Archive of the Desktop Post Category

Like a well oiled machine, Katabatic Digital (www.katabatic.tv) continually rolls out artfully produced high-end commercials, music videos, and advertising campaigns. Recognized for its excellence in high-end post production for digital cinema, Katabatic has an established client base that keeps on growing. To manage the business side of its rapid growth, Seth Tabor has joined Katabatic Digital as executive producer.

Seth Tabor – Katabatic Digital's new executive producer

As executive producer, Tabor will spearhead client services and business development. “Seth brings 15+ years of experience and knowledge in virtually all areas of production and post production, which enable him to help our clients get the best results for their challenging projects,” says Emery Wells, digital colorist and founder of Katabatic. “His strong organization skills honed in the development of numerous films, commercials, and music videos, as well as management positions, will be an asset in managing our clients’ projects, as well as our growing client base.”

Tabor cut his teeth in production prior to focusing full time in post and VFX. He held production and managing positions at Open Frame Productions and Curious Pictures before becoming the Managing Director/CFO at Quiet Man where he oversaw countless projects for clients such as Gillette, Proctor & Gamble, Pepsi Max, McDonalds, and GE.

“Emery Wells is committed to excellence in every aspect of post production and this has become the mantra throughout Katabatic. He also has the foresight to carry this vision through to the management side of company as we expand our client services and continue to take on more complex projects,” says Tabor. “It’s an exciting time to be working in this industry and to be a player on such an innovative and talented team like Katabatic.”

Katabatic is at the forefront of the latest digital cinema technologies, offering its clients expertise in end-to-end creative, VFX, and post-production services for digital cinema in any format from any camera – 3D, RED Epic 5K and4K, ARRI Alexa, Phantom, Canon SLRS, Sony F3, and more. ASSIMILATE’s resolution-independent SCRATCH software is he backbone of Katabatic’s post-production workflow. Katabatic also offers the rental of RED Epic and 4K cameras, including on-set technical expertise.

Katabatic Digital (NYC) is a digital cinema company that blends creativity with technology to provide digital post production services for high-quality visual projects such as ad campaigns, music videos, and TV episodes. Katabatic works with any camera/format, and also provides rentals of the RED Epic and RED 4K cameras, including on-set technical expertise. ASSIMILATE’s SCRATCH is Katabatic’s data workflow of choice for real-time post production, from conform, color grading, dailies, client reviews, through finishing. Katabatic’s portfolio includes high-end music videos and TV spots for Beyonce, Cee-Lo and Saturday Night Live, and advertising for major household brands, such as Google Wallet, Google Chrome, Vonage, Jaguar, Goldman Sachs, and more. To learn more about Katabatic Digital, see www.katabatic.tv, or call 212-620-0818.

Cinedeck EX v2.5 features extensive timecode and audio enhancements, plus new deck control application and improved playback engine

Cinedeck LLC (www.cinedeck.com), the pioneering developer of mobile capture systems for motion picture and broadcast production, today announced significant enhancements to its award-winning, portable, multi-format, recording, monitoring and playback system, with the release of Cinedeck EX v2.5.

Available for immediate download, the new Cinedeck v2.5 software delivers a range of customer-requested features that support an even better operational experience for Cinedeck users. These include a new and enhanced playback engine, expanded timecode operations, upgraded audio metering displays, and a new Windows-based, desktop remote controller for multiple Cinedeck EX systems.

Cinedeck EX is already the fastest gateway from production to post. It enables any camera with an HD-SDI or HDMI output to record to a choice of the most preferred finishing standards used in editorial and VFX post production today, including all flavors of Avid DNxHD, Apple ProRes, CineForm, plus uncompressed 444 and uncompressed 422 recording.

Chief among the enhancements of the Cinedeck v2.5 release is a new playback engine, which has been completely rewritten and provides a vastly improved user-experience compared to prior versions. Crucially, the new engine enables users to take advantage of Cinedeck Controller, a free Windows-based desktop application, which provides basic deck control of the Cinedeck EX. Cinedeck Controller, which comes bundled with the new software release, allows users to remotely control up to 24 Cinedeck units, browse a list of clips recorded in the current scene folder, and to control recording and playback on multiple units independently or simultaneously.

Among the many expanded timecode operations, Cinedeck v2.5 adds support for Adrienne Electronic’s LTC devices, including the use of Adrienne’s mini USB timecode reader. Cinedeck EX already supports Ambient Recording timecode systems.

Redesigned audio meters now show audio in dBFS (full scale) from -60dB to 0dB, with levels displayed in an array of colors making them easier to read in the field. Along with a range of general playback fixes, other enhancements include new edge detection displays, with edges in red, rather than black, to increase legibility.

