Mixing Light Interview Series

[MUSIC]

Hi, it's Kali Bateman

here for Mixing Light,

and today I'm talking to

Christian Ganea Reitmeier.

He's the senior colorist at DNEG.

He's based in Montreal,

and we know one another from working

together a while ago.

Very excited to have him

here talking to me today about

the kind of unknown world

of visual effects coloring.

He had a background

prior to working for DNEG in

all kinds of finishing

color in different contexts.

But since moving into

visual effects color,

he's become the senior

colorist for DNEG and

knows all of the

workflows and all of the things.

It's quite a technical role

that also combines a lot of

creativity and understanding of

the workflow over the whole process.

It's an absolute thrill

to have you here today to

explain this pretty

unknown area of coloring.

Well, thank you very much, Kali.

Those words are

flattering me and they are,

well, far from the reality sometimes.

But yes, the VFX coloring world is

something of a

mystery for a lot of people.

Like you said, I was jumping

ship from finishing an online

grading and color correction if we want,

on different web series, TV series.

I used to work in the public

TV here and freelancing for

various documentaries and co-productions

and all kinds of things.

When this opportunity of going into

the VFX world presented itself and well,

you know me a little bit so

I'm a little crazy and I jump,

an opportunity to learn different things

and different aspects of

our world of grading if

you want. So I took it.

Little did I know what I jumped into.

That's right because it is so unknown

from the outside and you go,

well, this will be

interesting, let's see.

And you've taken to it like an absolute

fish to water and you really understand

all of the technical aspects of the job

in a way that I think some colorists go,

well, I don't

necessarily need to know that,

I just need to know that it works.

Whereas you have kind of taken that color

science and that workflow

and you've really run with it.

I mean, I was very excited,

but I was a little bit

worried about the technicalities.

The color science aspect of it.

However, I like to get my teeth into the

details of what's going under the hood.

Because in Resolve we are lucky.

If you properly set up your session and

you know how to color manage your project

the proper way, everything falls into

places relatively well.

That part was a little bit of a mystery

because we, in a VFX company,

we use a lot of Nuke and we

use a lot of OCIO configurations

and we use some integration with Resolve.

But all those took a while to get our

head around some very

specific color management,

linear, log.

Yes, yes.

You know, all those aspects of the image.

Color space transformations.

We have so many options.

So that side actually, after a few years, now it's

sinked in and I really like it.

I just want to ask the first question

that I get asked all

the time by people is,

what is VFX colouring? What is it?

I would say without

hurting anyone's feelings,

sometimes I associate

it a little bit with DI,

but without all the intricate creative

aspects of a DI first pass.

So first and foremost,

VFX grading is most

important for balance and neutrals.

So we call them balance grades or neutral

grades inside of VFX world,

because once all the plates are coming,

be them in ACES, AP0, be

them linear ARRI, etc, etc,

they are getting this common space.

All VFX companies are

working differently,

but there is a kind of a consensus that

we tend to work in this ACES-CG space,

which is the

equivalent of ACES in Resolve,

but with some technical differences.

So once we have this inside the space,

Obviously, like any other shoot or film,

TV series, et cetera, et

cetera, you have imbalances,

right?

Because you had a few days with sunny

days, a few days with,

well, less sunny days.

And in a sequence, obviously, the DI

process already went and

balanced and did a creative

look.

But since we are not working with those

grades being baked into

the EXRs we receive, well,

we need to start from

scratch if you want.

So we just have the various images.

We just need to bring them

in a common space if you want.

Right.

Right.

So just to clarify, so you're saying

you've got the rushes

that have been shot and there

might be lighting changes because of the

sun coming in or going

out if you've got exteriors

or even different angles, different

lenses can have differences between them.

And you take those rushes

and you turn them into ACES CG.

So you're linearizing them and mapping

those primaries to the ACES CG primaries.

And that's handled sort of in a way

that's the same for everything.

It's all kind of homogenized.

If there are different camera formats,

they all end up in the

same space for a show.

And then from there, you need to balance

them all and match them all

so that they work together.

So is that roughly

capturing the process there?

That is exactly the ins...

It captures the process because us coming

from the DI, so from

DI or final color

or finishing color, we don't have to deal

with what's being

added in the background.

We just received the

final images if you want.

Me being on the other side of the fence

now in the VFX world,

well, when all my friends

were doing magic in comps and layout and

creature and set

extensions, whenever they

are adding, let's say, some set

extensions in the

background, if we do not have those

balanced and neutral images,

well, they have to work more.

