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Merry Christmas, Happy Chanukah and Happy Holidays! - The Sunday Newsletter is being delivered on Monday, since Sunday was Christmas Day.
- I delayed this Edition so you didn't have a reason bury your nose in a digital device—when instead you should be getting annoyed by Uncle Sal and his unfathomable political views.
- As Publisher of this Newsletter, I also prefer to let the staff take a collective holiday from time-to-time. Hence, this Best Of edition.
- In preparation, the Tao Treasurer took a few hours digging through the logs of our email host and found the 3 most widely read articles from each
edition in 2016.
- Not surprisingly, the vast majority of stories come from The Craft and The Tools... precisely what I expect from our readers.
But there's way too
many stories to put in one Newsletter, so we broke it into two parts. - Part 1, which you're reading right now, covers January - June 2016.
- Next week we deliver Part 2, covering July - December,
2016.
- Then, it's back to our normal Newsletter schedule.
See you next week! Happy Grading!
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- Russia Before the Revolution, in Color - a pair of pioneering photographers from the turn of the last century used three separate black-and-white exposures, each taken through either a red, green or blue filter to come up with the full chromatic spectrum. (mashable.com)
- Use of Light in Gone Girl - his love of the craft comes through as DP Jeff Cronenweth details his use of light in David Fincher’s hit movie. (timeinpixels.com)
- Color Grading Breakdowns - film editor Jonny Elwyn has a nice roundup of color grading breakdowns from a diverse range of colorists and their approaches. It'll take a few days to dig through it all. (jonnyelwyn.co.uk)
- [video] A DP, LUTs, and WWZ - the award-winning cinematographer, Robert Richardson, discusses his
craft—definitely jump in at 3:01. Robertson explains why he took his name off the film ‘World War Z’. No wonder he's not a screenwriter. (youtube.com)
- How to Become a Full Member of CSI - If you want to learn more about the Colorist Society International and how to gain your 'CSI' moniker... please visit the FAQ. (ColoristSociety.com)
- Grading Insights: From Your Publisher - your Tao Newsletter Publisher is interviewed by Premium Beat. Patrick discusses his color grading process and how new colorists can jump into the color industry—and the biggest
challenge they'll face. (premiumbeat.com)
- The 10 Best Film Color Systems - “do you know your Technicolor from your Kodachrome?” Check out this list which runs down the top 10 systems. (bfi.org.uk)
- Color Correcting Sony A7SII footage - a tutorial on one person’s method of grading S-Log-3 for a more natural look. (premiumbeat.com)
- A DP’s View of Color Grading - “create/dream in pre-production, commit in production and confirm and finesse in post.” A cinematographer’s advice to other cinematographers on how to make their
color grading session a success. (blogs.indiewire.com)
- Meet the Colorist - Encore colorist Laura Jans
Fazio is profiled about her work on Mr. Robot—which is one of our favorite series from 2015. Both in terms of story and in terms of cinematography and look. (postperspective.com)
- [video] Storytelling with Color - Terence Curren of Alpha Dogs does another nice job of explaining color grading to the uninitiated. (vimeo.com)
- [video] How The Color In Sicario Reveals The Battle Between Good & Evil - or not? Watching thesis breakdowns like this I sometimes wonder
to myself, would they ever say a cigar is just a cigar? Or admit that as a film gets darker and darker, color naturally desaturates? (nofilmschool.com)
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- Color Effects in Films - best line in this article about learning how to break the rules when setting the color for a project, "When we white balance, we're really creating a lookup table, albeit one over which we have
precious little control." (redsharknews.com)
- [video] Color Breakdown - while the before/after reel embedded here is fine, this Newsletter doesn't normally link to Reels. What got our attention was the comments, specifically by cinematographer Geoff Boyle. When presenting before / after reels to clients, his concerns are not unwarranted. (redsharknews.com)
- To Get Better At Lighting - see
light like a Cinematographer. Good advice for a colorist. (petapixel.com via Marc Wielage)
- Using Color To Tell A Story - our friend Terence Curren shows how a single scene can be made to look like everything from a happy comedy to a scary horror film just by modifying contrast and saturation. Of course, he also shows how a good mix helps sell good color grading. (editorslounge.com)
