Archive for July 9th, 2012

Los Angeles, CA — International visual effects company Pixomondo has added two top-notch VFX industry professionals to their London office, Executive Producer Roma O’Connor and VFX Supervisor Joern Grosshans. The new additions bring a comprehensive industry understanding gained through years of experience to the London studio.

“Having the right combination of cutting edge flair and production experience is vital to achieving the perfect dynamic at each studio,” said Christoph Malessa, COO and Executive Producer, Pixomondo London. “Roma and Joern each bring excellent and diverse strengths to our facility. We are delighted to have them on board.”

A solid VFX industry fixture for nearly two decades, Executive Producer Roma O’Connor is well-versed in all aspects of feature film and television production having worked on a number of Academy Award®-winning films and Emmy Award®-winning series as one of London’s foremost senior visual effects producers. She comes to Pixomondo from Cinesite Ltd where she most recently oversaw Disney’s John Carter. O’Connor has also lent her expertise to a number of blockbusters including Voyage of the Dawn Treader, Slumdog Millionaire, Golden Compass, and Watchman. In addition to various freelance projects, she has held Executive Producer and Head of Production roles at The Mill, CIS London, Rainmaker UK and Jim Henson’s Creature Shop.

“What really drew me to Pixomondo was their studio structure,” said O’Connor. “The efficiency of creating boutique, high level facilities around the world works on both a local and global level. We can offer our clients the flexibility and one-on-one attention of a boutique facility as well as tackle larger projects by linking up our studios to draw on our pool of global talent. This allows us to operate without the need for huge recruitment drives in a specific country thereby avoiding inefficiencies that can come with a sudden increase of artists. From an artist viewpoint, it can sometimes feel you are just a small cog in a large wheel but, at Pixomondo, everyone is important and has a chance to develop.”

With over eight years experience, Joern Grosshans is a leading VFX Supervisor at Pixomondo. After studying filmmaking and audiovisual media, his passion for the final image steered him towards 2D supervision. He comes to London from Pixomondo’s Stuttgart office where he was instrumental in helping develop talent and infrastructure whilst gaining experience as a VFX Supervisor. His invaluable understanding of the visual effects process led him to supervise work on the second season of HBO’s award-winning television series Game of Thrones, VFX shots for Martin Scorsese’s Hugo, for which Pixomondo artists won the Academy Award® for Best Visual Effects, as well as on Red Tails, Sucker Punch, Fast Five and Ghost Rider. He also supervised the first stereoscopic commercial for Panasonic 3D TV screens for theatrical distribution.

“London has a vibrant VFX market teeming with interesting projects that fits perfectly with our ‘can do’ ethos,” said Grosshans. “We are a young company but growing fast thanks to our base of very talented artists and unique facility infrastructure. The London office not only gives us the opportunity to build a great boutique facility but also provides a platform to showcase Pixomondo worldwide to the prestigious UK film and television markets. I’m looking forward to helping further build up the London facility.”

ABOUT PIXOMONDO
Pixomondo, an international visual effects company founded in 2001 by Thilo Kuther, utilizes a 24-hour production cycle enabled across a global network of facilities in Frankfurt, Stuttgart, Berlin, Los Angeles, Shanghai, Beijing, London, Munich, Burbank, Toronto, Hamburg, Baton Rouge and Detroit. Pixomondo has worked on more than 30 feature films including The Amazing Spider-Man, Snow White and the Huntsman, Journey 2: The Mysterious Island, Red Tails, Sucker Punch, Super 8, Fast Five and many others, as well as on broadcast series including Game of Thrones, Hawaii 5-O and Grimm. As the lead VFX house for HUGO, Pixomondo was recognized with an Academy Award™ for best visual effects in 2011. In addition to visual effects, the company delivers a full range of creative, production and post services required to produce design-driven storytelling for the advertising industry. http://www.pixomondo.com

Console Provides Sterling Sound Quality and Higher Channel Count

PENCAITLAND, SCOTLAND – Castlesound Studios, a studio in Scotland specializing in the recording of acoustic music for leading artists of all genres, as well as clients from the film, TV, radio and advertising world, has installed a Solid State Logic AWS 948 Hybrid Console/Controller. The new console was recently used to complete music tracks featuring renowned Gaelic singer, Julie Fowlis, for the soundtrack for the new Pixar feature ‘Brave.’ Replacing an original AWS 900, the AWS 948 provides Castlesound with an expanded channel count and new features to adequately handle larger productions.

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Los Angeles, CA – Shotgun Software today announced that bi-coastal production, design and animation studio Psyop has adopted site licenses of Shotgun and Revolver with Tweak Software’s RV as part of its plans for expansion. The multidisciplinary studio, which specializes in emotive, visually compelling storytelling, will leverage Shotgun and Revolver to streamline production management, tracking and review and approval for its forthcoming commercial, game, and music video projects.

