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CreativeCow_CompressHD_US_1109.indd 1 11/03/2009 2:13:40 PM

Creative COWC R E A T I V E C O M M U N I T I E S O F T H E W O R L D

M A G A Z I N E

The Non-linear Creativity Issue — Creative COW Magazine4

THE MAGAZINE FOR MEDIA PROFESSIONALS WORKING IN VIDEO, FILM, AUDIO, MOTION GRAPHICS, IMAGING & DESIGN

® ®

CREATIVE COW MAGAZINEA CREATIVE COW LLC PUBLICATION

PUBLISHERS: Ron & Kathlyn Lindeboom

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF/ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER:

Tim [email protected]

CONTRIBUTING EDITORS:Niyi Akinmolayan

Neil Feldman, Jigme Gaton,Dave Howell, Tony Hudson,Ron Lindeboom, Tim Wilson

LAYOUT & DESIGN:Ron Lindeboom, Tim Wilson

MAGAZINE ADVERTISING:Ellen Parker

[email protected]

WEBSITE ADVERTISING:Tim Matteson

[email protected]

TECHNICAL DIRECTOR:Abraham Chaffin

[email protected]

CONTACT US:[email protected]

(805) 239-5645 voice(805) 239-0712 fax

Creative COW Magazine is published bi-monthly by CreativeCOW LLC (Creative Communities of the World) at 2205 Villa Lane,, Paso Robles, CA 93446. (805) 239-5645. Postage paid at Hanover, New Hampshire. U.S. subscrip-tion rates are free to qualified subscribers. Creative COW is a registered trademark of Creative COW LLC. All rights are reserved. Magazine contents are copyright © 2009 by Creative COW Magazine. All rights are reserved. Right of reprint is granted only to non-commercial educational institutions such as high schools, colleges and universi-ties. No other grants are given.

The opinions of our writers do not always reflect those of the publisher and while we make every effort to be as accurate as possible, we cannot and do not assume responsibility for damages due to errors or omissions.

LEGAL STATEMENT: All information in this magazine is offered without guarantee as to its accuracy and appli-cability in all circumstances. Please consult an attorney, business advisor, accountant or other professional to dis-cuss your individual circumstances. Use of the informa-tion in this magazine is not intended to replace profes-sional counsel. Use of this information is at your own risk and we assume no liability for its use.

10

16

24

32

38

50

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In-Three’s Stereoscopic 3D SolutionNew System Begins with a Single Camera. Yes, One.

The Making of: Welcome To My WorldA small team in Nigeria creates a project that saves anorphanage planned for destruction

A Non-Linear CareerA top VFX artist’s journey to the jobs that ignite the big screen

From LiveType to the iTunes Apps StoreOne of LiveType’s creators returns with a new iPhone-focus

The Journey To A Nepali Recording StudioHow a New Yorker found peace, music and media in Nepal

Industry NewsA look at some of the big news items in our industry

A Welcome To Our International Print EditionWhile many magazines continue to cut back in the face ofhard realities for many print publications, Creative COW isgrowing again, with the addition of first-class mail serviceto both USA and international subscribers

N O V E M B E R / D E C E M B E R 2 0 0 9

Tim Wilson’s Column ............................................ 8The Back Forty with Ron Lindeboom .............. 50

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In This Issue:

Non-LinearCreativity

CRAFTS, PRODUCTIONS, CAREERS

Tim WilsonBoston, Massachusetts

Editor-In-Chief,Associate Publisher

Creative COW Magazine

What most people mean by “nonlinear editing” has nothing to do with editing. It simply refers to working with digitized film and video media — yes, a big deal, but the out-

come isn’t necessarily different from anything we have seen in the last 100 years. The basics go back at least as far as Edwin S. Porter and his films “Life of An American Firefighter” and “The Great Train Robbery” in 1903. He pioneered using changing perspectives, including close-ups, within a single scene. He found that, with just a little care, audiences could even follow him as he cut between parallel stories happening in different places.

Not so long after that, the Russian filmmaker Lev Kuleshov regularly demonstrated what became known as the Kuleshov Effect. He alternated a single shot of a mostly expres-sionless actor with shots of a bowl of soup, a woman in a coffin, and a little girl playing. Au-diences were moved by the actor’s profound “responses” to each of these: his wistfulness, his sorrow, his joy. But the actor never changed! It was the same shot every time. None of this was real — except to the audience.

The Kuleshov Effect has been scrutinized virtually nonstop since then by psycholo-gists and film nerds alike. Über-nerd Alfred Hitchcock even repeated the experiment using James Stewart. He used a variation of this to create one of the most famous murders in film history with a close-up of a woman in a shower screaming, her belly, a knife that never touched her, and blood running down a drain. Kuleshov thought that this kind of thing worked because of the power of editing. I think it works because we are hard-wired to reflexively combine experiences, including what we see, into stories.

In other words, nonlinear editing doesn’t change anything. It only makes editing easi-er. On the other hand, our ability to create meaning changes everything. It makes all things possible.

One of the great pleasures of working at the COW is hearing about the sometimes ri-diculously nonlinear lives and approaches to creativity that have brought many of us here. I was able to gather a small handful of my favorites into this issue of the magazine, but there are many others.

For example, Roger Bolton has been part of the COW for years, and you have most definitely seen the effects and compositing work that brought him here: the first two “Lord of the Rings” pictures, “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire,” and “The House of Flying Dag-gers” among many others. He now develops the powerful and popular CoreMelt series of plug-ins for Final Cut Pro and After Effects, all springing from his degree in psychology and mathematics. Likewise, COW forum hosts Pierre Jasmin and Pete Litwinowicz were visual effects artists. They developed an Academy Award-winning technology for manipulating the appearance of time and space that they turned into paint effects for “What Dreams May Come,” which itself won an Oscar for visual effects.

COW leaders Chris Poisson and Bob Zelin detoured through music: Chris created mem-orable album covers for Santana and The Mahavishnu Orchestra, and Bob interrupted his career in broadcast engineering to play keyboards on the historically epic “Kiss Alive” tour in 1977. Mark Allen uses what he learned as a magician to direct a viewer’s eyes where he wants them to look in a frame. Sarah Hallett went from being a police officer, to a hostage negotiator, to a grief counselor for workers cleaning up at the World Trade Center in 2001, to stand-up comedy before making her way to the COW. Not many straight lines here.

Before Ron Lindeboom founded Creative COW, he moved from finance and manage-rial consulting into desktop publishing in the 80s, and on into desktop video in the 90s — with a detour along the way playing power-pop rock on the Sunset Strip. My graduate degree in religion led to teaching, bookselling and houseflipping (buying houses, fixing them, and selling them fast) before it led to video production.

You won’t be surprised to find that I spent my undergraduate years as a film nerd. For me, that was about watching movies, not making them — although it turns out that some of what makes movies mean anything is simply our watching them. We take the experi-ences we are given, and we tie them together. We do the same thing with our lives, as we somehow bind their twists and turns together to tell a story.

Oh, and the #1 Modern Guideline to Nonlinear Living: there are no guidelines. We’re all making it up as we go along.

n

The Modern Guide to Nonlinear Editing — and Living


Our ability to create meaning from our

experiences changes

everything.

It makes all things possible.

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its natural domain, which includes anything related to broadcast – ballgames, operas, and other live events that are already being presented in 3D in theaters, to great success. That’s natural. Those kinds of presen-tations don’t need Dimensionalizing, and they don’t need CG – which also has its natural domain of course.

To begin with the difficulties around multiple cam-eras for 3D production, one is lens differential. There are inevitably subtle physical differences in things like lens refraction. There are differences in perspectives for things like specular highlights and reflections that may be fully visible in one eye, and not present at all in the other.

Each of these is exaggerated by vertical dispari-ties in the lenses. Our eyes obviously handle horizon-tal disparities just fine – this is how we see in 3D as we

look at the world, by resolving horizontal differences in perspective. But resolving vertical disparities would require one eye going up as the other is going down!

Even if each of these errors is small, they accumulate over the length of a movie, and become disturbing. Your brain is tell-ing your eyes to adjust to something that they can’t quite sync. It wears you down.

The challenges become even greater when shots have to match. If two shots in-side a room are converged on a different point in space, the room can look like it is a different size in each shot! It is shallow in one shot, deep in the other. Even if your eyes can figure out what is going on, it’s not very believable, and it’s certainly not very comfortable

There are some powerful warp en-gines and other sophisticated tools to make things a little better, but really, there is no way to fix them. Once you take the pictures, these things are locked in.

DIMENSIONALIZATIONWe start with the footage from a single camera. We take that 2D footage, and we copy it to create a right eye, left eye view. Every pixel is mapped perfectly, with no discrepancies from lens effects, no mis-alignment. Now we can begin to add per-spective, shape and depth.

When I say add depth, I mean to move one eye’s view relative to the other eye’s view. Each eye tracks independently.

We give shape first by rotoscoping, then by morphing. As we extract depth, we expose an area in the background footage that was previously occluded, and have to recreate a background that does not ex-ist in the footage. We also create a kind of binocular disparity that your brain inter-prets as shape. But no vertical disparities, no light balance disparities, no pixel dis-parities. You eyes are tracking the way that they do in nature.

If we do what I just described well, we can achieve what I call “perfect 3D.”

We are also not just limited to a single set of 3D characteristics for a given shot. Our system can isolate 20 elements in a scene, each with its own camera, so to speak. Which means that, for each of these indi-vidual elements, we have a unique set of those three controls — perspective, shape and depth. Instead of those three “knobs” on a single camera to cover an entire scene, we have 60 “knobs” to turn: perspective, shape and depth for each of 20 objects that we have isolated.

Our original software was called In3 Depth Build-

er, and we’re just starting to deploy a new package called In3gue — pronounced “Intrigue.” This allows artists to keyframe the individual elements that they have identified to have unique depth, shape and per-spective. The software propagates those values, inter-polates through the shots, makes it all practical, and our software spits out an occlusion map. Each of these elements can now be treated individually, apart from the shot as a whole.

Now, let’s say we go to the next shot, and it’s a different view. We can isolate elements that we DON’T want to change, so that the internal depth of a scene

The Non-linear Creativity Issue — Creative COW Magazine 10 Creative COW Magazine — The Non-linear Creativity Issue 11

Neil FeldmanWestlake Village, California USA

Neil Feldman is CEO and owner of In-Three. He is also the owner of Dallas-based Video Post and Transfer. Beginning in early 2000, he saw the potential for digital image-based 3D conversion technologies. Additionally, Video Post and Transfer is the leading film and video post production firm in the Southwest USA, and has built a reputation for innovation: the first independent post-production facility to offer 1” Type C editing, to build all digital on-line editing bays, and the first in the country to provide unified digital audio and video editing suites.

