Here is a great tutorial from CineForm's CTO, David Newman, on how to get started with editing in 3D using Neo3D. Take a look:
Neo 3D Tutorial -- Muxing 2D CineForm clips for 3D. from David Newman on Vimeo.
March 03, 2010
March 02, 2010
Digital Makeup, Invictus and Tracking It All with mocha
During the summer of 2009, while in the midst of post-production on his Warner Bros. picture, Invictus, Clint Eastwood approached the film’s visual effects supervisor Michael Owens about creating an even more gritty and realistic look for the rugby players in the film. CIS Vancouver, under the direction of visual effects supervisor Geoffrey Hancock, was already well into visual effects work on the virtual crowds and stadiums for the rugby matches when they were also tasked with creating the digital make-up and costume enhancement effects for the film.
Over 200 shots now required the addition of digital cuts, bruises, blood and dirt to the players to enhance not only the intensity of the games, but their authenticity. As each rugby match progressed, the players needed to become more "beaten-up," with a variety of cuts, scrapes and abrasions. In addition, this also meant the enhancement of the players’ uniforms with mud and grass markings, as well as bloodstains to help the make-up work more look even more believable.
While CIS compositing supervisor Martyn Culpitt set-up some initial test shots to begin to flush out what would be required on a per shot basis, CIS digital make-up and costume effects supervisor Bruce Woloshyn worked closely with Michael Owens to identify all of the shots that would be required for each scene and begin to craft a design plan for what each individual player would look like and how it would evolve with them as each match progressed. Bruce then painted make-up treatment frames as references to guide the artist teams. From this point, a library of player make-ups guides, frame placements and a full library of elements for the artists to use in applying the digital treatments was created by Bruce at CIS Vancouver, to be used by all CIS artists at both Vancouver and Hollywood facilities.
However, these make-up and costume enhancements needed to be tracked and applied to moving players that had been photographed with moving and often hand-held cameras, which led to several technical challenges for the CIS team. The areas to be tracked (such as faces, limbs and players’ costumes) were sometimes extremely low in detail. Combining this with the high motion blur from players running and tackling meant using traditional point tracking methods would not be an option. Hand tracking of patches or match moving faces was also deemed impractical given the deadline for the film and the shear volume of shots that had been identified.
To solve these various tracking issues, the CIS team decided on mocha by Imagineer Systems while refining the technique to execute the work. Several of the early tests completed by senior compositor, John Cairns, with mocha showed that it was able to deliver what would be required for this unique assignment. According to CIS’s Bruce Woloshyn, “mocha was able to quickly and accurately track large patches of screen area with sometimes little or no detail. During our initial tests with both Martyn and John, we found it worked very well in dealing with motion blur and perspective shifts from faces and bodies turning. With the ability to run concurrent multiple tracks on the same shot, I was extremely happy at how quickly we could start in on each scene and get shots up for review.”
In addition to handling footage with many artifacts due to camera motion and the players’ dynamic performance motions, Woloshyn was also impressed on how well mocha performed with close-ups and subtlety. “Near the end of the film, there are many close-up shots of the actors that convey emotions on both ends of the scale as South Africa defeats New Zealand to win the World Cup. By now, all of the players have their maximum make-up treatments and these shots needed to be absolutely believable to maintain the emotional impact of the scene. Each digital make-up treatment had to track absolutely perfectly and be invisible in its application. mocha did a wonderful job to help us achieve that.”
About CIS:
CIS Visual Effects Group is an award-winning international visual effects entity with facilities in Hollywood and Vancouver. The company services high-end feature film, television, commercial and gaming clients in the global marketplace. CIS Hollywood, founded in 1984, is one of the industry’s most respected visual effects facilities. In early 2008, the company launched CIS Vancouver. With its boutique accessibility, the company has the capacity to service its clientele wherever production is situated. CIS Visual Effects Group is a division of Deluxe Entertainment Services Group Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of MacAndrews & Forbes Holdings Inc. www.cishollywood.com
*All Photos courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures. and CIS Vancouver
February 19, 2010
February 17, 2010
Whatever Happened to Blood Secrets? Part II
Pegasus was the code name.
