Finish Colourist - Julien Biard

Finish Colourist, Julien Biard graduated as a Textile Engineer, specialising in colour and the science behind it before travelling to Madagascar to work where he spent many years before seeking inspiration in London. He cut his teeth as a runner at a post house called Blue, where certain cultural boundaries (such as the sticky brown stuff known as Marmite and Earl Grey tea) were faced and overcome.

On Juliens second day at Blue, he recalls as I brought a black Earl Grey with a slice of lemon to a suite called Mastergrade, I found myself in an intimidating dark room and in my best English I nervously asked the guy what he was doing (without expecting any answer). Instead my new Colourist friend allowed me to spend the whole day in the grading suite whilst he explained to me the wonders of grading, photography, cameras and films.

Going back to that day at Blue he adds I knew from that moment that I had found the career for me, without even knowing that it existed.

Julien first met Finishs Head of Grading, Paul Harrison, as an assistant at MPC. Paul being very technical, had taught me a lot about Baselight and grading techniques, how to look at a picture and what to aim for. I thought I was learning everything again from scratch, but he had shown me a side of grading I had never seen before. More creative, more extravagant more everything! But Paul is also very intuitive and he always tells me to follow my instincts, do something that you feel is right' . All this, combined with having spent hours in the suite with him seeing how he deals with clients, tricky jobs etc, made me believe in my abilities. I felt that there was somebody there to exchange and learn from.

When Paul launched the Grading department at Finish Julien swiftly followed. Since starting here Julien has grown to become a Colourist in his own right on projects such as Issey Miyake and several Ryan Hopkinson's projects. They are so challenging and the end product is always stunning. I like working with Olivier Groulx at Partizan, hes always ready to try out things, shake things up. He has a great film knowledge and knows how the picture should look. Kinga Burza is another Partizan director I really enjoy working with. She shoots really well and it feels more like a collaboration when comes to the grade, but I could name all jobs and directors I have worked with at Finish as they were pretty much all great fun and great people!.

As far as ambitions outside of work, Julien comments that next on the list is to climb Mont Blanc next summer with my old friend back home as I have been looking at this big rock since I was a kid from my bedroom window. We are planning on doing it on a three day climb, fingers crossed!

Professionally he adds I want to keep working with great directors and also pick up a few awards!.

To view Juliens reel click here, for bookings contact charles@finish.tv.

LINK:	http://www.finish.tv/news/view/finish-colourist-julien-biard-...
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