NAB 2020 Updates and Promo Codes
NAB Show 2020 might be cancelled but most development cycles roll on.
Here’s a round up of all the biggest post production news and announcements, live-streamed events as well as some exclusive discounts codes and offers during NAB 2020, the online version at least!
I’ll be regularly updating this post over the next week or two, so be sure to check back often to see what’s new!
If you see or hear of any sessions being streamed or shared that I’ve missed, or if you’ve got some news to share or a discount to offer, do let me know in the comments or via the Contact page!
NAB Show Express, the online NAB replacement from the 13-14th of May, have announced their list of speakers including:
- Bruce Markoe, SVP, Post Production, IMAX
- Christina Less Storm, DreamWorks Animation
- Dan Duran, RED Digital Camer
- Erik Messerschmidt, Cinematographer
- Michael Cioni, Global SVP Innovation, Frame.i
- Miles Perkins, Epic Game
- Rodrigo Prieto, ASC,AMC, Director of Photography
You can register for free for all the sessions here.
Post Production World Online – May 17th – 19th
The premium post-production conference, Post Production World, is heading online for 3 packed days from Sunday May 17th to Tuesday 19th, of live Zoom-enabled sessions, with interactive Q+A.
It will cost you $299 to attend, with further discounts available, but you’ll have access to every single session recording for 120 days thereafter, which when you look at the line up makes the proposition much more appealing.
The four main keynotes are from the DP and camera operator on Joker, editor Vashi Nedomansky, Star Wars editor Maryann Brandon, ACE and Chris Do, founder of theFutur.
There are round tables, panel discussions and a massive array of individual sessions on social media, feature film production, future trends in the industry and a whole lot more.
It looks pretty epic to be honest!
NAB 2020 Post Production Discount Codes
Traditionally NAB is a time when post production companies of all shapes and sizes offer tempting discounts and offers to entice you to sign up.
I’ve taken a good look at last year’s post to see who might be likely to have a sale on again this year, so for now I’ve made a placeholder list of companies based on that, which I’ll update as things roll in or appear online!
Also some companies are running month long discounts during April due to the COVID-19 crisis, so be sure to check out my dedicated post on resources for that – including saving some serious cash on your Adobe Creative Cloud subscription – but I’ve included some of the sales from that post here too so you don’t miss out.
LowePost – Are offering 15% off annual subscriptions to their excellent online colour grading and compositing training from the 18th – 22nd April, at this special link.
I think LowePost offer some of the best value training around and they’ve got some great new professional colorist training in the works.
Masterclass.com – Is still my favourite way to spend time online. Learn from some of the greatest artists, writers, chefs, economist, journalists, athletes and many more with an annual all-access pass.
For a limited time they’re running a buy one give one offer, so if you’re feeling generous you can treat a friend or maybe split the cost.
Inside The Edit – Save 25% on all subscriptions to one of the most comprehensive editing training courses available online, with the promo code ‘JONNYELWYN’. To learn more about what makes Inside The Edit so special, check out this previous post.
Filmmaker U – Although not really an NAB sale, Filmmaker U were kind enough to offer my readers the chance to save 10% on each of their excellent new courses with these exclusive discount codes;
- Colorist Eric Whipp = JONNY
- Sound Designer Eugene Gearty = 3UG3NE4J0NNY (the o is a zero)
- Editor Brian Kates = BR14N4J0NNY (the o is a zero).
I’ve just finished my detailed review of Mad Max colorist Eric Whipp’s superb course on colour grading and working as a professional colorist and it’s a real gem!
I really enjoyed Filmmaker U’s approach and Eric’s wisdom is definitely worth paying for, regardless of how experienced a colorist you might already be. Here’s a link to my full review!
FX Factory – From the 19th to the 3rd FX Factory are offering 20% ($80) off their FX Factory Pro suite of plugins for FCPX, Motion, After Effects and Premiere Pro using the code: JONNYELWYN.
There are also sales running across several other plugins on their site!
DCP Transfer are offering 30% off their annual and monthly subscriptions purchased before May 31st 2020. You can save 10% with the coupon code: “JONNY10” and learn more about creating a DCP for film festival projection here.
Divergent Media – Are the makers of the very excellent Edit Ready 2 and ScopeBox 4 are offering 30% off during the month of April with the coupon code: postathome
CineColor LUTs – Filmmaker Noam Kroll is offering Buy One Get One on his affordable and useful LUT packs over on CineColor.io. You can read more about them and download some freebies, here.
