fxguide.com

New CINEMA 4D Release 12 Now Available

Thu, 02 Sep 2010 11:20:48 -0500

MAXON has released a new version of their 3D software CINEMA 4D and is available immediately for purchase or upgrade. The release a slate of new features in addition to a revamped and simpler product lineup. One of the big changes is built-in support for linear workflow and color profiles throughout...

Red Centre: Takers Director John Luessenhop

Mon, 30 Aug 2010 23:08:11 -0500

This week's Red Centre podcast we have in the Red Room the Director of the new hit film TAKERS : John Luessenhop. We discuss shooting with Genesis as well as a general, open and frank discussion about the directorial decisions he made making this film and rehearsing and working with the actors.We al...

Scott Pilgrim and VFX Against the World

Mon, 30 Aug 2010 21:25:35 -0500

In Edgar Wright's Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, the title character woos his new girlfriend by battling her seven evil exes in Japanese Anime-style fights punctuated with video game-like on-screen graphics. Visual effects supervisor Frazer Churchill oversaw more than 1200 shots for film. We take a look at the work by Double Negative and Mr. X.

A Few Weeks with Colorista II

Wed, 25 Aug 2010 20:50:16 -0500

The original Magic Bullet Colorista brought the 3-way color corrector to After Effects and improved upon the one built into Final Cut Pro. With the recent release of Colorista II and the addition of secondary color correction, more flexible masking, and UI refinements the plugin has solidified its place as our go-to favorite for grading within those desktop applications.

Peppering Salt with Visual Effects

Wed, 25 Aug 2010 06:55:44 -0500

Phillip Noyce's SALT takes audiences on a thrill ride with title character and CIA agent Angelina Jolie, who may or may not be a Russian spy out to assassinate the U.S. President. Visual effects supervisor Robert Grasmere oversaw the work of several vendors to provide hundreds of invisible shots for the film. We take a look at the effects by Framestore and CIS Vancouver.

Prince of Persia

Tue, 24 Aug 2010 00:25:56 -0500

In Mike Newell's Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (out soon on Blu-Ray &DVD), rogue Prince Dastan (Jake Gyllenhaal) safeguards a magical and sought-after dagger that can reverse time. We look at a few of the major effects sequences by Cinesite, MPC, Framestore and Double Negative, & the previs work by Nvizage. VFX supervisor : Tom Wood.

Creative Arts Emmy Winners

Sat, 21 Aug 2010 20:14:36 -0500

This afternoon in Los Angeles the Creative Arts Emmy Awards were held at the Nokia Theatre L.A. Live. We've got the winners in the visual effects related categories after the read more. Congratulations to all those nominated and to those taking home statues tonight. 2010 Creative Arts Emmy Wi...

15 in Competition for 2010 Scientific and Technical Awards

Fri, 20 Aug 2010 12:49:12 -0500

The Scientific and Technical Awards Committee of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has released the list of those under consideration for Sci-tech awards. Names like ILM, Rhythm & Hues, Digital Domain, Dreamworks, PipelineFX, Pixar, SPI, Disney, Rising Sun Research are included... full...

In Memoriam: Sande Scoredos

Thu, 19 Aug 2010 19:04:49 -0500

The Visual Effects Society reports that Sande Scoredos, who served as Executive Director of Training and Artist Development At Sony Pictures Imageworks for the past 12-plus years passed away Saturday morning after a prolonged illness. More information as well as details about services can be fou...

Variety reports Montreal's Fake Studio leaves workers unpaid

Thu, 19 Aug 2010 12:51:31 -0500

David S. Cohen reports in an article today in Variety that Montreal's Fake Studio (part of Camera e-Motion Group) has left a handful of VFX artists unpaid since April for work done on the film Piranha 3D. The article discusses the familiar nature to the Meteor story, mentions the Visual Effects bus...

CVMP 2010 London: November 17-18th

Wed, 18 Aug 2010 19:02:00 -0500

This year's This year's Conference on Visual Media and Production is taking place in London on November 17th and 18th. The event provides an outlet for production and post personnel to discuss the latest technology and research impacting the field. If you like geeking out about the tech side of thin...

Resolve on Mac gets closer

Tue, 17 Aug 2010 19:11:18 -0500

Blackmagic Design has announced their support for RED Rocket in both Mac and Linux configurations. Stereo .R3D playback will be supported with dual Rockets. In both MAC and Lunix installation is aimed to be plug and play. If you do not have Rockets installed, r3d clips are decoded and debayered ...

