Beginning of 2015 the most exciting professional challenge in my career started with the request to head the world's first full-time and long-term educational program for color grading.

Since then forty participants joined this unique program and successfully "graduated" from UP.GRADE.

It has been hugely rewarding for me and I feel privileged that I got this chance and met so many talented and dedicated people as participants as well as lecturers.

Being part of it and shaping it was almost too good to be true...

 

So after four years I decided to step down from heading the program and hand over to my colleague Edmond Laccon. But unfortunately the European fund decided that color grading is "too niche to continue supporting" and the program came to an end in 2019. While the former participants continue to work very successfully in the film and media business, we still receive many requests regarding a future instalment of UP.GRADE. Unfortunately this won't happen any time soon. For the time being you can watch Edmond's visual summary of the program that celebrates its dedication to the art and science of color grading...

 

UP.GRADE trailer

 

 

 

I work as teacher/lecturer since 1999 for various filmschools and institutions...

e.g. ifs Int. Filmschool Cologne, DFFB Berlin, HFF Munich, Film University Babelsberg, FH Mainz, Filmacademy Baden-Württemberg, Berlinale Talents, Schnittakademie, Beyond Hands on HD Hannover, Hands on xK Munich, Macromedia Cologne, European Film Academy, Den Norske Filmskolen (Norway), Stockholm Academy of Dramatic Arts (Sweden)

 

After many years of successful workshops together with makeup expert Isabelle Voinier, I joined her as co-author on updating her book about makeup in the times of high definition and digital cinematography. This english version of "ready for FullHD" is available directly from the publishers website... www.voinier.com (recommended) or via Amazon.

 

 

Its main goal is information and education for all makeup artists, but I personally can only stress how much valuable information I learned from our workshops while explaining video technology to makeup artists and listening to their approach of tangling skin tones. So I can also recommend this book to all camera and film production people interested in understanding more of the highly technical and complex field of makeup.

 

 

upcoming ...

 

2024/February

"Color Grading" Workshop organised by IAMA Halle, open for advanced Resolve users covering color science basics, look-development, communication and HDR together with Felix Hüsken

https://iama-halle.eu/portfolio/color-grading-workshop/

 

2023/November

"Color Grading Basics"

I cover the introductory part of four days for a 2-months online course that covers all aspects from vision, color science, grading techniques to business aspects. Seats still available at

https://www.schnitt-akademie.de/Kurse/kompaktkurse.php?KursID=400

 

 

2023/November

"Look Management: From Prep to Post" a BVK/CSI Seminar at EnergaCAMERIMAGE

with guest speakers Ari Wegner ACS ASC, Steve Yedlin ASC, Pascale Marin AFC and Kevin Shaw CSI.

 

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(c) Edmond Laccon

Steve Yedlin presents his image rendering pipeline in Nuke, showing smooth color transformations to modify camera data.

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(c) Edmond Laccon

Kevin Shaw CSI (left) and I listen to Pascale Marin AFC, French cinematographer.

 

2023/July 1st

"Metamerism & Metameric Failure"

Live presentation and demonstration at the EuroCineExpo in Munich together with Felix Hüsken AAC BVK CSI and the support of the ARRI Academy

 

2023/May

"Colorist Workshop India" - online seminar on "The Role of the Colorist" & "The Look"

"Look Development" - presentation at the International Filmschool Cologne (ifs) for cinematography, visual effects and production design students

 

2023/April

"Digital Cinematography - Part 1+2" - Deutsche Film und Fernsehakademie Berlin, 4-weeks course

 

2023/March

"High Dynamic Range" - presentation for BVR and BVK

"Visual Media Lab Conference" - presentation/seminar at HdM Stuttgart

 

2023/February

"Color Grading II" - one week seminar at HFF Munich

 

"Berlinale Talents Camera Studio" - 1-day workshop supported by ARRI for 12 international cinematography talents.

I presented and demonstrated the phenomenon called metamerism to talk about human visual perception and the pitfalls and benefits of peeking at the world with only three color receptors.

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(c) David Ausserhofer for Berlinale Talents

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(c) David Ausserhofer for Berlinale Talents

Camera talents matching two different light sources visually via a Gaffer's remote control.

 

2022/October

"The Digital Image" - 2-day workshop for the International Filmschool Cologne (ifs)

 

2022/April to June

"Color Grading" - multi-day workshop for the International Filmschool Cologne (ifs);

preparing and mentoring cinematography students while grading their own short films.

 

2022/March to May

"Color & Studio Workshop" - multi-day workshop at the Norwegian Filmschool for production design and cinematography students including theoretical lectures and practical demonstrations about the interaction of lighting, camera and human perception.

