They say good comedy is all about timing.
That’s all well and good for live comedy, but what happens when you’re shooting a Hollywood blockbuster comedy? Take after take resulting in hundreds of shots and scenes in no particular order. Just footage. What’s missing? Timing.
And the reality in the industry today is that good comedy films are created in post production, with extremely sophisticated VFX playing a bigger role than ever in helping create that critical timing that drives the site gag, the perfect entrance on the scene, the line delivery, and the actors’ reactions. And the most amazing part is, the audience never knows!
Scott Davids runs Level 256, a rapidly growing Los Angeles based VFX shop that has earned a reputation for taking on any VFX challenge, no matter how big, no matter how vexing, and turn it around quickly and with amazing results. Imagineer Systems recently spoke with Scott to talk about not only the incredible growth at Level 256, but also about the caliber of work that’s been keeping them so busy the past year. To say Level 256 is busy is putting mildly; in the past year alone, this powerhouse shop has cranked out the VFX on some of Hollywood’s funniest blockbuster comedy hits with such marquee titles as Little Fockers, Cedar Rapids, I Love You Man, Hot Tub Time Machine, and Bridemaids, which opens nationwide this weekend.
And some common threads through all of these hit movies? Complex visual effects that includes tracking, removal/replacement and roto. And to do it all in a way that helps Level 256 live up to their reputation of fast, quality results: they rely on mocha from Imagineer Systems.
Scott continued:
“We’re a small company and we do a lot of invisible work, specifically, they kind of VFX that people never realize are there, but it’s the kind of work that can bog artists down for weeks. mocha has helped us tremendously, enabling us to do lightning fast work, which is critical when you realize how important post production is to the comedic timing of these films.
Comedies have become a scientific process. Often we’re working with long cuts, running them over and over, testing the timing of the jokes and site gags. We’re constantly swapping out gags, adjusting the timing, the content, the actors, until we figure out the right jokes for the scene. And when you’re relying on VFX software to help you keep up, you quickly realize the value of a tool like mocha.
Most comedies aren’t traditional VFX-laden movies. But they each have literally hundreds of shots that need VFX touches. In Bridesmaids, we had over 260 shots where we had to test the comedic timing. We were pulling people out of different takes to make the jokes work better. It was amazing, and tedious at the same time. In Hot Tub Time Machine, we had shots where we had to cut out each actor individually and put them back into the scene one at a time. Normally, a shot like that would take days, if not more than a week. With mocha, we did it in a few hours.
Little Fockers presented us with a number of challenges. Not only were we faced with the huge task of testing timing, replacing actors and fine tuning the jokes, we had a few ‘production error’ crises we needed to solve. As you know, this installment of the Fockers series included their young children. One of the kids, half-way through the shoot, lost his front baby tooth! Since that wasn’t part of the script, we had to digitally re-create his front tooth, insert it and track it through every shot he appeared in for the rest of the movie. As you could imagine, that type of shot presents hundreds of issues that would send any VFX artist off the deep end; there’s tracking, camera angles, blur, rotation, fully exposed teeth (when his mouth is open) or partially exposed. But with mocha and the planar tracker, it was a snap! We simply placed the new tooth, set the planar track and hit ‘go.’
In one instance, the director wasn’t happy with one of the actor’s appearance in a shot, but it was too late to re-shoot. Using mocha, we literally pulled off what we called the Frankenstein shot; We took the head from one take, the chest from another, and the hands from yet another take and reassembled and tracked each part - all using mocha.
But I think my favorite ‘development’ we had to deal with was in Little Fockers. Owen Wilson decided to shave halfway through production! The whole first half of the film shows Owen with a shadow - not quite a full beard, but enough of a shadow that was not only clearly visible, but also part of his character’s look. Using a combination of tools, we created digital stubble, and using mocha, literally placed and tracked Own Wilson’s facial stubble through the remainder of the film!
These are the kinds of shots that most VFX artists would say ‘no way,’ but with mocha, they’re a snap, we don’t even blink.
mocha has become such an integral part of everything we do here at Level 256. Like I said earlier, we’re a small shop, but mocha has a direct impact on our ability to work as quickly as we do and therefore compete with the larger shops. And since we’re small, nimble and innovative, Level 256 is able to act more like a department within the studios - part of their team - rather than as an outside vendor. We work closely with the client from the start, right from the planning process, because, with mocha in our tool kit, we know what can and can’t be done. We also know that, since mocha talks to all the key platforms, that we can quickly deliver content from mocha into their editing apps, and back again if we need to make more changes. We don’t impede the process, we enhance it. And mocha helps us bring that level of value to our clients.
