The Colorist is Vital to Your Video Production.
One of the unsung heroes of video production, or indeed any sort of cinematography, is the colorist. The colorist, for those who may not have dealt with one before, is the person who takes an image like this (taken straight out of the video camera):
and makes it look this:
With video production, there are almost as many ways to color your footage as there are ways to capture it. Your smartphone like has an app that allows you to apply some sort of video "look" as a basic video post production technique. While talking to various video production companies, ask them what their philosophy about colorists entails, and what tools do they use to approach it--and more importantly, what people do they have behind the tools. The final color grade is what is going to stop someone from fastforwarding and watch, or stop them from clicking "skip" on a website. Does the video production company have one person who does the edit, the sound and the color grading? Or is the colorist at your video production company someone who has made a living color grading regional, national and worldwide TV commercials for a living, as well as video productions for corporate branding for Fortune 500 companies? What video post production tools are they using? A full post production suite? Which tool fits your video production project best? What tool works for you may depend on whether your video production company is creating something for Philadelphia area TV, the web, or national theatrical distribution. The most important point is:
A video production company depends greatly on their colorist.
A lot of clients worry about the rest of their video production crew, whether they are in Philadelphia or not--this includes directors, producers, etc. The intangible (and sometimes very tangible) additions each video production and post production professional makes is vital to the overall look of your project. The colorist at your Philadelphia video production company is the one who is going to move the final image--and the attention of your audience--into WOW territory. Hollywood doesn't hold back its budget for color grading and other aspects of post production, so no matter what video production option you choose: don't skimp on the color grade. It may be the difference between your and your competitor's corporate video productions in Philadelphia.
