In the lead up to the 700th anniversary of Scotland’s Battle of Bannockburn, a new visitor centre at the historic site in Stirling has become the first in the world to use fight choreography and motion capture techniques to immerse visitors in a realistic 3D medieval battle.
Fire Breathing Monsters is an aggressive and noisy – yet surprisingly intimate – tribute to the cars that run in the National Hot Rod Association Mello Yello Drag Racing Series. Commissioned by Jim Jannard, founder of Red Digital Cinema, on behalf of the NHRA, the seven-minute documentary spotlights the uniquely American passion for speed and can now be found below on NHRA’s YouTube channel.
Voyager Pictures, the production company behind Cosmos: A SpaceTime Odyssey has been using Shotgun Software to keep the 13-episode series’ demanding visual effects deliverables on schedule. Shotgun is the film, TV and game development industries’ trusted platform for production management and review, and as talent moves from visual effects facilities into production companies, many are choosing to bring Shotgun along for the ride.
Every production relies heavily on its support equipment. The camera crew behind the hit FX TV series The Americans, which just ended its second season, understands this very well. The show’s cinematographer Richard Rutkowski, and camera assistants Brendan K. Russell and Rory Hanrahan, rely on Anton/Bauer batteries and chargers, Litepanels LED lights, and OConnor fluid heads and tripods for their reliability and durability during stage and location shoots, which helps keep the show on pace and on budget.
Veteran sound mixer Danny Michael, whose recent portfolio includes three feature films The Secret Life of Walter Mitty with Ben Stiller, Non-Stop, with Liam Neeson, and the upcoming John Wick, starring Keanu Reeves. He understands the importance of capturing pristine audio in the field.
Lionsgate has announced that the 2014 Sundance Film Festival documentary hit Dinosaur 13 will be available day-and-date in select theaters including New York and Los Angeles, on August 15.
On Friday, June 27 BAMcinemafest will present the world premiere of APD/Cinema Conservancy’s new restoration of Stations of the Elevated on the Steinberg Screen at the BAM Harvey Theater. The event begins with a live performance by legendary jazz ensemble the Mingus Dynasty, the original Charles Mingus legacy band. The first band Sue Mingus organized after Charles’ death in 1979, this acclaimed orchestra continues to interpret Charles Mingus’ more than 300 compositions, and will perform as a prelude to Manfred Kirchheimer’s jazz-inflected documentary.
Technicolor-PostWorks New York marked its third collaboration with Darren Aronofsky in providing post-production services for Noah, the director’s epic inspired by the story of Noah in the Old Testament. The facility provided everything from 35mm film processing to editorial conforming and final color grading.
50K and a Call: A Love Story, a mockumentary drama produced by J.P. McMahon and Tristan Drew, has been released internationally on VOD and DVD by digital distributor FilmBuff.
The Independent Television Service has announced the premiere of the fifth season of FutureStates, the acclaimed, groundbreaking series of online digital shorts. It continues its long-running theme of exploring the visions and various challenges of what life might look like in an America of the not so distant future, where automation and artificial intelligence is becoming an even more dominant force in people’s day to day lives.
