JOKER Colorist Breaks Down her Grading Process

now we've all seen joker and we all loved it outside of joaquin phoenix the cinematography was epic the color was unfreaking real so get super pumped we're going to be interviewing jill bogdanovic the colorist of joker is it just me or is it getting crazier out there what's going on guys this is qazi welcome to another epic series this time i'm going to be bringing on industry titans okay this is not only going to be color grading related we're going to have some cinematographers we're going to have some directors screenwriters all of that but in this first episode it's going to be jill she's a senior colorist at company three one of the biggest color grading house on planet earth she has worked on so much stuff just look at her imdb it just goes on for days she worked on joker john wick the grand budapest hotel and the list goes on obviously we're gonna be deep diving asking her about joker but we will also talk about her inspirations and how does she start out and all that other good stuff right so this is loaded with industry information and jill is genuinely the kind of soul she does not hold anything back so this is going to be amazing it's going to be a fun one-hour long conversation grab a notepad and guys if you really want to take your color grading game to the next level i have two free trainings link is in the description go check them out and on that note smash that like button subscribe to my channel for more awesomeness make sure to follow me on instagram let's roll the intro hi hey jill how's it going good how you doing i'm so pumped i'm so pumped okay so i sent you that too thanks for inviting me of course i sent you that little screen recording yesterday and you saw all the questions and that was just one side of it like we have a private facebook group and email list and i mean there's just so many questions so i just want to jump right in um let's start with i just want to start with like you know baby jill let's just go back like where it came from like let's just start from there and then we'll just dive in all right well you know um i'm a first of all can you hear me okay yes perfect perfect and um yeah i've always been an artist ever since i was little i would paint and draw and i was always interested in photography as well you know so that's really my background is art and i still do that i still paint i have art shows um i'm still inspired by paintings and and all of that kind of thing but i grew up in a farm in upstate new york once that is insane yeah yeah so i grew up riding horses and painting and and um you know i have a family that was working at kodak my dad and uh he's a color scientist and he was there i mean he's retired now but uh yeah so that is basically how i just i've always had a passion for art and color and photography i had my own dark room when i was 10 and did my own photography with black and white and developed my own film so that is crazy it's just it's in your dna it's in you um that is insane i mean your dad is a legend like i mean it's intimidating it's it's one of those things that reading up on your dad i'm just like why am i even doing this you know it's so crazy so coming from that like how much did you take from that in and it sounds like to me at least just hearing your story is that you're driven a bit more from the creative side than technical or is it half and half what is it well i also um studied physics as well so i do have a technical side as well so i really do like to figure out how things work and how things are put together you know um so being a color is just a nice mesh i think of technical and creative one i think 100 and i remember when i was 18. i came out to san diego i was in living in rochester and i came out to san diego with my dad to a technical meeting i think it was acvl at the time and started talking to some of the industry legends about you know um what kind of things i wanted to do with my life because i'm a painter and i was doing physics and i didn't know which way to go and i said wow that sounds like something it sounds like you'd be a really good at a color to be a colorist i said well what's that you know at the time i didn't really have any idea and uh we went back to rochester and rochester hat in kodak had a r d lab with one colorist one engineer and there was an internship open to work there and i applied i got the internship and what they were doing was moving the talismany bay from one building to another so they needed they needed an intern to pull wires to cable the place to learn how to run all machines um i had an old ranked telesini i learned how to run that with a pogo i learned how to run the avid i learned um the old davinci 888 with the spirit i did all these rng tests on film versus video so it was a really insane amazing background to be able to learn all that back and that's it in those days it was like what that was probably like 97 to 99 you know i did that kind of stuff so i mean while it's finishing yeah the crazy amount here the crazy thing is that don't you think so in your case like for coming from that kind of background it's insane like it's absolutely nuts so do you think that i mean i wouldn't go as far as like it's a necessity but even in this day and age do you think it's necessary to kind of deep dive and just you know learn the roots like come up from there or is it okay to kind of just how things are nowadays where you can just pick up pick a learning platform like online or something like that and then just jump right in and make a video that goes viral on vimeo and then you blow up and you work on some stuff so what's your take on what's happening and how you come up sure i mean i i was very fortunate and i was in the right place at the right time and i mean this is we're talking over 20 years ago right so i've been doing this for a long time um i think my take on that is i'm always proponent of having as much knowledge as possible and i'm working with some of the biggest and most amazing artists of directors cinematographers i'm so blessed to be able to work with these people and i learned something every show you know i learned everything i learn every every time i do a movie and um i try to take as much as i possibly can to learn about them so learn about photography background learn about lenses learning about different cameras and how they light on set how i can best make that shine you know how to recognize what they were trying to protect for you know having more knowledge is always amazing because i'd say right now with a lot of the stuff you can learn online and all the technical stuff is incredible that type of network that we have now i never had that i had to read the manuals like i didn't couldn't ask people right so i had to figure out a lot out but um you know that network is incredibly powerful but also that's like one piece of the puzzle the rest of the puzzle is learning the aesthetic learning the history learning the elegance of the craft right and understanding why cinematographer may be doing something a certain way or the director may put the camera here rather than there or you know there's a lot to the craft of course and i respect that and every every time i'm working with somebody i like to figure out okay well why would you do this or that or oh i see that this is done a certain way let's you know make sure we enhance that and i think just having the knowledge of the art and the craft that a lot of