2009 Reel from Steve Smart on Vimeo....
Happy New Year 2009 from Steve Smart on Vimeo....
Compass Records and Catie Curtis just closed a music video contest for Catie's song Sweet Life. Here's my submission that I just finished tonight: Sweet Life : Catie Curtis from Steve Smart on Vimeo....
Here's a quick little video we put together this weekend showing Stephen demonstrating his lightsaber skills. Get the Flash Player to see this player. var FO= {movie:"https://media.dreamhost.com/mediaplayer.swf",width:"320",height:"260",majorversion:"8",build:"0",bgcolor:"#FFFFFF",flashvars:"file=http://www.stevesmart.com/archives/flv/stephenSaber.flv&showdigits=true&autostart=false" };UFO.create(FO,"reel");...
I was cleaning off an old hard drive last weekend from my first Mac (goodbye Performa 6214, you will always be loved) when I was reminded that once upon a time I had a wild hair and attempted to create...
No, I'm actually not in Times Square today. But some work I created is. I recently created a 30 second animation loop for Deloitte's Technology Media and Telecommunications practice to celebrate their Technology Fast 500 list. The video was shown...
I'm considering ditching my home PC in favor of switching back to Mac. In doing so, I've been spending a bit of time considering what my options are in terms of software and how I'm going to outfit my new...
This must be a great time for those who love documentaries. I remember a few years ago when you almost never saw documentary films advertised or marketed in any serious way. At the time, documentaries were seen only on your...
Has it really been 10 years!? Pixar has announced the details of the upcoming special edition DVD celebrating the tenth anniversary of Toy Story. And, while I freely admit that I'm a total Pixar whore and will buy this DVD...
I try to make it a habit to visit Apple's Pro pages from time to time, not only because I suffer from a severe case of Apple techno lust, but because there are some really good stories buried in there...
Back in April I wrote about my wishlist for the not-yet-announced (at that time) Canon XL2. As a current owner of the XL1, I'm very positive about this camera but wish it had a few more pro features. Mainly XLR...
An art director from Chicago, Scott Smith is blogging his experience with Project Greenlight now that he is one of the top three finalists in the director competition. He leaves for L.A. tomorrow for the final competition. UPDATE: Here's a...
I subscribe to the VFXWorld email newsletter and am always quite pleased with the content since it tends to lean toward the technical side of filmmaking and visual effects and production. Some recent cool articles include this behind-the-scenes diary written...
I've been experimenting with my new copy of Trapcode's Particular plug-in for After Effects. It's a very nice, easy to use 3d particle system that renders quite fast. Particular boasts several built-in presets like smoke, clouds, sparks etc. One of...
It's been a few years since Canon has updated its classic XL1 series of DV camcorder. I own the XL1 (not the 's' version, alas) and a few lenses and I love the camera. It's quite functional, has a great...
When people talk about of the characteristics of DV filmmaking, the "look" as it were, they usually discuss things like interlaced versus progressive and 24p frame rates all as a way of approaching a "film look" for video footage. And...
Gary Rydstrom, the legendary sound designer at Skywalker Sound who has worked on over 70 films while also finding time to invent THX Surround EX, is leaving the plush confines of George Lucas' Skywalker Ranch for the equally plush confines...
DV.com interviews Walter Murch about his editing process and his recently completed work on Cold Mountain, edited with Final Cut Pro by the way....
Via Design in Motion comes this series of winter-themed IDs created for Fine Living Network. Really nice stuff. Sometimes when I see fun, high-quality work like this I really think about getting my motion design portfolio in gear and getting...
From CGNetworks.com: My heroes at Pixar discuss the making of Finding Nemo. Isaac Kerlow, the Director of Digital Production at Disney, presents an article on Applying the 12 Principles to 3D Animation which is excerpted from his recent presentation at...
Although the new Adobe products don't ship until August, several reviews are appearing online detailing the new features of After Effects Professional and Premiere Pro. Here are a few from CreativeCow: Premiere Pro review Another Premiere Pro review After Effects...
Oh man, I would love to have been on this tour of Pixar Animation Studios!A two-story, 220,000-square-foot building of brick, steel beams and filtered glass set on a 16-acre campus of rolling green -- complete with outdoor amphitheater and half...
Adobe has rolled out two new versions of the primary workhorses in their digital video toolbox: Premiere Pro and After Effects 6. Premiere Pro offers a whole slew of performance and interface enhancements, including optimization for machines running Windows XP....
I'm a fairly religious listener to NPR. Like most listeners, a majority of my time is spent listening during my morning and afternoon commutes. I know it sounds snobbish, but really, NPR is the only radio I can listen to....
Whedon, the creator of Buffy, the Vampire Slayer, Angel and Firefly talks with IGN.com's FilmForce. (via AintItCool) Also, here's a good interview with Joss on The Onion's AV Club from a few years ago....
DV.com has a story online and in their current issue about Robert Altman shooting his latest film, The Company, in HD format. While HD has its pros and cons, Altman, long a fan of using long takes with multiple cameras...
The New York Times has a brief article on the creation of the visual effects for The Matrix: Reloaded by ESC Visual Effects and supervised by John Gaeta. While it doesn't go into great depth on the technical side of...
George Lucas and LucasFilm have announced the creation of an animation unit within ILM to be called Lucasfilm Animation to focus on digital animated features in competition with Pixar and PDI/Dreamworks. The irony? Pixar started as a division of Lucasfilm...
While poking around on the DVGarage boards last night, I came across this amazing Honda commercial that debuted in Europe recently. Truly, truly a delight. I just love the intricate timing and choreography. After the link to the commercial on...
The new issue of Wired was waiting at home last night. As the build-up of hype contines around the May release of Matrix Reloaded, they've got a cool cover story about visual effects producer John Gaeta. He won an academy...
From quicktime.com I found this nice collection of time-lapse videos that feature flowers blooming. Surprisingly, it's very cool and kind of relaxing....
The World's Smallest Film Festival (brought to you by BigDigit, Inc.) features content expressly designed for viewing on wireless phones, PDAs and other mobile devices. HipTops anyone? Here is today's featured short. There are so many avenues and outlets for...
Ben Syverson, creator of the wonderful, powerful and (best-of-all) affordable DVMatte plug-in for After Effects, posted some comments recently on the DVGarage forums about eliminating the need for videotape in his video shoots. In fact, he said he recently shot...
Well, truth-be-told, it isn't exactly free. But if you shell over $1295 for Electric Image Universe you will also recieve a shiny new Apple iBook. (press release) That's really a sweet deal. Electric Image is a pro-level 3d animation tool...
Fox Searchlight has a nice series online featuring some really great interviews with filmmakers, producers and editors. Videotaped in a very intimate setting you can really hear a lot about the work processes of such diverse talents as Frank Darabont...
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