Exploring Color Science and Creative Collaboration with Matt Tomlinson

In our first episode of the new year, I sit down with Matt Tomlinson, Head of Color Science at Harbor Picture Company, for one of the most engaging discussions I’ve had in quite some time.

In this episode, Matt shares fascinating insights from his work developing image color pipelines for films such as Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and The Irishman. We delve into what it means to be a color (or image) scientist and explore how they empower colorists with adaptable tools, enabling real-time feedback that elevates the creative process in filmmaking.

We also discuss the critical role of collaboration in these technical yet creative fields and how platforms like YouTube and TikTok can open unexpected pathways for creatives.

Grab your favorite beverage and get ready for a color managed episode of Color & Coffee!

Guest Links:
IG - https://www.instagram.com/zombiecopninjarobot/
Studio Website - https://harborpicturecompany.com/
IMDB - https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0866862/

PixelTools
Modern Color Grading Tools and Presets for DaVinci Resolve 

Flanders Scientific Inc. (FSI)
High-Quality Reference Displays for Editors, Colorists and DITS

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.

Transcript

Matt Tomlinson: 0:00

Don't be afraid to make shorts on YouTube, don't be afraid to make TikToks, don't be afraid to experiment and explore these things. There's plenty of YouTube channels that I watch and I'm like this guys are awesome and those can lead to bigger breaks and bigger things. This job gets hard. Have I had moments where I'm like, oh my gosh, I gotta be really careful here. I'm on a heart attack train, you bet. But that's where leaning out to other people and actually asking for help which has been not one of my strong points in my early days reaching out to like hey, can we work on this together? Has been something that I've learned over time from like childhood. It's not a linear path. This industry we're on. It's not like there's a corporate ladder to climb. The places you might find yourself are places that you would never expect that you would have gone and like I'll use myself as an example. Like people have asked me, like how'd you get into the industry and how you know thinking like I can use that as like kind of a path. Well, the way I got in no longer exists. Man Like I, you know I started off as a scan record guy in VFX for film and like not in industry anymore.

Jason Bowdach: 1:09

Welcome to Color and Coffee, a podcast that's focused on the craft of color and the artists behind it. I'm your host, jason Bowdach, and each episode, we'll sit down with some of the most talented artists in the industry and have a casual chat from one artist to another. We'll share their stories, their insights, their tips and, of course, their beverage of choice. Whether you're a seasoned pro or just getting started, join us for some great color discussion. Sit back, grab your mug. You're listening to Color Coffee. Grab your mug You're listening to Color and Coffee. Hi and welcome to Color and Coffee. I'm Jason Bowdach and I can't wait to share with you our guests for this episode. Today, I have Matthew Tomlinson, image scientist over at Harbor Picture Company. Welcome to the show, matt. Thank you. It's good to be here Now. If you're not familiar with Matt's work, matt has worked on such films as Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, priscilla, the television show Mr and Mrs Smith and, if you're familiar with it, air Force One. Now, matt, the first question I'm going to ask you is probably the most important one that I'm going to ask you on this podcast what are you drinking this morning?

Matt Tomlinson: 2:24

Okay, so full disclosure I do not drink coffee. I do not like the taste of it, probably because my first job ever was in a coffee shop and the aroma sank into my skin. But I am a tea purist and so we are just going straight English breakfast tea and I'm having it in a thermos that says coffee before wine from a coffee shop slaps wine bar my very good friend and Jason McEntee. So product placement completely on purpose.

Jason Bowdach: 2:54

Awesome, I love it. So, as somebody, I really want to like start getting into teas, because, as a coffee snob, I feel like it should be something that I not only would love, but I don't really know where to start. So if you could recommend a single tea that I can start to get into, what would you recommend?

Matt Tomlinson: 3:14

Just like twinnings. English breakfast, that is just the English breakfast is the staple. I'd love to say Earl Grey, because you know you get to say like Earl Grey hot, but it's a. You know, I just the flavor is not super for me. Green tea is a lovely thing for the afternoon. Green tea. Ice cream is delicious. Yeah, just a general. I find that I, no matter what I tried Darling Jing, it's just different types. I always find myself coming back to the English breakfast. And there is, if you ever find yourself in the UK, there's. There's a twinning shop there that is basically Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory kind of candy store, but it's all just teas and you get to sample everything under the sun. Every time I'm there I spend hundreds of dollars worth of tea. It's a it's, it's a true delight.

