Toolbox

The documentary Bad Like Brooklyn Dancehall, which recently premiered at the Tribeca Festival, used Blackmagic Design’s DaVinci Resolve Studio for editing, grading and visual effects (VFX). Director Ben DiGiacomo credits the software’s end to end approach to postproduction with his ability to be more intentional and meet tight deadlines without sacrificing creativity for the film.

Bad Like Brooklyn Dancehall celebrates the Jamaican dancehall scene that reverberated across Brooklyn in the 1980s and 1990s and how its music and cultural impact are still influencing today’s younger generation. The documentary is executive produced by Grammy-winning singer and songwriter Shaggy and features notable artists such as Sean Paul, Ding Dong and more.

DiGiacomo noted that the film celebrates a culture that has been long overdue for acknowledgment despite having a major impact on pop culture. It needed to incorporate historical archival footage spanning decades and be just as vibrant and entertaining as dancehall culture is in real life.

“To properly do that, I needed time, but there’s always a rush toward picture lock, so the film can be handed off to color and to mix,” DiGiacomo explained. “Using Resolve as an end to end post solution from the beginning was a luxury for us, as we were able to have access to our entire film at any moment and constantly evolve all elements of the project artistically. Without that flexibility, I don’t think it would have come out as the intentional piece that it is.”

As editor, colorist and VFX artist on the project, DiGiacomo wanted to get in the edit room early, especially as documentaries require a lot of long takes. “After processing dailies, I made all my selects while the shoot was still fresh in my memory. I based my editing decisions on color, and I needed a quick way to match exposure and white balance while making selects, especially for the documentary’s uncontrolled environments. Having all those balanced selects ready to go allowed me to stay focused on editing without being visually distracted,” he said.

“I found Resolve’s cut page very helpful when making selects,” DiGiacomo added. “Sometimes we really focus on a single clip and having a clean UI gives that feeling of special attention. I also don’t think I could log without the source tape viewer anymore. It’s very simple but immediately gives you a good sense of all the material you’re working with.”

DiGiacomo also relied heavily on DaVinci Resolve Studio’s grouping framework and render caching abilities during editing. “Node groups, clip filters and shared nodes are a huge help in the editing process for feature length projects. I always create tons of smart filters that allow me to watch it down in different contexts, for example watching all the archival clips back to back. It’s a great way to have a bird’s eye view of the project,” he explained. “I also love how the render cache pipeline works, since I oftentimes move back and forth between the pages while editing.”

He further shared, “Using adjustment clips really speeds up the editing process while trying different things out like reframing, effects, looks, dynamic zooms or all of that combined. I can quickly see how a shot would feel without having to touch the inspector. It’s fun with VFX, and I then drop them in a power bin to keep them handy.”

While DiGiacomo regularly turns to DaVinci Resolve Studio’s Fusion page for his commercial work, he dove even deeper into the VFX tools for Bad Like Brooklyn Dancehall. “Our entire intro credit sequence was built in Fusion using a large amount of Resolve FX, such as lens distortion, lens blur, lens reflections, color compressor, watercolor, and film grain,” he said.

“I also used character level styling to build all the title animations in Fusion, but on separate clips. When I originally built the template, I pushed some of the Fusion node parameters, like text and position, through with user controls, so I was able to change the names and positions from the edit page directly, which is quite efficient when constantly moving and editing dozens of titles,” he continued. “Like DaVinci Resolve, Fusion’s power comes from taking a comprehensive approach, just with compositing, 3D and motion graphics; it really brings them together.”

DiGiacomo, who has a background in music, noted that sound is particularly important to him. “I put a lot of work into sound while editing so having a dedicated Fairlight audio page in Resolve with filmmakers in mind is a big asset. Sound needs special attention, and it’s hard to achieve this level of finesse with any other NLE,” he said.

“Documentaries can be challenging to grade due to the uncontrolled environments. Exposure and temperature will shift, and DaVinci Resolve’s color stabilizer and color warper helped fix these issues without needing complex keyframing,” said DiGiacomo. “Additionally, archival footage usually has damage that time has done to the film or tape. Resolve’s analog damage allowed me to match these subtle but very characteristic details quite easily with just a few adjustments.”

DiGiacomo concluded, “I’m quite picky about how I want things to feel and look. Even deep into color I might want to tweak a cut or a lower third, or a cold sound effect might influence how warm I’d like to push the look of a shot, and vice versa. I like all these decisions to be evolving together to create the perfect emotion, and DaVinci Resolve gave me that flexibility for Bad Like Brooklyn Dancehall.”

RED Digital Cinema® revealed its KOMODO-X camera, the newest addition to RED’s popular KOMODO line of small form-factor 6K global shutter sensor cameras for cinema. KOMODO-X builds on the original KOMODO, multiplying frame rates and advancing dynamic range performance while expanding on the versatility of KOMODO.

KOMODO-X features a next-generation 6K S35 Global Shutter sensor, expanding on the KOMODO image performance with architecture improvements that allow for increased low-light performance and double the frame rates at 6K 80P and 4K 120P, making KOMODO-X an even more powerful tool for filmmakers across the industry. 

KOMODO-X is currently being offered in a limited-edition white ST beta version for $9,995. The black production version of KOMODO-X will be available to order at the same price shortly after the ST beta program ends. The black production version of KOMODO-X will be sold with options for a pre-bundled starter pack or production pack. 