They have to work harder to integrate the

same asset if we

want, so the same building

or the same creature that's going to be

presented in various angles.

So if we don't have the neutrals, then

they have to work more to

integrate their elements

into the shots.

So the compositors then are going, "I

have my element, I have

my creature, and I have

my lighting pass, and that's been created

sort of globally in a CG world."

And so that's going to be the same

everywhere, but, "Oh, my

footage is different shot to

shot."

So by smoothing out those differences and

utilizing, do you pick

a hero shot or something

and say, "Everything's going to match

that one," and maybe they've

done their look development

or something on that master shot, so

getting everything else to

match helps the composite.

Exactly.

So you're opening a parenthesis there

because you mentioned

hero shot and you mentioned

look development, and the way we work is

the way we work in a

grading session, right?

So I do like to pick a hero shot like we

would do in a regular

sequence if you do DI or if

you start.

you know grading the sequence and that's

usually a shot that

includes let's hope more characters

in that sequence it's not too wider of a

shot it's not too much of

a close-up and you know we

start from there then the clients are

start from there then the clients are

giving us the the primary

grade so that the client look if

you want that was previously created in

DI and we have

those and we always aim to go

towards that direction just because I

give you well a very

general example if the plates are

super warm and super orangey but the

final client look is a

very cold very contrasty very

very shadowy contrasty dense look then

there is no point for us to

balance the sequence and go

against that look so i don't want to go

hip hyper warm if the

final look is hyper blue

so we can give and help the compositors

and the other departments

lighting and creature and

layout to go towards that less saturated

less contrasty image to help their work

right so the the neutral and the balance

then it's subjective is

that right like you're

creative within that like you're not

simply lining up red green

and blue and we're balanced

well it's that's what I thought at the

beginning. I was like well

this is fairly straightforward

right a technical grade so we have the

mcbeth chart usually we

have the gray balls and the the

shiny light for the lighting the

reflection balls and I was

like that's pretty easy we are

just comparing three patches of gray we

are lining up the values

and that's it job done well

little did i know it's not

not like that easy. And I'm saying it's not easy.

It's fun because it

introduces a creative aspect to it.

So in some shows, yes, those patches

are working perfectly nice and fine.

All the cameras align and

it's amazing. And it's cool.

However, our clients inside the VFX world

are maybe not the external clients,

but they are the VFX

supervisor and the comp supervisor.

So sometimes they have preferences.

They know what they can do down the road

or with the pixel manipulation that they are doing.

So they are like, no, I

don't like a technical balance.

Push it towards whatever the primary client look

or give me a little bit more warmth.

Because you know, we always look for skin

tones. We like pleasing skin tones.

We always look for a

common element in a shot and

in order to achieve that balance,

sometimes it's not the character.

Sometimes it's the car, the red car or

we did a

well famous movie and

there were several cars

involved. So those needed to be very

matched and very close in the sequence

because well, they were

building on top of that. So

sometimes it can be a technical grade.

Sometimes it can be a

little bit more creative.

So I might jump in here and just say

Christian has been very coy

when he says a famous show.

And I should have possibly mentioned this

during the introduction

that I'll mention it now.

If you want to see the kinds of shows

that Christian's worked

on, just check out his IMDB.

They're all there and

have a look at what DNEG do.

It's the absolute gold standard work in

visual effects, but we won't be

discussing any shows today in

detail, but most people have no idea what

a VFX colorist does.

Lots of people who ask me, what is this

VFX coloring grading?

You know, yes, it involves this technical

aspect, but what I really like is

we always work in a big team, right? So

even though I cannot show anything

basically because we do not have the

final ownership of the

grading on that show,

it happens sometimes that

we need to propose a creative

grade on that sequence because

it will better serve the work of the VFX

artist. Obviously, we will never ever

step against the created look or the

defined look that was done in the eye

with the DOP and the DI colorist.

So we have to be very,

well careful about that. We can't just go

wild, but that's where

I find there is a fine,

fine step.

Yes, it is creative. Yes, it's very fine,

and you can't go crazy,

and yet it can be fun because

an example I can give, we did

some colors on a trailer and

if I was not mistaken, I didn't compare

pixel for pixel, but what I've seen, the

first image on that

trailer, was what we propose.

And of course that creates a little bit

of warm and fuzzy

feeling. It's not just a credit.

You can see your images on

the screen and it's amazing.

