Attn BM: business model proposal for new features

[Illya Laney]

I thought people wanted multilayers for blending and transparency reasons.

twitter.com/illyalaney

[Vladimir Kucherov]

I’m not exactly going to riot if BlackMagic DOES include multi-track with blending. I’ve never had to deal with a situation where 2+ tracks are blended simultaneously, but it sucks if you’re bleeding clients due to this issue. Here is my brainstorm on that subject:

I think it should be possible to use reference footage feature to make better coloring choices during blending. Something like:

1 – simplify timeline as much as possible. Anything that can be a dissolve should be a dissolve. Then export each remaining layer as separate edl
2 – bring each layer into davinci. grade the base layer. export full (or chunk, although since we’re probably talking ads, full export should be quick)
3 – bring in as reference quicktime for layer 2’s edl. if timecode matches, should drop right in
4 – go to shot, load up still in offline mode, set to mix, and set opacity to match timeline, grade for final effect.

heck, you can probably do it faster by grading base, taking a still, loading up 2nd layer, playing still where needed, and vice versa.

It’s not ideal but it will allow you to make grading decisions with mixes.

[Gabriele Turchi]

vladimir that it is what i do usually …

but some people here (no offense) have to realize , that exist client that can afford davinci or flame or lustre , and they don’t care about workaround , or relink to final cut to be able to see the footage , if they know that exist application that can handle grading + conform , they’ll want it …

In this forum i hear many people saying that going back to FCP is not a big deal , etc… my guess is that they don;t have to deal with client that pay quite big money and they go where the Artist + the system can do what they want .

and again resolve is a 150K system not a 1K system as many thinks here …it’s widely famous for features , but at the moment for commercial (where the workflow is faster , more crazy , with very very quick turnaround and not easy conform …well is not the right tool …

from my point of view , i spent 40K on my resolve and i hope that BMD will expand their interest to have the tool to be competitive on the commercial business … if they will not , well i will sell it ….
Or i will decide to work only on features …

g

[Illya Laney]

Gabriele Turchi
“”my guess is that they don;t have to deal with client that pay quite big money .”

Not all high paying clients use or like the same workflows. For example, all my Adidas and Sony work is shipped FedEx or FTP’d and approved remotely. A few years ago I was even hired to go to a guy’s apartment in SF to work on spots side by side with advertising execs from London and it wasn’t a cheap commercial. Fortunately there was a full studio setup in one of the rooms.

You sound like you’re involved primarily in the final color and finishing market so Smoke and Flame might be better for you, but there’s also a market for dailies colorists. People request timed dailies for editorial and that’s increasing considerably with more and more projects being shot on the Alexa. I’m not talking about just applying a Log to Lin LUT.

If I had to request a feature from Blackmagic, I’d love to see some decent tools for syncing audio. That would be killer for using it on set to create dailies, but I realize that’s also a pretty demanding request.

twitter.com/illyalaney

[Robin Erard]

Illya Laney, I don’t understand you… what is the problem to ask to DaVinci team to be able to work with multilayer timeline ?

Robin

réalisateur, scénariste, monteur
http://www.robinerard.ch

[Illya Laney]

I never said I didn’t want multi-layer timelines. I also didn’t say it was wrong to ask Blackmagic for features. Where did you read that?

twitter.com/illyalaney

[Joseph Mastantuono]

I completely agree with gabriele,

I work on a lot of shows that do PiP, terrible multiple track blending, lots of image manipulation within FCP, wipes, flash frames and speed ramps. And putting that into one track, is simply unfeasible. I can make an “aproximation” timeline for the EDL. But many times it’s just worth it hit send to color… I prefer to work in davinci but sometimes, especially for reality shows, it’s not worth the hassle.

Multiple tracks and XML support would allow me to probably ditch color completely.

Joseph Mastantuono
Online Editor – Colorist – Post Consultant
917.969.1583

[Robin Erard]

100% agree with the last post.

XML, multilayer, and more precise PTZR tool in input and output Format tab (without Davinci panel it’s impossible to do it with precision (even with tangent wave)) it could be good to have values with more steps in the Format tab.

All the best

Robin

réalisateur, scénariste, monteur
http://www.robinerard.ch

[Sascha Haber]

Yeah, I second that.
We have the same discussion of the other board and anything else than the way Apple Color already offers or even better, like Filmmaster does will not satisfy clients in the long run.
I was never a friend of those all-in-one systems like Mistika but I saw a guy grading in Flame on 15 different nodes and then doing a cut-down and playing those out to tape with multilayer audio…wow.
I felt a little….whimsical…next time I sat on my…Scratch.
Sorry for throwing around names, but if DaVinci would “inherit” some of those ideas it would be so lovely.
The core tools are so much better, it just feels a little dated and with some modern tools like XML import, OFX support and other goodies would be more than just the icing on the cake.
It would be the new bread and butter.

A slice of color…

DaVinci 7.1 OSX 10.6.6
Dual Xeon 2,4 RAM 24 GB
RAID0 8TB eSata 6TB
GTX 285 / GT 120
Extreme 3D+ WAVE