The Color Correction Interview Series by TaoOfColor.com

High-Performance Shared Storage for Media Professionals

Interview: Sam Mestman

Sam Mestman is the Founder of We Make Movies, the world’s first community-funded production company. He is also the CEO of movie technology company Lumaforge, maker of the ShareStation, a shared storage platform optimized for media and entertainment that is changing the way post professionals collaborate across the world.

As a professional editor and colorist, he has worked for Apple, ESPN, Glee, and Break Media (to name a few), and has edited or colored hundreds of shorts, features, web series, and probably every other type of content you can think of. He is also the architect behind some of the largest FCPX integrations in the world, including Focus, the world’s first Studio Feature edited with Final Cut Pro X.

You can find Sam at:

* Website: LumaForge.com, WeMakeMovies.org

* Twitter: @sammestman, @lumaforge, @wemakemovies

* Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/bloodycuts

Listen Now 

Follow @patInhofer

Subscribe in iTunes | Learn about the Tao Colorist Sunday Morning Newsletter

More Interviews

In this interview, Sam discusses

* Why Lumaforge has joined the Tao Colorist Newsletter

* Sam, the filmmaker (who needs to make a living)

* Lessons learned from working with Build 15 of the RED camera

* Building a career around RED-FCP 7 workflows

* Designing cost-efficient data-intensive workflows

* Moving from Avid to FCP7 / Apple Color

* Managing the transition from FCP 7 to FCP X

* Moving from Apple Color to DaVinci Resolve

* The FCP X / DaVinci Resolve workflow

* Working with camera original media (and bypassing transcodes)

* Removing technical barriers to creative endeavors

* Getting started with LumaForge

* How storage problems are non-obvious

* The birth of LumaForge within 4K workflows (on FCP X)

* Shared Storage and ‘The Ghost in the Machine’ behaviors

* Why shared storage designed for corporations  doesn’t work for media files

* The quest to end ‘the spinning beachball’ after pressing ‘play’

* Solving problems on the feature film ‘Focus’ on FCP X with camera originals in shared storage

* The LumaForge prototype

* 84 streams of 4K across four machines

* Using off-the-shelf components, as simple as possible

* The responsiveness of ShareStation and Jellyfish solutions

* Transfer speeds of Thunderbolt and Ethernet, Mac vs PC

* Delivering high speeds to multiple simultaneous users

* The difference between serving media to one client vs. multiple clients

* Not all SSDs are created equal

* ShareStations as giant Fusion drives

* Sam as the end-user, solving problems he’s having in the real world

* How ShareStations are pre-configured (SMB / NFS)

* LumaForge and Avid workflows

* High-performance FCP X and Resolve shared storage

* Storage designed to sit next to the creative,

“The Future of Reference Monitors”

Bram Desmet is the CEO and General Manager of Flanders Scientific, Inc., based in Georgia just 30 minutes outside of Atlanta.

Despite holding a B.A.in Philosophy from GA State University – and being an instrument rated airplane pilot – Bram ultimately followed in the footsteps of his father, (a 30 year veteran of the professional broadcast industry) when he joined DDA (a sister company of FSI) and then later Flanders Scientific. Both companies focus heavily on professional display technology.

As Managing Director at Flanders Scientific Bram is a vocal advocate of FSI’s core philosophy of providing professional broadcast products that strike an ideal balance between performance, features, and affordability.

In Part 3 of Bram’s Interview we discuss:

* What is Rec. 2020?

* Are there devices that can display the Rec. 2020 color gamut?

* 4K Displays: How widely manufactured? How about true 4k vs. UHD?

* The problems with high-performance 4K displays

Questions answered from LiftGammaGain:

* What are the factory settings of FSI displays when they ship to the customer?

* Do we need to recalibrate if we switch off the factory settings?

* Why is the 17″ OLED more expensive than the 24″ OLED?

* How to get better audio sync between SDI video and analog audio monitoring?

