Studio Monthly articles from December 2006

Studio Monthly archives from December 2006

I'll bet there's a plug-in for that.(editor's note)
December 1, 2006... How many ways can you create the so-called "Ken Burns Effect?" Though not invented by Burns, Ken and his brother Ric certainly made this pan-and-zoom effect popular with their documentaries about American life and cities in the 19th and...

What's my flow? Silicon Imaging 2K on The Mutant Chronicles.(quick cuts)
December 1, 2006... On the feature film The Mutant Chronicles, DP Geoff Boyle experimented with an alpha version of Silicon Imaging's new 2K MINI camera for inserts, greenscreen shots and even an entire scene in the film. The bulk of the film, however, was shot...

What I'm using now: reallusion Crazy Talk.(quick cuts)
December 1, 2006... ERIC ROSNER Director of Animation TV Land/Nick@Nite New York, NY www.tvland.com LIST: $145 [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] WHY I LOVE IT: The drudgery of the most important part of my animation, the lip-sync, was...

7-hour focus.(DETAILING YOUR STUDIO)
December 1, 2006... Focus Enhancements' new line of FireStore FS-4 Portable DTE Recorders features higher capacities, with 60 GB, 80 GB and 100 GB versions giving you between 4.5 and 7.5 hours of DV/HDV recording. The FS-4 HD ships with a 40 GB disk drive that...

ATTO boy.(DETAILING YOUR STUDIO)
December 1, 2006... ATTO Technology has introduced a line of SAS/SATA RAID Adapters that offers flexible SAS and SATA II connectivity while delivering 3-Gb/sec. per port performance. ATTO's new ExpressSAS RAID adapters offer a true low-profile form factor that...

SOYO want an LCD?(DETAILING YOUR STUDIO)
December 1, 2006... SOYO Group, maker of designer motherboards, portable storage devices and LCD monitors, recently introduced two dual-screen LCD monitor models to its line. The LCD monitors, available in both 17-inch and 19-inch models, will be sold under the...

Pro plasma.(DETAILING YOUR STUDIO)
December 1, 2006... Panasonic has launched a new series of 1080 progressive scan full HD pro plasma displays that includes a 50-, 65- and a whopping 103-inch model (the TH-50PF9UK, TH-65PF9UK and TH-103PF9UK, respectively). With 2.07 million pixels (1,920 x 1,080)...

MOTU's universal performer for the Mac.(DETAILING YOUR STUDIO)
December 1, 2006... MOTU has announced that Digital Performer, its flagship audio workstation software, is now available as a Mac Universal application for Mac OS X v. 10.4 (Tiger). The package now works seamlessly with both Power PC and Intel-based Macs. Digital...

Mammoth releases.(SPOTLIGHT ON STOCK FOOTAGE)
December 1, 2006... Mammoth HD recently released cinematographer Adam Sampson's Alaska collections (including Alaska Pipeline and Glacier Melt), Sondra Brunone's Miami Aerial Series and J. Micheal Media's scenic collections (including Crater Lake, Golden Gate,...

Bank deposit.(SPOTLIGHT ON STOCK FOOTAGE)
December 1, 2006... Shooting specifically for its TV client base, FootageBank HD just returned from a rambling shoot across North America to capture scenes in Atlantic City, Palm Beach, Seattle, Atlanta and Vancouver, BC. Other recent shoots include one in South...

Thought triangle.(SPOTLIGHT ON STOCK FOOTAGE)
December 1, 2006... Thought Equity has acquired royalty-free stock footage company Triangle Images, adding 31 unique collections of lifestyle motion imagery in both film and HD formats to the Thought Equity archive. Image-based topics covered by Triangle's motion...

Up, up and away.(SPOTLIGHT ON STOCK FOOTAGE)
December 1, 2006... Artbeats has added new collections to its stock footage library. Ground Rush 3-Southwest is the newest addition to the company's Ground Rush series that includes clips of painted deserts, mesas and cliffs. Southwest Monument Aerials and...

SmartSound Sonicfire Pro 4: flexible and effective music scoring software.(ROI reviews)
December 1, 2006... Until recently, SmartSound Sonicfire was king of the hill, mostly because it didn't have any real competition. All that changed with the introduction of Sony's Cinescore, which is aimed at essentially the same market. Both programs generate...

GenArts Sapphire plug-ins for Avid AVX: add an amazing level of creative sophistication.(ROI reviews)
December 1, 2006... While once limited to just compositing programs, visual effects plug-ins are fast becoming a mainstay of many editing systems. Once we started using our Sapphire plug-ins on our Final Cut Pro system, there was no going back to just using them...

Canon Console software: taking the Canon XL H1 and XL2 cameras to a whole new level.(ROI reviews)
December 1, 2006... Everyone has owned a Swiss Army Knife at one time or another, and, at one time or another, it has probably saved all of our butts. Wouldn't it be great if you had one for your camera? Well, if you're the owner of a Canon XL H1 or XL2, your...

Pre-process for compression with squared 5 MPEG Streamclip.(how)
December 1, 2006... STEP 1 IMPORT AND TRIM YOUR VIDEO To import your video source, go to the File pull-down menu and choose Open Files (PC and Mac). Navigate to your source and either choose Open or drag the video source right into the Main Window (Mac)....

Create gradient blurs in Avid Media Composer.(PRODUCT MANAGER TUTORIAL)
December 1, 2006... STEP 1 CREATE A MATTE KEY Start with a simple timeline that has just one video track. In our example, we have a close-up of a B-17 bomber. The first step in the process is to create a matte key that will be the foundation of our blur....

Plug-in guide: searching for a new set of editing or compositing filters to boost your project to the next level? Need to update your suites and sharpen your skills? Dive in.(TECHNIQUE/TECHNOLOGY)
December 1, 2006... Who can deny the perennial appeal of adding a new video editing and effects plug-in to the mix, that special sauce or seasoning that automates a complicated task, speeds up workflow or gives you access to some blisteringly cool effect you never...

Great gadgets: how to spend some of that year-end cash.(issues)
December 1, 2006... As 2006 draws to a close, many of us will sit down to watch our expensive new HDTV sets, or will plan to save up to buy one in 2007. Consequently, we may have a little less year-end cash to spend than we'd like. So this seems like a good time...

Searching for Mr. Wonderful? Try looking in New York!(STUDIOS ON THE RISE)
December 1, 2006... WHAT'S THEIR GIG? Something "wonderful" happened in the summer of 2005: Mr. Wonderful arrived on the New York effects scene. But Beirne Lowry, creative director, and Damien Henderson, executive producer, the driving forces behind the...