My peeps at Red Giant releases a new product today called BulletProof – an on set solution for media prep and delivery. It’s a fantastic tool for managing all of the footage you create while filming, so that you can prepare it for your editor while you’re still on set.

We recently put BulletProof to the test on our new film Spy vs Guy which you can watch right HERE.

Download the FREE BulletProof Beta right now at http://redgiant.com/bulletproof. The beta is Mac only, but a windows version is in the works.

Introducing Spy vs Guy – a new original short film from director Seth Worley and the awesome team at Red Giant Films.

A retired Russian spy hunts down sensitive technology after it falls into unsuspecting hands.

Spy Vs Guy was made with the help of Red Giant BulletProof – a complete offload, prep, and delivery system for your footage. Download the FREE BulletProof beta HERE.

Red Giant TV Episode #95: Behind the Scenes of Spy vs Guy

In this Episode of Red Giant TV, Director Seth Worley and Executive Producer Aharon Rabinowitz take you behind the scenes of the latest Red Giant Film – Spy Vs Guy.

CREDITS:

Directed by: Seth Worley

Executive Producer: Aharon Rabinowitz

Produced by: Neil Hoppe & Shannon Hoppe

____________________

Written by:

Seth Worley

Micah Lanier

Neil Hoppe

Aharon Rabinowitz

____________________

Director of Photography: Chris Adams

Production Designer: Paul Conrad

Music by: Ben Worley

___________________

Cast:

Spy: Steve Taylor

Guy: Micah Lanier

Young Spy: Ben Worley

Quartermaster: Paul Conrad

Driver: Ben Moon

__________________

Visual Effects:

Seth Worley

Harry Frank

Matt Hail

Aharon Rabinowitz

__________________

3D Animation and Visual Effects:

Chris Schmidt

Greyscale Gorilla

GreyscaleGorilla.com

Coalter Digital

CoalterDigital.com

________________

Additional Design Elements:  Micah Lanier

________________

Props by:

Neil Hoppe

Ben Worley

________________

2nd Unit Director: Nick Serban IV

Gaffer: Shawn Jenkins

Assistant Camera: Justin Wylie, Jarret Rawlings

Sound: Mike Psanos, Ron Dicianni

Script Supervisor: Jeremy Flick

Makeup Artist: Amy Young

__________________

PA’s:

Caleb McLaughlin

Sam Pierce

Katie DeCillo

Ben Sherrill

Aaron Williams

Grayson Propst

Jayme Powell

Nayt Cochran

__________________

Extras:

Amy Young

Andrew Hudson

Justin Wylie

Katie Decillo

Lorelei Hoppe

Christine Gibson

Aaron Williams

Leah Conder

J.R. Knowles

Hadley Sintic

Charles Myers

Grayson Propst

Becca Castle

Jayme Powell

__________________

Special Thanks:

Re:Vision FX

VideoCopilot

Maxon

Imagineer Systems

Vid-Atlantic

Rampant Design Tools

__________________

Special Thanks:

Gisela Moore & The TN Film Commision

Chuck Sherrill & the TN State Library & Archive

Colleen Tickle

Marilyn Edwards

Rory Rowan

David Tinsley & Ragtop Picture Cars

Leonard Keeler & Special Security Inc.

Ron Shuff

Jimmy Campbell

Chris McCollum

Chad Andrews

Scott Hamilton

Matt Worley

Stu Maschwitz

___________________

Made with

Red Giant BulletProof

_________________

Made with:

Magic Bullet Suite

Trapcode Suite

Keying Suite

Effects Suite

PluralEyes 3

_________________

Learn more about Filmmaking and Visual Effects at:

RedGiant.com/films

Let me start off this post by saying that I do not work for Adobe. I have never been an Adobe Employee, and probably never will be one after this article goes out. I don’t owe Adobe anything… other than my career, as their software has allowed me to support myself and ultimately start a family. For me, that buys Adobe is a certain benefit of the doubt, until proven that they don’t deserve it.

Adobe is a company that makes tools we all love and rely on for our work in video post production. But with their latest announcement – that from here on in, all software will only be available through subscription – a lot of people are upset and feeling betrayed. I want to try to address it all in a balanced way. I’ll ask that you read all the way through because I am going to start with why, about certain things, you’re totally wrong. Then, I’ll move into why you’re also totally right – and have the right to feel angry and demand more.

I want to own my software!

Before we start – lets get something out of the way. YOU DO NOT, NOR EVER HAVE, OWNED YOUR ADOBE SOFTWARE. You have licensed it. You must follow certain guidelines in using it (such as not copying your software and giving it to a friend) or you invalidate that license. That doesn’t mean it’s even close to the same thing as the kind of licensing model Creative Cloud uses, but it please stop talking about ownership. It’s an illusion.

I recognize there is a difference between Creative Suite and Creative Cloud, in terms of how you pay and use it, but lets just stop calling it “ownership” and address the real issue:

The non-cloud versions of the Creative Suites allow you to continue to create an access your work in perpetuity without ever having to pay again. But If you have no choice but to use the creative cloud, should you stop paying, you lose both the ability to create and to open previously created work.

