13 min read

Slating stories: 5 DITs on their experiences

Slating stories: 5 DITs on their experiences

In this article, DITs from different parts of the world share their experiences and thus shine some light on current slating practices. Sure, labeling and operating the Slate is the 2nd AC’s responsibility. However, dealing with the resulting metadata is in the hands of the DIT, who uses slate information to associate looks, camera clips, and other assets that belong to the same scene.

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14 min read

Signal ranges, clipping, and 3D LUTs

Signal ranges, clipping, and 3D LUTs

Settings for signal ranges always loom as a source of imaging issues, especially when images are converted from RGB to Y’CbCr and back for applying 3D LUTs. In this article, we want to give an overview of where these topics are relevant on set and how to make sure that signal and device configurations match.

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6 min read

Which processing power you should boost to improve copy performance

Which processing power you should boost to improve copy performance

Users often ask us for advice on the type of machine they should use to better meet particular purposes, such as facilitating fast and secure camera offloads. However, it’s impossible to make a universally valid recommendation. What we can do, though, is provide you with all the essential information you need to make a smart choice yourself. And that’s exactly what we’re going to do in this article!

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11 min read

Exposure and white balance with CDL and Log signals

Exposure and white balance with CDL and Log signals

This article wants to illustrate how you can use an ASC CDL color grade to modify an image’s exposure and white balance. The result will be an approximation only – but in fact, a pretty good one. We will try to illustrate why and how you can use that in your setup.

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6 min read

From offload to upload: How Silverstack Lab extends the connection to cloud platforms

From offload to upload: How Silverstack Lab extends the connection to cloud platforms

The ability to directly upload clips to connected cloud platforms extends Silverstack Lab’s feature set to provide a managed process from offload through to the upload of proxy clips. Thus, the previously available feature of delivering metadata to cloud platforms gets combined with the ability to make the actual clip available too. In the following, we will first look at the benefits of uploading dailies directly from within Silverstack Lab. We’ll then briefly outline the technical details before concluding with a quick look into the future.

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12 min read

HDR preview on set with Livegrade – Part 3

HDR preview on set with Livegrade – Part 3

This article is the third part of a series of articles about HDR production and resulting implications on the film set. Overall, the series covers typical use cases, presents best practices, and offers insights for setting up all required devices and systems. This third article illustrates a few tricks for dual-monitoring in HDR and SDR, talks about color grading HDR vs. SDR, and goes through a few pitfalls that can occur.

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12 min read

HDR preview on set with Livegrade – Part 2

HDR preview on set with Livegrade – Part 2

This article is the second part of a series of articles about HDR production and resulting implications on the film set. Overall, the series covers typical use cases, presents best practices, and offers insights for setting up all required devices and systems. In this second article, we will talk about all camera and monitor settings that are relevant in the context of HDR viewing. We will also illustrate how to set up and configure Livegrade and the processing devices such as LUT boxes.

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6 min read

HDR preview on set with Livegrade – Part 1

HDR preview on set with Livegrade – Part 1

This is the first part of a series of articles about HDR production and the implications on the film set. The series covers typical use cases, presents best practices, and offers insights for setting up all required devices and systems. In this first article, we want to lay the foundations by discussing a few central topics: First, we cover the motivation behind using HDR technology for on-set activities. This understanding lets us derive specific requirements and consequences for camera departments generally and the DIT cart specifically. We also provide an overview of the required equipment.

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10 min read

Order of operations for creating looks on set and color grading dailies

Order of operations for creating looks on set and color grading dailies

Pomfort products such as Livegrade Pro and Silverstack Lab come with a broad range of color grading features and share the same, flexible concept of grading nodes. In this article, we want to take a look at what you can do with these grading nodes, illustrate a few best practices for using them in real productions, and point out the consequences for the production’s color pipeline and workflow.

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3 min read

ACES and AMF with Silverstack and Livegrade

ACES and AMF with Silverstack and Livegrade

The film set is the origin of a huge part of the creative work for a film production. The camera department’s responsibility in particular is to deliver the best possible images – as close as possible to the artistic intent of the DP.

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