Color Grading in the Age of AI: A Conversation with Dado Valentic

On our latest episode, we chat with colorist and color scientist, Dado Valentic!  He shares his journey from DJ to colorist, his experience grading on BetaSP tape,  and especially - the evolving landscape of the film industry with the introduction of AI technology and how to prepare yourself for the coming wave. Get yourself a extra large mug, as its the longest episode of the season !

Links:
ColourLab.AI
Colour.Training
Tito Heron


Guest Links:
IG - https://www.instagram.com/dadovalentic/

PixelTools
Modern Color Grading Tools and Presets for DaVinci Resolve 

Transcript

0:00:00 - Dado Valentic
And I am going to make a relatively bold statement that latest in two years from now on, there will be only two types of colorists those who use AI and those who don't. It will be impossible for you to stay competitive in your work and produce high quality results without use of that technology. 

0:00:24 - Jason Bowdach
Welcome to Color and Coffee, a podcast that focuses on the craft of color grading and the artists behind it. I'm your host, Jason Bowdach, and each week we'll sit down with some of the most talented and creative colorists in the industry and have a casual chat from one colorist to another. We'll share their stories, their insights, their grading tips and, of course, their beverage of choice. Whether you're a seasoned colorist or just starting out in the industry, join us for some great color discussion. Strap in, grab your mug. You're listening to Color and Coffee. On this episode of Color and Coffee, I have Dado Valentic. He's a colorist, he's a colorist scientist and we're going to be having a great conversation about the industry and all the incredible products he makes to help colorists job easier. Welcome to the show, Dado. 

0:01:13 - Dado Valentic
No, thank you for having me, Jason. Thank you. 

0:01:15 - Jason Bowdach
So the most important question that I ask everybody on this show what are you drinking? Today? I'm on Celsius. 

0:01:22 - Dado Valentic
Awesome, how you liking that I know I get very low sugar and just the right amount of caffeine that keeps me going and it's not too fizzy, it's just kind of the right refresh. 

0:01:33 - Jason Bowdach
We were talking earlier about how you power through the early parts of the morning and then you switch the tea in the afternoon. I may have to adapt that as well. 

0:01:44 - Dado Valentic
Yes, you need to find where you need to peek right, and then you schedule your drinks according to that. 

0:01:50 - Jason Bowdach
Absolutely. I have my traditional Starbucks Blonde vanilla latte here in my Ember cup, so my usual podcast Drink of Choice here along with my cup of water. So thank you so much for joining us on today's episode. Anybody who doesn't know you hopefully you'll listen to this episode. You're a good friend of mine, Dado. You're a really busy guy. Can you tell me a little bit about what your daily schedule might be? 

0:02:18 - Dado Valentic
You know I'm naturally not a morning person and I do get up early just simply because, you know, my development team is in Europe partially and I have to have early starts. So I have developed this you know kind of routine that when I get up I first go for a good strong coffee and I have equipped myself with a good coffee machine, and then basically that kind of you know level of caffeine I have to keep, you know, just to avoid the crash. So I have, like you know, I'm doping myself with a caffeine until approximately lunchtime and that's kind of you know where I'm kind of running on high productivity and then afterwards, you know, I also like to do in the afternoon things that are more of a creative nature. I find myself that mornings for me are better for doing very focused productive work, the most difficult, the stuff I hate, sometimes, you know, like stuff you don't like, but I do it all first thing in the morning and all the kind of hard things I try to schedule in the morning and then in the afternoon I like to allow myself to work on things that are a little bit more creative and that are not as strictly structured, because I think, you know, great ideas come out of that playfulness that we allow ourselves to experiment and play, and I always hope that there's going to be that sense of discovery or something that I'm going to come across through that kind of work, you know, like just through playing and trying stuff out. 

So that's my kind of you know, usually day, and then I try at the end of the day to get out, and just, you know, because by that time I've been, you know, sitting for quite a few hours. 

You know I might have a few breaks just to walk my dog, but, you know, then I want to get out and then I'm basically usually down on Santa Monica Beach, or, you know, I might go and play a round of golf at Rancho Park, or I want to just get out and not sit in front of computer, and that I found also incredibly beneficial because that kind of gets my thoughts a little bit kind of consolidated right. Usually I kind of write in my head some emails, you know, interesting things that you know kind of come together, and then I would, you know, spend some time with my family, and then I do another evening session as well. So when everybody goes to bed I usually come to my room and I sit down and you know, do some, play some music and do some. You know bits and pieces as well. So like I really like to film my day like that, you go by colorist. 

0:04:38 - Jason Bowdach
you're a color scientist. Do you go by developer as well? 

0:04:41 - Dado Valentic
No, no, so you're colorist and color scientist. 

I'm a colorist and color scientist, even though I actually never I don't have a degree in any of those, you know. I have to tell you this is interesting. You know, I have started studying physics just because I it was closest to my home and I had some natural ability for physics. I thought this is going to be easy. I never had to learn physics. It's one of those things that I never had to practice. I was always good at it for some reason, and then I was always coding. You know, actually not many people know this, but I opened my first software company when I was 16 years old and back then, the day you know I'm talking ZX, spectrum, and what happened. 

I lived in Yugoslavia back then and that was before we became Croatia, and what happened was computers were just starting and there was no games Like you couldn't really buy them, they were so expensive and because there was no internet, back then I joined a little club, computer club, which was like a basement in one of the high rises, like the LAN party clubs, kind of. You know. There was this few geeks, you know, and it was just maybe four or five of us and one of those guys was a super geek, he was a little bit older than all of us, and then he taught us how to crack games, literally. And then I was like okay, so then I saw a business opportunity to basically take games and then share some cracks between us, right, and then copy them onto magnetic tapes, then label those tapes. And then there was a one magazine in the whole country called Computer World, and then I would basically put a little ad in Computer World that I had games. And then I started and it became a huge success. 

Actually, I was making like a crazy money with it, you know like, and then, and then it became suspicious to my parents when I'm doing when did this come from? What is going on? Because back in the day the only way for you to get paid remotely was the postman would take a package, deliver the package to the person. That person would have to pay them cash and then the next day another postman would come to your door and then would tell you okay, this is the cash that that guy paid and you would sign for it. And there was this postman on my door every day and the postman asked me kid, what are you doing, man? You know what is this money come from. 

