Color, Coffee, and Client Satisfaction: The Evolution of RKM Studios

On the tenth episode of Color & Coffee, we're sipping coffee and talking all things post-production with the dynamic duo, Ryan and Becky McNeal from RKM Studios. 

From Ryan's journey from being an assistant colorist at Company 3 to running his own business, to Becky's invaluable management expertise that ensures smooth operations and client satisfaction, this episode is a must-listen for anyone curious about what it takes to be successful in the post-production field.

We dive deep into their challenges, the importance of mentors, and how Ryan successfully transitioned from freelance work to managing his own boutique post-production facility - RKM Studios. Plus, they spill the beans on how they navigate client notes, set boundaries, and manage creative impulses. Grab you favorite cup of joe (or tea) and get ready for an fascinating episode of color discussion!

Links:
Dehancer Film Emulation Plug-In
RKM Studios
Company3

Guest Links:
RKM Studios IG - https://www.instagram.com/rkmstudios_color/
RKM Studios YT - https://www.youtube.com/user/RKMStudiosChannel

PixelTools
Modern Color Grading Tools and Presets for DaVinci Resolve 

Transcript

0:00:00 
I made it my mission to not  just be a colorist in a technical sense of operating the software and coloring, but I want to be a colorist in the sense of I want the client to feel like they just had the best experience that they could possibly have for this part of the process. So everything we do, I'm always thinking about that as just the number one priority, especially because, one, it's fulfilling. But two, it has to be a business and for it to be repeatable, clients have to want to come back, and for them to want to come back, they have to leave feeling like, wow, I'm really glad that I went there and I'm glad that I sat with Ryan, or I sat with Michael or other colorist or Paul, our editor, and worked with them, and I only want to work with them. 

0:00:45 
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. Welcome to this episode of Color and Coffee. I am thrilled to have both Becky and Ryan McNeal from RKM Studios. Welcome to the show, guys, thank you. Thanks for having us. So the first question that I have and I asked this of every guest is what are you guys drinking today? 

0:01:39 
Well, I've got my Starbucks peppermint mocha. I like the sugary coffee drinks, so just as much sugar as possible and a little bit of coffee and Becky. 

0:01:47 
I have a flat white. 

0:01:49 
Excellent choice. So I'm drinking my vanilla latte in my Ember cup here. It also happens to be a Starbucks brew, and I'm going to be needing some new coffee recommendations because I've been drinking this exact brew for too long. So is that your normal drinks, guys, or is that something special for today? 

0:02:05 
Yeah, this is what I drink every day. Becky always gets something new, but I just like peppermint mocha every day, all day all year long. 

0:02:13 
That's me too, man. I'm a creature of habit. I get the same drink every single time, which is why I'm trying to mix it up a little bit. Becky, what are some of your favorites? 

0:02:22 
I really like lavender coffees at specialty coffee shops where they have that. It's usually my go-to if they offer it. 

0:02:28 
You know what I'm going to ask you, because you're also an LA native what are some of your favorite coffee shops in LA? For those that are in LA listening, Just down the street from our office. 

0:02:36 
We go to Priscilla's in Burbank all the time. They're great. 

0:02:40 
That's fantastic. I'm going to have to check that out, so I'm really excited. You guys are the first dual interview on the show and it's because I was super interested in your story, Ryan. I'm not going to spoil it, but I know that you were an assistant colorist at Company 3, and I'd love to hear more about how you guys started RKM Studios. Do you want to tell me a little bit more about? 

0:03:00 
that While I was working at Company 3 as an assistant, I was really interested in being a colorist, like most assistants are. I started building my network of freelance clients and I did freelance while I was at Company 3, and that sort of allowed me to feel confident to take the first steps of leaving Company 3 and just starting my own thing. That's how it started. I felt like my network was big enough that I could leave and pay the bills and make a career out of color. So I did that and the first couple months I put a small office space on a credit card. I was fortunately in a car accident that didn't leave me totally wounded but gave me a nice settlement, so I was able to buy some equipment to get started. And then I thought I had a big enough network. And I really didn't. It was just as soon as I quit Company 3 and started off on my own. None of my clients had any work and I called them all and I'm like, ah, you got a commercial, you got anything. 

Oh, I'm not working on anything right now, buddy. So it took me probably like four or five months before things started picking up and I made myself go into my office space every day at like 6 am and I would apply to every Craigslist, mandy posts, facebook posts that I could find anything related to color or visual effects and I would take every job regardless of pay. And I just had the express goal of filling my schedule and building the network of clients and starting my network, and after about like six to eight months of that, I was actually really busy and had, you know, nearly no time to do anything other than work. So I was doing 14 and 16 hour days like every day of the week, and that's about the time that I begged Becky to quit her job and join me in helping manage the business end of it. 

0:04:47 
So you spent correct me if I'm mistaken about three years at Company 3, and you've been on your own for five years now. Uh, yeah, a little over that. And Becky, what were you doing before Ryan? Begged you to come and manage. 

0:05:01 
So I was interested in a career working with animals. So I did a short stint as a pet co-dog trainer and then I was at a 24 hour emergency animal hospital for a year. There I was split between being a tech assistant and working front desk reception, and that's what I was doing at the time when Ryan wanted me to join RKM. I was planning on leaving that job anyway. I loved the animals and it was a great experience, but it is a very draining career. I could see that I was headed for burnout if I stayed in it. Ryan was like why don't you just? You know you're planning on leaving anyway why don't you just quit now? We'll try running this together. He was like it's okay if it doesn't work. You know you can always go back to job searching, but I really think it can work and it did. 

