Brian Singler | Colorist Snapshot [EP. 01]

Tobia Montanari
Tobia Montanari
Digital Colorist | BMD Certified Trainer

Colorist Snapshot” is an interview format which consists of a fixed structure of creative questions that every Colorist will answer their own way, creating a sort of “identikit” per each Colorist. Brian Singler joined us for today’s episode.

1. Hello Brian and thanks for joining this format. First of all, tell us a bit about yourself.

I am the lead colorist at Bruton Stroube Studios in St. Louis, MO. I grew up in Alaska, loving storytelling and got into news and broadcasting for the early part of my career. Eventually, I wanted to work on projects with higher production values and longer shelf lives that more people actually saw. So I transitioned into advertising and films, working my way up from being the one-man band doing everything to focusing on color, which, along with cinematography, is my great love. To do work at the level I wanted, I had to focus on one aspect of filmmaking, and I chose color as there’s more grading work in my particular market.

Now, I grade on every type of project, from docs and short films, to music videos, features and commercials. The majority of work is in the commercial/branded content space, but I think there’s much to learn from every genre and project. Grading can keep you learning for a lifetime.

2. Which project(s) best describe(s) you as a Colorist?

I really enjoyed a piece called “Die Hard is Back” which was one of the biggest commercial campaigns in the US and around the world last year. It had the kind of bold look that I love. I have several short films, commercials, features and music videos I am proud of that you can see on my website.

Colourist Snapshot 2 - Brian Singler
Die Hard is Back (2020)

People say I have a distinct signature, which is harder for me to see, but I think a lot of it has to do with rich blacks and vibrant color separation. I don’t think my work looks like anybody else’s necessarily, and I want it to always be that way. My dream is to not only continually grade some of the best work out there, but also to pioneer the techniques, color schemes and approaches that will define the next generation of color grading.

3. Name three/five movies whose grades are your favourite (and why).

This is going to look like everyone else’s list. It may be heresy to write this, but I am not a huge fan of older movies as I am more interested in what’s happening now — as HDR, camera/optical/computer technology, and the leap in consumer panel technology lets us as artists push the boundaries.

I enjoy the grades in the Joker / Harley Quinn movies as they are exceptional examples of how Dolby Vision can utilize larger color volumes.

I love the BlacKkKlansman / Judas and the Black Messiah grades as they are some of the best examples of how a film can evoke an era, yet feel modern.

It is very true that color has be “felt but never noticed.” But you can’t help but love movies where color was almost a character unto itself — like the Matrix, Mad Max and others very familiar to your readers.

4. Do you have a favourite color scheme?

My nickname at the studio is Cool Breeze because I tend to favor hues that provide color contrast against skin tones. So blues and teal in the undertones and the color casts of the neutrals. I don’t think that will ever go out of style as we will always shoot people and look for ways to separate them within the frame. The key is to twist the cliche just enough… as I am pretty tired of teal and orange.

5. Do you like grading B&W projects? What are the challenges and the benefits you usually encounter?

I don’t get to grade them very often, so hard to say. The challenges are that you have less to play with, but restriction can often be a creative catalyst as well.

Obviously the benefits are that you can concern yourself less with navigating color cast issues. You can explore B&W print stocks and creating beautiful contrast. Honestly, I have yet to work on a really well shot black and white piece that was intended to be that way from the outset.

6. Where do you draw your greatest inspiration from?

I draw a lot of inspiration from other colorists and love Instagram for the seemingly unending amount of beautiful work in my feed at all times. 

I also spend a lot of time just looking at light outside in day-to-day life. Seeing how shadows go blue on a snowy day or the way shadows cast by a sodium-vapor streetlight have a greenish undertone. Noticing the colors of foliage after a rain or the way everything looks before a storm.

Recently, I’ve so enjoyed a series of books called the “200 Best Ad Photographers Worldwide”. It’s 500 pages of beautiful non-stop look inspiration. Nice to have something that’s non-digital.

To answer the question honestly and personally, the greatest inspiration for me comes from taking care of yourself and getting your priorities in line. That means enough sleep, not over-stressing, keeping grading in its proper context in life. When it grows out of proportion (which is extremely easy to do and has plagued me for years) it sucks the inspiration right out of you. But when you’ve taken care of yourself and are connected to the most important things in life, grading inspiration flows quite naturally.

Colourist Snapshot 3 - Brian Singler
Bad Boy “Reasons” TV

7. Who are your favourite Colorists?

I am less a fan of individual colorists nowadays than I am of facilities because I have learned that colorists are not making beautiful images on an island, despite what Instagram might tell you. The truly great color out there is a joint collaboration between colorists, DPs, engineers, color scientists and others. 

So the facilities I admire most are the ones you would expect: Company 3, MPC, Cheat It, and others.

I do have individual colorists whom I admire for many different reasons.

  • Toby Tomkins has the most mastery of both the artistic and technical side of color that I have ever seen, in addition to founding a world-class facility. Like me, he wasn’t mentored by other top colorists and his work has that special something I haven’t achieved yet.
  • Jean Clement Soret is such a pillar of our profession and continues to demonstrate unparalleled artistry in his grades.
  • Tom Poole has an aesthetic that is impossible not to admire. I am still hoping to grade something as beautiful as he did 15 years ago.
  • Stefan Sonnenfeld has defined what blockbuster movies look like for a generation and created the most sought after roster and grading company in the world.

But ultimately, I think your favorite colorist has to be (in a non-selfish way) yourself. I do not wish to be “like” anyone I have listed (or the hundreds of others who deserve to be there). I want to make the singular contribution only I can make. Every colorist has a unique mark to make within the industry and to the people they work with.