Freeing artistic vision from 3D’s limitations

In-Three originally developed its technology to re-vivify dormant film libraries. We call our process

“Dimensionalization®,” using patented software tools and techniques to create a second view from any two dimensional image.

With delays in the rollout of 3D theater screens and platforms for 3D video in the home, we have had only modest opportunities with legacy films. Howev-er, as our R&D has continued, we have seen a strategic opportunity to solve problems in the creation of live action 3D features. We believe that these problems, particularly around the hassle of using two cameras to get a 3D picture, are among the reasons why so few 3D features have been released.

Let me preface this by saying that I don’t want to be perceived as dumping on shooting. Shooting has

In-Three’s Stereoscopic 3D Solutionbegins with Single-Camera Footage

Footage shown above is undergoing Dimensionaliztion,and is a scene from James Cameron’s Titanic.

stays consistent from shot to shot. Think of it as “depth grading,” analogous to color grading, in order to main-tain depth continuity.

That is, even if the dailies look perfect by them-selves, here come another 200 scenes to cut together. In one of them, the focal element might come halfway out of the screen, and in another only 10%. Your eyes starting ping-ponging back and forth, and in and out, as you’re trying to follow a single object from one cut to the next.

The problem for you as a viewer is that it drives you crazy to watch. The problem for the director is that, once the footage is in the camera, those dispari-ties are locked in. It’s hard to get immediate feedback during shooting, and it’s virtually impossible to match 3D composition across shots in the edit.

We solve that problem. We make sure that the depth grades smoothly from one scene to the next.

Directors see this and are amazed. They tell us, “This is the first time I’ve been able to have this kind of control over depth. I know what I’m getting.”

As we work, all changes update in the blink of an eye. I have signs all over our facility that say, “Blink Time.” Our engineers are driven to keep things mov-ing just that quickly in depth grading sessions.

DIMENSIONALIZATION WORKFLOWThe specific placement of Dimensionalization in the production pipeline depends on our client and their schedule. We generally receive the .dpx image se-quences in log space before they have been color graded, but on a single project we can work with files both before and after grading.

We prefer to work on locked shots with handles, but we have often had to work as the cut, and even the

final image, is in flux. We recently worked on

the Jerry Bruckheimer film, “G-Force,” directed by Hoyt Yeat-man, distributed by Disney. Our stereo work fell into three major categories: full live-action shots to be Dimensionalized, full CG shots to be rendered in stereo, and live-action shots with CG el-ements.

The full live-action shots were Dimensionalized by In-Three. The full CG shots were rendered completely by Sony Pictures Imageworks. Often, the third type of shot was handled through a combined effort by In-Three and Sony Imageworks.

Dimensionalization is ideal for this, because we store depth metadata and can use it to con-form stereo CG with stereo live action in real-time.

For these live-action shots with 3D elements, Sony would create a temp stereoscopic ren-der of the CG elements, and we would Dimensionalize the live-action plate to match. The reverse can also work, but this approach was the one predomi-nantly used in “G-Force.” Sony would then do a final render of the CG elements. Then, depend-ing on the specific shot, either In-Three or Sony would final the composition, and touch up the shot as necessary.

In other words, we don’t necessarily see Dimensionaliza-tion solely as an alternative to


SEEING IS BELIEVING[Ed. note: The following are quotes from a panel held at ShoWest in 2005, introducing In-Three’s process to 2000 cinema exhibitors.]

George Lucas“When I first saw In-Three’s Dimensionalization process I was truly amazed. The 3D was of a quality better than anything I had previously experienced….When you see some of this test footage, it’s shockingly good, and you can see how people would want to go see it. It means we can repurpose a lot of old movies, and at the same time it really gives a whole new dimen-sion to the movies we’re making now.”

James Cameron“Though I still love 3D original photogra-phy, the technical solution provided by In-Three was a welcome addition to our palette of stereo film-making tools [for “Aliens of The Deep”]. They were able to add real depth to the 2D video im-ages captured by our robotic vehicles, and these shots blended beautifully with our 3D shots. I predict that their innovative techniques will continue to expand the possibilities for 3D content.”

Randal Kleiser (director, “Grease”)“After shooting in 70mm for Disneyland’s “Honey, I Shrunk the Audience,” I know how complicated this format can be. With In-Three’s technique, completely convincing depth is created from any two-dimensional film. George Lucas showed me In-Three’s work at I.L.M. Seeing Star Wars in 3D was amazing enough, but when I saw John Tra-volta singing “Greased Lightning” in 3D, I was blown away. It was just like being back on the set. I know every fan in the world would come back to the theater again to see a complete 3D version. The possibilities are mind-boggling.”

George Lucas

James Cameron

Photo of George Lucas courtesy of Joi Ito. Photo of Jam

es Cameron courtesy of Richard Burdett. Both licensed under W

ikimedia Com

mons.

sion in the home – and THAT’s what’s going to make 3D become the financial blockbuster we know it can be.

While I’m rooting for stereo shooting, I also be-lieve that directors are always going to want to have the most possible control over their shots. I think that we as a company, and as a representative of conversion technologies, are going to be a key factor in day and date releases of live-action features going forward.

When all of that happens, people will truly get caught up in 3D as a new entertainment vehicle. I think

that that is when Dimensionalizing legacy movies is going to bring new financial life to film libraries.

In the meantime, our goal is to continue to maintain the quality of Dimensionalization, while driving down costs through technological innovation.

Whether through shooting, CG, or post-production Dimension-alizing, we can all participate in constructing 3D content. By under-standing what our strengths and weaknesses are, we can construct 3D content together, and work together to achieve the highest quality at the lowest cost, and the fastest pace.

n

live action shooting or CG. As “G-Force” has shown, it can be an excellent complement to them.

THE FUTURE OF 3DThere are a lot of smart people in the world, and a lot of them are working on shooting stereo. As a re-sult, I think that we will get past these problems. In the short term, I’m hoping we can sort the problems out well enough to see some really, really good sports events, because that’s what’s going to drive 3D televi-

DIMENSIONALIZATION DESIGN DETAILEDEvery artist station is equipped for real-time Depth Grading with two 120hz 3D en-abled Samsung LCDs (SyncMaster 2233RZ) or Samsung CRT monitors (SyncMaster 1100DF). Additionally, we have several artist QC stations with 60” 3D enabled Sam-sung DLP TVs.

In our screening rooms, we use an NEC NC800c 2K Digital Cinema projector with the XpanD AE110 infrared emitter, projected on a matte white screen.

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Each artist is using wired MacNaughton shutter glasses with stereo driver (HSG02-dg1), Real D Crystal Eyes with Desktop emitter, or NVIDIA GeForce 3D Vision wireless glasses at their workstations. At our QC stations and in our screening rooms we use XpanD X101 Cinema Active glasses.

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about a doctor’s struggle to save an orphanage, and the premiere date was just two weeks away. I had sug-gested earlier that we do a documentary about an orphanage that was about to be demolished by the government, and show it at the “Nnenda” premiere screening.

He had also done a song titled “Welcome to My World” last year, as the launch for an orphanage awareness campaign. This was the song he wanted for the music video.

Not that I had a problem doing the video, but we had so much to do for him already concerning the pre-miere and campaign, including a billboard, brochures and TV ads. Because the campaign was for a good cause that I wanted to be part of, much of the work was free of charge, so it wasn’t easy doing more — and of

course, the generator problems. We run our business with these alternative power sources, and it eats up most of the profit.

Ever since we did a video for one of his clients, in which we turned a crowd of 12 into about 200 in post, Adonijah can’t seem to do anything if it is not shot on green screen! In fact, late last year, he sponsored my first movie (still in post-production), in which 90% was shot on green screen, with loads of visual effects and animations. So, when he called concerning a music video, I knew exactly what he meant.

We met later that evening, and our conversation went like this.

Adonijah: Look Niyi, we’ll just do a simple music video with me and the children singing, and we’ll mix it with clips from the premiere. It shouldn’t take any time — we’ll just shoot in front of a green screen and you can just put a plain background…or some graphics…or some 3D stuff….or…or what do you think?

Niyi: (thinking) */&%##

Adonijah: Remember the magic you did on that video…you know, duplicating those crowds…man…they love that video in Port Har-court…maybe we can do that for the children too…you know.

Niyi: (still thinking) @#$% >?*&& //$%#

Adonijah: You are not saying anything.

He knew I wasn’t going to replace the green screen with a plain background! Worse still, we had just one week to shoot and edit the entire video!

IMAGINING THE WORLDAll through that night, I listened to the song, “Wel-come to My World.” The song is an invitation to an ideal world, with no more pain and suffering, where everyone loves and shares. The artist had remixed the original song with the orphans singing the chorus and some parts of the verse. Their orphanage was in a terri-ble state and worse still, it was marked for demolition.

As I thought about the video, I also thought of what it would be like to be an orphan. (I actually spoke with some of them.) I thought of how they feel when

they see other kids on TV hanging out with their par-ents. I thought to myself, these kids would always be dreaming of a world with so much food, a field to play in, and lots of fun things around.

A major fan of fantasy movies and everything Dis-ney, I loved the idea of creating a heaven-like dream world. So I began making a list.

A magical vehicle to drop fruits and candies of all •kinds.A tropical island situated in the clouds with all •kinds of animals, mostly wild: elephants, polar bears, sea lions, puppies and even dinosaurs! The kind of animals I would love to play with.An amusement park for themselves.•

I approach all of my work (be it a 30 second spot, a title sequence, or an opening montage) with a desire to tell a story. It’s a rule we all follow at Anthill.

The most challenging parts of the process for me are the opening and the ending. I quickly called up a creative meeting with my team — just five of us! We came up with all kinds of ways to start the video, from the classic storybook openings, to camera flights from outer space!


Niyi AkinmolayanLagos, Nigeria

“Most of my days in college were spent skipping classes, just to be at the library,” Niyi told us. “I fell in love with science because I felt I could put a stop to the crude oil problems we have in my country, and provide people with alternative power. Since i couldn’t study abroad, I went back to my other love — media, hoping that I could help inspire a new generation to get involved in change.”

W E L C O M E T O M Y

It was going to take every production and keying trick he’d learned for Niyi and the team at Anthill Multimedia to finish their music video on deadline — and save an orphanage

It all started on a very hot afternoon in the city of Port Harcourt, River State, Nigeria.

I was with my entire team, and we had to battle with an electric power generator that had decided to drive us all crazy. Not that I knew anything about gen-erators, but we had some rendering work to do for a client. It was the perfect time for me to lose my tem-per!

