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getting up to speed on Lustre?
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>>but if you think you can be a top notch colorist and only know one tool, you’re wrong.
I would amend that by adding “unless your name is Stefan Sonnenfeld or Steve Scott.” Although I would also add that if Blackmagic discontinued Resolve tomorrow, Stef would settle on something else and move on. And so would Steve if Lustre disappeared….
As for “the best colorists use Lustre” I would also change that to “some of the best colorists use Lustre.” That’s a lot more accurate, as there are a lot of very good colorists all over the world, and a lot of very good toolsets. No one system has a monopoly on high quality results or usage on “A” titles.
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Yes…every single one of your points are correct. You cannot only know one tool, unless you have the power to do so. Also, SOME of the best colorists use Lustre. Some of the best colorists use Resolve as well.
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Anthony Harris
HarrisColor.com -
[Anthony Harris] “You cannot only know one tool, unless you have the power to do so. Also, SOME of the best colorists use Lustre. Some of the best colorists use Resolve as well.”
Very well-said, Anthony. I think ultimately, the quality of the work is down more to the colorist than it is the tool. Huge movies are being done on Lustre, Baselight, Mistika, Nucoda, and Resolve. There’s lots of good choices out there. It’s a credit to BMD that Resolve is as affordable as it is yet can still hold its own with the others. -
And let’s credit BMD, that they had managed to distort the color grading software business so much, that even the best of them left scratching their heads trying to decide how to survive in this market. If it continues like that, there will be no Lustre, Nucoda or Baselight or Mistika, which would make for very sad world. I don’t want to have a choice of one- Resolve.
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I will say though, they couldn’t distort the market if the tool was garbage. They distort the market because it’s possible to get high quality results for a comparatively low price.
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Anthony Harris
HarrisColor.com -
The software is a minor cost compared to having a monitoring environment and ancillary equipment. Yes going to Baselight would cost more but it would only represent around 15% of my total capital expenditure on the whole facility.
Nice that Resolve has saved me most of that but by the time you cost in controllers, computer hardware and big fast drives, legacy broadcast tape machines etc.. it becomes less of a differentiation.
What it does represent is the possibility of democratising grading but really that doesn’t have as great an impact on facilities setup for broadcast & cinema work as much as many imagine. Certainly the corporate and web markets but hey they were just using other colour tools in NLEs anyway.
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[jake blackstone] “And let’s credit BMD, that they had managed to distort the color grading software business so much, that even the best of them left scratching their heads trying to decide how to survive in this market.”
I wouldn’t call it “distort,” but I agree that BMD’s “price disruption” philosophy follows Red and several other companies in drastically dropping prices over a short period of time. It’s a benefit to some and a disaster to others, but I think it’s inevitable and expected in a lot of ways.As I’ve said before, look at what an Avid Multi-camera Editing system cost in 2000: well over $100,000. It ain’t that now. Certain things have stayed very expensive, like lenses, but look at monitors. A BVM-32E was $35,000 15 years ago, and now you can get a better HD monitor for about half that. Hard drives have never been cheaper than they are today. And yet the prices for other things, like food, cars, and gasoline, still go up.
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Marc. You’re treating hardware products and software products as they interchangeable. They are not the same. Just look at BMD own case of grading panels vs Resolve. Panels price, after the initial 50% drop stays exactly the same since BMD bought DaVinci. At the same time, Resolve had been essentially free, because the only way to make it even cheaper is for BMD to start paying users to use Resolve. Essentially, if BMD was an American company, they would be breaking the anti trust law, mainly they would be guilty of Predatory pricing.
Here is the definition of Predatory pricing, which happens to match BMD’s strategy to a “t” from Wikipedia.
“Predatory pricing (also undercutting) is a pricing strategy where a product or service is set at a very low price, intending to drive competitors out of the market, or create barriers to entry for potential new competitors.” -
There are antitrust laws? I had forgotten since they haven’t been enforced in the US for at least 60 years, unless you count the “breakup” of AT&T – oh, wait a minute, AT&T is back now and almost twice the size that it was when it was broken up…
Antitrust laws have been a joke in this country almost since they were enacted. When the politicians who are responsible for bringing suits under those laws are owned by the very companies the laws are supposed to constrain, you’re not going to see very many instances of using them.
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[Michael Gissing] “What it does represent is the possibility of democratising grading”
Ughh…how I detest the use of the d-word in this context. Has nothing to do with any kind of consensual market participatory direction. “Popularization” is the term I am personally trying to pitch to those who want a term to characterize the disruption and dilution of a former business model that required a combination of financial and experiential investment.
Like everyone suddenly being cosmologists who think they can theorize about black hole theory and the fundamental structure of the universe because they’ve seen a sci-fi movie.
jPo
“I always pass on free advice — its never of any use to me” Oscar Wilde.
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