0:05:51 
So let me ask you a question and, ryan, try not to spoil it here. What was your honest feeling when he came to ask you and said come work with me, because I know a lot of people would be like I don't want to work with my wife. I love her, but I don't necessarily want to work with her as a post-producer. So that's an amazing request to have. 

0:06:10 
I was really open to it. Ryan and I have always been good creative partners in addition to life partners. We're also high school sweethearts and we did a couple of years long distance and I think that really kind of solidified the communication. If you can make it through long distance, you can make it through a lot of things, because it's all about communication and I wasn't nervous about joining a business together. I knew that we had the foundation to work in a healthy way. What I've found with other couples in the industry because we know a few is they either work really well together or not at all. There's not a middle ground for me 100%. 

0:06:53 
That's so interesting and part of the reason why I was immediately attracted to when you shared your story with me was the fact that you guys seem to work so well together, and you guys were just bouncing off each other's emails and I could immediately feel what you're describing right now that you guys do work really, really well together. Now, how would you describe your role at Arkham? Would you say that you're a post-producer? What is your official title? 

0:07:19 
I usually say post-producer. It's kind of a combination of things Business owner, producer. I manage all the clients, I do all the invoicing and bookkeeping, so I'm also our accountant. I wear a lot of hats and do a lot of things. 

0:07:33 
Ryan, you're a lucky guy man. This is stuff that most colorists can't stand to do, and your wife's stepping up there. 

0:07:40 
I know, and I just turned the knobs until it looks good, that's the color of stream. No, we both have to wear a lot of hats. She does the administrative stuff extremely well and she does the client-facing stuff extremely well, and then it falls on me to do the technical and the creatives. I'm our lead colorist, but I'm also our IT guy and solutions engineer and color scientists, even though I'm not a color scientist. 

0:08:06 
Every studio or color house or even post-production facility needs to develop their own color science, their own essentially what they're going to be offering their clients. So I totally understand that. Even if you aren't officially a color scientist, you have to decide what are we going to be using, what are we going to be offering our clients, even if you're taking an off-the-shelf solution and customizing it for your own uses? So I completely understand that. So tell me a little bit about your facility, rkm Studios. I know you guys are located in Los Angeles. Tell me a bit about some of the projects you work on. I know we're currently still in a strike right now, but on the norm assuming that we weren't in a strike what do you guys specialize in? 

0:08:44 
We work on a wide gamut of different types of projects. I like to say, if you can visually see the content, we can color it, just about everything. Most of our work right now is long-form documentary. Because we are in a strike, that's one type of content that happens to be thriving. I think everyone's sort of pivoted into doc. It's got maybe more creative integrity than reality TV. So this time around I think a lot of the filmmakers are real keen on making documentaries. 

But we've been moving more and more into narrative and I'd say, like usually before the strike, narratives a good like 40% of what we do, either short films or independent features, and then the other 60% is pretty even commercials and music videos. I kind of came up doing mostly music videos and I've definitely gotten my fair share of music videos out. So I'm like less and less keen to take those on. It's a lot of high stress, quick turnaround, high expectations creatively. Music videos are a really fun type of project to work on when you're just doing the art part of it. But everything that comes with it the labels, the artists, the stress can kind of kill the joy sometimes. 

0:09:48 
I completely understand that. They're great when you're coming up, especially when you want to experiment with stuff, but when you're running a business trying to pay the bills and have something consistent, they can be a strain. Now, what was it like transferring over from running freelance to what you guys are now? You guys have other employees, you guys are a boutique post-production facility. How was that transition? Because you guys are in a unique position that a lot of people aren't where they offer themselves as a boutique facility, but you guys actually are and I think that is really unique in the fact that you guys are thriving. 

Ryan, I've watched you since I discovered you on Lift Gamma Gain. It's been honestly really fun to watch you progress. I guess I've been watching you the entire time you've had this facility, so it's really really cool to slowly watch you progress from being freelance over to now you guys have. I think I saw you guys have an editor. You guys have a digital intermediate technician. What was that transition like and what was some of the high points and some of the low points? 

0:10:46 
It's been a really enjoyable journey, also very challenging. I usually find enjoyment and challenge, and Becky does as well. We're both perfectionists. We tend to analyze and research, challenge ourselves to constantly improve, figure out new things that we're not doing currently. So that aspect of it it's been really fun. 

I think going from freelance to being a boutique has been an evolution of like how you think about your career and it's a less about you and it's a more about the team or what you're building. 

A lot of our journey, I think, has been discovering and learning the qualities of leadership and mentorship, and mentorship is something that I'm very focused on right now. So we have a second colorist and we have our editor and we have our DI technician and then I have a couple other freelancers that we subcontract with sometimes. But all these people are sort of like in the realm of. I mentor them and I teach as much as I can and I also learn from them, and I think mentorship's something that probably used to be more strong in our industry and has sort of waned because a lot of the positions have moved to freelance in gig models. There's not always great opportunity to work with another artist and learn from them, so in our business that's sort of a key tenant that I wanted to instill is a learning atmosphere and an atmosphere where we are challenging ourselves to improve and find new ways to do new things with new tools. 

