Jan. 14, 2026
How A Senior Colorist Shapes Trailers Before The Film Is Locked with Lynette Duensing
Ever see a trailer and wonder how the look holds together when the film isn’t even finished? We sit down with senior colorist Lynette Duensing to unpack the craft of grading trailers before the final DI is locked, where creative intent, marketing needs, and incomplete VFX all collide under intense timelines. From Spider-Verse to Anaconda, Lynette walks us through the on-the-ground decisions that turn chaos into a cohesive, sellable story.
We dig into the real workflow: building node trees around show LUTs and set CDLs, using ACES so filmmakers recognize what they see, and designing parallel structures for embedded mattes to control faces, skies, and complex CG elements. Lynette explains how live VFX reviews work, grading temp comps in the room so notes to vendors are grounded in the final presentation. When a matte is missing, she splits what’s available, adds power windows, or taps AI tools to move fast without locking in mistakes. It’s part technical precision, part triage, and all driven by trust.
The human side matters just as much. Trailers stitch shots that never touch in the feature, so consistency becomes a storytelling tool rather than a constraint. Lynette shares how she communicates with filmmakers and studio creatives to protect intent while ensuring every one-second beat reads with impact. Organization is the quiet hero - conform, version control, and a rock-solid offline reference prevent the misalignments that can sink a session. And yes, we talk about unfinished VFX: how to gently add depth, soften edges, and keep believability intact, knowing studios continue updating shots even after theatrical release.
If you care about color grading, trailers, ACES workflows, and the art of running the room, this conversation opens the door to what really happens between editorial and the final DI. Subscribe, share with a fellow color nerd, and leave a review. What part of the color process do you want us to unpack next?
Guest Links:
IG - https://www.instagram.com/lynette.duensing/
Website - https://lynetteduensing.com/
IMDB - https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0240255/
Facility Website - https://instinctual.la/
Flanders Scientific Inc. (FSI)
High-Quality Reference Displays for Editors, Colorists and DITS
DeMystify Color
Color Training and Color Grading Tools
PixelTools
Modern Color Grading Tools and Presets for DaVinci Resolve
Flanders Scientific Inc. (FSI)
High-Quality Reference Displays for Editors, Colorists and DITS
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Produced by Bowdacious Media LLC
00:00 - Opening & Intro
04:11 - You Don’t Need Permission to Begin
08:56 - First Impressions Matter
14:38 - Creative Intent Is the Job
18:28 - Anaconda Breakdown
23:44 - Workflow as a Creative Multiplier
30:33 - The Importance of Trust
37:11 - Tweaking VFX Shots in the Grade
43:08 - How to Connect with Lynette
WEBVTT
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I am never afraid to reach out and just say, you know what, I don't understand what's going on here with the color space.
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Why is this happening?
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What can we do here to solve this?
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So it's about getting in front of something if there's an issue.
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It's about being prepared.
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And also, the old saying goes, you only have one time to make a first good impression, right?
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And if you blow that, then you lose it.
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You lose the room.
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And that is not a good place to be.
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Welcome to Color and Coffee, a podcast that's focused on the craft of color and the artists behind it.
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I'm your host, Jason Bodak.
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And each episode, we'll sit down with some of the most talented artists in the industry and have a casual chat from one artist to another.
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We'll share their stories, their insights, their tips, and maybe even a little gear talk.
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Whether you're a seasoned pro or just getting started, join us for some great color discussion.
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Sit back, relax, you're listening to Color and Coffee.
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Hi, I'm Jason Bodak, and welcome to another exciting episode of Color and Coffee.
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Before we dive in, I want to give a huge thank you to our sponsors, FSI, Demystify Color, and Pixel Tools.
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Thank you for supporting the show.
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Today's guest is Lynette Dunsing, who is not only an amazing colorist, but a fantastic human being and friend.
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Lynette is the senior colorist at Instinctual in Los Angeles, where she works closely with creative teams deep in the filmmaking process to craft trailers that capture the final film's look and feel, often before that look is even locked in.
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She's also a CSI fellow and a board member of the Color Society Hollywood.
