Pro Colorist shares his Grading Process | Brian Singler

what's going on guys this is qazi welcome to another epic video in the industry pro series this time i'm going to be interviewing one of my favorite colorist brian singler he's worked with nfl atnt premier league and the list goes on so many a-list brands we're not gonna just talk about technical stuff and his color grading process we're also going to talk about how to land those high-end clients how to keep them happy and how to get to that next level so get super pumped if you don't know the difference between parallel mixer and layer mixer or not sure when to use which you came to the right place in this free training you're not only going to learn everything about nodes you will also learn to build the perfect node tree regardless of the project that you're working on i will end the session with an extended q a these questions came from you guys click the link in the description to sign up for this free training and if you're enjoying the content you know what to do smash that like button subscribe to my channel for more awesomeness follow me on instagram and let's roll the intro what's going on brian hey man how are you nice to be on hell yeah brother nice studio man love it oh yeah i appreciate this is this is the home one and we got the fancy one um you know for clients and stuff so yeah rocking it man i can't wait to see the fancy one i got my acoustic panels coming in and everything is gonna get covered up but it's with kovit everything is taking 10 years you know shipping and everything brother's so glad to have you and seriously man i am one personally i am so impressed by work i mean it just dude the range is out of control i have a bunch of pictures that we're gonna go through that i pulled from your instagram and talk about it but you got such a fan base dude like you got so many people that go crazy on my facebook uh you know for my paid members like they drop in and they go crazy like i'm getting are you serious dude i'm getting messages on facebook i'm getting messages through youtube i'm getting messages here on instagram so i control dude all right this is amazing brother um why don't you just take the floor and and give me a you know quick you know summary about who you are and you know what inspired you to be a colorist gotcha um well i'm originally from alaska and so i kind of grew i kind of approached the whole uh uh color grading thing in a very different way than i think most people did um i kind of grew up without access to a lot of films and movies and tv all the things that most people did but i fell in love with storytelling i really grew out grew up in the middle of nowhere and the only really access that i had growing up in alaska as far as doing something related to our field is to go into news so i began in news as an anchor and as a writer primarily in sports but eventually i wanted to do something of a higher quality something i was really proud of something that looked and looked sounded amazing the people you know actually actually watched and that wasn't you know obsolete after you know the next day right so um so that's when i i started to branch out into advertising um and for a while um i was what you would call kind of uh what i call a slash right i was a dp slash editor slash slash motion designer slash colorist right yeah um and then and you know i really started in color because obviously i was shooting my own stuff and i wasn't happy with how it looked right it didn't look it didn't it didn't hinge yeah it didn't it didn't hit my expectations so that's so i started to jump into color um that way um no that was about i would say 10 years ago i started the first thing i started out with was apple color so that was uh that was definitely a while ago um but but but from there i really started to learn that that if i wanted to do stuff at the level that i wanted then i was going to have to kind of specialize and so while i missed shooting and some of the other aspects of it i really did decide that that that i had to do one thing to do it at the level i wanted um and so i think there's something in that story maybe for your for for the people who follow you that you know you don't have to take a traditional route you don't have to have you know grown up with your dad as a famous color scientist you know right like like like jill did you don't have to be in the big markets to to do good work i'm not saying it doesn't help but but if you're not there you shouldn't let that kind of uh you know hold you back or anything like that so um so really that's that's kind of the evolution of uh of how it happened dude it's like we're just we're brothers from a different mother like i mean it's this is exactly the same story like i'm a shooter first went to school for cinematography and editing and you know i'm shooting my stuff and i'm like what is that sauce what is that thing that's missing you know and then i jump into apple color like this is exactly how i started and then it's just you know the rest is history so it's amazing to hear that and that's sort of like my outlook and my message to the world that you don't need to box yourself in and especially in 2020 you don't box yourself and you leave that channel open like back in 2012 it was very much like hey what's your niche if you don't have a niche you're kind of like a clown you know you get paid 50 000 a year as a video producer but nowadays i'm seeing so many people that are creative director but then on the side they're shooting stuff and they're making 3 500 a day and then they're editing stuff and they're making six you know 1500 a day they're just killing it and they're just like taking it in multiple streams of income whatever they're attacking it but obviously eventually you have to kind of it doesn't hurt to pick a niche but it helps you right like as a cinematographer doesn't that help you so much as a colorist and that i say all the time like i know the ins and outs of when i'm working with alexa versus when i'm working with red and that's something that you know if you're just a traditional colorist you're gonna miss out on you know so that is so amazing i want to go back to you know you talking about don't put limits on yourself because i think that's such an important topic because just so many messages and dms that i'm getting every day are just like hey quasi it's really easy to work on alexa footage but i'm working with 8-bit footage and i'm like come on bro or like you know it's really easy for you to do what you do because you're in la and i'm in india somewhere so like it's just so this is amazing i'm going to stick with that topic and let's get deeper into it and let's talk about where you are currently and you're working with an agency but it's kind of out of control to be in missouri and not in la and producing and working with the clients that you are so you want to touch base on that a little bit yeah sure well well you know i mean i think a lot of it comes down to obviously marketing yourself i mean putting yourself out there doing quality work i mean um yeah i mean you want me to go into a little bit kind of like what i'm doing right now is that okay so right now i'm the lead colorist at brewton strobe studios which is one of the premier um post-production and production facilities in the midwest um they do uh i've been doing amazing photography for 40 years i mean just crafting beautiful images um really second to none kind of in in in this area so right now as their lead colorist uh i do everything you can imagine i mean it's music videos it's short films it's commercials for big brands it is it is non-stop non-ending um up until really a couple weeks ago i was booked every single day for i would say almost two years um so there is no end to like the amount of content there's no end to the cool content that's being that's that's really being