Who owns the work? Copyright in 2016

[David Battistella]

Hey guys, There is an interesting discussion brewing between Jake Blackstone and Bjorn Benckert and others sort of over who owns the work?

Who owns the files, if you are a colorist, Motion graphics artist, editor, musician, cinematographer, etc, anyway you get the point.

I thought I would move some of that exchange from another thread here into this new thread where the discussion can continue.

I've moved it all over here into it's own topic.


Desktop printing changed everything. I still use a real printer (person) for critical stuff and there is a relationship there. I still use dp's, there a relationship there. I edit my own stuff, and I use colorists, there's a relationship there. I like to work with a sound mixer, there's a relationship there. There is some advantage to having dedicated people and doing the job once.

Some of it all depends on workflows, jobs, budgets, etc, but generally I like to maintain relationships with other creative people. Painters, musicians, photographers and such.

I don't blame what happens in the marketplace on cheap available tools.

A lager problem is also also the number of graduates being churned out of tech schools, film schools, photography schools, animation programs and the like. It's turned the marketplace into a producers dream, then you have outsourcing of vfx to third world economies.

You cant blame this stuff on inexpensive software when there are so many forces at play.


David

 

[Christoffer Glans]

Who owns the work? Copyright in 2016

...and color grading has not become a minimum-wage job :tongue_smilie:

People forget that it's all about the craft. The creative skills IS what people pay for, not the technology. That's why people still make money, even if some tech is free. And it will continue so forever until computers make art.

 

[shashbugu]

...and color grading has not become a minimum-wage job :tongue_smilie:

People forget that it's all about the craft. The creative skills IS what people pay for, not the technology. That's why people still make money, even if some tech is free. And it will continue so forever until computers make art.

Truer words have never been spoken. Because resolve is free clients are actually now able to discern quality grading from crappy video oil painting. As a producer/ director I consider myself the client, and the value of color grading has never been more important so to speak.

 

[jake blackstone]

Truer words have never been spoken. Because resolve is free clients are actually now able to discern quality grading from crappy video oil painting. As a producer/ director I consider myself the client, and the value of color grading has never been more important so to speak.

I couldn't disagree more. I love my clients and, I hope, they appreciate what I bring to the table too. But, these days first thing many clients do is whip out their free Resolve on a MacBook and show what they want to see on the screen. Those grades are usually very sad looking, but those clients think it's a hoot to "mess around with colors in Resolve" on their computer to be able to show a colorist how it's done. Once the session is over, they demand you hand over the Resolve project file, so they can continue to tweak images themselves. After all these years of "it's about the craft. The creative skills IS what people pay for, not the technology, etc", many colorists now start seeing the writing on a wall. It's a fun occupation for someone, who lives in parent's garage and doesn't need to pay the rent, but for someone who may want some day to start a family? Not so much...
And that is why these kind of decisions by some fed up colorists will be more a norm, than an exception:
http://tomparish.com/2015/11/a-time-for-change/

 

[jake blackstone]

...and color grading has not become a minimum-wage job :tongue_smilie:

You must be living in a parallel universe, because I get offered color grading jobs below minimum wage ALL the time. Needless to say, no one forces me to take those gigs, but they always find someone who does

 

[shashbugu]

I couldn't disagree more. I love my clients and, I hope, they appreciate what I bring to the table too. But, these days first thing many clients do is whip out their free Resolve on a MacBook and show what they want to see on the screen. Those grades are usually very sad looking, but those clients think it's a hoot to "mess around with colors in Resolve" on their computer to be able to show a colorist how it's done. Once the session is over, they demand you hand over the Resolve project file, so they can continue to tweak images themselves. After all these years of "it's about the craft. The creative skills IS what people pay for, not the technology, etc", many colorists now start seeing the writing on a wall. It's a fun occupation for someone, who lives in parent's garage and doesn't need to pay the rent, but for someone who may want some day to start a family? Not so much...
And that is why these kind of decisions by some fed up colorists will be more a norm, than an exception:
http://tomparish.com/2015/11/a-time-for-change/

Very interesting. That really saddens me. It must be heart wrenching to give them the project file knowing they are off to destroy your work.

