[TaoColorist] Sunday Morning Reading (Grading Epic)

Published: Sun, 11/20/11

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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 LXXI                                                           Brought to you by: Tao of Color.com

Editor's Note: POW! BAM! It's an action-packed edition. Enjoy.

The Craft

  • Seeing Green - Different approaches to creating color meaning in your work. And how the color wheel can be used to create different meanings for different projects. (VanHurkman.com)
  • Color Grading RED Epic Underwater Footage - A GREAT 101 tutorial on color grading and why we do it. Followed by a great explanation of the unique challenges of grading underwater footage. Followed by a demo of the frame size difference between HD and 5K. Followed by an excellent explanation of using After Effects' awkward Selective Color filter (in case you absolutely positively have no choice but to grade in AE). (The UnderwaterRealm.com)
  • Grading a Music Video Shot with Epic - Colorist Warren Eagles walks us through a recent RED Epic project from dailies 'Best Light' to Avid DNxHD through final grade. (iColorist.com)
  • The Truth About 4K, 2K and the Marketing of Pixels - Beyond some deep digs at marketing specs, the discussion about chroma sub-sampling is essential reading. Near the end of the story is a GREAT discussion of the difference between building cameras to sell and building cameras to rent - and why you may want to reconsider purchasing your next camera. I've put this article under The Craft because it's such a high-level discussion spoken with great passion informed by experience. (CreativeCow.net via @Dr0id)

The Tools

  • [Forum Thread] White Paper: Why Two Monitors Can't Look The Same - The Original Poster (OP) of this thread was asking someone to create a White Paper covering this subject... only to write the thing he was asking for! Funny how that sometimes happens, eh? (tig.colorist.org) By the way - this follow-up post is classic.
  • [Video Tutorial] Red Cine X Pro: The Basics - Showing how to set it up for processing RED One, Epic or Scarlet footage. (YouTube.com)
  • Autodesk Smoke: A Review - The third person structure of this article throws me off a bit. I'm not sure if it's a profile of the author from the Autodesk site or something written to be picked up elsewhere. But lots of good info with a large number of embedded Smoke tutorials. (RyanSalazar.net via @iluminance)
  • Avid 5.5: Exporting AMA via AAF Now Works - How to export an AAF file if you have AMA footage. (LFHD.net)
  • FCPx: DIY 3-Way Color Wheels - Steve Martin from Ripple Training shows a DIY solution to (kind'a) emulating FCP 7's 3-Way Color Corrector filter. (YouTube.com)
  • Backing Up vs Archiving - If you don't know the difference between the two, you need to read this article. (blog.abelcine.com)
  • Canon C300: 'Organic Noise' - Vincent Laforet shows some interesting images regarding the macroblocking of the images coming off the C300. He calls it 'organic noise'. It's tough to judge off a still image but it does look less 'block-y' and more 'grain-y'. In the comments he mentions how the DP's use of in-camera filters made the colorist's job more difficult. (VincentLaforet.com)
 

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

Flanders Scientific Broadcast Monitors

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Learn More About the LM-2461W

 

The Business

  • Hard Drive Shortages: What's Next? - An update on how the Thailand floods are effecting the hard drive component industry... and their ironic lack of preparation for failures in their supply chain. (blog.macSales.com)
  • The American Film Market: Selling 'Lilith' - I've always been fascinated how my clients go about selling their indie features. Here's an insightful blog post from Director Sridhar M. Reddy on his thoughts and experience selling his latest feature 'Lilith' (which I graded while freelancing at NYC's Twitch Post and stars the amazingly photogenic Julia Voth). (LilithFilm.tumblr.com)
  • Now Open: The Assimilate Store - The creators of Assimilate Scratch and Scratch Lab have opened an online store. Besides selling Scratch Lab they have 3rd party software and a full range of Tangent Control Surfaces. (store.assimilateinc.com)
  • Three Companies, Three Different Approaches to 64-bit - How Adobe, Avid, and Apple took three different approaches to re-writing their NLEs to 64-bit. (PhilipHodgetts.com)
  • Alexa to Support Avid DNxHD Recording - This free update is coming in early 2012. (blog.abelcine.com)
  • RayStream: Reducing HD Streaming File Sizes By 70% - With broadband internet speeds allowing for streaming of HD video and video streaming exponentially growing as a percentage of internet traffic, if their compression technology is any good we'll be hearing a lot more about this. (ReelSEO.com)
  • How Does Sony Make Money? - It's not how you think. And if the bean-counters were to have a say in it - the Professional market would probably be abandoned. (cmieritz.blogspot.com)
  • The Post-Recession Model: Fewer Jobs in Digital Hollywood - If you're 'below the line' and want to make feature films... a depressing read. (Reuters.com via @NotesOnVideo)
  • Unicorn Day: In Case You Missed It - If you missed this month's Avid / Canon / RED day of announcements, here's a nice roundup of what each vendor has announced (and started to deliver). (OneRiverMedia.com)
  • The Pixar of the iPad Age? - The story of a company who's iPad app has been the bestselling app in 21 different countries, including the U.S. Oh - it's a book. (Kottke.org)
  • Adobe Changes It's Upgrade Policy - Starting with 6.0, upgrade pricing is now only available to owners of CS 5 or CS 5.5 products. Earlier editions qualify for a 20% discount. (ToolFarm.com via @johnfoster)

