The MasterClass is currently NOT FOR SALE. The Resolve Masterclass is being completely revamped into a new Tao of Color training system, with all material being updated for DaVinci Resolve 9 and beyond.
We strongly encourage you to discover Tao of Color’s newest training: Dead Man’s Lake: The Grade Along. It’s our next-generation training program and includes 6 hours of DaVinci Resolve 9 Essentials video tutorials to teach you the Resolve 9 interface and workflow. And once you learn the interface, you can move on to color grading a 7 minute, 135 shot short film – with step-by-step video instructions. We hand-hold you from locked picture to final delivery in an additional 10 hours of training that you won’t find anywhere else on the internet!
And when the MasterClass comes back on the market – Grade-Along members will have first shot at it… and at reduced pricing.
You know the problem: The longer you work on a shot the more lost you become. You feel like you’re running in circles.
The next day you look at the shot again. It’s still wrong, but now you think you see how to fix it. Only you’re not quite confident about your results.
You then glance at the long list of color correction filters you could try to use – but you’re unsure how to use them (or what some of them do).
Some days, it’s so confusing it’s enough to drive you insane.
I had noticed as I would grade that I would go down the rabbit hole, spend 30 minutes on a shot and just kept fiddling only to make it worse and worse and worse. Your explanation of the brain adapting explained that a ton!
If a client asks: “Do you know how to color correct my show?”
Can you instantly answer: “Yes!” - Without hesitation or a second thought?
If not – what if I told you color correction is 100% teachable.
That I could teach you to say “Yes” with confidence. That you’d be confident enough to tell a client – at your very first meeting – that you can also color correct their project.
What would THAT mean to your career?
I’ve just been asked to do a basic 3-day color grading job starting tomorrow – and another 1-day job the following week. If I had not done your training I would never have had the confidence to say yes to this, so again, thank you very much!
There’s no time for fumbling around anymore. Our business is in a constant state of flux and competition for jobs is intense. Often times, having an extra skill set can mean the difference in getting a gig (or not). Having confidence with color correction skills means you have clear answers to big questions:
If these questions (and more) perplex you – keep reading. This unique Mentorship program may be right up your alley.
Time and again, proven advice for getting ahead in any industry is finding someone who is willing and qualified to take you under their wing and mentor you. A Mentor is an experienced soul who gives back by helping the ‘next generation’ move through their (your) growing pains. They stop you from making mistakes before they happen. They explain why they do certain things, shortcuts that save you time without hurting quality – and, most importantly, how to handle clients.
They become your mentor.
You may not realize it at the time… but years later when you look back on it you’ll realize they helped you become better at your job much more quickly than you could ever have done on your own. They’ve shaved years off your learning curve.
What if you haven’t found that person? Or (scarier) what if you ARE the most experienced person in your company – the one who normally mentors – but… when it comes to color correction you might as well be working all alone with no one to guide you?
You go onto Google and type: “Color Correction Training”
And you find… me.
There’s plenty of training sites that will teach you software. Software is usually the easy part. This MasterClass tackles the tough part, taking you under my wing, teaching you how I work, and then answering your questions and offering feedback on your results:
If you do the work, ask questions when you get stuck, and upload your work – you’ll get the full benefits you’d get with any mentor: You will save the years of trouble and fumbling I went through to learn what I know (that’s right, I never had a colorist mentor – I had to figure it all out for myself. You bet I know EXACTLY where you’re coming from).
You’re entertaining too. You’re laughing at yourself sometimes, laughing at situations that happened. You’ve got the experience so that – you can tell that you’re comfortable with what you’re doing, and good at it. That’s the type of person I want to learn from…
[and this training] is completely different. This is like sitting in a room with you and watching how you work. It’s changed a lot of what I’ve done already and I’m just at the baby step stages.
Of course, you’d never trust a potential mentor without seeing their work – would you? For your consideration… here’s my Before / After Color Grading Demo Reel for my boutique color grading company, Fini.tv:
I’ve color graded short films, feature length films, commercials, documentaries (including two for director Barry Levinson). I’ve delivered to Network Television (ABC, NBC), Cable Television (National Geographic, PBS, Discovery, TBS, TNT), Pay Television (HBO, Showtime), Museums (NY Museum of Modern Art) and film festivals world-wide.
