| Issue D: The 500 Sundays Edition |
| The Tao of Color Grading Newsletter |
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Curated links of news, reviews, thoughts, career advice, and humor for professional Video / Film Colorists & Finishers. Delivered Sundays.
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This is the 500th edition of the Tao Color Grading Newsletter! 😁
Since I almost always write these on Saturday (including this edition), that's 500 Saturdays that the Tao Treasurer has endured planning our weekends around.
This 500th edition of the Tao Newsletter is dedicated to my lovely wife, Pam.
It may be my name in the byline but it's her patience, understanding, and support that makes all of this happen. Without her, I wouldn't be here writing this right now.
Over the years I've had plenty of additional support that kept me going. Indulge me as I engage in some early thanks giving:
- Thank YOU, my loyal reader. I'm always amazed by the number of people who thank me for this effort. If you weren't opening, reading, clicking, or sharing these emails - well, we wouldn't be here a decade later.
- Thank you, Bram Desmet and Team Flanders Scientific. They were my Original Sponsor and validated the work I was doing here. Throughout my journey on the training and community side of the work I do in Tao Of Color and Mixing Light, Bram and FSI have been there every step of the way for almost a decade - while never trying to influence my behavior for their benefit. I have deep respect and admiration for their entire team.
- Thank you, Jim Wicks. Long-time readers know that I almost buried this Newsletter from extreme burnout. Jim became my Managing Editor for a few years until I figured out how to workflow this down from a part-time job to a more manageable few hours a week.
- Thank you, to my current and past Sponsors. A man can only walk so far on the admiration of others. You've helped keep this Newsletter alive by allowing it to contribute to my business, and my family, in a tangible manner. I'm humbled by your willingness to associate your business with this effort.
What's in store for the Tao Newsletter for the next 500 editions?
I've got many ideas - and a few I'm already executing on. I can say I was hoping to have some Newsletter swag to help celebrate this milestone. But I'm still working on it. It's coming - just not quite yet. If you have some ideas (and more importantly, experience with specific swag stores I should consider) then hit reply and let me know!
The changes I make will be tied to what this Newsletter has been doing for all of us for a decade. Namely, keeping us connected to all the high-quality resources that are constantly being produced on the internet related to our craft. And in the process, keeping us connected to each other.
Thanks again for joining me here, every Sunday. It's an honor and a pleasure.
Happy Grading! And yes, I'll see you next Sunday as we roll into the holiday season.
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- Patrick Inhofer
Colorist | Publisher | Coach
(and remember - if you have a story that's a fit for this Newsletter, hit reply or email it to '[email protected]'! Include a quick reason for the suggested link.)
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start 'folding', and connect to The Color Cartel team.
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Featuring the work of creative craftsmen, the theory of color, and industry news. Learn practical workflows, useful theories, and actionable insights from existing (and emerging) leaders and teachers in our industry.
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(video) "We're diving into approvals, deliverables, and getting paid, rounding out the essential business skills to build a thriving color suite, leaving you to do the work you love consistently."
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"Devan Scott put together a wonderful, richly illustrated thread on Twitter contrasting the use of color grading in Skyfall and Spectre. Both of those films were directed by Sam Mendes, but they had different cinematographers." Click through for the full summary and the link to the Twitter thread.
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"Fraser ... talks about the challenges of making the ambitious epic, his unique analog/digital approach to the cinematography and working with VFX."
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(podcast) "If you want insights into directing an artistic black and white film shot in 4:3 aspect ratio at a time when the more “K’s” you have in your camera the better, this is the interview for you."
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"Production teams spend tremendous effort creating this art, and it is critical that we faithfully preserve the original creative intent when streaming to our members. To achieve this goal, the Encoding Technologies team made the following design decisions about AV1 encoding recipes."
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Our craft keeps changing. And growing. Learn about updates to your favorite software. Discover new tools to help you work faster or more creatively. Build your tool chest with new techniques and approaches.
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(video) Colorist Darren Mostyn breaks down a ResolveFX you've probably ignored.
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"In this tutorial, we start with some of the most important techniques while keeping the flow simple. It provides a good starting workflow. As you refine your skills and gain experience you can add to this whenever the situation demands it."
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"SGO has announced VR Headset Preview for the industry’s favorite stitching software Mistika VR and full-finishing and color grading solution Mistika Boutique. This functionality is being supported through the integration of DeoVR, a platform-agnostic and completely free of charge VR player."
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"While Apple haven’t explained their reasons for changing the format, the new Bundle format allows the XML to remain straightforward, while carrying additional data, like Tracking or Stabilization data along with the XML metadata."
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"Color Intelligence, specialists in AI image processing, color management, color grading and film emulation technologies, has released Look Designer 2 for Adobe’s Premiere Pro and After Effects."
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For you finishers out there working in multiple NLEs: "Some apps call this a decompose while others break apart the clip items. But not Premiere Pro. To decompose and break apart a Premiere nest you usually have to open that nest in the timeline and then copy and paste the original clips back into your main timeline. But here comes Knights of the Editing Table to the rescue with Grave Robber."
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"In researching and writing several articles and posts about trusting displays and color management, I’ve come to realize the following. If you expect the NLE viewer to be a perfect match with the output to a video display or an exported file playing in every media player, then good luck! The chances are slim. There are several reasons for this."
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| Learn more at MacSales.com |
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(video) "We've all seen the 1931 CIE RGB Chromaticity Chart but do you understand its importance to film and video? How does it map to human vision?"
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(video) "In this Insight Dan (well known for his gritty looks) tries to bring a bit of that style to a cleaner, HDR-ready show look created in Baselight."
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(video) "Colorist Cullen Kelly has finished defining his Davinci Resolve DCTL plugin. Now, learn how he tweaks the interface, eliminating 'dead zones.'
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Stay updated on the latest hardware that's shipping - because the craft of color grading isn't just about software. Plus, keep an eye on future equipment trends and hardware odds-and-ends.
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An interesting set of benchmarks between two form factors that many pros are likely to consider as secondary machines.
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"While these tests don’t represent some of the cycle-peeping Mac-geek-bench-test number things others might do, they do represent what many of us have to do in post-production over and over and over again. Render and export. Transcode and output."
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"The Accelsior 8M2 can be maxed out with up to eight 8TB NVMe M.2 SSDs for a total of 64TB of storage with up to 12,000MB/s real-world PCIe Gen 3 speeds. The price?" Click through for the rest of the story.
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"Intel announced their 12th Gen Intel Core desktop processors (code-named "Alder Lake") with the most notable feature being the new hybrid architecture which utilizes a mix of Performance and Efficient-cores." This article includes benchmarks for DaVinci Resolve using this range of Intel's mid-tier CPUs.
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If you like building your own custom PCs then you'll probably like this review of a DIY eGPU box.
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Random thoughts, tidbits, and fun stuff that caught my attention this week. Maybe it's color grading related. Maybe not. Ya got'ta read to the end of the Newsletter to find out.
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(video) "I could write an entire book on my experience in the first 24 hours with this laptop, but instead, I'll point you to the video above to get a glimpse of how things are going."
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| Th- th- th- that's all folks! I'll see you next week. |
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