[TaoColorist] Sunday Morning Reading (4K BluRay?)

Published: Sun, 01/29/12

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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 LXXVIII                                                           Brought to you by: Tao of Color.com

The Craft

  • RED Scarlet & Resolve: Black & White - One way of getting to Black and White. (presynkt.com)
  • Reverse Key Lighting - A great examination of a trick out of the DP's toolkit, 'short lighting'. Or putting the Key Light to the side or behind the subject. (EvanERichards.com)

The Tools

  • Tangent 'Element' Panels Now Shipping - The pricing still isn't showing up on BH Photo's website but I'm told the full set is priced at around $3500US. Resolve isn't supported - which isn't surprising since the DaVinci team is writing all the control panel drivers for Resolve themselves. My guess? We'll see it. Eventually. Click through for the list of supported apps. (ProVideoCoalition.com)
  • [Video] Nucoda Film Master: Avid Workflow - A quick demo of the VERY slick Avid / Film Master integration. Including integration with Avid Interplay. Did I say this is slick? I'm impressed. (YouTube.com)
  • Nattress.com: Levels & Curves Filter Pack - For Industrial Revolution. I've been a huge fan of the Nattress plug-ins. His Advanced Plug-ins forApple Color were a staple in my workflow. I'm glad to see he's starting to make these available through FxFactory. (Nattress.com)
  • Digital Film Tools: 'Film Stocks' Plug-in - Simulate 288 different film stocks and photographic processes. Includes vignette controls, user defined presets, 16bit rendering, multi-processor aware. Runs on Adobe, Avid, and Apple (except FCPx), Mac and PC. (DigitalFilmTools.com via @BAVUG)
  • Magic Bullet Looks on Avid Media Composer 6 - One traditional drawback to Avid is the lack of 3rd party plug-ins, especially compared to FCPLegacy or After Effects. This article is a much closer look at the MB Looks plug-in inside Media Composer. (ProVideoCoalition.com)
  • SilverStack SET - All-in-one data management tools for file based on-set DIT duties. (Pomfort.com)
  • Review: DaVinci Resolve 8 - Oliver Peters offers his usually even-handed review of Resolve 8. Including some good guidance on hardware configurations. (DigitalFilms.wordpress.com)
  • Review: Avid Media Composer 6 - And in this Oliver Peters review, he tackles Avid MC 6. Another great write-up. (DV.com)
  • Hiero: Collaborative Desktop VFX Workflow App - It's in open beta. (theFoundry.co.uk)
  • Virtual XDCam - Need to deliver properly formatted XDCam files to a broadcast network? Here's how to do it using Avid on a PC. Nice. (DylanReeve.com)
  • S-Log and the Sony F3: Part 3 - Interesting tests of shooting in Log on the F3. I also recommend watching Part 2 of this series which demonstrates where 'middle-gray' should read in S-Log. Mini-Rant: I really wish pros would stop calling LUT-applied footage as 'graded'. It's not anymore graded than the footage coming out of a Handycam you'd buy at your local electronics store. The LUT merely normalizes the footage, there's no intention behind it. (blog.ablecine.com)
  • Adobe Post Workflow on 'Mobius' - It's been a while since I've done any serious work on After Effects. At about 10 minutes into this breakdown is a feature I hadn't seen - the Rotobrush. Nifty. (blog.vincentlaforet.com)

      

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

Flanders Scientific Broadcast Monitors

The LM-2461W is an affordable 24" color critical reference monitor featuring 10bit color depth, 3G/HD/SD-SDI Inputs, 12 onboard scopes, and DCI P3 support. All standard and all for just $4,995.

Learn More About the LM-2461W

 

The Business

  • Studios Put 35mm Prints on the Endangered Species List - This article touches upon the perspective of indie art film houses... and unleashes a fire-storm in the comments. (StudioDaily.com)
  • Kodak Customers: What To Expect - If you're a Kodak customer, how might their Chapter 11 proceedings effect you? There's a F.A.Q. for that. (KodakTransforms.com)
  • How Hollywood Drives People to Piracy - Or more precisely, how Hollywood creates enormous demand but refuses to let people consume the way they want. (Gigaom.com)
  • The Studios Still Don't Get It - They're pricing 10-year-old films offered via internet streaming at the same price as current first-run films. (blog.StreamingMedia.com)
  • Apple's Massive Quarterly Results - Some context of just how big a blow-out it was. And how quickly Apple is growing. (TechCrunch.com via @grempe)