 

2022/February

"Berlinale Talents" - Camera Studio Online Edition together with Elen Lotman and Christoph Hoffsten

 

2022/January

"Color Grading for cinematography and VFX students"

 

2021/November

"Color Grading II" - one week seminar at HFF Munich

 

2021/October

"Digital Cinematography - Part 1" - Deutsche Film und Fernsehakademie Berlin

 

2021/September

"Digital Cinematography - Part 4" - Deutsche Film und Fernsehakademie Berlin

 

2021/March

"Berlinale Talents" - Camera Studio Online Edition

Session with 12 international cinematography talents about "Grading & Look Development"

 

2021/January

"Color Grading II" - one week seminar at HFF Munich

 

2020/November

"Digital Cinematography - Part 2" - Deutsche Film und Fernsehakademie Berlin together with DP Birgit Gudjonsdottir

 

"A Post Lab/Netflix" - 4-day workshop about all things post-production

Commissioned by Netflix and organised by the great people of the Amsterdam Post Lab this very high-level workshop comprised 4 days of 30 to 90-minutes lectures by international guests and Netflix specialists from budgeting to scheduling, sound design and mixing, deliverables, quality control, DIT tasks, VFX and grading.

I contributed with a session about conforming and grading and joined VFX supervisor Dennis Kleyn of Planet-X and Neeltje van der Heijden, freelance post-production supervisior, on a session about the collaboration of these three positions.

 

2020/June

"Color Grading I" - HFF Munich

 

2020/May

"Digital Cinematography - Theory/Basics Part 1" - Deutsche Film und Fernsehakademie Berlin

 

2020/April

"Introduction to Color Grading" - Den Norske Filmskolen, Lillehammer, Norway

 

2020/February

"Berlinale Talents" - Camera Studio

 

2020/January

"Color Grading II" - one week seminar at HFF Munich

 

2019/September

"MENTORING" - an UP.GRADE short course

http://upgrade.dffb.de/index.php?id=70&id=70

 

2019/July

"TOOLSET" - an UP.GRADE short course

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Image (c) Edmond Laccon

 

2019/April

"IMAGO Teaching Cinematography Conference" in Brussels

Poster presentation on the importance of collaboration between cinematographers and colorists.

 

2019/February

"Berlinale Talents Camera Studio", 1-day workshop with camera mentors Elen Lotman and Diego Garcia, supported by ARRI and

"Survival Guide: Endangered Images", a 90 min lecture in the public program of Berlinale Talents presented at the HAU 3 theatre together with Niko Remus, freelance post-production supervisor, and Nicholas Goodwin, head of post-production at Constantin Film.

You can re-watch the session on the Berlinale Talents website.

https://www.berlinale-talents.de/bt/program/v/3153

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Image © Peter Himsel for Berlinale Talents

 

2019/January

"Supervised color grading with Davinci Resolve", one week workshop at the HFF Munich for cinematography students grading their own documentary short films

 

2018/November

"UP.GRADE Seminar - Look Development & Colour Appearance" at the Camerimage Film Festival

I had the great pleasure to co-present a 90 minute lecture in the MCK Orzel cinema alongside
Charles Poynton, that included a live demonstration of metamerism on stage with UP.GRADERS from 2018 "performing" in color-shifting T-shirts...

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The left (middle) orange T-shirt and the second most right T-shirt have actually the same color when seen under the same light source.

Image © Marijeta Bucic

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Image © Szymon Milner for the Camerimage Festival

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Charles Poynton explaining metamerism and other aspects of color appearance.

Image © Szymon Milner for the Camerimage Festival

Thanks to the supporters from ARRI Cinetechnik, DoPchoice, Jeti and Blackfish for supplying the gear for the practical demonstration.

 

2018/June to 2019/February

UP.GRADE - Colouring tomorrow - fourth round of this intense long-term training programme in the art and science of colour grading. 10 participants from 8 different countries together for 9 months in Berlin...

 

2018/April-May

"Color Workshop", multi-day workshop at the Norwegian Filmschool for scenography, camera and visual effects students

 

2018/February

"Berlinale Talents Camera Studio", with camera mentor Rui Pocas

 

2018/January

"Introduction to color grading with Davinci Resolve", one week workshop at the HFF Munich for cinematography students

 

2017/November

"UP.GRADE Seminar - Human Vision & Colour Pipelines" at the Camerimage Film Festival

Host for the first official seminar presented during Camerimage.

Lectures by Prof. Andrew Stockman and Amsterdam based colourist and part-time colour scientist Laurens Orij.

