lower thirds

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

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.

Digieffects and Roxio Team Up to Help Get Rid of Those Shaky Home Videos!

This is pretty exciting news for all who have endured the head-spinning, sometimes nauseating experience of watching shaky, trembly and frankly, unwatchable home videos.  My friends at Digieffects have teamed up with Roxio to provide their professional-caliber stabilization technology in the newly released Creator 2011 software.

The announcement crossed the wires this morning, but here's the text of the press release:

 

 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 

 

Digieffects Teams Up with Roxio to Deliver Powerful Video Stabilization Technology to Consumer Markets

 Roxio Licenses Digieffects Stabilization Technology; Integrated into Roxio Creator 2011 to Allow Consumers to Smooth Out Shaky Home Movies 

 

 Wilmington, NC (October 6, 2010) – Digieffects® (www.digieffects.com), a developer of popular visual effects software plug-ins, announced today that it has teamed up with Roxio® to deliver powerful, professional-caliber stabilization technology to consumer camcorder markets.  Roxio has licensed Digieffects stabilization software for inclusion in Creator® 2011 to enable customers to quickly stabilize shaky home movies.   

With the explosion of consumer-generated video content resulting from significant growth in cell phone and ultra-small form factor, tapeless video cameras, the issue of jittery, unstable video images has not been addressed at the consumer level, until today.  

 According to Robert Sharp, president of Digieffects, "This announcement represents a watershed moment for Digieffects. The past few years we’ve seen tremendous growth in demand for our products in the high-end professional content creation marketplace.  This partnership with Roxio positions our products, technology and brand very well to a significantly larger and rapidly growing customer base."

 Roxio Creator 2011, bolstered with Digieffects stabilization technology, is available immediatley at www.roxio.com.

 Digieffects also announced today its partnership with Green Parrot Pictures of Dublin, Ireland.  The company was founded in 2004 as a digital video technology company providing IP licensing, consulting and software development.  Green Parrot Pictures is providing Digieffects with consulting and development services for its stabilization technology.

 About Green Parrot Pictures

 Green Parrot Pictures makes visual algorithms for the post production industry. The team has years of research and development experience in video processing. The founder, Anil Kokaram, won an Academy Award for his motion technology in 2007 alongside colleagues at The Foundry.

 About Digieffects 

Digieffects is a developer of popular software visual effects plug-ins for Adobe After Effects, Adobe Premiere Pro, Apple Final Cut Pro, Autodesk Combustion, Grass Valley Edius and Boris RED. The company has been in the business since the beginning of the “plugin revolution” which dates back to 1996. Over the years, Digieffects has had great success with software products like Cinelook and Delirium and is proud to call thousands of film and video producers all around the world its customers and friends.  

 

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Amazing Face Replacement VFX with mocha

Earlier this year, Italian director Francesco Calabrese and VFX freelance artist, Fabrizio Bonaga were thinking of ways to collaborate with Amari, an aspiring band from Udine, Italy, with whom they’d become quite friendly with in recent months.  Calabrese wanted to do something funny, creative, challenging, and even a little crazy.  So the idea was hatched to make a film-style music video based on a series of classic science fiction movies and to realistically insert the band members into as many shots as possible.  

With the concept solidified, Calabrese and Bonaga began pouring through as many sci-fi movies as possible, looking for inspiration and ideas on how this project could evolve.  They also carefully reviewed and planned out the process and workflow in detail to ensure they had the most cost-effective and simplest approach.

They started the project by stitching together scenes from multiple movies, successfully finding sequences with enough continuity between the films. Calabrese then created a rough cut of what would eventually become the music video, carefully piecing together scenes based on the actors’ movements, ensuring the least amount of rotation and changes in perspective.  When you’re about to embark on a major face-replacement project, the less ambiguity in each shot, the better!

Original Footage

Amari band member on green screen

Final composite with tracked face replacement

“The biggest challenge was replacing the actors’ faces with the band members’ and creating the most realistic, seamless look possible.  And that’s tough when you’re working with low-quality DivX as your source,” said Bonaga, who was charged with all the visual effects for the music video.  “We knew in the planning stages that tracking these shots with an average point tracker would’ve been impossible. So we decided early on that Imagineer Systems’ mocha was the only way to go.  Even with such low quality source material, mocha worked with extreme precision in every shot.”

“I started the process by making some rough face substitutions; literally roughly dropping in faces throughout the video,” continued Bonaga.  “I specifically started the process this way to give me a sense of where my most challenging shots would be.  But tracking with mocha was so solid and accurate, there was really nothing else for me to do - mocha tracked scale flawlessly.  We did such a good job on the first pass, all I needed to do was track position and rotation; I never even needed to track perspective.  The second pass was really about color matching.  mocha’s tracking was solid, just as we expected!”