As I understand it, this is true and it totally sucks. Just so you know – I’m on your side. I am not happy about this. But as you’ll see, there’s more to it than that.

Why you are totally wrong about Creative Cloud being about Corporate Greed. And why you are totally wrong about it being a bad idea with little or no merit.

Let’s look at the result of that older Creative Suite (non-subscription) kind of system and how it’s effected things.

Many people have stated that one of the reasons they hate the Cloud business model is that they are being forced to upgrade – when they usually only upgrade every 2-3 versions of the Creative Suite. And it’s understandable that people would do this to save money. Some can’t afford it and some just don’t want to pay for what they feel has little added value. But of course, if you are saving money, that means Adobe is not making money.

So basically, a very large portion of the customer base does not adopt new versions.

This concept of non-frequent adoption rates works in a large consumer space where there are tons of customers and you don’t need most of them to upgrade to make the product viable. Apple doesn’t need everyone to upgrade to the latest iPhone. There are enough people out there buying them that they are still making tons of money.

But this doesn’t work in a smaller professional space where there are a very limited number of customers. Non-adoption kill products – or it kills any real development on that product. There are not that many video professionals in the grand scheme of things.

So if the development of Adobe video software is going to stay viable, it becomes one of two options:

1. Get the professional space to pay more and/or become more vested in that product – like using a subscription model that may or may not cost a little more.

2. Make the software more appealing and usable to more people to broaden the amount of users – in other words, make it usable by non-professionals so that the product can sell to a wider audience.

Apple’s Approach:  FCPX

For years, everyone complained that they wanted to just buy FinalCut Pro – not the whole FinalCut Studio. It was bloated with software they did not need, and that they did not wish to pay for.

But the problem was that if  Apple was going to make FCP stand-alone, then they were going to make a third  or less of the amount of money with every unit sold. In the end, Apple did just that, making the product stand-alone, thus making it cheaper to acquire FinalCut Pro. But the cost of making it cheaper was that they also had to make it more consumer friendly so that it could widen the amount of people using it (i.e., So that they could sell more units to cover the cost of lowering the price.)

For a lot of people, that didn’t work out too well.  I happen to like Final Cut Pro X, but many professionals don’t feel it’s a professional editing tool anymore. Many of you jumped over to Adobe, who continued to address your professional needs.

Adobe’s Approach: Creative Cloud

In this situation, Adobe is taking a different approach. Yes – they are forcing professional users like yourself to adopt new versions, thereby forcing you to invest, whole hog,  in the development of the software you need.

You see, Adobe is a publicly traded company, and because of this, they can’t admit weakness. When publicly traded companies admit weakness, their stock values go down. And if you’ve ever worked with a  big corporation, you know it’s all about spin. You must talk about the positives, unless you absolutely must address the negatives. It’s corporate culture.

This requirement to talk about only the positives means Adobe can only sell you on all of the great benefits of the Creative Cloud on how awesome will be for you. (And it really does offer a lot – and when I was running my own shop this would have been my preferred way to license software.)

But because it would be a sign of weakness – Adobe cannot sell Creative Cloud on what happens if you, the customers, don’t buy in – which is that the software you love and rely on to make a living could stop being developed  – or worse End of Life’d. Saying this kind of thing would make them look weak.

Think about how that Flash on Mobile situation played itself out. Despite what we all knew, Adobe could not admit Flash Mobile was going to die – until it finally, suddenly did.

So – keeping that in mind… One of the things Adobe can’t say (because its so negative, and points out disappearing customers) is that they are very willing to let enthusiasts, and the low end slow to buy user of their products die off, to ensure the future viability of their product.

And frankly, if it means that the video line of tools – a product that comparatively produces virtually no money for Adobe  – continues to be developed – it’s may be a fair price to pay. I would hope for a better solution, but at the end of the day, you have to recognize that this is professional software that people use to make a living – not toys. It sucks because I started out as an enthusiast and I want there to be more enthusiasts. Adobe should want this too – as enthusiasts often turn into customers. But, that said,  if you want to stay in the game, you have to accept that the playing field has to change – at least slightly.

But that doesn’t mean that that Adobe doesn’t have a lot of crap to work out.

Why you are right to be angry and why Adobe needs to fix this:

Adobe totally sucks at communication  – there, I said it -  and that means that we have no idea what to expect. There’s often conflicting info as one group says one thing and another says something entirely different. And when they do talk, as a company, I often don’t understand most of what they have to say. They use big, corporate words that I am pretty sure are meaningless.

That video with the Stylus and the Napoleon Ruler was awesome – right up until the presenter said he likes to use it when he “ideates.”

Ideate?!

Jeez! What does that even mean?! I have always felt that Adobe suffers from some form of corporate Tourette’s syndrome. They literally cannot talk to their customers without vomiting up confusing language. “Ideate” is not a word artists would ever use to describe the creative process (even my spell checker is dubious on the word). That’s a word corporate entities use – and it has nothing to do with what I do or who I am.

