lower thirds

VFX Artist, Sasa Jokic on mocha Pro

 

Sasa Jokic, New York City-based editor and VFX artist is a long-time Imagineer Systems customer and fan of mocha. Sasa recently launched a new post production collaborative called MASSIVE Workshop, Inc, and shared with us his background, his experience in post production,  and what inspires him. Sasa also shared some feedback with us on mocha and the new v3 release of mocha Pro.

 

On Sasa Jokic

My name is Sasa Jokic and I am creative video editor and VFX artist based in New York City. Even though I am a classically trained editor (I hold Master of Arts in Film and Video Editing from University of Art in Belgrade), I have always been interested in learning and using new editing and VFX tools.  As a freelancer in New York, it is essential to keep current with all post-production software developments. Because you never know where are you going to get your next job and what tools the new company is using, I have learned to work on all editorial systems, including AVID, Final Cut Pro, Premiere, Media 100, to name a few, as well as most VFX tools on the market. 

 

One of my favorite tools is Imagineer Systems’ mocha. It saved me so much time on so many projects and literally saved my job on some. I came to New York 1996 and did my fair share of work on low budget independent feature and documentary films. About 9 years ago, I decided to focus more on advertising, so I start working with many ad agencies as their on site editor and VFX artist. At the same time I started developing my relationships with the feature film world and working on visual effects for films. 

 

A few months ago I created my new company called MASSIVE Workshop, Inc. We are a collaborative collective of best-in-the-business post production talent - producers, editors, motion designers, VFX and 3D artists. The idea is to provide an ad agency with a full range of post-production services directly and on many operational levels. I am confident that our approach will change the way ad agencies conduct post-production business. That will be MASSIVE’s main orientation, but we will continue to provide superb VFX work to our feature films clients.

 

 

 

On Recent Work

Just last week I finished two commercials for Purina Cat Chow and Tidy Cats. I used mocha on a few shots for Cat Chow, and on all shots for Tidy Cats; shots that needed to be stabilized and tracked because cats were shot separately from actors. Here’s a clip:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxe5xLi2crc

 

mocha on Feature Films

Six months ago I finished VFX work for the feature film “Silent House,” directed by Chris Kentis and Laura Lau, shot by Igor Martinovic and starring Elisabeth Olsen. It premiered in more than 2000 theaters last March in United States, and it is just about to start screening throughout Europe. It was a very interesting project from technical stand point because the whole movie is one continuos shot. As a result, there were many small imperfections which we needed to fix. Sometimes the light would be seen on the celling, or cameraman’s hand would slide into the shot; some shots had unwanted lens flares, or surrounding houses would be seen through the forest, which did not sit well because it is a horror film our hero house needed to be isolated!

So I had to do a lot of object removals and clean ups. Some shots had to stabilized, because everything was shot with a handheld. mocha Pro was an essential tool in my workflow and we used it in every single part of the shot I was working on. There were more than 150 instances where mocha Pro came into play. Footage was dark, shaky and in some cases, had lots of motion blur and noise (it was shot on Canon 5D), but mocha Pro did not have a problem with any of that. Planar Tracking was flawless, and new stabilization module in mocha Pro v3 helped to smooth some parts of the shot and still keep that handheld camera feeling.

 

On the Workflow and Integration with Other Tools

I used After Effects CS5 for compositing, and with Mathias Mohl’s After Effects script mochaImport. It was a great workflow because After Effects was able to import not just mocha tracking data, but mocha shapes as well, which are essential for rotoscoping. mochaImport with option to create stabilized precomp helped me tremendously, especially when I needed to remove many stuck/hot pixels which is a known issue with DSLR cameras.

 

mocha Pro: Solving Problems, Saving Time

I do not think that I would have accepted the offer to work on this project if I did not have mocha Pro at my disposal -- it is hard for me to imagine any other way. Tracking handheld footage, shot in low light conditions where most of the objects we had to work on are coming in and out of the frame, would be impossible without mocha and its Planar Tracker. With so much material to work with and on such tight deadlines, you need to focus on compositing and solving shot problems. So just knowing that you do not need to worry about tracking is absolutely irreplaceable.

 

mocha Pro v3: Workflow Improvements and Integration with CS6

My only challenge with older versions of mocha really came when I was in a big rush, and I did not have much time to export files from After Effects and than import them into mocha. At the time, I thought that was the biggest problem in my mocha - AE workflow. But now with CS6, where you can open a clip directly from After Effects in mocha without first exporting it - well this improvement made mocha 100% perfect. In addition to this, the new mochaImport script also has an option to send clips, including masks, in- and out points from After Effects to mocha – with just one click, so even without CS6, your mocha AE workflow is significantly improved. 