* How to set the output of your camera to minimize audio delay

* Will FSI allow ‘live grading without a LUT box’ on their displays?

* Will there be a Mac or PC app for quick LUT loading on an FSI display?

* Are there scaling artifacts we need to worry about when monitoring 4K material in 2K mode?

* Do FSI displays clip out-of-gamut data?

* Finally, there’s the ‘peanut gallery’ question (thanks Paul Provost)!

This podcast was edited by Tom Parish out of Austin, Texas. Visit him at TomParish.com.

Tweet, Like, or Leave a comment! (bottom of the page, no registration required)

Listen Now

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

Subscribe in iTunes | Subscribe to the Tao Colorist Sunday Morning Newsletter

More Interviews

Show Notes (links open in a new window / tab):

*  Spectral Diagram of Rec 2020 vs Rec 709

* The schedule for Color Correction Day at NAB 2015 Post | Production World

* Sign up for the Waitlist for the 2015 NAB Colorist Mixer

This interview is part of an on-going interview series with the movers, shaker, and thinkers involved in the field of professional color grading for moving images. When I have new episodes to release, they are released on Tuesdays. To be notified you may follow me on Twitter (@patInhofer), via

“The Current State of Reference Monitors

(2015 edition): Part 2”

Bram Desmet is the CEO and General Manager of Flanders Scientific, Inc., based in Georgia just 30 minutes outside of Atlanta.

Despite holding a B.A.in Philosophy from GA State University – and being an instrument rated airplane pilot – Bram ultimately followed in the footsteps of his father, (a 30 year veteran of the professional broadcast industry) when he joined DDA (a sister company of FSI) and then later Flanders Scientific. Both companies focus heavily on professional display technology.

As Managing Director at Flanders Scientific Bram is a vocal advocate of FSI’s core philosophy of providing professional broadcast products that strike an ideal balance between performance, features, and affordability.

In Part 2 of Bram’s Interview we discuss:

* Is self-calibration of your reference monitor attainable ‘for the rest of us’?

* The new fast profiling options in CalMan and LightSpace

* DaVinci Resolve’s test patch generator

* Low cost hardware test patch generators

* What is the point of reference monitors when ‘grandma’s TV’ is blue?

* Can a pro colorist rely on a sub-$1000 probe for accurate calibrations?

* What is a tri-stimulous colorimeter? And why do you need the matrix settings for your specific probe?

* What is a spectroradiometer? When does the precision become overkill?

* How often do you need to recalibrate your reference monitor?

* What’s the difference between color drift in OLED vs RGB LED vs CCFL LED displays?

* What’s the drift in colorimeters?

* Why did FSI change the default factory gamma setting to 2.4 from 2.2?

* Why does FSI use the Power 2.4 setting rather than BT.1886?

* How to adjust your minimum black level on an OLED?

* How to adjust your peak white levels on an OLED?

* Where should you set the black levels on an OLED?

* What is the EBU standard for reference black levels?

* What problem is BT.1886 trying to solve?

* Why did FSI change their default factory peak luminance setting to 100 nits?

* What’s the potential problem with BT.1886?

* Setting the reference display to see brightness change from bit 16 to bit 17

* Can you see the difference between 100 nits and 125 nits?

This podcast was edited by Tom Parish out of Austin, Texas. Visit him at TomParish.com.

Tweet, Like, or Leave a comment! (bottom of the page, no registration required)

Listen Now

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

Subscribe in iTunes | Subscribe to the Tao Colorist Sunday Morning Newsletter

More Interviews

Show Notes (links open in a new window / tab):

* LightSpace CMS

* CalMan

* The (less expensive) FSI-only versions of LightSpace and CalMan

* FSI quickstart videos for LightSpace and

“The Current State of Reference Monitors (2015 edition)”

Bram Desmet is the CEO and General Manager of Flanders Scientific, Inc., based in Georgia just 30 minutes outside of Atlanta.

