I've finally caught hold of some raw files of the film we've shot and started developing a preliminary grade.
And here's the thing; Alexa ARRIRAW format is mathematically the purest raw video format out there. So far, during the editing process, I've been working with proxy files which were looking OK, but I constantly assumed I'd have a lot of work in post production to really bring out colours and the interplay of light and darkness in the candlelit environment of the film.
And now that I've started exploring the colour of the raw files, I can see that the present colours, after applying colour space transform, are amazing even without any grading applied.
Now, I'm sure I'll still have plenty of work matching exposure of different shots, but when it comes to artistic impact of these, it's already there. I think my main task for handling postproduction would be not to mess it up by applying too much grading. Which is admittedly the best problem to have.
In the video linked above I've overlaid the proxy footage against the raw footage with CST applied. I like it, because it shows something interesting: the proxy, limiting the colour range of the video, shows quite clearly the layers in darkness of the video. In the debayered raw file the layers are still there, but almost imperceptible; you can feel the three-dimensional depth of darkness, but not really put a finger on it.
In other news, I've discovered recently, thanks to What is this bug subreddit, that small worm-like fellas who have recently been invading my house are in fact miniature snakes---specifically, Brahminy blind snakes. Originating in South Asia, these guys (gals actually; in this species males are virtually nonexistent) they invaded half of the world migrating literally in flowerpots.
Cute girl; in the video you can see her eyes and, through the slightly translucent skin illuminated by the light on the back, her beating heart.
On Shopify App Store, last week has witnessed 614 new apps and total of 8,498 new reviews across all 21,000 published apps. The reviews are wildly unsymmetrical. The absolute beast of the App Store, Judge.me review app, has received almost 500 new reviews, with average of 4.94 rating. It doesn't seem like anyone is going to catch up to them anytime soon. Loox, their nearest competitor, is still in the most reviewed app last week, on ninth place with 100 reviews and average rating of 4.93.
Any surprises here? Kaching Bundles has received almost 150 reviews with average of 4.95. I never heard of this app before.
EU Withdrawal Button & Form is one (!) review ahead of Loox, with 101 reviews, and average of 4.97. Printify has gained respectable 103 reviews, but with average rating of 4.71.
Moon Bundles Cart Drawer & Upsell were on a replying spree, and replied to almost thirty reviews. Some replies came pretty late, even 80 days after a review, but here's the thing---unlike 90% of replies to the reviews on the Shopify App Store, the replies were actually customized per message and nice to read, not cookie-cutter responses. Kudos Team Moon!
Kaching Bundles App & Upsells on the other hand had 30 or so positive reviews deleted, some pretty old, which must've hurt.