No Film School Was ‘House of Dragon’ Too Dark, or Is the Problem Your TV?

The Article by Alyssa Miller goes into the issue which is similiar to the one on the big battle at the end of game of thrones. And honestly we didn't see it too much, but I have my TV properly calibrated or at least as well as it can be, and we have overhead canned lighting and can do it dimmer over us, so likely the room is darker than for the last season of Game of Thrones, but we do see this more and more. They are color correcting way too dark for TV. And I think the problem is obvious. Color bays are too dark and they use too good screens in the dark. That is absolutely fine for films which are meant to be seen in a darkened room, but homes have light, and most people don't watch television in the dark. Honestly there should be a higher level of ambient light in editing bays for TV, to take account people have lights on in their house. And have a consumer display to finish to as well, to check how it looks. I know on these signature shows they want you to turn off the lights and only pay attention to it, but that isn't an option for everyone. And if there are significant complaints, you are doing the grade wrong. You need to remember this is going to be viewed by people at home, not in a darkened theater!

Pro Video Coalitions Ian Anderson has a great article on ProRes

Iain Anderson at Pro Video Coalition has a must read article on Why ProRes? Luckily ProRes has become pretty standard across my editing. Most cameras can record to it, and it works great, with so little processing power. Personally I don't even like bringing any MP4's in, and convert even them to ProRes Proxy. Of course now with a Blackmagicdesign 6k Pro I have been shooting BlackMagic RAW and it in 6K certainly seems to take more processing power than ProRes, but it is also more compressed. I would like to see how the M1 processors can handle H.264, which might mean less recompressing. I just see standardizing on a format to make Premiere work more like AVID, which has always been the most stable editing system.

I am having issues with Autokroma’s BRAW Studio in After Effects

I have been using Autokroma's BRAW Studio Plug in since I got my Blackmagic Cinema Camera 6k Pro, because it allows you to select multiple clips to decode BRAW in Premiere vs the Black Magic plug in that works on one clip at a time. I have run into issues with using these clips in after effects, with the current version I get the effects flashing on and off throughout the clip. You can see the results here. https://vimeo.com/741258641/0427ef87f2 This is a short from the Misadventures of Bear that I am currently working on finishing. Talking to support and moving back to 2.7.1 resolved the flashing, but then removed the added built in LUT, which also screwed up the green screen. https://vimeo.com/741498495/3a2cb0838a My only solution was to use the Plug-in to save out sidecar files of the BRAW settings, and then compress them in Media Encoder which uses the settings of the sidecar and render the clips into ProRES HQ. I then had to individually relink the clips in After Effects, but then I could get the render to work with the correct settings applied. https://vimeo.com/741498664/af0b62f955 I am still in contact with autokroma's support, so hopefully this will get resolved, but they are having trouble recreating the errors on their end.

No Film School on How the Philosophy of Blackmagic Design Changed Cinema Cameras Forever

Jourdan Aldredge on No Film School has a great article on how Blackmagic's cinema cameras have changed Cinema Camera's forever. And it is so true. They have made incredible inexpensive cameras that can compete with high end super expensive cameras.

Scott Simmons at PVC on Avid Media Composer 2022.7 adding keyboard layouts for Premiere Pro and DaVinci Resolve

Scott Simmons posted this article Avid Media Composer updated to 2022.7, now with competing keyboard layouts. I can honestly say I never though I would see the day when AVID was really trying to get people from Premiere and DaVinci. Personally I always learn the default keyboard setup of a program, but this is great for a quick jump for people.

Scott Simmons at PVC on his single most loved feature in Adobe Premiere Pro, customization, and he is right

Scott Simmons at the ProVideoCoalition has a great article entitled, "My single most loved feature in Adobe Premiere Pro." Customization is really the best thing about Premiere Pro. Of course AVID was the start of this because every editor doesn't want to work the same way or have the same setup to work on, so being able to have your own setup is so important and AVID premiered this feature in the editing space. The original Apple Final Cut Pro also had this feature. The new Final Cut Pro, previously Final Cut Pro X, did away with this and wants you to edit their way. You don't have as many ways to do things and you really can't do a lot of customization in the workspace. DaVinci Resolve has added editing to it's color correction program and it is great, but it also does not let you customize, it is once again how they want you to edit. Yes you can use one or two monitors, but the windows are all very fixed where they are. Premiere though is like AVID in customization, but adds to it, especially with so many available 3rd party extensions, like from AESCRIPTS, and it's extensive keyboard shortcut options. Scott Simmons is so right that Premiere's customization abilities are it's absolute best feature and it is a shame that DaVinci Resolve doesn't allow the same customization.