“Users already enjoy the experience of using, and interacting with, Cinedeck EX, and their feedback has resulted in the new Cinedeck EX v2.5 software version containing a host of enhanced features,” said Cinedeck CEO Alan Hoff. “These new features focus on usability and performance improvements to optimize the fundamental operation of Cinedeck EX where it matters most – in production. With the new v2.5 version available now, current and new customers will enjoy the Cinedeck EX experience even more.”

Cinedeck EX v2.5 will be on display at the Createasphere Burbank show November 2-3, 2011 at Sony’s booth #101, and at Keycode Media’s booth #303.

Pricing and Availability:
Cinedeck EX v2.5 is available for immediate download, free-of-charge, to customers on maintenance. Cinedeck EX is available for purchase via resellers worldwide starting at $8495USD–MRSP. Visit www.cinedeck.com to find your nearest reseller.

Founded by cinematographers, and headquartered in the heart of New York City, USA, Cinedeck manufactures innovative, touchscreen recording systems for use with all popular digital cinematography cameras. Along with on-set monitoring, playback and quality control capabilities, these recorders also unify camera-to-post workflows by offering the industry’s most comprehensive range of edit-ready output formats. Cinedeck EX, the industry’s first camera-mountable device, has proven essential to the workflow on hundreds of TV and cinema productions, and has won TV Technology’s “2010 STAR Award”, the “2010 Vidy Award,” and DV Magazine’s “Award of Excellence”. Continuing this pioneering spirit, Cinedeck LLC is also addressing the challenges of the mobile and outdoor broadcaster with Cinedeck RX, its new, rack-mounted, multi-format recorder, monitor and playback system. Cinedeck RX was awarded the prestigious “2011 Pick Hit Award at IBC 2011” from Broadcast Engineering Magazine. For more information, visit www.cinedeck.com.

Recently, we were introduced to Digieffects customer, Julian Bleecker; photographer, digital media artist and founder of Hello, Skater Girl. We were so mesmerized by the imagery he created, capturing women skaters competing in the gritty backdrop of skate parks all over the US; we wanted to meet him and learn more about him and how he creates his art.

Digieffects (DE): Can you tell us a little about HelloSkaterGirl, and about yourself?

Julian Bleecker (JB): I moved to Venice Beach California awhile ago and wanted to get to know the history and culture of where I was living. I’m an over-enthusiastic amateur photographer. A camera and a lens provides a decent way for me to ask questions about where I am and who I’m around in an indirect way, which is comfortable for me. I stared shooting in the Venice Beach Skatepark because I knew that place was a dog-eared page of the story that is this beach town — the history of this place passes straight through surf-skate life and culture. It was an amazing visual-anthropology to shoot there and get to know all the wonderful and curious people and their stories about skating and the Westside — Dogtown, Santa Monica, Venice, Mar Vista, Marina del Rey. I became a bit obsessed with capturing as many facets of the life as possible. Almost by accident, I found myself traveling to shoot with skaters and at competitions all around the country.

I got to shoot at X-Games 16, which was amazing and daunting to be up close to incredible skaters. Towards the end of a long, hot, sweaty day of shooting and lugging around gear and being humbled by the other professional photographers, I went into the air conditioned Nokia Theater to cool down. The Women’s Vert Ramp Competition was on. I hadn’t even thought once about shooting any of the women’s events. Why not? It’s not an excuse, but I can only surmise that the bias of a year of shooting men unconsciously led me to ignore women skaters. Not shooting with women wasn’t a choice so much as a result of the familiar systemic issue that skateboarding is for guys.

That day was an eye opener. The women were bringing heat. This was real competition. Plenty of thrills. Lots of air. They were 110% sporty. Competitive while also encouraging and supporting one another.

That event was the start of this project. Through the Hello, Skater Girl project I hoped to distinguish what these sportswomen are doing without fetishizing the fact that they are women in a sportsman’s game. Rather that they are women skating like women. I hope that these images in the book show a bit of that and their spirit and personalities.

But, I don’t do this full-time, although sometimes it seems so. I’m normally a designer and technology guy. I work in the Advanced Design studio for Nokia here in Los Angeles and I run a design and innovation studio called The Near Future Laboratory where we figure out what could be, even if it’s really weird.

DE: What camera equipment and software was used?

JB: I’m a Nikon boy by birth. I have a bunch of bodies from a D3S to an N90S. The lenses run the gamut, but mostly I shoot with the wider ones — 14mm/2.8, 16mm/2.8, 20mm/2.8, 24mm/1.4, but I usually keep my old trusty 85mm/1.8 handy. My go-to lens for the skateboard work has been the 24mm/1.4. I’ve been trying to perfect shooting it nearly wide open with an nearly black-out neutral density filter to let me keep it open in bright sun. The bokeh you can get with these conditions and a bit of luck makes the photography more portrait-like, which is an aesthetic I’ve been going for. The hyperfocal on wider lenses or slower lenses makes the images lack depth and look quite flat, in my opinion.

