Is a colorist responsible for titles?

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Kays Alatrakchi

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Is a colorist responsible for titles?

PostMon Aug 14, 2017 5:36 pm

Just a quick question for the guys who have been doing this a while professionally.

I understand that when someone is working on one's own project, wearing multiple hats is the norm. However, in a "professional" situation with a client who has hired a colorist or facility, who is actually responsible for creating the front and end credits?

Reason why I ask is because a client of mine is asking me to create the credits, and it seems to me like that's not really my responsibility. I turned him over to Endcrawl.com as a solution, but he says he can't afford it. Do I need to be more firm that it's not my job to do this?
>>Kays Alatrakchi
Filmmaker based in Los Angeles, CA
http://moviesbykays.com

Resolve 18.1.4, Mac OS X 12.6.3 (Monterey), iMac Pro 64Gb RAM, Decklink Mini 4K, LG C9

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Nathan Allworth

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Re: Is a colorist responsible for titles?

PostMon Aug 14, 2017 6:36 pm

I'm just a one-man, podunk shop so I can't comment with any authority about who typically does this.

Inspect the contract you (or your company) signed for the scope of work. If rendering the credits is not included and you don't want to do it, there are a lot of professional ways to deal with your client that lessen the likelihood of offending them. You could offer a rider on the contract (maybe less than the competition), do them a favor and work it out anyway, politely decline but deflect that you'd rather it be done by a post house that has more expertise in the typesetting of credits, etc.

If you're required to do it and this is a simple credits roll (white text on black) it can be done with text file they provide and the Roll title effect in Resolve. You might have more flexibility in After Effects though.
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Kays Alatrakchi

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Re: Is a colorist responsible for titles?

PostMon Aug 14, 2017 6:48 pm

Nathan Allworth wrote:Inspect the contract you (or your company) signed for the scope of work. If rendering the credits is not included and you don't want to do it, there are a lot of professional ways to deal with your client that lessen the likelihood of offending them.


Hello Nathan,

Thanks, but these guys are flying by the seat of their pants and quite honestly the contract doesn't go into any kind of details like that. Basically my question is more of a "traditionally" type of question. I'm already 99% sure that traditionally a colorist is not responsible for creating either front or end credits (although a post house might be contracted to create titles, etc as part of a package....but that's not what I'm talking about).
>>Kays Alatrakchi
Filmmaker based in Los Angeles, CA
http://moviesbykays.com

Resolve 18.1.4, Mac OS X 12.6.3 (Monterey), iMac Pro 64Gb RAM, Decklink Mini 4K, LG C9

Mac Book Air M1, Mac OS X 12.6 (Monterey), 16Gb RAM
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Nathan Allworth

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Re: Is a colorist responsible for titles?

PostMon Aug 14, 2017 7:07 pm

That would be my inclination too but I don't have the experience that many here can share. Hopefully a few pros can chime in? Some post houses that do color probably also provide titling services as you mention, including credits. I would think this would be done by the editor or second-line editor most of the time, and either improved upon by a motion designer or at least type set properly by one.

Or not, speaking as a graphic designer I've seen some national release films with terrible credit typography!

Just spit-balling here, I can quit asking if I'm not helpful :) : if worse comes to worse and you're basically required to do this, do you have access to Premiere? The titling tools there are a lot friendlier than Resolve's and you might be able to throw something together faster and easier. You might put the onus on them to provide you with a complete plaintext or Word document, formatted how they want it to appear on screen and then begin the work of copying and pasting that into whatever title generator you'll be using.
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Adam Archer

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Re: Is a colorist responsible for titles?

PostMon Aug 14, 2017 7:25 pm

The online editor is usually responsible for the credits. Unless a colourist is a one man shop it is usually the case that the colourists would have nothing to do with them. A DI artist (who could be responsible for being the colourist) may potentially add the credits to the master timeline but theee would be created and supplied from someone else.

Hope that answers your question.


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Dermot Shane

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Re: Is a colorist responsible for titles?

PostMon Aug 14, 2017 10:11 pm

i work as a colorist / finishing artist, and for me the titles / gfx / overlays / screenburns are negocable,
although it's usualy cheaper and faster to have endcrawl do the roller, and i recomend that avenue

i do have two DS systems and use them for finishing, maybe 50% split between only completing color and adding in the finishing, but that's all discussed beforehand

i haev cleints who prefer to do that themselves, and i haev cleint who far prefer me to handle everything, then there's no too'n and froo'n about levels etc etc etc...

not a part of a gradeing only gig, and it's well spelled out in before we estart
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Marc Wielage

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Re: Is a colorist responsible for titles?