Yeah, I mean that creative side of it,

you're part of the image development and

the color development

process. So the kinds of films that you

work on might be in visual effects for a

year or two years and

during that time,

there might be parts of the DI going on,

there might still be grades

being revised even editorially.

But you are like the

conduit in visual effects between

these onset colorists and the DI

colorists and the editorial changes that

might be happening and

you're kind of

guiding that image and

moving it through as the image starts to

take shape. And I think

you may see that mostly in

sequences that have a

lot of blue screens.

Can you talk to me about grading blue

screens because that's a real challenge.

So

grading blue screen and green screen

initially, I like to key the blue screen

or the green screen out and

put a gray patch in the back.

So that helps me.

At least my eyes will not be tricked all

the time by the green

screen or the blue screen.

And I can concentrate on the faces, the

skin tones, the objects or

whatever is in those green screens. Of

course, we have the scopes

or we have the histograms, but

when you look at an image and that gray

is in the background,

it's also helping me

if I grade on top of it.

Well, it tells me this gray looks a

little bit tinted. You're

doing something back off, you know.

So

that's just me. So I brought this in the

VFX world whenever I show

some of the sequences with the blue

screen, green screens.

And they are like, yes,

can you tweak a little bit

this or can we tweak

a little bit this? And

we're like, the lighting is a little bit

different. We have a white

shirt, we have a close-up.

Let's put this gray background in the

background and let's compare

then because a lot of people are

well, they are aware, but it's

unconscious, it's subconscious, right?

They are looking at the images. They're

like, I feel like this is like this.

When

you take that green and blue screen away,

the images are falling into the place

they are supposed to be.

That's right. And even when you know that

because our eyes white

balance after time, even though

you know that that's happening, you can't

really do anything about it.

So the longer that you look at a blue

screen, the more you're

going to adjust for the blue.

And so you're going

to see it more neutral.

And then that's going to affect the

warmth or the coolness of

the shot quite dramatically.

But like you say, once you take that out

and when you put in that, that, that

gray, are you looking

at an 18 percent gray?

Are you looking at a really like that

classic neutral patch, right?

I'm trying to put the 18. Well, actually

the 15, yeah, the 18 percent gray, which

is 50 usually on the scopes.

So yes, 18 percent in

linear, 50 on the screen.

That is it. I try to put that because

that's I would say that's the gray patch

that we are mostly used to.

And it gets ingrained in your, well, in

your, I can't say mechanical memory, I

can say visual memory.

But adding that in there, it just it's an

ease of mind for the VFX Sups, comp

sups, because they can see.

in a more neutral environment.

30 seconds or more, you're

just looking at an image,

your eyes are balancing, like they are...

(laughs)

They are tricking you, basically.

So that's why the gray,

that's why I always say,

let's have a look at the scopes,

let's have a look at the

histogram at some point,

because it's easy to...

get carried away in the little values in

the black, the little

values in the whites, the

little values here, we can measure so

many things now in Nuke

or in Baselight and even

in Resolve, right?

But sometimes it's a perception and

sometimes it's, well, it's a

tricky, it's a tricky color.

The eye is tricked actually by the

surrounding colors into

thinking that this is, well,

this is not what you actually see.

Yeah, I have a rule that I live by even

in a really time

sensitive context in DI that

if you make a really crazy decision at

5pm, it's probably the wrong one.

You know, the morning is the time when

you've got the fresh eyes.

So do you have any other tricks that you

use for that sort of material?

Because I'm familiar with, you know, if

I'm trying to get a

balance on a shot and it's

really difficult, sometimes I'll flip it

into black and white and

I do that in a finishing

color context just to reset my eyes.

After I come back out of black and white,

I see the colors as they are again for at

least a moment and I

can trust that moment.

It's also really good for gauging

contrast, of course.

Do you have any other little tricks that

you might be able to share with us?

That's the best trick that I was taught

by a colorist as well.

The story goes, when you balance the

sequence, you can try and

do the first pass in black

and white.

You're going to get your contrast there.

And especially when we balance, to go

back a little bit to a

technical step, these balance

neutrals in Nuke or however we use it, we

can't have access to all the operators we

usually have in a grade in Resolve.

Good point, good point.

So it's a little bit limited.

But like we usually say, from a limited

point of view, it pushes

you to find just from RGB

balancing a point where

everything meets in the middle.

So even if you don't have access to

contrast, saturation, et

cetera, et cetera, it pushes

you to force yourself.

And the black and white

pass, that's a good pass.

