Archive for October, 2011

HOLLYWOOD – Frank Salvino has joined CSS Studios as Director of Feature Film Business Development. Salvino will service existing feature film clients and seek to develop new sales for companies within the CSS Studios group, including Soundelux, Todd-AO, Sound One, Modern Music and POP Sound. He will report to Jeffrey Eisner, Senior Vice President, Feature Film and Television Business Development. more

“Ocean’s Eleven” star directs Whirlpool campaign for Latin American markets.

HOLLYWOOD—Andy Garcia has signed with Dark Light Pictures for representation as a commercial director. In his debut with the company, Garcia has directed a campaign for Whirlpool and Buenos Aires agency Madre that will air across Latin America and South America. more

LOS ANGELES—Director Tom De Cerchio and his production company, Incubator, have joined bi-coastal production and post production company Original. De Cerchio is one of the most successful comedy directors in advertising and a winner of three AICP Awards among many other honors. His Bud Light spot, Limo, is in the Advertising Hall of Fame and is listed among USA Today’s Top 20 Spots of All-Time. more

“Making Homes Affordable” Music to At-Risk Mortgagees Ears

Sonixphere, a global resource for everything connected to music and sound, provided a dramatic score for Frozen, a PSA conceived by Shafer Condon Carter, Chicago, for the Ad Council, in partnership with the U.S. Department of the Treasury and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). The spot promotes the Making Homes Affordable program, which provides assistance to homeowners who are struggling with their mortgage payments.
The spot features vignettes of ordinary people “frozen” in their everyday routines, not knowing what to do when faced with the threat of losing their homes. A woman stands on her lawn oblivious to the sprinkler soaking her bathrobe; a factory worker stares into space. In the final vignette, a couple stares inertly at their bills until their child appears. Suddenly, his mother is able to take action. She picks up the phone to call the Making Homes Affordable toll-free number. more

Culver City, CA, Oct. 31, 2011 — Currently celebrating its 15th anniversary year, Steele Studios, a leading creator and producer of visual content for television, film, music videos, and commercial projects for Fortune 500 companies, has completed and delivered a massive, on-air Stereo 3D graphics package for its client 3net, the joint venture, 24/7 3D television network from Sony, Discovery and IMAX. Jo and Jerry Steele, co-founders, Steele Studios, made the announcement.

Beginning November 4, viewers of 3net will begin to see the vibrant, dramatic and compelling new stereo 3D graphics components designed, created, composited and delivered by Jerry Steele and his team. Comprised of over 60 elements, the new graphics include main logo opens, IDs, promotional and sponsored elements, interstitials, promo opens and closes, and many other transitional and supplemental elements. The package represents a visual and dynamic “refresh” of the look and feel of the network. This new work by Steele Studios extends the company’s involvement with 3net, which began months prior with the network’s launch in February 2011. That work included building elements and graphics for the launch, modifying existing graphic elements for S3D broadcast, editing and creating many promos, sizzle reels, flying titles, interstitials, wipes and transitions which have been airing during 3net’s first months.

Steele also completed all of the various complexities included within the Stereo post process for live action elements (convergence, LE/RE color balancing, linearity and geometry, depth budgeting and scripting). Because of the multitude of different sources for the content featured on 3net, Steele was required to re-converge and, in some cases, recreate the S3D for a standard TV size.

The 3net on-air graphics project for Steele Studios comes on the heels of the company’s other recent, very high profile 3D projects. In 2010, the studio completed a 3D video featuring Latin pop star Shakira for the opening ceremony of the World Cup soccer competition. Entitled “”Waka Waka (This Time for Africa,”) the video was the official theme song of FIFA’s 2010 World Cup. For the video, Jerry Steele provided stereoscopic supervision, online, color correction, beauty FX, compositing, S3D geometry, linearity and finishing services. “Waka Waka” was seen by over 1-billion viewers around the world, making it one of the most viewed music videos of all time. Jo Steele served as Executive Producer of the project.

Soon after “Waka Waka,” Jerry Steele served as online editor for Avril Lavigne’s hit S3D music video “What the Hell.” Steele was in charge of the video’s highly detailed Stereo 3D work, and provided the visual effects, beauty work, color correction and finishing. For the above-cited projects, as well as for the 3net refresh, Steele used the Quantel Pablo 4K with Stereo 3D.

