lower thirds

This Week in Post Production: November 6, 2009

I'm starting a new weekly feature this week, aptly named, This Week in Post Production.  I'll aim to highlight some of the important, interesting news highlights in our industry - both from my clients as well as the major players impacting your daily lives.  So here goes; This Week in Post for the week ending November 6, 2009.

Imagineer Systems:  A couple of announcements from Imagineer this week, including new upgrades to their mocha and mocha for After Effects family of planar tracking tools.  New mocha versions, including mocha for After Effects, supports direct export to Red Giant Warp, a nice little workflow enhancement that a lot of users have been asking for.

The Company also announced a special promo for the month of November: 50% off mocha for Final Cut and mocha shape for Final Cut.  That's a nice little deal, check it out here:  www.imagineersystems.com.

CineForm: We're readying a press release on this, but you heard it here first.  Next week, CineForm will announce Neo3D for Windows.  You may remember Neo3D for Final Cut, announced at NAB 09 - that announcement captured a lot of attention and created a lot of excitement in the 3D post community.  Now those 3D production capabilities are extended to Windows.  More details next week.

GenArts Acquires Wondertouch:  Studio Daily reports on the news of the GenArts/Wondertouch acquisition this week.  GenArts CEO, Katherine Hays says in her quote that "in 2008, GenArts laid out its vision to accelerate growth via acquisition, innovation and strategic partnerships."  I know the Company has been in talks with a lot of players in the space, so while this news comes as no surprise, it'll be interesting to see who's next.  

Beth Marchant, EIC of Studio Daily, interviews Hays for the Studio Daily Blog.

These guys are definitely a company to watch.

Weekly Non Sequitur

And now for something completely different...

Gizmodo reports this week on a new iPhone app that supposedly interprets a baby's cry for parents.  Are you a pathetic parent who simply doesn't know what to do when that awful sound comes out of your baby?  There's an app for that!  As they so well put it, 'how did we all make it to adulthood without apps like this?'

Sigh....

Imagineer's mocha, mocha for After Effects Now Export to Red Giant Warp

New point releases from Imagineer Systems include a much sought-after capability - direct export from mocha apps to Red Giant Warp.  Well, it's now here!  The Company announced new point releases to both full-blown mocha and mocha for After Effects.  With a number of improvements and enhancements to both products, the Red Giant export capability is probably at the top of the list.

Check them out here: http://www.imagineersystems.com/

And here's a direct link to the announcement as posted on Millimeter's The Briefing Room.

Freefall FX Sheds New Light on Tracking Skills, Wins Imagineer's Tutorial Contest

Earlier this year, Chris Heurer of Freefall FX blew us all away with his work restoring -- and remastering to 3D -- the 1922 classic horror film, Mernau's Nosferatu.  Retitled "Orlock, The Vampire," this eerie 3D adaptation of Bram Stoker's Dracula debuted at the Cannes Film Festival last spring.

The team at Imagineer Systems was also blown away by Heurer's innovative use of mocha to help track through hours of original footage - damaged and dirty from years of neglect.  Chris had this to say when talking to Imagineer about his experience: 

"During testing, I was shocked to see mocha track through this old footage.  The original footage jumped almost every frame, had tons of noise, dirt and damage, AND had random exposure changes.  mocha tracked it flawlessly,  just like it was pristine digital footage.  I could not have done this film without mocha... it would have taken years instead of months.  When I learned of Imagineer’s tutorial contest, I thought this would be a wonderful opportunity to show my colleagues in the industry how mocha can tackle seemingly insurmountable workflow challenges."

His approach was so unique, Chris decided to create a tutorial on how he used Imagineer's planar tracking tools as a key step in his restoration work.  And the tutorial was so good, he won Imagineer's Second Annual Video Tutorial Contest!  Congratulations Chris and thanks for sharing this amazing work with your colleagues in the industry.

Read the official press release here:  http://www.imagineersystems.com/company/news/194

Automatic Duck Unveils Something Very New at IBC 09

My good friends at Automatic Duck have been churning out timeline translation tools for editors for many, many years now - in fact, any one who edits on multiple editing platforms knows very well what the Duck brings to the table.  If you need to move your content back and forth between Avid, Final Cut Pro, After Effects, you know the nightmare that can be.  And you also know by know the sanity-restoring qualities of Automatic Duck.

But at IBC 09, they're announcing something entirely new.  While this new app follows the Duck's heritage of saving you from pulling out your hair or shoving your fist through your monitor, it's NOT about timeline translation.  It's called ProDate DV!  And what it does is allow editors to "simply and quickly display on screen the time and date information recorded by DV cameras."  May sound simple, but anyone who's tried this knows it can't be done - and it's very frustrating.  But ProDate DV solves that - true to Automatic Duck form - with a click of the mouse.

