Music video shot and produced as a collaborative effort amongst friends featuring Jeremiah Dunlap of Northern Colors. Credits to follow. I was tasked with color correcting or color grading Pretty Little World and wanted to try out the new color tools in Final Cut Pro X. Read more about the tools I used…

I have launched my new website dedicated to color grading. You’ll find color grading tutorials and grade presets. Check it out after the break.

Friend to digital cinema foundry Patrick Lawler and often featured on dcf has just completed his 2011 demo reel. There is a lot of power in a demo reel. Read on…

Colorista II is Red Giant Software’s newest release of their wildly popular color grading software. Colorista II is an affordable option to expensive color grading software suites and allow users a host of comparable professional-level controls such as keying, power masks and multiple stages of color correction (primary, secondary and master stages). Read on…

Julien Taillez frequent contributor to digital cinema foundry and talented frenchman in cinematography and color grading in After Effects has shared this great commercial piece. It’s amazing to see what can be accomplished with the right talent, a good plan and multiple HDSLR cameras. Read on…

Solomon Ligthelm of Dubai (filmmaker, musician, motion graphics artist) has created this cool concept ad as part of a campaign for his church. He’s shared with us his production write-up, some screenshots and best of all his custom Magic Bullet Looks presets (that are available for download). Read on…

I haven’t really posted much of what I have been doing. I’ve pretty much been shooting weddings for the past few months with little time to pursue other “things”. However, I did take a detour for a few days and put together a profile for my buddy Brody Dezember. It’s a short “about” film for Brody to play for his clients “in-studio” and possibly show at wedding shows. Read on…

So I’ve been spending a week in Burbank, CA at a week long colorist training with renowned British colorist Kevin Shaw, founder of the International Colorist Academy. I’ve found it particularly helpful and engaging as it relates to colorist strategies and creating popular looks. Most colorists are self taught including senior colorists and so the opportunity to learn from a veteran is extremely valuable. Pictured is the color grading theater where the classes have been being taught at Roush Media on a Digital Vision Nucoda Film Master. I would highly recommend taking any of their classes worldwide if you’re looking for colorist training. More to come…

Red Giant Software, makers of the wildly popular Magic Bullet Looks, Trapcode Suite and a host of other plugins and filters, has launched RedGiantPeople.com. The site allows you to browse and buy visual effects for Trapcode, Knoll Light Factory, Magic Bullet plug-ins and more. Read on…

Another great talented Frenchman Julien Taillez has shot this beautiful piece on the Canon 550D or T2i and has provided a great behind the scenes write-up. Fashion and wedding videographers should take note. Read on…

We’re offering a free Magic Bullet Looks custom preset to members of digital cinema foundry. To become a member simply register by entering your email address into the form on the left hand side of the page. I will be sending out an email to members with the hyperlink where you can download the preset to use with Magic Bullet Looks. We’ll continue to offer free great stuff periodically so be sure to register.

Instructions:
1) Become a member of digital cinema foundry by registering using only your email address (form on the left side of this page)
2) Wait to receive email
3) Download “epic_preset.zip” from hyperlink in email
4) Open up Looks Builder, then File–> Open Look file

Now it’s up to you as to how you use the preset, it more than likely will need some tweaking to fit your tastes. Try bringing up the fill light or changing the color of the fill light. Want more diffusion, adjust the size of the diffusion or the amount of glow. Toggle on or off the gradients as needed or adjust their strength. Massage the shadows, midtones and highlights with Lift-Gamma-Gain. Make contrast adjustments with Curves. Dial in saturation to where you want it and apply overall warmth or coolness with Warm/Cool. It’s all up to you.

The band Stephane & 3G were attracted to talented L.A. colorist Jake Blackstone. The crazy thing is the band hails from the Republic of Georgia (remember that little country bordering Russia) and became attracted to Jake’s work after finding it on Vimeo. Colorist Jake Blackstone shares some insights from the project. Read on…

What can you be doing if you desire to be a colorist? Take it from Marcus Gaskin who justs gets busy and learns the craft by doing it. Aussie from down under, Marcus shares with us learning resources that he’s found helpful as well as his aspirations of becoming a colorist. Read on…

So in an earlier post, I sort of took a shot at timelapses. They are popping up all over the web and have mixed watchability value in my opinion (I know that doesn’t sound right). Anyway, I’m posting one here for you. I think there are elements to this timelapse that transcend the normal watch the sky go by video. Read on…

It seems that artists are beginning to notice the trend of the so called “Blockbuster” look that’s becoming more and more popular in feature films and in personal projects with the advent of plugins like Red Giants Magic Bullet Looks & Mojo. For those who are just discovering the look, are plastering it all over their creative projects and those discovering the trend in feature films are beginning to bemoan its overuse. But nobody (to my knowledge) has explained yet why the look is popular. Read on…