0:12:09 
I mean you were an assistant colorist, so obviously everybody's really busy and you're coming in there and doing assistant colorist stuff, but you were at least under a bunch of very, very talented colorists there, and then to move over to freelance where you have so much less contact with people, it's very jarring. And to be passing that on and to essentially prioritize mentorship is an amazing thing to hear and I hope more facility owners prioritize that as well. That's an important thing to me. That's why I enjoy teaching is to try and pass the knowledge on. It's not a black art, it's just something that's hard to find great information about. 

0:12:44 
I think sometimes, especially established artists, can be afraid that teaching someone might introduce competition. I think it's more of a rising tide raises all ships, the better your team is, especially when you're talking about within a single company. It only benefits all parties, for everyone at the company to be improving and reaching for the stars. How? 

0:13:03 
do you guys pull in new clients? Would you say that it falls more on Ryan, or would you say that it falls more on you, or would you say it sort of split equally? 

0:13:11 
I would say Ryan laid a really strong groundwork in his early days of freelancing with his clients and built a very loyal client base For a long time now. We haven't really had to do any outreach because we get all of our work through referrals. During normal times I get like two emails a day from people I have never heard of, who are reaching out saying hey, so and so, told me that they worked with you guys and I'm interested in working with you too. So I think we've been really lucky in that and we've been able to thrive on that kind of loyalty from our client base. A lot of I'd say at least 60% of our projects are from returning clients who have worked with us before and they're bringing us something new, and then the other 40% is new clients that have been referred by somebody who has worked with us. 

0:14:03 
Now this might seem like a little bit of a strange question, but I firmly believe that there is something that both of you guys are doing to establish that loyalty, because this is not necessarily normal. I can tell you that establishing the quote unquote Rolodex is what a lot of colorists can't stand to do, and the fact that you guys sort of have the Rolodex spinning naturally is such an amazing thing to hear. What if you had to put your finger down on one thing and I'll ask this to each of you that you guys think you do to establish loyalty within your clientele, what would you think that would be? 

0:14:39 
I think it would be that we're very client facing. I come from a background in retail and working at an animal hospital, where clients may not be having their best day and you have to be there for them. It requires a lot of empathy and making sure you're using the right words and tone of voice and helping them through what they're going through. I think that applies to everything in life, especially when you're running a small company and your clientele are mostly independent filmmakers. They all care a lot about their projects. That's something that I always keep in mind, from start to finish, when they're working with us is that, even if it's a small budget or even if they didn't have the greatest lighting on set, something about this project's really important to them. We should treat it that way. I think and I have heard from clients that that's one of the reasons that they come back is they feel like they're treated with care and they're treated individually, versus being treated as just like a number or just another project somewhere else. 

0:15:39 
Ryan. What do you think? I think? Well, it started at company three. 

Prior to working at company three, I didn't I don't think I yet appreciated the client experience, part of the experience I had done freelance before working there and the way I worked was very individual, and then I would get notes from the clients which I would usually be upset about, and then I would implement those notes begrudgingly Early in my career. That's how I dealt with it and then, when I started at company three, I saw that in my mind, 60% of the perceived value of what they were getting there was the experience they had, and that started at the front door. It was the greeting makeup, the reception, it was the presentation of the space, it was the availability of dumb things, snacks and coffee. It was the look of the rooms in the candor that the entire staff used in talking about the projects with the clients and, of course, the experience that the color is provided in the room. And what surprised me is those colorists were more or less like is like going to the optician, like you're being tested for your eyesight and you have a really kind, deep voiced or a fair voiced person leading you through some very technical things, but in a way that is calm, confident and encouraging. I thought that was such a powerful tool the psychology of working with people that I hadn't even considered was part of the career of being a colorist until I saw it in person and I realized I needed to grow a lot and I needed to let go of whatever I thought was like my vision or like this is art. So I need to convince the client that this art is good. 

I had all these like backwards notions, largely informed by going to art school, that I had to get rid of, and company three opened up my eyes to that and then when I started freelance again after company three, I made that my mission is. I want not to just be a colorist in a technical sense of operating the software and coloring, but I want to be a colorist in the sense of. I want the client to feel like they just had the best experience that they could possibly have for this part of the process. So everything we do, I'm always thinking about that as just the number one priority, especially cause one it's fulfilling, but two, it has to be a business. And for it to be repeatable, clients have to want to come back and for them to want to come back, they have to leave feeling like, wow, I'm really glad that I went there and I'm glad that I sat with Ryan or I sat with Michael or other colorist or Paul or editor and worked with them, and I only want to work with them. 

0:18:13 
That's such a valuable learning experience and that you were able to go and get that experience at company three and then not only like go through that experience cause. A lot of people, whether it's a company three or another post facility, go through that and see the client management experience but openly reject it because it's too much or it's too much money or there's too much staff involved. But the fact that you wholeheartedly embraced it and saw the benefits of it and then took it to the next level with your own facility is really probably the biggest tip of this episode so far is the fact that you've taken it and run with it. Obviously, company three is one of the biggest post production facilities in the world right now. How would you say that you have modified that structure a little bit to work with your boutique suite Cause obviously you don't have the same staff, you don't have the same resources, but you've taken that mentality to heart. I'm interested to see how you have adapted that on a smaller scale. 

