Film-Tele-Scale

Toronto’s Dan Yarhi & Associates has begun turning out the Film-Tele-Scale, a handy tool for plotting shots for directors, dops, production designers, art directors and set directors.

The Film-Tele-Scale consists of eight interchangeable scales including 35mm 1.85:1, 35mm 3:4, 16mm 3:4, 11/4′ and 1′ Canon, 2/3′ Canon, Super 16mm 1.85:1, 35mm Anamorphic 2.39:1, and 35mm IMAX 1.91:2.72. Each scale shows nine to 10 of the most commonly used lenses.

The scales, priced at $400, can be used on floor plans, elevations, maps, or as a viewfinder, and are computer-engraved on laminated plastic.

NABed in Vegas

Rainmaker Digital Pictures will install its third Rank Ursa Gold telecine with DaVinci Renaissance color correction in late May. The final deal for the telecine was negotiated at nab and some additional hardware and software purchases are pending.

Stonehenge in Toronto will add an Avid Media Composer 8000, bundled with mcxpress, to its facility in late May or early June. The decision to purchase the system was made in advance of nab, but the trip to Las Vegas last month provided the necessary opportunity to see it in action and to ‘wheel and deal.’

Vancouver’s Finale Post Production took the opportunity at nab to firm up equipment plans for its July move into a new facility. The new digs will entail a tripling of current floor space and will prominently feature Abekas’ dveous digital effects system.

Say what?

Vancouver’s Western Front Multimedia has developed Speak and Shout (sas), a voice-response technology which allows computer interactivity based on the tone of the user’s voice. sas is designed for use with Macromedia Director and other multimedia authoring software, and allows multimedia producers to incorporate realtime voice-response technology into their products.

On May 29, Western Front along with Vancouver’s iics and Video In Studios will host an open house at Video In showcasing sas.

Talented software

Toronto’s Douglas F. Brown Software Services has launched TalentPro for Performers business management software for the arts and entertainment professional. TalentPro includes contact management, to-do lists, a budget work diary linked to expenses, royalty and residual payments, commercial conflict tracking, and customized online help.

Hybride brews a winner

In a new spot for La Brasserie Molson O’Keefe’s Carling beer, Montreal’s Hybride Technologies used a variety of techniques to bring to life a trio of thirsty trophies on a mission to retrieve a frosty brew from a bucket left carelessly unattended.

In the 30-second spots from Cossette, which will run in Quebec in English and French, one of the gold-toned adventurers rappels down a cabinet on the line of the virile Best Fisherman trophy and sends up a Carling, which the third trophy proceeds to twist open with his waiting laurel.

Under the direction of effects supervisor Daniel Leduc and planner Pierre Raymond, Hybride used motion capture to reproduce the action hero movements required. Real trophies were scanned at the outset and 3D models generated in Softimage.

In an initial edit session, scenes were chosen from a video shot during the motion-capture session to permit visualization of the movements of actors and these shots were assembled in relation to backgrounds previously shot on 35mm.

Several sessions were necessary to polish the movements in motion capture, and animators worked simultaneously on animation, modeling and rendering of the trophies. Shadows and reflections of the trophies on the beer bottles were incorporated in the final Flame compositing session.

The spot was produced by Montreal’s Cinelande.