6 Post • October 2009 www.postmagazine.com
Bits & Pieces
at a glance...
The
MACAO, CHINA INTERNATIONAL DIGITAL CINEMA FESTI-
VAL AND ENTERTAINMENT TECHNOLOGY EXPO
(www.createa-
sphere.com/china) is set to take place December 3-5, 2009.The event
is being produced by Createasphere, Randall Dark Productions and
Burma Road Productions, and promises to bring together leading en-
tertainment companies, broadcasters and technology manufacturers.
OFFHOLLYWOOD
(www.offhollywoodpictures.com) has expanded
its Manhattan facility, adding a full floor that will serve as a dedicated
Red camera rental and service facility. Its goal is to give filmmakers and
producers shooting on the East Coast quick access to Red par ts and
repair ser vices if needed. The studio also opened an Assimilate
Scratch-based DI theater.
ARRI
has launched a new Website (www.arridigital.com) that features
three digital camera systems the company plans to release in 2010.The
company previewed the A-EV, A-EV Plus and A-OV Plus at the recent
IBC show, and will offer owners of its D-21 an upgrade path to the
new camera line. All three have a 3.5K sensor pixel count and the abil-
ity to shoot anywhere from 1fps to 60fps.
THE 6TH EUROPEAN CONFERENCE ON VISUAL MEDIA PRO-
DUCTION
(www.cvmp-conference.org) takes place November 12-13
at the BFI Southbank in London, providing a forum for the exchange of
knowledge between researchers, media industry specialists and enter-
tainment content creators. The central themes of the conference are
"Capturing 3D Worlds" and "Advanced Technology in Post Production."
CANON
(www.usa.canon.com/eos) was at HD Expo in NYC with its
EOS 7D, an 18.0 Megapixel still camera that can also shoot full HD
1920x1080/16x9 video at 24, 25 or 30fps. Movies are saved as MOV
files to Compact Flash memor y cards. The 7D will be priced almost
$1,000 less than the existing EOS 5D when it ships later this month.
DIGITAL-TUTORS
(www.digitaltutors.com) has added five new titles
to its online training librar y: "Mental Ray Production Shaders in 3DS
Max," "Fusion Node Reference Librar y — Composite," "Attaching
Sculpted Geometr y in Mudbox," "Using PaintStop in ZBrush" and
"Getting Started with Oceans in Maya."
CRAFT ANIMATIONS'
(www.craftanimations.com) Craft Director
Studio, a tool for easily creating natural motion paths, is now available
to users of Autodesk's Softimage. Director Studio uses artificial intelli-
gence and autonomous control systems to condense the traditional
animation processes. Tasks such as keyframing and scripting are elimi-
nated, and users can create natural motion paths through a variety of
input devices, including gamepads, joysticks and keyboards.
MAMMOTH HD
(www.mammothhd.com/red) in Evergreen, CO, has
expanded its Red footage offerings with an additional six hours of 4K
footage.The latest additions include beaches, coastal forests and moun-
tain tops of the western US. Also new is slow motion footage of waves,
shot in Hawaii, and along the California coast. Mammoth HD Red clips
are available in their originating format, as well as in HD 1080 or 720.
NYC's Thornberg & Forester (www.
thornbergandforester.com) finished a
new regional spot for McDonald's, out
of agency Arnold Worldwide.
Tailgat-
ing with the Packers Guy
uses a
cut-out animation style to humor-
ously illustrate the Packers' biggest
fan. Imagery for the regional spot
was shot using Nikon and Canon digi-
tal still cameras and was animated
using Adobe's CS4 suite.
