Interview and words for Sohonet
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For more than four decades, Kostas Theodosiou has
been shaping the final image of major motion pictures from his grading suite at
FotoKem. From the days of film timers and Hazeltine color analyzers to modern
HDR workflows and large-format IMAX film-outs, his career spans the full
evolution of motion picture finishing. Yet his philosophy remains rooted in the
discipline of traditional film timing: red, green, blue, and density.
“We’re here to make sure that the vision of the director and
cinematographer is delivered to screen,” he says simply. “That’s the job.”
On over 500 titles, spanning photochemical and digital eras,
Theodosiou has collaborated with some of the film industry’s most talented
filmmakers including Steven Spielberg, Christopher Nolan, Paul Thomas Anderson
and Ryan Coogler along with cinematographers Hoyte van Hoytema, ASC, Autumn
Durald Arkapaw ASC and Wally Pfister ASC. His many credits include Oppenheimer,
The Dark Knight, Sinners and Jonathan Nolan’s streaming series
Fallout. His remastering titles include such classics as Patton, the
1930’s All Quiet on The Western Front, and Steven Spielberg’s first
four Indiana Jones movies, Saving Private Ryan, The
Color Purple and Empire of the Sun.
This accumulated knowledge stems from an early passion for
photography. But when he arrived in America in the 1980s he didn’t know how to
channel this into a career.
Finding the craft
“Fortunately, an opportunity at FotoKem opened
up,” he reflects. “I started at the very bottom — assembling film, cleaning
negative, putting on leaders.” In the lab at FotoKem, the trainee found himself
surrounded by the photochemical process.
“I spent as much time as I could watching the film timers
work. You had to understand the stock, the filters, and how the negative would
translate through the full chain from negative to interpositive, interpositive
to internegative, and then to print. Every time film goes through a
photochemical generation, light and density change. You had to anticipate
that.”
Film timing to telecine
Theodosiou remembers when FotoKem took possession of its
first telecine - a Rank Cintel Mark II. While these giant, expensive machines
were hugely limited relative to today’s systems, Theodosiou was fascinated by
the idea of seeing results instantly rather than waiting for film processing.
“You had joysticks for RGB correction, very little power,
and everything was transferred directly from negative. If you tried to grade
from an interpositive or print, the telecine simply didn’t have enough dynamic
range to produce a strong image. Nonetheless the fundamentals were identical.
You could see how electronic color correction translated from traditional film
timing principles.”
That core philosophy holds for every iteration of color
technology since. Even on current projects, Theodosiou starts with primaries -
just like printer lights.
“In the early digital days, you’d do primary correction in
telecine and then send the material to a separate system like a Quantel or
Flame for visual effects. The grading systems didn’t have the power to do much
more.
“With the arrival of software-based systems everything
opened up. Suddenly, there was no begging for an extra power window or defocus
board. You could layer corrections, build mattes, refine highlights, and
integrate effects in a single environment.”
Respect the negative
One of the most impressive aspects of modern software
grading, he explains, is the ability to fine-tune color responses to match
historical print stocks.
“When restoring films from the 1960s, ’70s, or ’80s, you
often don’t have a reference. You’re working from logarithmic scans of the
negative and you have to build a proper lookup table (LUT) that emulates the
print stock used at the time to approximate what was originally seen in
theaters. Understanding how vintage stocks behaved - their contrast curves,
color biases, and density roll-offs — is essential to achieving authenticity.”
Christopher Nolan’s workflow presents a different kind of
rigor. The colorist first worked with the director on Memento then Insomnia,
Inception, The Dark Knight, The Dark Knight Rises and Oppenheimer.
Theodosiou notes “Film is the Bible,” for Nolan. “He cuts
original negative and the digital grade must match the photochemical result
precisely.”
Theodosiou uses a 70mm projector to run a film print
alongside the digital image in a butterfly split-screen comparison. First, he
performs a full printer-light pass. Then the film print is projected and
matched shot-for-shot in digital. Finally, trims are applied.
For Oppenheimer, he also created both
black-and-white and color imagery that matched seamlessly across different
stocks and formats.
“It’s a heavy workflow. But I want the director to know that
what they see digitally will look the same in IMAX. The pipeline is built to
match the exact elements.”
Instinctual collaboration
While technical knowledge runs deep, the reputation of a
colorist and their ability to score repeat business, depends equally on
interpersonal skill.
Over the years, Theodosiou has built long-standing
relationships with DPs and directors — some from independent films like Nolan
who went on to create major studio features.
“I’ve worked with many cinematographers at the start of
their careers on indie films, music videos, and commercials. That builds an
understanding and later, when they come into the room, I often already
understand their visual language,” he shares.
“My role is to reproduce their vision and to offer ideas
that push beyond what they may have thought possible. At all times, I protect
the image from going too far. The goal is always to create something unique
without breaking the integrity of what was captured.”
The complex workflow for Sinners
Among his latest collaborations is the multi-award winning
and record-setting Oscar nominated Sinners. Written and directed
by Ryan Coogler and lensed by Autumn Durald Arkapaw ASC the workflow for the
Warner Bros. picture was particularly complex.
Sinners used dual formats — 65mm 5-perf and
15-perf IMAX — with deliverables that included IMAX film prints, digital
cinema, and Dolby Vision HDR.
“We had to think about the end from the beginning,”
Theodosiou explains. “When I know a film is going back out to film, I stay as
true as possible to traditional film timing. The majority of the correction is
printer lights.”
He had previously worked with Durald Arkapaw on The
Last Showgirl (directed by Gia Coppola) which was shot on 16mm. Now, working
with FotoKem color scientist Joseph Slomka, Theodosiou developed a custom LUT
during camera tests. After reviewing the first dailies, they refined it further
in the DI.
“Our goal was naturalism. Ryan and Autumn wanted to preserve
the warm interior lighting and maintain smoke and atmospheric depth. I took
care to avoid excessive contrast or unnecessary secondary keys.”
Because the two formats had to be combined — including
sequences that expanded vertically in IMAX — the final master was recorded out
to a new negative. This required precise testing: digital grade to film-out,
projected and reviewed, then trimmed again to ensure seamless translation.
“Autumn wanted to be brave with darkness and underexposure.
The quality of the black level was important to her, as were the various skin
tones of the diverse cast, which she wanted to look radiant and have depth.”
Recognition of the craft
Despite being the final stop in the image pipeline,
colorists have historically received little public recognition.
“For years, there wasn’t even a colorist category on IMDb.
We were listed under editorial or visual effects.”
There is a groundswell of belief that the craft deserves
awards recognition comparable to sound mixing, VFX or cinematography.“ We’re
the last stop before the film goes out into the world. We’re the ones massaging
the image, making sure it’s seamless from beginning to end.
“Every project is custom,” Theodosiou says. “That includes
episodic television or a three-hour movie shot in multiple formats or with
multiple cameras. Especially with digital, when every camera under the sun can
do different things, it is up to the colorist to devise a recipe that will
unify them all. We may be using two Kodak color stocks as we did on Sinners but
they are different stock and they have to match.”
Back in the era of telecine, the profession was tiny, with
maybe 3,000 color graders worldwide. Today, software tools have democratized
the process and there are many online tutorials available to demystify the
craft but mastery remains rare.
After forty years at FotoKem, from cleaning negative to
grading major studio features, Kostas Theodosiou remains — at heart — a film
timer. Only now, his printer lights exist inside a far more powerful box.
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