» Posts Tagged ‘postproduction’
Aliens, Spaceships, and Google Earth: a Behind-the-Scenes Look at the VFX of 'Prometheus'
Even if you haven’t yet caught one of this past year’s most hyped science fiction films, you’re probably still somewhat familiar (thanks to nearly inescapable tv spots) with the stark visual presence found in Ridley Scott’s Prometheus (just released on Blu-ray). Scott’s no stranger to vividly-realized landscapes, and after a brief (ahem, 30 year) hiatus from the realm of sci-fi, he’s once again brought us that flavor of striking imagery — but not without the help of some seriously special effects teams. More »
9 Tutorials to Get You Started Making DVD Content in Adobe Encore
We’ve written a lot on NoFilmSchool about the tutorials available for editing, visual effects, and color correction, but there’s one area of post production we haven’t really touched upon: DVD authoring. However, once you watch these tutorials from Creative Cow’s Andrew Devis, you’ll have the knowledge you need to start creating content for your DVD’s: More »
Adobe Extends 40% Discount on Creative Cloud to June 2013
So much for the deal expiring at the end of August — Adobe’s offer of their entire Creative Suite for $30/month (as opposed to $50/month) is now available until June of 2013 for current CS users (CS3 or later). You have to sign up for a full year of Creative Cloud but the savings totals $240; I myself am a satisfied Creative Cloud user, and who doesn’t like saving 40%? More »
Why Do We Let Creative Pursuits Take Over Our Lives? A Lesson in Perspective from Linds Redding
I once edited for an entire weekend. I’m not exaggerating — I went into the media lab on a Friday afternoon, and left on a Sunday night after my girlfriend and some friends dragged me out. I was obsessing about the latest episode of our sketch comedy show, and completely missed one of the best homecomings my college had seen. When I came to my senses, this caused a sense of regret. It was an important lesson on getting out, having a life, and generally not letting creative pursuits ruin my life. More »
FilmConvert: the Best Film Stock Emulator You've Ever Seen
We’ve said a lot about the digital versus film debate, and a lot of people have a lot of different opinions. Film still had a technological advantage over digital until really the last few years or so, and now we have digital sensors which can match or exceed film stocks with dynamic range. Either way, with digital sensors being “too clean” for some people who have loved the look of film, there is a program called FilmConvert that takes the color information of specific cameras and actually uses that to determine how a specific film stock could best be represented using that sensor. Click through for some videos of the program in action. More »
Adobe to Natively Support Apple Macbook Pro Retina Display with Software Updates
In what will surely be welcome news for those who routinely use Photoshop and Premiere, Adobe is planning to natively support the higher resolution display of the new Macbook Pro (as well as any other HiDPI displays in the future). While there are certain creative applications that immediately supported the Retina resolution with software updates (namely Apple’s Final Cut Pro X and Motion), Adobe was not able to offer this support right away. For those who are loving the extra screen resolution, it’s disappointing to then have to open Adobe products only to see them not share the same crispness as the native apps. Not all Creative Cloud applications will receive support (at least at this time), but you can read the full list of programs that will get software updates below. More »
One Week Left to Save 40% on Adobe Creative Cloud CS6 for the Entire Year
We posted this earlier this month, but the deal expires in a week so it’s worth one last notification. If you’re a current user of any Adobe software (CS3 or later), you can upgrade to Adobe’s new all-inclusive Creative Cloud membership for $29.95/month (instead of $49.95) for the first year — a savings of $240. The discount expires at the end of August, so get cracking if you’re thinking of signing up. More »
Most everyone can agree that 4K footage downscaled to 1080p looks great. Even cameras that don’t shoot 4K are often oversampling in order to output a clean 1080p file. However, when you’re shooting 4K or 5K on a RED camera and you’re outputting a 1080p file in post, it turns out not all downscaling is created equal. While RED has just released a tutorial on how to export footage from their grading software, REDCINE-X, they barely mention the Software Scaling setting, and so I did some testing myself: More »
Back in July we covered the release of Source Filmmaker,
A Colorist’s Perspective: Practical Comparisons of DaVinci Resolve and Apple Color
This is a guest post by Tristan Kneschke.
With the release of Apple Color several years ago, the once-niche field of high-end color grading trickled down to the average user. When Blackmagic released DaVinci Resolve on Mac it became more obvious that color grading was the next big wave. Having already been grading professionally with Color shortly after it was released, I quickly decided to invest in a traveling DaVinci Resolve Mac Pro tower. The client demand for color grading in particular, and a traveling station specifically, has grown my business at a rate I never thought possible. Now, with Resolve 9 nearing its official, non-beta release, Blackmagic has separated itself even more from Apple’s killed product. More »
Thinking About Upgrading to Adobe CS6? Get a $240 Adobe Creative Cloud Discount This Month Only
I’ve been meaning to do this personally, but almost forgot — so here’s a reminder of an expiring deal. If you’re a current user of any Adobe software (CS3 or later), you can upgrade to Adobe’s new all-inclusive Creative Cloud membership for $29.95/month (instead of $49.95) for the first year — a savings of $240. The discount expires at the end of this month (August), so get cracking if you’re thinking of signing up. More »
So you bought a copy of Adobe Creative Suite 6 or downloaded it via Creative Cloud. Where do you start? Well, Adobe has a slew of videos on their website to introduce you to the changes in the Premiere Pro and After Effects interfaces, and to show you how the new features in CS6 work. Here are some of my favorites: More »
It's Finally Here: Adobe Creative Cloud CS6 is Now Live, But Which Option Should You Choose?
