Balancing Color, Entrepreneurship, and Life with Robbie Carman

0:00:00 - Robbie Carman
When I'm in a situation and I'm just like this sheen or whatever it is is not working, more times than not that's because I've over complicated what needs to be done. But oftentimes when I encounter those situations, i think a lot of people's instinct is oh, just add a new node, add a new node, add a new node. My instinct these days is to literally hit reset and start over from scratch. Right, because the more complicated I get, i tend to do worse things. 

0:00:45 - Jason Bowdach
Hi and welcome to Color and Coffee, a podcast that focuses on the craft of color grading and the artists behind it. I'm your host, Jason Bowdach, and each week we'll sit down with some of the most talented and creative colorists in the industry and have a casual chat from one colorist to another. We'll share their stories, their insights, their grading tips and, of course, their beverage of choice. Whether you're a seasoned colorist or just starting out in the industry, join us for some great color discussion. Strap in, grab your mug. you're listening to color and coffee. I am thrilled to have colorist entrepreneur, trainer and really one of my mentors, Robbie Carman, welcome to the show. 

0:01:31 - Robbie Carman
Hey, jason, thanks for having me, man, it's good to catch up. 

0:01:34 - Jason Bowdach
My pleasure. So first off, one of the most important questions I ask every guest of the show What are you drinking today? 

0:01:42 - Robbie Carman
Well, it is about lunchtime here, but I am still consuming a Yeti-sized cup of cold brew iced coffee, because you need 64 ounces, or whatever, of coffee per day. Yeah, that's what I'm on this morning. 

0:01:56 - Jason Bowdach
I'll have a sip, absolutely The colorist beverage of choice. 

0:02:00 - Robbie Carman
Yeah, it's a little too early for the whiskey, so keep it on the coffee. 

0:02:04 - Jason Bowdach
So, as a cold brew fanatic myself, what do you like for cold brew? Is there a specific brand or anything? 

0:02:11 - Robbie Carman
No, i'm not a snob when it comes to coffee. I don't have a coffee press. I'm fine just going to Dunkin' Donuts and getting a regular drip hot coffee. I don't need macchiatoes and whipped cream and whatever flavored foam. 

0:02:27 - Jason Bowdach
Give me a cup of regular coffee and I'm good, a natural man, i like it. I'm shipping on some vanilla latte. 

0:02:35 - Robbie Carman
My kids, on the other hand, are snobs. At 10 and 15 years old, they need triple shots of this with no water and blah, blah, blah, blah. I don't even understand the language. I'm just like give me a regular cup of coffee. 

0:02:46 - Jason Bowdach
I hear you, man. Oh, at least they haven't gotten into the Frappuccinos and the blended drinks with sugar. 

0:02:52 - Robbie Carman
No, my son has, and it's purely because he's a sugar addict and we have to moderate that for sure, otherwise he'd be bouncing off walls. Combine the sugar with the caffeine, it's a recipe for disaster. 

0:03:04 - Jason Bowdach
He'll move to pure caffeine soon, like a real colorist, yeah, i hope not. Well, now that we've gotten the beverages out of the way, I wanted to talk a little bit about you. You want to share a little bit about your history and your background. 

0:03:17 - Robbie Carman
Yeah, sure, man. So yeah, my name's Robbie, i'm a professional colorist and educator, and all the other various things that you said I didn't. I kind of arrived on what I do sort of accidentally when I was younger and a teenager. I had aspirations and dreams of being a rock star and making it rich that way, and we had a passion for performing and playing music. Still to this day I have a bajillion guitars all over the house and I have a little project studio here at home and I record as much as possible. 

And initially I went to school to study music and then realized that probably not going to be a rock star, it was actually my first introduction to doing video work. This is at the time in college, mid to late 90s, i had some guys doing some tracking for them in the recording studio And one of the guys walked in and was like Hey man, do you know anything about video? and held up It's probably a high eight camera at the time and said, hey man, we really want to shoot a music video, can you help us out? And I was like, well, i guess I'm a little technical. Yeah, sure, and believe it or not, one thing led to another And I started down that path of discovering video and, like a lot of other people in our industry of my age group anyway, started out as what we refer to as assistant editors or E2s. 

In those days it was in linear rooms running the Chiron, going back in the machine room and swapping out Digi, beta and later on HD Camdex and all that kind of stuff and blacking tapes and setting everything up for the, for the editors in the room with the big giant huge consoles and huge switchers could do their thing. And right around that time I was introduced a little bit to color working. At the time the controls were in the linear rooms was very rudimentary, it was just a TBC kind of a little pedestal, a little setup and that kind of stuff. But the place that I was working had had some DaVinci systems And that's what kind of I initially learned and kind of trained on that kind of stuff. 

0:05:18 - Jason Bowdach
And then even a 2k at that point, or was it pre 2k? 