- 5 Things: Demystifying
HDR - from HDRi to the current state of HDR in today's non-linear editing systems, a very good round-up of where the technology stands today. (moviola.com)
- Who’s In Control, The Colorist or DP? - “I have been in color suites sitting beside the Colorists telling them what I wanted for many years.” Bruce Logan, ASC, weighs in on one DP’s POV on the ever growing question of controlling the image. (zacuto.com)
- [video] Kubrick in Color - looking back on the famed director’s filmography, one thing is clear. He loved the color red. (visualnews.com)
- The Role Of The Cinematographer In A Digital World -
“I know cameramen who . . . were doing the D.I. and suddenly found the executive producer . . . doing his own D.I. in another suite.” So frets Oscar winning DP John Seale about the brave new world involving colorists. (forbes.com)
- [video] Color Grading in ACES - colorist Andreas Brueckl has the experience working in ACES (Academy Color Encoding System) to walk you through the workflow and the theory behind it. (vimeo.com)
- [video] Flame Premium: Color Grading 'The Revenant'
- supervising finishing artist for Technicolor breaks down their workflow with Lustre and Flame. Why did the color grade take 8 weeks? Once you see some of these breakdowns you'll know why... they graded it like a commercial. Definitely worth the 30 minutes for great ideas on how to improve your work. A good example of the presentations you'll see if you attend NAB. (youtu.be
via Marc Wielage)
- The Search for Missing Colors: A Muggles Guide - "in the past five
decades, since Gordon Moore issued his famous eponymous law, computers have become eleven billion times more powerful. The effective resolution of our televisions has increased by a factor of about twenty-seven since 1941. Yet the color space of our screens has hardly changed”. A rant from your Tao Publisher? Nope, it's from a much more unlikely source teaching 'muggles' about the transformation our displays are about to undergo. (newyorker.com)
- Behind the Project - “Sometimes you just need to stretch the image to its limits then come back a little to find that right balance.”
Colorist James Bamford talks about his workflow and approach to grading the award winning ‘Honda Ignition’ commercial in this short case study. (themill.com)
- 1950s Color Inspiration - if you’re looking for color inspiration for a 1950s-based project search no further. These photos of circus life are pure Americana. Brilliant colors, deep blue saturation, and blue in the shadows. (flashbak.com)
- Five things a Colorist would like to say to a DP - “As a colorist, I truly want to make you – the DoP – happy. But the person signing the check is ultimately in charge. “ Terence Curren on the five key things he feels a
colorist would like to say to a DP. (redsharknews.com)
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- [video] Rec.2020 Demo: Why HDR Is Such A Big Deal - and why it won't flame out like 3D or High Frame Rate. (cinetechgeek.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 2nd to last line is worth the click. (sethgodin.typepad.com)
- [video] When To Use Rec.2020 - "Rec.2020 means more beautiful pictures.. But like 3D, not all content is suited to Rec.2020." (cinetechgeek.com)
- [video] Color and the RGB Parade (Part 1) - David Hover continues his excellent series of tutorials on light, color and video scopes. This one does a great job showing how Red, Green and Blue
combine to create all the colors in our visible spectrum. (vimeo.com)
- [video] Color and the RGB Parade (Part 2) - continuing with this excellent series on understanding scopes, this video gets into the nitty gritty of using RGB Parade scopes to balance shots. (vimeo.com)
- Nodes vs Layers - "We’ll look at both systems and explain
why they are awesome and where they just don’t make the cut." Discusses After Effects, Nuke, Smoke, Resolve and more. (videomaker.com)
- How Well Do You Know Yer Curves? - you know ‘em and you can’t live without ‘em. Or do you and can you? Take this 10-question quiz to see how
well you can deconstruct OPCs (other people's curves). (diyphotography.net)
- Making Color Grading Easy Using Color Palettes - a Photoshop technique using a plug-in that seems like a good cross-over technique for colorists based around Luma keys. (fstoppers.com)
- What Is Color Temperature? - veteran colorists and longtime readers of the Tao Newsletter should know the answer to this. For everyone else, the answer is just this click
away. (cinema5d.com)
- Achieving A Super 16mm Look - when shooting digitally. Good tips, most of which start before post-production. (premiumbeat.com)
- In Search of The Best Chair - no butts about it: one of the tools we all use every day is the chair. How’s your chair fairing? Editor Scott Simmons wants a better one and does all the research
for you. (provideocoalition.com)
- [video] Luminance And The Waveform - this is a terrific video that has a few ideas I'll be 'borrowing' when teaching how to use scopes. Especially, why
you generally want to attack contrast before color. (vimeo.com)
- [video] Color and the Vectorscope - if you ever find yourself needing to teach somehow how to read a vectorscope to analyse Hue and Saturation then you'll want to watch this video. This is fourth and final episode on video scopes that covers the basics, presented exceedingly well. (vimeo.com)
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- Free LUTs - if you're confused about Look Up Tables, this post will cover the basics. But mostly, it's a collection of links to download free LUTs from a variety of websites. (jonnyelwyn.co.uk)
- [video] How To Use False Color To Nail Skin Tone Exposure - when you're shooting on-set. (premiumbeat.com)
- Skin Retouching Part 5: New Tools & Tutorials - using several software products. (toolfarm.com)
- [video] Color Contrast - colorist Chris Hall continues his Anatomy of a Grade series, with how to achieve contrasting colors on a grade. (vimeo.com)
- More LUTs from IWLTBAP - editor Oliver Peters reviews a new batch of LUTs available from the French filmmaker IWLTBAP, that were inspired by numerous famous movie looks. (digitalfilms.wordpress.com)
- [video] ACES Color Tutorial - colorist Andreas Brueckl goes in-depth on a ‘kind of’ ACES workflow. ‘Kind of’ because Andreas’s method gives you a more flexible way of mixing multiple RRTs (Reference Rendering Transforms). The end result is an ACES workflow that gives you more possibilities. (vimeo.com via Gray Marshall)
- No More Lift, Gamma, Gain? - Baselight releases version 5.0, and introduces a new feature called, Base Grade. Effectively, it's a mode that bypasses the time-honored lift, gamma and gain controls in favor of new controls that it claims ‘mimic(s) the way the eye ‘appreciates’ color.’ (redsharknews.com)
- DIT Tools Reviewed – “There are plenty of options available to editors and DITs when it comes to software applications that can make your life easier.” And so begins part 18 of editor Jonny
Elwyn’s excellent series on how to be a DIT. (jonnyelwyn.co.uk)
Quantel's Snell's SAM's Digital Fact Book, Online - for my entire career, Quantel's Digital Fact Book has been a
tremendous resource to any technically curious post-production professional. Now Quantel and Snell have merged their brands to SAM and the Digital Fact Book gets its fourteenth major update. (digitalfactbook.tv)
- [video] LUTs Explained: What They
Can (& Can’t) Do - this piece isn't in here because of its content. It's here only so I can say: if this is what the future of training tutorials looks like for the Millennial / ADD generation—I may be hanging up my training shoes much sooner than planned. (youtu.be)
- False Color OpenFX Plugin For DaVinci Resolve - according to this blog post, "the plugin can be extremely helpful in the process of matching shots in terms of consistent contrast and lighting
ratios in an edited sequence." (cinema5d.com)
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- Calculating Your Freelance Hourly Rate - a step by step guide to working out your ideal rate. (yourguide.nab.com.au)
- 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)
- 5 Things Video Pros Should Always Invoice - "Whether you rock the $2K wedding or the $250K commerical, remember that little costs can add up, and make your business less profitable than it could be." (wipster.io)
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- Stop Ending Your Client Emails With This Phrase - "By ending my emails like this, I was dropping a wheelbarrow full of work on my client’s desk and saying “Here. You deal with it.” It reeked of incompetence. …" (99u.com)
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- Nvidia’s GTX 1080: The Tip Of The Iceberg? - "The Nvidia GTX 1080 might be the final nail in [the MacPro] coffin. I can guarantee at this point, we will have to move to a Windows-based workstation for our main edit suite and one that supports multiple PCIe slots, specifically for the GTX 1080." A-yup. (onerivermedia.com)
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Th- Th- That's ALL Folks! We'll see you next week. Happy Grading! 11,150'ish 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)
- Color Grading with Avid and Symphony - Written for version 6. Fully applicable to version 7. I was a contributor. (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, CSI
Colorist, Coach: TaoOfColor.com | MixingLight.com patrick@taoofcolor.com
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