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NAB 2016 is over. I just got my first good night's sleep in over a week. And I lost 3 pounds—which says more about the general quality of Las Vegas food than my ability to stick to any perceivable diet. In the next week, over on the Tao Blog, I'll be writing two articles about my overall impressions at this year's NAB. The headlines for my NAB
take-aways? 'HDR Falls to Earth' and 'The Rise of DaVinci Resolve Studio'. I'll post them over the next few days and link to them in the next Newsletter (you can also keep an eye on my Twitter feed). On that Blog I'll also restart my 'Little Gems' series on DaVinci Resolve. The 12.5 release has over 70 new Color Page features, most of which won't make it into the marketing copy. That series is where I share the headlines if Blackmagic Marketing
were also full time colorists. Did I see any displays at NAB that blew my mind? Not really - but one did stand out. Colorist / Author Alexis Van Hurkman and I stumbled on a reference monitor while looking for new home theater projectors from JVC (which we think are the best values on the market). I will break a rule
of this text-only Newsletter and share my favorite NAB 2016 photo, courtesy the JVC booth: 10,000 nit HDR rear-projector display |
Hello 1997, it's nice to meet you again
:-) In an age of impossibly thin displays, I love the idea of this JVC 4K HDR rear projector set! I'm not being precise... but it can change the display size from 35" to 17"—and at 17", with a 2x gain screen, it can do 10,000 nits (though we didn't have a spectro to measure the actual luminance values). It
definitely looked (and felt) super-bright. Kudos to JVC for thinking outside the box (though further Googling has revealed this video from Display Daily at NAB 2015). The other big news of the week: The formation of the 'Colorist Society International' I'm proud that this new professional society for colorists is founded by two people I'm already doing business with. CSI Co-Founder Jim Wicks is the Managing Editor for this Newsletter - and has restored hundreds of classic films in the past few years. If
not for Jim's weekly help in publishing this Newsletter, we would have folded in the Fall of 2013 - due to my sense of overwhelm. Congratulations Jim Wicks, C.S.I. It's great seeing you bring our community closer together and help elevate our craft's status in the eyes of other professional television and
film associations! Your personal and family tradition in film and television are perfect for your new leadership role. The other co-Founder is Kevin Shaw, C.S.I. Kevin has been one of the leaders producing the Colorist Mixer for NAB and IBC. He was also on the original DaVinci team back in the 1990's, before Resolve was a twinkle in our eyes and when an extra Power Window would cost $30,000 - buying you a new card that you inserted into your computer's
chassis. Kevin and I had some quality time on the NAB show floor this year and his calm demeanor and breadth of experience working as a colorist and teaching other colorists will serve CSI well. The Colorist Society International is getting tons of positive press and you can be sure this Newsletter will follow the growth of CSI very very closely. If you want to learn more about the Colorist Society International and how to gain your 'CSI' moniker... please visit the FAQ at ColoristSociety.com Enjoy this week's NAB-shortened Newsletter There wasn't much time to produce a NAB-announcement newsletter. That'll come next week. See you then. Happy Grading!
