By Randi Altman

Colorist Mark Todd Osborne, like many currently working in film and television, was first attracted to the industry after being inspired by the work of Steven Spielberg. It was that inspiration that led him to film school to study directing. That path then led him to post and color grading. In fact, he now owns his own studio, MTO Color, where he works on television and film projects.

MTO Color offers flexibility in how it works with clients — taking on a project in its entirety in house or in cooperation with other post houses when the project calls for it. “I am hired for my eye for color and my years of experience,” explains Osborne, “and I enjoy the coloring process with directors and cinematographers. With all the various projects coming in, that’s where I like to focus my time.”

We recently reached out to Osborne to find out more about starting his own shop, staying successful in crazy times and working on the recent film The Reckoning from director Neil Marshall.

You opened your own shop, called MTO Color, five years ago. Can you talk about why you made that transition?
I enjoyed the freedom of working at various post houses in LA, and never intended to have my own post company — this all came about naturally and at the request of my clients.

My name started to get around town, and some clients were calling me directly with a project they had in mind for me to color, but they needed me to find them a post house, so they would have me shop their project around the various post houses I freelanced at and find the best deal for their project.

Then, one of my clients had a commercial — a Microsoft spot called Dynamics — for me to color and said, “Why don’t you just calibrate a monitor and let’s do it at your place?” I’m always up for a challenge, so I decided to do it. I bought a decent laptop and calibrated the monitor using a Spyder 4 Pro and a little bit of my own color science to get it right.

Mark Todd Osborne

Not long after, several clients started asking for me to grade their projects from home. Eventually, I invested in more gear and a professionally calibrated monitor.

You have your own projects but also work with other post houses. How does that work?
Sometimes I’ll grade the bulk of the job at my place and then finish the last few days in a theater in Hollywood. Other times I will hand over the conform and deliverables to a larger post house if I want to stay focused on coandlor. Sometimes I will hire someone to do the conform and deliverables. It just depends. Every job is different and tailored to suit the needs of the client.

Do you find your own clients, or do you have a relationship with studios/facilities?
It’s a little of both. I generally get calls from post houses that have a client but need a premium-level colorist for their project. I also get a lot of calls from word of mouth, and that’s the best way to get clientele. I now have formed strong relationships with various film and commercial production companies along with directors, cinematographers and producers.

When I was coloring the film Need for Speed, the cinematographer, Shane Hurlbut, told me that I needed to brand myself, and that’s just what I did. I wanted the initials MTO to be synonymous with top-shelf artistry and high-level color grading and efficiency. It has been paying off.

Your studio is based in your home. That must have been a big advantage during the COVID shutdown? Can you talk about your setup/tools?
Yes, I was fortunate that I had already been putting in the time doing sessions from my home office at MTO Color before COVID. So, it was an easy transition when the quarantine came. I work with Blackmagic Resolve 16 on an iMac Pro along with a Blackmagic eGPU and Mini Panel, an LG C8 55-inch calibrated monitor and two Elgato Stream Decks programmed to make the panel even more functional.

Several of the post houses I work with have been shipping drives to me for the TV shows and features I grade for them. For the clients that request to be present during the look-setting session, we keep it down to just a few essential people. My station is spaced 7 feet away from the client seating area, and we all wear masks.

Otherwise, we simply have a phone discussion to talk about creative color direction for the project and I set looks and send them stills to make sure I’m on the right track. I then put the film together with all the grades, and we finish using Frame.io for final color reviews.

Any challenges to having a home studio versus working at a facility?
It can be easy to let yourself get distracted when working from home. Best thing to do is to treat your home office the same way you would your regular office. I actually like to get up early, have my coffee and get to work around the same time I would anywhere else. That way, I can put in my full day and have dinner with the family.

But the biggest challenge is not spending all your time in the home office simply because it’s there. It can be tough because your home office is always open, and it’s hard not to sneak in there after hours and on weekends to catch up or get ahead on some jobs. It’s all about finding balance between work and play.

This year you graded features, television shows and many spots, music videos and short films. Does your setup allow you to work on more eclectic projects?
That is one thing I really love about the position I’m in. I get to work on a variety of creative projects in all genres. It definitely keeps my creative juices flowing.