Despite holding a B.A.in Philosophy from GA State University – and being an instrument rated airplane pilot – Bram ultimately followed in the footsteps of his father, (a 30 year veteran of the professional broadcast industry) when he joined DDA (a sister company of FSI) and then later Flanders Scientific. Both companies focus heavily on professional display technology.

As Managing Director at Flanders Scientific Bram is a vocal advocate of FSI’s core philosophy of providing professional broadcast products that strike an ideal balance between performance, features, and affordability.

In Part 1 of Bram’s Interview we discuss:

* Patrick’s Intro about being on a 3-year podcasting hiatus

* How has FSI grown in the past 4 years?

* Doing business in Europe

* Overview of their current LCD lineup

* How many manufacturers are there of raw LCD panels?

* Are there professional market production lines for displays?

* How does FSI select a panel off the production line?

* When are LCDs most likely to fail?

* Are OLEDs graded differently than LCDs?

* Have OLED yields improved?

* What type of LCD backlights are in the FSI lineup?

* Are CCFL backlights here to stay?

* What is the lifespan of an LCD and OLED?

* What is 10-bit FRC and is it still being used?

* Are there 8-bit OLEDs?

* Are consumer panels 8-bit or 10-bit?

* Are there different types of OLED technologies FSI can choose from?

* What’s in the near future for OLED technology?

* Is there an advantage to not having many OLED panel suppliers?

* How does FSI differentiate their panels from the competition?

This podcast was edited by Tom Parish out of Austin, Texas. Visit him at TomParish.com.

Tweet, Like, or Leave a comment! (bottom of the page, no registration required)

Listen Now

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

Subscribe in iTunes | Subscribe to the Tao Colorist Sunday Morning Newsletter

More Interviews

Show Notes :

*  That video I mention in FSI’s warehouse? Total junk. I’m not posting it 🙁

* FSI’s 10-bit LCD lineup

* FSI’s OLED lineup

* FSI Calibration offerings

 

This interview is part of an on-going interview series with the movers, shaker, and thinkers involved in the field of professional color grading for moving images. When I have new episodes to release, they are released on Tuesdays. To be notified you may follow me on Twitter (@patInhofer), via our RSS feed, and on iTunes.

You can find more interviews here: TaoOfColor.

Color Correcting Dead Man’s Lake

In Part 2 we get down to specifics… what do Ben and Anthony want from the color correction of the sixth installment in their horror short film anthology series, Dead Man’s Lake?

This Skype call was originally recorded to be part of the paid color grading training series Dead Man’s Lake: The Grade-Along (more details here). But we decided instead to drop this in the Tao of Color Podcast feed since many young and aspiring colorists might find our conversation interesting – with insights into the typical concerns and issues that need to be addressed before a single frame of footage is color corrected.

Interview: Benjamin Franklin

Ben is a producer on the popular web series “Bloody Cuts”, a 13 part horror anthology that can be found at www.bloodycuts.co.uk. As a Director of Post Production by day, Ben has worked in video production for over 7 years as both and editor and colorist.

But his love for filmmaking was piqued in early 2011 when he and a few filmmaker friends (and family) found some success in one of the biggest short film competitions in the world. Using that as a launch pad for Bloody Cuts, Ben has managed to assemble a collective that’s since been covered by most major filmmaking websites, received sponsorship from top industry companies such as Millennium FX, and audience figures of over 100k. The team have also recently received an international film award from FilmSkillet.com and are seeing their work played at some of the biggest festivals in the world.

As the series comes to its midpoint, Ben’s commitment to it has seen him take on many different roles within their productions, demonstrated most recently when he took the Director’s chair for “Dead Man’s Lake”.

You can find Ben at:

* Website: www.bloodycuts.co.uk

* Twitter: @bloodycutsfilms

* Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/bloodycuts

Interview: Anthony Melton

Anthony Melton is the Digital Producer for Bloody Cuts Films; a 13 part anthology created for the love and tradition of horror.  Being a multidisciplinary creative he designs and develops the Bloody Cuts website and brand, generates supporting digital material; including the behind the scenes films, and now assists in the overall production of the series.