This was when I got a call from the CEO of Adonis Production, Adonijah Owiriwa, the executive produc-er of a new action movie I was working on. “Niyi, we need to do a quick music video for this orphanage us-ing my song.”

Of course, I didn’t take him seriously. For me, there is no such thing as a quick music video.

Early this year, he produced a movie (“Nnenda”)

These shots are from my science-fiction film, “Blackhole." We had conceptualized ro-bots, flying vehicles and other things that I knew we could not build, so I decided to shoot entirely on green screen. We knew that we were up to the task. A trailer should be ready by the end of 2009, which I will post at reels.creativecow.net.

Eventually, we decided to convey the feel of a child in a room with the windows half closed, and lots of rain falling outside showing a bit of the neighborhood. A habit I still have, I thought it would be nice if the child scribbled something on the frosted glass inside (“There are over 8 million or-phans in Nigeria”), and drawings of a home, a pair of parents with a kid, and a face filled with tears.

My Art Director/Matte painter (Bode Adewole) and Lead CG artist (Bisi Adetayo) came up with the idea of a train in the clouds. I also decided to end the video with a thought-provoking question.

CAPTURING THE WORLDUsually, once I figure out the beginning and the end, the in-betweens come very easily.

Because we had a very short delivery period, we started creating the CG elements immediately. I already had some footage of the orphanage shot on a Sony FX1 camera. The producer also had a Panasonic HVX200 camera, so that became the logical choice for shooting the chroma bit. We shot in DV because that’s what our editing facility could afford.

The producer made a uniform for the orphans and it was mostly green, so I had only one choice — a blue screen, not very good for DV footages.

Since I knew I was going to place them in a bright world with clouds, I figured I needed a lot of lighting. Unfortunately, the guy who was given the job to rent lights didn’t deliver. We had to manage with only some kinos, two redheads and one 2K. (Ac-tually, we had just half the intensity, be-cause the hall we rented had a small gen-erator.) I had to use the two redheads with some bounced lighting to light the chroma material, and used a bounced light from the 2K and the kinos to light the artists and or-phans.

I have become famous around here for being the guy who can “handle a chroma job lit with a candle! And shoot green on green!”—and it usually gets me in trouble. There was a time I was given bluescreen footage of people wearing blue costumes because the producers didn’t know what a chroma cloth was. I ended up rotoscoping everything!

It’s always a good idea for the direc-tor to also be the editor, especially on small projects. It makes you shoot exactly what you need. In my case, it reduced my creative options, but it got the job done — and with


the elephant. He created lots of detail on both, and we were losing time.

By the time we got to the polar bear, electric pow-er struck again, and we couldn’t use our 10-quad core render farm to handle the fur. As a creative director, I had to start coming up with options. We forgot the idea of the bear and the puppies (our artist has refused to forgive me on that one!), and we fine-tuned the el-ephant even more.

We also created a walrus and dolphins. The dol-phins in the clouds were inspired by a British Airways commercial I once saw. To animate the elephant, we referenced Edward Muybridge’s photos of animals in motion. The animation was fantastic.

Once the CG elements were ready, it was up to me to put it all together. Most books and tutorials will tell you that the most important part of doing chroma work is lighting the chroma material appropriately. In fact, I got tired reading and watching keying tutorials because their reference footages were too perfect to be true. You end up doing the steps in the tutorials with your own footage and achieving far different re-sults.

The reality for many small studios is that you might be handling work with low lighting conditions and rough screens. In Nigeria, we don’t even have studios dedicated to greenscreen work. You’ll have to go to the market, buy the cloth and set it up yourself.

chroma work, I know that there will always be options later.

Eventually, we got about two and half hours of bluescreen footage, and I knew exactly what to ex-pect in post.

CREATING THE WORLDCompositing is my favorite part of the entire visual ef-fects process. It is like painting on a canvas.

To create the rain and drizzle behind the window in the opening scene, I used the Tinderbox rain and Tinderbox condensation plug-ins. (Tinderbox makes very fantastic tools.) The scribble on the glass was cre-ated in Photoshop. We completed a train through the clouds in Autodesk 3D Studio Max, rendered out as RPF files. These allow you to bring in camera data to After Effects to complete the animation and compos-iting.

Our matte painter did a fantastic job of creating several layers of clouds in Photoshop, which helped in creating a feel of depth to the scene. He also created the Tropical Island and amusement park.

For the animals, our Lead CG artist had a tough time. He has an obsession for making things look as real as possible, and I have a knack for getting on ev-eryone’s nerves when a job has a short delivery time. We got references on the internet for the train and

Creative COW Magazine — The Non-linear Creativity Issue 19

See the music video, “Welcome to My World,” at:reels.creativecow.net/film/welcome-to-my-world

Your brain is buzzing. You’re working out digital cinema workflows, creative edits, effects, and transitions. You’re dealing with filters and compositing, editing and conforming audio, encoding and rendering. You’re collaborating with your team to deliver on deadline. You don’t want to sweat the asset storage. Sonnet understands. We do one thing best. We deliver more digital video streams to the post team than anyone else in our class. Open a

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This is why you must not limit yourself to a single set of rules when it comes to handling chroma work.

For this project, I used the linear color key filter and Keylight in After Effects CS3. Keylight is a very great plug-in, but the big mistake you’ll make is to just drop the filter on the key color, tweak the screen gain, and render.

When it comes to DV footage, you have to use Keylight with a lot of caution. It was designed to pre-serve shadows and highlight detail on the screen — if

you don’t tweak the settings inside Keylight, your sub-ject will have a lot of noise that wasn’t in your original footage.

One of the parameters to be careful with is the “Re-place Method.” For DV, it is better turned to “Source.” This will ensure that only the background is removed. You will have the screen colour around your foot-age, but the footage will look as good as it was with the chroma screen. All the lighting and highlights on the foreground subject will be preserved without any

extra noise. It is better to have it this way, and then go on to remove the spill and choke the matte. You might also need to do some colour balancing to completely remove the spill.

The linear color key is a simple yet fantas-tic tool in After Effects. Think of it like the magic wand tool in Photoshop. If used carefully, you’ll only be removing your screen color. The only limitation is that it works best on a smooth and well-lit screen.

After doing all the color correction work and matching the keyed subjects with the backgrounds, I rendered out as TGA sequenc-es. This is mainly because the electric power here is not stable. If the render of a sequence of frames is interrupted, it is easy to recommence from where you were stopped, without having to re-render the entire thing from the begin-ning all over again.

SAVING A WORLDThe client loved the work. He immediately started showing it to some government of-ficials, and eventually the Governor himself. Because the video was very unique and some-thing never seen before in the country, it got a lot of press attention. They loved its originality and creativity.

This eventually forced the government to take action. Now, the orphanage has been restored and more: they got so much atten-tion that it has translated into lots of supplies — particularly from those who felt guilty after reading the end message: “When last did you visit an orphanage?”

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Please check out the production and compositing tips offered by the Anthill Team, that you will find on the following spread, on page 22.

It was truly an honor to work with the Anthill team to tell this story. It is always fun to create articles about major films and "big" stories, but this one was about saving lives and protecting children in a desperate situation. Thanks guys for entrusting us with your story. — Tim Wilson & Ron Lindeboom

BLUE SCREENS, BLACK SKIN, AND DV

Much of the noise information that a CCD chip gathers is stored in the blue channel of an image. You can toggle your channel display in After Effects to view this for yourself. This makes green the preferred choice for keying, especially for DV foot-age— although you can cleverly handle this with great filters like Keylight and DVMattepro.

We have a popular saying here that the video camera was not made for the black man! This is because it is very difficult to get noiseless footage shooting dark-skinned subjects without overexposing the shots. That’s why most of our movies look flat — the filmmakers throw lights all over the place so that their subjects can come out clearly. I really wish these camera manu-facturers would put that in consideration!

Knowing how difficult it is to get noiseless images from dark-skinned subjects makes it even more important to shoot DV chroma work on green, to reduce the amount of noise you have to deal with. As I mention in the article, Keylight is great in preserving shadows — but a dark dude is already a shadow! This means that when you try to clean up the screen and remove the shadow preserved by Keylight, it will add noise to a dark-skinned subject. I recommend a way out of this problem in the article.

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The Anthill crew at the opening of the film, “Nnenda." From left to right: Rume Omojituko, Charles Paulinus , Niyi Akinmolayan, Bisi Adetayo, Bode Adewole.

MORE TIPS FOR COMPOSITORS & SMALL STUDIOS

Never approach keying with a single set of rules. Every •shot will pose a different challenge.

Never color correct without an external video monitor. •In After Effects, go to Edit-Preferences-Video Preview to use that feature.

Try using a tool to achieve something it wasn’t made for. •You’ll be surprised by how much discovery you will make.

Save! save!! and save!!! And always render movies as •sequential TGA files or TIFF files. This is especially true if you live in a third-world country like I do.

Try exporting your 3D scenes as RPF files, or any other •format that allows you handle depth, object IDs and Camera data separately.

If you have a small computer, stop opening all the Adobe •application at once. Yeah, I know you watch it in many tutorials, but those guys use very powerful systems to work. The reality is quite different. You mostly want to

save up some RAM. So close one program, and open the other.

Don’t get too excited with plug-ins. In color correction •for instance, using the After Effects collection of curves, levels and HSL adjustments might be all you need to get the job done.

In a small studio, every member of the team should •learn everything: 3D software, Photoshop, a compositing tool and a video editing tool. As your studio becomes larger, each of you can start specializing.

Learn more about what goes on inside your software. •Even if you only work in compositing software, learn about how cameras, lenses and lights work. You have to know the science as much as the art. This has really made me stand out in the five years of experience I have had.

Before you think of starting your business in this field, •get to work in a professional studio — even if you have to do it for free. This experience has taught me to handle tough deadlines and to listen to other people’s opinions.

THE INVERSE SQUARE LAWThe inverse square law governs the rela-tionship between the intensities of out-ward radiation sources (light or sound) to the positions of the objects they act upon.

For those who skipped high school math, the surface area of a sphere is 4 pi times the radius squared (4πr²). Because the radiation spreads outward, its power is distributed over larger and larger spherical surfaces as the distance from the source increases. Hence, the intensity reduces as the radiation covers a larger area. Mathematically, this is called an inverse proportion. Because 4 and pi are constant, we can conveniently say the in-tensity is inversely proportional to radius squared.

Okay, enough with the headache!When it is applied to light, the in-

verse square law means that an object that is twice the distance from a point source of light will receive a quarter of the illumination. What it means to us filmmakers is that, if you move your subject from three meters away to six meters away, you will need four times the amount of light for the same exposure.

