The Tao Colorist

The Science

• Zacuto's Great Camera Shootout 2011: Part 2, "Sensors & Sensitivity" - Another great episode following up on Part 1 which explored Dynamic Range. (vimeo.com)

• Simple Workflow for Removing 3:2 Pulldown - Old discussion for a new workflow... namely, if you're recording the 1080i HDMI output of a camera but want to remove the pulldown to see the 24p image that's being recorded to your drive - here's how to do it. (blog.abelcine.com)

• Luma Processing - The power of isolating your effects to just the Luma or Chroma channels of your image. Some great examples in here. If this concept is new to you it's a must read! (ProVideoCoalition.com)

• S-Log and the Sony F3 - Andy Shipsides from Abel points the F3 at a grayscale and offers up an effective demonstration on how selecting the different Gamma curves effect highlight & shadow roll-off. Since these choices have a huge impact on the images handed to colorists, if you want to be a resource to your clients it's the type of thing you want to keep knowledgeable about. (blog.AbleCine.com)

• Magenta Ain't A Color - Or rather, it's not a color in the visible spectrum. Or rather, it's a color - but it only exists in our mind. But then if our mind sees it, it's a color, right? Plus, a few nifty optical delusions. (BioTele.com via Steve Hullfish)

• Making Manuscripts - Okay, this doesn't relate to desktop color grading. And I don't have a good place to put it in the Newsletter, so: If we were living in the 1300's how much would you bet some of us would probably be Illuminating. What's that, you ask? Watch to find out. (ArtBabble.org)

Homer Nods

• Errata: Tangent Element Pricing - Alexis Van Hurkman informed me the pricing quoted to him from the Tangent peeps for the new Element is in the $3,000 - $3,500 US range for the full set of panels (in last week's newsletter I quoted $5,000). The next day Colorist Warren Eagles tweeted that Tangent hasn't yet committed to final pricing. We'll find out in a few weeks at IBC.

Outside 'The Box'

• 'Game of Thrones' VFX Breakdown Reel - It's always fun watching these reels to see what our brothers and sisters are doing on the VFX side of the business. (YouTube.com)

• 'Raising Arizona': BluRay Review - I'm happy to see one of the movies that had a huge influence on me has arrived in HD with a great film transfer. (BluBrew.com)

• 'The Big Lebowski': BluRay Review - BluBrew has long railed against the terrible BluRay transfers of older catalog films. But they have a special place in their coffee grinder for Universal's catalog releases. 'The Big Lebowski' rates as one of the most scathing reviews I've seen from them. (BluBrew.com)

Sunday Fun(nies)

• Cinemetrics: Fingerprinting Films - Watch the first video on this page. Fantastic visualizations of a film by color, duration, and activity. (Cinemetrics.FredericBrodbeck.de)

• 'Rise of the Planet of the Apes' Special Effects Featurette (YouTube.com)

• A Movie Theater Etiquette Manifesto - Really, why do we even need to explain this to people? (IFC.com via @stevensantos)

• Calculating the Size of Apple's New Headquarters - Apple might have more cash on hand than the US Government (and a much higher customer satisfaction rating). But at least the Pentagon's pentagon is bigger than Apple's new circular headquarters. Right? (MacObserver.com)

• The Music Industry: 30 Years in 30 Seconds - Fascinating animated infographic. (launch.is)

• The Art of Flight - The perfect video to give your morning coffee an adrenaline boost! (YouTube.com)

• The One - Presidential hopeful Ron Paul... he doesn't have much of a shot being the Republican nominee in the 2012 US Presidential Elections next year but this viral video proves his fallback career could be Hollywood. (YouTube.com via ReelSEO.com)

• Industrial Revolutions - If you only watch one Fun(ny) today. This is the one to watch. Beautifully lensed. An amazing talent. A rich location. (YouTube.com via ReelSEO.com)

Weekend Warriors

• Don't Just Make A Film, Build the Camera Too! (msnbc.msn.com via @walterbiscardi)

• DIY Briefcase of Prop Money (FilmmakerIQ.com)

• How to do a Clean Install of OS X Lion - Or you could buy the USB stick from the Apple Store. But it's way overpriced... and where's the fun in that? (mashable.com)

• How To Dice An Onion - Because we all have to eat sometime. And this is a good technique. (kottke.org)

Gear Heads

• HDD vs SSD Face-Off - How long does it take a MacBookPro to reboot and re-start all the open apps in Lion using a traditional hard drive versus a solid state harddrive? OWC has a YouTube video showing you exactly how long. The difference is impressive. (YouTube.com via @silveradosys)

Your Career

• How Much Should I Charge For My Freelance Services? We've covered this before in the newsletter but it's always a good topic to revisit. (LifeHacker.com)

• Build A Business, Not Just A Client List - Some interesting ideas. A few which I've adopted myself. (the99percent.com)

• Why Can't I Finish? - The four most common barriers to allowing yourself to complete projects. (the99percent.com)

• You're Not Paid to be Creative - You're paid to ship. Also: why you're afraid of shipping / finishing; why you're already creative enough; the Lizard Brain. It's interesting to see Seth Godin deliver his goods in person rather than read his written word. (FilmmakerIQ.com)

• Simple Sitting Exercises to Keep You Healthy  (LifeHacker.com)

• Why Following Your Passion Is Terrible Advice (CalNewport.com)

Yeah, right

• Dolby's Quick Guide to 3D Projection - Uh-huh. How quickly do you think such a guide is thrown in the 3D glasses recycling bin? Especially bullet point #6. (DigitalCinemaReport.com)

Yes, RIGHT!

• Adobe Admits to 80 Bugs in Flash Player - But not the 400 crash signatures initially reported by Google (and denied by Adobe). It turns out some of those crashes were duplicate bugs. Take THAT Steve Jobs! (MacWorld.co.uk)

A Step Too Far?

• Spatial Analysis of 'The Shining' - Guess what? It seems Kubrick's Overlook Hotel couldn't have existed in real life. The set design is filled with dead-end passages, impossible corridors, and other mind-bending impossibilities.
  
  And so... someone studied the set's flaws. In detail. And then wrote about it. And then made a YouTube video about it. An now you can watch it to discover that the Overlook Hotel is... fake and constructed to confuse. I'm a Kubrick fan and yet I'm not as thrilled and amazed by this as Mike Jones. You decide. (MikeJones.tv)