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GPU (CUDA, OpenGL) features in After Effects CS6 | Todd Kopriva | Adobe
Adobe explains the OPENGL support in After Effects, though "We won't recommend a specific card, but more CUDA cores and VRAM help."

This level of GPU acceleration simply requires OpenGL 1.5 or higher with Shader Model 3.0 or higher. Most ATI and NVIDIA cards meet these requirements, as do the Intel HD Graphics 3000 and Intel HD Graphics 4000 chipsets. If your GPU does not support these requirements, After Effects CS6 will use the CPU as it did in After Effects CS5.5, although there are some improvements for the CPU version of this feature in After Effects CS6, too.

OpenCL and Premiere Pro CS6 | Todd Kopriva | Adobe
And here's information for Premiere Pro CS6:

What can Premiere Pro CS6 process with OpenCL?
Everything that Premiere Pro CS6 can process with CUDA, with four exceptions:
Fast Blur effect
Gaussion Blur effect
Directional Blur effect
Basic 3D effect
In our first iteration of OpenCL processing, we weren’t able to get enough performance improvement for these four effects, so they are for now better left on the CPU. But everything else that Premiere Pro CS6 can process with CUDA can be processed with OpenCL, and that’s a lot.

fxguidetv #145: AE and Adobe CS6 | fxguide | Podcast
John Montgomery talks to the After Effects development team at Adobe HQ.



10 Ways to Increase Editing Productivity (and Profits!) | Danny Greer
| Premiumbeat
How to make more money (having rich clients always helps...):

When you start a new editing project you typically know the “drop-dead” date that it needs to be delivered…but all too often don’t plan for the in-between. Setup a schedule before you start editing a project and determine when different stages of the process need to be completed – rough cut, fine cut, final cut, etc.

Canon EOS 5D Mark II and 7D Digital SLR Cameras Add Muscle to Action Scenes in 'The Avengers' | CreativePlanetNetwork
I *think* the ARRI Alexa was the main camera for this movie, but they used DSLRs as well:

“I think very highly of the Canon 5D Mark II, as I’ve been using it for the last few years on documentaries and other drama projects,” [Cinematographer] McGarvey stated. “When I started working on The Avengers I knew there would be a lot of close-quarter action work and unrepeatable stunts to capture. The 5D Mark II and the 7D digital SLR cameras produce images that are worthy of cinema, and their small size is a major advantage. You can place them in locations where a typical movie camera wouldn’t fit, and you can capture images that other cameras cannot. They are perfect for shooting additional angles that give film editors more options for creating powerfully immersive and kaleidoscopic views of action scenes.”

Art of Stereo Conversion: 2D to 3D – 2012 | Mike Seymour | fxguide
The how-to's of making a 3D movie out of a 2D one:

Cardboard cutouts and the need for roto. Not only is a roto required for the outline of any character in shot, if they are closer than say a wide shot, internal mattes are also required to generate different depths for different parts of their bodies. A character could easily have 7 rotos in addition to their outline for features such as nose, eyes etc and all of these must be conceptually and logically correctly placed based on z depth.

FS700 Sloppy Slow Motion Test - Matrix Style | Andy Shipsides | Vimeo
Okay, it's official. I'm now sick of high fps video. Sure, use it as part of your production - if it makes sense - but don't shoot everything in high speed. It's getting old already.

And here's a couple more such clips from the Sony NEX-FS700:

@gecofilms asked for a Matrix style slow-motion shot on the FS700. Shot with available light at 240 fps - 18 db. This is what you get with no work at all.. imagine what you can do with some lights. :)

Sony NEX-FS700 (food) | YPS | Vimeo



Sony and Google show off new Google TV box at Palo Alto, CA event
| Edgar Cervantes | Android Status
Apple is rumored to have an AppleTV - like an actual TV, not the box - coming sometime...sometime...meanwhile, whatever happened to Google TV? Seems it's still alive - or on life support - and Sony was showing a new version:

The new Sony remote is a double sided device with a keyboard on one side and a track pad and other buttons in the other. This comes along with a simple black set top box that will bring the Google experience to any TV. Sony is stating that it will be released in the summer, so we will definitely be hearing more about it at Google I/O.

Teach Yourself - Getting A Project Off the Ground | Sharon Katz
| Animation World Network
Short review of  Directing the Story: Professional Storytelling and Storyboarding Techniques for Live Action and Animation by Francis Glebas. Focuses on storyboarding as part of the production process for many different kinds of projects:

Writing from the point of view of the director, the person who has the whole film in their mind’s eye, “Directing the Story” by Francis Glebas (Focal Press) is a veritable bible of visual storytelling techniques and advice. Loaded with pictures, the book is set up like a storyboard for the material she wants to convey. Covering everything from why we watch movies to the most effective ways to build and maintain drama, she teaches how to keep your audience riveted to the screen.

The Redrock microRemote is a Professional Wireless Follow Focus for Under $2500 | Joe Marine | No Film School
A remotely controlled follow-focus:

Redrock Micro has partially redesigned their microRemote Wireless Follow Focus system by developing their own motor and creating a new controller (in addition to the iPhone controller). They’ve also got a rig system called the ultraCage that is designed to be form-fitting to cameras like the Canon C300 or the Canon 5D Mark II and 5D Mark III.

"The Journey of the F65" - Behind the Scenes Pt. 3 | Band Pro Film & Digital
| Vimeo
This the third - and final? - part of the behind the scenes of a project being shot on the Sony F65:

Follow the continuing adventures of Director/DP Ruben Carrillo & Band Pro's Randy Wedick on their quest to capture the beauty of the Hawaiian Islands, using the new Sony F65 & Leica Summilux-C lenses. This episode focuses on the human angle of one of the proprietors involved in the shoot. Jack Thompson's suburban dream home was cut off from the outside world by an active lava flow on either side of his house. During the shoot, the flow began to creep up directly behind the house for the first time. On the plus side this allowed the crew to walk to the active flow in just a few minutes from Jack's front door.

Three Years of Kickstarter Projects | LISA WAANANEN | New York Times
Lots of interesting graphics showing the growth of Kickstarter. [Not sure I really learned a lot from the graphics....]

Almost 50,000 projects have sought financing on Kickstarter since the site began on April 28, 2009. About half successfully reached their fund-raising goals. Each dot represents how much a project raised by its deadline. Active projects are shown as of 5:30 p.m. Friday.

Five Reasons to Give Away Your Film's Soundtrack for Free | Ryan Gielen
| No Film School
Interesting piece about giving away a soundtrack to get an audience, though other than the 20,000 addresses they gathered, Ryan doesn't really quote figures of whether these addresses translated into sales or movie views or anything more tangible than the 20,000 email addresses:

Without spending a dime we had introduced our film to 20,000 people in our target demos around the country, and they had effectively paid us for the intro (by giving us an email address). When someone downloaded the soundtrack our trailer came with it (tucked into the .zip file), along with our hand-crafted poster and production stills, and short personal intro letter from me.

Interestingly, they "gave away" other people's music (though they asked for permission first.) I'd be interested to know whether those bands saw an increase in audience or sales too:

Our pitch was simple: “Give us one song and we’ll introduce you to hundreds of thousands of fans. You won’t have to lift a finger. And you’re welcome to use any and all footage from the film for music videos.”