The Art of Digital Cinema, From Camera to Color:
Cinematography and Colour Correction Workshop

Facilitated by: Devan Scott

Registration Deadline: Extended to March 13, 2025

Fees: $140-$280 + 100% Subsidy Spot (see below)

Take your cinematic skills to the next level with a weekend-long workshop led by Devan Scott, a renowned cinematographer, colorist, and educator whose work has screened at prestigious festivals like TIFF, Locarno, and Busan. This weekend-long workshop will consist of two six-hour sessions in which we will learn the basics of crafting digital images at all steps of the process: from the lens to the camera to post-production color grading and mastering. We'll break down digital image science, workflow, exposure, and capture basics, palette design, and manipulation of the images that we capture on our film sets in a colour grading environment using Blackmagic Design's DaVinci Resolve software.

This workshop offers a hands-on opportunity for indie cinematographers and colorists, or beginners eager to learn the ropes of these fields.

Devan’s extensive experience working with major brands like Google, NFB, and Wondershare, combined with his unique perspective as an artist on the autism spectrum, guarantees an enriching and dynamic learning experience.

Limited capacity—register now to reserve your spot! Registration Deadline: Extended to March 13, 2025

Workshop Days and Hours

Two sessions, 12 hours total

Session 1: Capturing Digital Images - Saturday, March 15, 10am-5pm (1-hour lunch break included)

In this session, we’ll utilize cameras such as the Blackmagic Design Cinema 4k, Pocket, 6k, and Sony A7IV to capture digital images. We’ll learn how to ensure that, on-set, we gather the best possible data so that we may achieve our artistic goals for our footage. Topics covered:

• How to optimally capture digital images on the day.
• Imaging science basics: what constitutes a digital image?
• Best practices for shooting with colour in mind.
• Capture codecs: maximizing our data.
• Exposure, white balance.
• Picking your lights: color rendering index!
• Dealing with available light.
• Resolutions, dynamic range, bit depth, and chroma subsampling.

Session 2: Grading and Mastering Digital Images - Sunday, March 16, 10am-5pm (1-hour lunch break included). 

In this session, we’ll import our footage into DaVinci Resolve and learn the basics of managing and manipulating the footage so that we may realize its ultimate potential. 

• Finishing in post instead of fixing in post. 
• Intermediate and delivery color encoding, along with transforms.
• Navigating DaVinci Resolve's workspace.
• Matching footage.
• Grading: designing and dialing in looks.
• Primary tools such as the three-way corrector, offset, contrast/pivot.
• Secondary tools such as power windows, VS curves, trackers, qualifiers, and more.
• Video codecs. 

About Devan Scott

Devan has worked as a cinematographer, colourist, educator, and occasional director for ten years. As a cinematographer, his work has screened around the world at the Toronto International Film Festival, Locarno Film Festival, Clermont ISFF, and Busan IFF among many others. As a colourist, his clients have included Google, Film Boldly, the NFB, Wondershare, and Global. As an artist on the autism spectrum, he aims to find new ways in which to better represent the sensory and emotional experiences of neurodivergent individuals through the development of visual and aural textures. He holds a BFA in Film Production from Simon Fraser University, is an adjunct professor at the University of British Columbia and Emily Carr University of Art and Design, and hosts the podcasts Film Formally and How Would Lubitsch Do It.

Participants Requirements

Attendees will need to bring their own laptops with the free version of DaVinci Resolve installed. To run DaVinci Resolve smoothly, your laptop should meet the following minimum requirements:

• 2020 MacBook Air, 2018 MacBook Pro, or a PC with a discrete GPU and at least 16GB of RAM.

This is a beginner-to-intermediate course, but basic computer knowledge is required. 

Limited computers are available for those who do not meet these requirements. Please contact info@vivomediaarts.com to inquire about using a computer on-site or for any other questions.

Participants are also welcome to bring their camera if they have one (not required).

Workshop Fees

• General Admission: $280
• Organization/Collective Members (up to 2 available): $224 (20% Discount)*
• Producer Members: $196 (30% Discount)*
• Student Members: $140 (50% Discount)*
• Video Bucks: Up to 50% off (at the discretion of the Operations Coordinator)^

* Active members should have already received a discount code based on their membership level. If not, please email info@vivomediaarts.com.

^ If you’ve volunteered with VIVO, you should have received a discount code based on your stored Video Bucks. If not, please email info@vivomediaarts.com.

Want access to discounts?

Sign up for a VIVO Membership.

To learn more about getting involved in the future, check out our volunteering page.

100% Subsidy

One no-cost workshop spot will be available for individuals from marginalized or underserved communities facing financial barriers. To enter the lottery for a 100% subsidy, please email info@vivomediaarts.com. The deadline to apply is March 3, 2025.
Results will be shared with all applicants by March 5.

Refunds and Withdrawals

Class sizes are small, and our instructors need to be paid—if you can’t make a class that you’ve signed up for, we need time to alert wait-listed participants. VIVO presently asks that withdrawals from workshops be requested by emailing info@vivomediaarts.com. Please notify us at least 10 days before the workshop (by Tuesday, March 4) if you need to withdraw to receive a refund. Note that the ShowPass processing fee is non-refundable, and we cannot process any refund requests after March 4.

—

Venue Accessibility

For this workshop, we can offer accessibility for those who use mobility devices.

For venue accessibility information, please visit our website.