While that might require too much brain work on a set, it is very useful when working with 3D applications. It helps add real-ism to your scene. I take this seriously because most time, I get to put my foreground subjects in believable 3D environments. Most 3D programs will give you a linear representation of light if you just drop the light in the scene. Find the right parameters to tweak to give you some inverse square falloff, and you’ll appreciate the results. There are many reasons why the best and most successful editors around the world trust

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taught for CG, learning the craft initially on an Amiga 5000 with Lightwave. I used my new talents working for a while for Ron Thornton at Foundation imaging until I created enough work to have a Demo Reel, at which point I was hired again by ILM to work on “Drag-onheart” as a modeler. I eventually rose through the ranks to become a Model Supervisor, beginning with “Mars Attacks.”

I really miss those days of doing real FX with my hands, though. “Innerspace” was the most fun of them all, making giant fields of fat cells out of lemon jello, and chopping up scallions to serve as lung alveoli. I also think that “behind the scenes” photographs of people making real-world miniatures is much more exciting than photos of people looking at CG on a monitor!

THE REELI have always used my demo reels as an entertainment piece in itself, as opposed to just a collection of clips strung together with electronic music. Perhaps it is my latent insecurity that my work would not stand on its


Marionettes in the very same theater. The show was gigantic, with over 300 puppets in a 20-minute show, performed eight times per day. These puppets were big and heavy — the average marionette was 3 feet tall and was strung to a height of 12 feet. I was in much better physical shape in those days!

I did that for a year, then worked at the Center for Puppetry Arts in Atlanta, with the touring compa-nies of “Rumpelstiltskin” and “Pinnochio.” The routine was to drive 100 miles or so to some town, set up the stage, do two or three shows, pack up and drive another 100 miles or so — all for the amazingly high pay of $120 per week!

When I was 19, I told my parents that I was moving to California, to go to art school in San Francisco — but my secret plan all along was to work for George Lucas at In-dustrial Light and Magic. I relocated to Marin County California, hoping that proximity, if nothing else, would get me my dream job at ILM.

Amazingly, this plan worked, but not from any great talent on my part. I was liv-ing in a house that rented rooms, and a guy named Escott Norton moved in for the sum-mer. It turned out that he had come up from Los Angeles to work at ILM on the second Ewoks movie (“The Battle for Endor”), and just happened to be working in the Crea-ture Shop — the very place I hoped to land. When he left to go back to L.A., he recom-mended me as his replacement.

Getting the job was in retrospect very easy. I just had to wait around Marin Coun-ty for eight months until it fell into my lap. Keeping it was a different matter. Showing adaptability and initiative, I quickly out-grew going on beer runs, and was trans-ferred into the Mold Room to work with Sean Casey making molds and castings for “Howard the Duck.”

I spent the next 17 years working my way through various roles at ILM: pup-peteering on “Young Sherlock Holmes” and “Witches of Eastwick;” building what I called “maximatures” (the inverse of min-iatures) for the movie “Innerspace;” and being one of the principals for creating and operating the four foot long remote-controlled free-swimming whales for “Star Trek: The Voyage Home.” Later, I was a modeler for the new Enterprise in the “Star Trek: The Next Gen-eration” TV series.

During the recession of 1990-92, there was very little film production happening, so I spent a few years at Walt Disney Imagineering, where I worked on ride development for Disneyland and Disneyland Paris.

After working in “traditional” visual effects for nine years, I migrated with most of the rest of the in-dustry over to working in Computer Graphics. I am self

We came across Tony last year, when he first began to use Final Cut Pro to assemble VFX shots in some of his latest productions. He started looking for advice in the COW forums, and joined Creative COW’s LinkedIn.com group.

We later got an idea of the incredible range of his work when he posted his reel at reels.creativecow.net. He was happy to add some details about it when asked in the comments section of his page, but when we asked him to go even deeper for this article, he was a little more reluctant. Both on his reel page and in our conversation, he was quick to point out his role within teams, and told us that he had no interest in writing anything that sounded like a self-promotion piece.

As he told us how he found these jobs and devel-oped his career, we were also struck by the turns his career took as he followed the film industry into the

overwhelming conversion to digital visual storytell-ing. Tony shares his eyewitness account through the lens of his work, and exemplifies how artists can pre-pare themselves for the unexpected turns that the in-dustry, and life, might take.

— Creative COW

The summer before I started college, I began working at a local film company in Atlanta called

“Oglesby and Hardin.” I painted animation cels and conformed negative — an amazing opportunity to get right out of high school.

My next job was for “John Hardman Productions,” a puppet theater company doing shows at all of the Six Flags theme parks. This was a fulfillment of a dream of mine from when I was very young, and saw the Krofft

Tony HudsonPetaluma, California USA

In addition to the projects mentioned here, Tony built models and supervised effects on “Willow,” “The Golden Child,” “Backdraft,” “Die Hard 2,” and “Back to the Delorean,” which is currently in post production. He has posted in COW fo-rums including Final Cut Pro, Particle Illusion, After Effects and the Sony CineAl-ta F900 & PDW Series camera forum. You can see his reel at:reels.creativecow.net/tony-hudson-2009-demo-reel

Above, from “Innerspace.” These are actually scallions stuck into clay, of which I then made a latex casting of. Below, from“Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home:” four foot long, free-swim-ming radio-controlled whales. I worked on creating these for about nine months, and served as their puppeteer during the 2 week shoot. The title graphic for this article features a con-cept painting, “Crystal Cave,” created for an un-produced virtual world.

An FX veteran’s unexpected, non-linear career path, from puppetry to painting, to ILM and beyond, offers insights into the art and business of film creativity — and a killer reel.

a Non-linear careerThere’ s more than one way to get where y ou want to go...

©1986 Star Trek PARAMOUNT PICTURES CORPORATION. STAR TREK and related marks and logosare trademarks of CBS Studios Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Innerspace ©1997, Amblin Entertainment, Warner Bros. Pictures

designed what was called the “Cube Ship,” the little vehicle the Specialists travel in. It had to disassemble itself in an interesting way, but make sense as a whole as well. I had fun working on that film.

MEN IN BLACKI designed, match-moved, modeled and animated the Jeebs transformation effect. This is my favorite shot ever, and the shot I have gotten the most attention for. (Perhaps there is a connection there.)

I had just finished my work on “Mars Attacks” in the fall of 1996 when I was asked to create this effect. I had the pleasure of coming up with the technique and animating it all myself, using Softimage and ILM’s Caricature software. Basically, it was a series of blend shapes atop an animated rig, with the final blend sculpted to match the first frame of Tony Shalhoub’s action. It was originally to be a very short transition from CG to Tony Shalhoub, but the director, Barry Son-nenfeld, enjoyed it so much that he kept lengthening the shot.

Five years later, I was asked by Sonnenfeld to make a special guest appearance (I was working on “Harry Potter and The Chamber of Secrets” at the time) and re-create Jeebs for the second film.

MARS ATTACKSI supervised all Character and Hard Surface modeling; designed, built and animated the “Martian Thing-Maker;” and animated the head-popping shot

This was my first big CG show. I created the Martian model based on sculptures cre-ated by, I believe, the Chiodo brothers, back when it was to be a stop-motion film. This was also the first film ILM did that featured

own, but I want my reel to be as interesting at least as a music video. I have always enjoyed editing, especially to music. Normally, if I am cutting something, I will put a music track to it, even if the final product will not have music, as I like to work within a rhythm.

I also like to have something new and fresh in my reel, so I create a little intro sequence. With this reel, I really wanted to get some of my non-CG work from the 1980s into it, so I structured the intro around them floating in a time/space void. Plus, it was a great op-portunity to try out the latest version of Trapcode Par-ticular.

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE: AIWhen pre-production began on AI in 2000, I was one of the first at ILM to begin work on it, and was in charge of creation and animation setup of all Character and Hard Surface elements.

I first was working with Dennis Muren on using the then-new technique of image-based modeling. We wanted to see if we could save some time and effort by photographing the New York miniatures used for “Baby’s Day Out” and creating CG models from them. That did not work out the way we hoped, but it was an interesting experience.

I then spent a great deal of time working out the design of the “Specialist” Robots featured at the end of the film. The UK-based artist Chris “Fangorn” Baker had developed the Specialist as pen and ink concepts when he was working with director Stanley Kubrick in the years before Kubrick passed away, but there was a lot of work to be done to finish the design. I was tasked with figuring out how to represent the volumetric interior of the Robot, as if you could see through the skin to the circuits and wires inside.

After that, I supervised all of the modeling for the film, including Rouge City, New York underwater and in ice, “Teddy,” “Dr. Know,” and the Blue Fairy. I also

cloth to any extent. We did not have a cloth sim sys-tem at the time, so I spent most of the second half of the show hand-animating cloth using blend shapes in Caricature.

HARRY POTTER AND THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS This was my last film for ILM. I was very aware at the time of the coming CG challenge from Weta Digital with Gollum, so we worked very hard to make Dobby as realistic as possible. He was the first ILM character to use sub-surface scattering. Frank Gravatt did a fantas-

tic job on the modelling. I served as Digital Character Supervisor, and was in charge of creation and animation setup of all Charac-ter and Hard Surface elements for Dobby the house elf, and the Quidditch match.

For the Quidditch sequence, I had a brainstorm that saved us much cloth simu-lation time. I created a cloth sim of a cape blowing in a breeze, made the sequence into a loop, and then baked the sim into blend shapes. Cary Phillips wrote this incredibly complicated expression that would loop the shapes and animate the strength of the wind. We then created a rig that would allow us to swing the cape around behind the Quidditch player, and we were able to do all of the wide shots without any subsequent sim work.

MAGNOLIAAs Digital Character Supervisor, I was in charge of the creation of frogs.

“Magnolia” was the best movie I ever worked on. At the time I did not know that this would be the case, as I was not famil-iar with director Paul Thomas Anderson or “Boogie Nights,” and I could not figure out why we were dropping frogs from the sky.

This was actually quite common. We often worked on specific shots in films, and did not know WHY we were doing the work.

MY PEOPLESI left ILM in 2002 to go to Florida and help convert Dis-ney Animation/Florida to CG production. They were finishing “Brother Bear” while I was there, and it was wonderful to see all of the hand-animated work in pro-duction.

“My Peoples” was to be a combination of hand-

Creative COW Magazine — The Non-linear Creativity Issue 27The Non-linear Creativity Issue — Creative COW Magazine 26

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, ©2002 Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.

Mars Attacks, ©1997 Warner Bros. Pictures

Men In Black, ©1997 Columbia Pictures

Artificial Intelligence: A.I., ©2001 Warner Bros. Pictures

I worked on the storyline portion, which concerns a digital person named Ramona, portrayed by Pauley Perrette, as over time she develops from something similar to a Second Life avatar to a full-fledged, au-tonomous human. My work was mostly in the realm of greenscreen plates with digital sets, but I also de-veloped the look transforming Pauley into Ramona’s simple avatar. There were roughly 15 sequences, of which the majority was effects shots.

