Foundry acquires Katana from SPI for Nuke
The Foundry have acquired the technology of Sony Pictures Imagework’s (SPI) Katana 3D lighting & compositing package. Katana’s hardcore lighting node based technology will be integrated into an upcoming version of the Foundry’s Nuke 2D package. We spoke to both companies about why SPI would part with such a great in house tool and why the Foundry needs another compositing lighting system, in this online exclusive.
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Extensive Interview: Red and the Epic-X Tattoo
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 […]
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Conference on Visual Media Production
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 […]
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VES Summit and a bit of perspective
This past Saturday the Visual Effects Society convened it’s first Production Summit. Panels were structured to include guests from all areas of production including editors, directors, studio people, DOP’s, Production Designers. It is hard to boil down a long day of fast paced sessions into an article and capture the spirit of the day, but that is what Jeff Heusser has tried to do, in this personal account of the VES Production Summit and its implications.
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Lexus RX buzzing
For ‘Moment’, a Lexus RX spot directed by Adrian de sa Garces for DRAFTFCB Joannesburg, BUF re-created spectacular South African Namaqualand flowers and a very hard-working bee. fxguide talks to BUF visual effects supervisor Nicolas Chevallier about the design and execution of the commercial.
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New 5DMKII & 1D News from Canon
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 – […]
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VES Production Summit
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 […]
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iPhone Director’s Viewfinder
The folks over at Chemical Wedding were already known to us because they make the iPhone app Helios that calculates Sun Position. They now have introduced a Director’s Viewfinder app called Artemis. It supports selected film and digital cameras with more to come. It says “coming soon” on the web site but it is in […]
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ASSIMILATE announces ROCKET FUEL
ASSIMILATE is announcing today at the REDucation Community Day in Los Angeles a new ROCKET FUEL bundle that includes an Nvidia Quadro FX3800 SDI board, RED’s RED Rocket card, and ASSIMILATE’s SCRATCH® CINE 4K post workflow, for a price of $10,999 USD. This price is half the cost of SCRATCH CINE alone! Read the entire […]
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Animal Logic’s Emerald Cities
In ‘Emerald Cities’, a Kaiser Permanente spot directed by Biscuit Filmworks’ Noam Murro for agency Campbell Ewald, Animal Logic was called up to integrate live action and miniature trees, buildings and matte painted elements to form a thriving urban landscape. fxguide talks to visual effects supervisor Nick Ponzoni about the spot.
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Digital Domain expansion announcements
Last week Digital Domain announced they were adding a 20,000 square foot “visual effects outpost” in Vancouver. This facility is planned for an early 2010 opening and is expected to employ 100+ by the end of the year. This week they announced an expansion in Florida with plans for a digital production studio that “will […]
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Grey’s Anatomy in space: defying gravity
TV series Defying Gravity follows the lives of eight astronauts on board international spacecraft Antares as they travel the solar system in the year 2052. The show, which unfortunately looks set to be discontinued, features hundreds of visual effects shots from Stargate Studios. Pitched as a Grey’s Anatomy in Space, fxguide talks to visual effects supervisor Sam Nicholson about the show’s extremely impressive visual effects.
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fxguidetv #69: Rob Bredow
In our new episode of fxguidetv, we catch up with Rob Bredow, chief technical officer of Sony Pictures Imageworks, and discuss several topics. We touch on their open source moves, stereoscopic and its creative and technical challenges, “Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs”, and the business climate. Our fxphd tip of the week takes a […]
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The Mill NY vfx for a Traktor-Directed Dell Spot
A magical computer factory complete with singing workers, robots and moving parts was the creation of The Mill NY for ‘Treats,’ a Traktor-directed spot featuring Dell’s colourful range of Inspiron laptops. The Mill NY’s 3D supervisor Andrew Proctor takes fxguide through the work.
