šŸŽØ Colorist Newsletter #551

Published: Sun, 03/26/23

Issue DLI: The Crucial Edition
The Color Grading Newsletter
News, reviews, thoughts, career advice, and humor for professional Video / Film Colorists & Finishers. Delivered Sundays. Curated by a professional color grader.
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Curated & Published
by
Patrick Inhofer
From The Publisher
A few of you emailed last week asking about the MacMini setup I'm using for software scopes that I mentioned last week. Here are the details:

I loop the SDI signal out of a Flanders Scientific DM display into an UltraStudio Recorder 3G HDMI converter that feeds the 1080p signal into the MacMini M2 Pro with the following specs:
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- 12ā€‘core CPU
- 19-core GPU, 16ā€‘core Neural Engine
- 16GB unified memory

Currently, it's running Nobe OmniScope, which I really enjoy using. I'll be testing ScopeBox 4 in the very near future. If any of you are using ScopeBox on Apple Silicon, I'd love to hear about it.

This week's Newsletter is jam-packed.

So let's get to it. Enjoy.

See you next Sunday.

Happy Grading!

Sincerely,

Patrick Inhofer
Colorist & Publisher
Ā 
The Craft
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.
(Event) "After 25 years, this will be the last MMB. After missing a few years due to COVID, we are back to our classic MMB with a full sit-down dinner and all the trappings you've come to know and love about an MMB - drinks, prizes, great people and a chance to really relax after the NAB show floor with like-minded colleagues. If you ever wanted to attend an MMB or have in the past, this is the one you can't miss." Monday, April 17th at 5:30 PM. Registration required.
"Colorist Mixer events let you catch up with friends, meet your ā€˜virtualā€™ friends from around the world in person, and make new friends. Where else will you find colorists from around the planet all in one room!". Sunday, 16 April, 6pm. Registration Required.
"The data clearly demonstrates that consumers prefer titles with exclusiveĀ 
theatrical releases ... in the eyes of consumers, a strong theatrical release backed up by a big marketing campaign creates value when they are picking what to watch wherever they end up watching the movie."
Like the headline says.
Fin Design+ Effects discusses their work on the multi-oscar nominated film Elvis.
From Marc Wielage: "Hereā€™s an excellent tech paper put out last year by Arri (that I had previously missed) on what dynamic range really is, how they measure it, and how theyā€™ve improved the performance in their latest cameras:"
Currently, Filmmaker Mode works only with SDR and HDR10 content
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The Tools
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 toolchest with new techniques and approaches.Ā 

Mostly a maintenance release. Click through for the change list.

(video) Daria Fissoun posts a video that's a reference guide: "This video observes the behavior of the Fusion page in 4 various color management systems and proposes solutions that are user-friendly, future-proof, and rely on tools that are already available to you in DaVinci Resolve."
(video) "Use Photos efficiently in Fusion: Resize, Scale, Crop or Merge-over-Background ā€“ different options help you deal with high resolution media in lower-resolution timelines. Animate your photographs with transforms, create quick masks with the magic mask or animate with a warper."

"This newly updated training guide covers how to use the traditional edit page, color correction, Fusion VFX, Fairlight audio tools, and more."

(video) Colorist Cullen Kelly: "Contrast can be talked about in many ways, but contrast ratio comes from a photographic understanding of contrast, meaning it's how the people who are shooting the footage are thinking about contrast as they're creating a shot on set. This video will cover what contrast ratio is, and how you can use it to guide your color grading."

We call all learn things from Photoshop techniques: "If you would like to improve your landscape photos, check out this great video tutorial that will show you how to leverage Photoshop to create more accurate and vibrant foliage."

As cloud storage services like Box, Dropbox, Google Drive, and Microsoft OneDrive move from deprecated kernel extensions to Appleā€™s File Provider extension, Mac users face interface and workflow changes.
An amazing read if you want a deeper understanding of the tech underlying LucidLink: "After learning more about the nitty-gritty of consumer-level cloud storage services for an article [about Mac cloud storage changes], Adam Engst is introduced to LucidLink, which promises high-performance cloud storage using a completely different model."

(webinar) "Join us for a full walkthrough of Camera to Cloud and discover how this innovative technology can help your team seamlessly transfer footage and increase efficiency from set to post." March 30.

The headline says it all.

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Pushing Photons
These stories are from MixingLight.com's membership Library of color grading articles, tutorials, and podcasts (Tao Of Color is co-Owner). Do you want to read a story listed here but not a member? Sign up for a 7-Day Test Drive.ā€‹ā€‹ā€‹ There's also color correction Practice Projects for purchase.Ā 
(video) "Cullen Kelly shows you how to build a custom transform by combining a film print LUT with basic color science - to add style to images."
(video) "Igor Ridanovic shows how to write a reasonably complex Fuse, and save it as a Fusion Macro to access it in Resolve's Edit Page Effects panel."
"In Part 2 we dive into Tashi's color management pipeline, Resolve project setup, and the kind of color work he did on this VFX-heavy film."
Sponsor
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The Flanders Scientific DM220 and DM160 are OLED monitors designed for use in color-critical production, post, and broadcast applications.
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Gear Heads
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.

"This is new equipment that will be used at the FSI booth or partner booths across the show floor during NAB in Las Vegas (April 16-19). This gear will be new when it is sent to NAB. It will of course be used when it gets back, but FSI will clean and inspect every unit before sending it on to the new owner. Units come with a full 2 year warranty, just like new equipment."

Good writeup. I especially like this quote: "The amount of DPs, photographers, and producers who canā€™t remember my name, are chatting with someone about ā€œthat guy with the pink stuff,ā€ and then hire me again once they get told my name. It has definitely helped keep my career going." You'll need to click through for the context.

An 18" laptop for the mobile warrior: "The new Razer Blade 18 sets the bar for what an 18-inch laptop should be. Decked out with graphics up to an NVIDIAĀ® GeForceā„¢ RTX 4090 with full TGP and the latest IntelĀ® 13th Gen Coreā„¢ i9 HX processors." Click through for the pricing :-)

"If you are not a Puget customer, but have one of these drives in your system, we strongly recommend backing up your data and then updating to the latest firmware. That can be done from within the Samsung Magician SSD management utility. In addition, we would recommend monitoring the drive health as reported in Samsung Magician over time to make sure that the update has slowed the rate of degradation to a normal level."

Click through for links.

This article runs through the various potential system bottlenecks you can troubleshoot.

"Here are a few considerations before upgrading your GPU. Itā€™s often better to check other parts of your system hardware before you decide your GPU has run its course or you need to upgrade to a new GPU."

"It appears that another brand is to join the fight for the highest transfer speeds soon. Same as other Gen5 SSDs, the Crucial T700 is based on Phison E26 controller, and it will ship with a heatsink. At least in this case this cooling is much smaller and there is no noisy fan installed (like on Inland SSD). So if this storage reaches advertised speeds without active cooling, thatā€™s already a big win."

The future? "The company has created AR glasses that project images directly onto the userā€™s retina, eliminating the depth mismatch that causes discomfort and physical symptoms."

Sunday Fun(nies)
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.

Quite humorous: "The decision led to what Perry describes as her skin gradually changing color throughout the day, getting "oranger, and oranger, and oranger" as filming went on." via Robert Due

(video) "Damage can disrupt the way we look at a painting; it can break the illusion, flatten the space or interrupt the flow of the composition. This diminutive painting by the African American painter Leroy Turner can hardly be enjoyed with a gaping hole in the board. But through careful conservation and a slightly unique approach, we'll get the Rhythm Restored."
Th- th- th- that's all folks! I'll see you next Sunday.
Ā 


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