produced um so i mean it's a really exciting place to be um obviously i'm gonna i'm super passionate about grading so we can go on and on about that but that's kind of currently where i am and it's been neat to see um the level the caliber of projects that i've been doing have been growing exponentially in terms of production value in terms of budgets and that's been happening really really really fast i was a slash you know a dp slash and i was that that was not that long ago that was like only a couple years ago for me so you know you really can enter that world really quickly if you do a good job if you invest in people if you learn you know the ins and outs not only of the craft actually and i think we should get into this at some point but i think the craft is in some way secondary to your ability to market yourself to position yourself to to to develop relationships to be able to execute you know um when you need to how to deal with clients in the in the room like um so so there's a whole lot of that that absolutely goes into it but i think it's important for your followers to realize that it is possible to do great work and not you don't have to have the amazing pedigree and live in l.a or something like that yeah and especially like nowadays dude i mean you know you get access to footage so easily like i tell people all the time go hit up your favorite cinematographers on instagram people with that might not have crazy clout i'm not talking about 500 000 you know follower guy hit up like a 5 000 over five thousand follower guy that does really awesome work and be like hey dude i wanna start doing more color grading i can do it for free can you send me some stuff let me just grade it for you and that way you got your hands on best of the best you can use it for your reel and then you just keep climbing up that ladder so there's so many different ways that you can take because in what social media did is that it took out the middleman and middleman was the death of it all like that was the problem when i walked into sony pictures uh in 2010 when i moved to california from chicago i walk into sony pictures with my resume and my desk you know with my demo reel and they're laughing they're like are you lost i'm like no and they were like what are you doing here i'm like oh i want to apply for a job and they were like uh what like what no what just happened so that like my my future was determined by the person at the front desk at the receptionist you know what i mean like i'm getting blocked there and in this day and age we can just reach out here brian what's up dude like can we go live like love your work man people are going to go nuts next thing you know we're doing it we just made it happen there is no middleman there is no person sitting there going well brian is busy for the next 17 years like but we can make something happen afterwards you know so that's what i'm talking about you know people need to really realize that this thing is just real like social media is here it's not going anywhere people need to understand that and the reason why i put so much emphasis on it because last year today last year today i was still that guy who was like in the denial and saying that ah man i'm working on upper echelon jobs blah blah blah like it's social media is not all that and this day one year ago i had 570 followers literally on instagram and from going from 570 to 144 and what it meant for my life and opportunities and everything it's so exponential that i still think that it's a dream so what i'm saying is that it's important attack it and it's an untapped market still especially for a lot of professionals like us because not a lot of people are presenting like how you're presenting yourself like you heard from me that how crazy people are like you have a cult dude people like worship you and you're just going what because the way you're presenting yourself so yes we will get into marketing because that's so exciting and i want to hear it from you and just like even you talking about it gets me excited because i feel like so many people make that not even the secondary it doesn't even exist before i even jump into it i want to get a little you know technical or not even so technical but just get into it so what's the weapon of choice like what are you guys using are you guys on baseline davinci resolve oh um we're we're uh entirely in in in resolve um i've been using resolve since oh i don't know version seven maybe so so it's been a while but yeah no entirely in resolve i'd love to be in baselight um there are definitely certain things that it has some of the texture tools and one of the other things that i know about it are are awesome but it is it is a significant investment um so me i'm hoping that that happens one day in the future but yeah right now right now in resolve and on essentially on the tools that any anybody can get that all your followers can grab but at the end of the day really it is about you as an artist right i mean people clients do not care about the tool you know they they care about the results and so i think it's a pretty cool day and age that anybody can grab resolve and you know start start to learn and and do and climb the ladder they're democratizing it and that's one thing that i don't understand about baseline because what baseline is doing is what avid did back in the day or what uh flame did you know back in the day it's like guys that stuff just doesn't it's not cute anymore like you can't sell me a 150 000 you know plan like that comes with the hardware and software just because it doesn't crash well i got a mac pro that doesn't crash it just works like you know it's a zoomed up mac pro and i just turn it on in the morning and i work and it's just it's fine so no i don't want to pay 160 or 150 000 for a dedicated tool when i can just get away with this and this does so much more so i'm in the same boat as you i wanted to get on baseline i called the people at baseline and talked to them and they were like oh yeah we start at our base uh plan is starting at sixty thousand dollars and you know you'll get this and you'll get that and i'm like wait what now like i i i want to learn the tool i want to see if it's even good enough for me first to even jump into it like 99.9 of my clients are resolved only you know and just because of what you said people want access so even when we turn in the projects they're you know online editors whoever can just easily jump on and you know make a few tweaks if they need to or whatever have you um so i want to get into and ask you are you guys on math pc or linux like what are you what are you guys running operating it's uh it's it's it's really a a mix of things right i would say the majority of people now in our studio are on macs um and that's a little bit more of a legacy kind of thing i'm on a pc and i've got there's a one other editor as well who's on a pc um if you're i mean i don't think this is exactly rocket science or or i guess news to anyone but if you want to do if you really want to do color grading 3d you have to be on a pc i mean really up until the mac pros came out right i mean if you're willing to drop however much it is 20 000 on a macro sure but um but if you're looking for something affordable um and you know what you're doing then i really think you have to go pc and that's and that's what i've got um i've got an amazing system i've got a little bit you know something we could talk about as well at some point is you know i have a little bit of a background in in it i spent a couple years it wasn't my favorite time but nit at a post-production facility and what a massive benefit it is to you as a colorist to have that i.t knowledge to be able to build a pc from scratch to be able to know your data bottlenecks at every single point um to know the operating system know the glitches to know when it's your graphics card driver