Individually, the people that I know at Adobe are truly wonderful. They care about an open dialogue with us. I’ve known many of them for years – Even from before they worked at Adobe.

However, those individuals are not in control of the overall message – they work for a big corporation that doesn’t think too carefully about backing up their business plans (even ones that are truly awesome for us) with communication to make their customers feel safe – and that is critical to our relationship with them.

Almost everything we’re seeing about pricing of Creative Cloud and how it lays out over several years is conflicting – and is coming from external sources – not adobe. And that’s inexcusable. FIX THIS ADOBE! TALK TO US! WE WANT TO TRUST YOU, BUT YOU ARE MAKING IT REALLY HARD.

Subscription is good for business

One very important reason Adobe needs to move to subscription – and you will never hear this from them: They area a publicly traded company, and software companies that run on a subscription model are usually valued at 9-10x their revenue, where as regular software companies with traditional models (Like Microsoft and Adobe) are only valued at 4-6X. Adobe’s stock has been stagnant. By adding more value to the company’s stock, it ensures longevity for the company – meaning they will be here a long time producing tools we need.

You know what? I am all for this. Shocker!!! I want Adobe to have a great future (and you should too). I depend on them. But…

Adobe, I support your growth and long-term health so long as you don’t ignore the needs of the users in the process. Recognize that from the reaction you’re getting, you’re just not there yet. There are the usual complainers out there, but legitimate, long-time customers are also unhappy. You need to address at least some of what I am about to tell you before the masses will be able to step into the future with you.

Adobe, We Need to Talk

Since Adobe hasn’t started a dialogue that gives us much to work with,  maybe we have to start it ourselves -  with well laid out rational thought. In the hopes that Adobe will read this, I’ve started asking users why they fear CreativeCloud. And here are the answers I got back (with my own thoughts added in):

What if there is an issue with getting your license to work/connect and it won’t start up?
I’ve had issues like this with software that was not cloud connected at all. This is just something software companies have to support better. Adobe – you need something 24/7 for issues like this. But just FYI – normally, as I understand it, you must connect once in 30 days – not with every use of the software.

I won’t be able to open my work if I quit the cloud.
Serious problem. I got nothing. Adobe, talk me through this. It’s terrifying. (Important to note  – you can rejoin Creative Cloud at any time, so as long as you can pay, you will be able to access your work. Still this is not great.)

Will the price go up once we’re all in?

&

With no pressure, will adobe get lazy and let the software languish?
It may take time, but hopefully there are some competitors out there that will see an opportunity to create some decent competition. Also, since Adobe has always put money back into the development of their software, I have no reason YET to believe that they won’t continue to do this.  I have faith. There it is. It may be misplaced, but I don’t think so.

I won’t own it. I want to own my software!
We discussed this. You already don’t own it. You want to own the creative experience, and to have the freedom to open your projects forever. Yup. It’s an issue. Adobe has to prove that either the value of Creative Cloud is worth this trouble, or provide a better solution.

I’ll have to pay for software I don’t need.
For many of us – this is true. It sucks. It’s my personal feeling that if Adobe is locking us into paying for our software perpetually, and they are guaranteed money to support those products that we use, they should not need us to buy everything. There should be a video bundle…etc. We should only be required to perpetually support the products we will perpetually use.

It costs too much.
If you’re a hobbyist and you just don’t want to pay a lot, I’ve got nothing. You’re wrong. The software has real value. I pay my bills using this software. But, if you fit into the category of a person only requiring certain kinds of software to do their job (example video production), as above, I’ve given my 2 cents. It’s a fair complaint – and probably the biggest one Adobe needs to address.

Are there local installers? It could take a long time to download the same installer for several machines.
Adobe? What have you got? Not everyone has FIOS 150/50. Give us local installers.

I hate monthly fees.
Me too, and yet, so much of my life works that way. Cable, internet, phone. Get over it. If you’re a responsible business person, you can budget and put money away, instead of spending the same money all at once.

Support is based on when you installed. Since Creative Cloud is perpetual, what is the support plan?
This is my own concern. Under the current licensing setup, you get 90 days of installation support. So what counts as installation? Adobe is selling the idea of frequent updates. Updates can cause problems. Shouldn’t that restart the cycle in case there is something wrong? My costs are perpetual. Shouldn’t support just be perpetual?

Why is there a price difference outside US?
I haven’t seen this, but seriously? Didn’t we learn anything from that whole Australia thing? No good reason for this, that I can think of. Get it together Adobe. If this is not true, get the info out there. And if it is, please explain it.

Creative Cloud is not available in all countries.
This makes no sense to me – but I don’t understand what a big company has to deal with then selling to multiple countries. Apple can’t sell things in certain countries either. Not my area of expertise.

Sorry if I have missed some other concerns.  It’s all a lot to take in.

