the BROADer issue

'Avatar' visual effects explored and discussed on TV

James Cameron's new blockbuster movie, 'Avatar' is the talk of the town this week, especially as it had its world premiere in London.

The biggest Stereo3D production so far, with a rumoured $300m budget, is around two-and-a-half hours long and 60% computer generated. Weta Digital in Wellington, New Zealand, ILM, and Soho's Framestore were between them responsible for creating the planet Pandora, its fantastic and quite scary creatures, an array of space vehicles and high-tech weapons, and the 3m tall, blue skinned Na'vi, the planet's indigenous species.

As well as the reviews of 'Avatar' in the mainstream press, we've been given a number of glimpses behind the scenes to see how the visual effects were created.

Earlier this week, the BBC News site carried this item, which takes us inside Framestore to meet Senior Producer Tripp Hudson & Visual Effects Supervisor Jonathan Fawkner, two of the 150 Framestore staff who spent 7 months working on 3 sequences in 'Avatar'. 

BBC's 'Click' site carries this item, which also features Framestore's Jonathan Fawkner and Bill Collis of The Foundry, whose Nuke & Ocula software were used extensively on the film.

Wired gets in on the act with its own take on how the visual effects were created, and the Film Fetish blog has published the interview Robert Legato, 'Avatar' Visual Effects Director, did on 60 Minutes with actor Kevin Pollack.

And then I found lots of references to behind-the-scenes work on 'Avatar' on Ian Falles's vfxblog, 

AJA DataCalc free iPhone app helps with media storage

AJA Video has introduced DataCalc a free app for the Apple iPhone that production & post production teams can use to calculate media data storage requirements, both on set & in the edit suite, writes Will Strauss on the broadcastnow.co.uk website.

A press release on the AJA Video Systems website confirms:

"AJA DataCalc supports a wide array of video compression formats such as Apple ProRes, DVCProHD, HDV, XDCAM, DV, RGB & YUV Uncompressed and more. Video standards supported include NTSC, PAL, 1080i, 1080p, 720p, 2K & 4K."

'Scandawegia' trailblazes 100Mb/s 4G networks

While the rest of Europe and many other parts of the world get used to being hooked up to 3G networks, mobile users in Oslo & Stockholm are about the start the new decade with fourth generation mobile services. 

Sometime in Q1 2010, the residents of Oslo & Stockholm 1 will begin to enjoy 100 Mb/s mobile connectivity - 10 x UK 3G speeds - that will enable subscribers to play real-time networked games & watch high resolution films while on the move.

NetApp & partner EACS scoop top awards

Two of the companies with whom I work closely walked away from the 16th. Annual CRN Channel Awards in London yesterday evening as winners

Huntingdon-based EACS won Corporate Reseller Of The Year, while NetApp UK picked up the Storage Vendor Of The Year gong.

Some EACS staff in attendance who took calls at 8am this morning were still in the Battersea area, awake, and had clearly enjoyed themselves ... enormously!

I'm spending a lot of my time helping the former promote and sell more of the latter's products into the media production industry (in particular). Here's hoping that happy endorsement of both makes our collective job easier. Drop me a line if you're interested in hearing more.

Talking 3DTV on BBC Radio 4's 'Front Row'

I made my radio debut on Mark Lawson's 'Front Row' programme yesterday evening. I joined Mark and Heat magazine's reviews editor Boyd Hilton (@boydhilton) for a debate about the merits of 3DTV as Channel 4 prepared to begin a week of 3D programmes with the screening of 'The Queen In 3D'. 

The film was shot at the Queen's coronation in 1953 by Bob Angell and Arthur Wooster. Arthur's son David is MD of 3D production company Can Communicate. A while ago, David was about to go on a 3D shoot, and asked his father if he'd ever shot any 3D, hoping he'd have one over on his old man for a change.

Thwarted! 

Arthur had almost forgotten the cans of film languishing somewhere in the BFI archives, and so began the long process of finding, restoring and releasing the cleaned up version of the film.

As well as being broadcast in the analogue ColorCode format on Channel 4, 'The Queen In 3D' was recently shown at the NFT using the Xpand 3D system, which employs the active LCD shutter glasses.

