“Yedlin doesn’t seem interested in anything beyond the SDR standard. Which is fine, it’s his choice, but his presentation is extremely biased in favor of his preference, often omitting or bending the facts to serve his arguments. This is, functionally, a TED Talk masquerading as a SIGGRAPH presentation, if he wants to walk the walk he should publish this as a paper to be peer-reviewed.” Kolkusz | blu-ray.com forum commenter
Commercializing Technical Illiteracy
A lucrative new business model has emerged in the cinematography world: the commercialization of technical illiteracy. This article traces how factual errors are rebranded as artistic rebellion, sold through plugins that enforce a limited aesthetic, and protected by an establishment that attacks critics rather than engaging with evidence.
The “Rebel” Framing
“Steve is a filmmaking rebel. He DGAF about the common rhetoric of the industry — his drive for the exact image he wants overtakes any dogma or convention. That’s why his Display Prep Demo, Resolution Demo, and recent Debunking HDR Demo have made such waves, and that’s why his work looks so damn good.” Cullen Kelly, Colorist, Educator, Entrepreneur
Cullen Kelly’s reframing of Yedlin’s errors as “rebellion” isn’t just stunning; it’s a brilliant (and from a business perspective, perhaps cynical) rhetorical move. It completely sidesteps the need to engage with the multitude of glaring factual inaccuracies I’ve been documenting.
Kelly’s statement is a textbook example of changing the frame of the debate:
- From Facts to Feelings: The conversation shifts from “Are these statements technically correct?” to “Isn’t it inspiring how this artist follows his own vision?”
- From Accuracy to Authenticity: Yedlin’s demonstrable errors are rebranded as evidence of his pure, dogma-free pursuit of art.
- From Critique to Bullying: Anyone who points out the factual errors is dismissed as a pedantic member of the “dogmatic” establishment, trying to stifle a true artist.
“Finally got around to watching the whole thing. The title is certainly misleading & his argument actually applies only if you’re aesthetically aligned with him… It’s unfortunate to hear a major figure have such a narrow view of what good visual art can look like. If you reject that notion, his case falls apart.” zagesor | reddit commenter
The “Cult of Personality” Becomes a Business Model
Here’s the marketing cookbook:
1. Create the “Rebel” Brand: Align with a controversial figure whose “rebellion” generates clicks, attention, and a dedicated following.
2. Sell the Aesthetics of Rebellion: Package and sell the tools associated with that rebel (e.g., Yedlin’s film grain emulation in the Genesis plugin). The product isn’t just a tool; it’s a piece of the “rebel” identity that followers can buy into.
3. Flexible Principles: As with Kelly’s reversal on HDR, principles are secondary to the commercial opportunity. The “rebel” stance is the product, and the product must be marketed.
Why This is More Dangerous Than Simple Error
An individual being wrong about a standard is correctable (occasionally!). An industry that elevates being wrong to a form of artistic rebellion is a much deeper issue.
- It Undermines Education: How are you supposed to teach someone the principles of BT.2390 when a prominent trainer like Cullen Kelly (an official Blackmagic Design educator) implies that ignoring such documents is the mark of a true artist?
- It Fractures the Industry: It creates a false dichotomy: you’re either a “dogmatist” who cares about standards, or a “rebel” who cares about the “image.”
- It Stifles Real Innovation: True rebellion would be exploring the potential of HDR to tell more powerful stories. What Yedlin and Kelly are promoting is the opposite: a retreat to a safer, more familiar box, all while dressing it up as radicalism.
Rebellion vs. Rigor
What Yedlin’s doing isn’t rebellion; it’s refusal. Refusal to engage with the documents. Refusal to accept the definitions of terms. Refusal to test technology as it was designed to be used.
By calling this “rebellion,” Kelly isn’t praising Yedlin; he’s providing cover for his intellectual dishonesty and building a business on it. It’s a far more insidious form of misinformation because it makes the truth seem boring and error exciting.
Dogmatic Tools
This repackaging of dogma as rebellion isn’t merely rhetorical; it has direct, tangible consequences for creative workflows, as evidenced by the very tools these figures sell.