We couldn’t do what we do without mocha!
Level 256’s latest comedic VFX artistry will debut this weekend, with the nationwide premiere of Bridesmaids. For more information on Level 256, and to see more examples of their work, please visit www.level256vfx.com.
VFX supervisor, Tim Burke and producer Emma Norton first approached Baseblack in early 2009 to ask if they’d be interested in working on Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the two-part epic finale to the most successful franchise in cinema history. Baseblack had worked on several previous films in the Harry Potter series. This time, Tim and Emma were thinking about using a flexible boutique; one that could be deployed throughout the film to clean up various sequences, while larger vendors would be used to focus on the major set pieces.
Inspired by the scope and variety of shots being offtered, Stephen Elson of Baseblack assembled a new team to tackle the challenge, lead by VFX supervisor, Matt Twyford and VFX producer, Kate Philips and supported by mocha artists, Stephanie Kelly and Paul Chapman. And this team would go on to contribute more shots than any other vender participating in the Deathly Hallows Part 1.
Imagineer Systems sat down with Stephanie and Paul to talk to them about the challenges they faced in this high stakes, and highly visible project, and how they overcame them to deliver one of the most visually stunning, anticipated movies of the year.
Both Stephanie and Paul talked extensively about mocha, and its role in their VFX pipeline. mocha is Imagineer Systems’ stand-alone tracking and roto desktop application that nicely complements compositing and finishing environments for artists. mocha’s unique planar tracker and streamlined interface allows artists to easily track shots where traditional point trackers fall short, and enables artists to quickly and easily solve difficult tracks. mocha also fits nicely into many environments, as it easily exports transform, scale, rotation, and perspective keyframes to the industry’s most popular applications, such as After Effects, Final Cut Pro, Flame, Smoke, Avid D|S, Quantel, Fusion and Nuke.
It was these attributes that made mocha such a natural fit for Baseblack as they attempted to tackle one of the most highly anticipated films this year.
Stephanie began;
“When we sit down to begin new shots; you start to explore ways of solving the technical problems. One constant task is tracking; nearly every visual effects shot has some level of match-moving. Having mocha in your toolkit helps simplify the guesswork and allows the compositing artists to get right to the creative.”
Stephanie and Paul talked about some specific shots in which mocha not only shined, but saved the day! Paul talked about a specific instance, in which Harry is reading The Daily Prophet; loaded with inset moving images; where mocha was vital in helping deliver the final product:
“We were all first introduced to The Daily Prophet in the very first Harry Potter film - it’s a staple in the film. The brief on this sequence was pretty straight-forward; make it look exactly like they did in the last 6 movies!”
However, none of the artists on the team at Baseblack had done a Daily Prophet shot before.
“It was clear early on that our comp packages weren’t handling the tracking very well. In order to pull these shots off, we needed clean 4-point tracks. Instead of stitching single and 2-point tracks together, we setup one of the shots in mocha to see if we’d get a better result. We did. The planar tracker in mocha made quick work of what would have otherwise been arduous hand-tracks.”
In another poignant scene in the film, Hermione Granger, Harry’s best friend, is looking at a series of picture frames of her family. In the scene, she’s attempting to wipe her parents memories away with her magic. In each of the photos, Hermione’s image dissolves out of the picture.
“This was all done with mocha,” added Stephanie. “This was another perfect example, where you think you have a basic, simple shot with a simple effect - Hermione fading out of a picture - but it could’ve been a real nightmare. Each photo is moving the camera is moving, the perspectives are changing - there was so much motion in this shot, that without mocha, it would’ve been impossible. So here was another example where we could focus on the creative, focus on moving the story along without the distraction of how we would make it work. And all we had to do, using mocha, was treat each photo as individual planes, and mocha did the rest. With all movement in the scene and the camera movement, mocha just figured it out. We had another perfect shot!”
Massively Easy Integration
“It was a real luxury working on this film, knowing that tracking would never be an issue. Even when it came down to integration with our other systems in house. The ease of integration with Nuke was fantastic. We could have both Nuke and mocha running simultaneously, side by side. Once we nailed down a track, we simply exported the corner pin data into Nuke, and it would appear as native in Nuke. We didn’t even have to close the app; we just toggled back and forth!”