One of the biggest issues on the film was the FX editorial work. The production used Final Cut Pro, but had no budget for FX editorial, so I had to do all of that myself too.

Unfortunately, Final Cut does not lend itself to manufacturing shots for effects production with han-dles. The “Media Managed Export” would not trim shots to length if the source file was used more than once on the timeline — it would span the shots instead. Most of what I was doing would involve every shot in a sequence as an effects shot, so I had to break the se-quence down and export to separate shot directories, all by hand. I would try to structure my Shake scripts so that shots that were “same as” could be reused for

each subsequent shot.There was a great deal of ro-

toscoping necessary due to the unfortunate expedient of cover-ing the lovely green floor with sand for 5 sequences. I used Mo-cha for my roto work, and it works fantastically. I separate the roto as sort of an articulated paper doll, with one spline for upper arm, one for lower, etc., then use the planar tracker to follow the body motion, and finally, clean up the outline.

In addition to Ramona, there was also Ramona’s digital helper, Samantha, who is represented as

a sort of pixie type. For close up there was an actress, but the wide shots used a digital model I created. There were probably a hundred of those shots.

IF LOOKS COULD KILLI did this music video for the San Francisco group Music for Animals, directed by Jordan Livingston, who was the Digital Imaging Technician and Post Production Supervisor on “Singularity.” I handled on-set plate su-pervision, Art Direction and Visual Effects.

Jordan shot this video at the same time as one for darkwave group, Lilofee, using the RED. We had a great number of greenscreen shots that needed to hook up, and due to the issues I had had with FX edito-rial on “Singularity,” I decided to use After Effects and a bunch of scripts that would allow me to bring the FCP timeline directly into After Effects (like Automatic Duck, but free). There, I could use pre-comps to work on the video as a whole.

THE PRANKSTERThis was great fun, a locally produced and directed feature by Tony Vidal, a coming of age high school

“If Looks Could Kill”drawn 2D animation for the “hu-man” characters, and CG for the magical come-to-life folk art char-acters. As Digital Character Super-visor, I was in charge of creation and animation setup of all Charac-ter and Hard Surface elements for this uncompleted Disney Animated feature. I also provided concept design for characters. I had a very small but talented crew, and to-gether with Tony Plett doing back-end supervision, we put together a pipeline to handle the CG produc-tion.

Unfortunately, Disney under Michael Eisner was in turmoil at the time. After a few starts and stops on “My Peoples,” they closed the Florida studio, and I went to Burbank to work on “Rapun-zel Unbraided” with Glen Keane. Working with Glen Keane I consider to be the re-naissance of my career. Glen was so very good at bringing out the best in people and encouraging artistic perfection and, more importantly, artistic confidence. Glen taught me how to trust my artistic in-stinct. I was no longer in a strictly techni-cal role, but was a part of the Story Depart-ment. I worked alongside the story artists, creating 3D animatics for sequences that were difficult to visualize as traditional 2D story reels.

For those who may not be familiar with animation production, the first phase of creating an animated feature is the “Story Reel,” which consists of 2D story-boards edited together with temporary dialog tracks. The Story Reel serves as the “bones” of the film during production. I then used drawings on cards in a 3D space with animated camera to describe com-plex action sequences.

It was heartbreaking when “Rapun-zel Unbraided” was shut down in the fall of 2005 and I had to go back to working in the real world, but I will always remember that time with fondness, and remember the lessons Glen taught me. (Note: Dis-ney’s current “Rapunzel” is a completely different project.)

THE SINGULARITY IS NEAR,A TRUE STORY ABOUT THE FUTUREBased on Ray Kurzweil’s New York Times bestselling book, this is a documentary scheduled for release in late 2009. It is a documentary with a storyline woven through it, similar to “What the BLEEP Do We Know?”

I was the on-set Visual Effects Supervisor, the Ef-fects Art Director, and Supervised the completion of

over 400 greenscreen, set extension and matte paint-ing shots in 8 months. The elephant animation is by Miguel Fuertes.

When I say “Supervised,” I actually mean that I did most of the work myself. There was no budget to hire anyone to help me, so I just worked as quickly and as efficiently as possible. There was so much to do that, early on, I gave up attempting to do “film-quality” ef-fects. Instead, I tried to do something a bit more styl-ized.

The Non-linear Creativity Issue — Creative COW Magazine Creative COW Magazine — The Non-linear Creativity Issue 2928

From “My Peoples.”

Ramona, “The Singularity is Near.”

©Ray Kurzweil & Terasem Motion Infocuture Presentations

©2003 by Disney Feature Animation

comedy. I was Visual Effects Supervisor for on-set plate photography and Supervised the creation of 70+ shots including matte paintings, particle animation, screen replacements, rig removals and set extensions/enhancements using Maya/Mental Ray; Shake, Particle Illusion, Mocha, Monet, SynthEyes and After Effects.

A NON-LINEAR CAREERThis illustrates some of the important principles that I have returned to throughout my career.

One is continuing to adapt my creative toolset. Don’t think you ever know enough about computer graphics. You have to be open to constantly learning new software to keep on top of the changing effects environment. In addition to the ones I just mentioned, I have used many others, including PFTrack, and in-house packages designed by ILM.

Most recently, I have been using Nuke, from The Foundry. If you were to ask how Nuke fits into my bag of tricks, I would say that Nuke IS my bag of tricks now. I love how integrated the 3D component is, and how you can seamlessly blend the 2D and 3D worlds, up and downstream of the scanline render.

Another guiding principle I have followed is orga-nization. In a single year, I completed over 600 effects shots: 420 for “Singularity,” 110 for “If Looks Could Kill,” and 75 for “The Prankster.” For how I managed to do that much work, there is no easy answer, other than to say that I am pretty organized, and have experience putting together production pipelines — and that I worked myself half to death.

Even though I was doing all the work for “Sin-gularity” myself (except for the animation by Miguel Fuertes for the Elephant and the Mermaid), I used my first two weeks to set up working methodologies and directory structures to handle all the data.

Finally, I have never settled for filling only a single role. Before I used CG software, I was a painter and puppeteer, two skills that remain instrumental for me.

I hired, trained and supervised teams of artists to work on the creation of digital characters, sets, props and vehicles. I painted storyboards and created animat-ics, designed layouts, built and lit sets, created cam-era moves and originated overall cinematic styles. I worked closely with directors, producers and produc-tion managers to develop schedules and budgets for the delivery of digital assets, while maintaining integ-rity of creative vision.

Note that none of these roles has very much to do directly with CG software. They are related to people skills, communication, understanding creative pro-cesses, organizing and keeping schedules, and being aware of how all of these affect the budgets of the people paying for the work. It is essential to develop these alongside your artistic skills if you are to survive in a rapidly evolving creative landscape.

In the meantime, I am working on titles for a docu-mentary on the life of poet Gary Snyder produced by Will Hearst, and teaching a class in matchmoving at the Academy of Art in San Francisco.

I am also working on another music video. This one will be much more intense than the last, with a great deal of fire and smoke dynamics necessary to create the look of a video taking place during a nuclear holocaust. The video, as directed and edited by Jordan Livingston, already looks great, shot in 2:1 “Storaro Vi-sion” on the RED, and looking like a feature. It will be amazing once we have completed the effects.

I am also working on taking my own advice, as I continue to develop my skills, and find new ways and places to apply them. Working on gigantic produc-tions at large studios in the past was fun, but these days, I am much more interested in working on smaller productions, and applying my skills to allow producers to give their movies the look and feel of an expensive Hollywood production, without the expensive Holly-wood price.

n


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The Non-linear Living Issue — Creative COW Magazine 32

Dave Howell was the engineer who wrote India Pro Titler for Prismo Graphics, an application that re-defined the cutting edge of advanced title animation. When Apple bought the company in 2002, they re-launched the product as LiveType, and Dave became LiveType’s managing engineer. LiveType was bundled into Apple Final Cut Studio starting in April, 2003.

This is when Dave started answering questions in the COW’s Apple LiveType forum. When he joined our LinkedIn group in April, 2008, he told us, “Now, I’m writing iPhone software for creative professionals at my new company, Avatron Software, Inc.” When we asked exactly what he was working on, he replied, “I don’t know yet, exactly. My last day at Apple was Fri-day. Now it’s Monday, and I’m looking for engineers.

“If you have problems you wish you could solve

Dave HowellPortland, Oregon USA

Dave really has been at this a while. He wrote the Master Tracks Pro 4 Macintosh MIDI sequencer in the late 80s, which won Electronic Musician’s “Most Innovative Software Product” award, and which he later ported to the Apple IIgs. He was also writing video components and I/O before QuickTime existed, and wrote a cross-platform graphics library for use in the pioneering Kai’s PowerTools. Dave holds US Patent #7199805: “Method and apparatus for titling.”

From LiveType to the Apps Store

Creative COW’s group at LinkedIn.com features 5000 working pros that hail from every aspect of

media production. They have joined to expand their networking among the world’s largest community of media creation professionals, by identifying them-selves to both peers and prospective employers as being a part of this community. (For details, head to LinkedIn.com and search the groups for the word “Cow.” You won’t miss us.)

The diverse professions within our field that are represented in the Cow’s LinkedIn group include broadcast engineering, VFX, cinematography, light-ing, directing, editing, matchmoving, colorgrading, stereoscopy, motion graphics, web and interactivity, animation, game design, senior management, and much more — including software development.

Useful.Fantastic.Essential.

Photo of iPhone in charger courtesy of Adrian Ilie, licensed under W

ikimedia Com

mons.


on a handheld device like an iPhone or an iPod Touch (or whatever comes next), please let me know!”

We didn’t have anything specific in mind yet ei-ther, but we knew that we’d stay in touch to see how Dave’s story with Avatron Sofware unfolded. Here’s the story he told us 18 months into his journey.

BEGINNINGSFor eight years, from 1994 to 2002, I ran a small Mac software contracting company called Pablo Media. Pablo Media wrote all kinds of Mac software, includ-ing game ports, various kinds of plug-ins, QuickTime components, and full applications.

Our most ambitious project was writing India Special Effects Titler for Prismo Graphics from 2001 to 2002. Then in 2002, Apple purchased India, including both the application and content from Prismo Graph-ics, and some libraries from Pablo Media.

After having only worked at startups and other small software companies, my tenure at Apple gave me my first taste of organizational process and hierar-chy. To my surprise, I rather liked it.

