Building ‘Crayon’ – An Artist-Focused Color Grading Boutique

September 23, 2024

Colorist Daniel Stonehouse shares why a successful grading career requires more than a great reel and how he helps creatives collaborate.

Tutorials  /  Color Grading Interview Series  /  Building ‘Crayon’ – An Artist-Focused Color Grading Boutique
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Colorist Daniel Stonehouse shares a wealth of insights

Experienced colorist Daniel Stonehouse owns and co-founded the boutique color grading studio Crayon in Melbourne, Australia. Throughout my detailed conversation with Dan, he shares a wealth of experience and practical insight on the art, craft, and business of color grading and what it takes to run a successful modern boutique shop.

To anyone wanting to break into the industry, Dan’s advice is:

“The trick is really just not stopping. There’s no other way to do it apart from that. You are a colorist until you tell yourself you’re not. And inevitably, opportunities will come your way with persistence.”

Daniel Stonehouse
Daniel Stonehouse, Colorist, Crayon, Melbourne
Daniel Stonehouse, Colorist, Founder, Crayon

Success Is About More Than The Grading Session

While I have known Dan since the beginning of our careers (circa the early 2000s), I recently joined Crayon as one of their staff colorists. Given this inside view of Crayon, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to talk shop with my friend and colleague.  

During our conversation, Dan emphasized adaptability, continuous learning, dedication, and a holistic approach to becoming an effective colorist.

To this point, Dan offers some excellent wisdom to anyone managing color grading clients from ‘discovery to delivery’. You should consider perfecting the grading session and the lengthy discussions, negotiations, and planning preceding it. Plus, there are after-session processes, such as invoicing and generating visuals for promotion.

Key takeaways from this Insight

Here are just some of the topics Dan and I hit in our wide-ranging conversation:

  • New democratizing technologies, like the advent of Apple Color (2007) and the Canon 5D (2005), can create entry points for younger colorists.
  • In the early days, deciphering new digital formats, making sense of unfamiliar workflows, and grasping the subtleties of color grading were massive hurdles. New colorists had to gather information from sparse sources and experiment with different techniques.
  • The Australian color industry has evolved from big centralized post facilities to most colorists working as individual freelancers, but many of the supporting structures that a producer would provide were lost along the way. Crayon helps to bridge that gap.
  • The role of a producer and the systems (invoicing, scheduling, record keeping, promotion, client management) they implement are not often skills that a colorist has the time or capability to master, but they are crucial to running a successful client-facing business.
  • Freelance colorists need community and emotional support from other colorists to reset their ‘emotional arcs’ about their work.
  • Technical skills and understanding the various approaches to different projects are hard-learned lessons about the nature of the work. Adaptability is important and can be aided by getting ahead of the project rather than being dropped into the hot seat on the day.
  • Although important, workflows and fixed node structures should not restrict the craft. Every project has unique needs, and sometimes, the popular technique or newest trend might not be suitable. The goal is not to follow a rigid workflow but to create a visual output that corresponds with the essence of the project.

Check out the work of the team at Crayon. Plus, I’m listing other things that were mentioned in this interview:

Questions or Comments? Leave a comment!

What playlists do you listen to when working that really help you focus in and get into a creative ‘flow state’? Who would you like to see interviewed next? What topics about the art, craft or business of color grading give you the most pause for thought? Let me know!

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Kali Bateman CSI
Insight # ML 1322
Type Video
Duration 92:41
Skill Level Beginner
Skills Business
Categories Attended Grading Client Relations Collaboration Mental Health Workflow
Series Color Grading Interview Series

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