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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 CLXXXI A TaoOfColor.com Publication Publisher: Pat Inhofer Managing Editor: Jim
Wicks
From the Publisher |
Happy Sunday! Two quick items to start off this Newsletter: - Are you going to NAB in April? Don't miss the 2nd Annual Colorist Mixer! The Tao of Color,
the International Colorist Academy and Mixing Light are hosting this opportunity to meet others who love and work in our niche of professional color correction. Colorists, editors, DPs, their assists and team members are ALL welcome to attend.
- This year we're lining up Sponsors, who will be in attendance - allowing all of us to hobnob with all the awesome people creating the great tools we
work with every day.
- Mark your calendar: Sunday April 6. 'The Pub' at the Monte Carlo Hotel. 7:30'ish. I'll be emailing with more details in the next week or so.
The second item?- A HUGE shout-out to Flanders Scientific (FSI). They are officially sponsoring the Tao's Colorist Flight School and its new Grade Along; featuring DaVinci Resolve 10, shot on a RED Epic, working with OpenFX plugins, conformed from FCP X and featuring beauty grading...
- This
next Grade-Along is being graded on FSI's aggressively priced 24" OLED, the CM250. It's a terrific monitor that arrived at Tao HQ this week. Thanks FSI for your continued support of the Tao!
- The Grade-Along will also feature profiling your reference monitor before starting out on a big
gig.
- This explains my focus in this week's Newsletter on OLEDs and the 'Judd Offset'. I hope you don't mind!
- And the short film we'll be re-mastering in the Grade Along? Mother Died. I'm currently in
production on this training title and it should be shipping in the next few weeks!
See you next Sunday. Happy Grading!
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The Craft |
- The 5 Colors of the Olympics - Have you ever wondered about the color scheme of the Olympic rings? Click through to find out about its history.
(colourlovers.com)
- Color
test - time to do your color push-ups. This simple online test will help improve your eye for color. Note: This has been featured on the Newsletter but it's been a while and we have a lot of new readers. Enjoy! (color.method.ac via @joshpetok)
- Re-defining the Tramp - On the 100th anniversary of his screen debut, Time Magazine online has a lovely autochrome portrait of Charlie Chaplin taken in costume in 1917-1918. The accompanying story details how the picture came to be. Right-click and 'open in new window' to see a larger, more detailed version of the
image. (lightbox.time.com via @LynetteDuensing)
- In good company - DaVinci Resolve and Company 3 Colorist Rob Pizzey do the heavy lifting for 'Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit'. PR news release with enough quotes on workflow that it made this newsletter. (news.creativecow.net)
- How many shades of gray are there, really? - A write-up of the book 'Roy G Biv: An
Exceedingly Surprising Book About Color'. Offers some summations of various colors and their impacts on human psyche. Click through to find out how many shades of gray paint are offered by Benjamin Moore. (theatlantic.com)
- DSLR color profiles: can your pictures be too flat? - The last 15 seconds of this video says it all. (filmmakeriq.com via Tom Parish)
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S P O N S O R E D M E S S A G E Tao of Color's Official Calibration Software FREE Launch Special: CalMAN for Resolve Resolve 10.1 and CalMAN 5.3 now work together.
Resolve acts as a pattern source for CalMAN.
CalMAN builds LUTs for Resolve. To
celebrate this connection:
Get CalMAN for Resolve FREE with the purchase of any SpectraCal colorimeter. Limited time offer. Be sure your Resolve output monitor is telling you the truth.
Get CalMAN for Resolve while it's free. Learn More About CalMAN for Resolve
The Tools |
- OLED
displays and the 'Judd Offset' - PDF explaining the problem with getting OLEDs to perceptually match other display technologies - and how the 'Judd Offset' is being implemented to fix this problem. (rexfilm.hu via liftgammagain.com)
- White Balance of BVM E, F and PVM Trimaster EL monitors - Sony's explanation of why they've
implemented the Judd Offset (now standard) on their displays. Link downloads a word document. (static.squarespace.com via negativespaces.com)
- OLED: What is it and how does it work? - A VERY interesting paper on OLED display technology and its various variants. (pro.sony.com via liftgammagain.com)
- DCP Builder - "DCP Builder
is a natively multiplatform software that can be used to create Digital Cinema Packages (DCPs), which can be thus played on Digital Cinema projectors." It's also free. (dcpbuilder.com)
- [iApp] ColorTime 2.0 - update that includes grading
HD footage on your iDevice. (itunes.apple.com)
- DaVinci Resolve Pattern Generator and CalMAN 5.3 - There's been discussion on forums and in Twitter with colorists getting unexpected results using the new pattern generator feature in Resolve 10.1 with the recently updated CalMAN for DaVinci Resolve app. I ran into this myself, tracked down the problem and shared the workaround on
this LiftGammaGain thread. (liftgammagain.com)
- [Plug-in] Pixel Patcher for Davinci Resolve - a Window's-only OpenFX plug-in for repairing dead pixels from a camera sensor. (playtool.com via Remco Hekker)
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The Business |
- [podcast] The cost of doing business - "Day Rate... the age old question. How do you set it? How do you get it? Robbie Carman is a veteran colorist and co-founder of mixinglight.com and shares some
insight on how he came to determining his own day rates and some tips about how to actually concentrate on the art, while not neglecting the business." (digitalcinemacafe.com)
- The last film lab? - Debra Kaufman at Creative Cow digs deep into a question
that industry leaders are asking themselves: 'will 2014 be the year we see the last film lab?.' (library.creativecow.net)
- A (short) history of the film lab - A look at how the business began, grew and is being supplanted. (library.creativecow.net)
- Sony spins off Bravia TV - will focus on 4K Ultra HD... the new Bravia entity, that is. Interesting numbers at the end of the article about Sony's market penetration of high-end TVs. (hdtvtest.co.uk)
- End Goal - Does television still work as a form of
distribution? More and more digital content producers are finding it helps to think outside the box. (thevideoink.com)
- Hollywood doesn't look the same - this is an interesting article that focuses - not on film or video - but on L.A.'s move to LED street lights, which will change the way the city looks on film and video. (nofilmschool.com)
- 4K and beyond - our friends at the American Society of Cinematographers talk to Paul Cameron, who notes how the 'K'ness of the sensor changes how he works with different glass and depth of field. (theasc.com)
- How FOX used 4K at the Super Bowl - hint: windowing. (mashable.com)
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Friends & Family |
MixingLight.com is a companion membership website to TaoOfColor.com. Want to read a story listed here but not a member? A free 24-hour test drive is available. - [Video] Using the Tangent Element with DaVinci Resolve 10 - Focusing on how the Element integrates with new features in Resolve 10. (mixinglight.com)
- [Video] Colorist Communication: Dealing with Hard Clients - After a day of grading your client walks in the room and says, "I hate it." What's your next move? (mixinglight.com)
- [Blog] Moving a Look from SpeedGrade CC to DaVinci Resolve - Guest blogger Mathieu Marano walks you step-by-step exporting a grade from Adobe's SpeedGrade and into DaVinci Resolve. (mixinglight.com)
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S P O N S O R E D M E S S A G E Tao of Color's Official LCD Reference Monitors Flanders Scientific Broadcast Monitors The CM series is an affordable line of color critical reference LCD & OLED monitors featuring 10bit panels, 12 bit, 4:4:4 and XYZ signal formats, CFE2 Advanced LUT support
for 3D Calibration LUTs and 3D DIT LUTs , 3G/ Dual-Link/ HD/ SD-SDI Inputs, 13 onboard scopes on all inputs and world class support. All standard and starting at only $2,495. Learn More About the FSI CM Series Monitors
Outside 'The Box' |
- What Alexa
and Watercolors have in common - Art Adams describes how the color processing of Alexa cameras strongly remind him of subtractive color systems... and why that makes them look very 'filmic'. Very interesting read. (dvinfo.net)
- HBO launches HBOAccess - a
contest to select four diverse (read: non-white male) filmmakers who will go to L.A. to craft a budget and blueprint for short form content. (filmmakermagazine.com)
- [video] Size and speed - a short'ish, but technical, tutorial that shows users of After Effects the best file formats and codecs to help you to speed up your
rendering. (youtube.com)
- The art of editing - five tips to help improve your editing performance. (redsharknews.com)
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Current Colorist Control Surface Drivers |
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Sunday Morning Fun(nies) |
- [video] Beer + heat
= fun times - you've wrapped up a long day being creative. Time to let off some steam and have some fun. Try throwing beer in a hot frying pan. Anyone want to try it at 300fps? (youtube.com)