And I was hiding it because, you listen, I was totally aware that this is illegal, you know, I mean, cracking games is not legally allowed and my dad is a lawyer and so you know, of course I was hiding it. You know from them that happened. But at one moment, you know, I think they discounted it on exactly how they figured. I just remember came back from school and I opened the door and there was this kind of my dad called me with my you know middle name, which is Drajan, and when he calls me that I know there's something wrong. And that was the end of my business. You know that was it. I had to give up on it. Then I moved and used all this tape copying equipment to, you know, make DJ mixes and copy that and stuff like this. I kind of later utilized it through music because I was a big fan of music. 

Audio cassettes. Yeah, and you know I love music all of my life. I actually never thought I was going to be to do anything with film. My uncle was an actor and he was taking me to film sets and I loved it, you know. But I always wanted to do more music, you know like, and so I kind of said, okay, nothing with computers business, let me just go. And I tried to make like a mix tapes. Right, there was this famous radio stations back in the day, kind of that were playing early house music. Now I would, you know, listen to how they played. And then I tried to imitate the style of mixing and so I became a DJ, you know, through that and I was making the tapes and so on. So that was kind of what I was doing afterwards. 

And then, you know, the war started and this all basically, just, you know, completely changed. So I moved to Germany and then that was then complete 180 degree change in my life. You know, suddenly I had nothing, right, I was just on my own, pretty much, started studying physics just because I thought, okay, I can do this easy, right, and then it's actually hard. Many people don't understand this, but when you go through a situation of war, it really affects you, even if you're not like on the first line. You know, holding the weapon, right, you lose everything you understand, you lose your home, you lose, you know, you don't know what's going to happen, right? So that's a fear of needs. You don't feel safe, and that fear of unknown kind of switches some sort of survival instinct, right. And then what I did is one night I was coming back from my university, I was studying in Munich, and there was like a little square just outside the university and strategically, these two gorgeous girls positioned themselves with the, like you know, painted foxfag and beetle and they were giving fliers and I was like, oh, let me see what's that. And there was like a party. So I said, oh, let me try out, right. And there was Friday night and I came home on Monday morning and basically that changed my life forever. Wow, that was the early, early days of electronic music. But that scene was just very inclusive and allowed me really to forget the world around me and to kind of, you know, connect with some with a different side of myself, and and I really enjoyed it and that really prompted me that I give up, you know, being just some sort of physics student and I became a sound engineer and then very quickly, like two years later, I had a record in the charts and that was basically. I was like, ok, you know, music is life, this is what I'm going to do. So just fast forward. 

I went to London then, because what you do is like you know, you become successful. And then where's the biggest center for music? Right, london, right, this is the place where I went to London, tried producing there, but at that time it was really difficult. I mean, there was lots of record labels and everything, but it was. It was really like a you know, kind of you know, for me to break through in London. It was just very, very hard. So I was like, ok, listen, I'm going to do business studies because I need to know about business. So you went to college and in London and I did a postgraduate there, I did a master of business MBA. 

0:10:45 - Jason Bowdach
So DJ Dado, it goes and gets his postgrad. 

0:10:48 - Dado Valentic
Exactly. But then I lost it DJ Dado name because I signed it to ZYX Records and I have fallen out with them because they wanted me to make every next record to sound like the previous one and I was like this kind of creative soul no, I think this is better. So we kind of had the follow up, but my contract was such that I just had to, you know, let them have the DJ Dado name and I became Tito Heron. That was my kind of London DJ name. I just needed a new name. Right today I came up with it and that was really great time. I have to tell you, like you know, I was like DJing at night, studying during the day. You know, I run an amazing night in Nothing Hill Arts Club. It was legendary, called Soleil. It was there for almost seven years every Thursday. It was really really good time. I have to tell you, this is one of my best kind of periods in life. You know, I had a lot of fun, basically. 

And then I got an offer to work for Apple and that was like for me, like some cause. Apple was my first computer doing. What did Apple? What happened was this Steve Jobs came back and he sucked the whole company because they were all like accountants. Previously, I don't know, I was told that Apple in the UK was like people wearing stripesuits. They had nothing to do with what Steve Jobs felt company should be and he consolidated all European offices into one office which was based in the UK. So they really wanted me because I spoke languages and I had an MBA. We want you to be a middleman between our big customers who have 100 plus computers, right, and you are like, listening to what problems and things they have and you're building a relationship to help them know that we will support them, that we are building new hardware and that they don't switch to Windows NT, which was the kind of the big thing back then, that corporates were doing. 

So I was like a guy who exactly I would be like Apple representative, who would walk into this and who are the biggest customers. We're post production companies because they were editing on Avid on Media 100s. 

0:12:47 - Jason Bowdach
Okay, so here's your intro into a post. 

0:12:49 - Dado Valentic
Exactly. So every day I would basically be in Soho Soho is where all the post is in London and then I would go in and it was just so interesting to see what these people were doing. In that kind of way I discovered color grading. I just saw it first. I had not really understanding what it is until a little bit later, and then I was pretty good at my job. I really enjoyed it and because of that I get offered to move to Sony, and Sony wanted to develop a competitor to Avid. They wanted to come out with a non-linear editor. 

0:13:24 - Jason Bowdach
So you're still an editorial. Your mind isn't even on color grading at this time yet. 

0:13:28 - Dado Valentic
There was no desktop grading system back then. I've seen something which was called Colossus, and then that company went bust. Do you understand? This is how an approachable desktop grading was. The only grading you could do was the hardware-based grading systems that had to be attached to a film scanner because it wasn't like a grading digitally, it was like a scanning or tele-sine, and then grading system was processing that signal in real time and was writing it to a tape. Back then, primarily something called DG, beta or even if you didn't have money, if you're on music video budget you were writing it to something called Beta-CAM-SP, and that was really non-linear grading like it is today. 

0:14:13 - Jason Bowdach
The. 

0:14:13 - Dado Valentic
DI, as we call it, there was a company, a computer film company, I think they were called, and then they were later acquired by Framestore and they had their own system, and that system later became film-like, bass-like, Correct. 

0:14:32 - Jason Bowdach
What a fun history. 

0:14:33 - Dado Valentic
Exactly, they developed it in-house, and then another company appeared a little bit later called Nukoda, and they were basically incredibly interesting as well because they came from film restoration background. 