it comes with experience a lot of it can come from studying fine art fine art paintings yeah can be um which is my background also right so fine art paintings fine art photography all of that is really all the same language i love it learning that language is a huge part of what i do i love that because you know even what you know on paper you're a colorist but there's so much more jack of all trades you know in a sense like and and all of it comes together and that's one of the things that i feel like we're kind of headed in that direction even in the film making field too like in 2012 2010 it was more like hey stick to one thing and don't tell people that you're also a cinematographer like just stick with editing stick with color that's your thing if you want to be taken seriously and what you're saying i feel like as this gets out more and people hear it from you know people like you then they're gonna realize that okay this is not such a bad thing that i also like this and i like that like i can actually blend the two bring them together you know that's a big thing absolutely it's a huge strength you know the more you know it's always like the simple simple thing that we learned from your kids right the more that you know knowledge is power so the more you can understand and know about different um different crafts cinematography colorist directing writing all those things finding where uh in the story that you can help you know help tell the story as a colorist you know and be part of the collaboration that's the inspiring stuff exactly jill let's get into the favorite thing that ever happened to me last year joker and okay so are you a fan my god so i mean i'm a fan to a point where i invited a friend at a party and he came and he said he's never seen joker and first i asked him politely to leave and then he would leave and on his birthday i actually bought him joker on itunes and i'm like go watch it like right now oh that's amazing so i'm that serious um so i think what i want to do is more than you know just like generally talking about it let's just kind of get into the specifics and let's start with at what part of the process do you get involved you know um so let's start there and then i have a couple of more questions and i'll ask yeah yeah no problem no problem sounds good so yeah for this one i've worked with a cinematographer larry scheer for a long time um we've collaborated collaborated on a lot of movies and todd as well todd phillips a director so i was involved from the very beginning um and that's the way i love to do it be able to just get in the beginning and i feel like it's a great communication tool because i can i do make different look of tables per show every show i make my own um and give that to the cinematographer on set and the director and we'll do yeah like a hair and makeup test and then we'll kind of experiment with a few different ones different look-up tables and different cdls that will pair with the lookup table and find a pairing or find different ways for the workflow to make it like really what what they want so i that's what i did for joker um they shot a test with film and a couple other cameras and really wanted it to be filmic so uh what we did is we created a look up table company three my color scientist at company three helped along with my dad actually my my father mitch i called him up said hey um i would love to have a look up table that basically emulates a film stock from early 80s and what can you show me what can you give me so you gave me a couple different stocks was one of them and that's what we ended up using is is that liquid table and so that is sort of like a standard procedure working on feature films like you'll create a lookup table and then the dp will take that and kind of see it on set what it's going to be like somewhat in the ballpark and then it comes back to you and you go from there yeah i mean um i'm open to i do that a lot with people that i work with a lot i'm totally open to not doing that as well so cinematographer just has a lot that they love and they want to use that i'm cool with that whatever works best but i do do that often from the tv series i do as well like i work with michael familiari uh consistently and you know before this whole pandemic hit i was up in vancouver and set up a new lot for his show from his new netflix show they were shooting up there of course it paused now but um you know i do do it for pretty much every project now so for joker like was there a specific color space that you guys used or are you like is it asus is something else that you guys start off with and then branch it off to like whatever the deliverables are yeah i mean every movie is different for joker we didn't work in aces um we can there's a lot of shows i do work in aces so to me it doesn't matter either way um whatever is best for the show you know but for joker is basically i was involved and made the lookup table and some cdls early on to be able to make sure that everything um looked the way they wanted and helped supervise dailies for the first few weeks to get them rolling and then by and then that way the visual effects team also has a very accurate representation of what the movie is going to look like based on the cdls and the lookup table for the show and then by the time i get it it's already in a place of familiarity right like it's a great communication tool for everybody in all different stages and so then they already kind of know when they get into me oh you know this scene worked or this didn't work or let's fine-tune here or there so larry and i could really work on details right um and then talk to come in as well of course and do details so you know the the actual grading process when you get it like in it's in finishing how much time on a movie like joker like what what's the time frame how long would it take to color it and then two-part question and then how much are you working by yourself than when you have a dp director in the room with you got it so that's question again every movie is different but um going back to joker joker i think we had a little over like about a month to really month month and a half you know if there was a couple points we're just waiting for some visual effects to come in or waiting for a couple different other little elements to come in you know so or titling and that kind of thing we wait for we'll like you know get to a point where we're really strong and then kind of like stop down for a little few hours and pick it back up so basically a pretty solid month would be a good four maybe five weeks is pretty normal for a good big size show there's some movies that i'll do a solid month and a half or two months you know the bigger ones that have heavier visual effects um because you know we i also will run the visual effects reviews to be able to make sure that you know on the big screen they're seeing what they want to see and maybe they'll give me notes to things that can enhance the visual effects shot uh for the final movie and that type of thing so you know um all of that it really varies the time that i get but in general four or five weeks for a big show i two weeks of standard for is like a smaller show um and uh then tv series are a different animal you know you have depends on the speed and the um budget of the show so we i kind of work with whatever the budget and the timeline needs and i do indies too as well now for something like i mean you know the thing about