This MasterClass is no ‘magic bullet’. I’ll guide you through this… but you have to do the walking. If this sounds appealing to you, keep reading and I’ll explain how we go about this.
Much like editing, color correction is something you have to DO to learn; the steps in the process, organizing yourself, executing the moves… you need to do it to learn it.
I call this: ‘Train Your Brain’.
Shouldn’t We ‘Train Your Eyes?
Nope. Its not our eyes that are the problem – it’s our super-charged brains the keep re-interpreting what our eyes see. For most people, on most days, this is a good thing. But when we’re color correcting? It’s a curse.
Once we learn how to live with this curse and side-step it – we can develop the confidence we need to take on color correction as a craft – and offer it as a valuable skill to new and existing clients.
‘Train Your Brain’ is step one. You also need to develop muscle memory (literally).
Like a violinist practicing his musical scales; first you learn how to read the ‘notes’ of the images we manipulate then you train your hands to make the moves that puts the ‘melodies’ in your pictures.
To learn those moves you’ll download a ‘real’ project, coming from a ‘real’ client (who I licensed this footage from ), and start executing their ideas from the notes, emails, and images they provided me when I first color graded this project.
This isn’t a dozen or so unrelated images you might find in a DVD on the back of a training book…
This is a short fiction film (16 minutes long), shot feature-style with a single camera over 3 days. It has 235 shots with an evolving narrative that you need to fix and enhance. 235 shots that will start you on your path to develop muscle memory – learning the habits of a skilled colorist.
The first step of any color correction job: Fixing problems. But that’s where most people stop. After all, if the shot is corrected you’re done, right? Usually, not.
You’ll learn to move past color correction (fixing images) and into color grading (enhancing shots for consistency, clarity, mood, and story). And while learning all this, through this model of an Online Mentorship, you’ll shave years off your learning curve.
Mastering your tools is important. The MasterClass helps you do this. Start your training on tools you’re already using. Or break out into a brand new toolset. I have specific walk-throughs on these software packages:
Resolve 8 was released in June 2011. The Mac software is identical to the Linux software used to color grade such movies as ‘Avatar’, ‘Robin Hood’ and ‘The Fighter’. It’s an industry standard color grading package that clients frequently request by name.
Tao Of Color’s unique MasterClass approach to color grading is applied to Resolve 8 in a 6-week training course that eases you into the ‘Resolve way’ of doing things.
Click to see the full course outline.
Thanks Patrick for this amazing first [Week of] Lessons! It’s so packed and I’ve already learned so much! I’m really excited about the rest of the course. Your steady pace and clear descriptions of details really brings it all home in a very solid “way”.
Practicing along with the first 2 exercises in the [Grading] Lab revealed some of the advanced control Resolve has over the image from what I am used to [in Apple's] Color. Truly very exciting!
I gotta say after having [learned from all your competitors], and just hands on teaching myself apps like FCP, Avid, etc thru the last 6 years I have worked in post – your training is friggin’ amazing Patrick.
This is the missing piece in the puzzle of learning Resolve…all i can say is Thank You and WOWZERS…I am up to Week 2 lesson 2 and in the midst of a job so just watching in my downtime this week.
I WISH I had this earlier I would have made the switch from Color way sooner!!
Just wanted to say there is some great information in week 3. For me, especially the dynamics (which the layout has confused me since day one) and the node explaination.
Even the stabilizer… Honestly i’d only used it for tracking, and hadn’t even pushed the stabilize button
Well done.
When your course came along I was stoked to take a class that would take me in-depth with Resolve and had high hopes it would help me break through to the next level.
And I gotta say, you’ve done that and much, much more. I’ve gone from “Yeah, I do color correction” to “I’m a Colorist.” Every lesson comes with at least a half dozen “holy shit” moments where my mind breaks through a barrier and I completely reinvent my approach to a session.
