Full-service performance capture studio Silver Spoon has opened its doors in Brooklyn, making it one of the largest commercially available mo-cap studios on the East Coast. Silver Spoon features a highly equipped 12,000 sq. foot facility, a comfortable mo-cap stage, production offices with full amenities, and a comprehensive service offering including body and facial capture, rigging and scanning, and post processing. The expertise of the Silver Spoon team spans motion capture and animation for commercials, award-winning AAA Games, and major motion pictures.
“This entity fills a void for motion capture in New York,” said Silver Spoon managing director Dan Pack. “Looking at the incredible work being done by local VFX shops in commercials, film and TV on the East Coast, the missing piece was an all-encompassing performance capture and virtual production studio. “In fact, when we embarked on this venture with our Studio A last fall, we thought we might focus only on mo-cap, but we found that there was a need for a much broader offering.”
Silver Spoon features/specs include:
- 65’x55’ Stage with 16’ to 20’ high ceilings, and a capture volume of approximately 53×50.
- 48-camera Vicon Vantage system running latest version of Vicon Shogun
- Four 4k reference cameras from multiple angles
- BlackMagic Multiview for multiple video monitoring
- Ambient Lockit Timecode and Sync Generators
- 32-camera Optitrack system exclusively for VR
“Ultimately, we want people to do more work here in New York.” Pack said, pointing to the value of realtime production capabilities and virtual production in the aid of previsualization, as well as the need for high-end, realtime CG content. “Our job is to provide support to so many already-great East Coast artists. And the New York tax incentives are so lucrative, that most clients are looking to do more work here, given the chance.”
Google Opens Its Defense In Antitrust Case Alleging Monopoly Over Online Ad Technology
Google opened its defense against allegations that it holds an illegal monopoly on online advertising technology Friday with witness testimony saying the industry is vastly more complex and competitive than portrayed by the federal government.
"The industry has been exceptionally fluid over the last 18 years," said Scott Sheffer, a vice president for global partnerships at Google, the company's first witness at its antitrust trial in federal court in Alexandria.
The Justice Department and a coalition of states contend that Google built and maintained an illegal monopoly over the technology that facilitates the buying and selling of online ads seen by consumers.
Google counters that the government's case improperly focuses on a narrow type of online ads — essentially the rectangular ones that appear on the top and on the right-hand side of a webpage. In its opening statement, Google's lawyers said the Supreme Court has warned judges against taking action when dealing with rapidly emerging technology like what Sheffer described because of the risk of error or unintended consequences.
Google says defining the market so narrowly ignores the competition it faces from social media companies, Amazon, streaming TV providers and others who offer advertisers the means to reach online consumers.
Justice Department lawyers called witnesses to testify for two weeks before resting their case Friday afternoon, detailing the ways that automated ad exchanges conduct auctions in a matter of milliseconds to determine which ads are placed in front of which consumers and how much they cost.
The department contends the auctions are finessed in subtle ways that benefit Google to the exclusion of would-be competitors and in ways that prevent... Read More