[Marc Wielage]

[Shane Ross] “The best you can do is make it look good on your external monitor (calibrated to the best of your ability)…after it goes out in the world, there’s not much you can do.”
This is very true. A long time ago, I color-corrected trailers for a major studio, and they spent over six months trying desperately to determine how best to make their trailers look good when seen on YouTube, Vimeo, and other online sources. After literally thousands of tries and all kinds LUTs, conversions, tweaks, and tests, they basically threw in the towel and just said, “make it look good for broadcast and let it go,” and that’s what we did. We know for a fact the trailer looks perfect on a calibrated Rec709 monitor; after that, it’s a crapshoot.

I have done trailers very recently for a different studio, and the guy in charge there said the exact thing, almost like a mantra: once it goes out into the world, there’s not much you can do. And that goes for sound, too.

[Marc Wielage]

It would be nice if the April 2017 manual for Resolve 14 were updated to include these changes and explain the functionality.

[Marc Wielage]

I have a different method: I have one dummy “template” project for 23.976fps, and one for 24.00fps, and one for 29.97fps. In each, I create a bin structure, set all video parameters, tweak the Favorite transitions and so on, set colorspace, adjust panel settings, AutoSave turns on, and so on. When I start a new job, I choose which one of these templates I want to start with, then I do a Save-As with the name of the client and the new project name. Now, 90% of the setup is already done.

I do the same thing with word processors, editing programs, and sound programs, just to reduce setup time and to make sure all the fussy little background stuff is already set correctly without me having to check it.

[Marc Wielage]

Read p. 572 of the Resolve 12.5 manual: “Limitations When Grading With the Viewer on a Computer Display.” This goes into some detail why you cannot accurately monitor directly from the computer and operating system. You have to have a color-managed output, like one from a Blackmagic display card, plus a calibrated grading monitor.

[Marc Wielage]

Yeah, I have to say that Resolve has come a long way and is closer to being a real editing platform than ever before.

If you ask me, Resolve is pretty logical and straightforward; Avid is absolutely bizarre and has some weird peculiarities that most editors have gotten used to over the last 20 years. I’m more in the “Final Cut 7” method of doing things, which means FCPX is just alien software to me. But I can adapt to Resolve just fine.

BTW, CADAVRA is a very funny movie — I watched that on the plane ride home from Rome about 10 years ago, and it was the highlight of that part of the journey.

[Marc Wielage]

They said at NAB in April that hardware faders for Fairlight will be coming “later on this year,” but would not elaborate beyond that.

They did show kind of a prototype small panel that I think was about the same size format as the Resolve Mini panel, about 12 faders across, just for a small room. No idea of price or availability. My guess is if it follows what Avid has done, it’ll be in the $2500-$3000 range.

I have no idea what their compatibility will be with external 3rd-party panels. I can say that Avid has had a history of supporting a handful of Pro Tools mixing consoles for a few years, then they do a massive version upgrade and all support is dropped. This has happened a few times.

[Marc Wielage]

It’s not real intuitive, but the EDGE WIPE transition is rotatable so you can do either a horizontal wipe or a vertical wipe or any Angle degree shift you want. 90° or -90° should give you what you want.

[Marc Wielage]

The “Three Dot” (•••) option drop down reveals all: stop the cursor on the tracker keyframe, then click on the three dots and choose “Delete Keyframe.” This is infinitely faster and easier with the Mini Panel, where you have a specific soft button dedicated to manually deleting or inserting a tracker keyframe.

[Marc Wielage]

Speaking only for me, personal opinion, I’m so pissed-off at the bad AMD chips in the 2013 MacPros, I’ll never buy anything from AMD again. It’s NVidia all the way.

[Marc Wielage]

I mean the switch in Avid. Resolve is generally reliable.