Audiences have responded positively to Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland 3D, which has enjoyed strong box office. The movie—which was shot in 2D—got its visual effects and its 2D-to-3D conversion at Sony Imageworks. Recently, Sony Imageworks opened its doors to a few reporters to give a behind-the-scenes look at the visual effects and the 3D conversion.
Senior visual effects supervisor Ken Ralston described the project as “stuffing four years of work into two years,” adding, “Every frame of this movie was touched.” He said that as soon as he heard that Alice in Wonderland would be directed by Tim Burton, that’s all he needed to know. “I’d always wanted to work with Tim,” he said. “I got in touch with [producer Richard] Zanuck and found out they’d been talking about me. I flew to London to meet with Tim and we hit it off, because we had similarly weird upbringings. From there, it took off so fast.”
First up was character design, including how they’d be animated. Since Alice would be wearing a blue dress, green-screen was used to shoot all the major characters. But aside from those main characters, everything was green and no other characters were figured out yet. He brought up the example of the execution scene.Â
“When the Red Queen, at the execution, is surrounded by her sycophants, none of those characters were there,” said Ralston. “It was just stunt people clad in green.” Being around all that green for so many days was also surprisingly—and extremely—fatiguing.
Although there was some talk of animating the characters via motion-capture, it didn’t work with the style of the movie. “We started off trying to approach it with mocap but threw most of it out and did most of it with [keyframe] animation,” he said.
It took a lot of commenting and complaining from the many folks who bought a Canon 5D Mark II, but unless you live under a rock (or just don’t care) then you’ve heard that Canon is releasing an updated firmware for the 5D Mark II that will allow for 24p recording (and take the 30p frame rate to the more NTSC friendly 29.97), 48k audio, audio levels and a number of other enhancements. So never mind what was said in the past about the 5D’s chip not being able to process 24p; it is coming (some new 5Ds may already be slipping out with the firmware installed) and there’s now a video from the Magic Lantern guy that shows him updating a 5D with this new firmware:
If you’re not familiar with Magic Lantern then you’re not keeping up with the ever-changing world of DSLR video. Magic Lantern is “an open platform for developing enhancements to the amazing Canon 5D Mark II full-frame digital SLR.” Magic Lantern adds a number of features needed on any “pro” video camera:
On-screen audio meters
Manual gain control with no AGC
Zebra stripes (video peaking)
Custom Cropmarks for 16:9, 2.35:1, 4:3 and any other format
Control of focus and bracketing
Obviously some of these above features have been implemented into the official Canon 2.0.3 firmware release, but it really goes to show the ingenuity and passion that filmmakers have placed behind this camera. Now let’s get these features into the 7D, too.
The Pacific—the WWII miniseries from the producing trio (Tom Hanks, Steven Spielberg, Gary Goetzman) who brought us Band of Brothers—will debut on HBO on the evening of March 14. This 10-part series depicts the brutal war in the Pacific by following the intertwined real-life stories of three U.S. Marines throughout their deployment until they go home after V-J day.
Photo by David James/HBO
If Band of Brothers is any indication, The Pacific will be gripping drama with a tremendous attention to the kind of authentic detail that builds the “you are there” reality. While much is written about how the visuals achieved that level of realism, the important contributions of audio don’t always get the same attention.
I spoke with Tom Bellfort, supervising sound editor, who notes that watching the entire miniseries is an emotional roller coaster. “It is genuinely a quite an experience,” he says. “You go through 10 episodes of the enthusiasm towards war and the Marine Corps, but by the end of the 10 episodes, you also experience some of the bitterness and cynicism towards the war.”
Because the characters move from island to island, covering incredibly disparate environments—fields, swamps, rain forests—there’s an ever-changing soundscape. Bellfort got onto the job via Todd AO lead mixer Michael Minkler, with whom he had worked numerous times in the past. “We felt comfortable with each other,” he says. “We knew that it would be a tough slog and rough schedule and expectations were quite high.”
If you are an indie producer, new media filmmaker, director, editor, cinematographer, post production supervisor or DIT–and you live in Los Angeles, here’s an opportunity to take a look at some “new approaches to old problems” in production and post. Full disclosure: I will be moderating an all-day seminar, on Saturday March 27, in North Hollywood that is co-sponsored by Gamma & Density and the Producers Guild of America New Media Council.
The focus is some of the stumbling blocks of the new digital format cameras, including the Red One and popular HDSLRs. The good news is that the availability and low prices of many of these digital cameras has made production more affordable for more people. We’ve truly seen the democratization of media production due to digital technology. But some of these digital formats can create unexpected issues; the cost of production and post can still be prohibitive. Moviemakers are also faced with new problems including data management, digital camera preparation, color consistency and other unanticipated parameters impacting quality.
If you have anything to do with the RED camera in general, and posting RED footage more specifically, then you are probably well aware of Clipfinder, the amazingly cool and useful utility from Hans-Georg Daun that has been a staple of many a RED workflow for quite a while now. It was a Useful Tools for Editors about a year ago and if that statement was ever true it was true for Clipfinder. It was quite unbelievable that such a piece of software could be free. Hans was relying on donations and to quote Han’s website: “As of March 5, 2010, I had received 59 donations for a total amount of $2245.69.” I don’t think anyone could expect a developer to continue such a great product with no real return on the investment that they put into it. With that the next version of Clipfinder moves to 2.5 and will cost $100. It’s available today for purchase at the new Clipfinder website. This 2.5 version is beta and if you purchase you’ll get a $100 discount on the “next generation product.” I guess that means a free upgrade to what is being called Clipmeister. I can’t wait to see what that one does. As one of those who did donate to the old Clipfinder I can say that the product has always worked well and I wouldn’t have any problem paying for this as a beta. The last free version will be a build of the current 2.2 version which the website says will be available soon. Keep up the good work, Hans, as you’ve been building a great little application.
