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BITS & PIECES www.postmagazine.com 5 POST SEPT/OCT 2020 COLOR INTELLIGENCE COMBINES AI WITH GRADING LOS ANGELES — Hollywood-based startup Color Intelligence has un- veiled Colourlab Ai (https://colourlab.ai), a new color grading system designed to dramatically improve the process of color correction thanks to Artificial Intelligence. Founded by color scientist Dado Valentic, and industry veterans Mark L. Pederson and Steve Bayes, Color Intelligence is a high-end image processing consultancy that has worked with Warner Bros., HBO, Netflix, NBC Universal and CBS on advanced HDR color pipelines. They also provide specialized color grading plug-ins for look design and creation. After more than three years in development, Color Intelligence will now offer access to its AI technology for the first time. The release will ship in October, but the company is offering 500 applicants an oppor- tunity to participate in the Colourlab Ai Factory Driver program, which will provide early adopters with access to the software. These early adopters will be able to test the solution, as well as contribute feedback and request features for the color grading application before the public release in early October. Using advanced AI models trained for cinematic content, Colourlab Ai makes it simple to automatically color match footage from a graded clip or reference image. The tool can instantly match scenes across an edited timeline or match hours of dailies, saving considerable time. By leverag- ing AI to eliminate the manual and tedious aspects of the color grading process, Colourlab Ai empowers filmmakers and colorists to focus more on the creative part of their job. "When you have masses of material to color match, it can consume all your time and energy, so that when it comes to the craft grade, you're al- ready maxed out," Valentic explains. "Colourlab Ai analyzes the composi- tion of the shot to describe the color characteristics of footage — wheth- er it's a close-up shot, an exterior shot, daylight or nighttime, etc. The AI 'understands' how humans see, and it uses human perceptual transforms that are vastly more accurate than standard algorithmic methods." Rather than rendering color into a timeline, Colourlab Ai presents the AI-generated adjustments in the form of non-destructive metadata settings, as industry-standard, familiar controls of ASC CDLs, lift gamma gain or even printer lights. This approach allows colorists, cinematogra- phers and content creators to continue making subjective and creative adjustments throughout the post production process. "Achieving a high-end result in color grading is extremely challeng- ing for many content creators as they lack the resources of Hollywood productions and access to the most talented colorists in the industry," notes Mark L. Pederson, COO of Color Intelligence. "Colourlab Ai flips the grading process on its head by essentially removing the manual part, which requires extreme skill and technical expertise, and puts the focus purely on the creative," Steve Bayes, former Avid designer and Apple Pro Video Product Manager responsible for Avid Symphony, Final Cut Pro and FCP X, pro- vided angel investment for the development of Colourlab Ai and came aboard as a company advisor earlier this year. "This software has the potential to save filmmakers hours or even days of work, with the ability, in one instance, to process and color match 24 hours of dailies in less than 15 minutes," says Bayes. "We can deliver con- sistent high-quality results across all shots. No preset is ever going to be able to do that — and that is the genius of Colourlab Ai." Applicants can immediate access the beta builds of the software be- fore the public release of Colourlab Ai, with a full annual license for only $99 — the eventual monthly subscription price. CSSMUSIC.com Simply The Best! ROYALTY FREE MUSIC 100 PRE-PAID DOWNLOADS $ 199 800-468-6874 Post-CSS-5-2020.qrk_Layout 1 4/30/20 10:15 AM Page 1