
Lawrence Sher on the power of colour
Brie Clayton August 3, 2023
0 Comments
Lawrence Sher, ASC, is an American cinematographer and film director best known for his work on Joker , War Dogs and Garden State (2004).
Sher has just completed filming Joker: Folie a deux - the follow up to the 2019 film which comes out in 2024 - and has been appointed as the president of the 2023 FilmLight Colour Awards jury.
Can you say a few words about your role as president of the 2023 FilmLight Colour Awards? I'm very proud to be the president of this year's awards. I know it will be an immense challenge to help filter all the other jurors' opinions into consensus winners. Colour is complex and subjective so my main goal is to allow an open forum in which we can express unfiltered thoughts on the work of the artists.
What will you be looking for in entries this year? First and foremost, I will be looking for entries that show point of view and skillful execution of an idea. As with all film-making endeavors, the art needs to work seamlessly with the piece. If we notice the colour above the film then it's probably not going to make the cut.
Can you tell us about your relationship with colour and if/how this has changed over the years? As a film maker and cinematographer, I've always loved using colour as an equal tool in the palette alongside lighting, composition and movement. The films of Storaro and Menges and many others served as templates for me to see colour as an expression of emotion in the film. Early in my career, I started to assign emotions to what uncorrected fluorescents or bold red light made me feel when watching films, and translating those into my later work. I still start with lights, filters and gels, but the transformative power of the digital intermediate and LED lighting has expanded the ability to use colour even more precisely and creatively and in a more efficient and cost-effective way.
Some contents or functionalities here are not available due to your cookie preferences!
This happens because the functionality/content marked as Vimeo framework uses cookies that you choosed to keep disabled. In order to view this content or use this functionality, please enable cookies: click here to open your cookie preferences.
Describe the working relationship between colourist and cinematographer and how this has evolved across your work? Although the colourist has always been a critical part of the film-making process, their role has expanded in the last 20 years. For me, what started with notes about three printer lights to a Hazeltine dailies colourist, and early morning trips to the lab to watch workprints, has evolved into building bespoke LUTs during testing at the start of a project to help shape the look of the images on digital sensors, and hours precisely enhancing the image in digital intermediate suites. My colourist is part of the earliest prep and is there until the final deliverable frame gets shipped off to the screen.
July 25, 2023Editor Sarah Taylor on why Adobe Premiere Pro is her go-to editing tool for films like Tribeca's Hey Viktor! Hero image source: tribecafilm.com/Hey Viktor! Hey Viktor! pays homage to Smoke Signals , a
July 24, 2023A journey through grief at the Tribeca Festival: Adobe Premiere Pro, After Effects, and Photoshop bring The Secret Art of Human Flight to lifeHero image: Scene from The Secret Art of Human Flight , image source:
How do you think colour shapes the way an audience perceives TV/film? I think colour shapes the way an audience perceives TV/film in the same way all aspects of the visual language of film-making do - both subconsciously and consciously. The conscious ways are in the ways it allows the movie magic to be executed, like turning day into night. And while the skillful hand of the cinematographer and colourist can transform a scene and deliver the mood of the scene, it's the subconscious aspects that I find so critical.
Starting with simple colour matching to make the cuts between shots seamless is an aspect that most viewers never even notice, but their experience would suffer immensely without it. Shaping colour to further draw the eye of the viewer towards important places in the frame is also key, as well as adding warmth to convey emotions like heat or comfort. As a cinematographer and film-maker, we are constantly using visual languages to express emotion for the audience and colour is a critical component of this expression.
The awards, which are open to colourists on any grading platform, close on 7 August 2023. A shortlist will be announced in the autumn, with the winners unveiled in November at EnergaCAMERIMAGE.
Enjoying the news? Sign up for the Creative COW Newsletter! Sign up for the Creative COW newsletter and get weekly updates on industry news, forum highlights, jobs, inspirational tutorials, tips, burning questions, and more! Receive bulletins from the largest, longest-running community dedicated to supporting professionals working in film, video, and audio.
Enter your email address, and your first and last name below!
-- Sign up: * indicates required
Email Address *
Name
--
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
30/08/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has adopted its FY 2025 Regulatory Fees Order that establishes the regulatory fee rates for the broadcast stati...
29/08/2025
Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...
29/08/2025
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
29/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...
29/08/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...
29/08/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...
29/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...
29/08/2025
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...
29/08/2025
In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...
29/08/2025
Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+
Technology solu...
29/08/2025
Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show
Disguise, the industry-leading tech...
29/08/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...
29/08/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...
29/08/2025
DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...
29/08/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...
29/08/2025
29 Aug 2025
Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...
29/08/2025
More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025
Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...
29/08/2025
Back to All News
RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...
29/08/2025
Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...
29/08/2025
RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...
28/08/2025
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...
28/08/2025
Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...
28/08/2025
Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...
28/08/2025
Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...
28/08/2025
Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...
28/08/2025
L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....
28/08/2025
Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...
28/08/2025
Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...
28/08/2025
NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....
28/08/2025
NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...
28/08/2025
Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...
28/08/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...
28/08/2025
AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...
28/08/2025
Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...
28/08/2025
To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...
28/08/2025
Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...
28/08/2025
Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...
28/08/2025
Zixi, the industry leader in live broadcast-quality video over IP, today announced that French media distribution platform OKAST has selected Zixi to enable rel...
28/08/2025
Solution offers a streamlined, speaker-free architecture to optimize integration with premium external loudspeakers and advanced loudness metering
Nixer Pro Au...
28/08/2025
Cinegy, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Vision One Touch Film Production Services L.L...
28/08/2025
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will debut its new Global Ingest strategy at IBC2025, introducing a next-generation ingest architect...
28/08/2025
Tier 1 operator selects Broadpeak to power high-performance, unified CDN solution across Norway, Sweden and Finland
Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and moneti...
28/08/2025
Leading video software provider, Synamedia, today announced that 24 Frames Digital, one of India's leading live event streaming service providers, has chose...
28/08/2025
Meet VisualOn at IBC2025: See What's Next in AI-Powered Video Streaming Join VisualOn at IBC2025 and discover how our AI-driven Optimizer and advanced media...