 

[Hans von Sonntag]

It's a fun occupation for someone, who lives in parent's garage and doesn't need to pay the rent, but for someone who may want some day to start a family? Not so much...
And that is why these kind of decisions by some fed up colorists will be more a norm, than an exception:
http://tomparish.com/2015/11/a-time-for-change/

Jake, this guy turned 60. An age many think of cutting back, an age where your peers think of that too, where business slows down around you naturally, where the youngster are looking for collaborators in their age, where other things in life become more important, e.g. keeping health, family you name it.

---

You are right, of course, the job colourist is turing into something different theses day. Technology advancements, race to the bottom, "indie" filmmaking are not helping to keep this job a reliable source for feeding a family. IMHO, we are seeing in many other parts of our industry similar developments. For many editors today their job leaves them in a precarious situation, same counts for many that call them selfs DP. You need to have secure roots in the advertising world, the broadcast world or the medium/high budget feature world to gain a reliable income in a "classic" film job.

If you are not part of such a community, if you are freelancer that drifts between these worlds, who has a stake in low budget filmmaking, corporate or music videos, medium budget TVCs, its pretty clever these days to wear more than just one head. IMHO, in this market the postproduction will more and more start and ends on one machine. No division of work anymore, editing, colour and VFX, plus sound design are done by one person, perhaps a second one for sound. Seen this more and more happening. And it is inevitable. NLEs of today can do colour not too bad, or in Resolve's case become a NLE. Flame is now available on OS X and includes a complete NLE with surprising sound capabilities, not to mention colour work plus world-class VFX pipeline. This all directs to a swiss army knife of post guy. Good times for those who eagerly learn.

Hans

 

[Christoffer Glans]

I couldn't disagree more. I love my clients and, I hope, they appreciate what I bring to the table too. But, these days first thing many clients do is whip out their free Resolve on a MacBook and show what they want to see on the screen. Those grades are usually very sad looking, but those clients think it's a hoot to "mess around with colors in Resolve" on their computer to be able to show a colorist how it's done. Once the session is over, they demand you hand over the Resolve project file, so they can continue to tweak images themselves. After all these years of "it's about the craft. The creative skills IS what people pay for, not the technology, etc", many colorists now start seeing the writing on a wall. It's a fun occupation for someone, who lives in parent's garage and doesn't need to pay the rent, but for someone who may want some day to start a family? Not so much...
And that is why these kind of decisions by some fed up colorists will be more a norm, than an exception:
http://tomparish.com/2015/11/a-time-for-change/

I'm not sure what type of clients you work with, but for commercials, feature films and TV I've never encountered amateurs taking over the color grading. One post production facility I worked for makes $700 an hour for grading and the clients get perfect result for it. I know there are clients out there who think they can do it all by themselves, but those are clients who most of the time don't have enough money for post production anyway. All the full paid jobs I've done have never looked like your example.

 

[MichaelP]

Creative editorial has already gone through this and still is to some extent. Music went through it first.

Michael

 

[Björn Benckert]

I'm not sure what type of clients you work with, but for commercials, feature films and TV I've never encountered amateurs taking over the color grading. One post production facility I worked for makes $700 an hour for grading and the clients get perfect result for it. I know there are clients out there who think they can do it all by themselves, but those are clients who most of the time don't have enough money for post production anyway. All the full paid jobs I've done have never looked like your example.

I always, up front demand the resolve project file for my projects and I find colourist that does not want to provide such as hard to work with. I simply do not book them. If I produce something I find the resolve file just as relevant to have on my project drive as the offline project file, the XLM´s , the graphics and so on. But I do fully understand that the colourist creative integrity possibly gets more than a little bit squeezed in that process, but then thats something they will have to charge me for. The guys I tend to work with are confident enough to understand that I hire them for their eye and ideas. When doing VFX and CG stuff the best result is achieved if the composite and 3D can be done both "underneath the grade" or above depending on whats happening. In other words we need to be able to have what ever happened in resolve as an Adjustment layer. Just getting a DPX sequence with graded material just dont cut it. At least not in my house.

