The Masters of Compositing Series - Part 1: Petro Vlahos

This is the first in a series of interviews with the pioneers and masters in the compositing/VFX film & television industry. I originally recorded these interviews for my published book “The Green Screen Handbook” (Sybex/Wiley, pub) and had intended to produce one full-length documentary from the materials. But after a couple of years past now, I thought they would be better served as individual parts of a series to help educate and inform people about these historic times from the early days of VFX compositing through modern-day techniques.

The FCP X Update on MacBreak Studio Live

On Thursday’s MacBreak Studio: Live show we discussed the Final Cut Pro 10.0.3 update, diving in deep on features big and small.

After Effects weekly roundup

Here’s another summary of the last week or so of news on After Effects—assorted tutorials and tools, animation aids, CC Hair, son of Ken Burns, expressions, and more.

Expression Shorts - Trigger Event Based On Layer’s Speed

In this episode we look at how how fast a layer is moving by using the property expression, “speed” and then use that information to trigger an event on another layer.

Building a Ledge

The script for Man on a Ledge called for protagonist Nick Cassidy (Sam Worthington) to spend the bulk of the tale perched 21 stories above a Manhattan intersection. An escaped convict trying to prove his innocence, Nick captures the city’s attention and distracts authorities while his brother conducts a daring heist across the street. Visual Effects Supervisor Richard Kidd had the responsibility of maintaining suspense throughout this thriller that was literally shot high in the air.

Act of Valor world premiere with Navy SEALs

Monday, February 13th marked the world premiere of feature film Act of Valor at the legendary Cinerama Dome on Sunset Boulevard in the heart of Hollywood. Produced by the Bandito Brothers, Act of Valor is inspired by real-life events and, for the first time ever, stars active duty United States Navy SEALs. Among the premiere attendees were many of the Navy’s finest, and press and paparazzi lined the carpet where customary Hollywood red carpet was replaced by United States Navy blue. Just before the throngs were let into the theater, the crowd welcomed in six VIP guests whose entrance was unique.

Accelerate your RED workflow with Adobe Premiere Pro CS5.5

Adobe and RED have collaborated to bring a truly native, color-rich, 4K tapeless workflow to Adobe Premiere Pro CS5.5. Join this webinar to learn how you can enable a robust workflow for editing, grading, and delivering native R3D footage in real time using Premiere Pro. See Wes Howell and Ted Schilowitz step through the RED editing workflow in Premiere Pro, including selecting RED sequence presets, quickly importing clips without transcoding or rewrapping, switching playback resolutions to meet the performance and image quality needs of every post-production task, adjusting the look of your sequence through extensive controls for RED RAW footage, and outputting it to virtually any format.

Click here to register for the event.

The Metadata Magic of Smoke’s Clip History

History is a feature in Smoke that keeps track of the operations that you perform on a clip, so that it can be recalled and revised later.  It not only keeps track of the setups and keyframing, but also the clips used in making the final result.  This is what I find really special.

Why Smoke is Ideal for Broadcast

For anyone who has ever worked in a broadcast environment, you know the unique challenges that are involved in post production.  Deadlines are tight and resources are often slim. Often you are creating something from nothing.  When projects are due in hours instead of days, graphics and design have to be created on the fly, and you need to be flexible and responsive to last minute changes… you don’t have time for complex workflows or long render times.  As someone who has been a broadcast editor for almost 2 decades at a local station, I believe that Autodesk Smoke is the ideal tool for editors to overcome the challenges that are inherent to broadcast television.

(1) Comments: • Most recent comments by: Robert Matichak,

HPA Tech Retreat, Day One

Welcome to Indian Wells, an offshoot of Palm Springs, CA. So why is the first day’s “Super Session” titled “Snowflakes with an Increasing Chance of Clouds”? As moderator Leon Silverman said, modern post workflows are like snowflakes because no two are alike, and they change as soon as they hit the ground.

(1) Comments: • Most recent comments by: Adam Wilt,

Testing the 7toX Final Cut Pro 7 to Final Cut Pro X conversion

When Apple released the latest Final Cut Pro X update there was a very important 3rd party utility released right alongside the 10.0.3 update that finally allowed the importing of legacy FCP7 projects into FCPX. It wasn’t entirely surprising that it was Intelligent Assistance releasing 7toX for Final Cut Pro. I say that because they had already created Xto7 (to move projects from FCPX to FCP7) and are arguably the best company for creating high-quality XML workflow tools for the FCP universe. There’s… more »

How to get the “24p” look for your live-switched multicam shoot

Our friends at Datavideo recently asked me to write an article called How to get the “24p” look for your live-switched multicam shoot. The article covers many factors involved in accomplishing that goal, including framerate, aperture, shutter speed, depth of field, and menu settings in Datavideo’s digital HD video mixers (“switchers”) and recorders, and also the menu settings in several pro cameras from Canon, Panasonic, and Sony. The included chart explains which of the cameras have a direct HD-SDI output, and which require an optional converter to go from HDMI to HD-SDI to connect to the Datavideo digital HD video mixer. As you’ll… more »

2D Footage with a Stereo 3D Rig in After Effects CS5.5

Adobe included a 1-step option to create a 3D Stereo Camera Rig in After Effects CS5.5, to everyone’s enthusiasm for a simpler workflow in 3D space. Great if you are working in 3D space in After Effects, but what about an easy option for 3D Stereo pairs captured by a 3D camera or twin cameras on a rig? In this tutorial I’ll show you how to quickly modify the Stereo 3D Rig in After Effects to quickly mux your L&R video files and adjust the convergence for anaglyph, interlaced or stereo pairs output.