Cutting an effective colorist reel

[Matt W.]

Any tips? Just sequence cool looking shots with interesting looks?

I've seen before/after wipes and even alternating between different possible looks.

Are any looks desirable? Should I put some "vintage" and some "high gloss" and Pleasantville effect, etc. in?

Curious what works. Thanks. Narrative primarily.

 

[Derek Morrison]

My reel. I decided to just let my work speak for itself.

 

[paulherrin]

well there's really no right or wrong way to do a reel...

i would just try to...
express your personal aesthetics (art philosophy, sense of chiaroscuro/color)
and/or
your versatility to work with multiple styles, genres, formats, cinematographers/directors/producers, etc...

one is more artistic, the other commercial - it is possible to blend the two, have two parts, or even two reels... and there is gray area, of course.

really all that matters is the image, but it's nice to have movement/feeling in the composition (edit/sound) - which should reflect your attitude, perspective, aesthetics, etc. if you can imply a 'story', fine - but i think it's more likely that you'd simply have some kind of arc of energy that may juxtapose a lot of different material. many options, mostly dictated by your musical (or sound) selection.

it all depends on who you are and who you want to be... for yourself and others.

 

[Marc Wielage]

There's some terrific reels up on LiftGammaGain.com, including an entire section devoted to demo reels. I think the best bet is to tailor each reel according to the type of work in which you intend to specialize. And keep them short -- producers' and directors' eyes tend to glaze over if the piece is more than 3 minutes long.

I'd also find an editor/friend to cut the thing together, to put an objective pair of eyes on the material. I don't think it makes sense to use the original music or dialogue from the piece; just use generic background music and cut the piece to that. I think showing a range of material is good -- not all fast action material, not all beauty shots, some realistic photography, some very stylized, some inbetween. For most people, it's not possible to show before & after shots, but I think just a basic reel and a decent resume always helps.

 

[Mark Whatmore]

To show your skills as a colorist I'd suggest some before and after imagery. wiping between the two to show how the footage was changed my applying the grade. That's always impressed me in the past.

 

[paulherrin]

To show your skills as a colorist I'd suggest some before and after imagery. wiping between the two to show how the footage was changed my applying the grade. That's always impressed me in the past.

i think that only makes sense for really technical/creative image-acrobatics... anybody can make a before/after pop, but i think it's a waste of time in a reel unless there's a real purpose behind what kind of magic you can do, and i'm not just talking about pushing colors around. before/afters could be good for supplementary material, like a breakdown sheet attached to your resume or a breakdown reel. just my perspective.

 

[Matt W.]

Thanks, so essentially treat it as a DP reel? Just editing pretty images similar to those you expect your clients will want? Everything I've done has been roughly in one style, so at least that's easy.

I've done a lot of camera matching (Red MX/35mm, Alexa/Epic/C100 most recently), not sure how to highlight that or if I have to at all.

The before/after slider thing is tricky. Without it you can't really see what's being corrected; with it sometimes the majority of the change is just bringing log footage back to something contrasty.

So should I just focus on nice looking shots irrespective of how much work they were to grade or how much grading they had done? Seems a bit odd, but at the same time seems to make sense. My entire reel is narrative, too... whereas ads and music videos obviously have more "pop" and less grading for continuity and subtle looks, thankfully I've had the opportunity to grade some really well-shot footage, though.

 

[Jens Rosengren]

Personally I like the "before & after" reels a lot, even though it's easier to fool an unexperienced viewer when comparing a nice, contrasty image with an S-Log shot.
But I do think people will more likely be impressed if you show them what it looked like before rather than just the result.

 

[paulherrin]

Thanks, so essentially treat it as a DP reel? Just editing pretty images similar to those you expect your clients will want? Everything I've done has been roughly in one style, so at least that's easy.

So should I just focus on nice looking shots irrespective of how much work they were to grade or how much grading they had done? Seems a bit odd, but at the same time seems to make sense.

yes.

and sort of, yes... i mean, there's really no reason to put a shot that went from being unusable to usable cause most people seeing it won't understand anything other than 'well that doesn't look great' - at the same time, it can be nice to put a challenging shot in there - if you get face time or discussion, you can use it as a talking piece to tell them about what went into it, and as i said it's not a bad idea to have a breakdown sheet supplementing your reel, or a longer breakdown version for people who have already gotten interested in hiring you for something. what's important is the initial 'get', and i for one, if i were watching through reels, don't want to see a bunch of log>rec709 conversions wasting my friggin time. reels are hard, it's your decision on how to market your self and skills AND of course it depends on what material you've got...