8. Let’s play a game: describe yourself using just a color.

Aqua, specifically the color of tropical water. Growing up in Alaska, that color mesmerized me. It represented an exoctic world and adventure and all the things that first draw us into films. I probably find a way to get some of that color into every project I work on because it means something to me personally.

Colourist Snapshot 4 - Brian Singler
3022 (2019)

9. Do you tend to work mostly with primary corrections (trying to preserve as much as possible the original photography) or are secondary corrections a big part of your workflow?

The answer is always both and also dependent on each project. On a feature, you have to limit yourself to largely primaries because of the shot volume, but you can noodle on short-form, where secondaries can become a bigger part of the equation. 

Some projects require you to preserve the original photography, but that is not my world. Clients are expecting me to add something special to their work and secondaries are often a part of that. But it’s a continuing goal of mine to use fewer and fewer tools and secondaries to achieve a simpler and cleaner result. 

I have spent a career trying to “make up” for my lack of apprenticeship, experience, etc. by knowing how to use nearly every tool out there… so I can reach for them too quickly. The masters have truly mastered the basic tools and I am trying to get there.

10. Technical aspects vs aesthetic feel: when should one prevail over the other?

There really is no versus; they are symbiotic. If you’ve made the most aesthetically pleasing image ever on your monitor, but you have calibration or workflow/pipeline issues, then none of your aesthetics matter.

To me, the right way to do color is to have the technical aspects so dialed in that you are free to abandon them for aesthetic. I regularly “break” convention or do things the “wrong” way, but at least I have an understanding (most of the time) of what I am doing. So understanding the technical is a must as it feeds the creative as well.

Grading is a feeling endeavor. Sometimes two shots can look pretty similar on a split screen but feel off. In fact, almost every decision I make is a feel one… a shot feels too bright, or the skin tones feel wrong or something just feels off. Sure scopes and such can inform that, but I feel the problems before I see it in an RGB parade or whatever.

The other reason I feel aesthetic trumps most everything else is that it’s a simple necessity of the job. When you’re facing hundreds of shots or two hours to get a commercial done, you have to trust yourself and what you’re feeling to get projects done in the time you have.

Colourist Snapshot 5 - Brian Singler
AT&T // Fast Track

11. What was the hardest project you’ve worked on and what difficulties did you encounter?

I think all projects are hard in their own way. As your skill rises, your taste does, too, so I think you’re always chasing that elusive perfect grade. 

I’ve graded entire features with data levels set to full (try to undo that). I’ve graded entire features multiple times because I didn’t get proper approval the first time around.

In my opinion, your first couple features are the hardest, and I probably spent six weeks each on my first couple. You’re looking at thousands of shots and you haven’t entirely figured out the unique conform challenges of longform, how to manage your time, create looks that work across a whole movie or scene, etc. Especially if you’re a solo colorist (like I have always been) and you are having to figure out everything yourself.

12. Any tips & tricks or suggestions you would like to give our readers?

Sure, I could impart hundreds of little tips for dealing with specific grading situations (that only comes with time), but I am a big-picture person and if you get the big stuff right, much of the rest will fall into place.

  1. Plan for the long haul. The first years being a colorist are the hardest. There’s the frustration of not knowing what you’re doing or how to approach the craft, the inevitable mistakes that cost you time, money and clients and the difficulty of working with poor or inconsistently shot footage. But if you can power through that stage long enough, the footage gets better, grading gets easier and your career improves.
  2. Make the really hard choices. People constantly approach me looking for tips or some magic “sauce”. But for many people, the most important decisions to begin as a colorist or advance levels have nothing to do with skills at all. Those people likely need to move out of their state or country, put in the grunt work of developing relationships, quit their non-color related job, or go work for years in a non color-related position just to get established in the industry. You have to take risks, make sacrifices and do what scares you. Very few are willing to go there.
  3. Get a real system. That means a real reference monitor, a powerful enough computer system and a real color suite, even if it’s a room in your house. Stop trying to get by on the cheap and ask professionals to fix your color management and workflow issues. If clients see you are serious and have real tools, you’ll start to get real jobs with real budgets and your investment will pay off.
  4. Make quantity your early focus. You need to do real projects and a lot of them. Not here or there or stock footage downloaded off Artlist. Don’t dwell on the same project forever. Grade it the best you can and move onto the challenges and learning opportunities of the next project. You don’t get better in bursts, but in slowly accumulating skills over time.
  5. Always be preparing for the future. Even if you don’t have the biggest projects now, treat what you have as if it is. Even if your clients are small, treat them as if they’re a world-class DP or Director. If you don’t have clients sitting with you, create a space for them anyway and practice everything you’ll need to know for when they are there. Learn proper VFX and conform workflows even if you’re editing the project yourself. Those are just some examples, but you have to be ready for when the big opportunity comes.
  6. Make the success of others your focus: It’s axiomatic that striving for success doesn’t get you any. Whenever I am on a project, I actively think about everyone involved. To the DP, these are precious images they fought to get; to the actor, this could be the role they hope will land them their next gig; to the agency, this project could define their relationship to the client. If you, as a colorist, can proactively think about what you can do make those people a success, your moment-by-moment decisions will be coming through the right filter. Your success will follow theirs.
  7. Work on your character as much as your skills. The reality is that success or failure in the industry has nearly everything to do with character and little with artistic skill. How proactive are you? How well do you prioritize the important over the urgent? How do you deal with failure? Are you a caring, kind person that clients will want to deal with? Are you willing to make hard decisions (like I mentioned earlier)? Deal with frustration, anxiety, difficult clients? There is a wealth of literature out there on growing as a person. Work on that and you’ll grow as a colorist as well.
Colourist Snapshot 6 - Brian Singler
Sideline App

You can follow Brian Singler on his INSTAGRAM and WEBSITE.

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