0:05:20 - Robbie Carman
Yeah it would have been in. It would have been an 888 and then a 2k and then a 2k plus. These are at the time when we're talking about literally heavy iron kind of machines. Company would come in with a rack of gear and go Hey, here's your machine. 

This was a heyday of Quantel and discrete logic, davinci systems, quantel with the paint box and the Henry and all those various machines. This is when people joke now, but this is when DaVinci setup was was a half million to a million plus dollars. Thinking about it now it's just like it's amazing the tools that we have compared to back then. But in the early 2000s I decided to jump out on my own, do my own thing and quickly realize that Oh man, i can't probably ever afford a million dollar DaVinci box. And so you know, like a lot of people kind of floundered with various desktop color corrections. I actually have a funny story. Later in the mid 2000s I actually purchased Silicon colors, final touch 2k, i think it was about 25 grand, something like that 30 grand. I actually got a loan from my folks to go out to the software And this was like probably around this time of year, like February, march, like I'm all stoked about this, go out to NAB that year. And I remember it like it was yesterday. 

An Australian colorist, david Gross, got up on stage for Apple and was like Hey, i'd like to introduce Apple Color. And I knew that Silicon Color, silicon Graphics, had gotten not Graphics, silicon Color had gotten purchased by Apple, but I had no idea what was going to happen And, literally, like a month earlier, i had spent buckets and buckets of cash on the software to only now have it be included as part of Phonkett Studio. So that was a little gut check. But yeah, i've been running my own company, you know, gosh, now 20 years or so, in various shapes and fashions. These days it's myself, my partner, joey Deanna. Joey is another well known educator and colorist, and we've been partnered for five, six, seven years, something like that, and you know, we compliment each other and do that work with the work that we do. So that's great. 

And then, as you also know, education has been a constant theme in my life. In those early 2000 days, i was part of the first generation ish of Phonica Pro instructors I think that was probably Phonica 2 or 3 somewhere in that range and did a lot of work within the that ecosystem, contributing to a lot of the Apple Pro training series books. I was also a early Lindacom author doing stuff on Apple Color funny enough in various color related things. And then I spun that into 2011, 2012,. Along with Dan Moran and Patrick Inhofer, we started MixingLitecom, which is obviously a well known decade later, a well known and respected color training website for everything Resol, premiere, whatever it is anything color related. So I was an owner and manager of that business for about a decade. In December of 2021. Dan and I left left MixingLite, but it's so obviously still going strong with Patrick at the helm, and these days I'm just trying to keep my head above water and grading all the time and all that kind of fun stuff. So that's the protracted version of about me. 

0:08:33 - Jason Bowdach
Well, you are doing quite a bit, man. I think one of the funniest things in the story that I hadn't heard about is how you got washed over by what was going to be Apple Color. 

0:08:43 - Robbie Carman
I don't have any PTSD about it, jason. It's cool. I mean, i'm not. I'm still not. Like you know, my parents are, i think, still trying to collect that. You know, here I am in my mid 40s And I think my folks are still trying to collect on that loan. 

0:08:54 - Jason Bowdach
Well, they probably have quite the interest on that, so yeah, right, it's probably up to about 150 grand. 

0:09:00 - Robbie Carman
now, to be honest with you. 

0:09:02 - Jason Bowdach
Well, i mean, we've all in some way maybe not the 25 grand, but we've all experienced that resolve started off, like you said, at a half a million And then it went down to, i believe, 1000. And then it went down to 299, i believe is that now, and everybody that has had a license for it has experienced that I don't want to call it a collapse, but that readjustment of our industry for software, and I think you have a tremendous attitude toward it. As opposed to feeling ripped off, you feel the evolution of our industry. 

0:09:33 - Robbie Carman
Yeah, i mean, that's the thing about it, right Is that everything goes that way eventually in the democratization of the tools and the cost of the technology And I mean, everything shrinks down, gets smaller, faster, better. And I'm just sitting here, the machine I'm on talking you on is one of those M1 Ultra Mac studios And just boggles my mind that this little square box can do stuff run circles around here that I had even five or six years ago. That's just the way the industry and I think if you get mad about it you're going to be in for a world of hurt. It's just better to be strategic about it. Pick your battles when you can And when you decide to go a certain direction, go that direction and be happy about it while it's serving you, and when it's not serving you anymore, think about upgrading and moving on. 

0:10:14 - Jason Bowdach
That's probably a really that might be one of the best tips that you gave throughout this entire podcast. As a fellow hardware nerd, i get and I can get attached to my gear, especially when you're spending so much money on it. I, too, have made quite a big investment into the Apple Silicon range. I'm currently rebuilding my office right now, basically to be completely around it, and it's amazing how far technology has come. But three years ago, if I would have put my foot in the sand this is everything that I'm going to do And this is where I'm going to be with technology then I probably wouldn't be where I am today Being what's the problem? 