“We often run quick mattes inside mocha. We could so quickly and easily export those into Nuke - it really made our lives easy. We took every opportunity to take advantage of the super easy integration with Nuke to simplify our workflow, they’re so complementary!”
“Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows was an incredibly important project for Baseblack, and mocha made it happen! mocha is a tool in our arsenal now that gets picked up regularly throughout the shop. It’s reliable, it never crashes, it’s fast, and provides massively easy integration with our other systems. It’s just so reliable, you develop a comfort factor - you just know tracks are going to work. We had a lot of fun working on this film, it presented a wide variety of shots and some unique challenges. Having the right tools to get the shots completed was very important. After proving itself on Deathly Hallows Part 1, mocha has become part of our compositing pipeline.”
For over 14 years, LOOK Effects has been a leading provider of digital-effects solutions for feature film, episodic television and special venue projects. With studios in Los Angeles and New York, LOOK offers a knowledgeable and resourceful approach in partnering with their clients to supervise and produce visual effects. On both coasts, LOOK offers ideas and options for digital effects design, on-set supervision, set-extension creation, 3D animation and complex compositing that dovetail smoothly into production schedules. This combined experience and expertise has earned LOOK a high level of trust and an impressive list of clients and credits.
LOOK’s effects for Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan have been nominated for both VES and BAFTA awards for visual effects. In fact, one of the more interesting attributes of Black Swan, is that you wouldn’t necessarily think of it as a VFX heavy movie. It looks like a straightforward film; yes, with some amazing special effects! In fact, the filmmakers worked quite hard to make it appear as such. They wanted the viewer to focus on the drama, and not the VFX. And that’s where LOOK FX comes in. Because at the end of the day, their specialty is immersing you in the film, and not distracting you with effects. We recently spoke with the team at LOOK and asked them to describe the project, its challenges, and how they overcame those challenges to deliver such an impressive body of work.
The VFX crew at LOOK FX was huddled around the workstation. It was late, they were tired, and they had spent the better part of the last 8 weeks trying to nail this project down - make it perfect. Anxiety was setting in, the shot just wasn’t working, and the client was getting antsy.
The client: Fox Searchlight Pictures. The project: Black Swan. This was a big deal.
Black Swan is a psychological drama/thriller that very effectively takes the story line of competing ballet dancers, combined with amazing visual effects to create a story that everyone is talking about. And in VFX circles, everyone is talking about the incredible effects - the ‘how’d they do that’ moments that envelope the film, and not only enhance, but drive the story.
While the VFX throughout the film were very sophisticated and complex, one shot in particular was more vexing than the team anticipated. In the scene, Natalie Portman is first experiencing the appearance of the swan-like skin; appearing first on her back and shoulders, creeping down her neck and up her arm. The image is a series of effects, combining feather quills and textured skin, along with dark make up that rapidly spreads across her skin. While this is happening, the camera is sweeping up and down Portman’s arm and torso, while also rotating around her body.
To execute the visual effects on this shot, the team had been working for weeks trying to make it work. The end result had to show the effect starting on her back, neck and shoulders, then continue the transformation process progressing further while tracking around her arms with the camera panning close up. It's a complex 360 degree shot showing the metamorphosis happening, with constant camera motion. And all of the effects had to be tracked to her arm. But the problem was; the team couldn’t lock it down - there was far too much camera movement, and to add to the problem, there were minimal tracking markers on her arms - nothing useful to track to. The team had exhausted their arsenal of tools, but they couldn’t make it work. The timing and movement in the shot were just too fast. And the client was getting nervous - the deadline was fast approaching. There was one option left, however. “Call Buddy!”
Buddy Gheen is a VFX artist and digital compositor at LOOK FX Los Angeles, with a long list of credits to his name, including James Cameron’s Avatar, Step Up 3D, Get Smart and The Break Up Artist, as well as a number of television series including Bones, Lost: The Final Season and CSI. And at LOOK FX, he’s known as the ‘shot doctor,’ mainly because they can bring him in at the 11th hour, when all seems lost, and Buddy can make it work.
