FilmLight Presents 5th Annual Colour Awards at Camerimage
Jury president Bradford Young, ASC presented six colorists with awards in their respective categories on Sunday.
The FilmLight Colour Awards, presented annually at the EnergaCAMERIMAGE cinematography festival in Toruń, Poland honored six colorists at a ceremony staged on Sunday, Nov. 16. The company’s fifth awards event drew more than 500 submissions from 47 countries.
Jury president Bradford Young, ASC, who hosted the event, emphasized the importance of colorists. “They are the final utterance to our creative process,” he said. “They don't get the recognition they deserve.
“Joe Gawler, my colorist [at Harbor Picture Company], is everything to me,” he continued. ”I've been working with him since [I was] right out of film school. Without him, I wouldn't be where I am in my development as an artist.”
Speaking via video link, director Park Chan-wook, who also participated in the judging, commented, “This was one of the most difficult judging experiences I’ve ever had. I’ve participated in many film-award juries, but there were so many outstanding works, each with such strong individuality, that ranking them felt nearly impossible. There were moments when I sighed and wondered if such a thing could even be done. I’m sure each of the judges came to their own unique conclusions, and those selected through this process truly deserve a big round of applause. They can be very proud of themselves.”
The award for Theatrical Feature went to Máté Ternyik for The Brutalist, which earned cinematographer Lol Crawley, ASC, BSC the Academy Award for Best Cinematography earlier this year. Young asked Ternyik about working with VistaVision, a format he said “was waiting for us. It makes so much sense.” Ternyik replied, “It's an exciting format [that] brings a lot of character to a project. In some ways it's a more grand, more pristine format. In other ways, it's a bit dirtier. There aren't as many cameras. We had to tackle some movement in the gate. We had to add flicker to 3-perf images to make them connect better to the Vista footage. I'll say this: in the past 12 months, I think 80 percent of the projects I worked on were shot on film.”
More on The Brutalist and VistaVision:
Lol Crawley, ASC, BSC Breaks Down His Approach to The Brutalist [Video]
Discover the History and Inner Workings of the VistaVision Camera [Video]
Peter Doyle of Postworks NY won the TV Series/Episodic award fo the Apple series Disclaimer. Speaking via video, the show’s cinematographers, Emmanuel Lubezki, ASC, AMC and Bruno Delbonnel, ASC, AFC, praised Doyle for finding a language for the series, and for finding equilibrium with two cinematographers and director Alfonso Cuarón. Lubezki affectionately referred to Doyle as a “mega-geek,” and pointed out that the show’s cameras hadn't even been finished when the filmmakers started production. Doyle, also via video, thanked the two renowned directors of photography “for their light. In terms of our collaboration, it was really a question of ‘What do you need?’”
In the Emerging Talent category, colorist Marina Starke won for her work on the Converse x Daily Paper spot "Homecoming." “This is my tenth anniversary since touching a grading panel for the first time,” she said. "I never had a mentor, so most of my journey came from trial and error. Nothing in color grading is sacred except good skin tones.”
Connor Bailey of House Post won the Spotlight award for his work on the documentary Good Shot. He noted that the project’s grading sessions went on for 11 months. “They went and shot more, the edit changed, certain scenes didn't work anymore,” he said. “There were so many formats: Mini DV, 16, both positive and negative Tri-X, archival footage, Hi8, and VHS, with the bulk of film shot on a Sony Venice. We leaned into each format. We didn't try to make anything something it wasn't.”
The Music Video award went to Dante Pasquinelli of Ethos Studio for Bad Bunny's “NUEVAYoL,” another example of a colorist having to find a consistent tone among a number of formats.
Freelance colorist Franziska Heinemann won the Commercial award for the Bluff Bounce spot “Prologue,” a piece shot by Nicholas Bluff. “Listening to the DP and the director is the most important part of the job,” she said. Young cited Heinemann’s term “noble naturalism” as a theme running through all of the award-winners’ work.
Photos by Tomasz Mazur.