 

I am just about to start work on the movie “Red Knot” directed by Scott Cohen and starring Vincent Kartheiser and Olivia Thirlby.  All these improvements in mocha v3, and additions like 3D camera solving, will streamline my workflow even more and make mocha absolutely one of the most valuable tools in my workflow.

 

Evolve IMG on mocha Pro: Powerful Tools to Tell a Powerful Story

Joel and Jesse Edwards of Evolve IMG talk about the power of mocha Pro to help tell a moving, difficult story.

 

 

 

How mocha Thinks

Imagineer Systems' product specialist, Mary Poplin, posted some very interesting perspectives on the Imagineer blog yesterday. She's well traveled, meets a lot of customers and prospective customers, and what she learns on the road is just as valuable as what she's teaching on the road.

Here's an excerpt:

Every time I meet artists in person, I get these ‘epiphany moments’ from our users - some of whom have been using mocha for years - about how our software works. And what I realized is that many people don’t fully understand how mocha’s Planar Tracker actually thinks. Some don’t quite jive with the spline-to-track relationship, and none of these artists realize that all of these issues can be fixed with a simple visit.

I thought to myself, “how do I get this message out to as many people as possible?” So I decided to make an in-depth tutorial on it with lots of visual aids and clear explanations. And so I am in that process. The tutorial is in the works and being polished as we speak, but I couldn’t hold back anymore and wanted to tide you over with a much needed blog update that covers off some of the common questions I run into and attempts to breakdown some of the answers. So here goes!

Read the entire post here.

Red Giant Denoiser II Summed Up in 54 Seconds

If you had any question about the power of Denoiser II:

 

 

Red Giant Denoiser II is Here

As promised, Red Giant announced yesterday it has released Denoiser II - a new rebuild of the popular noise reduction tool, part of the Magic Bullet Suite. This release is for After Effects only, but new revs that will support more host apps are in development already. And no worries, the Company's Red Pledge guarantees that if you buy it today, when the new versions come out with expanded host support, you'll get the update - free! No hassles. 

Here are the details from the press release:

 

  

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

 

 

Red Giant Releases Magic Bullet Denoiser II

 

  Denoiser II Cleans Up “Noisy” Footage; Free Upgrade for Magic Bullet Suite Customers Delivers Reliable Performance, Sharp Results for After Effects Users

 

Portland, OR (February 28, 2012) – Red Giant today released Magic Bullet Denoiser II, a completely re-built version of its popular Denoiser 1.0 tool for removing unwanted noise and artifacts from video footage. Available as a free update for Denoiser 1.0 and Magic Bullet Suite customers, Denoiser II features intelligent default settings that provide immediate clean-up results when first applied to footage. Unlike other denoising tools and methods that can blur fine detail, Denoiser II’s smart default settings, along with advanced noise reducing tools, deliver sharp, clean and professional video results out of the gate.

 

Throughout the development process for Denoiser II, Red Giant worked closely with industry professionals to ensure its defaults deliver the perfect balance between noise reduction and sharpness. Denoiser II’s powerful cleanup features work right away, but for difficult noise situations, users can easily fine tune their footage with advanced controls. 

 

Denoiser II: Powerful Features for Professional Results

Denoiser II combines data over several frames to separate the noise from the image, giving users a professionally smoothed result that preserves fine details. Options like Frame Sample, Motion Estimation, Noise Hint and Shadow Offset create new sample frames, preserve fast-moving action, reduce chroma blotches, or clean up shadow areas, and are ideal for a number of workflow issues, such as:

 

Motion estimation for high and low motion: High-speed camera movements are different than slow pans, but Denoiser II can preserve detail even in fast-moving action sequences. Its Motion Estimation technology/feature compares successive frames to learn what is natural motion vs noise in the scene.  

 

Chromakeying and other fine tuning: Denosier II offers a number of fine tuning features that allow users to minimize over-smoothing, correct green chroma tinge, focus on shadows or de-emphasize highlights, all without losing image detail. 

 

Footage shot in low light: Denoiser II helps with low light conditions, making video clean and smooth. Noise Reduction and Noise Hint controls set how much noise you do (or don't!) want to see. 