0:14:46 - Jason Bowdach
And at this time were still. These are the first software applications, or these are additional hardware-based solutions. 

0:14:53 - Dado Valentic
They were like a quarter of a million dollar hardware, software applications. 

0:14:58 - Jason Bowdach
Okay, so we're still pre-Apple color, essentially. 

0:15:01 - Dado Valentic
Much, much before. I mean we're talking like several years before. So I started with Sony and that's really when I learned color. And the reason why I did that is because in the basement of Sony there was an engineering department with these incredible engineers and I was this inquisitive nature. I would go every day down and I would say, hey, john, what is gamma? You know what's really gamma doing Right? And then he would give me a book about it. 

And you know, and I was just like, because I needed to know this stuff, you know, I would talk to engineers, to software developers, to customers, and I really needed to know. Like you know, I didn't want to just, you know, repeat things without not understanding what they are. And these people tried, you know, taught me the math and because I had a little background in physics and programming and math, I was able to connect the dots and understand really how that's working. And, what's most important, I learned the art of product development Because, effectively, we were developing a new product for Sony and I understood ah-ha, so you need a software developer, you need hardware manufacturer, that that. So I really felt and learned you know how that whole world is being done and also I was on a cutting edge there because Sony already back then had something called HD Commissar that they decided not to release because they were selling so many DGB tests for some Olympic Games or championship. Whatever was going to happen, you know, they had some big order and they said listen, we can't manufacture SR because we have to shut down a factory to make them. We're going to postpone this development for the next year. And I was like, are you guys crazy? This is the best thing ever, hd tape deck with the picture quality. You couldn't believe, like that was just the best thing ever, right? But they kind of strategically decided to postpone it. 

And you know, at that moment I had enough of big companies. The problem about every big company is that they move very slow to begin with and I always felt that, you know, in big companies you have maybe two or three people that really do work and about 20, they're just flipping papers and honestly, there's this, especially in Japanese companies, there is this managerial structure that goes high, high. So anyway, so it was. It was like I'm done with this. You know, I am entrepreneurial spirit. I feel the image is just about to get 10 times better with HD. I saw it, I was working with the technology in pre-release. So I quit Sony and I start managing company that had the avids like a rental avids. 

And back in the day, what people don't know is you couldn't buy an editing system, you would just rent it for a period and then we would come into your studio office, set up an avid. When you finish we come and pick it up. And that started with like seven avids and that company grown to about 30 very quickly and my bosses were super happy and they offered me partnership in a company as well and I was like you know what? We're not going to do avids, we're going to do color grading. That's a pivot, yeah. And they were like, why color grading? What is it? And this is going to be the most important part of post production, because editing is going to go desktop. You're not going to need avids anymore. Premiere was coming up but it was really only for wedding videos back then. 

You know really, like it wasn't serious, you know. But you know, final cut seven was just killing it and I was like, you know, let's not do this, let's let's go something that people cannot get, that is, but that it's going to give them the highest value for money, because nothing improves your product more than color grading. And basically we decided to do this. You know, we kind of made the plans and I found even an investor for the company. I came to Los Angeles to learn how to do the color grading, but I learned nothing. I mean literally. They just told me technically how to operate. Here's the wheels. 

0:18:40 - Jason Bowdach
Here's the wheels. Here's the button. 

0:18:43 - Dado Valentic
I was like, oh my God, I was so depressed afterwards. I was like, yeah, we'll never learn this. The atmosphere in London was there were a few color respect then already around. What year is this? Well, you know, this is early 2000. I would ask them, hey, would you want to show me, you know? And they were like, are you kidding me? I mean, there wasn't a friendly environment and especially, I think they were not necessarily friendly with me because I wasn't the guy who would go and drink beer and pubs with them. 

I was a little bit like kind of you know, doing my own stuff. I wasn't part of some kind of so ho clique. I felt like, you know, I don't belong to that, I have little, and they never quite, you know, jowled with me. Actually, there was quite a few times I experienced animosity, you know, towards what I'm trying to do, and I got used to it after a while. I said you know, I know what, who cares about him? I mean, that maybe just shows that I'm on the right path. If they don't like it, that probably means I'm doing the right thing. So I came, did the training in LA and then decided to stay as long as I could on my tourist visa and I had basically a work experience in Los Angeles and that's when I learned, that's when I understood the concept of color grading without any technology involved in it. 

Let's, let's just remove what system we're using. Let's just kind of focus on the idea. We are taking an image and manipulating an image and concept of that, and why we're doing it and what we are achieving with it is something that finally gelled with me and that is still, to me, the source of everything that I do. The reason why we are manipulating images is nothing to do with us getting jobs as colorists or because some studio decided that something has to be graded has got nothing to do with it. The reason why we're doing it is because color and image itself is such a powerful communication method, so to say, like our system, that is by far more powerful than words and us being able to convey the right information and the right emotion, guide the audience and the viewer in the right direction. That story requires us to do is hidden inside the secret language of color, and the language is secret and it's not invented. We didn't invent it, we are just discovering it because it's a part of our DNA and every human, everybody who came to this planet, has in its DNA, ability to decode the color and image and gain extra information out of it. And that was the discovery. Once I knew that this is real, that this exists, I knew that it's just a matter of time before everybody more people than just 50, 60 of us who work in post-production back in the day, who were busy with color grading understood that this is going to become universal language, the same way how music has become a universal way of expressing ourselves. So the color is going to be the same. 

And think about back then we didn't have access to cameras as much as we have now. You had to go rent a camera or pay a lot of money for a camera and they were really bad quality. But then one moment they changed. And I think now we are just still in the process of bigger group of population waking up to an idea to how powerful color is. But I've seen it explode from just a few people being excited about it to millions of people being excited about it, and that's a really, really beautiful journey that, if I look back and I go like my God, this is wonderful. I'm so happy that back then I made a decision to drop my job at Sony and focus on something like this and that instinct that the color is the right thing was right and that I'm still today so glad I'm involved in it, you nailed it. 

0:22:36 - Jason Bowdach
It's that ability to have that impact on an emotion in the same way as music. It's really interesting psychology and that's what clicked to me. Obviously, we use technology to do that because it's very like what we're capturing and what we're using to create the art is very high tech, in contrast to, say, painting or drawing, but that's just the tools we're using to get to the final result, which is emotion. 