 

[M Most]

Personally I like the "before & after" reels a lot, even though it's easier to fool an unexperienced viewer when comparing a nice, contrasty image with an S-Log shot.
But I do think people will more likely be impressed if you show them what it looked like before rather than just the result.

I agree. Taking something that is somewhat pedestrian and making it artistic, interesting, and story appropriate is what the craft is all about. What I like to see is the original, followed by a base grade, then "popping on" embellishments (vignettes, secondary isolations, etc). That tell me what kind of eye and sensibilities the artist has, which is far more important than getting good footage and keeping it looking good.

 

[paulherrin]

okay - i agree with mike here, but for a supplementary reel or a short reel that has a limited number of shots. again, it would need to be a legitimate grade that shows a lot of things, not just a conversion... if you don't have that, i say don't do it.

That tell me what kind of eye and sensibilities the artist has, which is far more important than getting good footage and keeping it looking good.

exactly, whatever you can do to achieve this with what you've got... do it.

 

[Joel Arvidsson]

Personally I like the "before & after" reels a lot, even though it's easier to fool an unexperienced viewer when comparing a nice, contrasty image with an S-Log shot.
But I do think people will more likely be impressed if you show them what it looked like before rather than just the result.

I like some before and after in it to. Im not sure if we think the same but, to me it would be more interestging to se how much better the image looked compared to the redgamma 3. Its not like you would watch a finished work in log.

I know that you always start working from redlog film....but some times it feels that some reels is mostly adding contrast.

 

[paulherrin]

let me just throw this out there... depending on your situation and what you're lookin for, your reel can be just as much about what kinds of projects you have experience with as it is about how you've handled individual shots. anybody can make a before and after of one shot look good, just sayin. coloring/finishing is about a lot more than the glitz and glamour of look-development. speed, consistency, artistic intuition, creative problem solving, and a lot of other things all go into what makes somebody a good colorist. as i keep saying, this is a personal decision based on what you have and what you're looking for. there are a million ways to approach marketing yourself.

i think i've said everything that could be said about a reel, so i'm bowing out. just frickin cut a reel already and be done with it.

 

[Matt W.]

I threw something together in a few hours:

https://vimeo.com/80228019

pw: reel

I think the before/after is less compelling than the rest and poorly organized and visually a mess, but I was in a rush. I'll probably end up recutting it but I was on a deadline so any feedback (constructive, please) would be appreciated.

 

[paulherrin]

some nice stuff in there man.

as i always like to say... better than what you had

the split screen matching formats stuff is a good idea. so are build-ups, get some more and slow it down. don't do a straight before/after. i'd cut both title cards, and there may be a few shots here and there that could be subbed out with different material later - you know what you've got and what you're working on better than anyone, so you know which ones, trust your instincts. put some pertinent info on a title card at the end...

great work

 

[Matt W.]

Thanks, yeah I think I know which shots have to go. Certainly the real estate stuff in a narrative reel. I agree about more, slower build ups (hard to do because I need to find the original drives I worked on, not just the footage, to render out multiple steps) but that it's a way stronger indicator of what's going on than the split screen, which I'll lose.

And the title card of course... how did I forget that? Thanks again!

 

[paulherrin]

see

it's easy to replace the file on vimeo (just make sure you do it when it's least likely to be watched, there's some down-time)
and i recommend having a custom link, like /reel2013, or /whatever

in fx it's customary to have a breakdown sheet (attached to your resume, in your portfolio)
if you have enough (not too much) to say that's compelling about each shot and what you did, what the challenges were, etc. you can try it

i definitely learned later than i should that organization (on and around the computer) is really helpful...
i'm naturally pretty messy, so that's been a helpful discipline. now if only my living space was like my workspace...
or my clutter could be searched and shift-selected...
or i could sleep by pressing a button...

haha okay, i'm tired, cya! good luck finding everything!

 

[Matt W.]

I only have the selects on my portable drive, but I'll recut the reel as soon as I get back to the office. Didn't even know about the custom URLs, but good idea.

I can absolutely relate regarding organization. Definitely not the neatest person in the world and continue to suffer for it.

 

[paulherrin]

well, some people's brains work better with organized chaos... it's actually a better simulation of reality than cold computer logic. our gui's kinda let us be messy. what's your desktop look like before you clean it up?

and apparently my brain forgot about sleeping right now. i swear this thing has a mind of its own when there's things to do...

hehe, now for real i'm shutting down
g'night

 

[Matt W.]

Both my desktop and my desk are usually kind of messy.