0:10:50 - Robbie Carman
Yeah, i mean I've always taken approach with gear especially is that I mean those folks who know me well know that I'm kind of a gearhead and they're just like, oh man, you're always chasing the next big thing. I've always taken the approach as a small boutique company, as not having huge engineering staff, etc. One of the fights that I have all the time is just trying to stay on or slightly in front of that technological curve, because I do believe that as independent operators, as small shops, etc. That's how early, especially early on in my career, when things did actually cost a million dollars for this or that or whatever, it was a battle. It was a fight to stay on capabilities with people right, like you know, at that time you had to be able to say to clients like no, no, no, we got the whatever you know, insert whatever piece of gear here And we can do that same service that the big shop can do. 

Of course, these days that's a little bit less of a concern with, you know, the democratization of the tools and all that kind of stuff that you said and things being the file base and all that kind of stuff. But still, to a certain degree, my approach is always be a little speculative on things to try to stay out in front of that curve as little, as much as possible without sinking the ship. For example, when it comes to big, you know, whatever monitor purchases, computer purchases, that kind of stuff, i generally take the approach of like leasing or financing that kind of stuff. So it's not a huge hit to my cash flow, it just allows me to keep that kind of like that turnover right. You know, every two, three, four years you know I'm swapping out for the latest and greatest kind of thing And that's so far in 20 something years of doing this. That's proved to be pretty successful. 

0:12:29 - Jason Bowdach
That's some great tips. I know I don't know a lot of people that look at leasing large pieces of hardware at that, myself included, So I'm going to have to start looking into that as well. 

0:12:38 - Robbie Carman
Yeah, it's just much easier than coming up with whatever 10, 15 grand or 20 grand or whatever it is out of your pocket to make that happen. And from a cash flow point, i mean, listen, i'm not an accountant so I'm not giving an accounting advice to anybody, but you know, i have found that that to be a good cash flow thing, a good way to stay up on technological curve. I mean, it kind of drives me crazy, kind of gives me a little bit of OCD panic attacks whenever, a couple of years, i'm ripping down the machine room or ripping apart the desk or whatever, whatever it is. But that's the life that I've chosen to lead, you know. 

0:13:09 - Jason Bowdach
As somebody who had to make a multi thousand dollar purchase about two weeks ago, and even though all the metrics say it's good and everything all the business prospects say it's good, still makes me so nervous pressing that purchase button. 

0:13:22 - Robbie Carman
Of course, man, of course, of course. If anybody not needs some servers, just let me know. I got a sack. 

0:13:28 - Jason Bowdach
So I'm going to take that and I'm going to venture into. So you, as a small business owner, you happen to run DC color And you're a Dolby Vision provider in the DC area And that's something that I and a lot of colorists look up to. You're running a really basically high-end facility in an area and you're providing Dolby Vision services to Disney and Netflix and I mean any variety of clients, especially we were talking about National Geographic. So in this area, clients that are not necessarily familiar with Dolby Vision, and so you're bringing technologies like Dolby Vision and HDR to the prime time. And, like you were talking, that technology is pretty expensive. 

I mean, we just saw so many just announced a brand new monitor, for they haven't announced the price yet, which always makes me nervous. But when somebody on this podcast is looking at you and go, wow, i wanna be somebody like Robbie, i wanna have a facility like this, i wanna be in a small business, i don't wanna be in a large color facility, where do you suggest somebody start like this? Obviously they can run a small facility in their house, but how does somebody start to rep and path out their way? 

0:14:41 - Robbie Carman
Yeah, it's a nuance, slightly complicated question So I'll try to answer it from a couple different points of view. So first, i think to me it's running a small business is not for everybody right. I'm not trying to say this to gloat or to boast or anything, but like it's not for everybody, the pressures of having to make payroll and pay rent and manage clients and all that kind of stuff I mean I spend Jason, it's funny, i spend so much of my day on Zoom phone calls, with doing sales stuff, on QuickBooks, running invoices and then what, all these kinds of things. And of course that can scale depending on how big you wanna get and that kind of stuff. 

When I started out I think the overwhelming thing for me as a young guy out of college who, like most young guys out of college, thinks they know a lot more than they really do 20-something years ago I made the decision that like I really don't wanna be the low man on the total, i really don't wanna be that guy working in the machine room at 3 am swapping out tapes, whatever. And there was I mean I'll be looking back on it now the amount of hubris that I had about my technical capabilities, my creative capabilities like I. Just it's comical now looking back, doing that introspection and looking at myself back then. What a little proverbial S I was thinking. 

0:15:57 - Jason Bowdach
I knew That makes two of us. 