 

2017/September

"Colour Pipeline Recipes for Cinema, HD/UHD, and HDR" with Charles Poynton and Florian Friedrich

 

2017/June

"Introduction to color grading" -  Weekend workshop at Filmhaus Babelsberg

 

2017/June

"Look on Set" - Workshop for cinematography master students at the Filmuniversity Babelsberg in collaboration with DP Birgit Gudjonsdottir

 

2017/June till 2018/February

UP.GRADE - Colouring Tomorrow

The world's first long-term postgraduate programme in the art and science of colour grading

10 participants / 8 countries / 9 months at DFFB in Berlin.

 

2017/March

Imago Conference - Teaching Cinematography at HFF Munich. Conducted a panel discussion on the question whether color grading is a must-learn for future cinematographers and assisted Philippe Ros and Isabelle Voinier on a masterclass workshop about lighting, makeup and workflow.

 

2017/February

Berlinale Talents - Camera Studio this year in collaboration with the new main sponsor ARRI.

 

2017/January

One week color grading workshop for cinematography students at the HFF Munich

 

2016/November

Makeup for cinematography students of the Film Academy Baden-Württemberg

together with Isabelle Voinier

 

2016/May

Colorist and supporting lecturer for the Digital Cinematography workshop of Olaf Aue and Stefan Beckers at the DFFB for second year camera students

 

2016/April

Color-Workshop at the Norwegian Filmschool for Production Design, Camera and Digital Visual Design students

 

2016/February

Berlinale Talents - This year's 'Survival Guide to Digital Workflows' was a presentation about the filmmaking process of Roy Andersson's 'A Pigeon Sat On A Branch Reflecting On Existence'.

Together with Niko Remus, the post-production supervisor, and Gergely Pálos, one of the two cinematographers of the film, we discussed the very special way of Roy Andersson and his team to shoot his films and the intricacies of going digital for the very first time while shooting over 4 years on one film. As special guest Roy Andersson joined us at the end for about 30 minutes of Q&A.

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Image © Bettina Ausserhofer for Berlinale Talents

Next to me Christine Tröstrum, then left to right Niko Remus, Andreas Westphal and kneeling Gergely Pálos

 

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Image © Edmond Laccon (www.laccon.net)

Roy Andersson during the Q&A session with the Berlinale Talents

 

2015/June till 2016/February

UP.GRADE - Colouring Tomorrow

The world's first long-term postgraduate programme in the art and science of colour grading

10 participants / 8 countries / 9 months

Covering colour science, art and film history, grading techniques, restoration, Baselight, Nucoda and Resolve as grading tools; with lecturers like Harald Brendel, Charles Poynton, Stefan Ciupek, Michael Bertl, Florian Rettich, Michelle Carlos, Dado Valentic, Kevin Shaw, Adam Inglis, Peter Doyle and many more.

 

2015/March

Hands on xK

Presentation about "HDR Display Technology" during the Hands on workshop week at HFF Munich.

 

2015/February

Berlinale Talents

Together with director of photography Stefan Ciupek we held a lecture about general topics concerning digital cinematography and post-production entitled "The Survival Guide to Digital Workflows". Along the process of picking gear and deciding technical and aesthetic questions for his last feature film work "The Dark Side Of The Moon", we explained the complexity and interdependencies of today's innumerable digital options.

See a recording of the full lecture here.

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Image © Chiara Ferrau for Berlinale Talents

Stefan Ciupek and me during the lecture at the HAU3 theatre

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Image © Chiara Ferrau for Berlinale Talents

That's me demonstrating how easily our vision can be deceived...

 

I also assisted and demonstrated on set grading possibilities during a one day masterclass on lighting with DP Franz Lustig and spent a second day explaining and exploring possibilities of color grading with Talents in the professional grading suite of the dffb (German Film and Television Academy Berlin).

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Image © Chiara Ferrau for Berlinale Talents

Actress Sabine Wolf, DP Franz Lustig and gaffer Christoph Nickel

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Image © David Ausserhofer for Berlinale Talents

Participants of the Camera Studio after my introduction lecture 'digital basics'

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Image © Bettina Ausserhofer for Berlinale Talents

Evaluation of the material in the dffb grading suite

 

Along the workshops I gave a short interview to Michael Guarneri of the Berlinale Talents Press.

http://www.debordements.fr/spip.php?article341

http://www.berlinale-talents.de/story/23/life-behind-the-camera.html#Life Behind the Camera

 

2015/January

Color grading workshop for cinematography students of HFF filmacademy in Munich. Goal of the 5-day course was to enable the students to successfully grade their own short documentary and fiction films shot in Georgia in late summer 2014.