to you know i mean i could go on and on and on but i think that that's very very important and obviously for people who aren't maybe in into that as much or they're at a big facility and they have an i.t person then base light you know well obviously bass like like you said it's i mean it's a complete turnkey system i can definitely see advantages to that um there are some amazing colors in baselight um and you know and you know if if you're trying to differentiate yourself when everyone has resolve and then you have base flight i mean i think if you're trying to make the next level to try to take the next level there's definitely something to be said for baselight if resolve becomes a journeyman every man youtuber tool then baselight begins to to have a draw for you um as you're trying to get to the next level and certainly it has tools to it that resolve doesn't have there it's imaging pipeline gives you something a little different so i don't know if i kind of meandered there but i think there's definitely some value to to to to that system but uh but yeah go ahead no i i couldn't agree more and it's just like you know the the back and forth on this is just it doesn't make sense because just like you said it's just like those are just tools what do you want to use right like i mean uh for me i would drop by and i did drop like you know way well over 20 grand on my mac pro because for me if i need everything to be a turnkey operation i wake up in the morning i turn it on it goes i'm coming from pc went to school for it so you know very similar background like two two semesters away and i decided i want to go for a film so i got that technical background build everything from the ground up and i've built my crazy mad like you know pc machine and then i'm like working on a project and some weird lines are showing up and i'm like what's going on and i do research and spend three hours and figure out that oh there's you've got to roll back your drivers for your gtx 1080 ti because of x y and z and i'm just like okay now client is pissed so i'm like dude it's not worth it like i'll just drop the money because it's an investment you're investing in your business so you know like it just it goes both ways and with baseline and resolve i i definitely don't have a problem with either or but i feel like even like when you see a company like company three you know go full on with resolve like that really does tell you and give you the the potential of what that tool is and i think that's where i step in and i keep trying to say to the film world that that thing that they're trying to create that is the the thing in our industry which is like this prestige and this like this thing and that thing like i feel like those idols need to be broken down they just need to be crushed because ultimately if resolve can be sold for free or 300 i promise you baselight can be sold for the same exact thing is like when are they gonna do it because resolve used to cost like thousands of dollars you know so i feel like it's just gonna be one of those things either resolved is gonna eat base light and then baselight will become part of like resolve or baselight need to figure something out it's just it's just one of those things that i feel like yes i understand that people are just like oh if i really want to get to the next upper echelon level i need to go to baseline but then company 3 that might be charging like 1500 an hour they're using resolve so i'm saying to audience and people that are listening that ultimately it's not gonna come down to that it's gonna come down to when you go to brian's page and you look at his stuff and you're like my mind is just blown on every single image how is he doing that well he's doing it on a pc and he's doing it in resolve so that's your answer right there you know he's making that magic so ultimately it comes down to that um brian what like are you guys working in rec 709 or do you have a preference for your color science like when you're setting everything up oh um well the vast majority of our deliverables where we are are still rec 709 um i have a feeling we're going to be going hdr very soon i think we all know that's the future um and i can absolutely cannot wait but obviously the investment is big and given kind of the state of things right now that kind of probably pushed our adoption of that back maybe a little bit but um as far as as far as color management and how how i set everything up um well i think it's really important to be versatile right so i can grade in any sort of a color management pipeline and i have done them all um and you know what's kind of funny about that is that having done them all i'm looking right to see which one's better which one gets me a better end result and what i think is really funny is that after doing them all all my images they still look like me like at the end of it so i love it so so i think color management obviously it's it's it's really important from your workflow standpoint but at the it's the end result i don't think it makes as big of a difference especially if most of your deliverables are going to the web and are going to broadcast um so i am right now in aces almost all the time it would be not it would be not difficult at all for me just to jump into a simple yrgb you know da vinci rgb managed project and do that as well so um i don't think it matters terribly but uh yeah i know i i i do use aces okay all right so i want to talk about uh mostly you're working on commercials i'm assuming i mean you did say that you work on all sorts of stuff no no no it's it's not mostly commercials i mean it's really mostly everything it's films it's documentaries it's it's it's movies it's short yeah it's it is always different every week no uh definitely no uh nothing predictable that's amazing i was going to ask you then then i got to shift my question because i was going to ask you the social interaction and especially uh in commercials you're dealing with either you probably creative directors over like say dps or whatnot like you know when it's coming down to it so in your case it's going to be different in each project uh depending on what it is but um how early are you brought on like since you're working through an agency or is it the same as like you know how company three sometimes is brought on like months in advance and they even create a look dna or a show like like are you involved in those type of things i would love that right i mean i really think that um this idea that the look is created in the color bay is incorrect i think to do it in a way that is beautiful and the simplest and the best is to do it in advance right yes but that doesn't exist at every level right i mean like jill talking about you know building building luts with her dad and and doing camera tests i would love to tell you that i am you know that i'm getting show luts and i'm getting you know look books all the time yes um and that that i'm brought in way early um i have been brought in early twice maybe maybe um so so i wish it happened it doesn't necessarily happen all the time i mean you know i mean markets are different too right like i mean here in the st louis market that sort of thing isn't going to happen very often but the vast majority of my work still comes from outside but it's not always happening there either i mean sometimes yes but most of the time no right yeah no i mean that's the truth dude and it's so great that you shed light on it because again it just guys whoever is listening like it's never this or that it's what he's saying like it's always going to be you're just going to feel it out and you're just going to run with it like that's just what it is brian let's get into it i want to know when you are on a project or are you looking at are you looked at as like oh my god we're working with brian brian just give us what you want to give us bro like