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- The Colorist Society International (CSI) Is Launched! - CSI 'is a paid membership organization that represents a unified voice for the professional colorist in the film and digital entertainment industry. The CSI is the
first organization devoted exclusively to furthering and honoring the professional achievements of the colorist community. It is not a labor union or guild, but an educational and cultural resource.' Read the full press release. (coloristsociety.com)
- [video] Animating the Past - while this has absolutely nothing to do with color it has everything to do with craft. It’s mesmerizing animation that was created using old photos taken during the early 1900s. (petapixel.com)
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- PreLight: The Free Mac On Set Color App - from the good folks at FilmLight. (filmlight.ltd.uk)
- [video] Project Templates in Resolve 12 - Montreal-based colorist Mathieu Marano shows you how to create and use project templates. (vimeo.com)
- Color Finale for X-Rite ColorChecker - a review of the Color Finale FCPX color grading plug-in, which supports the X-Rite ColorChecker Passport Video chart. (redsharknews.com)
- Scratch Goes VR - news release about Assimilate Scratch VR Suite and it’s real-time toolset for working within a 360 environment, including support for Oculus Rift overlays. (businesswire.com)
- Adobe Premiere Pro CC NEXT - the big new features, "Secondaries in the Lumetri color tools, a VR video mode and a proxy editing workflow." Plus more,
including support for Tangent devices—and color balls driving 3-Way Color Corrections. (provideocoalition.com)
- What's Coming Next for Premeire Pro CC and Media Encoder CC - from the official Adobe blog and Al Mooney. (blogs.adobe.com)
- Seth Godin to Blackmagic - “In many markets, especially online, software is free. And free software built by corporations turns us from the user into
the product. If you're not paying for it, after all, you must be the bait for the person who is.” The final line is worth the click. (sethgodin.typepad.com)
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- [video] The Man Behind Linux - his name is Linus Torvalds. If you use the Internet, he has had an impact on your life. (ted.com)
- How to Handle Success and Stay Focused - whether you’re an independent contractor, part of a team, or run a post-production house five entrepreneurs weigh in on how they manage daily stress. (inc.com)
- What She Says - “The older men get, the more dialogue they have in films. The opposite is true for females.” A new study says Hollywood hates to hear
from older actresses. (thewrap.com)
- Exhibitors and Studios Remain Wary of Screening Room - "Screening Room is going to overshadow anything that is officially going on . . . It’s
the future that right now the industry doesn’t seem to want but may be inevitable." (etcentric.org)
- Lytro Cinema Makes Its NAB Debut - "When the covers were lifted from the camera prototype . . . the immediate
reaction from the crowd was a mixture of gasps and laughter. The camera is big — it's about as long as a small car, and has enough girth to fit a human being in the casing lengthwise." Yup. I was there. Just remember this term: Depth Maps. Game changing in more ways than one. (studiodaily.com)
- Where Did Avid Go Wrong? - "Avid has long since been considered the gold standard NLE for the film industry, but recent industry shifts have seen Avid’s market share shrink dramatically. Why is this? It’s due to a few fatal errors in judgement." (premiumbeat.com)
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The stories featured in this section are from MixingLight.com, 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] Match My Shot: Part One - "Matching someone’s look can be quite an easy process but matching someone's exact grade so it can be dropped into the edit seamlessly is very very very difficult. The difficulty factor is that each one of us thinks and orders our [corrections] in a totally different way. To prove this example I’d like to
issue you all with a challenge." (mixinglight.com)
- [video] Match My Shot: Part Two - "Lots of you tried matching my shot
and Andreas got very very close! I have to confess that I purposely made that grade as tricky and twisted as possible . . . The reason I did this is was to show how we all think differently. Lets jump into the shot below and I’ll explain what and why I did it!" (mixinglight.com)
- [video] Alert: How NOT To Use Dropbox With Resolve’s Disk Databases - learn why it's not smart to use Dropbox as a database server. (mixinglight.com)
- [video] Premiere Pro Color Correction Protocol Part 3: Filter Stacking - plus, controlling
the user's eye. (mixinglight.com)
- [video] Resolve 12.5: Robbie’s Top Features - the big and small features
improving the user experience and workflows. (mixinglight.com)
- [video] DaVinci Resolve 12.5: Patrick’s ‘Gems’ -
highlighting a few small features that may not get much 'headline love'. (mixinglight.com)
- [video] Davinci Resolve
