Studio Monthly articles from April 2006

Studio Monthly archives from April 2006

Cameras and cars.(editor's note)
April 1, 2006... Is this the year I finally replace my 16-year-old Honda Accord with 200,000+ miles on it? Maybe. It all depends on the best financing and warranty deal I can find. Camera manufacturers understand this, too. Just as gas guzzlers are yielding...

What's my flow.(quick cuts)
April 1, 2006... JOEL PILGER President/Director !mpossible Pictures WHAT WE DO Pre-vis on commercials that involve live action, visual effects and/or animation [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] WHY WE DO IT It's a nice way to pull...

What I'm using now: Source Connect.(quick cuts)
April 1, 2006... BOB GIAMMARCO Mixer/Sound Designer AudioEngine|West Phoenix, AZ LIST: $1,495. WHY I LOVE IT: Source Connect is a Pro Tools plug-in that takes the place of an ISDN box for remote sessions. When we first did this we used a...

New Century wide-angle adapters.(NAB PREVIEW)
April 1, 2006... Schneider Optics has announced a new line of Century lens accessories created especially to complement Panasonic's new AG-HVX200 camcorder. New Century lens add-ons for the HVX200 include the .6X wide angle adapter, .75X wide angle converter,...

Giant Film Fix.(NAB PREVIEW)
April 1, 2006... Red Giant Software has released its new product Film Fix, a set of After Effects plug-ins (that also support version 7) designed for documentary filmmakers and post-production studios that need film and video restoration tools on the desktop....

LCD paradise.(NAB PREVIEW)
April 1, 2006... Panasonic won't have any CRT monitors in its booth at NAB this year; the focus will be on its expanding line of plasmas and LCD reference monitors. Among the highlights is the new 26-inch BT-LH2600W widescreen HD/SD production LCD, which has...

Cool and bright studio lights.(NAB PREVIEW)
April 1, 2006... ARRI is set to introduce its new ARRI X Ceramic 250 and Studio Ceramic 250 studio lighting at NAB. Similar to the company's popular ARRI Studio 1K Fresnel, the Studio Ceramic 250 features ARRI X reflector technology and frosted diffusion glass,...

A particle in time.(NAB PREVIEW)
April 1, 2006... Wondertouch is heading to NAB with its new Professional Emitter Libraries, a collection of six particle emitter libraries for the company's particlelllusion 3.0 software. Each of the six libraries contains 30 emitters within a central theme,...

AJA power.(NAB PREVIEW)
April 1, 2006... AJA Video has started shipping the affordable KONA LSe, a new PCI-Express version of AJA's analog and digital SD video capture and playback, the KONA LS, suited for Final Cut Pro. KONA LSe has the same feature set as the KONA LS, but with...

In the mood for custom tracks.(NAB PREVIEW)
April 1, 2006... SmartSound's Sonicfire Pro 4 is out of the loop--by design. Unlike loop-based programs, which build music scores bar-by-bar and instrument-by-instrument--a process that can produce repetitious results and take hours even for the most...

BOXXED in.(NAB PREVIEW)
April 1, 2006... BOXX will debut its APEXX 8 workstation at NAB. Designed for visual effects artists, APEXX 8 is capable of handling 2K and 4K film and combines the ability to work in real time on very large files (up to 128 GB of memory) with the performance...

Disc jockeys.(NAB PREVIEW)
April 1, 2006... Disc Makers has developed two new models of DVD and CD duplicators: the two-drive Reflex2 and powerful 10-drive Reflex10. All popular Reflex systems have been re-engineered with new NED 16xDVD/48x CD writers, a controller that offers a large...

Two lenses in one.(NAB PREVIEW)
April 1, 2006... Tired of carrying too many lenses on every shoot? Fujinon's latest, the HA16X6.3ERM, is the first of its kind to combine a wide angle and a long zoom (16X zoom ratio) under one piece of glass. The company suggests that the lens is ideal for...

Farm tracks.(NAB PREVIEW)
April 1, 2006... The Pixel Farm's camera tracking and motion analysis software PFTrack version 3.5 includes a more sophisticated camera solver, segmented shot solving, improved geometry tracking and extensive UI and workflow improvements. Running up to four...

AD campaigns tap BBC.(SPOTLIGHT ON STOCK FOOTAGE)
April 1, 2006... Academy Award- and Emmy Award-winning filmmaker Errol Morris turned to BBC Motion Gallery in New York to help supply material for a series of spots for AOL's UK consumer awareness campaign "What Do You Think?" The spots ask viewers whether the...

High voltage.(SPOTLIGHT ON STOCK FOOTAGE)
April 1, 2006... Artbeats will showcase several new electric effects collections at NAB. Shot in conjunction with kVA, Artbeats used one of the world's largest Tesla Coils to generate huge bolts of lightning. The new collections feature lightning in clouds,...

Nature in motion.(SPOTLIGHT ON STOCK FOOTAGE)
April 1, 2006... Following a name re-brand from National Geographic Television Film Library to National Geographic Digital Motion (NDG), this library adds a range of production services to its licensing of stock footage and has launched a new Web site that...

Thoughts on HBO.(SPOTLIGHT ON STOCK FOOTAGE)
April 1, 2006... Thought Equity HBO Sports recently announced the online availability of the HBO Archives of film, video and high-definition footage. Anchored by more than 30 years of entertainment and sports filmmaking, the HBO Archives features thousands of...