 

[jake blackstone]

I always, up front demand the resolve project file for my projects and I find colourist that does not want to provide such as hard to work with. I simply do not book them. If I produce something I find the resolve file just as relevant to have on my project drive as the offline project file, the XLM´s , the graphics and so on. But I do fully understand that the colourist creative integrity possibly gets more than a little bit squeezed in that process, but then thats something they will have to charge me for. The guys I tend to work with are confident enough to understand that I hire them for their eye and ideas. When doing VFX and CG stuff the best result is achieved if the composite and 3D can be done both "underneath the grade" or above depending on whats happening. In other words we need to be able to have what ever happened in resolve as an Adjustment layer. Just getting a DPX sequence with graded material just dont cut it. At least not in my house.

That is EXACTLY one of the three main reasons why I'm reluctant to use Resolve.
Also, I refuse to work with ANY client, who insists on getting my project files. Project file is a work product and it is my IP property, unless, of coarse, I work remotely or I'm at their facility. Also, often I use proprietary or third party LUTs, which I wouldn't or couldn't hand over, so project file will be pretty useless to that client. The same goes for the images of the sky, if sky replacements were done in session. Some clients want to make sure, that there is a back up copy of the project file in their possession. They then get it, but I keep the password. Otherwise, no one gets it. No exceptions...
BTW, getting a DPX sequence is so 1990s. You normally get a render of each separate event with handles in codec of your choice and matching new XML, EDL or AAF, if any re-edits happened during the session. If you can handle BLGs, even better...

 

[jake blackstone]

Jake, this guy turned 60. An age many think of cutting back, an age where your peers think of that too, where business slows down around you naturally, where the youngster are looking for collaborators in their age, where other things in life become more important, e.g. keeping health, family you name it.

---

You are right, of course, the job colourist is turing into something different theses day. Technology advancements, race to the bottom, "indie" filmmaking are not helping to keep this job a reliable source for feeding a family. IMHO, we are seeing in many other parts of our industry similar developments. For many editors today their job leaves them in a precarious situation, same counts for many that call them selfs DP. You need to have secure roots in the advertising world, the broadcast world or the medium/high budget feature world to gain a reliable income in a "classic" film job.

If you are not part of such a community, if you are freelancer that drifts between these worlds, who has a stake in low budget filmmaking, corporate or music videos, medium budget TVCs, its pretty clever these days to wear more than just one head. IMHO, in this market the postproduction will more and more start and ends on one machine. No division of work anymore, editing, colour and VFX, plus sound design are done by one person, perhaps a second one for sound. Seen this more and more happening. And it is inevitable. NLEs of today can do colour not too bad, or in Resolve's case become a NLE. Flame is now available on OS X and includes a complete NLE with surprising sound capabilities, not to mention colour work plus world-class VFX pipeline. This all directs to a swiss army knife of post guy. Good times for those who eagerly learn.

Hans

Hans.
Tom is not retiring. He's changing his profession, because after a lifetime of being a colorist he finds it impossible to support himself being a professional colorist. That was the main point of his post and the dilemma many professional colorists are facing today, regardless of age.
Yes, film business is rapidly changing but so far, AD and Foundry managed to keep the price of entry into VFX software pretty high. Clearly, AE can't compete with Flame and Nuke. Flame on a Mac now is $700 per month ($6K for a year) and Nuke Studio is $10K? Still pretty significant price point for a casual user. But inexpensive and free-ish Fusion is right around the corner and once BMD whips it into a decent shape, many Flame and Nuke users will start feeling the same pricing deflationary pressure.

 

[Björn Benckert]

That is EXACTLY one of the three main reasons why I'm reluctant to use Resolve.
Also, I refuse to work with ANY client, who insists on getting my project files. Project file is a work product and it is my IP property, unless, of coarse, I work remotely or I'm at their facility. Also, often I use proprietary or third party LUTs, which I wouldn't or couldn't hand over, so project file will be pretty useless to that client. The same goes for the images of the sky, if sky replacements were done in session. Some clients want to make sure, that there is a back up copy of the project file in their possession. They then get it, but I keep the password. Otherwise, no one gets it. No exceptions...
BTW, getting a DPX sequence is so 1990s. You normally get a render of each separate event with handles in codec of your choice and matching new XML, EDL or AAF, if any re-edits happened during the session. If you can handle BLGs, even better...