If we have very complicated sequences, I

like to put them in

black and white and I like

to see if my contrast levels are there.

And then another, well, another, except

the wipes that we can do

between images, that's,

well, of course, comparing to the hero

shots all the time and not

forgetting the hero shots

that we picked in the beginning, which

happened to me on a few cases.

And we continue to do a different shot.

So you are just slightly,

well, going on a sideline.

Line just a tiny bit still.

But it is important though, I think even

in final color, when

you pick your heroes, you

continue to go back to the same reference

because every shot is

going to have a small

amount of difference between them.

You can't help that, right?

But you're saying how the importance is

to go back to that

first initial chosen hero,

right?

Always.

Otherwise you're introducing a small

amount of difference

every time you refer.

Absolutely.

It's the...

This is how I learned in the beginning

when I was in the VFX world, right?

Because of the limitations of the

operators we use, either

in Nuke or Resolve, you

just have to stick to that hero shot

because it is so easy with the

limitations to introduce

a slightly...

Well, a tint, right?

Somewhere.

It doesn't matter which direction it is.

And then you have a new shot.

And it's really nice and you're in a very

good spot in a very good position.

And you like that shot.

And you're like, "Oh, from now on, I'm

just going to check with this shot."

Well, no.

We should always go back to the hero.

At least from a time to time, more often

than less, go back to the hero shot.

We can compare between the new one that

we like, but the hero,

it's the Bible and it

helps us not to diverge too

much from the center line.

Especially when you're talking about

sequences and films like

when DENG's the main vendor

for a film, like you might be dealing

with, correct me if I'm

wrong, but like thousands

of shots.

And because all those sequences in a

movie, they can be different places,

different locations,

even if we come back

to them, time of days.

So it's very important not to say, "These

are similar angles."

I'm going to refer to the same hero from

the other sequence

because that was nice because

maybe that was in the new sequence.

It's a different time of day.

The intention is different.

So all the tiny details are becoming...

very important when you can't rely on our favorite

tools. Seconadaries... let's

put a little vignette there let's do a huge shift

Please, please, yes,

please talk to me about this.

So you've mentioned having

a very particular toolset

of operators.

Can you tell me what those operators are?

- Most of the VFX

companies, I would say...

They work with the

standard CDL SOP values,

slope offset and power.

That's the standard

means of transportation

of exchange of the grades

between DI and the VFX houses.

That was the case.

- And there's I think a

few reasons for that, right?

And I just wanna jump in

and explain something here.

So that was a standard

that was put together

by the ASC early on.

And that was done between a collaboration

with color scientists and DPs,

when you were moving from film to digital

to talk about what kinds

of parameters, colorists,

and especially dailies

colorists should have,

like how much control they

should have over the images.

And one of the reasons why

that's such an elegant system

is that you can do a

lot with those 10 values.

You get three for

slope, three for offset,

three for power, and then

one more for saturation,

which leads you to 10 values.

You can do a lot with that.

Like it's really powerful,

but it's still simple enough

for you to be able to look at and say,

oh, I can see from these 10 numbers,

what's changed in this shot?

Like a DP might look at it and say,

oh, they've really

had to push that a lot.

Maybe my balances are off, or,

oh, they haven't moved that much.

It must be, we're pretty

well balanced in the camera.

And then one of the cool

things for VFX

is that it's mathematically accurate.

So you can go forwards and backwards,

you can add and remove,

and you don't, it's lossless.

Is that right?

You're not losing?

- I think my understanding of the

mathematic behind it, and I may be wrong,

but my color science

friends could correct us.

It's an easy, simple enough operator

that does not require a

lot of power, machine power,

if you want, to apply

it in the Quicktimes,

in the, you know,

compared to a cube, for example.

- And a cube is also potentially a lossy,

compressed, destructive operation, right?

1D, maybe not, but 3D, definitely.

- Exactly.

So I think the main consensus was,

CDLs in the SOP values

were the simplest tool

with a broad stroke, simple enough,

but powerful enough to

give you looks and grades

that are, or can be, powerful.

I can give you an

example where I had the chance,

at the beginning of the project,

to talk to the colorist

that was on the final side.

And that's one of the perks that

sometimes we may have,

so we can talk to the final colorist.

And actually discussing how CDLs

compared to a full power

Baselight or Resolve grade,

differs and how sometimes a CDL grade

is a very good tool, an effective one.

And sometimes it's

maybe not the best tool

because it has limits.

