[TaoColorist] Sunday Morning Reading (Getting 'The Look')

Published: Sun, 01/08/12

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The Tao Colorist

Curated links of news, reviews, thoughts, career advice, and humor 
for professional Video / Film Colorists & Finishers. Delivered Sunday.
Issue LXXV                                                           Brought to you by: Tao of Color.com

Editor's Note: We're baaack! Welcome 2012! I ended up taking an extra week hiatus from the newsletter. I cut myself off from almost all forms of communication for almost two weeks. Today I start crawling out from my hidey-hole and start the New Year with an information-heavy Newsletter. I didn't have the time to get everything I wanted in this issue - so expect some older articles to show up over the next few weeks.


Special Note: 

I want to take a moment to extend my heartfelt condolences to the team at Flanders Scientific and the Desmet family: Pam and I mourn for your loss. Just before Christmas, Dan Desmet - one of the co-founders of FSI - passed away. 

I spoke with Dan once - to arrange a demo of their monitor. We spent almost zero time talking about his product. Instead, Dan and I had a great conversation about his son Bram, how proud he was of Bram's career and that they had co-founded FSI together. 

It has always struck me - the courage displayed by this 'Band of Brothers' deciding to take on the likes of Sony, JVC, Ikegami and Panasonic. 

Seriously. Think about it. 

AND, they have done so successfully. 

If you'd like to remember Dan Desmet, or just learn about him, than this post by Walter Biscardi is a great read. Another way to remember Dan Desmet: Make a donation to marrow.org in his name. 

The Craft

  • Getting That 'CSI' Look - Using DaVinci Resolve. It starts with a nice tip on how to control what your LUT is doing to the image. (Vimeo.com)
  • How To Achieve the 'Grindhouse' Look - I'm wavering on this tutorial. It's cheesy. But if you start watching at 3 minutes you can skip most of the nonsense and learn how to achieve a version of this look using Magic Bullet Suite in After Effects. I think they also show how to do this using just the default AE plug-ins... but I couldn't watch that far. (FilmmakerIQ.com)
  • This Dark House: Creating the Visuals for FX's 'American Horror Story' - I really enjoy this show. Very creepy. Great editorial style. And a nice use of color to help the audience understand the time-frame of the various B-story lines. There isn't much color-grading related information in this article. But a good interview with a Craftsman... which is enough to put the story at the top of this newsletter. (StudioDaily.com)
  • How A Waveform Monitor Can Help You Improve Your Images - A series of tutorials by Tektronix on using waveform monitors to accomplish specific craft-related goals. (Tek.com)
  • Dailies and Proxies: Alexa and Resolve - A G-REAT post on how to prep dailies in Resolve while transcoding to much smaller 'proxy' file sizes, adding metadata to the files, and giving the editorial team nice pictures to edit with (instead of Alexa's flat LOG-C images). I really like the commentary about burning in the file name. (DitSpot.com)

The Tools 

  • Why 4K? - This piece is more a round up of the various tools (production and post-production, hardware and software) to tackle the 4k challenge. But it leads with a strong introduction into the fundamentals of 4k recording, pixel density, resolution, and the difference that glass makes. (DigitalFilms.wordpress.com)
  • BaseLight for FCP - Baselight recently made news by announcing you can pre-register your interest in their previously announced FCP Legacy plug-in. At NAB they expected to release the plug-in in the Fall of 2011 - a date that has come and gone. I've heard rumors that they'll have more news about the plug-in 'sometime in Q1'. For some reason I thought they had released to it to current owners of Baselight. I guess my understanding is wrong. (Flimlight.ltd.uk)
  • BlackMagic Releases DaVinci Resolve for Windows Public Beta - In case you missed this over the holidays. Resolve and Resolve Free are now available on Mac, PC, and Linux. Existing Resolve for Mac owners are licensed to run either version using their existing dongle. (BlackMagic-Design.com)
  • [FCPx] Quick Color Correction - Using Color Balance Analysis and Auto Shot Matching. (LarryJordan.biz)
  • [Magic Bullet Looks] Animating Your Looks - Using keyframes in After Effects (PC or Mac) and Premiere (PC only). (RedGiantSoftware.com)
  • Avid Artist Color: Slippery Knob Solution - If you think the knobs are slippery (I myself don't remember feeling that way about the knobs) here's a solution from the Avid-L. Read down at the bottom of the page for a detailed explanation. (Avid-L Mailing List)
  • BlackMagic's HyperDeck Studio: Releases Avid DNxHD Codec Support - In addition to Uncompressed codecs, HyperDeck Studio now supports various flavors of DNxHD. It's a free update to existing users. (DefinitionMagazine.com)
     

A D V E R T I S E M E N T

Flanders Scientific Broadcast Monitors

The LM-2461W is an affordable 24" color critical reference monitor featuring 10bit color depth, 3G/HD/SD-SDI Inputs, 12 onboard scopes, and DCI P3 support. All standard and all for just $4,995.

Learn More About the LM-2461W

 

The Business

  • Bunim / Murray Replaces FCP with Avid - If you're on the Apple Pro Apps team, this is big news. Bunim / Murray (BM) was the feather in FCP's hat. BM is the leader in reality television programming - known for treating their people well enough they're one of the few big reality production companies that are not a union shop.

