What is the average pattern in a facility doing high-end work? Increasingly, it involves moving the images into data from either film or tape and then having the images remain as data until output. Tape is a linear interchange format. From TVC to Feature films the desire is to scan or telecine the footage into data and never use video tape. This is being accelerated by such products as lustre – Discreet’s new advanced workstation grading system, and by the

FXguide caught up with one of our favourite Mac (and PC) software companies, Realviz. makers of Stitcher, Imagemodeller, ReTimer and others. Fxguide tracked down Luc Robert, one of the founders of the company and asked about their new Matchmover Pro or ‘Corsica’ and the future of the innovative line of image processing products.

Gangs of New York is a masterpiece,… but tonight you’re just not in the mood for the film’s graphic gore, no matter how artistically director Martin Scorsese presents it. So you and the kids opt to see a frothy romantic comedy instead. The lights go down and, predictably, and the Gangs of New York trailer appears. No need to hid the kid’s eyes, however:
You won’t find so much as a spot of blood on Leonardo DiCaprio’s determined visage.

Thanks Outpost

The second demo of the afternoon at the 2003 Discreet users group was a technology demonstration of new stuff being prepped for the next release of flame and inferno. Not everything that was shown at the show will make it into the software — potentially the features will never make it in — but it was an impressive showing nonetheless. The software engineers, who just wrapped up the 5/8 release and maintenance releases, pulled out all the stops to show s

The standout events at the discreet users group meeting are always the previews of upcoming software releases. As usual, these were “technology demos”, and not promised features that will be part of the mix when the release is final. Long time users know this — the promised 3D tracker took several years to see the light of day. We’ll first look at the upcoming Fire/Smoke release and in our next article take a look at the effects software.

Well NAB 2003 got off to a fast start with the first FXGuide Live event followed by the Discreet User Group Meeting. A big thank you to all who attended our inaugural event, as well as your support. We really enjoyed the opportunity to create a user session at NAB — the questions and interaction from the audience was great.

For our intital report on the gossip and news of the events .. click “read more…” at the bottom of this panel. A more detailed

In our continuing Artist in Action series, we thought it would be good to look at Flame artists who have move over to directing. Many, such as Keith Adam’s at SPIN in Atlanta, – do their own visual design work, for complete creative control.

We caught up with Adams when he was recently on a shoot in Sydney and asked him about his latest spot for Charlotte, USA.

FXG’s Sydney crew member caught up with Eyeon’s Adam Zolis based in Canada to discuss one of the industries top desktop solutions Digital Fusion.

Pixel Magic, a division of OCS/Freeze Frame has completed an array of visual effect shots for 20th Century Fox’s ‘Daredevil’, starring Ben Affleck. Pixel Magic created a seamless mix of CG and real-life elements, a challenging task, considering the super-human display of
acrobatics and quick-pace style of the movie.

The job of breathing “life” into the endless “death” of Final Destination II was awarded to long time Digital Fusion users, Digital Dimension. The visual effects studio completed 85 shots, all of which traveled through DF. Everything from the 4000 frame premonition sequences that aided our star, Miss Rivers, in evading numerous pitfalls, to the action packed log disaster scene, a precursor to the theme of “frightening consequences”.

Feature films produced using Linux include Star Wars Attack of the Clones, Lord of the Rings 2, Star Trek Nemesis, Harry Potter, Scooby-Doo and many more. Every major studio has converted to Linux or has a Linux conversion underway. Linux has become the most popular operating system for feature film production. But with no Adobe Linux version of Photoshop, – the most popular open source Linux application in the post industry is now Film GIMP (or it was …