Your film on a big screen for the first Time

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Steve Fishwick

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Re: Your film on a big screen for the first Time

PostSun Sep 18, 2022 8:08 am

Kays Alatrakchi wrote:I assure you that other colorists in the UK or elsewhere are not doing that as part of their color grading work.


You don't go to AE, Boris Continuum Complete has Mocha, built in, within either Avid Symphony or Resolve, if you have that plug in and it is ubiquitous here in every facility. I'm sorry but unless you work regularly as an online/grading editor, in the UK, alongside other such editors, day in day out, like I do, you can't tell me how it is done here, you can only speak for yourself, where you work. I blur, track, Animatte etc.etc. regularly, as part of my normal online/grading work, day in day out - so too does every other professional online grading editor, here in the UK, in Broadcast TV.

There are those who are purely 'Colourists', and do not online, as I have already mentioned and they are not editors. But they work on features, high end TV drama and sometimes big budget high end Netflix type documentaries. I think Marc above is such a top pro and this is no different to what you outline in most places. But even colourists have to be able to fix shots in other ways than pure colour, occasionally - this is why Resolve has such comprehensive tools, for that, on the color page too. The vast majority of TV here, though, is finished by people like me and 'VFX', is run of the mill in your work.

Let me give you an example, just to be clear: I am currently off lining on a big TV series and I was accidentally sent the online review notes, for one of the shows, since we have the same first name and I am known for both. I went to the facility site where it is being graded/onlined, since his name rang a bell. He is a Dolby Certified Colourist, described as such. Yet these notes were typical of what I get and included things like bluring. Clearly in this capacity he is not working as a pure 'colourist' and clearly he knows and can function, like I do, when doing this work, i.e he can fix pictures with all the tools at hand as well as grade.
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Ellory Yu

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Re: Your film on a big screen for the first Time

PostSun Sep 18, 2022 4:45 pm

Kays Alatrakchi wrote:If you're pulling the shot into AfterEffects, doing camera tracking in Mocha, bringing in the plate to Photoshop so that you can paint out a boom or a crew member or whatever, then bringing it back into AE and compositing it, adding grain matching and refining the mask so that the comp sits in with the rest of the shot, and in some cases doing some roto because the actor crosses into the patch -- that's the very definition of VFX work!

I don’t know how it is done in UK or elsewhere but this is my experience too. In one of the project, a reflection of the boom can be seem from the glass of a window. I had to send that to the VFX person to take out. Then it was returned to me to finish the grading.
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Steve Fishwick

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Re: Your film on a big screen for the first Time

PostSun Sep 18, 2022 9:01 pm

Ellory Yu wrote:I had to send that to the VFX person to take out. Then it was returned to me to finish the grading.


I am amazed Ellory, it's such a simple thing to do with those NLEs. In Avid that would be painted out with Paint or Animatte, all internal tools without recourse to plugins.
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Kays Alatrakchi

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Re: Your film on a big screen for the first Time

PostMon Sep 19, 2022 12:21 am

I think you're kinda missing the point here. Where do you draw the line exactly?

I mean if we're talking about easy, then fixing audio issues is easy, generating music is easy, editing is easy, grading is easy -- why do we need all these professionals to handle these things? Are you implying everyone in the American film industry is lazy and we haven't been able to figure out what you guys in the UK have been doing all along?
>>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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Steve Fishwick

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Re: Your film on a big screen for the first Time

PostMon Sep 19, 2022 12:51 am

Kays Alatrakchi wrote:Are you implying everyone in the American film industry is lazy and we haven't been able to figure out what you guys in the UK have been doing all along?


Not at all - you keep telling me how it is in the UK and I have never told you how it is in the States. But perhaps you should consider one thing, we are not children in the UK. Hollywood is yours, the biggest the baddest, but we had television before ever you did and the BBC is bigger than any other broadcaster in the world. I have only said how it is here and you keep telling me I am wrong - yet I do not say the same to you. It is not my fault if you are not required to do things in your professional day that here are commonplace. There is probably a good reason that I cannot judge.
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Jack Fairley

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Re: Your film on a big screen for the first Time

PostMon Sep 19, 2022 3:18 am

Steve Fishwick wrote:BBC is bigger than any other broadcaster in the world.

Hmm, I wonder why that might be... :roll:
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Ellory Yu

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Re: Your film on a big screen for the first Time

PostMon Sep 19, 2022 3:22 am

Folks, Just because we have different processes should not lead to a mean spirited conversation if you know what I mean. There no right or wrong way of doing it. Personally I can fix issues with all the available features in the Resolve NLE. Having a pipeline of who does what just helps to keep each contributor be efficient and not create backlogs due to added work undue to say the colorist. Let’s be civil. :)
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Kays Alatrakchi

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Re: Your film on a big screen for the first Time

PostMon Sep 19, 2022 4:01 pm

Steve Fishwick wrote:Not at all - you keep telling me how it is in the UK and I have never told you how it is in the States.


