Tools

Slugline. Simple, elegant screenwriting.

Red Giant Color Suite, with Magic Bullet Looks 2.5 and Colorista II

Needables
  • Sony Alpha a7S Compact Interchangeable Lens Digital Camera
    Sony Alpha a7S Compact Interchangeable Lens Digital Camera
    Sony
  • Panasonic LUMIX DMC-GH4KBODY 16.05MP Digital Single Lens Mirrorless Camera with 4K Cinematic Video (Body Only)
    Panasonic LUMIX DMC-GH4KBODY 16.05MP Digital Single Lens Mirrorless Camera with 4K Cinematic Video (Body Only)
    Panasonic
  • TASCAM DR-100mkII 2-Channel Portable Digital Recorder
    TASCAM DR-100mkII 2-Channel Portable Digital Recorder
    TASCAM
  • The DV Rebel's Guide: An All-Digital Approach to Making Killer Action Movies on the Cheap (Peachpit)
    The DV Rebel's Guide: An All-Digital Approach to Making Killer Action Movies on the Cheap (Peachpit)
    by Stu Maschwitz

Entries in DV Rebel's Guide (90)

Sunday
Dec312006

Rebel Mac

And so it begins. I will be speaking about The Guide at Peachpit's booth at Macworld Expo San Francisco at noon on January 10th, 2007—the first of many such appearances. I'll have my MacBook Pro and will demonstrate some of the post-production techniques from the book.

Peachpit will be in the South Hall of the Moscone Center, right between Adobe and Apple (sweet). Download a map of the South Hall in PDF form.

If you can stop playing with your new iFone™ long enough, I hope you'll stop by!

To help you keep track of Rebel events, I've created a Google calendar which you can view or subscribe to. There's a nifty button for this way down the page on the right.

(I know this is kinda lame, but if the shipping delays are real, this might be a good way for Bay Area folks to get their hands on The Guide sooner than later. I can't imagine Peachpit would hold this event without some copies for sale at the booth!)

Friday
Dec222006

Stu on Filmmaking Central

You can hear me ramble on about The Guide on the current episode of the Filmmaking Central Podcast, which is an excellent resource for filmmakers at any budget level.

FC Blog, FC main site, MP3 direct link, iTunes link, link to a random picture of a taco.

Friday
Dec222006

Rebel = Late

Like I said, The DV Rebel's Guide will be shipping on December 26. Oops.

The good news is that I've seen it in person, and it is real! It has pages and everything. So while you won't be greeted with one under your tree come Christmas morning, at least you'll know just what to buy with that Amazon gift certificate!

Monday
Dec182006

Why Colorista?


Why did we make a 3-way color corrector to sell to people who, with the exception of After Effects users, already have a built-in 3-way CC tool? Six reasons:

Correct Like The Pros
Colorista works like Final Touch, Da Vinci, Discrete Lustre, iQ, and other professional grading systems that use the industry standard color model of Lift, Gamma and Gain. The ASC is even working towards codifying this into a system that can be communicated as universally as an EDL. Lift/Gamma/Gain allows you to correct highlights, midtones and shadows, respectively, but without the need to define the value ranges, which means you spend more time color correcting and less time fiddling with controls. In other words…

Fewer Controls, More Power
Colorists need to work fast and efficiently, so having fewer knobs is a good thing. We took the most-used aspects of professional grading systems and packed them into an efficient, easy to use package. Colorista does more than most built-in 3-ways, and with fewer controls.

Power Masks
Isolating areas of the frame to correct is one of the power tools in the colorist’s kit. What can you do with piddly little circles and squares? Ask a Da Vinci operator. Sure, sometimes you need deeper masking, but for that you can jump into After Effects. Face lights, vignettes, and spot corrections should be fast, easy, and render in realtime.

Realtime?
Depending on your hardware and video resolution, yes! Works especially well in host applications that lead the market in realtime operation, such as Apple Motion and Adobe Premiere Pro 2.0.

Grade, Don’t Degrade
In After Effects 7, Colorista is a 32-bit floating-point plug-in. Stack as many of them on top of each other as you want, you cannot hurt your image. Finally, a tool you can use to effortlessly color correct HDR images.

Three Rings to Rule Them All
Just when you started to master Levels, you need to do some color work in Final Cut Pro. Just when you learn to produce decent results with FCP’s 3-way, you take a freelance gig using Avid. Colorista works the same in every host application, meaning that you can learn it once and use it everywhere. And one seat of Colorista licenses you to use the plug-in in every one of the host applications, on Mac or Windows.

The music on the demo is Color My Rainbow Black by The Quintessentials.

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