So Wes Plate, president of Automatic Duck, will be in his IBC 09 Stand #7.K21 showing off his latest sanity-saving app.

Stop by, say hi and check out something entirely new and different from the Duck.

Automatic Duck: Free Tools for Schools

Wes Plate of Automatic Duck made an incredibly generous announcement today aimed at schools/universities and students.  Recognizing that the back-to-school season is already a somewhat stressful time for both students and schools (not to mention the added stress for universities and film schools operating with slashed budgets and nearly obsolete resources), Automatic Duck is making this amazing offer.

The basic gist: eligible schools can get 5 copies of the Duck's entire suite of timeline translation tools absolutely free!  And that includes some of their newest and most popular tools, like the Pro Import AE, Pro Import FCP and Pro Export FCP.  And students get a 20% discount on everything as well.

Times are tough all over, but this amazing offer should make the back-to-school transition a little easier to take.

Read the press release here or visit Automatic Duck for more specific details.

CineForm Targets Hollywood Studios, High End Post with New Turn Key System

Judging by the positive reaction by the post production industry to CineForm's new software-based alternative to HDCAM SR (CineDDR), the higher end of the market (larger post facilities and Hollywood studios) are going to love this news: CineDDR DX.

CineDDR DX is the Company's first fully-integrated, fully-supported turnkey disk-based recording, playback and file/format conversion system.  While CineDDR allows users to build their own system using off the shelf PCs, CineDDR DX does it all for you, an 'out of the box' experience, if you don't mind the cliche.  

What I like about this news is the way CineForm developed this product.  While they don't talk publicly about it, the CineForm execs have some pretty close relationships with this high end market.  They talk to them, constantly.  And more importantly, they listen.  And what they heard was, "love the concept of moving away from tape-based systems, but don't really have the time or where-with-all to deal with building and servicing my own system."  So CineForm built one for them.

Check out the press release here or for more info, visit www.cineform.com.

So What Does a Planar Tracker Actually Do?

This video created by Imagineer's CMO, Ross Shain, says it all:

About a Planar Tracker from Kevin on Vimeo.

And then check out this August summer special: buy the full version of mocha or motor and get both shape plug ins (for Final Cut Pro and After Effects) for free!  Not bad...  But get the details here: www.imagineersystems.com

Imagineer Hosts 2nd Annual Video Tutorial Contest

Riding the success of last summer's video tutorial contest, Imagineer Systems is announcing today it will make it a tradition and keep it going.  Similar to last year, contestants submitting the best tutorial video - as judged by some industry gurus - will win an entire suite of Imagineer kit.  That's like $7,000 worth of software, not bad.

I talked to Ben Heusner of Curious Turtle who won last year's contest.  Not only did he put his Imagineer took kit to good use, he actually produced a couple more tutorials and was able to generate some revenue.  So all in all, it was a great experience for him.  He commented:

“Winning the contest last year was fantastic on a number of levels.  Obviously the prize was great, and I've been able to utilize the prize software on a number of projects this past year.  More importantly though, creating the tutorials inspired me to think about mocha in different ways.  Explaining features in a concise way ensures you think about your workflow, and question whether you're working efficiently.  Since the contest, I have produced two full video training series through Curious Turtle, Rock Steady : Successful Motion Tracking in Mocha & After Effects and Tracked : The Art of Motion Tracking in Mocha for Final Cut.  It's also been a great way to cultivate personal relationships with the good folks at Imagineer Systems and get the occasional beer in the pub from people who got help from the videos.”

The full press release is here, but to participate in the contest, visit www.imagineersystems.com/contest for more details.

300

300%, that is.  That's the percentage growth in its new customer base that Imagineer Systems has experienced in the past several months since it re calibrated its market strategy and began developing tools to put its planar tracking technology into everyone's hands.

The Company announced its results this morning and is looking forward to consistent month-to-month growth at this sustained level.  It attributes this success, as I mentioned, to its new strategy and in particular, the rate at which CS4 customers have not only taken advantage of the mocha for After Effects solution, but also the rate at which they're upgrading to mocha for After Effects v2.0.

It's nice to hear such news nowadays; let's hope this ripples across the industry and continue to see growth across the board!

CineForm Sets Sites on Alternatives to HDCAM SR

The team at CineForm turned up the heat today, turning its attention to the HDCAM marketplace.  Partnering up with Drastic Technologies, CineForm today announced CineDDR.  

In a nutshell, CineForm is tapping its industry-respected compression workflow technologies to eliminate cumbersome (and expensive) tape-based formats toward file-based recording and playback.  This is a significant development as it now provides the market with a new ownership model as it slashes the costs involved with traditional HDCAM - as any migration to a software-based solution will do.

The announcement crossed the wires today.  Check it out at www.cineform.com or read the press release here.