Pegasus had been in development for years. The concept at its inception was brilliant; super-computer hardware (we had a team of engineers designing custom silicon - we even named the chips after the engineers) coupled with elegant software. It was a game changer, a category creator. And that, perhaps, was one of the first signs of trouble.
Apple changes the game, creates news categories. Not little companies like Media 100. But that didn't stop us. It couldn't stop us, we had the momentum of years of dedication behind us. Too much had been invested - time, money, people. We had been hinting at it for years, quietly leaking the story about this super computer that was coming.
Meanwhile, Apple was marketing a little game-changer of their own - Final Cut Pro. A sub-$1000 NLE that suddenly captured the attention of Hollywood editors and the industry as a whole.
Molinari, however, was somewhat of a marketing genius himself. At least, he was scrappy. He could think on his feet, and he always liked to joke, "never let the truth get in the way of a good story." Not that he would ever lie - to be fair, he was kidding, he never lied, but he would examine every angle of a story to make it as unique and compelling as possible.
So as the sands were shifting below our feet, dramatically changing the landscape to which this new technological marvel would be introduced (making it increasingly irrelevant), we had to think on our feet. We needed a new, updated strategy. One that enabled us to market an experience, a design life-style, not just a system.
So to do this, we had to peel back all the layers and convince everyone to buy into each and every layer of our story. From the custom silicon, to the software development - well, right down to the notion that bi-cubic interpolation was cool and should be rolling off every designers' tongue like it was a bragging right.
We drilled into our staff the difference between applications and platforms (this was not an app, but an entirely new platform - an architecture. Applications are stand-alone, one-offs. Platforms are something upon which applications are built. Thus, the extensibility and longevity of the Pegasus platform was guaranteed. We could continuously develop new applications for our new platform). Pretty smart.
We wrote a detailed product brochure called The Tech Report. It was modeled after a BMW brochure - adorned with highly stylized, elegant photography and laden with in-depth technological discussions about every layer of silicon designed and code written. As if users cared. Well, we wanted them to care. Maybe it would make them feel better about the price tag. After all, BMW owners buy into much more than just a car; there's a perception of lifestyle. The car speaks volumes about you.
So perhaps, owning an 844/X (notice the automotive nomenclature) would inspire the same evocative emotions in our users.
We hired an artist to design a new logo (the infamous eye-ball was deemed ugly, representative of the old Media 100, it was 'legacy'), we hired models to pose for the tech report, we rented space in a hip-looking warehouse - it was all very sexy and provocative.
Surely people would want one now. Or so we hoped.
Coming next; the PR strategy and launch event at the Museum of Television and Radio, and lessons learned. Stay tuned...
February 11, 2010
February 10, 2010
Imagineer's mocha: Behind the Scenes of Scorsese's Shutter Island
Rob Legato is perhaps one of the most well known and respected VFX artist in Hollywood today, with a resume that looks more like the previews of the Oscars than a CV. He’s the visual effects visionary behind some of the most talked about, award winning films in Hollywood, and in the past decade alone has left his mark on such blockbusters as Avatar, Standard Operating Procedure, The Nanny Diaries, The Good Shephard and Martin Scorsese’s Oscar-winning drame, The Departed, to name just a few.
Now, Rob has teamed up once again with Martin Scorsese on the soon-to-be released, Shutter Island. Leonardo DeCaprio, Ben Kingsley and Mark Rufalo star in Scorsese’s new psychotic mystery-thriller in which an artful blend of cinematography and visual effects not only create an edge-of-your-seat, skin crawling experience, but also a series of challenges for Rob.
“When you work this closely with Mr. Scorsese, everything you do has to be of ultimate quality for a film of this caliber,” Rob began.
