Next session scheduled for September 21 in Köln.
Pioneering color scientist and Colorist Society Fellow Dr. Charles Poynton and colorist Laurens Orij from Crabsalad, Amsterdam are conducting a series of professional workshops on color science at sites across Europe and North America. The next session is slated for Saturday, September 21 in Köln, Germany. Register here. Future events are planned for Toronto, Warsaw and Rome. Discounts are available to CSI members, but space is limited.
Titled Applied Colour Science for Film Production, the workshop covers both deep fundamentals and important current topics in color science for film. “By ‘film,’ we mean both photochemical film and digital film,” Poynton explains. “Classic photochemical film is enjoying a resurgence, and in any event, the color processes of film have set the cultural expectations of what a movie looks like. By ‘movie’ we include theatrical motion pictures, but also streaming programming where a cinematic look is desired.”
Poynton and Orij will explain in detail camera technology and camera image coding. They will describe the pipeline of post-production and mastering, including scene rendering transform, and show how and where art is introduced using illustrative examples. The radiometric (linear-light) internals of modern grading systems such as Baselight and DaVinci Resolve will be explained.
The focus is also on the color pipeline. Key aspects will be discussed: acquisition color space, grading space, and various mastering and distribution spaces, particularly the DCI X’Y’Z’ scheme with its standard DCI P3 primaries, and commercial HDR distribution schemes including HDR10, HLG, and ICtCp-based Dolby Vision.
The two presenters explain why BT.2020 primaries are not directly suitable for mastering or presentation. They will also introduce emerging modern post-production systems such as ACES 2.0 and OpenColorIO 2.0, and present recent developments in Color appearance models (CAMs).
Laurens Orij is an accomplished colourist based at Crabsalad in Amsterdam: “MONOS” (Sundance World Cinema Special Jury Award winner), “Close” (Oscar-nominated and Cannes Grand Prix winner 2023), and “All We Imagine as Light” (Cannes Grand Prize Winner 2024).
Charles Poynton is an independent researcher and Color scientist based in Toronto. He wrote the book “Digital Video and HD Algorithms and Interfaces,” now in its second edition. He earned his PhD in 2018 with a dissertation entitled “Color Appearance Issues in Digital Video, HD/UHD, and D-cinema.”