Anyway, lets stop complaining about “Ownership,” and focus on the issues that will actually make the creative cloud experience better and worthwhile for all of us. It’s here, and, in my opinion, absolutely necessary to guarantee the future of the tools we need every day.  I don’t have answers, but until now, I’ve felt that many of us are asking the wrong questions and making assumptions without understanding the bigger picture.

Now let’s bring these thoughts to Adobe, a company I truly believe in, but which sometimes needs a good swift kick in the ass to help them figure out what we ACTUALLY need.

Thanks for reading through this. Hopefully it’s helped you think about this a little more -  or, more likely, helped you decide I am a ginormous jackass. Either way, thanks.

Hey folks – just a heads up that after our February meeting of After Effects New York with guest speaker Andrew Kramer, I am stepping out of a leadership role there.

Over six years ago, I was approached by Dennis Radeke at Adobe about starting a New York After Effects user group. I sorta said “No,” but then fell into making it happen anyway. He was very persistent, and we had a free location, so it was hard to keep to that “no.” Soon after, Jim Geduldick and then Dave Gittleman took on co-leadership with me and together we’ve had over 50 amazing meetings.

February marks AENY’s 6-year anniversary. For me it’s a big milestone. I never thought AENY would be as popular as it was. We started with 110 people at our first meeting and have had as many as 350 people at meetings. We’ve had great sponsors so far – Maxon, Adobe, and GridIron Software helped us to make this group financially viable, and they and many other companies have given us some fantastic prizes as giveaways for each meeting. It gives me a huge amount of pleasure each month to see everyone enjoying the awesome mograph, 3D, VFX, hardware and filmmaking presentations we’re able to book.

I started AENY before I had kids and a full time gig, and while I love to be a part of the team running the group, it takes a lot of work to make a user group successful. I don’t think most people realize how much hustling goes into it. Given how much my life has changed since we started, I haven’t been able to give the group as much love as I’ve wanted to – just enough to keep it alive (thanks to Jim and Dave’s direction and support), but not enough to really help it grow.

It’s my hope that by letting my colleagues and some new folks take it from here, they can build it into something even better than it is. Not that it isn’t already awesome, and if you’re a NY-based AE user and not going – what’s wrong with you?! I certainly see a ton of potential, and knowing how devoted Dave and Jim and some the rest of the AENY regulars are, I know AENY will do some amazing things.

Happy 6th Anniversary AENY – it’s been awesome. I look forward to sitting in the crowd to enjoy some cool AE presentations in the future.

Red Giant presents Tempo, a new short film from the creators of Plot Device.

(I’m one of those guys)

Description: In this sci-fi action thriller, a scientist must prevent a new, powerful technology from falling into the wrong hands.

Learn more about filmmaking and visual effects at http://redgiant.com/films.

Credits:

Director: Seth Worley
Executive Producer: Aharon Rabinowitz
Producers: Neil Hoppe, Shannon Hoppe
Writers: Seth Worley, Neil Hoppe, Aharon Rabinowitz
Associate Producers: Mark Cowart, Josh Auman
Director Of Photography: Mark Cowart
Art Designer: Paul Conrad
Music: Ben Worley
Visual Effects: Seth Worley, Harry Frank, Aharon Rabinowitz, Matt Hail, Cameron Childs
Gaffer/B Camera Operator: Chris Adams
Assistant Camera: Justin Wylie
Sound: Matt Hail
Grips: Cameron Childs, Nick Serban IV
Script Supervisor: Jeremy Flick
Production Assistants: Tabby Reed, Joshua Briggs, Caleb Watson, Alex Keller

Filmed at BE Music & Entertainment, The Terrazzo in Nashville TN

Created with Trapcode Suite 12
Also Created with Magic Bullet Suite, Effects Suite, Keying Suite, PluralEyes, Retrograde

Special Thanks: Crumplepop, Re:Vision FX, Video CoPilot, Rampant Design, Smartsound, Michael Blanton, Kevin Jarrell, Brent Hoppe, Dennis Worley, Doug Paisley, Eddie Lunn III, Mike Fernandez, Ray Mullican, Jake Stansell, David Coalter, Juan Salvo, Max Taylor
Special Thanks: Peder Norrby

Cast:

Harp: Darren Vandergriff
Burke: Emily Landham
Melnik: Chip Arnold
Grenade Thug: Neil Hoppe
Paint Can Thug: Micah Lanier
Bees Thug: Ben Worley
Scientists: Matt Hail, Cameron Childs, Nick Serban IV, Paul Conrad
Harp Stand-Ins: Micah Lanier, Ben Worley

Learn more about filmmaking and visual effects at http://redgiant.com/films.

Using a single fire movie (one for each test) as the sprite for the particles, in conjunction with the time sampling method called Random Play Once, this effect can be achieved.

This is a fairly simple particle system with no Aux particles. Just a good source video.

ReelSmart Motion Blur, from RevisionFX, was used to give some added motion blur – which really helps sell the effect.

