Promotions for sports need to be fast and one company that is keeping the pace is Flock of Pixels out of Phoenix, AZ.

Justin Katz established Flock of Pixels in 2008. Starting out in the business as a motion designer, he was soon taking on larger and larger roles and now is a talented Director, Animator, Producer and Art Director. At Flock of Pixels he is often asked to create broadcast quality spots with extremely limited time and budgets for television and web. It just so happened that one of their recent spots was for the Phoenix Coyotes NHL team and we were excited to find that this dynamic piece of editing used Trapcode Particular and Magic Bullet Colorista II, so we got in touch with Justin to tell us more.

“We had a script and hard drive full of photos delivered to us at 5:30pm on a Friday and were asked to have a full cut for sound design by Monday” Justin told us. “There wasn’t even a creative direction in place – they literally said “work your magic.” “Since the entire spot would be comprised of only still images we needed other elements to help bring further dimension to the Coyotes spot. I decided to approach the project so it would feel like everything was happening during a very brief moment in time by bringing the stills to life in ultra slow-mo.

“Since everything had to be done very fast, yet be consistent throughout, Particular was used for its speed and to help sell the effect of the super slow-motion photo-animation. In addition to the flakes of ice coming off of the skates, I layered elements of defocused dust/ice/confetti particles (made with Particular) at various depths to add dimension to the scenes and more interest. Most of the particles are the ‘cloudlet’ shapes (including the ice and dust) with the confetti being one of the few custom particles.

“We also used Colorista II to color balance and match each photo for a high contrast look/feel and to keep everything looking like they were shot at the same time.”

“I’ve been using Particular since around 2005 and it’s one of my go to tools – especially on very tight production schedules. It’s fast, gets the job done and lets you see results immediately. I had considered using stock elements for these effects, but in the end it was actually faster for me to create them with Particular than to search stock sites for the proper footage and then composite them in. This was also my first time trying to emulate super slow-motion with Particular – it’s physics time factor settings came in super handy.”

As with everything we do we wished we had more time on this project, but as my friend says “Things are never done, just due.”

You can see Flock of Pixels 2011 Showreel here:

Related Links:

• Flock of Pixels Website
• Flock of Pixels Facebook Page
• NHL Arizona Coyotes Website

Magic Bullet Suite 11

Everything you need to tell your story

Magic Bullet Suite 11 is the newest, hottest release of our definitive filmmaker’s toolkit.Whether you are creating a color treatment, adding a beauty pass or capturing the emotion of a scene, these nine essential tools help you to create the final look that tells a story perfectly. Download MBS 11 today and get powerful finishing tools for every editor in one package. Learn more

What’s new in Magic Bullet Suite 11?

• Magic Bullet Cosmo: Beautiful cosmetic cleanup in a click.
• Magic Bullet Looks 2: Color effects that set the mood for your story.
• And introducing our Single Serial installer! Now one installer and one serial number will serve up all nine products in the suite.

Cosmo and Looks 2 join these popular products in MBS Suite 11: PhotoLooks, Colorista II, Mojo , Denoiser, Frames and Instant HD. You also get Grinder 1.5, a new product released this spring, for fast, simple transcoding of DSLR/HDSLR footage to edit friendly formats. MBS 11 costs $799, for a value-packed savings of $742 over buying the individual plug-ins. Get the MBS 11 Upgrade for only $199. Learn more

PLOT DEVICE

Giant filmmaking on an indie budget

What do you do with all of these amazing Magic Bullet tools? Well… you create a movie like Plot Device. This is a nine minute short film directed by Seth Worley, and  executive produced by Red Giant’s own Aharon Rabinowitz. Aharon and Seth co-wrote the film, working together in close collaboration throughout the project. Plot Device was created to demonstrate first hand the high caliber work that can be created when using Magic Bullet Suite 11, even on a limited budget. See more

NEW! Magic Bullet Cosmo  -  BUY NOW $99
Beautiful Cosmetic Cleanup in a Click

Magic Bullet Cosmo is your secret weapon for perfect HD closeups, glamor shots and age reduction in onscreen talent. This easy-to-use professional tool smooths skin tones and softens blemishes in your video footage for a quick, beautiful cosmetic cleanup. Get it in MBS 11 or buy separately. Learn more

NEW! Magic Bullet Looks 2  -  BUY NOW $399
Color Effects That Set the Mood for Your Story

Magic Bullet Looks 2 redefines how you use color with a new interface, redesigned presets, inspiring new tools and powerful Colorista II technology. Looks 2 adds professional color finishing to a project of any budget and comes with new tools including Pop, Colorista 3 Way, Ranged HSL, Cosmo and Lens Distortion. Get it in MBS 11, buy separately for $399, or upgrade for only $99. Learn more

With the release of Final Cut Pro X, there have been a lot of questions and concerns about the future of Final Cut Pro and the plug-ins that run inside it.

