The Tao Colorist

The Craft

• When A Lack Of Color Is The Perfect Answer: Aimed at photographers but good grist for colorists too. (lightstalking.com)

• [Podcast] James Wicks On Color Restoring Classic Mexican Movies - Tom Parish interviews TV Anchorman-turned-Colorist James Wicks about his odyssey of restoring over 200 classic Mexican films. Lots of workflow details in here. (tomparish.com)

• [Podcast] Coloring Zombies: Love In The Time Of Monsters - Grading a horror comedy film in Apple Color. And how a director views color grading. (digitalproductionbuzz.com)

• I Miss Digitizing Footage From Videotape - Scott Simmons has a great post that all of us old-timers will appreciate... on the happy accidents of found footage while scanning, rewinding or fast forwarding videotape. (provideocoalition.com)

• The Science Behind Luminosity: Color Match - Luminosity is a site that purports to increase your cognitive acuity. In this short post they present The Stroop Test, where you need to say the color of a word out loud, except the word is itself the name of a completely different color. It's tough to do. Try it yourself and read about what this test measures.  (lumosity.com)

• Coloring Oblivion - I love how they used the trailer, with all it's signature shots, to set all the key looks for the film. And another example of how color grading begins long before a single frame is edited. (blog.technicolorcinestyle.com)

The Tools

• Keyboard Manifesto - Change your default keyboard for a more efficient workflow. While aimed at editors, this holds true for colorists as well. Too bad so many color grading apps decline colorists this opportunity. (provideocoalition.com)

• Recommendations For Display Gamma - A look at the recommended gamma setting in the upcoming Rec. 2020 specification. Plus some advice (which I don't completely agree with) on how to set the gamma on your current displays. (negativespaces.com)

• How To Auto White Balance Your Sony Monitor - Using Sony's new PC-only software for auto-calibration. (blog.abelcine.com)

• Quick Tip: ND Your Screen - I LOVE this tip for dimming your computer UI screens (so they aren't glaringly bright) without losing contrast. (aaronwilliams.tv)

• [Audio] Axle Video Media Management System - Talking about how to store, backup, archive and generally manage our media, cost effectively. (splicevine.com)

• [Video] Sam Mestman Talks 4K FCPX RED Workflow - At a LACPUG meeting - (fcp.co via David E. Bell)

• Using Sony's XAVC Codec in DaVinci Resolve - A Twitter conversation between myself and @marcplanb. (twitter.com/patInhofer)

• 'Google Play': Streaming Radio Without Rules - There's new competition for Pandora when listening to streaming music while grading.  (hometheater.com)

• Creative DI with Scratch - A very effective promo piece for Local Hero Post featuring Assimilate Scratch. Although I wonder if the term 'DI' as being used here (as well as at many higher end boutique shops) has anything to do with film acquisition or delivery and more to do with avoiding the term 'grading'. Still, well done piece that educates and informs. (blog.localheropost.com) 

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

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Sunday Morning Fun(nies)

• Where's Our Pot Of Gold? - Colorist Ola Haldor Voll gets so close . . . only to discover the fantasy never lives up to the reality. (instagram.com via @olacolorist)

• [Cartoon] Editing: When there's only 1 hour left in the day - Here's what we look like as we try to get home in time for dinner. (starwipemyass.tumblr.com via @twainrichardson)

• Beer Grad - Otherwise known as 'The Brew Tonal Range'. (@joshpetok)

• The Standardization Of Chess Set Design - I loved chess as a kid. I had a very passive aggressive style of play where I tortured my opponent with many lines of attack - always trying to overwhelm them with too many decisions. Nowadays I generally suck at it. But I love seeing all these chess piece designs and reading about how we got to the modern chess pieces. (kottke.org)

• [Video] The Somersby Cider Store - 'Less apps. More apples.' It looks like this one has gone viral. It'll put a smile on your face. (youtube.com via @DanMoranColor)

Weekend Warriors

• DIY Stevia Syrup - Like the title says. (lifehacker.com)

• Projector Tech Explainer - Front projection questions answered. (reviews.cnet.com)

Gear Heads

• Sequel To Thunderbolt: It's All About the 4K - The next generation of Thunderbolt was recently announced (has the first generation even taken off yet?). Here are all the gory details (and 4k video plays a starring role). (arstechnica.com)

• Nvidia K5000: Next Step In GPU Power and Tech - Steve Hullfish has a nice write-up on this new NVidia card... but if he tells us the pricing, I can't find it. I suppose I could Google it - but I've still got 30% of this newsletter to write! (provideocoalition.com)

• Tandem GPUs = Faster Pro Rendering... Sometimes - If you scroll down you'll see the Resolve-specific Dual GPU results. Interesting seeing the effect the different GUI cards had (or not).  (barefeats.com)

• Mac Pro Muscle: Sonnet Tempo SSD Pro PCIe Card - Okay. This has my attention. (barefeats.com) 

Cross Dressing

• Building A CustoMac: Buyer's Guide May 2013 - Updated. Just in case you're not happy with what comes out of Apple's announcements this coming week. (tonymacx86.com)

• Hackintosh For FCPX and DaVinci Resolve - One reader offers up his build for an entry-level'ish Resolve box. (tonymacx86.com)

Career

• 5 Principles Of Creativity - Summing it up: "Creative geniuses tend to be less the ones with the quickest answers and more the ones who keep working till they get it right." Lots of good insights and links in this short'ish blog post. (filmmakeriq.com)

• Should You Work For Free? - One of Seth's longer musings. And pretty insightful. It's often tough to tell when free (or even cheap) is worth it and this posting is good food for thought. (sethgodin.typepad.com via @JimWicks)

• [Video] Harry Elison: Pay the Writer - Seth Godin links to this video in the previous item. I can't stop laughing. But a part of me is crying... if you watch it you'll understand. But what Harry doesn't understand - they don't value his interview the same way they value his writing. (YouTube.com)

• 12 Ways To Connect, Create, and Collaborate Using Google Hangouts -  Okay, Robbie and Dan, if you're reading this we need to implement some of these ideas with MixingLight. (copyblogger.com)

Tweet of the Week

The Next Step is a Doozy

• Meundies 365 Pack - I think the Tao Treasurer is trying to send me a message... I'm just not sure I'm receiving that message correctly. (uncrate.com via the Tao Treasurer)

A Step Too Far?

• Thought-Guided Helicopter Takes Off - Don't get me wrong, I dig what these guys are doing... but this is actually an 'impulse guided helicopter' that converts electrical impulses from hands to the brain into commands . . . this is not pure thought-guidance. Put another way--this is as much a thought-guided helicopter as this is a flying car. Technically, both statements are true. But they also aren't quite what they say they are!  (bbc.co.uk)