JUST ADDED – 2 tests where a combo of Particular's Physics time factor and Twixtor are used together to slow some effects down.

Test created by Aharon Rabinowitz.

Learn more about Red Giant Trapcode Particular at: http://www.redgiantsoftware.com/products/all/trapcode-particular/
Learn More about Re:VisionFX ReelSmart Motion Blur at: http://www.revisionfx.com/products/rsmb/
Learn More about Re:VisionFX Twixtor at:http://www.revisionfx.com/products/twixtor/

This has been a long time coming. Never got around to posting. Below you can find our latest film, Form 17, which I executive produced and co-wrote with Seth Worley (Director) and Neil Hoppe (Producer). This is our 3rd film working together, and in my opinion, the best, in terms of story and flow. Don’t forget to watch the Making of video below!

Form 17 from Red Giant on Vimeo.

Episode 88: The Making of Form 17 from Red Giant on Vimeo.

Hey folks – so I’ve been Playing around with Videocopilot’s Element 3D, and really enjoying breaking objects apart. Since I realize that so many of the people getting started with Element are new to 3D, I wanted to give you all some fun stuff to shatter. These are just some basic primitives that I have shattered up into iterations of 200, 500 and 1000 pieces. And to make it even better, there are 2 materials – an inside and an outside. That way when it shatters, you can do some cool stuff like the image above.

You can download the shatter object presets  HERE.

Watch this tutorial to learn how to use the Element Model presets:

Though I may not be doing this is the best way possible, watch this tutorial to learn how I shattered these objects and how you can too:

Get the Xplode plugin HERE.

If you know texture mapping in C4D, and you open the C4D files, you’ll notice that there’s some oddness with the materials in each shattered object where some of the MAT’s are reversed, and they have bad UVW mapping. That’s what causes the issues I tried to work around in the video. Ron Trevino showed me how to fix this, but it has to happen one material at a time. With objects that have a 1000 pieces, it’s a lot of work. I reached out to Xplodes creator, and he’s working on a fix. Still, even as is, I think these will help get you started.

If people are really into these, I’ll add more primitives.

There’s a revolution in the After Effects world – a revolution of speed. Unless you’ve been living in a cave, you caught that VideoCopilot and Red Giant released some ridiculously fast OpenGL powered Plug-ins that promise to change the future for AE users. Moving from the CPU to the GPU is clearly the wave of the future, and that future starts now. Just in case you missed it, I’m talking about VideoCopilot’s Element3D and Red Giant’s Trapcode Mir.

I should also point out that Mettle beat most everyone to the punch with ShapeshifterAE.

I have not heard a lot of chatter about ShapeShifter, but it’s definitely worth looking at, no question.

So while VideoCopilot and Red Giant aren’t the first to release OpenGL Plug-ins, these two products are the first to show a promising future for fast rendering of 3D in AE for wide use in motion graphics and visual effects. I say  this because they fulfill the following criteria – both:

• Are useful
• Are super fast
• Have a High adoption rate
• Are fairly stable (so far – time will really tell on this one)

Useful and super fast are great, but the one thing I would not trade speed for is for stability. There’s nothing I hate more then losing my work, or hitting render and going out to lunch, only to find out I crashed. So far, both of these plug-ins have been stable, and I’ve used them a bunch – Mir more than Element.

I also consider wide adoption as an important factor because wide adoption means the product has a good chance of standing the test of time – continuing to get updates and refreshes as needed. Also when you go from shop to shop, the same tools you know and love are always there for you because everyone’s got it – which means you have what you need to do your job. It also means it’s worth your time to learn how to use. Nobody wants to spend time learning tools they know that they won’t use.

I think both products have their pluses and minuses – and there’s always more that you want out of any product once you get started and become filled with ideas.  But that’s the nature of doing what we do. What’s in there is never enough.

Regardless, it’s an exciting time. Here’s an example of something I did in AE last week, using Element 3D (first ship) and Mir (Terrain and 2nd Ship):

I want everything on the menu!

But now I’m spoiled. Some of my favorite plugins feel like a u-haul truck, now that I’ve been given a sports car. I’m betting you feel the same way too. You might even be asking “If OpenGL is so awesome, why aren’t all plug-ins just being ported to OpenGL? Can’t the engineers just write code to have the mathematics and algorithms passed to the GPU instead of the CPU?”

Good question. The answer is, unfortunately, no. It’s not that easy. I know this because I had the same questions, so I sat down to breakfast with a former head of DirectX at Microsoft who knows a lot about GPU.

It was an enlightening discussion, and, frankly, a bit above me – but I’m going to do my best to translate all of that into simple English, using an analogy. Any mistakes I make here are mine – not his:

The only man for the job.