Google stock.(SPOTLIGHT ON STOCK FOOTAGE)
April 1, 2006... ITN has partnered with Google in the launch of Video Store, the first open video marketplace where users will be able to buy and rent a wide range of video content from ITN as well as major television networks, cable programmers, independent...

Canon XL H1: superb optics, genlock and HD-SDI out, all in a compact HDV package.(ROI reviews)(Cover story)
April 1, 2006... While Canon has turned out dozens of great still cameras and lenses over the years, when the DV revolution came about the company was relatively unknown in the video world. Canon's consumer cameras were a mixed lot--anyone remember the original...

Miranda HD-Bridge DecXC: a comprehensive HDV-to-HD-SDI box with an easy workflow.(ROI reviews)
April 1, 2006... Designed specifically for HDV editors in a studio environment, the Miranda HD-Bridge DecXC ingests m2t (MPEG-2 transport stream) files from a camera, deck, computer or DVHS device and outputting 4:2:2 uncompressed media, thus preventing your...

Panasonic AG-HVX200: the choice for any style production.(ROI reviews)
April 1, 2006... The era of having to buy or rent separate cameras for each type of production seems to be coming to an end. The Panasonic AG-HVX200 acts as the poster child for media convergence by placing the affordable ENG-style and cine-style production...

xm/edit Traffic: a smart utility that lets you edit in Final Cut Pro the way you work in shake.(ROI reviews)
April 1, 2006... Traffic from xm|edit is so much more than just a new software utility for power users of Final Cut Pro. If you think you've got all the tools you need inside FCP, think again. With its visual, node-based interface that automates repetitive...

Adobe Production Studio: Premiere Pro and After Effects just got better and work even better together.(ROI reviews)
April 1, 2006... If you work in video production, you probably have an assortment of software you've hobbled together. In a perfect world, your programs would have a similar interface and operate the same way for similar tasks. In the real world, you choose...

Furman Sound Power Factor Pro-R: more than a line conditioner, this filter's as good as gold.(ROI reviews)
April 1, 2006... No one thinks much about power when they plug something into the wall--either it works, or it doesn't. But when it comes to electronics, especially audio, nothing could be further from the truth. Unfortunately, your wall socket rarely provides...

Create a moving animatic for pre-vis with Adobe Photoshop CS2 and Apple Keynote 3.(how)
April 1, 2006... STEP 1 Create channels in Photoshop One fast way to create an alpha channel for an image is to use Photoshop CS2's Extract tool, which you'll find under the Filters pull-down menu. You just outline the area that you want to separate,...

Create the perfect audio mixing environment for your HD project.(how)
April 1, 2006... STEP 1 Start with a great audio room You should always try to record and mix in the ideal sonic environment. Large rooms with perfect acoustics are necessary tools to deliver a pristine recording. Using Neumann U87 or Sennheiser 416...

Stabilize jittery footage in Adobe After Effects.(how)
April 1, 2006... STEP 1 Download the project and media The first step is to download the AE project and footage from the tutorials page at www.studiomonthly.com. STEP 2 Select the comp and open the Motion Tracker (MT) Open up the comp...

Use the VCR Cue mode in NewTek TriCaster for live events.(how)
April 1, 2006... STEP 1 Set up your cameras TriCaster's VCR Cue mode will automatically roll a video clip whenever you switch from a camera to the VCR. Better than that, it'll switch back to a camera automatically when the video clip ends. First,...

Create multiple effects, in real time, with the Sony XDCAM HD PDW-F350 camcorder.(PRODUCT MANAGER TUTORIAL)
April 1, 2006... STEP 1 Add slow or fast motion Variable Frame Rate recording lets you perform slow and quick-motion functions at a range of frame rates from four frames per second (fps) to 60 fps in one-frame increments. This is similar to "overcranking"...

What I want to see at NAB 2006: beyond faster, better, cheaper.(issues)
April 1, 2006... Every year I join the spring pilgrimage to Las Vegas and worship at the shrine of unaffordable and unavailable equipment. Every NAB I'm impressed, inspired and frustrated; sometimes all by the same vendor. But like a moth, every year I'm drawn...

NAB hot topics: HD everything, tapeless workflows, Blu-ray vs. HD DVD distribution, bigger and badder SANs--where will it all lead us? To NAB 2006 in Vegas, of course.(TECHNOLOGY)
April 1, 2006... HD-related products will be in more booths than ever at NAB this year. Now that HD is really here, with available products at affordable prices, the bigger shift to a complete HD workflow is, for many, finally possible. And the tools that help...

Wit animation: what a cast of characters.(STUDIOS ON THE RISE)
April 1, 2006... WHAT'S THEIR GIG? Though it may sound like an insult calling a talented team of artists "characters," this particular team happens to specialize in the creation of 3D character animation. Headed up by Jeb Milne, founder/creative...

Getting it together.(ultimate kit)
April 1, 2006... FIELD AUDIO KITS FOR DOCS, ENG AND REALITY TV Run-and-gun is the name of the game for producing much of the content on television today. From documentary-style news gathering to the avalanche of reality shows, production mixes have to be...

Dealing with distractions at NAB.(WEIRD BUT TRUE TALES FROM THE STUDIO)(Cartoon)
April 1, 2006... Tom Beland is a cartoonist based in San Juan, Puerto Rico. He is also the creator of the Eisner Comic Industry Award-nominated series, True Story: Swear to God, published by AiT/Planet Lar, www.ait-planetlar.com. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] ...