Today, Hollywood-based Color Intelligence is unveiling Colourlab Ai, a new color grading system that is poised to dramatically improve the process of color correction thanks to Artificial Intelligence. Founded by color scientist Dado Valentic and industry veterans Mark L. Pederson and Steve Bayes, Color Intelligence has established itself as a high-end image processing consultancy. It has been working with Warner Brothers, HBO, Netflix, NBC Universal, and CBS on advanced HDR color pipelines and providing specialized color grading plug-ins for look design and creation.

GB Labs, innovators of powerful and intelligent storage solutions for the media and entertainment industries, today announced that Side Street Post and VFX, Vancouver, supported by GDS Communications, has chosen GB Labs’ SPACE SSD NAS shared storage system to drive Side Street’s DaVinci Resolve Studio systems.

The Future Group, creators of live photo-realistic virtual production system Pixotope®, today unveils its latest Version 1.3 software featuring a wide range of advances that significantly improve how virtual environments interact with real-world elements.

Pixotope enables the production of mixed-reality (MR) content by bringing together physical components such as presenters, actors, props and free-moving cameras, with virtually created assets such as scenes, graphics, animated characters, or any other computer-generated elements. Pixotope forms the central production hub when creating mixed-reality content for broadcast and live events, with Version 1.3 offering new object tracking, powerful lighting integration, enhanced colour management and more.

Crystal Vision has released its most feature-packed colour corrector and legaliser to date. The M-COCO-2 is Crystal Vision's first dual channel colour corrector, helping broadcasters save money by being 24% cheaper per channel than the company's alternative product. The M-COCO-2's ability to work with IP, with SDI or with both IP and SDI at the same time makes it the industry's first colour corrector to offer IP connectivity (supporting both SMPTE ST 2022 and ST 2110 video), while its extensive features also make it a good solution for hybrid systems as well as fully SDI installations. 

Light Illusion, specialists in critical colour management for film, post-production, and broadcast has launched a brand-new colour management product called “ColourSpace CMS”. Currently available for pre-order, it enables participation in the open beta program to provide feedback and input for the final release.

ColourSpace CMS is a software program which connects to a wide variety of display calibration probes in order to accurately assess the colour rendition of any display. It then creates colour management data which can be used to perfect colour accuracy by uploading it into a display that has colour management features, or alternatively, applied as a correction to the signal feeding the display using associated hardware.

Applications include display calibration, colour management, and colour workflows within the professional film, post-production, and broadcast industries, as well as for display manufacturers and home cinema enthusiasts. ColourSpace CMS data is compatible with most colour related post-production platforms such as Resolve, Flame and Baselight.

ColourSpace CMS has been designed to bring a significant improvement to how colour accuracy is measured and reported. 

Light Illusion aims for ColourSpace to become the de-facto standard for advanced colour management, promoting high levels of display calibration and colour control, regardless of final application.

There is No Evil and Delete History prize winners completed at Optical Art in Germany and Color in Paris

At the 70th Berlinale, the 2020 Berlin Film Festival, the Golden Bear was won by There is No Evil, directed by Mohammed Rasoulof; the Silver Bear special prize went to Delete History, directed by Benoît Delépine and Gustave Kerven. Both movies depended on detailed grading and finishing on Baselight.

On Booth SL7409 at the 2020 NAB Show Crystal Vision will be showing the latest picture processing software apps for its MARBLE-V1 media processor hardware, all of which can work with IP, with SDI or with both IP and SDI at the same time. The functionality offered by these apps – which support ST 2022, ST 2110 video and 31 different SDI standards including 1080p – includes web browser keying, linear keying, picture-in-picture, clean switching, video delay, colour correction and up and down conversion. Their support for multiple signal formats gives the easiest possible SDI to IP upgrade, while also making the apps perfect for mixed SDI and IP installations as well as fully IP environments. One of the booth highlights will be the unique M-WEBKEY IP/SDI web browser keyer app, which provides a cost-effective alternative to a full graphics system. Other SDI products on show include the popular Cleanit profanity delays and Safire 3 real-time chroma keyer.

Following the appointment of Matthieu Straub as the company’s technical and operational consultant to France and the Benelux countries in the summer of 2019, FilmLight is delighted to announce that it has now established a permanent presence in Paris. By sharing premises with ARRI France, FilmLight is developing a strong hub for creative and technical knowledge and events.