To hear what Mark, Boyd and I discussed visit the 'Front Row' Listen Again page on the BBC website. Click on Listen Now to launch BBC iPlayer, and shuttle along to 16m 05s. 

All feedback welcomed!

Last night's RTS Technology Innovation Awards 2009

After a long day in the saddle working on various projects, I spent yesterday evening at BAFTA for this year's RTS Technology Innovation Awards dinner. It was a late night, which is why it's taken me 'til lunchtime to post this update.

Confession time. I told a little white lie on Twitter during the evening. I didn't share a lift with Michael Caine as he entered the building for a screening of his new film 'Harry Brown'. His minders wouldn't let me in, and I had to walk up the stairs while he travelled in style & conserved his energy. Good job all this swimming's working & I'm feeling fit.

Anyway, the evening went very well, and the company was excellent.

I was one of the judges for the 'Raising The Bar' & 'Under The Bonnet' categories. My fellow judges - Simon Fell (Chair), Andy King (BBC FM&T), Roland Brown & John Ive (NBC Universal's Andy Lucas was absent) - and I were on a table at the back, presumably to keep us out of trouble. But we did get a mention in dispatches for giving up our time to review the submissions and meet to vote for our choices. It's always nice to be appreciated.

Martha Lane-Fox & Brent Hoberman were the guests of honour and handed out the awards. Both made pretty good speeches, and Brent couldn't resist plugging his new venture mydeco.com, which borrows a lot from the John Lewis website, and adds a social communication element to the online shopping  experience. This is something I spent time working on with another company over the Summer. I'll be interested to see how it goes, as it can be a tricky concept for vendors and buyers to get their heads around.

The 'Raising The Bar' award went to BBC R&D for the Ingex Automated Tapeless Prroduction system, incidentally, and the 'Under The Bonnet' award went to another initiative involving the Beeb's R&D dept.; the development of DVB-T2 (AKA Freeview HD in the UK), which looks to have been a phenomenal feat of project management & logistics, as well as a technological conjuring act.

For a full list of the winners and nominees, visit this page on the RTS website.

Pinewood Studios drive-in gets world's biggest screen

Pinewood Studios is using the upcoming Halloween celebrations to launch its latest venture, the world's largest drive-in cinema. The studios' Paddock Lot has been equipped with a 73.1m x 18.3m screen.

Tickets are £35 per car, £55 if you want VIP parking & waitress service.

On the opening night, 31 October, the films are 'The Omen' (gates open 16.00, film starts at 16.45) and 'The Shining' (20.00 for 20.45). Other highlights of the series, which ends on 6 December and features films that were shot at Pinewood, include 'Mission:Impossible' (7 November, 16.45), 'The Bourne Ultimatum' (22 November, 16.45) and 'Full Metal Jacket' (6 December, 20.45).

Book tickets

Get directions to Pinewood

A word in your ear about the 2009 Conch Awards

Unaccustomed as I am to attending awards ceremonies of late, I really enjoyed my evening out at the UK Screen Association's Conch Awards for film, TV & commercials sound last Tuesday. The event was hosted at the impressive new Kings Place complex, near Kings Cross.

Now in their fourth year, the awards celebrate the best in UK audio post production, and recognise the work of both individuals and companies.

Here's a list of the 2009 Conch Award winners which includes Ben Norrington (pictured) for Best TV Sound Editor/Designer Of The Year, Paul Cotterell of Lipsync for Best Dubbing Mixer, and Evolutions for Best UK TV Sound Facility.

The mood throughout the evening was very upbeat.

I got the impression that the company owners in attendance were feeling more positive than they were around March or April, when the mood was grim. 

Standing on the side of one conversation, I over-heard a prominent UK post house MD confess that earlier in the year he'd often felt "pretty depressed" about the state of business. 

It is September, though, so you would expect that kind of optimism to be shining through. Stop me and ask me what I think nearer Christmas.

IBC 2009 caps a smeltingly good year for The Foundry

 A short interview recorded at the start of IBC 2009 Day 1 with Bill Collis (CEO, left) & Richard Shackleton (Nuke Product Manager.