0:15:59 - Robbie Carman
Yeah, yeah, exactly Thinking I knew everything about everything. But I think at that time that sort of seeded the idea that I really wanted to kind of do my own thing. I personally find satisfaction and pleasure of the weight being on me, right, like if something's gonna fail, i want it to be my fault. not like that situation where whatever a manager, middle, middle tier guy screwed up now the company's going under, right Like I'd rather have that pressure on me. So I knew right away that like, yeah, i wanted to start my own thing, do my own thing and fight those battles myself. And again, that's not for everybody, but that's what kind of what I decided to do. And then the second part about that we already spoke about is kind of just, i had this desire right as these tools started to being democratized from the million dollar systems and all the hardware and stuff. I really did see, no, this is a pathway. Like I can do this in a cost effective, relatively cash affordable model without having to be tied up in million dollar boxes and all the financing and the support contract. And that's just a factor of timing, like I was lucky to be alive doing the things I was doing at the time and make it work. If I had 10 years either way, it probably would have been a different story. 

And I think the thing for me was that I always knew and this is a big important factor for me I always knew that I didn't want to be a 50 person company or a 100 person company. I wanted to sort of design the lifestyle that worked for me. have two, three, four people, have some partners that did other things. I mean to this day, that's true. I mean, like you know, it's basically Joey and I. occasionally we'll bring another colorist or occasionally assistant or whatever, but we share space and partner with an audio company for over 15 years, to call it on-house audio. They're great, And so I just kind of knew that that was for me. 

I think these days, dude, it's, you know, the biggest determining factor. I think that's hard for a lot of people because the tools are there, the skill levels there. I mean more people know about this stuff than ever before. I mean, when I started teaching color stuff, it literally was a dark art, And now I mean you can pretty much go anywhere, you know, whether it's Mixing Light or Ripple or YouTube or whatever, people are teaching this stuff, and so I think it's easier in that regard more than ever to do it. 

I think, still, what separates what I refer to as kind of the bedroom colorist versus like the boutique owner is that ability to have clients supervise space, place where a client can come in, do work, feel comfortable. That's not your house, right? And I think that's a big distinction for a lot of people, whether they say it or not, between kind of what they want. Like I'm never, i don't think a lot of bedroom colorists and I'm not trying to say that as a derogatory term, it's just, it is what it is. They're working out of their house or doing whatever. They're probably not gonna get a B level or A level Netflix project because they don't have the facility, they don't have the physical space, they don't have, you know, the certifications like TPN and all that kind of stuff. 

So I think that is required. Yeah, the infrastructure, basically. yeah, exactly, and also it's I think part of that too is kind of the physical infrastructure, the hardware infrastructure, the client infrastructure, right, like when somebody comes into space and I'm working, i need somebody to greet them, i need somebody to show them, you know, the Wi-Fi password where the bathrooms are, all of that kind of stuff And that's. I think that's part of it as well. 

0:19:14 - Jason Bowdach
I mean, i hate to say it, but it does. It brings the bill up, and if they can pay that bill, then that's fantastic, And if they're not looking for that, then there's the middle range, which I think has expanded drastically. 

0:19:24 - Robbie Carman
Yeah, i mean, that's the market that I play in is the great middle. I'm under no illusions that I'm gonna be doing, you know, game of Thrones or I'm gonna be doing like a Rihanna video or whatever it may be right Like I think that, especially in my market and people always are, you know, by the way are like DC, what's that? I mean? DC, dollar for dollars, is a very big post-production market with all the a lot of various networks here. And anyway, i digress. My point is that that middle, and especially the higher end of middle, is where I kind of operate and want to be right And that's a huge middle. 

And, to be clear, i think that some colorists and some people, some entrepreneurs and facility owners, go in with this mindset of like it is A level Netflix or bust, right, i think they, you know, then they acquiesce to doing lower. Like I've never had the mindset that doing a corporate video for somebody is any less important than doing the Dolby Vision premiere show. Right, because as far as I'm concerned, money, their money, is still green. You know what I'm saying. If they're willing to pay the rates, i, you know, it doesn't really bother me if it's a corporate training video versus you know a narrative feature As long as they're paying the bills and they're paying the rates that we want, it's good for me. 

0:20:39 - Jason Bowdach
Oh my God, there's so much to unpack in there. We had a similar conversation, i want to say, about a year ago and it, i want to say, had a dramatic change in the way that I look at different clients now. And you said that same thing. You called it the great middle. It really changed the way that I look at the different projects now because to me, that great middle has expanded so much And instead of fighting over the what is shrinking the AAA titles, this middle, especially with things like Max and everything else, our middle is expanding And, especially now that they're being mastered with Dolby Vision, there is so much content that needs to be colored and finished, that in a professional manner And, like you said, if they pay well and they pay consistently, they're Projects are just as good as everything else And in fact, if they are less drama, then they're better. 