  

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

Software: v2.1.6

 Mac: v2.6.2

Software: v3.8

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

Updated:
March 7

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

Sunday Morning Fun(nies)

  • REDVolt AA - The latest product released by RED? AA batteries. In 4- and 80- packs. (red.com via @AndyShipsides)
  • [Video] Surfing in 'Bullet Time" Using 30 GoPros - A nifty rig using thirty GoPro cameras to catch surfers riding the waves in 'Bullet Time'. (PetaPixel.com)
  • [Video] Sonic - Bullet Time has nothing on this absolutely stunning :60 car commercial. Tell me you don't want to see the dailies and I'll tell you you need to be in a different buisness. (Vimeo.com via @jayfriesen)
  • [Short Film] Moving Day - Tea time meets Rambo. (Vimeo.com)
  • [FlowChart] Which Network to Post Your Social Media Status? - Fun. Funny. And for some people I know... essential reading. (SimplyZesty.com via @JoshOchs)
  • VideoWall Lets You Race A Marathon Runner (ReelSEO.com)
  • Planes Overhead, Right NOW! - A Wolfram Alpha search that gives you the exact flight numbers of the commercial planes flying over your head. (Kottke.org)
  • 25 Worst Passwords of 2011 - 'password' is the worst most commonly used password.'passw0rd' is 18th. These 25 guarantee your accounts are hackable. (mashable.com)
  • CraigsList NoPay Filmmaker Job: Real or Parody? - Over on Reddit there's a debate if this No Pay listing is real or a joke. I'm hoping the people reading this newsletter will be able to figure it out for themselves. Hint: Read the very last Requirement. (FilmmakerIQ.com)

Weekend Warriors

  • Your Android Device Can Now Be A Universal Remote - No word if it can also infect your home theater devices with its viruses. (Gigaom.com)

Gear Heads

  • [Review] ioSafe Solo Pro Drive - It has USB 3 and e-Sata connectivity. Plus... It'll survive a 1550 degrees of heat for 1/2 hour and 10 feet of water for 72 hours. Or does it? (TejBabra.com)
  • Are All HDMI Cables The Same? - There are 4 types of HDMI. No more. No less. And if you're getting picture then every image from every cable maker is exactly the same. Plus other good tidbits including: Can HDMI carry 4K? (reviews.cnet.com via NotesOnVideo.blogspot.com)

  

Resolve 8: Twenty+ hours of video                   Grade a 16-Minute Short

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Early Bird Discount Ends This Month!

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DaVinci Resolve 8 | Colorista II | Apple Color | FCP 7

It's Not Too Early

To start thinking about client gifts...

Your Career

  • Do Work You Can Be Proud Of - How not to treat your career like a suck-y Hollywood Studio film and the power of Pride. (VanHurkman.com)
  • I Can Do My Job Better Than You - A post for filmmakers on the power of hiring people better than you. (DylanReeve.com)
  • Bolster Your Career Output - Tips on finding (and staying) in your creative groove. (the99percent.com)
  • Procrastination - A good promo piece for a book on why we keep choosing 'Want' over 'Should'. And the value of outsmarting yourself.  (Devour.com)
  • The Dilemma of Coaching Yourself - Moving beyond the 'OK Plateau' and becoming an expert... through focused self-reflection. (the99percent.com)

Siri, My Siri

  • Who Are You Siri? - A discussion with one of her 'parents' on the origins of Siri and the project's original design goals. (mashable.com)
  • Are You On An iPhone 4S Limited Data Plan? - Then you might want to watch your Siri usage. (LifeHacker.com)

Too True...

  • [Video Parody] Siri In The Middle - Siri gets caught between a Husband and Wife having an argument in this parody of recent iPhone 4S commercials. (Warning: Not Safe for Work / Kids) (CollegeHumor.com)

A Step Too Far?

  • Swivl: The Motion Tracking iPhone Dock - It always keeps you in the picture for those - ummmm... hands-free FaceTime moments. (TechCrunch.com via @philiphodgetts)
 

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