0:23:03 - Dado Valentic
And that's really like another interesting point that you just said, which I really 100% agree with you. What's very specific about color grading? It is so closely linked to the technology, and the reason also why we see the renaissance of it is just because the technology has become so much better, so much powerful and so much more accessible, and that was really the driver as well. We can't ignore the fact that the technical development has had a massive impact into our ability to process image and what to do with the image, and that's an interesting balance. You are having an artistic domain effectively being tightly combined with the technological domain, and for me, it was always that magic point where things happen and it's not when one is stronger than the other. 

There are some amazing colorists out there that are just too technical to be creative, or there are some amazing colorists out there who are too creative to be not enough technical, so their images are looking like real. 

Anyway, you get me. So that kind of sweet spot is really what makes this job or this art form, so to say, really, really special for me, and I was always interested in that kind of, you know, the cross between the two, and I was actually interested so much that I decided to explore the art world, and you know when I actually had an excursion once I sold my company in London back in 2018, I had one year working as a CTO of a startup that was making VR art with some of the Really biggest artists in the world. I made a virtual version of Marina, like, literally, a VR Marina. I'm actually Then Anish Kapoor, this famous sculptor, British sculptor. That experience, to me, was probably as valuable as working with Vittorio Storaro, which, or working with you know, riegel Scott, because, in a way, what I learned from there is that they're also dependent on technology, it's just that their technology is a little bit different. 

0:25:15 - Jason Bowdach
How would you say that, like, how would you say that you're talking about a sculptor? How would you say that they're using technology? Because obviously that's To me I'm going, that's obviously they. What technology are they necessarily using? 

0:25:28 - Dado Valentic
Okay, let me tell you this. Okay, just a perfect example Anish Kapoor. He has a style of sculptures. You recognize Anish Kapoor because the moment you stand in front of his sculpture it just takes you. It actually makes you a little dizzy as well, because you know he makes his concave mirrors sometimes big reflective spaces that just disorientate you for the moment. He really uses optical illusion to make you question the reality Unbelievable. So in his quest of making next better and bigger piece, he discovered this company that developed. You know the special pain for military vehicles to hide them at night. How interesting. 

0:26:10 - Jason Bowdach
And that is this absolute black. 

0:26:12 - Dado Valentic
So there's the technology. 

0:26:14 - Jason Bowdach
Got it Okay so by having an open mind to what you're looking for next and what you can use to help you get to the next level. You are able to one find new technology in different areas. 

0:26:26 - Dado Valentic
Exactly. And then what you do? You do a service not just to yourself, because you've just fulfilled your desire to create something amazing and fantastic, because what's very specific about all these artists is that they have an incredible drive to create. The moment they get out of bed, before they had their first coffee, their mind is already racing with ideas and stuff that they want to create. Their purpose in life is to be creative, to create right. This is what they're here. That's why they are artists. You know, Then, it's not to be famous and rich. They're here because they have an incredible drive that is inexplainable, but it's part of their texture. They need to be created, they need to create, they need to build. Okay, and that, to me, was such an amazing environment to be in to work with people like that Inspiring. 

That are totally right With that inspire a whole generation of future artists who take that what they have created, and make their own versions of it. They use it as inspiration for their world and then you can see the whole branches of art are not becoming real Right. So you see like they have helped the next generations to grow and find their niche, how they want to express themselves. There is very little difference practically between what they're doing with their art and what we're doing. One thing you have to just understand what is really very, very different to us is that we are not owners in any way of our artistic expression. We are facilitators. The people who own the artistic pieces that we create are primarily studios or directors or writers. I hope writers will become owners of it and now that they're striking a really routine for them, but in any case, we are only a facilitator. 

0:28:19 - Jason Bowdach
We're assistants to the DP in the best sense of the word. Correct, correct, but. 

0:28:26 - Dado Valentic
Our assistance has a big element of artistic expression involved in it in order for us to be able to succeed in our job. And that was, for me, the biggest gap that I feel I have discovered when I came to Hollywood. So once I finished this art project, I moved to LA and then I was shocked when Warner Brothers gave me a contract, which was for an engineer, effectively, because they are Union Studio and most people don't know, but, based on the Union, we are engineers. You know what I told them? I'm not going to sign this. I'm not an engineer. Are you kidding me? I'm not against engineers, I love engineers. I actually sometimes even write on my forms, like for visas. I'm an engineer because if I write on color sign. 

It's a misclassification, but you know what? Hello guys, this is 2020, you know what are you talking about. Are you telling me that this is an engineering job? Well, if it's an engineering job, someone could read a manual and do it. 

0:29:36 - Jason Bowdach
It's like calling people operators, which is another pet peeve of mine, which is like flame operator, or resolve operator, which is like you know. 

0:29:45 - Dado Valentic
And I understood what happened is they haven't updated the papers for decades because back in the day we were engineers who were transferring film to tape and it required very high engineering skills to do that because equipment was clunky, was breaking down. But I can't believe that since then nobody has actually recognized the artistic input that colorists are putting into it. And for me that was probably the biggest shock. Nobody really wants to fight the system. All big colorists are just, you know, wave their hand and they go like I do my thing. I have the customers and directors and cinematographers who are my friends and who understand what they do for them. I don't need some union to you know. Give me a. 

0:30:29 - Jason Bowdach
If you have the Rolodex it becomes stiff. You lose the drive to fight that fight sometimes. 

0:30:36 - Dado Valentic
And you know what it is is. You would have to give up your day job and become a full-time representative for colorists and fight for colorists' rights. And yet nobody has decided. Nobody is prepared to give up their career to fight for that cause. I have not met anyone yet. You know, and I know that there were several attempts. You know from people In reality this is all just good colorists giving up their free time, few hours, few spare hours they have every week to fight for general colorists. You know industry, right, but before there isn't really a body that somebody who gets paid to sit full-time in the office and lobby. That is never going to change and we haven't got there so far, right? 

0:31:27 - Jason Bowdach
Dado, I know you're a big advocate of AI and moving forward with technology. I'd love to hear about your thoughts about sort of AI and where we're going with that in terms of our industry and color grading. 