The combination of a challenging economic environment and increasing demands for computer-generated content — including digital characters that are believable in a post-Avatar world — led the talking points at Autodesk’s press briefing for media and entertainment products earlier today. The company said that 2010 would see it continue down the path it chose last year, consolidating products with an eye on value, efficiency, and flexibility.
For example, last year saw Autodesk integrate compositing software with Maya 2010, itself a new consolidation of Maya Complete and Maya Unlimited. This year, Autodesk Composite will be integrated with 3ds Max as well as with Maya. Further, Autodesk Softimage users will see the standard and advanced version of that software merge in the 2011 version — at the same price point originally set for the standard version.
Autodesk is also offering bundled “Entertainment Creation Suites” that offer users their choice of Maya or 3ds Max plus MotionBuilder and Mudbox, all in 2011 versions. Autodesk officials said the suites are priced in the North American market at a 35 percent savings over purchasing the products separately. Prices are unchanged; a Maya 2011 or 3ds Max 2011 standalone license is $3495, or $1745 for an upgrade from the 2010 version of the same product. The standalone Softimage 2011 is $2995. Look for the 2011 versions to ship and become available for download on or after April 7, 2010. Read More »
I’m going to say some harsh things in this post, but they need to be properly applied. This past year has seen some wonderful episodic TV put out by complex teamwork among creatives, producers and network executives, all of whom seem to know what they are doing. These shows are not limited to a single network, whether cable or broadcast, but run across the board, with the possible exception of NBC. Unfortunately, a record number of shows have been dumped by networks over the past two years, many not seeing more than four or five episodes aired. That adds up to a lot of expense and poor judgment.
I’ve already taken TV producers to task in my article on Dumbass Producers. For some time, I’ve been thinking about the bricks in the cog works of the horribly inefficient episodic TV mill—the network executives. The problem is widespread, but I will be focusing on NBC, where the problem is epic.
Just think for a moment about Hill Street Blues, St. Elsewhere, L.A. Law, Law & Order, Seinfeld, Homicide, E.R. and Cheers. All were intensely entertaining groundbreaking series that had legs. NBC once set the bar for the best comedies and dramas throughout the 1980s and ’90s.
Editors Adam Jenkins and Jeff Stevens launched FEEDTHEWALRUS last year as a collective of editors, producers and artists that feeds freelance talent to ad agencies and post studios as teams or individuals. They said the new company was a reaction to changes in advertising post, representing a move to lighter, more flexible business models. StudioDaily sent them Five Questions to get them talking about the state of the business.
A post went up today (March 3, 2010) in the Chat with Avid forum over at Avid.com from Avid Executive VP and COO Kirk Arnold about the future of the Liquid product. As a Mac-based Media Composer editor I know next to nothing about this product but I do understand that it has some fairly passionate users. There will be no commentary on this decision as this post is to only inform any Liquid users who might be unaware of this announcement. From the Liquid Update – A response from Kirk at Avid thread:
So, let’s get right to the heart of the matter ……
Avid has decided to retire the Liquid product family.  This means we will no longer sell or develop Liquid products effective today, March 3, 2010. The decision to end this product family was not made lightly but it is necessary to allow us to focus our future development efforts to ensure that we can best respond to the changing needs of both our professional and consumer customers. When making this decision, we had to consider Liquid’s role in our video editing solution portfolio, our ability to evolve this platform to cost effectively meet future customer needs and our focus on enabling the success of all of our customers by making sure we delivered robust training and support capabilities.
That’s got to be some big (and maybe disappointing) news if you are a Liquid user. But Avid also announced a “limited loyalty upgrade and conversion to Avid Media Composer v4.x (PC or Mac) for just $495 US MSRP (valid March 10 – June 30, 2010).” As a Media Composer user I can say that’s a pretty good deal to get MC for $495. They state that you can upgrade only if you are registered so hit the product registration page by March 10. For complete details read Kirk’s post at the official Liquid update thread as well as a lot of discussion.
Technicolor’s great 3D compromise got a bit of traction this week, when the company signed a deal to install its new analog 3D projection system on 25 screens, including at least one at each of Bow Tie Cinemas’ 18 theater locations in New York, Connecticut, Maryland, Virginia, and Chicago. That means audiences in those markets may soon have the choice of seeing films in IMAX 3D, Digital 3D, or just plain old “3D.”
The deal arrives just in time to help Bow Tie deal with the coming logjam of 3D features. The crunch begins this weekend, as Alice in Wonderland commandeers 3D screens currently occupied by Avatar just in time for the latter film’s expected strong showing at Sunday night’s Oscar ceremony. Bow Tie’s screens won’t be installed in time for Alice’s debut — and Disney hasn’t announced support for Technicolor’s system anyway — but they should be ready in time for the March 26 release of How to Train Your Dragon (Dreamworks) as well as the April 2 bow of Clash of the Titans (Warner Bros.). Read More »
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