Post Finishing Artist | New York City
Multi-faceted finishing artist Jan Klier has been working at the intersection of creativity and technology for over 30 years. With a background in fashion photography and software engineering, his expertise has evolved to span a wide range of post-production foundations, extending well beyond color to include VFX, sound, and editorial.
Known for his thoughtful, tool-agnostic approach, Jan works across a diverse toolkit that includes Resolve, Flame, Nuke, and more. For him, it always comes down to what best serves the story. He choses tools based on their effectiveness, not habit or brand loyalty.
We recently spoke with Jan about his hybrid skill set, his approach to solving creative challenges, and how Nobe OmniScope fits into his workflow.
Hi Jan! Can you tell us a little about yourself?
“I’m a post finishing artist working across multiple disciplines including color, VFX, 3D, sound, and editing. I’m originally from Berlin but currently based in New York City.”
How did you get started in film and video?
“I came from fashion photography and stills, and before that, software engineering. I moved from stills into the camera department and then into post-production. I’ve always enjoyed the intersection of technology and art, and working in color and VFX is chock-full of that.”
You’ve worked as a DP, a VFX artist, a colorist, and more. How did you develop such a wide skill set?
“I’m relentlessly curious, always reading, always learning, and always tinkering. But there’s also an arc to my story. My three guiding principles:
What are some recent projects you’re proud of?
“I really enjoyed working on these two PBS documentaries: Healing Dakota is about the healing of dogs that have PTSD and Voices Over the Water is about Scottish culture. Both were great stories and meaningful projects to be part of.
I’ve also done VFX work on feature films and high-end beauty campaigns, including compositing, retouching, and cleanup.”
You work with a wide range of post-production tools, many of which have overlapping features, like Resolve, Flame, Nuke, Mistika, and Avid. How do you decide which one to use for a given project?
Two principles guide me:
Tell us about your setup.
“I currently have three workstations:
They all connect via KVM to:
I use a large Tangent panel for color, SSL controllers for audio mixing, and a Xencelabs tablet for detailed work.”
How do you use OmniScope in your workflow?
“I run OmniScope on a MacBook Pro and feed it a signal via AJA U-Tap from the back of the FSI monitor.
I used ScopeBox for a long time, but it became stale and hard to use. A few other colorists in the NYC Colorist Discord, which I co-chair, had switched to OmniScope. I gave it a try and immediately liked it.“
”I immediately felt OmniScope was a solid app with very strong features, an engaged developer, and an active community of users.
What does your OmniScope layout look like?
“For grading, I use:
False Color, RGB Parade, HML Vectorscope, regular Vectorscope, Neutral Scope, Skin Tone Scope, Twin Peaks, CIE Plot, and Sat/Lum Scope.”
Grading Layout
QC Timeline Layout
How important are scopes to your work?
“It depends on the job, but I’m a very analytical person, so scopes help me decode an image. When I need to shot match or understand a look, scopes are essential.
Some things, like RGB scope functionality, are easy to see. But others, like saturation and luminance are much harder to judge visually with the bare eye. That’s where scopes like Sat/Lum really help.”
