Studio Monthly articles from April 2007

Studio Monthly archives from April 2007

Snafu U.(Cartoon)
April 1, 2007... YOU'VE NEVER HEARD OF THIS NEW CAMERA? EVERYONE'S BEEN TALKING ABOUT IT!! NOPE, SORRY. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] IT DOES EVERYTHING! ALL FORMATS FROM TOP TO 2 SHOP... IT'S IT-BASED... HAS ITS OWN COMPRESSION CODEC... CAN USE...

File-based everything.(editor's note)
April 1, 2007... As you read this, news of some very exciting camera releases from Panasonic, Sony and RED Digital Camera, among others, will be hitting the online airwaves. NAB will be in full swing, and you'll be able to read all about it or just sit back and...

RED update: the RED ONE camera gets ready for its close-up.(quick cuts)
April 1, 2007... Since December 2005, when Jim Jannard and his team first announced the RED ONE camera concept to a doubtful industry, pundits and users alike have been waiting and watching to see if the new company could eventually deliver on what it so boldly...

Mobile HD.(gear up)
April 1, 2007... Sony is introducing an HD version of its Anycast Station--a portable studio for live content creation. The new HD-only version (model AWS-G500HD) maintains the original multi-functionality of its SD predecessor. It combines the features of...

New discs drive with XDCAM.(gear up)
April 1, 2007... Maxell is now shipping a new Professional Disc optical media for the Sony XDCAM HD tapeless video systems. The media employs a high precision, polycarbonate plastic cartridge to protect it against all elements, including dust, scratches and...

New addition to EDIUS family.(gear up)
April 1, 2007... Thomson is introducing a new addition to its Grass Valley EDIUS line. Coming in at a lower price point than the EDIUS SD or EDIUS HD, the EDIUS SP SDI is offered as a complete turnkey package. The EDIUS SP SDI uses PCI Express acceleration...

The big Kahuna.(gear up)
April 1, 2007... Snell & Wilcox's Kahuna SD/HD multiformat production switcher is now available in a smaller 6-RU form factor for 1-M/E and 2-M/E applications. Offering the ability to intermix SD and HD sources seamlessly within the same production, the new...

NewTek's big Mac attack.(gear up)
April 1, 2007... NewTek recently announced Mac support for its TriCaster and TriCaster Pro systems. The company is releasing iVGA software for the Mac, which allows a presenter's screen display to be integrated into a live TriCaster production or presentation....

Adobe CS3--a complete and cross-platform post and production tool.(gear up)
April 1, 2007... Adobe announced a sizable portion of improvements and innovations in Adobe Creative Suite 3, the newest version of its integrated flotilla of tools for content creators. Don't look for any earth-shaking changes in Premiere Pro, which is by now...

Flying high.(stock footage)
April 1, 2007... Artbeats takes to the skies for three new royalty-free stock footage collections: New York City Aerials 2, New England Aerials and Southwest Cliffs Aerials. The collections feature some of the best-known landmarks, such as New York City's...

At your fingertips.(stock footage)
April 1, 2007... CNN ImageSource, the footage licensing arm of CNN Worldwide, has launched a dramatically redesigned Web site that provides video pros with the ability to browse and download video from its extensive collection of news, entertainment, lifestyle,...

Partnering for a better HD.(stock footage)
April 1, 2007... AlwaysHD has announced the addition of Dove Video Productions, led by cinematographer Peter Archibald, to its family of HD footage providers. With a lifetime's experience in shooting New Zealand, Archibald contributes landscape and cultural...

Three times the charm.(stock footage)
April 1, 2007... Digital Juice adds more than 3,000 new clips to its royalty-free stock film and video collection with VideoTraxx Film & Video Library Version 3. Categories of footage range from American History, the Animal Kingdom and Business Economics to...

Do it yourself stock footage.(stock footage)
April 1, 2007... Thought Equity Motion has launched a Web site feature that enables industry pros, such as filmmakers and independent directors, to upload motion content to the Thought Equity Motion site and receive payment based on the content's use and...

Videos to go.(stock footage)
April 1, 2007... San Diego's New & Unique Videos recently sent out its own Mark Schulze to collect several hours of hometown HD stock footage. Using the Sony CineAlta F900, Schulze captured some of the city's best-known sites, such as the San Diego Zoo, the...

Matrox RT.X2: HDV editing with more horsepower.(ROI reviews)
April 1, 2007... You have to admit, there's something compelling about Adobe Premiere. While there's no drought of capable PC-based editing software, Premiere holds the singular distinction of being the only one to have third-party manufacturers building...

Ciprico MediaVault 4440: near-bulletproof storage.(ROI reviews)
April 1, 2007... The Ciprico MediaVault 4440 is, simply, simple. The rack, which has brushed aluminum sides and looped handles on top, is clearly intended to emulate and match the aesthetics of a Mac G5 computer. This expandable system features slots that...

Create a cooler LightBlast filter in after effects.(how)
April 1, 2007... STEP 1 CREATE TWO COPIES OF YOUR ORIGINAL FOOTAGE We're all familiar with the LightBlast filter, which takes the colors of an image and creates light streaks out of them. It essentially turns the main object into an explosion of light...

Set up an automated multi-format encoding workflow with Digital Rapids DRC-Stream with StreamPro.(how)
April 1, 2007... STEP 1 SHARE A FOLDER Create a folder on the DRC-Stream transcoding system, and share it so it's accessible to all the production workstations on your network. This folder should be where your editors will save files for automatic...

Create and tear cloth with Maya nCloth in version 8.5.(train up)
April 1, 2007... STEP 1 SET THE SCENE Let's start out with a scene of a quaint country gas station and flag pole out front. We'll use a 30 x 25 polygon plane as our flag. Begin by lining up the polygonal plane ("the flag") with the hangers on the flag...

Lights, camera, iPod: the director and assistant editor of the upcoming film Together Again for the First Time explain how they used an iPod and final cut pro for video playback during production of the indie feature. While not achieving true dailies, their new-found continuity tool did change the entire creative process.(Technology: Workflow)
April 1, 2007... CONTINUITY IN FILM and video production has always been a complicated task for filmmakers. Apart from continuity stills and the relatively new use of video playback, there has been little improvement in this area. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]...

What I do and don't want to see at NAB 2007: the dream continues ...(issues)
April 1, 2007... Last year at this time, I listed 13 products and technologies I wanted to see at NAB 2006 (www.studiomonthly.com/6267.html). I built my wish list on existing technologies and user needs. I wanted mid-range HD cameras and lenses, new compressed...

The next act in insurance: does your production insurance policy cover you in this brave new digital age? Some producers and insurance brokers say, "not by a long shot".(the biz)
April 1, 2007... At first glance, entertainment insurance seems pretty straightforward. A production company is hired to shoot a commercial or feature film. The company has an insurance broker write a premium based on an estimate of costs for the production. A...

Attention Earthlings invades the East Coast.(hot house)
April 1, 2007... WHAT'S THEIR GIG? Perry Harovas is, at heart, a film guy with a B-movie soul. A huge fan of Sci-Fi/horror flicks from the 50s and 60s, namely Night of the Living Dead, his first feature project was Roger Corman's Not of This Earth (1995),...