fxguidetv: Smoke on Mac
At the Inter BEE 2009 conference in Tokyo Autodesk showed a technology demo and announced Smoke on the Macintosh platform with a price of $14,995 (U.S. suggested retail price). We take an exclusive first look at Smoke on the Mac and talk with the product managers and developers to answer all the questions you may […]
fxguidetv: Another Killer Nuke Segment
Right on the heels on the incredibly popular segment in our last fxguidetv, we have another feature from IBC featuring work in Nuke. In episode #71 Shervin Shoghian, compositing supervisor at Image Engine, shows off some insane 3D tricks from work they did on District 9. This is another great example of how to use […]
smoke on mac: yes, it’s for real
We haven’t been able to say anything up until now as we strongly respect our Non-Disclosure agreements as beta testers, but the rumors are true: there is definitely smoke for mac in Autodesk’s future. According to Autodesk, they will be “showing a technology preview of its industry leading Autodesk Smoke editorial finishing software running on […]
fxpodcast: AICP Digital
In July we posted a press release from the Association of Independent Commercial Producers (AICP) announcing their digital initiative. We wanted to learn more about this so we sat down with Ed Ulbrich (Digital Domain) who is heading up AICP Digital. The AICP has been around since 1972, this new initiative is designed to tackle […]
fxguidetv: rise | fx Nuke Presentation from IBC
This year’s Foundry booth at IBC had several fantastic presentations by artists who use Nuke at their facilities and our next two fxguidetv episodes have two of those killer presentations. Episode #70 features the work of rise | fx, the biggest vendor for vfx in Berlin. vfx supervisor Florian Gellinger shows off the work they […]
Bridgestone by RedCartel
‘Hotel’, a Bridgestone Australia spot created by Sydney collaborative outfit RedCartel, features a recurring Gecko character realized entirely using the open source Blender 3D software. click below to read our interview with RedCartel producer James Neale, as he explains how Blender made the spot possible. RedCartel started in May 2008 as a collaborative effort between […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 – […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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, […]
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 […]
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…
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 – […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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:
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 […]