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Also, she is an all-around amazing collaborator in the world of finishing in color.
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Welcome to the show, Lynette.
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Hey, thanks so much for having me.
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This is just great.
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I love it.
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Before we jump into our conversation, I think it's worth mentioning that you've worked on some amazing films, some of them being the upcoming Anaconda, Anyone But You, Craven the Hunter, The Woman King, and Spider-Man into the Spider-Verse.
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So you have really an amazing resume.
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I am so excited to have you on the show today, and I think we have a really entertaining chat today.
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We're mainly going to be focusing on Anaconda, but before that, I wanted to dive in on what it's like to work on trailers before the film's final look and feel is locked in.
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Can you talk about a little bit what that process is like?
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Right.
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So many times I am tasked with grading material that has not gone to the final DI, and I'm given the color workflow from the original DI house that we'll be working on it going forward.
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So I'm able to make a node tree where I have the CDLs from the set, as well as the show let and understanding the really the color workflow.
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And then I'm able to work with the creative executives at Sony as well as hopefully, if they're available, the filmmakers.
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So yeah, like in the case of Spider-Verse, the first Spider-Verse, we started working on that about a year and a half before it went to DI with Natasha, of course, who does beautiful DI work on the Sony animation projects.
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So I'm able to sit with those filmmakers, those animators in that case, having them sit in the room and help me work through what their creative vision for the project's going to be.
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Now, in the case of Spider-Verse, these are ACES files that come from Sony Pictures Animation.
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That makes it really intuitive and really easy to get there from the beginning because you're working in the ACES workflow that they're working with, those animators in their studio.
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And when they come into the room, they're seeing, hopefully, and usually what it is they're used to looking at.
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And what's nice for me at that point is that I get to help them with the development of what their final animation is going to be.
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They'll look at things and say, oh, the lighting or the shading or this or the that needs to change.
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Or maybe even they're just still in animatic form, which happens when I have to do something that's going to go to Comic Con.
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The latest Spider-Verse that will be coming out next year, or maybe almost in two years.
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I worked on that for Comic-Con and some of that stuff was still in very, very rough animation stage at that point.
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So a number of different things get to happen.
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If I'm working on an ACES project like that for animation, then this is a very straightforward process because those files are going to look very much like what they're supposed to look like without a lot of intervention from me.
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In the case of doing Anaconda or doing, let's say, The Woman King or whatever, I have to start and some cases before I've even spoken to the DP to get those shots and to get that timeline into a shape that is viewable.
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You know, obviously it looks great, but that I'm going to at least get it into a place where people can see it and then to take their notes and to make the final grade.
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So in the case of The Woman King, I was able to work with the director of photography.
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And in the case of Anaconda, I worked with the visual effects team.
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And that was how we got to the color that we ended up with.
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That sounds incredibly challenging, especially with today's world of hyper-analyzing trailers by frame by frame.
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You are essentially a grading blind, if I can use that term, in the sense that you are having to start working on this project sometimes with assistance from the creative team.
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And sometimes you said without it, in the case of the Woman King, until you are able to get this team either because they're working on another film or because they're still currently working on this film.
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And how do you approach that?
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What is your mindset when you're starting to work like that?
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Knowing that these are sometimes more analyzed than the film I feel in today's society.
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Well, you bring up a really good point, and it's something that is absolutely taken into consideration.
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We have a lot of awareness that people are looking at these things frame by frame.
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And like in the case of finishing venom, I didn't do the original color on that, but I end up doing the delivery color and doing visual effects color.
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And we are very, very cognizant of the fact that people are looking at this frame by frame.
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And it's challenging because, as you know, as a colorist, we look at things flowing.
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We look at how things, how are they going to work one shot next to another?
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And that's another point about doing trailers.
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You're using shots that would never appear together in this the film.
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And you need to make them look like a cohesive storytelling.
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So this is a challenge and this is something that we take into consideration every frame.
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And we do try and make sure that it flows together.
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But you know, if we're looking at a visual effects shot, we're absolutely analyzing everything because somebody online is going to have something to say about it.
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As you know, everyone's got an opinion.
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Social media is is very, very difficult.
