HP Z400 workstation By John Virata The Hewlett-Packard HP Z400 is the company's entry level workstation. While it doesn't have the whiz bang design features of the HP Z800 reviewed in March, it still does not disappoint as the benchmark numbers will surprise you. ...Read More »

CUT + RUN ENJOYS THE XBOX 360 EXPERIENCE WITH NEW CAMPAIGN BY DIRECTOR STEVE COPE Cut + Run recently collaborated with production company Rattling Stick and agency McCann Erickson London on the new campaign for the Xbox 360 platform. ...Read More »

CUT + RUN FOLLOWS THE LIGHT WITH THE FORD FOCUS This latest spot for Ogilvy, showcases the attraction of the Ford Focus. "White & Orange" was directed by Vaughan Arnell of production company Serious Pictures and edited by Leo King of Cut + Run, and began airing earlier this month. ...Read More »

Blur Studio Reels In Animation for Goldfish Crackers Campaign Blur Studio recently completed a ten-spot series of commercials for Pepperidge Farm Goldfish crackers via Young & Rubicam, NY. The campaign is entirely computer generated and was directed by Blur's Leo Santos. ...Read More »

Diana's Top 10 Final Cut Pro 7 Features #6 - Apple ProRes Formats By Diana Weynand Apple ProRes is not new to Final Cut Pro 7. It was introduced in Final Cut Pro 6. But with FCP 7, the ProRes family has been expanded to include 3 new-and extremely useful-formats. ...Read More »

Rhino 'Crashes' Fall Lineup With Spot Promoting Starz Series Rhino Creative Director Vico Sharabani recently completed yet another close collaboration with the Snorri Bros., this time creating all the VFX for a carefully choreographed :30 promoting the new season of Starz' acclaimed series, Crash. ...Read More »

Speeding Premiere Pro CS4's H.264 Encoding with NVIDIA QuadroFX and Elemental Accelerator By John Virata High definition video editing and HD video encoding are two of the hardware intensive tasks that can be done with a computer. It takes a lot of power to complete these types of jobs, oftentimes rendering your computer limited in functionality while it encodes video. NVIDIA's Quadro line of graphics cards can help to speed up H.264/AVC encoding in Adobe Premiere Pro CS4 with an assist from Elemental Technologies' Elemental Accelerator. ...Read More »

Kaspersky Lab's Peter Beardmore talks anti-virus and the Mac OS By John Virata Kaspersky, developers of anti-virus and security software has just released a version of its anti-virus software for the Macintosh operating system. While the Mac OS is targeted by malware and virus writers significantly less than Microsoft's Windows OS, it still gets attacked, just on a much smaller scale. Digital Media Net spoke with Peter Beardmore, senior product marketing manager, Kaspersky Lab, about viruses, malware, and the Mac OS. ...Read More »

Tonal Sets Uplifting Mood For A&E's Recovery Project Campaign Following the success of the Emmy-winning series "Intervention," A&E has created The Recovery Project, a multimedia and community based outreach program designed to raise awareness about addiction and how it is treatable and recovery is possible. A key component to the project are two moving TV spots featuring a powerful, anthemic score composed by Alex Lasarenko, Creative Director of music/sound design house Tonal. ...Read More »

Creating Effective Reflections in Sony Vegas Pro By Jeffrey P. Fisher Here's how to add a mirror reflection that makes your titles and logos stand out. It's quick and easy inside Sony Vegas Pro and it looks great. ...Read More »

Diana's Top 10 FCP 7 Features: #10 - Color Coding Tabs By Diana Weynand The ability to utilize the operating system's color-coding capabilities for organizing and easily identifying bins, clips and sequences has been a standard feature in earlier versions of the software. However, Final Cut Pro 7 now raises the bar by implementing the color-coding of bins, clips and sequences to their respective tabs in the Timeline, Canvas and Browser windows. ...Read More »

Buster Design Creates Show Open for DJ AM's MTV Series, "Gone Too Far" MTV's "Gone Too Far" documentary series features the late Adam Goldstein, aka DJ AM, counseling other addicts in recovery, as he, himself, had dealt with his own addiction problems. "I got so lost in my disease, I was gone," he once said. ...Read More »

SUPERFAD SENDS MESSAGE FROM WYCLEF JEAN & VOILA FOR AGENCY GLG The Garrigan Lyman Group recently tapped Superfad to create a branding commercial that would embody the spirit and beauty of Haiti for Voila a Haitian telecommunications company. At the heart of the campaign is Haitian-born superstar Wyclef Jean from whose hands spill the paint that creates an animated and colorful representation of the essence of Haiti. ...Read More »

Asylum Helps Draw The Porsche Family Tree Asylum, in collaboration with ad agency Cramer-Krasselt/Chicago and @RadicalMedia Director Jeff Zwart, completed a major VFX feat for a new TV spot introducing the Porsche Panamera - the first four-seat sports car from the iconic carmaker. The elaborate, technically challenging commercial was the perfect showcase for Asylum's vast VFX capability. ...Read More »

Sarofsky Corp. makes motion design imprint with quartet of diverse projects Just six months after its launch, Sarofsky Corp. (http://www.sarofsky.com) is attaining its goal of bringing high-end design and concepting to many disciplines including advertising, entertainment and broadcast television. ...Read More »

FIRST LOOK: JVC HM-100u By Heath McKnight The JVC HM-100u ProHD camera may be small in size, but it's packing three Full HD (1920 x 1080i/p) CCDs that capture great image quality, and it uses Sony's SxS/EX technology to deliver a tapeless workflow on affordable SDHC media cards. Plus, if you're a Final Cut Pro user, you can shoot directly to QuickTime for even faster importing and editing. ...Read More »

Bonfire and Phoenix Editorial Create Short Film for IDEO's 'Living Climate Change' Initiative Sister companies Bonfire and Phoenix Editorial announced that they have collaborated with global innovation and design firm IDEO on the welcome video for the Living Climate Change website: www.livingclimatechange.com, an initiative developed by IDEO. In the short, directed by IDEO design director and associate partner Roshi Givechi, company CEO Tim Brown asks what role design can play in the challenges we face with climate change. ...Read More »

FlickerLab Animates George W. Bush Address For Michael Moore's "Capitalism: A Love Story " For a fifth time, FlickerLab has teamed with Academy Award-winning Director Michael Moore, and created a minute-long animated segment, Chicken Little, for his latest feature Capitalism: A Love Story. Opening in New York and Los Angeles Sept. 23 and in theaters nationwide October 2nd, the film explores the root causes of the global economic meltdown and takes a sardonic look at the corporate and political shenanigans that plunged the world into the current financial crisis. ...Read More »

Coremelt Complete V2 By Kevin McAuliffe You can never have enough plug-ins. Trust me, as an editor/graphic designer you always have clients that want something "cool," but have really no idea what they are looking for, so you end up finding yourself going through the plug-ins on your system to try and put something together to really "wow" them, your plug-in collection needs to have three traits. ...Read More »

Indie Filmmakers Find Partner in Post Production at Monaco Labs Indie filmmakers are on a roll. The number of high-quality indie films produced annually continues to grow dramatically within the US, and this growth extends throughout the world as well, from Mumbai to Soho, to New York, LA, Korea, and Jakarta. International Film Festivals abound, with indie filmmakers being acknowledged for the quality content and execution of their films. And the growth of the indie filmmaker community is taking off with help from the numerous film schools who are using the latest digital cinema technologies in their curriculum. ...Read More »