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Trouble reading this newsletter? Read it online: http://www.aweber.com/t/BhuWr The Tao Colorist Newsletter Curated links of news, reviews, thoughts, career
advice, and humor for professional Video / Film Colorists & Finishers. Delivered Sunday. Issue CCXLVII A TaoOfColor.com Publication Publisher: Pat Inhofer
Managing Editor: Jim Wicks
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In case you missed the email I sent on Friday morning, here it is again. The survey will close mid-week:
Are you interested in a 2-Day 'Color Correction Conference'? We’ve put together a quick 3-question survey and it’d be fantastic if you could take 5 minutes to share your
thoughts about the viability and topics of a possible color correction conference. Click through to take our quick survey Some background... MixingLight.com and TaoOfColor.com are thinking about producing a conference focused on the art, technical & business of video color correction. Surprisingly, we're not aware if anyone has dedicated a specific conference to digital video
color correction. Your answers will help us determine if a two-day conference with your peers learning and doing color correction is something you’d attend? Please click here to launch this anonymous survey No matter your
opinion... it counts to us so please click through.
We'll see you next week.
Happy Grading! |
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- [video] The Look of Gladiator - Dale Grahn has color timed some of the best loved movies of all time. In this tutorial Dale uses the new Koji Advance plugin to show you his thought
process in creating the look of Gladiator. He does a great job sharing how an old-school color timer thinks about manipulating images... and his process is 100% relevant today. But the last line of this video? Purr-fect. (kojicolor.com)
- [video] Colors: A Celebration Of Color In Our Everyday Lives - a fun short film. Especially for colorist types. (vimeo.com via Jean Trudel)
- [video] Coppola in Reel Time - the godfather of the Corleone trilogy talks at length about his life in films. (youtube.com)
- Was Technicolor Too Good To Last? - the classic technicolor look reigned supreme for only 20 years. Beautiful color, gorgeous look. Why didn’t it last? Click through for the answer. (nypost.com)
- Technicolor at 100 - yup, even though it faded away, Technicolor is getting the star treatment in its centenary. Did you know that back in the day, ordering a Technicolor package included a color consultant on set? Or that the Technicolor look was
muted to help ease audiences accustomed to black and white movies? (nytimes.com)
- Where Should A Look Begin? - if you want to learn something, teach it. In this blog
post an aspiring colorist shares his thoughts on the process of creating 'looks'. (samgilling.com)
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- Red Giant Universe 1.5 Update - if you're a subscriber or lifetime owner, they've got more goodies for you. Including the ever-useful 'unmult' filter. (redgiant.com)
- [video] Orlando Post Pros: Blackmagic Design Resolve 12 Demo - the new version of Resolve is supposed to ship in 'July'. While you wait for it to drop (you know there are 45 days in July, yes?), here's the demo that happened recently at my local user group. (youtube.com via Oliver Peters)
- Avid Media Composer Upgrade - Avid upgrades its NLE to version 8.4. Features custom raster support in any format up to 8K, and AVC-I, ProRes, XAVC-I and XF-AVC native high-resolution playback. (redsharknews.com)
- DaVinci
Resolve 13 Wish List - so... Resolve 12 has been demo'ed but yet to be shipped. That means it's time for the DaVinci Resolve 13 Wish List forum thread! Gotta love the intertubes! (blackmagicdesign.com)
- [video] How to Use LUTs Like a Pro - the notion that LUTs are supposed to reduce your 'work' drives me a bit nuts but Tip # has some valid points. That said, Tip #2 is 100% spot-on and Tip #3? Hysterical. (youtube.com)
- The History of DaVinci Resolve - colorist and friend of the Tao, Marc Wielage, starts a thread that includes an old demo of the late 1980's 'DaVinci Classic'. Several old-timers then jump in to chat about color grading systems of yore. (liftgammagain.com)
- Quick Tip: Keyframing In DaVinci Resolve - a pithy primer on Resolve's two types of keyframes. (premiumbeat.com)
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- [video] Understanding HDR - an interview with SpectraCal’s Joe Barsotti and Stacey Spears discussing "the innovations and challenges HDR imaging brings to the post-production, cinema and home theater industries." (liftgammagain.com)
- Discussion: Manufacturers Debate OLED, UHD,
HDR - a very interesting read about the consumer display market from a CE Week discussion panel in NYC with Sony, Samsung and LG. (hdguru.com)
- Discussion: HDR Is More Than About 'Peak Luminance' - as part of a panel discussion from CE Week in New York, the manufacturers point out that HDR is about contrast, not peak luminance... a distinction that matters. Find out why... (hdguru.com)
- Chicago
Enacting a 9% 'Cloud Tax' On Streaming Services - apparently, the city's leaders find this amusing. (hollywoodreporter.com)
- Is Facebook Now Better Than YouTube For Video Distribution? - how Facebook is getting into the video monetization game. (premiumbeat.com)
- 6 Killer Reasons Why YouTube Is Still King Of Online Video - and it all has to do with reliable metrics and content protection. (reelseo.com)
- Amazon Launches First UHD HDR Stream Title
- which begs an answer to the question, "If a tree falls and nobody's around to hear it... does it make a sound?" Or maybe I should invoke Schrödinger's cat? Ahh... maybe not. (hdguru.com)
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The stories featured in this section are from MixingLight.com, a companion color correction membership website to TaoOfColor.com and paid sponsor of this Newsletter. Want to read a story listed here but not a member? Sign up for a free 24-hour Test Drive. - [video] Colorista III In FCPX: Digging (too) Deep? - your Publisher continues with his deep look at the toolset of Colorista III... and maybe pushes it too far? (mixinglight.com)
