Taking a page from Apple, Avid, Adobe, RED and others, the folks over at Blackmagic Design have launched their own Internet forum. Point your browser to forum.blackmagicdesign.com, complete a registration and you, too, can join in the discussion of all things BMD. Current topics are rather general and include "general" subjects like Cinematography, Post Production, and Live Production. There are also Platform Specific areas for Mac OS X, Windows and Linux. Blackmagic already has some very active forums on Creative Cow but it's certainly not unusual for product manufacturers to host their own forums as well. With the introduction of so many new creative tools, it's only natural that Blackmagic would want to have its own place for customers to discuss them. I would suspect that BMD will take Adobe and Avid's lead and have their own experts being active in the forums. That can add some great value to the overall experience.
The forum launch also makes a number of RAW CinemaDNG shots available for download from the highly anticipated Blackmagic Cinema Camera, and encourages forum users to give the RAW files a grade and post their results back online. The files where captured as part of shoot called "Afterglow." The finished piece by John Brawley, at top, is online at Vimeo. This surprise NAB 2012 camera introduction hasn't shipped yet but should be getting closer. The shots in the forum were captured "with a shipping version of the camera, though it's likely that the software will have been updated by the time many of you get your cameras." That sounds like it is getting much closer.
Some early posted grades are certainly encouraging. Most were likely colored in DaVinci Resolve, but other grading software was also used. One user, in fact, says, "I still can't belive that I am looking at a frame of video…. It really felt just like grading a RAW still from my DSLR!" The grades range from simple to extreme, though it really is hard to tell a whole heck of a lot about what you can get out of a camera from looking at a bunch of web JPEGs. If you're so inclined, download the files yourself and give them a try.
Here are the frame size specs for the files:
You don't have to use Resolve if you want to try a grade but you do have to use something that supports CinemaDNG.
Our new colorist Jimmy did just that, using a Baselight, and came up with a very nice look:
