From music to moving image

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-production, 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 says. 'I just changed the medium. The feeling is the same – I’m still creating'. For her, creativity extends far beyond music and image-making. 'It’s all world-building,” she says. “Hosting people, cooking, decorating my home – it all hits the same place for me'.

A life built around 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 says. “Then I heard two jazz records – Bobby McFerrin and Chick Corea, and Ella Fitzgerald Live in Berlin – 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 programme. From there, life became entirely defined by music.

She toured, performed and built her project from the ground up – expanding far beyond music itself.
“I did everything,” she says. “Artwork, styling, visuals, posters, vinyl design – even the smallest details. It was all part of building a world'. That instinct for world-building remains central to her creative identity today.

Discovering colour 
Colour 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 realised 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 colour grading', she says. 'He’d seen how obsessed I was with tiny visual details – skin tones, shades of pink, everything. So, I decided to learn it myself. I approached it like music; six hours a day, for months. I barely left the apartment'.

She studied DaVinci Resolve intensively, 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 overnight. '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 says. 'The last show I played was at Lincoln Center in New York City. The performance was part of Ruidosa, a festival organised 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. 

'We were in the interview room and I had just been working on something for my husband’s project,” she says. “Carlos and I got talking about color and eventually my work got back to Felipe 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 adds. '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 has just completed her first visit to the WeMakeColor studio environment in Mexico City.

'I’ve just spent a few weeks in the facility with the team and it’s been incredible,” she says. “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'.

“Also, just being in a room with other colourists changes everything and I’ve learned so much just being around other people who think differently about the same image.

'One of my favourite things about WeMakeColor is how much they support learning', adds Ronderos. 'That’s really important to me'.

The Wolford project: colour, skin and representation
One of Ronderos’ most recent commercial projects was for Wolford, which became a defining example of her approach to skin tone and identity in colour.

'That project is very important to me', she says. 'Skin tones are everything. There’s something deeply personal about it – especially as a Latina artist. The stories we tell through skin colour matter. It tells you where people come from, their ancestors, their history'.

The campaign itself was a fashion-led piece showcasing women of different ages and ethnicities.
“It was a commercial for tights and underwear,” she says. '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'.

Another element Ronderos really enjoyed was the freedom.
'I just got the footage,” she says. “No deck, no references, nothing. I just drew a curve and started from scratch. Just intuition'.

The final palette leaned into warmth and contrast.
'It felt like southern France – Marseille energy', she says. 'Warm greens, blue skies, rich skin tones. And I went quite dark with the blacks. I like contrast'.

Colour as feeling
Ronderos describes her approach to colour as both technical and instinctive – a balance of structure and improvisation.

'It’s mathematical and emotional', she says. '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'.

Music continues to influence her grading process. While working on a recent horror short, she repeatedly returned to the soundtracks of Twin Peaks to shape tone and atmosphere.
“I wanted it to feel seductive and eerie at the same time,” she says. “Music absolutely influences the grade'.

Colour, collaboration and storytelling
For Ronderos, colour functions as a quiet but powerful storytelling device.
“Luminance, warmth, density – all of these things change emotional perception before we even realise it,” she says. “It’s a bit like interior design. You walk into a space and you feel something immediately. Film works the same way'.

When collaborating with directors and DPs, she values openness over the strict replication of references.

'I like references, but not as copies', she says. 'They show me taste. I love when people bring in photography, old films, random imagery – the more varied, the better. That creates more interesting work'.

Advice for aspiring colourists
'Learn constantly. Knowledge is everything', she says. 
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'.

But she is equally clear that craft alone is not enough.
“This industry is deeply human,” she says. “The people I work with come to dinner at my house. We become friends'.

For her, relationships are not separate from the work — they are part of it.
'People recommend people they genuinely want to work with,” she says. “So it’s both: excellence in the craft, and real relationships'.

Looking ahead
Ronderos continues to expand her work across commercials, fashion and music-driven projects, while developing her longform narrative ambitions.
'I would love to colour features,” she says. “That’s the dream'.
For now, her focus remains on growth – both technically and creatively – within the evolving landscape of post-production.

As part of the WeMakeColor roster, she represents a new generation of colourists shaped by cross-disciplinary creative backgrounds – blending instinct, emotion and craft into a distinctly personal visual language.

 

LC