Miscellaneous Wisdom - The Art and Technique of Digital Color Correction - page 471

I color and image enhance and color correct for maximum
reemployment.

- Bob Festa, New Hat

And for Festa, keeping butts in the seats is what it's all about, business-
wise. “Here's the deal,” Festa begins, “I've learned a long time ago that I
color and image enhance and color correct for maximum reemployment.
We have an expression: 'time for the mortgage payment.' So it doesn't
matter what I think, so much as what the client thinks. So I'm all ears in the
session, especially early in the session—I listen to everybody in the room,
but just between you and I and the topic, I probably weight my hearing
more towards my repeat client, the people I'm going to work with, the
people I know are coming back. And I listen to the client and as much as
I'd like to turn this into the green cyan kind of thing, I really like to listen
to the client a lot. If they think it needs to be a study in neutral or cold steel
or something, goddamn it, that's the direction it's going to go whether it's
going to work or not because we're timing for maximum reemployment.
“We don't work in a vacuum; there's always somebody here with an
opinion or who was there on location who certainly has an opinion, and
I think the film should do the same thing. It shouldn't just be a witness;
I think every shot should have an informed opinion, a direction, some-
thing it's trying to say. With a documentary, you might want to step aside
and not leave a mark on the film, but hopefully you can be an objective
colorist and make an informed approach without leaving footprints; you
never want to leave your signature.”

Topics of Note

Here's a short list of topics about color and color correction in my library.
Of course, my previous book with Jaime Fowler, Color Correction for
Digital Video would be at the top of the list! This topic is now in its second
edition and the title has changed to:

• Color Correction for Video by Stephen Hullfish and Jaime Fowler, Focal
Press, 2008, ISBN-10: 0240810783, ISBN-13: 978-0240810782.

Also:

• Apple Pro Training Series: Encyclopedia of Color Correction—Field Tech-
niques Using Final Cut Pro by Alexis Van Hurkman, 2006, ISBN-10:
0321432312, ISBN-13: 978-0321432315.