0:19:11 
From working at company three, I could see some ways to improve the color producing aspect of the job, and so a lot of Becky and I's early discussions when she joined, was language in how to deal with difficult clients. Because, let's be honest, most clients can be a little bit difficult to very difficult. That doesn't make them unworthy of being a client, it just makes them a client. Most clients have some hangups and so you have to figure out how to get through them. So Becky and I have developed kind of just like a working language of like how to deal with nearly every what we call red flag issue. We've become very good at spotting potential snags with communication or personality, even in emails. Usually the first email we, both Becky and I, can get an instant read on what sort of client they are and what sort of management tactics we'll need to use in order to make the project work. And that's also important because you have to have very transparent goals to be able to have effective negotiation. And I guess I'm answering more for Becky in this, but that's one of the areas that I thought could be improved, because not just Company 3 but other other facilities that I've worked at and companies through the years, I think client services usually gets burned out because of the difficulty of clients. There's not always tools to handle every situation and so a lot of it just becomes ad hoc and you just kind of deal with it as it comes, and that can lead to nonproductive communication, to put it lightly. 

And then, in terms of because we're a small team and we don't have the overhead or the facility power of larger post houses like Company 3 or like the mill Ways, that I make up for the lack of staff is investing in technology and researching just key tools that I can integrate into our workflow to eliminate man hours. 

And a lot of this is like things that can be automated or things that can be completely removed from traditional workflow or things that guard against human error, so you're spending less time re-rendering or redoing things. Or, in the case of our internal workflow, we build everything to handle client notes. Client notes are a priority in the technical workflow so we can handle changes. And, as we know, edit lock doesn't really exist anymore, so if it ever existed. So a lot of the workflow has been designed to accommodate what we know will happen, which is the edit will change, additional spots will be added. The client will change their mind about color after the session. You just have to accept that those things are going to happen and plan for them in a way that makes it expedient. 

0:21:51 
That's really a much more peaceful way I think is the right word than a lot of the other workflows and mentalities that I've heard before. What is one of your favorite examples of something that you've improved upon recently. I can tell you already thinking of one that's on your smile that you've removed or improved upon. 

0:22:08 
I'm more and more inclined to use color management in my projects. I've always been very traditional and like wanting to manage it all myself with nodes and lots and color space transforms. And there was a day where I was like man, I really wish there's clip nodes, there's group nodes, but I wish there was like another set of group nodes that I could have like groups within groups. And it occurred to me as I was like thinking about it, I was like, oh, that's basically what color management is and what I really want is like larger groups that manage the color, just input and output color spaces. And then I want my groups to just clearly be my look. 

And then, going down that rabbit hole, I'm like, okay, I'm gonna like actually like try some color management projects again, because I had tried ASIS back when it started becoming a thing and it seemed like a lot of extra work for not much gain, especially on projects where, like you, just really don't need the giant pipeline for a small result. So this time around, I looked into resolve color management and tried it on some projects. I also start seeking out tools that are expressly built for HDR DaVinci, wide gamut, intermediate, the working color space in that, coupled with resolve, color management has been really great for the workflow because I've eliminated a lot of the time that myself, our assistant or the other colorists has been looking through all the files, trying to figure out which cameras the files are, managing them in groups and using shared nodes and group nodes to try to like manage color while also maintaining our look. I think that's been the thing I've been the most excited about within the recent months. 

0:23:39 
You're singing my language, man. I recently switched over to DaVinci Wide Gamut, davinci Intermediate for not only my personal work but all of my professional tool development tool, because I was I had the same issue of. I mean, asus is great, but a lot of people were using RE Log C and then other people were doing Cineon and it was what do you do? And so I was also doing manual color management and I was also using groups and then getting stuck with well, where do I do my? Look? Now, it's so funny. 

You mentioned that I was in the same problem and then I think it was about a year ago I started to mess around with RCM and it just clicked for me and all of a sudden it was like this is what we needed. Okay, now I can just start going forward and focus much more on the creative with this technical loophole sort of solved for me, at least for right now. I'll re-approach it later with another issue. For right now I'm very, very happy with resolve, color management and DaVinci Intermediate. So I'm happy to hear that you're loving it as well. 

0:24:33 
Yeah, I really do. I think for the most part it solves more problems than it creates. It does create like a little snag in that it's visually harder when our assistant preps the projects for them to determine whether or not a file has been provided in the appropriate color space, because the project is visibly linear and the clips are visibly linear, like. You can import a rex-o9 VFX shot and it'll look similar to the camera source files because both are in rex-o9. Now it's just a little bit more organizational effort on the load-in side just to make sure that all your color spaces are correct and that you're not receiving materials that are misinterpreted already. Exactly. 

0:25:14 
It's all about the workflow and it seems like you've got it down between yourself and the rest of your team, which I think is super, super important. Becky, one of the things I wanted to ask you, because we've been in the technical realm, is what would you say is helpful on your side of the business that you guys have done for efficiency and making sure that people are coming back and people are. I mean, we already talked about loyalty, but people are enjoying the experience and people like we were talking with Ryan about people your clientele enjoying the process, even though they're all difficult in some different way because this is their baby, their project. They may have been working on this for six months or two years and usually, as artists, we're jumping in for it for a couple weeks or a couple months, and so I'm intrigued to hear about some of the things on your end of the business that you prioritize to make sure that they're feeling like that you're prioritizing their projects. 

