“Negotiating The Art of Possible”
Joe Owens is the Owner / Operator of Presto!Digital Colourgrade, located in chilly Edmonton, Canada.
After getting his start as a camera shader over 30 years ago and now a full-time colorist for over 17 years – Joe’s a well-established presence in his Edmonton market. But his influence is felt around the world – as the leader in the Apple Color forum helping both ‘newbies’ and well established professionals negotiate the delicate balance between technology, art, and business.
He recently finishing color grading 2 documentaries for the CBC network, 12 1-hour episodes of “Blackstone” for APTN / Showcase HD and 12 episodes of “Pet Heroes” for CMT.
Yes. Joe is a busy man.
Joe was kind enough to spend some time with me in my New York office (with sirens and horns) and share his experiences and thoughts of moving from the early days of analog videotape to ‘big iron’ telecine to non-linear digital color grading systems.
In Part 1 of Joe’s Interview we discuss:
- Staying connected with other colorists
- Helping out ‘newbies’ on Apple’s Color support forum
- Communicating color values with clients
- Working with DPs and the DP’s vision
- Joe’s early schooling
- The relevance of controlling image values as we move into digital distribution
- The job of a ‘camera shader’
- The early days of Quad videotape
- Working in M format tape systems
- DaVinci School
- Getting “back to basics”
- Grading approaches
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Listen Now Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 40:09 — 46.0MB) | Embed Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | RSS
Part 1 | Part 2
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Show Notes:
- Apple Color Support Forum
- Carrier Waves in Telecommunications
- Good, Fast, or Cheap Project Triangle
- Quad Videotape Group
- RCA TR-70 Quad Machine
- TCR-100 Quad Machine
- Sony BetaCart
- Sony D-1 starts the digital tape revolution
- What is Component Video?
- Flying Spot Scanner Explained
- History of the Spirit DataCine: Bosh FDL 60 Solid State Scanner
- Rank Cintel Ursa (used telecines with photos)
- MII Format
- History of DaVinci Systems
This interview is part of an on-going interview series with the movers, shaker, and thinkers involved in the field of professional color grading for moving images. When I have new episodes to release, they are released on Tuesdays. To be notified you may follow me on Twitter (@patInhofer), via our RSS feed, and on iTunes.