Imagine you own a company with exactly one employee who does everything. He’s a generalist who can do a lot of things well enough. When you have a big complex project to complete, you have to lay out the instructions step-by-step. If the tasks are not done in the right order, it will all fall apart.  And how fast that project gets done depends mostly on how fast your one employee can work. It’s brute force – powering through each task and moving on to the next, working towards an end goal. At the same time that he’s doing all of these tasks, this employee is also driving a car, talking on a phone with his wife, paying bills, and maybe having an argument over email with his son who insists on going to art school, instead of going pre-med. He’s carrying a lot on his shoulders, and there is only so fast he can work no matter how good an employee he is. This is CPU processing.

There is no CPU in TEAM (well, maybe).

Now imagine you have a whole team of employees who are specialized and dedicated to just this kind of project. How would you do things differently? Well, you’re first thought might be to just dole out equal amounts of work to each of them, and let them go to town. But that won’t work. The tasks have to be done in sequence, one at a time. It’s how the project was designed. So even with an army, they’d still have to march single file. Oh – did I mention they only speak french? Also, that first generalist dude keeps trying to do everyone else’s job, because no one has properly explained to him that he has to learn to let go, so that other people more suited for the job can get to work.

Thus the dilemma. Software programmed for a CPU doesn’t translate to the GPU platform (at least not well).

Group Therapy

The solution, then, would be to completely redesign the project in such a way that it is targeted at the team of specialized individuals, instead of the one generalist dude. What must be accounted for is that the tasks can be done by multiple people and even have some that can even be completely dropped if an employee is out for his daughter’s dance recital (example: losing shadows or reflections when the gfx card does not support it). You also have to make sure the employees have good communication with each other so that they can work together. And sometimes, you even let that original guy (CPU) pitch in, if the team can’t handle a certain task. This is GPU processing.

So in short, to get OpenGL speeds, the plug-ins need to be re-written, mostly from scratch, with OpenGL in mind. It’s a major undertaking.

I kept it simple, stupid.

This is a major oversimplification and I’m sure I didn’t quite get it all right – but hopefully it helps you understand what’s going on. Some of you may also have noticed that I totally glossed over multi-core processors and hyper-threading. And CUDA (which until last week I was sure was a kind of cheese). Shut up. You’re ruining my already poor analogy.

If you are a GPU expert, I welcome your input. Otherwise I’ll go back to animating now. Thanks.

Hey folks – I’m proud to share ‘Order Up,’ a new short that I co-wrote with director Seth Worley. We also worked together on Plot Device and are working on a new film as well.

So I went to the Webby Awards this week, to celebrate Plot Device’s win for Best Editing. Yeah… I’m not an awards show kind of guy, but it was pretty fun. I walked the Red Carpet, which was just bizarre. Honestly, the part I most enjoyed was getting these great photos of my wife and me:

You may have heard that the short film I executive produced and co-wrote with Director Seth Worley, won a Webby for “Best Editing.” Other than finding Seth to direct the film, I really had nothing to do with it. It was all his talent once the shoot began. Still, I’m feeling pretty good about it, but, most of all, very thankful.

Since I was a teenager, all I wanted to do was make movies, but I soon realized that my talents lay elsewhere – visual effects, motion graphics…etc. Having the chance to work with people as talented as the Plot Device team, and having the backing of Red Giant to do it, is a dream come true.

Anyway, thank you you to everyone who supported our efforts to tell this story. Seth and I have a lot more planned, with one film already near completion, and another shoot already scheduled for the next one. Coincidentally, that shoot takes place in Portland the day of the Webby’s, so neither Seth nor I can attend. I guess Patten Oswalt will have to get along without us. No worries – someone from Red Giant will be there to represent.

I guess that’s what happens when you hit this button:

I’m on vacation, and then heading out to NAB, so I won’t belabor this… Plot Device was nominated for a Webby award. The award is for Best Editing, and so, the nomination really goes to Seth Worley. Read more about it HERE in my post at the Red Room Blog. It’s all in that post, however, I will reiterate just this:

I’m not a fan of telling people to rock the vote, and I’m even less a fan of when people email, asking me to vote for a creation in a contest without even considering that there may be someone who is truly more worthy of the win. But if you believe in the importance of acknowledging great work, then head over to the Webby Awards and check out all of the nominations. If, after that, you think Seth deserves the award, great – vote for Plot Device. If not – vote for someone else that worked hard and deserves the recognition that editors so often don’t get.

Hey folks – if your coming out to NAB, I’ll be there on Monday and Tuesday, working at the Red Giant Booth in the South Lower Hall – Booth # SL2124. Please stop by and say hello. Here’s my schedule:

Monday 4/16

• 10 AM -12 PM
• 1 PM – 2 PM

IMPORTANT: I’ll be giving a theater demo at 10AM.

Monday Night: I’ll be attending the Media Motion Ball. It’s a pretty cool event. Hope you can make it. I’m bringing a special guest with me, and maybe some cool surprises.

Tuesday 4/17

• 12 PM – 2PM
• 3 PM – 5 PM

Some of the best 3D work I’ve ever seen. Great action and fantastic virtual cinematography. Just wow.

Do me a favor, after watching this, check out all of the extras at the film’s site and then head over to Wes Ball’s site and learn more about him and his work.