Jason Bowdach: 4:00

There's something about it Like as much as I love making coffee it's a true delight. There's something about it. As much as I love making coffee, there's something about making tea and the smell. It's got the same thing as the coffee sort of routine, but plus one, I don't know. It seems like it's the next step for me. So thank you so much for that recommendation. If you're in the UK, definitely check out that twinning shop. I really need to get over there.

Matt Tomlinson: 4:20

Oh, absolutely, it's so cool.

Jason Bowdach: 4:26

It over there. Oh, absolutely, it's so cool, it's so fun, okay, so now that we have gone through our beverage routine and I have found my new obsession, let's jump in. So a lot of people have heard about an image scientist, but can you tell us what is an image scientist and what do you do?

Matt Tomlinson: 4:38

Honestly, it's probably the most asked question of what I do and, to be specific, my title is head of color science. Here at Harbor, color science and imaging science within the film industry is often used synonymously, where I in previous lives I've been known as an imaging scientist. Now just my title right now is color scientist. There's a couple of different layers of how you can describe what I do. One layer would be, you know, for someone who's not in the industry, if they're like, what does that mean? Like well, I would say something like okay, when you go to a movie theater and then you watch the same movie on Netflix or Blu-ray, you expect that movie to look the same between all those things. And the reality is the technology between all those different mediums are completely radically different to those things. And the reality is the technology between all those different mediums are completely radically different to one another. And if you try to put one pipe into a different pipe meaning take like your streaming version of it and put it into like a digital cinema, it would just look broken and wrong. So I helped create through math, the Rosetta stones that allow the translation from one viewing environment to another viewing environment, with the idea that, with always the goal of never having to redo work twice, that you, you do it once and then you transform and you and you do, um, uh, you know you salt to taste, you do a little uh small color grade afterwards yeah, trim pass, thank you and um. And so you know that that oftentimes people are like oh, okay, I get that and another, another realm, another layer of it is, um, the more creative side. Where I work with the and it's not just me, I should be clear. Like the color science team here at harvard, a color scientist, slash imaging scientist, will work with the colorist for the show and the cinematographer sometimes the director for the movie, the episodic, the commercial, it doesn't matter what it is and create the quote unquote. Look for the show and the colorist in the DP. They've got the really strong relationship there. My goal is to help provide the tools to help make them be able to achieve that look in a very streamlined and easy fashion. So the grand example might be something like a colorist might say hey, I want my show to look like 70 millimeter film or, you know, like some kind of an emulation. Or simply come in with a look book and they're like I want this color palette in my show, like I'll help create the, the transforms that can be applied in the timeline by the, the colors, so that the colors can just kind of like apply them as opposed to saying, okay, give me 20 minutes to try to like, find it and get there. The idea is so. You know, think of it as like Lego pieces, like I create multiple, multiple, multiple Lego pieces that can be stacked and blended together so that the colorist can interact with the cinematographer. You know, I phrase this digital jazz, so think it was like a live jazz session where they're sitting there looking at their camera test and the colorist is just a. You know, it allows them to go. Let me try this, let Let me try that, try this. As opposed to give me five minutes, give me five minutes, give me five minutes. It's a like bam, boom, bang, bang, and it allows for that, that real-time feedback of not just of a creative person saying things like hmm ha, maybe it's, it's more about no, I hate it, I love it, I don't like it. Give me more, give me less, and you can blend all these things together and you can go kind of any route that you want. So you know, we've got a whole library of these looks to help feed the colorists and the creatives so they can have this unique journey, because my stance really is that, no, every show is unique and every show should look unique. No show should look like any other show, minus the references, or like the homage that you want to play into it. But let's not just slap a look on there and roll. Let's make something that feeds the story. The power behind where, the embracement of where I've gone, where color science at Harbor has gone I should say because it's not just me, I need a shout out to CJ Julian, who has been my partner in crime in here as well is like we've embraced the concept of empowering others. We want to live in the shadows and just give the tools to allow the creatives to go with that. And that's important, because we do have colorists that are all over the world doing what they need to do. And it's important to state that every colorist has over the world doing what they need to do. And it's important to state that every colorist has every tool that's available at Harbor. Every colorist has available to them. We make something for one, everyone gets it, and those are the rules. So there's no mine, mine, mine. It's an us, us, us scenario. And that way it allows for, in my humble opinion, creativity for colors to just kind of like roll and create in ways that is more streamlined, and then they can create things on top of things that then they can give feedback of. I'd like to this week, I'd like a tool that does this later. So we build tools to help the colorist and the cinematographer create those. Looks for it. It doesn't make sense.

