It's been a long week. I need to keep this intro short so here's the headline:

Mixing Light is having a sale

The color grading training site that I'm a partner in is selling memberships at a deep discount. Legacy Courses and Color Grading Practice Projects are also heavily discounted. On the website, we frame this sale as a 'Work from Home' event.

In reality, it's a 'times are tough' event. We worked hard to give members and non-members price breaks both now and into the future–while making productive use of the situation most of us find ourselves in.

If you want to skill up or just brush up then click through and check out what we have to offer for professionals and students alike.

Speaking of tough times...

Check out the postscript to this introduction about the Tao Newsletter's protein folding team! Let's use our collective compute power (which is considerable) to help the researchers target drugs that interrupt COVID-19 and let us all get back to normal. Run simulations on your computer's downtime and feel good about contributing to science with those awesome rigs many of us own!

I'll see you next Sunday.

Stay busy. Stay healthy.

Happy Grading!

(and remember - if you have a story that's a fit for this Newsletter, hit reply or email it to 'newsletter@taoofcolor.com'! Include a quick reason for the suggested link.)

- Patrick Inhofer
Colorist | Publisher | Coach

The Color Cartel Protein Folding Update - The Color Cartel team is rocking! We are a Top 5% team and climbing. Most team members are in the Top 25% of all 'protein folders'. Several are in the Top 1% and 5%. Join Rosetta@home, set up an account, and connect to the team!

(video) This Newsletter was inspired over a decade ago while your Editor-In-Chief was breaking bread with Alexis in a small Manhattan lunchtime eatery. Suffice to say, he's a friend of the Tao Newsletter. At the end of March Alexis launched a weekly show recorded on Zoom. The best part? He asks his viewers questions and pulls them up on their webcams for a discussion.
 

This episode features common names in our business such as Mark Osborne and Joe Owens (among others). The topic in Episode 1? "Face Refinement, Grading Film, Noise Reduction, Mixed Light, Sync Sound, Overexposed Footage".

This series ends on May 15. So if you want to participate or watch it live, then sign up now for the email alerts and login details. What's this all about? I'll let Alexis explain it,

"In this free weekly series of 8 webinars, I'll attempt to answer different questions about Color Grading, Editing, Finishing, Workflow, and DaVinci Resolve. I'll be soliciting a single question per attendee..."

A good top-level look at the work that Colorist Toby Tomkins (co-founder of London color grading and finishing boutique Cheat) did on the show 'I'm Not Okay With This'. The article focuses on his working relationship with the creative team and their process.

(podcast) I missed this when it first started up. But a new episode dropped this week and it hit my radar, "Hosted by Vincent Taylor, New York City's favorite Senior Colorist for Film and Television. This is Vincent's opportunity to have the talk show he's always wanted." Available on your favorite podcatcher.

(video) Hosted by well-known industry 'thought leader' Michael Cioni, "Industry experts from Fox Sports, SHOWTIME Networks, and CBS share deep insights into remote workflows, and how video teams can thrive in the new normal."

(webinar replay) Last week I shared with you a demo that turned into Q&A with Light Illusion's Steve Shaw. This item is a later demo that shows the newly re-coded and redesigned professional calibration software from Light Illusion–in its full operational glory. Check it out.

Get full details, specs, pricing, and the feature matrix for the software that's replacing LightSpace. Tip: Use the 'ColourSpace Options' pulldown to select the family of ColourSpace (Pro, Home, etc.) you're interested in and then the pull-down in the pricing field to see the pricing on the exact version you're considering.

(webinar) Are you looking to understand what makes Mistika different? This might be a good place to start, "delve deep into five amazing features that will boost the efficiency and productivity of your color-based pipeline and further expand workflow possibilities in Mistika Boutique and Ultima." May 14.
 

(webinar) Two pros will show you, "how to live stream your color- or review session to your clients via a private Youtube channel, or your own RTMP server setup." Registration is required. Wed. May 6.

(video) Good news for Avid users, "with the 2020.4 update, not only do we get Catalina support, but we get other great features like ProRes exporting support on Windows, Timeline Sequence Map and Bulk editing to name a few."

The revamped Color Finale 2 was released this past November. This update, "adds several new features, including inside/outside mask grading, an image mask, a new smoothness function, and the ability to copy and paste masks between layers." Click through for the review.

(webinar) What? Frame accurate insert editing into h.264 files? Click through to sign up and find out when the full feature set of the new version of Cinedeck is announced in this live 'NAB That Wasn't' event. May 12. (oh - and there's something about a 'free until IBC coupon code'. FYI)

(webinar) From this page you can join the Open Beta to test their updated Workflows product. You can also join a webinar for the official reveal on May 7.

(video) A 35-minute interview with Hedge about their product mix. Here's what Scott Simmons has to say about these apps, "I’ve been using Postlab for a few months now on both Final Cut Pro X and Adobe Premiere Pro jobs. It’s been a refreshing way to work not only collaborating with another editor on one of those jobs but as a way for me to manage working between home, office, and a client’s office. "

Avid has built out a portal for teaching about remote workflows using their products. Even though some localities are starting to loosen up restrictions, I think remote workflows are here to stay. If Avid is in your life then this looks like a good portal to explore.

(video) How do you make your images look more colorful without cranking saturation? In this Insight, learn 3 color separation tools for solving that problem.

(upcoming webinar) "Peder Morgenthaler will cover the basic concepts of the Academy Color Encoding System ... you’ll come away with a better understanding of how the system works, where and why to apply it in your process, and how to use ACES to deliver outstanding results on your projects." May 7. Registration required (open to the public).

Learn DaVinci Resolve's Stabilizer and its legacy 'Classic Stabilizer'. This Insight is pulled from our legacy Courses with a new introduction.

While a 9" display isn't very useful for colorists, my on-set readers might find this interesting. Here are two more reasons this item is in here: FSI has been a fantastic Sponsor for years AND this is NOT a webinar (which, this week, counts for something)!

This post actually talks about a range of Canon gear (including their pro displays). But what I'm happy about is this–since you know this camera will be making it into our grading suites in short order (the bold is mine) :

"Canon confirmed that this camera will support the capture of DCI-8K resolution content at 30 fps in 4:2:2 10-bit format in either Canon Log or HEVC (PQ) compression."

(video) I'm flagging this video for you because of the content that starts at 24:10 into the embedded interview. It's the specs and discussion about the Canon flagship 2000nit reference display that was released last year but would have been shown for the first time at NAB.

Up to 8K video at 4:4:4 subsampling or 4K HDR, over a USB 4 cable. The nitty-gritty details (including pin layouts) are a click away.
 

(video) This is a fun quickie for the whole family! Great concept. Awesome execution. You'll wish you had thought of it first.

Disney+ is getting the final installment of the Star Wars Trilogy trilogy. They are embracing the 'May the 4th Be With You' meme as launch day. I'm looking forward to watching the HDR grade in Episode IX. Fun.