And in the case we were discussing,

it was a film film,

so film stock project.

And to get the DOP looks with a CDL,

that was, well, maybe not possible.

So they decided to go

with the different Baselight

or Resolve full grade.

But for the most

projects, when I would say

everything is well thought from the

beginning and planned,

and the show LUTs are in place and used,

and the DI process has time

to go through the sequences,

a CDL does a great job.

- In that case, it sounds as though

they were trying to achieve things

that a primary grade

couldn't necessarily do, right?

Like, perhaps you would

need curves, secondaries,

operations that

aren't so easily invertible

or perhaps impossible to invert.

And one of the important things about

where VFX sits in the pipeline is

you don't wanna be doing something

that's gonna change

the look of the plate.

Because when you deliver to DI,

is it, no color choices

should be baked in, should they?

- Absolutely, so the

most important thing that,

well, sometimes there are

exceptions to the rules,

but we should never

grade the plates per se,

unless it's

adjustments or tiny adjustments

to the specific hue or, you know.

But if we are talking

about grades and general grades

applied over the whole image,

then we are coming into play.

So we're using the client ones

or we are proposing new ones,

but those are never destructive.

- Always metadata, aren't they?

- They're never in the EXRs,

they're always given as a metadata.

So when you are in DI...

you just apply them

and you have the same result as you've

seen before in the DI,

with the effects added.

And the difference is

inherent to what I mentioned before,

smoke, atmosphere, rays,

tiny hue shifts in costumes

to maintain the

continuity of the sequence,

et cetera, et cetera.

But never baking. (laughs)

- I mean, that's an

amazing feat of color science

to be able to visualize and do so much

whilst keeping everything pristine

and protecting the negative like that.

Like that's incredible workflow.

- And I would say to

move the CDL discussion

a little bit further,

because we have the

luxury of going in Resolve,

in some shows we can even

propose a cube or an LMT.

In the general term of an LMT,

we I'm not necessarily

referring to the ACES LMT,

but just to give a

color tweak if you want,

that is more complex than a CDL.

That will be applied in the final looks

of the client QuickTimes,

and we can help with that as well.

So that's also an

exciting thing that we can do

to help the comp work

actually, sell the shots.

(laughs)

- So when you're talking about LMT,

that raises a really good point.

So one of the things that we haven't

explicitly mentioned

is when you're working in visual effects,

you aren't working display referred.

So what you see is what you get,

but only if you've got

the correct OCIO config

and everything,

the color science journey is correct,

then what you see is what you get,

but it is scene referred.

So using an LMT,

you're not baking in any

kind of display transform

in that process at all.

- Exactly, that's exactly what I mean.

Let's say in a

simplified quote unquote workflow.

ACES, let's pick ACES.

The display transform, which is at

the end, it happens because

it's by default included in your OCIO

setup. I mean if it's not ACES and if

it's a different color gamut we work in

That's also, it can be adapted.

OSIO is very malleable as a system.

However, for ACES,

where the LMT concept came,

that cube that we can export from Resolve

and get it back in the

pipeline in the VFX world,

it does not include

the display tone curve.

So never, we are not double-LUTing,

we are not applying contrast and curves

that are not supposed to be there.

So we are just including color decisions,

but more complex color

decisions into a cube.

Never including the display tone curve.

So, and never baking into the EXR.

It's just for display reasons if we want.

And the easy side of that is,

let's say in a VFX environment,

some people are gonna see things

on their calibrated monitor,

whether it's 709, whether it's sRGB.

Some people will see

things in a cinema room,

so there will be a P3.

And because that LMT is

supposed to live inside the ACES

system, if you want,

all the display transforms at the end

are taken care of by the OCIO.

So you can see the same thing,

and you can be confident

that what you're seeing

in a cinema room and what you're seeing

on a different display,

well, if all the

settings and the color setups

in Resolve are properly set up,

then you are confident that what you see

is what you will get.

- Yes, yes.

But yeah, it's amazingly powerful,

and it kind of gives you

the best of both worlds

because you can preview

decisions that were made on set,

and you can preview decisions that are

being made in the DI,

and you can see how the visual effects

are gonna look through

those color processes

and know with certainty

that things are translating

the way that the artists intended,

and the visual effects

supervisors intended,

and people are then, like

the client's able to see things

in a way that's familiar to them.

They don't have to look at log images.

They're gonna know that the monster

or whatever's been added to the frame

is actually showing up.

- Yes. - When you cool blacks down

it's not gonna disappear.

