--
DaVinci Resolve used to grade new Ridley Scott film --
Mon, 19 Jan 2015 09:52
--
DaVinci Resolve, created by Blackmagic Design, was used at Deluxe Creative Services Company 3 by colourist Stephen Nakamura to grade 20th Century Fox s Exodus: Gods and Kings. The film is directed by Ridley Scott and tells the story of Moses (Christian Bale) as he rises up against the Egyptian Pharaoh Ramses (Joel Edgerton), setting 400,000 slaves on a monumental journey of escape from Egypt and its terrifying cycle of deadly plagues.
The film brings together state of the art visual effects and 3D cinematography by Dariusz Wolski. In mastering the images separately for 2D and 3D display formats, Nakamura had to always keep in mind the different display characteristics of the two formats in terms of the amount of light that bounced off the screen in areas of the brightest highlights. While the standard for 2D projection is 14 foot lambert (fL), most 3D projection is 3.5 fL, producing a significantly dimmer highlight and much less contrast between the brightest and the darkest imagery that can be displayed.
When youre working at 3.5 fL, you need to globally pull everything up to get the midtones and shadows feeling like theyre in the right place to look as much as possible like the 2D version, Nakamura explained. But when you do whats necessary to get the midtones and shadows in the right place you can start to clip the highlights. So then you need to isolate those areas of the frame that clip and pull them back down. This can be a time consuming process where you draw Power Windows and build highlight keys or other tools to isolate the highlights and manipulate them without affecting the midtones and shadows. But using the Highlight and Shadows tool on DaVinci Resolve 11 s Colour Match Pallet, he was able to bring those highlights into the necessary range for 3.5 fL display without having to create the elaborate secondaries he previously needed.
A lot of Exodus was designed to be really desaturated, with a lot of cold tones in the colour that was there. It was something I could apply over the whole image, the colourist said, but there were some portions where colour, especially the red in blood, was very important to the story.
You really want to see the colour of the blood, he noted, but once youve pulled the colour out of the image, you cant just key portions of the frame where theres blood and pull the colour back up, he added, explaining that he used DaVinci Resolves parallel node function to solve the problem. I created the desaturation in one node, then keyed the blood in the next node, and then used the parallel node to bypass all the desaturation and colour shifts toward blue specifically within the keyed portion of the frame, where the red blood was. Then I could dial that correction up or down until I found where it brought out the colour in the blood without looking artificial within the context of the whole shot.
Nakamura also fine-tuned colour for some of the day for night sequences by bringing the whole look down, pulling some of the colour out and making everything a little blue to indicate moonlight. He used highlight keys to bring the sky down, along with a combination of Power Windows and tracking to bring people, especially faces, slightly up.
Related Articles
Blackmagic Cameras used to shoot sugar documentaryThat Sugar Film was shot using the Blackmagic Cinema Camera and Production Camera 4K...
Read more...
Blackmagic Design URSA update includes 80 fps 4K recording Blackmagic Design has released a major software update developed in conjunction with high-end cinematographers...
Read more...
Blackmagic Design to demonstrate its 4K workflows At IBC 2014 Blackmagic Design will be demonstrating the latest in Ultra HD 4K workflows and content production for the broadcast and live production markets...
Read more...
Venturing into another worldSanta Monica-based Company 3 used Blackmagic Design s DaVinci Resolve for colour grading for four different versions of 20th Century Fox s 3D movie, Prometheus. Director Ridley Scott chose...
Read more...
Technicolor s first 4k DIThe recently released Hollywood blockbuster Spider-Man 3 is the first film to have gone through Technicolor s 4k Digital Intermediate (DI) process. The Hollywood Reporter s Carolyn Giardina writes that the process was expedited at the company s DI facility on the Sony Studios lot in Culver City.
Read more...
-- --
-- --
-- Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus. comments powered by Disqus
Most recent headlines
09/11/2025
Dalet today announced a transformative leap forward for media operations: Agentic Artificial Intelligence (AI) that unifies the Dalet ecosystem under one natura...
20/10/2025
Inside TAMS: How Time-Addressable Media Stores could redefine sports workflows By Paul Markham
Friday, October 17, 2025 - 08:57
Print This Story
A penalty...
20/10/2025
Transformational production: Inside TVN's remote production push for the DFL...
20/10/2025
How NBC Sports Transitioned Stamford Facility to One Format: 1080p HDRMulti-year plan harmonizes workflows, simplifies operationsBy Ken Kerschbaumer, Editorial ...
20/10/2025
NBA on NBC' Studio Production Team Is Ready for Tip-Off With Coast-to-Coast...
20/10/2025
Under pressure: TVN CEO Markus Osthaus considers the German sports broadcasting ...
20/10/2025
(L-R) Maria Dizzia, Carmen Emmi, and Russell Tovey attend the Plainclothes pre...
20/10/2025
In March, we launched Concerts Near You to help listeners find concerts from their favorite artists. Since then, more than 3 million people have used it to disc...
20/10/2025
Em diversas cidades do Brasil, um movimento tem se fortalecido para celebrar o poder, a beleza e a profundidade da criatividade negra. O Dia AMPLIFIKA, agora em...
20/10/2025
In cities across Brazil, a movement is growing that celebrates the power, beauty, and depth of Black creativity. AMPLIFIKA Day, now in its fifth edition, return...
20/10/2025
Airborne Early Warning and Control aircraft rendering...
20/10/2025
DENVER and MUNICH Imagine Communications today announced its plans to acquire Pixel Power Ltd., a wholly owned subsidiary of Rohde & Schwarz. Financial terms of...