On the software side, I use ImageIngester and Photo Mechanic for the ingestion and pre-processing and then Adobe Lightroom and a big RAID array for cataloging and managing photos. The workflow feels medieval. Someone is really going to put sort this digital asset management thing and make it all work nicely. Right now it’s harder than it needs to be. All the VFX work is done in AfterEffects and Final Cut.

DE: How much time is spent in post and VFX?

JB: I tend not to fuss too much with the images, although the spontaneity of the subject and the fact that its not studio photography means that the light isn’t always spot-on. You’re basically trying to take photos of very excited squirrels running all over the place and so you never really know what the light is going to do to you — clouds move, the sun moves, sometimes you shoot into it, sometimes its oblique to you. So it helps to capture images with lots of latitude for some corrections between very dark darks and very bright brights.

I use Nik Software’s tools to help with that sort of thing, especially their Viveza tool. When I find an image I want to use, I tend to spend a bit of time with it. And, if I’m using it for one of still life with motion animations, I’ll spend anywhere from an hour to a couple of days working with it. Mechanically the DigiEffects Camera Mapper effect makes it easy to setup the animation. Actually getting an animation and camera move that’s satisfying can take as long as you want.

DE: There are some really nice color and VFX treatments to your work. Which Digieffects products do you use and how did they assist the process?

JB: I used Camera Mapper for all the animations. That was the core tool for the animations. The Buena Depth Cue suite is great to work with. Although most of the depth effects I created in camera, things like the Depth tool allowed me to enhance the aesthetic I was looking in a couple of the animations with very few hassles.

DE: What features of the products did you most take advantage of?

JB: Camera Mapper makes it relatively easy to get a great alternative to the tired Ken Burns pan-and-zoom for still images. I mean — I’m trying to use still images in a very time-based media world. It was a challenge to figure out what to do and once I saw that sort of effect in films like The Kid Stays in the Picture and Riding Giants. Camera Mapper and animating camera moves that reveal parallax is a really exciting alternative to 3D that is more authentic to photography in a video format.

DE: Can you talk about any particular challenge or frustration that Digieffects helped with?

JB: It took me several tries to figure out how to make Camera Mapper work. I think I wasn’t thinking visually and just following the steps as I understood them in the tutorials. I think I’ll do my own tutorial. The moves I’m doing are quite simple visually so I think a tutorial would explain the basic principles simply. Camera Mapper set me up to focus on what and how I wanted to animate stills. After doing it many, many times I can imagine how I could do it without the plug-in — but it greatly simplifies the workflow.

You can see more of Julian’s work on his web site here: http://helloskatergirl.com Or check out his Vimeo page here to see more stunning videos created with Digieffects: http://vimeo.com/helloskatergirl

Julian is also working on a new book; a limited edition collection of photography and the stories behind the Hello, Skatergirl photos. He’s using Kickstarter as a way to get the book into people’s hands. To support this effort, please visit http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/221647184/hello-skater-girl.

Calling all Premiere Pro editors; add Singular Software Presto to your workflow and create engaging presentation videos in just minutes

Vancouver, British Columbia – Singular Software™, a developer of workflow automation applications for digital media, is pleased to announce the public beta of Singular Software Presto™ for OS X (v2.0) with support for Adobe® Premiere Pro®. Singular Software Presto dramatically simplifies the creation of high-quality presentation videos. The application’s sophisticated computer tracking and automation technology works alongside Premiere Pro to automatically synchronize footage of the presenter, presentation slides, and a video taken of the screen – creating a polished video of the presentation in just minutes. “Singular Software Presto has saved Sony Vegas Pro and Final Cut Pro users hours in the edit bay. We’ve received many inquiries from Adobe customers, and our team has been hard at work adding support for Premiere Pro,” says Bruce Sharpe, CEO, Singular Software. “Singular Software Presto turns what can be a tedious and time-consuming edit into one that is quick and creative. Its automation and layout tools quickly transform raw footage into a professional, polished presentation video.”

The public beta of Singular Software Presto for OS X (v2.0) offers key new features, including support for importing projects from Premiere Pro, the ability to render video directly, and full control over audio mixing. For more information or to download the beta, please visit: http://www.singularsoftware.com/presto.html.

About Singular Software Presto
The Singular Software Presto application utilizes advanced head tracking and image-matching technology to simplify the entire editing process for creating presentation videos. Users start by importing video of the presenter and presentation screen into Premiere Pro (CS4 or newer; PluralEyes is also required for CS4 users, and recommended for CS5 or CS5.5). This project is then imported into Singular Software Presto to apply its automation magic and presentation layout tools.

