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Editor's Note: This is a shortened edition of the Tao Colorist newsletter. But I think there's still plenty in here to get you through two cups of coffee (or 2 pints of beer... depending on your time zone). Once my newest training launches at the end of this month I'll resume the full-length newsletter. I appreciate your understanding!

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Dead Man's Lake: The Grade-Along

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The Craft

• Color Theory Basics - Hey... I figure after a 2-week break from this Newsletter we could all use a little refresher, right? (indezine.com via @JimWicks)

• How Color Works: A Quick Lesson - A nifty short video on how a lighting designer thinks about color. (cinescopophilia.com)

• Becoming A Colorist: A Preview - An excerpt from a documentary on color grading & finishing. This clip is from an interview with colorist James Wicks. (ColorAndFinish.com via NotesOnVideo.blogspot.com)

• Color Grading Frankenweenie - A good article with colorist Rob Pizzey on the work he did for this Tim Burton animated film. It's always interesting to read how directors interact with their colorists. (StudioDaily.com)

• Restoring Lawrence of Arabia - A good write-up on the 4k restoration process of this classic film for its 50th Anniversary. It was restored on Baselight 8 in a 4k theater by colorist Scott Ostrowsky. (magazine.CreativeCow.net via @ccrask) 

• [Forum] Super Saturated 'Velvia' Look - Velvia is a Fuji film stock known for it's crisp sharpness and intensely saturated images. It's Wikipedia page is an interesting read itself. In this forum thread Josh Petok offers a Resolve node tree to emulate this look. A few posts down an alternative method is suggested. Download the .drx source image and give it a try yourself. (LiftGammaGain.com)

The Tools

• [Video] Scratch 7: New Viewer Features - A quick video showing some nice features in their new enhanced Viewer. (Vimeo.com)

• Getting Started with the BlackMagic Camera Raw - In DaVinci Resolve 9. Presented by Colorist Dan Moran. (PhilipBloom.net via NotesOnVideo.blogspot.com)

• [Podcast] Coloristos #6: Video Scopes (coloristos.podmatic.com via @jasonmyres)

• Improved chromaticity and luminance measurements using a tristimulus colorimeter - "A new calibration technique for improving the accuracy of chromaticity and luminance values obtained from a tristimulus colorimeter has been developed. Matrix manipulations similar to ASTM standard practice E 1455 are applied with a goal of minimizing the errors in x, y, and Y measurement, rather than those of the tristimulus values X, Y, Z."
  
  A part of me wishes I knew precisely what that paragraph means. A part of me is relieved that I don't. If you grok it then you'll probably enjoy clicking through to the paper. (Gamma-sci.com via @IAmColorist)

• Update: DNG Specification - Adobe provides a summary of the latest revisions to the Cinema DNG spec. And here's the link to a PDF download of the full specification. (blogs.adobe.com via @Noctylux)

• [PDF] Quantel White Paper: Introduction to ACES - An easy to read paper on ACES and Quantel's support of this emerging standard. (Quantel.com)

• Adobe Extends 40% Discount On Creative Cloud - Until June 2013. I took advantage of this. Worth it. (NoFilmSchool.com)

 

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

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The Business

• Using Analytics to Predict Hollywood Blockbusters - It's all about metrics. (blogs.hbr.com)

• The Year Movie Posters Turned Gray - With sampled color palettes from this year's movies. (ColourLovers.com)

• Arri Changes Ownership - As I read it, it looks like the company is passing from one generation to the next. (Arri.com)

• YouTube Adds More Original Content Channels - Including funding the full production costs for some projects. (PaidContent.org)

• Digital Disaster at New York Film Festival - An account of how DCP encryption cancelled an afternoon screening of Brian De Palma's Passion... with Brian De Palma in attendance. At Lincoln Center. (Popdose.com)

Outside 'The Box'

• An Introduction to HDR Photography (FilmmakerIQ.com)

• Review: The Padcaster and Lenscaster - For mounting your iPad onto a tripod. I used a prototype of this at NAB earlier this year. Worked great. The creator is a good friend of the Tao. (ProVideoCoalition.com)

• Video Game Narrative - How video games have evolved using powerful storytelling techniques. (MikeJones.tv)

• Corporate Portrait Primer - Nifty tutorial on shooting stills for corporate head shots. (Strobist.blogspot.com)

Edumacate Yerself

• S3D Campus - You've got 5 days left to get in your resume and cover letter to attend this hands-on eight-day training camp for stereoscoping filmmaking. Sponsored by the European Union's MEDIA program. (Stereoscopy.com)

• Dialogue Editing for Motion Pictures - Like color grading, this is another one of the crafts that is not very well understood. Looks like a good book. (SpliceVine.com)

• The Advance of 4K Pro Monitors - Brought to you by SMPTE New York. This Wednesday evening. I wish I could attend. (SMPTE.org)

• Training Events: Abel Cine New York & Los Angeles - For the shooters on this list, they've got a good lineup of upcoming classes. (training.abelcine.com)

• [Video] Color Science 101 - By the Senior Colorist at THX. This was posted almost a year ago but the info is still relevant and a Tweet about it put it back on my radar. (Vimeo.com via @JimWicks)

 

New Kid on the Block

• [Video] RED Meizler Module - This thing is cool. Including sending HD-SDI wirelessly. Plus, of course, it has a tricked-out iPad app. (Red.com)

Next Step Is A Doozy

• 100,000 DPI Full-Color Printing - Using nanometer-sized structures. By comparison, today's color inkjet printers offer about 10,000 DPI. (ScienceAlert.com.au via David Bell)