0:21:31 - Robbie Carman
To be honest with you, i find that that middle, the higher end, middle client is actually in many ways from just to create a point of view from a business point of view is a lot less stressful and demanding than you find on the lower end of things. And the thing that you find on the really high end of things right, like I mean, i've sat in rooms doing agency work with seven people who all have different opinions. They're yelling at you, they're chugging, they're yelling at you And I'm just like, yeah, i can deal without that. You know what I'm saying. I'd rather right, i like cool, i like great, i can put that on my portfolio, it's for a big brand, whatever. But like the stress involved in that, i'd way rather do the whatever. I keep you know saying this, but like the corporate training video with you know someone who's like, oh, it's great, whatever for the same amount of money without the stress and be totally cool with it. And I think that that's one thing that I think a lot of people in our industry overlook, because, look, i'm like everybody else, if I could work on insert a list feature here, of course, like that would be creatively rewarding, it would be big feather in my cap. 

But I realized that I'm not, as a small business owner, doing what I do and whatever. I'm not going to compete with company three to get James Cameron's or whatever whoever insert big deal. You know, a list director DP. I'm not going to be doing that work. So it's not. It sounds like a defeatist attitude. It's kind of like I'm just settling. But I don't look at it that way. I look at that again, that great middle and being a much bigger pool of projects that are much more realistic for me to work on that. Maybe I don't have the same notoriety, maybe it's not the same level of profile, but whatever, if it's paying the bills, my family's happy. You know all that kind of stuff. It's good by me. 

0:23:16 - Jason Bowdach
I also think you touched on something that's pretty important there. You touched on family and you're running a business, You're focusing on stability, which I think is incredibly important, And you have other things to do than just focusing on this one project. I do think that it's well. It's hard when people are working on very high budget triple A movies. That's the focus, that is the goal, And it's hard to. I mean, you can, you can forget about your life and family and stuff And that can be pushed to the side, And that's incredibly damaging when you're doing that consistently. 

0:23:46 - Robbie Carman
Dude, i can't tell. I mean, we, without you know, i think that you know some people like this. I definitely know some people like this who have had it in their mind And I can't fault them for this right They've had it in their mind that in whatever niche or genre that they're really excelling at whether it be music, videos or features or whatever that they have the singular focus to be the guy or the gal in in that niche And they do everything possible to make that happen Long hours, never saying no, in the suite, for 20 hours a day, for, you know, seven days a week, kind of thing. And I have to respect that drive and that passion. I know a lot of people like that. 

But I would also say that every single one of those people that I know that are like that at some point has crashed and burned, had this existential life crisis, whether it's worth it, whether they should still be doing it. And then they you know they seem to have this patterns of like well, no, i'm going to scale back a lot. No, I'm going to scale up, i'm going to scale back. and, like you're right, my approach has always been design the lifestyle that you want, right, and then you know, i think we we tend to in this industry think that that pain factor of working like that is somehow like making you better, like it's building up your character, or whatever It's, getting a thicker skin, we're going to be better in the next time. 

And I mean we've all, we've all been there right, we've all done the projects where we probably pushed a little too hard. But the people who are doing it consistently, like I said, i respect them because they're they're that's an amazing amount of effort and work. But I also worry about the folks that I know that are like that right, who sometimes I feel like are at the mental breaking point. Sometimes their life has just flashed them by. Look, i got two kids. They're now basically 10 and 15. 

And when, when they were really little, i kind of had a little bit more of that in my life, like a little bit more of like constantly pushing, constantly being in a sweep, and a decade on I'm kind of like I don't remember that, oh, was I there? 

And like there was a lot of situations in my life where my kids especially were really little, that like it's fine, like they're not like damage or anything. But I'm like, oh, yeah, i wasn't. I was working that Saturday for that birthday party or you know, whatever, you know those those kind of things. And it got to a point in my in my career, in my life, where I just said, look, i'm never going to be the guy at insert, huge company here working on huge project there, right, and it's again sounds defeatist. But I've never been happier after I realized that decision and made that decision because I wasn't chasing something that for me at least, i think was probably unattainable Again, no problem with people who are working like that. I just sometimes I think it's good to just take a pause, breathe, kind of reevaluate what you're doing, because eventually people, people do burn out. 

0:26:46 - Jason Bowdach
I don't think that's defeatist at all, because you're actually allowing yourself to come to work fully charged, for your clients too. I mean, i've I've certainly burned out and it's a lot of people in our industry have burned out and we've seen, we know that the divorce rates are really high, particularly in our industry. I know quite a few people that are on, unfortunately their their second or third marriage and we know, i know, a couple of top A colors that are in their ridiculous number of marriage and that to me, when I found that out, was something that I personally said this is not worth it for me. as much as I'd love to have a really long credit list, i'd really like to be happy and enjoy what I do. when I decided to be a colorist, i wanted to do it because I loved what I do, not because I wanted to have a long credit list on IMTB. 

