FXPHD – GRD202 – The Craft of Color Grading II

The Craft of Color Grading II is our sequel to the most popular course ever at fxphd. Professor Mike Matusek leads this offering, and plans to bring his own unique perspective to the course. Matusek is one of the founders of Nolo Digital in Chicago, where he grades national and international commercials, television shows, and features.

Like the original offering, this course looks to explore the world of the colorist and the craft of grading from an application-agnostic approach. It is not the specific buttons you need to push in a specific application, but instead a look at the creative and story telling goals behind color grading. The course will tap Matusek's years of experience from both a creative standpoint as well as a practical standpoint. So we'll not only be covering how to make beautiful imagery, but also things such as how to deal with the often-conflicting viewpoints of dealing with divergent views from clients.

One key aspect of the course is our grading review sessions. During the term, Matusek will create two projects for members to test their skills and have their work reviewed by him. He'll provide creative goals for the projects, much like clients might provide. Members will then grade the high quality footage (hires R3D and DPX files) and submit it for review as part of the course. It's a great way to learn the craft and a fantastic opportunity to receive guidance from a successful colorist in the field.

This course has all-new footage, including scenes from a beautiful Coca-Cola piece that was produced by Variable (http://wearevariable.com) , clips from a Danko Jones video, directed by the Diamond Bros. (http://thediamondbros.com) , high quality underwater footage, and more scenes from the short film Moving Day (https://vimeo.com/31708121) .

Course members should be comfortable grading in their application of choice. This is not a course designed to teach the operation of software, but instead is about creating great looking imagery. The primary software used by Matusek will be Baselight, but is taught with the goal of showing techniques that can be used in any application.