Have you ever been on the bus/train home and said the above, knowing you would either have to go back to work, or accept hours of lost time?

Recently, my wife called me and said that she couldn’t be home on time, and asked me to pick up the kids from a birthday party. I lost track of time, and after rushing out I realized I forgot to hit the “Squeeze” button on a really heavy compression project. So as soon as I got the kids into bed, I went back to work to hit a button. Let me repeat that, I went back to work just to hit a fricken button. Fortunately, I work about 20 minutes from home. But that still comes to about 45 minutes of time spent very much not relaxing.

If you’re like me and  often have to duck out from work for a life crisis, or you have to duck out on life for a work crisis, consider that there might just be a better way. I recently asked my followers on twitter for a good recommendation on a way to control my computer remotely. I got a lot of suggestion, but my favorite was LogMeIn – A FREE app for computer, iphone and iPad. Basically, if you have a wifi connection, you can control your desktop computer as if you were in front of it on a different computer or mobile device. Here’s a videos that explains the LogMeIn product line (though, again, I use the free version):

And if you want to skip right to seeing it on an iPad:

I’ve used it to start an After Effects render, start a compression job in Sorenson Squeeze, send large files, start a big download and more. It actually allowed me to travel on a family trip recently, without a laptop, which, when you have 2 kids in tow, is just one more thing to pull out for the TSA to bug you about.

Anyway, just wanted to share. Hope it helps you the way it helps me.

We get pretty caught up in our motion graphics and VFX. It’s hard to find the satisfaction we get from our work, from anything else in life. But I’m here to tell you, there’s a lot more out there. I’m blessed to be a husband and father, but only because a few years back I made the active decision to make my family and personal life a priority over work – meaning turning down a lot of work I would have enjoyed and profited from.

It’s a few years later, and I can now look back on the decisions I’ve made with some clarity (and a severe lack of sleep). Do I regret it? Not a chance. And (forgetting for just a moment that I absolutely love my job) here’s just a few reasons why, all from the last few days…

From Left to Right: 1. My daughter uses a cat as a towel to clean Balmex off her hands (it’s poisonous to cats, so there was a midnight cat bath). 2. A picture of me and my daughter, side-by-side. Sadly she has my looks to look forward to in the years to come. 3. My son, Age 1 month – 1 year. My wife did this as a photography project. It was my job to keep him from falling off the couch. I got it right 11 out of 12 times. 4. My son at dinner last night. There was a lot of cleanup. I had to change afterwards.

So… in summation… Don’t wait to realize life has passed you by as you sat in front of a computer moving pixels around. Make your personal life, whatever that is for you (spouse, partner, kids, friends…whatever), a priority. You deserve it.

Next week, the entire Red Giant team will be getting together for our annual company meeting. We’re a virtual company with people in NY, Utah, Ottawa, Halifax, Oregon, California, the UK and more. We regularly communicate with each other, via Skype, iChat, gotomeeting.com and through some older tech called the telephone.

But there is no substitution for meeting face to face, and talking through the issues. I’m really looking forward to it. And I’m really looking forward to bringing you with me. And by that I mean – I want to hear your ideas and thoughts about Red Giant. What we’re doing right, wrong, too much of or not enough.

If you could do me a personal favor, please post your ideas and thoughts in the comments area below. I want to take them with me to discuss at the meeting.

Thanks.

P.S.: Red Giant is always listening. We read EVERYTHING that comes in via email, blog comments, tutorial comments, twitter and facebook. And you can always use the phone or live chat for support. The reason I’m doing this is because I want to come into this meeting with your ideas and thoughts fresh in my mind. So, basically, you’re helping me do my job better.

This amazing short film made me sad. I don’t find most CGI creatures to be all that realistic or scary, but as a kid, I remember those rubber mask monsters being terrifying, even when I could see the zipper going up it’s back.

End of a Scarer from Chris O'Hara on Vimeo.

Animated graduate film from D.L.I.A.D.T (2008) – A hollywood monster tries to prove hes still scary

Last week, thanks to Josh Diamond, I saw this fantastic video, called Space Stallions on YouTube:

What’s so great about it is that it feels authentic from a storytelling perspective – at least within the aesthetic of 80′s cartoons. Visually, the characters were a little to obviously 3D with toon shading, but outside that, it was dead on. You could easily have seen this show any day of the week, along side He-Man and the Master of the Universe, Voltron, Mask, or SilverHawks.

The point is, (Other than the 3D stuff) it didn’t feel like a parody. It felt like the real deal. But why? What’s the line between authentic imitation and absurd parody?

I think the answer is love and understanding. I am not trying to get all touchy feelly here. I’m not saying you have to have better relationships with your fellow man to make a good cartoon.

I mean that when you are trying to create something in a particular style, you have to have a love for that genre and an understanding of what made it what it was, if you ever want to re-create it in a way that doesn’t scream parody.

