What's Lorne been up to

Hi,

Things have been quiet here so I thought I'd let you know what I've been up to. I was in New York City this week to work with another Colourist. It's interesting to hear everyone's stories and find that you have similar issues to deal with. I had a quick look on his book shelves and saw most of the same

Focal Press,
http://www.focalpress.com/list.aspx?coll_id=158&title=Film%20and%20Video%20Bestsellers

Peachpit Press
http://www.peachpit.com/search/index.aspx?

Elsevier
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/bookdescription.cws_home/714647/description#description

and some other books. I did see some books I didn't have and will order. Most of the conversations interestingly enough were around a Colourist being an extension of the Cinematographer. We work hand in hand. When I got home I started to have a look at my books on colour theory just to review. As I read over old stuff I still find things I missed the first time around.

Last week I cleaned my garage out. This isn't big news unless you me. I had 2 big tubs of books, charts, old film, software, etc. that I don't have room for. It's a valuable treasure trove for me but maybe junk for others. I sent 1 box to a local high school and the books and stuff that was more involved went to the film department at a university. I'm sure your places are full of stuff you have accumulated over the years and don't know what to do with it. Think about donating it.

cheers

Lorne

CES Show & New Controls For The Colourist

As a Colourist I like to keep abreast of what’s going on in the entertainment industry as pertains to, you guessed it, colour. The CES Consumer and Electronics Show recently finished up in Las Vegas and there were some pretty interesting products that came out of it. Among them there was all sorts of new flat panels. From the extremely large Panasonic and Pioneer and Sony right down to the Alienware curved computer panels, http://ces.cnet.com/8301-13855_1-9842798-67.html.

It would be so amazing if a colour correction suite developed to the point where you could take advantage of the flat panel technology for both the user interfaces and displays. There is such an explosion with the technology, such as wide gamut displays, that there doesn’t seem to be standardization for the flat panels for us to work with in film and television. The quality of the flat panels seems to be a little inconsistent. This still needs to be addressed.

I also saw some VR glasses that looked really interesting. Again, as far as colour correction is concerned can you imagine a scenario a few years from now where the Colourist is using a totally different set of controls to effect the colour changes of an image? What about wearing VR glasses that are colour balanced and wide gamut OLED technology.
http://www.inition.com/inition/product.php?URL_=product_glove_immersion_hapticworkstation&SubCatID_=26 .
A Colourist could just stand in a room that is 17 feet square and wear the virtual reality gloves and colour correct a scene by moving arms around, staring at blank walls while watching the television program in the VR glasses.
Stu Maschwitz was talking of images from the Minority Report. http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000928.html

I know this sounds a little wild but there has to be something better than sitting in a room and having to look down at a control panel instead of keeping your eyes on the screen. I’m not crazy; I just thought it would make an interesting point of discussion. Think about it.

Avid DS On-line Training

Over the holidays I was on the Softimage website, and I took the Avid DS101 course to get familiarized with tools for colour correction. Avid DS system is absolutely awesome as far as horsepower and the ability to do nearly everything you want. Its colour correction tool is very interesting because it gives you a wide range of controls. It’s fascinating for me, coming from a DaVinci background, to find all the controls that you’re used to in a DaVinci and apply those to an Avid. It’s fun when you go back and forth and notice there are things missing on either product. I have to say Avid is certainly an interesting box to look at. On the Avid website you can take these on-line tutorials that are really inexpensive, I think they were from about 15 minutes to half an hour. It would be great if some of the other manufacturers, of colour correction equipment, were able to throw these kinds of training tutorials up on the Internet for all. It’s a great way to improve your skill set.