it's frame by frame by frame

(selections from my life as) a digital film colorist ask me something

[nostrilshairs]

was watching a scene from singin in the rain on youtube and

fucking wheezing

[itsframebyframe]

have a little Beetlejuice for Halloween

[connerys]

Olivia de Havilland as Lady Marian Fitzwalter in The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)

[itsframebyframe]

The Bad And The Beautiful (1952):  Hollywood does love to make movies that trash talk the movie industry.

For this project, I had one of the most pristine original camera negatives I have ever worked with.  It was a pleasure to get to see the full range and brilliance of Robert Surtees’ Oscar-winning cinematography.

[wehadfacesthen]

Ginger Rogers working with choreographer and rehearsal director Hermes Pan, 1936

[itsframebyframe]

This one was A Challenge. 

[tcm]

Remembering director Stanley Donen on his birthday, here with Elizabeth Taylor in LOVE IS BETTER THAN EVER (‘52)

[itsframebyframe]

Recommended--it’s a well-deserved tribute to Leon.  And tangentially, to everyone who toils below the line. 

I have a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it appearance.  I don’t remember if I said this in my interview--probably not, I am not good at being eloquent on camera--but it’s not in the film and I want to make it clear. As a colorist, I can say that Kubrick’s films are extremely challenging; I’ve done a number of them, and they are hard work.  And while I respect the achievements of Kubrick, the reason that I’ve worked hard on them, taken the pains I have, gone over and over scenes to make sure that I’ve captured the subtleties, gotten it right, is not for Stanley, or for love of his work.  It’s for Leon, who works hard and cares, at every step of the process, and whose hard work and caring I honor and respect more than I can say.   

[tcm]

Behind the scenes during the filming of COOL HAND LUKE (’67)

[itsframebyframe]

In response to anon who asked about the best route to becoming a digital colorist:

I can’t give you a foolproof route to becoming a colorist–it can happen in many different ways.  My own route was pretty roundabout and also, quite a while ago–I studied film, and then did a lot of different jobs in various post-production houses before I got the opportunity.   Nowadays, I would recommend getting some experience with one or more of the widely used color correction software systems–Davinci Resolve is a good one, since they offer a free version of their software that you can download.  There are also classes you can take, many of them online–lynda.com is a good place to look for that.  My best advice is to practice, once you get a chance to use the tools.  Color correct as many different types of material as you can.  

When you’re ready to look for a job, try for a position in a post-house that does a lot of color correction work, even an entry level position.  One of the common tracks these days is to work up to being a colorist’s assistant, and then eventually being able to move into being a colorist.  It may take a while, so be prepared for that.

There are colorists who freelance, too.  They may have the necessary setups in their homes, and work remotely with clients, but that will require you to have some established credentials of some kind.  It can depend on the kind of work you want to do.  

Fortunately, there is a lot of production happening–films, tv, commercials, and the whole range of online streaming content.  If you can be flexible about relocating, or working nights, it can also be very helpful in advancing in the field.

Best of luck!  

[dailyelizabethtaylor]

Elizabeth Taylor photographed by Sid Avery during the filming of Giant, 1955.

[wehadfacesthen]

Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert in It Happened One Night  (Frank Capra, 1934)

[itsframebyframe]

one of my personal faves.

[jamesdeaner]

Screen test for Rebel Without a Cause.

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The screen test gives you a taste of what Rebel would have looked like--when the production began, they were shooting in black and white, and in the Academy film format.  Color and the Cinemascope format were added to the budget after East of Eden made James Dean an overnight sensation.

[itsframebyframe]

Easy Rider, 1969.

Produced by Peter Fonda, directed by Dennis Hopper, and co-written by both, along with Terry Southern, Easy Rider cost about half a million dollars and made sixty million. It was the third highest grossing film of 1969.  It was a countercultural western, a road-trip movie, a Hollywood studio film that married underground and experimental film technique with biker B-movie tropes, and a work that interrogated the underlying assumptions of all of those categories.  It was a hugely influential film in the vanguard of the “American New Wave”, which spanned the late sixties to the early eighties.

For all that it mimics a kind of documentary naturalism, with improvised dialogue, a very sketchy plot, and myriad stories of how stoned people got during the filming, Easy Rider is a highly conscious and deliberate piece of art, a work that talked back to Hollywood, and the clashing cultures of America.  Peter Fonda wrote of getting the idea for it in his autobiography:

"I understood immediately just what kind of motorcycle, sex, and drug movie I should make next...It would not be about one hundred Hell's Angels on their way to a funeral. It would be about the Duke and Jeffrey Hunter looking for Natalie Wood. I would be the Duke and [Dennis] Hopper would be my Ward Bond; America would be our Natalie Wood. And after a long journey to the East across John Ford's America, what would become of us?"

[itsframebyframe]

László Kovács was a Hungarian-born filmmaker who, along with Vilmos Zsigmond, surreptitiously filmed events of the 1956 uprising against Soviet repression in Budapest.  Together, they smuggled thirty thousand feet of this documentary footage out of Hungary and ultimately came to America to work as cinematographers in Hollywood.  Before shooting Easy Rider, Kovács had shot a number of low-budget motorcycle movies, and almost turned the job down.  He relented after talking to Dennis Hopper about the script, and came away feeling that he would be allowed to create landscape imagery that would have a character’s narrative weight.  His interest in American landscapes has been attributed to a cross-country bus ride he took not long after arriving as a political refugee.

I was told he loved the rainbow effect that lenses can create when the light hits them just right.  You can see it in the second still. 

[itsframebyframe]

The role of George in Easy Rider was originally supposed to go to Rip Torn, but after he passed on it, Peter Fonda asked Jack Nicholson to play the part.  Before this film, Nicholson had mostly appeared in tv shows and Roger Corman films; he has described himself at this point as “desperate [...] to vault out of the screen and create a movie career.”  He got his wish; the role changed the trajectory of his career, and he was nominated for his first Oscar.  George is the character who straddles the insider/outsider dichotomies of the film, and makes a vivid entry point for the audience.   

[itsframebyframe]

The acid trip and Mardi Gras footage were the first scenes shot for the film, before the principle photography began; they were shot quickly, under time and budget pressure, and on 16mm film (the remainder of the film was shot in 35mm.  László Kovács did not take over as cinematographer until after this footage was shot.)  They are grainy, contrasty, soft, and work amazingly well to help create a disjointed, otherworldly atmosphere.