Jason Bowdach: 9:41

Yeah, I, if I'm understanding it correctly, you guys are essentially coming in at the. I'm going to summarize, but basically the show let creation phase to help create tools based off of the lookbook that is coming in with. The director and the cinematographer want to create so that they can move quickly and efficiently during the session.

Matt Tomlinson: 10:01

Right Now. But I'll take it even one step further. Our goal is to get in there before that look setting session even occurs. I wanna build enough tools ahead of time that there is a library for the colorist to go at and have that look setting session with the client and have those tools readily available so that they see the look book and they go. I already have things built that kinda go that direction and I can use that starting point because the reality is I might be in a scenario where four look setting sessions are going on at the same time and it's not reasonable for me to be in all of them, although I'd love to be in all of them and I have done those multiple times. I just recognize that I want to empower others to be able to roll with it. But in a very general sense of what you're talking about, yes, the idea is to be there before the beginning of the show. Like I always like to say, the end happens before the beginning. So let's talk about what the show wants to look like before we're shooting anything, before you know. Let's talk about what camera we're going to use. What cameras are we going to use, what's our color palette, what's our? You know what's our feeling, what's our vibe. You know, the great example always is I worked on the Irishman and the cinematographer came in and was like, okay, there's four distinct moments in time the 1950s, and it's all based on film stocks. 1950s is fotogram, 1960s is ectogram, 1970s and 80s is a little bit more ACE and onward is more current time. And so you know, we, we built those for those times and those looks were built on the cinematographer coming in with actual like, books of like, imagery of like and circling portions of the imagery of like I like the, this red, I like this green. Cause it's important to state that we're also in this day and age where you may say to me I want it to be Kodachrome, and I go, ok, I'll show you Kodachrome. And then you'll look at me and go that's not Kodachrome. And then you'll Google image Kodachrome and there's like 14 different versions of Kodachrome in there and you're like it's more of like something you know, a look at like I want to understand how you think. And if I can understand how you think, I can understand like when you give me, you know, if you say I just feel this and then I can start understanding, we can start having a shorthand conversation, and that's where it gets super exciting.

Jason Bowdach: 12:51

Let's. Let's talk about the Irishman a little bit, because that's. That's a really interesting production in that not only did you have, if I remember correctly, we had both film cameras and an Alexa camera shooting on the side, yep. So how are you involved in productions like that, where not only do you have the cinematographer dictating looks that you're doing, but you also have a very, very heavy VFX element? Are you more involved with projects like that?

Matt Tomlinson: 13:29

Do you have additional work for these VFX heavy projects, whether they're invisible or on the screen, slash imaging scientist within visual effects. And then I made the jump over to DI the early mid 2000s, having been on both sides like. The first thing I always like to say is I wanna talk to the visual effects supervisor. We have a whole team here that you know that's part of under the color science umbrella Jerome and Brandy, who that's very much what they do Like. Let's have that interaction with the visual effects house and you know how can we get you imagery so that use when you see it. You see it how it's expected to be seen. So when you send your stuff off to editorial, editorial gets what they want and then when you come into the finishing of the di, everyone starts and they go yes, this is the movie that I've been looking at for all this time and it makes sense versus the classic in the mid, early 2000s, late 1990s where, like, vfx would send imagery off to like what was DI then and there was no communication between VFX and the DI houses. So, like the big joke was someone would work on a creature and it was, you know, a beautiful reddish design or something like that in VFX world and then then, once it's done with a movie, like it's brown, the creative intent gets lost. So our goal is to, you know, marry that very much, so like it doesn't matter, like it could be the biggest studios or the most the smallest independent Like. I want to have that conversation with the VFX team to make sure that we've got a good handshake. We employ workflow documents with VFX pools and dailies, and it can go as even far as like here's an example Nuke script. So you know how the order of operation should go when applying the looks and the transforms to map the cameras to certain color spaces, so that in the end, when you're looking at it, you're looking at it as everyone expects it to be seen. You know it always just boils down to communication, like if we can just talk, then roads can be nice and smooth. I always like to say like the best kind of show is a boring show, something where just like like there's going to be enough drama and enough like natural disasters that occur within a show, naturally Like as much as we can try to make it as smooth and overtly documented we should.