In his role as Stereographer for the new graphics package soon to be featured on 3net, Jerry Steele said, “For these new graphics, we wanted to create really dynamic shapes that exaggerate depth, but at the same time, we were limited to a minimal S3D depth and inter-axial distance. The way we could do this was to use really wide-angle lenses and shoot objects which we’d move only a few nanometers at a time. We had crazy big lenses, giving us massive distortions, which allowed us to exaggerate depth and to ‘stage’ this 3D space appropriately. All the elements in the composite were ultimately shot with different sized lenses and then placed carefully within our limited space. We used a combination of solid and amorphous objects, so that we could ‘bend’ the rules as needed to fit all our pieces in the composites. We relied heavily on the undeterminable shapes that were placed between solid objects to separate them. We ultimately had to exaggerate the physical nature of these constructs, because all of the other visual information around them wouldn’t normally give the viewer the correct sense of depth and mass.”

“One of the biggest challenges with this project was that we were limited to the dimensional budget we could apply to 3D graphics for television. For the theater, the S3D cannot extend as far into the screen relatively as it can for TV, and for TV, the S3D cannot extend as far out of the screen as with movies. It is a result of the maximum positive divergence that the viewer can comfortably watch,” Steele continues. “Ideally, you have to analyze what budget or degree of depth you’re applying to which shots. We had to figure out a way to deliver interesting graphics which, when edited together, didn’t represent distracting convergence shifts, which can lead to audience eyestrain. You have to be able to plan how to go from one extreme to another to engage viewers in 3D, without visually confusing them. Additionally, the graphics had to be consistent and represent a norm that all the content around them could work with.”

“3D is an optical illusion, and the more cues that we can create within a certain depth range that are complimentary to each other, the more the 3D appears to be real. We’re tricking the eye into thinking there really are three dimensions. We have to put depth cues in at certain depths—every visual cue between the point furthest back in the screen and the imagery at the forefront of the screen, has to fall into place. If it doesn’t, that’s where the illusion stops. In creating these 3D animations, we made sure that the S3D was emphasized and de-emphasized appropriately. It is important to create drama within the S3D and allow the impact to play out. Timing and content are controlled to give the viewer the chance to rest and then feel the extent of the S3D again,” he concludes.

Adds Jo Steele, “3D is definitely the next big thing in TV. It will inspire the arrival of many new channels, and will also revolutionize the gaming industry. Many of our competitors are on the fence about 3D — some think it’s a fad and won’t adopt the new technology until it has proven itself, industry-wide. However, we at Steele Studios have recognized the potential of riding the crest of the wave many times before, and will continue to embrace these changing technologies as we strive to remain at the forefront of this exciting new medium.”

Steele Studios Credits for 3net Refresh Graphics Project:
Jo Steele, Executive Producer
Jerry Steele, Stereographer, Creative Director, Pablo Artist
Chris Williamson, Design and Art Director
Kurt Miller, Cinema 4D Artist
Mark Edwards, Producer

Hardware/Software:
Quantel Pablo 4K with Stereo 3D for Compositing, Online, Color Correction,
Finishing and Mastering.
Cinema 4D for CGI
AfterEffects
PhotoShop

ABOUT STEELE STUDIOS:

Steele Studios is a leading provider of unique visual content to television networks, TV shows, music videos and commercials for Fortune 500 companies. Since its founding in l996 by Jo and Jerry Steele, the company has provided visual effects and finishing services on well over 2,000 projects.

Steele Studios is a creatively driven, award-winning digital studio providing a diverse range of services. These include Digital Intermediate Services, Stereoscopic 3D and 4K, 2K, HD and Red DI services, visual effects, animation, graphics, titles, supervision and design services for film, television, commercials, music videos and online/viral media. The company is industry renowned for its design and creation of compelling and memorable visual imagery.

