[Ola Haldor voll]

Ok, just for the heck of it – give him something else to chew on, see if that still makes trouble on his system. And ask him to share the details about his setup.

[Ola Haldor voll]

Nope, no issues here.

The colorist is on Resolve too? Check what hardware he’s on. CPU, GPU, RAID etc.
Does he colorist have access to the FCP project file? That should help him in the process of making the sequence(s) the way he wants them, and load the XML in Resolve.

[Ola Haldor voll]

I’d convert all AVI stuff to ProRes, and work in a 2K timeline in Resolve. Doesn’t matter what frame size the original footage is in. I always make the timeline resolution the same as the final output.

And I’d do all motion in Resolve if possible. I believe there are better algorithms for such in Resolve than in FCP – oh – and it’s real-time, you know!

[Ola Haldor voll]

I’m not sure that’s possible. A workaround (which gives you the option to have a nice icon to make it stand out and, you know, impress the client that you have given them a special place on your system!)

Make a new user. Make all the projects in there. If you already have made dozens of projects in your regular user, fear not! You can import them to the project specific user.

[Ola Haldor voll]

I might be distressing. What I said earlier is what I’ve learned from one or several paid video tutorials or even books, not something I’ve magically figured out by myself “EUREKA! This must be what it’s for!”. Maybe it’s rumors and BS – but hey – it helps me. Can’t say I’ve had much complains about bad skin tones, except producers and directors not noticing how different skin tones can be just as they are. Some are more red, some are pale..

[Ola Haldor voll]

Whatever flavor your, mine or others skin tones are, they magically happen to appear along the same line. I don’t see anything silly about it. It’s there for guidance, to help us make better decisions.

Of course skin tones won’t be pitch perfect along that line all the time after the grade is set. Skin tones are hardly ever the same in two different lighting conditions anyway.

So if you don’t like the idea of that line, I bet BMD would be kind enough to make a button for you to switch it on or off.

[Ola Haldor voll]

I didn’t for one TV-series, I guess their technician made whatever adjustments was needed before it went on air. On another TV-series, the technician was super strict about me making sure it was broadcast safe.

I think you’ll get a better answer if you talk to the guys you’re delivering to. If they are OK with full range, fine, play in full range and deliver.

[Ola Haldor voll]

I don’t see any problem here, really. You work in normal range, you render in normal range, and you the scope is telling you exactly what you are feeding it. Normal range. 40-960 I guess.

I’d say it’s the others who have made something wrong, if they are working in normal range.

If you want it to have deeper blacks and full range like you say the other commercials are, you should be working and rendering full range too, right?

Sounds to me either you have your settings right and the other guys wrong, or vice versa, depending on what you have to deliver.

[Ola Haldor voll]

The few times I’ve had to deliver 4K was because the client insisted “it’s so freakin’ cool to have a 4K master!”

[Ola Haldor voll]

I bought mine on eBay. Expensive and slow shipping though, they didn’t want to send it over night by plane, and sent it by car. (UK to Norway)

I searched for either ‘6500K bulb’ or ‘fluorescent bulb’ or similar.