Sure, there were moments when the culture of secrecy drove me crazy. I contributed to the Aperture team, which had a feature for exporting a web page, while the folks down the hall from me were working on iWeb, which lets you design a web page. Had we been allowed to talk to each other about our projects, we could have collaborated, shared code, and enabled integrated workflows. Instead, we were all surprised to see our respective product announcements.

While at Apple, I decided I wanted to start a soft-ware company of my own, and apply to it some of the management principles I had learned. To help prepare for that, I went back to school on weekends. In 2008, I earned an MBA from Cornell University’s Johnson Graduate School of Management. Soon after that, I left Apple, and incorporated Avatron Software.

When naming my company, I wanted something that started with an A, like Apple, Adobe, Autodesk, and Avid. And of course AV is a good start for an audio and video plug-in brand. The “atron” suffix just sort of invokes an optimistic retro-vision of the future, with shining labor-saving robots and hover-crafts with fifties-car fins.

My first thought was to build a titler. Apple hadn’t done much with LiveType, or for that matter with titling in general. The Final Cut Studio package contained a mess of different incompatible titlers, including LiveType, Motion’s titler, the built-in Final Cut Pro titler, and Boris Title 3D, not to mention those in Shake and DVD Studio Pro. But none of them really targeted the niche of professional, full-

time title artists. After managing the FxPlug SDK for Apple, I was

well prepared to write an FxPlug-based titler. My Fx-Titler plug-in was going to work in Final Cut Pro, Final Cut Express, and Motion. Even Apple doesn’t have a titler that is usable in all of those apps. I even regis-tered the fxplug.com and fxtitle.com domains. (Know anybody who might want to buy those?)

After FxTitler, I had other ideas about writing an FxPlug-based online media store for clip art, stock footage, and LiveFonts.

And then, the iPhone SDK was announced. I real-ized that I had to follow this unique technological in-flection point and write iPhone apps instead of plug-ins. I decided to keep the name.

There are now seven of us here, with over a hun-dred years of collective Mac programming experience, including eighteen years in Apple’s Applications Divi-sion.

SERIOUS APPSBack when the team started last summer, we spent the first few days brainstorming about ideas for products. We came up with around sixty different ideas, ranging from voice-activated adventure games to hardware peripherals. Some of them, it turned out, were not possible. Some didn’t make business sense. But a few were quite viable.

As an aside, the idea I was most proud of, but which I’m glad we didn’t pursue because it quickly became obsolete, was this: we wanted to hook up an iPhone to serial devices like a barcode scanner, a credit card reader, and MIDI gear — but the iPhone doesn’t have a serial port that’s accessible through the iPhone SDK.

We figured out that you could take a modem chip — which has analog audio in and out ports at one end, and serial digital ports at the other — and plug it in BACKWARD. Now you’d be connected to the iPhone’s audio out and microphone in, and have a serial port at the other end. We calculated that you could support a 4800, maybe 9600, bps data rate. Not fast enough for MIDI, but adequate for a lot of other hardware applica-tions.


Below left, the icon for Avatron Software’s Air Sharing Pro.Below right, Avatron Software’s Whiteboarder.

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We needed something else. The main criteria we considered when choosing a more practical first proj-ect were:

Does it leverage functionality that Apple has al-ready built in the SDK, but that has not yet been exposed to users?

Will it force us to build our own platform of frameworks that can be redeployed in other fu-ture products?

Is it possible, yet difficult enough that it erects an adequate barrier to entry?

Does it match our skill set?

Air Sharing was the one app that best met all of those criteria.

Air Sharing is a document-viewing app. It hosts a little HTTP server on your iPhone, with WebDAV extensions, which means that you can connect wire-lessly to your iPhone from a computer, using Mac OS X, Windows, or Linux, and mount the iPhone as a sort

of Wi-Fi hard disk. You can drag files and folders onto the mounted volume as you would onto a USB thumb drive. You can then take your iPhone with you and view your documents offline.

The iPhone has a lot of built-in support for view-ing documents, which it uses in its Mail and Safari apps. But the built-in functionality is pretty limited. It crashes when it encounters high-resolution images. It doesn’t provide a scrollbar for navigating through long documents. It has buggy support for some for-mats. So in Air Sharing, we worked around some of the Apple limitations when that was possible, and wrote some of our own viewers when it wasn’t.

Because we’re programmers, we also added sup-port for viewing source code with syntax coloring. Air Sharing recognizes keywords and syntactical con-structions in different programming languages, and colors them to make it easier to scan them visually.

When we started work on Air Sharing, there were no other document-viewer applications on the App Store. By the time we were done, there were already three others. Fortunately, each of those had serious flaws. Still, because they had a head start on us, we introduced Air Sharing with a special promotion. We gave the app away for free for two weeks. In that pe-riod, over a million users downloaded Air Sharing.

In retrospect, while we lost a lot of potential rev-enue with this introduction, it has been a very success-ful way to kick start our brand and get people talking about Avatron Software.

Now, there are hundreds of document-viewer apps in the App Store. Air Sharing is leading the pack by a long margin, having been downloaded hundreds of thousands of times.

NEW DEVELOPMENTSIn addition to Air Sharing and Air Sharing Pro, we now have fifteen apps in the app store, with two more wait-ing for approval and several others in the pipeline.

One new app, Whiteboarder, lets you capture photos of whiteboards in meetings, and then enhanc-es the white levels, removes noise, and lets you locate the corners to remove perspective skewing. Then it lets you organize, print, and email those images.

We also formed a new business division called Avatron Publishing. This division works in partnership with content owners to produce apps built on the Air Sharing frameworks.

For example, Avatron Publishing has teamed up with Informed Guides to produce five medical and ref-erence apps based on Informed’s very popular line of printed pocket guides. The subjects range from Regis-tered Nurses to EMS to Homeland Security. We plan to release more of these in the future.


next few years. Our mission is to be the leading devel-oper of useful apps for the iPhone platform.

While there are nearly 100,000 apps in the App Store, the competitive landscape for useful apps is still fairly sparse. Now, we just hope Apple will just keep gaining smart-phone market share, and that they will deploy the iPhone OS platform on new devices, like Apple TV, a combination HD camcorder and digital camera, a tablet computer or netbook, and embedded devices.

n

We’ve also partnered with Level X Hoops, which was formed by an ex-Disney Music exec who owns a line of basketball training DVDs, to release eight video-based instruction apps for learning moves and team plays. We plan to release dozens more of these within the next year.

In the future, our goal is to find more partners who own rights to video and print properties that might be adapted for the iPhone — and I’ll bet a lot of folks in the Creative Cow community have some-thing like that. The video projects that would work best are those that are made up of a set of short clips. Our Ganon Baker series of basketball apps has about 20 clips, each demonstrating some move.

I think our best content is in the app “23 Ways to Destroy Your Defender.” Each clip shows you a single move, and shows it in slow motion, with a pro-fessional NBA trainer breaking it down into steps.

Any kind of training video like that should work, whether it’s sports (although we’ve already entered exclusive partnerships for basketball and golf), mu-sic, magic, dog-training, painting, martial arts, etc.

The point is that the Avatron Publishing plat-form is perfectly suited for building reference and instructional apps. We are building up our team, as well as our software frameworks and tools, to streamline the repurposing and publishing process. I’m really excited about our Avatron Publishing ini-tiative.

USEFUL APPSI left Apple in April 2008, rented office space in June, hired engineers in July, we shipped Air Sharing that September, and have been running full speed ever since. It’s been a bit of a whirlwind!

So far, we’re bootstrap-financed, so our growth and product evolution has been organic. That has been much easier to manage than if it would have been if we had taken venture funding, and sudden-ly found ourselves in a gleaming new office full of strangers.

Moving forward, we have a roadmap that leads us to a broad, yet cohesive product line over the


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In 2001, the fastest any Nepali cybershop ran was 56K modem speed, and that was shared with a dozen or more users. Today, we are on the information freeway with a typical top speed of 256kbps, with a residential cost of $40 per month. Dedicated and faster lines (1 MB) can be had, but run upwards of $400 per month. With the average monthly Nepali salary in Kathmandu just over $100, it is safe to say that not many folks are enjoying streaming media or multimedia chatting.

But for the entrepreneur expat, a fast Internet connection is your lifeline, unless one wants to check into a monastery and become a monk — which is ex-actly what I did, but that’s another story. Also part of that story is meeting my now-wife and musical family, all of whom dreamed of opening a recording studio just as I did. As a writer and filmmaker who had come

to Nepal to find the “story,” this was seemingly a match made by Bud-dha himself.

So we all began to plan our home business: an A/V studio to cater to the budding recorded mu-sic scene, the documentary film crowd, and the digital media ad-vertising market, all of which were sprouting like rhododendrons on a terraced hillside.

TRAILS AND ATTENUATION:A HIMALAYAN ADVENTUREWhile Nepal offers some of the world’s most fertile soil for rice, bananas, oranges and apples, the environment is hostile to anything related to technology.

For example, once we over-came the slow-speed Internet prob-lem, we were still “404 Not Found” until we overcame the power prob-lem. Nepal faces a severe short-age of hydroelectricity most of the year, despite the fact that Everest glaciers are melting faster than the last of the Nepali River Dolphins can swim.

To ensure that the nation has distributed power across the grid, a system of government load shedding has pulled the plug from almost all households and businesses. From 4 to 18 hours per day, you have no juice for your TV, your refrigerator, or your A/V studio. The government-run electric utility issues an insanely unpredictable and ever-changing schedule, so you don’t even know when the lights are going out — well, until they do.

As you can imagine, the market for gen-erators, inverters, and UPS systems in this city of almost two million people is thriving. There are candle shops here like you would not believe. So, in order for us to set up our own shop and record our first job, we had to jump that dark crevice.

Loud emergency generators and A/V re-cording rarely mix, so instead of dealing with sound barriers and auto-size engines, we went with quick-charging inverter systems: banks of lead-acid truck batteries to power Pro Tools machines and all the rest. It’s lucky that we went down that path — as soon as our studio construction was complete, Nepal was hit with an oil shortage that has not yet quit. Diesel and petro generators lie silent in the city now, but our inverter banks are humming along, and work well if they get at least a 12-hour charge.

When there is less time to charge, we seriously start counting our watts. We had to

build our editing and recording bays with wattage and amperage high in mind, and we have auto-switching that powers down to just the essential services when running with the Energizer bunnies.

We also converted to an all-Apple recording stu-dio using iMacs and MacBook Pros soon after open-ing, as our custom built PC desktops were using far


Jigme GatonPhoenix Studios, Kathmandu, Nepal

“I flunked out of film school, if that’s imaginable,” Jiggy told us, “but still wound up leading the now-defunct IBM Creative Laboratory, where I wrote such hits as ‘People and Automation in Action: The Story of IBM’s Robotic 5 ¼ Disk Manufacturing.’ After 20 years of that cheese, I checked out of Cubicleville and into a monastery for three years. After that, there was no going back.” You can find his posts in the COW’s FCP and Apple Motion forums, his tutorials and reviews at library.creativecow.net, and his “Cow BOG” (not BLOG - “because I live in a cow BOG”) at blogs.creativecow.net.