“To continue developing projects across facilities, we need a strong, cohesive pipeline in place, which is why we’ve turned to Shotgun,” Tony Barbieri, Head of Pipeline, Psyop shared. “With Shotgun, Revolver and RV at the core of our pipeline, we’ll have a multi-location advantage. Artists across any of our studios will be able access and review the same information – an invaluable asset.”

As Psyop grew, so did its production management, tracking and project review needs, driving an effort to research various commercially available applications. “Priority for us was to find a solution that could adapt flexibly with our growth. We found that Shotgun’s bundled toolset works right out of the box. Shotgun seemed like a great choice because it allows developers to easily build on top and it appears to be quickly becoming an industry standard. We also knew Revolver with RV would allow us to review projects more efficiently across locations,” Barbieri said.

Shotgun is a web-based production tracking and collaboration system that gives all parties involved in a project instant access to critical data, messaging and real-time project progress. Revolver provides digital studios with an all-in-one review toolset, including both a web player and deep integration with Tweak Software’s RV for native playback. Combining production tracking and review, Revolver makes it easy for teams in any location to view work in context of the cut, browse and compare iterations, annotate on images, write notes and collaborate in real-time. Both Shotgun and Revolver have an open API that enables studios to quickly build custom tools and bridges to other applications using Python scripting.

Don Parker, CEO of Shotgun, added, “Psyop has an amazing creative team that continues to deliver remarkable work. We’re huge fans of the studio and are delighted they have chosen Shotgun and Revolver for their pipeline. We look forward to building our next gen toolset with input from the Psyop team.”

About Shotgun Software
Shotgun Software was founded in 2006 by a group of visual effects professionals to build production tracking and pipeline solutions. The founding members worked together on a major studio animated feature and are developing Shotgun to fill the mounting industry need for a commercially viable system for managing complex projects spread across multiple locations. Shotgun is actively developing the system with more than 300 industry studios including Digital Domain, Double Negative, Reliance, Framestore, Pixomondo, Playstation, Blizzard and Zoic Studios. For more information and an online demonstration visit http://www.shotgunsoftware.com

Mediaset Spain, Station’s Parent Company, Perfects Internal Communications with Unsurpassed Intercoms

MADRID, 9 JULY 2012 ? Clear-Com, a global leader in critical voice communication systems, is pleased to announce that Mediaset Spain, owner of the Telecinco broadcast station, has chosen a Clear-Com Eclipse-Median digital matrix and FreeSpeak digital wireless system to support communications at the company’s headquarters in Fuencarral, near Madrid, Spain. The company’s executives selected Clear-Com’s powerful matrix intercom and sophisticated digital wireless system to streamline communications during production of regular news programs, as well as reality and staged programming, in all six of Telecinco’s studios.

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Organic-Flavored Music for Web Series Connects Aviation, Innovation, and Humans

Sonixphere, a global resource for everything connected to music and sound, was tapped by Draftfcb to create the sonic content for a Boeing’s Innovation Video Series, a collection of short films highlighting the aviation giant’s passion for innovation and leadership. Each film focuses on a Boeing aerospace team member who shares their personal story about the role they played in the many groundbreaking technologies that have come out of the Boeing labs. more

Former Crossroads and Best Buy director specializes in narrative-style commercials and virals.

Santa Monica, Calif.— Mike Nelesen, a commercial director known for his ability to craft smart, engaging stories, both fictional and with real people, has joined Santa Monica-based The Joneses for exclusive representation. Nelesen’s work includes traditional broadcast spots and virals for such brands as Best Buy, Conoco Phillips, Logitech and AMC. more

Independent short uses Codex Onboard recorder to create “studio quality” look.

LOS ANGELES—Bayonet, a short political thriller from Bergen Films and Director Gregory Horoupian, recently completed principal photography using digital recording technology from Codex. The short was shot by cinematographer Lyle Vincent using an ARRI Alexa Studio camera paired with anamorphic lenses and a Codex Onboard M recorder. more

SANTA MONICA, Calif. (July 5, 2012) — A highlight of GRAMMY® FutureNow, a day-long conference produced by The Recording Academy Los Angeles Chapter on Saturday, June 23, 2012, at the Broad Stage in Santa Monica, Calif., was the presentation led by GRAMMY-winning engineer Andrew Scheps (Adele, Audioslave, Linkin Park, Metallica, Red Hot Chili Peppers). Titled “Lost in Translation,” the presentation guided attendees through an auditory experience examining the difference between an artist’s mastered track and different consumer formats including vinyl, CD, MP3, AAC and streaming.

Photo Caption: Pictured L-R: Andrew Scheps, P&E Wing Senior Executive Director Maureen Droney and P&E Wing Steering Committee Co-Chair Mike Clink. Photo Courtesy of The Recording Academy® /Wireimage.com © 2012. Photographed by: Maury Phillips.

For its latest collaboration with PopTech, the annual gathering of world-changers, international creative studio Trollbäck + Company created the conference’s opening sequence around the theme of “Toward Resilience.” This marks the fourth collaborative title design between PopTech and T+Co, which also involved additional branding materials. The event took place in late June in Reykjavik, Iceland.