0:26:05 
A lot of it comes down to communication. I'm big on communication. It's a theme with me. I do a lot of work upfront when clients first start reaching out and before we color, to kind of establish a rapport with them, ask them about the project, make sure they feel heard. I use that time to establish boundaries about what the color session is going to look like, how much time they get you know what the approval process is going to be like, so that there are no surprises later, and I find that that prevents a lot of problems and also prevents existing problems from escalating and I think it makes everyone feel more safe as well, just psychologically. There's something about like knowing how things are going to go that makes the whole experience better even if everything else is exactly the same. 

It just it makes you feel a little safer. So I do a lot of that work upfront to make sure that everyone knows as much as possible that this is how it's going to be. This is what it's going to look like, we're excited to have you here. Then they come in, they do their session. I'll check in on sessions, I'll stop in and say hi and make sure that everything's going good, but for the most part I trust Ryan and Michael to be leading the sessions and then same afterward I'll follow up and be like hey, it was great having you in today, looking forward to seeing you on the next one. Just those little personal touches to make sure that everyone feels you start to finish like we care, because we do, and also that they're being heard and that if there are any problems that come up, everyone's aware and we can talk about it and it's not like a huge dramatic thing. 

0:27:45 
There is so much to unpack right there. I think one of the things that I wanted to point out is the fact that you implied that they're going to be coming back to you, and I think that a lot of people don't build that into their language and communication, and I think that's really important. The fact that you're saying we look forward to seeing you next time. I mean that goes and it should be obvious, but I think that is probably more lacking in the industry than we would assume. It's usually here's your files, here's the bill, hope to see you back. And you're making an assumption of we look forward to you coming back, and I think that leads into you having a lot of repeat customers. 

One of the other things that I thought was really interesting is you setting boundaries in the color session, because one of the biggest things that I and a lot of colorists have problems with is scope creep of the session pushing further and further and further. And I want to deal with beauty fixes and I want to deal with VFX and oh, I forgot about this shot over here that needs. That's the worst shot on the whole feature that we didn't bring up up top. And so what are some of the boundaries that you talk and share with clients, because I think that some of the listeners could benefit from hearing the way that you prep people for success at the beginning, before the session even start. 

0:28:58 
A large part of it is the way we structure our sessions. We operate based on a full day or a half day session and those are eight hour or four hour blocks of time. So I kind of build all of my language around the session time and we treat it like an appointment, like a doctor's appointment or something Like. You're there at a certain time, you have a set amount of time to be working with your artist. So I build that into the language a lot. 

A lot of our clients are independent. 

They're working on low budget things. Even if it's a low budget project or we're doing a discount for whatever reason, I'll still give them the amount of time that the project needs, but make it clear that because it's a discounted session, we can't go beyond the four hours or we can't go late at night, or we can't do a weekend or whatever it may be. I think the time boundary is kind of the most important one, because you can ask for stuff in the session that's like beauty work that we didn't discuss before, and if it fits into the time I don't care. But if you're asking for things that are requiring us to go late into the evening or it's like pushing into our other work. Obviously that's an inconvenience and it kind of our other clients are paying for their time too, so it's disrespectful to them when we have things that push over. So a lot of it is the time related boundaries, and less about the money or like how much the project costs, and more about just like keeping things contained and not letting them overflow all the time. 

0:30:32 
Yeah, making sure that they're in their corral and not going into another client's corral which can cause issues. 

Ryan, how do you deal with some of that in the session where you have a client essentially pushing for things that you know? I know beauty work. I bring up beauty work because beauty work tends to start off as one shot and then all of a sudden there's 60 shots and it's like, hey, this is a whole another day of work. How do you deal with that in a client services appropriate fashion? So you're not just saying no, we can't do this, but you're also making sure that you're going to be able to finish your day and get onto the next client without disrespecting either one of them. 

0:31:11 
I have like several behavioral techniques that I use, like at the beginning of every session. I know that my default behavior is I just want to jump in, like I'm excited for the art part of it always, so I just want to start coloring away, listening to my music, making it awesome, building something. And I have to go against my disposition there at the beginning of the session and just like, do the data, look at how many clips there are. Understand that I have four hours and there's 300 clips. That's a scary amount of clips, for it's not like terribly scary for four hours, but it's definitely cause for alarm. That tells me that we're going to do basic look and get through the shots. Primary corrections probably not a lot of windows, probably not a lot of beauty work Right away. I know the limitations of the session and then I immediately discussed that with the client. I'm certain that they've already been pre-prepped by Becky, but if they haven't, I'm just going to let them know and just be like okay, given that we only have four hours and there's 300 shots, just so you know what we're going to be able to do. We're going to be able to do your really nice look. We're going to be able to get through all the shots in that time, but we won't be able to do very detailed things, so save any of your detailed notes until the end, but let's make sure we got the overall broad strokes right first, and then we'll start going through with a fine tooth comb, with anything we can in that time. 