joker that you know just draws me in so much is that when i look at your work and and even dr sleep when i look at your work there's something about like there's something unapologetic about it it's like you know it it screams like it has a style you know but it doesn't like kind of you know take you away from the story if anything it really puts you in like how my wife just says she's like when i watch joker like she's not even a colorist and she's like it just puts me in that nostalgic space like i'm in new york like i'm there you know like it just i go there so you know when i see joker i see that yes it has the characteristics of a film look but it still looks like and feels like it's done in 2020 so that's very different than like you know something like machate or something like that where they're actually creating a film look and then it looks like that you know like a period piece so yeah pushing like you know people and so many people ask like you know how does she pull these colors and there's so much separation in the colors and there's no color noise and it's like it all lives in the right place like nothing you can just go frame by frame and there's just it's perfection so i mean i don't need you to get super technical into it but is there like is there like a jill sauce that's going on any of these things what's happening here well it's to be honest it's really my aesthetic and i feel like i just make it feel you know when i'm painting to relate it to to just tactile paint right when i'm painting i really will use the colors or the separation of colors to help draw the eye where i want and i do the very similar things when when i'm coloring right like i just get to a feel and it's hard for me to even explain it because i just kind of do it it's just like you you know you get a certain feel and then you're like oh yep it clicks in that feels right you know you know when you're going through and you're finding an image and there's so many as you know infinite number of decisions you have to make when you're coloring right and there's so many different tools right and there's so many different ways to get to it so when i'm creating a lookup table there's certain things i i always make sure that i give myself a good color depth so i don't basically uh there's more intricate ways to do it but the saturation i don't desaturate usually unless i pick certain colors to desaturate in the lookup table um and then as i go through and in color shot to shot which of course that's a lot of work as well the shot to shot coloring i just go through and will use certain keys sometimes it's keys sometimes it's power window shaping like old school dodging and burning and photography which does a lot to help guide the eye i keep it as simple as i can and as elegant as i can um to be able to keep that consistent feel and i just go through it and back to your question i don't think i answered is how often am i supervised versus unsupervised right um if there's a big there's a trust going on with me and the director and cinematographer you know and if i've been involved since the very beginning they'll let me go through and do my first pass you know go through smooth it out i bring it to a point where we can have more constructive conversations more detailed conversation and um i've i've worked with a cinematographer named tom stern for a long time and he used to call it the closing circle of excellence right i love it start big and kind of spiral down to the details so i always loved that that he he had a very elegant way of describing it right so you know as far as like the color separation sometimes it's keys sometimes it's finding certain things that um that i love in the production design or the costuming that i really bring up or i'll swing a colors hue to be able to fit more in the palette i did a lot of that in um in joker because they're you know i wanted to all kind of feel like you know the cyans and the greens really let them sing throughout and in the gold to accent it you know um and yeah and not necessarily with contrast always you know because a very filmic feel is to be able to feel into the shadows and feel into the highlights but not have it be flat so there's always finding that balance too so it's just kind of getting the groove of every movie i always start when i start a movie it's really great for me to start and when i'm pre-timing i always say it's kind of exploring the photography exploring the movie each movie has its own uh voice and its own story so i always as i'm going through pre-timing i'm looking for that i'm finding things that tie it all together to be able to help you know make it feel like a flow that's insane um i want to get into i want to ask you about a movie like john wick you came on on part two and three right so i mean to me anytime i jumped on a project i'm an editor and a colors anytime i jump on a project that's already been established sometimes it's harder to work on that because you're like i gotta untangle it and then get in there but you know things are done differently on hollywood levels so i want to ask you go on from john wick to john 2 not only the color has changed but the dp changed but yeah the story needs to stay the same and the everything has to come together so are you given like hey here's the davinci resolve project file from you know john wick one to two is it that or is it like you have to recreate it how does that go that's a good question um in that case between john wick one and john wick two john i talked to the director chad about that um chad he was one of the directors on the first one so he was also the sole director on the second and dan lowest and he brought in of course as a cinematographer and i talked to them about that when i got onto the movie and basically since john wick one was a story introducing you to his whole world right um the second one was even more heightened even a little bit more surreal like the whole movie is is very same with third one it's a very surreal world he lives in right and so we were able to heighten that movie with a look even more and so yeah no i had no reference nor did i was i really um directed to have a huge reference for the first one even though i watched it i was very aware of it and everything um it was beautifully done but the second one we were allowed to depart from that because the story departed from that you know and we are allowed to uh give it a stronger look again that's that's got a lot of poppy color to it right and shop that with a lot of color separation and a lot of different beautiful beautiful locations and um so we just let those sing and let them heighten them all to that surreal place no it's so crazy like i mean there's i mean some images up here like it is so insane like i'm like how do you on that particular shot actually um those green windows so we added a lot of color to new york so those windows that were up there were not that green fluorescent light and um we added the blue some of the um cyan that's in the windshield reflection we added some of that in the warmth on the pavement next to the guy in the ground we added some of that so there's a lot of painting that went into these things to be able to give it subtle we'd find elements like like those windows that kind of look boring and white yeah like why do i want boring white windows in the frame like let's make them cool like let's make this super cool so we made them that cool that interesting green and it