Amelia Dimoldenberg’s Chicken Shop Date show is absolutely fantastic. My favorites are a tie between Louis Theroux and Finneas.
Louis Theroux
Finneas
Here’s an interview with Amelia with some great BTS tidbits. (TIL: Ms. Dimoldenberg produces these herself! 💪🏽🙌🏽)
Today is a good day.
Mimiq Pro brings Shared Avid Project workflows to Storage Area Networks (SANs), and we partnered with Quantum (the makers of StorNext) to make it happen.
The Alamo Drafthouse gets movies, moviegoing, and pre-movie hype – so great for national Cinema Day.
Also see their listing for TMNT: Mutant Mayhem.
https://drafthouse.com/yonkers/show/teenage-mutant-ninja-turtles-mutant-mayhem
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Tron: Ares(AKA TRON 3) exists - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6604188/- Strikes
Still don’t understand why Ben Stiller’s The Secret Life of Walter Mitty doesn’t get more love. An inspiring, hopeful story with a great Steve Conrad script, loads of make-me-care spectacle, and an ace soundtrack. 👌🏽
THERE ARE NO VISUAL EFFECTS WITHOUT PEOPLE
My son is a burgeoning visual effects artist, but it’s increasingly clear it’s not a tenable way to make a living.
From George Lucas back in 2015:
“Anybody who says they make money in post-production is lying. Anybody who says they make money in visual effects is lying,” he said.
The disrespect for the trade is rampant.
Also see: www.independent.co.uk/arts-ente…
Then there’s the abuse.
18 hour days. No weekends. No lives.
I hope these Marvel VFX artists remember Scott Ross, Daniel Lay (AKA VFX Soldier), and Rhythm & Hues, Life of Pi’s main visual effects vendor, who announced their closure as they accepted their Oscar (and were played off by the orchestra).
The 2013 Oscars
Life After Pi
Also see:
In short, there’s no gene for the human spirit, and there are no visual effects without people.
Addendum - 2023 Aug 15 Todd Vaziri recently made an appearance on Corridor Crew’s VFX Artists React to Bad & Great CGi. If you’re a Star Wars or Star Trek fan with even a passing interest in visual effects, this is a must-watch.
There’s something hopeful/inspiring about seeing Niko and Wren just hanging out with Todd while he takes them on a gently guided tour of some one-in-a-million, famous shots while they all genuinely enjoy the labor of love that goes into each one. Also, Todd going out of his way to name fellow artists punctuates the point: No people? No visual effects.
Addendum - 2023 Aug 20 Hollywood’s Greatest Trick by Ali Rizvi and Sohail Al-Jamea for McClatchy is a must-see on the visual effects business. 25 minutes, but you’ll watch it more than once.
Miraculously, it’s still available online at no charge by The Fresno Bee:
https://www.fresnobee.com/news/nation-world/national/article134277069.html/video-embed
The one detail that struck me on this viewing? The ad hoc fresh air exchanger in the middle of a room made for 8-10 artists. Gross.
50 Years of Hip Hop, but no time for any of these festivals 😕:
Wouldn’t mind having some of those collectible MTA cards.
As another Indiana Jones fan, I really love this Brent Black interview with Harrison Ford:
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Keith Coogan, if you’re out there, know that every time I start the dishwasher, I declare:
I don’t want to take away from what Mr. Hooks and others are experiencing, but just about every freelance creative professional has been here and had to decide if the work is worth it. www.washingtonpost.com/nation/20…
Current frame of mind:
Seems like a big deal. www.apple.com/newsroom/…
Had Buffalo Wings at Duff’s in Buffalo, NY recently. Extra crispy. Superhot sauce. Bullseye. duffswings.com
Jay Kay, Stuart Zender, and Toby Smith.
Shout out to Paisley Gardner and her Michael McDonald fandom. 👌🏽
Really sad to hear the Gatlinburg Pinball Museum in Tennessee* shut down.
I went to Funspot in New Hampshire last summer, and let me tell ya: the Gatlinburg Pinball Museum had ‘em beat on everything – selection, curation, cabinet quality, and atmosphere.
*Not to be confused with the lame, ticket-game-based Arcadia at the Space Needle just around the corner. Ticket-based games of chance do not an arcade make.
👾☠️
If you have a Hulu subscription with ads, those idents are outstanding: www.thedrum.com/news/2022…
The dark side of being an NAB exhibitor? The “Are you interested in buying an Attendee List?” spam will never stop.
Never seen this before, but apparently UVFSService spiking / hogging your CPU is pretty common and solved with a Safe Boot in macOS:
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/253618408
Cool cool cool. www.cartoonbrew.com/ideas-com…
Of course, the Green x Magenta announcement at Netflix reminds me of Disney’s Sodium Vapor process for compositing:
▶️ (Scrub to 10:16)
🍿📽️ #VFX #Compositing
One of the few videos where you should read the comments.
🍿📽️ #VFX #Compositing
If you’ve followed me elsewhere, you probably know how much I hate correspondence that ends with "Best,".
But the ending that really makes me want to teleport through the plumbing of the Internet and Hulk-smash your keyboard is, "Please advise."
I am not your lawyer. You don’t pay me an exorbitant retainer. So stop treating me like I owe you information.
Instead, consider these helpful alternatives:
- Can you help me?
- What am I doing wrong?
- Am I missing something?
Not only are they more polite, they’re questions. Questions demand answers. Commands do not.
–Brought to you by your friendly neighborhood post-production helper guy.
(Spoiler Alert) I watched this BTS of Free Guy over lunch.
Finally, someone (besides David Fincher) names Lola VFX out loud, then they show you their legendary approach to facial replacement and performance capture. Outstanding. 👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽
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BRAD BIRD ON IDENTIFYING, DIAGNOSING, THEN ACTING ON CREATIVE DIFFERENCES
I find myself thinking more and more about these words of wisdom from Brad Bird.
If you’re charged with evaluating someone else’s work, it’s easy to say, “That doesn’t work,” or even, “That’s terrible.”
But your opinion becomes useful when you can say, “Here’s why…”
And you become the rarest of sorts when you follow up with, “…and here’s how I would solve it.”
Should you live this way, that is, always looking for something to fix? No. But if you’re in the room with some team on some project, adopting this mindset can change an opinion into a helpful possibility.