- One of the

important aspects is that ACES

brought to the game is

creatures and textures.

In some shows, the final

creative look of the show, right,

is strong, powerful, and those artists,

before the end of the comps,

they would need a

neutral environment to work in.

So by being able to

work under different views,

that helps them.

So the textures, and like you mentioned,

the monster is green.

Well, it needs to be green,

but under the client look,

it might be a little bit different.

So they need to be aware of that

so they can adjust textures

and skin, et cetera, et cetera.

- Yeah, yeah.

So it's a little bit like,

it reminds me of hair and makeup tests,

but for elements that you're creating

from scratch, right,

because you do your hair and makeup test

to make sure that everything's

translating, you know,

even if it was film,

oh, well that, you know,

we can't put them in that red jumper

because that doesn't work well

when you print it to

that stock or whatever.

So it's really that print aspect

of the pipeline that you get to preview,

but then you can take it right off again

and you can do it with a click

instead of a chemical process.

It's pretty cool.

Can you tell me about,

there's so many things to cover with

visual effects grading,

but can you tell me a little bit about

what would be your process

of dealing with a challenging location

with a lot of variable lighting?

- The changes or differences.

That's again comes and

starts with me chatting

with the VFX supervisor or

the comp supervisor or both.

And they are trying to explain us

what are they trying to

achieve with the final shots

because I'm not seeing those

until the work is advanced.

So if we have just a beach

and things happening on that beach

shot in different days,

different weather situations,

I have no idea if we're keeping the sky,

if we're replacing the sky,

if it's important to

keep the sky matching

or they are now

ignored that we're gonna do

sky replacement for all the shots,

do not take it into account.

Let's pick a hero shot and

let's see what's important.

The horse, the car,

the obviously the main characters,

but that goes without saying.

But then we're going into the

challenge that you mentioned,

the sand is gonna look different because,

or if it's not sand,

it's a better example.

Snow, grading snow, we all love it.

So that's when it comes into account,

hero shot and then I'm

saying, what is our tolerance?

So if we are to make the snow or the sand

it falls under slightly

greenish or slightly magenta.

I don't personally like

slightly magenta in lots of times.

I think a lot of colorists are not liking

anything slightly magenta.

So we decide on that

and then we're trying

to match everything the best we can

within that tolerance.

So is it perfect? No.

- It's such a good point that you raise.

Yeah, I love that you

raised the point of,

you have to know what work

is being done on these plates

because when you're doing a final color,

everything that is in

the plate is on screen.

When you're doing visual effects color,

these people are so clever.

These visual effects

artists are so incredibly clever.

They could be doing

anything to these shots.

So you really need to know, like you say,

am I gonna sit here and

waste 20 hours matching skies

and then find out that

they're throwing those skies away,

because it's actually set on Pluto

and there's gonna be a

star field there instead.

- Absolutely.

Like if I go back to the

example of the snow or the sand,

maybe that will not even

stay in the reality parameters.

So even if I do match them,

but then that turns

to be a foreign planet,

like you mentioned, or a fantastic land,

everything will be

practically hue shifted

and the clouds will be

green or whoever, we don't know.

So that's why I find it's important

if we have that

discussion at the beginning

with odd situations,

what is going to be done in those shots.

And I don't need to know the

details in the utmost details,

but at least the general idea.

So we can then match and grade

to help them deliver the

shots with least effort.

Well, least effort.

They always put a lot

of effort into those

to look magic like they do.

- But it's about making that

workflow efficient for them

and so that they can

then focus on the things

that are really

important to their department.

So you're cutting that part of the effort

out ideally for them.

Even though every

compositor that I've ever met

is an incredible colorist as well,

because they just have that eye, it's

part of compositing.

It's like having

another colorist as a client.

- It describes exactly the situations

because these artists are integrating,

well, worlds in those shots.

And they have to be

extremely, extremely careful

about the tiny shadows, the tiny details,

the tiny highlights, the speculars,

everything that they add to a shot

needs to be matching and integrating.

And yes, that requires an eye for,

well, a shadow in the middle of the day.

It's not the same shadow as a morning

or a shadow in the evening.

So the way I see our work,

even if it's in the

shadow and in the background,

it's to support their decisions

and to make their decisions easier.

And I find that the fact

that some VFX companies

have these roles proves that, well,

it's not just an

extra layer of let's grade

or let's do things.

It proves that they are, well, a

supportive, important role.

- That's right, that's right.