I think you are limiting yourself with those thoughts. but thats just me. Everyone do what they please.

 

[Terry VerHaar]

There was a time when DPs were sort of like "magicians" on set. They assured the producers and director that the processed images would come out beautifully and everyone had to believe them. And, in the process, they got to determine the "look" of the film because they were the only ones who had the knowledge and the control over how the film got exposed. This was considered the domain of, and the contribution from, the DP.

Things have changed. Now directors and producers can see much of what they are getting right there on set and they demand to have input in the here and now. DPs often don't have the exclusive domain over the look of the image. Now they might be exposing to get a "thick negative" so that the final look can be determined in post, ironically for this thread, it ends up in the hands of the colorist. A lot of DPs don't like this change of events.

Now, the concern from colorists is that their work is compromised because, again, the producers and directors want a say; want to "meddle" in their craft. They join the DPs in feeling like the are being marginalized. Who knows whether this is good or bad in the "big picture" of filmmaking, but it does seem to be the reality. Just as DPs have adapted and continue to contribute to the creative collaboration called (now inaccurately) "film," so, I imagine, will colorists find the way to stay relevant.

More powerful and easier to use tools have created shifts in many creative pursuits. Sometimes, some people are even talented enough to play multiple roles well (Steven Soderbergh comes to mind). No matter what, disruption has become the norm and the ability to adapt may be the best answer.

 

[jake blackstone]

I think you are limiting yourself with those thoughts. but thats just me. Everyone do what they please.

No, I just refuse to work with people, who do not value the contribution of the artists and treat them like interchangeable parts. Luckily, there are still plenty of clients who do...
And I explained why your position on demanding possession of a work product IP from a legal, moral and practical point is a non starter.
So, are you saying, that you wound 't work with anyone, who doesn't use Resolve for color grading? Because what woud you do with say, Mistika, Nucoda, Baselight or Pablo projects files?
Aren'y YOU then limiting yourself to a limited pool of available colorists, that only happen to work with Resolve? You do realize, that best colorists use other platforms, right?

 

[Brian Merlen]

Race to the bottom, democratization of technology. Ironically people said the same for red and now Arri has lower prices. I'm not sure what the answer is but I see both sides, good and bad. I think I'm hungrier for a living wage than most cuz of family circumstances so I wear as many hats as I can to stay busy. But i hope one day to have a specific position to marry

 

[Darko Gavrilovic]

Also, I refuse to work with ANY client, who insists on getting my project files. Project file is a work product and it is my IP property, unless, of coarse, I work remotely or I'm at their facility. Also, often I use proprietary or third party LUTs, which I wouldn't or couldn't hand over, so project file will be pretty useless to that client. The same goes for the images of the sky, if sky replacements were done in session. Some clients want to make sure, that there is a back up copy of the project file in their possession. They then get it, but I keep the password. Otherwise, no one gets it. No exceptions...

I come out of the music/sound design and print world, so I may by out of my element, but I don't understand this. Traditionally, this is all a work for hire, and the client owns all the files pertinent to the work. The client gets all the files they want at the end on CD or DVD after the session. It belongs to them to do what they want with it. If there was any commercial fonts or sounds, they have to pay for that. Sure, they can get Pro-Tools or Photoshop or whatever, but they don't have access to the facility where they did the actually mixing or have access to color calibrated monitors. They can open those files and tinker with them on their macs all they want, but without the other components, it's almost like starting from scratch. Password protecting their data[1] or holding the files hostage seems counter productive. Just my 2 cents.

[1] FWIW, there are a slew of tools out there to crack passwords on zip, doc, excel and other file formats. So its not really a useful strategy. You *could* go all crazy with certificates and disk encryption but that's another can of worms in itself.