0:31:37 - Dado Valentic
I think you know the right way to say is that I'm a big advocate of technological development and that such AI is playing a big role in it, because it is technology that is going to impact our lives and it is technology that has already changed for some and it's going to change work for everybody who works in picture post production, including colorists. And I am going to make a relatively bold statement that latest in two years, from now on, there will be only two types of colorists those who use AI and those who don't. Okay, because it will be impossible for you to stay competitive in your work and produce high quality results without use of that technology. And, like in anything else, those who will be winners and those who will be losers as well, you know, will be those, certainly, who are willing to change and to adapt. 

Charles Darwin, you understand, it's not the strongest, it's not the smartest, it's those who adapt. So what is really important for all colorists today is that they basically start adapting. We are on an early stage with it. It's just we can only see like hints of how beautiful things will become. But the reason why it's important for everybody to start doubling in and using these tools is because the improvement is going to be very sudden. What is very apparent about AI's technology is that it's not progressing in a gradual way how we were used with technology in the past. You know computer would go according to Moore's Law. 

Moore's Law? Ai is not moving according to Moore's Law, you're kidding me? I mean, it's moving at the speed of light, right? You know I like the analogy of surfing. And surfing, you know, positioning is the most important thing. You learn at one moment how to stand on the board, maybe terms, but what's the most important thing you need to learn with this is to know where you're going to position yourself, to be at the right spot when the wave just about breaks and you're just about next to the peak not quite on the peak, and you're able to get it. 

And when a really big wave comes, I'm talking, let's say something like five, six foot, right, for me that's big. Okay, can't afford to be in the wrong place because it will trash you seriously. You know you get hurt, right, and AI is this technology that you can't afford not to be in the right place. Seek information about the new stuff that's happening, you know. Try, you know, to join some newsletters that are weekly giving an update to what's happening and so on, because it is that wave that is very large, is coming and you need to be following people that are already positioning themselves so that you are in the right position as well. 

0:34:30 - Jason Bowdach
You're not saying to put like literally dive in the deep end. You're saying just like, while those little waves are coming, you know, maybe start playing. If you're not using the scene cut detection, maybe start playing with that more. It's literally take another step. 

0:34:44 - Dado Valentic
Then you further already were comfortable with and start accepting the situation that very soon the tools that you're using is going to change right and that suddenly you're going to be able to work in a slightly different way. And then also you know what is really important is, like, what's going to separate you from other, from everybody else, is really how you use those tools. Because you understand AI is completely useless to humanity unless there is somebody skilled who knows how to use it. Like if you're to put an elderly person in front of chat GPT right, I don't know what I mean, they will probably get into, get a little bit entertained, but if you put the skilled prompt engineer in front of it, you would get 100 times more benefit than somebody who doesn't know how to prompt engineer. So this is just a simple example. Like you know, you must start waking up to possibilities and get really used to the idea that things will become different. 

0:35:46 - Jason Bowdach
You touched on a really interesting point in that the successor fail state with AI is so different than other learning and the fact that it really is it can be very discouraging to go to, whether it's mid journey or chat, gpt or any literally insert any AI based tool, and it's really easy to get a fail state where it's. You go to it and you try it something, whether it's I want to make an image out of nothing and I want it to look like a certain style, and it doesn't do that and it doesn't give me the purpose that I want and then to go you know what it's not doing what I want, and then to just be discouraged and stop doing that. And the fact is, the way that I have seen AI or machine learning based tools evolve is, all of a sudden, when you do get that pass state and it goes, you know what. That's not perfect, but that's pretty close to what I asked. It's not. 

It's not what I asked for, but that's definitely not not what I asked for. And you start to get these interesting things that all of a sudden, like you said, the tools you're using are going to change. But I think people are afraid of well the tool me is not going to be here, the tools that are going to be replacing me, but the fact is I think people are mistaken in the fact the tools that are going to be in your hands are going to be different. You are still going to be there, though, because this is a complex job. 

0:37:03 - Dado Valentic
It is, it is, it is, you're right that the things will change. You know, like, in terms of that, not everybody is going to be here, you know like. You know. So, for example, based on a historic analysis of similar events that happened in the past, where an advanced technology has come in and has made a change in an industry, you know we and we in our industry, we had it several times. You know how do they play out. 

So look, this is how it plays out, and every time plays out the same, so there is no reason why it should play out in a different way with AI. 

So you have to understand the industry is a little bit like a pyramid, okay, and on the top you have the high end, the Stephans on and felts of this world, and what's going to happen with them is that they're going to get even more in demand and more expensive and, because of the ability to, what they are going to be able to do with image is going to be so much more than what they can do today that the creatives of this world will be desperate to take that as a part of their toolset to make the product even better. 

So the next avatar, the next top gun, the next big movie, is going to spend even more money on process of color grading, that is, ai assisted, because of the ability to modify and improve image with this technology in much better way than it is, and I really hope that you know. Company three right now has got the good plans to how they're going to integrate some of these amazing tools that we have, and if they don't, they can, they can call me. I'll show them what's going to be possible. 

0:38:32 - Jason Bowdach
I'm sure they will, and if they're listening, they know where to find you. 

0:38:34 - Dado Valentic
This is what I would be doing if I be them right now and I'm pretty sure they are. I mean, they're very smart people. Then we have the middle part. What's middle part? Well, it's your kind of reality TV shows, cooking shows, sitcoms, stuff. You know where. 

You know, with a little bit care that you put during the shooting process, you can actually completely eliminate the final grading part, because we're going to be so good in automating that with AI that the human is never going to be even be able to come close to the quality of color grading that's going to be fully AI driven for any of those shows. For the time in the budget that they're giving Even even even if I was to tell you, like, okay, I give you any time in any budget to do the best possible work you can as a human and I'm going to get the machine to do the same thing You're not going to be able to do it as precise as machine is going to be able to. So it's a battle that we lost already, because the precision that an image can be measured and adjusted by an AI system is no comparison to what a human eye can see. There is zero artistic expression in that. Let me be clear about it. You know all it's doing. It's balancing and flattening and making things look structured way. 

0:39:48 - Jason Bowdach
One equals one. Essentially One equals one exactly. 

0:39:50 - Dado Valentic
But there is, you know, and you can't really fight that. And why would you? Because you know Well we want. 

