LIA – Lab Inter Arts, (based at the University Mozarteum Salzburg, Austria), is a performance-oriented workshop headed by Prof. Helmi Vent, in which projects on various themes are developed together with the participants on location through improvisational processes. When the group took their performance work to India recently, they faced more than one or two challenges.

From the outset they knew that financial resources for the documentary would be limited and coupled with environmental issues (monsoon season); it was not going to be a straightforward project. The story of this documentary is enlightening in every sense of the word and we asked Martin Gerhard Hantich, the Technical Director at LIA, how Magic Bullet Looks gave definition to some of the more color challenging shots.

Martin told us: “We had to travel light (in overly crowded trains), so there were no lights, bouncers or a larger crew; it was me together with an Indian camera assistant who had a lot of other duties to handle, like discussing with officials or translating. I was capturing sound and video material at the same time while chasing our performers through the crowded streets of Mumbai. The relatively high humidity and heat, coupled with the spontaneous nature of the project, made it quite a challenge.

“Most activities were chosen on a day-to-day schedule at many different locations, so there was hardly any time for thorough planning, manual white-balance or all of the other amenities you have when you’re shooting feature or in a more ‘controlled’ environment. It was more like ‘this performer will start the performance there and whatever will happen – we’ll see’.

“I knew from the beginning that this rather ‘instantaneous’ way of working will require some adjustment in the post, also because the light situation at that time of the year in Mumbai was far from ideal with a hazy smog dome covering the city most of the time.

An example of the footage before and after Magic Bullet Looks

“Red Giant Magic Bullet Looks gave me the power to easily adjust the overall look and give the documentary the ’16mm’ appearance I wanted, set highlights where there were none and tweak the entire picture. Without Looks, it would have been way harder to achieve all of that while maintaining a small production budget.”

Before Magic Bullet Looks

After Magic Bullet Looks

Learn more about the documentary HERE.

Red Giant is truly an international company. Our visual effects software for motion design, photography and color correction is used for everything from major motion pictures to worldwide television programming and web production.

Our VFX software has been reviewed in many of the top International broadcast and creative magazines and we were excited to see a recent review of Magic Bullet Mojo on Italian web site, MacforDummies.

MacforDummies wrote a great review on Magic Bullet Mojo and how particularly useful it is for fine-tuning skin tones. Magic Bullet Mojo is “absolutely priceless, it’s perfect for the amateur, but also for the professional who wants to get a good result quickly and with minimal investment.”

You can see the full review here.

Siti italiani tassi di Magic Bullet Mojo

Red Giant è davvero una società internazionale. Il nostro software di effetti visivi per la correzione del movimento del design, la fotografia ed il colore viene usato per tutto, dai film importanti di programmazione televisiva in tutto il mondo e la produzione web.

Il nostro software VFX è stato rivisto in molte delle trasmissioni di alto livello professionale e riviste internazionali creative e siamo stati entusiasti di vedere una recente revisione di Mojo Magic Bullet sul sito web italiano, MacforDummies.

MacforDummies ha scritto una grande rassegna su Mojo Magic Bullet e’ particolarmente utile per mettere a punto i toni della pelle. Mojo Magic Bullet è “assolutamente inestimabile, è perfetto per l’amatore, ma anche per il professionista che vuole ottenere un buon risultato in modo rapido e con un investimento minimo.”
Potete vedere la recensione completa qui.

MacforDummies

T. S. Eliot said “Genuine poetry can communicate before it is understood,” and it’s the perfect way to describe the mesmerizing collage of images, words and music blended together to create ‘Found’, a stereoscopic short film by Nice Shoes out of NY.

This sumptuous, 3min 12sec showcase is part of the “Verses” series, where the studio challenges itself to visually interpret short poems. But it didn’t just open a poetry book and pick a random page.

Brian Bowman, Creative Director at Nice Shoes, found the poem scrawled on a piece of paper that caught on his shoe as he was walking down a city street at the end of a particularly stressful day. He picked it up, read it, reflected on it and tucked it in his wallet, chalking it up as just another one of those ‘only in New York’ moments.

From this inauspicious beginning, a work of great beauty began to take shape, and we were delighted to find that Trapcode and Knoll Light Factory were some of the go-to tools for the artists that brought ‘Found’ to its visual reality.

Brian told us: “Working with Red Giant’s unique tools we were able to make environments really come alive. The tools proved robust in a stereoscopic workflow, important for those subtle depth flourishes that strengthen the audience’s visceral experience of the film in 3D.”

Here’s the 2D version of the short film, followed by a video breakdown:

Learn more about Nice Shoes HERE.

Check out Episode 59 of Red Giant TV to learn about using Trapcode Software to create Stereoscopic 3D effects.

With over fifteen years of postproduction experience to his credit, Compositor, Motion Graphics and Visual Effects Artist, Owain Street has lent his creative expertise to numerous commercials and title sequences for broadcast TV.

Since 2000, as a Designer and After Effects artist at 422.tv, one of the UK’s most recognized post production and VFX houses, Owain has produced some stunning visual work using Trapcode Form and Particular. One commercial that really stood out for us is a 30 sec commercial for OddsChecker.com (an online bet comparison site). We asked Owain to tell us a bit more about the project.

Owain said, “The brief was to try to create a dynamic feeling sports sequence, communicate the idea of “odds” and clearly brand the commercial. I played around with a couple of ideas and then tried out using Trapcode Particular to re-create sports footage with odds and numbers. The client loved the concept & feel of the effect and ran with it”.

