Colorist Stephen Nakamura spoke with Filmmaker U to talk about his prolific career. His feature film credits include Da Five Bloods, Sicario: Day of the Soldado, It: Chapter Two, Crazy Rich Asians, The Martian, Alien: Covenant and many more blockbuster epics and award winners.
Among the most accomplished feature film colorists in Hollywood, Stephen Nakamura has worked alongside directors such as David Fincher, Ridley Scott, Kathryn Bigelow, Spike Lee, David O. Russell, and Steven Spielberg, as well as cinematographers Dariusz Wolski, ASC, Claudio Miranda, ASC, Robert Richardson, ASC, and Janusz Kaminski.
Prior to joining Company 3, Nakamura was with Technicolor Digital Services, where he got his start in feature film finishing. Previously he was a colorist with the Post Group, working on commercial, music video, television and feature film projects. He began his career at California Video Center.
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Gordon Burkell (GB) - Hi everyone, I'm Gordon Burkell with Filmmaker U. At Filmmaker U we create courses for film professionals to deepen and diversify their existing skill set. Every week we go live Friday at 2pm with a film professional to chat and give you a chance to join us and ask questions. Today I'm being joined by Stephen Nakamura, the colorist for Fight Club, Kill Bill I & II, It, and more recently to Da Five Bloods, among many others. Stephen, thanks for coming on the show.
Stephen Nakamura (SN) - Sure. Glad to be here. Thank you.
GB - I've listed off a lot of films here. But one of the things I've noticed is there in a couple situations, you've actually got directors that you have long time worked with including David Fincher and Ridley Scott. I don't hear that as much with colorists and I'm wondering how did these relationships evolve? How do you go about developing relationships like that, so that they last long term?
SN - Well, I think the real key for colorist is you really need to get in tune with the director sensibility. Most people go back to the same person that cuts their hair, right, because you don't have to tell this person how to cut your hair, it's a lot because they know what I like. It's really your ability.
When we're on this side of the production and post production, to really say. Hey, I'm going to try to get in tune with this director, and what their sensibilities are. And once you can connect that way, then there's a real shorthand for communication. Which makes it really simple for them, you know, because they're, typically during the finishing process, they're doing the mix. They're doing audio. They're finalizing visual effects. So they're working on in a whole bunch of different areas. I think the last thing they really want is to just be doing more minutia stuff with color. So if they have a shorthand with their colorists, and they kind of trust it, their colorists can paint pictures for them that the way that they find pleasing for a particular movie that they're doing, then they'll come back. Especially if you make their lives easy for them also.
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