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And you bring up an incredible point in the fact that color is based off consistency and how it looks with the shots surrounding it.
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And we are essentially building a new creative project by putting shots that are not supposed to be next to each other to form this trailer.
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And it still has to feel consistent and feel like it was supposed to be together, even though you might have a shot from the first third of the film next to a shot with the last third of the film.
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And it might be completely narratively different and there may be a different story going on there, but it has to feel like it was supposed to be together the whole time.
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Well, that's right.
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And that's there's a little bit of a push and pull between the creatives who are the creative executives in the marketing department and the filmmakers, because the filmmakers have in their mind what their intention was in the narrative that they've created.
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But when you see shots that have been taken by a creative editorial vendor and put next to one another, they're not always going to work together.
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And so it's kind of something about trying to compromise to make sure that we have the creative intent of the filmmaker and don't deviate too much from it, but try and make them work together.
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That's the kind of the thing about being an experienced colorist is understanding how to match shots, how to make something that's visually appealing and exciting, and putting those things together and weighing them one to the other.
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Just trying to keep it so that it all looks beautiful together and keep everybody happy, which is one of the hard things about our job, why we do it.
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Yeah, running the room is really difficult.
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I think as I've worked in trailers and marketing before, I think that's one of the most difficult parts of the job is trying to communicate to the creative team that grading for marketing is a little bit different in the fact that you do need to shift the color a tiny bit.
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You can't just use the straight grade from the film, especially if you have two shots that are jarring against each other.
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What is your approach to that?
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Because I have certainly been caught in those situations where I have the creative team saying it's graded or this is the way we wanted it to look and it looks perfect the way it is.
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I shot it exactly like that, and this is the grade that we like.
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When you have two shots that are literally slamming their head up against each other, and you, as a professional that works in trailers, know with your experience that these are jarring together and the editorial for this trailer specifically is not working.
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The cuts working, but the colors not working.
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How would you explain to the creative in the most professional, nice way that there needs to be a slight shift while maintaining the creative intent?
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Right.
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Well, that's therein lies, as I've said in so many times in so many venues, that is the skill that we bring to the table.
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And that's an experienced colorist.
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It's a 50-50 thing between the creative and managing the people in the room.
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And of course, I'm always very kind and never say, What are you thinking?
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I never do that.
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First of all, you have to have also people in the room who are helping you in this way in discussing this.
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So it's usually the creative executives at the studio who understand that they need to make it match.
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Also, that they need to have it be possibly more hyper-realistic than the original film intent, because there's so many filmmakers out there and they do beautiful, lovely work and they're very nuanced.
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But when you're making a trailer where every shot is one second long and has to have an impact, then you need to look at that differently.
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So I depend in some way to say, this is what I think needs to happen here.
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And I understand the beauty and what you've built into this, but I can't see their face or I can't see what they're doing or whatever.
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And usually it's the creative executive from the studio who will back me up and say, this is really what we need.
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Or I am backing up that creative executive in that discussion with a filmmaker to say, I think that the impact of the shot would be better served if we were to brighten this shot or to darken this shot or whatever.
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And it's just really all about communicating and it's all about being diplomatic.
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Hopefully, you have somebody there that can back you up.
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But in the end, it's really what they want, and it's not what I want.
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We all as colorists have to keep that in mind because sometimes we can be in a room and just disagree or just think that something is a bad idea, but in the end, it's not what we think.
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It's we are there to execute a vision, and that's it.
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Yeah, you hit on some really interesting points, but I think most of what I took away from that is there needs to be a certain degree of trust between you and the creatives, between you and the executives, between the executives and the creative, and all around, because you are all making compromises.
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And these compromises need to be agreeable to absolutely everybody.
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They say, like, a negotiation is a good negotiation if everybody walks away unhappy.
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And everybody needs to make a little bit of a compromise to make this work.
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And it's funny because people want to walk away feeling like they got the best end of the deal.
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And I feel like that is what works in the grading suite.
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It's like, ah, I got away with murder in there.
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And everybody feels that way.
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It's like, great, perfect.
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What are your thoughts on that?