When working with the iconic director Martin Scorsese, as the VFX supervisor, you’re challenged to match his vision with what actually can be done; and in most cases, you can’t be sure until you get to post. Well, I was recently introduced to a tool that could help me confidently do just that. mocha from Imagineer Systems,” Rob continued.
In a series of scenes - many appearing in the movie trailer - Legato was challenged to determine if the desired illusions could be done in a believable way; would the viewers be immersed in the scene or would they be noticing the effects? And any VFX artists will tell you, the best visual effects are the ones you never even realize.
“To test these shots, to see if they could be created effectively, there was a huge amount of roto and tracking necessary. And everyone hates roto,” Rob continued. “Roto and point tracking are tedious, painstaking raw labor tasks and I’ve always felt bad for the people who I forced to do it for me!”
“However with mocha, suddenly I was able to complete shots that previously, I would be hiring someone to do for me! It was simple enough and quick enough for me to operate, and believe me, tracking is not my forte.”
Rob work very closely with Mr. Scorsese. And he looks to Rob to help him decide what stays in, and what gets cut from the movie. “Scene by scene, I’m helping determine what’s going to make a better film. With mocha, I was able to quickly and easily produce incredibly complex scenes so we could preview them together and bring together the vision of what this film could be. Conversely, we’re able to quickly determine shots that just were not doable, and the time and money we saved because of this new workflow was invaluable!”
“mocha broadened my tool box. It enabled me to produce more content for each shot, and therefore enabled us to preview more. The more content you have to work with, the more you can appreciate the vision for each shot. The fact is, mocha transformed the preview process for me on Shutter Island. All the stuff that seemed to be such a huge undertaking was made so remarkably simple thanks to mocha.”
The specialized world of content creation is changing, evolving. Roles are merging. And as the technology becomes increasingly sophisticated, simple and accessible, content creators are using the tools once reserved for ‘specialists’ in imaginative, and even highly productive ways.
Shutter Island opens in theaters worldwide on February 19, 2010.
February 09, 2010
Cinedeck is Here
Last week, I sat in the offices of the creators of Cinedeck, meeting with press and influencers in the production and content creation space, and watched and listened as they saw Cinedeck for the first time. It was an energizing day of meetings, to say the least.
It's not too often that I witness the launch of something entirely new. And I knew this was something special, something very different.
It was a priority for me to bring these influencers to the table and have them see for themselves what, up until that moment, I had only been describing to them in brief email exchanges. The words 'unique, ground breaking and revolutionary' are so often overused in my industry that it becomes increasingly difficult to convince people that you actually have something here that fits all those words. It's kind of like 'the boy who cried wolf.' After a while, people stop listening.
Until today.
Fortunately, I was able to convince these highly-regarded influencers to come and see for themselves. And sure enough, as I looked through my notes from the meetings, I found a string of consistent quotes: "I've NEVER seen anything like this before!" Or, "I had no idea this could really do ALL those things in such a tiny form factor AND at that price."
Cinedeck is here; announced today and available beginning March 1, 2010, and we'll be at NAB 2010 with our friends at CineForm.
Here is the press release. It truly does all that it says it does and as I've learned this past week, seeing is believing!
Media Contact:
Kevin M. Bourke, BourkePR
508.259.6018
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Cinedeck Defines New Category, New Standard for Ultra-Portable, Cinema-Grade DDR Systems for Production Community
Cinedeck Debuts Industry’s First Camera-Mountable, Extremely High Quality Recording, Monitoring, Playback and Editing Device
NEW YORK, NY (February 9, 2010) -- Cinedeck (www.cinedeck.com) today announced the debut of the world’s first camera-mountable, HDMI/HDSDI recording, monitoring, playback and editing device for the production community. Designed by cinematographers for cinematographers, Cinedeck defines an entirely new category of extremely portable, affordable, platform agnostic, cinema-grade recording and monitoring solutions for anyone with an HDMI, HDSDI or LAN camera.