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The Previsualization Society
The Previsualization Society was officially announced today to “focus on producing and publishing information and resources to promote effective previs through key activities such as promoting standards, education, workflow development and practical knowledge exchange”. Founding members of the Previsualization Society are: David Dozoretz, Founder, Director and VFX Supervisor, Persistence of Vision (POV) Previs; Chris Edwards, […]
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VES Annual Meeting
This past Saturday the Visual Effects Society held their annual meeting in Hollywood. Scott Squires has written up a nice summary of the meeting on his blog. I know the words “Annual Meeting” tend to make one think of a boring affair but I think you will find the speakers brought up many of the […]
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YouTube find: The Flame
Making the rounds on YouTube today is a video featuring the flame user interface as a music video. To view the video click the read more…
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linear workflow discussion
In this week’s fxpodcast we discuss linear workflow. We geek out with 3D guru Master Zap of Mental Images about linear compositing workflow: separating fact from fiction, and discuss just how viable it is to set up a correct linear pipeline. Why is linear compositing valuable? Feature film compositing is nearly always ‘linear’ ironically – […]
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fxguidetv: IBC 2009 Recap
Our latest fxguidetv covers news and items from IBC in Amsterdam earlier this month. We speak with the folks at Blackmagic about the daVinci acquisition, check out a tech demo of realtime Nvidia GPU processing of filters in Adobe Premiere, drop by The Foundry booth to see an interesting application of their upcoming tech in […]
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Winning over Tiger Beer
For three ‘Winning over’ Tiger Beer spots, Oktobor created fully CG architectural icons of London, New York and Paris as a single drop of beer gives rise to the cities that eventually form into the Tiger bottle shape. Oktobor General Manager Patrick McAteer and director Damon Duncan tell fxguide how the spots were accomplished.
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Unpaid Journey Artists Update: Partially Paid
Over the last year, we have been following the story of the group of visual effects artists who worked on the film Journey to the Center of the Earth for Meteor Studios (see here and here). These artists were not paid for their months of work when Meteor Studios folded. Over the last year, the […]
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fxpodcast: Posting Your Work Online
Posting work online has become such a common and crucial part of workflow and we often take it for granted. In this fxpodcast we talk with Andreas Wacker of INTERDUBS, a company that provides hosting of clips for review and approval for over eighty post production and production companies. This large client base gives Andreas […]
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Aliens in the Attic – Rhythm & Hues
For Aliens in the Attic, director John Schultz called on Rhythm & Hues to create an array of cute-but-scary aliens who take on an unlikely band of vacationing kids. Visual effects supervisor Doug Smith and co-visual effects supervisor Mike O’Neal break down Rhythm’s alien animation work for fxguide.
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Back 2 back fxguidetv: Spanish & English
We have new episodes of fxguidetv English and Spanish. In fxguidetv #67, Angie and the team talk to Chris Bond and Chris Harvey of Prime Focus about GI Joe and workflow. (also see our feature written story this week) Visit the fxguidetv page for direct fxguidetv downloads and RSS feed links. To be notified automatically and […]
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61st Primetime Creative Arts Emmy
Today the Primetime Creative Arts Awards were presented at a ceremony at the NOKIA Theatre in downtown Los Angeles. The show, hosted by Kathy Griffin, will be televised on September 18th at 1:00 p.m (ET/PT) on E! Entertainment Television. A list of the winners for selected categories follows the read more:
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G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra
With G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, director Stephen Sommers delved into the world of the popular Hasbro action-figure toy line. Bringing the characters and vehicles to life was partly the role of overall visual effects supervisors Boyd Shermis and Greg McMurry and a host of effects vendors. fxguide profiles some of the key effects shots by Digital Domain, CIS Hollywood and CIS Vancouver, Prime Focus VFX, The Moving Picture Company, CafeFX and Framestore.
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fxpodcast: Taking Woodstock Acid Trip
In this week’s fxpodcast we trip out with Mr X – and their visual effects for Ang Lee’s Taking Woodstock. This comedy required the visual effects team to visualize an acid trip, make the world become a rolling ocean and show the centre of the universe. In a fun and technical discussion Mike Seymour talks […]
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fxguidetv: new flame/smoke 2010×1 releases
ibc begins on Friday in Amsterdam and we’ll be covering the conference via fxguidetv as we have for the last several years. To start out the show, our first episode covers the new extension releases from Autodesk for flame and smoke. We traveled up to Montreal before this week to get the scoop on the […]
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District 9
For District 9, writer/director Neill Blomkamp turned to a host of Vancouver-based studios, along with Weta Workshop and Weta Digital in New Zealand, to provide alien creatures and other effects for the film. fxguide profiles the work of Image Engine, The Embassy Visual Effects, Zoic Studios and Goldtooth Creative in bringing Blomkamp’s vision to life.
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More transitions – Avid acquired Max-T
Maximum Throughput was founded in 1998 and is probably best known in visual effects for their Sledgehammer line which provides storage and IO solutions to complement workstations and provide conform capability. A little over a year ago they introduced MAXedit™ which offers a scalable, multi-seat HD/SD editing solution and also has a web component that […]
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