Jason Bowdach: 15:40

So essentially, it sounds like what you guys are doing is collaborating with third-party departments or third-party companies to make sure that they are aware of your pipeline, the image processing pipeline, and the transforms, and that everybody is on the same page before VFX are being done, so that you're not playing this catch up game at the end of why are things looking so different?

Matt Tomlinson: 16:02

Absolutely as much as possible. And sometimes there's realities where there's just like we don't have the visual effects House has not been awarded yet and we're like, well, the moment it is, let us know and so we can help out. And I always like to keep the chain of communication strong, so, like if there's a visual effects supervisor, I like to go through that person and have that person talk to the houses, so there's never a scenario where that visual effects supervisor is out of the loop. If someone like contacts us directly, like a visual effects house contacts us directly, the first thing we would do is reach out to the supervisor and say things like hey so, just you know, we talked to this person and this is what's going on. It's all about trying to make that as smooth as possible. And do we always get to do it? No, but do we try to do it Always, always. And especially on those like intense VFX, bigger shows, it becomes more critical because those become forces of nature. They're almost like military campaigns, where everything needs to happen in a certain order of operations and the war of attrition just needs to occur in a certain way for everything to land properly. So if we can do that, then it's all about the strength of communication, and it's allowed me to get to know a lot of people. So, you know, you can get on a phone call with certain people you've worked with in the past and you're like, hey, we're working on another show, yeah, oh, is it going to be like that other one? Yeah, it's going to be like that. Ok, we'll just treat it like that other one, great. And you start getting that shorthand, which is always a lovely place to be.

Jason Bowdach: 17:30

My next question is going to be a little bit of a loaded one. A lot of people People that are in the freelance or maybe don't work at such a high level as you, or at least don't have the flexibility of working with an image science teams or a color science team have flexibility. What I believe to be an incorrect assumption of your job, of your team, of what they do, and I hear a lot of the times that I just don't have the fancy tools that Harbor and Company 3 and all of the big boy colorists have. I don't have the color scientists to help me develop these fancy black box tools behind the team. What are your thoughts about that and what differs when you have a color science team versus working on your own?

Matt Tomlinson: 18:12

Well, if you're working on your own and you don't have a color scientist, your backup is limited. Like I've always said, if I was a colorist, my color scientist, my imaging scientist would be my best friend, because it allows you to be able to say, like a session is going on with a colorist and a shot just looks kind of wrong, and instead of like, okay, let me figure this out, like they can just shoot off a little like note, hey, can somebody take a look at this and we can work on accessing the imagery, diagnosing oh, it's something happened and we zigged when we should have zagged, and like, okay, we can fix it now and this incorrect thing was applied. Or oh, gee, how this, this imagery, is not as expected. We need to put it, do a little surgery on it, and then it can kind of just like be dropped back in with the colors and they can just kind of keep going, and and then the idea is like, oh, the shots back in and oh, yep, it's all fixed and we just move on ahead. That's, I think, the real power behind it. I think also the real power is I encourage the concept of like think crazy, think of things that you don't think are possible. Let's just why not? Let's just try. And so Colors will approach me with the like I've always just wanted this, or can I have that, and sometimes it's a, I don't know. Let me investigate this and it becomes a challenge and if we can provide, we will. The idea is, over time, to increase the library enough that we can say to things, like one colorist may say, I've always wanted to try this and we're like well, hey, check out what we've got over here. We've, we've been working on that already. I respect the independent colorist because you're on a ship without many crew members and it's it. It just means that you've got a lot more responsibility on your shoulders. Like, my whole goal is if you are a colorist, let us try as much as possible to let you just be artists. If you don't have someone like myself on your team, then you have to be artist and technician. I'm sure if you were to ask most colors, they would rather be artists than technician. And let's just let the conversation flow in the room of where, thematically, you want to go, as opposed to give me a couple minutes to like figure out why this is technically broken. That would be it. I will freely admit, like I've been under multiple situations where people would say to me like what do I need you for? Like what is this? And then they experience it and that's when they go, I can't live without it. That's kind of where it stands and honestly, you know that feels pretty good when somebody says something like that.