Cinedeck is:
- Extremely Portable: measuring 5”x8”x3.5” and weighing less than 4 pounds, Cinedeck is camera-mountable and stores (with all cables and accessories) in a space no larger than a shoe box;
- Affordable: Cinedeck costs less than a week’s rental of similar quality tape deck and focus monitor;
- Massively Compatible: Cinedeck records from nearly any HDMI or single/dual link HDSDI camera and source files are platform agnostic: recording media compatible with Mac, PC or Linux. Support for a wide array of codecs and file formats, including CineForm in both AVI/MOV wrappers, and Avid-compatible MXF.
- Versatile: it's an extraordinarily robust cinematographer's toolkit with complete VTR and monitoring functionality: preview, focus assist, record, play back, downconvert, and transcode, all in the form factor of a standard on-camera monitor.
“Cinedeck was born from years of experience in the field, lugging so-called portable and very expensive tape and direct-to-disk solutions through the Panamanian rain forests, Turkish deserts, and on the back of jeeps hurtling down pot-holed roads of Kazakhstan - we finally said, this is ridiculous, we can do better,” said Charles d’Autremont, founder and creator of Cinedeck. Because it was conceived and developed by working Cinematographers, “Cinedeck is the cinematographers solution. We decided to create a new standard for portability, quality and reliability, and most of all, to make that level of quality affordable and accessible to everyone.”
Richard Mills, head of engineering for On Sight (www.onsight.co.uk), a one-stop production, post production and distribution services firm based in the UK, had this to say about Cinedeck: "We've earned a reputation throughout Europe, not only for our creative approach to our clients' needs, but to also bringing highly innovative, efficient technology solutions to a creative project. cinedeck is the neatest solution we've seen so far for rugged, highly versatile production. It's an excellent solution!"
Cinedeck Key Feature Highlights
- Record: Cinedeck captures edit-ready, platform agnostic, 10-bit 4:2:2 or 12-bit 4:4:4 CineForm digital intermediaries in MOV or AVI format, as well as other industry standard codecs and formats, via HDSDI or HDMI and records to highly-reliable, rugged consumer 2.5” solid state drives for maximum compatibility and reliability.
- Monitor: Cinedeck monitors video in real-time, much like a standard on-camera focus monitor and uses the on-screen histogram/waveform for proper exposure. Audio is monitored via on-board headphone jack and recording levels can be viewed on-screen.
- Review: Cinedeck plays back shots instantly via on-screen transport controls, or via wireless physical transport controls.
- Edit: Cinedeck is the first device of its kind to enable users to edit dailies on-site. Leveraging a NLE software of choice, as well as an optional dual-boot OS.
- Cinedeck recommends using an external VGA monitor and pointing device(s) for optimal workflow.
Cinedeck Models Available in March 2010
Cinedeck is available in the following configuration:
- Cinedeck/Extreme, which offers:
- 8/10 bit 4:2:2 recording via HDMI/HDSDI
- 12bit 4:4:4 recording via dual link /3G HDSDI
- SD - PAL/NTSC
- HD - 720P 50/59.94/60 and Varicam
- HD - 1080 50/60i - 23.98/24/25/29.97/30/50/5994,60 P/PSF
*Not all framerates available in all codecs/quality settings, and results may vary depending on recording media.
Cinedeck/Extreme will be available in March 2010 in limited quantities and is priced at $7995. For more information, or to purchase Cinedeck please visit www.cinedeck.com. In the UK/Europe please contact Extreme Facilities at www.extremefacilities.co.uk
Additional models, including Cinedeck 3D, Cinedeck/2K, Cinedeck/422 and Cinedeck/DSLR will debut at NAB this year. Details will be formally announced at that time.