The hub will host the first of FilmLight’s Colour Day workshops in 2020, on 28 January. One of the advantages of sharing the centre with ARRI is that it underlines the seamless workflows from camera to finish, using the BLG format for render-free viewing and creativity. The BLG grading metadata is stored in the ARRIRAW and QuickTime headers, ensuring the content and its look are permanently linked.

The Paris Colour Day on 28 January, aimed at creatives and technicians in production and post production, will see FilmLight’s workflow specialists, Straub and Thomas Eberschveiler unveil new FilmLight tools. Attendees will also hear from guest colourist Stéphane Azouze about his collaboration with directors Anastasia Mikova and Yann Arthus-Bertrand on the recent award-winning documentary ‘Woman’. Finally, colour scientist Florine Bel will share her image expertise and discuss her work developing film aesthetics, colour spaces and conversions.

The shared space has already hosted successful events, including a workshop day for DITs. Led by Straub, with guest speakers from Netflix and from post house Mikros, the group discussed the latest developments in colour space management and workflows. ARRI’s presence allowed the discussion to include ARRI Looks and how they can be incorporated into FilmLight BLG post production. In the demonstration area, they featured an ARRI ALEXA camera feeding Prelight and Daylight software, allowing the delegates to experiment with look development and make comparisons between standard and high dynamic range colour spaces.

Explaining the importance of bringing together creative artists and technicians, FilmLight’s Matthieu Straub said “My background is as a digital image technician, and I know how directors and cinematographers are increasingly relying on DITs to find technical solutions to their demanding creative requirements. “Our intention is to use our demonstration and meeting space here on the Rue René Boulanger to be a place where we can encourage the sharing of knowledge and experiences, to help the French cinema industry achieve ever greater things.”

Uncut Gems is the latest movie from directing duo, the Safdie Brothers. The movie tells the story of a charismatic New York City jeweller and gambler (Adam Sandler), and is set in the diamond industry of New York. So it is appropriate that the colour palette was created at The Mill NY by colourist and director of DI, Damien Van Der Cruyssen.

Van Der Cruyssen collaborated closely with cinematographer Darius Khondji, as well as the Safdie Brothers, all of whom he had worked with previously on the Jay-Z video for Mercy Me. “At that point I got a good understanding of their relationships and how I could fit into the equation.”

Visually, Uncut Gems has a classic New York City look, but with a modern twist. “The Diamond District hasn’t changed much over the last forty years, so it automatically had that 70’s ‘noir’ feel,” commented Van Der Cruyssen. “But we wanted to break away from the steely, gritty New York to a more real-life aesthetic – less forced and contrived.”

Around half of the movie was shot on 35mm film to give it a more natural look, which meant Van Der Cruyssen had to treat the digital footage to match. “Marrying the film footage with the digital scenes was quite challenging,” he explained. “So I asked the crew to shoot some grain elements that could be overlaid in Baselight and adjusted per scene.”

One of the most awaited drama series of 2019, His Dark Materials, produced by Bad Wolf for BBC and HBO, was finished at Technicolor in London. With a story set in a parallel universe that seems like the Britain of a century ago, and with fantastic elements such as giant armoured polar bears and ever-present “daemons” – animal representations of the human soul – the production is a tour de force of visual effects, and therefore somewhat demanding of the colourist, Jean-Clément Soret.

“Over the eight episodes of series one there were four directors and DoPs,” Soret explained. “Justin Brown was DoP for the first two episodes, and I had worked with him a lot in the past on commercials so we had a strong understanding of where we wanted to go. I was really happy to be able to collaborate with him again.

“Justin shot some tests – with the real locations, actors and costumes – in both 35mm and digital,” he continued. “It always surprises me how different film looks! What the tests did was allow us to create a core feel. The decision was also made to add a bit of subtle film grain throughout the episodes. The Technicolor colour science team in LA then created a LUT for Baselight, which gave us that same film feel with the digital footage.”

One of the challenges of the story – based on a trilogy of novels from Philip Pullman – is that each human character has a daemon, and humans are rarely seen on screen without their daemons around them. That meant a large number of VFX shots to insert the CGI daemons. “I found that when it came to the integration of the VFX, contrast and colour was key. The film LUT, together with the control of sharpness and softness from Baselight, was a great help.”

The first series – based on Northern Lights, the opening novel of the trilogy – moves from an Oxford college bathed in warm sunshine to “The North”, Pullman’s name for the Arctic, where the first battles take place. “We may have set the feel in the first episode, but the story develops through different worlds and different eras, so the grade naturally develops,” Soret said.

