Mon 24
Everything before the grade
- How a color job actually runs, first contact to handover
- Scopes
- Color management
- Enough conform to open a project properly
- What came back in the cold grades, as room-wide patterns
Five days to build one grading process, instead of forty tutorials that never connected.
A 5-day live color grading intensive — from the fundamentals to a grade you'd hand a client.
Seats from $319 until . Regular price from $399. Seats from $399.
Live, Monday 24 to Friday 28 August 2026. Four hours a day, 09:00 to 13:00 PT, five days straight. Not a video library. A room, with a person in it, at a fixed time.
Choose your seat20% off every seat until . Enrolment closes .
The problem
Every technique in color grading is already free. That is not what is stopping you.
What stops you is the real project. Forty tutorials give you forty starting points, and none of them tells you which one belongs to the job in front of you. So you push the wheels until it looks alright, and then the next shot starts from nothing again.
You are not missing a technique. You are missing an order to do them in, and a reason behind each step, so that the same approach works on the next job and the one after that.
That is what five days is for.
Who is teaching
Kaur Hendrikson, CSI
Colorist, digital imaging specialist and educator. Blackmagic certified DaVinci Resolve Master Trainer.
2,300+ people tutored across Blackmagic Design and university masterclasses. 16 masterclasses for Blackmagic Design, and he has moderated many more of their courses, both multi-day and single session. Masterclasses at the Baltic Film, Media and Arts School and at ECAM Madrid. Five years teaching filmmaking in a classroom, where you find out fast which explanations actually work.
He develops the DCTLs for PixelTools and teaches for PixelTools Academy, its education arm.
Contributor at Mixing Light. Dolby Vision Certified.
He is front of the room for all five days.
And a second Master Trainer in the room
Gedaly Guberek
Gedaly Guberek is a filmmaker and educator. While primarily working as a director, he's also been an editor, colorist, and VFX artist for commercials and feature films. As a Certified DaVinci Resolve Master Trainer, he teaches for Blackmagic Design, AFI Conservatory, and various filmmaking groups & post-houses around Los Angeles.
He introduces himself at the orientation call, and through the whole week he runs the Q&A and the chat. He has also moderated other well-known masterclasses and courses.
That is two Master Trainers in the room. It means your question gets a proper answer from someone qualified to give it, while the teaching keeps going.
You have seen who teaches it. The full week and tiers are below.
Choose your seatWhat the week is
The week follows the shape of a real job, from what happens before you touch a knob to what happens after the client signs off.
Tue 25
Primaries
- A whole day, because everything after depends on them being right
- Two teaching blocks
- A demo grade taking primaries start to finish
Wed 26
Look development
- What a look actually is
- Working from a reference
- LUT versus building it by hand, and when each is right
- Show LUTs
- What a colorist contributes before the shoot
- A demo grade building a look end to end
Thu 27
Secondaries and shot matching
- Qualifiers, power windows, tracking, HSL
- Shot matching in its own protected block
- A demo grade matching a sequence
- The re-grade is briefed at the close of the day
Fri 28
After the grade, and the road out
- Delivery by spec, taught as reading a spec you have never seen
- The re-grade review, before and after
- Rooms, monitors, paint, lighting, calibration
- A full-speed grade at real working pace
- What this course deliberately left out, so you know where to go next
Three things run through all five days.
- The node tree is built with the room, topic by topic. You are never handed a finished template.
- Every topic block ends with a cheatsheet that is yours to keep.
- Teaching is live demos, not volunteer grading. Questions are welcome mid-demo and they steer where the teaching goes.
How it actually works
Free tutorials can teach you a technique. What they cannot do is look at your work and tell you what is wrong with it.
1. Before the course, you grade a scene cold
On the Grade and Mentor seats you get a real multi-shot scene you grade twice. The brief goes out at the orientation call on Tue 18 August, and it teaches you nothing and forbids you nothing. Set it up however you normally would. It is due .
Do not research it first and do not over-prepare. A true baseline is the entire point.
2. On Day 1, the room sees what came back
Not your grade. Patterns. Here are the five things almost all of you did, and here is why almost everyone does them. Aggregate, anonymous, nobody named.
3. After Day 4, you grade the same scene again
Same footage. Five days of process later. The re-grade is briefed at the close of Day 4 and is due , which is midday in central Europe.