You’ve helped me to develop a system; a repeatable, step-by-step approach to grading that works for me. I’m grading faster, more effectively and producing infinitely better work with each new project. I can’t wait to get out of bed in the morning so I can get to the office and get myself into the finishing suite.
I’m still stunned at some of the imagery I’m creating.
This plug-in has a huge following among indy film-makers. And for good reason, it’s extremely powerful and works in many host applications including ‘Final Cut Pro’, ‘Adobe Premiere’ and ‘After Effects’. Learn it once, use it (almost) anywhere.
Apple Color is the great unsung hero of Final Cut Studio. Designed to be comfortable to DaVinci Resolve colorists… the skills you learn in Color are 100% transferable to other professional color grading software platforms.
Final Cut Pro is industry standard Non-Linear Editor (NLE) that came to dominate its market and has recently been discontinued. But don’t fool yourself – clients will be working on this NLE for several more years. And many of them will never splurge for a super-charged plug-in like Colorista II or trust the more complex workflow of Apple Color. For them, you’ll need to figure out how to approach color correction as a craft using only the default toolset. And that’s what you’ll learn. Luckily, the skills we learn here are easily transferrable to all the other tools mentioned above.
While there’s no specific Premiere Pro or After Effects walkthroughs, Colorista II works essentially the same in Adobe CS5.0 as it does in Final Cut.
The “Colorista in Final Cut” walkthrough is primarily about technique, and since technique is software-agnostic, you’ll have no problem picking up the essential skills being taught.
I never thought that I would ever actually go and color grade something and I certainly didn’t think I would go to Color. Color was intimidating . . . Now I’m doing the Resolve [course at FxPhd] which I wouldn’t have done . . . because your course is giving me the confidence and the background to be actually able to follow along on that . . . But now I understand the basics, even though I don’t have Resolve, at this stage, to play around with. It’s been very, very interesting to do that.
I was [familiar with Waveforms and Vectorscopes] but not in the way that I was after I watched the video. I knew on the vectorscope how color was shown but I never really got how to control it as much as I did from watching some of the things you were showing us… I finally understood how you could go through and not even look at the image. You could look at the scopes and really understand what you’re seeing.
Nothing could be further from the truth. All you need is a willingness to take the time to use the tools we talk about in this training.
In fact, Photoshop author and lecturer Dan Margulis frequently talks about how even a color-blind person can color correct successfully 80% of the time.
And he’s correct! 80% of the images we work with, can be improved – even if you’re color blind. And the techniques Dan Margulis teaches are techniques colorists have been using for 20 years – but with different tool sets and image evaluation methods. Guess what? Our very first tutorial teaches you those methods.
Nope. Knowing (and talking about) color theory might make your clients feel better about hiring you – but you can succeed brilliantly without it.
The truth is, the tools we use to evaluate our images already incorporate everything you need to know about color theory.
Here’s the good news . . .
. . . You can learn to color grade on any monitor.
The methods for matching shots, evaluating images, creating a look – these all work on any display! Because this is a safe learning environment you don’t need a special video monitor or display. Just a willingness to actually DO the training.
But I won’t lie to you. . .
. . .It’s when you start accepting money for your new color grading skill that you’ve got to start thinking through your monitoring requirements.
As you move up the pay-scale of what you’re charging your clients, you will need to make equipment investments. Especially in your monitor. And color grading on typical computer screens (especially glossy screens) is a bad idea with paying clients. It will result in surprises when you watch your work on other monitors.
But for learning purposes – use what you’ve got. It’ll work just fine.
This short film has a lot of unique challenges:
The coat; the jacket. Skin tones versus the green hue of a jacket. That was a challenge and I really enjoyed the direction on that because it got me to looking at things a lot more closely. It was good for training the eye.
“In Tents” FCP 7 Project File with Annotated Timeline (Adobe CS5 and Premiere Pro CS5 projects also provided)
Notice the lifted blacks – they’re not clipped. That’s typical of the footage on this project… there’s very little noise to get in your way.
