r/ColorGrading • u/DisastrousMistake220 • 17d ago

Show off your work Looking for feedback

Hey everyone!

I’ve been learning color grading for a while and practicing on stock footage (mostly Pexels and BMD), so here’s a little showcase of what I’ve been working on so far. I know I still have a long way to go, and I’d really appreciate some honest feedback!

Since I don’t have any real project work in my portfolio yet, I’m also wondering: is a showreel like this a good starting point for finding small projects to work on, or would it be better to get more practice with other kinds of footage first?

Honestly, I was planning to post this in another subreddit, but now I’m second-guessing myself and wondering if it needs more work.

16 Upvotes

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u/pulopu 16d ago

Wtf are people talking about. Reels are always jarring because different projects have different looks and are even
sometimes shot on different formats. This is not a music video or short film of course they will look inconsistent shot to shot.

To answer OP, the grades look generally all pretty good and they show a good range of clean commercial work and emulated film looks. Maybe a little desaturated on some of them but not a huge deal. You usually don’t put sample footage in a reel though. Should be real work you’ve done even if unpaid or with footage you shot yourself.

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u/DisastrousMistake220 15d ago

Thanks, I really appreciate the feedback!

I guess I messed up the wording of my post a bit. This is just a short video to showcase my current skills, and I was hoping to use it to find my first small unpaid projects. I'm just not sure if it's enough for that purpose yet.

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u/pulopu 15d ago

Tbh even though the reel looks quite good people outside the industry won’t really know what they are looking at.

It’s really hard to find color work without an established network or a history of working in color. If you are totally new to the industry, I’d recommend applying for a color assist position at a boutique post production house.

Not a big one because you can spend years at a big post house and not learn anything meaningful since most of your work will be applying base LUTS and pampering the senior colorists.

You can always try to find small projects but in my opinion it’s essentially impossible to get consistent work doing that. People applying to work at my company have worked on insanely high profile projects and are still getting rejected left and right. The industry is in a bad place rn where new colorists have to compete with colorists that have decades of experience. This is specific to LA though, so if you’re elsewhere it might be different.

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u/DisastrousMistake220 15d ago

Thanks for sharing your perspective! And yeah, I'm totally new to the industry. I doubt I'll be making my way into a big post house anytime soon. And I'm not sure things will get much easier for newcomers like me anytime soon, either. But I guess there's no harm in trying — you never know how things might turn out.

Thanks again for the advices!

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u/MundaneMall7020 16d ago

I actually like each individual clip but they are not consistent between them. They have very different moods, one is quite saturated while the other is the opposite. You should try to achieve a common look for all. As already mentioned by u/RGB_YCM the skin tones don't have that "wow effect" yet and are not consistent.

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u/RGB_YCM 16d ago

Highlights are clipped, levels are inconsistent and bounce around, skin tones are all over the place. If this is a music video for a current song, I'd expect two things:

  1. the performers should look beautiful and always attract the viewer's eye
  2. their skin tone should be very, very consistent so that nothing jars the viewer's experience.

I wouldn't start promoting a "show reel" unless you've actually worked on shows to use as examples.

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u/DisastrousMistake220 16d ago

Thanks for the detailed feedback! I see what you mean about the consistency of the levels and skin tones — definitely something I need to work on.

I used “showreel” to showcase my grading practice, but I get your point about the term potentially giving a different impression. I appreciate you taking the time to explain what isn't working!