Supervising Colorist, Pictureshop
For our final interview of the year, we feature Mitch Paulson, a top-tier colorist who has worked on tons of recognizable films and TV shows including “Blade Runner 2049”, “Anyone But You”, “Transformers One”, and “Mayor of Kingstown” to name just a few. Mitch has also been nominated for several HPA awards and received the Award for Outstanding Color Grading for his work on Disney’s Jungle Cruise.
Currently a Supervising Colorist at Pictureshop, Mitch has worked at other well-known Hollywood post & finishing facilities including EFILM and Company3. We were excited to chat with Mitch about a career in color and how he started with Nobe OmniScope.
Can you tell us a little bit about yourself? How did you get started with color grading?
“I’m originally from Minnesota. I’ve always had a love for movies and decided in high school that I wanted to make them. I moved out to Los Angeles when I was 19 to pursue a career in movies… originally I went to school for 3D animation. However, I realized I wanted to have more of an overall impact on a film – and being a small piece of a large animation team wasn't exactly what I wanted.
I became a compositor right out of school and quickly got my first job. I was mainly doing work on movie trailers back then. This was around 2003, so Digital Intermediates was a pretty new field. My boss at the time, decided that we should also color the trailers, not just conform and do composite work. I had already been using Photoshop for years, so color grading came very easily to me. I realized that this new digital workflow was going to become how all movies were made, and decided to become a colorist.”
What projects from your career are you most proud of and why?
“If I had to pick one, it would be “Blade Runner 2049”. It was a great movie to work on and looked absolutely amazing. Denis Villeneuve (director) & Roger Deakins (cinematographer) did such an incredible job creating that world. It was fun to be a part of it and to help Roger get his long overdue Oscar win for cinematography really topped it all off!”
This past year you worked on “Transformers One”, an animated film. Can you describe what working on a CGI-based film project like this entails?
“Color on animation is a bit different from live-action movies. With animation, I typically won't get involved until after they've started to create things. We will test shots and send them through our color pipeline, to make sure things all look as expected. Another big thing we prep ahead of time, is all the mattes and how they are structured. I had thousands of mattes on Transformers, so we had to make sure it was set up in an efficient way so that I could find things quickly while coloring.
You’ve worked on features, TV shows, and music videos… Are there differences between working on a big budget feature vs an episodic series?
“Really the main difference is time. I will get more time on a feature film, compared to an episodic TV show.”
What's the most challenging thing that you’ve come across as a colorist?
“Probably just learning how to handle all the different personalities you come across as a colorist. Nobody can really teach you this, it just just comes with experience. You have to learn how to run a room full of people – all giving you notes at the same time. And sometimes not everyone is on the same page.
And what part of your career do you enjoy the most?
“I’d have to say being able to work with amazing filmmakers from all over the world and getting to have career long relationships with them. On plenty of the movies I get to work on, it feels like I get to hang out with my friends and make a movie. My "job" rarely actually feels like work.”
What are some of your favorite tools in the color suite?
“I use DaVinci Resolve Studio to grade with. I've used both Barco and Christie projectors, as well as Dolby & Barco laser projectors. For a monitor, I'm either on a Sony BVM-HX300 or HX3110. For remote clients, I typically use an iPad Pro and ClearView Flex.”
How did you find out about Nobe OmniScope?
“I had used OmniTek scopes for many years, but we replaced them with OmniScope when we moved into a new building. My engineers found it and showed it to me.”
I love OmniScope’s False Color scope. I can set my blacks where I need and quickly see if I'm hitting it or not.
“OmniScope is very customizable and accurate. I can display whatever view or scope I need and save it as a preset. I have several different saved setups that I regularly use, depending on the use case.”
Find more about Mitch Paulson on IMDB.
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