Shot matching is a huge problem on this film – and a core colorist skill. You’ll get real good at it.
| “In Tents” | Production Info |
|---|---|
| Production Camera | Canon 5D Mk II |
| Codec | h.264 (5.6 MB/sec) |
| Frame Size | 1920×1080 |
| Frame Rate | 23.98 |
| Length (with credits) | 16min, 30sec |
| Download Size | 9.2 GB, broken into 8 chunks |
| Physical Delivery? | YES! with optional(2) data DVD-Rs (U.S. Only) |
| NLEs Supported | Color 1.5, FCP 6 and 7, CS 5 PremierePro and After Effects |
“In Tents” is a film that passed through my grading suite in the Summer of 2010. Rather than have you color correct any which way, we’ll replicate how I was asked to color correct this film. I’ll provide you with the Director’s notes on what he wants to see, mocked up color corrected JPEGs from Photoshop that he and the DP provided, and then we’ll walk you through my interpretation of those notes.
As the tutorials progress, we’ll veer away from the notes - and I’ll explain why. At the end of the tutorials we’ll explore an approach that I showed the Director… and he rejected. And we’ll discuss what could have been done differently to get the director’s ‘Buy-in’.
The point of all this is to get you to work in a manner that doesn’t cater to your tastes – but to force you to think about expressing your client’s vision… while looking for ways that you can add your flavor.
‘In Tents’ has so many teachable moments, it develops so many core skills, and it’s long enough to help you develop your skill. It was the perfect job that walked in my door at the perfect time…
“In Tents” gets you started developing fundamental, core techniques:
For me, it was the knowledge of the grading world that I didn’t know before; terminology, how to work with gamma. How to look at the scope and say okay; I need to adjust this tool to get more red or more red in the shadows or less red in the shadows – where in the past, it would have been just looking at the image on the monitor and hoping I got it right. Or clicking the auto balance tool.
The training is going excellent. I have tons of questions but I want to soldier through solo to build up muscle memory and intuition . . .Your program and the Hurkman book have been godsends.
My method with you[r] program is to study your techniques for Apple Color and use the very similar tools in Baselight. I have a strong compositing background so I know how to use the toolset, but need further learning in why to do things and techniques for dealing with substandard footage.
You need only one of the following software for the Final Cut Pro or Apple Color training:
If you want to do the Final Cut Pro with Colorista II walkthrough training, you’ll also need:
(a demo version (and feature-reduced Free version) is available from Red Giant)
To apply the Colorista II training to Adobe’s Premiere Pro or After Effects training you’ll need Colorista II plus:
For the Resolve 8 training you’ll need:
Once you’ve gone through the practice footage, reap the benefits by displaying your awesomely improved skills! Integrate your Before / After images into a demo reel. Or use the footage in a live situation to impress a potential or current client (just keep the project file handy and on the desktop).
As part of this offer, you are being granted licensing rights to incorporate “In Tents” into your own colorist demo reel. This project produces some very nice Before / After images, you’ll be pleased. You’re also being granted the right to use this footage as demo material for live client presentations. If a potential client walks in the room, feel free to fire up this project dazzle them with your color grading mojo!
Wrapping up this package with a bow – if you buy the training you also get 1 full year of access to private forums just for other “In Tents” colorists. Ask questions, give answers, share settings, shoot the breeze. It’s a peer-to-peer environment where you can learn with (and from) others, who have also made an investment in this training.
After the your first year is up, you’ll have to opportunity to extend your Forums access at a very reasonable price.
Even beyond the educational aspects, one of the hidden gems of the program is the interactive element; the fact that you specifically are very involved in the community. . . It’s very nice to know that while you’re going through the program, there are others that are right beside you. All over the world but right beside you who are learning it and experiencing the same struggles and the same epiphanies.
As part of this training you are being authorized to download and practice color correction with a 14-minute short film titled “In Tents”.
There are restrictions on how you may use this material:
This footage contains:
If you are offended by any of these actions / images then this product is likely not for you.
You’ve been warned.
This site and the products and services offered on this site are not associated, affiliated, endorsed, or sponsored by Apple, Adobe, Red Giant Software, or BlackMagic Design. Nor have they been reviewed, tested or certified by Apple, Adobe, Red Giant Software, or BlackMagic Design.