And then, with regards to beauty work, that usually is the slippery slope because it is usually one shot. Well, they'll be like oh, and they always say it's one shot, but they always mean one angle when they say that. They'll be like oh, yeah, just one shot of her. She's just got like, you know, the makeup just was like smudgy on her, like cheek or something. We just need to like get that like smoothed out. But initially I'll be like oh, one shot, yeah, that sounds great. And then you go to that shot, you do it, it works great. And then then, of course, there's 20 more shots from that same angle, that all of the same problem. In that first one worked because she didn't like do a lot of rotating her head and stuff. But then the next shot, she's like moving, like this, you know, and it's like she's like trying to make the tracker like fall off. 

0:33:15 
Yeah, literally, it's like they're trying to make our job harder. At that point it's like you could have told me this shot. 

0:33:21 
Yeah, I always joke in the session when that's happening. I'm like, just for the future, guys, when you're directing, make sure your actors stand absolutely still and don't move. And don't move the camera if you can, because that's a lot better for color. That usually gets a good laugh. So I think it's you have to communicate fast and early, because the danger of holding something in where you're like internally you know this might take longer, but you're hoping you might be fast enough is usually the route to pain, when you get to the end of the session and you still need more time. And if you had only said when they made that request that it's not possible, you would have been scot free. But now it's your bad, so you feel like you should go over the time at your own cost. 

I think it really is about being honest with yourself and honest with the clients and transparent immediately and not in a way that's combative. It's always work, choice, tone of voice. I like to control my language so it always sounds like I'm on their side, where I say things like I really want to do this because I think this is what the project needs, knowing that they also think that, and then say, however, you know, or as it turns out, there's only a certain amount of time left in the session, so I think I'm realistically not going to be able to do this rather than saying no, that's not going to work, because as soon as you give a very definitive no, it sets them up to close off and also to get defensive about their requests. So I think it's being honest in making sure that you're still on their side as you give parameters. 

0:34:54 
That's great, because I'm also the guy that's like great, let's jump in, there's the pool, here's my diving board, let's, I'll be out in half an hour. 

And all of a sudden you're, you're time for balancing and everything else is out the window. 

And so usually I also am trying to advise, let me see how this goes but all of a sudden that time sinks away because as creative artists, it's really easy to get personally invested in it but lose track of that workflow like you're talking about, and the fact that you need to get to the end of those 300 shots and get that basic important work so it all looks consistent done, even though they really want you to do those 20 beauty shots that take that extra time. 

So I think that's a really great piece of advice to if you're like both of us and you really like to dive in as the artist, to go against your inner judgment and make sure that you are setting yourself up for success, like you described yourself and your client essentially, and the project as a whole. I think that goes back to what you guys were saying in terms of the client experience you want them to walk out of there not only feeling good, but walking away with finished project. I think that's the most important thing. If nobody wants to leave a post facility with a half finished project, even if you like the guy you work with, you're probably not going to be feeling real good about the project anymore. 

0:36:13 
Especially because that builds the trust. When Becky says a job can be done in four hours and it's done in four hours and the client didn't expect that it could actually be done in four hours, they leave impressed instead of disappointed. 

0:36:27 
And to that note, I always try not to underestimate projects because I don't want anyone to feel rushed, either on the client side or the artist side. And I think that goes with what Ryan is saying, that you don't do your best work when you're rushed and you, you know, panic. At the end Nobody feels good about the session and we're all about feeling good about the session. I'm usually pretty spot on. I've gotten really good at watching client review links and understanding how much time it's going to take my artists to do it. Every once in a while I'm wrong. Either it's way easier than I expected or it's way more difficult than I expected. And in those scenarios it's usually just a conversation, like Ryan saying as soon as you realize that it's going to be more than you thought, it's time to have that discussion then in the moment, rather than putting it off until last minute when everyone's panicking. 

0:37:27 
I think it's, it's more of this is a freelance thing. I think you want to please your client and an attempt to hold it inside and say let me see if I can fix everything and then I'm going to present them with a fully baked cake. I don't think it ever works out well when you try and do that. Maybe 10% of the time it works out well, but most of the time we end up coming out with a cake that's half baked and looks well like a very half baked cake and nobody wants that, even though we put the effort in. We might be nice, but it's just. You're not going to be happy with that final product. The artist and the client Exactly. 

0:38:03 
Yeah, that actually that reminds me of one of our red flags is a client who we've never worked with before. That says the words oh, I trust you guys just do whatever you think is right. If I've not worked with them and they're saying that, that's usually like I'm being set up to fail because I'm just going to give them my personal taste and because this is all art, it's all subjective. If my personal taste probably isn't theirs, maybe it is. Maybe that's why they're coming to me as they like the work on our website. But more often than not, when we hear that phrase and then I work unsupervised with no input, they usually have pretty strong reactions negatively to the color and want to change a lot of things and are surprised at the style that was chosen. 

0:38:45 
It's very hard working unsupervised. I work a lot unsupervised. I think it's probably more difficult than working supervised, because you are just flying by the seat of your pants and going based off your own feelings and then, hopefully, the producers like it and if not, well, I had no feedback to go based off of. One of the things I wanted to touch on is you were talking about client notes and you guys get a lot of them, I'm sure and not to be offended by them, and how you shifted from being freelance and getting insulted by all of the client notes and why didn't you like this? I think that's a natural feeling for us to have as artists because, well, you should like this, why not? How would you make a suggestion to other artists out there to make that same shift? 