 

Separate Video and Film modes: Two modes let users characterize the noise so Denoiser II can achieve the most accurate results. Video mode adjusts the Luma and Chroma channels for better smoothing in black-and-white or full color. Film mode has adjustments for Red, Green and Blue channels that are ideal for material shot on film. 

 

Joey Morelli is the founder of DigiDojo, a small post production and visual effects shop that handles just about every aspect of post for his clients, from motion graphics design and compositing, to 3D design, animation, color grading and editing. Joey, a long-time Red Giant customer, has been beta testing Denoiser II and had this to say: 

 

“As a ‘multi-tool artist,’ I need access to the best applications available - but they have to be affordable. With DSLR shoots dominating our market, noise is commonly introduced into otherwise gorgeous footage, and there just isn't an efficient, artful, affordable tool to turn to. Denoiser 1.0 worked, but it was finicky and unstable. So while working on the Denoiser II BETA, I picked one of the noisiest clips I could find, dropped Denoiser II on it, and within a few parameter tweaks, my jaw was on the floor! So then I set out to break it. I stacked a bunch of plug-ins like Magic Bullet Looks on it, adjusted the parameters for hours, and it remained rock solid and stable. No crashing! If I could sum up my experience with this tool: QUALITY + STABILITY = Denoiser II. That makes it worth every penny and it’s now my go-to noise reduction tool.”

 

Pricing and Availability

Magic Bullet Denoiser II for After Effects is available immediately and is priced at $99.00 USD for new customers, and is available as a free update for existing customers. Magic Bullet Suite 11.3 including Denoiser II is also available immediately and is priced at $799.00 USD for new customers. 

 

For more information or to purchase Magic Bullet Denoiser II, please visit https://www.redgiantsoftware.com/products/all/denoiser-II/. For more information or to purchase the Magic Bullet Suite, please visit http://www.redgiantsoftware.com/products/all/magic-bullet-suite/.

 

The Red Pledge

At Red Giant, we love working with artists, and we love giving you the tools and resources to help you do great work. We're inspired by, and share in, your passion because Red Giant is made up of filmmakers, animators and designers just like you. It's that level of passion which flows through everything we do as a company, and ensures that everything about our relationship with you just works. And that's Red Pledge - our full-on commitment to your complete happiness. The Red Pledge is our guarantee that we will always be reasonable and fair. We believe in no hassles. Just happiness.

 

About Red Giant 

Founded in 2002, Red Giant (www.redgiant.com) creates an ever-expanding universe of effects tools ranging from plug-in suites, applications and mobile apps to Guru Presets, free products and sharing communities. We provide software for motion design, photography and color correction that is used for everything from major motion pictures to worldwide television programming to web production. Red Giant offers the industry-leading Trapcode tools for broadcast design; Magic Bullet Suite for color correction; and over 60 products that run in After Effects, Final Cut Pro, Motion, Premiere Pro, Photoshop, Lightroom, Aperture, Avid, Vegas, Nuke, and Avid Studio. Our effects have enhanced dozens of feature films such as Angels & Demons and The Social Network, and added sparkle to networks like NBC Universal, ESPN, Disney, CNN, Comedy Central, MTV, and TNT. Join us on Facebook (RedGiantSoftware), follow us on Twitter (@RedGiantNews) and get free content at Redgiantpeople.com.

 

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Red Giant Magic Bullet Looks 2 for Final Cut Pro X: Available Now!

Red Giant TV Tutorial Series with Seth Worley: Creating a Comic Book Title Sequence

In this episode of Red Giant TV, Seth Worley (of Plot Device fame) walks you through the process of creating a Comic Book using After Effects and a number of Red Giant's color and color design applications, including Magic Bullet Looks and Trapcode Particular.

Take a look!

And to see the entire library of tutorials, QuickTips and useful content on color tools and techniques, check out http://www.redgiantsoftware.com/videos/  

 

Imagineer's mocha Key to 3D Conversion Pipeline for TRIXTER

Since 1998, TRIXTER has been creating outstanding visual effects and digital character animation for feature films, television and commercials. From the early days, TRIXTER established itself as a major player in the field of emotive character animation, both for fully computer generated animated features as well as live-action productions. Over the past few years, TRIXTER has expanded its expertise by branching out into visual effects and has recently accomplished some outstanding work for German and international projects such as Percy Jackson, Lilly The Witch, Iron Man 2, Narnia 3, X-Men: First Class, Journey 2, Captain America and many more.

