For Colombian-born colorist Juliana Ronderos (https://hooliincolor.com), color grading wasn’t part of a long-term plan. Until a few years ago, she didn’t even know the role existed.
Now working as part of the WeMakeColor roster, she is building a name across commercials, fashion films, music videos and shortform narrative work, bringing an instinctive, emotionally-driven approach shaped by a life in music.
Before entering post, Ronderos spent years as a singer, songwriter and producer, touring internationally and building deeply crafted visual worlds around her music.
“I don’t know if you ever stop being that once you’ve put out records,” she shares. “I just changed the medium.”
Creative world-building
Ronderos grew up in Colombia, where she excelled in chemistry and earned scholarships to study at a top university, with a scientific path initially ahead of her. But music intervened unexpectedly.
“I wasn’t even deeply into music growing up,” she recalls. “Then I heard two jazz records — and I just fell in love instantly.”
That moment shifted everything. She paused her studies and began pursuing music seriously, eventually gaining entry to Berklee College of Music in Boston after first being told she wasn’t ready for the jazz program. From there, life became entirely defined by music.
“I did everything,” she says. “Artwork, styling, visuals, posters, vinyl design — even the smallest details. It was all part of building a world.”
Discovering color
Color grading entered her life unexpectedly during the pandemic. After a major label project was stalled in 2020, Ronderos decided to create a deeply-personal album and accompanying film with her husband, a cinematographer, shot independently in Peru.
“We came back to New York with hard drives full of footage,” she says. “And I suddenly realized post production exists. I’d never really thought about it before.”
With no post team and limited resources, she began looking for solutions — until her husband suggested a different path.
“He said, ‘You’d be incredible at color grading,’” she shares. “He’d seen how obsessed I was with tiny visual details — skin tones, shades of pink, everything. So, I decided to learn it myself.”
She studied DaVinci Resolve intensely, eventually building enough confidence to invest in a control panel and begin grading real work. The turning point came when her husband needed support grading a Nike commercial.
“After that, I put together a tiny website and I haven’t stopped working since.”
Finding WeMakeColor
Ronderos joined the WeMakeColor roster early in 2025, which happened unexpectedly and organically.
“It’s a beautiful story,” she notes. “The last show I played was at Lincoln Center in New York City. The performance was part of Ruidosa, a festival organized by a Chilean artist focused on alternative music and live performance. It’s like an outdoor summer festival.”
A Chilean filmmaker was brought in to shoot coverage, working alongside one of WeMakeColor’s producers, Carlos Gerardo García.
“Carlos and I got to talking about color, and eventually my work got back to Felipe (Martínez U.) and the WeMakeColor network. Felipe reached out and asked if I wanted to get on a call.”
At the time, everything was still very new.
“This was really early on,” she remembers. “I think it was around December 2024. My website had only gone live in October, so it was all very fresh.”
Ronderos’ journey with WeMakeColor continues to evolve to this day, and she just completed her first visit to the WeMakeColor studio in Mexico City.
“I’ve just spent a few weeks in the facility with the team and it’s been incredible,” she shares. “I also participated in the most amazing Baselight training with FilmLight and the WeMakeColor team, and its taught me so much about color. I’m now thinking differently about color and my approach to grading, which is incredible.”
The Wolford project
One of Ronderos’ most recent commercial projects was for Wolford, which became a defining example of her approach to skin tone and identity in color.
“Skin tones are everything,” she states. “There’s something deeply personal about it, especially as a Latina artist. The stories we tell through skin color matter. It tells you where people come from, their ancestors, their history.”
The campaign was a fashion-led piece showcasing women of different ages and ethnicities.
“It was a commercial for tights and underwear,” she explains. “But the idea was that every woman should look beautiful in them. There were older women, younger girls, Asian women, brown and white skin tones — it was really beautiful. I wanted to do justice to all of it.
“I just got the footage,” she recalls. “No deck, no references, nothing. I just drew a curve and started from scratch. Just intuition.”
Color as feeling
Ronderos describes her approach to color as both technical and instinctive — a balance of structure and improvisation.
“It’s mathematical and emotional,” she explains. “You study the tools so deeply that eventually you stop thinking about them. Then it becomes instinct.
“It’s a bit like jazz,” she adds. “You learn the scales, the theory, the structure — and then you let go.”
Career advice
“Learn constantly. Knowledge is everything,” she shares.
She references “So Good They Can’t Ignore You,” a book by Cal Newport that shaped her approach early on.
“It’s about becoming so good that people can’t ignore your work,” she says. “I didn’t focus on marketing myself. I focused on getting better.”