First, we’re pleased to announce that we’ve already conducted extensive testing, and we are very excited about the FCP X release. We’re confident that, as Final Cut Pro X evolves, it will fuel new growth in the market and as a result, allow us to share our tools with a much broader range of users who want to create beautiful work.

Red Giant’s industry leading set of color correction and grading tools, such as Magic Bullet, are well known for ease of use, powerful performance, extreme flexibility, and simple design. And they are perfectly suited for the current and next generation of Final Cut Pro users.

In terms of development, you’ll be seeing Magic Bullet products available on Final Cut Pro X very soon. In fact, with the SDK in hand, we’ve already begun the engineering effort for what will be free Final Cut Pro X updates for current users.

As FCP X continues to change and grow, you can count on this: Red Giant will be ready for FCP X when FCP X is ready for you.

To keep up with news about product updates and more, follow us on Twitter or Facebook, or sign up for our newsletter.

Harry Frank’s Weddings for Trapcode Suite 10

50 Elegant Compositions for Wedding Videos

Say, “I do!” to this new wedding production Guru Preset Pack by Harry Frank. Give your event videos an elegant mix of traditional and contemporary animated design elements. Wedding bells, rings, butterflies and rose petals create the perfect mood for your client’s special day. Beautiful backgrounds, lower thirds, title pages, transitions and full screen type animations give you many options to highlight and enhance the wonderful memories. Mix and match to create hundreds of combinations that will save time and add value to your production, all before the honeymoon is over.

• Read about Wedding Guru Pack (before the honeymoon is over)
• Watch samples of all 50 presets (and live happily ever after)

Work fast & creatively with these helpful features:

• 50 beautiful projects use Particular 2.0 and Trapcode Shine 1.5
• 7 elegant design packages with 15 additional particle wipe transitions
• Each design package includes a background, lower third, video frame, transition, and full screen title (all at 720P resolution)
• Supports After Effects CS4, CS5, CS5.5

Looping Backgrounds for Trapcode Suite

55 Backgrounds for Broadcast & Corporate Video

Can’t get enough of Harry Frank & Trapcode? Check out his popular Looping Backgrounds for Trapcode Suite 2010. Work with speed and flexibility using a wide variety of textural designs that include glitz, swirls, maps, bokeh, fractal shapes, grids and lines.

* Read about all 55 presets

* Watch samples of all 55 presets

Red Giant Quicktip #45: Compositing & Visual Effects While Color Correcting

In this QuickTip, Aharon Rabinowitz talks about the process of color correction/grading, when you are also compositing or adding visual effects.

Hey folks -unless you’re living in a cave with no access to the internet (which pretty much describes all caves, except the one under Wayne Manor) then you’ve heard that Final Cut X is here. We know you have a lot of questions, and this is all we can say:

Apple has not yet contacted 3rd party plugin developers to let them know what the transition plan is for plugins in FCPX.

That’s really all we’ve got right now. We know as much as you do. We’re downloading the software ourselves for the very first time, and as soon as we’ve tested it out and have more info, we’ll give you an update.

Thanks for your patience and understanding.

Please share in our excitement of our new site design and take 10% off EVERYTHING storewide. That’s 10% discount on Suites, Guru presets, upgrades and free products (ha, gotcha).

Today only! Use Coupon Code: ALLPROD10

Our new website was designed with you in mind. It focuses on building a community with an emphasis on our product suites, training and customer care. Redgiant.com is not just a website. It’s our new personality that reflects the depth and breadth of products, services and content available to the VFX community. Go to site

“An evolution of how we engage”
Message from Andrew Little, Co-founder

“The launch of RedGiant.com represents an evolution in how we connect, and engage with our customers. We realize that our customers don’t just buy software from Red Giant, they engage with us, participate and even contribute to the development of new ideas and products. We’ve invested significant time and resources to create an online presence that’s not only clean, elegant and easy to navigate, but also simplifies the entire experience.”

Simple Design. Community Focus.

What our new website does for you

Watch the video for a simple, fun intro!

Our new website streamlines our products so they are easy to find. Get over 50 products organized into 4 work-crunching suites.

• Magic Bullet Suite: Everything you need to tell your story
• Trapcode Suite: The industry standard for broadcast & 3D design
• Effects Suite: Over 50 professional tools in one dynamic package
• Browse through hundreds of helpful Guru Preset Packs
• Free online chat, phone & email for enhanced customer support

We’ve brought the community to you in one easy place. No longer do you have to leave RedGiant.com to find the latest Quick Tips or your favorite Guru presets.