Buddy describes the situation:
“When I walked into the studio, I could immediately see the frustration - on all sides. The team was worried, the client was frustrated; but it had to get done, and fast. They gave me a quick briefing and review of the shot. I could immediately see the challenges - the camera motion was wild, fast and hard to predict, and there were minimal tracking markers; the camera movement, combined with the actress’ body movements made them nearly impossible to pick up. Everything throughout the shot was in constant motion. There was slight rotation in the arm, little subtle body movements, all while the camera is panning and rotating 360 degrees. The timing just wasn’t right for all the things client wanted to happen in the shot. And the reveal - the swan-like skin, which has tremendous detail and texture was so fast, it looked like a wipe. A tracking nightmare!
The team at first had tried to match move all the components, create all the information, output passes, etc. And they had been trying to make it work for so long, they were very frustrated. But when I saw what was going on in the shot, I knew immediately what to do. I had one magic bullet in my gun, so to speak. It was mocha. I knew right away that mocha could do this - I’d done it before! I’ve been using mocha for years and it’s solved all kinds of seemingly impossible tracks, so I was well aware of what I could get away with.
The challenge, however, would be when all the notes and changes came back once I delivered the concept. So I created a pipeline specific to this shot, with mocha as my magic bullet.
First, I was able to literally paint onto her arm using a photo realism technique I’ve developed. Using Photo Shop and After Effects, I painted photo real images, using samples of turkey skin images, goose skin, quills coming out of baby birds, and combined them into a single look and feel. I then ‘painted’ this image to her arm. The imagery alone was incredible, but the question remained, how are you going to make this work? It still needs to track to her arm with all the crazy camera movement. And that’s where mocha came in.
In an instant, mocha allowed me to hold onto my photo-real matte painting I had created, track it to her arm, integrate the image into her skin, and allow the ‘reveal’ to happen. The result blew people away. With no tracking markers, all the wild camera movement, the mocha track was perfect.
mocha is an indispensable tool. No other tool out there can do what mocha does. Today, it’s just a normal part of the VFX workflow at LOOK FX, just like pulling a key, it’s a standard. None of this would have been possible without mocha.
And once the team realized all it could do for Black Swan, it became an instant part of that workflow as well. From bringing paintings to life - when all of the paintings in Portman’s room came mysteriously to life, I used mocha to track each individual painting’s movements, all while the camera moved somewhat wildly through the shot. Once we had a solid track with mocha, we were free to then change the elements as needed and simply swap them out. mocha held everything in place (none of our other tools could track that), mocha saved the day! And the added beauty of mocha was my ability to export tracks back to the After Effects team. Even if they had changes or suggestions, the interoperability between all of our tools and mocha was seamless. We had the template locked in with mocha, so we could change whatever we wanted without impacting the deadline.
mocha clearly stands alone. mocha has freed us from the stress of “how are we ever going to get this done,” to the freedom of allowing us to explore any wildly creative idea, knowing that mocha can handle anything we throw at it!
In addition to Black Swan, LOOK FX’s other film credits include: The King’s Speech, Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, Step Up 3D, Just Wright, and Bounty Hunter. Television credits include: Harry’s Law, No Ordinary Family, Bones, the Emmy-nominated effects for Life After People, and all of the effects for the final season of Lost. See more of LOOK Effects’ work at http://www.Lookfx.com.
Cameron Clark is a filmmaker, animator and visual effects supervisor-for-hire who splits his time between Oakland and LA, and is driven by a passion for visual story telling.
Recently, Cameron was tapped by Warner Music USA and London Alley Entertainment to act as the effects supervisor for The Goo Goo Dolls newest music video, “Not Broken” where he oversaw the shooting and designing of individual effects elements and executed the compositing and animation of each element.
Using After Effects as his primary tool for motion graphics and animation, Cameron is often faced with complex shots with significant tracking challenges. A huge fan of After Effects, Cameron often ran into trouble with the point tracker that’s part of the original software.
However, since adding mocha AE to his toolkit, he not only tackles difficult tracks with ease, he now brings new perspective to the set and provides valuable realtime guidance to the director and cameraman. As was the case with the “Not Broken” video, during which there were sensitivities to camera motion and how it would impact post, given the ‘virtual’ world they were creating for the video.
Cameron described the project for us when we spoke with him recently:
I was the VFX supervisor on the video and was basically in charge of turning what was largely shot on a blank white stage into an immersive experience of sillouetted actors against colorfully changing backdrops and action sequences.
We had very little money to do what we needed, so everything was shot separately (people, props, explosions) on about 16 feet of white stage. The worlds were designed and composited in After Effects and shots were tracked using mocha AE.
