From The Grading Suite: From Short Form To Reality

Well done Dan for such a candid and honest article. And a reminder that anyone can get themselves in a pickle when you don’t do enough planning before a job.

Doh, we’ve all been there, done that. We have an expression in America, Dan: “You gotta know when to hold ’em, and know when to fold ’em.” No way would I have even attempted a 1-hour reality show without a panel. Not gonna happen. I can do it in a day (a LONG day), but a lot depends on the nature of the material and the expectations of the client. All of this stuff is a learning, growing experience — and I share your respect for the hardworking people who do reality TV every single day. It’s a different set of skills than commercial or feature work, but man, it’s tough, grueling, work. Particularly when a lot of 8-bit material is involved.

Wow, that must have been a hard-landing. Reality shows are really hardcore. Nothing like nicely shot tvc or drama / features (that’s hard work too of course). Grading a 1h reality show in one day is pretty though even with a panel.
It’s all about doing just enough to the images, no fine details, blast through and don’t look back (well not to much at least). Preview the graded show at 2x speed if your slammed for time. It will be interesting to see where your path leads now.

Cheers

Dylan
dylanhopkin.com

This is a really great insight. I remember having the opposite problem in symphony way back when I was starting out. Not really understanding the different kinds of grades. I was grading master clips and scratching my head as to why seemingly random other clips on the timeline kept changing. There’s also another catch where if you have in/out points set, they don’t show up when you’re in colour mode but they’re there. And when you make a change to one clip, it changes every clip between those points. So what should have been a short job took me forever, I ran low on time the end result seemed very rushed.

Like you said, most of us are guilty of trying to only show filtered versions of ourselves. It’s really comforting and inspiring to see how someone as successful as yourself can still have the same troubles I sometimes have.

I’d like to ask how you managed to learn baselight? did you have regular access to a full system? Did you get some training from Filmlight or was it all just baselight editions?

Great article – and great of you to publicly share your “oops” moments with us. I’m currently in Ad Agency TVCs for big clients. It is nice that you get a whole day to grade a spot, but the projects that I really love working on a feature dramas with a few weeks for grade, maybe a week of light visual effects and delivery. I’ve done a few of those jobs – grade in Resolve, VFX in Flame via Fusion-Link hack, and it’s pretty sweet setup. If I could find a half dozen of those per year with a decent budget, I’d leave the Ad Agency work and be a happy guy.

Good for you for sorting it, Dan. I’ve just found myself in quite a similar situation – used to spending all day on a commercial and being asked to do a very, very long piece in just a couple of days. It’s a totally different kettle of fish, and if I’m honest, I’d go so far as to say it’s almost a different job role…?