Cruzine: 'Freebies from Daily Inspirations no. 21 – 40'

I'm a sucker for free stuff, especially free textures, vectors, and fonts. Here's a cool collection of useful freebies from Cruzine, including blood (my fave), lightning, ink drops, Spanish football club logos (!) and more. Happy downloading!

Hope For Film: 'New Platforms Available For Direct Distribution'

Veteran indie producer Ted Hope has aggregated a list of 30 or so platforms for what he calls "do it yourself" or "do it with others" distribution. The list includes crowdfunding stalwarts Kickstarter and IndieGoGo, peer-to-peer networks, distribution aggregators, and more. Just goes to show - the distribution landscape is wide and varied these days. Check out Ted's list if you're thinking about making an indie film any time soon.

Exposure Guide: 'Focusing Basics'

Here's a handy graphical guide to the relationship between lens aperture and subject distance to depth of field. Worth a look even if you think you have a good handle on it! Check it out here on Exposure Guide.

Networked Blogs: 'Inventing Your Career'

Here's a blog post I saw that I thought would help anyone looking for that career stepping-stone right out of college:

I know for certain that when you invent your own career, you consciously choose to leverage your own talents, your own skills, your own preferences – rather than contorting yourself to fit into a narrow job description of someone else’s design.

Read the rest here. Great stuff.

Motion Design Center: 'What is Motion Design?'

For more info, check out Motion Design Center's website.

PremiumBeat: '25 Excellent Post-Production and Video Editing iPhone and iPad Apps'

PremiumBeat.com has published a handy list of 25 great film and video production apps for iPhone and iPad, including one of my favorites, "Movie Slate." Many of the apps support Final Cut Pro (fellow Apple products after all) but a good number of them are software-agnostic and extremely useful.

Read the full list here!

Considering the move to Los Angeles?

If you're like many UAT Digital Video students - or film students in general, for that matter - you're probably considering moving to Los Angeles after college in order to get your career going. Wise move. (And if you're not considering the move, as yourself "Why not?") Well, here's the resource you've been looking for: I'm Moving to L.A., a website specifically for you. (The site's subtitle is "Real advice from real people on how to live and survive in Los Angeles.) Bookmark it now!

'PressPausePlay' - a timely documentary on art, technology, and digital culture

Go to the film's official site to download the free version or purchase on iTunes or Amazon.

60 Minutes Overtime: 'Filming mountain climber Alex Honnold'

What do you need to film a segment on a rock climber who scales thousand-foot sheer cliff faces without a rope? Fourteen cameras and nerves of steel.

ICG Magazine: 'Raging Bulls' Examines the DP-to-VFX Workflow on 'Real Steel'

International Cinematographers Guild (ICG) Magazine takes a good in-depth look at the VFX-driven cinematography workflow on the recent sci-fi boxing movie Real Steel. The film was lensed in HD by Mauro Fiore, Oscar-winning DP of Avatar, and the workflow leveraged and advanced many of the tools developed on that picture.

Bringing in a VFX-heavy feature for $80 million is no mean feat, and Josh McLaglen, a veteran of the some of the most complex logistical films in recent memory, points to the unique workflow as a big part of that process. “If you’ve got two ordinary people talking over coffee or even fighting each other for most of your movie, our production paradigm is unnecessary,” he concludes. “But if two of the four main characters are paranormal, it makes really good sense, and is a cost-effective methodology for budgeting complex films. Avatar was translated virtual-to-virtual, only rarely with humans being interactive. But this one is going virtual-to-live-action in the real world. To accomplish that, I think we used the tools better this time.”

Read the entire article here. Also of note is this fxguide "Case Study" on Real Steel and the accompanying fxpodcast.