I produced a short welcome video for the new Mission68.org website. In order to spruce it up a bit I added key phrases that were said by Mark Connelly (the lead paster guy), and then track the text so that it sort of followed Mark’s movements. Turned out pretty good I think, but you should take a look and judge for yourself.

So… click over to Mission68.org, and you’ll see the video right on the front page. Check it out, then come back here and tell me what you think!

More later!

Check it out! It will probably be the best thing you’ve seen/heard all day! (Unless, of course you’ve already seen it.)

The setup was a little tricky, but only because I’d never set this rig up before. Getting everything to align perfectly was a small chore, but if I owned the rig I’d have to do this once, and then I’m done.

The first thing I noticed right out of the gate is the construction of this bad boy is solid, and once the mount was on the EX1’s lens, and the adapter was attached there wasn’t anything precarious about this setup. Of course one of the best parts about the Letus rig is it flips the image, so I didn’t have to have an external monitor to flip upside down in order to see a properly orientated image. I did hook up a small 10” HD monitor just so I’d have a larger viewing screen, but it was a commodity more than a necessity.  I could have serviced just fine using the EX1’s 3” display.

The footage I got was great! The only issue I ran into was a few shots had some streaking-grain. I’m assuming this was my error in shooting with a shutter that was too slow, and caught the movement of the ground glass. Perhaps? I have yet to completely figure that one out.  I also lost my back focus often, but again I believe this to be a user error. Anytime I felt like I couldn’t get critical focus, it took maybe 20 seconds to stop the ground glass, double check my focus is sharp, start it back up, and on we went!

I did some POV shots that I didn’t/couldn’t do with the Letus. They were from the perspective of the person in the HazMAT suite, so I actually had to put the suite on, and shoot through the plastic face cover.  It was a little awkward with the suite, but the shots turned out great so of course it was all worth it in the end!

The final piece turned out pretty good, and the over all experience working with the rig was fantastic! If I had to purchase a cinema lens adapter again, I would certainly go with a Letus!

I’ll post the finished project when it’s online!

- Tim

You can read the article posted at StudioDaily.com.

I’m still a huge fan of Avid Media Composer, so I’m glad to see they’re making some moves in the right direction.

There’s still some debate out there as to weather or not moving away from the dongle is a good move on Avid’s part, but it personally doesn’t effect me either way. Honestly I think I’d rather have the extra USB port.

For all the Final Cut users out there: How much more likely are you to switch to Avid aftering hearing of these added features? If not at all, what would Avid have to do to win your loyalty?

- Tim Allen

The catch is, you have to vote on at least half of the films (rate them 1 to 5 stars) for your vote to count! So if you’re in the mood to watch 28 three minute short films, help us out!

And if you’ve never seen the film before, at least go check it out, and let me know what you think!

Thanks for the support!

Details on this short film at IF Factor’s Website.

If you’re not in the film scene there’s a good chance you’ve never heard of them, but I’m certain you’ve seen their work.  The Orphanage worked on movies like Vanilla Sky, Hero, The Day After Tomorrow, Hellboy, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Sin City, Aeon Flux, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest and At World’s End, Superman Returns, Night at the Museum, Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, Live Free or Die Hard and most recently Iron Man.  These guys are some of the best.

And they’re closing their doors.

Filmmaker Magazine quoted this letter Stu Maschwitz wrote as a post on his blog.

Today I had the heart-wrenching task of joining my co-founders Scott Stewart and Jonathan Rothbart in announcing that The Orphanage will be suspending operations indefinitely. We started the company ten years ago, tripled in size each year for our first three years, and worked on some of the biggest and best effects movies made. We produced shorts and even features, we spawned a commercial division and an animation company, and we hung out in the halls with Frank Miller, Ethan Hawke, and M.C. Hammer. We did DI before it was called DI, we gave birth to Magic Bullet, and we did really, really good work.

But that’s not what matters the most.

It’s no accident that our company’s name described a place for people, people who may be thrown together, but who ultimately create their own destinies. Scott once described his vision of an orphanage as “a hundred success stories waiting to happen,” and that is exactly what came to pass inside our offices. We have had the privilege of working with many “Orphans” over the years, and watching them grow and take on new responsibilities has been the single greatest part of coming to work every day.

A message to the visual effects industry: You will never find a better employee than a former Orphan.

And to the Orphans: It has been a privilege and an honor to work with you.

This stings. What does this mean for small time guys like us trying to make it in the biz? I’m pretty confident that “indefinitely” doesn’t mean forever.
Your thoughts?

- Tim

I had some HD footage from a vfx heavy feature shot with the Sony F900. I figured a girl with lots of rogue hairs in front of a green screen would be a pretty good test. I converted the captured files to Apple ProRes before sending them to Shake, and the results were fantastic!

Here’s a screen shot from the original file:

I keyed the background, tracked in a new plate, and masked out the tracking points.

This will come in handy during the post work for Fate! I’ve posted an m4v file of the final comp below. This gives a good idea of how well Shake tracked the background.