July 12, 2013
Shotgun Helps Illumination Mac Guff manage Despicable Me 2
LOS ANGELES–Shotgun Software’s web-based production management platform, Shotgun, kept Paris-based animation studio Illumination Mac Guff on track for the 3D summer family film and last weekend’s box office topper, Despicable Me 2. Flexible and scalable, Shotgun was first installed at the studio in 2007, and has become more deeply integrated into Illumination Mac Guff’s pipeline with each new project.
“The development cycle for any animated film can run up to four years, and managing our productions on Shotgun helps reduce this time by more than half,” explained Etienne Pecheux, supervising technical director, Illumination Mac Guff. “Shotgun also helps create a real synergy between artists, team leaders and producers. It centralizes all data, which eliminates discrepancies between production reports, and makes it easy to arrange reports any way we need, with different levels of detail depending on scope.”
For Despicable Me 2, Illumination Mac Guff worked with more than 400 artists, 50 team leaders, 25 managers and 30 technical crewmembers. Shotgun provided users instant access to critical project data in real time from any location. During production, each movie or frame sequence published on the internal asset manager was automatically transferred to Shotgun where the content could be viewed via Tweak Software’s RV playback and review system. Illumination Mac Guff also fed Shotgun statistics on render times, which helped detect abnormally long renders and anticipate a re-allocation of render power based on weekly quotas. Having leveraged Shotgun for Despicable Me (2010) and The Lorax (2012), Illumination Mac Guff has also developed about 20 custom Apps around Shotgun to date, from simple Linux line commands to a complex timesheet system.
“Shotgun is a very open production tracking system. Without it, we wouldn’t have been able to track all we needed for three features films,” Pecheux said. “Moreover, we would have lost a tremendous amount of time gathering information for debriefing reports. Today, we have accurate statistics on almost any part of the pipeline, and can anticipate costs and durations very precisely. The simplicity of the API and the core engine behind the UI also make coding dedicated tools very easy.”
For each new feature film project, Illumination Mac Guff sets up a separate Shotgun database to control administrative settings and manage access and control of users at various levels of the production. Prior to deploying Shotgun, Illumination Mac Guff’s projects were managed with a smattering of homemade databases and Excel sheets.
“When Shotgun demoed at our studio, it was obvious that these guys came from production and faced the same problems we did, and that they found the proper answer to each question,” noted Pecheux. “Shotgun stores data in a very simple set of tables and makes it easy to access data through a viewer that you can configure almost any way you like. For our studio, Shotgun made it possible to get global reports as well as detailed views. It definitely changed the way producers and artists work here.”
Shotgun CEO Don Parker said, “Collaborating with the team at Illumination Mac Guff has been incredible and inspiring. We’ve worked very closely with them for years in the evolution of their studio and pipeline, and watching their growth and astounding success has been a thrill. Shotgun is designed to alleviate production tedium and maximize efficiencies so when customers really harness its potential, that’s a big win in our book.”
Featuring the voices of Steve Carell, Kirstin Wiig and Russell Brand, Despicable Me 2 was released in theaters July 3, 2013 by Universal Pictures and Illumination Entertainment.
J.J. Abrams’ Bad Robot “Tweaks” Star Trek Into Darkness
SAN FRANCISCO–Bad Robot, the production company founded by director J.J. Abrams, recently adopted Tweak Software’s RV-SDI to review visual effects shots from Star Trek Into Darkness. Tweak Software, makers of RV, the next generation image and sequence viewer for VFX and animation artists, released RV-SDI just over a year ago, adding SDI output to accommodate color correct, 2K uncompressed, VFX dailies in screening rooms and on professional reference monitors.
Bad Robot Production Executive Ben Rosenblatt explained why working with RV-SDI was so crucial to the artists at Kelvin Optical, Bad Robot’s VFX division: “Dependability is huge for me. When time is running short and the team is looking to review content, we can’t afford to be bogged down with tech problems or user issues. Using RV-SDI eliminated those hurdles; it was smooth sailing time after time.”
Bad Robot worked with multiple VFX facilities on Star Trek Into Darkness. Primary third-party vendors Industrial Light and Magic (ILM) and Pixomondo both actively use RV as their in-house visual effects playback and review tool. Rosenblatt’s first experience with RV was while working with ILM. “I originally heard about RV-SDI when setting up a 2K review system for Gore Verbinski on Rango. I was looking for a good playback solution that wasn’t too expensive, and I knew ILM was already using RV’s desktop application facility-wide.” At the time, RV-SDI wasn’t yet commercially available so Rosenblatt tried an alternate product, but playback was unreliable and it lacked tools for annotation.
RV and RV-SDI include review tools that allow artists and supervisors to organize and annotate media for desktop or dailies reviews, along with a host of advanced color, collaboration and editing features. “Annotation in RV-SDI is incredibly useful. Context and specificity are key for reviews of VFX work to be meaningful, and few review systems integrate annotation with high quality playback as seamlessly as RV,” Rosenblatt continued.
As Bad Robot continues to build the capacity of its Kelvin Optical team, RV-SDI is playing a crucial role in the review pipeline. “We’re looking into possibly expanding our facility, in which case both RV-SDI and RV will play roles in screening room and desktop reviews. I’m also interested and excited about the synchronized sessions capability within RV and look forward to setting up remote reviews of work for future projects where we will likely be working with geographically dispersed teams,” concluded Rosenblatt.
