I am recently home from my first visit to Estonia, where I was invited to teach Colorist Strategies and Popular Looks at the Baltic Film and Media School (BFM).
The course has been in planning for over a year following an introduction at IBC, and was mostly funded by grants to introduce more post production services into Estonia. We were very well supported by a fully loaded Film Master from Digital Vision and a great 2K projector from Projection Design. These augmented the already well equipped BFM training room which had 10 Apple imacs with FCP Studio including Color.
Thanks also to Digikeskus who arranged the whole trip and made the courses possible.
12 people attended, coming from a variety of backgrounds that ranged from colorist to cinematographer. Most of them were used to wearing many hats, not just because of the cold but because in this market they might be expected to shoot and edit, or edit and grade. Those that had some color grading experience were using Apple Color, Iridas Speedgrade, BMD Resolve and some After Effects when necessary. The big question then was why would anyone buy or indeed need a high end system like Film Master when these systems did the job and cost a lot less? Of course, if money was not a consideration, the wealth of tools and the efficiency of a dedicated control surface make the more expensive systems very desirable to anyone grading full time. However, Colorist Strategies discusses the difference between doing color correction in a basic system and color grading in a finishing system. It is all a matter of workflow. Neither one is right or wrong, as long as it is well planned and fits into the overall workflow.
There were a few surprises as we explored the full potential of color enhancement on perception, narrative and indeed production value. Color grading is such a great job!
The night I left the temperature in Tallinn was -17c, so when I arrived back home to +1c it seemed positively tropical for a while.
If you are interested in setting up a local class please contact us.
Happy Coloring, Kevin