That is deliberately not the usual 23:59 PT. Day 4 ends late in the evening if you are in Europe, and a same-night deadline would mean grading until dawn. This way you can close the session, sleep, and do it in the morning. It is still a short window and it is said out loud at orientation as well as in the Day 4 brief, because a deadline you find out about late is a worse deadline.
4. On Day 5, re-grades are reviewed live
Two or three volunteers, from an opt in at upload. Kaur has deliberately not looked at them beforehand, so what the room watches is a real diagnosis of unfamiliar work rather than a rehearsed one. Volunteering means your before and after go up together.
5. Then Kaur writes you feedback
Every Grade and Mentor student, within seven days of the course, so by . It has the same four parts every time, in the same order:
what's working · the one thing costing you most · what to do next · what changed since your cold grade.
You send back a Resolve project file and a render, both times. The project file carries your node tree, so Kaur can talk about how you got there and not only where you landed.
There is no score. Nothing is graded out of anything and there is no checklist to mark yourself against. What you get is the difference between your two versions and what to do with it next.
All of this is the Grade and Mentor seats. A Watch seat is in the room for all five days and gets everything taught, but does not receive the scene and does not send work back.
0 days 00 hours 00 minutes 00 seconds
Choose your seat
Every seat is 20% off until Mon 3 Aug, 23:59 PT.
Watch
$319$399 · 20% off until Mon 3 Aug, 23:59 PT
$399
The full week, live, in the room.
Choose Watch Choose WatchEnrolment for this cohort is closed.
Grade
$559$699 · 20% off until Mon 3 Aug, 23:59 PT
$699
The week, plus the homework, and written feedback on your grades from Kaur.
Choose Grade Choose GradeEnrolment for this cohort is closed.
Mentor
$799$999 · 20% off until Mon 3 Aug, 23:59 PT
$999
Everything in Grade, plus an hour one to one with Kaur, on a topic of your choice.
Choose Mentor Choose MentorEnrolment for this cohort is closed.
| Feature | Watch | Grade | Mentor |
|---|---|---|---|
| Regular | $399 | $699 | $999 |
| 20% off until Mon 3 Aug 23:59 PT | $319 | $559 | $799 |
| Live teaching, all five days | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Q&A and chat throughout, run by Gedaly | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Private recording of your own cohort, yours to keep | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| The Discord community, during the week and after it | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Certificate from PixelTools Academy, once you pass the exam | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| 15% off all PixelTools DCTLs | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| The homework (see below) | No | Yes | Yes |
| One hour, one to one, with Kaur, on a topic of your choice | No | No | Yes |
The homework, on the Grade and Mentor seats. One thing, not four:
- A real multi-shot scene, yours to work on
- You grade it cold before the course starts
- You grade it again after Day 4
- Kaur writes you feedback on both
- Your work is eligible to be looked at live in class
The 1:1 hour on the Mentor seat is bookable any time within three months of the course and lapses after Fri 27 Nov 2026.
Choose your seat Choose your seat
Enrolment for this cohort is closed.
Before you decide
Refunds
You can have a full refund within 7 days of buying, and in no case later than . After that date there are no refunds. The full terms are in the questions below.
A recording you keep
Every participant gets a private recording of their own cohort, and it is yours to keep.
Live teaching
Live teaching, all five days.
Requirements
DaVinci Resolve. Some demonstrations use Studio-only tools, so Studio is not required to watch this course and learn from it. No homework depends on a Studio feature. Working along hands-on is the better way to learn, and for those demos you either watch instead or work with a watermark on screen. That is a real cost and it is not a blocker.
No plugins and no add-ons are required. Nothing on this course asks you to buy or install anything, and nothing you are taught to do depends on a third party tool.
Third party tools do come up, as subject matter. Alternative display rendering transforms get taught and demonstrated, because they are worth understanding and because the good ones are free and open source. They are not ours, we do not hand them out, and you are pointed at the authors instead. The PixelTools plugins are the same: shown as one option among others, never as the method.
Resolve version: 21.0.3 or newer. The course project is built on it, and a project saved in a newer build will not open in an older one. If you would rather not update, there is also a plain timeline file you can conform yourself, and that route is demonstrated at the orientation call.
