fxphd July09 Term, AKA Show You My O-Week

Registration is now open for the new July09 Term of fxphd, the most in-depth visual effects training you can find. This term I’m joining Mike Seymour in teaching a course on DSLR cinematography, for which Mike, John Montgomery, and I traveled to Japan to train our lenses on some of the most tantalizing and notoriously film-unfriendly settings on the planet.

The double-chin is due to either the awkward pose or all the amazing food we ate—possibly both.

The double-chin is due to either the awkward pose or all the amazing food we ate—possibly both.

Here you see me hand-holding my Canon 5D Mark II with Mike’s Canon 70–200 f/2.8L IS in Tokyo’s teen fashion capital, Harajuku. This ill-advised activity is made somewhat more tolerable by the funky support rig I’ve created by bending my Gorillapod GP8 (the badass metal one — coolest thing I’ve added to my kit in months) into an outrigger that lets me support some of the lens’s weight with my focus-pulling arm.

Mike has a couple of updates (first, second) on his Dean’s Blog, and there’s a terrific “o-week” video (right-click to download) that provides a sneak peek at some of what we shot and how we shot it, as well as teasers for the amazing array of other classes in the term.

If you can’t tell, I’m a (somewhat biased) fan of fxphd. Mike, John, and their worldwide team of professors give you the good stuff, the likes of which I’ve not seen anywhere else. If you want to learn visual effects from real artists working in the field, fxphd is the place to do it.

Complete course listing for the July09 term here.

Got Me a Side Job

Red Giant Software today announced the addition of a new Creative Director for the Magic Bullet product line. Me!

“The Magic Bullet vision is to create software that gives any production, regardless of budget, the look of a high-end feature film. We are immensely pleased that Stu is dedicating his time and vision to enhance and grow the Magic Bullet tools in 2009 and beyond. He has already begun to work on new Magic Bullet products, and you will see many new and updated tools coming later this year,” said Sean Safreed, Co-Founder and Director of Products at Red Giant Software.

The full press release also goes into some detail about the history of Red Giant, Magic Bullet, and The Orphanage.

While the announcement is exciting, it doesn’t actually represent a big change for me. My relationship with Red Giant has always been strong, and has always been about sharing with the world the tools that I create out of necessity when making films. I promise you that my filmmaking will always come first, and that anything I design for Red Giant is a tool that I wanted or needed or found missing in my arsenal.

Colorista and Magic Bullet Looks are perfect examples of this, and to kick off the party with Red Giant I recorded a little tutorial on how to use them to match the looks of this summer’s big movies.

Red Giant TV Episode 22: Creating a Summer Blockbuster Film Look

Thanks very much to Aharon Rabinowitz, host of Red Giant TV, for tidying up my tut and wrapping it in pure (and embarrassing) pimp. Aharon does a great job with Red Giant TV—if you want to catch every episode, subscribe in iTunes.

Update on 2010-03-15 17:15 by Stu

Shortly after this tutorial, Red Giant Software released Magic Bullet Mojo, which makes it dangerously easy to give your footage this look. Check out my guided tour of Mojo.

Magic Lantern

Thanks to Mik for the comment that brought this to my attention. Magic Lantern is a firmware hack for the Canon 5D Mark II that enables the following features:

  • Onscreen audio meters
  • Zebra stripes
  • Crop marks
  • Manual audio level controls
  • Lower noise than stock firmware
  • Possibly messing up your nice camera

I don’t quite know what to make of this, other than to point out the obvious: filmmakers are so keen on making this camera work for them that they’re willing to risk damaging their cameras.

It reminds me of what Dr. Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) said in Jurassic Park: “Life… finds a way.”

Personally, I’d rather have a peaking focus assist than audio level control. I don’t mind doing dual system with this camera. But the zebra feature is great, as are the crop marks.

If the Magic Lantern guys figure out 24p I may just have to install it, but until that day I’ll hold out hope that Canon will beat them to it.

Magic Lantern Firmware Wiki

Discussion on dvinfo.net

Update on 2009-06-22 20:46 by Stu

Good and useful comments below, including one from Ville that links to a FAQ and prompted me to delete the line about voiding your warrantee.