KitPlus | Articles

Fixing that inhospitable location shoot

by Harry Amies Issue 88 - April 2014 Say Iran. What do most people think of? Hostage-taking, nuclear programmes, angry mobs, CGI outsourcing, VFX, a multi-million dollar movie industry? If Harry Amies and Amir Rezazadeh of UK based co-producers HarryAmir have anything to do with it itll be the last three. HarryAmir is a UK-based company, that helps...

Submitted by Harry Amies

Published 01 May 2014

Training the next generation

by Dick Hobbs Issue 86 - February 2014 At the end of January a new body the Institute for Training in Television Production (ITTP) held its first conference, organised by the publishers of TV-Bay magazine and chaired by former broadcaster Roz Morris, MD of TV News London Ltd. A packed room debated sometimes hotly the issues. Chair of ITTP is freela...

Submitted by Dick Hobbs.

Published 01 March 2014

Sportsnet stays ahead of the game with Quantel

by Roger ThorntonIssue 81 - September 2013 Over the last 15 years, Sportsnet has risen to become one of Canadas leading sports media operations. The Sportsnet and Sportsnet One TV channels are complemented by Sportsnet Radio, Sportsnet Magazine and its premium international sports channel, Sportsnet World. In May 2013, parent company Rogers Media a...

Submitted by Roger Thornton

Published 01 October 2013

Alex Fine is super busy: Following the Ravensbourne 3

The name of the game right now is MAJOR FRUSTRATION! The nature of the game right now is SUPER BUSY ORGANISING LOTS OF FILMS ALL AT ONCE! This part of the term in final year at Ravensbourne is quite difficult. My peers and I are all having to either Direct and/or Produce two films (of any type) and work in minor/ supporting roles for at least two o...

Submitted by Alex Fine

Published 01 June 2013

Trends that could bring a much needed change to post-prod...

In my Christmas article I made the analogy that the post-production market was like high street shopping where the superpowers – Tesco, Waitrose, Asda, Sainsbury's and Morrison’s – have become ever larger at the expense of the poor, independent, high street retailers. With American venture-vultures circling the likes of HMV and Dreams, shoppers inc...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 February 2013

The Future of 3D

Over the last 3 years I’ve worked in more than ten different countries on stereo 3D; and no matter where in the world I am I’m continually running across the rumour that 3D has done its dash and will soon be heading the way of the dodo. As with most rumours though I have yet to see any evidence of this. One of the most anticipated releases for Fran...

Submitted by Will Strauss#

Published 01 January 2013

Character generation today means real-time 3D graphics

In the constantly evolving world of television, graphics departments could be the ones facing the most complicated challenges. Designers have changed from 2D stills to 3D real-time animations and many sections of the department, such as news graphics or CG specialists, had to cope with the most radical changes, both because new technologies and the...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 January 2013

3D filmmaking

Stereographers are in demand, they have little time and the time they do have is highly valued. I first met Demetri at IBC this year during the showing of HUGO (see page XX) and we were fortunate enough to catch up with him again during a flight to LA where he was heading for the first stage of 3D post for 47 RONIN. His opinions on 3D filmmaking ar...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 January 2013

So you think you know Flash?

So you think you know Flash?It is becoming widely accepted that HTML5 will eventually replace Flash as the platform for rich content and video on connected devices, but how can video publishers make the leap and avoid the pitfalls?David Springall, YospaceBack in the early nineties, when what few websites existed were almost completely static, a com...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 July 2012

TV-BAY questions Jason R Moffat

Name & Title: Jason R Moffat, ColouristWho are you (about yourself and who you work for)?I’m a film colourist living in London, I mainly work on independent fiction features, shorts and commercials from my Blackmagic Design DaVinci Resolve based studio, where I do most of my work. What do you do? What does your company do?The work I do is specifica...

Submitted by Will Strauss#

Published 01 May 2012

Eye to Eye: Video Post-production

This column’s previous excursion into video post-production was just before the 2011 NAB Spring Convention, always a dangerous time to talk about new hardware or software when a deluge of upgrades, lookalikes and lite-editions are about to hit the aisles of the Las Vegas Convention Center. Quite a lot has happened in this category over the past 12...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 February 2012

All the Things You Want to Know About Cloud Computing

Though the current buzz surrounding the concept of cloud computing makes it seem like an all-new technology, the idea and practice originate from IBM’s pioneering use — nearly three decades ago — of virtualized mainframes with “thin clients.” These thin clients allowed users to centralize processing in the very expensive mainframe components, CPU m...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 October 2011

tv-bay questions

Name & Title?Barrie Williams, owner and founder of Pixelfantastic, a boutique post production facility 13 miles east of SohoWho are you? (about yourself and who you work for)?I started my career in front of the lens as a musician, touring Europe for several years playing Jazz violin. We did a lot of TV work, so I became very familiar with the insid...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 September 2011

3D One year on

The month started with a trip to Sony to visit its very impressive 3D Customer Experience Centre where Paul Cameron (Training) gave a three-hour run down all about 3DTV production. This very compact version of Sony’s three-day course kept me on my toes. Early on he pointed out that 3D had been in favour, and then out, several times already, at abou...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 June 2011

Post Production Ask The Experts

IntroductionIt’s a familiar scenario: A client calls with an urgent transfer request. It may be a movie sourced at 23.98PsF that needs conversion for broadcast, and the client needs an HD version at 1080 50i with Dolby E audio and an SD program at 625 50i with PCM audio, as well. Or perhaps the content was shot at 1080 59.94i, but the client needs...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 May 2011