The Journey To ANepali Recording Studio

There aren’t many straight lines leading to Nepal, and not many once you arrive, either. Here is an inside look at the challenges and triumphs of running an A/V studio in the Himalayas.

W hen I realized that I would be making Ne-pal my permanent base camp, I had no

idea what to expect as I began to organize my profes-sional life here. I had originally come as a well-packed trekker, complete with a 3-chip camcorder, laptop, digital camera, and a bag of lenses. Also stuffed inside of wool socks were cables, dongles, and requisite doo-hickeys.

I was still wholly unprepared for what I found inside my new neighbourhood cybercafé. From the outside, it resembled a Wild West telegraph office. In fact, there even was an electrical telegraph machine, although I never saw anyone pounding that key. In-stead, there were rows of underpowered ancient roll-your-own desktops, with crowds of Nepalese pound-ing away on something a little more up-to-date.

From Trek To Tracks:

This set of batteries will power a large bay for 12 hours on a charge of 8 hours or so. We have 3 sets now, one each for video, sound, and the live room. Crazy, eh?

CyberTelegraph Café: a great place to share a modem line with 25 others, and make your long distance phone calls, as well.

too much juice to stay operational on such limited battery reserves. While it seems like every kid on the city streets has an iPod or jailbroken iPhone, we are the only creative business we know of that runs anything Apple-like. And just as soon as we had decided to make the transition to Macs, we actually met an ex-Apple Genius Bar employee in the middle of the jungle. What are the odds? Considering that we are 1000 kilometers from anything that resembles an Apple Store, I chalk it up to good karma.

You are probably wondering, why not solar? Well, while solar power heats all wa-ter, and for some, does all cooking, there are very few commercial or residential ap-plications of photoelectric panels. We are looking on the bright side, however, and look forward to the day when the panels do arrive, as the sun shines here most of the year.

As quiet as our battery banks are, it was still a challenge to construct a RWAR (room within a room), as well as the rest of the studio, with just the materials at hand. There is no QuietRock™ in Nepal, unless you count concrete walls that never say a word. Nepali architecture is a mix of mud & brick technology from the

5th century, with a little 20th century earthquake-proof concrete and rebar technol-ogy thrown in.

We were lucky to start with 12” poured exterior walls and 8” interior walls, which we fitted with independent plywood and studded walls on each side. Insulation was used to fill in the cavities, and

the control room and live rooms were finished off with diffusion/absorption material.

To our advantage, carpet and labour is dirt-cheap, about $1/sq. yard and $1 per hour for the labour. We are also a bit off from the rolling 10-ton Tata byways, and far enough away from the constant blaring of motor-bike horns.

Yet, if someone for-gets and leaves the front door open, we get Tata air horns and wild cow bel-lows recorded in with our


dios went online and began producing materials for both local and international artists, as well as for local businesses and development organizations — all with the only all-Apple studio in the country, and with a western-style environment, complete with a dressing and shower room, full kitchen, and a space for clients to relax.

Our clients are split between musicians, and cor-porate/Non-Government Agency (NGO) types, all wanting to use our A/V services to get a message out.

The climate here for rock musicians is stormy, as the market has not developed much over the past sev-eral decades.

The premiere Nepali band, 1974 AD, sounds like a jazz-fusion rock band from the 1980s and has been widely popular for decades. The boys in that band are like family to our studio, but like most other successful music ensembles in Nepal, they have their own record-ing studio.

That really leaves our studio to new musicians not yet on a label, and some very alternative types, like the once underground, now aboveground Alt-F4, Nepal’s version of Audioslave meets Linkin Park.

AXIS is a band that reminds us all of Bon Jovi. This style of rock is beginning to explode now that the civil war is over, and artists are free to express themselves without fear. These are the artists now lining up at our door.

music and video. But all in all, we managed to achieve a sound en-vironment of about STC 75. This Sound Transmission Class score in-dicates that we have been able to reduce outside levels of up to 75 dB down to zero, very good indeed.

ON GETTING OUTFITTED WITH THE RIGHT GEARMy Nepali wife Jessy exclaims every time we go trekking, “Every step is a torture!” This also accurately describes the beginning of our business climb. For example, we imported most of our equipment from Singapore with no joy, as cus-toms duty for electronics ranges from 30-40%. There are long and unexplainable delays that you just have to live with.

We are allowed some quota of personal electronics when return-ing from vacations abroad, so we are always humping hard drives and computers instead of seashells and duty free booze like everyone else.

We also make a lot of our own equipment for lighting, booming, and dollying, and do most repairs ourselves. If you are Nepali, it’s not like you can leave the country on a business trip and gather the goods for your new business, as travel is severely restricted by the government.

Living within sight of the Chinese border, you would expect that electronics would be easy for us to find for pennies on the dollar. However, prices for Chi-nese imports into this part of the world do not com-pare with prices for the same items when shipped to more affluent centers in the west.

A note on product (un)safety: no one within 1000 kilometers of our Studio has heard of Underwriters Laboratories® or ETL SEMKO — especially not the Chinese manufactures of our electric sockets, power strips, and other electrified gear.

In fact, while there is a resemblance on the out-side of products to quality brands (sometimes even an exact match), there is nothing reliable on the in-side. This goes for instruments, amps, compressors, soundboards, and all the rest. I can’t even remember the number of times I’ve been thrown across the room while plugging something in, or how many times a power brick has vaporized in a puff of smoke.

I’ve even gotten used to the idea, and am now liv-ing proof that shock therapy is no cure for insanity.

REACHING THE SUMMITAND PLANTING THE FLAGSix months and just $20,000 USD later, Phoenix Stu-


We were lucky to have power for the opening night party of Phoenix Studios in Kathmandu. (Our home is on the top floor.) It’s a one-stop shop for arranging, composing, re-cording, mixing and mastering, as well as a place to get your website and album covers done. As we say, “Come in a singer, leave a star.”

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Our studio musicians in Damak Nepal, playing for a crowd of 6000 Bhutanese refugees, who have been living in temporary quarters for over 15 years. The event was organized by the United Nations High Council on Refugees.


ended a bloody civil war in a matter of days, a conflict that had been raging for years in the most impover-ished parts of the country, and in one of the poorest regions in the world. I actu-ally feel privileged to have witnessed the outcome, and my love for all things Nepali has deepened after my ob-servation of real democracy in action. Heck, we even got to record some of it. Now that the war is over, and the constant Bandhas (worker’s strikes) have stopped, we can finally get back to work.

INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTSVendors openly (and quasi-legally) sell the very latest PC software in street stalls and in Kathmandu’s new-est shopping malls. I am left wondering if anyone really sees this as a crime. The gov-ernment has not signed on to the WTO, and respectable tax-paying shops (which are also government licensed) sell working, pirated soft-ware ,like Adobe CS4 Suites and Maya 2010, for less then $1 a disk.

This is all very bad news for all of us in the Nepali recording industry. Up until last year, there was not a judge in the land that would hear a case of copyright infringement for Nepali folk, pop or rock music.

However, this year, one case was brought to the courts over a lyrics/music remix, where an artist bla-tantly rerecorded someone else’s hit single — down to the very note and word — and made a bundle of cash to boot.

The case was settled out of court, but the court made a landmark decree. Artists now have protected rights over their work — forever!

While some see this as a blow to the social sharing of classic national treasures, others feel relieved that producers of the next Bollywood movie won’t steal their work for their next soundtrack, and legally get away with it!

Nepal is catching up with the rest of the world in IP rights in other regards, albeit slowly. In fact, for ex-pats, the major appeal of Nepal is that this country is so very far behind the rest of the world. Anyone who remembers 50s America, when every shop was family-owned, and every business owner would offer a cup of Joe and a friendly chat – right along with some real customer service — would wax nostalgic here.

Of course, we get our share of tra-ditional Nepali folk music, which makes up the lion’s share of recording sales. Nepathya is a folk-pop client that is unique, as they hunt the hills of Nepal in search of traditional village tunes which they then transform into pop hits for the iPod generation. Their “Bhedo Ko Oon Jasto” is not only a song, but a hilarious documentary on Nepali music making.

Then there is our staff and close friends, all recording artists in their own right. For example, Shubu Thapa is poised to become Nepal’s Avril Lavi-gne, and also acts as our customer ser-vice rep.

For the most part, our role in the recording biz here is mostly behind the scenes, even though we are now offer-ing music video productions and other promotional services to our clients — web work, packaging, etc. The reality is that most Nepali artists self-produce, using studios like ours. The money for recording comes from the artist’s own

limited pockets.On the other side of the house, we

help NGOs with public service announce-ments and other forms of what they call ICT (Information Communication Technol-ogy). For an A/V shop, that means multi-media, and educational courseware that influences social change.

SURVIVAL IN THE HARSHHIMALAYAN ENVIRONMENTWhether you are delivering aid or A/V re-cordings, operations are a bit of a prob-lem.

I often feel safer swaying on a flimsy bamboo and rope bridge crossing a 500 ft. gorge, than I do sitting in our studio’s control room chair. At least when you are 5000 meters up and on the back of a Royal Enfield motorbike, you don’t have to wor-ry about being caught in the middle of a communist revolution.

We actually survived the last commu-nist revolution during our getting-started phase. In the spring of 2006, the capital’s streets, usually awash with cows, sewage, and cheap Honda motorbikes, were full of Nepali youth burning tires and demanding an end to the royal monarchy. Lots of red hammer and sickles waving, as the Maoist movement marched from the hills into the metropolitan hub of Kathmandu.

That spring, the People’s Movement


WE WILL BE LANDING SOON. PLEASE RETURNYOUR TRAY TABLE TO THE UPRIGHT POSITIONAnyone who has ever been on a Himalayan trek will tell you that the ending of the journey is always bit-tersweet. On one hand (and one foot), you are sore all over and feel like a herd of angry yak has trampled you. But on the other hand (and on the last foot not blistered), you feel like you have achieved a tremen-dous accomplishment, against all odds.

(You would be surprised by how many trekkers in Nepal turn back early, or hitch rides with passing mule packs.)

This is pretty much how our team feels. We did not turn back, despite dribbling electricity, non-exis-tent petro, dry water wells, horrible public infrastruc-ture, high hardware costs with import hassles, low profits, and an even lower-than-bad economy. We are exhilarated from the journey, and happy we made the climb.

