes

it's not the director who's got you involved you know

Ant then you're sitting is a dark room with people

- you don't necessarily get an introduction
- no exactly I always say...

it's like you know you you sit in a room with

people sometimes new people every day

and then you look at a whole bunch of other people

the whole day you know and and then you know

you bump into someone getting coffee and they know

you really well they know the back of your head

really well and you you're just like gosh what was

the like what was the job you know when did I

work with this person before oh that's right I can

always remember the job so you know and we all

have to compartmentalize so much to to get what

we need to do done that there's only so

much that you can actually physically do with one

person so yes yeah exactly there are finite

resources of an individual person and and you

know sort of if you try and go beyond that you

very quickly find yourself running a small business

and yes you know it actually gets easier

in my experience like once you get beyond that sort

of one two three person scale you know

but having having had to go through that myself

I would like to help other people not to have

- to you know yeah and resources.
- Just a quick shout out before

we wrap up and I really do need to go

because I have a session about to start and I'm

seeing a message that somebody has actually

jped into a zoom a little ahead of time so we

should wrap this up yes but I just wanted to

shout out to the other colorists at Crayon

absolutely and you know Sam McCarthy who is on

instagram Sam Sam in person it's just what I call

him in my head no I know I have directors I have

directors who I just think of by their like

instagram handles as well you know yeah so Sam

who's based in Melbourne with me Kali

Bateman obviously up in Brisbane shout out to you

and the recent edition of Max Ferguson-Hook who

has just moved from London to Auckland who

we're all very very excited about learning from

and used to be with time-based arts over in the

the esteemed time-based arts yes yes and Dan

and Max are currently having a really great time

putting together Max's grade suite well I feel like

I'm costing that I'm sending him towards

esoteric furniture yeah but also sending him

towards like Facebook marketplace bargains so

you know it kind of evens out something Dan's

exceptional at. I do I do I do love a bargain

so I'm looking forward to seeing everyone's work

as as we move forward as a little coloring team

little coloring family yeah and I and I do love

having this little peanut gallery to say

you know give each other a little bit of egging on

and reinforcing the great work that everyone

does and also having people to help troubleshoot

the inevitable things that go wrong the the classic

terse message from in the grade about like have you

ever seen this problem before you know

and then everyone immediately like assembles like

Batman to to to log suggestions...

Turn off caching is usually the answer yes absolutely so

look I better I better finish up and jump on

the zoom but thank you so much for joining me

Dan pleasure yes I'm sure we'll speak again today

and I hope this comes across as

a podcast podcast not just like a

a rambling conversation between some colleagues but

yeah they're the best ones thank you so

much for Mixing Light I'm Kali Bateman and I'll

see you all again soon bye @wearecrayon on

instagram give me a follow all right see ya bye