I only use mocha AE for all my 2D tracking needs. The planar tracking algorithm mocha has going is much more accurate than the built-in After Effects point tracking, and going between the two programs is seamless. Also, the planar tracking system allows you to track patterns and objects rather than killing yourself over putting up and painting out tracking markers.
Pretty much all of the elements in the video that were not actually touched by the actors were drawn with mask tools in After Effects. Then I had to make sure they all moved naturally with the world in the footage we shot. With mocha AE in my toolkit, I was able to tell the director and cinematographer, Carlos Lopez Estrada (lopezestrada.com) and Aaron Platt (aaronplatt.com), that they could move the camera around all they wanted without worrying that my animated elements wouldn't stay attached to the world.
This gives the video much more of a natural and lyrical feel than if we had been forced to stay on a tripod, and I didn't have to break my neck fixing little imperfections that I would have gotten had I used the built in After Effects tracking system. mocha AE is a lifesaver!
For more information on Cameron and his work, please visit www.cameronclarkfilm.com.
You can also see the making of “Not Broken” on his Vimeo channel at http://cameronclarkfilm.blogspot.com/2011/01/goo-goo-dolls-video-not-broken.html.
Or, check it out here:
Goo Goo Dolls: Making of Not Broken from Taylor Brusky on Vimeo.
In a press release dated today, Imagineer Systems announced an even stronger commitment to the film schools and students with a formal educators discount. Here's the full text of the press release:
Press Release
For Immediate Release
Imagineer Systems Bolsters Support for Schools, Students with New Educational Discount Program
Special Pricing for Schools Help Prepare Students for Advanced Tracking, Roto with mocha and mocha Pro
GUILDFORD, UK (January 11, 2011) -- Imagineer Systems (www.imagineersystems.com) today announced it has launched a new educational initiative designed to make it easier for schools and students to invest in, and learn valuable planar tracking and rotoscoping skills with mocha and mocha Pro, the Company’s powerful, 64-bit VFX desktop software tools. With this announcement, Imagineer Systems is launching a new educators pricing program for schools and students that includes special discounts on mocha and mocha Pro.
The new program comes at a time when schools are expanding their efforts to provide more advanced VFX training for their students and better prepare them for new careers upon graduation.
“mocha’s impact on the VFX industry can clearly be seen in works as far ranging as blockbuster 3D movies to everyday television commercials, and film schools are striving to prepare their students for these new opportunities,” said Ross Shain, chief marketing officer, Imagineer Systems. “As a result of these trends, we have seen a sharp rise in installations of mocha at schools around the world. We decided the time was right to launch a program that made it even easier for schools and students to invest in mocha, giving them the industry’s most powerful tracking and roto tools at a price that didn’t break their already thin budgets.”
“At The DAVE School in Orlando, Florida, we provide professional level training in digital animation and visual effects. Tools like mocha and mocha Pro are now an essential part of the VFX industry and we teach them within our compositing and stereoscopic programs,” added Daniel Smith, Stereoscopic Instructer, Dave School. “We have recently found that many companies are looking for experienced mocha users, and we are happy to provide students with the skills they need to land jobs in the VFX industry.”
For more information on The Dave School, please visit http://www.daveschool.com/.
Educators Discounts
Effective immediately, qualifying schools and students are eligible to receive mocha and mocha Pro at the following prices:
Note: Floating licenses will be made available only to qualifying academic institutions, while node licenses will be made available to individuals/students.
For more information on the educational discounts, please visit http://www.imagineersystems.com/purchase/academic-discount.
About mocha Pro and mocha
Leveraging more than 8 years of engineering research and development, mocha Pro delivers all the planar tracking and rotoscoping tools from its award winning mocha, and adds compositing tools for match moving, auto image and wire removal, clean plate generation, lens distortion correction and stabilization, to deliver an all-in-one master VFX tool set. Built on Imagineer Systems’ award-winning 2.5D planar tracking technology, and integrated with its signature insertion and placement, removal and stabilization tools, mocha Pro offers digital media artists a powerful, intuitive and innovative planar tracking-based solution with a streamlined interface, accelerated workflow and the power to easily manipulate and track shots not possible with traditional solutions.
mocha is a stand-alone tracking and roto desktop application designed to complement any compositing and finishing environment. mocha’s unique planar tracker and streamlined interface allows artists to easily track shots where traditional point trackers fall short. mocha enables artists to quickly and easily solve difficult tracks and export transform, scale, rotation, and perspective keyframes to the industry’s most popular applications, such as After Effects, Final Cut Pro, Flame, Smoke, Avid D|S, Quantel, Fusion and Nuke.