just do your thing or are you told what to do or do you have to kind of like what is that social politic and let's talk about it right like i mean you know like every project is different right i work with how how long do we have oh we have to you know it's it's it's it's really funny because most of the time it's kind of like you know brian what's what's your take on this and i think that that's really important for your your audience to understand is how important their unique take is on it right the world doesn't need another jailbog danovich another tom poole another another you another me it needs them to be their own person and to bring their own take to stuff um so i so i think that's super important like i get worried about that there's too much kind of copying of looks like well let me let me match the martian or or once upon a time in hollywood or something like that and and and the reality is i have never been asked once ever to match a look i've been brought stuff as influences but i've never been directly asked to to to to match something so i mean most of the time um they're bringing stuff to me and pretty much asking what's you know what what's your vision what's your take on it and i really like that and i was actually talking to someone about this the other day and the thing that's really funny to me about that is people come to you for your vision right right and then they see your vision and then they go then they want you to go back to what they're used to and they're comfortable with yes which is which is really funny and it's really frustrating and you just and you kind of just have to go with it um and you make a lot of directors cuts right right i mean so that's that's that is kind of kind of how it goes um sometimes i'm given a general direction um sometimes i'm not i do spend quite a bit of time up front talking to the directors to the dps to anyone that i can get a hold of and just ask them what they want right what are they looking for can you send me references um stuff like that um so that's usually how it goes um often i end up giving people um i know there's a lot of colorists who do a lot of options right like here's here's this look this look this look this look i don't really work that way and and i'm not saying my way is the best way but i tend to go through dozens if not sometimes a hundred looks on my own and looking at looking at each one saying oh that that that that that you and continually you know narrowing the feel until i get to something that that i think fits the story fits the mood um it still has a little bit of my style but i i'm more interested that it's right for that particular project um so that's kind of how that that process works um and then from there it goes through i mean especially on the commercial side as you know um the standard reviews and the changes and the back and forth and and all that that's that's very standard so i think i really like your your way of approaching it and i think that's something that people should literally write down that's a huge tip and that is um what i hear from it is that you have a spine you you have confidence in your work you are honest and true to what you're doing so you're not taking shortcuts you're putting in so much work beforehand so when you do come up with that that look dna for that specific project that you're working on you're sold on it so then it's easy for you to send it through and have them to buy in and just go right this is legit and i think that speaks volumes compared to somebody that's sending in 14 looks and just going what do you guys think like you know well i mean there's there's a time and place yeah but but but but you know tyler roth once said something that i really i i really believe and that is people are coming to you for a reason right i mean i mean you need to you need to have a voice and you have something to say and you need to say it you need to sell it um and i think as a colorist that's really important now at the same time you also need to be flexible when they say no then you go a different direction yes and you you you you deal with it and that simply happens and then you do the very best job within the parameters that you're given right um and that happens quite a lot and like i said sometimes then you'll do a director's cut sometimes that will push you in a new direction that you didn't think of and that does ultimately make the project better so so so what's funny about it is that yes i do um really try to hone in on a look that i think will work but that look i would hope isn't coming from just me right i i'm often i'm sending frames to the dp um to the director you know it's a very collaborative process and i try to do that as much as possible because while you both need to sell your own vision you can make your vision bigger by incorporating other people and i mean i think i think it's probably not necessarily a new thing to say but it still bears repeating that if you then that that more than likely right once you start doing good work the creative director the dp and the director they have an amazing sense of not only what they want but what is beautiful and if you're not tapping into that um then you're really missing out right i mean my many much of my best work my very best work is the stuff that i let people change and i let them influence and then i or or they had an idea and i had an idea we'd put them both together and then and then i twisted it in some way and then it became better than it ever was um you know at the at the outset so so i do think that you know would be really helpful for your followers as well to recognize recognize the people who are part of the project who have a really good vision right if you were and and let them be a part of the grade but you also have to be incredibly careful of not getting too many cooks in the kitchen but also cooks who don't have taste or style or have not you know and don't have not researched like if you bring the wrong people and grab their vision then you're in a then you're in a really kind of difficult spot because then then they put in their two cents and it's not good but they're married to it because it was their idea right so so i think you both have to incorporate people into the look development process but um but but but do that in in a way that's very strategic i guess and not sacrifice what you know as an artist and what you know what you've learned over the course of grading every single day for years and years and years and years that has massive value too so yeah you know it's a million dollar tip like i cannot stress on what you just said is it's just pure gold because what it takes is skill and confidence on your level to know like what to read through all the things that you just said people that are just talking for the sake of talking because they're your boss you know they want to get their two cents in and then for you to have the humility to actually go let me think about it like let me hear what you're saying because brian is brian like i do this people love me like i work with you know one of the prestigious companies in the world like this is what we do but then who are you to tell me this so you got to have humility to kind of lower that guard down and just go okay let me let me take that in and then you try to implement it dude i couldn't agree more one billion percent i've worked on projects where the creative director everybody hated this guy and this guy was a pixel peeper and he sits with me and after four hours like during the break i call my wife and i'm like a little kid jumping around she's like what's going on i'm like this dude is freaking epic he just sits right here he knows exactly what he wants and we're just we're just cooking this together like it just it was so much fun we could even just keep going what do you think about like if we do this with the windows can we do that