After all, the songs of struggle and triumph will always play on, and we are right here doing what we love: recording them.

n

For more of Jiggy's adventures in Nepal, visit the blogs section at Creativecow.net and search on “Jiggy” for more insights and reports from Our Man in Nepal.

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INDUSTRY NEWS: N O V E M B E R 2 0 0 9

TAKE YOURAFTER EFFECTS SKILLS TO A HIGHER LEVELPete O’Connell has worked on a wide range of blockbuster films like Whiteout, Across the Universe, Stranger Than Fiction, Mister Magorium’s Wonder Emporium and many others. Ask him what he thinks is the single most important technique that he wishes that he knew when he started in film effects, and he will tell you “motion tracking, without a doubt.”

In this DVD, Pete not only takes you through a wide range of video tutorials that explore the subject in detail, but he also includes the project files so that you can work alongside him as he guides you through the lessons.

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“My aim in creating this DVD was to assemble all the most useful 2D tracking skills that I have been using in production over the past few years. There are many examples of the most important ‘real world’ techniques you should have at your disposal as you strive for a perfect result when stabilizing or match-moving. Enjoy!” — Pete O’Connell


BORIS XML TRANSFER BETWEEN FCP AND AEwww.borisfx.com

BorisFX has been synonymous with integrated effects creation inside host applications for 15 years, and with the release of Boris XML Transfer, the company now provides integration between host applications. XML Transfer

is an After Effects plug-in designed for seamless transfer of Apple Final Cut Pro program sequences to Adobe After Effects, preserving all effects, audio, media clips, transitions, and geometric transformations.

All trimmed Final Cut Pro clips remain fully-editable in Adobe After Effects as stepped-up or stepped-down layers. Boris XML Transfer also takes special care to preserve multi-clip edits. User marks, comments and labels for clips and sequences, and all user-defined names are carried across from FCP to AE.

“The big idea for this project was to create workflow for FCP/AE users, where they can actually do some effects work in FCP and move over to AE to finish,” says Boris FX founder and CEO Boris Yamnitsky. “While FCP is not your most desirable effects app , you really need to do some effects up front — like up-rez, image stabilization, or chroma key — to make your project look realistic in that environment.”

Unlike other project transfer options, Boris XML Transfer accurately moves third-party plug-in effects from FCP to AE. Products like Boris Continuum Complete and Final Effects Complete have had presets that work in Final Cut Pro, After Effects, and even Avid editing and finishing systems. But true project-level integration is a bit more challenging.

“There is no way to accurately match all the parameters because of the differences between the same filter in FCP and AE,” says Boris. “Because we own both sides of the effects code, we hand-carve the AE version of each translated effect to make sure it perfectly matches the FCP counterpart.”

Boris applies the same intimate knowledge of effects creation to pass the parameters of other third-party filters between Final Cut Pro and After Effects.

The company had previously developed XML linkages between Media 100 and both Final Cut Pro and After Effects.

GENARTS INC. ACQUIRESWONDERTOUCH & PARTICLE ILLUSIONwww.genarts.com

GenArts Inc., the premier provider of specialized visual effects software for the film, television and video industries, announced today a definitive agreement to acquire particleIllusion™ and all related products and technologies from wondertouch LLC. This follows an earlier announcement by GenArts of a strategy of aggressive growth through acquisitions and strategic partnerships.

The acquisition of wondertouch includes particleIllusion SE, all Emitters and Pro Emitters, particleIllusion for AE, and all additional intellectual property from wondertouch LLC. particleIllusion is a sprite-based particle effects application that uses thousands of presets and hardware-accelerated rendering to provide comprehensive and efficient particle workflow, and will complement Sapphire’s wide range of visual effects plug-ins. As part of the acquisition, Alan Lorence, the former CEO of wondertouch and creator of particleIllusion, will join GenArts as a full-time developer.

While wondertouch and particleIllusion will continue to operate as stand-alone brands, separate from GenArts Sapphire™, Monsters™ and Raptors™, all GenArts products including particleIllusion, will now be sold through the same reseller channels.

INDUSTRY NEWS: N O V E M B E R 2 0 0 9


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QUANTEL: 3D LUTs, Improved Conform, RED Rocket support — www.quantel.comQuantel has just released a new version of software for its eQ, iQ and Pablo systems which, among a number of other useful new features, also includes support for the RED Rocket accelerator board. Quantel is the first manufacturer to release software that supports it, allowing Quantel users to benefit from the much reduced loading and conform times RED Rocket enables with RED-originated material. The new software release - V4.1rev6 - also includes the Cubebuilder, which enables Pablo users to build, manipulate and apply 3D Look-up Tables (LUTs) entirely within Pablo. It also supports process re-ordering in multi-layer timeline effects for more flexibility in effects creation, nine new blend modes, improved conform and file handling features, and new export modes to simplify Blu-ray and DVD generation.

AJA Launches KUMO Compact SDI Routers — www.aja.comThe new KUMO line of compact SDI routers joins the lineup of professional video interface and conversion solutions from AJA Systems. They are available in two configurations: the KUMO 1604 supporting sixteen SDI inputs and four out, and the KUMO 1616 supporting 16 channels in and out. Both KUMO routers are re-clocking, non-blocking, and support SDI, HD-SDI, and 3G SDI small 1RU form factor. They also support all ancillary data, including embedded audio Running embedded Linux, KUMO routers support powerful HTTP control and monitoring via a built-in 10/100/1000 Ethernet LAN. KUMO’s internal web server allows immediate configuration and operation via any standard web-browser on any OS, without any additional software. Their redundant, isolated power inputs make the KUMO routers ideal for mission-critical broadcast and post-production installations.

Harris Embraces BXF — www.broadcast.harris.comThe international communications and information technology giant, Harris Corporation, is looking forward to even wider adoption of the recently-developed Broadcast eXchange Format (BXF), a data exchange format that standardizes interfaces among systems dealing with content metadata, content movement, schedules and as-run information. The Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE) has recently published “SMPTE RP 2021-9:2009,” a Recommended Practice guide that supplements the existing BXF Standards and simplifies the creation of interoperable BXF applications. Its authorship took place under the SMPTE BXF Working Group chaired by Chris Lennon, director of integration and standards, Harris Broadcast Communications, which has successfully implemented BXF into 11 of its own products. “Because BXF enables adopters to achieve increased operational efficiency and significant cost savings, as well as increased and all-new revenues, broadcasters have been highly motivated to press vendors for implementations of this new SMPTE standard,” Lennon says “While we’re already seeing considerable use of BXF in the field now, I expect the publication of this Recommended Practice to expand implementations both in scope and across broadcast operations.” Harris Broadcast Communications offers products, systems and services that provide interoperable workflow solutions for broadcast, cable, satellite and out-of-home networks.

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The Non-linear Creativity Issue — Creative COW Magazine Creative COW Magazine — The Non-linear Creativity Issue48

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T H E B A C K F O R T Y

Ron LindeboomPaso Robles, California USA


A Welcome to Our 1ST CLASS Print Subscribers, Worldwide WITH THIS ISSUE, WE WELCOME OUR FIRST-EVER INTERNATIONAL PRINT MAILING

World, as in Communities of the World. It’s a word we take quite seriously

here at Creative COW. It’s why from our very first issue in 2006, we have made every effort to insure that our digital version is available without regis-tering or any other restrictions that would hamper our international readers from conveniently bene-fitting from the stories and articles in it.

But from the day we began publishing, we have been hearing from our international mem-bers that they would like to get the magazine in print. We regularly get comments like: “Thank you for the digital edition but I love the stories you guys print. Can’t you make the print magazine available to COW members outside the USA?”

HONORING INTERNATIONAL REQUESTS:A 1ST-CLASS MAGAZINE DESERVES 1ST-CLASS DELIVERYMany international COW members have said that they’d be willing to pay the freight to get the COW magazine in print. And as more and more people asked, we thought about how to do it. Recently, we thought of a way to create a tenable solution.

As we began to explore the idea, the concept became clear: a first-class magazine deserves first-class service. The idea came as Tim Wilson and I sat talking about this phenomenon of internation-al print requests. I asked Tim, “What do you think about offering first class mail subscriptions to our subscribers — both inside the USA and around the world? It gives us a way to make sure that most of them will get there as quickly as possible, and we don’t have to worry about great numbers getting lost due to low priority mailing.” Tim loved the idea. So did Kathlyn.

We talked to our printer and to the team in their mail service, and shortly thereafter, we rolled out a test of the idea. In a few days, we had hun-dreds of subscribers.

In typical COW fashion, we didn’t want to leave out our international readers by setting the

subscription price too high. So we set a price point that helps cover the cost. Our international mem-bers are a big part of the reason for the COW’s in-credible success, and so it was important to us to offer the magazine at a cost that could be borne by a large percentage of them.

International COW members seem to like the idea that they can now have their very own print version of Creative COW Magazine — in their stu-dio or on their desk, worldwide. First-class.

Our international print subscribership is quick-ly growing. We’d like to thank our international members. You are truly appreciated and it is why we work hard to regularly include your stories in this magazine.

USA BULK-MAIL TURNS INTO BULLET-TRAIN:A 1ST-CLASS MAGAZINE DESERVES 1ST-CLASS DELIVERYDoes our subscription program leave out the USA? No, as many of our members have asked for fast-er delivery, as the digital edition often shows up weeks before they get their magazine in the mail. Being a newer magazine, we are forced to send it to our USA members by bulk mail.

If you want to join our upgraded first-class mail program, you can now get your magazines deliv-ered in just days — first-class.

It seems that many of you in the USA like the idea of not having to wait for bulk-mail delivery, as the number of our USA addresses upgrading to first-class accounts is rapidly growing.

As we head into our fourth year of bringing you stories and features that you won’t find in oth-er magazines in our industry, we’d like to ask you a question: doesn’t a first-class magazine, deserve first-class delivery? Doesn’t your magazine?

If you agree, www.creativecowmagazine.net is where you can upgrade your own subscription. And to our first international print readers, wel-come, it is truly an honor to have you with us.

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With the most diverse I/O connectivity of any recorder/player and a bevy of features, like e-SATA and GigE interfaces, split-screen editing, six P2 slots for long record times and full cross-conversion capabilities, it’s easier to list what the HPM200 doesn’t do. The P2 Mobilewon’t deliver craft services, but it just might save you from running into overtime.

Learn more at www.panasonic.com/broadcast.

connect the shots

consolidate your acquisition options. sacrifi ce none.

© 2009 Panasonic of North America

*With optional AJ-YCX250G codec board **Panasonic markets its professional AVCHD products under the AVCCAM brand name

PBTS-0270A-AJ-HPM200-_Prod_CC.indd 1 10/12/09 5:02 PM

creative cow

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