Arthur Christmas and Sony Pictures Imageworks

fxguide recently visited Sony Pictures Imageworks to discuss the making of Arthur Christmas with key members of the visual effects and animation team. In this fxguidetv ep, they talk to Doug Ikeler (vfx supervisor), Rob Bredow (C.T.O), Alan Hawkins (supervising animator) and Thomas Hollier (lighting supervisor).

The Muppets: It’s time to raise the curtain

Renowned puppeteer Jim Henson created The Muppets more than half a century ago. Since then they’ve had their own show, movie and several other spin-offs. Now the Muppets star in a new film directed by James Bobin in which they have to save their precious theater. Look Effects visual effects supervisor Max Ivins recounts his studio’s joy at working on 350 shots for the latest Muppet adventure.

Drawless Animation, 4 Minute Film School : Indy Mogul

Immortals: Q&A with VFX sup. Raymond Gieringer

For Immortals, director Tarsem Singh called on visual effects supervisor Raymond Gieringer to oversee a wide range of environments, battles, natural phenomena and ‘blood and guts’ action. In this fxinsider interview, Gieringer delves into the planning stages and on-set virtual sets and live-viz systems used to help create the visual effects.

ISO Settings in Digital Photography

(you can see larger sized images of both shots here for the 100 ISO and here for the 3200 ISO)

What is ISO?

In traditional (film) photography ISO (or ASA) was the indication of how sensitive a film was to light. It was measured in numbers (you’ve probably seen them on films – 100, 200, 400, 800 etc). The lower the number the lower the sensitivity of the film and the finer the grain in the shots you’re taking.

In Digital Photography ISO measures the sensitivity of the image sensor. The same principles apply as in film photography – the lower the number the less sensitive your camera is to light and the finer the grain. Higher ISO settings are generally used in darker situations to get faster shutter speeds (for example an indoor sports event when you want to freeze the action in lower light) – however the cost is noisier shots. I’ll illustrate this below with two elargements of shots that I just took – the one on the left is taken at 100 ISO and the one of the right at 3200 ISO (click to enlarge to see the full effect).

100 ISO is generally accepted as ‘normal’ and will give you lovely crisp shots (little noise/grain).

Most people tend to keep their digital cameras in ‘Auto Mode’ where the camera selects the appropriate ISO setting depending upon the conditions you’re shooting in (it will try to keep it as low as possible) but most cameras also give you the opportunity to select your own ISO also.

When you do override your camera and choose a specific ISO you’ll notice that it impacts the aperture and shutter speed needed for a well exposed shot. For example – if you bumped your ISO up from 100 to 400 you’ll notice that you can shoot at higher shutter speeds and/or smaller apertures.

When choosing the ISO setting I generally ask myself the following four questions:

1. Light – Is the subject well lit?
2. Grain – Do I want a grainy shot or one without noise?
3. Tripod – Am I using a tripod?
4. Moving Subject – Is my subject moving or stationary?
5. 
   

If there is plenty of light, I want little grain, I’m using a tripod and my subject is stationary I will generally use a pretty low ISO rating.

However if it’s dark, I purposely want grain, I don’t have a tripod and/or my subject is moving I might consider increasing the ISO as it will enable me to shoot with a faster shutter speed and still expose the shot well.

Of course the trade off of this increase in ISO will be noisier shots.

Situations where you might need to push ISO to higher settings include:

• Indoor Sports Events – where your subject is moving fast yet you may have limited light available.
• Concerts – also low in light and often ‘no-flash’ zones
• Art Galleries, Churches etc- many galleries have rules against using a flash and of course being indoors are not well lit.
• Birthday Parties – blowing out the candles in a dark room can give you a nice moody shot which would be ruined by a bright flash. Increasing the ISO can help capture the scene.
• 
  

ISO is an important aspect of digital photography to have an understanding of if you want to gain more control of your digital camera. Experiment with different settings and how they impact your images today.

Read more: http://www.digital-photography-school.com/iso-settings#ixzz1eaOZsj8q
Courtesy : Digital Photography School

Mission Impossible Theme Music In Indian Version

Check this out. Mission Impossible Indian Classical Version. Composed & Programmed by: Mr Aloshya Peter, Clusters College For Media & Design, Trivandrum Campus

The Foundry releases OCULA 3.0

It has been three years since The Foundry introduced OCULA, a plug-in toolset for Nuke designed to assist with the integration of elements and help correct common stereo-3D defects. Releases have come regulary since then and today OCULA 3.0 was released.

From The Foundry Press Release:

OCULA 3.0 is our most significant upgrade to date. Stereo‐3D has seen substantial growth in the three years since OCULA was launched and sustained collaboration with customers on ambitious stereo projects has provided the opportunity to considerably improve OCULA’s efficiency and workflow. OCULA 3.0 brings new tools to help fix mis­‐focused camera pairs and retime in stereo as well as a range of workflow tweaks and improvements to speed up day­‐to‐day OCULA use dramatically. It is cleaner and more accurate giving better results from all OCULA operations.

Bill Collis, Chief Executive Officer, comments, “The Foundry aims to innovate in the area of high end visual effects and invests heavily in research and the support of emerging industry trends. OCULA was developed in conjunction with customers facing the reality of delivering ambitious live action stereo projects. There is no other tool like it on the market. It also reinforces NUKE, with its native stereo workflow, as the only real choice when compositing stereo-3D.”

OCULA 3.0 is available immediately and works on the same platforms as NUKE/NUKEX.

The OCULA team have released some videos that demo the new disparity mapping, focus and re-timing in OCULA 3.0:

Follow the Link : http://www.fxguide.com/quicktakes/the-foundry-releases-ocula-3-0/

Breaking Bad: the end of Gus

In ‘Face Off’, the final season four episode of AMC’s Breaking Bad, the notorious Gus character meets his gruesome end via a homemade bomb detonated inside a nursing home. Gus’ death is revealed in a single shot, showing first the explosion and then actor Giancarlo Esposito’s disfigured face, before he collapses. Visual effects supervisor and producer William Powloski of Velocity FX takes us through the practical and digital work for the stunning shot.

fxg: How was that particular sequence conceived, in terms of what would be shot live action and what would be a visual effect?

Powloski: It was a real team effort from just about everybody on the show. In January this year, I was having a meeting with one of the producers when Vince Gilligan – the creator of the show and the writer and director of this particular episode – popped his head in and said, ‘I want to do a shot where there’s an explosion, somebody comes out of the room, the camera sweeps around and we see that half of his face is gone.’

Follow the link : http://www.fxguide.com/featured/breaking-bad-the-end-of-gus/