Creating a music video with such sophisticated visual effects doesn’t come without its problems, however.  With only one day to shoot the band and capture all the green screen shots needed to begin the face replacement in post, the team was tired.  “At the end of a long day of shooting, we were exhausted.  When we discovered that a few of the shots were the wrong perspective with the faces in the wrong positions, we decided not to re-shoot, but to take advantage of some of the tools in post to fix the problems.  This turned out to be a relatively easy fix.  I simply removed the entire original head from the movie, wiped it clean with a plate created in Photoshop, tracked the background with mocha and replaced the head completely with the band members’ head!”

Original Footage

 

The second major challenge was color matching.  Since many of the movies they selected for the video were older, they had a grainy quality.  So not only did Bonaga have to precisely track each face, but he needed to recreate the lighting and grainy look as well.  “I’m not an expert in color correction,” continued Bonaga.  “But I jumped in with enthusiasm and managed with a very practical approach.  The ability to export my mocha tracking data, and do it in low-rez jpeg compression, I was able to recreate the grainy, squared ‘noise’ that matched the original film perfectly.”

 Amari band member on green screen

 

   Final composite with tracked face replacement and back plate.

Bonaga also credits Francesco Calabrese’s expertise behind the camera as key to making color correction and matching that much easier.  “After studying the source material closely, Francesco was able to capture such a close look and feel with the on-stage lighting as he was shooting.  This truly made my job easier too!”

One day of shooting, two days of pre-production and approximately 90 hours of post production went into the creation of the Tiger music video for Amari.  The result is nothing short of spectacular, with images so clean and accurate, it’s almost impossible to tell that a major face replacement project took place.  And the result was exactly what Calabrese, Bonaga and the band members of Amari were striving for.

“We wanted a challenge,” concluded Bonaga.  “But we knew we could have never even conceived this project without mocha!”

And here's the finished product; amazing!

Amari - Tiger from Francesco Calabrese on Vimeo.

Automatic Duck Delivers on NAB 2010 Announcements; Pro Import AE 5.0 with Support for CS5 on the Mac is Available Immediately

 Pro Import AE 5.0 Offers 64-Bit and CS5 Compatibility and Support for 

Motion 3 and 4 Project Import

SEATTLE, WA (June 7, 2010) –  Automatic Duck (www.automaticduck.com), the creators of timeline integration software for digital media artists, announced today the immediate availability of Pro Import AE 5.0 for the Mac.  Debuted at NAB 2010 last month in Las Vegas, Pro Import AE 5.0 is a major new upgrade to the industry-popular timeline translation tool for After Effects users that offers compatibility with Creative Suite 5 (CS5) from Adobe, which also launched at NAB 2010.

With this announcement, users can begin taking immediate advantage of Pro Import AE 5.0 and its powerful timeline translation capabilities, as well as new support for Motion 3 and 4 project import.  Additionally, Automatic Duck designed Pro Import AE 5 to continue supporting earlier versions of Adobe’s Creative Suite, including CS3 and CS4.

“It was very important to us that we deliver a CS5-ready solution for our customers as close to the CS5 launch as possible.  Our good friends at Adobe worked closely with us to ensure that we could deliver on our promise and create an enhanced solution that simply makes After Effects users lives’ that much easier,” said Wes Plate, president of Automatic Duck.  “Pro Import AE is one of our most popular solutions, and with the support of our users and beta testers, we continue to find ways to improve the workflow, streamline it, while staying current with all the new evolutions in the market.  And judging from the reactions we received at NAB 2010, we think our customers will be very pleased with what we’ve done with Pro Import AE 5.0.”

Automatic Duck Pro Import AE 5.0 offers users a broad range of enhancements, including support for Adobe CS5 and such new developments as:

• 64-bit compatible plug-in supports After Effects CS3 through CS5;
• Support for Motion 3 and 4 project import;
• Option to replace Final Cut Pro proxy media with R3D files;
• DPX/Cineon sequence support from Final Cut Pro;
• Support for MXF4Mac and other MXF QuickTime components;
• Improved text import with font, color, size and style info (CS4 and later);
• Updated third party plug-in translations;
• New usability improvements.

What Beta Testers Have to Say 

Beta testers have always played a significant role in the development of new products, and as importantly, in the continued development of existing Automatic Duck solutions.  Here’s what beta testers have to say about Pro Import AE 5.0:

“After Effects can work in 32 bit uncompressed space, giving total control to visual effects and color grading. Since my clients work and deliver using Final Cut Pro,  Automatic Duck Pro Import AE is the natural bridge between editorial and finishing in our workflow.”

