Award-winning motion capture creator Rokoko has instroduced Smartgloves, a hand and finger tracking solution that captures every nuance of a hand in the most affordable way possible. Durable enough for fight scenes, but precise enough for individual fingers, Smartgloves can capture the full spectrum of an actor’s hand performance, giving VFX, VR, game dev and digital artists a faster way to create better characters, and one less thing to animate.
The Hollywood Professional Association Awards Committee has announced the winners of the 2020 HPA Awards for Engineering Excellence. The HPA Awards, including the HPA Award for Engineering Excellence, will be bestowed on November 19 in a virtual gala.
One of the challenges for Cooke Optics for the remaining months of 2020, according to the company, will be demonstrating to current and potential customers how it believes its /i technology provides new technical solutions to age old problems. And few problems have been given as much of a twist in recent years as keeping focus while shooting full frame.
Applications are open for the 2021 class of Hollywood Professional Association’s Young Entertainment Professionals program. For five years, the YEP program has connected ambitious and talented creative, technical, project management and administrative professionals between the ages of 21 and 32 with mentors and educational offerings that accelerate their professional development. Applications are due Monday, October 12, and applicants will be notified of their status in mid-November. The 2021 YEP class will begin in January 2021.
Rising Sun Pictures is teaming with the University of South Australia and We Made a Thing Studios to provide film and television students with practical, hands-on experience in entertainment media production—and an opportunity to see their work on the big screen at next month’s Adelaide Film Festival.
Like many of his colleagues in the sound production industry, Scott Harber began his audio career as a musician, more specifically as a member of a San Diego punk rock band. Over the course of his nearly 30-year career, Harber has worked on leading TV and film productions, including Borat, Noctunal Animals, Get Smart, Hell’s Kitchen, Gangster Squad, Wilfred and Castle, to name a few. He also owns Dang Me Sound, a production sound company based in Los Angeles. I recently spoke with Harber about some of the highlights his long career and the challenges of production sound.
Set from 1913 to the early 1990s, HBO’s six-episode limited series I Know This Much is True required director Derek Cianfrance and cinematographer Jody Lee Lipes to make a choice: What would the show look like? They agreed that a cohesive, period look for the project would be the correct choice — as opposed to a contemporary look.
Simon Hill, senior dubbing mixer at Halo Post in London, has worked on some of the biggest dramas for television and streaming outlets. Included among these is Bulletproof, which airs on Sky One in the UK and CW in the U.S., as well as the British film, Ghost Stories. With audiences craving more and more content, post houses must turn out projects at increasing speeds.
Industrial Light & Magic has announced the next phase of its global expansion plan for the company’s virtual production and StageCraft LED volume services. This expansion of services is tied to a proactive initiative for increasing diversity in the industry by combining ILM’s growth in this innovative methodology with a global trainee program geared for underrepresented VFX talent.
Christie is celebrating its 20th year as the Official Digital Projection Partner of the Toronto International Film Festival, which runs through September 19. The 45th annual festival will screen 50 new films across venues adapted to the global pandemic, including a drive-in theater, an open-air cinema, and indoor venues tailored for public safety.