always kind of popped up anytime we had the purples or the magentas let those sing a little bit because it's kind of again that's a a color that is a little surreal you know and and to kind of mix that with a green fluorescence which are kind of dirty and then the really super clean poppy purple magentas it's really fun energetic we kept a lot of energy going in the color along with the movie no you see that and and is that the old school windowing or is it hue versus hue or what's happening here or is it that's old-school windowing um in this particular case that one is literally i drew windows around and key sometimes i do the key inside the windows you know but um i keep it pretty simple with with that kind of thing usually and because again there's a lot of movement as well right so i have to keep it super clean because these things get blown up i think like you know it's on a 90-foot screen somewhere 100. yeah i have to make sure there's no key edges or anything no it's so freaking beautiful i mean look at this one like these are just crazy like these frames are insane um i want to talk to you about beautiful for talking to dan killed it he freaking killed it it just looks so beautiful um i want to get into the haunting of hill house i mean why oh yeah horror is like my one of my favorite genres like growing up like it was just the best thing um and the way this one is done you know that it's so different right look wise i mean because uh usually you just think of let me i am still a grandpa with these things i don't know how to hide the picture we'll just nobody needs to see my face um okay so the hunting of hill house it has served such a unique look because it's almost like what happens sometimes like in in uh deacon's stuff you know so think of like uh sicario and like night scenes and it's almost like you're just kind of like that you're like wait what's happening you know or or it also reminds me of the episode three of the last season of game of thrones you know the big battle sequence which everybody complained about because they're just like we can't see anything and i'm just like get a better tv you know like it just yeah it's all there so that's how i felt when i was watching the the haunting of hill house because i'm just like oh my god like i see it you know i'm seeing what you're doing what's happening and i'm like i love it like where i kind of have to just almost like move around to see things so yeah how much of that is jill or is it the dp director like when in's telling you that hey this is what we're looking for well um that's those are the guys i work with these guys light a lot mike flanagan and mike femire they're awesome they're amazing and again for that series i actually went on set and went down to atlanta and um created look up tables on set just during while we were live had a resolve and just made sure that what they were looking at you know could create the look on an actual test piece of the set with all different textures and lamps and you know wallpaper because the whole show is taking place in a dark haunted house right you know and the whole thing is almost like you should be in this dark haunted house that's got you know soft dark light like there shouldn't you shouldn't feel it's too sourcy you just want to be able to see into the dark it's like you turn off the lights and your eyes adjust and all of a sudden you see in your room but it's all very you know you don't see a source of light it's just kind of your eyes adjust and that was kind of the feeling that we were going to go for on that and um and then i kind of really limited the palette on that one severely like not just desaturation only but created a bit of cyan in the blacks and yellow in the highlight so it created a little bit of a color twist right but also had to be able to keep the red door which is a character really in in the series keep that red door strong so um i had to do some clever stuff because really cyan in the blacks what does that do cancel the rest yeah there are certain things i had to do to be able to retain that red in an elegant way keep it pure and clean without being noisy and um so uh i had to get a little clever with that but that worked really beautifully and um it's a i i'm very proud of that look as well because it is like a very it's got a very strong point of view you know it's not supposed to be a super clean look at the scopes the blacks or blacks or whites or white is supposed to have a kind of a dissonant feel to it you know no that's exactly so i mean this is this is what i mean when i look at like even going back to like looking at war dogs like i mean i'm looking at your stuff and i'm like man she just he just goes for it that's where the unapologetic like word comes to mind where you're just like this is what's gonna happen and you're gonna take it like i mean just they're just like we're happy this looks great you know um i wanna okay so so let's talk about that then because you know you go into my gallery stills in black or in davinci resolve and it's filled with like there's a folder called jill and then there's a bunch of looks you know so like i'm like we're going to inspiration to you right so i mean so many of us are going to inspiration for you who do you turn to thank you or what do you turn to yeah for me um it's true i actually really love all different types of paintings and art and i'm always searching for different artists and different things that that inspire me and um so i used to go to art galleries all the time right now i've seen them at home but you know looking through my art books and searching the internet for new upcoming artists or different you know new takes on how people see things new photographers like i've got so many people that just inspire me i find images i have a little library of images on my ipad too things that inspire me and then i'll um go i paint obviously i have an art studio here so uh i'll paint a painting that inspires me from that i was inspired by some image with different colors that were really interesting to me or um or a story that i read or something like that so i i really love just finding inspiration different people and i find inspiration from every project i work on as well so certain color palettes like i remember working with maddie the boutique early on um we did i did some of his spike lee movies and we found a really strong look for those i think one of them is never die alone and it was super early in in the di game it's like earl it's two thousand i wanna say four somewhere around there super early um and that that kind of stuff those palettes that we came up with and i think he shot that on 16 if i'm if i'm not wrong but you know finding really interesting palettes and just pushing it and being unapologetic being bold with choices you know that that again support the story and don't take you out of the don't take you out of the flow of the movie right but i mean i'm inspired and i'm inspired by cinematographers i work with and um you know directors i work with like all the different ideas and the lookbooks that they bring me or the scripts that they'll i read scripts a lot people will send me the scripts of the show so i can weigh in and give ideas about oh wait you know i was thinking that this would be really interesting or that or i like michael femini sent me lookbook and inspiration for to all the boys i've loved to all the boys i've loved before which is i did on netflix um and that also