12.5: Dan’s Favorite New Features - "I am insanely pleased with this version which focuses on bug fixes and everyday issues rather than shiny new features . . . My first day back after NAB and I conformed a phantom job…in one click! All the complex timewarps came across easily and I used the amazing “set to zero” option in the camera raw options to make sure the phantom matched the 00:00:00:00 transcodes that editorial used." (mixinglight.com)
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- [video] Star Wars VFX Breakdown - if someone you know deeply loves the Star Wars world don’t show them this video. While many of us in the business love a good VFX breakdown every now and then - die hard SW fans might
not appreciate that The Force Awakens was not... you know... real. (vimeo.com)
- 8 Photos That Could Have Been Made 5 Years Ago - from Computational Photography to extremely high ISO to Pixel Sticks. (petapixel.com)
- 11 LED Lights Go Head-to-Head in a Scientific Color Shootout - which should you buy? (nofilmschool.com)
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- Living and Surviving in HDR and 4K, plus Preparing for VR - "you’ll have an opportunity to learn and discuss the standards you’ll be using for the next 5 years . . . how drones can be used in your film work and will gain
an understanding of tomorrow’s immersive VR film advances". A half-day workshop. Wed, April 27. Chicago. (chifcpug.org)
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Current Colorist Control Surface Drivers |
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- Bucket List of Roasters - being the colorist that you are, one of your favorite drinks (after beer) is probably coffee. If you are a caffeine addict, check out the 25 coffee houses around the world that you have to see
before you... check out. (buzzfeed.com)
- NAB 2016: The Booths With the Best Candy - "In order get real candy you have to turn to the smaller companies who really understand why the public is there in the first place. These more
enlightened marketers you can classify into two camps: First the hard candy and chews group". Yup, a real-world look at NAB. (filmmakeriq.com)
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- [video] DaVinci Resolve 12.5 Update: What's New - you can watch the official 'What's New' video from the product page. (blackmagicdesign.com) The Press Release has the official spin on what's new and awesome: (blackmagicdesign.com)
- [video] NAB 2016: Flanders Scientific Update - "showed off their new BoxIO LUT boxes, as well as the 17″ version of their popular DM250 display, the DM170." (blog.abelcine.com)
- GenArts Sapphire NAB Special Ends Soon - save money on new licenses and renewals through April 29th. (toolfarm.com)
- Cinedeck Releases cineXinsert - it took 15 years for someone to release this, "With cineXinsert you can take a single shot you’ve exported from your NLE with [a short revision] and [insert] that misspelling in the mastered
file." (provideocoalition.com)
- Colorist Control Surfaces Roundup - in a seemingly never-ending post, this comprehensive article covers everything from the DaVinci Resolve surface, to the Tangent solutions to a gaming keypad.
(jonnyelwyn.co.uk)
- [video] In Depth With The Tangent Ripple - my Mixing Light partner Robbie Carman spent quite a bit of time using this tiny surface with the preview
builds of the new Premiere Pro CC. We both agree, this thing will sell like hotcakes. Scott Simmons goes deep with it, including an embedded video. (provideocoalition.com)
- AMD Confirms Polaris 10 and Polaris Market
Positioning - "Polaris 11 targeting the notebook market and “Polaris” 10 aimed at the mainstream desktop and high-end gaming notebook segment". (videocardz.com)
- Akitio Thunder3 Duo Pro - thunderbolt 3 in action with a direct attached drive. (anandtech.com via @careyd)
- Nvidia Unveils the Tesla P100 - "Memory bandwidth more than doubles over the Titan X to 720GB/s thanks to the wider 4096-bit memory bus, while capacity
goes up to 16GB". And that's just the start. Click through for all the GPU goodness. (arstechnica.co.uk)
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- [video] Hearing Colors - “I don’t feel that I am using technology. I don’t feel that I am wearing technology. I feel that I am technology.” Neil Harbisson was born with achromatopsia, a rare condition that leaves 1 in 30,000 people completely colorblind. After convincing his doctors to implant an antenna into the back of his head, Neil now possesses a new
sense: the ability to hear colors." This short film is one of the finalists for the inaugural Tribeca X award. (vimeo.com)
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- Rock Chair, Knit Hat - what if you needed a hat made while you were reading the paper? Two french students came up with accomplish both goals. It’s called a rocking chair that knits you a hat as you read the paper. (thisiscolossal.com)
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Th- Th- That's ALL Folks! See you next week! Happy Grading! 9,850'ish Stories Now Shared
Support this Newsletter: Like, Tweet or Plus =>
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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