Where you need to be starting from. You should be able to find your way around DaVinci Resolve: import media, cut a timeline, move between pages. This course teaches color grading from zero. It does not teach Resolve from zero.
Your setup. Day 1 has a short block answering the question every beginner actually has, which is will my setup hold me back this week. The answer is no, and there is no purchase advice in it. The full room, monitor and calibration conversation is on Day 5, once you have context for it.
There is no minimum hardware spec. If Resolve runs on your machine, you can do this week. A few things genuinely help, and none of them is required: a second screen, so Resolve and the call are not fighting for the same space. Your phone on a charger, because four hours is long and parts of the session are interactive. And Resolve on a computer rather than an iPad, because the iPad version is not the same application.
And one thing worth knowing before you spend money. You do not need Studio for this course. But if you decide to buy it anyway, buy it from Blackmagic's own site rather than the App Store. The App Store build has quirks. It is a few hundred either way and it is not our sale, so we would rather you knew.
Your time.
| Live sessions | 4 hours a day, 09:00–13:00 PT, five consecutive days |
| Orientation, Tue 18 Aug | 30 to 45 minutes. Recorded, so you can catch it later |
| After Day 4, Grade and Mentor | The re-grade. Due midday Friday, so you can sleep on it |
| Before the course, Grade and Mentor | The cold grade, any time between orientation and Sat 22 Aug, 23:59 PT. The scene is 2 to 3 minutes and it is meant to be done quickly |
Dates and deadlines
All times are Pacific Time. Deadlines close at 23:59 PT, with one deliberate exception, marked below.
Times shown in Pacific Time.
| When | What |
|---|---|
| The 20% off pricing ends. Regular pricing from the 4th | |
| Open live call. Free, no ticket needed, come and ask anything. It runs as long as there are questions. Note the date: the 20% is gone by then, so waiting for the call to make up your mind costs you the lower price. That is what makes it early | |
| Your course project download link is live, at least 48 hours before orientation | |
| Enrolment closes | |
| Orientation call. 30 to 45 minutes of housekeeping: how the week runs, and how to get the project open. Recorded and sent to everyone, so you do not have to be there live | |
| Tue 18–Sat 22 Aug | Your cold grade window (Grade and Mentor) |
| Cold grade due (Grade and Mentor) | |
| Mon 24–Fri 28 Aug, 09:00–13:00 PT | The course. Five consecutive days, four hours a day |
| Re-grade due (Grade and Mentor), briefed at the close of Day 4. This one is not 23:59 PT, on purpose. It is midday in Europe, so you can finish Day 4, sleep, and do it in the morning rather than through the night | |
| Written feedback delivered, within seven days of the course | |
| Mentor 1:1 sessions expire |
09:00 to 13:00 PT is late evening in Europe and the middle of the night further east. That is real, and it is the most common reason someone decides this is not for them. Everyone gets a private recording of their own cohort, so a missed session is not a lost one, but the live room is the product and you should go in knowing the hour.
FAQ
The questions people actually ask before buying a seat.
Do I need DaVinci Resolve Studio, or does the free version work?
No, Studio is not required to take this course and learn from it. Some demonstrations use Studio-only tools, and for those you either watch rather than work along, or work with a watermark on screen. Learning by doing is better than watching, so that is a real cost, and it is not a complete blocker. No homework depends on a Studio feature, and nothing you are taught to do needs plugins or add-ons.
Where a demonstration uses a Studio-only tool it is framed as exactly that: here is what Studio buys you. The method you are taught always stands on its own without it, and it is taught that way on purpose, not adapted afterwards.
Your critique will never mark you down for not having a tool your edition does not include.
And separately: no plugins, no add-ons. Third party tools are shown as alternatives, never as requirements.
What if I cannot attend live?
Then think carefully before buying. The live room is the product: the questions, the answers, the demos steered by what people ask on the day. Every participant gets a private recording of their own cohort, and it is theirs to keep, so a missed session is not lost. But a course you only ever watch back is a worse version of this course, and there is a lot of excellent free material if watching is what you want.
What if I miss a day?
You get the recording of your own cohort, and the Discord community is running the whole week, so you can ask there what you missed. The one thing that does not wait is the re-grade deadline, Fri 28 Aug 02:00 PT, which is midday in central Europe, so if you know in advance you will miss Day 4, plan for that.
