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The Tao Colorist

Issue CXXXII                                                           Brought to you by: Tao of Color.com

 

Editor's Note I: Today (Saturday, as I write this) I wrapped my first ever 3-Day live workshop teaching DaVinci Resolve using a real-world job and working our way through the app as I would on a real gig. It was fantastic and I want to send a special Shout-Out to WalterBiscardi.com. He hosted this event at his year-old facilityoutside Atlanta and his entire team were fantastic hosts. Thanks Walter & Kelly! Next up on the Colorist Flight School LIVE! 3-day workshop... Austin at the end of June.

Editor's Note II: This edition of the newsletter is the Best of 2013, Part 1. In it, I pull the three most popular articles from each Newsletter from the past 6 months. I don't try to fill out each of the normal 'sections'. Instead, I just let all of you vote with your clicks and we see what happens. This time around... The Craft section was the overwhelmingly most popular section. 

Enjoy! I'll see you next with with an all-new edition...

Editor's Note III: By the way - you're reading the first Tao Colorist Newsletter ever written at 30,000 feet using the airplane's WiFi (Delta Airlines). It's amazing how distraction-free this experience is!

 

The Craft

• The DIT Dilemma - "If you are interested in knowing what a DIT does, ask a DIT. But I was interested in knowing what a DIT should do: so I asked the people who hire them." An insightful blog post by Michael Cioni of Light Iron. He covers not only the job of the DIT - but also the post house and wonders if either will survive through the end of this decade. (michaelcioni.tumblr.com)

• A Short Letter in Perspective - Dying of cancer an ad exec offers his perspective of 'Was It Worth It?" He covers everything from shrinking budgets to shorter deadlines to insanely long work hours. It's almost poetic. Everyone in film or tv should take the time to read this; which is why I put it up here at the top of the newsletter. (lindsredding.com)

• Hitting the Exposure Sweet Spot - An informative post by Art Adams to help you understand the purpose of recording in Log, what happens when we apply a LUT or S-Curve to expand out the contrast and why you should test how your camera records. (provideocoalition.com via @JimWicks)

• [iApp] Be a Film Color Timer: Dale Grahn Color App - "Dale Grahn himself will teach you his techniques and you will be able to practice them by trying to recreated the famous looks of Private Ryan, Gladiator or Minority Report. You will have 21 invaluable video lessons and 3 levels of difficulties, based on your experience." The real gem of this app are the included video tutorials by Dale Grahn. All your corrections are limited by the controls of a film timer... no User Shapes or HSL selections here. It's all Printer Points and Density. Terrific. (kplprod.com via Tom Parish)

• Exposing ARGO - A very nice profile from ARRI's website on the three different looks of ARGO and the choices made by D.P. Rodrigo Prieto. (ARRI.com)

• What Color is Night? - Plus, why the teal-and-blue look isn't going away... and why it's not the fault of colorists. (redsharknews.com)

• Infographics: Charting Hollywood's Odd Obsession with Orange and Teal - Nifty article about a gent who charted a year's worth of color palettes for film trailers and then visualized it. One thing to keep in mind, this speaks more to the trends of trailers than films, since often the look of a trailer doesn't match that of the film. (wired.com)

• A Pickpocket's Tale: The Spectacular Thefts of Apollo Robbins - This has nothing to do with color grading and everything to do with craftsmanship. I love this story. Hopefully you will too. (newyorker.com)

• [Video] Grade Breakdown: Secondary Corrections - Normally I'd put this under Tools since this tutorial is using DaVinci Resolve. But every technique in here can be done on any app that allows qualifications and has 3-Way color wheels. It's well worth your time to watch. And if you want to understand more about how controlling your blacks is the key to effective 'Look Building', check out this post I wrote last summer on The Singularity Effect. (Vimeo.com)

• Digital Cinematography vs Film: Tides are Turning - I really enjoyed reading this post about how digital cameras have changed how DP Shane Hurlbut shoots, "I sat blown away in the Technicolor DI suite with Mike Sowa, our colorist at the wheel. The digital file had more data, more information, more latitude, and more color depth." Be sure to scroll down to the last image of the post for a good quick chortle. (hurlbutvisuals.com via @post_vfx)

• Are you Qualified? Secondary Corrections - A short excerpt from Steve Hullfish's book, Art and Technique of Color Correction. It's an explanation of what a secondary color correction is and the terminology surrounding it. I highly recommend his book. (masteringfilm.com via Steve Hulfish)

• Contrast is King: Part 1 - A really strong article on the power of contrast, how to understand it and how to use it. (aaronwilliams.tv)

• Visualizing 'Django Unchained' - A good article about DP Robert Richardson and his challenge of getting the right colors for Django Unchained. (carpetbagger.blogs.nytimes.com) 

 

Current Colorist Control Surface Drivers

JL Cooper Eclipse	Avid Artist Color	Tangent
Software: v2.9.3	Mac: v2.7.1	Hub: v1.0.9
Color Plug-in: v 1.0.5	PC: v2.7.1	Wave Firmware: v1.9
Updated: Jan. 2	Updated: April 15	Updated: Feb. 7, 2012

 

The Tools

• Scratch FX Film garbage clips - A great collection of film 'effects' from colorist Warren Eagles. 125 ProRes clips captured over 20 years broken into Fog, Burn, Grain and Sash (video defects) packages. (icolorist.com)

• [Video] Accidental Clipping in DaVinci Resolve 9 - Grrr... I thought the Hard and Soft Clipping bug had been fixed in Resolve. Apparently it's baaack! Plus another good reason to put your LUT in node #2. This also has an explanation of why I've been finding myself completely avoiding (but hadn't investigated) Resolve's 'Hue vs' and 'Lum vs' controls. This is an excellent video that is required watching for all Resolve users. (vimeo.com via @JimWicks)

• DaVinci Resolve 10: First Impressions - Dan Moran shares his thoughts on this latest release of Resolve, "If I had to sum it up in one sentence it would be: They Listened!" Click through to read the rest. (MixingLight.com)

• [Video] DaVinci Resolve 10 in 20 Minutes - Essentially the same demo I was given by Boston-based colorist Rob Bessette. This video starts playing after the French introduction. (YouTube.com)

• Compressor: Switching from h.264 to X.264 - For better results.   (larryjordan.biz)

• Velarium: New DIT Data Wrangling Tool - "It is a one click solution for ingest, transcode, renaming, organizing and backing up your file based media." (provideocoalition.com)

• Making Video Look Like Film In Premiere Pro - Using blends and blurs. (premiumbeat.com)

• Matching Shots and Working with Vectorscopes - "You'll probably want to cheat the overall color balance of one of these clips to match the other, and you can only really do this by eye. At the end of the day, viewer perception trumps the scopes". A good read. (provideocoalition.com)

• [Resolve] Layer Mixer Or Parallel Node? - The differences and when to choose.  (niwa.nu)

• What Video Pros Look For in Monitors - Like the title says. I'm quoted in here. (tvtechnology.com)

The Business

• Edit suite floor plans - Oliver has been busy this month, with a comprehensive look at various way of designing an editing bay. (digitalfilms.wordpress.com)

• NAB2013 Distilled - Oliver Peters offers his synthesis of what he saw on the show floor. I enjoy his perspective of the Avid vs Premiere vs FCPx horse race in his conclusion - which I agree with. Sidenote: I saw Adobe and the Tangent Element everywhere. FCPx? No one was showing or talking about it unless you asked. (DigitalFilms.Wordpress.com)