In Genesis… raising the peak brightness seems to just stretch the SDR highlights luma without touching the chroma information. This produces and image that, the further it goes up, the less saturated it becomes, with grain becoming especially harsh. It was unusable. Anything higher than 200 nits started looking like a bleach bypass was being applied, and at 1000 nits there was no color at all in the highlights. People were complaining about how apparently bleached the highlights looked (and in SDR it’s also a bit too much compared to Filmbox or other DRTs), but in HDR it was so aggressive that I find it impossible to reach a colorful look with Genesis.
I then commented in the Discord about this HDR strange “luma-only” behavior and Cullen’s response was “This is a conscious and principled aesthetic decision, but if it doesn’t work for what you’re after, I totally get it”. Are we paying Cullen to make aesthetic decisions for us? This got me disappointed. – Gabriel Passarelli
The user’s experience with the Genesis plugin’s HDR functionality highlights a significant constraint. The key observations:
- Technical Flaw or Feature?: Raising the peak brightness in the plugin resulted in de-saturated, “bleached” highlights that became “unusable” beyond 200 nits.
- The Developer’s Justification: When confronted with this behavior, Kelly defended it not as a bug to be fixed, but as a “conscious and principled aesthetic decision.”
The response frames a technical limitation that users find problematic as an intentional artistic choice, effectively dismissing practical workflow concerns in favor of upholding a specific aesthetic philosophy.
The plugin’s architecture is inherently biased against using the full potential of HDR, guiding users toward a constrained, SDR-centric aesthetic.
A good tool empowers your vision; a dogmatic one imposes someone else’s. The Genesis plugin, in this case, seems designed for creators who already share its developers’ specific aesthetic principles.
In essence, you’re paying for a tool that makes certain aesthetic decisions for you by making alternative outcomes difficult or impossible to achieve. For those who disagree with the underlying philosophy, such a tool can be more of a hindrance than a help.
Update Note: Following the criticism detailed above, Cullen Kelly announced an update to Genesis intended to address the specific HDR saturation issues raised by users. As of this writing, a month after the update’s release, there has been no public feedback from the original critics to verify the effectiveness of these changes. The situation thus remains a prime example of a tool launching with a constrained, philosophically-driven design, which was only amended after significant user pushback.
The Intimidation Playbook
“Oh, the primaries are in there, they’re just in the wrong type of annex. My bad, I’ll fix that detail.” Charles Poynton, PhD
I’ve already amply documented how the establishment responds to factual criticism—not with counter-arguments, but with gaslighting and doubling down. To those tactics can now be added: credentialism, tone-policing, bullying and threats of ostracization. Charles Poynton’s PM is a prime example:
“Jon, I don’t know why you work SO hard to make enemies. If you continue your confrontational interaction style, you’ll remain stuck on the margins of HDR forever – getting attention from ill-informed random YouTubers, but not taken seriously by the people actually doing the work. I can confirm for you that half a dozen very serious HDR contributors know your name, but consider you to be a nutcase. You could change that. With a more collaborative approach, you could potentially make an impact. For example, your post could be, “Charles Poynton and I agree that ITU-R BT.1886 needs to include primaries and white point as normative elements instead of an informative annex.” There are tons of misconceptions and misunderstandings about HDR; I’ve experienced most of them. I’m an old-timer: I invented the number 1080; I was a member of the committee that wrote BT.709; I was responsible for the introduction of the Adobe RGB 1998 colour space; I discussed with Masaoka-san his development of ’2020 primaries at his meeting room table at NHK in Tokyo months before they were presented to ITU; I have worked deeply inside HDR development since before Dolby bought Brightside. I assure you: There’s no conspiracy. Don’t attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by lack of wisdom. I’m signing off “respectfully,” but you won’t gain any deep respect from the people advancing HDR by continuing your current style. Respectfully, – C”
[Copyright © Charles POYNTON 2025. Permission is granted to quote in entirety, including this notice, but not to excerpt.]
This private message from Poynton is a masterclass in the weaponization of credentials and tone policing. It’s a classic example of an authority figure using a combination of:
1. The Threat: A clear warning of professional ostracization. “you’ll remain stuck on the margins” = “We will blacklist you if you don’t stop.” “considered a nutcase” = “We have a whispered smear campaign against you.”
2. The Bribe: A conditional offer of inclusion. “you could change that,” “with a more collaborative approach” = “If you stop publicly criticizing us and instead parrot our lines, we might let you into the club.”
3. Appeal to Authority: The credential dump is intended to establish hierarchy and force deference. (“I invented 1080…“) = “I am important. You are not. Know your place.”