Among the major advertisers with whom Steele Studios has worked are Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Budweiser, Burger King, Gap, Old Navy, Microsoft, Dell, Sony,
Nokia, Lexus, Cadillac, Nissan and BMW. Steele has also provided its services to such international superstars as Madonna, Britney Spears, Beyoncé, Alicia Keys, Usher, Lady Gaga, Rihanna and Katy Perry. In addition to 3net, the company’s corporate entertainment industry clients include Discovery, NBC, ABC, CBS, Showtime and Disney, to name just some. Steele Studios is located at 5737 Mesmer Ave., Culver City, CA, 90230. The phone is 310/391-7770 and the web is www.steelevfx.com

ABOUT 3net:

3net, the joint venture of Sony Corporation, Discovery Communications and IMAX Corporation, brings together three of the world’s leading media, technology and entertainment companies to provide the nation’s first and only fully programmed, 24/7 3D network. The three partners deliver an extraordinary collection of award-winning 3D content, technology and production expertise, television distribution and operational strength to the project, with a mission to bring viewers the highest quality S3D and most immersive in-home S3D viewing experience possible.

The channel will feature the most extensive library of S3D content in the world by the end of 2011, featuring genres that are most appealing in 3D, including natural history, documentary, action/adventure, travel, history, hyper-reality, lifestyle and cuisine, concerts, movies, scripted series and more. 3net is currently available on DIRECTV channel 107. For more information, please visit www.3net.com

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Spectacular weather footage from StormStock, the world’s leading solution for high quality, extreme weather content, now searchable through Footage.net.

New York – November 1, 2011 – Footage.net, the stock, archival and news footage search engine announced today that preview clips from StormStock, the world leader in extreme weather content, are now available for viewing through Footage.net’s stock footage search platform.

Through this new alliance, Footage.net users will be able to screen preview clips from StormStock’s footage collection, and StormStock will reach a new and growing user base for its specialty footage licensing business.

“We are excited to partner with Footage.net and further expose the quality and breadth of the StormStock collection to media professionals worldwide,” said Martin Lisius, StormStock founder and President of Prairie Pictures.

“StormStock is a pioneer in the field of extreme weather filmmaking,” said David Seevers, Footage.net’s Chief Marketing Officer. “Martin and his crew are passionate about capturing the awesome power of hurricanes, tornadoes, lightning, blizzards, volcanoes, and other dramatic weather events and disasters. They frequently put themselves in harms way to give viewers a front-row seat to nature at its most extreme, and we’re thrilled to have their clips up and running on our search platform.”

Tornado Footage from StormStock

Lisius holds the distinction of capturing the first-ever violent class tornado on 35mm (1998), the only 35mm images of Hurricane Katrina making landfall (2005) and the first-ever tornado on 3D (June, 2011). StormStock’s work can be seen in numerous TV commercials, documentaries, TV programs and feature films including the Academy Award winning doc “An Inconvenient Truth.”

“We’re constantly looking for unique ways to shoot material for StormStock,” said Lisius. “We’ve been shooting on Super 35mm since 1997, building an extensive collection of high-resolution content along the way and positioning ourselves for a seamless transition to HD. Recently, we’ve begun moving into 3D production and are very excited about the possibilities of this new format.”

StormStock’s clips will be available for screening through Footage.net alongside motion content from some of the world’s most prestigious footage companies, including Getty Images, FootageBank, Framepool, and CNN ImageSource.

About Footage.net
Footage.net is the world’s premier online footage search engine, providing creative professionals with the tools they need to discover and obtain the best motion content from the world’s top footage companies quickly and easily from a single site. At Footage.net, researchers can search over 38 footage collections simultaneously, view over one million clips, communicate instantly with our content partners and download over 250,000 world-class stock footage clips.

About StormStock
The Prairie Pictures StormStock library, founded in 1993 by cinematographer and storm chaser Martin Lisius, is recognized as the highest quality collection of storm imagery in the world. The majority of StormStock footage originates on premium formats. Our images are licensed to film and television industry producers worldwide for use in broadcast, theatrical, commercials and corporate video productions, and to print media professionals for use in advertising, periodicals and other publications. We shoot our own material, allowing us to maintain the quality of our product from creation to delivery. Since StormStock is operated and maintained by photographers, we possess an intimate knowledge of our collection and can quickly locate and deliver the best possible imagery to our clients.