Because that kind of work

that you're doing there,

that visual effects coloring,

in a company that doesn't

have a dedicated colorist,

that work, if I understand correctly,

would be done by compositors

that would fall to

compositive supervisors or?

- I think that's the general consensus.

In some other companies,

the compositor supervisors

are taking over those roles.

And some of the

compositor or the lead compositors

probably as well, because

they do have an eye for color.

Whenever some people are

coming into our company

and they find out that there is a

dedicated department

and people taking care of those things,

I feel a relief.

And I feel the, not just

because they can't do it,

because obviously they can,

but the amount of work these people do

and the amount of.

Exactly. The pixels they need to move.

If someone with an eye for this

takes care of the sequences, I think it's...

that's what I hear. I think it's a very,

a very big relief for them to trust us.

Oh, absolutely. And whether it's done by

a comp sup or a lead

compositor, or by the color department,

I think what you all

have in common is that you don't work on

individual shots the way

that an artist would be. Because you've

mentioned the hero shot

and matching, you need to be in the same

way that you are in DI

across the whole sequence and across the

narrative intention in

a way as well.

Towards the end of the

project, the fact that one person has

access to the whole sequence as opposed

to the artist trying to

match two hero shots, that has an

advantage obviously, because

one pair of eyes sees the whole sequence.

We can take decisions

based on that. So before that

gets sent and approved by the

client as a final, final shot, when we

have to do some tweaks,

seeing a sequence is of

a giant help of course.

Yes, so you see initially

when you check the client grades,

that everything from a quality control

perspective is working.

But then towards the end of

the process, you can also, if

necessary, or if you're asked to make

other adjustments to make

sure that if there is a change between

the lighting and shots,

that it can be dealt with

by grade as opposed to a comp

change.

Exactly.

And obviously, that like keeping that

internal is, is good for,

you know, efficiency, and it

creates less work for other

people in other departments. It doesn't

have to go for a check

in DI, because you can

check it your with your colorist

knowledge.

Yeah, we say that, you

know, we never step onto the DI

ownership of the grades, of

course. But if we can help them

start in a better position,

then we can and with minor

nudging and adjustments, then I don't

think that you or I, as a

final colorist would get that would be

extremely mad at things

because it would simplify and

you know, make more efficient

your work in refining and you know,

carving more details of

the images.

So that's right. And because each each

process, each part of

the process is available, you could even

say, well, I just need

to see the difference between the on-set

grade and what came out

of VFX. Oh, they've had to

darken it a bit. I see. Or

look, they warmed it up. Okay,

I get it. You know, it's just

another

visualization and another step

in that in the thought process that

shapes the image and you

make that available in a way

that is take it or leave it.

Exactly. It's, I would say we're always,

we're always on the same

side supporting the

creative visions of the well, the

director, obviously, and the

DOP, but the VFX supervisor that

is supporting them in his own role. And

we are there to make

his life easier as well. So

it's just like we say, tiny

adjustments that are building up to this

final product, which is

usually and hopefully amazing and great

and colorful and magic.

Because the effects world does work with

mainly, well, fantastic

science fiction and sometimes less

visible effects. And that's

also a world where they, they are

invisible effects. And that

is also a challenge sometimes, then every

project comes with a

different aesthetic. And it

comes with a different setting,

different cameras, different

camera used, different color

sciences, if you want, but the, the

quality and the perfection

on some wide shots, shots on

an island somewhere is just

mindblowing. And you can see the quality

and the effort that was

put into those. So I'm trying not to do

anything to diminish

that.

Yes, yes, I know exactly what you mean.

Like sometimes the job

is to not destroy how gorgeous it looks

and do as little as you

can get away with doing because it's,

it's there. And I think

something that you just

mentioned that I'd love to hear

tiny little bit more about is the

different workflows. And

another great thing about being a visual

effects colorist, and in

your position, is that you

would get to understand a lot of

different workflows.

That was one of the things that getting

an understanding of the

pipelines was one of my well,

curiosities, if you want. So

getting or reading all the

effects specs from the shows, and

understanding, we are bringing all the

cameras into the common

space. And we decide that

for the effects vendors, we are

giving a ACES AP 0, or we

are which is which is amazing,

because while most of the

houses will work a CG. So the

transformation between ACES AP 0 as a

transport gamut, if we

want to ACES CG is

straightforward. Well, we can say

straightforward. It's taken care of

the OCIO easily when you're doing it right,

we can replicate it in Resolve very easily

without too much complication if you want.