has a pretty strong look for a very kind of like a teenage love story type of thing right it's a beautiful story it's adorable and um we are allowed to go with a pretty strong look for it which was it supports the story you know super color poppy but again we limited it make it elegant and uh so i'm always inspired by just finding different images constantly i mean that like it's really really cool to know because i personally i can't speak for other people but i mean most of the time like i'm kind of going to i'm picking i have certain people that i'm following or or certain movies or shows that i like but i don't really usually get out of that realm and look at like how you're talking about like you know i was inspired back in the day by caravaggio and like you know his paintings and that kind of like contrast i loved it um but you know because i have a cinematography background too but it's like that also helps me as a colorist and i feel like that those things kind of go hand in hand too but just like hearing it like from your perspective to to be a painter and you're bringing that in that then i think that's what explains like how your color palettes and your looks just have like a different it's a signature you know it's a style and i feel like it's coming from something that's more than you just getting inspired by you know blade runner and then like how can i incorporate that into my work which is by the way amazing um um so let's talk about you know 150 plus like credits on imdb i mean you've worked on anything and everything under the sun so like you know i'm going to ask you the hard question like give me three favorite projects like looks something that you've created that you just go yes you know i'm proud of myself you know i'm proud of this one right i know it's hard it's like it's like picking a favorite child but um because every movie has got its own uh you know evolution its own story and but i really do i mean obviously joker was an amazing one i'm very proud of that one i was really proud to be able to work with my dad which is also special um and grand budapest is the same thing with working with wes anderson he's a legend as well um and he's super collaborative and creative and my father made the lookup tables for that show as well um so for me and uh so those those two for sure i mean and john wick is again i love working with that team like chad is brilliant and he has got his vision is is pretty amazing he's super super smart with how he does everything and dan is brilliant so those guys those are just the three that i know that you've mentioned but then going back a little ways i'm still very very proud of the movie i did called ray um ray charles story with taylor hackford that again was early right yeah and i look back at how much work that was and um you know at the time how how we were really pushing around the bleeding edge really of of some of the technology and some of the looks and things like i'm still really proud of that one for sure and um you know uh what else and working with clint eastwood one of my favorite ones with clint i did uh flags our fathers and letters from iwo jima yeah with great looks great looks yeah yeah and um and changeling was another one that i loved doing changeling was was really a strong beautiful look i i was really proud of that one too so there's start looking back at all these things i just remember how they evolved and what i learned from each one and um and the people you know we all become we're such a small knit tight-knit group and and friends really you know making friends with all these people it's pretty incredible so i mean all those movies shelley johnson is incredible you know working with him on wolfman that was so inspiring to be able to create a look with shelley you know and um and and create we did in wolfman we defocus the blacks to give it like a silky velvet feel and um but if you look if you watch the movie you've got people clothed in black layers like different black textures black lapels with black lace or whatever so we couldn't just overall defocus the black so it was almost like a roto kind of situation keeping the keeping the blacks um on the characters closer to camera in focus and letting everything else or certain certain other things go but just in the blacks and it was it came out so painfully and i'm really proud of that one too that's amazing that technique just sounds like a rocket science that's that's fun that's crazy um so this is this is a question from my wife i gotta ask you this so she she goes is she ever star struck like have you ever met like do you meet joaquin phoenix does he come in when you're grading like oh that's funny well um you know it's funny because joaquin never came in um you know todd really uh came in all the time and larry i never met him but i've worked with keanu i work with hell yeah you know and keanu was awesome um you know i was in his documentary side by side that he did it's great i saw it which is i think incredible if you guys have seen side by side you need to 100 yep it's super informative but um he's really awesome he'll come in and hang out with us first time i met him i was a little star truck of course because of course yeah and clint eastwood as well when i first met clint you know but clint was he's both keanu and clint anybody that i've met that's been super famous has been nothing but down to earth humble and just wonderful people that i've just feel blessed for man so yeah i would be so scared of clint i just like i just can't talk around him um let's do a 80 20 rule and let's talk about if i were to take like you know technical skills and creativity where do you put them like oh man that's i always say you know it's funny i'll add another element to that i always say that my part of my job is psychologist as well because you have to collaborate with some some people who have very strong passionate ideas right you know so you've got the director and you've got the cinematographer in some cases you have the visual effects supervisor which of course has there you have to protect the visual effects and you've got the studio or whatever so part of my job is to keep that balance right make sure everybody gets what they need and want and make it look good and also the same time make sure that what i what i put on the screen i stand behind right right so i always say part of it is a little bit of psychology and making sure that everybody and and just you know being confident in what i do knowing that what i put out there is good and then it just can you know be finessed in some which way to make sure that everybody gets what they need to see eyes or to see a lapel or whatever you know so not only is it creative and technical because you have to know those things to be able to basically it's like playing a piano right you learn all the technicalities of playing a piano but then you don't think about it you just play and it's very much like that as a colorist so being at the forefront you know um like of this industry where do you see like the future of color grading and especially with like i mean i don't know if it was like that always but like everybody is just always talking about asus and what about hdr and what about rec 2020 has it always been like different color spaces floating around blah blah or is it like a hdr is it like a 4k thing oh man there's like it's it's always been changing technology that's one of the exciting things about this job right