Where to go after reading Alexis van Hurkman's 'Colour Correction Handbook'?

[Hugo Matthews]

I've been through this book thoroughly now and have been spending time practising all the techniques. I feel like I know the content well enough, and it has given me a great foundation.

But where to go now? I have been through most of the content here on Lowepost, which has also helped a lot, but now I guess I am looking for more insight into: the practicalities of the craft; the real-world processes of professional colourists; intermediate and advanced techniques; grading sessions; useful (colour?) theory from related disciplines and art forms; etc., 

Any tips, particularly on which video tutorial sites are best, would be gratefully received. 

Take care,

H

Edited January 28, 2019 by Hugo Matthews

[Amada Daro]

Gain experience, practice your taste and get a mentor. 

[Matteo Curcio]

I definitely enjoyed this book: If it's purple, someone gonna die. It's an insight into the meaning of colors.

https://www.amazon.com/Its-Purple-Someones-Gonna-Die/dp/0240806883

[Nico Wieseneder]

As stated above the more you practice the better you'll get. But there are also some great courses out there. I did one some years ago with Dado Valentic (colour.training) and it really helped and motivated me a lot. There are also some courses out there from the ICA (icolorist.com) that should be good and help you gain experience. 

[dermot.shane]

if there's a  good uni level art school nearby, see if you could audit their version of color theory 101 course?

also check out what is nearby in computer science/color and medicine/color at any local uni,there may be courses on offer that can be of great value to a colorist if allowed to audit

 

[Anton Meleshkevich]

I think, you should try to grade some real project. When you have to grade over 100 shots in a day, your color grading approach changes a lot.
When you learn color grading at one shot, you have time to create a lot of masks, roto, finetune everything. But when you can't spend more then a minute on a shot, you start to look at the whole image balance and how is it interacting with neighbor shots.
So, you just choose a couple of shots of a scene. Fix their WB and exposure problems. Then create a look at this scene's group using these shots. 
And then just go through all the shots, quickly adjusting their WB and exposure. And when you did it to all the scenes and shots, if you still have enough time, you can spend it on masks, fine tuning, tracking, etc.
Also full screen and color grading panel changes a lot of things too.
Of course this is just a one way of grading approach, and may be too obvious for you, but hope someone will find this useful.

[Marc Wielage]

Some good additional reading:

VES: Cinematic Color (free 52-page white paper)

https://raw.githubusercontent.com/jeremyselan/cinematiccolor/master/ves/Cinematic_Color_VES.pdf

 

Color & Mastering for Digital Cinema by Glenn Kennel

https://www.amazon.com/Mastering-Di...=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1514855461&sr=1-1

 

Digital Cinematography: Fundamentals, Techniques, & Workflows by David Stump

https://www.amazon.com/Digital-Cine...855497&sr=1-1&keywords=digital+cinematography

 

Color Reproduction in Electronic Imaging Systems by Michael Tooms

https://www.amazon.com/Colour-Reproduction-Electronic-Imaging-Systems/dp/1119021766/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1541130852&sr=1-1

 

Digital Video and HD: Algorithms and Interfaces by Charles Poynton

https://www.amazon.com/Digital-Video-HD-Algorithms-Interfaces/dp/0123919266/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1541131105&sr=1-1

 

The Art and Technique of Digital Color Correction by Steve Hullfish

https://www.amazon.com/Art-Technique-Digital-Color-Correction/dp/024081715X/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1486686304&sr=1-4&keywords=color+correction

 

Modern Post: Workflows and Techniques for Digital Filmmakers by Scott Arundale:

https://www.amazon.com/Modern-Post-Workflows-Techniques-Filmmakers/dp/0415747023/ref=pd_sim_14_22?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=0415747023&pd_rd_r=56C6PQKJHFAEGAHTSYJC&pd_rd_w=5STw4&pd_rd_wg=ZLbLY&psc=1&refRID=56C6PQKJHFAEGAHTSYJC

 

I would also point to the free manuals available from Blackmagic Design for Resolve and from Filmlight on Baselight. Even if you aren't using these particular platforms, there's some great information there on color, workflow, signal processing, and other factors important to colorists. I also think having a good basic grasp of cinematography, lighting, and lenses is crucial, though that's an entirely separate (but related) subject. Being able to anticipate and solve the DP's problems in the color room is very helpful, even when sometimes all you can do is commiserate and try to reduce the problem.

Edited February 14, 2019 by Marc Wielage

[Hugo Matthews]

Oh, wow! Thank you so much everybody for contributing. For some reason I was not getting notifications for this post, so I have only seen all this now. This is all great, I appreciate it!

[Emil Öberg]

Have you checked out mixinglight.com? I really like Dan Morans tutorials/insights on there.

[Marc Wielage]

Yes, Dan Moran is very good. (He's also of normal height, which I like.)

I don't often get into "beauty grading," but most of what I know came from Dan's lessons, and they helped me immensely on a couple of projects. Dan also had some great ideas on how to mask and track complex objects, which boiled down to multiple shapes -- and that was a good lesson to learn. MixingLight is a terrific resource.