By Brady Betzel

I am constantly looking to educate myself, no matter what the source — or subject. Whether I am learning how to make a transition in Adobe After Effects from an eSports editor on YouTube to Warren Eagles teaching color correction in Blackmagic’s DaVinci Resolve on FXPHD.com, I’m always beefing up my skills. I even learn from bad tutorials — they teach you what not to do!

But when you come across a truly remarkable learning experience, it is only fair to share with the rest of the world. Last year I saw an ad for an MZed.com course called “Directing Color With Ollie Kenchington,” and was immediately interested. These days you can pretty much find any technical tutorial you can dream of on YouTube, but truly professional, higher education-like, theory-based education series are very hard to come by. Even ones you need to pay for aren’t always worth their price of admission, which is a huge let down.

Ollie sharing his wisdom.

Once I gained access to MZed.com I wanted to watch every educational series they had. From lighting techniques with ASC member Shane Hurlbut to the ARRI Amira Camera Primer, there are over 150 hours of education available from industry leaders. However, I found my way to Directing Color…

I am often asked if I think people should go to college or a film school. My answer? If you have the money and time, you should go to college followed by film school (or do both together, if the college offers it). Not only will you learn a craft, but you will most likely spend hundreds of hours studying and visualizing the theory behind it. For example, when someone asks me about the science behind camera lenses, I can confidently answer them thanks to my physics class based on lenses and optics from California Lutheran University (yes, a shameless plug).

In my opinion, a two-, four- or even 10-year education allows me to live in the grey. I am comfortable arguing for both sides of a debate, as well as the options that are in between —  the grey. I feel like my post-high school education really allowed me to recognize and thrive in the nuances of debate. Leaving me to play devil’s advocate maybe a little too much, but also having civil and proactive discussions with others without being demeaning or nasty — something we are actively missing these days. So if living in the grey is for you, I really think a college education supplemented by online or film school education is valuable (assuming you make the decision that the debt is worth it like I did).

However, I know that is not an option for everyone since it can be very expensive — trust me, I know. I am almost done paying off my undergraduate fees while still paying off my graduate ones, which I am still two or three classes away from finishing. That being said, Directing Color With Ollie Kenchington is the only online education series I have seen so far that is on the same level as some of my higher education classes. Not only is the content beautifully shot and color corrected, but Ollie gives confident and accessible lessons on how color can be used to draw the viewer’s attention to multiple parts of the screen.

Ollie Kenchington is a UK-based filmmaker who runs Korro Films. From the trailer of his Directing Color series, you can immediately see the beauty of Ollie’s work and know that you will be in safe hands. (You can read more about his background here.)

The course raises the online education bar and will elevate the audiences idea of professional insight. The first module “Creating a Palette” covers the thoughts behind creating a color palette for a small catering company. You may even want to start with the last Bonus Module “Ox & Origin” to get a look at what Ollie will be creating throughout the seven modules and about an hour and a half of content.

While Ollie goes over “looks,” the beauty of this course is that he goes through his internal thought processes including deciding on palettes based on color theory. He didn’t just choose teal and orange because it looks good, he chooses his color palette based on complementary colors.

Throughout the course Ollie covers some technical knowledge, including calibrating monitors and cameras, white balancing and shooting color charts to avoid having wrong color balance in post. This is so important because if you don’t do these simple steps, your color correction session while be much harder. And wasting time on fixing incorrect color balance takes time away from the fun of color grading. All of this is done through easily digestible modules that range from two to 20 minutes.

The modules include Creating a Palette; Perceiving Color; Calibrating Color; Color Management; Deconstructing Color 1 – 3 and the Bonus Module Ox & Origin.

Without giving away the entire content in Ollie’s catalog, my favorite modules in this course are the on-set modules. Maybe because I am not on-set that often, but I found the “thinking out loud” about colors helpful. Knowing why reds represent blood, which raise your heart rate a little bit, is fascinating. He even goes through practical examples of color use in films such as in Whiplash.

In the final “Deconstructing Color” modules, Ollie goes into a color bay (complete with practical candle backlighting) and dives in Blackmagic’s DaVinci Resolve. He takes this course full circle to show how since he had to rush through a scene he can now go into Resolve and add some lighting to different sides of someone’s face since he took time to set up proper lighting on set, he can focus on other parts of his commercial.

Summing Up
I want to watch every tutorial MZed.com has to offer. From “Philip Bloom’s Cinematic Masterclass” to Ollie’s other course “Mastering Color.” Unfortunately, as of my review, you would have to pay an additional fee to watch the “Mastering Color” series. It seems like an unfortunate trend in online education to charge a fee and then when an extra special class comes up, charge more, but this class will supposedly be released to the standard subscribers in due time.

MZed.com has two subscription models: MZed Pro, which is $299 for one year of streaming the standard courses, and MZed Pro Premium for $399. This includes the standard courses for one year and the ability to choose one “Premium” course.

“Philip Bloom’s Cinematic Master Class” was the Premium course I was signed up for initially, but you you can decide between this one and the “Mastering Color” course. You will not be disappointed regardless of which one you choose. Even their first course “How to Photograph Everyone” is chock full of lighting and positioning instruction that can be applied in many aspects of videography.

I really was impressed with Directing Color with Ollie Kenchington, and if the other course are this good MZed.com will definitely become a permanent bookmark for me.

Brady Betzel is an Emmy-nominated online editor at Margarita Mix in Hollywood, working on Life Below Zero and Cutthroat Kitchen. You can email Brady at bradybetzel@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter @allbetzroff.