0:27:31 - Robbie Carman
I had a. He was a professor of mine who has become a good client of mine over the years. I don't know his exact words, but the gist of this was something like it's TV, nobody's going to die. And I think that as an industry and as operators, sometimes we don't actually listen to that kind of advice or things that are said like that And we do kind of like I mean, listen, i'm not doing open heart surgery on anybody where that there's a chance that, like, the person I'm working on is going to die. Right, moving pixels around on a screen, i'm sorry, it's a little too blue or a little too red or a little too whatever. 

I think we're all, at some level, pleasers like right, we're fixers, right, and it's especially in the color world like we're there. It's the dog and pony show people getting out of their you know, out of their companies, out of their workplaces, coming to our spaces, working in these nice suites and paying good dollars, you know, per hour. And so there's this dog and pony show where you're always trying to please people, say, yes, do all those kinds of things, but you know the reality of it is, if something is not 100% perfect, it's fine. Again, i owe it the work ethic. I don't want to people to confuse me, because I have a very strong worth ethic and I always want to do my absolute best on something. But I also live by this adage of not everything's art. You know what I'm saying And at some point in time, i think the one thing that everybody has to learn is get the project to the point where people are pretty happy with it. 

Because if you obsess about that particular thing and ad nauseam, you're going to drive yourself crazy. You're probably going to do actually a worse job than you would if you just treated it a little lighter. And at the end of the day, i'm sure you've been in this position where you've gone Oh well, this client has a budget of I'm just going to insert a number here. They have a budget of $1,000. And you've done $7,000 worth of work on the project. Like that's not like no, like you can't like at a certain point. And we all have been there, we all, we all do that every once in a while. But I have, you know, in the past decade or so, i've taken the attitude of I'm gonna do my absolute best within the parameters of the project And I'm trying to not live with things as much as I used to, and honestly I've been way happier about that. 

0:29:46 - Jason Bowdach
Yeah, it's not personal. I chased my tail. I used to chase my tail. It's still something that I'm working on And just letting it go out the door as best as it can be, especially for content that's not live or die. 

So I was in an interview with a pretty well-known color house in LA And they mentioned something to me that really completely envelopes that entire attitude. This was a little bit a couple of years ago back, when I was a little bit more aggressive, but when I heard this comment, it was, i will almost say, career changing for me, because immediately I had to evaluate what I was doing there. And this comment to me and this was a producer, this wasn't a colorist, but this was a producer And his comment was we're not saving lives here, but it's pretty damn close And immediately. As badly as I wanted this job. Immediately I just foresaw my life at this place And imagine if they see themselves saving lives, what are they going to be asking of their staff? That is so rampant in our industry And I think it really causes people to one burn out and to leave post-production, which is terrible. 

0:30:54 - Robbie Carman
Yeah, and I think that if you look at the people that thrive and succeed well in that kind of environment they are, they're a different breed, i mean the top people at these major facilities. 

They have a way of at least in my observation of this I know this from far and not in brief talks with some of these people But it seems to me they have a way of really kind of compartmentalizing a lot of that stress, right. And it seems to me a lot of those people are also very private people and they've learned the value of family and when to turn it off and that kind of stuff. I think the problem with the great majority of us is that we actually have a problem compartmentalizing right. We can't be like this is a work problem, and now I'm home, the great majority of us we're at the office or whatever doing this work, and then you come home and then it's bugging you when you're sitting on the couch and all you're thinking about is, oh, did I screw that project up? And next thing, you know at 11 o'clock, you know at night you're driving back to the office or you're going downstairs in your house and trying to mess with it, and it's hard. 

And I mean again, i have nothing but respect for that type of person at those types of facilities doing that work. I mean, like, listen, do I like watching all the shows they make? Absolutely, they're beautiful and they're great. And I'm just saying for me I made the choice that, like nope, i'm happy right here in my lane and that's where it is, and I'm not going to drive myself crazy trying to achieve these things that are going to give me burnout. Last time with my family, you know all those. 

0:32:29 - Jason Bowdach
They're incredible artists, but it's a very difficult lifestyle to have. 

0:32:32 - Robbie Carman
I think it's the general thing that I've learned, So I think I think, i think, i think if you asked any of those types of folks, i think they would acknowledge on some level that, yes, very rewarding creatively, technically, you know, working with the biggest producers, actors, whatever in the world, but there's moments that it's just like it's tough. Yeah, i'm sure. And if I'm sure, if they were being honest that they would, they would copy that for them. 

0:32:57 - Jason Bowdach
But you mentioned it earlier. Our industry shows that as being the only way, and there's not. There's a bunch of other ways that we can go. Moving on to another subject, i wanted to ask if I were to take you onto a desert island and you are only allowed to take a very small suitcase and in that suitcase you can take one grading tool. What grading tool would that be? 

0:33:19 - Robbie Carman
Yeah, i mean, i think I just have to say, even though I don't utilize these tools 100% in the time, i'd say it's just have to be lift gamma gain. I mean like, yeah, i think the cool answer is you know offset and printer points and you know those kind of things. But like, in reality, it's like if I was, if I had to bang through a thousand shots on the show black white saturation, next shot, you know what I'm saying Like if I had to do it with just a single tool set, that's probably what it would be. I mean, it would be great if they were color space aware. Lift gamma gain. 