About CineDeck
Created by cinematographers for cinematographers, Cinedeck is redefining mobile, digital cinematography by delivering the industry’s first extremely portable, affordable camera-mountable cinema-grade DDR and editing system. For more information, please visit www.cinedeck.com.
February 05, 2010
Profile: Jake Morrison, GOAT Visual Effects Ltd.
VFX Supervisor, Jake Morrison, is a perfectionist. He’s also developed a reputation in the industry for capturing beautiful moments in unusual locations, and creating an emotional, visceral response from his audiences.
With such blockbusters as '300', 'The Rise of the Silver Surfer' and 'Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers' under his belt, every new release raises the bar and pushes his crew to set new standards for immersive, stunning visual effects. But these days, Jake is not only a perfectionist, he’s a pragmatist as well. He has to be. It’s the same story; demands on the crew are rising, but budgets are tighter than ever.
“More and more, decisions are being made in post, not prep,” says Jake. “On Speed Racer and Tooth Fairy, we made many design decisions in post that in previous years would have to have been made in prep. The industry has become much more comfortable re-editing visual effects sequences and you can't do that without very quickly visualizing these changes and generating the content as quickly as possible. It raises the questions off which shots are doable, which would be too expensive, and which ones we’d have to cut. Those are important decisions - decisions that could ultimately make or break a film.”
And the key to having enough ‘content’ to make decisions is having scenes as complete as possible, and this means compositing, tracking, monitor burn-ins - all the details that make a scene complete - needs to be done as quickly as possible.
“It used to be that, when you needed complex shots for review, you’d send them out to the big shops, compositing specialists with expensive, powerful tools. And to justify the time and money, you’d have to compile many shots to send out, not one or two. It’s expensive and time consuming, but we’d have results. Today, we don’t have the luxury of sending out all of the work, so we have to do it in-house, and quickly. Fortunately, there’s been a real democratization of VFX tools that has brought the once all powerful high-end specialty work down to the desktop. And this works really well for us.”
“During Tooth Fairy, and especially Speed Racer, we had an in-house team that was able to work efficiently and with very high quality results. We had a large number of shots to consider and didn’t have the time or the money to send them out - our in house team on Speed Racer completed over 350 shots for the movie! Doing it in-house meant we could make decisions quickly, and we saved a significant amount of money.”
mocha from Imagineer Systems was one of those tools that played a key role.
“We used mocha as a tracking engine mainly, using it for monitor burn ins right off the bat. It’s an intuitive tool, so much so that I was able to break up the larger projects into a series of tasks and tackle many of them myself. I was able to create really clean tracks, very quickly and of very high quality, then send them off to my crew. When you can give your crew such clean tracks, their jobs get much easier, and the results are stunning.”
Jake continued, “The real magic with mocha is this; the planar tracking engine is so smart, you only have to add a few key frames to create a clean track from a complex shot. And we’ve come to find that, when you generate such clean tracks from mocha and export those tracks out, you’ve saved immense amounts of time and aggravation for the rest of the crew. When it comes to Rotoscoping, you can rely on the engine to let the roto flow through the shot and you just add keyframes to guide it, which eliminates the high frequency problems that are all too common with tracking and roto. It’s all about visual harmonics and mocha works so easily within our larger workflow.”
“The most painful thing for VFX artists is; you know the hard stuff is hard, but the seemingly simple stuff is actually a whole lot harder. What’s most annoying is when someone gives you a monitor burn in and says, ‘just stick this in there,’ you know it can take days and it still might not look right. From a production point of view, if I’m an exec looking at a collection of shots, it’s hard for me to justify the actual man hours should be for what seems to be a simple monitor burn in!”
“What I love about mocha is simply this: it makes the seemingly simple stuff actually easy!”
Jake is currently wrapping up post on Iron Man 2, which is due out in theaters in May 2010, and will be back to talk with us about his experiences on this highly anticipated sequel.
January 19, 2010
Fuze Movie: Collaborative Review and Approval is Back!
