“The Banker’s Pass – with a Dash of Tobasco”

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 ‘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’s a busy guy.

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.

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In Part 2 of Joe’s Interview we discuss:

• The original “Final Touch” 2k grading app
• The “Dark Art” of color grading
• Colorist ‘thumbprints’
• Joe’s favorite colorists
• Creating ‘looks’ in the early days
• Working with plug-ins & presets
• When is “good enough”
• Getting consistent in your grades
• Client workflows
• Joe’s office setup
• Creature comforts
• The physical setup of a colorist and the client
• The 3 pillars of color grading
• The impact of desktop color grading tools
• How to know when a client is *your* client
• The business mindset
• Final comments on the layout of a grading suite

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Listen Now 

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 42:40 — 48.8MB) | Embed

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Part 1 | Part 2
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More Interviews

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Show Notes:

• Presto! Digital Colorgrade – Joe Owens’ company
• Final Touch 2K
• Smoke On a Mac
• Peter Doyle – Colorist, on IMdB
• Peter Doyle – (Studio Daily Article on Monitoring, Studio Daily on The Joy of Grading)
• Bob Festa Demo Reel
• Stu Maschwitz – Blog
• Ernie Moser – IMdB
• Graham Nattress
• Magic Bullet Looks
• Sapphire Plug-ins
• Luster
• Baselight
• Scratch
• eCinema Monitors
• Alexis Van Hurkman Interview
• Tangent CP-200 colorist control surfaces
• Tangent Wave colorist control surface

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.