JAMES SLATTERY - Colourist
Team Deakins
James Ellis Deakins
4.9 • 1.4K Ratings
🗓️ 21 January 2026
⏱️ 83 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
SEASON 2 - EPISODE 177 - James Slattery - Colourist
In this extended episode of the Team Deakins Podcast, we speak with colourist James Slattery (THE LOST BUS, EMPIRE OF LIGHT, 1917). How does someone become a colourist? What do they really do? What is a CDL? DI? QC? DIT? P3? HDR? James, with whom we've worked with several times, graciously explains what all these acronyms (and more) mean, how a colourist generally goes about their work nowadays on any given project, and what he's able to do to help filmmakers solve problems and help realize their visions in the final stages of post-production. James has experience timing dailies and also applying the finishing grade, and he helps us explain the different responsibilities and expectations of each process. James later helps us provide an overview of the different types of deliverables for a film, and he shares some common mistakes young colorists today should avoid. Though the role of a colourist is technically and creatively demanding, James, throughout our conversation, stresses the importance of being able to work with others as a member of the team.
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This episode is sponsored by Aputure
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi and welcome to Season 2 of the Team Deacons podcast, |
| 0:07.0 | a collection of informal conversations between Roger and James Deacons and a guest. |
| 0:13.0 | We never know where the conversation will take us, so listen in and see where it goes. |
| 0:21.9 | This episode is sponsored by Aperture and its new Storm XT-52, the industry's most |
| 0:29.5 | powerful LED point source light. Brighter than a 6K HMI and powered by Aperture's revolutionary |
| 0:36.8 | Blair light engine, the Storm XT-52 is both a tunable |
| 0:41.9 | white light and also the brightest ever adjustable color LED. Storm XT-52, unrivaled output, only from |
| 0:52.2 | aperture. Today, at long last, we're talking rivaled output only from Aperture. |
| 0:59.2 | Today, at long last, we're talking with a colorist. |
| 1:03.3 | His credits are many and include Wonder Woman and the Lost Bus, and we've worked with him on 1917 An Empire of Light. |
| 1:08.5 | We're pleased to welcome James Slattery. James, thank you for doing this. |
| 1:13.7 | Oh, my pleasure. It's an honor to be invited. Thank you. We'd like to start with our normal question, |
| 1:20.2 | which is, how did you get to where you are today? When you were growing up, did you think about color, |
| 1:25.6 | or did you think this might be a path you might do or did you |
| 1:29.1 | want to be a painter? What was your story? Well, I kind of fell into it, really, to be honest. |
| 1:37.5 | When I was growing up, I'm originally from Dublin and I always enjoyed film and photography and visual media and I guess relatively |
| 1:51.2 | early on I realized that that was something I wanted to pursue in a career. |
| 1:57.7 | I didn't really know fully to what extent, but I think I reached a point maybe when |
| 2:04.1 | I was 16 or 17 in Ireland, around about that time when you start doing your preparing for |
| 2:10.4 | your final exams, you have to do this thing called, it used to be called at least a CAO form |
| 2:15.6 | and you fill out what kind of college courses |
| 2:17.6 | you would want to want to do. And I was trying to think what I would maybe want to pursue. And I was |
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