 

Today, TRIXTER is unique in its ability to provide quality digital production for live action and animated features, in mono or 3D stereo. Whether it be key framed computer generated creatures or motion capture driven performances, matte paintings or FX work, TRIXTER has the experience and talent to deliver work of the highest standards. Its community of innovative digital artists and computer technologists collaborate creatively with filmmakers, helping them to bring their vision from the storyboard to the theater and delight audiences around the globe. TRIXTER has offices in Munich, Berlin, Los Angeles and Toronto.

 

Imagineer Systems’ Ross Shain recently spoke with Michael Habenicht, Compositing TD for TRIXTER, and talked extensively about their innovative and highly acclaimed stereo 3D and visual effects projects from this past year. They also talked about mocha and the role it played in their pipeline.

 

Imagineer: Can you tell us about recent projects TRIXTER has worked on, the challenges you faced and how you overcame them? We understand that you used mocha fairly extensively on many tough projects; what can you tell us about your experiences?

 

Michael: mocha has been used extensively on all projects at TRIXTER this year, ranging from stereo conversion for "Green Lantern" to VFX for "X-Men: First Class," "Captain America: The First Avenger," and "Journey 2: The Mysterious Island." mocha’s Planar Tracker and roto capabilities were heavily relied on for these films!

 

Imagineer: Tell me a little about your pipeline and the other software you use. How does mocha integrate into your workflow? 

 

Michael: We use Nuke for all the compositing here at TRIXTER. mocha integrates really well as it is only a matter of exporting to the clipboard and then pasting directly in Nuke. Also the new features since Nuke 6.2 was released that allows us to export only the keyframes for shapes, instead of having to “bake” every frame, really improves the workflow and speeds things up. So much can be done in mocha that, once we export to Nuke, there’s little back and forth for final adjustments - and that’s another huge time saver!

 

Imagineer: How many shots were tracked with mocha, and how did mocha assist the process? 

 

Michael: Well, I would say nearly every shot gets tracked with mocha at some point in the process - mocha touches everything, especially if a shot requires some cleanup, replacement or roto. It provides excellent results in no time. Simply load your clip, draw the shape, track it, paste it into Nuke. Our artists, some of whom have never used it before, learned it very fast and were instantly impressed by what can be achieved. The ability to add a grid to the tracking gives us very good, fast feedback and perspective about the quality. Also the magnifier that shows the keyframe before and after is an essential aid to good consistent roto.

 

Imagineer: Can you talk about any particular challenges or shots on which mocha was a significant help? Would these shots have been more difficult to achieve in another set of tools? 

 

Michael: On X-Men our task was to replace Mystique's eyes. Without mocha, it wouldn't have been possible in the given time while allowing us to keep to our quality standards. The shots provided several challenges. First we had to track the eyes or the face to get the general movement. mocha's robust algorithm significantly helped with this. It doesn't get distracted easily by small movements and variations in the pattern that differ from the overall movement. So blinks of the eyes were rarely a problem like they used to be when you tried to track a single feature in another software. The first round of tracking helped to roto the eyes and place the new ones. The second round tackled the movement of the pupil. Reproducing all subtle movements of the original performance was key to a successful shot. This way we could preserve all the character's emotions even with her new set of eyes!

 

On Journey 2 (a project in stereo 3D) we had to do a lot of cleanup. An animal that was used on set for filming had to be removed here and there so that a new CG creature could be inserted. mocha was a big help by providing reliable tracks for patches and roto.

 

mocha is an amazing tool that keeps getting better. We’re looking forward to new developments with mocha - features we know will benefit us even more, like a python api. This new feature will help us integrate pipelines and workflows even more effectively. 

 

mocha has truly changed the way we work here at TRIXTER and enables us to tackle the most complex VFX and stereo 3D conversion projects with the confidence that we can deliver flawless results, every time!

 

Hello, SkaterGirl!

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. 

 

 

 

"Plot Device" Goes Viral...In a Big Way

I've been watching the viewer numbers steadily rise for "Plot Device," the brilliant short from the creative minds of Seth Worley (who directed and co-wrote the film) and Red Giant's own Aharon Rabinowitz (who also co-wrote the film and executive produced it).

I think what's so fun about this whole thing is; they never really set out to create some Internet sensation. They really wanted to do something a little different...and fun...to promote a visual effects suite (Magic Bullet Suite 11) in a way that wouldn't make their fellow filmmakers gag. The result - over 600,000 views on Vimeo, and over 60,000 views on YouTube!

If you haven't seen it, check it out here. It's very well done.....and a lot of fun. I kind of want one!

 

 

Plot Device from Red Giant on Vimeo.