Recently Avid contacted us and asked if we’d participate in a Community Q&A with the post-production team behind Alice in Wonderland. We asked a couple questions about the how editing for a 3D release may have changed editing style, and what new tools and workflows have changed the director/editor relationship. You can read these questions and their answers here.

Over at PVC I’ve posted a video tutorial from Cineform on muxing multiple 2D sources using their Neo 3D software. It’s a great demo of very cool tech, check it out.

CoreMelt is running a contest called Show us Your Pixels, and they are giving away $25000 in prizes. The submission window closes “end of business on the 8th February 2010.” Bear in mind that CoreMelt is based in Australia, so they are roughly 12hrs ahead of the US. Winners will be chosen on Feb 10th.

Prizes include:
Orangutan Adventure Trek to Sumatra
AJA Kona LHi Board
Euphonix MC Transport Controller
Crumpler bags
Red Lightning HD Monitor Pro
Artbeats Video Packs
Final Cut Studio 2009
Final Cut Express
Digital Juice Packs
Creative Cow packs
motionVFX templates
+ Many more!!!

Categories:
Best existing work:
Work previously created for a commercial or spec project using CoreMelt plugins.

Best student work:
Work created by a current student in Digital Media, Motion Graphics or Editing using CoreMelt plugins.

Best rainforest themed work:
For creation of a new piece on the theme of Rainforest Rescue’s projects. CoreMelt and Rainforest rescue will provide stills and video footage that can be used in this category.

Jem Schofield has posted a few greenscreen footage examples at The C47 that were shot with the Canon 5D Mark 2 and Canon 7D. I’ve not personally seen a lot of keyed footage from these VDSLRs, so this is good stuff. Not surprisingly, he recommends turning camera sharpening settings way down for best results. You can watch his video entry below, but if you have any interest at all in the topic you should definitely go read his blog entry for technical details and some full-resolution framegrabs.

Oliver Peters has written an incredibly detailed tutorial on how to accomplish post-production when tasked with editing and grading Canon 5D MKII footage. It’s an extensive article that demystifies some of the post questions, and I highly recommend taking the time to read it through. Fantastic work as always, Oliver.

Between now and December 31st, 2009, Imagineer Systems is offering discounts on all nodelocked software. Special pricing is as follows:

* monet placement station: $699
* mokey removal station: $699
* mocha (full version) tracking station: $349
* motor roto station: $349
* mocha for After Effects: $110
* mocha for After Effects v2 upgrade: $80
* mocha shape for After Effects: $55
* mocha for Final Cut: $110
* mocha shape for Final Cut: $55

This is a really nice sale on some fantastic software! You can purchase your discounted copies online here.

Ah yes, the lowly video capture capabilities of the iPhone 3GS. Nasty compression, horrid rolling shutter skew, and a form factor that defies smooth camera movement. How would you possibly combat these issues and produce a high-end commercial? The brilliant people at The Mill did one such spot recently, and instead of fighting these challenges, they embraced them. Watch and learn.

Over at ProVideo Coalition I’ve posted a quick tutorial for Macbook Pro users on how to enable the faster of your two internal graphics cards (if so equipped). If you weren’t aware that your model includes two cards, you’ll be happy to hear about the potential performance gains. Check it out here.

Everyone’s favorite After Effects resource Video Copilot has announced a new FREE plugin for AE users called Sure Target 2. It will be released for After Effects 7, CS3, and CS4.

Announced features include; Auto-Camera Rigging, Auto-Populate, Ease Target Modes, Auto-Focus, Inertia Inheritance, Camera Roll, Dolly Control, Create a Baked Camera, Condition Protection, and Refresh Expressions. Check the blog post on this for full feature descriptions and details.

The latest Cineform Prospect and Neo series beta software releases include a new metadata capability, allowing users to render/display passive metadata embedded in the source video. This allows users to turn that info on or off at will. One common use might be to non-destructively add timecode or other “burn-in” info for editing and post, then remove that info for finishing. Here’s a quote from the blog post on this feature:

“As metadata is so often lost and misplaced, you are lucky if you left with just the timecode in many workflows, so we long ago moved metadata from side-car files or within the file wrapper (AVI/MOV/MXF) and placed it within the compressed sample itself. This enables the decoder to read its own metadata (not possible with 99% of video types), all that was missing was the font engine to render the results in the display. The decoder now has that font engine. Offline workflows typical have a range of burn-ins top of the video image, returning to burnin free media for online/finishing. The CineForm burnins are non-destructive allowing the operator to enable to display the overlays, choose which elements to display, switch from offline to online with a single click. Any tools that use the CineForm decoder will gain this feature.”

Take a look at the two framegrabs embedded below. One was shot with the Canon 7D’s Standard Picture Style. The other was shot with a modified picture style intended to increase dynamic range and give you more options in post-production.

As you can clearly see, the difference is rather striking. Watch this video tutorial and find out how to do the same for your Canon 7D or 5D MKII DSLR.

Over at PVC, contributor Steve Hullfish has an nice detailed article on Sorensen 360, a full-featured video distribution service that can be used in concert with Sorensen Squeeze, or even take encode jobs from the browser with their Squish tool (which actually installs in the browser and encodes client-side…handy if you are on the road!). It’s a nice long writeup on what looks like a solid end-to-end encoding and delivery service.

I was recently a guest on MacMediaTech podcast, and one of the other guests was a filmmaker named Paul Zadie. He’s got some great posts on his blog, and I wanted to highlight one that I think new freelancers will find to be helpful. It’s on the subject of what to charge for an edit, and Paul offers some great advice (in particular, the Freelance Switch calculator he links to is most excellent). Check it out.

Leandro Marini of Local Hero Post has blogged the third part in their series on maximizing the image from the Red One. Part Three, Go RAW.

Imagineer Systems has posted a case study on their website that shows the power of their tracking technology. Nick Guth, the VFX artist tasked with post-production on a student-filmmaker produced music video had to track and fix 165 shots in 7 days.

It’s a classic student filmmaker tale; “The entire music video was shot on RED… Additionally, the director was outputting a 2K film print so we stuck to working at 2k.” Of course. To complicate matters, no VFX supervisor on set meant that many issues fell through the cracks. “In one shot, we’d only see a single tracking marker, and in another shot, we had two completely different green screens cobbled together with the seams showing.” The main character in the music video wears a gas mask with a front section that was to be replaced with a composited screen. “The director thought a single 3×5 orange index card would be enough for tracking the mouth, so he literally slapped the card onto the front of the mask as he shot the entire film! Some shots were close up, some wide - and all of which required a unique track for every shot.”

The bottom line is that Nick was given a nearly impossible task, and couldn’t have pulled it off on that accelerated timeline without a powerful tracking tool like mocha. He goes on of course, for the full cautionary tale of classic poor planning and execution on set, check out the article. And watch a few before and after shots below, as well as the finished music video.

Area 51 - Music Video Basic Breakdown from Nick Guth on Vimeo.