Announcements

Adobe’s got a new Marketplace with sections for Photoshop and AIR, basically another resource center, only this time you pay for stuff. Not to fear though, there are some free entries scattered throughout the site.
Studiodaily posted an article titled ‘First Look: Canon 5D Mark II‘, and I know your mouth is watering just reading that.

Case Studies

Studiodaily: ‘Rain and Fire as Metaphor‘ is an article/video combo about Pierre Michel, who you may remember from the gorgeous Loris Paris Spot and the awesomeness-filled French film festival intro.
There’s an article about the Honda Insight spot. May be interesting to probe the minds of makers out there and their processes a bit.
Also, in Script magazine there’s an article about reality shows and crafting the new Star Trek screenplay.

Articles & (yes) Tutorials

indieWIRE posted an article about distribution, useful tips for any indie filmmaker out there.
Videomaker posted an article about knowing your on-camera audio workings, good advice for anyone operating a camera at all.
Studiodaily posted a tutorial video on editing to the music to the beat of your accompanying music.
Finally, I know nothing about this film itself, but there is an interesting concept mentioned: that of distributing a single DVD with two completely different versions of your film on it, made simply through editing and organization of scenes and sequences. Cool to think about, I remember reading a while back about interactive movies, where it plays out a scene and give the audience member a choice about what happens next, the next scene is played and another choice is given, all leading to the same (or even different) endings, but letting the viewer, in essence, create their own story. That would be sweet.

Tutorial Sites

Layers Magazine is always a great place to look for when delving into something new.
Maxafter‘s got a decent list of tutorials for AE, Max, even RealFlow. Good place to look for some random learning time.
Forging Fire Studio: lots of cool-looking tutorials.
After Effects- and 3DS Max-themed visual effects blog posting articles, tips and resources.
CMIVFX has put out some great video tutorials in the past…see if you can’t squeeze some out of here.

Filmmaking

Guidebook for Indie Filmmaking.
202 DIY Filmmaking Tutorials! Yea!
A list of Filmmaking Links & Feeds from a bunch of different sites.
IndyMogul posted a cool video with a section on cheap DIY lighting kits.

After Effects

VideoCopilot is always hugely helpful, so it follows they’d post something like this.
I may have mentioned Artbeats before, and you’ve now doubt heard of them while searching for free stock footage (no, they charge for their stock), but I haven’t mentioned their tutorials sections before. They’ve got a pretty cool video tutorial series, a great effects podcast and a written tutorial section too.
All Bets Are Off Productions is headed by Aharon Rabinowitz, an After Effects guru with a tutorial section.
A bit more technical, Studiodaily posted a tutorial video on controlling RGB to HSL conversions in AE.
Pretty cool list of a whole bunch of AE tutorials, definitely worth checking out for beginner to intermediate level users.
Ayato has been a secret of mine for a while, I don’t know that they’ve updated recently, but the tutorials were pretty cool, simple, a sort of mix between motion graphics and VFX, mostly title stuff, but all cool. Takes a bit of reading carefully, as I don’t think English is the writer’s first language, but still worth it.
Graymachine is a pretty cool all-around AE site, worth checking back on occasionally for new stuff.
AE tutorials listed on the Adobe website. Yea, I know, logical, huh?
AE I OWE YOU could be decent. Haven’t looked through it much, but there was an intriguing two-part face replacement tutorial up when I saw it last.
After Effects tutorial and resource site.
Motionscript: The go-to site for scripting and programming in After Effects. Technical. Awesome.
Tutorial on particles in AE.
People love lists, don’t they? Here’s 30 tutorials to “teach you After Effects.” I like how it’s so boldly stated too…teach you After Effects. I’m pretty sure you won’t be done after these, but give them a shot. You’ll definitely learn something.
Just in case my link dumps aren’t enough, this site‘s got a massive list of extra After Effects related stuff. Check that out if you’re in the mood to be overwhelmed.
Nice looking After Effects tutorial site for you Spanish speakers/readers out there (also, you could use Babelfish or something to translate the site for you).
Sweet looking list of tutorials here. Definitely excited about the retro sci-fi one. Check it out!
Another list…40 AE tutorials for your learning pleasure.
Cool quick motion graphics tutorial on making a shot from still images.
The Genesis Project: After Effects related articles, advice, tips, tutorials, thoughts, etc.
Steve Whatley’s After Effects Cookbook.
1001 After Effects Tutorials. Wow. I’m really happy for whoever got the ’1′ at the end.

Motion Graphics

MotionGraphicsLab: Tutorials and downloadable projects for motion graphics artists and learners.
Mograph Wiki: Cool index- and search-based site about motion graphics, covering a multitude of programs and a variety of topics. I’m intrigued by the ‘After Effects Easter Eggs’ category…
Motionographer: Cool showcase and article site on motion graphics and their creators.