0:39:55 - Jason Bowdach
That Consistency is 80% of our problem here, and then the rest of it. We can spend more time finessing, which to me is what I'm trying to tell people, which I mean, don't get me wrong balancing is the meat and potatoes of our job, but if I could spend more time finessing, I would do that in a second, Totally. 

0:40:13 - Dado Valentic
And I think you know we will certainly that kind of middle part of color grading that is, you know, happening at the moment is going to change and the people who are doing those jobs will probably be able to complete more in the same amount of time and they will have a more artistic input in the overall image because they will be free to worry about the artistry and the quality of the image rather than execution. 

0:40:40 - Jason Bowdach
Rather than just the raw match. Can you just make this look? Can you copy-paste this grade on? 

0:40:45 - Dado Valentic
2000 shots in one day, which is what's happening with a lot of those shows. No, we have only one day to grade an episode of Love Island and it's 2000 shots shot on 10 different cameras, and you go like are you kidding me? And you're calling this a job. This is not a job. 

0:41:01 - Jason Bowdach
I mean, this is worse. 

0:41:03 - Dado Valentic
You understand, you know what is this. You know like this is crazy, why you know, like, what can I do in here? Just cover up errors. That's all I'm doing, right? 

0:41:12 - Jason Bowdach
Anyway, that's another story, don't get me going down there, so that's a great thing to bring in, and that's a great job for AI, things that are repetitive, things that are that can be repeated, and well, and so let me be devil's advocate, though. So, at the moment, though, we have those mid-level, and then what about these really low level? 

0:41:30 - Dado Valentic
Something is happening that has never happened before in the history of humanity, and especially not in the history of media, and it's something that we touched just earlier with the fact that millions of people are discovering color that have never even paid attention that color existed and they're becoming now aware of color and they're now interested in using color in their own work. And why is? Because we have just entered creator generation. They are based on a research that has come out by an investment company from New York that have done a research recently based on the valuation of companies like Frame my Own and stuff like that. What they claim is that there is today more than 5 million people who declare themselves as full-time creators. They are full-time. That means they don't have a day job. All they do is make videos and post videos. All they do is make content and you know what? They monetize it so well that they can make living out of it Better than what they were doing before. And some of these people were even doctors, new York scientists who gave up their jobs to become a creator. So certainly you know, it's not that they work for peanuts, right. They certainly found a way how they can monetize their content in such a good way. And they are also fighting for eyeballs, like Netflix, like Amazon, like Apple Plus. 

At the same time, we have a new generation of viewers whose attention span is the shortest we ever had, you know, because these people grew up on a short-form content and they are perfectly capable to entertain themselves by watching 100 short-form formats, then 190-minutes film. So the world has changed drastically. I mean, you come on, you know, like we're not in the same world today, like we were two years ago. So what's happened for color grading? What's happening is that there is now millions of people who need color grading who then never even knew how to spell color grading before, and they want to be colorists, but not really colorists. They don't care about being a colorist and artist like you and I do. All they care about is the content is looking good. You know what they want. They want this one magic button. Ok, ai is going to do wonders for them. And their size, the size of that market, is so much bigger than professional media production companies. Right, they are so powerful because of their size that they will drive the development They'll drive software development. 

0:44:04 - Jason Bowdach
They will. 

0:44:05 - Dado Valentic
They will. 

0:44:06 - Jason Bowdach
We're seeing this on app development on iOS. I can't say that I I mean, we've seen it resolve too, actually the whole cut page that's. I was going to say that's not happening on regular macOS and Windows, but then I had to bite my tongue because it already is. 

0:44:20 - Dado Valentic
And that's basically what is going to happen. So that's going to become really big right. If you are today paying your mortgage and sending your kids to school, as, working as a colorist, you have pretty much two options, like you know, for the future, two paths to take. One is to go for the high end, and that means start doing stuff that no one else can do Be able to produce image that people don't understand how you. They can't recreate, they don't understand how did you manage to make something look as good? And even though they have the same software as you, they don't, they can't get it. 

You have to have your secret source that will help. You know, stand out and become somebody who directors and cinematographers which is worth so desperately want to work with, because you have ability that others people don't and you know what. You don't have to be a big company anymore to do that. What's really amazing is that you know the mind of creatives, directors and cinematographers has opened so far that they don't mind working with a guy or a girl that works from their bedroom, as long as they get a good image. 

0:45:21 - Jason Bowdach
Well, I think technology has also gotten to the point where the pandemic and technology, sort of at the perfect time, opened the door that big you can't not work at a facility and have a certain level of feature sort of fell down with the pandemic. And then also we are finally getting to the level of having remote tools that are of a certain professional caliber where I can confidently say to a DP hey, you know, you and I are looking at the same image, as long as we're on a decent enough monitor and device that we can talk as professionals in two different places and do color grading Amazing. 

0:45:59 - Dado Valentic
Amazing, right, you know what, jason, I'll work with you like that anytime, because otherwise I'd have to get in my car. Take the I-10 down, you know. Then try to find parking around your place somewhere, right, yeah, run from the session to pick up my kid from school, you know, come, you understand. It's, it's, it's Absolutely as much as I love working with someone together. I want to minimize the amount of effort to do for that right Absolutely. 

0:46:24 - Jason Bowdach
Especially, there's times when you want to go into a studio for the AAA, large budgets, when you need to set something, but there's so much that can be done remotely now for the time benefit of everybody Totally. So what I'm? 

0:46:35 - Dado Valentic
saying is I want to encourage you know professionals out there to open their mind and insert for things that are not necessary. 

Mainstream, because anyone can buy the VINCHE Resolve today and can do a couple of training courses and pretend that a colorist is not a big deal, right. What it is really is like what you do with it, and you have to have certain secret sources that other people don't understand how to do it, and which is basically where our tools are. So why our tools are so successful is because they give people ability to create looks that they can't even imagine that they were able to do before, and then they send it look. I have so many customers who tell me, dado, I had a problem that I would do a grade and then the agency would take the guy who's a like you know, a work experience person who claims they know the VINCHE and they would color exactly like what I do, and they would continue color grading themselves based on the grade I did for the first part. And then they start using my tools and they say, dado, they can't do it anymore. 

0:47:36 - Jason Bowdach
It's a workflow thing, yeah. 