Knight & Day

Mon, 16 Aug 2010 02:16:42 -0500

For James Mangold's Knight & Day, vfx supervisor Eric Durst oversaw more than 700 effects shots to help tell the story of a secret agent and his unwilling partner pursued around the world. We delve into the digital Running of the Bulls work by Rhythm & Hues and the European train effects by Weta Digital.

Going Green

Mon, 16 Aug 2010 01:20:33 -0500

This week Jason and Mike are joined in the Red Room by Doug Purver to discuss is cool Running Spot. Also the guys geek out on SLR sensors and the way Canon builds .CR2 RAW files for the Canon 5D and 7D. Visit the red centre page for direct downloads and RSS feed links. To be notified automat...

New AE Camera Tracker and Kronos from The Foundry

Thu, 12 Aug 2010 09:50:09 -0500

The Foundry have announced two new plugins for Adobe After Effects CS5, a 3D camera tracker based upon the tracking technology from Nuke, and an extremely fast version of their Kronos plugin. It's a good sign to see some of the Foundry's research and technology make it's way to the affordable deskto...

Wet Disney

Wed, 11 Aug 2010 02:25:13 -0500

For a spot promoting Disney's 'World of Color' show, Motion Theory orchestrated fountains of colored water and light and mixed them with renditions of well-known Disney characters. We talk to MT's vfx supe John Fragomeni and RealFlow lead Andy Cochrane about the techniques used for the commercial.

SIGGRAPH Final Day

Sun, 01 Aug 2010 01:08:58 -0500

Here is our third and final report from Siggraph, but watch for fxguidetv eps and podcasts rolling out this week and next. Today we look at Day&Night, Airbender and a summary of cool things around the show, including the mysterious Spheron HDRV camera.

Inception

Sat, 31 Jul 2010 19:49:53 -0500

Our Inception coverage is in two parts. Click through for a detailed discussion with the team at New Deal Studios by Ian Failes. And also to access our in depth podcast with Visual effects supervisor Paul Franklin of Double Negative in London. We have delayed publishing both as they contain heavy spoilers on what must be one of the year's best films.

fxpodcast: fxg-100730-inception

Sat, 31 Jul 2010 11:09:21 -0500

Paul Franklin joins Mike Seymour to chat about Double Negative's fantastic work on Inception.

SIGGRAPH Tuesday

Thu, 29 Jul 2010 11:48:15 -0500

Tuesday and we were not disappointed from 8 minutes of the new 3D Tron film to Jim Morris's keynote - the Siggraph event was delivering on its promise of production relevant sessions.

SIGGRAPH 2010 Monday

Wed, 28 Jul 2010 08:14:59 -0500

Siggraph starts fully today Monday in LA. Avatar dominates the production sessions, but Siggraph delivered as usual with a stunning array of technical papers and creative sessions. In addition to the Avatar highlights, the Computational Photography session provided a timely insight into the cutting edge of photography. The parties also hit with the huge Foundry User party, the Mental Images User group, and will continue into the night.

fxpodcast: fxg-100720-ScottRoss_2

Tue, 20 Jul 2010 08:06:59 -0500

We revisit Scott Ross and put him in charge of the global Visual Effects Industry, at least for the duration of the podcast.

fxpodcast: fxg-100713-pixar-moving-pictures-group

Tue, 13 Jul 2010 19:29:27 -0500

A technical chat about Pixar film production along with some history dating back to the MIT Media Lab and Thinking Machines.

fxpodcast: fxg-100621-sexandthecity2

Tue, 22 Jun 2010 22:00:32 -0500

We speak to one of the most successful female vfx supervisors, Sheena Duggal, about the Sex and the City 2

fxpodcast: fxg-100614-dashing

Mon, 14 Jun 2010 04:50:38 -0500

Jeff and Mike talk about commercial post with Rob Moggach, creative director at Dashing Creative Collective.

fxpodcast: fxg-100528-steffenvfx

Sun, 30 May 2010 10:32:02 -0500

Casey Steffen, founder of Steffen Vfx, talks about his company's work on scientific graphics for the medical, health, and entertainment industries.

fxpodcast: fxg-100512-ilm-ironman

Fri, 14 May 2010 14:56:00 -0500

VFX Supervisor Ben Snow details some of the work ILM did for Iron Man 2, including some hardcore cgi lighting techniques.

fxpodcast: fxg-100503-Pacific

Sun, 02 May 2010 19:54:12 -0500

We talk to the team at Scoundrel FX about their effects work on the mini series The Pacific. Scoundrel did over 600 shots and helped bring to life one of the most hard fought battles and periods of the Second World War.

