This is the first installment in a series in which artisans from different disciplines discuss the creative challenges of, their contributions to, and lessons learned from a wide range of projects. This initial go-around centers on 11 leading colorists and their work ranging from features (12 Years a Slave, The Hundred-Foot Journey) to short films and commercials, starting with observations from Mark Gethin, a veteran of spot color grading who in recent years has extended his creative reach into theatrical features.
SHOOT’s story on Gethin is followed by a survey of select colorists who in turn reflect on their recent work.
Mark Gethin
Commercials have been the longstanding bread and butter of colorist Mark Gethin’s career as reflected most recently on advertising’s biggest stage. The U.S. creative director of MPC, Gethin color graded eight spots for this year’s Super Bowl, including Coca-Cola’s visually arresting “It’s Beautiful” directed by John Hillcoat of production house Skunk for Wieden+Kennedy, Portland, Ore. Gethin’s other 2014 Big Game ad fare spanned such clients as Mountain Dew Kickstart, Jeep, Chevy and Intuit.
Still, he’s found time in his spot-dominated schedule to diversify into features. Appropriately enough, a key commercialmaking relationship has been the catalyst for his two theatrical motion picture gigs–the first being the 2012 release Promised Land directed by Gus Van Sant and starring Matt Damon. And Gethin’s second feature recently debuted, the whimsical The Hundred-Foot Journey directed by Lasse Hallstrom. Produced by Steven Spielberg, Oprah Winfrey and Ted Talks producer Juliet Blake, The Hundred-Foot Journey stars Helen Mirren as the owner of a Michelin-rated French restaurant who bristles when an Indian family opens their own eating establishment across the street.
Both Promised Land and The Hundred-Foot Journey were lensed by cinematographer Linus Sandgren who brought his long-time spot collaborator Gethin on board for each picture. Sandgren and Gethin share an ad filmography over the years that goes back to their days together in London, a track record featuring Saab’s “Turbo” which accounted for one of two BTAA Craft Colorist of the Year honors bestowed upon Gethin. Among the many other projects Gethin and Sandgren teamed on in Europe as well as the U.S. were Dulux’s “Let’s Colour,” Activision’s “Wolverine,” Jameson Whiskey’s “Iron Horse,” as well as campaigns for Volvo, BMW, X-Box and most recently an anti-smoking PSA. (Gethin moved stateside from London six years ago to help open MPC’s L.A. studio. In his current position as U.S. creative director, he oversees VFX house MPC’s color operations in Santa Monica, Calif., NYC and Mexico City.)
Just as his spot work with Sandgren has been varied and diverse, so too have the two features they’ve collaborated on been decidedly different–the fracking controversy drama of Promised Land juxtaposed with the lighthearted tale of The Hundred-Foot Journey. Gethin color graded The Hundred-Foot Journey at Technicolor-Postworks New York where the DI was done. (MPC is part of the Technicolor family of companies.)
Given their mutual understanding of one another’s visual sensibilities, Gethin and Sandgren are able to hit the ground running on projects. “I know what Linus likes from working with him the past 10 or so years,” related Gethin. “We can get off immediately on the right foot on a feature. We wanted to make The Hundred-Foot Journey a soft and beautiful film while at the same time giving it a little bit more of a darker edge than what is normally associated with this kind of lighthearted, uplifting kind of film. As soon as Linus shot the movie, he sent me stills and we had a conversation about what needed to be done in terms of mood. He shot it in 35 millimeter anamorphic. While it’s a happy film, we wanted it to feel more filmic.”
The feature and commercial disciplines are distinctly different from a color grading standpoint. “Obviously with just 30 or 60 seconds, every shot has to be as perfect as it can be,” related Gethin. “For a feature film, there are thousands of shots and for a colorist the strokes are a lot broader. You’re not as specific with each shot. You can’t do that, be that specific, with a feature-length movie–you’d be there for months on end. It takes a different skillset, a different concentration. I had three weeks to grade this last movie. The other big difference is that there are a lot of people involved in a commercial during the color grading. You can have 10 people in the suite. Your work is scrutinized by different people. For a feature, though, a lot of work is done unattended. People tend to come and go. ”
Gethin observed that his feature experience has positively impacted his work in commercials. “It give you a different perspective. You’re still concerned about every shot but you can’t be so obsessed with each shot in a commercial that you aren’t looking at the big picture. You need to see that the piece as a whole is doing what it’s supposed to be doing.”
