Home Update Anticipation of a New Year

Anticipation of a New Year

by alexis

Thanks to everyone who sent me their book "unboxing" photo!

Those who know me can attest that 2010 has been a year of significant change. One project in long-term development declined, other long-term projects ongoing, contracts altered, my video suite moved, months in seclusion writing my book, some fantastic travel, and new interesting projects emerging. Of course, as any freelancer will tell you, this is par for the course, but even so, this year has felt like a sea change in the way I go about my business.

It’s probably no surprise that the professional highlight of my year has been finishing and shipping my Color Correction Handbook. I’m trying not to make this the “all book all the time” blog, however this has been a big deal for me, and from the numerous emails, tweets, and posts I’ve seen around the web, it’s being well received.

While I’ve written many other books prior to this, what’s different now is the amount of actual direct feedback I’ve gotten. Prior to the Handbook, I’d write a book, send out a few review copies, and it would all sail into a black hole as I awaited my next quarterly report, wondering if anyone was buying or reading it.

Thanks to this blog, Twitter, and a more direct connection to other folks in our industry via both NAB and IBC attendance (a first time in years for me), as well as other more professionally oriented social networking sites such as LinkedIn, I actually have a much greater sense of who’s reading my book, and what they’re getting out of it. It’s really quite nice.

So a huge thanks to all of you who’ve made the purchase and shared thoughts with colleagues. There’s nothing better for book sales then word of mouth from professional peers, especially when shared via an online forum such as an Amazon.com review (one of which has been written already, I’m looking forward to more!).

But enough about the book. Moving forward, my recent vacation throughout Belgium, Germany, and the Czech Republic has given me much food for thought regarding the link between medieval, renaissance, expressionist, and even art nouveaux works, and the artistic component of what we colorists do. Now that the Color Correction Handbook has nicely summarized my investigations linking human vision, video engineering, viewer preference research and color theory, to grading technique in theory and practice, I’m turning my mind to the link between artistic visual representation and color grading adjustments. This blog should, in coming months, reflect some of these new investigations.

It’s also my goal to finally conclude a certain animated science fiction pilot, as well as to initiate some brand-new fiction-writing that’s long overdue, keeping in mind that all work and no play, well, you know the rest.

So Happy New Year to one and all! I hope your reflections on the past year are charitable, and that your anticipations of the coming year are filled with hope.

Special thanks to @ryan_connolly, @markusrytilahti, @coolHandLucas, @ayumash, and others who’ve shared their “book unboxing” photos with me on Twitter.

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2 comments

Taj Jackson December 30, 2010 - 6:12 pm

Congrats Alexis. I just wrote my review on Amazon. This book was an incredible resource for me. Can’t thank you enough.

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Timothy Ziegler January 4, 2011 - 11:42 am

Got the book over Christmas and just started reading it. Still on chapter one, but already it seems like one of the best resources on the subject. As someone who has a low-tolerance for reading lengthy, technical articles on the Web, its good to see something like this in print.

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