Working for Blackmagic Design when they announce a free DaVinci Color corrector means only one thing, a crazy busy time for the demo artist!
I left Australia on Friday morning, arrived late into LAX but managed to charm my way through to the front of the immigration line, only to then wait 40 mins for my bag! Running between terminals at LAX seems to be as much a part of NAB as the whinging cab drivers. I missed my connection to Vegas. American Airlines put me on standby for the next flight but I couldn’t get on. Maybe I could buy another flight or drive …….. hang on, drive for 5 hours on the wrong side of the road after a 14 hour flight?? I finally got on a plane and was relieved to see I was staying right opposite the convention centre. I met with Peter Chamberlain the product manager for Resolve, he was armed with an NDA I knew then that there had to be some cool stuff in the Resolve Version 8 release.
People often ask “why would you want to work a trade show, stand up all day, talking the same stuff over and over?” The reason is I like talking to people, Colorists, editors, students, they all have a story. It is also great to hang out with guys like Peter and Rohit Gupta, DaVinci Software guru. It is like getting a super advanced training class, especially as there is now more demand then ever for ICA Resolve training.
I was joined on Saturday by fellow demo guys Charlie Ellis, Siggy Ferstil, Giles Livesey and Dan Moran to go over the new features of V8, which included the integration of the Avid Artist Control surface. Avid announced before the show that you could now buy an Avid at $995 if you already had an FCP license in a new deal called Crossover. This lead me to believe that something was going on at Apple, they had cleared the Final Cut Pro Supermeet maybe Steve Jobs was pulling out letting Bill Gates in with his new Moviemaker Pro!!
On Monday morning armed with 1000 ICA flyers I headed slightly nervously to the South Hall. My flyers featured a sexy before and after shot on the front cover that I thought was slightly risqué, was it going to be too racey for the NAB punters? The BMD booth was at the front of the South hall so we had a great view of the stampede on the first morning. I think most were running to the RED tent, but some keen Resolve users were heading our way to see what was new. No lunch break on day 1, it was very busy I had to make excuses to visitors when I needed a bottle of water as they were queuing for demos!
Things had settled down a little on Day 2 so with my lunch in one hand and coffee in the other I wanted to visit my friends at DFT. I only managed to get as far as the Digital Vision stand now branded Image Systems after a merger. Susumu and Paddy showed me the new panel and before I knew it my 30min break was up.
The demos were still coming thick and fast with no sign of a let up although I did manage to steal some extra time with industry friends Craig Leffel, Tom Rovak , Eric Whipp and Joaquim Zell.
Tuesday night meant pool side drinks with FXPHD, great to catch up with those guys, and meet some of my PHD students for the first time. I also managed to get to the Media Village NAB dinner a chance to meet with some of my Asian clients and colleagues.
On Tuesday night FCPX was announced at the FCP users group meeting. Completely new, has internal Color correction so could this be the end of Apple Color?
Day 3 and I set out from the booth lunch in hand again, this time I was spotted by Mark Woolford who invited me into the Filmlight tent, there was no doubt Baselight had the sexeist control surface at the show. The same size as the Blackboard it is now finished in a dark wood. Every button is now mapable and is its own tiny TV screen. At the start of the demo every button was animating a different movie sequence. The Baselight Plugin for FCP looked impressive. It looks just like a “mini Baselight” GUI allowing the Colorist to grade then export the metadata to a “big Baselight” for finishing.
Day 4 and I finally get to see my mates at DFT. Great to see the Scanity at the show, they had just sold the machine to Paul Korver at Cinelicious in LA. I wanted to get a demo of their new playout product Flexxity but never got back to their booth. Mystika seemed to have the 3D buzz this year, would love to sit down and get some hands on. Steve Shaw informed me there are 8 systems on the Hobbit so they must be doing something right.
Meanwhile back at the BMD booth I was demonstrating Version 8 featuring lots of new stuff, multi layer timeline, XML and AAF support, hue curves, noise reduction and image stabilizations. The Avid Artist formally Euphonix is now supported on Resolve along with the JL Cooper Eclipse. After trying the 3 lower priced panels I still like the Wave. Although larger than the “Artist” I like the larger buttons and feel of the Joy balls. I kept bumping the Joyballs on the “Artist” whilst reaching for the buttons. It will be seriously cut down but will not be watermarked and will give everybody a taste of the software. The new features have caused a delay in my Resolve online classes, I am now doing a re write of the classes, which will coincide with the July release of the V8 and the free version Resolve Lite.
Wow what a show, 125 demos, 3 million words and 40 bottles of water later my work was done. BTW the 1000 flyers all went and got a big thumbs up.
Coors Lite anyone?
