University degrees: Short-Courses
Course length: 5 days
Course city: Berlin
UP.GRADE SHORTS are designed to deliver a deeper, more holistic learning experience that is unavailable elsewhere and a methodology that believes the science of digital post-production should always be ancillary to the art.
For UP.GRADE SHORTS we set up a series of modules whose “order of operations” reflect the post-production pipeline starting from acquisition all the way through to exhibition.
The modules ran from June to September 2019 and offered a broad range of topics:
ACQUISITION – understand the science and design behind image acquisition*
WORKFLOWS – explore effective colour managed workflows, from acquisition to deliverables*
TOOLSET – master the operation and interaction of common grading operators and other powerful tools*
CREATIVE – the art of realising and furthering a cinematographer’s artistic vision*
EXHIBITION – study the characteristics of modern display technologies, for calibration and mastering*
MENTORING – deepen your technical, creative and communicative colourist skills through hands-on training
*with reference to the emerging era of high dynamic range displays “HDR”.
Each short course ran for 5 days from Monday to Friday at our Up.Grade hub.
Learning outcome: To explore effective colour managed workflows, from acquisition to deliverables.
Course dates: Monday July 8th to Friday July 12th 2019
UP.GRADE lecturers: Tobias Schaarschmidt – colourist, colour scientist, calibrator / Daniele Siragusano – workflow consultant for FilmLight / Miga Bär – Manager Production Technology EMEA for Netflix
Topics covered: Colour pipeline design principles, Netflix workflow case studies, FilmLight’s Baselight, Truelight Colour Spaces, DaVinci Resolve Colour Management (RCM), ACES and its ODTs, CDL usage, workflows for VFX-heavy pipelines, show looks from on-set to post, scene referred vs display referred. The relevance of these topics to the growing adoption of HDR display technology will be referenced throughout.
Course cost: €1850
Number of places: 10
Learning outcome: To understand the science and design behind image acquisition.
Course dates: Monday June 3rd to Friday June 7th 2019
UP.GRADE lecturers: Prof. Andrew Stockman – vision scientist / Charles Poynton, PhD – colour scientist, physicist / Laurens Orij – colourist, colour scientist
Special round-up Q&A lecturer: Harald Brendel – Teamlead Image Science ARRI Cine Technik (answering questions in person or via Skype near the end of the module)
Topics covered: The science of light, pertinent factors of the human visual system, the fundamentals of imaging and reproduction, analogue image acquisition processes, digital image acquisition processes, methods of encoding. The relevance of these topics to the growing adoption of HDR display technology will be referenced throughout.
Course cost: €2000
Number of places: 10
Learning outcome: To master the operation and interaction of common grading operators and other powerful tools.
Course dates: Monday July 1st to Friday July 5th 2019
UP.GRADE lecturers: Dirk Meier – colourist, former head of UP.GRADE, consultant / Paul Dore – image processing tools developer, workflow consultant / Ben Packer – colourist, UP.GRADER, creator of Frame Details / Edmond Laccon – colourist, head of UP.GRADE programmes
Special round-up Q&A lecturer: Peter Doyle – Supervising Colorist, Warner Bros. De Lane Lea (answering questions in person or via Skype near the end of the module)
Course cost: €1850
Number of places: 10
Learning Outcome: The art of realizing and furthering a cinematographer’s creative vision and redefine your relationship to creativity in post-production
Course dates: Monday August 26th to Friday August 30th 2019
UP.GRADE lecturers: Vanessa Taylor – senior colourist at Molinare, London / Dr. Pasquale Iannone – film lecturer, writer and broadcaster, teacher at the University of Edinburgh and regular contributor to Sight & Sound, Senses of Cinema and BBC Radio programmes / Dr. Philipp Weiss – art historian, UP.GRADE lecturer / Edmond Laccon – colourist, head of UP.GRADE programmes (confirmed)
Topics covered: Expanding your relationship to the images you’re responsible for, a history of light in reproductions, the expressive power of colour in cinema, defining and realising a cinematographers artistic intent, exploring aesthetic attributes from set to post, broadening opportunities for creativity, the significance of primaries vs secondaries, building better creative partnerships and the impact of reactive vs forward-thinking creative choices, practical approaches to look development.
Course cost: €1850
Number of places: 10
Learning outcome: To study the characteristics of modern display technologies, for calibration and mastering.
Course dates: Monday June 10th to Friday June 14th 2019
UP.GRADE lecturers: Charles Poynton, PhD – colour scientist, physicist / Felix Hüsken – colourist, calibrator / Ove Sander – Berlinale Technical Manager, digital cinema specialist
Special round-up Q&A lecturer: Pete Ludé – CTO, Mission Rock Digital
(answering questions in person or via Skype near the end of the module)
Topics covered: The fundamentals of visual reproduction, key properties and behavioural characteristics of common and emerging display technologies (LCD, OLED, DCI projection systems, both SDR and HDR), practical approaches to calibrating for such technologies, considerations to take into account at mastering. The relevance of these topics to the growing adoption of HDR display technology will be referenced throughout.
Course cost: €2000
Number of places: 10
Learing outcome: Deepen your technical, communicative and creative colourist skills
Course dates: Monday September 23rd to Friday September 27th 2019
UP.GRADE lecturers: Dirk Meier BVK – colourist, consultant, founder and former head of UP.GRADE / Edmond Laccon – colourist, head of UP.GRADE programmes
Module curriculum: Our final module in our series of short courses is a special one. Previous modules covered the fundamental art and science of colour grading with little in the way of hands-on colourist coaching.
Limited to just 6 participants, UP.GRADE: Mentoring will consist of 5 days of intense hands-on grading where you will have your colourist skills personally mentored by Dirk Meier, BVK and Edmond Laccon. The week will feature group review sessions in which participants will exchange constructive feedback and expertise with their colleagues. Additionally to the development of hands-on skills we will undertake further training exercises with you to enhance your client communication and time management skills – so expect to have your colourist comfort zone expanded.
For those who value having their questions answered in a personal one-to-one setting – this is the course for you. The grading package used throughout this module will be Blackmagic Design’s DaVinci Resolve. Places are limited to 6 – the number of grading workstations at UP.GRADE Berlin.
Course cost: €1950
Number of places: 6