Conversely there are specifics and details that are germane to a feature. And Gethin feels his spotmaking sensibilities can help in terms of being conscious of certain key details in feature scenes.
Gethin ideally would like to continue grading primarily commercials while taking on a movie a year. He’s set to add to that mix, though, with the color grade on a new HBO series, Togetherness, created and directed by Jay and Mark Duplass.
Surveying colorists
SHOOT posed the following question to a cross-section of colorists:
What was the biggest creative challenge posed to you by a recent project? Tell us about the project, why it was particularly noteworthy or gratifying, or what valuable lesson you learned from it.
Here is a sampling of the feedback we received:
Simon Bourne, head of creative color, Framestore
Catch me daddy, Daniel Wolfe’s debut film, is a dark British thriller shot by Robbie Ryan and written by Daniel and Matthew Wolfe. It follows a girl and her drifter boyfriend on the run from her violent criminal family across West Yorkshire. The movie was shot on 35mm and under natural lighting or no lighting to capture the tense but beautiful atmosphere. I had to dig deep into the celluloid to bring out the photography as intended but keep the grain down to a minimum which resulted in some beautiful images. The look we went for was a nod to the 1980s’ films such as Alan Clarke’s Elephant and Made in Britain with additional references from photographer Paul Graham. The narrative of the film was strong enough for me to grade and complement the flow which it suited immediately with strong contrasts, fleshy skin tones and low light.
Lynette Duensing, sr. colorist, Cinelicious
I’m fortunate to work on many different kinds of projects. We do commercials, independent features, trailers, and remastering projects, each having their own unique challenges. The commercials I work on are often graded as part of a visual effects pipeline. I enjoy the challenge of integrating the look of live action with CGI elements. Big Block Design Group created beautiful CGI cars and backgrounds for the Subaru VL9 to live in the “real world.” Using BMD Resolve for the grade, I worked with their design team to establish a seamless, stylized look for the elements. After establishing a consistent look, I used Resolve’s window tracker for isolating moving details. For elements of a shot that I’m not able to window precisely, the VFX team provides external mattes. Car spots especially take advantage of our ability to manipulate isolated details. For example, blown out highlights in a headlamp or dark wheel wells, are adjusted independently in shots where I pushed contrast overall to achieve the desired creative result. Collaborating with the VFX team and agency creatives is a great part of my job.
Eli Friedman, colorist, Technicolor-PostWorks NY
One of the more unusual situations to come up in my color correction career was posed by the recently released documentary film Rebuilding The World Trade Center, made by filmmaker Marcus Robinson. What makes this project unique in my experience is that it was shot over the course of eight years, and involved more footage than any other project I’ve ever been involved with. Director/cinematographer Robinson documented the reconstruction project over an eight-year span, using 35mm, 16mm, and video captured material.
Much of the 35mm film material was time lapse photography which allowed the viewer to see a whole day’s construction from sun up to sun down in a matter of moments. One unusual criterion for this project was that all material was color corrected as “final color” in the stage of transferring the dailies. The director wanted to create a library of all color corrected material to cut with, and to archive as well. Color grading of the time lapse material involved creating color transitions, known as rides, within the footage to allow the crack of dawn material to look as good as high noon, and on into twilight. The project called for me to create a vast library of reference stills of the building from many angles. I used this stills library as a guide to keep a uniform look throughout the years the project was in production. In addition to the time lapse, Marcus shot plenty of film of the world’s largest construction project, footage which covered all aspects of the work on site from the streets to the heights way above New York City, at 24 frames. For me, the payoff for all the hard work spent in dailies making every frame look great from the get-go, was the fact that only very minimal adjustments to color were required after the film was conformed. I am very proud to have been involved with a production that was so vast and took such care to preserve this important material.
Michael Mazur, director of commercial imaging/creative visionary, Filmworkers
A recent project the team at Filmworkers Club was fortunate to work on was a major McDonald’s release [“He’s Back”] starring LeBron James and highlighting his return to his hometown on Cleveland. Interestingly, the spot features LeBron and Mr Monopoly riding in the back of a chauffeured car through the city streets on the way to a McDonald’s Drive Thru. A particular challenging piece of this transfer had to do with making the car’s windows appear limousine tinted, as the original shooting car was not. Obviously, there are myriad ways to make the windows ‘appear’ tinted; however, for this piece all of the elements that made anything less than absolute perfection would be totally unacceptable. This particular commercial sported serious star power featuring Le Bron James, of course. But along with that was agency star power featuring the Major Leagues of each discipline, at Burrell Advertising including ECD Lewis Williams, sr. art director and spot creator Carl Koestner, and Debbie Dale handling the extensive and exhaustive producing responsibilities. As if the pressure to insure imaging perfection wasn’t enough, consider the director of this spot was Joe Pytka, whose resume and reputation for excellence needs zero explanation.
