Today Blackmagic Design released DaVinci Resolve 19.1, which the company said includes a range of features and improvements that will give users more control and significantly speed up their multicam, audio and visual-effects workflows.

DaVinci Resolve 19.1 is available now as a free download and you can find the full details on the updates here.

Additionally, Blackmagic Design also released Fusion Studio 19.1, which adds new Fusion effects including generators so users can quickly create backgrounds such as stage curtains, a star field and gradient or radial lines. There are also new title templates to make it easy to add more interesting titles to the user’s work, including those with a glass effect, rainbow style or gradient outline. In addition, Fusion media inputs will now honor upper- or lower-field dominance for interlaced footage. This means the effects users apply will display and render correctly based on the original scan pattern.

A new tool in Fusion lets users export USD assets and scenes from compositions, including all geometry, lighting and cameras, speeding up postproduction visual-effect workflow. This update also includes support for USD 24.08 with improved MaterialX performance and polygon and B-spline viewer toolbar controls.

Fusion Studio 19.1 update is available now as a free download here.

Fremont, CA - October 22, 2019 - Blackmagic Design today announced that Chimney relied on DaVinci Resolve Studio to collaborate in real time across its New York, NY, and Gothenburg, Sweden, locations while delivering visual effects (VFX) for the hit zombie movie “The Dead Don’t Die.” The international post production company also used Fusion Studio for select VFX work on the film.

“The Dead Don’t Die” follows the peaceful town of Centerville as it finds itself in a battle against the undead as zombies begin to rise from their graves. Directed by Jim Jarmusch, the zombie comedy stars Bill Murray, Adam Driver, Chloë Sevigny, Tilda Swinton and more.

The Chimney team produced more than 300 VFX shots for the film, with work happening simultaneously at its New York and Gothenburg locations. With Jarmusch and the film’s DP, Frederick Elmes, located in New York, Chimney needed to be able to collaborate in real time across locations so both teams could work closely with the filmmakers to discuss and implement changes during the VFX process.

“Since this film was Jim’s first VFX heavy project, we wanted to ensure that he felt comfortable and connected to the team throughout the entire process,” explained Chimney’s VFX Supervisor Sam O’Hare.

Chimney turned to DaVinci Resolve Studio’s collaboration capabilities for its ability to review EXR sequences in real time.

“We needed the teams on each continent to be able to look at the same footage and discuss it live on the phone in real time. With DaVinci Resolve Studio, we were able to share the EXR sequences from each studio, load them into a project which was then shared and relinked, and run a remote session so we could screen all the full quality EXRs in real time in both places. Jim and Fred were able to watch everything and comment directly from New York while the team in Gothenburg, Andreas Hylander (VFX Producer, Chimney Gothenburg) and Alex Hansson (VFX Supervisor, Haymaker), could see the exact frame that was being discussed,” said O’Hare.

“Since this film was mostly shot during the day and later graded to look like night, the challenge was to deliver VFX that would look clear and visible even after such an extensive grade. Traditional workflows with LUTs didn’t cut it, as the grade was dialed back several stops with a multitude of masks and keys. However, since we were using DaVinci Resolve Studio on the original EXRs straight from VFX, we could quickly adjust the grade to make an informed decision on whether we should redo the VFX shot or if we could fix it in the grade” said Hylander.

O’Hare added, “Using DaVinci Resolve Studio, we were also able to use the latest color information from the grade, so the look was always up to date, and with the original footage loaded underneath, we could easily compare it to the plate if needed.”

Jarmusch found the workflow really eased the review process, “Working with collaborators in other places across the world is almost always a challenge, especially when it comes to visual elements like effects. However, on ‘The Dead Don’t Die,’ through the use of DaVinci Resolve Studio at Chimney, we were able to share and discuss ideas immediately and seamlessly with our cohorts in Sweden while we remained in New York. A modern marvel!”

Since Chimney is a global network of facilities spanning 11 cities across the globe, collaboration is at the core of its projects. “This sort of work always relies on good communication, as well as rapid data transfer. We have a data backbone that enables us to send uncompressed sequences very quickly, so we could have the footage available in both places. That system is really a key to collaborating with our offices around the globe,” noted O’Hare.

“We regularly use DaVinci Resolve Studio’s remote grading feature to run color sessions across different locations, but this project was the first time we’ve implemented it in this way on the VFX side of things,” explained O'Hare. “Being able to view all the footage back at full resolution and quality, with the latest color changes applied, simultaneously in two places that are 3,768 miles apart, was a game changer. It meant that the communication between the director, DP and remote VFX team was seamless and immediate, which helped ensure a smooth collaboration throughout the entire process. As a global company with projects constantly running across different studios, that level of collaboration is crucial to our success.”

O’Hare and his team also used Fusion Studio for select VFX work on the film, including one scene that featured a character using a pair of old, damaged binoculars. “The character, Hermit Bob, lives out in the woods, and Jim wanted to get across that there would be layers of grime on the lenses whenever we looked through them, as well as some cracks to internal elements of the glass,” explained O’Hare.