0:39:32 
The easy thing to say is that you have to not take it personally and you have personally disconnect your value and how you value yourself from the work. You cannot think that receiving notes is somehow a diminishing critique on you as an artist. Notes are just part of the process and what you're being paid for is to do note. That's the job. The job is to do notes until they're happy or until they run out of money or time or whichever. Whichever comes first, the long answer and the like, the disappointing answer to hear, probably, is that it's the 10,000 hours thing. 

I think this is something that comes with experience. When you've worked on a lot of jobs and a lot of projects and you've done the 10,000 hours of notes, you start getting to a point where a note's a note and you're just used to it. You get them all the time and it's not a reflection on you feeling, it is just a note. That being said, there are some notes that still get me today, but most of the time especially reasonable notes. And again, they're paying for that service of hiring you to do work for their project and execute their vision, and their notes are their way of communicating that vision. 

0:40:42 
I think it's especially hard sometimes when they, as a colorist and a technical guy, it's hard sometimes to get a note that just doesn't click, it's like that's not right or that no longer matches, and to not get defensive about that and to go that already perfectly matches or those are exposed perfectly. That's the backward angle of that one. Why, why do you want that and to do what you're saying and to just approach it as that's a note it's their vision, not my film and to apply it and see what they like and hopefully they don't come back and go go back to version one, which happens sometimes as well. 

0:41:22 
Some client notes I think most of them. It's worth entertaining the note and trying it before you react. Hold back the emotional reaction. Attempt the note and more often than not it does actually work or there's a version of the note that works. And then some notes are just purely unreasonable and that's totally fine. 

To reject a note, you just have to, like, do it in a language that you know they're gonna listen to your rejection. You can't be like you know this is stupid or I'm not even gonna try this note because I know it's not gonna work. When you start doing those things, it becomes an argument about the words you're saying instead of about the work. I think it's worth entertaining the notes and one of the things that I espouse a lot is to our team is listen to what the clients want, not the words they're saying. Most of the time, clients don't have good language to describe in in color terms or in editorial terms what they want, especially when they're independent or young in their career. All their words are wrong, but they've made something and the fact that they've made something means they have some expertise at being able to tell their vision, and what you need to get to is what is their vision, and sometimes it's listening, through the words, to their intention. 

0:42:41 
You nailed it, man. It's trying to half of our job as translators and trying to figure out what are you actually trying to communicate to me here and not getting defensive of that and nitpicking of their words. 

0:42:55 
Yeah, I once had a client who was the whole session and he kept being like, oh, can we crush the blacks? I'm like, oh, okay, yeah, not afraid of contrast, here we go Crush the blacks a little bit. Oh, like really crush the blacks. Oh, okay, even more. Wow, he's crazy. I'm crushing the blacks even more. And then he's like, no, like really crush them. I'm like, oh, my gosh, I don't think this is a viewable image. And then I'm like crushing anymore. He's like no, like the opposite of what you're doing. And I'm like, oh, okay, I like lift the blacks. And he's like, yes, like that. I'm like, oh, okay, okay, just, you know that's lift the blacks, not crush the blacks. Crush the blacks make it darker. He's like, oh, I thought crush the blacks is like get rid of them. 

0:43:34 
You know it's, it's the filmmaking terminology. I like when you go on set and you talk about lift and tilt and pan, and it's really funny if you can easily mistake those, and I think it's the same thing in color, and if you don't. We're we're such, I mean we're specialists, and for people that don't know our nomenclature, our language, it can be both overwhelming and confusing. And people want to speak our language and so to come in there and go, I want to crush the blacks, I want to bring down the highlights, I want to clip them a little bit and they may not even understand what they're saying and we take them literally, like they've been speaking it with a PhD, and go why aren't you doing what I want you to do? And it's like let's just speak heart to heart here. But what do you want it to look like? What do you want it to? 

0:44:20 
feel like One of my psychological approaches to dealing with that is the layout of my room. I purposely have the client sit in front of me and they're in their field of vision. The only thing they can see is the image on the client reference monitor. I prefer that setup because it keeps them in the mindset of analyzing the image and talking in terms of image design instead of the technicalities. And I find when, especially DPs, when they sit with me or like and they can see all the meters and they can see all the buttons and knobs, they tend to point to things and start giving more technical and minutia and detail oriented notes that aren't always helpful Because, again, what they're trying to achieve might be best achieved through other means than what they're saying. 

0:45:06 
Yeah, I completely get that. It's. I've had mainly people that have gotten into Resolve and Resolve is. There's a free version of Resolve now. So a lot of people, I think, feel that once they can download a piece of software, all of a sudden they want to talk in terms of the software. Go to the UV curves, these lift game again. But the whole reason of artists coming to both of you and coming to your Color Suite is for your expertise, not just for your DaVinci Resolve setup. Otherwise they would just rent the suite and do it themselves. 

0:45:38 
There have been a couple of sessions where I like that's on the tip of my tongue- I think we've all been there. 

0:45:43 
Man, that's the line I like to use and I have to literally like tie down. My tongue is do you want to drive or you want me to drive the backseat's there? 

0:45:54 
I can be one time in my career where that actually did happen in the session where the director was micromanaging and micromanaging and micromanaging and at one point I just like kind of snapped. I rolled away from the desk very dramatically and turned to him and was like if you want an editor to sit here and just like do your precise, exact like notes, you or assistant editor could do that. If you want a colorist, an artist to work with, to like you know, help you create something, that's me. 

