Colour Grading: “The Wonderful Continuous Evolution of a Craft” with Francis Qureshi

Francis Qureshi is a senior colourist who takes pride in elevating and finessing collaborator’s projects to the highest quality with a unique creative flair. He joined the Wild Island team in 2023.

He has graded and finished BAFTA-nominated and award winning short films, seen his projects go to SXSW, Locarno, and TIFF film festivals, while also grading commercial projects for Burberry, Aesop, Mulberry and Levi's.

Drawing inspiration from the creative corners of his previous fine art and directing practices, Francis’ process references both historic celluloid film processes whilst making use of advanced modern colour grading techniques to create highly poised and considered grades.

LBB> What was your first experience with the world of colour grading – and when did you decide that being a colourist was a role that you wanted to pursue? 

Francis> I knew I wanted to be involved in image making from an early age.

Throughout my teens I had always been into photography, my mum would develop black and white film at home and at college we had a darkroom (even though digital was very much here to stay).

The first time I properly realised what colour grading involved, I was stumbling around the dark corridors of Kodak Film Lab in West London. I had just finished a BA in fine art at the Chelsea School of Art and was getting into filmmaking after making a few pieces of video art. 

I was picking up some 16mm for an art film project I was working on. Very excitedly, I asked if I could see the scans before I left. A member of staff obliged and scurried me through the dark corridors into a grade suite and showed me the scans on a projector in a suite with DaVinci Resolve and ‘the big panel’. They briefly showed how it all worked and auditioned some LUTs.

Before that, I had not fully considered the whole process of how grading was done, but soon after getting the scans home I was playing around with a copy of DaVinci on my feeble home set up and learning the absolute basics. 

LBB> What was the project that you felt really changed your career? 

Francis> One of the most exciting things about grading is that you get to work on so many types of productions: commercials, short films, natural history documentaries. I have been lucky enough to work on some terrific ones, but If I had to choose one, I think it would have to be the music video ‘I Wish It Was Me’ by Obongjayar. It's beautifully, yet honestly shot by Joe Gainsborough.

A cam is on 16mm and B cam on Hi8/DV, and it just captures a truly beautiful moment between family members as OB performs to them in their family home. It made me teary every time I played it through during the grade, and still gets me now! I am a big fan of his music and it's just so nice to have that continued feeling of being part of the process of fishing an artistic piece in the best way possible. 

LBB> How/where did you hone your craft and did you have any particular mentors? 

Francis> I initially built up my grading skills by translating my experience from my art background. I've always been super into image making and always enjoyed both developing and printing film, as well as editing photos in Photoshop / Apple Aperture. I slowly started working as a freelance junior colourist on small commercial and shortform projects. Then I got wind that the National Film Television School had a VFX and grading masters course. I applied, got in and started the official journey in early 2019. 

In my years there were four students taking the grading pathway and another two in the year above, so between us we all ended up working on some incredible projects from all corners of the filmmaking practice. 

In terms of mentors, I really have to say that I look to my peers both from the NFTS and the industry. I have a lovely community of colourists around me and I think we are all quite good at sharing ideas and also keeping each other on our toes! 

LBB> Tell us more about your creative process. 

Francis> I think there is always something new to learn, and I love that. I love auditioning looks and trying new techniques with clients. I kind of see grading like being a baker or a chef – you hold yourself up to a certain standard and develop certain processes which you then make into recipes. As time goes on, you try something new, tweak a little thing here or there and then see how that goes. It's a wonderful, continuous evolution of a craft. 

And I guess with that, we kind of become these bespoke creative translators to our collaborators, whisking them up something delicious to try, taking on feedback and iteratively improving as the project progresses. 

LBB> From experience, we’ve found that colourists often love both art and photography – when you’re out of the studio, what inspires you? 

Francis> To me, it kind of goes without saying that art, photography, film, music, travel, and life experience all collate into making great colour grades. You’ve got to get inspired and see what others are doing creatively. I love going to galleries, it’s never gotten old.

As a cute side note, one of the first gallery experiences that I ever went to independently as a young adult was First Thursdays on Vyner Street, probably circa 2009? Sixteen years later I am back on Vyner Street working at Wild Island, collaborating and making projects with a whole new breed of creative people. Who knew! 

LBB> Colour grading is largely a digital affair, but there’s also been a resurgence of film over the past few years in commercials and music videos. What are your thoughts about working on film versus digital formats like 4K? And what are your favourite techniques for capturing a vintage or tactile feel? 

Francis> We really do see every format these days. From 35mm, 16mm, to 8mm negative film scans, to Arri’s Alexa35, Hi8/DV.

Those recipes I mentioned earlier involve meticulous research into all the goodness and rich history of cinema and celluloid film. I spent a long time studying what makes film and cinema look the way they do, and both modern digital cinema and classically made photochemical pieces can look so incredible. 

Grading is of course just a small part of the entire production process, but with the right tools you can emulate the nuance of negative and print film to digital sources. Often, we treat the negative film scans the same way, by digitally ‘printing’ them too. 

I spend lots of time trying out, mixing looks and film print processes that I have developed or acquired over the years. I find that it's always nice to at least subtly involve some kind of film stock emulation, it can just add that subtle, natural nuance and seems to always help even on the cleanest, sharpest, digital source footage or clean and sleek creative briefs.

LBB> How do you ensure that each colourist/director partnership is a success? 

Francis> Having in-depth discussions about what the outcome of the grade should be is always a great way to keep everyone on the same page. I also find it nice to define the language of colour, especially with new collaborations. Talking about subjective visual things can be quite tricky but it helps to have this conversation as a foundation before beginning a grade. 

So, calibrating the language and short hand between colourist and creatives is the key to a successful grade. For example, using visual references during a meeting or a video call can really accelerate that collective unified shorthand.

LBB> What advice would you give to budding colourists? 

Francis> My advice would be to watch a lot of films and series. Go to photography shows. Open up your mind to as many types of images as possible and study them, it’s just such a joy to do and will help you ground yourself in the world of image making. 

And then on a technical note, try making your own LUT/ custom look dev, it doesn't have to be perfect and might not always work for every eventuality, but it will be yours and you will have built it yourself! 

I think understanding what your tools (and even authoring them) are, really helps you diagnose and confidently react to the tasks we deal with daily as colourists. Grading can be achingly technical, but once everything is set up, and you know what's going on, it becomes quite natural and, dare I say, effortless.

LBB> In your opinion, what's the difference between a good grade and a great grade? 

Francis> For me, I think a great grade is completely inconspicuous, even if it's a more stylised or pushed look; it’s the one where you stop and look and think ‘This looks incredible’, but you can’t put your finger on why. It should feel totally believable. I think that's our biggest challenge as colourists!