 

2014/November

DIT Workshop - co-teaching with Florian Rettich for FOCAL in Zurich

 

2014/October

Makeup for cinematography students of the Film Academy Baden-Württemberg

together with Isabelle Voinier and Birgit Gudjonsdottir

 

2014/September

Makeup for students at the Norwegian Filmschool DNF. Isabelle Voinier teaching camera and production design students the very basics of beauty and SFX makeup.

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Cinematography and production design students analyising the effect of various high tech makeup products under a particularly difficult lighting and backdrop situation.

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Isabelle Voinier talking about and demonstrating special effects makeup to camera students.

 

2014/April and September

A Clear View - 3rd year of collaborative workshop of European filmschools at dffb and ARRI Berlin.

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Participants, trainers and teachers of the last instalment of the Clear View workshop.

 

2014/August

DaVinci Resolve, 2-day workshop as introduction to the grading software for cinematography students of the Film University Potsdam Babelsberg.

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2014/June

Makeup for HD - with Isabelle Voinier at BET in Hamburg (link to the workshop) for professional Makeup artists. Teaching basic technical facts and giving the participants the opportunity to check their work in front of an HD camera on a proper broadcast HD monitor throughout the workshop.

 

2014/February

Renamed to Berlinale Talents (and not Talent Campus anymore), I was asked again to host the Post Production Studio together with DP Birgit Gudjonsdottir for 20 selected Talents from all over the world.

We shot, edited and graded footage from a variety of digital cameras including the new Red Dragon and Red Epic Monochrome, Canon C500 and Arri Alexa. Along the practical exercises and hands-on for the Talents we did theory lectures about 'Digital Basics', 'File-based Workflow' and our 90 min. masterclass 'The Survival Guide to Digital Workflows'.

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Image © Cecile Mella for the Red Dot Agency

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Image © Cecile Mella for the Red Dot Agency

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Image © Cecile Mella for the Red Dot Agency

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Image © Cecile Mella for the Red Dot Agency

 

2014/January

Introduction to colorgrading - 5 days seminar for camera students of the HFF Munich.

 

2013/October

'From Colorcorrection to Look' - Introduction to colorgrading for students of all years at the FH Mainz during a week of workshops with external professionals.

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2013/September

'A Clear View' - 2nd part of the international workshop with students from the dffb Berlin, FAMU Prague, The London Filmschool, ESCAC Barcelona, UNATC Bucharest.

After the students shot their movies during the summer this time we graded and finished the films.

More information at www.a-clear-view.de

 

2013/June

'Postproduction Workshop' at the dffb Berlin

As part of the postproduction workshop presented by Stefan Beckers, I joined the cinematography students of the 2nd year to give an introduction to colorgrading in general and specific workflows.

As a central part of this I explained and demonstrated the different colorspaces of 'Rec. 709' for digital broadcast and all HD deliveries, 'P3' for digital cinema packages - todays cinema's release prints and the process of grading with film print emulation Look-Up Tables. This included many 'hands-on' opportunities for the students learning the grading tools.

 

2013/May

'Colorgrading Workshop' at the HFF Munich

Introduction to colorgrading for students inlcuding the grading and evaluation of test footage previously generated with a wide variety of digital cameras and analog film.

 

2013/April

'A Clear View' - 2nd edition of the 2-part workshop for participants of various european filmschools hosted by the dffb in Berlin with support from ARRI Berlin.

I presented an introductory lecture about the basics of digital film acquisition and postproduction, leading to a brief demo of the dffb's Nucoda grading system. Other lecturers were Tina Mersmann (Line Producer/Postproduction Supervisor) with a case study about the Michael Hammon film "Gold", Niko Remus (Postproduction Supervisor) speaking about Margarethe von Trotta's film "Hannah Arendt", Patrick Lindenmaier (DP and colorist), Michael Bertl (DP and head of cinematography department at the dffb) and Steffen Paul and Steffen Scheid from ARRI.

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Niko Remus presenting the basics of digital film postproduction.

 

2013/March

'Look-Development' - 3 day seminar with DP Matthias Bolliger at ifs int. filmschool cologne

Participants shot test clips with various digital film cameras that we graded in the school's own DaVinci Resolve grading suite.

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DP Matthias Bolliger in front of the 'class' of professionals.

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Workshop participants using the LiveGrade tool provided and explained by

Patrick Renner of Pomfort (in foreground right edge).

 

2013/February

'Berlinale Talent Campus - Postproduction Studio' - Workshop during the Berlinale International Filmfestival

Together with Icelandic/Austrian DP Birgit Gudjonsdottir I was asked to become mentor again for the Campus Studio after 2010 and 2012. This included the preparation of the shooting, selection of hardware and postproduction workflow as well as preparing a ninety minute lecture entitled "The Survival Guide to Digital Workflows".

