fxguidetv – Episode #53 Knowing
A new episode of fxguidetv is available for downloading. It features an interview with Animal Logic vfx supervisor Andrew Jackson, who chats with Mike Seymour about the film Knowing shot entirely on the RED One camera. Also, we have a look at the new up coming term of fxphd. Watch for new fxguidetv eps coming […]
Readsgi sold to Rackable Systems
Rackable Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:RACK), a leading provider of servers and storage products for medium to large-scale data centers, announced its agreement to acquire substantially all the assets of Silicon Graphics, Inc. (SGI) for approximately $25 million in cash, subject to adjustment in certain circumstances, plus the assumption of certain liabilities associated with the acquired assets. sgi […]
ReadVFXWages.com launches
Back in August we did a podcast and article with Steve Hulett from The Animation Guild where he made the comment “How many visual effects houses do you know say to their top guys “uh, keep it to yourself what you’re making”… it’s against the law.” He went to talk about his feelings that not […]
Readda Vinci Announces Native .R3D Support
With NAB a month away, add another manufacturer to the list of those natively supporting the .R3D format. Today, da Vinci announced add-ons to their Resolve grading systems which allow varying levels of speed for decoding RED files. The three new products range from a software-only solution which is available for all Resolve systems to […]
ReadNew fxpodcast – Showing Film Some Love
We tend to chase the latest technology here at fxguide, but we starting thinking that film is still the dominant media for motion picture photography and projection. So we went to one of the major sources, Kodak, to find out what they have been working on. As you’ll hear when we talked with Gary Einhaus, […]
ReadHD Expo (and Continuing the Image Quality Discussion)
HD Expo has been around since 2001 and holds conferences in Los Angeles, Chicago and New York as well as internationally. Kristin Petrovich, President of HD Expo explained that they are in the process of transitioning the name to “creatasphere”. On March 5th the HD Expo was held at the Hilton at Universal City, featuring […]
ReadVES and ASC Team up for Image Quality
The Visual Effects Society (VES) Technology Committee & American Society of Cinematographers (ASC) held a session this past Tuesday in Hollywood called Image Quality Considerations for Cinematography and Visual Effects. This was a standing room only event at the Academy’s Linwood Dunn Theater, Eric Roth (head of the VES) said in his opening remarks that […]
ReadAutodesk Introduces Softimage 7.5 Software
Autodesk today released an update to SOFTIMAGE|XSI, which it acquired from Avid back in November, and the update renames the product to Autodesk Softimage. Read the press release after the jump
ReadEd Ulbrich: How Benjamin Button got his face
A talk from the 2009 TED Conference has been posted featuring Ed Ulbrich, from Digital Domain, explaining the Oscar-winning technology that allowed his team to digitally create younger and older versions of Brad Pitt’s face for “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.” Watch the clip here
ReadVES Awards – Report and Photo Gallery
It was a good night for Digital Domain at the 7th Annual Visual Effects Society Awards as “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” took home four awards and a commercial for Bacardi made it five. The HBO series “John Adams”, “The Changeling”, “WALL E”, and “The Dark Knight” all took home multiple awards and New […]
ReadVES Awards – The Winners List
The 7th Annual Visual Effects Society Awards were held tonight at the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza in Los Angeles. In addition to the award categories a VES Lifetime Achievement award was presented to Kathleen Kennedy and Frank Marshall and the George Méliès Award for Pioneering was presented to Phil Tippett. The winners in individual categories […]
ReadGridiron Flow Beta for Mac Released
One of the more interesting products in development over the last year has been Gridiron Software’s Flow — an asset, versioning, and time tracking package for artists. It works behind the scenes to track what you’re working on and what files were used to create the end result. Just drag a render to the Flow […]
ReadThe Foundry: Looking for Showreel Material
It’s that time of year again, when manufacturers are looking for material to add to their tradeshow reels. The Foundry is prepping their reel for NAB and looking for cool stuff that features work done in their products: Nuke, Furnace, Keylight, Ocula, Tinder, and Tinderbox. If you have work that you’d like to have featured […]
ReadAnd the BAFTA Award goes to…
Starting the award season the British Academy of Film and Television Arts held the BAFTA Awards tonight. The winner for the category Special Visual Effects is: The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button Eric Barba, Craig Barron, Nathan McGuinness, Edson Williams Full list of BAFTA winners can be found here. The VES Awards are next on […]
ReadThe Orphanage suspends operations
Late yesterday we got word that The Orphanage in San Francisco was suspending operations. The confirmation came quickly on Orphanage co-founder Stu Maschwitz’s ProLost blog. The company was founded in 1999 by Stu and co-founders Scott Stewart and Jonathan Rothbart and according to The Orphanage website had a staff of more than 160 artists with […]
ReadImagineer Announces Plans for 2009
We haven’t heard much from the folks at Imagineer since some big changes at the company in the second half of last year. Today they announced that the first half of the year will see significant upgrades to their mocha and mocha for After Effects tracking products. They also plan to announce details on upgrades […]
ReadThe Foundry’s 2009 Nuke Roadmap
The first ever Nuke master class in London was held in Soho today and over 200 artists from all around Europe attended the event. The session was definitely geared towards artist-types and started with the Foundry’s Jon Waddleton covering python scripting for artists. There were also a ton of cool tips and tricks shown by […]
Readfxguidetv – Episode #51 is on the Air
A new episode of fxguidetv is available for your viewing pleasure. It features an interview with vfx supervisor Eric Durst, who chats with Mike Seymour about the craft of turning elements of a script into visual effects which help tell the story. Also, we have a look at a fun Levi’s 501 spec spot helmed by […]
ReadAll is Forgiven: Sale Ends
The Foundry and Autodesk have rebuilt the arrangement we reported on earlier this month and the Foundry will once again fully develop Sparks for the Autodesk Systems products. We had reported earlier in the month on the complex issues leading to the Foundry slashing prices to just 10% of their normal price, and the loss […]
ReadNominees announced for 2008 Oscars
The three films nominated for the Visual Effects category for the 2008 Academy Awards are: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button Eric Barba, Steve Preeg, Burt Dalton and Craig Barron The Dark Knight Nick Davis, Chris Corbould, Tim Webber and Paul Franklin Iron Man John Nelson, Ben Snow, Dan Sudick and Shane Mahan The Academy […]
ReadVES Announces Nominees
The Visual Effects Society (VES) today announced the nominees for the 7th Annual VES Awards ceremony recognizing outstanding visual effects in over a dozen categories of film, animation, television, commercials and video games. Nominees were chosen Saturday, January 17, 2009, by numerous panels of VES members who viewed submissions at the FotoKem screening facilities in […]
ReadA list ups and downs
Autodesk: cuts 750 jobs We spoke to Autodesk overnight. They confirmed that 10% of jobs across the board had gone. Some friends from M&E division have gone, from offices around the world not just in Montreal. All of the final people have not even been decided, in some cases areas they have been told there […]
Readfxguidetv 50th episode + 10 years of fxguide.com!
The new year brings a new episode of fxguidetv and it’s a milestone for us: our 50th episode. We decided to have some fun at take a look back at some of our favorite moments from the past year and a half. What an 18 months it was! We also take a look ahead at […]
ReadBritish Academy Film Awards (BAFTA) nominees
The British Academy Film Awards nominations were announced today. Nominees for the category Special Visual Effects are: The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button – Eric Barba, Craig Barron, Nathan McGuinness, Edson Williams The Dark Knight– Chris Corbould, Nick Davis, Paul Franklin, Tim Webber Indiana Jones and The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull– Pablo Helman Iron […]
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