Grass Valley releases EDIUS 7
SAN FRANCISCO–Grass Valley has announced EDIUS 7, the latest version of Grass Valley’s nonlinear video editing application. EDIUS is for editors working on fast turn production in broadcast news, newsmagazine, and studio program content, as well as professional video editors working on organizational, documentary, and 4K theatrical productions. EDIUS 7 is now a native 64-bit application for Windows 7 and Windows 8 64-bit operating systems, taking full advantage of up to 512 GB (dependent upon Windows version) of installed memory for super-intensive media operations, such as multilayer 4K and 3D editing.
In addition to support for a wide range of Grass Valley hardware, EDIUS 7—which will be released in Q3 2013 and publically demonstrated for the first time at IBC 2013—is now open to third-party input and output hardware from Blackmagic Design and Matrox, with support for AJA Video Systems hardware scheduled for Q4 2013. This gives EDIUS users greater flexibility to integrate into a wide variety of environments with one editing interface that can be used for news field editing, newsroom desktop editing, news finishing editing, studio productions, and other high-quality editing for delivery to mobile devices, Internet-connected platforms, traditional television, and for theatrical release. EDIUS 7 also supports EDL project import/export with DaVinci Resolve, as well as a new color grading workflow.
Additional enhanced functionality within EDIUS 7 includes an improved 4K workflow, support for the latest file formats (including XAVC/XAVC S and AVC-Ultra), automatic program update checking, updated MPEG and H.264/AVC performance, faster handling of large quantities of still image files (JPG, TGA, DPX, and others), and a Gaussian blur filter to apply better quality blurring and to prevent Moir� pattern aliasing artifacts.
EDIUS 7 supports any mix of SD, HD, 2K, and 4K resolution on the timeline in real-time, with editing performance increasing as CPU power increases. EDIUS 7 has also been optimized for multicore and Intel fourth-generation Core i CPU systems.
EDIUS 7 will be available in Pro and Elite versions. EDIUS Pro 7 is targeted at the professional, stand-alone user. EDIUS Elite 7 is aimed at editors working collaboratively within network-connected production environments, and features seamless integration with GV STRATUS� nonlinear production tools and Grass Valley K2 media servers and storage with the ability for multiple edit stations to edit-in-place, record directly to K2, and simultaneously edit live video while being ingested (Simul Edit). GV STRATUS integration will be available by September 2013.
A free 30-day trial of EDIUS Pro 7 is available at www.grassvalley.com/edius.
Fabric Engine set to roll out product previews at SIGGRAPH
MONTREAL–Custom development and R&D lies at the heart of every new production, and it’s costing studios a fortune. At SIGGRAPH 2013 at the Anaheim Convention Center, software engineering company Fabric Engine will demo new products that will bring the time, energy and financial costs often associated with this process under control. Whether it’s unleashing multi-threaded performance inside packages like Maya and Nuke for technical directors (Creation: Splice) or showing off a new procedural locomotion system for crowds and characters (Creation: Horde), booth #737 (with Shotgun Software) is where the future of content creation tools become a reality.
Throughout the show, Fabric Engine will be also giving a sneak preview of Creation: Stage, a high-performance scene assembly, lighting and shader authoring system that was developed with Creation Platform. Every day, the team will demonstrate how it works seamlessly with Shotgun’s asset management technology.
User group events will be held on July 23 and July 24 in room 213a. Tuesday’s event begins at 10 a.m. and will cover Creation: Splice, while Wednesday’s event will give an in-depth look at Creation Platform, starting at 4:30 p.m. and will include presentations from Hybride and MPC on their use of Fabric Engine’s technology.
Creation: Horde curiosity can also be satisfied at a Fabric Engine tech talk that will show off how its powerful and interactive UI works wonders for small to medium-sized VFX crowd shots. Starting at 5:30 p.m. in Hall A, Phil Taylor, CTO of Fabric Engine will lead attendees through demos before ending with a short Q&A.
Red Giant releases final beta update for BulletProof
BEAVERTON, Ore.–Red Giant has released its final beta update for footage prep and delivery tool BulletProof. This new beta release includes many feature updates and fixes in response to all of the feedback Red Giant has received, including:
* Metadata export – Send metadata intact to FCP 7, FCP X and Premiere Pro as XML or XMP. Include color adjustments, In/Out points, and an option to trim the original clip or leave it as non-destructive metadata.
* Metadata presets – Save your color adjustments, keywords and other metadata as presets. Use them with playlists or apply on import.
* Color settings – An option to export color values as LUTs, a new Saturation slider, and more accurate color processing make BulletProof a no-brainer for color adjustments on set.
* Macbook Air – Playback now works beautifully on Macbook Air or any computer using the Intel HD 4000 graphics card.
* PluralEyes Integration – A new Metadata option lets you mark and send your imported clips in a bin setup that PluralEyes can read. We have great plans for BulletProof and PluralEyes…
* Better Checksum status – Checksum info is now displayed in the Metadata options, and you have direct access to Import, Backup and Export logs from there.
* New UI – The user interface has been locked down, now including tooltips, keyboard shortcuts, preferences, context menus, and badges on thumbnails.
* Logic updates – Support has been added for Undo/Redo, and Copy/Paste.