PostTue Aug 15, 2017 12:18 am

I have done main & end credits before, but only for an additional fee. I have used Endcrawl before, and they're an ideal solution -- to me, $495 is very cheap for top-quality 2K titles ($995 for 4K). In particular, the number of available logos (hundreds of them) for the crawl is very helpful, including state & city filming commissions, lab logos, camera names, and so on.

I make it clear in the deal memo prior to agreeing to do the project that I can and will do main & end titles for X dollars, and if it starts to get into a nit-picky complex situation with lots of changes, then we slide into an hourly rate. Not in a punitive way, just for self-preservation and fairness. I have had to take over total finishing on projects where the original editor was no longer available, and in some cases I knocked down my fee knowing that the client was against the wall -- but the compensation was still fair.
marc wielage, csi • VP/color & workflow • chroma | hollywood
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Kays Alatrakchi

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Re: Is a colorist responsible for titles?

PostTue Aug 15, 2017 12:29 am

Thanks for all the info. Yeah, I hate these "package deals" where the job starts out as one thing, and it quickly degenerates into a whole bunch of other things that were not discussed up front. In some cases including VFX.

I need to get off this horse!
>>Kays Alatrakchi
Filmmaker based in Los Angeles, CA
http://moviesbykays.com

Resolve 18.1.4, Mac OS X 12.6.3 (Monterey), iMac Pro 64Gb RAM, Decklink Mini 4K, LG C9

Mac Book Air M1, Mac OS X 12.6 (Monterey), 16Gb RAM
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Peter Chamberlain

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Re: Is a colorist responsible for titles?

PostTue Aug 15, 2017 1:17 am

I found in a previous gig that listing some obvious exclusions in your quotation makes it clear that those items would be extra if requested. Of course getting a signature to accept the quote and then payment is the next thing.
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Marc Wielage

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Re: Is a colorist responsible for titles?

PostTue Aug 15, 2017 10:22 am

Kays Alatrakchi wrote:Thanks for all the info. Yeah, I hate these "package deals" where the job starts out as one thing, and it quickly degenerates into a whole bunch of other things that were not discussed up front. In some cases including VFX.

As the old song says, "you gotta know when to hold 'em, and know when to fold 'em." At some point, you have to (politely) threaten to walk and tell them you've fulfilled your end of the deal by finishing the color. What I generally tell them is, "I'm perfectly willing to do additional work, but we'll have to discuss revising the initial budget and schedule." Sometimes they go for it, sometimes not. I try not to bludgeon them too much, and I think there's a reasonable compromise where you can meet the producer halfway for an affordable fee.

But titles are one of those things that can be nudged forever. End credits especially. I have been on projects where the end titles took 2 weeks to finish because of all kinds of changes: spelling problems, placement problems, typeface size problems, legal issues, alphabetizing issues, you name it. One common thing in American features nowadays is that the end credit crawl actually changes speed, speeding up after the big names so that the little names move quite a bit faster. It's all done so that if there's 900 people listed, it'll only take 4 or 5 minutes to get through them all.
marc wielage, csi • VP/color & workflow • chroma | hollywood
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JF Robichaud

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Re: Is a colorist responsible for titles?

PostTue Aug 15, 2017 4:04 pm

In my smallish market, it's common to do both color and finishing/titles on TV projects. Quite often, credits (still panels) are produced by someone else and I just have to place them in the timeline. Or I start from a template from a previous episode and update the information. The offline editor usually places lower thirds and subtitles, and my responsibility is limited to making sure they are in the right position/timing in the final timeline. In general, the whole finishing part takes less than an hour (for a TV episode).

I have noticed that clients are more likely to hire me for color only nowadays, They have an assistant editor take care of all titling/credits. It's cheaper for them that way.

The scope of the job is something that is agreed upon early on, so there is never any confusion about what my responsibility is.
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Marc Wielage

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Re: Is a colorist responsible for titles?

PostWed Aug 16, 2017 12:59 am

JF Robichaud wrote:In my smallish market, it's common to do both color and finishing/titles on TV projects.

TV episodic credits are almost always pop-on/pop-off credits (no credit crawl), and those to me are adequate in Resolve. The real problem is lack of kerning and precise spacing, so for that you need a real title composition environment like Fusion or After Effects or (god forbid) Illustrator or Photoshop.
marc wielage, csi • VP/color & workflow • chroma | hollywood

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