0:33:51 - Jason Bowdach
But I mean. 

0:33:52 - Robbie Carman
I would say, and I would say, if I had a, if I had a, if I had a, if I had a, you know a choice. If I could bring you know one other tool set I rely a lot on the secondary curves, you know, hue versus hue, hue versus sat, that kind of stuff That would be another one If I could, if I could sneak something in my luggage, that would probably be really what I'm really. I'm really kind of conflicted on this because, like in reality, i'm much more of an offset printer point kind of person, in contrast pivot kind of thing, those tools. But if I had, if I had to sum it all into one bag, it would probably be with gamma gain. 

0:34:27 - Jason Bowdach
Awesome And you know what A lot of people go with the offset and I love that you went with the more generalized control because I think it's a cool answer. 

0:34:34 - Robbie Carman
I think everybody's like oh yeah, i'm doing like film style grading, it's offset, it's printer point, like in reality it's sort of like no, you're just going to gain that up and drop blacks and like be, move on, you know. 

0:34:44 - Jason Bowdach
And well, you, you mentioned it right there. What are you going to do if you need to expand the contrast? or this one's really milky and this one's really, and you're stuck there. So I love that answer And the whole reason I asked that question is to to remind people to start thinking as simple as possible, and we make grading so complicated with all these different tools, and that really is just as about as simple as we can make it to get the shot out 100% man, there is no. 

0:35:09 - Robbie Carman
you know, when I, when I talked to young colorists or have had assistance in the past, like I play a lot of golf and so the golf's a passion of mine, and I always say to them my dad said to me when I was a kid, like there's no pictures on the scorecard, right. I kind of think the same way about grading, like sure you could have 14,000 nodes and use every tools available and resolve. All that really matters is what ends up on screen and if people are happy with it, right, like nobody's going back and being like huh, did you use this tool? You know, like no, it's just. you know, whatever, whatever it works the project and gets things on screen, that's, that's it. 

0:35:43 - Jason Bowdach
That's definitely a recent colorist thing on Instagram where people are like you use the FPE letter, you use this tool, but no one really no one ever knows what they're using. And that's when I think it's great, when I'm like I have no idea what they use, but that looks great. 

0:35:55 - Robbie Carman
I mean, i'm victim to that and we all are right Of trying the latest and greatest tool or whatever. But, like I'm with you, i don't think complexity necessarily breeds great results. I think that a lot of times when I look at, especially from the education point of view, when I, you know, doing a lot of that kind of work, people who have students who are like, look, i've used 600 nodes and I have 14,000 corrections, and I'm like, yeah, but that image looks horrible. And here's where it's broken. Here's where it's broken Like, how about one node and just some contrast and some color balance? You know, it's like I'm a firm believer that less is often more in in color work And I, years ago and I mean you've had the pleasure of working with him directly, i have not Years ago I heard everybody's favorite company three colorist, walter Fopato, say you know something to the effect of like respect the photography. 

Walter gets to work with some of the best DPs and directors in the world, so his photography that he's getting to look at is probably a lot better than a lot of the photography that I get to look at. But at the same time, my point, what I've taken that to mean in my life and the work that I do is that sometimes It's not your role to invent the shot with 14,000 corrections, right. Sometimes your role is just to support what's there right And you know, improve what you can improve and move on. And I see a lot of, i see a lot of young colorists essentially over coloring and over grading things because they're trying to invent a shot that's not actually there in the principal photography, right. And I think that's dangerous because then you're kind of inserting your own look and feel, you're inserting, you're making up stuff that didn't really happen on set And there's a place for that kind of stuff We've, you know, of course, but I try to take the approach of, generally speaking, less is more, you know, kind of respecting that photography. 

0:37:43 - Jason Bowdach
I'll add in a quote that the Walther told me I don't actually remember what movie it was on He was working with the DP and he took it a little too far. The DP reached out to him and said thank you for reshooting my movie. 

0:37:55 - Robbie Carman
Exactly, exactly. I mean in that great middle that we've spoken about, i mean, a lot of those clients have no idea what they're doing in the first place, so they actually are relying on you to do a little bit of that work. Compared to, you know, compared to the very well thought out, very well opinionated I mean, like you know, the DP's that he probably works with have spent years of their life choosing lenses, camera systems, lights, you know all kinds of stuff. So I get that. But I just think that when I'm in you know, i'll put it into practical terms When I'm in a situation and I'm just like this shot, this shot is, or this scene or whatever it is, is not working, more times than not, that's because I've overcomplicated what needs to be done, right, and I. 

