At the end of 2012, Matt Syzmanowski penned a guest post for us on the development of his feature, The Purple Onion. Now, as he’s finishing the final cut of the film, he sends us this follow-up detailing one unusual step along the way: screening the film to a large audience at Cinequest as a work-in-progress. Below are his five pieces of advice for any filmmaker on improving a cut using audience feedback. — SM The Cinequest Film Festival invited us to screen our debut feature film, The Purple Onion, long before it was even completed. We knew we didn’t […]

At NAB Red Giant announced a wide array of updates and new effects across their various programs. A lot of the changes revolve around Supernova, an original framework they developed that enables them to rapidly create new effects that run quicker than before. This is the backbone of their new Universe plug-in suite, a collection of 50 effects, everything from lens flares to retro film looks. Universe is also experimenting with the subscription model, though not forcing anyone to commit. You can choose a recurring pricing option for $10 a month or $99 a year, or get a lifetime membership (essentially […]

Besides the new URSA and Studio camera announcements, Blackmagic announced some new updates to their popular coloring software DaVinci Resolve. While the newest version boasts over 100 new features, the vast majority of them are improvements to the editing capabilities. In previous versions the editing area of Resolve was more for making tweaks to an ingested timeline to correct any errors or drop in footage that didn’t import properly. Now it’s aiming to be a full fledged editor. The latest version adds a bunch of features you’d find in most NLEs – lots of timeline trimming options and keyboard controls, […]

While today is the official day the exhibition halls open their doors at NAB, last night some companies got to release a sneak peek of some do their new products. Definitely the most exciting in the production field is Ronin, a new handheld gimbal stabilizing system that’s a direct competitor to the MoVI. Like MoVI’s manufacturer, Freefly Systems, Ronin comes from a company with a background in making aerial drones with gyrostabilizers, DJI. They’re probably best known for the Phantom, the GoPro aerial drone that’s made high altitude shots available to just about anyone. While Ronin and MoVI look pretty […]

It’s unlikely many films released this year will lean as heavily on sound design for their overall impact as Jonathan Glazer’s Under The Skin, a loose adaptation of Michel Faber’s 2000 novel of the same name. The director’s long-awaited follow-up to 2004’s Birth is a warped, haunting melange of sci-fi and cinema vérité which reinvents Hollywood siren Scarlett Johansson as a blank-eyed, cold-hearted alien with a cut-glass English accent. The alien shores up in the Scottish highlands and embarks on an implacable quest which involves cruising around in a white van, looking for hapless local men to “seduce.” Under The […]

Red Giant has today announced updates to two of their filmmaking software tools. Magic Bullet Looks has become popular with filmmakers who want to do a quick color grade for a project but don’t have the time – or the skill – to use a tool like DaVinci Resolve. This update adds several features, but perhaps of most interest to those who already have the tool is the promise of speed increases of up to 95% on Windows, and 25% on Macs. According to Red Giant, this release was entirely rewritten on their new development platform Universe, which provides GPU accelerated […]

The folks at FCP.co have detailed a series of tests designed to push their new Mac Pro hardware and Final Cut Pro X software to their breaking point. In one, they layer over 1,000 tracks in 4K. In another, they create a 500,000-pixel wide timeline. And in the final, they create and scroll through a 558-day timeline. Here, from FCP.co, are their conclusions: We pushed FCPX and the Mac Pro to silly limits, of course nobody will make a year long or a 500,000 pixel wide timeline, but it’s good to know the combination will go that far. It seems […]

The deadline to apply for the 2014 IFP Narrative Lab, April 4, is coming soon, and in advance of that deadline, I thought I’d write some words about my debut feature Something, Anything being selected for last year’s Lab, what happens in the first week of the Lab, and things to consider if you plan on applying. And let’s be clear: If you’re working on your first feature you should apply. * * * In Spring 2012, producer Ashley Maynor and I set our sights on applying to the IFP Lab when we were halfway through shooting Something, Anything, which […]

Television stations – like distribution and production companies – can have a lot invested in their IDs. They represent the brand in the mind of the consumer. In 1972, WGBH created a station ID with a logo sting by Gershon Kingsley. That sound has become closely associated with WGBH, and they’ve made several updated IDs using that original Moog synthesizer sound through the years. Paul Sanni, an editor for the Creative Services department and the Masterpiece series at WGBH has twice worked on revisions of the ID. Sanni has a background in audio and video and for the latest version […]

Cinemagraph Pro from Flixel adds motion to a still image. In essence you shoot a sequence of video, and then indicate the area of the image that you want to see in motion – perhaps just the hands of the subject of a portrait, or the water in the lake of a scenic picture. While the masked area remains in motion, the rest of the scene is totally still; the lack of motion draws the eye to the part of the image that is moving. It’s an interesting effect, and could be useful in video or film for dream sequences, […]