Joost van der Hoeven, Senior Audio-Visual Designer at Animotion.nl

“As a Colorist with Apple Color, being able to ingest Avid project in Final Cut Pro is a must!  Also, with the lack of compositing in Apple Color, Pro Import AE 5.0 allows me to finish projects with ease, efficiently and with a lot of control.”

Fred Fleureau, Film & Television Colorist

Pricing and Availability

Pro Import AE 5.0 is available immediately and is priced at $495.00.  For more information, please visit www.automaticduck.com. 

About Automatic Duck

Automatic Duck is the pioneer of Timeline Integration Engine technology and leads the content creation marketplace with powerful solutions for seamless, comprehensive timeline translation capabilities between Avid, Adobe After Effects, Discreet Smoke, Final Cut Pro, Motion and Quantel via XML, OMF and AAF.  For more information on Automatic Duck’s unique Timeline Integration Engine technology, please visit www.automaticduck.com. 

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Post Live @ NAB with Imagineer Systems

And here's an interview, again by my good friend TheMediaMogul with Ross Shain of Imagineer Systems.  Here, Ross is talking about the newly announced mocha v2.  Check it out:

Post Live @ NAB with Automatic Duck

Here's a snapshot from NAB 2010; an interview by my good friend Dave Basulto, aka, TheMediaMogul, with Wes Plate of Automatic Duck.  Wes talks about his new announcements at the show, and has a little fun with Dave.  Check it out:

Post Live @NAB with Automatic Duck from David Basulto on Vimeo.

mocha v2, mocha for After Effects, and Clearing Up Some Questions

 

Now that NAB 2010 is behind us, and the dust has settled a bit from all the news and product developments, it's a good time to clear up a little bit of confusion that seems to be out there regarding the launch of Imagineer Systems' mocha v2 and Adobe's CS5 launch, which ships with mocha for After Effects and mocha Shape for After Effects.  Customers are wondering, what's the difference between mocha v2 and these seemingly similar apps that ship free with CS5.

Ross Shain from Imagineer has taken the time to clarify the key differences and provide some answers to the overall question: What's the difference?!

Here's an excerpt from a post Ross made on the AE list.  I'm posting it here verbatim in hopes of spreading the word a bit wider and getting some answers out there to people trying to understand the difference.  Hope this helps!

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Hi folks,

There has been a lot of mocha for After Effects questions recently: what is included in AE CS5 and how it differs from the newly released mocha v2?

Please excuse the "marketing" nature of this email, as I simply try to offer some clarity for AE users. Also, please find the updated Imagineer product comparison chart here:

http://www.imagineersystems.com/products/features/

Adobe After Effects CS5 ships with the following Imagineer products:

• mocha for After Effects CS5 - a 64 bit, stand alone tracking & roto utility found within the AE application folder. Same feature set as mocha for AE v2.

• mocha shape plug-in - an AE plug-in used to import and render mocha roto shapes with variable edge feathering.

• mocha shape to mask - a CS5 new feature found under edit menu to paste mocha roto shapes directly into selected AE mask layer.  mocha v2 is the new release of the full version of mocha.

mocha v2 is a 64 bit, stand alone tracking & roto utility that exports data to: AE, FCP, Smoke, Flame, Shake, Nuke, Combustion, Avid|DS, Quantel, etc.

mocha v2 also includes the following features not found in mocha for After Effects CS5:

• new improved interface & icons
• new stabilize and smooth module
• OGL hardware accelerated matte rendering with motion blur
• improved license activation
• support for older, non-intel MAC systems

Some Q&A

Q. Am I qualified to upgrade to the full version?

A. All owners of AE CS4 or CS5 can upgrade to mocha v2 to get the new features and more export formats. Got to www.imagineersystems.com to watch the new feature videos or get the upgrade price.

Q. Why are you still selling mocha for AE v2?

A. mocha for After Effects v2 and mocha shape will continue to be sold separately for AE users who are not upgrading to CS5 or are still running non-intel MAC systems.

Q. Why didn't you let me know CS5 was shipping with mocha for AE v2 features & mocha shape ?

A. We were not authorized to disclose Adobe CS5 features before the release. If you have recently purchased mocha for AE v2 (after 3/15/10) and wish to apply this cost towards a mocha v2 upgrade, please email us at sales@imagineersystems.com.

More questions? Please email us at sales@imagineersystems.com.

Cheers,

Ross

Ross Shain

Imagineer Systems

Imagineer Systems mokey Tutorial

Imagineer's Ross Shain steps you through creating clean plates and removing objects with mokey.  And don't forget, get mokey during the month of March - 50% off!  Only a few days left for this incredible price.  Check out mokey here at www.imagineersystems.com.

mokey video tutorial: Create Clean Plates from Ross Shain on Vimeo.