At the Inter BEE 2009 conference in Tokyo Autodesk showed a technology demo and announced Smoke on the Macintosh platform with a price of $14,995 (U.S. suggested retail price). We take an exclusive first look at Smoke on the Mac and talk with the product managers and developers to answer all the questions you may have.

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Right on the heels on the incredibly popular segment in our last fxguidetv, we have another feature from IBC featuring work in Nuke. In episode #71 Shervin Shoghian, compositing supervisor at Image Engine, shows off some insane 3D tricks from work they did on District 9. This is another great example of how to use Nuke’s 3D compositing environment to make compositing easier for artists.

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We haven’t been able to say anything up until now as we strongly respect our Non-Disclosure agreements as beta testers, but the rumors are true: there is definitely smoke for mac in Autodesk’s future. According to Autodesk, they will be “showing a technology preview of its industry leading Autodesk Smoke editorial finishing software running on the Mac OS X platform” at the Inter BEE 2009 conference in Tokyo. Inter BEE is a high-end post production conference in Japan, similar to NAB in the United States and IBC in Europe. “This will be the first time an Autodesk finishing product has been designed to run on the Mac platform,” says Autodesk.

At Inter BEE 2009, Autodesk will show several workflow presentations:

- Technology Preview of Autodesk Smoke 2010 for the Mac OS X platform
- Twice daily presentations of Smoke running on this new platform. See how the Smoke integrated toolset for editorial finishing can help post-production and broadcast facilities be more efficient. Limit 80 attendees per session. Limited advance registration available at www.autodesk.co.jp/interbee2009/specialevent

Rest assured that at fxguide we’re on top of this story and will presenting full coverage when we’re able to do so….

In July we posted a press release from the Association of Independent Commercial Producers (AICP) announcing their digital initiative. We wanted to learn more about this so we sat down with Ed Ulbrich (Digital Domain) who is heading up AICP Digital. The AICP has been around since 1972, this new initiative is designed to tackle business issues, including standards and practices, affecting companies that produce content digitally. We talk with Ed about what this means for companies and artists.

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This year’s Foundry booth at IBC had several fantastic presentations by artists who use Nuke at their facilities and our next two fxguidetv episodes have two of those killer presentations. Episode #70 features the work of rise | fx, the biggest vendor for vfx in Berlin. vfx supervisor Florian Gellinger shows off the work they did on the Matthias Glasner film This is Love. They used Nuke to help visualize the shot in previs thru finishing it by recreating the environment using camera mapping and other tricks.

Visit the fxguidetv page for direct fxguidetv downloads and RSS feed links. To be notified automatically and have the episodes downloaded in iTunes, subscribe via this link.

In related Foundry news, the company is offering substantial discounts on bundles of their Furnace, Keylight, and Tinder plugins for Autodesk Systems and Avid DS. Also, Furnace Core for Final Cut Pro is 70% off list price. These details expire at the end of November…see the Foundry web site for details.

‘Hotel’, a Bridgestone Australia spot created by Sydney collaborative outfit RedCartel, features a recurring Gecko character realized entirely using the open source Blender 3D software. click below to read our interview with RedCartel producer James Neale, as he explains how Blender made the spot possible.

RedCartel started in May 2008 as a collaborative effort between two Sydney studios, ProMotion and Twitch. As time went by, it was to merger . As of the beginning of July 2009, they incorporated RedCartel as a full studio and they are now working from their own new studio on the waterfront in Sydney…

Our Digital cinematography & production podcast red centre episode #48 is live and ready for download. This week’s podcast we talk to Ted Schilowitz about the scheduled roll out the Epic cameras. We examine and explain all four options and discuss some of the cool tech of the new Epic -X Tattoo camera.

Also check out last week’s ep on the Canon 1D Mk IV and our interview with Stu Maschwitz and  his experiences shooting with this amazing low light Pro camera.

Red centre is the most respected podcast for Professional High End Digital Cinematography.

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Nov. 12-13th in the UK, the newly revamped CVMP conference kicks off at the BFI on London’s Southbank. Designed to be refocused on the industry and covering high end technical issues, the CVMP is shaping up to be a very good conference. The conference is aimed at Chief Tech. Officers, TDs, pipeline specialists, researchers and engineers.

In this net-digital age it is easy to the think that you can cover most stuff from a combination of YouTube and PDF paper downloads, but we have found that, like Siggraph, conferences such as CVMP offer a real chance to gain insight far beyond what you can get from your laptop. Special sessions this year cover topics such as Advanced technology in post production and Capturing 3D Worlds. Info can be found at http://www.cvmp-conference.org. Registration is between 150 to 330 pounds.

5D users will finally be able to shoot 25P and 24P with a new firmware update coming for the 5DMkII.

“We understand that EOS 5D Mark II users desire additional frame rates and we’re preparing a firmware update to allow the camera to shoot at both 24P and 25P,” said Chris Macleod, Brand Manager – EOS, Canon Australia. “The upgrade to 24P and 25P will broaden the usage scope for this popular camera to include cinema and broadcast applications, respectively.”Canon expects the firmware update to be available in the first half of 2010 and will release more details as they become available.

In related news Canon also announced the specs for the 1d MkIV a cropped sensor SLR that will also shoot full HD at 24/25/30 fps – while having superior stills ISO and framerates. The EOS 1D Mark IV (RRP approx US$5,000) is available through Canon retailers from December.

Note there is also a minor 7D firmware update.

Next Saturday, October 24th, The Visual Effects Society is holding it’s first ever Production Summit at the Ritz Carlton in Marina Del Rey. VES bills the event as: Shifting The Paradigm: A collaborative conversation on production, technology and business in the 21st century.

The Summit is focused on looking at visual effects and the broader interaction with the entire production process, a chance to bring people from all areas together including studios, effects houses, supervisors, Cinematographers, labs, film commissions, Directors, Writers, Editors and more. There are panelists from all these areas, and the featured speaker is Dr. Eric Haseltine, Technology Futurist who was the former head of Walt Disney Imagineering and former CTO of the U.S intelligence community. His talk is described as tackling “where we need to be going and Steering – how do we get there?”

This looks to be a very unique event. Discounts are available for members of ADG, ASC, DGA, HPA, ICG, PGA and VES. Check out the complete lineup and details on the VES website.

UPDATE: Here is our story from after the event.