20/10/2025
LOS ANGELES G Morgan has joined Globecast, a provider of broadcast, media and entertainment managed services, as executive vice president of sales, Globecast Am...
20/10/2025
PLYMOUTH, Wisc. Heartland Video Systems and Zixi have partnered to enable broadcast-quality live video delivery over any IP network....
20/10/2025
A. R. Rahman on Facing Fear and Finding the Divine In an interview with Berklee President Jim Lucchese, the Oscar-winning composer reflects on how courage and...
20/10/2025
Monday 20 October 2025
To view this content, please enable our use of cookies. ...
20/10/2025
Rohde & Schwarz transfers Pixel Power to Imagine Communications Companies work collaboratively to ensure continuity and ongoing support for existing customers...
20/10/2025
RT 's Prime Time is set to host the final Presidential Election Debate this Tuesday night, October 21, providing an opportunity to hear directly from Irelan...
20/10/2025
NVIDIA and Google Cloud are expanding access to accelerated computing to transform the full spectrum of enterprise workloads, from visual computing to agentic a...
19/10/2025
Back to All News
Sins of Kujo' Comes to Life in New Live-Action Series Set for Spring 2026
Entertainment
19 October 2025
GlobalJapan
Link copied to cl...
18/10/2025
New England Sports Network (NESN) has chosen Harmonic, working with Astound Business Solutions, as its enterprise technology partner to transform primary distri...
18/10/2025
NEW ORLEANS, La. In the run-up to the start of the NBA season, WVUE-TV and Gray Local Media have announced a deal with DirecTV that will greatly expand access t...
18/10/2025
Berklee Celebrates 40 Years of the Fall Together Concert Faculty composers Bob Pilkington and Greg Hopkins are among the featured artists for this year's ...
17/10/2025
NEP Group Receives New Equity Investment From 26North Partners LP, Co-InvestorsCarlyle remains the largest shareholder as the company prepares for the futureBy ...
17/10/2025
Apple Lands Five-Year Deal for F1 Distribution in the U.S.Besides airing on Apple TV, the sport will be amplified on other Apple servicesBy Ken Kerschbaumer, Ed...
17/10/2025
SVG Sit-Down: Marshall Electronics' Bernie Keach on the Future of PTZ Camera...
17/10/2025
L2 Productions' REMI Facility in Austin Can Produce Content From AnywhereMusic festivals, sports events are produced via flypacks and remote control roomsBy...
17/10/2025
By Lucy Spicer
One of the most exciting things about the Sundance Film Festival...
17/10/2025
(L-R) Christopher Meyer, Addison Timlin, Cooper Raiff, Lili Reinhart, Alyah Chan...
17/10/2025
M sica e arte se uniram em uma noite especial na semana passada na ZIV Gallery, ...
17/10/2025
Music and art came together for one special night last week at ZIV Gallery, an i...
17/10/2025
Spotify and FC Barcelona are extending our partnership through 2030, continuing a collaboration that's redefining how fans, players, and artists connect. Th...
17/10/2025
MURRIETA, Calif. The Sports Fishing Championship (SFC) has deployed DigitalGlue's creative.space storage platform to streamline video production by centrali...
17/10/2025
BELLEVUE, Wash. Football continued to cement its reputation as a bulwark of TV advertising in Q3 2025 with new data from iSpot that showed both the NFL and coll...
17/10/2025
The Sports Fishing Championship (SFC), the premier competitive saltwater fishing series, has transformed its production workflow by adopting creative.space, the...
17/10/2025
QuickLink, a leading provider of award-winning multi-camera video productions and remote contribution solutions, announces the release of StudioPro Version 4, ...
17/10/2025
Although the annual Grammy Awards celebration is best known for recognizing achievements in the recording industry, the show often proves a visual spectacle as ...
17/10/2025
OpenDrives, Inc., a leading provider of software-defined data storage and data services, has promoted Alex Dunfey to Chief Technology Officer (CTO) from his for...
17/10/2025
The University of Arizona (UofA) has significantly upgraded its broadcast communication infrastructure with the integration of Riedel Communications' advanc...
17/10/2025
Harmonic (NASDAQ: HLIT) today announced that New England Sports Network (NESN), owned by Fenway Sports Group and Delaware North, has selected Harmonic as its en...
17/10/2025
Austin PBS has recently upgraded its facility-wide communications infrastructure, deploying Clear-Com 's Eclipse HX, FreeSpeak II beltpacks, and V-Series ...
17/10/2025
ZEISS announces an open call for the closed BETA testing phase of CinCraft Virtual Lens Technology, the innovative digital tool that brings authentic lens chara...
17/10/2025
Situated in the town of Kokkola, Centria University of Applied Sciences offers higher education across five core fields: engineering, business, social and healt...
17/10/2025
Public information channel in Georgia, USA, to implement a powerful, simple, and cost-effective playout automation platform.
Pebble, the leading automation, co...
17/10/2025
HBO Max is reporting that it has launched in 15 new markets, including Bangladesh, Cambodia, Macau, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Ukraine, boosting the streaming serv...
17/10/2025
Netflix said it will make a major push into video podcasts, inking a wide-ranging deal with Spotify through which it will offer 16 podcasts in the U.S. starting...
17/10/2025
Lexington, Ky. As part of a push to highlight its advanced advertising capabilities, Viamedia has launched a new AI-powered ad tech platform and officially rebr...
17/10/2025
NEW YORK QuickLink has announced the release of StudioPro Version 4, which the company is calling the most significant upgrade yet to its flagship video product...
17/10/2025
NEW YORK and CUPERTINO, Calif. Apple and NBCUniversal said they will sell Apple TV and Peacock streaming bundles to U.S. subscribers starting Oct. 20....
-- 