i'm like let's try it and we were just creating that together and became such good friends and i'm just like people you know it's either lack of confidence or or this wrong attitude going into a job just like with your eyes you know rolling your eyes like oh dude like you got you're gonna tell me this like this is my job like you got to open yourself up so brian like seriously dude this is such valuable like you know material to come out of you because i i talk about it all the time and it's like you know parents giving us the same advice we hear it all the time and put it in one year take it out the other so it's amazing it's coming from you i really appreciate it um i want to get into we're not going to get too technical but i do want to talk about you know um talk about one project that you worked on that is your favorite and it took the least amount of effort i'm talking about like your note 3 or whatever that just you just did a few things and it just felt right and you kind of stuck with it and the reason why i'm asking this is because so many people i feel like amateurs or beginners will make that mistake that if they get to that sweet spot really fast they think something is wrong with it they keep pushing it and then they make it worse um let me think uh there's there was one particular short film that i did that was an absolutely wonderful experience it was called uh blood and glory um it's currently out on the festival circuit so i think i have i do have some shots of it on my instagram but that was a really neat um a neat project where you know i was able to talk to the director the director was in what was in la and as i watched the film i just i had an idea for what each for what i thought each scene should look like i was like this one should be really kind of yellow and sickly and this one should be um you know look look more more purple and moody like you know blue hour sort of thing and um as i went through this is it or no yeah no nope that that's that that that's not we can i can i'm sorry but but it was really neat um and it doesn't happen all the time a lot of times projects are a fight to get the right look you try it over and over and over and over again and then occasionally you get the project where you just you just kind it's funny your brain kind of turns off a little bit like you've been doing this for so long i spent so many years in front of my control surface so many years tweaking contrast and skin tone that sometimes your brain just turns off and you have an idea and you just go for it and it just works and i'll be honest that doesn't happen very often it happened on that particular project i absolutely loved it it was incredibly bold um and and i loved how it turned out and and stuff so that was that was one example um you know what is it that that that creates that sort of an experience and and i think that's maybe the more important question it's not my experience in that particular project but why did that happen right that happened because i spent years and years grading only grading right and so i have this this sort of um this huge set of images in my head this this huge array of techniques and and and i have been saturating myself with great work that's all i look at i look at the very best work i don't bother with the rest of it and so and and i've read the resolve manual the almost the entire thing i i have done literally every almost up until a couple years ago when i started to know more i did every single piece of training unresolved that existed on the internet that i could find um and so and so you know you're you're you're saturated in technique in knowledge in in what beautiful images are and out of that comes something that you're proud of that that that the director loves and that that that is a success so i think that's maybe the most important thing for your people to understand is that um you know just like an athlete right you know i spent the first long bit of my career almost 10 years covering athletes and you know i saw in that time right like we watch simone biles do something amazing right but what we didn't see is that she has worked since like the age of four or six right eight hours in the gym day after day after day and so and so so i want your followers to not be discouraged when their looks don't uh don't come out the way they want to because they can't give up they have to put the time in they have to sew the seeds right you have to sew it then you reap it right i mean it takes a long time you have to follow the whole process through and then your work will get closer to the level that you want it to be at right i mean if there's anything that i would want them to know that that's really that's really the key there is no overnight success there's just working hard and then you have the moment that it it all blooms blossoms and that is a great moment and it makes it worth it all the time you know kind of before that i don't know if that answered your question um that's something i like while you're answering this question i'm just thinking that i love you dude you're just you're going through so many things i mean i love you and i hate you because you just answered five of my questions and now i'm just like what am i going to come up with well let's just let's let's let let's go through them anyway i have learned for example in resolve you know i mean i'm just gonna pick something right now how how to pull a key i've learned how to pull a key over and over and over and over again not just my own practice but then through tutorials like so ask it again and you'll probably get a little bit of a different answer maybe a different nugget in there but uh but anyway no no i'm getting there i'm getting there that is one of the things that i want to talk about people are asking yeah his skin tones are just all this perfect what is he doing like is he doing a lot of king or is it left game again you know okay oh how once again how long do we have um we have to we have to we have one hour so i mean it's gonna end in like 12 minutes i think is it okay well then 22 minutes no my math okay well then i'll try to make i'll try to make this skin tone talk as fast as i can um skin tones i believe are probably the most important thing that you can work on as a colorist because in reality we we as a colorist look at a still frame and we think about everything else in the frame right but when the video is playing people are only looking at the face right i mean this comes down to basic human psychology you look at people's eyes right you look at you look at their facial expressions so there's nothing more important um when it comes to looks and and and i know that you've probably said this a million times um you can sell any look if the skin tones are correct right so um so so you have to you have to work really hard at that that's where calibrated monitors come in that's where calibration comes in because i know that what i'm looking at on my dm 250 right here right i know that it's accurate right so so so that's a big reason why calibration is important um skin tones it is the minutest shift of green of of uh pink the my nudist shift can make it can make skin tones incorrect right so so um there's lots that i do for skin tones um it really depends projects project shot to shot but i often grade my shots for skin tones right i i forget about the rest of the shot and i grade it to get perfect skin tones that's not always what i do but often that's what i do sometimes if maybe the look is really heavy i will grade it and i will completely not care about the skin tones and so i will have a a node tree developed to the look then i will literally turn all that off i will put in a second layer of nodes and i will literally re-grade the entire shot for nothing but skin tone and then i'll use layer mixers and things like that to incorporate the real skin tone back into it so i