The KOMODO-X features improvements to seamlessly integrate into any professional workflow while still maintaining the legacy of the small KOMODO form factor at only 4”x4”x5” and 2.62 lbs. The new I/O array features 12G SDI, full-sized DC-IN, USB Type-C, and a phantom powered locking audio connector. In addition, an integrated 2.9” LCD allows for simplified control and image preview, and for even more precise monitoring, KOMODO-X also supports the direct-mounted DSMC3 7” Touch LCD. 

RED president Jarred Land said, “With its global shutter, increased frame rates and improved audio and power infrastructure, the KOMODO-X is our new all-around workhorse that fills a much-needed gap in our lineup between the 6K KOMODO and our mighty 8K V-RAPTOR.”

The European Union is pushing online platforms like Google and Meta to step up the fight against false information by adding labels to text, photos and other content generated by artificial intelligence, a top official said Monday.

EU Commission Vice President Vera Jourova said the ability of a new generation of AI chatbots to create complex content and visuals in seconds raises "fresh challenges for the fight against disinformation."

Jourova said she asked Google, Meta, Microsoft, TikTok and other tech companies that have signed up to the 27-nation bloc's voluntary agreement on combating disinformation to dedicate efforts to tackling the AI problem.

Online platforms that have integrated generative AI into their services, such as Microsoft's Bing search engine and Google's Bard chatbot, should build safeguards to prevent "malicious actors" from generating disinformation, Jourova said at a briefing in Brussels.

Companies offering services that have the potential to spread AI-generated disinformation should roll out technology to "recognize such content and clearly label this to users," she said.

Jourova said EU regulations are aimed at protecting free speech, but when it comes to AI, "I don't see any right for the machines to have the freedom of speech."

The swift rise of generative AI technology, which has the capability to produce human-like text, images and video, has amazed many and alarmed others with its potential to transform many aspects of daily life. Europe has taken a lead role in the global movement to regulate artificial intelligence with its AI Act, but the legislation still needs final approval and won't take effect for several years.

Officials in the EU, which is bringing in a separate set of rules this year to safeguard people from harmful online content, are worried that they need to act faster to keep up with the rapid development of generative artificial intelligence.

The voluntary commitments in the disinformation code will soon become legal obligations under the EU's Digital Services Act, which will force the biggest tech companies by the end of August to better police their platforms to protect users from hate speech, disinformation and other harmful material.

Jourova said, however, that those companies should start labeling AI-generated content immediately.

Most of those digital giants are already signed up to the EU code, which requires companies to measure their work on combating disinformation and issue regular reports on their progress.

Twitter dropped out last month in what appeared to be the latest move by Elon Musk to loosen restrictions at the social media company after he bought it last year.

The exit drew a stern rebuke, with Jourova calling it a mistake.

"Twitter has chosen the hard way. They chose confrontation," she said. "Make no mistake, by leaving the code, Twitter has attracted a lot of attention and its actions and compliance with EU law will be scrutinized vigorously and urgently."

Shares of Nvidia, already one of the world's most valuable companies, skyrocketed Thursday after the chipmaker forecast a huge jump in revenue, signaling how vastly the broadening use of artificial intelligence could reshape the tech sector.

The California company is close to joining the exclusive club of $1 trillion companies like Alphabet, Apple and Microsoft, after shares jumped 25% in early trading.

Late Wednesday the maker of graphics chips for gaming and artificial intelligence reported a quarterly profit of more than $2 billion and revenue of $7 billion, both exceeding Wall Street expectations.

Yet its projections for sales of $11 billion this quarter is what caught Wall Street off guard. It's a 64% jump from last year during the same period, and well above the $7.2 billion industry analysts were forecasting.

"It looks like the new gold rush is upon us, and NVIDIA is selling all the picks and shovels," Susquehanna Financial Group's Christopher Rolland and Matt Myers wrote Thursday.

Chipmakers around the globe were pulled along. Shares of Taiwan Semiconductor rose 3.5%, while South Korea's SK Hynix gained 5%. ASML based in the Netherlands added 4.8%.

Nvidia founder and CEO of Jensen Huang said the world's data centers are in need of a makeover given the transformation that will come with AI technology.

"The world's $1 trillion data center is nearly populated entirely by (central processing units) today," Huang said. "And $1 trillion, $250 billion a year, it's growing of course but over the last four years, call it $1 trillion worth of infrastructure installed, and it's all completely based on CPUs and dumb NICs. It's basically unaccelerated."

AI chips are designed to perform artificial intelligence tasks faster and more efficently. While general-purpose chips like CPUs can also be used for simpler AI tasks, they're "becoming less and less useful as AI advances," a 2020 report from Georgetown University's Center for Security and Emerging Technology notes.

"Because of their unique features, AI chips are tens or even thousands of times faster and more efficient than CPUs for training and inference of AI algorithms," the report adds, noting that AI chips can also be more cost-effective than CPUs due to their greater efficiency.

Analysts say Nvidia could be an early look at how AI may reshape the tech sector.

"Last night Nvidia gave jaw dropping robust guidance that will be heard around the world and shows the historical demand for AI happening now in the enterprise and consumer landscape," Wedbush's Dan Ives wrote. "For any investor calling this an AI bubble... we would point them to this Nvidia quarter and especially guidance which cements our bullish thesis around AI and speaks to the 4th Industrial Revolution now on the doorstep with AI."