- [video] Magnetic personality - Who knew dropping magnets down through copper tubes could be so mesmerizing? This *looks* like it was shot at 300fps. (youtube.com)
- [video] A day in the
life - filmmaker Jake Scott, son of Ridley, directed this 30th anniversary commercial for Apple to mark the 30th anniversary of the Macintosh. Shot entirely on iPhones in one day, cut by 21 editors, from 70 hours of footage. (youtube.com)
- Classic movie sets in 3D - a Dutch artist re-creates four iconic movie sets in 3D (fastcodesign.com)
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Gear Heads |
- [Video] The Ultimate FCP X System - MacBreak Studio starts a new series
exploring hardware options for FCP X systems. Of course, they start with the 2013 Mac Pro and add a Pegasus Raid and 4k monitoring. (youtu.be)
- 12-core vs 12-core: 2010 and 2013 Mac Pros - Benchmarks. (barefeats.com)
- 2013 MacPro vs 2010's Running DaVinci Resolve - Benchmarks pitting the dual D300s and D500s in the 2013 Mac Pro against
a variety of GPUs in the 2010 Mac Pro. Stressed using Blurs and Noise Reduction in DaVinci Resolve. (barefeats.com)
The price is right - Flanders Scientific significantly drops the pricing on its new CM250 OLED monitor. Last year's Black Friday price is now the new price. (news.creativecow.net)
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Are you looking for a steady diet of pro-level color grading tutorials? TaoOfColor.com Presents:
MixingLight.com =>
Learn from a team of professional colorists => New articles and videos presented throughout the month => In-Depth: SpeedGrade CC training (4.5+ hours, updated to v7.2) Click for more details
Getting Ahead |
- [Review] How to be a freelance creative - A review of Jonny Elwyn's new
eBook on succeeding as a freelance creative. (mentorless.com)
- How are you doing? - no really, how are you? Those are the first two questions that go to the heart of a topic many people shy away from. Mental illness & Creativity in the Video Industry. (blogs.creativecow.net)
- [video] Stop trying to 'find your passion' - A meme in career advice is to 'follow your passion'. This best-selling author thinks that passion flows from being so good at something that you can't be ignored. In other words, don't worry about 'finding' your passion. Decide to become the best at something and passion for it will be the side-effect. Good video with
actual actionable advice at the end. (vimeo.com)
- Advice your parents never told
you - if you want to work in the entertainment business, there are a few financial things about living and working in Los Angeles that you should know. (screencraft.org)
- Because fitting room mirrors always lie - you're
creative, and your projects look killer great. And so should you. But who's got time to shop? This website hand-picks the best new clothing for you, and sends it right to your door. (trunkclub.com)
- Who tweeted first? - When it comes to creativity, the line between idea and launch is rarely a straight one. Insight into the messy concept of idea ownership. (99u.com)
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Showcase |
- [video] Birdsong Trailer - shot on Blackmagic Cinema Camera, Sigma 18-35mm lens. Graded in Resolve using Vision Color's M31 LUT (part of the Osiris pack). (vimeo.com)
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The Next Step is a Doozy |
- Will 3D printing kill manufacturing? - several scenarios are described from a recent study. (blogs.hbr.org)
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A Step Too Far? |
- NBC News Runs Fraudulent Sochi Olympics Story - about getting your phone and computer hacked within minutes of joining a WiFi network. 'The only thing that can be confirmed by the story is "don't let Richard Engel borrow your phone".' (blog.erratasec.com)
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Th- Th- That's ALL Folks! See you next week. Happy Grading!
5,500+ Stories Now Shared The Book Shelf
- Color Correction Handbook, Updated - Alexis Van Hurkman has updated his Color Correction Handbook, which has set the standard for learning all things color correction. (amazon.com)
- Color Correction Look Book - This is the second part of the Color Correction Handbook, exploring the creative techniques for over 200 different visual looks. A sort-of recipe book for
colorists. (amazon.com)
- The Art and Technique of Digital Color Correction - Read how a dozen different colorists grade the same footage with the same gear, differently. A fantastic approach to learning the craft of color grading by Steve Hullfish. (amazon.com)
- Autodesk Smoke Essentials - Walk through grading a short sci-fi film (with downloadable ProRes4444 source material) while learning the ultimate online finishing app... Autodesk Smoke. (amazon.com)
- Color Grading with Avid and Symphony - Written for version 6. Fully applicable to version 7. I was a contributor. (amazon.com)
- Adobe Speedgrade CC: Classroom in a Book - A solid book for a solid grading app. (amazon.com)
Have a book you think should be in this list? Reply to this email and let me know!
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FCC Disclaimer: Links in this email to Amazon.com, B&H Photo, or ToolFarm.com are Affiliate links that help support the TaoOfColor.com. FSI and SpectraCal are paid sponsors and BlackMagic Design
is a current client. We thank you for your support.
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Published by:
Patrick Inhofer: Photon-Wrangler, Fini.tv | TaoOfColor.com | MixingLight.com
patrick@taoofcolor.com
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