Jason Bowdach: 20:38

It's funny because I sort of see what you do is one of those things that I have an incredible appreciation for, because when I need it, I wish I had it, and it's sort of like you explained it. Those of us that don't have the additional staff to run our ship we do have to switch gears and quickly go from artist to technician very quickly, and although those of us who are on the nerdier side can enjoy being a technician and solving that problem, when you have a client in the room, that's the last thing that you wanna do, exactly.

Matt Tomlinson: 21:08

Also, if you're being artist and technician, you have to be artist when the client's in the room, but then when the client's out of the room, you got to dig in and be technician, so your days are longer and that translates on from an economical sense. That translates you. You can't work on it as many shows as a colorist. So you know it's about I don't want to say like, maximizing potential, but I, the satisfaction out of that was intense and I loved it and and so I think it's just one of these things where there is that aspect of like if, as a colorist, you don't have to take on as much technology knowledge, but there's also, just like deliverables, the idea of like. Did we map this correctly? We've got like. If this is your destination, this is your path. If this is your destination, this is your other path, and you go those routes and it removes the like. Should an XYZ have a gain factor in it or not? You know like, these things are just built into it. We know what to do and I see people who are doing their best on their own. They, you know. That's where oh my gosh, I accidentally rendered my stuff in legal range instead of full range. Oh gosh, it's not DCI white, it's D65. You know those little things that are. You know it's gamma 2.2 versus gamma 2.4. You know those little things that?

Jason Bowdach: 22:47

destroy projects.

Matt Tomlinson: 22:49

Yeah, it can be rough, it can be super rough, and what we do is we map these workflows out with the idea that I want it to be as seamless as possible so that the color assists know where to go and so when it's time to render, they can understand it. And it's not just about like press that button, make that button work Like. To me, the whole thing is I want to educate as much as possible. My goal in all of this is to is try to distribute as much knowledge as I possibly can so that we all become little color scientists in our own right, so that when somebody renders something out like, they can have educated guesses of like hey, matt, I'm gonna render out a QuickTime, but I'm going to project it somewhere else. Should I render it out to P3 or should I render it out to Rec.709? The fact that you're asking that question is massive. It's massive. You know, like oh, we're doing, oh, we're digital cinema. Today we should be Gamma 2.6, not Gamma 2.4, right? Yes, now we're knowing, now we're getting part of that. You know, that's where you can start checking each other, because we should always be checking each other's work. I do it like hey, make sure I'm cross my T's, dot my I's, and that would be. Then we can all just become stronger and better. And I've always been a big fan of like we can do things together that individually we never would have thought of. So that collaborative spirit I really just I dig that. I thrive on that like kind of hit me with your questions because if I know a thing, I can teach a thing and I can explain it. And if I can't explain it, that means I don't know it well enough and that means I need to go back and I need to study harder in that thing. So it's always like I'm always a big fan of I'll say this to everybody like always question authority, don't just and the only answer is that's not acceptable is because we've always done it this way. There's no sense in that. So, like you know, when someone comes at you really aggressively, sense in that. So, like you know, when someone comes at you really aggressively, you need to think okay, why are they coming at you aggressively? Well, is it because they're afraid they're going to be called out? Are they afraid of like something else? Like it's also about creating an environment of like trust, where you're like hey, man, it's cool. It's cool. Bring it in, let's. Let's talk about this. It's all right, man, I've had a lot of caffeine. I feel like I'm all over the place right now, but bring me home.

Jason Bowdach: 25:15

So, on that question, you are so full of knowledge and your entire goal, from what I gather, is to help filmmakers make amazing things as efficiently as possible.