Other shows decided that each camera

would be treated in its own color space.

So RED would be treated as RED,

ARRI would be treated as ARRI, et cetera, et cetera.

And that adds to the challenges

when we receive the images,

we need to be aware of those.

So when our departments are ingesting the

images, well, you know,

color science needs to

state that's very clear for them.

Be aware that some cameras require

different treatments, because

otherwise we get differences

and we don't know where and etc. etc. So

I'm not sure if I was clear.

I think what it really highlights for me

is that the way that color is dealt with

when you've got people working linearly

and, you know, lighting working

in the closest way to optical as possible

because you're creating effects

even if they're not invisible effects,

they still need to be extremely realistic

and believable effects. So you're working

in these color spaces

that can deal with that

and can make that translate on screen.

Everyone's got their own

preferred way of doing it.

You need that pipeline to be complex and

then someone throws in

another camera format at you

and you're like, that's expanding the

complexity again. But it's

like almost exponentially.

The possibilities are infinite, like we

say. That's why I sometimes,

most of the times actually, I look at my

colour science colleagues

and I'm like, wow, you guys.

The infinite possibilities and

complexities you guys deal with.

We say that as a VFX colorist in the VFX

companies, we have to deal with technical

and creative aspects,

but they have to make sure that all these

colour transformations and decisions

are working for a myriad of softwares,

right? Because lighting and

layout and comp and creature

and so many softwares and they need to

make them work. So

the pipeline is seamless

and it's invisible if we want to the

artists, right? Because they need to

concentrate on their creative work

and not have to deal with technicalities

or glitches and et cetera,

et cetera. So kudos to them.

I know, I know. There needs to be like a

world color scientist day where we can

all give them a bunch of flowers

and shake their hands and thank them

because when you work

with a color scientist,

you realise just how

much you rely on them.

Absolutely. I, like you mentioned, I like

a technical challenge or a technical...

knowledge, acquisition, and I

like to read some of those color

science documents. But I'm

like, when we come to equations and

fractions and

probabilities and double integrals and

mathematics, even if I study

them in school, I'm like, you

guys, kudos, I leave this to you.

Yes. And I reckon that like that narrow

and specialized understanding that every

person has in the pipeline of a visual

effects show is what makes them capable

of creating these incredible images.

Because there's, they're just beyond like

so many films that you work on. I would

watch with my jaw absolutely on the

ground going, how is that possible?

And it's, I think because in that

company, you have so many giant brains

that are so good at their Island. And

there is that teamwork, that network of

trust that, you know, after years working

on something, it does come together.

And it doesn't look that good.

I can't name the names of the shows, but

I had the chance to meet the visual

effects supervisors on

those highly visible projects.

And just to

have access to their mind, how do they

plan and how do they support the director

to plan those sequences.

For me, just that without going into

details was joy pure joy.

How did you come up with this?

Kind of rigging of sets meets visual

effects meets the real effects.

You know, we are all exposed to the

Making Ofs of these movies today, but

seeing them from the

inside, sometimes is mind blowing.

Like, yeah, the magic and the way they

can push the boundaries of

these movies is just amazing.

I am so, so grateful for you sharing this

insight with us and with

me and with Mixing Light.

And I just I'm beyond impressed with what

you guys can do. And I think you have a

very enviable position.

And for anyone who didn't know what

visual effects coloring was before and is

now aware of it, it's on your radar.

These roles do exist in big companies and

they bring more than you would think in

terms of the joy of being involved in

these major productions.

Well, you summed it up

actually very nicely.

I think of us, the VFX colorist, as the

added value to the

efficiency of the work for the

comps and the other departments.

And also, I would lie if I would say that

working on those

high-end images is not cool.

plainly said like this, you know, because we all

did the advertising, the TV commercials,

the other projects. And when I started the VFX

role, I was really unsure. I was unsure.

What am I getting into? Am I going to be up to the

standard or my experience would be

helping or not? Would I have to start from scratch?

Etc, etc, etc. And while it turned

out like you mentioned, some of my, and our baggage

helps a lot. And you get to learn

and touch amazing images on the way. So win-win.

Well, what an absolute treat. What an

absolute treat for you and what a treat

for me to get to speak to you today.

Thank you so much for joining us and I

cannot wait to see the next film with a

Christian's magic VFX colour on it. I'm

sure it's going to be another big one and

hopefully I'll get to speak to you again

and find out more about what you do.

But for now, this has been Kali

Bateman for Mixing Light.