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adobe announces new production premium CS6 suite

Yesterday Adobe announced the forthcoming Production Premium CS6, which will include new versions of Premiere, After Effects, Audition, Encore and Photoshop. Versions 5 and 5.5 both represented major milestones in terms of features, performance and stability. In fact, the increased stability of CS5.5 was a big part of why I finally decided to make the jump to a total Adobe workflow.

So do the new features of Production Premium CS6 represent the same leap forward in visual storytelling..?

time lapse + motion effects = awesome

Someone turned me on to this amazing short film earlier today, and I knew a lot of you would definitely be able to appreciate what the filmmaker's up to with this piece. It's a incredible marriage of time lapse footage, motion graphics, visual effects, color grading and killer title work. The integration with the soundtrack is top-notch as well.

Douglas Koke is the visual artist, and you gotta respect the way he was able to find a compelling subject and then add several layers of awesome. Even better, the footage itself was shot with a sub-$1,000 Canon T3i.

Check out the short here...

creating a technical color grade

Over the past month or so my friends Rob Webster, Kathleen Sylvestri and I have been working hard on a new promo short about love, sex and marriage. What's made it great has been finally having an excuse to make a short film entirely within the world of Legos. (you can check it out after the jump)

One of my responsibilities on the project was color grading the final results. This presented a unique challenge as there wasn't anywhere stylistically to take it. For the sake of the story and the the tone of the composition those yellow Lego faces needed to stay in their correct color space. This wasn't a project to go all 'hipster' on.

What this piece needed a good Technical Correction grade without adding any Style Grading. If that last sentence seems at all confusing then this is the tutorial for you...

chance (and Spielberg) favors the bold

Sometimes if you work your tail off, create something great, then put it out there, good things really can happen. Just ask James Curran. Last month Curran posted an unoffical opening title sequence for Steven Spielberg's Tintin movie, an effort so well-realized that it currently has over 600,000 views on Vimeo.

Turns out one of those viewers was Spielberg himself. Now Slashfilm is reporting that Curran has been invited to the world premiere of Tintin in London by the man himself. Even better, according to the co-writer of Tintin Spielberg has offered Curran a job! Talk about a dream coming true.

Check out the animation that launched it all after the jump...

introducing "video meshes"

By all accounts Adobe is riding a wave like it hasn't seen in years, thanks in large part to a monster fumble earlier this year by Apple. And as you'll see in the video after the jump, the wave's about to get a whole lot bigger.  This is truely astounding stuff.

What's been amazing to see is just how hard Adobe has preparing for this moment in time. Adobe doesn't just want to be a part of the media creation game, they want to be the WHOLE game - concept to completion. A lot of companies want to help you with the last part of the process; Adobe's trying to help you figure out how to open up doors at the inception stage.

Enter video meshes. I could try to explain them in words, but it wouldn't be nearly as effective as just seeing it in action...

incredible deal on media software

When it comes to filmmaking and media production one of the most common questions I get is what software I create with.  That used to be a more complicated question, but thanks to some industry craziness I can now give a very simple answer: Adobe Production Premium CS5.5. 

Sometime soon I'm going to write a more comprehensive review of the Production Suite, but for now I'll just say that Adobe has proven the old adage that chance favors the prepared mind.  For the first time ever Adobe finally has all of their assets running at full steam, and their timing couldn't be better. 

Speaking of timing, you have approximately three weeks to take advantage of the best software deal I've ever seen from Adobe...

great filmmaking websites

Last week a had a great time leading the filmmaking workshops a Leadership Institute.  I've been teaching these workshops for three years now, and I'm just blown away by how much filmmakers and video producers have changes in that time.  When I started out everything I taught in the classes was "brilliant"; now I have to be on my toes to make sure I'm one step ahead of many of these artists who are attending these workshops!

One of the things I always try to make sure I'm offering is a great set of resources for the people who come out.  In my opinion, one of the best resources I can hook producers up with (and the one I would want from other filmmakers) is a list of website where we can continue to learn and grow as artists. 

So here's the places I go to hone my craftiness...

christmas wish list item

So Christmas being just around the corner and all, I wanted to let you all know about a brand new tablet that Wacom announced last week.  For years, many of us have dreamed of being able to draw and edit and composite directly on screen.  With the introduction of the Wacom Cintiq 24HD interactive screen that's finally becoming a realistic option.

So what makes this different than something like the iPad..?

after effects animated short

For those of you who've been wonder where I've been for the past week or so, I've been doing a monster crash course in After Effects for a new project.  It's not that I'm new to the program, but I decided it was past time to get my hands dirty and really master the software.  (for the record - I'm a long way from mastery, but I'm a lot closer than I was two weeks ago)

A couple of weeks ago I was asked to create a 'starter' video to open up all of the sessions of Leadership Institute 2011.  While I could definitely have grabbed a camera and come up with something, this was the kind of project that just screamed for After Effects.  Plus, I'd always wanted to take a shot at creating a 'kinetic text' type thing. 

After a multitude of hours watching tutorials, beating my head against a screen, and occasional flashes of inspiration I finally came up with something...

"character" animation video

So imagine you had 30 seconds to make a powerful statement about the importance of character in all it's facets.  How would you pull that together?  I know there's almost no way I'd be able to top Jason Watson's animated short.

Simple is hard to do, especially when you're trying to be original.  One of the things I like best about this piece is the way it blends kenetic text, iconography, and good, old-fashion film and television distortion techniques.  And the soundtrack really provided the perfect frame for the whole composition.  

Check it out after the jump...