Light itself is just a stimulus, but it's not a
color until there's someone to look at it.
Color matters because it's part of the human experience,
and it's one of the primary ways that we experience the
world around us.
Color matters because it imparts emotion.
People watch movies to feel things, and everybody
should know that color helps you feel things.
That's what movies do.
They make you happy, they make you sad.
They make you angry.
They make you cry.
They make you dance.
There's these stimuli, these things in the
real world.
And those are just physics, it's just lights, but color is
something that happens inside the brain.
It's something that happens inside you.
You're part of the chain.
I'm Joseph Slomka, I'm the color scientist at
Fotokem Industries, color science is just like any
other science but what we're doing is we're
learning about humanity.
Color science is a filmmaking tool in the sense that it helps
support the artists.
I'm working as part of the director of photography and
with the visual effects artists and with the finishing artist
to produce the director's vision.
They create tools for artists.
My goal isn't just to make a tool that works.
My goal is to make a tool that facilitates the art.
My name is Alastor Arnold, I'm a senior colorist at
Fotokem in Burbank, California.
Sometimes when I tell people I'm a colorist, I have
to explain, I do not do hair.
I do color in film and TV commercials, music videos.
My career and what I'm paid to do is to look at captured video
images and film and help filmmakers manipulate that
imagery to make it look
it's best to impart emotion, to impart style and to
help tell stories.
One of the awesome things about being a colorist at Fotokem
is that it's a field where technology and art meet in a
very profound way.
Fotokem has been a provider of creative services for
filmmakers for almost 50 years and Fotokem started as a
film laboratory, and we were the largest independent film
laboratory in Los Angeles.
And over the years, we've built relationships with
filmmakers and studios.
And now we do some of the biggest studio features in
the world, and we work with filmmakers on a myriad of
different projects from small indie arthouse films to the
biggest blockbusters in the world.
We do commercials, music videos, art films,
restoration work.
There's not much that we don't touch at Fotokem.
It's one of the biggest creative provider finishing
houses in the world.
The big thing by Fotokem is special right off the bat is
we're still an operating film lab.
So while we push the boundaries of digital technology, we still
have a full photochemical laboratory with all of the
experts required to produce films exactly as they were from
original photochemical through all of the original
analog processes, back to a film print with no digital
interference at all.
So it's color science as it was, you know,
40, 50 years ago.
We have all of the tools to make this look seamless so that
you can use whatever tool is best for telling the story and
not worry if it's the traditional cinema tool or it's
the new digital cinema tool.
My color philosophy is there is no philosophy.
I don't ever want to be bound by some edict or some idea of
what things need to be.
You know, I want to approach every project individually
and find them.
People who will look at my body of work will see movies
that all look very different, you know, and I'm proud
of that.
I'm proud that I don't have a style.
I'm proud that I'm a chameleon.
I'm proud that everything I do is a big swing, and everything
I do is, is, is personal and intentional and, and specific
to each project.
I'm always trying to push the boundaries of color.
You know, I'm always happy when I'm doing something I haven't
seen before, that filmmakers haven't seen before,
that filmmakers didn't think that they knew that they
wanted or liked.
Every time I get in the seat, I want to make magic with the
filmmakers and have fun.
My philosophy is that the art drives the science.
So the idea is there's, there's a goal we're trying to get to,
and the goal is not to be scientifically accurate,
but the goal is to use science to support the art.
Importantly, it's to make sure that whatever is made supports
the natural creative process of moviemaking.
So if something's too complicated or too intrusive,
even though it may produce some sort of perfect magical effect
if it introduces something that interferes with the performance
and the actors acting, then that something that simply
can't go because it produces something correct.
But it doesn't produce something that ultimately
enhances the movie.
My vision for you as an audience member is to show you
the story as the cinematographer and the
director intended it.
My legacy isn't that I've created these films or
these stories, but my legacy is that I've done everything that
could be done to the best of technology,
sometimes creating new ones to make sure that the stories are
told and preserved, not just for this generation,
but for others.
I do think of filmmaking as an art, and I think it's an art
that's still very early in terms of art.
You know, people have been painting for thousands of years
and people have only been making films for about
100 years now.
And so I think there's a lot of things that are still yet
to be seen.
My hope for you, the audience, is that you will be moved when
you watch a movie and it's the result of a lot of moving parts
and color is part of that.
And so my hope is, is that the part that I helped with is
communicated well and that it helps move you and it helps
tell the story better, and it helps make the experience of
watching movies that much more magical.
I don't think I'm the only or the best.
I just think I'm one person and I think there's going to be
some kid out there in his bedroom is going to do
something amazing and blow everyone's minds and I'm
waiting for that day.
You're really just manipulating red, green and
blue now, there's a million different ways you can
do that.
And I think there's something beautiful about that and it's
so simple, you know, and it's to me the idea that you can use
these three colors to create a billion different colors in a
million different combinations,
both spatially and temporarily is what makes it exciting.
It's like I never get tired of just manipulating red,
green and blue.