The latest news, reviews, thoughts, and humor for professional (and aspiring) moving image Colorists and Finishers. |
From the Editor: In this newsletter I'm starting a new feature - "Recommended Reading". Each week I'll highlight a book related to the Art, Craft, or Technique of digital color grading. It'll include a (affiliate) link to Amazon. I hope you find it useful!
This Week On 'The Tao'
- [Podcast] LCDs: Do You Want Pretty Pictures? Or Accurate Pictures? An interview with Bram Desmet (Flanders Scientific) on LCD reference displays. We discuss: The purpose of reference monitors; color grading appropriate LCDs; LCD measuring and calibration methods; and much more. (TaoOfColor.com)
- [Blog] Moving From Apple's Color to DaVinci Resolve: Week 2, Part 1 - Your gentle Newsletter Editor's continuing 'colorist diary' documenting his (my) transition to Resolve. In this edition: I fail rather spectacularly. Or was it a spectacular failure? And do I recover? (TaoOfColor.com)
Tools We Use
- Storm 1.0 Available - I'm annoyed. I haven't had the time to put Storm through its paces. It's now out of beta and available for purchase ($375 US). A free Trail version is available for download. (theFoundry.co.uk via @mozhenko)
- Life with the EliteBook: DreamColor Calibration - Here's an Overview and then Part 1 and Part 2 of working with HP's high-end laptop with an integrated DreamColor display. NOTE: The Calibration article is Part 2. (fxGuide.com)
- "Eagleheart": Behind-The-Scene with Quantel Pablo - An interview with the Colorist and the DP on creating the look and managing the pipeline for this Adult Swim series. They shot two RED MXs. (blog.quantel.eu via @Quantel)
- Autodesk: The Secret Start Behind Oscar-Winning Visual Effects - A really nice write-up from Fast Company. (FastCompany.com via @the99percent)
- What is Apple Doing with Quicktime? A Philip Hodgetts special report (and educated guess). (PhilipHodgetts.com)
- Automatic Duck's 'Media Copy' - A quick overview of this very useful tool for anyone who has clients bringing jobs on drives... or delivering jobs on drives. This tool works for both Avid and FCP projects. (SpliceNow.com)
- 28 Days of Avid & FCP Quicktips - In February Scott Simmons had a full month of Quicktips for Avid and FCP editors. Here's the post listing them all, day by day. Dig in! (ProVideoCoalition.com via @editblog)
Color Influencing Form: This book deals with the fundamentals of human color perception, color theory and color notation. The explanation of the CIE color chart is easily the clearest I've yet come across.
Note: This is a paperback book without color pictures. The author keeps referring to images that were clearly meant to be published in color. I've been able to manage with this slight annoyance. You've been forewarned.
Highly Recommended
Edumacate Yerself
New To Me
- Add eSata Drives to the 27" iMac - I'm (emphaticaly) not recommending an iMac for color grading (their glossy coatings are designed for pretty pictures, not rendering accurate pictures). But adding eSata to an iMac makes a ton of sense for a whole host of workflows. This PVC article is 6 months old but I just found it this week. (ProVideoCoalition.com via Allan Tépper)
Obligatory Post-Oscar Links
- "The Social Network": FCP Milestone - Since the FCP-L doesn't seem to be readable by non-members, I'm cribbing directly from Oliver Peters on this:
"FCP passed a milestone with the Oscars last night. "The Social Network" won for Best Editing. That makes it the first film cut on FCP to win a Best Editing Oscar. Congrats to Angus Wall and Kirk Baxter on the win. That seems to be a fitting match to Walter Murch's winning a best editing Oscar for the first electronically edited movie ("The English Patient", cut on Avid).
Linked is a post from Oliver's website on The Social Network's post process. (digitalfilms.wordpress.com via FCP-L)
- Why Movies Suck - OK. So not really a post-Oscar story. But hey - the juxtaposition works, yes? (kottke.org)
Colors
On Craftsmanship
Current Colorist Control Surface Drivers
| JL Cooper Eclipse |
Euphonix MC Color |
Tangent Wave |
| Software: v2.1.5 |
Mac: v2.5.7 |
Software: v3.8 |
|
Color Plug-in: v 1.0.5 |
PC: v2.5.7 |
Firmware: v1.9 |
| Updated: Feb. 28? (version not incremented) |
Updated: Feb. 18 |
Updated: Jan. 28(ish) |
Sunday Morning Fun(nies)
- USB-Enabled Typewriter (works with iPad) - The video is hysterical. It's supposedly a DIY project but screams Sunday Morning Funny. (LifeHacker.com)
- Backyard Photo of Shuttle Docking with Space Station - Out of the UK comes this awesome one-in-a-lifetime photo. (SpaceWeather.com via @crisr)
- Tick Tock: A Short (4 minute) Film - A well-executed time-bending student film. In one take. (YouTube.com via PetaPixel.com)
- The "Nomad Brush" for iPad - Musings on a new capacitive brush stylus used by digital artists to paint on the iPad. Makes me wish I could paint. (UnderPaintings.blogspot.com)
Being Better Creatives
- Creativity and Execution - Frank Capria shares the tools and methods he uses to capture his ideas and inspire his inner muse (capria.tv)
- Nine Things Successful People Do Differently - From the Harvard Business Review (hbr.org via @the99percent)
stop fiddling, start grading
MASTER THE BASICS OF COLOR GRADING
Weekend Warrior
Point, Counter Point
- AMD Downplays Thunderbolt - You think Thunderbolt will actually deliver 10Gbps? HA! says AMD. It's less. Far less. (Electronista.com via @silveradosys)
- Secrets of Thunderbolt and Lion - According to this article, AMD is correct. Thunderbolt does NOT deliver 10Gbps. It delivers 20Gbps! Apparently, a single connection provides a two-way connection - doubling the bandwidth... plus, it provides 10 watts of power (compared to 7 and 2 watts of power for Firewire and USB, respectively). This article has lots more details on Thunderbolt and also touches on OS X Server in 10.7. (Tidbits.com)
Gear Heads
- Core Duo-based Macs Not Supported in Mac OS "Lion" (HardMac.com)
Save Yourself
Magical Meets Mundane
The Next Step is a Doozy
- DIY DSLR Ring Flash Created With Fiber Optics - Yup. So devilish'y freakish I had to post it twice! Think maybe you need to click through??? (PetaPixel.com)
- Final Cut Pro 8? Or iCut Pro? - Listen to this podcast, where Philip Hodgetts and Terence Curren hash it out about the next version of FCP... with no real Insider info.
I say: Notice how no one is talking about the new version of Apple Color? Maybe we've been conditioned to expect nothing new?(ProVideoCoalition.com)
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