“With different directors and DoPs across the series, the colourist has to provide the backbone of the look, to create consistency while respecting each cinematographer,” he added. “Baselight allowed me to set the key looks then develop them naturally, freeing me from a constrained palette and allowing us to create a convincing visualisation of this rich and complex story.”

As well as remarkable creative control, the Baselight grading facilities at Technicolor also provided critical support in the workflow, by giving free access to all the raw footage from the series as well as the VFX shots as they developed. The practicalities of creating eight hours of premium drama in a television timescale meant that grading on specific episodes took place when directors and DoPs were available for supervision. That meant that Jean-Clément Soret could be working on three or four episodes at any one time.

The result is an engaging, enthralling drama that looks ravishing and chilling in turn. This first series is broadcast on BBC1 and HBO in November and December, while the second series is already in production.

Color Finale (www.colorfinale.com), the highly popular macOS-only colour grading plug-in for Final Cut Pro X (FCPX) from UK company ColorTrix, has been superseded by Color Finale 2 and Color Finale 2 Pro.

The new Color Finale 2 toolset adds a host of new color grading and image processing tools above the standard color grading tools that ship with FCPX, and has been specifically designed to remove the need for Editors to move themselves and their content to an external dedicated colour grading system.

Key new Color Finale 2 features include:

• Masking – shape based and free form keying for selective color grading

• Area Tracker – track masks on moving picture elements

• Film Emulation Tools – add customizable digital grain

• Shot Matching toolset – semi-automate primary color correction for shot matching

• LUT Manager – auto-locate, live preview, and export of LUTs and Presets

• Modern Sharpening algorithm – enhance perception of focus in soft areas of shots

• Video Analysis Tools – locate and correct technical image anomalies

Color Finale 2 for Mac ($99) and Color Finale 2 Pro for Mac ($149) are available to purchase now from www.colorfinale.com

Independent London post house Directors Cut Films – owned and operated by its creative staff – has invested in a Baselight TWO colour grading workstation with a Blackboard 2 control panel. Directors Cut works primarily in premium long-form television, as well as drama series, documentaries and feature films, with increasing interest in 4K and HDR.

“Being owned and run by ex-editors, we know what is required to meet and exceed expectations in post,” said Senior Colourist Andy Elliott. “We felt it was the right time to invest and embrace HDR and 4K workflows. HDR in particular produces much more of a positive visual impact, with real benefits in the immersive experience for the viewer.”

Leading broadcasters and production companies in the UK routinely turn to Directors Cut to finish major projects. While the work includes major dramas and some feature films, the company has a reputation for long form TV, especially documentaries. Recent projects graded by Elliott include biographies of Cher and Elton John, an investigation of the Bauhaus for BBC4, and Sir David Attenborough’s call to action Climate Change: The Facts.

Elliott pointed out that such programmes frequently bring together footage shot on multiple different cameras and formats, often in less than ideal circumstances. The task for the colourist is to integrate all of the footage as well as create a coherent look that reflects the story the director wishes to tell. That makes the speed and power of the upgraded Baselight suite an important asset.

At Inter BEE, the FilmLight presence will be led by Koichi Matsui, General Manager of FilmLight KK, along with Yoko Kimura, newly appointed sales and product specialist. “FilmLight is one of the world’s leading companies for production and post production technology,” said Koichi Matsui “Yoko’s recent appointment underlines this region’s importance to us, and is a clear indication of the support we are giving to our existing and future customers in Japan.”

Top end post-production is placing ever-more stringent technical demands on technology, in support of the creative ambitions of directors, cinematographers and colourists. 4K and HDR are now commonplace, and 8K is being broadcast today in Japan. Recently, Baselight workstations were chosen for grading and finishing Ang Lee’s new movie, Gemini Man, shot and delivered in 120 frames per second, 4K, high dynamic range 3D.

Only the power of the Baselight X system can handle such a data-intensive project, while still giving the colourist free rein with next-generation creative tools and realtime response. FilmLight will demonstrate these tools as part of its latest software version at Inter BEE 2019, on an 8K display powered by a Baselight X grading system. This includes new productivity features such as the enhanced timeline with collapsing stacks and multiple tracks.

Leading London boutique post house Fifty Fifty has added a second Baselight grading suite as part of its expansion programme. With the growing interest in top end content for broadcast and streaming, both suites are equipped for 4K and HDR Ultra HD, and certified for Dolby Vision grading and delivery.