Final Cut User

  Matthew Bennett(Matthew’s site) posted some amazing tests with a DVX and Andromeda kit to achieve 1000fps.Check the vid here. 1000fps Andromeda Hack.Matthew is a editor/motion graphics designer in Toronto who has been shooting tests with the DVX Andromeda mod ,  EX1 and RED One . The test looks super smooth and man makes you want to get working with some cameras like this. Some still shots and clips are also at  REDUSER that Matthew has posted.Original post on Reel stream forumsforum link, by the way  anybody know what happened to them. (reelstream)?    Edit: Seems Matthew had fun with AE and some slow acting so it is actually not a hack at all and was faked . Ah Matt is looks good anyway . You got me .Per Matt fourm post.

My first post was a fraud… that clip was faked with slow acting, AE’s timewarp filter, compositing and particles in AE. 

The idea popped into my head to post it with that story, and I couldn’t resist. 

The phantom hd camera has been my wet dream lately, so I thought I’d just try and do a simulation with the andro. I guess it sounded plausible, though, no? 

Anyway, to get a ‘1000fps’ faked effect, you can use these shots as a reference. Like say for the cereal shot, I shot myself with the open boxes, and moved very slowly, shooting at 23.98. I rendered that in sculptor, took it into AE 8.0, and applied the timewarp filter to slow it down to 25 percent. Timewarp draws new interpolation frames, to further smooth out my already slow-mo acting. Then, I used trapcode’s particular to create a stream of ‘cereal’ particles, and composited that into the shot, using masks and duplicate layers to hide the birthplace of the particular stream. Voila, simulated 1000fps. 

An Overview video of REDCine is available to view on Studio Daily.  Check it out! 

Also, a list of RED Video resources. and a Final Cut Workflow Overview

Awesome new term listings are up at FXPHD.com for the July 08 term and man what a stellar listing of training you can take. Some of the highlights for me are the Stop motion /Miniatures , Afx 301 with Mark Coleran/Mark Christensen on screen UI , Tim Clapham back with C4D/AE goodness,RED ,Nuke, Matte painting and just way to many good ones to keep listing. All together there about 15 brand new classes with some popular classes being revisited for those new to FXPHD. Those of you worried about having access to some of the higher end software like Nuke and Maya do not worry FXPHD has VPN access for some of the classes on both Mac and PC.

I have said it many times that since joining FXPHD over a year ago that it has been a HUGE plus for me and have made a bunch of friends and contacts. The classes are beyond high end and no one is doing anything near the level that FXPHD does . Being able to have contact with other industry pro’s is tremendous bonus . People have asked to just have access to the forums alone , that says something for the community, professors and staff at FXPHD. Do yourself a favor and check out the info on the main page and keep and eye out for the 0 week class which will probably be up in a week or so . 

July 08 term listing.   

 Renowned providers of online training for VFX professionals - Fxphd – have teamed up with The Foundry to bring you ‘The Compositor’s Guide To Nuke’. fxphd.com professor, Sean Devereaux, takes you through the core elements of this powerful compositing application. 

 I have been a post grad at FXPHD since early 2007 and the level at which they do everything is at a higher caliber then anything out there for training in the visual effects,post production,3d and motion graphics field. The new summer term is coming up in about a week so check out the 0 or zero week sneak peek that will be up on the site(link below). FXPHD partners with so many great professionals in so many mediums from Stu Machwitz(Prolost),Mark Christensen(Flowseeker) and way to many heavy hitters in the post ,vfx and 3d industry.The training on Nuke has been especially good being that Shake has been left to wallow (even though still heavily used by me and alot of others). The Foundry has stepped it up nicely with Nuke 5 and a nice revamp to the UI and so many other features I will just let you be the judge . If you are into learning about editing,compositing,RED,Maya,Motion tracking ,3d, Color ,Cinema 4d(the list goes on) it would be in your best interest to check out FXPHD.COM

RED Build 16 Beta is finally upon us.  If the final 16 release delivers what RED is promising, it will only cement it’s existence in the production community. I can’t wait till my number comes up at this point, maybe i’ll just have to go rent another yet again.

AS always!!!! BETA test firmware – not recommended for use on commercial productions. This is especially important if you look at the last line of the release notes below.

Build 16, RED ONE camera BETA firmware v3.1.2 June 18, 2008

SUMMARY:
Updated .R3D file format
Digital Signal Processing optimization
Image Compression Optimization
addition of REDspace and RAW view modes
high contrast scene codec error mitigation
audio polarity and video sync correction
LCD image tearing reduction
Pre-Record Mode
support for 1080p 4:2:2 and RGB 4:4:4 playback of REDCODE RAW .R3D files
User Programmable Keys and RED-EVF menus
Tonal Response Curve
editable LOOK files names
no roll-back of firmware from Build 16 to Build 15 or earlier builds.