When Seth Worley and I were interviewed about making Plot Device, we were asked about having made fun of the various film genres. But the truth is this: We were absolutely not making fun of anything. We took our favorite ideas and moments from the films we love and we placed someone normal into them. What made the situations funny was not that we exaggerated the way in which these genres were portrayed – In fact Seth took great effort to deliver these scenarios exactly the way they have been served up before now – filming techniques, acting styles…etc.

What made the film funny was seeing the genres viewed through the eyes of the normal guy experiencing the abnormal. He allows us to step back and look at the genre with new eyes. If we had gone over the top, it would not have been funny because it would be about cheep jokes, and not about the truth. Instead, through Ben, our lead character, we get to look at how funny and formulaic genre films can be, especially when someone doesn’t want to play along.

In the same way, what makes the above video so funny is that we’re looking at something from a different era through they eyes of today. Space Stallions is totally true to itself and dead on for the period it represents (don’t believe me, watch THIS). We’re not laughing at it – we’re laughing at ourselves and the entire genre. I took that stuff so seriously as a kid – at that age it felt so serious and dire at every turn. More importantly, every show seemed different, but, in hindsight, was totally the same – and looking at it today, it’s hilarious.

Part of my job at Red Giant has me looking through the content on Vimeo to see what people are working on. It’s how I find great user stories and great people to work with. But also how I find inspiration – often from people who are still in school, working on student projects.  Students have a very different bottom line than professional artists, in that they can spend a lot of time making art for art’s sake, rather than worrying about satisfying a client’s needs.

Yesterday, I came across ‘No Robots,’ a short animated film (also the name of my high school rock band):

No Robots from YungHan Chang on Vimeo.

A student film, from San Jose State University, which is directed by Kimberly Knoll (USA) and 張永翰 Yunghan Chang (Taiwan)

Aside from being beautiful to look at, this is a great example of simple storytelling, that gives a huge amount of flavor to the world in which it takes place. I love that there’s no real speaking in this piece – or at least none that matters. If you can bring a short film to the point where words are not needed, and it still carries the kind of emotional weight contained in ‘No Robots,’ (or if you are even able to simply tell a clear story), you’ve achieved a great victory.

Yesterday, Angie Taylor tweeted out these cool bokeh textures from JenniStock on deviant art:

Lot’s of cool things you can do with this, such as applying and animating After Effects’ Turbulent Displace. Or you can use them as displacement maps. Or as textures for VideoCopilot’s Optical Flares. Be creative.

JenniStock’s got a lot of great free textures and art to check out.  She has the following rules on a lot of her work:

Rules:
You can use it wherever you want (also commercial use etc.)
You don’t have to ask me
Credit me please, if it’s possible
Give me a link to your picture, if it’s possible (I’d like to see your work)
If you download it, please fave it
Be creative

If you’re not already a member of DeviantArt.com, it’s worth joining. There are tons of inspiring visuals there.

Just saw both of these videos this morning and felt inspired. One is done with camera angles and well planned concept, prop and set design, the other is entirely digital and abstract.

NatGeo ID’s 2012 from Lumbre on Vimeo.

2012 – National Geographic Channels International commissioned LUMBRE to create four new ID’s.

Plexus Test from VinhSon Nguyen on Vimeo.

Just messing around with Plexus for the very first time and decided to play around with some vintage elements too.

It’s been a while since I’ve blogged, but today, I caught this on Photoshop product manager John Nack’s Blog, and I wanted to make sure more After Effects users saw this.

MGMT – All We Ever Wanted Was Everything from oneedo on Vimeo.

Taken from the album Late Night Tales – MGMT
Info at www.latenighttales.co.uk

Directed by Ned Wenlock
Character animation by Rodney Selby
Produced by Georgiana Taylor

This is such an inspiring piece. I love how simple it seems on the surface, though clearly there’s a high level of complexity going on here. It’s well-executed and uses seemingly simple effects to transition between beautifully-crafted elements.

Read more about how the work was done, HERE at Motionographer.

Many of you may have caught that I was working on a film with Seth Worley for Red Giant. I’ve not been able to say much until now, but today, the film has been released online as a part of the Magic Bullet Suite 11 Launch. Here it is:

I am truly blessed to be working at Red Giant, a company that supports creativity in it’s employees. They backed this film and gave me full autonomy in making it happen. Furthermore, I want to thank Stu Maschwitz for believing in the project, so much so, that he was willing to let us put our work together with his labor of love, Magic Bullet Suite 11 – software you must have if you are a filmmaker.

Behind the Scenes

On the non-RG side of things, I can’t thank Director Seth Worley enough for making this happen. While he and I co-wrote the film, he, along with his incredible team, did the heavy lifting. That’s not false modesty – my job was pretty easy compared to what they had to do on a very limited budget. I literally sat back and watched as they turned our ideas into a beautiful reality. I did get very involved with color correction, but really and truly, this is a Seth Worley Film – which is the kind of film I wanted to make. He is a director who’s work I love and respect, and that’s the reason I hired him for this project. Watch the Behind the scenes documentary right below this text to learn more about how and why we did it all.