What experience do I need before I start?
You should be able to find your way around DaVinci Resolve: import media, cut a timeline, move between pages. Color grading itself is taught from zero. This course assumes you have started learning grading and got stuck, not that you already grade well.
How much time per day, including homework?
Four hours live, 09:00 to 13:00 PT, five days running. On Grade and Mentor there is the re-grade on the evening of Day 4, which is one night. Before the course, Grade and Mentor grade a 2 to 3 minute scene cold, any time between orientation and Sat 22 Aug, 23:59 PT, and it is meant to be done quickly rather than perfected.
What exactly is the written critique, and who gets one?
Grade and Mentor seats. It comes within seven days of the course, so by Fri 4 September, and it is written by Kaur.
Every critique has the same four parts, in this order: what's working · the one thing costing you most · what to do next · what changed since your cold grade.
Kaur looks at your Resolve project file as well as your render, so the feedback can talk about your node tree and how you got there, not just the picture. There is no score, no mark and no pass. It is capped to the Grade and Mentor seats precisely because one person can only write so many of these properly.
Is there an exam, and what happens if I do not pass?
Yes, on all three seats. The certificate is earned rather than issued for turning up.
It is 60 multiple choice questions, 60 minutes, open book and open software, and you need 85% to pass. You get three attempts, 24 hours apart, any time within a month of the course ending. Everything on it is taught during the week.
It is modelled on Blackmagic's own certification exams deliberately, so the bar is one the industry already recognizes. If you do not pass, you keep everything else: the recording, the cheatsheets, the Discord, and your written critique if you are on Grade or Mentor.
What happens after the course ends?
You keep the recording of your own cohort. You keep every cheatsheet. The Discord stays open, and it is meant to be a place people stay rather than a support channel that closes. Grade and Mentor students get their written critique by Fri 4 September. Mentor students can book their 1:1 hour any time up to Fri 27 Nov 2026. Everyone can earn a certificate from PixelTools Academy by passing the exam, and everyone gets 15% off all PixelTools DCTLs.
What is Discord, and do I have to use it?
Discord is a free chat app. It is where the class lives between sessions, in the hours when the session is over and you are actually grading. You do not have to post, and plenty of people will read rather than write, but it is a designed part of the week rather than a bonus, and it is the main thing happening between one session and the next. It is on Discord rather than inside the course platform because that is where people already are and where they stay once the course is over.
Refunds and cancellation
You can have a full refund within 7 days of buying, and in no case later than Sat 15 Aug, 23:59 PT. After that date there are no refunds. The course project goes out on Sun 16 Aug, and the Grade and Mentor seats are capped, so a late cancellation is a seat nobody else can take.
If you have paid and then find you cannot make the hours: every participant gets a private recording of their own cohort, and it is yours to keep. That is the answer, and it is worth being straight that watching it back is not the same as being in the room. If the hours do not work for you, decide that before 15 August rather than after.
Will my work be shown to other people?
Sessions are recorded and shared with your cohort, and student work may be shown and discussed in class. You agree to that in writing when you enrol, and it is how the Day 1 patterns block and the Day 5 review work at all.
Day 1's look at the cold grades is aggregate and anonymous. Nobody is named. Day 5's re-grade review takes two or three volunteers, from an opt in when you upload, and volunteering means your cold grade goes up next to your re-grade.
The footage itself stays private: you keep it for practice, but you may not publish it, post it, or put your graded version in a public reel. That is a written condition of receiving it.
Is there a payment plan, or pricing in euros?
Prices are in US dollars only. There is no euro price. Your bank converts at checkout, and Shopify shows you an approximate amount in your own currency before you pay.
You may be able to pay in installments. Go through to checkout and choose Shop Pay. If installments are available where you are, they appear there.
How do I join the sessions?
On Zoom. Every session, the orientation call and the open call all run there, and the link comes to you by email. Webcam and microphone are welcome but not required, and there is a chat channel running alongside for questions, which Gedaly is on all week.
Five days, one process. Repeatable, understood, and yours to grow.
Colorist Foundations runs live, Monday 24 to Friday 28 August 2026, 09:00 to 13:00 PT.
20% off every seat until . Enrolment closes .
Choose your seat