Grading Ouisurf
"One of the directors I had been working with on a NatGeo project, knew the new TV producer on Ouisurf. And, that's how I was recommended as colorist for the pilot last year. The producer said to me that I would have to do the first two shows by myself, as the DP was still on the road surfing with the guys."
“It all went really well because when the guys got back and saw the final grade, they said that it was exactly what they had in mind! They said that I really had the spirit of what they wanted to do. Within two weeks of going to air, this series then became one of Evasion TVs most popular segments!”
"All of the footage I was to color grade was shot on a Canon 5D Mark III and GoPros, so I was concerned about the quality of footage because of compression. You are never sure of what you will get with this stuff! However, I was very surprised and the footage was very nice."
"The DP is Jean Philippe Pariseau, who has done a heap of travel shows, so he really knows what he is doing and used these cameras very well indeed."
"Like any surfing travel show, the hardest part was making the surfing look good. When you are not a pro surfer and you are surfing at places you have never surfed before, you tend to fall off your board a lot. And so it was for the Ouisurf guys."
"The editor had a lot of work to do to make up the continuous 4min surfing scenes. All of these scenes were shot over the whole day and I had to color grade them to look like they were all filmed at the same time. I had to match each sequence to look like it was actually the same scene, although the each sequence could have been shot from any time from the morning to sunset. I had to match all the water and reflections regardless of whether the sequence was shot at noon or at sunrise, so it all looked like one continuous surfing session!"
