The day has come. After months of development, the DaVinci Resolve 12 public beta is upon us, with dozens upon dozens of new features to use and explore, encompassing both the evolution of Resolve into a fully satisfying creative editing solution, as well as an extension of Resolve’s already powerful grading tools with fantastic new features and numerous workflow enhancements to make grading and finishing faster and smoother then ever. (update) If you like video tutorials, Ripple Training has just released…
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(Updated 9/8/15) This is the last update, as we’ve played all of the film festivals that we were accepted to, and we’re not expecting to hear from any more. At final count, “The Place Where You Live” is up to eighteen festival acceptances, and one non-festival screening in Beijing, with six awards presented, and one additional award nomination. They were all great experiences, and the resulting laurels are a welcome addition to our poster. The final list is as follows: BIRTV screening in…
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I gave a DaVinci Resolve 12 demo in June to the Mopictive User Group in New York, and they posted a video of the event for all to see. I give a look at how well integrated the new features of Resolve 12 are, letting you move quickly and easily from creative editing to grading to fine trimming to more grading to audio mixing to even more grading, going back and forth with a single click of the mouse. There are some really fantastic…
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I’ve been continuing to post five minute tips videos about DaVinci Resolve via the Ripple Training YouTube channel; folks have really been liking them, so I’m inclined to continue doing them, and I thought it worth giving everyone a reminder that they’re there. Here are most two most recent videos that have gotten the most eyeballs. Enjoy!
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There’s a Tumblr making the rounds called “Shit People Say to Women Directors.” It’s worth reading to see what women in our industry are having to put up with. It’s ridiculous, in this day and age, that anyone can make these sorts of comments with a straight face. I’ve spent my entire career, from film school through my various jobs in post, working with a variety of talented directors who happen to be women, and the notion that gender imposes any kind of…
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If you’re a DaVinci Resolve user who’s about to grade a project shot with any of the Blackmagic Design cameras and recorded using CinemaDNG raw, you should seriously consider upgrading to Resolve 11.2.1 if you haven’t already started your project (if you’ve already started, then don’t upgrade yet, as a matter of principle). One of the more significant updates is an improvement to CinemaDNG debayering inside of Resolve, which will improve any CinemaDNG raw clip being debayered to Rec. 709 regardless of…
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I received a question from Anthony that reflects similar questions I’ve gotten from other folks around the world, paraphrased here: I was wondering if you could answer a question that I’ve been wrestling with… Is any one software better in terms of QUALITY for color correction? …For instance, if I were to use a curves adjustment and then a three way color corrector theoretically using the exact same settings, would quality degradation be more or less prevalent in after effects, premiere,…
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The scene I shot in December, “An Unwanted Job,” is coming along nicely. In an effort to eat my own dog food, I’m doing as much of the postproduction as I can inside of Resolve, from syncing the timecoded dual-source audio and making offline dailies from the original 4K CinemaDNG media, to editing both picture and sound, editing music and doing simple sound design, through adding visual finishing effects and doing the grade. Eventually, I’ll be sending the audio I edit to someone…
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It’s time for some tough love. Since I do both production and post, I’m in a position to observe where efficiencies lie all through the filmmaking process. In speaking with different people out in the industry, and comparing my practices with theirs, I’ve decided there’s a public service announcement I can make to the filmmaking community at large regarding how you can save money. A lot of money. Rehearse your actors in advance of the shoot, dry run your blocking without…
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Anyone who knows me knows I’ve got two main opinions about gear. First, don’t buy gear, rent it. Today’s awesome stuff turns into tomorrow’s laughably obsolete curiosities. Second, I could care less about cameras. I’m a director, not a DP, and as long as the DP likes whatever camera we can afford to use, and the resulting image data is gradable, then I’m happy. So it’s with some reluctance that I admit I’ve started buying camera accessories to have in reserve for…
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It’s an old saw that if you want to write, you should read as much as you can. Every piece of work you consume adds to your mental inventory of artistic possibility, and it’s as true for image-makers as it is for writers. If you want to create memorable visuals, you owe it to yourself to see what others have done before you. In my various travels, I always try to squeeze in a trip to a gallery or two; no matter…
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Alas, my web site was hacked while I was away in Florida for the Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival screening of “The Place Where You Live.” In fact, my whole family of web sites were hacked, and a week passed wherein I could do nothing. Happily, I’ve fixed the issue and taken steps to secure the help I’ll need to prevent this from happening again. From the very beginning of this blog, I’ve resisted placing ads for anything other then…
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I’ve been having an enormous amount of fun flying out to some of the film festivals we’ve gotten into, and meeting other truly independent filmmakers who are tilting at the windmills of this crazy industry of ours. While I’m generally just happy to have the opportunity to screen my work in front of actual human beings, I’m thrilled to announce that “The Place Where You Live” won distinctive achievement awards for Editing, Visual Effects, and Production Design at Des Moines…
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Given how much I’ve written about color over the years, from time to time I’m asked in casual conversation for my opinion on the photoshopping of models on magazine covers. This is an interesting topic as it has significant overlap with the process of color correction for cinema and video. It’s easy to find examples of the abuse of Photoshop, shaving pixels off of arms and thighs, blurring complexion until the face is a plastic mask, etcetera. And these examples may lead one to…
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I was fortunate enough to be hired to consult with Jennifer Mendes, the colorist at Lisbon post production facility Loudness Films. Comprised of four principals (Branko Neskov doing sound, Pedro Ribeiro doing editing, Jennifer Mendes doing color, and Nuno Oliveira taking care of the business side of things) this two-story facility has fantastic mixing, recording, and grading rooms designed by Joules Newell (Newell Acoustic Engineering) whom I also happened to meet as he was working on the addition of new audio editing rooms.…