Tom Poole, colorist, Company 3, New York
It was an honor to work with director Steve McQueen and the cinematographer Sean Bobbitt on 12 Years a Slave [which recently earned an HPA Award nomination for Poole]. As a colorist my challenge is always to work with filmmakers to develop enhancements to the images that subtly help refine their vision, rather than creating some kind of look that draws attention to itself at the expense of the story. The material was so beautifully staged, performed and shot in order to place the viewer right in the middle of Solomon Northrop’s horrific and tragic experience and while I did a great deal of work on the film, it was always vital that adjustments we made grading the film never undermined the purity of the image. It’s a very fine line deciding exactly how far to go with every correction – one I think colorists develop over years of working.

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