Beginning Colorist Roadmap

First of all, my thanks to everyone who posts on this forum. You've been a big help.

I've been editing a few years now, but I'm embarrassed to say that, prior to Apple's FCS2 road show at the DGA in L.A., I had no idea a position called "colorist" even existed. The moment I got a look at what a colorist does -- and could do with Color -- though, I said to myself, "Okay, that's the job I want. That's what I want to do." I thought I was a pretty fair hand with the 3-way color corrector, but now I know how little I knew about coloring.

Since the road show, I spend a couple of hours every day reading forums, articles, books, watching videos, etc. I just finished "Color Correction for Digital Video". I'm about halfway through the Color manual (I printed the whole thing out), and when I'm done I'll start on either, "Apple Pro Training Series: Color," or "Encyclopedia of Color Correction". When the third-party training DVDs come out, I'll be all over them.

I haven't bought the upgrade yet, because, as much as I want to do this job, I learned a long time ago to NEVER buy an Apple product in its first 30 to 60 days. FCS 2/Color 1, no; FCS 2.01/Color 1.01, or FCS 2.02/Color 1.02, yes.

After I've gotten familiar with Color's interface, and worked on a few dozen tutorial and practice pieces (I make a living editing demo reels, so I see a lot of poorly shot footage), I plan on offering free coloring services (via Craigslist, word of mouth, etc.) to anyone with a short-format movie, presentation, etc. to gain more experience. After a few months, I'll move up to longer projects, corporate and wedding videos, etc., and then a few months after that, I hope to start charging real money (albeit not a lot). I'll also be looking for an intern position at a post-house in the next couple of months.

My ultimate goal, of course, is to be hired by a post-production house some time next year as a "junior/entry-level colorist" (assuming such a thing exists), and then glue myself to a control surface, and learn, learn, learn.


I would love any feedback as to whether the above plan/timeline, and to-be-purchased equipment, below, makes sense, what I'm forgetting or not aware of, etc. I know the curve is steep, and the road is probably treacherous, but, hey, if it was easy it wouldn't be worth doing.

I know my shopping list won't put me into 2K-land, but I'm hoping it's sufficient for me to start developing my eye (the most important tool in the box, after all), gaining experience, and accurately color correcting and grading projects at the shallow end of the coloring pool: SD, HDV, corporate videos, stuff for the Web, short-formats, etc. As much as I would *love* a hardware scope, a Panasonic BT-LH2600W 26" Monitor, or pretty much anything by Tangent or JL Cooper, I just can't afford it, and I'd likely be overwhelmed by it if I could.


CURRENT SET-UP:
MacPro 3Ghz Quad Core
NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT
2 Gigs RAM
20-inch Apple Cinema Display
2-button mouse w/scroll wheel
FCS2.0? (in late June / early July after first update/bug fix)


UPGRADES RECOMMENDED BY APPLE:
ATI Radeon X1900 XT
Extra Gigabyte of RAM

UPGRADES "RECOMMENDED" BY SHANE ROSS:
Matrox MXO
Dell 24-inch HD display (my current 20-inch monitor would become my "tools monitor"


OPTIONAL:
Benq FP241W (alternative to the Dell display)
Second Dell 24-inch HD display (if my 20-inch won't suffice as a tools monitor)
Hardware-based calibration tool
Capture card (AJA Kona L3 or Blackmagic Intensity Pro or ???)
Nattress Plug-ins for Color
Wacom tablet (if the consensus is it's more effective than a mouse)


Thanks again,

Robert Campbell
[www.quicknickel.com]

sounds good whatever you can do to make it work but apple cenima displays are not really color accurate u need a crt monitor and hurry while they last because sony just announced at NAB that all there crt monitors will be lcd from now on

I think your plan is a good one, Robert. Colour is really a feel thing - an art. You can know exactly what all the tools do and what the scopes say, but in the end it's how it looks and what vibe you can produce and this is only learnt by practice. Lots of it. Your idea to offer your services for free to begin with is a great one.

Your shopping list also looks good. The ATI card is a good addition - I've got one here and it's very nice. Getting your monitoring correct is crucial in CC - if you don't know what it really looks like, you can't adjust it accurately.

Possibly it would be a good idea to contact some big post houses with Colourists in them and ask them what kind of path they would like their employees to have taken on the way to a job with them. This kind of inside info often saves lots of time going down the wrong roads.

So how do you monitor Color?. It doesn't work thru firewire or my MXO. I don't use a capture card and have no more PCI slots available.

Thanks, Tom

Blackmagic card out to a hd link to a pro monitor. The Panasonic 1900 (?) I believe is one that many are looking at, it goes for around $3500 US.

Good luck!

Kevin

Jude,

That's a great idea about contacting the post-houses for their "wish list."

Thanks!

Robert Campbell