so i always have to keep up with the different color spaces the different software the different um you know whatever like there's always something new to learn right and that's kind of the fun part the exciting part so yeah luckily i also have a really strong team at company three that keeps me in the loop because i when i'm being creative and i'm doing my movies or shows or whatever i don't always have time to research other stuff going on but we have regular meetings and talks and we have a really strong knit group at company three as colorists we all talk a lot and um you know hey we i just did this i saw this it worked really well oh cool i can try that too or if i have a question about something whatever like we have a really tight-knit community which is pretty awesome with that kind of stuff but yeah it's always been changing changing technology in the early days you know everything was shot on film when i started di right and when it started switching over to the different cameras i had to know about what kind of cameras were people were shooting on there was like the viper camera i viper and there's of course the red and then when arie came out with alexa you had to kind of always do tests and know what kind of stuff was working or not or how to approach a show shot on different cameras or workflow so yeah i mean every show is different it's constantly changing it's a moving target and that's why it's really important to have a strong support staff like i have an amazing assistance i have amazing technical group at company three so it's just really important to be able to have that community to keep up on all this stuff so one thing that i want to ask you you know going off of what you just said like you know you don't always have the time so maybe it depends on project or project but you know for you the kind of caliber of like work that you're doing and projects that you're working on is is do you have any play time to figure figure things out or when you get those four to five weeks to just like it's a go time like you just have to go well that's why actually it depends again on the show but a lot of time if i get involved before they shoot and i create a lookup table so i already know the vibe then then i don't need as much time in the final right so i can watch a rough cut of the edit and have conversations with the dp or director just make sure okay cool like this works this didn't work noted and then i can go through and attack that and kind of get that feel going and i don't need to necessarily um you know start over or start from nothing you know i also have a strong team of pre-colorists so i can set looks and then they can kind of go through smooth stuff out and then i come in and do more of the heavy lifting creative stuff so so it depends on how busy i am you know if i'm really busy working on a bunch of stuff then then i'll just you know uh be able to come in and just establish the look make sure it's all good throughout shooting and then i come in at the end and i can just fine tune um that's amazing i mean that makes sense and i mean the timeline that you guys are given is just ridiculous so that that does make sense um yeah do you have like a bias toward like which camera you love the most like one of your favorite cameras to work with easy or whatever well yeah i mean it always i always throw in the caveat it depends on how it shot right um but the alexa is some of my favorite color science because it gives me that beautiful color depth and honestly most of my shows are shot on some sort of alexa so i love alexa but i've been doing stuff on the sony venice as well you know i've done a couple shows on the new dxl so we can get beautiful images out all of them really they just keep like competing with one another getting better and better so that makes my job better my job easier exactly make them look good now your sister is a colorist yeah and she is she's awesome and she's a traitor because she uses uh bass light right yes she does she uses bass like i mean i run bass light as well um i've done a couple i've done some stuff on bass light i did a tv series bloodline third season on baseline ghostbusters that's beautiful bloodline is beautiful oh thank you yeah that was a really beautiful one that was fun to walk to do but um yeah so i run baseline as well but i prefer for me personally everybody has a tool of choice for me it's a tool and i like the resolve better my sister runs resolves well she also knows base light and she's on base light yep but yeah um one of the things and i think it comes from experience but a lot of people can benefit from it like so many times people just ask like hey how do you develop a taste like what is that colorist eye like and let's just go back to that when you were breaking down the one frame from john wick and you're saying i warm this up and i you know change the queue here and i pop the purples and like pinks and all that so do you have like is it something like people who are starting out that you can just maybe direct them somewhere or just give them that one piece of advice like that eureka thing for them like is there anything like that well i mean for me i'm i always i'm not always evolving and i'm always um you know learning and being inspired i would just say keep being inspired but also a big part of being colors like that and finding your style or whatever is being allowed to explore that and i have had the benefit of working with some amazing creatives like larry shear and shelley johnson and laoston who are all artists and i can see where they're coming from and then i can also learn and then say oh you know this consistently works this is something that i always go back to you know this whatever quality it may be this is something that i really like and i kind of we'll pitch it on different shows if it works you know and say hey what about this you know i really think this looks cool and then kind of refine it for the show but so i guess finding your patterns finding what you like finding what um you tend to be inspired or attracted to certain qualities you know and then recognizing that and and and exploring all different versions you know yeah that's how i kind of design my my look you know i love it makes sense um being at company three and a c senior color is like you know as much as i can see that you know it could be a boost like where you're just like okay i do and it goes but at the same time there's got to be some sort of like pressure to like i don't know necessarily living up to that because you're already there but are there times when you kind of get in your head and you're just like oh man like you know this is like i gotta keep up or like do you ever ever have those moments or are you just styled and you you've got it figured out no man i mean i'm human too like they're always you know we all have doubts right especially artists i think we all have doubts of what we're creating sometimes you know and um especially if there's any kind of controversy around it or somebody doesn't like something or you know because it's still a very subjective art you know when you're working with some a lot of different pieces a lot of different moving parts and when you're working on a movie right so you've got people who are tired or stressed or dealing with something somewhere else or you know who knows what could be going on then i also you know can i feel all of that as well you know and i want to make sure i want to always