Making It Look Great 7 Review

Last summer I wrote an lengthy review of the Motionworks’ Making It Look Great 6 training series, where Tim Clapham did a great job covering the integration of Cinema 4D and After Effects. I mentioned my wish for Tim to do a full series on using Cinema’s MoGraph module, and little did I know that such a series was already in the works. Not wanting to wait, I offered to proof it as it was being developed (crafty, huh!), and now it’s arrived in a store near you as Making It Look Great 7.

MILG7 consists of six projects produced using a wide variety of MoGraph objects and effectors. Not only will you learn tons of MoGraph techniques as you create some fun animations, but sprinkled throughout are a great many solid Cinema working practices that will serve you well in any project.

Canon Rebel T2i / EOS 550D

The intertubes are buzzing this week with the announcement of the Canon Rebel T2i (also known as the EOS 550D in Europe).

In short, it has an APS-C format sensor that is similar to the Canon 7D (which means it’s roughly the size of a motion picture film frame, for “filmic” depth of field), accepts EF and EF-S lenses, and shoots video at a pleasing variety of frame rates and sizes with “full manual control”:

• 1920 x 1080 (Full HD): 30p (29.97) / 24p (23.976) / 25p
• 1280 x 720: 60p (59.94) / 50p
• 640 x 480 (SD): 60p (59.94) / 50p)

The good folks at Digital Photography Review already have online a still-image-focused 13-page preview based on a pre-production unit (if you’re seeing only 1 page, use the popup at the top or the Actions > Previous/Next buttons at the bottom to navigate).

Price? $800 without lens; $900 with.

Adobe Community Leaders Summit

Last week, Adobe invited a variety of well-known people in the industry to come get a closer look at what they’ve been working on, and to provide feedback on their direction. To Adobe’s credit, this was no “preaching to the choir” session; many of those invited were FCP and Avid editors, and several current users gave Adobe personnel an earful both publicly and privately. It was also made clear to us that no specific product versions or release dates were being discussed, and that we couldn’t repeat anything that had not already been mentioned publicly (reminds us of the old Zen Buddhist saying “Those who know don’t say; those who say don’t know”). However, this event gives us an excuse to aggregate into one place a number of emerging technologies Adobe has already murmured about, for those who haven’t had the chance to keep up…

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