Starting with Dead Mans Lake Anthony has been part of the Assistant Direction team and is heading towards Directing his own episode of Bloody Cuts. On Dead Man’s Lake Anthony performed 2nd AD duties and was the lead Editor. He also provided supporting visual FX work and Motion Graphics.

When Anthony is not hooked to his digital “Lamantation Box” for Bloody Cuts, he works for LAW Creative: a marketting communications agency in Hertfordshie and London. You can follow Anthony on twitter @AnthonyMelton and hear him host the Bloody Cuts podcast here: www.bloodycuts.co.uk/podcast/

You can find Anthony at:

* Website: www.bloodycuts.co.uk

* Twitter: @AnthonyMelton

* Day job: LAW Creative

Tweet, Like, or Leave a comment! (bottom of the page, no registration required)

Part 1: “Practicing Your Craft”

The ‘Tao of Color’ podcast lurches back to life this week!

Join me as I talk with the two raving lunatics behind the Horror Anthology website, BloodyCuts! Yes, we all make it out of the podcast alive – but not after discussing what drives these up-and-coming filmmakers.

At the start of this podcast I also drop an announcement about a joint venture between Tao of Color and BloodyCuts – to bring you some cutting edge training. If you have the stomach for it, scroll down to listen to the podcast!

Interview: Benjamin Franklin

Ben is a producer on the popular web series “Bloody Cuts”, a 13 part horror anthology that can be found at www.bloodycuts.co.uk. As a Director of Post Production by day, Ben has worked in video production for over 7 years as both and editor and colorist.

But his love for filmmaking was piqued in early 2011 when he and a few filmmaker friends (and family) found some success in one of the biggest short film competitions in the world. Using that as a launch pad for Bloody Cuts, Ben has managed to assemble a collective that’s since been covered by most major filmmaking websites, received sponsorship from top industry companies such as Millennium FX, and audience figures of over 100k. The team have also recently received an international film award from FilmSkillet.com and are seeing their work played at some of the biggest festivals in the world.

As the series comes to its midpoint, Ben’s commitment to it has seen him take on many different roles within their productions, demonstrated most recently when he took the Director’s chair for “Dead Man’s Lake”.

You can find Ben at:

* Website: www.bloodycuts.co.uk

* Twitter: @bloodycutsfilms

* Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/bloodycuts

Interview: Anthony Melton

Anthony Melton is the Digital Producer for Bloody Cuts Films; a 13 part anthology created for the love and tradition of horror.  Being a multidisciplinary creative he designs and develops the Bloody Cuts website and brand, generates supporting digital material; including the behind the scenes films, and now assists in the overall production of the series.

Starting with Dead Mans Lake Anthony has been part of the Assistant Direction team and is heading towards Directing his own episode of Bloody Cuts. On Dead Man’s Lake Anthony performed 2nd AD duties and was the lead Editor. He also provided supporting visual FX work and Motion Graphics.

When Anthony is not hooked to his digital “Lamantation Box” for Bloody Cuts, he works for LAW Creative: a marketting communications agency in Hertfordshie and London. You can follow Anthony on twitter @AnthonyMelton and hear him host the Bloody Cuts podcast here: www.bloodycuts.co.uk/podcast/

You can find Anthony at:

* Website: www.bloodycuts.co.uk

* Twitter: @AnthonyMelton

* Day job: LAW Creative

Tweet, Like, or Leave a comment! (bottom of the page, no registration required)

Follow @patInhofer

Listen Now 

Spoiler Alert! There’s a spoiler about 40 minutes into this conversation. If you haven’t already, go ahead and watch the 8-minute short horror film, ‘Dead Man’s Lake’ before listening: <...

“The 3 Steps of Color Correction”

Terence Curren is the Founder and President of AlphaDogs, a post production facility and design studio located in the heart of Burbank’s Media District, mere blocks from the Walt Disney Company and NBC Studios.