Matt Tomlinson: 25:26

No, I want to make awesome things in awesome ways. That is my mantra, and it's not just filmmakers. I want color assists. I want no, I want to make awesome things in awesome ways. That is my mantra. And it's not just filmmakers, I want every. I want colorists, I want editors, I want conform artists. I teach a class at Loyola Marymount with the idea of creating. I teach them how to be colorists, like I want to build the next generation. I want people to understand how color science works, how imaging science works on a fundamental basis throughout the industry, because I don't see a lot of people doing this, and so it's a number one reason why I do what I do, which I get super into having conversations about this. How far down the rabbit hole do you want to go? Because I will join you there. And here's a great example I have a meeting that I do here internally at Harbor, where every Friday, try to do every Friday open book policy. You know, sometimes I can't do it every Friday, but it's an actual class. I try to do an actual color science class where it's like we're going to talk about what legal range is, we're going to talk about full ranges, we're going to talk about what XYZ is, why gamma two six versus gamma two four. Why are we doing these things? And you know, and not only that, but two six, where it's just gamma two four. Why are we doing these things? And you know, and not only that, but, like you know, the goal is to like, how do we set these things up? Why do we set them up in this, in this color corrector versus this color corrector? Well, what's, what does this resolution mean versus that resolution? And just try to break it down. And I record them with the idea of, like, building our own. I'm trying, just coming into the industry and someone were to say to me here's a wealth of knowledge that is just there for you for the taking, like I would want to be part of that. And and if we can do that, then we all become smarter and we can all say well, wait a minute, matt, what about this? I was, I thought, you know, you told me that it was this, but my understanding was that and maybe, just maybe, I go oh, my gosh, holy cow, wait, let me, let me rethink this, and and and. Then that's learning, man, that's learning, and that's science. So you know, it's, it's, that's where I'm at.

Jason Bowdach: 27:24

And that's taking the industry forward. That's inviting the next generation to come in and take the craft forward. Not only learn from you, but also challenge me. If you see something that you are seeing that challenges what I've taught you, don't be quiet and sit down because somebody else has said this is the correct way to do that. Ask me, by the way, one plus one doesn't equal three. Can you explain this to me?

Matt Tomlinson: 27:48

Right. My challenge to myself is when, when I'm asked those questions like, receive them humbly and retort kindly, part of also the. My goal is to don't be a jerk, just being kind to each other. We're all here to make movies, because we love movies, and let's just do that. But I do recognize that my concept is that, you know, any good samurai should be willing to take on a question and so, or a challenge is really what it boils down to. So I just want to be that person who, to quote Gil Grissom from CSI, have a mindset of a beginner. Like a beginner, all answers are an option. An expert, only one answer is an option. But if you can be an expert with an open mind of other options, then we can do some fairly creative stuff. And I will tell you straight out there have been some things that we've done in the past couple of years that have 100% come out of colorist going. I just really would love it if we could do this and me going like I never thought of of that before and I don't even know if we can.

Jason Bowdach: 28:54

But give me a month and let me see what I can do and we'd come up with some really cool stuff because of stuff like that so I have to ask you something that I I'm absolutely amazed at, because being I mean not only being based in la, but working at the top of the industry. I find that a lot of people tend to get closed off and restricted, like you've described. I just work in this way when you are an expert, there is only one answer. It's the correct answer, but what I'm hearing from you is, quite frankly, the exact opposite. You have the knowledge, but you're also very, very open. There are a lot of professionals in our industry that I find don't have quite as open-minded as you. What do you have as a, I'm going to say, as a suggestion to those people, because it's really easy to get jaded in our industry, and I don't sense an ounce of that from you get jaded in our industry and I don't sense a ounce of that from you.

Matt Tomlinson: 30:25

Oh well, dude, don't. It's super easy to get jaded and, honestly, man, if you're in, I have. I had those moments where I just want to bash my face against the wall, you betcha. Those are the moments. Honestly, man, I go see a movie. Like movies are my church and and that's where I I've had a hard day at working on movies what do I do to relax? I go see a movie. Like it makes no sense, but it's just kind of built in you and I would say, you know, like those people who get jaded and whatnot, like there's always the next show, there's always something else, there's always the. This is a bit of a war of attrition. I think that a lot of times, the people who are accepting statues are, a lot of times, people who just didn't give up. I think, also, you have to ask yourself, like why am I here? Like what am I doing here? What is my purpose? Like I definitely had a distinct road where I could have gone down the colorist road, but I went this road. I could have been a compositor and visual effects heck. Once upon time I wanted to be a storyboard artist. But you know I gravitated towards this because it just really invigorated me. And you know I've been doing for near 30 years and I still like, find it super interesting and super exciting, find what is super interesting and super exciting. And, you know, also recognize, just, man, this business is hard. Give yourself a break, like it's okay. Don't try to be the next so-and-so beat, try to be the first. You don't be afraid to make shorts on YouTube. Don't be afraid to make TikToks, don't be afraid to experiment and explore these things. There's plenty of YouTube channels that I watch it. I'm like this guys are awesome and those can lead to bigger breaks and bigger things. And I would just try to say, like, part of it is just, we're all human beings here and we're all just trying to like, do the best we can. So, if the day is hard, take a deep breath. Yeah, go see a movie. But I also once upon a time, I studied Northern Shaolin Kung Fu and one of the things that have always stuck with me is, like, if you can control your breathing, you can control the situation. So just just breathe, man, just breathe. I also have learned very recently, like, that there's that whole saying of like if you're angry at the world, eat something. If you think the world's angry at you, go to sleep. There's a couple more of those.

