| Greetings and questions from a newby
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 | Greetings and questions from a newby
by George Carlston on Oct 4, 2009 at 9:01:02 pm |
Hi everybody,
I'm new to the forum, which I found while researching Apple Color. I'm a colorist with a 15 year background of long and short form work on DaVinci and a little bit of Pogle. I've been considering career options recently and am intrigued by how powerful Apple Color seems to be. I searched the forum but didn't find answers to the questions I'm mulling at the moment, which revolve around whether it would be feasible to build a home based color correction bay using AC as my platform, with the idea of marketing my services to anyone whose content may already be digitized (or maybe renting a tape deck when needed. I have the ability to farm out film scanning if I need it, but I don't know yet whether that's a level of work that I could offer in this platform). I apologize if I've missed a thread that covers these questions.
My disadvantage going into this would be having no real world editing experience (and no experience with Final Cut Pro) so I would need to learn the platform well enough to know what specs would be needed I/O, but I think my advantage would be (hopefully) a trained eye and an understanding of what makes a good looking picture.
I'm trying to educate myself regarding what I would need to get started, what costs would be, what level of work I could realistically hope to achieve (I wouldn't expect to be competing with EFilm)...
I've read a ton of posts around the net over the last month comparing and contrasting Apple Color to Scratch, Lustre, Baselight, etc., but it seems a little bit apples and oranges with costs being so divergent.
So I guess my questions are; where do you see Apple Color in the realm of serious color correction applications (or do you see it there at all)? Are you getting results that you and your clients are thrilled with or just satisfied by?
Where work is concerned, I'm at my happiest when I'm sitting in front of a monitor or screen, making pretty pictures. The only way I can see improving on that is if I could figure out a way to do it on my own. Would Apple Color allow me to do just that?
Thanks for any thoughts or ideas you may have!
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• | | | |  | Re: Greetings and questions from a newby
by Joseph Owens on Oct 5, 2009 at 3:33:06 am |
I have a similar background and let's just say it was a little bit convoluted getting to where I am now, and probably a different person from that guy five years ago.
If you have no editing experience, that is going to be a very significant hurdle. COLOR is almost utterly dependent on the FCP roundtrip, and although the latest version has made significant strides towards making that workflow more transparent, to a certain extent that will make the various import/export failures just that much more mystifying. Lord knows that Final Touch was so balky at the slightest deviation from the proscribed preparation that it sort of made it easier -- you did it their way or the highway. If it started at all, you were probably on your way.
Troubleshooting skills are absolutely indispensable, and those usually only come with experience.
That being said, COLOR is in use in some very surprising places, and it is absolutely being used to deliver some very high profile programming. In the end, it will always come down to who is wielding the weapon... an experienced and talented race car driver is always going to wipe up the floor with a weekend gokart warrior. That is just a fact of life.
In the end, a professional colorist should be able to achieve the same end result no matter what the platform is -- and I can guarantee that COLOR is at least as capable of putting an image on the monitor and will be indistinguishable from any of the other major correction systems. It may not do it in exactly "real" time... and so we don't charge $1500/hour for that.
COLOR will require you to be more than someone sitting at a console making pretty pictures. That's the trade off.
jPo
This IS my blog!
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• | | | | | Re: Greetings and questions from a newby
by George Carlston on Oct 5, 2009 at 5:11:52 am |
Thank you for your response, Joseph. I'm encouraged by your thoughts, though I have no illusions as to the amount of work ahead if I'm able to move in this direction. I hope to learn from others while working to gain my own knowledge and experience. This place seems like a great place to start.
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• | | | |  | Re: Greetings and questions from a newby
by Paul Provost on Oct 5, 2009 at 2:36:59 pm |
sounds like you need to hire some people.
1. someone (tech/system integrator) to help you build out your home system.
2. assistant editor to digitize/set up jobs until you're comfortable doing it yourself
"GIRLS ON THE WALL" PBS documentary
grade and finish @ post + beam
http://www.postandbeam.tv
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• | | | | | Re: Greetings and questions from a newby
by Joseph Owens on Oct 5, 2009 at 3:33:17 pm |
There are some professional forums that not only discourage this kind of blatant commercial shilling, but it would earn you a lifetime ban.
jPo
This IS my blog!
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• | | | |  | Re: Greetings and questions from a newby
by Bob Sliga on Oct 5, 2009 at 3:41:41 pm |
Lighten up JPo.
I've seen many people hawking their goods and their "blogs" on this site.
Noah is a good guy trying to help a newbie out.
Bob Sliga
Freelance Colorist & Apple Color Trainer
FC Studio 3 Color Expert
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• | | | |  | Re: Greetings and questions from a newby
by Peter Wollsey on Oct 5, 2009 at 6:31:56 pm |
I don't know what the "rules" are on this, but I think the fact that the post is blatantly transparent in promoting his own stuff makes it ok - would be a problem if it was not clear that he was recommending his own product....
PW
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• | | | |  | Re: Greetings and questions from a newby
by Robbie Carman on Oct 6, 2009 at 4:52:39 am |
[Noah Kadner] "Cut me some slack Joe. I've got five years and 10,000+ posts over you on the Cow- so please don't dictate forum protocol to me. I will kindly await your apology. :)"
Agreed Noah. This forums exist to help people with their problems. I don't push my books or Color training on this site and on Lynda.com but for new users, training like mine, your's, walter's, stuart's my good friend Alexi's Van Hurkman, and Bob's expertise as a member of the Color development team are priceless.
Joseph I respect your posts and feel you have an amazing amount of knowledge and contribute greatly to this forum but come on! If someone is looking to get up to speed what's wrong with suggesting a product? I often recommend to people to check out your posts and if you had online training available I would suggest it along with others.
Robbie Carman
----------------
Colorist and Author
Check out my new Books
Video Made on a Mac (http://bit.ly/5fwxM)
Apple Pro Training Series DVDSP (http://bit.ly/3B2uS7)
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• | | | |  | Re: Greetings and questions from a newby
by Craig Sommerer on Oct 6, 2009 at 1:45:22 pm |
Wow.
Years and the amount of posts seem to be an indicator of experience and gives one the right to shill their products, eh?
I've seen product vendors have the riot act read to them on this site before for injecting themselves into threads.
This attitude is the very reason why I find it hard to stomach the Creative Cow anymore as well as the increasingly long sig files that now accompany every post too.
Craig Sommerer
Chicago, IL
Freelance video engineer with probably 3500+ live shows on my CV.
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