Director Mike Figgis may be best known for the acclaimed hit Leaving Las Vegas, which ushered in a continuing renaissance in Super 16 film production that began in the mid-1990s. Figgis has earned a reputation since then as a technology-savvy artist and iconoclast, so maybe it's not surprising that, when Sony Pictures insisted that his latest TV project, Canterbury's Law, be shot in HD, Figgis defied the order.... »
“Our Final Cut workflow wasn’t just about saving money and being more efficient—which we were in a big way—but about how creative and humane a cutting room and post process can actually be in today’s environment.”... »
The new ingredient in editor Stuart Bass's editorial stew is Avid's ScriptSync feature, introduced this spring at NAB, which automatically matches camera takes to lines of dialogue in the show's script. ... »
When Creative Director Greg Hahn of New York’s Gretel started thinking about opening titles and category opens for Spike’s Guys Choice awards show, he gravitated toward ultra-high-speed imagery. ... »
For a set of high-octane show openers for ESPN's NASCAR coverage, The Syndicate intercut animated races featuring colorful CG cars with super-glossy live-action footage from the Arri D-20. Watch the package, below, then read our interviews with The Syndicate's creative director, David Hwang, on the ideas behind the animation, and with FX supervisor Ben Grossman on the decision to use the D-20 and its implications for the pipelines for TV spots.... »
When producer Jonathan Murray started looking to bring back MTV’s venerable reality series Road Rules, which went off the air several years ago, he knew the show would need a new hook.... »
Working mainly in HD, but using film for high-speed cinematography that has to intercut with the HD footage, Tirone strives to give key sequences a look all their own, distinguishing the show's killing scenes, for instance, with a wash of color that varies from episode to episode.... »
A spin-off of reality show Laguna Beach, The Hills follows Lauren Conrad, a character from a past season, to Los Angeles. Cinematographer Hisham “Sham” Abed used the same camera and lenses as he did with Laguna Beach: the Panasonic 480-line resolution SDX-900 in 24p mode and native 16:9 aspect ratio and a range of Canon HD lenses.... »
What’s the key to creating great promos? According to Joel Pilger, president of Denver, CO’s Impossible Pictures, it’s all about knowing your limitations — and making sure the client knows them, too. Pilger walks us through the workflow process from previs to finishing. ... »