0:47:38 - Dado Valentic
Because, you know, maybe there is something in my subtractive color science that they can't recreate, and it's true, they can't. 

0:47:44 - Jason Bowdach
Okay, the blend of color. They can't. 

0:47:46 - Dado Valentic
There is no curve and tool on planet Earth that you know is going to work, exactly how the look designer subtractive is going to work, you understand? And that's basically where they go, like well, you know what. Now they have to come back to me. 

0:47:58 - Jason Bowdach
It's sort of. It's really funny because it's sort of like if I said, you know I took my car in and the second I got it home, the first thing I did was take apart the engine to find, figure out what they did, you would look at me like I was crazy, because nobody would want to do that, unless you're a car guy, and if you're a car guy you're probably not going to take it in anyways. But it's just really funny to think about it that way, like if you want to bring in a pro, unless you're really looking to save money, just go back. 

0:48:22 - Dado Valentic
That's why you're bringing them at the end of the day, you know, and the product look better, you know, and it's just that they kind of, you know, feel like, okay, we can take shortcut. But then there is a second path as well, which I think we shouldn't be ignorant to. 

0:48:35 - Jason Bowdach
So let's talk about that one real quick. That's the middle and the low path. 

0:48:38 - Dado Valentic
That a lot of people are going to fall into no-transcript. 

Recalibrate our view, because you know professionals, you know people working in professionals, like especially, let's say, in Hollywood or something like that. They look down on all the YouTubers and creators. They're like, oh, these YouTubers a little bit like these guys, the kids, right, listen, those kids get more eyeballs and more viewers than Fox TV, you know, would ever get on their most popular show with Gordon Ramsay. I mean, listen, there is a cooking show on YouTube that is hundred times more popular than any episode of Gordon Ramsay ever was, and you guys can feel so good about yourself that you work on Gordon Ramsay's show. Now, listen, that YouTuber has got more audience and is making, by the way, more money than Gordon Ramsay's show can generate, because the advertising budget to the way how YouTube monetizes their show and how sponsors are flocking onto those content creators generates much more income for them and their smaller operations more agile and they're able to actually afford to pay you, sir, as a colorist, to do their show and pay you better rate than the traditional broadcaster will be able to do so. 

0:49:55 - Jason Bowdach
Looking down upon them is a bad business decision and too bad future client Correct. 

0:50:01 - Dado Valentic
So this is a moment for us to wake up, to understand they have an incredible power that the tables have turned around Like. For example, if I was to tell you that Mr Beast is using my software, it has more value than to say the company 3 is using my software. 

0:50:16 - Jason Bowdach
So we're definitely in a different world now. 

0:50:18 - Dado Valentic
You understand. 

0:50:19 - Jason Bowdach
Yeah, it's because, well one, he also has the ability to influence other people and using it as well. 

0:50:25 - Dado Valentic
And everybody wants to be like him and they think like oh well, if he's using the other software than my YouTube videos also gonna be like this. And there's another state of there there's a five million people right. 

0:50:35 - Jason Bowdach
So that brings me to a great question. So, as people are listening to this, our professionals are professional colorists, so your suggestion was to develop a look or develop a style, and that's certainly something that is a good suggestion. How can we do that, when obviously we can. Anybody can go out there and buy your software look designer, or you can go out there and buy power grades or something from Pixel Tools or for any variety. You got film box. We have so many different tools now. What makes an artist difference from the box that they use now or the product that they purchase? 

0:51:14 - Dado Valentic
Okay, it's a very good question. At the end of the day, it's your creative decision that is gonna be valued and the tool that you used is not really important in it. Okay, I think you should have all of those tools and try them all out and explore them and find out what each one of them does, because each one of them is really good in doing you know particular things. Okay, you understand. So I don't think you should ever limit yourself by not having the right tool. You know, if I'm a professional, even if I'm a car mechanic listen, I'll have every single tool on the planet. 

Right, I'm not gonna be not able to fix the Xamun's car because I don't have the right key, you understand. So I'll have them. Okay, that's number one, but that's not the recipe. If you kind of think, this is again the problem with the technical color is thinking I see this online a lot, which is I'm trying to get this look. 

0:52:06 - Jason Bowdach
Is it film box? Is it this? Is it the right software? And I get it. It's like you want it and there's an urge to get the right tool and that's gonna get you there and I know it's like 10%, and using the right tool is helping you on that path, but that's not the way. 

0:52:23 - Dado Valentic
Okay, so let me tell you this so fine, you get it too. Let's say, you get a film box or whatever. You know how many looks can you create with film box. 

0:52:30 - Jason Bowdach
And not to narrow a film box. I love film box, but I love it as well. 

0:52:34 - Dado Valentic
But let's say how many. I mean one, two. You know they mean like you always look at film box. You can't change it. Let's not talk about film box, let's go magic bullet. Yeah, I mean, everything looks like magic bullet. No matter what you do with it, it's always gonna look like magic bullet. Right, they still look great, but they're very one-trick pony. It's like you know. You have to understand that. You have to open your mind. So let me let me give you an idea, which is, for example, just what happened this week and that I think you know. 

I have helped a group of maybe about 120 people open their mind to possibility, to what they can do, and maybe I can help also listeners of your podcast open their mind to what's happening. I just did a, basically a seminar where I took mid-journey and so I pretended this scenario A client comes to me and and has a particular show they want to grade. They said to me oh, I would love it to look like this or like that, whatever. You know, they gave me a little break. So what I do is I have I've developed a little practice to how to structure prompt for mid-journey. 

0:53:31 - Jason Bowdach
So you have a template, so you're not starting from scratch, like like any creative correct and I basically so. 

0:53:36 - Dado Valentic
I taught I in this seminar. I taught everybody how to use this template for how to develop style, how to build lighting scenarios, how to build color palette, so I was able to really narrowly specify what kind of look I wanted. The mid-journey came up with a photorealistic image of that particular you know subject that I was going for, with the perfect style, imitating, you know, some famous photographer, cinematographer. And then I use that style with color lab AI to transfer onto my image. And you know what, jason, what happens is that I made look that I could never, never in my life, have thought I would grade something in that way. 

0:54:22 - Jason Bowdach
What a great combination of tools. 