His future in the film and television business was prefigured by an early fascination with cinema; shooting his own films at the tender age of twelve. Terry went on to produce and direct, and then shifted full-time to post production as an editor. He was an early adopter of the Avid Symphony and quickly gained a reputation amongst his peers as an expert on that platform.

Terry’s early focus was on the ‘skilled operator’ as the differentiating factor in post-production, led to the founding of his own post house, as well as the creation of the Editors’ Lounge series and the Digital Service Station media-transfer bureaus, now located across the US and Canada

You can find Terry at:

* His post-production facility: Alpha Dogs

* The Editor’s Lounge – A monthly gathering of broadcast post-production professionals

* The Digital Service Station – A unique ‘one-stop’ post-production resource for editors, directors, and producers.

Part 1 |  Part 2

Tweet, Like, and Leave a comment! (bottom of the page, no registration required)

Subscribe in iTunes | Subscribe to the Tao Colorist Sunday Morning Newsletter

Listen Now

Learn Color Correction In An Online Mentorship Program! | Follow @patInhofer

More Interviews

Show Notes

* Post Production: Top 10 Dying Industry – Wall Street Journal

* Hi, My Name is Rich But You Can Call Me Jack – Is Jack winning the race?

* How Good Is Good Enough? – Terence and Philip Podcast

* Steve Hullfish on Amazon.com

* Stefan Soddenfeld IMdB Profile – Who i...

“Educating the Public”

[NOTE: This conversation was recorded on April 7, prior to Apple announcing FCPx – and the DaVinci Resolve discussion does not refer to Resolve 8 – which eliminates many of the workflow ‘show stoppers’ that we reference.]

Terence Curren is the Founder and President of AlphaDogs, a post production facility and design studio located in the heart of Burbank’s Media District, mere blocks from the Walt Disney Company and NBC Studios.

His future in the film and television business was prefigured by an early fascination with cinema; shooting his own films at the tender age of twelve. Terry went on to produce and direct, and then shifted full-time to post production as an editor. He was an early adopter of the Avid Symphony and quickly gained a reputation amongst his peers as an expert on that platform.

Terry’s early focus was on the ‘skilled operator’ as the differentiating factor in post-production, led to the founding of his own post house, as well as the creation of the Editors’ Lounge series and the Digital Service Station media-transfer bureaus, now located across the US and Canada

You can find Terry at:

* His post-production facility: Alpha Dogs

* The Editor’s Lounge – A monthly gathering of broadcast post-production professionals

* The Digital Service Station – A unique ‘one-stop’ post-production resource for editors, directors, and producers.

Tweet, Like, or Leave a comment! (bottom of the page, no registration required)

 

Follow @patInhofer

Listen Now 

Listen to Part 2

Subscribe in iTunes | Subscribe to the Tao Colorist Sunday Morning Newsletter

Learn Color Correction In An Online Mentorship Program!

More Interviews

Show Notes

* George Lucas’ Near Death Experience

* Example of a 3/4″ ENG-style camera – not shown here: the nearly equally large shoulder-slung video-tape recorder that attached to this camera via an umbilical cord. Crazy dayz, eh?

* Avid Symphony Product Page

* Demo: Avid’s Fluid Motion – A nice YouTube test showing the results of Fluid Motion at a variety of frame rates.

* An especially prescient discussion of the future of FCPx (recorded April 7, 2011… 1 week before the NAB 2011 reveal).

 

This interview is part of an on-going interview series with the movers, shaker, and thinkers involved in the field of professional color grading for moving images.

“What Makes A Great Colorist?”

At the fresh age of 17, Warren started his career working with images as a photographer for women’s underwear catalogues.

He moved on to working at several post houses around London before earning the opportunity to work as an assistant in a Telecine suite. His first professional gig as a colorist was in 1988 on Michael Jackson’s Bad World Tour.