Visual Effects

VFX School looks like a pretty cool VFX blog to check in on from time to time, some resource posts, tutorial videos, articles, etc. Good stuff.
VisualFXTuts looks almost like a renegade child of the TutsPlus group, but with some differences.
Check out the Tip of the Week section of this site.
Some cool Shake and Houdini resource posts, worth looking through. Also a post on an open-source render engine. Cool stuff.

Cinema 4D

Mostly Cinema4D tutorials but some AE ones thrown in there. Worth taking a peek.
3D Fluff: Cinema4D tutorial site.
Another Cinema4D resource/tutorial site.

3DS Max

3DS Max tutorial listing.
3DS Max tutorials and resources.

Eclectic

Random site with tons of links. Could be useful, worth peering through anyway, just to see.
Russell Brown’s Photoshop Tips and Techniques. ‘Nuff said.
Not tutorials, but some cool behind-the-scenes and making-of videos from classic movies (the original Star Wars series, for example).

I’ve got a massve…and I mean massive collection of links ready for ya. So massive, in fact, that I’m breaking it up into a multi-part series, because frankly, opening tons of links at once won’t be fun for you, and copying and pasting and reviewing what all of them are won’t be so fun for me. Not all at once, anyway. So next week, Link Dump: Tutorial Edition. But let’s get started with part 1.

Freebie Lists

CreativeCow apparently has a 2-part article series full of links to free element sites online. Part 1, part 2.
Bittbox is an awesome tutorial and resource site, so definitely keep an eye out on that for resources.
MotionWorks is a cool place for tutorials and whatnot, but they’ve also got a decent free downloads area, so check that out if you’ve got a minute.
This blog post has got links to a huge amount of plugins and whatnot for After Effects, FCP, and other programs.
CSSStyle.me has a list of freebies here.

Applications

Here’s a list of free 3D apps available on the ‘net.
Norrkross MorphX is a free morphing application I found in my web-perusing. Could be cool to play around with, test it out a bit.
JES Deinterlacer sounds like a great tool to have for DV filmmakers. Interlacing = bad for most VFX, and generally looks bad, one of those aspects of video that makes it look like video instead of film. Good to get rid of it.
This could be a decent free audio editor. Looks similar to Audacity.

Add-ons, Scripts & Tools

Pixelfudger is a pretty cool group that makes macros for Shake, good tools, good collection, nicely useful set.
AEnhancers is a sweet-looking spot for After Effects related downloads (scripts, expressions and presets).

Textures & Photos

Lostandtaken has got some cool graphical resources (photos, textures, links to other resource sites).
A Touch of Texture has a bunch of texture photos, very useful for motion graphics or 3D endeavors.
MacText is a cool-looking texture photo blog, always useful stuff.
Not sure about the validity of this, but it’s a possibility…StockFootageForFree.

Finally, this site’s got an opportunity to submit your documentary-style film about your personal feelings in relation to Star Wars and George Lucas. I’m posting it mainly because it’s got a timeline, as the film will be completed and released eventually, so check that out, enjoy the links above, and I’ll post the next part next week. Thanks for visiting, hope these links help you out in your filmmaking endeavors and you like the new blog, and I’ll see you again next week.

First of all, here’s a cool packet of Nuke tools to help you deal with those yucky interlaced fields in your footage.  Also, a Shake to Fusion transition guide for those of you looking to branch out into other apps.  Also, here’s a tool for Maya called FBIK CharacterControl which looks a lot like the XSI character rigging window, but surely has differences.  Cool to try out, though.  Production Suite is a freeware app for Windows that I’m going to try out when I get the chance (I’m setting up my PC at home right now, installing Adobe’s Production Suite CS3 as I type), but it caught my eye.

Among the cool tutorials I discovered this week, there was this one on tesselating geometry for displacement maps in Maya when creating terrain, a cool Making Of on ‘The Patient,’ and Videomaker’s day-to-night tutorial “Night Light,” (also check out VideoCopilot.net’s day-for-night tutorial, it’s pretty sweet).

Videomaker came out with an article on 35mm lens adaptors (also, Stu Maschwitz posted today about the 5DMkII that’s come out recently, the video form which is gorgeous), these two videos of Adobe’s Photoshop CS4 release are pretty sweet, Lifehacker’s article on Windows/Mac Compatibility is very exciting, and while browsing VFXY (great resource for VFX-related stuff on the web) I found Belief studios’ website and it had WonderHowTo video tutorials embedded on the entry page.  How cool is that?