Press Contacts:

Footage.net
David Seevers
Chief Marketing Officer
Footage.net
(415) 609-7642
davidseevers@yahoo.com

StormStock
Martin Lisius
Prairie Pictures/StormStock
(817) 276-9500
info@stormstock.com
www.stormstock.com

WAYNE, NJ – JVC Professional Products Company, a division of JVC Americas Corp., will showcase its new line of VR-X network video recorders at ISC Solutions (Booth 1706), which runs Nov. 2-3, 2011, at the Javits Center in New York City. Building on the heritage of previous JVC all-in-one CCTV recording and playback products, the VR-X1600U and VR-X3200U offer 16 and 32-channel recording, respectively, as well as support for 720p and 1080p full HD resolutions with multi-codec support.

“The new VR-X NVRs are the perfect complement to JVC’s new line of CMOS-based Super LoLux HD security cameras, which were introduced earlier this year,” explained Ian Scott, vice president, JVC Security Group. “Our new cameras and NVRs support H.264 High Profile compression, which delivers storage and bandwidth efficiencies you can’t get from equipment that only supports H.264 Baseline or Main Profile.”

Equipped with built-in camera licenses with no recurring fees, as well as the latest versions of Milestone XProtect Enterprise and Windows Embedded OS, the VR-X NVRs offer enterprise-level, full HD recording and viewing for an unlimited number of NVRs, cameras, sites, and users. More than 1,000 different camera/encoder models can be supported by installing the latest Milestone device driver pack. A broad selection of software add-ons and third-party integrations, plus a fully documented SDK, are also available.

Both 3 RU VR-X NVRs ship with a pre-installed 1 TB drive. Three additional drives can be easily installed from the front panel for up to 4 TB of on-board storage. The NVRs also support RAID 1, 5, and 10, with optional support for RAID 6 technology. There is no front panel operation; instead, all controls are administrated locally through a mouse and keyboard using an external monitor or by a remote administrator on the network. A rear panel I/O offers alarm interface support.

The VR-X1600U and VR-X3200U will ship in early 2012.

ABOUT JVC PROFESSIONAL PRODUCTS
Headquartered in Wayne, New Jersey, JVC Professional Products Company is a division of JVC Americas Corp., a wholly-owned subsidiary of JVC Kenwood Corporation. It is a leading supplier of IP network and analog security cameras, network video recorders, monitors, and management systems to the video security industry. Its V.Networks product line of has earned a solid reputation for quality and reliability, and provides superior picture quality for thousands of installations worldwide. For more information about this, or any other JVC professional product, contact JVC at (800)582-5825 or visit JVC’s Web site at http://pro.jvc.com.

ENFIELD, CT, October 28th, 2011 – Music 2 Hues, a leading supplier of Production Music & Sound Effects to the Film, Video, Animation, & Multimedia Industries has just added a new royalty free title to their Flagship Series line of production music.

The newest Flagship title: “Cinematic Dronescores“ is now shipping worldwide and is available on Audio CD, or can be downloaded in Mp3 and WAV file formats.

“Cinematic Dronescores is the first volume in a planned series of themed titles which will cover all styles of soundscapes”, says Andy Wells, president of Music 2 Hues, and features cinematic suspenseful underscores, pads, and soundscapes.

In addition to audio CD’s, our new updated Music Download Center offers the ability to purchase individual tracks from all of our current Flagship Series titles, or entire CD categories with just one click in either Mp3 or Wav file formats. For just one price, clients will get all the edited versions of any one music track, including the full length theme, and any 30 and 60 seconds versions when available. 

New production music will be added monthly.

Visit our website for more information on these products:  www.music2hues.com

SANTA MONICA, CA. –– The directors and producers from design-driven production company King and Country (K&C) are very proud to detail their latest iconic broadcast/web spots for Team Detroit and their clients at Ford Motor Company. As millions of American TV viewers can testify, three new spots customized to colorfully tout Ford’s F-150, Ranger and Super Duty Trucks began airing widely across the country last month. Each will continue running this week during high-profile broadcasts, in support of the ongoing Built Ford Tough Sales Event which ends on Oct. 31.

