Archive for September, 2009

Commemorates Over a Decade of Product Innovation

REEDSBURG, WISCONSIN — Sound Devices celebrates its eleventh year as one of the industry’s leading manufacturers of portable audio mixers, digital recorders and related audio equipment for production sound.

Founded by Jon Tatooles, Jim Koomar and Matt Anderson in 1998, Sound Devices’ focus has been on building relationships with its users and developing technologies tailored to their specific needs. Since its inception, the company has revolutionized field production with the introduction of the industry’s first compact, full-featured field mixer, the 422, and the digital replacement to the DAT recorder, the 7-Series of digital recorders — 702, 702T, 722, 744T and 788T. more

The Brief:

Rabbit directing duo +jacksonkarinja hit the streets of San Francisco recently to turn out a unique :90 web clip introducing the Freebord, a six-wheeled skateboard that mimics a snowboard’s range of motion.

The effort aims to capture the freedom and control of the Freebord ride by showcasing the board’s unique motion capabilities – riders can spin in circles and slide laterally while still in contact with land, in contrast to a traditional skateboard, which can only move forward. +jacksonkarinja attached neon geometric shapes to the skaters’ bodies, the light tracing their unhinged movements as they fall into formation at the bottom of the hill and complete the life-sized video game. more

The Brief:

These days, every penny counts. But can you spend pennies? You can at OfficeMax. In seven sly web films, Anonymous director Justin Reardon, via The Escape Pod, uses hidden cameras to see who else respects the penny.

A salesman of antique toys grins and says, “It’s cash,” and holds open a bag. A classic-guitar dealer makes a call to his boss, and the sale is squashed. An art dealer picks up the first of a hundred bags and changes his mind: “Definitely not.”

But OfficeMax? OfficeMax will take your pennies. more

NEW YORK, NEW YORK – Marc Schwartz, Managing Partner at Fluid NYC, the New York-based editorial, original music and visual effects studio, announced today that Piranha Design is partnering with Fluid to provide further design and 3D. Piranha was founded by Graphic Designer Rob Sabatini, and 3D Artist Gaspard Giroud.

Sabatini and Giroud join Fluid’s roster which includes editors Greg Letson, Jim Rubino, Karama Brown, Robin Burchill and John Mallerman; designer Wes Waldren; and composers Andrew Sherman, Judson Crane, and Ryan Lott, and Sound Designer Fred Szymansky. Laura Relovsky is Executive Producer of Fluid’s editorial staff. David Shapiro is Executive Producer of the company’s original music division. more

Flexible parameters of new LiveToon plug-in allows for easy and fast generation of cartoon and comic book looks for Final Cut, Motion and After Effects.

Boston, MA – September 29, 2009 – Noise Industries, developer of visual effects tools for the postproduction and broadcast markets, announced the release of the LiveToon plug-in from development partner DVShade. FxFactory® powered plug-ins are designed by Noise Industries and their development partners to extend the visual effects capabilities of Adobe® After Effects® versions CS3 and CS4, Apple® Final Cut Studio®, and Apple Final Cut® Express applications. more

Initiative to Focus on Evolving Editorial Workflow, Enhancing Skill Sets with Planar Tracking Skills

GUILDFORD, UK (September 29, 2009) — Imagineer Systems (www.imagineersystems.com) announced today that it has launched a series of free training sessions and has bolstered its online tutorials as part of a new customer training initiative focused on expanding editors’ and VFX artists’ skill sets, while also demonstrating the newest advances in motion tracking, replacement and stabilization with tools such as mocha, mocha for After Effects and mocha for Final Cut. more

Northern Lights’ Ted Gannon composed and performed the music for Hilary Duff’s web video mini-series featured on Youtube called THE CHASE to promote her new clothing line for DKNY, “Femme�.

The first episode of THE CHASE, “Chapter One: The Beginning”, brought in over 350,000 views in its first week and became one of Youtube’s most watched videos. more

2D-to-3D Conversion Process Lets Filmmakers Create Stereoscopic 3D Content with Unprecedented Quality and Freedom for Filmmakers

Prime Focus, one of the world’s largest visual entertainment services groups, is proud to announce the launch of View-D™, a proprietary 2D-to-3D conversion process that allows filmmakers to efficiently create stereoscopic 3D movies from source material shot on virtually any medium. View-D™ will be introduced at international launch events in Mumbai, London and Los Angeles to unveil the Prime Focus global rebrand, in which Post Logic and Frantic Films VFX will be brought together under the Prime Focus name. more

A spaghetti twister in Columbia Pictures

Newest Sony Release “Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs� is #1 Box Office Hit, Visual Effects Production Powered by NVIDIA Quadro Processors

NVIDIA Corporation, the inventor of the graphics processing unit (GPU), announced today that Sony Pictures Imageworks (SPI) utilized NVIDIA® Quadro® processors to accelerate animation and visual effects production of their latest hit film “Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs�. more

From promo campaign for Vh1

NEW YORK, NY — Go for two: VH1 needed both intensity and space in the :30 promo for their highly anticipated new program “The T.O. Show.â€? They called on Nutmeg Audio Post for a standout sound design that would show why the multidimensional athlete Terrell Owens (T.O.) was a star worth watching.

Nutmeg Senior Audio Engineer Mike Vitacco collaborated closely with VH1 Director/Writer Tyler Greco, starting with an extremely productive pre-production, to craft “T.O.� into an arresting promo. Set in a surreally empty football stadium, Owens plays chess with himself, as the camera continually rotates 360 degrees to show the many scenes of celebrity, solitude and psychological intrigue that are his everyday life. more