There were many and varied suggestions regarding how best to create window tinting, and working together, it was determined that where needed and necessary, we would ask our chief technical officer Rob Churchill to hand make tinting on the fastest moving shots, I would create the window tinting on shots that were able to be handled best by telecine, and sr. creative editor Sean Berringer suggesting some incredibly subtle repositioning to give the viewer the suggestion of window darkness on several cuts. Even objectively, I must say that the desired effect was executed perfectly, and given the principals on this piece of work, nothing less was an option. After a decades long career, there are STILL projects that are both challenging and stimulating, and because you know that the individual next to you is the absolute best in the business, it makes you want to deliver the best piece of telecine work possible, both technically and artistically.
Fergus McCall, head of Mill Color, New York
Johnny Walker’s A Gentlemen’s Wager.
Johnny Walker is a beautifully shot and constructed seven-minute piece of lavish imagery that feels more like a short film but with all the production values that good advertising brings to the table.
Creative challenges of incredibly collaborative creatives, and a director and DP with my kind of aesthetic…with lush locations, a beautiful wooden boat, extremely sharp suits all thrown in, and about the sort of quality sipping beverage I hold close to my heart…
Seriously, what makes this so noteworthy for me is this piece represents the epiphany of when the Internet finally delivers what it promised for so long with incredible creative, engaging and interesting advertising content that is unrestricted by the shackles of traditional broadcast. It’s a pleasure to work on such a great creative idea and on something that was so beautifully shot working with Anomaly, RSA director Jake Scott and DP John Mathiesson.
For me the quality of content displayed on a tablets or hand held devices has been equivalent to or better in some cases to much of the over-compressed c**p that I see from my local cable company, so the attitude of only a few years ago that any web based content was of lesser importance because it looked of lesser quality is finally being kicked into touch.
Since doing the Johnny Walker film I’ve worked on a good many longer formatted advertising projects that give us, agencies, brands and directors new creative freedom and bring us new creative challenges… after all, we’ve got to make something interesting enough for people to seek out and ‘hit’ play. No one’s forcing anybody to watch. Johnny Walker Blue. 28 million hits and counting….
One small challenge. No bottle of Johnny Blue for me to check the label color. Hey, I prefer my malts unblended anyway!
Tom Poole, colorist, Company 3, New York
It was an honor to work with director Steve McQueen and the cinematographer Sean Bobbitt on 12 Years a Slave [which recently earned an HPA Award nomination for Poole]. As a colorist my challenge is always to work with filmmakers to develop enhancements to the images that subtly help refine their vision, rather than creating some kind of look that draws attention to itself at the expense of the story. The material was so beautifully staged, performed and shot in order to place the viewer right in the middle of Solomon Northrop’s horrific and tragic experience and while I did a great deal of work on the film, it was always vital that adjustments we made grading the film never undermined the purity of the image. It’s a very fine line deciding exactly how far to go with every correction – one I think colorists develop over years of working.
On a global level, a lot of the work was about fine-tuning the “feel” of the light in the scenes. The heat in the deep south is very harsh and the colors are a bit muted so it has something of “bleached” quality. The candlelit scenes are about more saturated, mustardy, golden hues but the shadows have a naturalistic feel.
The film also makes use of very long takes that tend to make what we’re looking at feel less like a movie, more like real life. Audiences were meant to want the film to cut away from certain awful, graphic situations that the filmmakers bravely held on for long stretches without reprieve. Often, since these individual shots were onscreen for so long, we would go through them and enhance shadow and light in the frame to direct the viewer’s eye to the most important elements of the frame. For the many scenes that occur within very long tracking shots, we would go through and do the same thing but refining the work all the way, using dynamic shifts.
The experience means a great deal to me because it’s a great film and it received so much well-deserved critical acclaim and I’m obviously quite proud of my contribution.
Steve Rodriguez, sr. colorist, Apache Digital
The most recent project that I can recall is a spot for Softbank, a Japanese cell provider. The spot consisted of the five members of the popular boy band, SMAP, and was shot entirely on blue screen. The backgrounds were all computer generated but needed to look as high contrast, stylish and sharp as the foreground elements. There was so much blue spill on some of the subjects that I had to grade the elements together using hold out mattes and create special color keys to get the two to work. The director was empathetic saying he only had three hours with each band member on different days to get their performances. We were inventing ways to create colors and textures in the color bay to save precious time in the conform. The spot aired once in it’s entirety, on Christmas Eve, 2013. We spent day and night grading, experimenting and coming up with a way to deliver on time. The most gratifying part was the during the final play out of the spot. A standing ovation with the ECD, director and client present, at midnight on December 22, 2013.
