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JUNE 2011

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C O V E R early.You know what they are going to do, where they are going to go and what they are going to shoot because the location scout showed us pictures. By me being in Santiago, I not only had the opportunity of being the VFX supervisor, but with my crew back in Montreal we were refining the model and the mosquitoes that we presented, we were trimming them based on their comments and the clients’ comments. Not only was I presenting those new mos- quitoes and look and feel, not only was I VFX-ing this as well, with the help of the script, I was taking good notes of cameras and lens information,so we have no sur- prises back home.” POST: This was a digital shoot? MONTAMBEAULT: “Yes, they shot with the Arri Alexa camera, and we had a good data wrangler. He was the first person — after director Jeff Bednarz — I made friends with because with the Alexa there is a lot of data from the set that is useful to the whole post process. So we wanted to make sure that data would go through the edit, color correction and back to our place.” POST: Was there one particular part of the project that was more challenging than the rest? MONTAMBEAULT: “There is one shot where the mosquitoes attack the guy [ ] S T O R Y leaving the tent, and they hit an invisible barrier so they don’t touch the actor.On set we had done about seven angles to make sure this barrier of Off was clear to the viewer that it protects people.That was the biggest challenge, not only the ani- mation, but the integration because you suddenly have realization of size.We are cheating in the spot,we are seeing some big mosquitoes; you couldn’t film this with a camera. It’s magic and it’s all fun, but suddenly we are brought back to reality and back into the product itself.That single point where we match fiction to reality was our biggest challenge, and that is the shot we had been working on the most.” POST: While there was a lot of focus on the main mosquito, you actually created a family, correct? MONTAMBEAULT: “We had to give personality to each mosquito in a very few seconds.The previous campaigns had one mosquito repeated a thousand times.This time we wanted to add a little drama to it and apply characters to three different mosquitoes.There was Scout, the lead mosquito, followed by Crazy with the smaller eyes who was nervous on screen, and then there was Mo- hawk… the big monster guy.The challenge was to play with it in a dramatic curve so they have an equal amount of screen time, and for viewers to understand it’s a family of mosquitoes.” B R O A D C A S T [ ] Record Store ID, a young man walks into vintage record store. His movements trigger design splashes, and as he browses albums, the Fuse color palette pops from different record covers. His final selection features an ani- mated Fuse logo. In the :10 Heed, boom boxes, musical instruments and MP3 players come to- gether at a downtown intersection where the Fuse building blasts music from an array of speakers. One of the challenges in creating the IDs, says Martinez, was to hint at a New York environment, even though they were both shot in Miami. In Record Store, the lo- cation is made to resemble Brooklyn, while the streets and intersection featured in Heed suggests Manhattan, where Fuse’s offices are located. 2C Media also created the on-air game package for Lacrosse Live on MSG Var- D E S I GN sity, a new sports network that focuses on high schools in the New York area.The team created a :20 open, as well as player graphics and transitions. The pitch process for getting broadcast design work, says Sloan, depends on the network and the size of the “carrot” they are dangling in front of them.A big pack- age or network design might not include a pitch fee, and then it’s up to the studio to decide how to allocate its resources to create a pitch while not upsetting the workflow of a paying job that might already be in-house. Sloan estimates that half the time there is a small budget for the pitch, and other times not. In a business that has a somewhat low barrier to entry do in part to affordable tools, coupled with people that do great work, he says the key to being successful is the ability to “put a lot onto the screen” and knowing where and how to use their resources. M O N I T O R S [ ] MARSHALL At just seven inches, Marshall’s latest innovation is a high brightness monitor with integrated HDMI loop- through.This feature allows the camera operator to pass-through the HDMI video input from the unit to another monitor. Other features include DSLR ratio ad- justment, adjustable backlight and markers, HDMI auto color space and ratio detect, manual gamma adjust- ment, image flip, 1/4-inch 20 mounting on all sides, and a robust power switch.The Marshall (www.lcdracks.com) V-LCD70XHB-HDMIPT sells for $1199. SMALLHD The DP4 from SmallHD (www.smallhd.com) is a “stand-alone” field monitor with the ability to trans- form into an electronic viewfinder.This unit has an im- pressive array of features crammed into one compact and rugged piece of production gear.The DP4 EVF is a 4.3-inch LED backlit LCD panel. It comes with con- nections for HDMI and offers the coveted HDMI pass through, eliminating the need for splitters.The unit has a full-screen scaling feature for DSLRs as well as focus assist and peaking. It also offers a variety of dual DV battery plates.The viewfinder is made with custom optics with anti-fog coatings, and the monitor is all an- odized aluminum.The DP4 EVF sells for $749. DSLR ratio adjustment is available on this Marshall display. TV LOGIC This VFM-056W 5.6-inch LCD monitor from TV Logic is ideal for HDSLR production.The unit features a LED backlit 1280x800 panel fully loaded with fea- tures including DSLR scaling, focus assist, under scan and over scan, and a variety of power options.This Small HD’s DP4 EVF is a standalone field monitor that can also be used as an electronic viewfinder. monitor is totally customizable with a variety of fea- tures, including HDMI loop out to HD-SDI, eliminat- ing the need for signal converters and splitters, which can increase the size of the rig and be cumbersome to the camera operator. The VFM-056W starts at $1195 and goes up with additional features. www.postmagazine.com June 2011 • Post 47 cont. from 14 cont. from 19 cont. from 32

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