Peter Hacker is a seasoned colorist and VFX artist with a strong foundation in compositing and post-production. With over 700 projects to his name, he brings a rare combination of technical precision and creative intuition to every grading session. Based in Ludwigsburg, Germany, and working under the company name fatrat color grading, Peter primarily uses Assimilate Scratch, a platform he champions for its speed and flexibility. He’s also a dedicated user of Nobe OmniScope and recently shared how it fits into his daily workflow.
Hi Peter! Can you tell us a little bit about yourself? Where are you from and how did you get started in post-production?
Even as a student I was captivated by photography and image manipulation, which led me to dive into compositing. After a formative internship at a post company, I created visual effects for the Austrian independent feature film On Evil Grounds. I also handled the color grading which was a rudimentary and tedious process in After Effects at the time. In 2007 I started my studies in Visual Effects and Animation at the renowned Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg in South of Germany. While I was focused on compositing and VFX, my "secret love" for color grading never faded. I would grade almost every film I could get my hands on, not yet knowing if this would be a sustainable career path.
You’ve worked across VFX, animation, and color. What drew you specifically to digital color grading as a core focus?
For me, the real challenge and thrill lies in giving visual material that final polish, translating a director's vision into a specific look to evoke a powerful emotional response from the audience. Doing this for an entire film in a short amount of time requires experience and intuition. There is no turning around every pixel like in a VFX shot; you have to be intuitive and efficient to achieve this transformation for every shot of a movie. I find immense satisfaction when the look and feel are perfectly aligned.
My full-time career as a colorist officially began in 2014 when a small team and I contributed over 600 VFX shots to the international creature feature Stung. Eventually grading a feature of such scale truly paved the way for my further specialization.
You have worked on a large number of projects including films, music videos and commercials. What types of projects do you most enjoy and why?
What I love most is the sheer variety between genres. Visually, a commercial can look like a feature film, or a feature film can be shot like a commercial. Each project demands a new and fresh approach and its own unique look development, all dependent on the footage we have to work with and the intention of where it should end up visually.
Are there any recent projects you’re especially proud of—whether for the creative, technical, or collaborative challenge?
While I’ve worked on many fantastic commercials and music videos, I'm particularly proud of the Thai action-fantasy-horror film Home Sweet Home: Rebirth (2024). My brother Steffen co-directed it with Alexander Kiesl, and their team also created all the Visual Effects. I was tasked with creating a seamless workflow to manage the HDR grading, SDR VFX reviews, and quality control simultaneously, since all of the footage came through my pipeline. It was a technical and creative challenge much bigger in size than anything I had done before.
You’ve maintained a strong relationship with the Assimilate Scratch team over the years. How did that connection begin, and what keeps you using Scratch over other platforms like Resolve?
I first met the Assimilate team during my very first year of university, specifically Mazze Aderhold, who has been incredibly supportive throughout my career. I’ve worked exclusively with SCRATCH ever since. As a colorist with my own studio, I’ve always valued that new features are quickly implemented and the support is lightning-fast whenever an issue arises. Because of that, I’ve never had any downtime due to software problems. SCRATCH is also incredibly performant with a responsive and configurable GUI which is something my clients especially appreciate during live and remote sessions. And I just love that I can freely map all the functions to my Tangent Element panel, which is a huge part of my workflow.
HDR QC with Sony BVM and Sony A95L
Tell us about your current grading setup. What’s your current hardware and software stack?
My primary grading system is built around a reliable Dell Precision Workstation, equipped with an Intel Core i9 CPU, 64GB of RAM, and a NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060. A Blackmagic DeckLink Extreme 4K handles all my I/O needs, linking the system to a calibrated monitoring setup consisting of a Sony A95L for my primary grading display, a Sony PVM-A250 for secondary checks, and an occasional rental Sony BVM-HX3110 for critical reference work. The client suite is equipped with a calibrated Panasonic GZW2004, and my GUI is displayed on a calibrated BenQ SWC270C. I rely on a Tangent Element Panel, customized with lovely custom black wheels and balls from Angryface. A Stream Deck provides quick-access macros for everything from switching between Omniscope layouts to controlling studio lighting. Nobe OmniScope is always visible on a dedicated 12" monitor.
My preferred color grading software is Assimilate SCRATCH, equipped with a comprehensive library of Matchbox shaders and third-party OFX plugins. While I maintain a NukeX license for advanced compositing tasks, my workflow has increasingly consolidated within SCRATCH.
"Once your OmniScope setup is dialed in, you'll never want to go back to standard onboard scopes."
How did you first discover OmniScope, and what problem did it solve for you at the time?
I was introduced to OmniScope through Assimilate when they released it as a native plugin. My interest grew during the beta phase, prompting me to reach out to Tom, the founder of Time in Pixels.
After years of using a Tektronix WVR, its 1080p resolution limitation and rigid configuration made the transition to a new system pretty straightforward.
What does your default OmniScope layout look like?
RGB Parade, Luminosity, Vectorscope, Source Signal are part of every layout. Depending on the project or on HDR/SDR, I also use CIE Plot, False Color, 3D Color Cube, or the Blanking Detection with the Timeline and HDR Stats as part of my QC Layout.
The Vectorscope, with its Lows/Mids/Highs division, is my favorite tool. The ability to instantly zoom in and out with a single button (mapped to Stream Deck) simplifies color balancing a lot. Also, the color distribution along the vector lines is a lovely feature.
Why would you recommend OmniScope to other colorists, especially those working outside of Resolve?
Once your OmniScope setup is dialed in, you'll be able to use it with virtually any software. The flexibility and detail are so incredible that you'll never want to go back to standard onboard scopes. Plus, if you want to offload your GPU and dedicate a machine just for OmniScope, the performance is unmatched.