- DaVinci Resolve: Creating A Shared Database - "Configuring a shared database server & SQL database
is very straight forward, but also a little tricky . . . it not only makes moving from room to room simple, it unlocks some advanced Resolve features such as timeline collaboration and the upcoming remote rendering in Resolve 12." (mixinglight.com)
- [video] Baselight For Avid: First Thoughts On Primary Corrections - Dan Moran, career-long Resolve user, shares his first thoughts on making primary corrections using the Baselight toolset. (mixinglight.com)
- [video] FCPX Plug-in: Hawaiki Color &
Analyzer - this FX Factory color correction plug-in offers a unique User Interface. (mixinglight.com)
- 5 Ways To
Get More Color Grading Work - how to drum up more business with 'outside the box' efforts. (mixinglight.com)
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- Google Is Taking Applications to Test The 'Jump Virtual Reality RIg' - interestingly, one of my clients is in discussions with them about this rig for a current project. (9to5google.com)
- Choosing The Best Sunscreen - North of the
Equator it's prime beach-going season. But how much SPF do you *really* need? And are there other, equally important things you need to be looking for on the label of your sunscreen? (theatlantic.com)
- [video] How To Use A Semicolon - "Is it a comma? Or is it a period? It’s neither, and while it might seem silly to think of
semicolons as confusing punctuation, improper use of it is one of the most common grammatical errors that people make." I'm doing so much writing these days, I found this very interesting; perhaps some of you will as well. (lifehacker.com)
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Current Colorist Control Surface Drivers |
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- [video] The Physics of Popcorn - who’d have thunk it. The popcorn you buy at the movies, or make at
home, has a lot going on. Watch some high-speed photography of an emergent corn pop. (youtube.com)
- [interactive] Are You a Replicant? - take this online test to find out if you are related to the Replicants from Blade Runner. ‘More human than
human is our motto.’ Mildly amusing. (bfi.org.uk)
- It’s (not) In The Can - not all films get
made, and not all film ideas are good ones. Even some of the best loved directors in movie history had clunkers that have never seen the light of day. Some of these are funny. Some not so much. That Nicolas Cage photo? A bit of both! (imgur.com)
- [video] Parking In A Handicap Spot In Brazil - but not handicapped? The country that is becoming known for citizens taking the law into their own hands—does what you always wanted to do. (youtube.com)
- Star Wars & Star Trek Coffee Tables - Did someone say Christmas present for Tao Treasurer? A perfect way to support this Newsletter! (stupiddope.com)
- [video] Leaked: Audition Tapes For The Role Of Wolverine - with the hunt on for a new Wolverine, audition tapes have been leaked. If you haven't seen this you really do need to watch to the end. (youtu.be)
- [video]
Filmmaker Wants To Kickstart More Old-School ‘Thunderbirds’ - bringing audio-only versions recorded with the original cast back to life. Nifty. (engadget.com)
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- Is Power Consumption UHD's & HDR's Hidden Weakness? - our Tao Newsletter sponsor sent us this link with the comment, "If wide-scale consumer HDR adoption happens I guarantee panel efficiency is going to be a
significant hurdle to overcome…especially as the trend will be to make power consumption thresholds stricter in the future.” (displaydaily.com via Bram Desmet)
- Large Scale, In Field SSD Reliability Study Done - at Facebook. The results are interesting because they differ from the life-cycles we expect with spinning hard drives. (storagereview.com)
- Details
On Sony's Ultra-Thin XBR 4K Ultra HDTVs - including performance characteristics Sony hopes to deliver with these sets. (hdguru.com)
- Sony KD-55X9305C 4K TV Review - a
review of what I believe is a step up from the Sony 4K in the article above: "The introduction of 10-point white balance controls is long overdue, helping the KD55X9305 achieve more accurate greyscale (and hence colours) than before." And how does the Android operating system work on these TVs? Click through to find out. (hdtvtest.co.uk)
- LG OLED TV Wins Value Electronics ‘TV Shootout’ - beating out both a Sony and Samsung. But it's price'y, baby. (hdguru.com)
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- [video] #Deepdream Is Blowing My Mind - check out this trippy little video. It's a visualization of what happening
inside of a neural network as it feeds back on itself. The accompanying blog post is a trippy read, too. Just—don't watch this immediately before bed. Trust us. (medium.com)
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Th- Th- That's ALL Folks! See you next week. Happy Grading! 8,250+ Stories Now Shared
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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)
- Digital Cinematography: Fundamentals, Tools, Techniques and Workflows - Don't let the title fool you. I'm only a third way through this book and its explanations of how digital images are recorded, sampled and viewed is essential knowledge for anyone who's craft intersects with digital images. Not light reading. But not filled with math either. I highly recommend this book. (amazon.com)
Have a book you think should be in this list? Reply to this email and let me know!
FCC Disclaimer: Links in this email to Amazon.com, B&H Photo, or ToolFarm are Affiliate links that help support the TaoOfColor.com. FSI is a paid sponsor. Tao of Color, Inc. is part owner of MixingLight.com—which is a
sponsor. BlackMagic Design is sometimes a client.
We thank you for your support.
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Managing Editor:
jim@jimwicks.com
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Published by:
Patrick Inhofer: Photon-Wrangler, Fini.tv | TaoOfColor.com | MixingLight.com
patrick@taoofcolor.com
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