• Red Giant TV. Over 190 tutorials and more than 45 hours of free video content including Getting Started Videos and Product Quick Tips. You can also view this content on your iPad. Go to RGTV
• Red Giant People. Find hundreds of free presets created by the community. Buy professional Guru presets created by motion graphics industry experts. Go to RGP
• Customer Connected. Keep up to date and share content from any page viaTwitter, Facebook and Vimeo.

What do Zombies, Brides, Skin Tones and Looks have in Common? Find out TONIGHT in SF, NY & PDX!

Ever wonder how certain people always know things before you do? That’s ’cause they go where the buzz, big shots and booze are.

Stop by and mingle and meet Red Giant folks like Stu Maschwitz and other ‘Guru’ industry leaders at our Red Giant Tweet-Up.

Let us treat you to refreshing Cosmos, yummy finger food, and then whet your appetite with something surprising and truly delicious. Get more details throughout the week on Facebook or Twitter! If you can’t make Monday’s event, stay tuned to Facebook and Twitter all of this week for hints and updates about our surprise.

Red Giant Tweet-Up meetup*

When: TODAY
Time: 5:00pm PST & 8:00pm EST

Where: New York City
Who: Chat with our Director of Communities, Aharon Rabinowitz, and in-house
Guru Harry Frank
Go to: Cafe Del Mar, 89 MacDougal St, NY, NY 10079, www.yelp.com

Where: San Francisco
Who: Hang out with Red Giant Co-founder Sean Safreed and Creative Director Stu Maschwitz
Go to: 111 Minna Gallery, 111 Minna Street, SF, CA, www.111minnagallery.com

Where: Portland
Who: Get to know Red Giant’s dedicated Portland Quality & Support teams and local Industry Gurus
Go to: Saucebox Annex, 214 SW Broadway, Portland, OR 97205, www.saucebox.com

*Please note this a 21+ event.

Behind-the-scenes videos have really developed into a mini-genre in their own right. No more bored-looking talent, coffee-swigging crew or comedy outtakes. One featurette that illustrates this point perfectly is the work of one Oz Smith.

Oz, in conjunction with Turquoise Branding, put together a sequence to introduce the biggest spectacle on the F1 racing calendar, the Monaco Grand Prix. Footage of BBC presenter Jake Humphrey in front of a green-screen was used to create a lively, fast-paced look at several hours in the studio and given a final polish with Magic Bullet Looks. You can see the final film here:

Oz has been a freelance motion designer, director and animator for over 12 years and is based in London. As well as designing and directing on-screen graphics and idents for larger channel brands such as NRK in Norway, Discovery Channel, Nederland 1, 2 and 3, Abudhabi TV, and BBC Global News he has worked on title sequences, music videos, exhibition and graphics for charity organizations.

Just a quick glance at his site shows the depth of his creative abilities. In a previous collaboration with Turquoise, Oz was involved with the titles and event graphics for the 2011 Eurovision Song Contest in Düsseldorf, incorporating the ‘Feel Your Heart Beat’ tag line. We were thrilled to see that Trapcode Particular and Trapcode Form were used in making the heart logo come to life, and we asked Oz to tell us more about the process.

“I use Trapcode software for almost every job I work on – the versatility is amazing for realising ideas, whether it is the key graphic element of a project, or a subtle finessing tool to add details and grading at the end to lift production values. I find it just as useful for working on purely graphic jobs as well as for live action compositing. I am always being dug out of holes using Trapcode software when the client says ‘we don’t have much money, but we want this to look expensive!’”

With their eclectic mix of clients, the creative people at Rain have a decidedly different way of thinking. This was the attraction for Provo Craft to commission them to create a promotional video for the Gypsy, their handheld design studio.

The video needed to showcase the benefits of the Gypsy in an exciting and entertaining way. Rain crafted a piece that takes the viewer through a typical busy day in the life of a Gypsy user. Using Red Giant’s Trapcode Particular and Primatte Keyer we asked Dave Nibley, creative director, to give us his thoughts on the capabilities of these powerful plug-ins.

“The concept of this piece relied on being able to keep the Gyspy device in a persistent place on-screen while the environment constantly changed and a set of hands interacted with the device. Primatte Keyer allowed us to effectively composite three separate layers of footage together to pull this off. It’s powerful, deep-reaching keying ability, combined with an intuitive UI, made the experience much easier than it could have been with other keying solutions.

“Particular gave us the ability to quickly create a colorful, bubbly bookend animation that tied perfectly into the product’s branding and spoke very effectively to the crafter demographic.”

Rain is a digital agency based in Utah. You can see more of their stunning work here.

Follow Rain on Facebook here.