About Imagineer Systems
Imagineer Systems Ltd innovates and markets next-generation visual effects solutions for film, video and broadcast post production markets. Imagineer Systems has made its mark on such marquee Hollywood blockbuster productions as Alice in Wonderland, Iron Man 2, Shutter Island, Invictus, G-Force and the Harry Potter series. Imagineer’s desktop product line consists of mocha Pro - roto, planar tracking, compositing, and removal utility; mocha - planar tracking and roto utility for all VFX artists; mocha AE - a planar tracking and roto utility designed for After Effects and Final Cut Pro users. Imagineer Systems was founded in 2000 and its headquarters is located in Guildford, United Kingdom. For more information visit www.imagineersystems.com.
Today is a big day for Imagineer Systems: mocha Pro is shipping! A completely rebuilt product, based on their incredible planar tracking technology, and combining everything its customers' have loved about monet, mokey, motor and mocha into one killer desktop app. And on top of all this work, they also completely re-built their web site - making it all about the customer experience, helping them find the information and supporting materials they need to make their lives a bit easier! I'm proud to be part of this team.
Here's the press release, just now hitting the wires.
Media Contact:
Kevin M. Bourke, BourkePR
+1.508.259.6018
Press Release
For Immediate Release
Imagineer Systems Releases mocha Pro; Powerful New Planar Tracking, Roto, Compositing, Removal Tool Set
mocha Pro Represents Evolution of mokey, monet, Combined with Planar Tracking Innovations of mocha into All-in-One Master VFX Tool Set;
Company Unveils Streamlined Product Line
GUILDFORD, UK (November 15, 2010) -- Imagineer Systems (www.imagineersystems.com) today announced the immediate availability of its newest 64-bit VFX software, mocha Pro. Leveraging more than 8 years of engineering research and development, mocha Pro delivers all the planar tracking and rotoscoping tools from its award winning mocha, adds compositing tools for match moving, auto image and wire removal, clean plate generation, lens distortion correction and stabilization, to deliver an all-in-one master VFX tool set.
Imagineer Systems also announced today it has made significant enhancements and added capabilities to mocha for After Effects, the Company’s stand alone tracking and roto tool for the After Effects community. Now re-named mocha AE, this award-winning VFX tool now extends its support to both the After Effects and Final Cut Pro communities. With this development, mocha AE now help solve problematic shots that challenge the built in tools of After Effects and Final Cut by bringing advanced planar tracking and matte creation tools in a simple, easy to learn interface. While Adobe After Effects CS4 and CS5 continue to ship with free copies of mocha for After Effects, these customers are offered a streamlined upgrade path to the new mocha AE v2.5.
“The release of mocha Pro in many ways marks a new beginning for Imagineer Systems,” said John-Paul Smith, chief executive officer of Imagineer Systems. “We’ve often talked about streamlining and simplifying workflows for our customers; today, we’re announcing how we’ve streamlined and simplified our product offerings as well. Deciding on which Imagineer Systems tool set is best for you should be as simple as using the tools themselves. And we’ve made that a reality with a new web site, new training videos and a simplified product lineup that now includes mocha Pro, mocha and mocha AE. It’s that simple.”
mocha Pro has been in beta test leading up to its release, and Imagineer Systems reached out to the VFX community to help run it through its paces. Here are some of their reactions to mocha Pro:
“We are long time fans of Imagineer’s mokey, monet and motor and over the years our VFX artists have relied heavily on all of them. The integration with all of our systems has been seamless, while the trackers, removal and compositing tools are incredibly impressive. Now with mocha Pro, having all the tools combined in one application will enhance our capabilities in all areas for our clients, and greatly simplify the workflow for our artists.”
Jeff Fleck, Senior Editor, Postique
“I’ve been beta testing mocha Pro on some projects, and I have to say I’m loving it! To have the best of all worlds, tracking, object removal with stabilization and all within a new interface - it must be my birthday or something! I would love to buy mocha Pro - no more copying over two programs for the film business stuff!”
Vincent MacTiernan, Extreme Digital Productions
“mocha Pro is amazing! I’ve been working on a project that requires miniaturizing objects in a scene, but the footage had to be stabilized first. The original footage was so bad, it looked like it was shot on a ship in a storm in the North Sea. The scale rotation and position of objects kept moving and there was barely anything in the scene to track apart from a partially obscured table. I couldn’t believe it, but mocha Pro have a solid track with only 90% of the pixels available - mocha Pro followed the track nice and tightly - what an improvement!”