0:54:24 - Dado Valentic
Yes, because every time I open a row file, I'm a little bit limited to what's in that row file, to where I want to end. You understand. You go like and you push it and you go like oh, I don't want to push it too far, I'll stay true to what they showed. Where about mid-journey goes like? You know what you prompted me? This look, this is what I think this look is, and then color be adjusted, one click transfers it and you suddenly end up with a look. I go oh, my god, wow, how good this looks. You know what that like break between reality what your camera captured and the reality you created through AI. You know, like is really huge because you know you are not any more grading based on what you shot. 

0:55:09 - Jason Bowdach
You're grading based on actual idea to how something should look, and that's, I think, something that we were talking about earlier, which a lot of people at least colorists when they hear AI, they're thinking the whole process needs to be automated, and you nailed a perfect example where I'm just taking one step. Instead of taking a still from another movie, I'm just gonna AI generate this and I'm gonna go into the same workflow that I always did, correct. 

0:55:33 - Dado Valentic
I pushed that one shot to my timeline and I manually finish the rest of the sequence like I always do, right, I don't need AI for that. I'm pretty good after 22 years and I know how to match that. So, basically, I it's a bloop and I've done, and you know what that is a like. Just an example to what you, as a professional, can do today to stand out. Because I guarantee you, if I was to be a director and I was to send this piece to color grade to 10 different people, that nine of them would give me Bo Park similar result, because we all work in the same way. Oh, you shot it like this. Maybe I'm gonna apply this latter, that lot, maybe I'll make it warm, cold, but I will always stay very true to the original right or close to regional. 

And sadly, there is this one guy or girl who basically got, you know, completely crazy idea. That actually works. Why it works? Because stylistically it follows the brief and but it looks visually unbelievable beautiful. It looks different, it's something new, it's something correct and you know, and it actually just reminded me on a story that my mother used to tell me, you know, when I was a kid, and you know. She said, oh, you know, so the king was looking for a prince for his daughter, right husband. So he said, okay, I'm gonna kind of now give some tasks to find who's the best man. And then one of the tasks was like okay, who's going to see the sunrise first, you know, is going to win the first task and all the men from the village went and they were looking in direction of east. 

And this one guy, this little poor guy that didn't have any chance to win the girls hand right, he looked in the direction of west and everybody laughed at him. When you look at the Sun's coming this way, what's? 

0:57:17 - Jason Bowdach
wrong with? 

0:57:17 - Dado Valentic
you in that moment, like everybody was waiting to send his screams. Oh, you know. Oh, your Highness, there is the Sun. What happened? On the top of the hill? There was a house with a window and the Sun reflected of the window and that little poor guy was the smartest of all. And you know what these little tricks that you know we use, how to deploy mid-journey, how to do this is exactly that the little guy who has a little better idea and is looking in the opposite direction is suddenly, you know, the winning the prince is hard, and I think this is exactly the attitude I think you know we kind of need to kind of deploy. The powers are changing. We have to think rather smarter than follow. You know where the herd is going, and I think that's that's where you win. 

0:58:06 - Jason Bowdach
That's where you win in creative world so, as we approach the end of our time together, I have a question that I ask everybody. That's on this podcast. So if you were to be banished to a desert island and you were still having to color grade, all your clients were still calling you. I'm allowing you to take one tool with you. What would that tool be? I? 

0:58:27 - Dado Valentic
love the question, but I have no doubt about it. There is only one tool, and it's called primary color correction. Live, come again that's a. 

0:58:35 - Jason Bowdach
That's a popular one. It's printer lights and in primaries I was going to. 

0:58:39 - Dado Valentic
Actually I could say something as well, but I didn't want to try to turn to salesy. But you know, like an XO one and look designer probably, you know, would give me an infinite amount of options. But you know, I didn't want to kind of, you know, make this podcast like just plugging my software, because in reality, I have to tell you I would, I would still be. There is a primary inside the you still need a primary. 

Even with it, with primary still something you'd reach for there is a primary inside a look designer would still rely very much on that primary. So yeah, so you know. 

0:59:09 - Jason Bowdach
Well, that's a great choice, and if I were banished to a desert island, I'd be definitely one that I consider as well. Yeah, and if people that are watching or listening wanted to find out more about you, where can we find you? It's very easy. 

0:59:20 - Dado Valentic
You know, if you ever Google AI, color grading, you'll probably stumble up color lab dot AI. But actually I run, you know, really successful colorists training program and it's more like a coaching really because it's a kind of, you know, something I developed over the years and I'm very passionate about as well, you know where, where I really take people from zero to hero in period of, you know, six months, one year, and it's probably if you people really want to connect with me, right, and if they really want to, like you know, have a weekly calls with me and learn, you know, from years of my experience and follow that concept that I'm teaching and philosophy and approach to color grading, then I would recommend you know that they also join color dot training. And it's a British spelling of word color. I have everything that's kind of a little bit European in America I know is regarded as better, so maybe that's why I left the British spelling and I'll definitely have a link to that in the show notes. 

1:00:19 - Jason Bowdach
I've taken a couple classes. For me, they are really fantastic classes, so I definitely recommend those two ever's listening, and also I'm a user of Dado's plugin look designer and color lab AI. There's some great plugins. I definitely recommend you take a look at those as well. Thank you so much for coming on the show, Dado. I really appreciate your time and all the amazing information you shared with us today. It's been a blast talking with you it was interesting, jason. 

1:00:42 - Dado Valentic
You know, before this I kind of had a some sort of plan what I was gonna talk about and none of that has actually happened. And I love the way. I love the direction which we went to. You know, we went to really like an interesting direction and I think this is really nice, that you know, when you're having a you know podcast with someone, you, you you feel relaxed and you know comfortable talking to the church, you know, go a little bit behind the scenes, you know, and you reveal some stuff that normally you wouldn't. So thank you for allowing me speak about stuff that's maybe close to my heart as well. So thank you for that it's truly my pleasure. 

1:01:19 - Jason Bowdach
Hopefully we'll get you on the show sometime again in the future. Thank you, and that's our show. Be sure to follow us on Instagram, youtube or your podcast app of choice. If you're using Apple podcast or Spotify, please leave us a review. It helps us quite a bit. If you are looking for DaVinci Resolve tools, please be sure to visit our sponsor, pixel tools. We'll see you guys in two weeks with another great interview. Happy greeting.