I said that I don't think any professional colorist who works at a studio/network level would tackle VFX work as part of their required skills here, in the UK, or anywhere else for that matter. You then started talking about online editors which is apparently what you do.

Perhaps we should switch the conversation to the Resolve Pro group on Facebook which does include several highly renowned colorists from the UK and see what they have to say on the subject.
>>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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Marc Wielage

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Re: Your film on a big screen for the first Time

PostTue Sep 20, 2022 8:57 am

Kays Alatrakchi wrote:I said that I don't think any professional colorist who works at a studio/network level would tackle VFX work as part of their required skills here, in the UK, or anywhere else for that matter. You then started talking about online editors which is apparently what you do.

You know, if there's anything I learned in the last 40 years, it's to have a can do attitude when a client has a problem. If have a major visual issue like a boom mic in frame or a visible wire or we're shooting off a set, we'll move heaven and earth to try to fix it. I've had cases where we dropped in a "crude/temporary" fix just to get the project through a festival or for a distributor screening, but then later we went back, hired a (much better) VFX artist to do a serious fix.

In one memorable case, we had about 25-30 potential fixes on which I had made notes, and I'd made a temp fix on every one. On the last day or two, the producer came in to view them all and said, "I think most of them are fine, nobody's gonna see them, but those last 3 shots really should be fixed the right way." I got an estimate, it wasn't expensive, and we got them taken care of in about 12 hours. Everybody was happy and the film sailed through QC with no problems.

So to me, when you're working on a project that will ultimately wind up on "the big screen," really nowadays we don't make a distinction between theatrical and streaming/home video: if a film premieres on Netflix, chances are 10 million people could watch it in a single weekend, which is about as big an audience as a massive blockbuster. We try to fix everything that's humanly possible to fix, cover up what we can cover up, use Resolve's tools to do a "reasonable" fix when possible, and send out the stuff that's beyond my skill level (and available time).

For theatrical, we do try to screen it in a theater and do a trim pass, and once in a blue moon we'll catch something subtle (like a cable shrouded in shadow) that we couldn't easily see on a small monitor. But that's rare.
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Steve Fishwick

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Re: Your film on a big screen for the first Time

PostTue Sep 20, 2022 9:46 am

Kays Alatrakchi wrote:
Steve Fishwick wrote:Not at all - you keep telling me how it is in the UK and I have never told you how it is in the States.


I said that I don't think any professional colorist who works at a studio/network level would tackle VFX work as part of their required skills here, in the UK, or anywhere else for that matter. You then started talking about online editors which is apparently what you do.

Perhaps we should switch the conversation to the Resolve Pro group on Facebook which does include several highly renowned colorists from the UK and see what they have to say on the subject.


I gave you an example of one such colourist doing what I say and Marc has confirmed what he often does too . I didn't come here to argue and if you want to find people to prove your point, for the sake of doing so- to keep telling me how it is done then I've no need or interest to continue that conversation anywhere, short of starting to doubt my own sanity :lol: . But I think as Marc said, can do attitude, should be the order of the day, for us all. All the best.
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Kays Alatrakchi

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Re: Your film on a big screen for the first Time

PostThu Sep 22, 2022 4:38 pm

Marc Wielage wrote:we'll move heaven and earth to try to fix it. I've had cases where we dropped in a "crude/temporary" fix just to get the project through a festival or for a distributor screening, but then later we went back, hired a (much better) VFX artist to do a serious fix.


At your level sure. I mean what do you get for color grading a feature of this caliber? My guess is about 10X what a lot of colorists get paid for dealing with smalltime straight to Amazon Prime indie films. When your hourly rate is in the triple digits a "can do" attitude comes with the service.

But I would also argue that you're somewhat unique in this since you (and I) come from a more diverse post production background and we can do many things that many other colorists simply can't (or don't want to).

Case in point, the post house that I'm currently working for on this feature film project has a dedicated colorist who won't even touch simple things in Resolve like, say adding a bit of glow or camera shake to a shot. (this person by the way, I'm sure you know him).

Having said that, this is to my benefit since I am a VFX artist on this film, and in some cases I am literally going into Resolve to tackle some of these shots, I am getting paid a considerably higher hourly rate than if I was the simply the colorist on the project.

So yeah...for me it's in my own best financial interest to make sure that the VFX work stays separate from the color grading work.

...but you do you!
>>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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