A couple of years ago, I had the privilege of working with industry-renown editor, Michael Buday, as he was bringing to market a very unique and innovative app for collaborative review and approval. I was first introduced to him thru a mutual friend and client at Siggraph Boston. He was by himself, diligently working a table-top booth in the back of the hall. And I remember thinking, 'this is very cool technology. Ahead of its time, perhaps, but very, very cool!'
So we began working together, gaining some visibility in the marketplace, telling our story to everyone who'd listen. Apparently along the way, a company outside our space at the time - a conferencing tech company named CallWave - was also listening. Apparently, they also liked what they saw. So they bought it!
Here we are two years later, and I'm incredibly excited to announce that not only is Michael Buday back on the scene, but he's back with his baby - updated, re-skinned and revitalized and ready to take the post market by storm.
Fuze Movie is here, it's better than ever and is launching with the backing of strong new company - Fuze Box (formerly CallWave) and with an aggressive new road map.
Post Magazine has picked up on the story here, but we've also formally announced Fuze Movie today. The press release follows.
And stay tuned as this story is only going to get better!
Press Release: For Immediate Release
Media Contact:
Kevin M. Bourke, BourkePR
508.259.6018
Fuze Box Delivers Real Time Collaborative Review and Approval Solution to Content Creation, Post Production Markets with the Launch of Fuze Movie
Fuze Movie Solves Challenges of Remote, Distributed Review and Approval Workflow with Collaborative, Synchronized Shared Media Experience
SAN FRANCISCO, CA (January 19, 2010) – Fuze Box (www.fuzebox.com) today announced it is entering the content creation and post production marketplace with the launch of Fuze Movie. Fuze Movie is a real-time collaborative media review and approval solution created specifically for editors, VFX artists and digital media designers faced with the challenges of collaborating with numerous remote, and often widely distributed colleagues and clients. Combining an industry-unique frame accurate media player with seamless real time collaboration capabilities, Fuze Movie creates a cost-effective, efficient and easy digital media review and approval workflow experience for users.
Leveraging Skype as its communications backbone, Fuze Movie effectively eliminates the frustrations and inefficiencies of collaborating across distributed workgroups by creating a real time shared workflow environment for anyone with a computer and an Internet connection. Fuze Movie is based on the highly acclaimed review and approval solution, syncVUE, which was acquired by Fuze Box in 2007. Michael Buday, the industry renown editor who created syncVUE, is now the Company’s chief software designer and principal developer of Fuze Movie.
“As an editor myself for over 20 years, I understand the frustration and pure tedium of simply trying to get shots reviewed and approved while working with clients, crews, directors and colleagues who are spread out in multiple locations. That’s why we created Fuze Movie,” said Michael Buday, chief software designer for Fuze Box. “Today, the content creation industry has completely embraced the notion of distributed, networked and even mobile collaboration. Fuze Movie and its enhanced visual communications platform now gives them the ideal review and approval solution, specifically tailored for content creation workflow requirements and optimized for the technology and applications on which digital media artists have already invested and rely heavily.”
Fuze Movie extends the promise of powerful collaborative media sharing capabilities to the digital media review and approval workflow process and delivers an extensive list of features, including:
- A powerful media player with frame accurate control, with audio/video chat enabled by Skype;
- Ability to play any media file supported by QuickTime v7.1 or higher;
- Ability to play Windows Media and MXF files (via a plug-in from Telestream) providing compatibility with Sony’s Blu-ray based XDCAM formats;
- Ability to add time-code-based text annotations (markers), automatically propagated to all connected clients;
- Features to draw, make notes or annotations directly to the shared media for all participants to see, and add to, in real time;
- Ability to record audio notes to add comments, recommendations or ideas to recall later or share with a colleague not in the session;
- A versatile database enabling users to track all assets (media files) wherever they may reside; on a server, local or networked drive, or on the web;
- Built-in FTP function allowing media within a project to be automatically uploaded to multiple FTP locations. Clients running Fuze Movie will automatically receive media files as they become available – keeping everyone in the project in-sync;
- Printed video frames with graphics, titles, notes and timecode can be exported as HTML files for viewing locally or online;
- Upon completion, XML locator annotations can be exported to industry-popular non-linear editing solutions, such as Final Cut Pro;
- Advanced license management system enables customers to extend temporary licenses to colleagues or clients for flexible, hassle-free access to Fuze Movie.