0:46:25 
But if you want, like someone to just like micromanage through the process, there's cheaper, better people out there for that it's funny and I think it's purely due to the accessibility of the software and the price of our tools coming down, which has been a huge benefit for both of us. 

And basically, you guys have been able to start your studio. It's so much easier to create home suites. But if you were to take that mentality to almost any other art form, if you were to go to a sculpturist and be like, hey, I want to have a sculpture crafted, it would just be insane for me to go. You know, can you use that tool and put this over there? It just is such a weird thing to think about. But when you're working with digital video because we can all modify videos on our phone and there's less of a restraint on let me help you with that and I think it's important and clearly a successful thing that you guys have going there, that you are offering the artist mentality. You're basically making sure that the technical end is handled on the back end and you're basically offering the artist craft up front. 

0:47:36 
You have your clients in front of you and then just focusing on what's important, I think, as artists in general, like one of the things that we can trip up on is getting finding our job security in our equipment instead of the craft and the skill and the art part, because that's very amorphous, ambiguous and difficult to, you know, catch lightning in a bottle every time. But if you got a really good camera or you have a sweet panel or like a best reference monitor, it's easy to get caught up in the technical process as being the means to the ends, whereas really filmmaking is an art form and the audience experience is why we're all here, the more of us throughout the entire process that can put ourselves in the audience position and be like is this cool, is this moving? Do I emotionally feel invested in these characters? Or like do I want to buy this product? Do I think this musician is the coolest thing? That's why we all do it and it's easy to forget If I were to take you and put you on a desert island. 

0:48:37 
you have to take all of your jobs with you, and you could bring one tool with you. What would that tool be For? 

0:48:44 
me right now it would be DeHanser. That's been my film emulation plugin of choice. I've used all of them through the years, like back when it was just the Lutz floating around to like film convert for a while. And film box. I actually, I really like film box but the licensing makes it difficult for a boutique studio because we have, like you know, six workstations, so it's just a lot of licenses. But DeHanser I love and the tool is so powerful and you can get such a variety of looks out of it that I think that would be like the one third party tool and resolve that right now I feel like I just have to have but that they're probably in three years I'll probably have something else. I'm like oh, this is the best thing. 

0:49:25 
That's fantastic. That's a, that's a unique one. I haven't had anybody say DeHanser yet. In DeHanser is there a feature that you like the most, that you just like. I am always turning this on the grain, grain. 

0:49:35 
I think if there was like if, if it was like you can only have one feature of DeHanser, the grain, I think, is the best part of the plugin. I think their grain is. It renders fast on like a robust computer, so it's real time. It looks really good. You've got plenty of sliders to dial it in along the shadows, midtones and highlights. The highlight portion of the grain looks the most like film to me because in years past, back when we were probably all using like sinny grain and doing like blending modes and stuff, it's very difficult to get overlay grain into highlights and that was always like a dead giveaway for me of like yo, it's digital where they've added grain. But now with these plugins, this generative grain is really good. So that would be the one part of DeHanser that I just have to have is the grain, until someone comes out with something I know it's constantly evolving. 

0:50:28 
I'm a big fan of DeHanser. I haven't gone into it to the level that you have. I definitely have a license for it and I've been experimenting a lot with it. Becky, what about you? I know it's going to be a different type of tools, but if I had to send you to a desert island, with Ryan, of course, and you had to have one tool to continue doing your job, what would that tool be? 

0:50:47 
It might be a boring producer answer. I'm going to say the notes app because I keep absolutely everything in there. If I do a phone call with a client, I will just jot down bullet points of what we talked about in there so that weeks later I can go back and be like what did I tell them? I have a whole sheet in notes that's just called copy pasta info. It's information that I send to clients regularly, like our address, our prep guide, instructions how sessions work, little blurbs that I just copy and put into emails because I'm sending them so frequently. I would say the notes app and that's probably really boring. 

0:51:29 
I don't actually think that's boring. I'm a huge notes nerd. I've been doing research on Evernote and notes and Joplin and UpNote for like I think I'm up to years now and notes is my newest thing, because Apple has made it so powerful that it's just hard to resist. I completely get that. 

0:51:50 
I know you can do checklists in there and cross things off. You can do spreadsheet plans. There's so much stuff you can do in it. 

0:51:59 
It's free, assuming you have iCloud, it's really hard to resist that. I totally get that. You think that'd be boring, but it's super, not boring. Clearly, I run my own business. I just want to thank you both so much for coming on the show. This has been such a fun conversation, especially talking to both of you and being able to bounce off. It's just been such a pleasure having both of you on the show to be able to talk about how, ryan, you came up from Company 3 and Becky, how you joined him and how you've been able to run this boutique color facility. It's been such an interesting conversation to learn about how you've transitioned to essentially a full boutique facility in Los Angeles. Thank you so much for coming on the show and for your time today. Thank you this has been great. 

Thanks for having us. No problem For this episode of Color and Coffee. I'm Jason Bowdach and we'll see you guys on the next episode. That's our show. Be sure to follow us on Instagram, youtube or your podcast, apple Choice. If you're using Apple Podcasts or Spotify, please leave us a review. We'll see you guys in two weeks with another great interview. Happy grading. 

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