“One feature in Particular that made ‘Oddschecker’ possible, was the ability to use layers as particle emitters. Once I had mattes for the live action, I could use Particular to “describe” those live action elements as hundreds of particles. Also, the ability to use custom particles was essential – the sports people needed to be displayed as “odds” like 5/1 or whatever. In fact it was the ability to be able to do these two things that led to my initial concept of turning the sports people into odds in the first place. This is one of the great things about Particular – it allows the creation of a wide variety of effects. It feels like a design tool – a long way from a plug-in that has “one look”, its flexibility is one of its big strengths. As well as the ‘Oddschecker’ effect I have created snow, smoke, fairy dust and energy streams among other things and I’m sure there will be more to follow!”

Another commercial that we had to mention is one of a series made for De Montfort University. Each of the six 10 second commercials used Trapcode Particular and Form to some degree but this particular one is stands out from the others as it was created entirely with 3D Stroke.

It’s such an elegant piece of work we asked Owain why he chose Trapcode. He told us, “For me as a motion graphics designer / VFX artist Trapcode software is a fantastic addition to my tool set. They look great, they are relatively easy to use (3D stroke / Shine / Starglow), but in the case of Particular and Form have a lot more going on when you take the time to explore the various settings. For example, as well as the flexibility of Particular as I mentioned earlier I used Form in the De Montfort “Philippa” sequence to generate the “topography” she casts her hand over. This was done using greyscale images that I had created in Illustrator to drive the Fractal Strength parameter in specific areas of the Form image, all I then needed to do was keyframe the displacement amount, to animate the topography rising up from a flat surface to create the appearance of hills. It is this kind of looking “under-the-hood” that can lead to really nice, controllable effects.

You can check out the other 4 equally impressive commercials HERE.

Additional Links:

• More about Owain Street
• More about 422

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

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

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.

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.

COOKIE is UK motion designer, director & VFX artist James Andrew Cook, a senior motion designer for award-winning advertising agency Empire Design in London. Having worked with design, film and advertising agencies for over 15 years, he has built up an impressive portfolio.

His most recent work was on the movie trailer and TV adverts for ‘Senna,’ which won the 2011 World Cinema Documentary Audience Award at the Sundance Film Festival. ‘Senna’ tells the story of the late Formula 1 driver, Ayrton Senna, through archival footage of his life, on and off the racetrack. Trapcode Particular helped shape a fast-paced sequence that perfectly complemented a film devoted to speed.

“I’ve been using Trapcode plugins – my favourite is Particular – on practically a daily basis since I first discovered them back in 2004”, James told us. ”From subtle touches – drifting dust to add realism to a project, for example – to dramatic effects like bursts of light and sparks, I’ve always found that Trapcode plug-ins enable me to create new and exciting visual pieces.”

Check out more of James Andrew Cook’s work at:

• http://www.cookiemotion.com/
• http://www.empiredesign.com/

The NAB 2011 show was April 11-14 in Ye Ol’ Vegas. It’s the biggest annual US-based show for broadcast artists and their vendors. If you’ve been paying attention lately to digital media news, people have been posting their videos and photos and opinions. For instance, Studio Daily’s blogger Scott Simon did a great South Hall round-up and Stu Maschwitz, our Magic Bullet Creative Director, covered Apple’s big FCP X announcement in his ProLost blog.

Aside from seeing new technology, I asked people at Red Giant what they love about NAB. (This potentially sounds like a Coca-Cola commercial, but bear with me.) Here are post-NAB thoughts and Red Giant booth photos from some of my favorite coworkers. Interestingly, our photos all seem to be taken with iPhones. Guess everyone was completely taken with the launch of our two new mobile apps, Movie Looks and Noir, and forgot to grab those DSLRs. Oops.

Left to right, Aharon Rabinowitz, Harry Frank, Andrew Cheyne, John Kerr and Micah Sharp:

From Aharon Rabinowitz, our Director of Community and All Bets Are off boy wonder, shown first from left, “The reason I go out is to meet the people who use our products. By putting faces to the amazing work I see on-line every day, It recharges my love for what I do.”

A big Red Giant shout-out goes to Harry Frank, our inhouse motion designer of Gray Machine fame, shown second from left. Harry came to NAB four days after he had a baby — well, you know what I mean — so he is this year’s Trade Show Rockstar. Look for his adorable new son in Red Giant promos to come.

From Andrew Little, Red Giant Cofounder and enabler of the booth, “This was the busiest and most  energized NAB in 5 years. My head is still spinning. It’s still the best place to meet potential partners, generate some new product buzz, meet our customers, and have fun.”

Andrew being interviewed by… someone important:

From Beth Manning, our Sales Manager and booth coordinator extraordinaire, “NAB is always an exciting week for Red Giant. It’s a great opportunity to show our new technologies. We get to see old friends and customers as well as meet folks new to Red Giant. Folks come to our booth with praises, ideas and complaints and we like to hear them all!”

And for me, Debbie Rich, our tech writer and today’s blogger, NAB is an annual creative pilgrimage, kind of like going to Burning Man. I make my way to the desert, see a lot of cool art and technology, meet up with people I really like but only see once a year, have some drinks, and stand around figuring out what party to go to next. It’s awesome. See you next year!

Beth with Simon Walker, our QuickTip Guru and booth, ummm, babe: