| Issue DLXX: The Bias’ed Edition |
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The Color Grading Newsletter
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News, reviews, thoughts, career advice, and humor for professional Video / Film Colorists & Finishers. Delivered Sundays. Curated by a professional color grader.
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A few things this week…
The 2023 8th Annual US Post Production Salary Survey is open for submissions!
If you’ve worked for pay in any function or at any level, please take this survey. It’s completely anonymous and designed to give the community insights into the current state of our industry’s pay rates.
It also helps ensure that newcomers to the business don’t devalue their (or your) worth. Whether you’re a 30-year veteran or a newcomer, if you’re reading this, you should click on through and participate. The results will be made fully available in December. You can find prior year responses here.
The transition of this Newsletter from Tao Of Color to Mixing Light begins this week.
The TaoOfColor.com domain will soon forward to the Newsletter series page on Mixing Light’s website. You can read it in email or on Mixing Light, as I further the process of integrating my various endeavors.
And a big Hello to Mixing Light members who are reading this for the first time!
This week’s Newsletter is a little light on Tools.
But we make up for it in Gear. So works the internet. Also, be sure to check out Fun(nies) this week. There’s an item in there that only a colorist can fully appreciate 🙂
Happy Grading! I’ll see you next Sunday.
Sincerely,
Pat Inhofer
Colorist & Publisher
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Featuring the work of creative craftsmen, the theory of color, and industry news. Learn practical workflows, useful theories, and actionable insights from existing (and emerging) leaders and teachers in our industry.
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Is your salary or freelance rate competitive? Or are you under-valuing your services? Click through to complete this anonymous survey, now in its 8th year. The results will help us all understand what’s a fair pay rate.
The key to the success of this survey is that we all answer as honestly as possible. Also, if you’re at the upper end of the pay scale, please participate to help others understand their potential.
The survey closes at the end of this month, so click through now (it’ll only take a few minutes).
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A pithy but interesting overview of the editorial, color, and sound process.
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From a website that focuses on paint colors, “So, here’s the answer to the million-dollar hue vs color question, ‘What IS the best way [to describe the difference between] hue from color?'” Before clicking through, consider this question and see if you can answer it under 20 words. The author answers it in 10 words.
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(video) This BTS has social media a-twittering, “World-renowned colorist Stefan Sonnenfeld explains how the footage gives him more freedom to create. And the editor talks about bringing the vision to life seamlessly.”
In my mind, this is yet another example of how a team of professionals treating a consumer camera with all the care and detail of a cinema camera can make it sing.
It’s no different than similar approaches yielding similar results in the early 2000s with DVCam. Of course, you have to be old enough to remember those days. In my mind, this demonstrates less about the technology than it proves (again) about the value of trained professionals. (via Marc Wielage)
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Our craft keeps changing. And growing. Learn about updates to your favorite software. Discover new tools to help you work faster or more creatively. Build your toolchest with new techniques and approaches.
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(PDF) Since we’ve had a slow week here in the ‘Tools’ section, the next few items are direct links to Resolve User Guides that were released in July and October of this year.
First up, the New Features guide for R18.6, a significant update.
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(PDF) Updated and released when 18.5 came out of Public Beta.
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(PDF) Updated in July 2023, “This reference list provides a quick and easy way to identify the formats and codecs supported by DaVinci Resolve 18.”
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(PDF) “This reference document provides a guide to the tools, features, and Resolve FX available in DaVinci Resolve Studio and DaVinci Resolve for iPad, as well as codecs and 3rd party licensing dependent items.”
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(video) As the title says.
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(video) “VFX artist Bernd Klimm shares tips for creating advanced custom edge masks for better compositing and light effects in Resolve Fusion.”
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“Mixing Light contributor and freelance colorist, Luke Ross takes a deep dive into H.264 & H.265 render options on a Mac and PC in Resolve.”
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(video) “Learn how to set up and share project media with collaborators in DaVinci Resolve with Blackmagic Cloud Storage and the BMD Camera App.”
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Stay updated on the latest shipping hardware – because the craft of color grading isn’t just about software. Plus, keep an eye on future equipment trends and hardware odds and ends.
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“Abby Levine and Barry Minnerly—also known as DIT One and Two—share the origin story for Digital Imaging Technicians (and the DIT Cart).”
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“AMD announced Threadripper and Theradripper PRO 7000-Series CPUs. How do the two compatible chipsets, TRX50 and WRX90, compare?”
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“The company is now introducing a T-series drive in the Gen4 segment with similar flagship credentials – sequential read and write speeds of 7400 / 7000 MBps.”
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“Ross was looking for a high-performance workstation that serves triple duty across video editing and compositing, real-time game engines, and AI processing.
Working with advice from Wilson Chau at Puget Systems, he decided on a powerful 16-core AMD Ryzen CPU and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 graphics card.”
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“Most of the performance gains seem to have little to do with architectural changes.”
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(video) For my DIT friends.
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Base pricing and additional options are at the link.
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“This in-depth comparison looks at the M3 Pro/Max vs M2 Pro/Max as well as the base M3 for performance, efficiency, and more.”
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“Never miss a frame—test video recording speed from your iPhone to external storage with the free Drive Speed app from OWC.”
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For my European readers looking for an on-set display.
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Random thoughts, tidbits, and fun stuff catching my attention this week. Maybe it’s color grading related. Maybe not. Ya gotta read to the end of the Newsletter to find out.
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“We ranked the world’s 15 highest-grossing horror movies, based on inflation-adjusted box office revenues.”
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(video) Wait. Huh? Why is this in Fun(nies) and not Gear? You’ll have to click through to find out! Trust me, the readers of this Newsletter will understand… it’s Gear. It’s fun. And it’s funny.
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| Th- th- th- that’s all folks! I’ll see you next week. |
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