It took me a while you know years of you know having those situations counter. But oftentimes, when I encounter those situations, i think a lot of people's instinct is, oh, just add a new node, add a new node, add a new node. My instinct these days is just to literally hit reset, reset And start and start over from scratch. Right, because the more complicated I get, i tend to do worse worse things, if that makes sense, It was. 

0:39:03 - Jason Bowdach
It was like spices how it's so easy to overspice something And it's usually better with less spices. That's how color grading is. 

0:39:12 - Robbie Carman
I think that I that wasn't me, but I'm going to steal that. 

0:39:16 - Jason Bowdach
That's a really great. 

0:39:17 - Robbie Carman
that's a really that's a really great analogy, right. It's like once it's there in the pot it's really hard to take it back. But like if, if somebody wants a little more salt, sure we can pour pepper that on a little bit more, or whatever. But yeah, no, that's a good analogy for sure. 

0:39:31 - Jason Bowdach
I think, to avoid that harsh situation of accidentally overcorrecting a movie, i tend to consider myself as, like the DPs assistant. It's really easy for us to sort of step in, especially now that the colorists are finally we're starting to see the light of day a little bit and people are starting to recognize color a little bit more than five or 10 years ago. But I think it's really important to remember what we are And we are the DPs assistant and we're not this, this hot shot, photoshop, look creator, which is what a lot of people think colorists are And remembering that we are there to assist the DP in post And that's what our job is. 

0:40:12 - Robbie Carman
It's funny because that's like to me, that's it's like an inverse funnel of how that works, because you would think you talk to a lot of very successful colorists and they're they have that attitude that you're just espousing. Then you look at the kind of entry level side of things And it's like you know that that tends to be the kind of project, the kind of colorists or whatever, that's overdoing it, right, and you know, i think that that is. you know it's needed sometimes, but it's. it's really interesting to me how that works. So, like, as you progress in your career and get to work on bigger and better projects, you're actually required to do less and less and less. 

You know I often daydream, you know, when I get, when I get a project in that's whatever. you know there's iPhone shots or GoPro and their 11 stops overexposed and you know everything is grainy. I often think to myself but what would an insert, a list colorist here? How would they do? you know? like they'd have a heart attack, right, like, like, like, what would I mean? granted, all of those people have done their battles with that and paid their dues and worked their way up, but it's just really funny to me that you know, i'm sure that if the average person looked at the original uncolored photography of a lot of high end projects, their first instinct would be like well, that looks great, like what do I need? What do I need? What do I need to do You know what? 

0:41:35 - Jason Bowdach
I'm saying The show, let's done Next shot. 

0:41:37 - Robbie Carman
Yeah, okay, cool It's colored Like move on, and you know that's again. I think that's something earned. I think that's that's something. That not saying at all that those people have it easy because they have a lot of other pressures and a lot of other other things that they have to deal with, but that is a nice little spoil of having worked your way up the food chain is that you do get better and better, better photography. 

0:42:00 - Jason Bowdach
That requires actually a little less to do sometimes, and on the flip side of that you are, then you have that much more stress because there's that much more money and time put behind that, and so it's not. you might have great photography, but then there's a lot more pressure for you to deliver, specifically because we had that vision and we were looking, and there's all these producers on set. 

0:42:22 - Robbie Carman
I mean, listen, i can't. I can't tell you that I've ever had a DP sitting in my room going oh, it's a quarter of a point off, and exposure, or that color temperatures 6211 Kelvin not 6205. You know that doesn't happen to me, right, but I can imagine that you have professional, creative professionals at the top of their game in those rooms on those type of projects. That can be a really hard balance to manage, for sure. 

0:42:51 - Jason Bowdach
If viewers or listeners wanted to learn more about you or find you, where could we find you? and DC color? Yeah, for sure man. 

0:43:00 - Robbie Carman
So just DC colorcom is website can find me Robbie dot Carmen car man It's one car, one man on Instagram. You can also find DC color on Instagram, which is just DC color. And yeah, I'm bouncing around answering questions on Facebook and various groups And yeah, that's probably the best way to find me Awesome. 

0:43:20 - Jason Bowdach
Well, thank you so much for joining us today. It's been a real pleasure having you on your show, thank you, thank you so much man, it's goes good. 

0:43:27 - Robbie Carman
catch up and best of luck with the podcast series, for sure. 

0:43:31 - Jason Bowdach
Thank you so much. Until next time. I'm Jason Bodeck for color and coffee. I'll see you guys in the next episode. And this has been Robbie Carman on this episode of color and coffee. Thank you guys so much and see you in the next episode And that's our show. Be sure to follow us on Instagram, YouTube or your podcast app of choice. If you're using Apple podcast or Spotify, please leave us a review. It helps us quite a bit. If you are looking for DaVinci Resolve tools, please be sure to visit our sponsor, Pixel Tools. We'll see you guys in two weeks with another great interview. Be safe and happy grading. 

Transcribed by https://podium.page