I recently needed to uprez some footage from 160×120 to HD. I used the occasion to give Red Giant’s Instant HD a try-out. The results looked decent, but for comparison I also simply adjusted the motion settings in Final Cut Pro. Surprizingly, to me those results looked actually better.

Famous enhance moments

A fun compilation of all those films that use the (non-existing) enhance function that is part of any science-fiction/tech-thriller/computer-action movie. Enjoy!

(via)

Every once in a while you will get a client that will ask for a favour. Be it an extra round of editing, extra graphics, or 50% off. Imagine if we would do the same in every day situations – we would be ridiculed. Yet, every one working in the creative realm will get asked sooner or later.

Here’s a film that shows how ridiculous this really is. Enjoy.

Sorry I’m late is a short film that first looks like a computer animation, but it is actually made with real people, old-school stop-motion animation and a very witty way of playing with perspective. You can see the youtube version below, but I would recommend to see the higher res version. On the dedicated website you can also find some extensive behind-the-scene footage. Enjoy!

I’ll be gone for 10 days, filming onboard the Hurtigrute. In the meantime you might enjoy this Onion podcast:

Here is something that is beautifully shot, perfect way of saying: a happy, healthy & creative 2009 to all of you.

Does it make sense to spend money when the reason for the recession is excessive overspending?
(via)

One of the things I love about the Internets is how they change media, and especially advertising. In TV the advertiser has to spend a lot of money to get fixed slots of say 10, 15 or 30 seconds. Excepts for a few notable exceptions, stories have to be very simple, quickly told.

Now, with Internet and broadband, stories are no longer restricted by length – they just have to be good, so that people do want to watch them. More money can be spend on the actual film, rather than its distribution. “Get out of the Doghouse” is an excellent example of one of those. Observe:

(via Doug Karr)

Hungry Man/Grey London has made this new commercial for Toshiba, employing 200 hidef cameras.

20.000 gigabyte of data. 2 1/2 million individually renamed frames. $4.7 million dollar.

Some background footage:

Some facts

• The TV ad was shot using 200 Toshiba Gigashot Cameras: the highest number of moving image cameras ever used in a film sequence
• This particular technique, viewing looping action in 360 degrees, has never been done before
• The rig was custom built weighing approximately half a tonne, including 200 cameras and electronics
• The rig measures 14m diameter circle and 1.8m high
• The 200 cameras were all triggered using a single remote control
• Once the rig was built, four focus pullers spent three days focusing and aligning all 200 cameras
• The time spent processing footage from 200 cameras was over four weeks – 24 hours a day seven days a week!
• New offline and online editing software had to be specifically built for the job
• In terms of data, this is one of the biggest jobs a post-production house has ever taken on – 20TB of data

Credits

Production Company: Hungry Man LTD
Director: Mitch Stratton
Editor and editing company: The Whitehouse / Christophe Williams
Post-production company: The Mill
Music: Crystal Castles – Air War
Voice-over: Kira Lauren

(from the Press Release)

I try to stay away from politics on this blog, but when politics meets film, technology and life, I cannot resist.

Director(s): David Morgasen , Yaroslav Kemnits (Director of Special Effects)
Writer(s): David Morgasen
Producer(s): Dmitry Lesnevsky (Exec. Producer), David Morgasen (Exec. Producer), Elena Muravina

A good friend, who is both a programmer and dancer, sent me this well made french dance film from 1994, Le petit bal perdu. Love the feel of film (and can you spot the matte box?)