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I think that in the end, once again, it's not about winning, it's just really about making sure that you have the trust of the people that you're talking to.
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They have confidence that you can make their dream happen.
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You know, you're talking about somebody's baby here.
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This is something that somebody's been working on for perhaps a few years.
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And so what you are doing is being a steward of that work that they've worked so hard on.
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So you're not gonna go and die on a sword because you think that something needs to be a certain way.
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It needs to be the way they want it.
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And then you go and with the creative executive who might think that that filmmaker's decision needs to be tweaked a little bit.
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And then we just are very, very conscious to be respectful of that.
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But you also touched on something that is a challenge for me, and that is that a filmmaker has a colorist who's going to be doing their DI.
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This is probably somebody who they're very familiar with or a friend.
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And now this particular part of the process has been put in the hands of somebody else.
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And this is a very challenging thing for me and a situation that is uncomfortable for me sometimes because I want to do the best job for them possible.
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And I believe I can do that.
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But you have to convince somebody that you can do that, especially if they don't know you.
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And this project has been put in my hands by the studio, right?
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It takes a little bit of a dance to start off, is getting to know that person and having them have the confidence in you that you can do what it is that they need done with their baby, the thing that they've been living with for the last number of years.
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I so understand what you're talking about.
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And uncomfortable is the perfect word for it.
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And because usually it's not always the case, but a lot of the times they have selected their final colorist and they've may have already started working with them, especially if they have a show let selected.
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And it's this dance, like you said, of convincing them that I am not trying to change that.
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I am trying to store this over to them in the best way possible.
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I am the limo driver to bring them the final film in the best way possible.
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And we are just doing the trailer.
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I want to take that look that you guys have worked on and move it over as best as I can, understand the DNA of it with the tools that you guys have developed, the show look, the CDLs, whatever you guys have developed so far, and sort of guide it over to the final DI suite in the most stewardly way possible.
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I keep using that word, but basically you're trying to sort of ambulance it over to the final resting place so the final colorists can continue working on this with their tools.
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And I think that's a really difficult process sometimes.
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I'd love to hear some of the ways that you approach that and some of the challenges that you've experienced because I think there's a lot of pushback in the sense of protecting your artistic vision.
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We already have what we want and we don't need you.
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We already have our look, we already have our colors, and what are you doing with our project kind of feeling?
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Of course, I don't have control over any of that.
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I am tasked with doing something and delivering something in a very, very expedited manner.
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You know, I'm doing a lot of these things because this thing is going to be dropped next week, right?
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It's not going to be able to get in with the final colorist.
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If anyone were to go to my website, lynetteduncing.com, you will see the trailers that I've done.
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And the only trailers that I post on my website are ones that I have done the final color on the before it's gone to the DI.
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I touch the every trailer that is released by Sony.
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I do the final view of the DCPs and a number of different films that the DI colorist has done the trailer on.
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I am going to be the person who will eventually oversee its delivery.
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We have big name colorists working on some of the trailers that we deliver, and I am extremely careful to make sure that everyone knows that I am not taking any credit for the work that they have done.
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The tough thing for me, in a sense, is that I bring a great amount of experience to doing the grade on a number of different titles, trailers, but I will never ever take credit for somebody else's work, even though I've had a really large part in what that ends up being delivered.
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So the only thing that you'll ever see of mine on my portfolio is something that I've worked with a filmmaker from the very beginning before it goes to the DI.
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Well, that's incredibly humble of you, and I think more colors should take that mindset into account.
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Let's jump into one of those trailers.
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Let's talk about Anaconda, a film that I honestly can't wait to hit theaters.
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So you've told me that this has been a very interesting trailer, and I don't doubt that because there's a ton of visual effects shots in there, and I'm sure they're not all finished.
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Can you tell me a little bit about this trailer and what the experience has been, not only getting it out there, but working with the filmmakers?
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Instinctual, where I work, is also a visual effects company, and I also oversee visual effects reviews.
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So I have filmmakers in the room with me or in our sister theater over on the Sony lot.
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I have people in the room where I do visual effects reviews for them.
