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Home » How Cinema 4D Conquered Manhattan

How Cinema 4D Conquered Manhattan

A Multi-Part Series by Joe Herman

Part I: The Early Days

For a while now, I’ve noticed a buzz for Maxon’s Cinema 4D in production houses in New York. This versatile 3-D animation program has become thoroughly entrenched in the local production community over the past few years, especially in the worlds of motion graphics and broadcast design.

It’s growing in popularity too. The announcement of the release of Version 12 earlier in the month got me thinking about this well-regarded product and its embrace by so many in New York as well as the larger community of creative professionals across the nation.

When I started in CGI, I used a Macintosh. At that time, the Mac wasn’t a strong platform for 3-D animation. Most of us used its power in compositing with After Effects, or to work in 2D design and photography. Nevertheless, some of us turned to the first popular 3-D program for the Mac: Infini-D by Specular International. If you pushed it, the results were pretty good…for the time.

With few alternatives, Infini-D became popular among the Macintosh crowd, especially those who combined it with After Effects.

But as often happens with small start-up ventures, Specular couldn’t make it on its own and soon merged with MetaCreations. This useful app was then merged into other products, sold to at least two other companies, and then finally disappeared. This left a gaping hole for anyone who wanted to do 3-D on the Mac.

In any case, if you were serious about 3-D, starting in the 1990s high-concept projects inevitably ended up on on Silicon Graphics (SGI) machines running Alias and Softimage 3-D apps. Spielberg’s Jurassic Park, with SGI-gear powering its detailed, realistic dinosaurs, set the standard. On the PC platform you’d most likely use 3D Studio (today it’s Autodesk 3ds Max). At this point, the growing use of 3-D on the other platforms wasn’t much of an issue for Macintosh users; for the most part, they just didn’t do a lot of 3-D.

Instead, most motion graphic designers were compositing with After Effects, which at that time was a Mac-only product. 3-D animators, as well as those doing live action film work, were content to leave the compositing to the Mac side, and thus a natural divide emerged in most studios. Simply put, 3-D animators used SGI machines and PCs–and 2D compositors and graphic designers went for Macs.

Click here to Read Part II in which SGI takes a dive…

About Joe Herman

Joe Herman is a filmmaker, artist and post production specialist and writes often about the industry. You can reach him at joe[at]legendmultimedia[dot]com. Or reach and follow him on Twitter @JoeHermanTweets.

Community & Partner Links

How Sony’s New Virtual Sound Technology Can Change How We Hear Films

Kami Asgar and Jessica Parks are post-production heavyweights who work with major studios, namely Sony. As a sound designer (Asgar) and as a post executive (Parks), their collective resume touches on everything from Apocalypto to Grandma’s Boy to Venom.

Parks has recently shifted her focus from supervisor to hands-on sound design, and we talk about how it’s never too late to pivot on your career path and find the thing you love doing wherever you are in life.

Click on this link to read the rest of the article on No Film School’s site.

NJ – Governor Murphy signs $14B Incentive Program Bill – the NJ Economic Recovery Act of 2020

 Film tax credits — amending existing programs to include provisions for so-called New Jersey film partners and New Jersey film-lease partners and allowing an additional $200 million of tax credits annually over 13 years.

Click this link if you want to read the full article on the Lexology site. http://bit.ly/35NtDx6

Film Commish announces date for production restart

In her December 18, 2020 news update, MOME Commissioner Anne del Castillo announced that the Film Office is now accepting permit applications for production activity that begins on July 27th.

She also announced awards now (Awkwafina) and more. To read all of the Film Commish’s bloggy sort of news column, click here.

Stimulus Offers $15 Billion in Relief for Struggling Arts Venues

The coronavirus relief package that Congressional leaders agreed to this week includes grant money that many small proprietors described as a last hope for survival.

For the music venue owners, theater producers and cultural institutions that have suffered through the pandemic with no business, the coronavirus relief package that Congress passed on Monday night offers the prospect of aid at last.

To read the full article on The New York Times’ site, click here.

If you want to start production, here’s the latest news from the Mayor’s Office

Phase 4 production guidance is available on the Film Permit website. All production activity, whether it requires a Film Permit or not, must comply with New York Forward Industry Guidance.

For more information see, please refer to the State Department of Health’s Interim Guidance for Media Production During the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency. Please review the guidelines and FAQ before submitting permit applications. The Film Office is operating remotely, so please allow additional time for Film Permit processing.

The above paragraphs contain links to the various FAQ – just mouse over the relevant words.

Nikon to Stop Making Cameras in Japan

Nikon has fallen on hard times as of late as its camera sales have cratered, and now there’s a new indicator of how dire its financial situation is: the company is reportedly pulling the plug on making cameras in Japan after over 70 years of doing so.

To read the full article on Petapixel’s site, click here.

NVIDIA Uses AI to Slash Bandwidth on Video Calls

NVIDIA Research has invented a way to use AI to dramatically reduce video call bandwidth while simultaneously improving quality

What the researchers have achieved has remarkable results: by replacing the traditional h.264 video codec with a neural network, they have managed to reduce the required bandwidth for a video call by an order of magnitude. In one example, the required data rate fell from 97.28 KB/frame to a measly 0.1165 KB/frame – a reduction to 0.1% of required bandwidth.

To read the rest of this article on Petapixel, click this link.

 

 

 

Union Health Plan Dodges Film Workers’ Suit Over Virus Relief

Law360 (October 9, 2020, 5:22 PM EDT) — The Motion Picture Industry Health Plan’s board can’t be sued under ERISA for allegedly flouting its duties when it relaxed plan rules in response to COVID-19, a California federal judge has ruled, nixing a proposed class action filed by two cinematographers who still couldn’t qualify for benefits.

In an order entered Thursday, U.S. District Judge R. Gary Klausner granted the board of directors’ motion to dismiss Greg Endries and Dee Nichols’ Employee Retirement Income Security Act suit accusing board members of breaching their duty to treat all plan participants fairly.

Endries and Nichols, members of Local 600 of the International Cinematographers Guild, said in July that the board left them and others “out in the cold” in its attempts to address the problems COVID-19 caused for plan participants.

But Judge Klausner agreed with the board’s contention that the case, which alleged a fiduciary breach, should be tossed because plan administrators don’t act as fiduciaries when they amend health care plans.

Read the full article on the Law360 site by clicking here.

Russo Brothers Received Close to $50 Million From Saudi Bank

Anthony Russo and Joseph Russo photographed at the PMC Studio in Los Angeles for the Variety Playback Podcast.

The Russo brothers, directors of the all-time top grossing film “Avengers: Endgame,” quietly secured a roughly $50 million cash infusion for their production company AGBO from Saudi Arabia earlier this year, multiple sources tell Variety.

In a deal brokered and closed at the beginning of the pandemic, the Russos received the investment from an undisclosed Saudi bank in exchange for a minority stake in the brothers’ Los Angeles-based shop.

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