Ian Vertovec is Supervising Colorist at Light Iron, which he co-founded, a Panavision company specialized in dailies, digital intermediate, archival, and data services for projects originated on file-based motion cameras.
Over the last few years, 8K has become accepted as an acquisition format for 2K & 4K delivery. Michael Cioni, of Panavision & Light Iron, believes that it is time to start pushing 8K as a distribution format. Listen as he challenges common misconceptions about the validity of 8K exhibition.
Cioni uses Moore’s Law to explore the idea that the resolution of our capture and delivery of video will continue to grow far into the future. In the early years of Light Iron, Michael and his team faced many challenges in moving from a 2K to 4K digital intermediate for their customers. But they overcame those challenges and are now working toward supporting 8K distribution.
On this episode of the colorist podcast, I talk with Ian Vertovec, Co-Founder, and Senior Colorist at Light Iron.
Ian has colored major films “The Social Network,” “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo,” and “Gone Girl.” And more recently, he has colored the TV shows “Baskets” for FX and “Glow” on Netflix.
Originally from Chicago, Ian focused on photography, then moved on to digital compositing. He later co-founded two post facilities in Los Angeles: Plaster City, then Light Iron. Out of necessity, he moved on to color at his company. He found his combination of photography and compositing matched perfectly for a career as a colorist.
In this podcast, we talk about:
Coloring David Fincher films and working with extremely dark images
The challenges of working on VFX heavy projects
Making HDR look both cinematic and realistic
Advantages of working with high-end systems like Quantel Pablo
The difference between working on TV and films
How experience with compositing served him as a colorist
Colorist Ian Vertovec from Light IronDigital takes us through the ins and outs of color grading one of this year’s biggest hit films “The Social Network”.
Presented live at Camerimage 2017, this provocative presentation examines the psychology, physiology, and physical relationships between resolution and sharpness. Panavision and Light Iron experts Michael Cioni, Dan Sasaki, and Ian Vertovec present a fresh perspective on how the pursuit of cinematic smoothness is tied to the race for resolution.
The Fincher Analyst 