fxpodcast: fxg-100416-NAB-roundtable

Fri, 16 Apr 2010 09:26:43 -0500

Our annual lively discussion of what grabbed our attention at NAB. Mike, John and Jeff are joined by Jason Wingrove, Dave Edgar and Mat Graham. Also, interviews with Red Giant and Assimilate.

fxpodcast: fxg-100407-ArtDirectorsGuild

Wed, 07 Apr 2010 17:31:22 -0500

We continue our labor series talking with Tom Walsh, president of the Art Directors Guild.

fxpodcast: fxg-100329-foundry

Mon, 29 Mar 2010 13:29:04 -0500

Bruno Nicoletti, co-founder of the Foundry, on the tech behind their program of accelerating plugins for GPUs.

fxpodcast: fxg-031710-Ptex

Wed, 17 Mar 2010 18:46:05 -0500

Andy Hendrickson, Brent Burley and Dan Candela join us for a technical discussion about Ptex, a high quality, optimized texture format and filtering library that Disney has made Open Source.

fxpodcast: fxg-100219-lightstage-oscar

Sat, 20 Feb 2010 22:14:36 -0600

We talk with Paul Debevec who along with Tim Hawkins, John Monos and Mark Sagar were presented a Scientific and Engineering Oscar for the Light Stage.

fxpodcast: fxg-100211-letter_to_JC

Thu, 18 Feb 2010 01:28:10 -0600

Lee Stranahan has ignited a serious conversation about the treatment of visual effects workers with an open letter to James Cameron in the Huffington Post. We talk to him about the reaction.

fxpodcast: fxg-100205-tag

Fri, 05 Feb 2010 19:41:07 -0600

Steve Hulett of The Animation Guild joins us again to discuss visual effects and labor issues.

fxpodcast: fxg-100128-avatar3

Thu, 28 Jan 2010 02:04:29 -0600

In part 3 of our series on Avatar we talk with Dana Batali from the Pixar Renderman team and Christian Kaestner, compositing supervisor from Framestore.

fxpodcast: fxg-100115-avatarilm

Fri, 15 Jan 2010 15:57:10 -0600

John Knoll, ILM vfx supervisor, on collaborating with Weta and stereoscopic for "Avatar".

fxpodcast: fxg-100108-avatarweta

Sat, 09 Jan 2010 13:17:41 -0600

Joe Letteri, senior vfx supervisor for Weta Digital, details their mocap/facial capture tech and other aspects of their work on Avatar.

fxpodcast: fxg-091218-MichaelTaylor

Fri, 18 Dec 2009 08:51:37 -0600

We talk with Michael Taylor about visual effects and the global marketplace as he moves from Los Angeles to Adelaide and Rising Sun Pictures.

fxpodcast: fxg-091211-ScottRoss

Fri, 11 Dec 2009 08:10:39 -0600

Industry pioneer Scott Ross is our guest as we talk about visual effects history and the future of the business.

fxpodcast: fxg-091204-Technicolor

Fri, 04 Dec 2009 07:23:58 -0600

An in-depth discussion about color management workflow with Brian Gaffney and Dan Lion from Technicolor Creative Bridge

fxpodcast: fxg-091125-sapphire5

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 18:25:09 -0600

We speak with GenArts' CMO Steve Bannerman and VP of Engineering/Chief Scientist Gary Oberbrunner about the upcoming release of Sapphire version 5.

fxpodcast: fxg-091113-2012

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 11:18:31 -0600

Alex Wuttke, Double Negative visual effects supervisor, about two main sequences from 2012.

fxpodcast: fxg-091106-AICP-Digital

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 16:55:34 -0600

We talk with Ed Ulbrich (Digital Domain) about the newly formed Association of Independent Commercial Producers (AICP) Digital and what it means for artists and companies.

fxpodcast: fxg-091021-previs

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 12:05:40 -0500

A conversation with two of the co-founders of the Previsualization Society, Colin Green and Ron Frankel.

fxpodcast: fxg-090927-linearlight

Mon, 28 Sep 2009 11:35:43 -0500

We geek out with 3D guru Master Zap about linear compositing workflow, separating fact from fiction.

fxpodcast: fxg-090921-interdubs

Tue, 22 Sep 2009 08:59:50 -0500

Jeff Heusser talks with Andreas Wacker, founder of INTERDUBS, a clip hosting company for post houses and production facilities.

