Interview with Kevin Shaw - Part 1

Color Mentor

In this episode I chat to Kevin Shaw. He is a well know colorist and educator in our industry.
He has also been a key figure in setting up and promoting the Colorist Society, which is the topic of our following episode. In this episode however we discuss telecines. Kevin started grading 10 years before I did, at a time when color grading was either telecine or film lab based. We discuss various stages that the industry has gone through since then, all the way up to the present.

We discuss:

• (00:00) - Intro.
• (00:48) - Introduction to Kevin and telecines.
• (02:39) - Interview starts.
• (04:37) - Telecine engineers.
• (06:30) - Music videos.
• (07:34) - Study.
• (11:11) - Telecine Limited.
• (12:15) - Analog Davinci.
• (13:13) - One new feature per year.
• (13:43) - Davinci product demos.
• (14:08) - No freelancers.
• (14:53) - What is a telecine?
• (17:24) - Blue Moon.
• (17:45) - Tape playouts.
• (18:44) - Facility life.
• (21:00) - Abekus and frame store.
• (23:12) - Long hours.
• (24:21) - Tools.
• (27:55) - Picture encoding.
• (29:12) - God monitor.
• (33:21) - Titles and finishing.
• (35:01) - Low contrast prints.
• (36:45) - Telecine as loss leader.
• (42:55) - Show it on the wall.
• (44:02) - Quality vs convenience tradeoff.
• (48:21) - Taller gamut volumes.
• (52:12) - Film restoration.
• (57:07) - Software color correction systems.
• (01:01:02) - Film lab profiles.
• (01:05:01) - S curve and other tools.
• (01:06:08) - Introduction of log spaces.
• (01:10:38) - ACES archives.
• (01:17:01) - Rocket science.
• (01:20:45) - Art need limitations.
• (01:23:10) - Bezier envy.
• (01:23:38) - Tastes and trends.
• (01:32:06) - User manuals.
• (01:34:19) - Telecine calibration.
• (01:40:16) - Scopes and visualization.
• (01:45:21) - Technical vs creative transforms.
• (01:49:43) - Skin and tone curves.
• (01:51:24) - Hue vs Lum.
• (01:53:41) - Unorthodox telecine techniques.
• (02:00:45) - Psychology and resetting.
• (02:05:17) - Grading suite dynamics.
• (02:15:05) - Evolution of new tools.
• (02:16:39) - Linking pre and post.
• (02:20:06) - HDR monitors on set.
• (02:21:07) - Recent work.
• (02:26:00) - QD OLED and HDR.
• (02:29:34) - Future of HDR.
• (02:35:03) - HDR in cinema.
• (02:39:04) - Hole punches and punch tape.
• (02:42:45) - Outro.
• (02:43:12) - End.

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