Wednesday, March 19, 2008

I'm riding the MAXON snake...

Hello all,

I'm anxiously waiting for my shipment of Cinema 4D Studio and MoGraph to arrive. It's kind of like an expensive, and late, new year's resolution. I will have cloth and hair simulation, a physics engine, distributed rendering, and the hottest motion graphics toolset in the industry. It's put up or shut up.

I'm not investing in Maya because of Autodesk's support and upgrade costs, and Cinema 4D is still the easiest 3D app to learn, that's equipped to work on feature films, though I spend most of my time in broadcast TV. No one else can render out project files for AE, Motion, Combustion, Fusion, Photoshop, etc, etc.

So I've shot my wad. No more trips. I'm looking to hunker down and pump out some hard core material.

wish me luck,

mschirado
www.wmaeug.net

Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Digital Projection for Animators?

The West Michigan Film/Video Alliance had it's big party last Friday, and the new Micro-Cinema theater housed at the Wealthy Theater in Grand Rapids is a free exhibition venue for members (4th Wednesday of each month). It uses an HD Christie DLP projector, the same brand that's sitting in our multiplexes showing us 2K movies. Once they get it figured out, I'm hoping to get my laptop hooked up to it and playing H.264 HD clips onto their 250-inch screen. Maybe even do After Effects Training with the projector....hmmmm....

Mathew Schirado
www.wmaeug.net

Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Make Sure to See Cloverfield!

Hi Ho everybody!

Saw Cloverfield this weekend, and can't recommend it enough, especially to congratulate the rotoscoping artists and 3D matchmovers at Double Negative, and the creature animation by Tippett Studio. I didn't mind the shaky-cam quality, but I'm sure the VFX artists did. I read the all the VFX shots were not shot by the Panasonic HVX-200 (used everywhere else) but with either the Grass Valley Viper or the Sony F23, which I saw at NAB 2007. The VFX guys refused to comp HVX-200 footage, which is pretty funny, and gives you perspective for doing compositing, in that DVCPro HD 4:2:2 video won't hold up to a VFX pipeline. It's 4:4:4 colorspace or bust.

mschirad

Thursday, August 30, 2007

AE CS3 Running Great

It's only been a couple of weeks since I've had AE 8 installed...along with Boris Continuum Complete 5, and boy what a difference not using a Beta makes. So far it's been solid, no bugs, crashes, good performance. It uses a bit more RAM, and I'm definitely hitting the limits of 2 gig of RAM....but I'm pretty impressed with Adobe's work. I'm trying to engineer some effects for work, gotten some test green screens from out XDCam HD cameras, amongst the worst ever shot, and I'm able to work through most of them (just not the one wearing a green shirt).

Thankfully I've also gotten my shipment for the ATI Raedon X800 AGP card for one of my dual 2.0 Gig G5's. Easiest install ever. Wow. One screw. It's the last/best video card you can get for the older PCI-X G5 PowerMacs. Sadly it doesn't support Apple Color. Pity.

Hopefully next year's AE Continuing Education class at Kendall College will be on AE 8.

Looking forward to seeing everybody on Sept. 15th for the meeting!

mschirad
www.wmaeug.net

Thursday, June 21, 2007

Microfilmmaker Magazine/Adobe Spec Trailer Contest

Production PremiumFrom Jeremy Hanke, Editor at MicroFilmmaker Magazine:

Thousands of filmmakers are discovering an extremely clever way to encourage potential film investors to finance their films: the speculative trailer. Created by shooting a few key scenes from a script the filmmaker wants to get funding for and editing them into trailer format, a speculative trailer shows the style and look of the final film to potential investors and allows them to see how it might be marketed.

To encourage you to create a speculative trailer for that film you've always wanted to get funded, Microfilmmaker Magazine has teamed up with Adobe to bring you the Microfilmmaker Magazine/Adobe Spec Trailer Contest. A panel of highly regarded filmmakers and editors, which currently includes acclaimed Indie directors Mike Flanagan (Oculus, The Ghosts of Hamilton Street) and Alex Ferrari (Cyn, Broken), will judge these speculative trailers and the top ten will be listed on our website for our readers to watch and vote on.

