• The Tao of Color is now officially headquartered in Orlando, Florida!

• If you've tried reaching out to me over the past 15 days, I probably haven't gotten back to you.

• Moving 1,000 miles turned out to be much more stressful than I imagined.

• The benefit: The fibre optic internet in my new neighborhood is consistently faster than my old Verizon FiOS connection... at a lower price with a lower rated speed.

• The oddity: Everyone down here is very proud to be in the Lightning Capital of the USA. And I believe that moniker is well deserved... 

• I've seen an intensity and boominess to these pop-up lightning storms I've never experienced before.

• Needless to say, I suddenly find myself investigating a multitude of ways to insulate my color grading suite from potential voltage surges.

• If you have any advice on the matter, reply and send along those links! I'm definitely starting with a whole house surge protector (in addition to the current APC Smart UPS I run).

(change of subject)

• This is the last edition where I'll be tweeting out this Newsletter on my personal Twitter account (@patinhofer). Next week, the official Twitter account for this newsletter migrates to @taocolorist.

• Please be sure to add that account to your Twitter stream!

• See you next week.

• Black is the old black - "Did you know that black enhances the fine lines (read: wrinkles) and bags under your eyes? It doesn't enhance any eye colour, your most important communicative tool." If you think you've got black working for you, think again. Great blog post. (thedailydagny.com)

• [podcast] Color Test Charts - as a Colorist are you seeing projects delivered with color test charts? Sadly, most of us do not. Colorist Tom Parish digs deep with David Corley of DSCLabs into this topic to find out why, including the history and evolution of color test cards.  (tomparish.com)

• [video] The History of the Pixel - what is a pixel? How did it come to be? The answer is told in linear fashion. Although the video is 4:10, it'll be over in half that time. (youtube.com)

• [video] Keepin' it Consistent - why is it important to maintain the color consistency of a film from start to finish? Colorist Chris Hall continues his excellent Anatomy of a Grade series with some things to think about BEFORE you grade. (vimeo.com)

• 5 Lessons from EditFest London - editor Jonny Elwyn, and friend of the Tao, says he got 5 takeaways from the recent meetup. Our favorite is number 2: Networking. It's the ABC (always bring cards) of our craft.  (premiumbeat.com)

• [podcast] Adult Supervision - our favorite Coloristos are back with a podcast about client supervised grading sessions and how to make the most from them. (coloristos.com)

• Every Hex Color - A blog post admitting an addiction to a Twitter feed that publishes a Hex color every ten minutes or so. A cool way to throw some color into your Twitter stream! (tbray.org via David Bell)

• CDL 101 - "Rather than use lift, gamma, and gain, the ASC CDL system uses three transforms: offset, power, and slope. While for some these controls might seem similar to lift, gamma, and gain, they are in fact noticeably different, particularly the offset control." An intro post into what Mike Most promises will be a series explaining the CDL system. (mikemost.com)

• Coloring House of Cards - season 2 of Netflix's ground-breaking drama was graded in 4K on Baselight. Lead Colorist Laura Jans-Fazio goes in-depth on grading 13 episodes and managing all that data. I found Baselight's note-taking aspect of their collaboration very interesting. Seems like a great tool. (library.creativecow.net)

• [review] FilmConvert Pro - a very nice review of Rubber Monkey's very useful plugin. (studiodaily.com)

• Advanced OLED Monitor Calibration - "The advantage of 3D LUT based calibration is that gives the user total control; not just of white balance, but gamma and color gamut as well. This allows for greater user customization and can remedy display issues beyond what can be done through simpler means." Fantastic article for anyone interested in calibration - including you, yes? Then click through. (negativespaces.com)

• [video] DaVinci Resolve: Soft Clipping - "soft clipping allows me to bend footage far further than I normally could by limiting the extreme registers of the highlight or shadow detail." (premiumbeat.com)

• End of Life: DaVinci Revival - The film restoration system that Blackmagic inherited with its acquisition of DaVinci is officially End of Life. There was no big press release. Just a comment by a Blackmagic employee on a discussion thread about the Cintel Film Scanner. Read the non-announcement at the end of the thread. (forum.blackmagicdesign.com)

• Update: Resolve Collect 2.3 - Includes support for Resolve 11. (liftgammagain.com)

• Aperture: End of Life - first it was FCP 7. Now Aperture. Apple has ceased development of Aperture. Also gone is the consumer app iPhoto. You'll need to read this article to find out what Apple's roadmap is for a photo app. (techcrunch.com)

• Collateral 10 Years After - in 2004, the Michael Mann film Collateral broke new ground - becoming the first motion picture to be shot digitally. Discover how far we've traveled in 10 years with a retrospective by the film's two DPs. (theasc.com)

• [video] 4K RAW at 1000fps - check out the test video shot with the Phantom Flex4K. The video was shot by director Brendan Bellomo and cinematographer Greg Wilson. (petapixel.com)

• 4th of July Movie-goers... didn't - It was the lowest grossing July 4 weekend since the 1980's. But it's not hard to understand why... we tried to go to a movie and couldn't find anything worth spending $40. Instead we rented two DVDs from RedBox and bought a box of microwave popcorn. Total cost: $6. (gawker.com via @comebackshane)

• [video] The binary man - pour yourself a cup of coffee, take 5 minutes, and dive into this short video essay about the man who turned paper into pixels and why no one else saw it coming. (vimeo.com)

• What is 'Equvalence' and why should I care? - "The idea of equivalence gives you the tools to understand the difference in performance between different camera formats in terms of depth-of-field. It also lets you relate the role of F-number and sensor size to how much light the camera will have access to, which is an indicator of likely low-light performance." This post gets very tech'y - for you math geeks. (dpreview.com via David Bell)

• Cook Picture Styles: Tired of shooting flat with your Canon DSLR? - 28 picture styles for Canon DSLRs, giving you the look you want straight out of the camera. Trivial cost. (apefos.com via John Carter)

• [video] It's only Rock n Roll - who says irony is dead? Watch Mick Jagger as he comments about aging 1960s icons as he introduces the Monty Python Live (mostly) Press Conference. (youtube.com)

• [video] What is Bayhem? - If you want to understand contemporary filmic language, this critic thinks you need to start with understanding Michael Bay. It's a great thesis on the epic nature of Michael Bay's storytelling, even when it gets in the way of his stories. (youtu.be via Marc Wielage)

• Optical Illusion with four rings - are you in need of a smile right now? Then click through and watch this juggler put one on your face... while he's blindfolded. (laughingsquid.com)