Chris Ryan, colorist/partner, Nice Shoes
I really enjoyed working on the new E*Trade campaign that debuted recently, starring Kevin Spacey. The creative team from Ogilvy & Mather, which included Chris Van Oosterhout and Lauren Van Aswegen, came up with an approach in which Spacey would appear almost magically to advise the protagonists on financial matters. They wanted looks for each spot in the campaign that would stand out, and help distinguish them from the brand’s previous efforts, but that also would work within the confines of the tone of each installment.
In “Buffet,” a man is enjoying an all-you-can-eat buffet at a holiday resort when Spacey appears in a dapper suit. The idea was to keep a sun drenched vibe in keeping with the location but to also add texture to the footage, shifting it slightly away from the norm. For “Dance Lessons,” a couple is dancing at a banquet hall, and Spacey drops into the scene and joins them on the dance floor. The footage had a rich, warm, Godfather-vibe so we wanted to keep a bit of that feeling that was captured in-camera, but again shift it a couple of degrees away from that. Finally, in “Rock Climb,” a woman is rock climbing and Spacey appears yet again. After dispensing advice he jumps off the cliff revealing that he’s wearing a sky diving squirrel suit. The directive was to keep the magic hour feeling of the lighting but to once again to move the look slightly off center.
It was an opportunity to not only aid Ogilvy & Mather in defining the brand’s look, but to collaborate with Chris Franklin at Big Sky, an editor I’ve enjoyed working with on so many unforgettable projects. The director, Stacy Wall, shot these spots beautifully, and we all worked together to create some memorable looks for each piece of the campaign.
Tony Smith, sr. colorist, Encore
I work almost exclusively on episodic television and that comes with a unique set of challenges. The competition for viewer attention is steep so directors aim to create content that stands out, orchestrating visuals that make a channel surfer stop and want to see more. As a colorist, navigating that fine line between enhancing a shot and straying from the original creative vision is probably one of the biggest challenges I face day-to-day.
Recently, I collaborated with a director that has a very distinct vision for the show’s visual narrative. To make the picture align accordingly, I ended up taking liberties with the principal photography. This way, we were able to transform a scene that had been shot as warm and friendly to appear bold and graphic to better complement the scene’s action. Another way I enhanced the image for the show was by adding camera shake to a fight scene, an effect that is typically done in editorial. In a medium wide shot, a suspect is chased and ultimately tackled by one of the show’s leads. At the moment of impact, we added a slight camera shake. I was able to add the shake right in Baselight and incorporate it into the timeline. The tricky part is controlling the variables: how violent the shake will be, whether it will be up/down or left/right, the frequency of the movement and how it is edited in and out. I also had to reposition the shot to make sure the frame line was never visible. Working with an established shot, I had to zoom in just enough so I had room for the shake but not so much that it significantly altered the principal photography.
Overall, my collaboration with this director is successful due to trust and open communication. We speak the same visual language so I’m given a fair amount of creative latitude. Even when the provided guidance seems esoteric, I’m able to decipher the intention behind the direction and translate that into the scene. I can’t read minds but getting in sync from the outset of a project is the next best thing.
Ron Sudul, colorist, Nice Shoes (working out of Optimus, Chicago)
I recently worked with Moroch/iNSPIRE! and Republic Editorial on a 10-spot, multi-language campaign for McDonald’s. We had clients supervising the session at our Remote Color suite in Dallas, while other clients were working with me in person. We connected all the people who needed to have input at the same time, making it a much smoother experience, and I think it shows in the work. “Create It” is a natural, lifestyle spot, and we were able to get on the same page really quickly and achieve the right look for it. Collaborating remotely has been a creatively rewarding experience, especially for this campaign.
My biggest challenge recently has been to move beyond my own comfort zone of working in my room at Nice Shoes to launch our new color suite in Chicago, out of Optimus. Its an exciting opportunity to be able to work with all these talented artists and creatives in Chicago, while also being able to work with my clients back in New York remotely. I’ll just have to get used to seeing people on a screen that I’ve worked with in person for years, but I’m confident that we’ll continue to produce excellent projects together.