Time in Pixels – The makers of Nobe Color Remap, Nobe Display and the False Color Plugin are offering up to 25% off their products using the coupon code: STAYSAFE, until the end of April. Learn more about Nobe Color Remap here.
MotionVFX – Are offering 25% off their substantial product range including plugins, templates and compositing elements. Use the promo code: STAYSAFE to save during April. I’ve previously reviewed their excellent mflare 2 plugin here.
Ripple Training – Ripple Training’s instructors are some of the best around when it comes to simply learning how to use software better, be that Final Cut Pro, Motion or DaVinci Resolve. Their courses are affordable and effective training and I can’t recommend them enough! During NAB they usually discount specific training titles on their site.
ToolFarm always has a big sale during NAB and this year is no different. Grab substantial discounts on software, plugins and templates until 31st May 2020 from brands such as:
- 30% off GreyScaleGorilla products and subscriptions
- 25% off Avid Media Composer
- 25% off Boris FX products including Continuum and Mocha
- 25% off all Video CoPilot products until April 25th
- 60% off iZotope audio plugins including the RX Suite
Pixel Tools – makers of the excellent DaVinci Resolve PowerGrades are having a 30% off sale until April 30th. For more information on why PowerGrades are superior to LUTs and my full review, check out this previous post.
NAB 2020 Announcements
Normally the NAB Show convention centre in Las Vegas would be covered in wall-to-wall banners for Blackmagic Design’s latest updates, but without that physical presence, they’ll no doubt be streaming everything online.
I’ll be updating this post with more from them as they announce things.
Blackmagic Design
NAB is usually a huge time for BMD so it’s conspicuous that their updates and announcements seem relatively minor (so far), unless I’m missing something?
Blackmagic Design have ushered out a small but powerful update to both DaVinci Resolve and Fusion Studio (which share the same code based, hence why they get updated in tandem) bringing them to 16.2.1.
Full details and new downloads can be found here.
They also released a new ATEM Mini Pro live production switcher and updates to their in-camera software and Blackmagic RAW. You can read all the press releases here.
Adobe Premiere Pro
Adobe would also normally have a large and busy booth at the show have moved some of the professional training sessions online.
Their latest pre-NAB announcement for Premiere Pro is the fast-tracking of the release of their Productions feature set, which allow for multiple editors to collaborate on the same productions through cloud-sync’d projects and bins.
[Productions is] a flexible and highly scalable framework for organizing projects, sharing assets between them, and keeping everything streamlined, whether you’re working on your own or collaborating with a team.
This official blog post will give you a few details, including the auspicious origins of the feature set, name dropping David Fincher’s latest project “Special builds of Premiere Pro with Productions are being used now in editorial on films like David Fincher’s “MANK.” as well as highlighting the core capabilities designed specifically for facilitating complex editorial workflows on TV series or feature films.
They also highlight the differences between Productions and Team Projects:
Productions is designed for collaborators working on shared local storage. Team Projects is built for remote collaboration: assets can be stored locally with individual users; project files are securely stored in Creative Cloud. The two toolsets are distinct and currently cannot be combined.
If you want to give it a go it’s already available to download as part of your regular Premiere Pro Creative Cloud license.
Avid Media Composer 2020.4
Avid have updated Media Composer to version 2020.4 with a slew of new features and workflow enhancements, including:
- Timeline Sequence Map
- New Project window
- Full decode/encode ProRes support on Windows
- Bin background colours
- Titler+ improvements
- Universal Media Engine (removes reliance on QuickTime engine)
- Vertical video creation improvements in Mask Margins and FrameFlex
- Support for macOS Catalina
Check out the official blog post here for a quick overview of the new features, or dive into the details in this official Avid Knowledge Base article.
PostLab also live tweeted a thread of useful screen captures and comments from Avid’s ‘what’s new in 2020.4’ webinar, which you can read in full here.
PostLab
Scott Simmons from Pro Video Coalition spoke with Paul Matthijs from Hedge and PostLab about their range of indispensable post production apps and the new developments from them.
If you don’t have time for the full half-hour conversation between Scott and Paul you can check out this thread of tweets which draws out some of the key highlights, including an announcement of PostLab drive!
I’m a huge fan of my favourite file transfer app Hedge, it’s super fast, effective and so nicely designed it’s a joy to use. You should own it! And you can save 10% on it here. I’m looking forward to diving into PostLab soon.
