The Colorist: Your Commercial's Hidden Weapon.
One of the most important parts of any commercial production, which any production company worth its salt will tell you, is the person in charge of color grading your commercial spot. This process is known as color grading. Color grading is a part of post production, and essentially it is the point where you take an image that looks like this one:
and massage it until it looks this way:
Count how many different cameras and lenses you can film your commercial on and that's about how many different tools are available to color your commercial. This is why it is vital to press your potential commercial production company for good, solid anwers as to their equioment, their staff and their philosophy as it pertains to color grading. In addition to the cinematography and production design, it is the color grade that will grab the viewer's eyeballs and refuse to let go. So ask your production company if they are using some sort of built in editor's coloring tools, a full Da Vinci system or something in between. Are they outsourcing this to another vendor, or do they have the top talent and gear right in their own facility to pass along the ease of coordination to you as the client. In the end the important part is:
The color grade is vital to your commercial production.
All of the other creative crew, from the director to the director of photography to wardrobe to makeup all add elements, large and small, that shape the feel and effectiveness of your commercial. The colorist is the one who has the ability to push your production out of "good" and into the world of "WOW", so don't let your production company skimp on that element. A good amount of the budgets even on Hollywood blockbusters involves sweetening the sound and picture in post production to get that high-end look. So don't cut corners when it comes to color grading, especially if it looks like your competitors have been doing it the right way. The only way to compete--and stand out--from those competitors is to make sure you approach your next commercial production the right way.