The winner of this contest will receive the brand new Adobe Creative Suite 3: Production Premium package (featuring Premiere Pro CS3, After Effects CS3, Flash CS3, Encore CS3, Soundbooth CS3, Photoshop CS3 Extended, Illustrator CS3, OnLocation CS3, and Ultra CS3) and Red Giant Magic Bullet Suite 3, for a grand prize total of $2498!

red giant logoThe submission deadline is August 15th, 2007. The top ten will be posted on September 7th, with voting for Microfilmmaker Members available from then until Midnight September 14th. The winner will be declared on September 15th, 2007.(I recommend that anyone wishing to enter this contest read Mike Flanagan's amazingly insightful article on editing trailers first.)Read the complete submission instructions below:
  1. Trailers must be no shorter than 60 seconds in length and no longer than 120 seconds in length.
  2. Trailers must be in English or have English subtitles.
  3. Trailers must have utilized at least one Adobe product in their creation. (This does not have to be a video program such as Premiere Pro or After Effects, but may include Adobe graphic products like Photoshop or Illustrator or audio programs like Audition.)
  4. Trailers must be shot for no more than a $500 budget if you own your own camera or an $800 budget if you must rent your camera.
  5. 80% of the footage in your trailer must have been shot after June 1, 2007.
  6. Trailers must be in either uncompressed Windows video (.AVI) or uncompressed Quicktime (.MOV) NTSC or 24P files burned to DVD.
  7. Each DVD submitted must be in a full size DVD case. (CD cases and clamshell cases will not be excepted.)
  8. A filmmaker may submit more than one trailer, but each trailer must be on its own separate DVD in its own separate DVD case.
  9. Clearly label your DVD case with the following information:
    a) Trailer Name
    b) Director’s Name
    c) Genre
    d) Running Time
          e) Shipping Address
          f) Phone Number
          g) Email
          h) Trailer Budget
          i) Which Adobe Product Was Used in Creation?
  10. Clearly label your DVD with the following information:
          a) Trailer Name
          b) Director
          c) Email
  11. All submissions must be postmarked no later than August 15th, 2007.

Failure to follow any of these ground rules will cause your entry to be disqualified. 

Submit all trailers to:

Microfilmmaker Magazine
c/o Kari Ann Morgan
100 John Sutherland Dr. Ste. 7
Nicholasville, KY 40356

If you have any questions, don't hesitate to email either myself or our PR director, Kari Ann Morgan.

Additional and Legal Information:
Discs that have been mis-burned or do not play properly will be discarded, so please double check your discs before you mail them in.
Trailers will not be returned, so do not send master copies of your trailer.
By submitting your trailer, you give Microfilmmaker Magazine permission to use it in part or in its entirety in advertising related to this or future contests.

Labels: , , , , ,

Sunday, June 17, 2007

Summertime theaters....

Hello all,

I want to thank everyone who came to our latest WMAEUG user group meeting, everyone got to be a winner in our raffle. I'm glad I didn't rush off to the Emmy awards in Detroit; spending time with members is more fun. I'm hoping that I'll have a bit more time freed up to show After Effects CS3 for our next meeting.

Summertime means it's hot, and I'm finding myself trying to make to to air conditioned movie theaters as much as I can. Some might have called me a film snob, but it seems a little dream of mine is coming true - that this area is becoming a top theater region thanks to Jack Loeks Theaters, who retrofitted their 3 largest multiplexes to Christie 2K digital projectors, and this weekend announced buying two Cinemark multiplexes, converting them to 2K digital projection by the end of the year. Our per-capita ratio of digital projectors to population might be leading the nation. I'd have never predicted it.

The pressure for the rest of the competition to install digital projection is now going to be impossible to ignore....and moviegoers will benefit greatly. My concern is that ticket prices will rise due to this large equipment investment, but so far we haven't seen a shift. Fingers are crossed.

Let me be clear, 2K digital is far better than 35mm prints, as far as even brightness across the screen, no film print damage and ALWAYS sharp focus. (I saw Rise of the Silver Surfer on 35MM print today, and it was out of focus) Yes, IMAX is better, but I'll be quite happy to see 2K for the rest of my life.

Please support your local 2K digital projector theaters. Tell them you want them, and go to them. Demand quality from your theaters. We have to make sure there are venues that can accept our independent films shot with the RED One camera at 2K to hard drive. (pay me a living wage, and I'll buy one myself!)

Mathew Schirado
www.wmaeug.net
groups.yahoo.com/group/wmaeug

Thursday, June 14, 2007

Meeting Reminder

I wanted to remind you about the meeting scheduled for Saturday, June 16, from 1pm-3pm. We'll be showing you some cool FxPlug plug-ins for Motion and Final Cut Pro, some After Effects stuff and we'll be giving away lots of goodies ... books, a couple of plugins, t-shirts. We've collected quite a pile over the last few months. You don't want to miss it!

The meeting is at Kendall College of Art and Design on the corner of Division and Fountain. You can hopefully find a metered spot to park on the street. They don't charge for meters on Saturdays.

I hope you can make it.