Post Magazine

March 2011

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editor’s note Sharing NAB product details By RANDI ALTMAN EDITOR-IN-CHIEF raltman@postmagazine.com their new offerings even earlier than usual. While some product makers want their info out there immediately, others like Harmonic Om- neon’s Geoff Steadman feel that it’s hard to be heard over the clutter of news being introduced at the show. N Steadman and Harmonic will be releasing de- tails of their new product, which will be geared di- rectly at the post world, shortly after we go to press on this issue. We’ll get that up on www.postmagazine.com as soon as we hear! The official pre-NAB press event season kicked off with Grass Valley in January, even though they are one of the few who are holding their news close to the vest until the start of NAB. Panasonic hosted an event in New York City in February, and you can see their news on page 9 of this issue. Autodesk hosted their Backstage Pass event at company headquarters in Montreal in mid Febru- ary, giving the press a sneak peek at the new 2012 digital entertainment creation tools, including POST SCRIPT Reality TV I By MARC LOFTUS SENIOR EDITOR mloftus@postmagazine.com AB isn’t until next month, but I am al- ready tired. It seems as though compa- nies are trying to get the word out on Flame and Smoke, Maya, 3DS Max and Softimage. They also updated middleware software such as Kynapse, Beast and HumanIK. And speaking of middleware, just before the event kicked off, Au- todesk announced its intention to buy Scaleform, a provider of UI tools and middleware for the games industry. There are too many details for this space, but I’ll give you some highlights.The Autodesk Enter- tainment Creation Suites, Premium, now includes Softimage, whose ICE (Interactive Creative Envi- ronment) platform is growing in popularity. Maya, has some cool updates for version 2012, includ- ing Viewport 2.0 enhancements such as full- screen effects, motion blur, depth of field and am- bient occlusion. There are node-based render passes that allow the ability to create and edit node-based representations of render passes and render the composited output directly using Mental Ray. During the event, Marc Petit, Autodesk’s senior VP, media & entertainment, emphasized that “solu- tions out of the box are important” and pointed to the Flame Premium package. This is just the tip of the iceberg. EDIT ORIAL RANDI ALTMAN Editor-in-Chief (516) 797-0884 raltman@postmagazine.com MARC LOFTUS Senior Editor (516) 376-1087 mloftus@postmagazine.com KEN MCGORRY Consulting Editor mcgorry@optonline.net CHRISTINE BUNISH Film& Video RON DICESARE Audio BOB PANK European Correspondent bob.pank@virgin.net DAN RESTUCCIO West Coast Bureau dansweb451@aol.com IAIN BLAIR Film MICHAEL VIGGIANO Art Director mviggiano@postmagazine.com AD VER TISING MARI KOHN National Sales Manager (818) 291-1153 cell: (818) 472-1491 mkohn@postmagazine.com GARY RHODES Eastern & Intl Sales Manager (631)274-9530 cell (516)410-8638 grhodes@copcomm.com CHRIS SALCIDO Account Manager (818) 291-1144 csalcido@copprints.com CUSTOMER SERVICE don’t watch a whole lot of TV. For the most part, cable news plays in the background as I focus on any number of different hobbies — usually in a different room. But, when I do find time to sit in front of the set, I find myself gravitating toward unscripted programming. Not the Kardashians or the Real Housewives, but the shows you’d find on History, Discovery and A&E. Sons of Guns is pretty cool, but I think it’s probably a guy thing. Hoarders and Confessions:Animal Hoarding are just downright disturbing. This month, I had a chance to talk with a number of post pros who are working on reality programs. Fred Ruckel and his wife Natasha pro- duced and posted a show detailing their new home’s construction.They used Panasonic P2 cameras and had a transfer station set up on location to move media off cards, allowing them to return to the field for acquisition. Most reality TV series are being shot on tape, do in part to the vast amount of footage that’s acquired for even a single episode. But, Panasonic recently reduced the prices of their P2 media (see page 9), so maybe more reality shows will use this solid state technology for acquisition.Time will tell. 2 Post • March 2011 Terry Curren and the team at AlphaDogs in Burbank are veterans when it comes to post production for reality programs.The studio has numerous shows to its credit, but just complet- ed work on its first series that was shot using the Red camera. Check out our feature on page 18 to read Curren’s comments on why Red is, or isn’t, a practical choice for the run-and-gun style that so many of these series follow. In related news, Philadelphia-based produc- tion/post house Shooters recently launched ShootersTV, a new reality/non-scripted content division. ShootersTV has signed a deal with Peleton Entertainment, a NYC television agency that represents producers working in the reality and documentary arenas. The initiative follows Shooters’ successful co- development and production of original shows for Food Network, including Dinner: Impossible. According to ShootersTV editor Scott Markowitz, the plan is to leverage the studio’s resources to create less technical barriers for the editorial team.That includes using a propri- etary system that keeps all of its field cameras and mics perfectly synced, and performing offline editing using Avid Media Composers. www.postmagazine.com 620 West Elk Ave, Glendale, CA 91204 csr@postmagazine.com (800) 280 6446 opt 2 (publishing), opt 1 (subscriptions) REPRINTS Reprints (781) 255-0625 • (818) 291-1153 LA SALES office: 620 West Elk Avenue, Glendale, California 91204 (800) 280-6446 WILLIAM R. RITTWAGE President / CEO See us on Post Magazine is published by Post, LLC,a COP communications company. 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