Color Mentor

Paul hanrahan interviews film industry professionals about the art and science behind color grading and image making in general.

Last refreshed: August 19th, 2025 at 2:35 AM ⓘ

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Episodes

Interview with Menno Dreischor

In this episode I interview Menno Dreischor, a chemical engineer based in Amsterdam. His company TIPb offers engineering solutions for a wide range of industries. Menno’s interest in film led him to develop an algorithm to help with restoring the faded color on old film scans. It analyses the pixel distribution of a supplied source and target image and generates a matching LUT. It is currently in a beta testing phase and has many potential applications from restoration, shot matching and creativ...

Apr 16, 2025•2 hr•Ep. 10

Interview with Akiyoshi Kitaoka

In this episode I relate a written interview I had with Dr. Akiyoshi Kitaoka, a Professor of Psychology based in Japan. He does research on visual perception and makes visual illusions. His work embodies a fascinating combination of creative and technical aspects. I’d recommend viewing this episode on YouTube rather than as an audio podcast as there are many visual demonstrations. Color Mentor is on YouTube or your favorite podcast provider. Dr. Kitaoka’s website: https://www.ritsumei.ac.jp/~aki...

Mar 03, 2025•1 hr 13 min•Ep. 9

Interview with Kevin Shaw - Part 2

In this second part of the interview with Kevin Shaw I talk to him about the Colorist Society, and around the drive for our industry to organize itself in general. We talk about local and global issues, trade unions, recognition and awards, development and training and much more. I’m keen to hear your experiences with industry organization attempts in the past, let me know in the comments. Here is the IMDB petition if you would like to add your comment: https://community-imdb.sprinklr.com/conver...

Nov 28, 2024•1 hr 18 min•Ep. 8

Interview with Kevin Shaw - Part 1

In this episode I chat to Kevin Shaw. He is a well know colorist and educator in our industry. He has also been a key figure in setting up and promoting the Colorist Society, which is the topic of our following episode. In this episode however we discuss telecines. Kevin started grading 10 years before I did, at a time when color grading was either telecine or film lab based. We discuss various stages that the industry has gone through since then, all the way up to the present. We discuss: (00:0...

Oct 30, 2024•2 hr 43 min•Ep. 7

Interview with Troy Sobotka - Part 2

This episode is the second part of my conversation with Troy Sobotka who is a Vancouver based lighting, rendering and all-round image creation person. You may know him as the designer of the Agx render transform. We dive further into the mechanisms of visual cognition and picture formation. He shares a vast knowledge and collection of reference material on this topic. See download link below for additional material. In past years he has written an online blog called the Hitchhikers Guide to Digi...

Oct 14, 2024•2 hr 42 min•Ep. 6

Interview with Troy Sobotka - Part 1

In this episode, I chat to Troy Sobotka who is a Vancouver based lighting, rendering and all-round image creation person. You may know him as the designer of the Agx render transform. We discuss the topic of Visual Cognition as it relates to how we make pictures. He shares a vast knowledge and collection of reference material on this topic. In past years he has written an online blog called the Hitchhikers Guide to Digital Color. I would highly recommend people to read it. We discuss: Download l...

Sep 26, 2024•1 hr 57 min•Ep. 5

Interview with Jason Iversen

On this episode I must apologize in advance for having way too much fun. My guest is Jason Iversen he is a Visual Effects Technical Supervisor who has worked at Digital Domain, Rythm and Hues and now is at Weta in New Zealand. We have known each other since high school and worked together many years ago in South Africa. He was the co-founder of the Odforce.net chat forum. And he has worked on more block buster films than I’ve had blocked noses. We talk about visual effects, color pipelines and r...

Sep 13, 2024•2 hr 12 min•Ep. 4

Interview with Steve Shaw

Today’s guest will probably be familiar to many of you. Steve Shaw and his company Light Illusion are well known in the world of calibration and color grading. I chatted to him about his work with Quantel and other companies in the past. Also, film emulation over the years and the current products and services that Light Illusion offers. We discuss: (00:00) - Intro (01:13) - Interview starts (01:36) - Starting at Quantel (06:08) - Quantel as pioneers (12:38) - Quantel IQ and Pablo (16:03) - DI a...

Aug 28, 2024•1 hr 50 min•Ep. 3

Interview with Kaur Hendrikson

This episode I’ll be speaking to Kaur Hendrikson a colorist based in Tallinn Estonia. Any of you who use DCTL’s will be familiar with his name. In the last few years, he has setup up a successful DCTL store and is constantly developing new tools for freelancer and large facilities alike. He does DCTL and Python scripting training for Black Magic and platforms like Mixing Light. We spoke about this and a lot more. We discuss: (00:00) - Intro (01:18) - Interview starts (02:04) - Starting out (06:0...

Aug 14, 2024•1 hr 43 min•Ep. 2

Interview with Thatcher Freeman

In this episode, I'll be talking to Thatcher Freeman. He's a California-based colorist and software engineer. For his day job, he's an actual AI specialist. He's made great contributions to the color grading and software coding communities. He's also a filmmaker, so I wanted to talk to him to find out what makes him tick. We discuss: - Thatcher's background in film making. - The difficulties on finding resources on color theory. - Current industry trends. - A colorist's value. - The combination ...

Jul 20, 2024•1 hr 42 min•Ep. 1

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