PopTech 2012 explores how organizations and communities anticipate disruption, overcome challenges and manage a successful comeback.

To view the opening sequence: http://www.trollback.com/poptech-2012/

Inspired by the power of the Icelandic nature, T+Co’s interpretation of “Toward Resilience” plays with the juxtaposition of opposing forces, such as creation and destruction, light and darkness, and smoothness and sharpness. A frequency of lines flows and wraps around various forms giving them definition, from rolling hills with hints of green to blue-tinged lapping water and a disintegrating iceberg.

For Technical Director Justin Zurrow and Art Director Peter Alfano, the initial step was to determine what kind of story they wanted to tell visually with the lines. Following his methodology of using music to inspire motion, Executive Creative Director Jakob Trollbäck provided a temp music track by artist Squarepusher that helped set the mood and pacing of the animation. The final score was composed by Michael Montes of Sacred Noise.

“For me personally, Iceland is such a fascinating place,” explains Zurrow. “It’s a hostile, natural environment, but there’s something beautiful and hopeful about the fact that it rose out of the ocean from nothing. To capture the interplay of opposing forces, for example, we showed the creation of Iceland’s unique land formations, but also its destruction with the breaking of the iceberg. We’re not trying to pass judgment, but just show it as an event that happens.”

“We explored how these lines define form, and developed a shader in Maya that maps luminance to 3D objects and creates corresponding lines in reaction to light,” adds Alfano. “The challenge was finding a balance between being too reductive and abstract and being too literal with the frequency of lines.”

Initially, the animation was done in black and white, but ultimately, color was added to connect it to the beautiful landscape. The moiré issue [interference pattern] was the biggest concern. “Using Mental Ray really fixed these problems,” says Alfano. “The program now uses unified sampling, which allows designers to sample points in a 3D environment opposed to a grid format. This software made everything look and work better.”

“This was a great project for us as a studio because we could experiment with tools and techniques that aren’t possible on commercial timelines,” concludes Zurrow. “The client sent us some great references, such as landscape photography, but gave us a lot of latitude to design a piece that captures the relevant voice of the conference.”

Trollbäck + Company
Executive Creative Director: Jakob Trollbäck
Art Director/3D Animation: Peter Alfano
Technical Director/3D Animation: Justin Zurrow
Designer: Kelli Miller
Producer: Whitney Green
Composer: Michael Montes

Technology Used: Maya with Mental Ray and After Effects

About Trollbäck + Company
Trollbäck + Company is an award-winning creative studio communicating engaging ideas in the simplest, smartest and most visionary ways. Led by executive creative director Jakob Trollbäck, the collaborative group directs television commercials, designs opening titles, brands networks and creates experience-based content for global brands. Trollbäck + Company is the recipient of numerous awards including a primetime Emmy, and is regularly featured in publications and exhibits around the world.

http://www.trollback.com

Company to Offer Live Shot Locations, Studio Use for Non-Rights Holders

LONDON, JULY 9, 2012 – Pacific Television Center (PacTV), a Los Angeles-based independent global transmission and production company, will provide several services for non-rights holders seeking broadcast coverage of the major sporting event taking place in London from July 27 – August 12. PacTV also offers year round services at the same affordable pricing, including live-shot locations in East London near the sporting event’s primary venue, as well as use of the facility’s two studios and 24/7 satellite delivery capabilities.

PacTV London has been distributing sports coverage in HD and SD around the world since it opened in 2004. It has been the go-to company for many international broadcasters seeking a reliable partner for transmitting content back home. Thanks to PacTV’s prominent location near all of the action, sports reporters and journalists that do not hold rights to broadcast in and around the area where the main sporting event will take place will be able to send their content back home easily. The facility has planned views of the sporting event’s main venue and a classic London city background (including black taxis and double-decker buses) conveniently located in front of PacTV’s East London branch.

“All eyes will be on London this summer and we are very happy to offer non-rights holders the means to cover this special event,” says Paul Abbott, Branch Manager, PacTV London. “Our customers know they can count on us anytime during the year, whether it is a special event or not, for top-notch service at affordable pricing. That being said, we are eager to work with new customers to help them achieve their broadcasting goals as well.”

With 22-circuits to/from BT Tower, PacTV is a major broadcast hub for the United Kingdom, providing a pathway to all of Europe. In addition, all circuits are capable of transmitting or receiving uncompressed 270-Mb SD and 1.5-G HD signals. All remote, uncompressed HD or SD content being delivered to PacTV London is encoded using JPEG 2000, MPEG-2, or MPEG-4, depending on the requested format from the client. From there, the content will be sent out over PacTV’s established fiber network.

Further, PacTV London is directly connected to PacTV Los Angeles through a dedicated OC-48 fiber path, as well as to PacTV New York through a dedicated OC-12 fiber path. Truly a triple-threat, PacTV is capable of transmitting content around the world in seconds.