 

[Björn Benckert]

No, I just refuse to work with people, who do not value the contribution of the artists and treat them like interchangeable parts. Luckily, there are still plenty of clients who do...
And I explained why your position on demanding possession of a work product IP from a legal, moral and practical point is a non starter.
So, are you saying, that you wound 't work with anyone, who doesn't use Resolve for color grading? Because what woud you do with say, Mistika, Nucoda, Baselight or Pablo projects files?
Aren'y YOU then limiting yourself to a limited pool of available colorists, that only happen to work with Resolve? You do realize, that best colorists use other platforms, right?

So what you are saying is that if I would ask you to grade my next project and what I wanted delivered was the resolve project file, then you would, no matter what, turn the job down, and there would be no way or amount of money that I could offer to make you think different?

Wow, Must be nice to be able to keep that high level of artistic integrity. Personally I´m not quite there yet, I tend to sell myself left, right and center if the money is right.

I work with all kinds of colorists using all kinds of platforms and most of times I have absolutely no saying on what country the grade will be done in or even less what colorist or platform it would be done with or by. But when I´m in charge, for stuff my company produce or post produce then I find the rooster of colorists using resolve to be plenty and I do prefer if they use resolve as pretty much everyone at my office knows resolve, except me, some of them use it on a daily basis and has done so for years.

But I like resolve as it´s free not only that we can have it installed on every computer in the office and have the conforms open anywhere wanted. For some of the work we do we need to be in, under and around the grade and then having the grade open and available for the artists makes huge difference as it allow us to work faster and deliver something better. If we need a different take, or additonal handles then we got it, boom. It has nothing to do with treating people as interchangeable parts or not value their artistic contribution, on the contrary I like to use the little money I got on the tight budgets we have so the colorist can do the colors. And to be honest I have not had a single project coming in from high prestige places like MPC, The Mill, Company 3 or what not that did not miss a second pass, clip or those additional take that the agency realized late that they really wanted. Usually not the high end colorists fault that shit tend to be missing, even though his assistant that does the export is guilty at times. But more often it´s actually the offline editor that thinks that he is done when the cut is approved and he does not understand that he also needs to line up everything that needs to go trough grade. But no matter what, those kind of mishaps tend to land on my desktop and then waiting for LA to wake up so they can start to ftp the remaining takes is not good for scheduling... or worse if the missing material is so much so they need to fedex another drive... Then at those times a resolve project file comes really handy.

 

[Nick Morrison]

I think a broader look at the industry is necessary, to really see what is happening to POST-PRODUCTION (and not just Colorists).

This POV is coming from my 15 years in broadcast.

FIRST: the industry is exponentially larger than it was 20 years ago. We've gone from 4 major broadcasters and fledgling cable networks, to 100's of cable networks, the vastness of the internet, and now thousands of successful networks in nations across the world. There are now ARMIES of people shooting, editing, grading, mixing.

This MASSIVE scale is what's allowed software and hardware to become so affordable. Blackmagic can make a massive profit giving Resolve away for free, but selling MILLIONS of Decklink cards.

It's the economy of scale.

SECOND: Our industry is old fashioned, and is prejudiced against POST-PRODUCTION.

Why? Because in the end, the entertainment industry prizes DIRECTORS/CREATORS, and dismisses everyone else as TECHNICIANS. Show-Runners/Writers/Directors...they make the millions. Whereas the DPs/Colorists/Editors/Designers who MAKE their work...are seeing their wages stagnate or go down every year.

Why? Because as our industry explodes, it's absorbed our larger culture's obsession with talent/celebrity/artist. The 60's "auteur theory" is today's pay metric.

The people with "ideas" get paid. And everyone else suffers.

I see this all the time in broadcast promo. All the video editors have seen their salaries fall for the past 20 years. And yet they do the BULK of the creative work. They make terrible ideas look GREAT. And yet young, inexperienced "writers" get promoted to the executive suite in their late 20's, and by age 30 are VP's making several times more than these 50 year old editors.

Why? Because the industry doesn't believe in teamwork anymore (the bedrock of filmmaking). It literally believes there must be one "genius" responsible for a great idea. And it pays accordingly.

I don't really see a solution to this except evolving into a technician that has "great ideas".

