Adobe Customer Story
Robbie Carman tells stories with color.
Professional colorist maximizes the power of video using
Adobe Creative Cloud.
“People who are using Adobe
Premiere Pro as their main editorial
tool now have power in their hands to
work like a professional colorist.”
Robbie Carman, Partner and Lead
Colorist, Amigo Media
SOLUTION
RESULTS
Adobe Creative Cloud
COLORFUL STORYTELLING
Focus on color to enhance
video content and help
people tell their stories
PLATFORM AGNOSTIC
Work across multiple
platforms to help people
with color projects
INSPIRING LOOKS
Inspire and train people
to work like professional
colorists
INTEGRATED WORKFLOWS
Take advantage of color
workflows in editing software
Adobe Customer Story
Amigo Media
Established in 2005
Employees: 2
Washington, D.C.
http://amigomediallc.com
CHALLENGES
•Enhance video content with color
•Communicate the value of color to others
•Interpret client color preferences
•Work with multiple tools to achieve
consistent outcomes
Enhancing storytelling through color
Robbie Carman is passionate about color and the power it brings to storytelling. So much so that he
established a boutique company, Amigo Media, to focus solely on color correction. His single-mindedness
paid off. Washington, D.C .-based Amigo Media has graded hundreds of hours of television, documentary,
feature film, and political programming. But people looking to glean ideas and information about color
need not trek to Washington D.C. Carman gladly and enthusiastically shares his knowledge in multiple
venues, from online classes and training videos to books and seminars.
Adobe: What’s your background as colorist?
Carman: When I started out, I fell in love with the aesthetic and technical side of editing, solving problems
and making shots look better. As NLE tools became more sophisticated, I found myself doing more and
more color work in the context of being an editor. Clients kept coming and I realized I wanted to do color
full time. In 2005 I founded Amigo Media, and started calling myself a colorist rather than editor.
I’m lucky. A lot of one-man shops do a little of everything: filming, editing, audio, and so on. I’ve been successful
doing the one thing I love, focusing on color to enhance video content and help people tell their stories.
Adobe: Where did you go to school?
Carman: I attended the School of Media Arts and Design at James Madison University. The program was a
blend of traditional film school and hands-on experience. We learned by getting out and making films. That
impacted the way I like to teach today. I want people to feel the same passion that I do and I try to bring
that to all my presentations.
Adobe Customer Story
Adobe: Tell us about your work as a teacher.
Carman: I love communicating, teaching, and sharing information with people. Since the late 1990s and
early 2000s, I’ve been fortunate to develop relationships with other professionals and have co-authored
seven books. I also do online training with Lynda.com and other sites. I love the fact that I can come home
at night or go on a trip, yet still be in the classroom; I see people in that moment where they “get it” for the
first time, which is so rewarding.
Two years ago, I teamed with two other colorists, Dan Moran and Pat Inhofer, to create Mixing Light, a website
that teaches digital color correction for video and film. As far as we know, it’s the only website dedicated to the
art and craft of color grading training. We work across multiple platforms, including Adobe Premiere Pro and
SpeedGrade. We want to get people as excited as we are about color.
Adobe: What are your thoughts on the latest color tools in Adobe Creative Cloud?
“It’s exciting that Adobe has
been integrating color workflows
directly into Adobe Premiere Pro
since the purchase of SpeedGrade
a few years ago.”
Carman: It’s exciting that Adobe has been integrating color workflows directly into Adobe Premiere Pro
since the purchase of SpeedGrade a few years ago. People who are using Premiere Pro as their main
editorial tool now have power in their hands to work like a professional colorist. And they can do so in a
tool they are comfortable with, using a workflow that isn’t foreign to them. People can use as little or as
much of the powerful underlying technology from SpeedGrade as they choose, and quickly improve their
video content.
Robbie Carman, Partner and Lead Colorist,
Amigo Media
The tools are similar to Adobe Photoshop Lightroom, which is used by millions of photographers around
the world. Those same people are now doing very creative video projects. For them and other users coming
to Premiere Pro from multimedia backgrounds, these tools are perfect.
Adobe: How do you tackle a typical color project?
Carman: The first step is evaluation. On the technical side, I evaluate shots with video scopes, which have
seen a major update in Premiere Pro. On the aesthetic side, evaluation involves asking clients lots of questions:
what is their color palette? What’s their preferred level of saturation? And so on.
The next step is corrective: fixing obvious problems. Then it’s a process of truly enhancing the content. Is there a
detail in the shot that stands out? Maybe it’s an actor’s bright blue eyes; can I highlight them, sharpen them,
add blue?
The last step is living with the footage and looking at it a lot. There’s an old adage that films are never finished,
they’re just abandoned. My job as a colorist is to do the best possible work we can do, efficiently and quickly,
before we move on to the next project.
Adobe Customer Story
“Color is what I do day in and
day out, so if I can share that
knowledge with people using
Premiere Pro all the better!”
Robbie Carman, Partner and Lead
Colorist, Amigo Media
SOLUTION AT A GLANCE
•Adobe Creative Cloud. Apps used include:
•Adobe Premiere Pro CC
•Adobe SpeedGrade CC
Adobe: How do you choose what tools you’ll use for a project?
Carman: The choice of workflow is part of the evaluation process. I talk to editors constantly. It’s important
that I know what the project was cut on: Premiere Pro, Final Cut Pro, or Avid. I have to be versed in all of
those editorial tools because I interact with them all the time. This helps me understand what an editor
has done that is good and can stay, what I can rebuild, and what needs to be redone.
We’ve integrated SpeedGrade for many projects. The Direct Link workflow lets me open a Premiere Pro
project directly in SpeedGrade. Adobe products also communicate well with other products, which speeds
the workflow. There are times when doing a traditional conform from Premiere Pro to DaVinci Resolve is a
non-starter. In these cases, it is great to be able to use Direct Link between Premiere Pro and SpeedGrade.
Adobe: Have you seen a change in how non-specialists approach color?
Carman: The most exciting thing over past 5 to 10 years is that clients walk into the suite and are already
communicating like colorists! Ten years ago, if you talked about a lookup table or LUT, anyone who wasn’t a
colorist would have no idea what you meant. The work Adobe and others have done to integrate color into
their tools has made a big difference.
Adobe: Do you feel like developments such as the enhanced color workspace in Premiere Pro threaten your business?
Carman: Not at all. To me, it’s about putting color in the forefront. If the tools are ubiquitous, it puts the
emphasis back on talent. I’m not worried about losing work. Color is what I do day in and day out, so if I can
share that knowledge with people using Premiere Pro all the better!
For more information
www.adobe.com/creativecloud.html
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