Jason Bowdach: 32:43

Yeah, the crucial aspects of making sure that you're in proper condition to serve the world and tell stories.

Matt Tomlinson: 32:51

Totally, and this job gets hard. Have I had moments where I'm like, oh my gosh, I got to be really careful here. I'm on a heart attack train, you bet. But that's where leaning out to other people and actually asking for help which has been not one of my strong points in my early days Reaching out to like hey, can we work on this together? Has been something that I've learned over time from like childhood. I would say you know, it's not a linear path this industry we're on it's not like there's a corporate ladder to climb. The places you might find yourself are places that you would never expect that you would have gone and like I'll use myself as an example. Like people have asked me like how'd you get into the industry and how you know, thinking like I can use that as like kind of a path. Well, the way I got in no longer exists. Man like I you know I started off as a scan record guy in VFX for film and like not in industry anymore, it's gone. But you know I I use, you know, like I say like there's plenty of YouTubers out there that are doing amazing things in amazing ways and if just at the base level, just go do stuff.

Jason Bowdach: 33:59

And to, to follow up that question with one that I think follows that perfectly. If somebody wanted to learn, like, more about color science, where can they learn more about that, obviously, besides going to school.

Matt Tomlinson: 34:11

I'm not going to lie. It's hard, and that's one of the reasons why I'm trying to distribute information as much as possible, because, like I was lucky that I had some good mentorships, like I was lucky that I had some good mentorships, the answer is try to get into a Harbor, a Company 3, a picture shop and get into their color science, slash, imaging, science departments and learn from people who have done that. There are books like Charles Poynton, of course, but you know those things. I've always worked better if I understand the practicality of it versus just like here's mathematical equations that turn it, you know, turn this to that Like. I'm more of a of like, oh, when you do this, this is the outcome that makes sense to me.

Jason Bowdach: 34:50

Show me it, don't show me the math for it first.

Matt Tomlinson: 34:53

Exactly, and and you can go from there. So it's. I wish I had an easy answer for that one. I really do. It's a reason why I'm actually toying around with writing a book.

Jason Bowdach: 35:02

I'm sure everybody would love that. I know about. Charles Poynton has a new book coming out, but I know a lot of people don't absorb that information well in that way. They deal much better in being presented to them and then, once they understand the concept, the math starts to make a lot more sense. And until then it clicks. The math is just may as well be a foreign language Totally totally and I totally get you.

Matt Tomlinson: 35:24

Honestly, there's a lot of like what goes on in VFX is rooted in a lot of this stuff. There is a lot of cool documentation out there but of course it's very math heavy. You know. Part of it, honestly, is you know a lot of the people who are doing imaging science, slash color science kind of like, independently. You know independent filmmakers who are like I'm a colorist and a color scientist. You know a lot of those. A lot of those people are the. The color science aspect of it is they've learned by trial by fire. You know, like there's a thing that they've run into and they've had to solve it and they've had to dig in and they've had to figure out okay, what is it that I need to do? Why is it that I need to do it? And and those things take time. The real answer is try to find someone who will answer your questions for you, and that's a little bit hard because I know some of the question you know, like, how do I build a LUT? There's a small question and there's a big answer to that.

Jason Bowdach: 36:19

Or how do you know the question to ask if you don't quite know the question? It's one of those things that if you haven't started the project yet, you might not even know the question that you have until you're in it. And it's iffy.

