Ryan McNeal
“My Mom is a retail business manager, and my Dad is an auto technician. For the most part both my parents were supportive of my career choice. At one point they were hopeful that I would become an engineer, but my Mom had always encouraged art while I was growing up. In high school I took photography and oil painting classes, and started playing around with digital cameras and shooting videos with my friends. My Dad was a little harder to read, I’m not sure that he had strong feelings about it either way, but I know both of my parents are proud of me.”
“I ended up graduating high school in a small town in Wisconsin called Evansville, where I met my high-school sweetheart, Becky, who is now my wife and business partner. There were two teachers who really encouraged me and mentored me, Mr. Dietrich and Ms. Abel. Mr. Dietrich was the director of the theater program and I was very inspired by how he was able to envision each production from start to finish and give marching orders to all the departments in order to make it all come together in the end. I admired how theater was a collaboration between all the departments and all the artists working on it, which is also what I love about filmmaking.”
“Ms. Abel taught darkroom photography and a class called “Digital Image Manipulation” which was basically a photoshop class. Learning the photo-chemical process of developing film and the utility of digital photography was pretty foundational for my career. I still use these skills every day. Ms. Abel introduced me to a lot of different art forms and gave me the freedom and encouragement to explore the mediums and feel them out for myself.”
“I went to Columbia College Chicago to study filmmaking. When I moved to Chicago for school it was the first time that I had full control over my own life. I fell in love with Chicago immediately. The art community was both inspiring and intimidating. I was eager to learn as much as I could so I took courses in film, art, and fiction writing. I did a lot of oil painting during this time in my studio apartment, and directed two short films. For my first short film we knew we’d need to do a day-for-night look, and so I had to learn how that process works both on the post side (how to color the footage so that it looks like night) and on the production side (how to shoot the footage so that you’re set up for success). That’s what really got me into color. Through that learning process I explored everything I could about it. The “Lord of the Rings” behind-the-scenes really inspired me, as they have a lot of great day-for-night looks and were some of the first films to use the D.I. process in really creative ways. I loved how they used color to invoke emotion and establish the world of the films. I graduated with a bachelor in film, with concentrations in directing and fiction writing.“
“I attempted to assist for producers, based on advice from mentors in my school program. I ended up abandoning that route fairly early on, and then did a short stint as a coordinator for reality tv which paid well but wasn’t creatively fulfilling. At that point I took a hard look at what I enjoyed doing that I could get paid for. I had been coloring freelance as a side gig, which I loved, and decided to apply to every position in LA that was related to color. Fortunately I got hired at Company 3 as a color assistant, which was a great place to learn the ropes and gave me some real-world experience.”
“I really got my start at Company 3. I consider that my entry into my current career. At the time, I was a color assistant and I prepped projects for the senior colorists. It was a great environment to learn, especially the parts of the business outside of the actual craft of color. However, my first paying project was a very raunchy music video that paid me for both color and beauty work. I spent most of my time smoothing out cellulite. The stuff that makes parents proud!”
“It’s hard to identify a single figure that has had the biggest influence on me as an artist. If I had to boil it down to three, I would say: Steve Jobs for his quest for excellence through simplicity, James Cameron for “Titanic” which was the first non-animated film I saw in theaters, and Peter Jackson for “The Lord of the Rings” and the behind-the-scenes special feature that came with the DVDs. Those films were some of the first to use digital intermediary, and their creative color looks inspire me to this day.”
“My work basically is my life. It’s great because I love what I do, but on the flip side I do have a tendency to let it consume me. When I started freelancing I thought I would have the freedom to set my own schedule but as it’s become a business, the reality is that we have set operating hours where we’re available to clients and we have to be “clocked in” just like any other job. And because Becky and I operate the business, we inevitably end up putting in more hours than a standard employee in order to organize and deliver for our clients. Outside of work, I enjoy playing video games, watching movies/tv with friends, and working on my own creative projects.
“I live in Los Angeles and have been here for about 8 years now. It’s a great place because of the large artistic community with a lot of opportunities, but it can also be difficult because of the amount of competition. There’s a strong community of alumni here from Columbia College Chicago, and that’s been a great community for me. I’ve re-connected with a few people I went to school with, but I’ve also connected with a few Columbia grads who I didn’t meet during my time in Chicago but we somehow connected out here in LA and bonded over that shared experience.”
“I would like to be doing more narrative work and less music videos and commercials. Narrative storytelling has always been what I’m most passionate about. Creatively I gravitate toward genre pieces, as color is very important in setting the mood, tone, and feel. Fantasy, sci-fi, and period pieces are my favorites. I try to keep hobbies that allow me to express creativity in other ways but also teach me things that come out in the color sessions. I have a background in traditional oil painting, which I don’t have much time for anymore but I still love it and try to do at least one piece a year. I practice photography on a vintage film camera that was passed down to me from my Mom, and just this year started developing my own film. I’m very passionate about computers and have spent a lot of time researching and creating the best workflows possible for our team. Due to Covid and the need for remote-only workflows I developed our own in-house color accurate live-streaming service which has greatly improved the remote notes process. And for my own creative projects—Becky and I have been developing and writing a children’s animated series. I believe all these pursuits empower each-other and it’s a lot of fun to explore multiple mediums.”