That’s it for this week.  I’ve got some showcase items in the queue for Sunday, so those should be up around the right time.  Until then, enjoy the links posted here, and happy filmmaking .

First off, I spent a lot of time today looking at Terragen tutorials, reference and animation application sites for a keying shot I’ve got to do for next week’s compositing class.  I used to play around with Terragen a lot in high school, using it along with Photoshop to make all kinds of stuff from web designs to just cool landscape scenes.  It’s fun to muck around with.

Next, we’ve got to make a macro by the end of the term for our Shake class, and since working out the math behind creating a Technicolor look was an optional assignment a while back, I really want to figure out how that works.  So I’ve been researching here and here about that.

As always, Studio Daily came through with a big list of articles and whatnot, including the Adobe/RED workflow; an interview with Les Stroud, host of Survivorman; they reviewed Adobe’s CS4 releases of Dreamweaver, Soundbooth and Premiere Pro.  Also, an article from a film festival panel giving advice for indie filmmakers.

And, of course, what would a link dump post be like without the usual After Effects load?  Well…here it comes…and this time it’s a whopper.  First off, I discovered Adobe’s Exchange section of their site, specifically the After Effects section.  What?  Not enough little add-ons?  Well then what about AEscripts.com?  Want more?  How about some more?  Still can’t find what you’re looking for?  How about making your own!?  While you’re at it, why not take a look at some Creative Workflow Hacks to maybe help you out in your new creative/techy venture.  Finally, saved from the Studio Daily list, there’s a new tutorial up from Greymachine abotu creating a camera shake in AE.

Next up, some eclectic resources: Channels in Nuke, 2D Set Extension using Nuke, More Channels in Nuke, bringing a camera through a keyhole using Maya and Premiere, and a few useful sites for the physical dimensions of a Canon XL1′s imaging chip, or film back.  Also, CGsociety is awe-inspiring in general, but this tutorial “The Ten Top Tips of Texturing” sounded particularly interesting to me.

So that’s it for this week’s post.  I’ve already got about 3 things ready for Sunday’s Showcase episode, but I’ll let you wait until then.  I’m sure you can find something in here to fill your time until then.  And until then, happy filmmaking .

First off, Studio Daily sent out their newsletter recently, sparking my interest a couple of times, firstly with this free app that helps catalog footage.  Excellent for any editor.  Next up, also an excitement for editors, is the announcement of RED and Adobe’s collaboration to make Premiere a native 2K editor for RED footage.  This got me all warm inside…I can’t wait to try working on that…:D.  Another brief Premiere article I’ve yet to read but definitely will is how to make old plug-ins work in Premiere Pro 2.  Great idea for an article.

Alrighty…since it maybe hasn’t come to your attention yet, Adobe announced their Creative Suite 4 (CS4) line recently, and with it new and improved versions of everything.  So, to celebrate, here’s some Adobe product related links.  Starting with tweaking colors in After Effects, followed by some tutorials, some more tutorials, some more tutorials and sample videos, and a new episode of Photoshop for Video on making cast shadows.

Next up, some cool application links.  First, VLC got updated; MediaInfo looks like a nice utility for quick file info reference right from within Explorer in Windows; Digital Rebellion has a cool-looking bunch of tools available for free; I discovered Wings 3D, a freeware 3D package (speaking of which, Blender has some awesome sample videos and galleries and tutorials available online, making it a formidable-looking package); SIR1 looks like it might be a cool little audio app to play with for some audio effects on your projects; digilab came up with the wonderful idea of creating a freeware tracking program, which could come in hugely useful during the VFX part of your projects.

Lastly, but certainly not leastly, some resource sites…following with the application trend so far in this post, I found Plugin.com, a database of plugins for all kinds of applications; VFXtalk has a nice resource wiki with a tool resource list; I found this Movie Making Manual on wikibooks.org, which I haven’t read yet but I’m always interested in moviemaking manual type stuff; I’ve been getting back into reading Stu Maschwitz’s book The DV Rebel’s Guide, (which is awesome), and found his blog and resource forum pretty sweet as well; Maschwitz mentioned Reel Stream in his book, and I had to check it out…look at the rig this guy made!  And these anamorphic lens flares (which are pretty cool actually, by the way…I like the stuff about the way they happen in the lens while shooting).

Alright, that’s it for this week.  I’ll try to be a little more on top of getting stuff up here, but I can’t make any guarantees.  For now, I’ve not gotten home before midnight once in the past 2-3 weeks, and it’ll be the same for the next few months, so until school’s out, I can’t guarantee perfect punctuality.  However, I’ll do the best I can with what I have.  After all, “when given an opportunity, deliver excellence and never quit” is the dv rebel’s/amateur filmmaker’s motto, right?  Right.  Happy filmmaking, and good luck!