Matt Tomlinson: 36:30

It's tough. I mean, like, what's good is that software is starting to incorporate things like color space journeys. Now, do I agree with all of it? Not always, but that's the beautiful thing about like you get two color scientists in a room. They love to pick apart each other's work and be like, well, I would have done it this way and I would have done that way, which makes it like really fun and exciting. But you know things, yeah, like like color managed systems inside of software is starting to become a real thing. Like a lot of people are leaning more and more on, like you know, if they don't know. Well, aces is a thing. Aces is a thing. Aces is a thing that that can help you in that respect. Like the concept of a color managed system is. I was doing that years before ACES came out. So, like when ACES came out, like and it was explained to me, my response really was like, wait, a minute, we've been already been doing that and and you know it's part of me didn't realize that what I was taking for granted, a lot of people didn't quite have access to, which is something I need to consistently be reminding myself of. And so that concept, just to give a quick breakdown like. The entire concept is like you have a source that is in a certain color space. You wanna map that color space into a common color working space, which pick one, what you want, that you like working in. A lot of people like if you're like an aces, you like aces cct. A lot of people like area wide, gamut, log, cv3 as their color working space. So if you have multiple cameras and I'll use resolve because, as an example, because a lot of people use it take your, your camera, and if it's not what your cut, it doesn't capture in the color working space of your color space, you're going to work in, put a color space conversion on it and all you're doing is you're saying on the input my camera is this color space and I wanted to move it to this other one that and that's the one I'm going to work on and then that allows you to pick one of the lets that are inside of the the you know resolve or you grab one, but just as long as it's fed in by your color space that you're working in. In this example, I'm using area wide, gamma box AB3, pick your color space of choice and it maps to your display, ie most likely Rec.709 for a lot of it. You're good to go and that's like the concept, that's like the general concept. That's what ACES is, man, and it's just a managed color workflow that when you kind of break it down. Let's do a part two. Well, I'll bring imagery in and I can show you know what let's do that.

Jason Bowdach: 38:58

I think that would be fantastic. This is a good sort of chat about color science in general. Let's do more. Let's dig into it If you want, if, if you're open to that I'm open to that as well. That would be so much fun.

Matt Tomlinson: 39:10

Let's do a part two with the concept of, and the focus is the color space journey. What is managed color space? And I will, you know, share screen and we can start helping. Just you know I'm not going to say anything that's not like proprietary, like it's, it's all like this is all stuff that we should and and can do, um, and, and you know, I'll share screen and we can.

Jason Bowdach: 39:32

You know those are on youtube and we can start distributing the information out there I would love that, and I know the rest of the world would love that too, especially that you would be open to contributing.

Matt Tomlinson: 39:41

That totally, man that you know it's and then see, here's the good news. You know, and if we do something like that, then somebody somewhere someday watches the YouTube, listens to the podcast, and then they come in here and you know, if I'm lucky, I get to work that with that person and they come in and they go, hey. So I heard you and I've already set up kind of a workflow for this show that I'm working on and I'm like, dude, you're 75% already ahead of the game. You're like let's rock and roll. And then we've already dealt with this, like we've dealt with some of this technical aspect, and then we get to live as artists and just be, have fun with it. So you know, if you're open, I'm open.

Jason Bowdach: 40:21

I'm open to it too. So everybody that's listening, you get to look forward to a future color science breakdown with Matt Tomlinson of the Color Space Journey, but for now, matt, I don't want to take up too much more of your time. You have been extremely generous, going through exactly what your color science team does, how you got into it and really being just a great human being. Thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you and, if I can, just a great human being.

Matt Tomlinson: 40:45

Thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you, and if I can just say one more thing, hi Dad, hope you enjoyed the talk.

Jason Bowdach: 40:50

Absolutely hey to Matt's dad. If we wanted to find more about you, where can we find you on the internet?

Matt Tomlinson: 40:55

Well, I'm heavily on LinkedIn, so you can just look me up on Matthew Tomlinson on LinkedIn and, honestly, if you have a question, I'm open to people sending me message, asking questions. I am on Instagram. The handle is zombiecopninjorobot so you can find me there and that's about it at the moment.

Jason Bowdach: 41:20

Awesome. All of those will be in the show notes. Thank you so much for joining us. That wraps it up for this episode of Color and Coffee. We'll see you guys in the next episode. Happy grading, and that's a wrap. Be sure to follow us on Instagram, youtube and your podcast app of choice. Search for at Color and Coffee or at Color and Coffee Podcast, and join the conversation. If you're using Spotify or Apple Podcasts, please leave a review. Huge thanks to FSI and Pixel Tools for sponsoring the show. Until the next episode.