We cover the recnent MBO, Nuke's status as "the new Shake", other Foundry products on show &

Download TBI Foundry 110909

Sunny skies over Amsterdam & the media tech industry?

 

In amongst the press releases for upgrades, enhancements, new features, latest sales successes and so on, two pre-IBC stories stand out for me so far, and they're both about company acquisitions.

First up is Blackmagic Design's purchase of grading technology company DaVinci for an (as yet) undisclosed sum. Then, barely a day later, arrives the news that Avid has bough Maximum Throughput (Max-T), a post production storage, workflow & infrastructure company that has more recently been working on network-based editing technology.

While product synergies and future developments are dissected & debated over the coming days in bars & coffee shops throughout Amsterdam, for me, the story's in the fact that these acquisitions have happened at all. 

After a fairly dismal few months, when almost everybody I spoke to complained of belts that are too tight, of long pockets and short arms, and [insert your cliche of choice here], there's a certain positiveness about these deals. 

Perhaps it's not just a coincidence that fine weather is forecast for Amsterdam this weekend? [Sunday's meant to be a bit cloudy, but hey!]

In an email I saw re-published on the @fxguide website, Grant Petty, Blackmagic Design's CEO, reveals that he's been a fan of DaVinci technology, ever since he started in the business:

"...one of the things that totally blew my mind when I first started in post production as an engineer way back in 1988 was the color grading room with a DaVinci. the image on the monitor was such incredible quality, I just sat there staring speechless. It was amazing."

Petty will not be drawn on plans for the DaVinci product line or the prospect of low-cost products, but he has a well-documented dislike of over-priced technology and punitive support contracts. We can expect him to soon begin an attempt to democratise another area of post technology, as he has done with capture cards and I/O boxes.

Avid's purchase of Max-T came as a bit of a surprise, but now it's happened, it makes sense.

Sledgehammer, Max-T's storage and infrastructure product, one assumes, contains features that can be combined with those of Avid's own Unity shared storage system to make it more open, accessible and appealing to a wider market.

MaxEdit is perhaps the more interesting of the company's main products, though.

Editing over a network, free of an application, via a browser, and using centralised resources, is a direction many companies are going to want to take in the future, as budgets get tighter and flexibility overtakes everything as a prime business driver. 

Avid has hundreds of millions of dollars in the bank and it needs to raise its game in the face of stiff competition from Apple & Adobe. Could the philosophy behind MaxEdit help Avid to make a leap forward and, again, attract the attention of markets it's previously not been able to service with the right product for the right price?

Why are you going to IBC this year?

I have to confess, I've not seen or heard much to get my juices flowing yet, but an update on the official IBC 2009 Twitter feed suggests that there are at least 100 embargoed IBC stories waiting to be told, so you have to expect those to contain something significant. I heard a rumour that Avid will announce something to turn the heads of FCP and Premiere users, but that's about it, really.

All a bit quiet and unspectacular, at least so far.

The issues surrounding the management of media assets and published content are never far from the top of media companies' agendas these days. Though it's the workflow, the business strategy, the process management and how DAM fits into an organisation's culture (without disrupting it or distorting it) that are more important than the tech. 

It's OK to have a great suite of products that are like snugly fitting puzzle pieces and a crack team of 'professional services' commandos on standby to help deploy a customer's (shudder) solution. Today's skil - and this is a role where independent consultants can excel - is helping a management team sell a new system, a new way of working, and the inevitable knock-on effects, to the staff. 

I'm guessing there'll be quite a few of us at IBC singing from that hymn sheet.

Stereo3D will inevitably be the talk of the show. If anything, given the small amount of content that's available and the limited amount of exposure it gets on screens large and small, there'll be too much talking, not enough viewing. 

I'm sure we'll be introduced to a ton of new rigs and stereoscopic 3D production hardware, as well as Stereo3D enhancements to new & existing content creation systems, but it's the display technology I'm looking forward to seeing. I'm curious to know how soon it will be before real, proper, stable 3D that doesn't make your stomach churn hits living rooms and public spaces.

And finally, for this update. Is the DI market becoming dominated by a few big players who can offer productions complete grading, finishing and 'film out' services and so freeze out smaller service providers, as suggested in this well-written piece by Broadcast's Will Strauss? If it's the case, you have to wonder what traffic around Hall 7's DI technology vendors will be like.