No Roll Back! Be wary of upgrading if you’re working your cam alot and you can’t roll back in a pinch, not to mention as RED always warns (as well as anyone else in the tech field) BETA builds are not recommended for commercial projects, i.e. any thing with money riding on it. Beta builds can be extremely unstable and could potentially leave you in the lurch. Also never upgrade in the middle of a project, especially if its Quicktime.

In a hurry but wanted to post this before I forgot.  Opencut.org is hosting it’s first contest, registration started last week. It’s a cool concept, instead of explaining I’ll just repost an email I got from Torrey Loomis at Silverado Systems last week -

I wanted to extend an invitation to you to participate in OpenCut - the world’s first open source film competition.

We are providing an entire set of 35mm film quality assets shot on the RED ONE Digital Cinema camera–including all video, audio, as well as storyboards and scripts. OpenCut will provide the material, and entrants will provide the editorial.

We are kicking off OpenCut with a short subject called “Susannah” which was directed by Evan Nicholas and executive produced by Joe Carnahan of “Smokin’ Aces” and “NARC.”

Entrants to the competition register at http://www.OpenCut.org and then send a blank hard drive to OpenCut. Our film personnel will transfer 170 Gb of RED ONE material along with supporting media to the hard drive.

At a set date, all hard drives are shipped back to the contestants. They have 30 days to complete their cut including all color correction, audio fixes, and anything that would need to be accomplished for a completed project.

At the end of the competition, all finished entries are uploaded to VUZE which is generously hosting files in HD for all entrants.

Judging will take place through July 6th and a winner is announced on July 7th.

The winner of OpenCut will receive a prize package from Silverado Systems including a brand new AJA IO HD. Further, the winning editor will be listed as the official “editor-of-record” at IMDB and the winning short will be submitted to film festivals around the country throughout 2008. We will also be finishing the winning entry on SCRATCH in native 4k resolution.

You can find out more information here:

http://www.opencut.org/

We’d love to have as many students register as possible before departing for the summer. The competition is open to students, amateurs, and professionals–and you can participate as an individual or in a group. Further, the competition is open internationally.

Please let me know if you would like more information.

Torrey

 redcentre @ fxguide.fxguide already has a list of why it is a daily stop for me and alot of others but now you have another reason to click the link above and check out a new podcast series geared toward all things Red . redcentre is lead by Mike Seymour and Jason Wingrove who explore all options for working with Red cameras and all the people, equipment,accessories and workflows involved while working(playing) with Red . One of the recent episodes #4 is very interesting besides the great talking points between Jason and Mike they had on a good friend and uber tech Graeme Nattress mainly known for his great plug-ins for FCP,Motion and Color @Nattress.com.I have a little write up planned for Graeme’s plug-ins coming but more on that later.Here are the show notes for ep#4 EP 4 Show notes This is a must have in your podcast line up if you are at all interested in Red and all its goodies. Check out fxguidetv while you are there another huge resource along with FXPHD  FXPHD.COM. Graeme puts the sometimes very technical aspects of Red ,the imager and how linear and log info are managed.This can put to bed some misinformation that may have been passed by others so i suggest for your homework today download ep4 and subscribe to all fxguide related podcasts.

DVXusser.com a  great resource on line now has a new publication coming .

DVXUser is proud to announce intent to publish DVXUser Monthly. A monthly publication in magazine format with a primary focus on promoting DVXUser members and their personal accomplishments, and a secondary focus on providing you with valuable technical information, reviews, product information, etc, etc, etc.

Like everything else on DVXUser, DVXUser Monthly will be entirely free to you. Circulation of the magazine will be monthly.

For more information about DVXUser Monthly, you can view this thread in the DVXUser News section:

http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?t=133135

If you would like to subscribe to receive this magazine, inquire about becoming a contributor of material, or wish to inquire about becoming a sponsor of the magazine, please visit this location:

www.dvxusermonthly.com

Look for the first edition in a month or two, with regular monthly mailings after that.

Thanks for your time. Hope you enjoy it!

There’s a million of these out there, so why not one more. Here’s a 4k 2:1 grab from a recent project, but also laid out in comparison sizes down to the 1k proxies that are currently being used to cut with. When you think of 1k compared to 4k, it’s 1/4th the resolution (which it is - 4k 2:1 =4096 x 2048. 1k 2:1 =1024 x 512). Though if you take a look at the image, you can actually fit 16 of the 1k images within the 4k frame size. Click the image for the full size tiff. 

Here are some quick links to the uncorrected 4k Tiffs that I mentioned I would post-  Each one has a low res jpeg preview here click the link to download. 48MB Each

Grab 1

Grab 2

Grab 3

Grab 4