fxguidetv #41 – John Dykstra

October 21, 2008

This week’s fxguidetv continues our “Masters of the Craft” series with a conversation with vfx legend John Dkystra. He sits down with Mike Seymour and chats about how he got started in the industry, the building of motion control systems, working on the first Star Wars movie, and how the digital age compares to the […]

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fxguidetv #40 – John Knoll Interview

October 16, 2008

fxguidetv episode #40 is now available. We continue our “Masters of the Craft” series with a conversation with ILM vfx supervisor John Knoll. He covers his early days at ILM, the creation of Photoshop and Knoll Light Factory, and more….it’s a fun conversation outside of his usual work on films. The end of the episode […]

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fxpodcast: Heroes vfx @ Stargate Digital

October 15, 2008

A new fxpodcast is out, and this week it is an interview with VFX Supervisor Eric Grenaudier from Stargate Digital about their work on the U.S. television series ‘Heroes’. The show recently started its third season in the United States, having been nominated for a visual effects Emmy in 2007 and 2008. Visit the fxpodcast […]

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Ron Brinkmann Interview

October 12, 2008

In this week’s fxpodcast we speak to Ron Brinkmann about his new book The Art and Science of Compositing Ed. II and take time to both look back on the formation of Shake and also into what the future holds with regards to keying, roto and stereo workflow. Ron discusses his early days at Sony […]

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Autodesk Files Lawsuit Against Assimilate

October 10, 2008

Google alerts and several readers have let us know that Autodesk has filed a lawsuit in Canadian courts alleging that Assilimate is using intellectual property related to 5D’s Cyborg product, now owned by Autodesk (see justia.com). Autodesk purchased the IP related to Cyborg and three other 5D products in 2002 during liquidation proceedings in the […]

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Hollywood

October 8, 2008

The 2nd installation of the Visual Amalgam Art Show was an enormous success, with an estimated eight hundred people attending the event at Bergamot Station in Santa Monica. The semi-annual event features the personal artwork of film industry and visual effects professionals. Show organizers and artists, Patrick Finley and Evan Jacobs, were thrilled with the […]

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He Sees Dead People: Ghost Town

October 6, 2008

In the comedy Ghost Town, Rhinofx provided visual effects, but two effects in particular made us curious here at fxguide: a non motion control timelapse helicopter shot and the principle ghost passing through effect. We figured it would be interesting to find out how these two special visual effects were achieved, so we spoke to the team at Rhinofx.

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RED HYPE – RED BULL Round table

September 30, 2008

Around the Red community there was a strong reaction to an article posted about the RED and the HYPE vs the Reality of 4K, RAW and it valid use for Feature film production. To discuss the article we have recorded a round table discussion with film makers and geeks. This week’s special podcast finds Jason […]

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fxguidetv #38 – Quick Takes from IBC

September 25, 2008

One of the things about trade shows is wandering around and finding the “little things” or surprises on the floor. In this ep we take a look back at a few of our faves in Amsterdam, including a new LCD reference monitor from Barco, cool gear coming out Sonnet, a look at Gridiron’s soon-to-be-in-public-beta Flow […]

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Visual Amalgam Art Show to feature art by VFX Pros

September 25, 2008

Visual Amalgam Art Show offers the public a rare opportunity to see personal artwork created by visual effects professionals behind some of the biggest motion pictures at one of the premier art venues in the Los Angeles area. Patrick Finley, a successful painter and visual effects artist for motion pictures, conceived the first Visual Amalgam […]

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Massive Mummy Clay Armies

September 23, 2008

Mummy 3 : Tomb of the Dragon Empero recently opened in secondary markets such as Australia. Digital Domain did some outstanding Massive work to bring the Armies of Mummy 3 to life, as well being responsible for the development and creation of the CG Emperor Mummy villain. We spoke to the DD team about their Massive experience and their procedural pipeline which is heavily reliant on Houdini.

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It’s Raining White Papers: The Foundry’s Ocula Plugins

September 23, 2008

Contrats to the Foundry. Their Ocula stereo plugins received a ‘Best of IBC’ Award for Post Production by the IBC Daily/TVB Europe team. fxguidetv episode #037 contains an interview with Simon Robinson about the new plugins. The Foundry has published a ocula stereo whitepaper which provides more in-depth details about the technology behind the product.

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Scarlet’s design pulled!

September 22, 2008

Well, RED said their specs were subject to change and not a week after saying RED would also be going into the DSLR camera market with their own video, stills hybrid, the company pulled photos of the Scarlet $3,000, 3K camera off its web site and said the camera is being fully rethought and redesigned. […]

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Autodesk Releases Stereoscopic Filmmaking Whitepaper

September 22, 2008

Autodesk released a Stereoscopic Filmmaking Whitepaper delivering a comprehensive understanding of the state of the industry and its current barriers. The whitepaper provides valuable knowledge for anyone curious about the future of Stereo 3D (S3D) and highlights current industry challenges from technical production complexities to studio considerations and theatrical acceptance. While the industry faces numerous […]

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fxguidetv #37 – IBC, a look at Ocula and Eyeon’s latest

September 21, 2008

In our second fxguidetv episode from Amsterdam and IBC 2008 we get a look at the soon to be released Ocula plug-in from The Foundry for problem solving Stereoscopic images. Also a preview of what’s new in Fusion 6 and Generation from Eyeon. To be notified automatically and have the episodes downloaded in iTunes, subscribe […]

