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bittersweet…
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I’ve learnt that anyone with money can buy whatever toolset they want. I’ve seen companies go out and purchase expensive suites (like Baselight) but don’t have the right people behind the controls.
If you are good at your craft, people will hire you – irregardless of whether or not some college kid has a free version of Resolve. However, if the college kid with the free Resolve is better than you are – then the college kid is the one who will get the job.
It’s an open market my friends. You determine your worth. Focus on doing excellent work with the tools you have and you’ll be successful.
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Yes most of us know that the talent is much more important than the gear. But I still haven’t seen any good theories as to how it makes good business sense to give away Resolve for free. Guess Blackmagic is making a ton of money through decklink cards? Just want to be assured that it won’t erode the development cycle or support offerings.
I certainly wouldn’t work for free (except for a few charity projects here and there). Just wondering why Blackmagic would.
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I think the reason is obvious, to sell more hardware, you still need a card to see the picture on a bigger size than the preview window.
I guess that’s the difference with companies that make software to sell hardware, than the ones that makes software to sell software.
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Two colorists grade an image of a warehouse.
– 50 year seasoned colorist adds contrast, desat, a power window, some slight mist around the edges.
– 2 year colorist comes in, very similar results..in fact I like they way he put some blue in the shadows.It’s going to be harder and harder for clients to discerne between a high end guy and a guy who just knows how to do it…this will be the biggest hurdle for anyone who considered themselves a specialist to jump over.
Oh, this just in, Alex Hurkmans book on color grading was the best seller.
…This just in, Color Grading a top career choice for the hundreds of thousands of film graduates world wide.A facility typically only needs one colorist.
This all adds up to what directing, acting and editing all experience, extreme saturation of their profession.
Cream rises to the top? Or will it just be a very creamy beverage?
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Two colorists grade an image of a warehouse.
– 50 year seasoned colorist adds contrast, desat, a power window, some slight mist around the edges.
– 2 year colorist comes in, very similar results..in fact I like they way he put some blue in the shadows.It’s going to be harder and harder for clients to discerne between a high end guy and a guy who just knows how to do it…this will be the biggest hurdle for anyone who considered themselves a special-ist to jump over.
Oh, this just in, Alex Hurkmans book on color grading was the best seller.
…This just in, Color Grading a top career choice for the hundreds of thousands of film graduates world wide.A facility typically only needs one colorist.
This all adds up to what directing, acting and editing all experience, extreme saturation of their profession.
Cream rises to the top? Or will it just be a very creamy beverage?
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When I made music for a living I used analog syths…then VTSs came.
When I made a living doing 3D using Softimage 2.5, 3DS came .
When I made a living using Cyborg for compositing , AE came.
Now I am using Scratch to make a living, and DaVinci came.
History repeating, no money burnt this time 🙂But i totally agree, there should not be a free one, at least not one that can make production ready results.
It will be less and less respected.
So will we.A slice of color…
DaVinci 7.1 OSX 10.6.6
Dual Xeon 2,4 RAM 24 GB
RAID0 8TB eSata 6TB
GTX 285 / GT 120
Extreme 3D+ WAVE -
I’m not sure there is any doubt that opening up the market is good for those who want to become colorists, but what this is really about is investment by pro-users into a product. I’ve invested so-far close to £30,000 into my grading suite, and this figure will no doubt rise, and my argument is, if the actions of a developer who sells the software undermines it’s professional standing within the industry, this spells disaster for my long term business, there is no hedonistic upside to this particular argument.
As mentioned above by two of us in the UK market, many clients in the UK are very particular about systems they want their projects to be graded on, and pay close attention to the status of these systems within the industry. Baselight is fast becoming the standard here, sure it’s a great system, but so is DaVinci and so is Lustre, the system a project ends up on, in an ideal world, should be based on the colorist you end up choosing, not by some arbitrary idea that one system will produce a better result than another, and therefor choose the colorist based on a system, but this is not an ideal world…
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Good point Rick.
Or perhaps you will get a lot of very disappointed film grads, who can’t get a job as a Colourist. The truth is there is really no need for more than about 40 or 50 Colourists in the UK, and that includes dailies guys on TKs.That’s where the difference lies, there may be room for growth if the number of programmes being graded rises, but the majority of TV is still not graded by a Colourist in a grade suite. The market will determine how many Colourists are needed, and I can guarantee that the people with good CVs, talent and good people skills will be the ones who succeed.The problem with free software is it gives people a false impression of what they may or may not be able to do as a job. On the other hand does every owner of a photoshop license think they are a graphic designer ?
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[Simon Astbury] “Or perhaps you will get a lot of very disappointed film grads, who can’t get a job as a Colourist. The truth is there is really no need for more than about 40 or 50 Colourists in the UK, and that includes dailies guys on TKs.That’s where the difference lies, there may be room for growth if the number of programmes being graded rises, but the majority of TV is still not graded by a Colourist in a grade suite. “
Think about something like graphic design. 30 years ago, before the desktop publishing revolution, graphic designers mostly worked for advertising agencies, magazines, etc. Your typical small business probably never utilized graphic design services for anything.
As tools became more accessible, a whole world opened up, of freelance graphic designers doing work for clients who had never previously had access to graphic design of any kind. And yeah, now anyone can set themselves up as a graphic designer, or clients can buy the tools and try to do it themselves. But it seems pretty clear that in spite if that, there are vastly more people making decent money as graphic designers now, because there are millions of potential clients you can work for all over the world instead of a few dozen media/advertising companies mostly in New York.
One could see the same thing happening with color grading. It’s not just grading tools that are getting cheaper, it’s a lot of things in this industry. That’s going to result in more material being created. As prices come down, there are also more people who can afford (and want) production values that used to be out of their range. Facilities that invested $300K in a grading suite that bills out at some crazy rate might be in trouble (though with the number of snobby clients in this industry, I suspect they’ll have no trouble paying off their current investments before they’ve forced to cut their rates), but the profession of color grading will, I suspect, be just fine.
Digital Workflow/Colorist
Nice Dissolve Digital Cinema -
I think it’s important to note that running a color session is more than just grading. It’s managing client expectations, listening and performing. Someone with very little experience will not instill this confidence. Reputation and experience also go a long way and I believe that, more than software knowledge, this what a client is paying for. True, there is a name recognition with certain systems. However, in the end, the work speaks for itself. In my experience, most clients don’t give a f what you’re working with as long as they leave happy. Now I have to pull out my laptop and start a session…. (just kidding 😉
Josh Petok
Online | Color
JoshPetok.com
TheCurrentCut.com
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