    BM has (had?) over 100 seats of FCP, was a long-time beta tester, and they were one of 'The 100' who were given early access to FCPx. For a decade Bunim Murray was vindication that FCP was Prime Time capable and Apple was proud of that relationship. Alas... no more. Not surprisingly, they've also dropped X-San in favor of Avid's solution. (StudioDaily.com)
  • Delivering A Network Show with FCPx - If you want to know for whom FCPx is built... read no further than this interview. I have some questions about the monitoring setup offered in this article (it seems to be based on the AJA workaround found in their white paper on monitoring FCPx - which is a kludge and not reference quality). But in truth - I've spent zero time in FCPx and I'm simply offering a word of caution to the color graders reading this article. (fcp.co)
  • Kodak Warned That It's Stock May Be De-listed - They've been trading below $1 per share. (WashingtonPost.com)
  • Top 5 CES Announcements That Could Effect Post-Production (SpliceVine.com)

Outside 'The Box'

  • Using an iPhone to Replace a Lav or Boom Mic - Not as crazy as it sounds. Also shows how to use waveforms to sync audio in Premiere. (FilmmakerIQ.com)

Edumacate Yer'self

  • Warren Eagles' NY & LA Training Classes - On DaVinci Resolve. This post has a link to his 5 minute pitch about his live training classes, as well as class dates (late January, early February). Personally, I think he's a great teacher and his classes are worth every penny if you make a career from color grading. Your best use of this time is to first take one of the online training classes so you can ask him specific questions as the days roll along. (iColorist.com)

New Year Resolve-a'lution

Since it's the start of a New Year, since Resolve Lite (the FREE version) is fully featured enough for 80% of video post-production needs, since Resolve is now OS-agnostic and since it's a part of my business that helps pay for this newsletter, here's a round-up of the paid high-quality online training available for DaVinci Resolve:
  • fxPhd: Resolve Fundamentals - 5 hours of training designed to get you up and started on Resolve. Quickly. Recorded by colorist Warren Eagles. (fxPhd.com)
  • fxPhd: January 2012 Term - They've got classes on the RED Epic grading workflow (RED 302), a class on Camera Tech and Color Science (DCT 301), and for the finishers in this crowd an Intro and Intermediate Smoke On A Mac (SMK 104, SMK 205). (fxPhd.com)
  • Class On Demand: Getting Started with DaVinci Resolve Lite - Get one year free access to this 'getting started' training recorded by well-known colorist Bob Sliga. (ClassOnDemand.com)
  • Tao of Color Grading: DaVinci Resolve 8 MasterClass - This is my baby. I've spent 6 months recording this training. Currently there are 18 Lessons, almost 20 hours of training. Another 14 Lessons (about 10 hours of training) are in the pipeline. I delve deeply into the Resolve interface and provide a 16-minute short film that we color grade together. You can download the course listing here. (Masterclass.TaoOfColor.com)

  
Current Colorist Control Surface Drivers
 JL Cooper Eclipse Avid Artist Color Tangent Wave

Software: v2.6b4

 Mac: v2.6.2

Software: v3.8

Color Plug-in: v 1.0.5
 PC: v2.6.2
Firmware: v1.9

Updated:
Nov 21

 Updated: October 20 Updated: Jan. 28(ish)
 

Sunday Morning Fun(nies)

  • [Video] The Spielberg Face - A GREAT video essay of what is the defining filmic image of Steven Spielberg... faces of astonishment. And more recently... horror. (YouTube.com)
  • [iApp] Turn Your iPhone Into A Magnifying Glass - Perfect for grabbing serial numbers. (Tidbits.com)
  • Original Star Wars Camera Breaks Auction Record - It's the Panavision 35mm camera used in 1977 for the Star Wars Episode IV. (IMDb.com via @movie_camera)

Gear Heads

  • JVC Introduces 24-Inch 3D Production Monitor - 10bit, 3G and Dual SDI connections, plus various markers for stereographers to measure alignment on dual camera setups. At $12k it's priced as a native 10bit panel. (ProVideoCoalition.com)
  • USB 3.0 Roundup - As we all wait for Thunderbolt solutions, how about a second look at USB 3 and how it compares to other current interface options? (BareFeats.com)
  • Seagate and Western Digital Cut Hard Drive Warranties in 2012 - Not a good sign for any of us making a living in digital post-production. If you want better warranties you'll need to spend for the enterprise level drives. But they won't pay for data recovery. Have a back-up plan. (theVerge.com)
 
Resolve 8: Twenty+ hours of video                   Grade a 16-Minute Short

MasterClass: DaVinci Resolve 8

Workflow + Technique + Interface Training

DaVinci Resolve, DaVinci Resolve Lite : Mac & Windows!
Colorista II | Apple Color | FCP 7

2012 Resolutions

  • Motivation Isn't Your Problem - The problem is follow-through. (blogs.hbr.com)
  • A 7-Step Process to Achieving Your Goals - One of the steps? Freak out! Yup. That's me. A good read. (blogs.hbr.com)

Your Career

  • Freelance: To Incorporate or Not - I agree ... S-Chapter incorporation makes a ton of sense of US-based freelancers.

    I disagree with how they picked their state of incorporation (if you follow their advice and get sued - you may need to travel to Neveda to go to court). And 1 filing per year??? By my count, between State and Federal filings - I've got 27 filings every year. In fact, I finally outsourced my payroll so they could do it all for me and I stop getting hit with late filing fees. (WideOpenCamera.com via NotesOnVideo.blogspot.com)
  • Walking Away From 'Real' - Are you a real colorist? Is a movie shot on an iPhone a real movie? What's 'real' anyway? (SethGodin.typepad.com)
  • Why Profit Should Be Your Most Important Goal - And by 'profit' they mean: Making MORE than you're worth. My personal corollary: The value of running a business without debt is that cash-on-hand lets you immediately and continuously know if you're running a profit (and hence, providing value to others). Debt hides weakness in your business. (DuctTapeMarketing.com)

The Ultimate Back-Up Strategy

  • How To Defend the Earth From Asteroids - A fun, informative TED talk. (blog.ted.com)
 

Th- Th- That's ALL Folks! See you next week. Happy Grading!
  
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