Since then he’s:

* Spent time watching Guy Ritchie’s telly whilst discussing the look for “Lock Stock and 2 Smoking Barrels”

* Worked on Australia’s first Digitally graded feature film “Blurred”

* Is now a freelance Colorist in Australia and Asia, has his own grading suite, and is a founding partner of the International Colorist Academy.

You can find Warren at:

* His color grading home page

* International Colorist Academy – In-person color grading training

* ICA’s Facebook page

* His Vimeo page with screencast tutorials for Apple Color and DaVinci Resolve

 

In Part 2 of Warren’s Interview we discuss:

* The advantage of a more relaxed color grading schedule

* Grading a feature film

* Warren’s color grading workflow

* Evaluating the image

* Identifying the focal point of a shot

* Creating “Looks”

* Trying to match the visual production values of major television shows

* The impact of a camera’s codec on the Color Grading process

* Color Correcting DSLR footage

* Mixing RED with DSLR

* RED DPs needing to grade their dailies

* Thoughts on the kinds of cameras we’ll see at NAB 2011

* Warren’s current business

* Being a freelance colorist

* Warren’s color grading kit (Show Notes have links to mentioned products)

* Working with new clients

* ICA’s different training options

* Why you should learn to create different Looks

* The future for professional colorists

* Warren’s upcoming online DaVinci Resolve training!

Tweet, Like, or Leave a comment! (bottom of the page, no registration required)

Listen Now 

Part 1 | Part 2

Subscribe in iTunes | Subscribe to the Tao Colorist Sunday Morning Newsletter

More Interviews

Show Notes

* Apple Color

* Blackmagic’s DaVinci Resolve

* CalDigit External Drives

* Resolve Control Surface

* Tangent Wave Control Surface

* BON – Korean LCD panels

* Plura LCD Solutions

*

“The Best Job In The World”

At the fresh age of 17, Warren started his career working with images as a photographer for women’s underwear catalogues.

He moved on to working at several post houses around London before earning the opportunity to work as an assistant in a Telecine suite. His first professional gig as a colorist was in 1988 on Michael Jackson’s Bad World Tour.

Since then he’s:

* Spent time watching Guy Ritchie’s telly whilst discussing the look for “Lock Stock and 2 Smoking Barrels”

* Worked on Australia’s first Digitally graded feature film “Blurred”

* Is now a freelance Colorist in Australia and Asia, has his own grading suite, and is a founding partner of the International Colorist Academy.

You can find Warren at:

* His color grading home page

* International Colorist Academy – In-person color grading training

* ICA’s Facebook page

* His Vimeo page with screencast tutorials for Apple Color and DaVinci Resolve

 

In Part 1 of Warren’s Interview we discuss:

* Working as an underwear photographer

* Working as a projectionist and editing on flatbeds

* Working through the ranks of a London post house

* Becoming an Assistant Colorist & learning to ‘Fly Grade’

* Gaining confidence as a Colorist

* The insights gained as an Assistant Colorist

* We meet Roxie!

* Starting a Telecine Department

* Evaluating New Recruits

* The technical side of Telecine Color Grading

* The difference between mechanical Telecine and digital Color Grading

* The cost of hardware-based Telecine

* The challenges when migrated to digital Color Grading

* What is a true “D.I.”?

* “Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels”

* Color Grading in a “Black Box” Theater

* The value of taking breaks

* Re-watching your work

Tweet, Like, or Leave a comment! (bottom of the page, no registration required)

Listen Now 

Part 1 | Part 2

Subscribe in iTunes | Subscribe to the Tao Colorist Sunday Morning Newsletter

More Interviews

This interview is part of an on-going interview series with the movers, shaker, and thinkers involved in the field of professional color grading for moving images. When I have new episodes to release, they are released on Tuesdays. To be notified you may follow me on Twitter (@patInhofer), via our RSS feed, and on iTunes.

You can find more interviews here: TaoOfColor.com interview series homepage.

FCC Disclaimer

Yes,