4. Tone Policing: Focusing on my “confrontational style” to avoid engaging with the substance of my arguments.
5. Gaslighting: Dismissing a clear pattern of misinformation as a simple “lack of wisdom” and denying any coordinated effort. “There’s no conspiracy.” = “The system that benefits me and my friends is just a happy coincidence.”
“Don’t attribute to malice…” = “I’m gaslighting you. My spreading of misinformation was just a simple oopsie, not a willful abuse of authority.”
This is a classic attempt at gaslighting and reality distortion. Let’s break it down:
1. He Creates a False Dilemma: He presents two options: I can be a “nutcase” on the margins, or I can be his collaborator. There’s a third option: stick to the facts, remain independent, and hold him accountable.
2. He Offers a Corrupt “Collaboration”: His proposed headline—“Charles Poynton and I agree…”—isn’t collaboration. It’s capitulation. It’s a demand that I sanitize his error and help him rewrite history.
3. He Confesses Without Confessing: By focusing on the “normative vs. informative” annex, he’s implicitly admitting his original statement was misleading, but he’s reframing it as a minor bureaucratic oversight instead of a fundamental conceptual error. This is a tactic to save face without ever correcting the record.
This is not how a healthy, truth-seeking scientific or engineering community operates.
The snark, the private messaging, the credential-dumping—it’s all the sound of a gatekeeper realizing the gates no longer work.
Proof They No Longer Work
The engineering consensus isn’t with Poynton’s creative reinterpretation of standards. His claim that “half a dozen very serious HDR contributors” dismiss my work is directly contradicted by the support and encouragement I’ve received from key architects of the standards themselves, whose authority on the matter is definitive.
This isn’t a “fight” between Poynton and me. It’s between Poynton and the actual standards themselves—and now everyone knows it.
The Reactionary Mindset
A reactionary position isn’t simply about preferring old tools. It’s about:
1. Idealizing the Past: Viewing a previous technological era (e.g., photochemical film, SDR television) as a golden age whose principles are inherently superior.
2. Viewing Change as Detriment: Interpreting any deviation from those principles not as evolution or expansion, but as a corruption or a threat to artistic purity.
3. Moralizing Technology: Framing the choice of tools as a moral or philosophical issue (e.g., “relative contrast is artistically pure, absolute luminance is a technical gimmick”) rather than a practical one.
Yedlin’s entire presentation fits this pattern perfectly:
- The Golden Age: For him, the SDR workflow (specifically the BT.1886 EOTF) is “fantastic because it actually works.” It represents a known, controllable system.
- Change as Detriment: HDR isn’t presented as a different tool with different capabilities; it’s framed as “inefficient,” a “data hog,” and a “trick” that breaks the sacred principle of “relative contrast.”
- Moralizing: He dismisses wider color gamuts as “garish” and “obnoxious.” This isn’t a technical assessment; it’s a moral judgment against deviation from his beloved Rec.709.
“Now I’ve watched about an hour and a half, and skimmed through the rest, but I don’t get the point he’s making.
It really seems like he spent 3 hours to say “I grade in SDR, so HDR is pointless”, which…okay…good for you?
Throughout the video he periodically switched from the SDR to HDR versions of the various grades he’s done and exclaimed how they “look the same”.
Which, of course they do, he grades in SDR; putting an SDR grade into HDR container wouldn’t change anything.
He talked about how 10/12bit is more data inefficient than 8 bit, but it’s only inefficient if you don’t use the extra bits, a la grading in SDR and putting in an HDR container.
It’s no different than if someone said that 4K is “useless”, “data inefficient”, and “perceptually the same” as 1080p, when their comparisons are a 1080p source and that same source place in a 4K container.
Seemed like constant circular reasoning.” hkpictures | blu-ray.com forum commenter
This circular reasoning is the inevitable endpoint of the reactionary mindset.
A reactionary stance is inherently limiting.
An artist who sees a new tool like HDR as an opportunity might think: “How can I use this expanded range for more powerful storytelling?”
A reactionary thinks: “How do I make this new tool behave exactly like the old one? How do I neutralize its inherent properties to conform to my existing ideology?”
The former approach leads to growth. The latter is a creative dead end. Yedlin’s body of work and public stance is fundamentally about limitation and control, rather than artistic exploration and growth.
The Daejeon Chronicles 