Singular Software Presto creates a precisely timed slide track with bright slide images in place of the screen video by automatically synchronizing the original slide images with the video of the screen. The application’s advanced tracking technology automatically keeps the presenter in view, alongside the slides, in appealing two-up layouts, and the resulting video can be used as is or customized with the provided templates.

Availability of Singular Software Presto for Premiere Pro
Singular Software Presto is currently available in public beta for Premiere Pro. To download the beta, please visit: http://www.singularsoftware.com/downloads.html.

About Singular Software
Established in 2008, Singular Software pioneers the development of workflow automation applications for audio and video professionals. Its breakthrough solution, PluralEyes, offers innovative technology to automate and simplify multi-camera, multi-take and dual-system audio workflows. Singular Software products support industry leading non-linear editing products. For more information about Singular Software, please visit: http://www.singularsoftware.com.

Singular Software Presto is a trademark of Singular Software Inc. All other trademarks, registered trademarks and products mentioned herein belong to their respective owners.

Press Contact
To schedule a press briefing or request a product review; please contact Janice Dolan at:

Zazil Media Group
Janice Dolan
(p) +1 617 817 6595
(email) janice@zazilmediagroup.com

Jack Tunnicliffe of Java Post understands the inherent difficulties at just about every level of production. Having worked in television as a cameraman, director, producer, and ultimately parlaying all of his production and post production experiences into the company he founded, Jack brings a solve-anything approach to his work. In fact, Java Post is often praised by its clients as a shop that “takes the pain out of production!”

Java Post, a leading editing and visual effects facilities based in western Canada, boasts an impressive roster of post-production credits that includes hit Canadian TV sitcoms such as Corner Gas and InSecurity, and the critically acclaimed film, Hungry Hills featured at the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival.??Jack has been described as a technical wizard with an artist’s eye and a philosophy of surrounding himself with the very best, whether it’s cutting edge technology or the people behind the controls.  From post-production coordinators to the editors, animators and visual FX artists, Java Post prides itself in the fact that every one of his team brings their special brand of craft, creativity, experience and enthusiasm to every project.??Imagineer Systems spoke with Jack recently where he shared some details on the workflow issues he’s facing now on the popular CBC Network television series, InSecurity.

“Right now, we’re working on a television series that’s turned out to be a real workhorse show for us – it’s the kind of show that’s laden with invisible VFX, the sort that could take hours and hours of tedious work. I’m talking about clean up. This show in particular has a tremendous amount of clean up, tons of boom shadows and reflections throughout each scene that need to be removed. And, since the show is constantly growing, there are now twice as many people, shadows and lines that need to be removed from each scene.”

“Adobe After Effects is a big part of our workflow here at Java, we do a lot of our VFX and clean up in After Effects. The problem arises when we’re removing a shadow that’s either on corrugated surface, or worse, goes off screen and then comes back in to the shot. There’s just not enough information for point trackers to handle that. That’s where mocha Pro comes in for us. mocha AE actually comes bundled with After Effects, so that’s a tremendous bonus. It’s so well integrated. Whenever we have a shot that needs Planar Tracking, we simply drag the clip from AE and drop it into mocha and it opens instantly. We ended up migrating from mocha AE to full mocha Pro as we found all the added capabilities, such as the remove tool, to be invaluable to us. Just that one feature had a huge impact on my workflow and saved tons of time on clean up projects.”

“In one example (see before and after clip), we had a shadow before, to the right of the couple approaching. As you can see it, runs across the curb and then across a highly textured ground surface, so not the easiest thing to remove. In the second shot of the couple the shadow moves right up the brick wall at an angle, again not an easy fix.”

“With mocha Pro, I tracked the background planes beneath the shadow on the ground and then tracked the planes of the brick wall, then tracked the actual shadow and used the remove tool. The results were quite outstanding and would have taken considerably longer using traditional methods of removal, clean plates and painting.”

“Another scene in the series is shot inside an office with big windows throughout the background. The directors wanted a view from the windows of downtown Ottawa – every show we needed this view. So we turned to greenscreen and mocha Pro. mocha Pro is so powerful, all we had to do was track in the windows and now those windows are locked to this virtual outside world. For more realism, we even threw in some 3D animated birds to fly by the windows occasionally. Again, an example of massive time savings that allows us to focus on the creative and getting the job done quickly, on time and on budget!”

“When a tool saves you the kind of time like mocha Pro does for our team, it pays for itself in a matter of days. And especially for After Effects users, when you discover the power of mocha AE and the value you get from migrating to full mocha Pro, you wonder why you didn’t do it sooner!

And who knows, my love for coffee also inspired my company name and logo. Clearly mocha Pro just fits right in! Coincidence?”