A new episode of fxguidetv is up which has interviews with Philippe Soeiro from Autodesk who talks about the new 2008 smoke and flame releases. We also speak with Matt Plec from the Foundry about what they were showing at IBC, which is a technology preview of the upcoming Nuke — complete with a brand new UI. Visit the fxguidetv page to download directly or subscribe in iTunes. We also have a new iPod/iPhone low-bandwidth version as well.

We also used the RED camera to photograph Angie in the studio. Sure, we compress it with H.264 and down res it signicantly. So why do it? Because we can. Not to mention the fact that it helps us develop the workflow for using the RED camera in production.

Autodesk has rolled out a new web site targeted towards flame users called myfirstflame.com. It’s a fun site with some longtime flame users such as Sheena Duggal, Jake Parker, Vico Sharabani, and more. It also has links to the past NAB tutorials, including the presentation I gave earlier this year. Fill out the survey and add yourself to the profiles — something I need to do myself….

Congrats to the winners of this year’s creative Emmys. Dexter, Battlestar Galactica and NightMares & Dreamscapes. Outstanding work once again in this years 59th Prime Time Emmy awards.

Outstanding Main Title Design: Dexter (Showtime)

Eric Anderson, Creative Director
Josh Bodnar, Editor
Lindsay Daniels, Designer
Colin Davis, Main Title Producer

Oustanding Special Visual Effects for a Series: Battlestar Galactica
Exodus, Part 2 (Sci-Fi Channel)

Gary Hutzel, Visual Effects Supervisor
Michael Gibson, Senior VFX Coordinator
Doug Drexler, CG Supervisor
Adam “Mojo” Lebowitz, CGI Sequence Designer
Jeremy Hoey, Lead Matte Painter
Tom Archer, Lead Compositor
Andrew Karr, CGI Supervisor
Alec Mcclymont, Lead CGI Artist/ Animator
Brenda Campbell, Lead Compositor

Oustanding Special Visual Effects for a Miniseries, Movie, or Special : Nightmares & Dreamscapes: From the Stories of Stephen King
Battleground (TNT)

Sam Nicholson, Visual Effects Supervisor
Eric Grenaudier, Visual Effects Supervisor
Mark Spatny, Visual Effects Producer
Adalberto Lopez, CGI Supervisor
Michael Cook, Lead CGI Model Maker
Daniel Kumiega, Lead CGI Animator
Megan Omi, Lead Visual Effects Compositor
Ryan Wieber, Lead Visual Effects Compositor
Marc Van Buuren, Visual Effects Producer

Jeff Heusser and Mike Seymour have an informal discussion about the new RED, their experiences on set with them and most importantly the post pipeline. You can download from the right hand side podcasting panel on our homepage or from iTunes.

Coming up on fxguide . . .
In addition to our audio podcasts, we produce the video netcast, fxguidetv. Next week’s fxguidetv will be partially shot on the RED ONE camera and this episode will cover the latest news from IBC. Also coming soon are interviews with Kerner Optical (the ex ILM model shop), The Orphanage, and the award winning team from the ARK short film.

Stu Maschwitz over on his ProLost blog has written a must read article titled “The Film Industry is Broken” about the lack of a Universal Color Metadata format.

The Pixel Farm is pleased to announce PFTrack 4.1 is now shipping. Released at Siggraph this year, the additional features within PFTrack 4.1 – including the addition of Autodesk FBX and Apple Motion file format and support for Vista – further enhance the company’s well established reputation for innovation in the field of high-end digital post-production and image restoration.

The Pixel Farm at IBC 2007: To book a demo of PFTrack 4.1 and/or PFClean 3.0, discuss any other Pixel Farm products or the company’s collaboration with Cooke Optics at IBC 2007 please contact richard@thepixelfarm.co.uk
(more…)