Cinedeck Tools
Cinedeck maker of some magical post production tools, including cineXtools – demonstrated above in 3 minutes from start to finish by colorist Mike Nuget – have announced the release of a new products and some big improvements to their existing toolset.
cineXtools which allows you to insert fixes into already exported files now supports H.264 and will have a new remote insert feature which will allow you to insert changes, across the internet, to a client copy. Magical no?
cineMeta is a standalone metadata editing application for Mac and PC that enables instantaneous metadata editing for both Quicktime MOV, MXF and AS11-DPP files. The range of supported codecs isn’t huge, but it covers the essentials: ProRes, DNxHD, DNxHR, XDCAM50, XDCAM35, AVC-I, XAVC, JPEG2000 and H.264.
The list of editable fields however is pretty extensive and you can check them out here.
The cineMeta app will be ‘free until IBC’ (mid-September 2020) if you sign up for a coupon code during their launch webinar here. (scroll to the bottom)
There are also plugin versions of their insert edit tools for Adobe Premiere Pro and Avid Media Composer, a cineX API and Cinedeck Ingest recorders.
MASV File Transfer
Just before NAB the big file transfer service MASV, announced the releasee of all-new MASV desktop app for Mac and Windows. They are currently offering a renewed 100GB free trial and after that it’s a pay-as-you-use service at $0.25/GB.
Some of the highlights of what MASV has to offer is the lack of a monthly subscription fee, the ability to apply your own branding to uploads and downloads, customisable storage times and the ability to set up a MASV Portal where client’s can send you massive files without them needing to set up an account at all.
The 2nd generation desktop app super-charges this process with functionality like pause & resume, automated transfers and a centralised dashboard to keep track of everything that’s coming or going.
NAB 2020 Digital Events and Online Sessions
Adobe are running four days of Adobe Video livestreams in lieu of a specific presence at NAB 2020. There will be two shows a day with Adobe product people in the morning and then Adobe creative users in the afternoon.
You can view the whole schedule here – they have some really interesting and talented folk lined up!
In this first video Jason Levine and Karl Soule discuss the details of the new Productions feature sets.
In this second video Jason interviews Eric Demeusy about this budget indie feature film Proximity which had over 400 VFX shots in it. Jason kicks off the presentation by saying “It’s not only inspirational, but it’s going to make you want to start doing what you’re about to see.“
Eric has worked as a motion graphic designer on a host of amazing title sequences including Stranger Things, Game of Thrones, Tron: Legacy and many more.
Cinema 4D | Red Giant | Red Shift
You can check out the full slate of scheduled presentations from a bevvy of experienced industry professionals, for Maxon’s NAB digital booth here. This includes an opening presentation from Video CoPilot’s Andrew Kramer, Red Giant’s Seth Worley and others like Jonathan Winbush and Stu Maschwitz .
You can check out a full list of their video archives from NAB, IBC and SIGGRAPH going back to SIGGRAPH 2009 here. The video above is Andrew Kramer’s really informative presentation from NAB New York 2019.
Ptzoptics is collaborating with 15 other companies to deliver a whole day of product releases and conversations with industry experts.
This is your chance to ask questions and join an exclusive Zoom breakout session with some of the top companies in the industry.
Here’s a shortlist of some of the day’s speakers, but the whole day runs from 8.30 am to 5pm:
- 9:30AM – Elgato
- 10:00AM – Roland
- 10:20AM – VideoGuys Tech Update
- 10:40AM – ATOMOS
- 12:30PM – Technology Giveaway
- 1:00PM – NewTek
- 1:30PM – PTZOptics
- 3:20PM – X-Keys
- 3:40PM – Matrox
More Online Post Production Sessions and Recordings
Pre-NAB Post Production Discussion
Every year Keycode Media and The Editor’s Lounge host a pre-NAB discussion between industry folk to hash out the latest industry trends and developments, and this year is no different – just hosted on Zoom!
The panel includes insights from:
- Terence Curren Colorist and CEO of AlphaDogs Post Production
- Mark Raudonis Senior VP Post Production at Bunim/Murray Productions
- Katie Hinsen Executive Producer at Nice Shoes
- Jeff Sengpiehl Chief Technologist at Key Code Media
- With Moderator Debra Kaufman Entertainment Technology Journalist at USC’s ETCentric.org
