Bellevue, WA
We've been asked to give an academic talk on Collaboration and Virtual Reality. The presentation will be open to the public at Bellevue College's North Campus at 7:15am on February 21st, 2017. More information is available here.
We'll be running a bunch of demos in SF later this month, including presenting at UploadVR on January 26th and helping run a workshop on VR/360 Filmmaking the weekend of February 3rd.
A $1k Stereo 360 camera capable of streaming at 4K resolution? Nice!
Great article on how Microsoft, Intel, and the other major hardware players are saying to Oculus "thanks, we'll take it from here" (this article focuses on the device side, there's similarly big stuff announced on the OS side as well)
Yelena Rachitsky on Virtual Reality:
Is virtual reality beginning to be embraced by the mainstream? The question was raised last weekend at IFP Film Week’s Cinema in the Age of VR panel. Roughly 50 people had gathered at the Made in NY Media Center by IFP in Dumbo to hear from [...]
Facebook owned Oculus just won its first Emmy for Oculus Studios animated short in the Outstanding Original Interactive Program for their original short “Henry”. Read more from the Variety article here.
You've locked your script lined up your shots in Filmmaker LIVE, but do you have all the gear you need shoot the project? ShareGrid helps industry creatives and pros put their equipment to work for them. Founders Brent Barbano, Arash Shiva and Marius Ciocilan were inspired to create a network for other creatives and filmmakers. They report that to date they have over $100M in inventory and have handled thousands of users. Read more about ShareGrid’s story here
We’re always excited to learn about more funding opportunities for women in or trying to enter the creative fields. Kin Community is one of those – a multiplatform network focused on young women, has raised $13.5 million in new funding, which now brings their total funding to $40.5M to date. “There are over 800 million young women around the world on a journey to define home for themselves,” Kin Community co-founder and CEO Michael Wayne said in a statement. “With our new partners and funding, we will further our mission to inspire and inform this generation through our extraordinary content and creator community.”
Accelerated Pictures will be pitching live on TechCrunch with the rest of the startups from the Microsoft Ventures Accelerator on Friday July 10.
The last four months in this Digital Work cohort have been a blur and it has been a great opportunity to be in the program. We have been given access to every kind of resource and introductions only Microsoft could bring.
A lot of great companies will be there with us. You can watch the whole show live, get the details and register at http://techcrunch.com/2015/07/01/watch-microsoft-ventures-digital-works-accelerator-demo-day-presentations-right-here/
A warm welcome to Mark Davies, who will be joining our team as COO to drive our upcoming Filmmaker Live release. Having Mark on board is exciting because he will bring execution discipline that will help align our resources, drive customer service, and free our development team to focus on new and exciting functionality we have been planning (yes, we have to plan how to build planning tools).
Mark brings over 25 years tech, marketing, and business leadership to our team. Most recently, he was Chief of Staff for Marketing Research at a Fortune 100 company. Prior to that role, he was Director of Business Operations and held several director level posts. On the really fun side, Mark also has “a little theater in his blood”: we worked on Special Effects for at BBC Television on shows such as Doctor Who back in the day. So like the rest of us, he and knows why we are here, building Filmmaker Live.
Filmmaker Live developer Accelerated Pictures has been accepted into the Microsoft Ventures Accelerator Spring 2015 cohort in Seattle. We’re excited to have been selected from over 500 entries into this mentor-driven program that recognizes the evolutionary potential of Filmmaker Live and how it will impact film.
- Don Alvarez, President Accelerated Pictures
Being in the accelerator lets us continue to drive change in how Filmmakers plan their projects, make better decisions, reduce time on set, and share their vision.
We know communicating your vision is hard, and most filmmakers find their clients and backers have a hard time understanding the creative vision of a story. Being able to plan your project quickly and easily where you discover shots and build films with your team before production makes it easier to share your vision.
Being in the accelerator will let us fine tune our non-linear planning abilities for filmmakers to make changes to their edited footage without having to re-do their work.
The Microsoft Ventures Accelerator is another great opportunity to extend Filmmaker Live. Last year, we presented at 2014 Directors Guild of America Digital Days, highlighting important new technologies that will impact film and at 2014 SWSX Interactive Festival for Entertainment and Content.
A lot of people like to think of Visual Planning as a continuum, storyboards on one end, Previz on the other. We need an evolution in thinking about Visual Planning. Visual Planning for better communications, better team alignment, and better decisions about projects. Look deeper and think more broadly about how Visual Planning can give you the improved production efficiency you need.
Storyboards are approachable and easy to learn. They are fast and easy – if you know how to draw. Previz is precise, at a high cost, long lead times, and limited flexibility. We think there is a need for something better.
Visual Planning tools should carry you from development to pre-production right up to the day of the shoot.
As you get ready to go into production, lots of things happen. The odds are your plan won't go as planned. When you need to make changes to storyboards, you generally end up drawing new ones. When you need to make changes to your previz, you generally can’t. Planning and versatility need to be in the same sentence. Script changes happen constantly.
More Versatile than Storyboards – Non Linear Planning
Good Visual Planning needs to be interactive. Add a character to a scene or remove him, when the idea strikes, change your camera angles or add a camera on the fly, all without starting over. If the sponsor wants better coverage or their product, show them the result immediately without scrapping your work. We call this non-linear planning, just like the non-linear editing you’re already accustomed to.
Visual Planning solutions should also be share-able and collaborative, so you can stay aligned with your team and clients before, during, and after the pre-production meetings, whether you are working across the table or across the country. They have to be fast and easy and artistically expressive (they should even be fun as well).
We think it’s time to start thinking differently about Visual Planning, and we built Filmmaker Live to help get you there.
Visual Planning isn’t new. The challenge in film has always been how to share your vision quickly and effectively with everyone involved in funding and producing the project.
Storyboards are easy to create but depend heavily on each viewer’s interpretation to fill in the details, particularly when the camera is in motion or their maker has limited drawing skills. Previz precisely shows what part of your film will look like, at great cost and lead times and generally through the eyes of a contractor who won’t actually be shooting the final film.
People used to say Visual Planning ranged from storyboarding on one end to Previz on the other, but that misses most of what matters and happens in Visual Planning. Visual Planning isn’t about creating storyboards or previz reels, it’s about increasing your production efficiency and effectiveness so that everyone understands your vision. What’s important isn't the format, it's the flexibility, versatility, understandability, cost, speed, and accuracy.
We need an evolution in thinking about Visual Planning. Visual Planning for better communications, better team alignment, and better decisions about projects.
And we would like to challenge you to start thinking differently about how you plan and the results you get and would like to get.
Webcast: Visual Preproduction Planning: Solving Production Challenges in Preproduction
Mark Parry and Jon Trohimovich answer the age old question: “Why did the storyboard cross the road?” Along the way they discuss the evolution of Visual Planning, the potential impacts on film production, evaluating Visual Planning tools, and getting the most from your tools while working with your team to plan and pitch your film.
Highlights include:
Getting Results with Visual Planning
Visual Planning tools across the speed / cost comparison
Using Visual Planning tools to Make Better Production Decisions
Watch as Mark Parry builds a location, blocks actors, lines up camera angles, and edits a complete 30 second spot. The first fifteen minutes of this deep dive video show how to build a location using a combination of models and photographs. The middle thirty minutes show actor blocking and camerawork, and the final fifteen minutes editing the shots into a sequence and refining the pacing of the edited spot.
We shot about five minutes of Mark Parry working with Filmmaker Live. You can watch as he brings in a character, blocks her motions, works out the shots, and cuts her into the sequence.
If you want to learn more, watch the tutorials
