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The After Effects CS6 (11.0.3) update fixes several bugs, including a crash on Mac OS X (v10.9). Complete details are here.

October 3, 2013

Blackmagic Design announced that Company 3 in London has used DaVinci Resolve for color grading Ron Howard’s F1 racing biographical action film “RUSH.”

“RUSH” portrays the exhilarating true story of two of the greatest rivals the sport has ever witnessed, drivers James Hunt and Niki Lauda. Set against the sexy and glamorous golden age of F1 racing, Rush follows the two drivers as they push themselves to the breaking point of physical and psychological endurance, where there is no shortcut to victory and no margin for error.

After a catastrophic crash during the 1976 German GP at the Nürburgring, which could have killed Lauda, he returns to face rival Hunt in their pursuit of the World Championship. Anthony Dod Mantle was the film’s cinematographer and he presented Company 3’s senior colorist Adam Glasman with an intriguing challenge.

“While Rush was shot using a variety of different digital formats, Howard and Mantle also wanted to incorporate original race footage from 1976 shot on 16mm and 35mm film. Ron and Anthony felt this would help to recreate the thrilling race sequences and give Rush some real F1 production value says,” says Patrick Malone of Company 3 London.

The overall goal during the grade was to create a look that would bind both digital and archived film material together, giving Rush a seamless look throughout. “Our brief was to give the film a 70’s period feel with a modern slant. Inspiration for the colour palette came from a lot of the readily available archived 8mm, 16mm and 35mm footage of the 1976 World Championship.”

“While the traditional look associated with the period is one of desaturated, almost sepia colors, Anthony wanted to push color into the cars so they looked more bold and striking. In addition, he wanted each of the grand prix races to given their own unique feel to reflect the drama and dynamics of the ’76 championship,”

Take for example the opening scene at the Nürburgring, which is a pivotal moment. This had a very stormy, almost menacing feel to it as the film builds up to Lauda’s crash. This is a very bold sequence, which Adam achieved by adding in more saturation while being careful not to crush the information out of the image,” says Malone.

Company 3 London has also used DaVinci Resolve recently to complete the grading of Edgar Wright’s science fiction comedy “The World’s End”, Zombie epic “World War Z” and British action comedy “Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa”.

About DaVinci Resolve

Blackmagic Design’s DaVinci Resolve is the world’s highest performance on set, editing and color correction solution for Mac OS X, Windows and Linux computers. DaVinci Resolve supports more real time color correction than any other system because it’s not limited by the performance of the computer it’s running on. DaVinci Resolve eliminates this performance barrier because it’s based on a cluster of high performance GPU cards, so all processing is always real time. DaVinci Resolve has the power of a true real time performance solution so handles complex color grades even when using dozens of primaries, secondaries, Power Windows™, multi point tracking, blurs, and more. DaVinci Resolve provides incredible performance in a low cost solution which can be easily upgraded by adding extra GPUs for supercomputer power to handle 4K resolutions, stereoscopic 3D and real time grading direct from raw camera files such as ARRI RAW, RED RAW and Sony RAW files which can be handled with ease.

Press Photography

Product photos of DaVinci Resolve are available at www.blackmagicdesign.com/press/images.

About Blackmagic Design

Blackmagic Design creates the world’s highest quality video editing products, digital film cameras, color correctors, video converters, video monitoring, routers, live production switchers, disk recorders, waveform monitors and film restoration software for the feature film, post production and television broadcast industries. Blackmagic Design’s DeckLink capture cards launched a revolution in quality and affordability, while the company’s Emmy™ award winning DaVinci color correction products have dominated the television and film industry since 1984. Blackmagic Design continues ground breaking innovations including stereoscopic 3D and 4K workflows. Founded by world leading post production editors and engineers, Blackmagic Design has offices in the USA, United Kingdom, Japan, Singapore, and Australia. For more information, please check www.blackmagicdesign.com.

Autodesk released Extension 1 for 3ds Max, Maya, and Mudbox 2014, as well as Service Pack 3 for 3ds Max with several bug fixes. The Extensions are offereded free of charge to customers with current Autodesk Subscription. The Extension for Autodesk Maya 2014 software brings the XGen Arbitrary Primitive Generator for creating hair, fur, feathers, grass, foliage, and other instanced data; a new retopology toolset; new robust and efficient Boolean operations; and enhancements to the Bullet physics plug-in. The Extension for Autodesk Mudbox 2014 software enables to create topologically symmetrical meshes while retopologizing, or from an existing mesh, and a new Caliper tool that helps to accurately measure the distance between two points in linear space, or along a curve. The Extension for Autodesk 3ds Max 2014 software adds the ability to import and visualize massive point cloud datasets, new support for Python scripting, and a Stereo Camera feature set.

September 30, 2013

Blackmagic Design announced that Los Angeles based post production house Shapeshifter used Blackmagic Design’s Teranex 2D Processor and DaVinci Resolve color correction software to finish the feature length documentary “Mel Brooks: Make a Noise.”

“Mel Brooks: Make a Noise” recently aired on PBS as part of the popular American Masters series, and has quickly become one of the most talked about documentaries of 2013. The film combines celebrity interviews with archival footage to shed light on the comedy giant’s personal life, creative beginnings and legendary career.

Director Robert Trachtenburg chose to shoot the film’s interviews in 4K at 23.98 fps. This footage was then edited into a 29.97 fps (DF) project and was combined with the archival footage, taken from more than five decades of Mel Brooks in film, television and on stage, which was already 29.97 fps.

Shapeshifter colorist Randy Coonfield began color correction on the film by converting the provided 29.97 fps project back to 23.98 fps, recreating a proper link to the original footage and creating AAF files, allowing him to conform all of the 23.98 fps 4K footage in Resolve to begin color correction. He also did a large amount of zooms and pans to reframe interviews, which had been shot with this idea in mind.