This is starting to happen in my industry. The BEST editors start their OWN shops, and clients follow...because they're willing to "pay" for that "genius".

But they are few and far between. The young writers still have it far, far easier...I'm afraid.

Wish I had better news.

 

[jake blackstone]

So what you are saying is that if I would ask you to grade my next project and what I wanted delivered was the resolve project file, then you would, no matter what, turn the job down, and there would be no way or amount of money that I could offer to make you think different?

Wow, Must be nice to be able to keep that high level of artistic integrity. Personally I´m not quite there yet, I tend to sell myself left, right and center if the money is right.

I work with all kinds of colorists using all kinds of platforms and most of times I have absolutely no saying on what country the grade will be done in or even less what colorist or platform it would be done with or by. But when I´m in charge, for stuff my company produce or post produce then I find the rooster of colorists using resolve to be plenty and I do prefer if they use resolve as pretty much everyone at my office knows resolve, except me, some of them use it on a daily basis and has done so for years.

But I like resolve as it´s free not only that we can have it installed on every computer in the office and have the conforms open anywhere wanted. For some of the work we do we need to be in, under and around the grade and then having the grade open and available for the artists makes huge difference as it allow us to work faster and deliver something better. If we need a different take, or additonal handles then we got it, boom. It has nothing to do with treating people as interchangeable parts or not value their artistic contribution, on the contrary I like to use the little money I got on the tight budgets we have so the colorist can do the colors. And to be honest I have not had a single project coming in from high prestige places like MPC, The Mill, Company 3 or what not that did not miss a second pass, clip or those additional take that the agency realized late that they really wanted. Usually not the high end colorists fault that shit tend to be missing, even though his assistant that does the export is guilty at times. But more often it´s actually the offline editor that thinks that he is done when the cut is approved and he does not understand that he also needs to line up everything that needs to go trough grade. But no matter what, those kind of mishaps tend to land on my desktop and then waiting for LA to wake up so they can start to ftp the remaining takes is not good for scheduling... or worse if the missing material is so much so they need to fedex another drive... Then at those times a resolve project file comes really handy.

I assure you Bjorn, that you're in a minority as far as requiring color grading product files. There was a long discussion about it on more specialized site, dedicated to color grading- LGG and almost to a one, all colorists were in an agreement, that Resolve project files are not be made available. I did mention, that if i am hired to work at a facility or if I do a remote grading job, then the project files automatically become a moot point- they are on the client's computer and in that case they do own them. Needless to say, no specialized LUTs or Plugins will be used in that case. And I will repeat my main point once more- I try to use whenever possible anything else but Resolve, so i'm not even confronted by this question. No client ever asked me for Nucoda, Baselight or lustre files. As to your other concern, I had many instances, when remote client realized, that something needed to be changed. In that case on a moment's notice we'd resume the previous session, I'd do the necessary changes and client will re-render those changes- never a big deal. On those rare occasions, when say, different take needs to be used, those clients ASK, if they could apply my grade. They clearly don't have to do it, but it is nice to asked
As to your point about "Wow, Must be nice to be able to keep that high level of artistic integrity", well it has nothing to do with artistic integrity. Let's face it, we're all whores and my stand is purely based on economics. A simple example. I did a feature and there were a lot of VFX shots. I graded the whole feature and client asked me if they could have a Resolve project file, so they would be able to render shots for VFX on per needed bases. We had a long discussion and I agreed to hand it over under a stipulation, that it will be used for just that one purpose. Long story short, I see two trailers for that feature, where they slapped my grades on those trailers. And i do mean "slapped". Bottom line, I still finished the feature, but I lost trailer work and a video pass, because i was trying to be accommodating. Sorry Bjorn, not gonna happen again...
On the other hand, all roto masks, tracking data, depth mattes, rendered mattes as well as all other various elements now routinely part of the deliverables package for VFX. That data, like mattes can now be easily repurposed for color grading or various 3D conversion work. Mistika can take advantage of the depth mattes already and Baselight can work directly with EXR with unlimited number of passes. All color grading systems can use rendered mattes. Anyway, it is pretty standard contract now for VFX. For color grading, at least for now, not so much...