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So I'll have the a timeline of all the shots in Resolve, and I put a data burn-in on them, and we look at visual effects versions together, and then they make decisions as to what they're going to do going forward on a number of different films, even if it has nothing to do with Sony.
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We do it for other for Amblin and a number of other companies, Netflix.
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But anyway, in the case of Anaconda, I started off with them doing visual effects reviews for visual effects executives at the studio.
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So I do a live 444 stream, 2K stream, to our sister theater at Thalberg.
00:19:37.339 --> 00:19:40.779
And so they sit there and they look at the visual effects.
00:19:41.019 --> 00:19:47.339
I'm able to grade them live so that they can see what those effects are going to look like.
00:19:47.419 --> 00:19:49.659
And then they make changes at that point.
00:19:49.819 --> 00:19:59.259
The color changes that I make may inform the notes they're going to give, like in this case to ILM, about what it is that something needs to be.
00:19:59.419 --> 00:20:06.859
So this Anaconda started off as a visual effects review and then an accelerated streaming date.
00:20:07.019 --> 00:20:11.500
So I ended up doing the color on the full trailer before it goes to DI.
00:20:11.899 --> 00:20:13.179
So yeah, it was great.
00:20:13.259 --> 00:20:21.740
It's um for anybody in the audience who knows or doesn't know, uh most uh shots come in as linear EXRs.
00:20:21.899 --> 00:20:23.659
I'm given the color workflow.
00:20:23.740 --> 00:20:27.819
In this case, it was ACEs to uh area wide gamut four.
00:20:27.980 --> 00:20:33.419
And then to build that into my node tree, uh usually I put my lint.
00:20:33.899 --> 00:20:36.059
To log in the pre-clip.
00:20:36.220 --> 00:20:38.059
I don't put it on the clip node tree.
00:20:38.139 --> 00:20:39.419
I put that in a pre-clip.
00:20:39.500 --> 00:20:44.059
And then I set up a parallel note tree for putting all my mats.
00:20:44.220 --> 00:20:57.740
So in the case of Anaconda, these were embedded mats, which hopefully, if we're doing a visual effects heavy job, the visual effects vendor has given us a number of mats so that when we grade, we're able to do it.
00:20:57.899 --> 00:21:02.619
So I've set up a parallel note tree for each of my mats that I bring in.
00:21:02.779 --> 00:21:12.619
I do that because in the case of something where I don't have a mat for everything, then I use the mats I have and I put power windows on.
00:21:12.700 --> 00:21:36.460
And I don't want to be in a serial situation where I've baked a color into a name and then not be able to undo it in a different part of the mat, which is in the case of Anaconda, what I ended up having to do because the head, the body of the snake, which there was only one mat for, they wanted to have a number of different grades for the head and for the body and for the eyes and all of that.
00:21:36.619 --> 00:21:47.419
So well, actually the eyes had its own mat, but because I'm using one mat and making several mats from it, then I use it in parallel and then put the show lot after that.
00:21:47.579 --> 00:21:47.899
Love it.
00:21:48.059 --> 00:21:48.939
I don't know whether that answered.
00:21:49.179 --> 00:21:50.139
Does it answer the question?
00:21:50.220 --> 00:21:50.619
I don't know.
00:21:50.939 --> 00:21:54.220
I mean, I love the I love some of the technical details.
00:21:54.379 --> 00:22:00.299
A lot of people don't work with such a high-end VFX vendor and get sort of a preview of the workflow.
00:22:00.539 --> 00:22:13.740
One of the questions that I have is when you're working with temp VFX shots or work in progress VFX shots, are you given all of the mats that you think you would expect with the finals, or do you have to request some additional mats?
00:22:14.220 --> 00:22:18.939
There are sometimes now in the case of Anaconda, we didn't have to request additional mats.
00:22:19.339 --> 00:22:21.179
They had everything that we needed to use.
00:22:21.339 --> 00:22:24.700
But there are cases in other films where we've had to ask.
00:22:24.859 --> 00:22:33.099
The other thing that's really nice about having a visual effects team upstairs is that I just call and say, Jesse, help me out here.