Stereoscopic 3-D production session at IBC 2009

John Graham of the EDCF, who minutes the thrice yearly Digital Cinema Group meetings I attend so impeccably, has drawn my attention to a session on the Monday of this year's IBC conference in Amsterdam.

For the whole of the Monday morning (09,00 to 12.45), Phil Streather of Principal Large Format (pictured, right), will guide delegates through the finer points of pre-visualising, shooting and editing digital stereo3D content.

He will be joined by Joshua Greer of RealD, stereographer Bernard Mendiburu (pictured, left), David Newman of Cineform, Ken Shafer, President of Innoventive Software and 3ality Digital Systems' Steve Schklair.

Phil will start the morning with a beginners' guide, which will be followed by three more in-depth tutorials.

for more information on this and other IBC conference sessions, visit the IBC 2009 website.

Sony slides out open source VFX software at Siggraph

Sony Imageworks, the VFX division of the media & technology giant, has used this year's Siggraph gathering in New Orleans to announce the release of a set of new open source VFX Tools.

CTO Rob Bredow (pictured) was on hand to make the announcement. There will be five tools to begin with, with the strong hint of more to come:

OSL: a programmable shading language for rendering

Field3d: a voxel data storage library

Maya Reticule: a camera masking plug-in for the Maya digital animation application

Scala Migrations: a database migration tool

Pystring - a tool that allows Python-like string handling in C++

For the uninitiated, a voxel - a volumetric pixel - is the basic element used to create three-dimensional models.

The move is part of a plan by Imageworks to be more open, flexible and less proprietary about the way the company works with the freelance community and third-party software developers.

If you're interested in finding out more, here's a link to the website they've created to promote the initiative

Gigging around the world in the digital media age

Touring hard and playing at major music events like The V Festival & Glastonbury in the UK, Coachella & Lollopalooza in the US, and countless others around the world is, for many artists, replacing record sales as the focus of attention and a principal source of income.

The rewards are instant and measurable, and the opportunity to influence people by being ever-present and putting on ever more spectacular shows is very attractive.

Money can still be made from sales of CDs, DVDs and even vinyl. iTunes downloads and ad-supported services like Spotify and Blip are starting gain a foothold and the money trickles in. YouTube is obviously important for profile, But how can artists, music companies and the businesses that support them extract the maximum value from playing at live events and generate the ROI they need to make the exercise worthwhile? 

Services based around digital media - from targeted, assignable advertising displayed on screens of all shapes and sizes to mobile music download kiosks for festival goers - are likely to play a big part as events become more sophisticated and commercially-driven.

The relationship between artists, brands, the audience and digital media is a brave new creative and commercial world that we will all be keen to explore and exploit in the future.

Ahead of a new series of podcasts and blog posts on how this new market may shape up, 'All The World's A Staged Payment' is a programme I made a year or so ago about how the technical service providers at these big gigs - who we all take for granted, but without whom the show could not go on - finance their businesses.

'Lights, Camera, Action...Network!' course review

Last week, I spent an enjoyable four days running a course at FDMX (the Film & Digital Media Exchange), part of The University of Hertfordshire in Hatfield (pictured).

'Lights, Camera, Action...Network!' is a practical introduction to social media marketing aimed at filmmakers, producers & distributors:

Day 1: an introduction to the tools, services, language and culture of 'the social web' and how to strategically manage your own online marketing and publicity campaigns.

Day 2: design & build a live online publishing environment, with RSS feeds, embedded Twitter and third-party content, monitoring & measurement etc.

Day 3: begin generating content and populate the site

Day 4: begin publicising the site and attracting visitors

We concentrated on building one site, to help film distributor John Letham of Park Circus publicise his Back In Cinemas campaign to get us of our sofas and watching classic movies on the big screen.

Follow this link to view the Back In Cinemas site, which was built from scratch - with tuition - by three complete newcomers to the world of social media, social networks and 'the social web'. The site will remain active for about another week, before being taken down and re-modelled.

I've been invited back to run the course again in October (dates TBC). If you're interested in knowing more, drop me a line - colin@informedsauce.com