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Cooke Optics /i Technology goes live on the RED ONE Camera

September 17, 2008

Cooke Optics Ltd., a premier manufacturer of precision lenses for the motion picture industry, has announced that its i/ Technology will be available on all RED ONE cameras that ship from 12 September 2008. Jarred Land, Fire Chief at RED, announced on the RED website on Friday 12 September that all new RED ONE cameras […]

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Autodesk Signs RED SDK License Agreement at IBC 2008

September 17, 2008

Autodesk Inc. has agreed to terms with the RED Digital Cinema Camera Company and has signed the RED R3D Software Developer’s Kit License Agreement. RED provides a high-performance digital cine camera with the quality of 35mm film and the convenience of pure digital. Autodesk is a world leader in entertainment and design software. Read more […]

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Thomson Sells Thomson Grass Valley To Private Investors

September 16, 2008

Thomson announced that it is selling the Thomson Grass Valley equipment business to private investors led by PARTER Capital Group, a German private equity advisory firm. The sale includes the Spirit film scanning family, together with the Bones digital intermediate workflow tools and LUTher, a colour space management product. Financial terms of the sale are […]

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Emmys: John Adams

September 14, 2008

The series John Adams received 23 Emmy Award nominations, the most of any program this year. Among those was the nomination for Outstanding SVE for a Mini-series. This week we speak to Jeff Goldman, at CafeFX about their Emmy-nominated work. As second President of the United States, and one of the most influential Founding Fathers of the USA, the story spans decades of Adams’ life UPDATED: EMMY WINNER

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fxguidetv #36 – The Road to IBC

September 14, 2008

On the way to Amsterdam John Montgomery stopped in Montreal to get an exclusive and in depth look at the latest releases for Flame and Smoke. Philippe Soeiro from Autodesk takes us through some of the exciting new features including 3D Particle presets, the transition to floating point workflow, real time deliverables and more. To […]

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ILM to make full animated feature

September 13, 2008

After many years of rumor and possible projects, ILM is going to make a full animated feature film called Rango for director Gore Verbinski Variety is reporting. ILM of course worked with Verbinski on Pirates of the Caribbean and like that film the new animated film will star the voice and capture motion of Johnny […]

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fxguidetv #34 – New Deal Studios, PFTrack 5.0

September 8, 2008

During Siggraph we decided to break from the show floor and visit New Deal Studios to talk with Ian Hunter and Matthew Gratzner about their fantastic work on The Dark Knight. We also talk with Richard Spohrer from The Pixel Farm about the next version of PFTrack. To be notified automatically and have the episodes […]

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Red Centre #14 : Scratch that

September 7, 2008

The new Red Centre #14 is out. This week we discuss the RED DLSR and start a series looking at Red Post gear – starting with Assimilate Scratch. Visit our red centre page to listen or subscribe via RSS or iTunes. As always we’d love to hear from you please email us at Red at […]

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Tropic Thunder

September 4, 2008

In this week’s fxpodcast, Mark Breakspear of CIS (formerly Rainmaker) discusses how Blades of Glory showed his company how fundamentally different the pipeline needs to be for visual effects in comedies. We follow up with more details and background in our online story.

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GenArts releases Sapphire Plug-ins for OFX

September 3, 2008

GenArts is pleased to announce the immediate availability of Sapphire Plug-ins for OFX products. Our entire collection of more than 200 Sapphire effects can now be easily applied by users of The Foundry’s Nuke, Autodesk Toxik, Eyeon Fusion, FilmLight Baselight, Digital Vision Film Master, and Assimilate Scratch. Click through for more details and the rest […]

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Fox Sports HD is ripped

September 3, 2008

When Fox Sports On-Air team decided to unveil a new HD Identity they wanted to create something that would feel entirely new, unique and special. Their new ID needed to showcase the featured sports Fox broadcasts (the NFL, MLB, and NASCAR) and do so in a way that would illustrate the power of watching sports […]

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Demystifying Motion Capture Technique

August 28, 2008

The VES recently held a Motion Capture event where a range of motion capture experts presented a snap shot of the state of the art in the industry, David Stripinis reports a personal perspective, from someone who works with it daily.

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Labor Series Part Two: The Animation Guild

August 27, 2008

In this fxpodcast we speak with Steve Hulett, Business Representative for the The Animation Guild Local 839 IATSE. This is part of an ongoing series discussing the issues involved in labor laws, treatment of workers and general respect for visual effects in the industry.

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Brideshead: Houdini & Troubled Waters

August 26, 2008

Brideshead Revisited,” Miramax Films’ recently released feature adaptation of Evelyn Waugh’s novel, is peppered with seamless invisible visual effects created by CIS London. Working closely with the film’s director, Julian Jarrold, visual effects supervisor Adam Gascoyne oversaw the challenging subtleties that were essential in bringing Jarrold’s version of the classic story to life. fxguide spoke […]

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fxguidetv #32 from SIGGRAPH

August 22, 2008

A new episode of fxguidetv is up today, with more from last week’s SIGGRAPH conference in Los Angeles. Motion capture seemed to take center stage on the exhibition floor this year, and we cover it from two angles. First, Jeff Heusser visits House of Moves in Los Angeles to see real-world applications of motion tracking […]

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