You are licensed to use this footage as practice material, in private client demos, and as part of a larger colorist demo reel.
I’m offering early access to the Resolve 8 training at a discounted price. This means the training is not yet complete and you get a discount for your patience as the training is being completed! Currently, over 80% of the training has been completed (and over 90% of the DaVinci Resolve -specific training is completed).
This 6-Week course is self-paced. Join at any time. Work at your own pace. Every week for 6 weeks new lessons are released to you. Each Week builds upon the Week before it in a logical progression. Since we’re in the Early Bird phase not all the Weeks have been completed – but you’re buying access to all 6 weeks of training. And as more training gets completed, you’ll get access to them. Meanwhile, the Early Bird Price will keep rising (usually without warning).
Note: The Early Bird pricing ends in Early April.
The ‘In Tents’ camera-original footage is broken up into several smaller chucks for download purposes. I also offer a physical delivery option via (2) data DVD-Rs, for an additional fee (to cover the cost of the media, shipping, and handling) that you can purchase later (U.S. residents only).
Also – every training video is downloadable, in case streaming video doesn’t work for you. But remember, you’ll have over 20 hours of HD-quality tutorials… even though they’ve been compressed – it’s still a lot of Gigs to download. Most Lessons are 300MB (with a few in the 40-80MB range and one or two topping out over 2GB). Just saying…
By the way – if you were to sit down with me and hire me to teach you this in person… it would take us at least 15 hours to get through it all. And even at a hugely discounted rate of $120 per hour (I usually charge between $150 – $200 / hour) this full package would cost you $1,800!
The MasterClass is currently NOT FOR SALE. The Resolve Masterclass is being completely revamped into a new Tao of Color training system, with all material being updated for DaVinci Resolve 9 and beyond.
We strongly encourage you to discover Tao of Color’s newest training: Dead Man’s Lake: The Grade Along. It’s our next-generation training program and includes 6 hours of DaVinci Resolve 9 Essentials video tutorials to teach you the Resolve 9 interface and workflow. And once you learn the interface, you can move on to color grading a 7 minute, 135 shot short film – with step-by-step video instructions. We hand-hold you from locked picture to final delivery in an additional 10 hours of training that you won’t find anywhere else on the internet!
And when the MasterClass comes back on the market – Grade-Along members will have first shot at it… and at reduced pricing.
Price [would have stopped me from buying this training], really, to be blunt. But I think it’s worth it, without a doubt. I think for what you’re offering, it’s probably underpriced a little bit. Honestly. There’s a lot of valuable information. Now that I know what’s in there, I probably would have paid double for it.
Quicktimes mp4. These videos can be played off your desktop via Quicktime Player or in iTunes. They are also iPad compatible – so you don’t have to waste time transcoding them. You’ll also be able to view every Lesson via streaming video.
Week 1, Lesson 3 is 47 minutes long and a 306 MB to download (it’s zipped, which saves about 40 MB on the download). In Week 1 alone I have about over 5 hours of training across 6 Lessons varying in length from 20 minutes to 90 minutes. These are big downloads.
No. There are multiple training videos to download each week. For instance, in Week 1 I have 6 Lessons – each with a web page explaining that Lesson, the streaming video of that Lesson, and the Desktop / iPad Compatible Download of that Lesson.
This training is designed with the working professional in mind. You can start it at any time – now or in the future. The training is released over a period of 6 weeks. Once 6 weeks have passed you will have full and continuing access to it. I do recommend you take the time to download the Lessons, so you will always have a backup. Your access to this training does not expire.
In the Resolve 8 training, each of the video downloads have chapter markers. They are also tagged with iTunes metadata so they are nicely grouped under a single ‘Podcast’ collection – keeping things neat and tidy. The Apple Color / Colorista II / FCP 7 training will eventually have the same features.
The short answer: As fast as possible. The long answer: The ‘In Tents’ short film is itself a 9 GB download (US Residents can buy the footage on a Data DVD-r. I do ship Internationally but it’s very expensive – I just shipped to Australia last week… at $80 US).