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The kick-off lesson about 'digital basics' for our 20 workshop participants.

Image © Cecile Mella for the Red Dot Agency

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Shooting outside the House of World Cultures, Berlin (HKW). Left DP/mentor Birgit Gudjonsdottir, center talent Ama Boamah, right operator/1st AC Olaf Aue. © Cecile Mella for the Red Dot Agency

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"The Survival Guide to Digital Workflows" - a lecture as dialogue between set and post, DP and colorist about the technical aspects of dealing with digital images throughout a feature film production. Presented open to the public and talent campus participants at the HAU3.

Image © Cecile Mella for the Red Dot Agency

 

2013/January

'DI and Image Control' - 2-week-seminar about looks, digital cameras and colorgrading at HFF Munich with DP/professor Axel Block and camera students from Munich and Lisbon, Portugal.

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Patrick Renner of Pomfort gives a short introduction and demo to their product LiveGrade on one morning during our workshop.

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2012/November

Introduction to colorgrading, theory and practice,

a 2-day-seminar at the ifs international filmschool cologne.

 

2012/September & April

'A Clear View' - Postproduction workshop for students of five different european filmacademies with a strong focus on workflow and digital colorgrading; hosted by the dffb Berlin.

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Participants of filmacademies from Prague, Budapest, Lodz, London and Berlin at ARRI's grading suite in Berlin after a short overview presentation of today's postproduction possibilities.

Bottom right Stefan Beckers (dffb) and Steffen Scheid (ARRI).

 

2012/July

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Training and lecturing at Beyond Hands on HD workshop in Hannover.

Click on the image above to follow a link to Nordmedia's website about the workshop.

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Lecture about Colormanagement for some of the postproduction class participants.

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French DOP Philippe Ros was showing two shortfilm productions shot with the Sony F65.
Here together with Michael Radeck, head of the Postproduction department, who succeeded
with support from DVS to screen the 4k DCP on a Sony SXRD 4k projector.

I had the pleasure to assist on his presentation by giving an introduction to the IIF/ACES workflow.

 

 

2012/May

workshop and masterclass lecture in Porto (http://estaleiro.curtas.pt/agenda?id=42)

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click on the image above for a detailed description/essay about the workshop content

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and here's a link to a short video about the 3-day-workshop

 

2012/March

Den Norske Filmskolen, Norwegian film school, Lillehammer, “Colors”, seminar for production design and camera students about visual perception, the use of colors in production design, lighting and colorgrading

 

2012/February

Berlinale Talent Campus, “Campus Studio”, instructor and lecturer together with DP Stefan Ciupek for a 5-day seminar about digital cinematography and postproduction

 

2010

HFF Munich, “Look”, 2-week seminar for camera students, lecturer, colorist and co-teacher with DP/Professor Axel Block

HFF Potsdam, „Insight Out“, lecturer casestudy „AntiChrist“ - digital colorgrading

 

2009

HFF Munich, content creation for the e-learning platform of the HFF Munich about digital postproduction, “Digital Intermediate”

 

2008

European Film Academy, Masterclass 2008 „Film Editing“ with Hervé Schneid, presentation about the „digital intermediate“ process and colorgrading of participants’ exercise movies

 

2007/2008

„Hands on HD“, HD-Workshop of nordmedia und BandPro, instructor and lecturer for the stereoscopic 3D and camera master classes

Den Norske Filmskolen, Norwegian film school, Lillehammer, introduction on digital cinematography, „HD-Basics“, „Filmlook“ and „Digital Colorgrading“

ifs int. filmschool cologne, „HD Make-Up workshop“, technical introduction and camera operating

Instructor for HDTV introductory seminar for production managers at ZDF, a German public broadcaster

 

2005

3-day seminars at the ifs int. filmschool cologne, about digital cinematography principles for directing students

 

2004

Preparation and instructing on an „HD Seminar“ for the Bundesverband Kamera the German society of cinematographers

Lecture about „Colorspaces in the HD production world“ at a two-day seminar on colorspaces from the IRT, Munich

Instructor about HD cameras and lenses for the WDR, a German public broadcaster

 

2003/2004

Teacher for “Technology”, a basic course in the three-year bachelor studies for Media Management/TV Producing at Macromedia, Cologne

 

2001

Instructor about non-linear editingsystems at the ifs int. filmschool cologne

 

1999 – 2000

Teacher for non-linear editingsystems at Macromedia, Cologne