A moment of serendipity led Brian Woos ’16 to his career. During a student internship at a film company in New York, Woos walked into a room and saw a panel replete with buttons and wheels. Sitting at the panel was a colorist, finessing with shadows, highlights, and luminosity to ensure everything looked seamless on the big screen. 

At the time, Woos didn’t know the colorist role existed. Now, he’s the one sitting at the panel, carefully tweaking elements like brightness and texture. “One of the most underrated parts of the job is seeing the creative changes,” says Woos, who works as a colorist for PostWorks New York. “When you work on a movie or TV show, you see like 30 different versions of it before it comes out — alternate endings, beginnings, and middles.

“The colorist is at the delivery stage for the final visual effects,” he continues. “You color-grade in real-time, watching through a projector the way people are going to be seeing it in the theater.”

Challenge. Change. is produced by Andrew Hart and Melissa Hanson for Clark University. Listen and subscribe on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. Find other episodes wherever you listen to podcasts.