do my best to make everybody uh you know make best for the story best for the movie so in those situations sure man i keep i get inside my head a little bit and have doubts every now and then that's when i kind of bring myself back and just like you know totally go do my yoga or like you know take a run with a dog or you know go see what my kids have been doing you know and you know just kind of remove myself and just remember to stay grounded and you know i think that's all anybody can really do and then get be inspired again go and find different images or even i'll look up old images from stuff i've done before i'm like oh that was a really cool idea maybe i'll bring that back in for this next show or you know just start focusing on positive stuff if anything like that happens for sure because i happens all of us i think you're way less conceited than me sometimes like when i'm in that mode i just have to go back and look at my best work and i'm like man i got it i got it let's go back in i can do this um okay so grading approaches i want to i want to ask you so do you also work on commercials or is it just long form okay so you know i do commercials well for sure is the process different for let's say working on 40 shots in a day for a 30 second you know spot compared to a long form like is it is it one has like 32 note 3 you know grade and one has four note 3 grade like is that a thing uh yeah i mean it depends totally because when you start to get into commercials and product and that type of thing it does have a lot more sometimes the detail where you don't want that shine over here and you do want this and let's fine-tune you know the tree or whatever because you're dealing with such short shots you know you need to focus the attention quickly to where you to product or the story so there usually are more windows or more like a heavier node tree on on a commercial because of that mainly and um but you know i've done some movies where you know working with my with wes anderson on grand budapest we had shots that had 50 60 70 nodes you know very fine detailed things so you know uh it really just depends on on how detailed and how much time you have and for commercial you know really if you look at it you know it's one day usually i work on the commercial but um you know a lot of the shots either are repeated or whatever so i can kind of take those same greetings and start there and just keep refining and then you know since we have a lot of voices in the room they're all looking at very very small details uh we can just basically each note from each person i keep in the same one node and then i kind of know where you know where i am so yeah this is so amazing to know again animal as well i'm so glad that you're saying this and and everybody you better be listening because so many times i'll freaking do a 12-note grade and everybody's like like that's wrong because you can't do that on a movie you're working on a movie with a thousand shots blah blah blah there's not gonna be enough time usually like stefan does like grades that only has two nodes and i'm like where are you getting all this information from like what is going on so i'm so glad that you're you're saying this um yeah well there's some shows that i've done that i only do have two notes in the show or one or two notes on a movie because i do try to keep it simple you know but um and it depends on the speed too if i have to do an indie movie in like three days it'll probably have one or two notes you know but um but you never know like there's always some some shots that maybe need a little bit more work right totally totally subjective and depending on the the budget and time okay there's uh this question that i think first i'm gonna answer for you and then i'll let you answer it so the question is okay will jill ever be doing a master class and i say she won't be doing a master class because then i'll be out of business but go ahead yeah i probably won't be doing a specific master class only because yeah only because literally um like right now um um half time as we all do right and i want to stay productive and connect to the community this way which i think is really amazing and i love having this opportunity but um i'd say my day-to-day life doesn't usually give me that type of time because i do i do have you know a life like a family and i do have what my work family with all my cinematographer family that are out there shooting and being creative and directors and things so um you know i could be working on several different shows and then be talking about on the phone or reading scripts or looking at lookbooks for the stuff that's coming up so it's always kind of multitasking to and then to throw something else on top of it you know which would be basically you know masterclass of explaining all this kind of stuff just honestly probably wouldn't work very well for just my life in general it's it's easy just sleep um you know for two hours a night that's what i do i just i know i just cut down to that like i'm sleeping for two hours um i want to ask you this okay so this is a personal problem i hate watching movies in my living room on a subpar tv that is not calibrated like it drives me crazy anytime wife is just like hey do you want to watch this like do you want to watch parasite and i'm like please watch it in my office like everything is dialed in or does that bother you as much as it bothers me or you just don't care no oh it bothers me oh yeah no i definitely what i do is i've got funny enough like my my ipad my ipad pro looks amazing so i actually have it with me right i love it so i'll have it with me i'll look at stills on my ipad and i can look at it in my bay one of my base whatever at work and i'm like oh yeah that's right that's cool it's good you know and then when i come home i just calibrate my tvs all of them i've got a couple of that to to that to basically make sure it feels right best this is i'm so glad it's coming from you because literally yes this is so amazing this is so amazing it's coming from you because i think that ipad pro like that's my final out like i'm just making sure my qc final qc tool is like i'm like okay it's looking this good here like will be covered if it goes out it's going to look pretty good yeah i mean i i do love that it's a nice tool to be able to i mean obviously i've got you know monitors that work for like the x300 or whatever which are crazy amazing monitors but uh the general feel you know is really great on the ipad pro so i i use that as a tool for sure do you get enough time um i mean we heard about your schedule a little bit but do you still find time to watch tv or movies or anything like that sometimes sure like if i i like going to the theater and seeing movies from some like amazing cinematography or whatever that i love seeing that on the big screen you know still love that experience and um yeah i'll find time like you know i'll find time to watch stuff on tv some shows that i've heard about but uh i am it takes me a while you should catch up depending you know my schedule ebbs and flows i'm catching up on some stuff now but you know yeah yeah not as much as i'd like probably but yeah same because it's like i my wife and i both like i mean we went to school for film but we just never have the time to do it so like we're always getting educated by our brothers and like our siblings that they're just like did you watch this did you watch that it was amazing and we