Since its creation, Fuze Movie has been used extensively to streamline the review and approval process on a number of recent Hollywood blockbusters, including Don Cheadle’s Traitor, Terry Gilliam’s Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus and by VFX industry icon John Farhat in the just released post-apocalyptic thriller, The Book of Eli.
Pricing and Availability
Fuze Movie is available immediately and is priced based on a quarterly subscription licensing model. Discounted introductory pricing starts at $229 for a two seat, three month license and volume discounts (for quantity of seats and duration of licenses) apply. For more information, please visit www.fuzemovie.com.
About Fuze Box
Fuze Box develops and markets solutions that allow people to communicate, collaborate and conference from any device, anywhere in the world. The Company has developed a real time visual communications platform converging audio conferencing with high-definition, synchronized video and image sharing across the enterprise, the web and mobile networks. Its applications - Fuze Meeting, Fuze Messenger and Fuze Movie - deliver collaborative solutions for global professionals, from the corporate enterprise to creatives in post production, content creation and digital media design. Founded in 1998 as CallWave, Fuze Box has built a management and development team with deep experience integrating telephony, web and visual media technologies to transform how professionals and individuals communicate. For more information, please visit www.fuzebox.com.
January 15, 2010
Whatever Happened to Blood Secrets?
"We are a small band of engineers, joined by a growing circle of heretics, out to change the demographics of video forever. These are our blood secrets."
Thus began the infamous article, originally published over 15 years ago in the June 1994 issue of Videography. It was one of the most talked-about articles in the day and set the stage for this upstart startup, lead by John Molinari - the charismatic, intense and extremely articulate CEO of Media 100.
I came across the article online recently, and it got me thinking: what happened? And more curiously: where is John Molinari now?
I used to work for Media 100 and reported directly to John Molinari. I started as his director of public relations in 1999 - a little over 10 years ago. I eventually became the vice president of Corporate Communications, which meant that I was responsible for creating the message and managing the perception of Media 100, with John as my primary spokesperson.
Up until that point, I had spent most of my career working at a Boston-area PR agency, working with a wide range of technology companies - from DEC and Data General to the IBM PC Company (back when it was called that) to a host of Internet and tech startups. I'd pretty much seen it all. But it wasn't until I met Molinari did I realize just how boring and uneventful my PR career had been.
John was different; he was well-spoken, charismatic and incredibly smart and he understood PR like no executive I had ever come across. He got it. He knew how to - not only craft a story - but deliver it flawlessly. He had his stump speech, as we called it, memorized and could draw from any section of it at any time and deliver the most eloquent answers to just about any question thrown his way.
He created the Media 100 'David' to Avid's 'Goliath.' Media 100 was poised to take over the content creation marketplace. So what happened?
844/X happened.
To be continued...
Recent Posts
- Tutorial: Editing in 3D with CineForm Neo3D
- Digital Makeup, Invictus and Tracking It All with mocha
- The Media Mogul, Dave Basulto Reviews Fuze Movie
- Whatever Happened to Blood Secrets? Part II
- mocha in Action: Demo Reel
- Imagineer's mocha: Behind the Scenes of Scorsese's Shutter Island
- Cinedeck is Here
- Profile: Jake Morrison, GOAT Visual Effects Ltd.
- Fuze Movie: Collaborative Review and Approval is Back!
- Whatever Happened to Blood Secrets?
March 2010
Worth Noting
