From Oddernod via Twitter

Motion Graphics artists now have access to bicubic distortion in After Effects that lets you manipulate a flat object into almost any shape using a mesh in 3D space. Digieffects FreeForm AE is an intuitive and robust plugin that takes After Effects 3D compositing to the next level.

Features and Benefits include:

3D Functionality: The same power and control of 3D applications right inside After Effects.

Control: All controls for manipulation are right inside the After Effects comp window.

Speed: Powered by a proprietary, full 3D rendering engine to provide beautiful, high-quality renders fast.

Never leave After Effects: Makes it easy to create 3D effects which previously required a dedicated 3D program or high-end workstation.

Depth, Dimensions, and Displacement: True 3D displacement mapping.

Picks up where After Effects ends: Bend, twist, distort, shape your layer any way you please right in the After Effects comp window.

Presets: Ships with dozens of presets to save you time.

For more info, visit the Digieffects website

Director, Stu Maschwitz, founder of legendary VFX shop, The Orphanage, creator of the Magic Bullet software suite and author of the DV Rebel’s Guide, spoke on a panel this morning at NAB entitled, Independent Filmmaking — A Million Dollar Look on a Thousand Dollar Budget: 2009 Edition. He was joined by Rodney Charters, director of photographty on Fox’s, 24 and Charles Papert of Instant Films.

Recently, Stu directed a short film, more of a camera test as he describes it, with a Canon 5D Mark II HD camera. I thought it would be fun to show you what someone with some talent can do with this amazing new camera. Take a look and be sure to check out Stu’s new blog, ProLost.

Canon’s original 5D Mark II Microsite

More excellent resources from Canon

(Executive Producer John) Wells went to a party and got into a conversation with director Steven Soderbergh, who had just shot the four-and-a-half-hour Che with the Red One camera. “He was raving about it, and that piqued John’s interest,” says associate producer Dieter Ismagil. When Wells shot the pilot for his upcoming series Southland, they used the Red camera to shoot a test for interiors and exteriors. “They liked the image, and they liked what they could do with it handheld, so they used it for the Southland pilot,”. “They were happy with the results and with not having the added expense of film processing.” The decision was made to give it a try for the last few episodes of ER.

Next was a cryptic, yet intruging post on REDUser.net from the man himself, Jim Jannard, CEO and Founder of RED courtesy of Studio Daily and Pro Video Coalition blogger Scott Simmons via twitter:

We have just made a number of final changes to our program. It has become clear that our competition is finally paying attention to what we are doing so this time we will NOT announce what the changes are.

I will say the following:

1. No negative price/performance changes.
2. Only positive feature and system changes.
3. No additional slip to the target schedule.

If our competition is shooting at us, they will be shooting at where we were and not where we are going to be.

Speculation is dangerous because people post what they think or hope and others read it as fact. Just know that every time we change something, it gets better.

See you in Las Vegas.
Jim

Looks like it’s shaping up to be an interesting spring in the digital cinematography world.

While Apple won’t be attending NAB, those familiar with the company’s plans say it holds ambitions of debuting a new version of Final Cut Studio, currently late in its development stage, at or around the same time the conference kicks off during the third week of April. Further details weren’t provided.

Final Cut Pro will be 10 years old this year and it and its offspring, Final Cut Studio haven’t seen a major upgrade in about 2 years. Other applications anticipated for new versions are the company’s video asset management software, Final Cut Server, compositing software Shake and Apple’s pro audio suite Logic Studio.

Final Cut Server initially generated much excitement and held real promise in the professional realm, particularly because of the lack of comprehensive media management tools in Final Cut Pro. Unfortunately, the software’s instability, unintuitive interface and underwhelming media workflow options have impeded it’s widespread adoption.

An exciting prospect is a seriously revamped or even entirely new version of Shake. The high-end compositing software has not seen an update since 2006 and Apple has been chided in the professional community for the products embarrassingly lackluster support.

Apple also has a replacement for its Shake high-end compositing software under development. It acquired that software in 2002 from NothingReal and last released a major update for it in 2006, when the company announced “Apple will no longer be selling maintenance for Shake and no further software updates are planned as we begin work on the next generation of Shake compositing software.” Apple was rumored to be working on a new replacement title under the code name Phenomenon, based on Motion code and expected for delivery in 2008, making its belated delivery appearing to be imminent.

Logic Studio is also overdue for a new release. The product has not been updated since its initial release in 2007 when Apple packaged Logic Pro with the other components which make up Logic Studio.