Creating a movie as dark and dreary as its storyline takes the right type of equipment.

The last thing a filmmaker wants to have is a viewer walk away with happy thoughts, after watching a film about a convicted murderer’s last meal. The coloring and background imagery can’t always be sunshine and daisies. The look of the film has to tell as much of the story as the acting does, which is why the makers of “Old Oak” went to colorist Robbie Carman.

Robbie Carman approaches the craft of color grading with the attitude of a problem solver. “Impossible” is not a part of the longtime colorist’s vocabulary. In fact, now that the co-owner of Amigo Media is using Blackmagic Design’s DaVinci Resolve for Mac 7.1 and the DaVinci Resolve Control Surface, Robbie has discovered a solution for every problem.

He enlisted the 7.1 version of Resolve for Mac OS X to work on one of his most challenging projects to date, a film called “Old Oak”. It tells the story of a convicted murderer’s last meal at a small town diner—his dying wish—before facing execution. Filmmaker Kevin M. Jones was going for a dark, yet super stylized look, hop-ing to accurately portray Mississippi in the late 1950’s. It was Robbie’s job to make the visual even grimmer than the storyline.

Robbie worked closely with Kevin to develop the look for “Old Oak”, and knew he had his work cut out for him early on. He explained, “We tested a number of systems, including Apple Color, but ultimately decided on DaVinci Resolve for Mac. It was Resolve that enabled us to push the limits of both hardware and creativity, proving it was the right choice for a collaborative project like this.”

Kevin and Robbie took advantage of Resolve for Mac’s real time performance to make changes on the fly. Made possible by a combination of the Resolve and GPU expansion—a Cubix Expander, NVIDIA GTX 285 graphics cards, and a RED Rocket card—it afforded them the luxury of indecision.

With the Resolve software, Robbie had the ability to make and save grades, then quickly access multiple versions of the same shot. They could change their minds without losing work, and see the vision in their heads come to life almost immediately on the screen. And by having access to saved stills that contained different grades, Robbie could be sure he was giving Kevin exactly what he wanted.

This setup also granted him the ability to conform footage—all of which was shot in RED 4K—easily and quickly. Robbie explained, “The powerful conform features in the 7.1 update let me resize, reposition, and reframe all in Resolve, without any external editorial applications. This kept me from having to go back and forth, and ultimately saved a ton of time.”

Beyond newer RED processing capabilities that helped Robbie pull detail out of the raw video footage to push the look that much further, he used PowerWindows and unlimited nodes, such as Parallel Mixer, to create an over-the-top stylized look while maintaining the main character’s ghoulish appearance. Robbie explained, “Kevin wanted the subject’s face to stay ashen and gray in contrast to everything else, which was supposed to be a rich tobacco color. Normally, this would have been a challenge, but with PowerWindows and nodes, it was very easy to accomplish.”

Having the Resolve Control Surface gave Robbie the full version of DaVinci Resolve for Mac, and all the power he could dream of. With controls located in respect to natural hand positions, and separate buttons and knobs dedicated to each, Robbie was working with a system specifically designed to maximize his capabilities. He loved being able to quickly access almost every feature of the Resolve software without having to rely on a mouse, giving him total control of a grade right at his finger tips.

Robbie says, “The control surface is a thing of beauty and a powerful example of thoughtful engineering. Its features fall perfectly in line with the way creatives like to think. The quality of the track balls and rings, and even something as small as having the dongle in the back of the center panel—they’re all examples that the people at Blackmagic have been listening.” He continues, “The level of support and attentiveness I’ve received is unlike anything I’ve ever experienced. And the drastic price reduction certainly doesn’t hurt. Nothing as powerful— in terms of DaVinci’s color science, real time playback, and PowerWindows—comes close to this price point.”

“It is remarkable to have the efficiency and Resolve feature set without breaking the bank. It allows a small shop like mine to tote the DaVinci name, and let clients know they can rely on us to provide a job well done,” said Robbie.

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