Phil Colfer, VFX Artist
VFX Workflow Evolution: mocha Pro
Built on Imagineer Systems’ award-winning 2.5D planar tracking technology, and integrated with its signature insertion and placement, removal and stabilization tools, mocha Pro is designed to complement any editing, compositing and finishing environment. mocha Pro offers digital media artists a powerful, intuitive and innovative planar tracking-based solution with a streamlined interface, accelerated workflow and the power to easily manipulate and track shots not possible with traditional solutions.
By taking the best and most widely used features of mokey and monet, and combining them with the Company’s signature planar tracking technology, Imagineer Systems is delivering a world class VFX tool that greatly increases artist productivity, making it the ideal VFX complement for commercial and feature film post production, 2D-3D conversion projects, broadcast design and boutique agencies.
mocha Pro adds powerful and highly sought-after removal and compositing tools originally found in Imagineer Systems’ legacy mokey and monet tools, such as:
mocha Pro also delivers a number of new features, including:
mocha Pro is available immediately and is priced as follows:
Imagineer Systems has also simplified the upgrade path for existing customers. Users can upgrade from any existing Imagineer Systems product:
For more information, please visit http://www.imagineersystems.com/mochapro.
mocha AE v2.5 Adds Support for Final Cut Pro
As part of its efforts to streamline and simplify its product offerings, Imagineer Systems also today unveiled mocha AE. mocha AE, a stand alone tracking and roto tool now updated to support both After Effects and Final Cut users, helps After Effects and Final Cut users by bringing advanced planar tracking and matte creation tools in a simple, easy to learn interface. Accurate roto masks can quickly be created with variable per-point edge feathering in record time. Included mocha shape plug-ins allow users to import roto shapes directly to an After Effects layer or Final Cut timeline. mocha AE generates corner pin, scale and transform tracking data as keyframes for the most accurate screen inserts and match moves.
Available immediately, the new version, mocha AE v2.5 features:
Adobe CS4 and CS5 customers who wish to upgrade to mocha AE v2.5 can visit www.imagineersystems.com for more information. Additionally with this new development, mocha for Final Cut will no longer be sold as a stand-alone product as all of its functionality are now included in mocha AE.
mocha AE v2.5 is also available immediately and is priced at $249.00 US and as a $99.00 US upgrade for Adobe CS4 & CS5 customers.
mocha Shape plug ins for After Effects and Final Cut Pro are now included free of charge with all new mocha products, including mocha Pro, mocha and mocha AE.
About Imagineer Systems
Imagineer Systems Ltd innovates and markets next-generation visual effects solutions for film, video and broadcast post production markets. Imagineer Systems has made its mark on such marquee Hollywood blockbuster productions as Alice in Wonderland, Iron Man 2, Shutter Island, Invictus, G-Force and the Harry Potter series. Imagineer’s desktop product line consists of mocha Pro - roto, planar tracking, compositing, and removal utility; mocha - planar tracking and roto utility for all VFX artists; mocha AE - a planar tracking and roto utility designed for After Effects and Final Cut Pro users. Imagineer Systems was founded in 2000 and its headquarters is located in Guildford, United Kingdom. For more information visit www.imagineersystems.com.
Earlier this month, Imagineer Systems announced they had teamed up with Telly Award-winning master trainer, Steve Wright, to develop a series of practical, in-depth tutorial designed to teach VFX artists and editors the techniques of mastering such skill sets as planar tracking and rotoscoping.
I spoke with Steve in the weeks before the announcement and he was telling me about his style and what sets his approach apart from others out there. His enthusiasm for mocha is infectious, and it shines through in his presentations and discussions of the product. But as a master trainer, he's not simply demoing mocha, he's truly teaching it. And in the first installment, he focuses on a concept that sets mocha apart, and recognizes that, if you don't understand this key feature of mocha, you can't move on to master the product.
And that key feature is Planar Tracking.
This first tutorial in Steve's series goes in-depth to explain the technique of Planar Tracking, defining what it is, how's it's useful and why it's different from say, point tracking.
The first tutorial is here. If you haven't experienced Planar Tracking before, watch this video - it's the first step in understanding how truly remarkable mocha is.
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