00:22:33.259 --> 00:22:35.899
Can you make a mat for A, B, C, and D?
00:22:36.059 --> 00:22:39.659
Now, of course, AI is going to change a lot of that going forward.
00:22:39.899 --> 00:22:43.980
Resolve 20 certainly has helped with doing backgrounds and things like that.
00:22:44.139 --> 00:23:00.139
But in regard to doing a visual effects heavy film where you've got multiple, multiple pieces that need to have uh special attention, then we need to use those embedded mats and or do the best we can to modify them.
00:23:00.460 --> 00:23:06.299
I love that idea of basically making it yourself where you can take the full mat of the snake and splitting it up.
00:23:06.379 --> 00:23:10.859
I think that's a brilliant idea and combining that potentially with the built-in resolve AI tools.
00:23:10.939 --> 00:23:14.460
I think that's a really smart way, especially under the timetable you're working on.
00:23:14.619 --> 00:23:18.379
You may have to get this out to DCP or to streaming ASAP.
00:23:18.460 --> 00:23:23.659
So you may not have time to wait for another mat or to even send it upstairs for a VFX artist to work on that.
00:23:23.740 --> 00:23:25.819
So I think that's a very smart, efficient way of working.
00:23:26.059 --> 00:23:26.619
Well, that's right.
00:23:26.700 --> 00:23:41.259
And the thing is, is for us, they at Sony have started to depend on me to say to as a problem solver and really what it is that we're paid to do is just to be that person that can do this stuff quickly.
00:23:41.419 --> 00:23:52.619
Now, if there's something that I simply cannot do, I look at it and just go, I can't do this, or this is gonna, I'm gonna have to roto this and this is going to take a lot of time.
00:23:52.859 --> 00:23:55.819
That's the other part of what it is that we do, right?
00:23:55.980 --> 00:24:01.339
Is that you understand what it is you're good at and the time constraint to do it.
00:24:01.500 --> 00:24:03.419
I am not a visual effects artist.
00:24:03.579 --> 00:24:11.819
There are certain things that I can do, but I will absolutely call upstairs and just say, can you take a look at this really quick?
00:24:11.980 --> 00:24:14.379
And usually they can get it done pretty quickly.
00:24:14.539 --> 00:24:17.099
And we work in a really collaborative workflow.
00:24:17.259 --> 00:24:30.700
So I have the conform artist in the theater with me, whose desk is next to me, Doug Ludwig, who's one of the partners at Instinctual, and he will prep that shot that I'm having trouble with.
00:24:30.859 --> 00:24:36.779
It goes into a shared library for Flame and is treated in the middle of the session.
00:24:37.019 --> 00:24:40.619
And I just say to the client, you know what, we're gonna send this upstairs.
00:24:40.700 --> 00:24:41.899
Let's go on to another shot.
00:24:41.980 --> 00:24:47.099
And by the time we're done with the other stuff, the shot's ready and I and it comes back to me.
00:24:47.259 --> 00:24:49.099
So that's a great way to work, I can tell you.
00:24:49.339 --> 00:25:17.819
That was one of the things moving around from lower budget indie films into larger projects that really was not maybe not shocking to me, but was like a mind-blowing expansion to me was the fact that you have conform artists working in the same room, the workflow that you just mentioned, and that you can essentially drop in VFX shots and then cycle back either the next day or literally in the same session, like you just described, move on to the next shot, because it really is about iterating as quickly as possible.
00:25:17.980 --> 00:25:24.379
And I mean, the last film I was working on had hundreds and hundreds of VFX shots, and we had new deliveries every single day.
00:25:24.460 --> 00:25:27.419
And it was just about replacing that last one with the newest version.
00:25:27.659 --> 00:25:29.099
Do we have the newest version?
00:25:29.339 --> 00:25:33.179
So that you make sure the colorist is working on the latest version of that shot.
00:25:33.259 --> 00:25:36.779
So I it's amazing that you guys are also doing that in the trailer as well.
00:25:37.099 --> 00:25:41.579
It's almost like it's a must-have at this point if you're going to be working with executives at that level.
00:25:41.899 --> 00:25:42.139
Right.
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