In this episode I chat to Kevin Shaw. He is a well know colorist and educator in our industry.
He has also been a key figure in setting up and promoting the Colorist Society, which is the topic of our following episode. In this episode however we discuss telecines. Kevin started grading 10 years before I did, at a time when color grading was either telecine or film lab based. We discuss various stages that the industry has gone through since then, all the way up to the present.

We discuss:

• (00:00) - Intro.
• (00:48) - Introduction to Kevin and telecines.
• (02:39) - Interview starts.
• (04:37) - Telecine engineers.
• (06:30) - Music videos.
• (07:34) - Study.
• (11:11) - Telecine Limited.
• (12:15) - Analog Davinci.
• (13:13) - One new feature per year.
• (13:43) - Davinci product demos.
• (14:08) - No freelancers.
• (14:53) - What is a telecine?
• (17:24) - Blue Moon.
• (17:45) - Tape playouts.
• (18:44) - Facility life.
• (21:00) - Abekus and frame store.
• (23:12) - Long hours.
• (24:21) - Tools.
• (27:55) - Picture encoding.
• (29:12) - God monitor.
• (33:21) - Titles and finishing.
• (35:01) - Low contrast prints.
• (36:45) - Telecine as loss leader.
• (42:55) - Show it on the wall.
• (44:02) - Quality vs convenience tradeoff.
• (48:21) - Taller gamut volumes.
• (52:12) - Film restoration.
• (57:07) - Software color correction systems.
• (01:01:02) - Film lab profiles.
• (01:05:01) - S curve and other tools.
• (01:06:08) - Introduction of log spaces.
• (01:10:38) - ACES archives.
• (01:17:01) - Rocket science.
• (01:20:45) - Art need limitations.
• (01:23:10) - Bezier envy.
• (01:23:38) - Tastes and trends.
• (01:32:06) - User manuals.
• (01:34:19) - Telecine calibration.
• (01:40:16) - Scopes and visualization.
• (01:45:21) - Technical vs creative transforms.
• (01:49:43) - Skin and tone curves.
• (01:51:24) - Hue vs Lum.
• (01:53:41) - Unorthodox telecine techniques.
• (02:00:45) - Psychology and resetting.
• (02:05:17) - Grading suite dynamics.
• (02:15:05) - Evolution of new tools.
• (02:16:39) - Linking pre and post.
• (02:20:06) - HDR monitors on set.
• (02:21:07) - Recent work.
• (02:26:00) - QD OLED and HDR.
• (02:29:34) - Future of HDR.
• (02:35:03) - HDR in cinema.
• (02:39:04) - Hole punches and punch tape.
• (02:42:45) - Outro.
• (02:43:12) - End.

This episode is the second part of my conversation with Troy Sobotka who is a Vancouver based lighting, rendering and all-round image creation person. You may know him as the designer of the Agx render transform. We dive further into the mechanisms of visual cognition and picture formation. He shares a vast knowledge and collection of reference material on this topic. See download link below for additional material.

In past years he has written an online blog called the Hitchhikers Guide to Digital Color. I would highly recommend people to read it.

We discuss:

• (00:00) - Intro.
• (01:11) - Episode summary.
• (01:43) - Visual examples of phenomena.
• (01:59) - Light and shade.
• (03:57) - Gilchrest’s gamut compression.
• (05:51) - Simultaneous contrast.
• (06:21) - Shimmer / luster.
• (07:26) - Induced contrast.
• (08:06) - Glare halo.
• (08:31) - Hermann grid.
• (08:57) - Watercolor effect.
• (10:31) - “Chevreul Effect”.
• (10:57) - Crispening.
• (11:46) - Neon Color Spreading.
• (12:18) - Chromatic induction.
• (12:46) - Gamut Compression/Expansion.
• (13:18) - Chromostereopsis.
• (14:11) - Face vase, Rabbit duck, Necker Cube.
• (15:39) - Kanizsa triangle.
• (15:57) - Dr. Tse cognition examples.
• (17:54) - Not the pixel you thought you saw.
• (18:45) - Pictorial exposure.
• (20:37) - Gain and offset dimensions.
• (21:47) - Image examples.
• (24:47) - Decomposition framework.
• (26:54) - Newtonian physics metaphor.
• (29:20) - Interview starts, stimuli are not color.
• (34:43) - It’s all constructed. Dr. Hoffman interface.
• (36:56) - What is pictorial exposure?
• (42:12) - Correlated signals “luminance” and “chrominance”.
• (47:28) - Colorimetry’s limitations.
• (56:38) - The domain of Metrics.
• (01:05:22) - The domain of Stimuli.
• (01:07:21) - The domain of Cognition.
• (01:08:32) - Three broad Mechanisms of cognition.
• (01:09:28) - Current predicament of image makers.
• (01:18:31) - Increment and decrement signals.
• (01:23:48) - Gain regulation.
• (01:27:46) - SDR vs HDR.
• (01:32:19) - Field propagation.
• (01:34:47) - Can output transforms be dynamic?
• (01:37:36) - Three Cognitive processes.
• (01:38:53) - Form decomposition.
• (01:44:47) - Why is the canvas flat?
• (01:46:47) - Form computation.
• (01:48:26) - Form assignment.
• (01:52:59) - Towards practical examples.
• (01:57:12) - Gain and offset dimensions.
• (02:05:03) - Cognition limits.
• (02:07:43) - Leading the eye.
• (02:08:54) - Brand colors, vanta red.
• (02:10:41) - Example of gain and offset.
• (02:13:05) - Why not just desat to white?
• (02:15:25) - Some history of picture formation.
• (02:16:31) - Versioning.
• (02:22:17) - Look creation and display transforms.
• (02:27:48) - Ergonomics.
• (02:35:35) - Bigger, better, faster.
• (02:42:00) - Outro.
• (02:41:33) - End.

Download link for additional images and pre interview discussions:

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/2o8hwqfyx9lc42dobysjg/EP0006_TROY-SOBOKTA_PART_2.zip?rlkey=jpi8ol0tnivqyugv3p6varx02&dl=0

Check out www.patreon.com/ColorMentor/ for colorist training.

In this episode, I chat to Troy Sobotka who is a Vancouver based lighting, rendering and all-round image creation person. You may know him as the designer of the Agx render transform. We discuss the topic of Visual Cognition as it relates to how we make pictures. He shares a vast knowledge and collection of reference material on this topic.

In past years he has written an online blog called the Hitchhikers Guide to Digital Color. I would highly recommend people to read it.

We discuss:

Download link for additional images and pre interview discussions:

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/jaute657ixv9sfw9cyh3y/EP0005_TROY-SOBOKTA_PART_1.zip?rlkey=1q4v43fg59d1kbkfoj6vxr1pm&dl=0

Check out www.patreon.com/ColorMentor/ for colorist training.