“With Resolve’s ability to work with the full resolution files, zooms of 200 percent and more still looked terrific, which is amazing,” said Randy. “Our work included extensive secondary color, diffusion effects and many Power Windows to create a specific look. This required a lot of tracking as well, and Resolve handled all of it perfectly.”

After color correcting and resizing the 23.98 fps material in Resolve, the team used Blackmagic Design’s Teranex 2D Processor to perform a render process that created DNxHD media for conversion back to 29.97 fps. The new, color corrected 29.97 fps footage was then cut into the sequence, replacing the original lower resolution shots. Once the timeline had been finalized at full HD resolution, a mixdown of the entire piece was created, which was again sent to Resolve for a final color pass.

“Some of the footage needed additional work, like noise reduction, sharpening, repositioning and color,” said Randy. “A few interviews needed more color correction or different zooming, so we went back to the 23.98 fps project. But since much of the archival footage was already color corrected, this step required very little manipulation to achieve our desired result.”

For the final step, the entire 29.97 fps mixdown was sent back to the editing team, who then overcut the archival footage and any newly created footage from the camera files, adding titles and finalizing the film.

“Using both Blackmagic’s Teranex and DaVinci Resolve really streamlined the process of finishing this film,” said Randy. “We combined very different elements together, and Blackmagic helped us achieve the look we were going for, which in the end helped us truly capture the essence of the legendary Mel Brooks.”

Press Photography

Product photos of Blackmagic Design products are available at www.blackmagicdesign.com.

About Blackmagic Design

Blackmagic Design creates the world’s highest quality video editing products, digital film cameras, color correctors, video converters, video monitoring, routers, live production switchers, disk recorders, waveform monitors and film restoration software for the feature film, post production and television broadcast industries. Blackmagic Design’s DeckLink capture cards launched a revolution in quality and affordability, while the company’s Emmy™ award winning DaVinci color correction products have dominated the television and film industry since 1984. Blackmagic Design continues ground breaking innovations including stereoscopic 3D and 4K workflows. Founded by world leading post production editors and engineers, Blackmagic Design has offices in the USA, United Kingdom, Japan, Singapore, and Australia. For more information, please check www.blackmagicdesign.com.

September 25, 2013

Nimb TV, an innovative broadcast production start up in Denmark, has unveiled the country’s first, and smallest, Ultra HD OB van. The unit is built around a number of Blackmagic Design's Ultra HD products, including the ATEM Production Studio 4K and Blackmagic Audio Monitor. Uniquely housed in a three wheeler moped van, it can be positioned right at the heart of any live production.

Built with the help of AV specialist Stjernholm & Co, the OB van will be used for high quality, multi camera Ultra HD 4K production in the Danish broadcast industry, big screen events and live concerts. It has already been booked for the 'boot camp' section of the next season of Denmark’s version of The X Factor, which will use various locations across Copenhagen.

Nimb TV's live production workflow includes the ATEM Production Studio 4K, which can handle SD, HD or Ultra HD 4K video sources from up to eight of the team's own cameras, or their broadcast clients. The ATEM Production Studio 4K will be used with an ATEM 1 M/E Production Panel for hardware control.

The ATEM Production Studio 4K's 6G-SDI and HDMI 4K video connections mean Nimb TV can handle Ultra HD 4K video sources via a single cable and each input includes a frame synchronizer allowing the use of non-genlocked sources. There is also an HD down-converted HD-SDI program output for when the switcher is operating in Ultra HD formats, but a regular HD program feed is required.

The workflow also features a HyperDeck Studio Pro SSD recorder, while capture and playback is handled by Blackmagic's UltraStudio 4K. The team has also installed a Blackmagic Audio Monitor, a rack mount extremely high quality audio monitoring solution with advanced 6G-SDI video for Ultra HD video sources, to ensure high quality monitoring wherever the unit is in action.

“We had come across the Blackmagic range of products at NAB and quickly realized that they would be able to deliver huge production power at an affordable cost,” explained Niels Borup, co founder, Nimb TV. “We now have the ability to work with a huge range of customers, from independent filmmakers to national broadcasters, and can offer flexible, reliable Ultra HD 4K production, wherever they want to film.”

“Niels and Toke are a hugely proactive, passionate production team that has spotted a fantastic opportunity in the market,” said Morten Stjernholm, CEO, Stjernholm & Co. “Blackmagic's ATEM Production Studio 4K enables the team to produce content to the same high standard as you find in huge OB trucks, but the size and agility of the moped van gives Nimb a huge competitive edge. The Ultra HD 4K workflow enables the team to offer the highest quality streaming for major live events, as well as a flexible system that broadcasters can quickly plug into with their own camera choices.”

Press Photography

Product photos of ATEM Production Studio 4K, UltraStudio 4K, Audio Monitor and HyperDeck Studio Pro, are available at www.blackmagicdesign.com/press/images.

About Blackmagic Design

Blackmagic Design creates the world’s highest quality video editing products, digital film cameras, color correctors, video converters, video monitoring, routers, live production switchers, disk recorders, waveform monitors and film restoration software for the feature film, post production and television broadcast industries. Blackmagic Design’s DeckLink capture cards launched a revolution in quality and affordability, while the company’s Emmy™ award winning DaVinci color correction products have dominated the television and film industry since 1984. Blackmagic Design continues ground breaking innovations including stereoscopic 3D and 4K workflows. Founded by world leading post production editors and engineers, Blackmagic Design has offices in the USA, United Kingdom, Japan, Singapore, and Australia. For more information, please check www.blackmagicdesign.com.