Hello, everyone!
I’m happy to announce that we’ve launched our new color correction reel today, and we’d love for you to take a look!
It’s also up on Vimeo & Youtube — basically everywhere that videos can be seen on the internet.
So what are you waiting for? Watch it, tell us what you think, and come to Endless Picnic for your next feature, short, or commercial!Tweet
Lately there’s been something different about the Endless Picnic office…could it be all those cardboard monitor boxes, both big and small, piled high ’round the room? Sure it is! Pesky as they might be, they’re signs that changes are afoot here at HQ, and I’m here to tell you what new field monitors we’ve been testing for our 5D rigs, as well as run down the pros and cons of each.
Now keep in mind that we’re not gonna bog you down with pages n’ pages of tech specs (that’s not our bag, so we’ll leave it to others to fill you in on every last transistor and pixel) but we will serve up some pragmatic notes on how some of the newest HDSLR monitoring solutions stack up in real world situations. Ready?
The contestants today–dig the links to the manufacturers, if you please–are as follows:
Marshall V-LCD70XP-HDMI 7″
Marshall V-LCD50-HDMI 5″
smallHD DP6 HDMI 5.6″
These three monitors all have a few things in common: (More …)Tweet
Hey everyone, this is Alex Ricciardi, the editor & colorist here at Endless Picnic, and I wanted to share with you a trailer I cut & graded (along with the eyes of our Cinematographer, David Cavallo, who also shot the piece).
It’s for an independent TV pilot called Superdrunk. It’s from 2009, but once we got our swanky HP Dreamcolor monitor, we decided to redo the grade to really make the footage pop.
It was shot on a Panasonic DVX100B–yes, that’s miniDV, folks!–with a Letus Extreme adapter and some old-school Nikon lenses. We kept the colors punchy & warm, and since it’s a “comedy” about four miserable young men who get high and fight crime, we (with the guidance of the director, Adam Goodman) gave it a grungy “feel-bad” look that we’re real proud of.Tweet
A frame grab from Aufgang's Dulceria video
We’re thrilled to have our full website and Manhattan office in order, our handpicked Canon 5D MKII package ready to roll (out the door, that is, in its custom designed cases* that our chief tech took three weeks to design) the color correction/edit suite calibrated, the water cooler bubbling quietly every so often…
And even in our infancy, our gear–and feisty in-house crew–has already been a part of a few neat projects: a promo piece for a certain eminently respected indie-film network, as well as a music video for the beloved underground French techno band Aufgang inspired by the legendary cult film “Over the Edge.” (That’s what we mean when we say “field-tested”!)
So…what does all this mean to you? (More …)
David Cavallo 3:11 pm on August 21, 2011 Permalink
Hey folks, just wanted to add a few important updates to this review. (Sorry for the delay, but things have been super busy at Endless Picnic!)
• A few months ago we upgraded one of our Marshall V-LCD70XP-HDMI monitors. The factory installed update added an HDMI loop-through feature, which eliminates the tremendous headache of using an HDMI splitter when working with multiple monitors or an EVF, as well as a DSLR ratio adjustment feature, which, like the smallHD DP6, allows the unit to display a full screen image while you’re recording with a DSLR. These features work wonderfully in the field and the studio, and have really improved an already excellent unit.
In addition to making the upgrade available for older units, Marshall sells a new model with these features:
http://www.lcdracks.com/monitors/model/V-LCD70XP-HDMIPT.php
• Additionally, I thought I should add that the smaller MARSHALL V-LCD50-HDMI has proven to be somewhat erratic in the field as far as color reproduction and image quality are concerned. Under certain circumstances–with tungsten lights for a night interior, for example–I had a terrible time getting a strange golden cast out of the image–no matter what white balance settings I used. (This cast was absolutely not there on the 5D’s LCD screen.) I recently recailbrated the unit with Alex, our colorist, and it looked solid enough in our office, but I’ll confess that my confidence in using the unit to gauge color is a bit shaken, despite my initial impressions. It’s still great for black and white
shooting, though!
• Recently, word came through the rental house grapevine that Small HD had updated the firmware for the DP6-HDMI. Being the objective, higher truth seekin’ types that we are here at Endless Picnic, we borrowed a unit and installed the latest version. Unfortunately, after another good hour of attempting to calibrate it, we found that the same picture issues still existed as in our original review. As such, we still stand behind our original review of the unit’s image quality and color reproduction.