In this week’s 100th fxpodcast we talk to Lee Wilson of Anthem FX about the companies amazing work on this weekend’s Tin Man miniseries, which premieres Sunday Dec 2nd 9/8c.

As this is our 100th episode we just wanted to thank all of you for listening and supporting the podcast. We really appreciate it and want to pass along to you our deepest thanks. It is an honor to work along side you guys in this great industry.

John, Jeff and Mike

UPDATE 7th Dec
Sci Fi Channel’s miniseries “Tin Man” drew record ratings at the network over its three-night run. Tin Man averaged a 3.6 household rating, representing 3.4 million homes, delivering 5.3 million total viewers. Those numbers eclipsed previous Sci Fi hit miniseries “Taken” and “Dune,” and made the channel the highest-rated ad-supported entertainment cable network Sunday, Monday and Tuesday nights.

Click READ MORE below for stills and from the film as discussed in the podcast….
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In our last fxguidetv episode, we visited Prime Focus in Mumbai and chatted with two of their smoke editors about their Cannes award-winning spot. The company is one of the largest in India and had been looking to acquire more companies in addition to their stake in the UK-based VTR Group. News came across the wire today that they have acquired North American-based Post Logic and Frantic Films VFX.

Click through to read the release….
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Finally.

A press release came across the wire announcing Combustion 2008 for Macintosh and Windows. While a full list of features wasn’t provided with the release, it did make mention of the addition of the Colour Warper from flame.

Click through to read the press release…..

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Mark Stasiuk, co-founder and fluid fx guru at Fusion CI Studios, has been facing tsunami-sized demands for fluid fx work these days — from commercial work, to network idents, to feature film. Fusion focuses exclusively on fluid and particle fx and as a result has become an invaluable resource for production companies and vfx houses around the world.

Fluid fx in particular remain one of the most difficult and complex effects to achieve realistic behaviors and photo-real characteristics within a cost-efficient time scale, so studios are turning to Fusion’s expertise to deliver the fluid assets they need for their television, commercial or feature film deadlines.

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John Montgomery visits Prime Focus in Mumbai to discuss post production in India and look at an award winning commercial produced there titled “Happy Dent Palace”. Jaynat Hadke and Sabu Joseph of Prime Focus are John’s guests and discuss the market, break down the spot and show other work.

The tip of the week shows tweaking settings to get the most out of Quicktime and Compressor. A recent background fundamentals class in this term of fxphd covered more quicktime tricks.

Sapphire Plug-ins 4.03 for Autodesk systems is now released and available for download from: http://www.genarts.com/sapphire-sparks.html This fixes a problem with certain combinations of sparks in Batch and some issues with LensFlareAutotrackMask.

This is a free maintenance release for version 4 customers and will work with your existing v4 license. If you have not yet upgraded to v4 and would like more information or a free trial, please visit: http://www.genarts.com/sapphire4-sparks-whats-new.html

Beverly Hills, CA - Making stops at King Kong’s Skull Island and Darth Vader’s Death Star, the Science and Technology Council of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will take audiences on a movie matte painting journey on Monday, December 10, at 8 p.m. at the Linwood Dunn Theater in Hollywood.

“Fantastic Reality: The Magic and Mystery of Movie Matte Painting,” hosted by Oscar® nominee and Academy Visual Effects Branch governor Craig Barron, will explore the long history of the traditional method of creating “virtual sets,” in which oil paints are brushed and daubed onto a few square feet of glass or wood to be composited later with live action footage. The recent transition into the new frontiers of software and pixels will also be examined.
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David S. Cohen from Variety has written an article about the visual effects films up for consideration for the visual effects Oscar.

Cooke Optics Introduces “RED Set” of S4/i Lenses for the RED ONE Camera .

Cooke Optics has announced a new Cooke RED Set, a package of four standard Cooke S4/i lenses offering a range of focal lengths from 15mm through 100 mm. The lenses incorporate /i metadata capture technology that can be read directly by the /i contacts of the RED camera lens mount, allow for vfx artist to get ALL the lens information up to 100 times a sec - such as zoom, fstop AND reference that allows dynamic pin cushion - lens curvature correction during a shot ! The set will sell for $97,000. The set includes a 15- 40mm zoom and 3 primes , 50, 75, and a 100mm all T2.0.

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The new commercial for Honda Odyssey lives up to the vehicle’s name, taking viewers on an unexpected ride with the iconography of a time when people knew to “Respect the Van.” Created by design/production company Nylon, the spot uses visual wizardry (literally) to brand one of the leading minivans in the category.

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