We gave Ahmed a long list of specifications, examples etc for grading our short film. He continuously disregarded or ignored things we had sent, and asked for them again as if we had forgotten. The very first thing he did after taking on the job (fully understanding the work and length of the film before putting his proposal through) was to ask for more money. After we told him that our fixed price was what our budget allowed, he proceeded to say his work would reflect our unwillingness to pay more and that revisions would be cut down to 1. He then took 4 days to grade an 8 minute short (which he considered 'long') , and when it came back to us it was unbelievably awful:- the colours looked like they had been done by a colour blind person, with grass turned luminous green and blues into a garish purple. When we brought this up initially, he blamed our production quality, but upon our insistence he check it again, it turned out that he had graded it on the wrong monitor; how a professional did this and didn't notice in the first place we have no idea. The cut he then gave us afterwards apparently counted as our one revision despite the fact that it was wholly his error, and this second grading still looked like it had not been done with any reference to our notes whatsover. Initially, we thought that he had improved this and told him that he had done so, but upon closer inspection, he had actually degraded the night scenes of our films so badly it looked like a 3rd generation VHS tape. We eventually abandoned his cut altogether and had to push back our premiere to do it ourselves.

Bad communication, unprofessional, unwilling to admit his own mistakes and just generally an awful end result considering he markets and charges as a professional.

Ahmed F.

Before the workstream, I asked the client regarding the budget as the budget was super low (the price of 2 meals) he then didn't answer and accepted the initial proposal that was sent before discussing or agreeing about anything. then he offered a 1-minute sample to grade. after grading it, the client said that it was particularly perfect and what he wanted. then after receiving the full project. the project was awfully shot with poor lighting and camera settings. he sent me a very uncompressed version and told me it is in a high-end codec. the footage looked unbearable. the night scenes were dark and full of noise. the external scenes don't match and full of overexposed shots. then he provided references to films that are made with a high-end camera with proper setups and lighting. I told him for that price u cant ask for magic. then after the first cut, he didn't like so I changed the look and he claimed that they are so much happy with the final version. despite that, he wrote that. I never charged him as a professional. a colorist would never charge 35 pounds for 8 mins short film. a price of 2 meals combined. I regret sending the proposal in the first place knowing that this project is made by amateurs with zero knowledge regarding Filmmaking and color grading. be careful in future projects with him and make sure to check the whole footage before you agree about everything.