Each week you can expect the Lesson downloads will be anywhere from 500 MB to 2 GB. If you have metered internet… you’ll want to plan how much you download in a given month. If you have a slow connection you’ll want to consider if your connection can handle these downloads.
For reference: Week 1 Lesson 2 took me under two minutes to download via a 25 Mbps FiOS fiber optic connection. At 512 Kbps it would take about 1 hour 20 minutes.
A bit… in Week 1. Mostly to show you how to set them up and a quick demo of what it’s like to work with a control surface. I cover the Avid Artist Color and the JL Cooper Eclipse. I don’t cover the Tangent Wave simply because I don’t own one and I haven’t been able to get a demo unit. (UPDATE: I’ve managed to get a hold of a Wave, so I will be covering it. But probably not until we get to Weeks 5 or 6)
As the training progresses I will use the JL Cooper more and more (my primary surface).You’ll get a good sense of how much more quickly you can grade with a surface.
If you’re running v.8.1.1 of DaVinci Resolve Lite (or later), you’re good to go! The Lite version of Resolve doesn’t restrict a single color correction process, technique, or feature. Everything I teach in the MasterClass is 100% compatible with the most recent versions of DaVinci Resolve Lite.
As you can see in the Sample Lessons above – I do not. But I do work off a MindMap that is my outline. It keeps me on-track. And I do heavily edit my recordings to keep the pacing up. But this training is designed as if you were my Apprentice and we’re sitting together and I’m talking to you. The conversational tone is important to me. Hopefully it works for you.
No. But I am in discussions to distribute this training as part of college curriculum. If you’re on staff at a University or 2- year program, feel free to contact me about this possibility.
YES! The new version of Resolve (mentioned above) fully supports mouse-based grading… and so does my training.
Yes! You can download the videos to your computer and keep them for as long as you wish. But you may not re-sell them, re-package them, upload them, or share them in any way. (But I didn’t have to tell you that, did I? 
)
Oh no. I’m not THAT sneaky. You are absolutely buying the entire 6-Week training course. The Early Bird Discount is your reward for buying now and being patient as your Mentor (and working professional colorist) records, edits and uploads the training videos (and builds-out the supporting web-site). It’s also an incentive for me to finish the training as quickly as possible… so I can end the discount and charge full price! (not to put too fine a point on it 
)
Early Bird pricing will end by the end of November December sometime in the future in Early April, 2012.
I’ve blocked out significant chunks of time in March to dedicate to finishing this training. Starting in April I’m going to be working on new training projects for the Tao of Color – so the Resolve 8 Masterclass will be completed by early April and the Early Bird Special will end.
At the time of this writing (mid-February 2012) over 80% of the training has been recorded and uploaded spanning 18 Lessons totaling over 19 hours of video training! There are 14 Lessons remaining to record, edit and upload (including two newly added Lessons for Week 4 and Week 6 based on feedback of existing Members).
Note: Currently the training is mid-way through Week 4 with parts of Week 5 in production. I’ve covered almost the entire Resolve 8 interface and now we’re focusing on the ‘craft’ of color grading. Here’s a JPEG of my Mindmap show all the Resolve 8 Lessons, what’s been completed, what’s in production, and what’s left to create.
The MasterClass is currently NOT FOR SALE. The Resolve Masterclass is being completely revamped into a new Tao of Color training system, with all material being updated for DaVinci Resolve 9 and beyond.
We strongly encourage you to discover Tao of Color’s newest training: Dead Man’s Lake: The Grade Along. It’s our next-generation training program and includes 6 hours of DaVinci Resolve 9 Essentials video tutorials to teach you the Resolve 9 interface and workflow. And once you learn the interface, you can move on to color grading a 7 minute, 135 shot short film – with step-by-step video instructions. We hand-hold you from locked picture to final delivery in an additional 10 hours of training that you won’t find anywhere else on the internet!
And when the MasterClass comes back on the market – Grade-Along members will have first shot at it… and at reduced pricing.