Edumacate Yer'self

  • BOSCPUG Meeting Notes - Michael Murie offers a great recap to last week's Boston User Group meeting... showing the value of participating in these groups. (NotesOnVideo.blogspot.com) 
  • Common Digital Video Formats - A chart of 56 digital formats, packed with details about each format. Also getting the treatment on this page: Digital Audio and Graphics formats plus a slew of Shortcut Guides. (worldwide-studios.com via Avid L-2)
  • Are You Learning As Fast As The World Is Changing? Look outside your industry for ideas that matter most. (blogs.hbr.org)
  
Current Colorist Control Surface Drivers
 JL Cooper Eclipse Avid Artist Color Tangent Wave

Software: v2.6b4

 Mac: v2.6.2

Software: v3.8

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

Updated:
Nov 21

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

Sunday Morning Fun(nies)

  • Color Matching: A Game - Tests not only your ability to match Saturation and Hue... but also tests your ability to figure out how to play this game while under pressure. (color.method.ac via @percolate)
  • Digital Domain Visual Effects Breakdown - Starting with 'Transformers: Dark Side of the Moon' (DigitalDomain.com via @vfxblog)
  • 40 Advanced and Alternative Search Engines - In case you're starting to decide Google is getting a little too big for its britches. (blog.kissmetrics.com)
  • The Fastest Movie In The World - And approved by the Guiness Book of Records. But it's only two frames long... which in the Book of Tao stretches the definition of the word 'film'. Of course, the frames were taken 50 femtoseconds apart - which is apparently really REALLY quick. (PetaPixel.com)

Gear Heads

  • DIY 16TB RAID 6 - For around $4,500. Using Infiniband. To playback multiple streams of R3D footage. (Vimeo.com)
  • [Video] MacBook Air + Windows 7 64-bit + Premiere + RED Rocket + 4K = Realtime playback via Thunderbolt at full quality. The RED Rocket card is attached via Thuderbolt through a Sonnet chassis. It's a great demo showing how the CPU is being maxed out and how the RED Rocket Card enables full speed, full quality playback of 4k R3Ds on this teeny little laptop. All thanks to Thunderbolt. (YouTube.com via NotesOnVideo.Blogspot.com)
  • AJA Io XT with Thunderbolt - Now available. Supports daisy-chaining devices. Captures Uncompressed, ProRes, DNxHD, Cineform plus VU Meters, HD-SDI, HDMI, and 3D monitoring.  (AjA.com)
  • Is 2012 The Year of Thunderbolt? - More analysis from the perspective of this month's Consumer Electronics Show. (PopularMechanics.com)
  • iBling for Your iThing - BareFeats takes a break from reviewing hard drives, GPUs, and CPUs to tackle... headphones, earbuds, and wireless ear gear. (BareFeats.com)
  • DIY: Build Your Own Adjustable Height Desk - Not so much a step-by-step but some ideas to inspire your inner Weekend Warrior. (LifeHacker.com)

The Great Migration

  • FCP Switchers: YouTube Video Editor - In addition to its existing automatic stablization, it's been updated with a 'cool new timeline', more advanced trimming, and a moving playhead. Try it yourself. (YouTube.com)
  • Autodesk Smoke: An NLE? - Some great questions about using Smoke primarily as an editorial tool. The Marketing Manager interviewed is an former colleague and he does a great job of fielding these questions and explaining the strengths of Smoke. (MacVideo.tv via @BKMeditor)

 
Learn to Grade Using a 16-Minute Short

MasterClass: DaVinci Resolve 8

Workflow + Technique + Interface Training

DaVinci Resolve, DaVinci Resolve Lite : Mac & Windows!
Colorista II | Apple Color | FCP 7

Your Career

  • 5 Pieces of Universal Advice - Tips you can share with anyone, anytime. (shankman.com)
  • Leo Burnett: When to Take My Name Off the Door - The Legendary Ad Man's audio message is set against an animation as he explains what it is that made his agency great. (FastCoDesign.com via @NetBlender)
  • Prepare for an Interview by Thinking Like An Employer (blogs.hbr.com)
  • How To Stay Motivated and Not Slack Off While Working from Home - Huh? Did you say something? (LifeHacker.com)

I Should Have Thought Of That!

The Next Step Is A Doozy

A Step Too Far?

  • Mission Impossible: IKEA Protocol - A type designer sends a letter to the director of MI calling him lazy for his subtitle font selection... which also happens to be the corporate font of IKEA. Ouch. (Kottke.org)

You Know You're Old When...

  • Teenager Sees Vinyl Record for First Time - Why would you put a needle on that? How many songs does it hold? (YouTube.com)
 

Th- Th- That's ALL Folks! See you next week. Happy Grading!
  
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Curated + Edited by: Patrick Inhofer, photon-wrangler & founder, TaoOfColor.com
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