• We're off the month of August. We will be back Sunday, September 11 - the week after the Labor Day holiday. ​​​​​​​
  

• As a result, this week's Newsletter is long. Don't try to read it all in one sitting. Take your time. Make it last. 

Next: Earlier this year the Newsletter welcomed LumaForge as a Sponsor

• Long-time readers know, Sponsors here are few and far between.

• Why? For one, both Jim and I are too busy to hunt down Sponsors. But mostly, your Publisher needs a Sponsor to be both relevant to this Newsletter and offer tremendous value to you.

• Frankly, lots of over-hyped, over-marketed and over-priced products are sold to post-production professionals. After all, most of us are gear and software junkies. 

[Aside: I've got a room full (literally) of gear that is forever one afternoon away from being auctioned off on EBay. Anyone have a need for a Tektronix WFM 601A? Or a AJA K3-Box? I might even part with the Sony DVW-A500 Digibeta and 505 card.]

• If you winnow down the overhyped and over-priced... it's a small list.

• Flanders Scientific is a long-time Sponsor that perfectly fits our criteria.

• And it looks like LumaForge is well on the road to fitting that bill as demonstrated by the two blog posts I've put up on the Tao website this week. I think they reveal why we've chosen to accept LumaForge as a Newsletter Sponsor:

• So - to learn more about LumaForge, and why I brought them on as a Sponsor, listen to the podcast and read the Case Study. If nothing else, I think you'll start thinking about them when it's time to upgrade your RAID.

• Like I said, we're off until the Sunday after Labor Day! Have a terrific August!

• Patrick, Jim and the Tao Treasurer

Happy Grading!
We'll see you in September.

• Meet the Colorist:  Anthony Raffaele - part of FilmLight’s continuing series, about his career and work at Technicolor PostWorks New York. “It’s not that I don’t have a style; the style is the project I’m working on, collaborating with the cinematographer and creatives to craft a look that suits their story.” (filmlight.ltd.uk)
  

• 6 Iconic Uses of Color in Pre-Digital Films - illuminating how use of color has played an integral role in 6 iconic films. (rocketstock.com)
  

• Developing an Awareness of Color - "First I’m going to talk about color perception and the basics of learning how to see it. Then we’ll touch on how cameras create color at a very basic level, and why it’s amazing that cameras work at all. Lastly, I’ll talk about what color characteristics I’ve noticed in various cameras, and why that’s important to how we work." Cinematographer Art Adams. (provideocoalition.com)
  

• Vittorio Storaro On Color - the famed Cinematographer spoke at the Cinegear show in Los Angeles. “We have the tools now to capture an incredible colour palette. With HDR and Rec-2020 we can make images reminiscent of the bold Technicolor films of the 70’s but with better contrast. Perhaps this is the way films should look.” (redsharknews.com)
  

• What’s The ISO Of Your Eye? - "While our eyes quite obviously have apertures (the pupil) at the front, which adjust for exposure, is there an ISO and a shutter speed for the eye?" (nofilmschool.com)​​​​​​​
  

• What's the Cost of Grading to Dolby Vision HDR? - have you been tasked with pricing out a DobyVision HDR delivery? This thread will set you straight on why the Google-machine won't spit out that answer. (liftgammagain.com)

• Assimilate Scratch Pushes Deep into Stereo 3D and VR - version 8.5 is released. New features center specifically on stereo tools and the coming explosion of VR content. (nofilmschool.com)
  

• [video] Premiere Pro to Resolve - The simple EDL workflow that may save you from the normal XML headaches. (youtube.com)
  

• [video] Want to know about Quantel Rio v4? - Colorist Jamie Dickinson goes in depth on some of the new features  of Rio v4 (formerly Pablo). Editing and conform take up the first half. Color grading features begins at 8:44. (vimeo.com)
  

• Pro Maintenance Tools 2.1.9 - a small update that has a big new feature for readers of this Newsletter... 'Clear DaVinci Resolve Render Caches'. Thank you, Digital Rebellion! (digitalrebellion.com)
  

• Editing 360 and VR Video - "this post should give you a pretty good schooling in the fundamentals of VR and 360 video, the various concepts you need to understand and some valuable resources to help you dive deeper into the topic" (jonnyelwyn.co.uk)
  

• [videos] Sick Of Premiere Pro?- try editing In DaVinci Resolve. Includes online resources—but misses this newsletter. (premiumbeat.com)
  

• Blackmagic Releases Fusion For Linux - "project files are common . . . can also be integrated into existing pipelines using Python and Lua scripting." (studiodaily.com)
  

• [video] Media Composer & BCC Remover + Mocha BCC - "both the Mocha integration and Remover effect are from the newest release, and they will help you perfect shots, that you would [have had you settling for less] in the past." (provideocoalition.com)
  

• OS X 10.11.6 + Adobe CC + Nvidia Cards = Kernel Panics - - full details, and the solution, at the link. (digitalrebellion.com)​​​​​​​
  

• Using Automator To Expand The Multicam Edit Operations In Final Cut Pro X - "A really clever trick from Philip Hodgetts to use Automator to make life a little easier when switching video and audio at different times in Final Cut Pro X. Impressive." (fcp.co)

• 'Star Trek Beyond': Feel the Rush - designing the latest Star Trek film for the new 3 screen Barco Escape theatrical system and getting ‘transported’ into theaters by opening day was more than ambitious. It was crazy. “Had anything in the pipeline gone wrong, we wouldn’t have made it.” (hollywoodreporter.com)
  

• 'Star Trek Beyond': Barco Escape Theaters - the previous item had me hunting for a Florida Barco Escape installation. Alas, there are none. If you're interested in seeing this 3-screen experience, here's the link that will allow you to search. (ready2escape.com)
  

• Nvidia Settles Class-Action Lawsuit Over GeForce GTX 970 - oops. NVidia lied. Now they get to pay. If you own one of these cards you may be in line for a rebate. (videocardz.com)
  

• Hollywood Studios Weigh Impact of Rotten Tomatoes Scores - who's your favorite film reviewer these days? According to this article, it's usually Rotten Tomatoes. What does this mean to Hollywood? (etcentric.org)
  

• Do Hollywood Movies Make a Profit? Part 3 - "Hollywood has a negative reputation when it comes to transparency and financial openness . . . let’s take a detailed look at profitability among Hollywood movies.  I will be working with three datasets, each providing a unique perspective on the matter" (stephenfollows.com)
  

• RedBox Beta Tests Its New Streaming Service - a-yup. They're in the OTT game now. (etcentric.org)
  

• LeEco Acquires Vizio To Bring Its Streaming Service To U.S. - this Chinese firm bought Vizio—but only for what its hardware brings to the software play. (etcentric.org)

• [videos] Colorist Inspiration: July 2016 - "although working on commercials is financially more beneficial vs working on music videos, music videos represent a great opportunity to meet the next generation of the brightest new directors on the scene – and in many ways, they’re just a lot more fun!" Dan shares his favorite and brightest.  (mixinglight.com)
  

• Delivering Project Files: Making The Choice About Your IP - should you deliver your project files to clients, on demand? Or should you bill for those assets? Or never deliver them, ever? A very interesting discussion that you will have to make a decision about, eventually. (mixinglight.com)
  

• [video] Optimizing Tangent Control Surfaces For Premiere Pro CC - your Tao Newsletter Publisher shows, in this free-no-login-required tutorial, how combining a Tangent Element with the latest version of Premiere can seriously speed up your color correcting... but you'll need to make some changes to the default layout first, and then it starts to sing. (mixinglight.com)

• [video] 17 Ways To Hide A Lavalier Mic - like the title says. Some great scenarios that get covered—and uncovered. (premiumbeat.com)
  

• Art Of The Cut With The Editing Team Of ‘Star Trek Beyond’ - my man Steve Hullfish interviews three editor from the latest Star Trek release. (provideocoalition.com)
  

• Location Scouting Tips: The Whys and Hows Of Where - a relatively pithy post on the main ingredients when scouting for good locations. (premiumbeat.com)

• [video] Young Han Solo Audition Tapes - Will Arnett, Jeff Goldblum, Melissa McCarthy and many others audition for the part of Star Wars’ Han Solo. Pretty obvious why none of them got the part. Fun to watch. (youtube.com)
  

• Build A DIY Weather Forecast Display - with a Raspberry Pi and a LED Matrix. Fun summer (or winter) project. (lifehacker.com)
  

• Dark Sky Finder Maps Out Light Pollution - to find the best spots for stargazing... or those things that kids do in cars at night. (lifehacker.com)
  

• [video] ‘Games of Thrones’ Season 6 VFX Breakdown - is this Craft or is this Fun? It is both. (studiodaily.com)
  

• [video] How the Bourne Movies Changed Fight Scenes - you have to watch this to the end! "The first three Bourne films show how much action filmmaking changed in a five-year period. But did they go too far? A video essay" (vimeo.com)
  

• The 18 Best Philosophical Movies of All Time - “…movies have messages, from symbolist storytelling to clever subtext dialogues. Here’s a list of some of the movies that have philosophical messages encoded for the audience.” Fun-ish. Definitely a great list of movies to watch. (tasteofcinema.com)

• [podcast] Interview With Sam Mestman Of Lumaforge - your Newsletter Publisher chats with LumaForge about the challenges of designing zero-latency shared storage hardware for media professionals. (taoofcolor.com)
  

• Case Study: On-Set with Rich Roddman and High Performance Shared Storage - the LumaForge Jellyfish was tested "on three very different jobs: a 4K Sony F55 multi-camera “Behind the Scenes” shoot; a Phantom Flex and Arri XT product shoot; and a RED 5K .r3d direct response shoot." How did it perform? Rich spills the bits. (taoofcolor.com)
  

• The Fastest Nvidia GPU E­ver - “It is worth repeating: The Quadro P6000 is absolutely the fastest, most powerful graphics board in the Nvidia family.” The only thing faster is Nvidia’s GPU release schedules for its new line of video cards. (redsharknews.com)
  

• Nvidia’s New GTX Titan X - 11 teraflops, 12GB GDDR5X, around $1,200. “The home-brew DaVinci grading suite just became even easier and cheaper.” (redsharknews.com)
  

• Three Reasons To Run Your Own Mac Server - like the title says. (macworld.com)
  

• Samsung Announces HDR+ Firmware Update -  for 2016 SUHD TVs, "The firmware update is designed to enhance the High Dynamic Range (HDR) quality to its highest picture quality capacity, even if the source isn’t in HDR format." (displaydaily.com)
  

• Maximum Power At A Low Price: HP Z240 Workstation - "The third generation of HP’s desktop computer fits in carry-on suitcase, packs up 4.2 GHz of processing power and when it comes to price starts at $879." (provideocoalition.com)
  

• Sony To Debut TVs Combining Best OLED and LCD Features - "OLED is going to get a run for its money… In fact, it’s hard not to see the [Sony] Z series as a more practical TV in many ways, given its outstanding brightness and HDR capabilities.” (etcentric.org)

• [video] Two Bellman Two - stunts, action, and two bellman working in Dubai at the JW Marriott Marquis hotel are some of the off the wall ingredients in this short film. It's a promotional action short directed by Daniel Cabrera and color graded by Cody Cuellar. (youtube.com)

• The End Of Plastic Cards Nears - over 70,000 ATMs will soon support Touch ID withdrawals, "While the service isn’t using Apple Pay, it allows users to withdraw cashing using their iPhone and Touch ID." (9to5mac.com)

• Unilever’s Big Strategic Bet On The Dollar Shave Club - a $1 billion dollar payout, "it’s a telling tale about whether the consumer products industry can get a digital business model right" and that each and every one of us needs to rethink the business we're in! (hbr.org)