Building on the highly productive collaborations behind numerous breakthrough broadcast spots for Ford Trucks, K&C director Efrain Montañez and his colleagues once again maximized every facet of their company’s creative resources. “We really love it when our work speaks for us,” Montañez said. “This campaign showcases all our talents in association with exciting, world-leading products and some of the brightest creatives in the business. We are extremely proud of every frame of this campaign, and the relationships we have forged with everyone at Team Detroit.”

For its Ford “Rant” spots produced last year and those currently airing, K&C shot original live-action footage of both the F150 as well as a number of narrative setups with actors. Artfully combining that content with photoreal CG truck creations and their unique design sensibilities, K&C again delivered a distinct look for the iconic campaign. Managing the full scope of needs of their client, K&C handled full editorial and HD finishing in-house.

“King and Country are true partners,” said Mike Priebe, creative director for Team Detroit. “We come to them with our ideas and they come back to us with more ideas. Ford has come to have great confidence that when we show them a storyboard K&C will bring it to life in memorable fashion.”

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Quantel’s software assist station delivers speed, efficiency and quality for major 2012 movie

20th Century Fox has purchased Quantel’s Pablo PA conform, prep and workflow software and put it into immediate service on the post production of the ARRI Alexa-shot movie ‘Chronicle‘, slated for release on 3rd February 2012. Executive Producer James Dodson reports that Pablo PA has helped him to address three big issues – “speed, efficiency and quality”.

“While FotoKem is our lab and will handle all the coloring for us on its Pablo systems, we wanted to do our VFX pulls in house,” Dodson reports. “So we ran tests on several well-known vendors’ software because we thought we ought to be able to use them for debayering and doing DPXs. We looked at the results at 800% zoom. FotoKem’s results from its Pablo were better and sharper than the others – the difference was clearly visible. Our digital artist Robert Zalkind suggested that we should contact Quantel and see if they had a ‘lite’ version of Pablo we could try. So we got in touch with Quantel and ran the same test through Pablo PA as we had through all the other systems. The results we got were identical to FotoKem’s big Pablo – pixel perfect at 800% zoom.

“As a result, we bought a Pablo PA immediately and put it straight to work on ‘Chronicle’. We’ve been using it for two months now and it’s a total success – and we’ve probably saved some money too!” Dodson continues. “We originally bought the Pablo PA to create DPXs and make our own VFX plates. Along the way we also decided to do the digital conform to locked DPX files and prepare the session for FotoKem so they can just start coloring when our files arrive.”

Alongside his many producing and directing credits, Dodson has also run VFX companies and post facilities, so is not scared to take on new technologies and methods. “Zalkind suggested that we could improve our workflow even more by installing Avid software on the same PC which is running the Pablo PA. This works brilliantly; we can take AAFs from the Avid straight into the Pablo PA, then output QuickTimes and put them into the Avid timeline for a confidence check of the conform. When Walter Volpatto, our colorist at FotoKem heard we were running the Avid on the same box as the Pablo PA, he loved the idea and immediately asked FotoKem to get the same set-up!

“Recently we were able to turn round an urgent request from Russia for some VFX plates and we had them on their way in just three hours thanks to having the Pablo PA in house; in the past this would typically have taken 24-36 hours,” Dodson adds.

The Pablo PA’s pristine image handling and scaling has also played a key role in post on ‘Chronicle’. “One of the reasons we ran the zoom test when selecting the Pablo PA was because we wanted to give the movie a hand-held feel,” Dodson explains. “This means that we need to scale the image up to give us room to ‘jiggle’ around within the frames to get the hand-held look we wanted. Because the Pablo PA scaler is so good, no resolution is lost.

“And that’s not all. The editor has to put in a lot of keyframes to create the repositions to achieve the hand-held look. We export an AAF from Avid using Automatic Duck into Final Cut Pro to translate the DVE metadata for Pablo PA so the Pablo PA session has all the moves built in; it’s really cool! And also the keyframes aren’t baked in so the director can change them in the DI session at FotoKem on their Pablo,” Dodson adds.

“The whole process has been enlightening and rewarding,” Dodson reflects. “FotoKem have been so receptive, supportive and enthusiastic – really excited and very cool about it, and we’ve been taking every update and patch on the Pablo PA as it released and working closely with Quantel, who have been great partners.”