fxpodcast: fxg-090911-taking-woodstock

Thu, 10 Sep 2009 19:31:54 -0500

We talk about creating an acid trip with VFX supervisor Brendan Taylor from Mr. X

fxpodcast: fxg-090904-Harry-Potter

Thu, 03 Sep 2009 20:25:39 -0500

An in-depth discussion of color science with Chief Colorist Peter Doyle

fxpodcast: fxg-090828-district9

Fri, 28 Aug 2009 09:27:48 -0500

A detailed discussion with The Embassy about a sequence in the film District 9

fxpodcast: fxg-090715-transformers-revenge

Fri, 24 Jul 2009 20:01:02 -0500

We speak with Jeff White at ILM about Transformers Revenge of the Fallen

fxpodcast: fxg-090604-terminator-salvation

Thu, 04 Jun 2009 19:23:19 -0500

This week we look at digital and practical effects on Terminator Salvation with ILM and Kerner Optical

fxpodcast: fxg-090529-cook

Fri, 29 May 2009 20:42:09 -0500

An interview with Rob Cook, co-architect and primary author of Pixar's RenderMan

fxpodcast: fxg-090521-okun

Thu, 21 May 2009 17:45:55 -0500

Jeffrey A. Okun, Chair of the Visual Effects Society, sits with us to discuss the mission and latest news from the VES.

fxpodcast: fxg-090511-trek

Mon, 11 May 2009 14:48:14 -0500

A conversation with ILM vfx supervisor Roger Guyett about the film Star Trek.

fxpodcast: fxg-090506-tmobile

Wed, 06 May 2009 01:25:51 -0500

Director Michael Gracey tells us about filming large crowds for two viral campaigns for T-Mobile.

fxpodcast: fxg-090420-nab2009

Tue, 21 Apr 2009 09:46:58 -0500

We talk with friends as well as fxphd post grads and professors about what they saw on the first day of the show. Recorded live at a party sponsored by The Foundry, Sohonet and da vinci.

fxpodcast: fxg-090308-kodak

Mon, 09 Mar 2009 10:32:22 -0500

A conversation with Gary Einhaus, CTO and General Manager of Kodak Digital Cinema, about new technology and research at Kodak.

fxpodcast: fxg-090119-valkyrie

Mon, 19 Jan 2009 13:15:16 -0600

Rich Hoover, visual effects supervisor on Valkyrie about the complexity of doing such a powerful historical film.

fxpodcast: fxg-090112-australia

Mon, 12 Jan 2009 14:41:41 -0600

Visual Effects in the movie Australia with artist Peter Webb from Iloura Pictures.

fxpodcast: fxg-090104-furnace

Sun, 04 Jan 2009 22:10:03 -0600

An interview with Simon Robinson, co-founder of The Foundry, to get the reasons behind their decision to reduce prices on Furnace, Tinder, and Keylight sparks for Autodesk.

fxpodcast: fxg-081231-the-spirit

Tue, 30 Dec 2008 16:23:21 -0600

Conversation with Stu Maschwitz who supervised over 1900 shots for the latest movie from a Frank Miller graphic novel.

fxpodcast: fxg-081226-findesign

Fri, 26 Dec 2008 07:39:31 -0600

We speak to Richard Lambert principle at Fin Design about the award winning commercial for Herringbone

fxpodcast: fxg-081203-sid

Wed, 03 Dec 2008 12:38:26 -0600

The Jim Henson Company Creature Shop is behind the PBS series Sid the Science Kid. We speak with Steffen M. Wild, Visual Effects Supervisor, Digital Supervisor at Jim Henson Co. for this week's fxpodcast.

fxpodcast: fxg-081029-xsi

Wed, 29 Oct 2008 14:18:07 -0500

A conversation with Bill Roberts from Softimage about version 7 of XSI, which was released earlier this year.

fxpodcast: fxg-081015-heroes

Wed, 15 Oct 2008 16:18:09 -0500

Mike Seymour chats with VFX Supervisor Eric Grenaudier from Stargate Digital about their work on the U.S. television series 'Heroes'.

fxpodcast: fxg-081011-brinkmann

Sun, 12 Oct 2008 14:28:40 -0500

Mike Seymour chats with Ron Brinkmann, author of The Art and Science of Digital Compositing.

fxpodcast: fxg-080914-johnadams

Sun, 14 Sep 2008 07:32:02 -0500

We talk to Jeff Goldman, a vfx supervisor at CafeFX about their emmy nominated work on John Adams

fxpodcast: fxg-080903-tropicthunder

Wed, 03 Sep 2008 20:16:39 -0500

We speak to Mark Breakspear of CIS Vancouver about the visual effects in Tropic Thunder and why effects for comedy can be a different challenge.

fxpodcast: fxg-080824-guild

Wed, 27 Aug 2008 16:58:14 -0500

We talk with Steve Hulett, Business Representative for the The Animation Guild Local 839 IATSE about the guild, the business and what every artist should know.