AppleTV+’s Dear… with Oprah Winfrey

And it works out great with the post houses. They bring me prepared drives and we swap Resolve project files back and forth as updates to the conform and VFX are made.

Can you name some recent work?
I recently colored a commercial campaign for Cadillac Escalade featuring recording artist James Blake and have colored the docuseries Trafficked for National Geographic/Disney+ and Dear… for Apple TV+.

Upcoming features include The Reckoning, Silk Road, Gossamer Folds, Chick Fight, Mayfield’s Game, Cosmic Sin, Student Body (an all-female produced and directed horror film) and the documentary Escape From Extinction.

Let’s talk about Neil Marshall’s The Reckoning. What is it about, and can you describe the look and work you did on it?
The Reckoning, starring Charlotte Kirk, is set during the Great Plague in 17th century England, when paranoia and witchfinders stalked the land. It follows the plight of Grace Haverstock, a woman accused of being a witch, and echoes the hysteria and misinformation that informs the current state of the world.

The Reckoning

The movie was artfully shot by cinematographer Luke Bryant and elegantly directed by Neil. They allowed me the creative freedom to add depth, dimension and a painterly style to everything in the film. You could stop on practically any frame in the movie, and it almost looks like it could be a painting … a lot of warm, fiery colors against blue-teal shadows and darkly shaped edges.

How did Neil and Luke tell you what they wanted, and how did they review shots?
Both Neil and the cinematographer could not be there physically for the grading session. Instead, we had several phone calls and emails to discuss the look, tone and feel of the movie, and they sent me a “look book” with images that best represented the feeling they were going for.

The first part of the movie has a mixture of warmer, happier times combined with more moody/cooler tragic events. In the latter half of the film, the main character is put in a dungeon, and Neil’s color direction to me was that it needed to look “hellish.” Definitely not a fun place to be.

The Reckoning

After they approved the color stills I sent them, I got to work putting the movie together with color. Once ready, we used Frame.io for all of our color reviews. Neil and Luke would use the comments section, and I would address them and send back a new version. We finished the color reviews in about three passes, the third pass being only a few minor changes. We are all so proud of this film, which was the opening night selection at the 2020 Fantasia International Film Festival.

The 3rd pass being only a few minor changes. We are all so proud of this film, which was the opening night selection at the 2020 Fantasia International Film Festival.

You initially went to film school to study directing. How did your path lead to post?
At film school at Orange Coast College, I met a special effects artist for New Line Cinema who worked on the Nightmare on Elm Street films. He was taking Advanced 16mm Filmmaking so he could use the gear to make his own short films. He encouraged me to get an industry job while on my path toward writing and directing.

So I started knocking on doors in Hollywood, and it wasn’t long before I got a job at Roger Corman’s Concorde-New Horizons Studio as an on-set production assistant and, later, an apprentice editor. Soon after that, I began working at New Line Cinema doing the same. At that point, I didn’t even know what a colorist was. It wasn’t until I started working as a daytime telecine assistant for Larry Chernoff at Encore that I began to have a taste for color correction. Larry got me started doing dailies for features and commercials, and I was hooked. After Encore, I spent nearly 12 years at Company 3 Santa Monica.

In 2009, I left Company 3 and began freelancing for Light Iron during its first year. I learned a great deal there about digital capture and how to grade it properly. It was there I learned Quantel Pablo; it was so different from DaVinci 2K and very exciting to learn. From there I started freelancing for other Quantel-based houses, like Digital Jungle, In A Place, Gradient Effects. In 2011, the people at Quantel put me up to work at James Cameron’s shop, Cameron Pace Group. I perma-lanced there for about a year before eventually being hired as the supervising colorist. While there, I learned a great deal about how to work properly in 3D.

Do you have any tips for those who are just starting out in color grading or post?
Study traditional photography and paintings. Be aware of how the artists use color, light and shading. Clock in lots of movies and television to start a “library in your mind” of images. There are plenty of resources online to learn color grading. Then, practice, practice, practice and put in your 10,000 hours of time.

Randi Altman is the founder and editor-in-chief of postPerspective. She has been covering production and post production for more than 20 years.