After the software-only version was made available earlier in the week, Adobe Creative Cloud CS6 is live starting today. If the cost of owning this software has been prohibitive for you in the past, Adobe is finally allowing you to “rent” on a month-to-month or yearly basis. If you’ve never purchased the software in the past, the best deal is their plan that charges $50 per month for a year contract. If you just want to try it out on a month-to-month basis, it will be a little more expensive at $75 per month. If you are upgrading, they are doing a special promotion for $30 per month for the first year. More »
Adobe Story Plus Stretches Creative Cloud from Pre-Production to Post-Production
Adobe has been wooing screenwriters with its free Story online screenwriting software, and now it’s pushing to make Story the first step in its pre-production to post-production solution. With the Creative Cloud scheduled to launch May 11th for Adobe Creative Suite 6, Adobe has added new features and functionality to Story, now splitting the product between Story Free and Story Plus. Story Free remains the in-the-cloud version of the screenwriting app that Adobe previously released, while for a subscription of $15/month or as part of a Creative Cloud subscription, CS6 users get access to Story Plus. Advantages of Story Plus over Story Free include: More »
Adobe Creative Suite 6 Now Available, Here's How to Get 40% Off a Subscription
Adobe Creative Suite 6 is now available. For filmmakers, the bundle of interest is Production Premium CS6, which includes: a redesigned Premiere Pro, Speed Grade for color grading, the new log and ingest application Prelude, new versions of After Effects and Audition, and Creative Cloud integration. Creative Cloud is scheduled to launch May 11th, and will give you access to all CS6 apps for $50/month — or $30/month for the first year if you’re a registered user of any Adobe product since CS3 and use this link by August 31 (that’s 40% off). The new Premiere Pro integrates some speed-focused features borrowed from Apple’s much-maligned Final Cut Pro X, including “hoverscrub,” which was one of my favorite FCPX features; here’s a look at the new version of Adobe’s NLE. More »
Adobe has launched Creative Suite 6 and is now taking pre-orders (no word on a release date yet). This latest version of Adobe’s Creative Suite includes more Mercury acceleration, adjustment layers in Premiere Pro, Speed Grade for color grading, ray-traced extruded 3D objects and reflections and 3D camera tracking in After Effects, Creative Cloud, and more. You can also check out an overview of the new features in Joe’s post on day 2 at NAB 2012, as well as the official Adobe Production Premium video with Jason Levine: More »
DaVinci Resolve Now Available on Windows Thanks to Free Public Beta
Just because the popular color correction software DaVinci Resolve uses a Mac monitor for its press image (at left) doesn’t mean it’s Mac only — any more. Resolve, which has a free version known fittingly as Resolve Lite, now comes in a Windows version for the first time thanks a newly-released Public Beta. If you have already purchased Resolve for Mac, the Windows version comes included, so you now have a Windows license too. More »
Celluloid is expensive. And besides, literally nobody makes film cameras anymore. But it does have a very particular aesthetic, one chief component of which is grain. There is a grit to film that today’s digital cameras lack, and while there are plenty of plugins out there to simulate this grit, there are no substitutes for the real artifacts. The guys at CineGrain took dozens of different film stocks and painstakingly scanned them in, delivering authentic grain, dirt, headers, tails, lens flares, and flash frames on a nice branded hard drive. Film grain isn’t appropriate for every project, but if you want your video to look like grainy 35mm, 16mm, or 8mm — but can’t shoot the real thing — you’ll find CineGrain to be a handy addition to your toolbox of tricks. More »
RED has been cranking out new beta versions of their ingest/grading software REDCINE-X PRO seemingly every week or so, and you can bet it will find a lot of new users thanks to the impending release of their SCARLET-X camera (which is supposed to start shipping this Thursday). REDCINE-X PRO is free — though you need a very expensive piece of hardware to use it — so here is a great tutorial from Dan Kanes, which demonstrates the flexibility of the RAW workflow: More »
I am way late with this, but better late than never — and better free than $500. Wes and Harry Plate, the father-son duo behind Automatic Duck, were recently hired by Adobe. Automatic Duck makes (made) the well-known plugins Pro Import AE, Pro Import FCP, and Pro Export FCP, which allow users to open Final Cut Pro projects in After Effects, as well as enabling some other interoperability. This move by Adobe seems as much to prevent the duo from updating their must-have plugins for Final Cut Pro X, as much as it is to help Adobe with their already admirable integration between Premiere Pro and After Effects, but as a result all of Automatic Duck’s existing plugins — which formery ran $500 apiece — are free. Said Wes and Harry: More »
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