mean i could go on and on about this um i mean there's many tricks to skin tones i mean layer notes are obviously important knowing um how to pull your keys to be able to get you know really really good keys on your skin tones that aren't grabbing their eyes and eyebrows or stuff in the background is really important um i think color compression is something that's that's really important in skin tones as well um you know for example you know i was watching the uh the the marvel movies a couple months ago and i and i looked at iron man's skin and i said you know what there's zero hue variation in his skin right i mean if if human skin is this complicated mix of yellow green red right uh marvel movies have taken it all out right yeah so so i was like how do i do that so i i got the color compressor and resolve so so color compression um is an important thing to in in certain techniques is to unify the hue so there's only really one hue right yeah but that also doesn't necessarily feel organic so that's not always the right way to approach skin tones um sometimes you you don't you know you don't need that sometimes it needs to look more natural um somebody needs to look more stylized i mean sometimes they need to look like a zombie you know i mean it's so so it's all dependent on on the project but yes skin tones are incredibly important i think for your followers to um to examine or to learn about how do retouchers um tackle portraits right i think that's very important i was um an amateur very amateur photographer um but but i learned a lot about people's skins and about sharpening uh sharpening your eyes and eyebrow paying attention to every little bit so like for example the the image you've got you've got pulled up right there i mean i've got like 20 plus nodes on that bottom image right where i've split out everything i've split out her eyes from her pupils from her corneas to her eyebrows to her hair you know i've sharpened her hair i've i've color compressed her skin tone i've grabbed the speculars in her skin and i've popped those separately from the rest of it so so i can't think of anything that's much more important than skin tones oh i hope that didn't take too long i could go on no dude that's amazing because this is the thing it's like i get i get so much heat um by some of these oldies that are more like technical people than colorist and they lose their ish they see my grade and they go because i'm coming from commercial world i mostly do commercials sometimes music videos but i don't do a lot of features or shorts so like you know i'm not into like oh the show luck was created and then i just had another node and this is how like everything was perfect dp lit it perfectly so in the commercial world sometimes that's appropriate though sometimes that is all sometimes two nodes and you're done that that that that is absolutely appropriate there is a time and place for it absolutely you're working with deak and you know then that's what's going to happen mitch paulson like is grading a movie in two two and a half weeks while roger is sitting with him so i mean you know that blows my mind that blade runner is greater than two and a half weeks are you kidding me but i mean it there must be so much work that's done to get to that level and then you know achieve that image that's a different story on a commercial what you just said is 100 normal so like i used to get so much heat like you know uh six or eight months ago where people are just going to be like nobody creates like this blah blah blah what is going on here and i'm just like i do this i get paid for doing this for years and years you have to like isolate each thing and then we talk to eric whip in the in the right project though right so so the project that that you have right up there is a 15 second spot that i probably took i probably too well there was multiple 15 second spots but i probably took 12 hours on it right right exactly but but when i did 30 22 i pulled sk i pulled skin tones and did my layer node thing on like a handful of shots because i can't do it right so it's not always it's not i on the on those shots that you pulled up right there i did not specifically extract their skin tones there was not enough time i've got 1600 shots i've got 200 vfx shots in that in that movie so so i so so you can't do so you have to pick you have to pick those moments very carefully and you also take obviously based on the project right i mean the one you pulled beforehand that was for biore for for for their skin care products so that's a little bit of a different of a situation than um than angus mcfadden right there from braveheart on the bottom of that that screen where where you know he's meant to look rugged in that particular scene he's he's blasted himself out into space and he's he's he's committed suicide right so well people are going to watch this movie tonight but but but my my point is that that approach you've got to really be careful on that approach because uh you you have to be grading for a long time to know when you can do that when you can separate it and when you can't yeah and most of the time honestly most of the time you can't you're booked every single day if i take that long on a specific shot i will i will be three hours i will get home three hours late that night i will get three hours less sleep and i will come to you know the studio the next day and i will not have enough energy and enough time to finish the rest of the project so you really that's where i think experience really exactly and the moral of the story here is that you know there will never in the life of a colorist will be one size fits all that just does not happen you're going to work on one commercial that will require three nodes you're going to work on another commercial and and one shot will require 23 nodes and the next shot will require four nodes so it just always is going to be that people need to open up their minds that's just the way it is i've worked on campaigns you know for for nissan and big companies where they have four different cameras five different cameras so it's not always going to be like hey if you're working on big budget stuff it's always going to be alexa and that's the way it is so you have to learn how to work with 10 bit 8-bit image you know from dji and like you're getting that chatter like how do you get rid of that and moire and things like that so you have to open yourself up to all of those but then people who think that it's it's a cakewalk to work with alexa and red that's not true because you will be surprised how much uh experience you need to know how much you can push these images when you're working with 12 bit and steam images the amount of push and and abuse they can take you even have to develop a skill to do that as well because so many people i see that just have the money and they have alexas and they're doing a rec7 look and they don't know how far they can push it and then they learn how far they can push that image compared to their a6500 or a7s2 and then they go oh my god my brain is blowing so you know it just it's never going to be one size fits all and what he's saying like every project every shot is going to be different i want to pull up another image and talk about it and this is so amazing that you said that first of all um i encourage everybody to watch the 3022 right on netflix so everybody watch that i'm going to be watching it actually tonight dude got a brand new 77 all that cx and never got a chance to turn it on never even got a chance to turn it on so probably that's going to be the first movie i'm super stoked to watch unfortunately it was not done in dolby vision and unfortunately they didn't even um i i killed myself to give them a 4k deliverable and they didn't they gave 1080 deliverables yes you know you can't control certain things if that's one of the more frustrating things about being a colorist is that you can't always control once it leaves your hands you know what's what's up here dude like i just i i worked on this music video now it's sitting at 50 million and it's an amazing music video but the conversion from resolve like how i delivered oh yeah to what happened in premiere pro and when i saw the music video yes i was just like that just that just happened to me just happened to be on a beautiful video i'm like that's not what i gave you what did you do and so so you know obviously you reach a point where you begin to um you know obviously i know the pipeline really well you know the pipeline right follow up right follow up with with everybody follow up with with the label somebody from the label is posted who doesn't know and so it's like yeah i i do um if it's like a lower budget project i try to follow it through all the way to the end because uh it only takes uh right you only have to pinch a hose at one point along the you know along its length to ruin everything so yeah i feel your pain there you've done everything right editing cinematography so you know all those steps too editing is the same way because i still um and you know i'm a local 700 editor and i edit a lot but it dude it breaks my heart so many times because i'm a crazy dude when it comes to sound design i go in like i'm just like i got like 27 notes or layers but i'm not one of those guys that just have like 80 video layers and 80 audio layers like everything has a purpose and it's like organized i'm super ocd so like i sound designed the f out of my projects then it goes to for mix and this one client that i work with that i'm not going to mention their name dude this sound designer every single time kills just absolutely murders just chokes my sound design and then i can never use those projects for my freaking website like for anything i'm talking about a big client and i can't use those projects because i'm like people are going to be like dude everything was great the sound sucked and it was like driven by sound effects so yeah like there's so many there's yeah and i said we can't can't i'm sorry there's so many parts like when it comes to finishing or is like editing or whatever that are just out of your control you just like send it off and you just can cross your fingers you know gosh and i think the important lesson in there as far as color goes is to remember that every dp has told me the horror stories of that happening to them in the color bay so where they shot something beautiful and then the colorist ruined it so um you know that's the whole thing i wanted to talk about at some point was for your followers to realize what they're holding in their hands when they um you know when when they have somebody's project they're carrying the the the work of that dp that could be that could be a shot or a project that that that that talent needs to further their career that's the success of the end company that's whether that company still works with the agency you're holding so many you know you're holding so many people's futures their hopes their dreams in you know in in your project and you have control over whether you're gonna whether you're gonna screw that up or whether you're gonna make them look better and come back to you again and again and again and so i think that's something something really uh really important that people need to need to remember dude this right there is like i mean i i got freaking goosebumps because it it's the ultimate truth like it doesn't matter what we do even if you're a pa on you know on set like you have to carry that attitude that literally people are going all in you know and and most of unless you're hooked up with a big agency big company or you are a big name in your field um people in filmmaking don't make a lot of money there's just so many of like do it for the credit do it for this do it for that like you know uh 400 a day 250 a day like people are just not making a lot of money compared to somebody fresh out of college in it you know starting at six figures so you have to be respectful for what he's saying and if you go in with that pride that you're gonna give your all and you're gonna do justice to whatever that is that you're you know being part of i feel like you're gonna put out the best work and then you're gonna create that snowball effect i mean i started freelancing in 2012 i never looked back i this is my office for life and even when i'm working on unless it's a super crazy client and like you know for security purposes they want me to come in and work from their office it just everybody knows that just send me the stuff i'm good here i got one gig down one gig up i'm gonna be sending you 40 gig files in like eight minutes 10 minutes like we're good like i mean it's better than you stepping from your office and walking into mine like it's faster than that we can just transfer that data will be good so it's like if you just take pride in your work and go all in and have that empathy what you know brian is talking about it changes everything brother uh i do want to bring one thing up before we're off like dude i think i watched this commercial like maybe 40 times in the last two days and i love that commercial yeah dude it's like what did you do like these atm t colors that you captured here they are so so so that was a fun one um so uh backstory that i just think is really fascinating is that that's actually not an airport that's convention center that they built to be an airport so um you have to give a massive amount of credit to the people involved um for for obviously giving you great images and that's something that that i think is important for your audience to realize is that is that is that the most difficult part about being a colorist is at the beginning when you're working with the worst images you're working with the most difficult people um the quality of the footage is is is in the quality of the storytelling but but once things get better once once if you can hang in and keep growing and get to a point you'll get to a point where you'll get projects like this and it's much easier now i did a massive amount of work on this particular project so so on these images the one thing that i did um was kind of exactly what i talked about um i put all their skin tones on their own layer um but uh actually so so so if you look at that crowd shot for example so the one thing i did in this was i i did a key of everybody's skin tones um except for hers right and so i did hue and i did color compression so that all their skin tones are exactly almost exactly the same and the reason why is because they're you know in the in the story of the spot is that you know she's kind of all alone and she's got this huge crowd she can't get done what she's gonna need to do the crowd is kind of a metaphor for a congested internet you know network so i wanted all so i wanted all the people to feel homogeneous like they're one big group that's kind of getting in her way so so i think that's important um you know for for your for your audience to understand is that they have to understand the story and to be able to translate the story into how in into the great and so that's why having this huge array of techniques that you've built up over time is so important because anything then you can pull them out of your bag and use them when it's necessary and if you're just going to kind of wing it when you get when you get your project you know you're you're not going to come out with uh with with with a great result so i think that was one of the the key things that i did separating their skin tones you know layering them back over the top of the original grade um and then just pushing you know obviously pushing the undertones um grabbing the neutrals pushing them into the att color palette um and then i i shot match that one to death right that's not something that's necessarily the funnest part but but it's really important to go back and forth over every shot over and over again you know the highlights are a little bit more pink in this one a little more green in this one going back and forth back and forth and then split screening them all and comparing doing every comparison tool that you have once again going back to why you need to know your software really well right i mean i know i know every comparison tool um in resolve and i know how to get to it immediately so i could do it really fast because i had i had wonderful agency people sitting there right with me the whole time um so so you know um that's really kind of the story of that one this one was shot uh shot alexa prores on on the mini so it's beautiful to start with the obviously i mean as a colorist in many ways you are defined by the quality of the footage that you get in this case this was absolutely beautiful um and i think i was able to take it up a notch i did lots of you know lots of beauty work on her once again that then that that goes into why being a diverse colors is so important and why i talked about i do music i do music videos you know i do fashion sports blah blah right because you pull um the more you do um the more you can pull techniques from different genres uh and and bring them in right so also the fashion work that i've done i'm able to take all that and i'm able to put that onto her you know her her clothes and stuff like that so that's that's why i think as a colorist you need to do a diverse range of stuff and that's why i also think it's important for your audience to realize that at some point they're going to have to become if you want to do stuff at the budget level like that one uh which had a very good budget um at some point you're you're going to have to become just a colorist if you're a slash you're you're you're not going to have had enough experience in enough different genres you're not going to have graded footage outside of what you've done to be able to have the techniques in the bag to use them when you need them brother i mean oh my god dude there was some carpet bombing of just value bombs left and right on this live thank you so much for taking the time like genuinely dude just i mean i can't wait to see all the dms that i'm gonna get it is incredible guys i pinned his page it's super simple brian singler one word give him all the follows i mean this guy deserves it more than anyone else brother thank you so much for joining us do you have any last parting words do you have just maybe one advice just something to just blow them away even more um well i mean i think it kind of goes back to something that you said at the very beginning which is which is reaching out to dps and cinematographers right um to to grow as a colorist you have to grade all the time right all the time and that means you have to have a steady stream of work coming in and you you do that by building relationships and so if there's anything that that your that your followers need to understand is that they need to work as much on getting the content as they do on what they're doing with the content once they have it you know your your skills at spinning the wheels are only are only one part of it if you don't have anything good to create it doesn't matter right right so so who you are as a person how you you know how you develop a relationship that lasts over a long period of time you know exactly what you said going to dps and saying hey did you have a commercial that that somebody graded they didn't do a good job can i redo it can i do your show reel go to a post-production company and say hey i just want to learn can you just give me some practice footage like like do anything you can to get as much practice as possible because that's the only way you're going to get better um so so you've got to work as much on your relationships as much on sheer quantity right i mean how did michael jordan get as good as he was right how how much practice right his practice is legendary and and and and the a number of reps were is legendary how many times did he shoot his fade away right right i mean i think i think you know he practiced this fadeaway on thousands and thousands of times and there's a direct correlation between you know to your followers that that you're going to have to grade a whole lot of shots and you know what if your project doesn't turn out the way you like it then then it's not worth um beating yourself up about it it's not worth maybe even going back to it but going to the next project and going and going and going and going building over time you know it's kind of like building a a card castle right you build a card castle one card at a time and you don't quit before it's only halfway built right and you've got to keep adding right so every project is another it's another one there's another new technique you know every shot is like a snowflake right it is completely different completely unique and you need to have in your mind a database of thousands of shots that you've graded and you've approached each one in a slightly different way so that way when the pressure is on you have no time agency is behind you um expecting something that you're able to pull from that and get what you need and the only way you can do that is by doing it over and over and over again i think people are are kind of expecting that that they can grade every once in a while and they're going to get something amazing right and and it just doesn't which it doesn't work that way it's like it's like what's that famous quote from aristotle uh excellence is is therefore not an act but a habit right yes you know you know all all of my work is now at a certain level uh not where i want it to be but it's all at a certain level you're not training for a peak moment yes as a colors you're you're you're not like waiting for the moment someone drops the feature and then it's going to be amazing right it just just doesn't work like that so so i would just encourage people to to really value quantity yes quality is important but quantity is is as important and speed i'll i'll i'll end in that most people don't realize how important speed is we didn't address that say we dress it another time but if you are not fast you will not make it and so anything you can do to improve your speed whether it's it's literally practicing on your control surface me i i made a whole list of shortcuts in resolve um i put them on a spreadsheet and i had my six-year-old drill me on them you know they i would be like randomly tell me how to do you know a split split screen your gallery view and i was like what's the key combination and so i had to drill me on that right so so anything you can do to build your speed as a colorist going to be so important because even if you have a whole day to do a 15 second spot you need to get the base grade done as fast as you can so that you can then so then you can do the 27 windows on her face right but if it takes you too long to get the base grade then you're you you can't you can't go to the next level so so so i guess that would be the those would be the couple of things i'd leave everyone with build your speed and build your quality i mean i'm speechless love you brother all right yeah absolutely hey let's let's do this again sometime we have to we have to thank you for joining all right you got a man hopefully this was a blast because brian is so generous with his information he does not hold anything back and guys do not forget to watch the free training everything that you need to know about notes inside davinci resolve absolutely free link is down below and on that note i will see you guys in the next video [Music]

Channel: Waqas Qazi

Views: 35,329

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: QPoClbf4Yw4

Length: 64min 19sec (3859 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 31 2020