were like all right we'll we'll watch it we'll check it out but yeah never enough time okay so um iphone or android iphone there you go love it okay so leo or christian bale uh leo 100 right it comes back from my childhood i just remember him from a long time ago right um and how are you doing with the quarantine are you are you staying insane i i am i'm just trying to focus all my energy into some being creative you know and connecting with community and um you know homeschooling kids and like trying to balance all of that it's been actually you know i'm just trying to make the best out of it and and you know getting to connect with my kids on that level and teaching them and seeing how their little brains work and then you know reading more scripts and uh look doing more painting and you know taking walks just trying to like get through it no i know i i love that too like i i just pushed my son first of all we have a 17 year old but i just pushed my son to start like just start his youtube channel i'm like what are you doing dude like you know you kids got it easy you go on tick tock and you make a video and you get 1 billion views and nobody wants to see my old face like you're young you're hip just go do this stuff so we're putting him on that i don't know how much he loves it but we're doing it so okay um let's talk about you know so you know this phase that we're going through changed a lot right so like remote grading has been around forever but now like the remote workflow and everything do you think that after this is over this is gonna be sort of like a thing like this is gonna be an option because i know on bigger production stuff is still sort of like a wine and dine and you have to be there and all that stuff like do you think it's going to change or is going to just go back to what it was well it's going to be interesting because um for some of the bigger productions there they're concern and i understand it clearly is is security right so they don't want to have the reason why you have to wind it down be theirs is because they don't want the images leaking out anywhere and they also want to keep all their creatives you know in the same room and make sure there's no misunderstandings on a phone call like all the just basic human communication is always best in the room so that being said i think though i have been doing some streaming some stuff like some uh let's see commercials i've been streaming and i've got a netflix show still rolling and doing umbrella academy season two and i can do that remotely and and it's been working out well for sure because i we really have no other choice but i think the best thing is always to be in the room i think it does open up possibilities though for people to be you know on the mix stage people are super busy on a mixed stage and visual effects and kind of towards the end of a timeline to be able to stream to kind of just look and say oh yeah yeah that's good that visual effect fits in well you call it great okay cool done like that type of thing can really be you know i think in that way it might actually change for sure like it might be a little bit more fluid a little bit more of an option whereas you know before this whole thing people were like well i have to drive across town so now do you have like a you have a favorite genre or favorite type of stuff you want to work on um that you usually pick over something else or do you just go with like you read the script you hear the story and you're like alright i'm in yeah well it really has a lot to do with um the creative so the director cintographer or whoever else might be bringing me an editor so uh if if they really are passionate about it and really want me to be able to be a part of the project then i'm inspired i want to be in you know and so that kind of thing i don't usually turn stuff down unless i'm really really busy if i'm really really busy um you know then obviously i don't want to overextend myself because that's not good for anybody so that that's only time i'll like say no to a project usually and so there's always something about every project whether it's the best script or the most beautiful lighting or something there's always something to it that is pretty amazing and um for everything i've been working on so there's no real favorite genre it's more about the team i'm working with for sure that's so true i mean that's one thing like personally just coming from cinematography editing and color background like i am drawn toward color grading because i feel like the imagery tells like inspires me to do something you know whereas with editing and stuff so much so many times it's like a black blank canvas and you just have to create something you have to put it on there in the timeline to start going somewhere whereas you know i just gotta look i'm gonna start playing with it and i'm gonna see what these colors that exist in the space will do and then like that's gonna inspire me and i'll get going so um i totally agree with you we have two minutes before we get shut down so i just want to thank you for myself and from everybody uh for taking the time to show up and i don't think we even have to tell people where to go follow you they should know and if they don't know they don't deserve you um thank you so much jill do you have anything do you have like uh do you have like a advice for because those questions come in and i mean so many questions came in but one of the questions is like you know somebody who's asked jill like if somebody is starting out and they're beginners and they want to get into color grading um and we talked about it a little bit but do you have like hey do x y and z and you're going to be off to a good start do you have anything for people i don't know if that would be able to give you exactly xyz because i kind of came up differently from everybody else but i would say my my rule is always work really hard don't give up on anything put your mind to it just keep rolling keep doing it no matter who tells you you can't and learn as much as you can learn the technology learn the art learn the craft ask questions never be afraid to ask questions because i still do always learning every day and that's like literally i think what keeps you going in this industry that's humbling that's like i mean just hearing that is so freaking amazing from you thank you so much for joining us uh pleasure really appreciate it bye of course thank you so much take care this time i'm not gonna say hopefully you found it epic because i have the utmost respect for jill and for her to take the time to have a conversation with us i know for a fact it brought you value smash that like button subscribe to my channel for more awesomeness make sure to check out the link in the description for a one hour long free training i will see you guys in the next video you

Channel: Waqas Qazi

Views: 32,174

Keywords: davinci resolve 16, resolve 16, davinci resolve, davinci, davinci resolve 16 tutorial, davinci resolve studio, davinci tutorial, davinci resolve free, resolve color grading, color grading davinci resolve, colorist, color grading, color correction, davinci resolve tutorial, blackmagic design, davinci resolve 16.2, davinci resolve color grading, davinci resolve 16 color grading, waqas qazi, how to use davinci resolve 16, davinci resolve effects, theqazman, color grading tutorial

Id: EzuCi-ZOyfw

Length: 60min 30sec (3630 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 12 2020