“We used a variety of tools in Fusion Studio to achieve the look, including displacements and offsets fed through rotoscoped shapes to imitate the broken glass, treated imagery of dirt and grime to layer onto the view, and various mattes and keys feeding into rays to build internal reflections in the black areas outside the classic two circle cutout of binoculars. The displacements were designed to react to the movement in each shot as looking through broken glass would, so some shots had movement from the camera, while for others we built matching movement in Fusion Studio using nested perturb modifiers in the transform node,” concluded O’Hare.

Press Photography

Product photos of DaVinci Resolve Studio, Fusion Studio and all other Blackmagic Design products are available at www.blackmagicdesign.com/media/images

About Blackmagic Design

Blackmagic Design creates the world’s highest quality video editing products, digital film cameras, color correctors, video converters, video monitoring, routers, live production switchers, disk recorders, waveform monitors and real time film scanners for the feature film, post production and television broadcast industries. Blackmagic Design’s DeckLink capture cards launched a revolution in quality and affordability in post production, while the company’s Emmy™ award winning DaVinci color correction products have dominated the television and film industry since 1984. Blackmagic Design continues ground breaking innovations including 6G-SDI and 12G-SDI products and stereoscopic 3D and Ultra HD workflows. Founded by world leading post production editors and engineers, Blackmagic Design has offices in the USA, UK, Japan, Singapore and Australia. For more information, please go to www.blackmagicdesign.com

Product photos of DaVinci Resolve Studio, Fusion Studio and all other Blackmagic Design products are available at www.blackmagicdesign.com/media/images

Beijing – October 24, 2018 - Blackmagic Design today announced that Fusion Studio was used by CG/VFX designer Alex Koryshev with Shenzhen based Plan B VFX to produce VFX shots for hit Chinese TV series “Legend of Fuyao.”

“Legend of Fuyao” is a 2018 Chinese fantasy television series based on the novel Empress Fuyao, starring Yang Mi and Ethan Juan in the lead roles. The story follows Fuyao, who was formed from a lotus borne by the ancient firmament, as she went on a journey across the land to gather the magical artifacts that could lift the curse that blighted her life.

Founded in 2016, Plan B VFX provides VFX and CG production services, including matchmoving, rotoscoping/cleanups, modeling, texturing, animating, compositing and rendering for film, television and television commercial projects.

Alex Koryshev is one of their international VFX artists with over twenty years of CG experience and has been using Fusion for six years. For “Legend of Fuyao,” he was tasked with handling ninety VFX shots. One of the most challenging tasks was to create an almost full CG magic lake scene, made up of a wide landscape, consisting of a matte painted horizon and hundreds of lotus leaves and flowers on the water surface.

The scene was shot on a green screen studio, along with a shallow pool built on set to get the reflections of the talents and the lotus leaves on set. Next, the main goal for the post production was to create a believable and dreamy set extension blending in with the live action plate.

In order to create a realistic reflective water surface, Koryshev made use of Fusion’s true 3D workspace to composite the scene together. “Fusion’s 3D workspace streamlined my workflow by allowing me to handle all 3D compositing work in Fusion itself without the hassle of using an external 3D application,” he said.

For the water surface, Koryshev used a 3D Planar surface in Fusion Studio and displaced it to create a subtle ripple effect, before adding in the reflection to match the matte painting.

“For the ripple effect on the water surface, I used an animated FastNoise with UVMap, and that’s where Fusion’s advanced algorithm shined because I needed to use a small scale for my FastNoise and just copy this map as many times as I needed to cover the whole surface. The 30-50 FastNoise scale and the 100x100 size of UVMap displacing the flat 3D Planar surface created a subtle animated water surface,” he explained.

He continued: “To achieve the reflection effect, I used the environment mapping technique. In order to have accurate reflection, I had the matte painted image mapped to a sphere using a SphereMap node before applying it onto the displaced 3D plane. After several adjustments of the material and setting up the mapping, I was pretty satisfied with the result. Reflection at the horizon met the background in the right place, while at the foreground I got the nice sky reflection from my matte painted picture, and it all perfectly matched with the camera movement! ”

Compositing the seemingly endless lotus leaves into the scene in 3D would require complex and heavy processing, but Fusion was able to handle the job for Koryshev. “I knew I needed to add in a bunch of lotus leaves into the scene but I was concerned about how many 3D objects with heavy meshes Fusion could support. During the first test, I had imported in a 3D fbx model of the lotus leave that consists of 5,000 polygons, duplicated 1,000 times using a Duplicate3D node to populate the scene with the lotus leaves. To my surprise, Fusion was still able to work smoothly in the 3D scene without any issue. That gave me the confidence to composite this scene all inside Fusion,” he said.

Fusion’s color grading tools were helpful when Koryshev color matched his work with the shots completed in different software applications. “The client’s artist used a LUT file in another program to adjust the final look of the picture with some additional adjustments, which I didn’t have with the same name inside Fusion. However, I figured out that all I needed is to decrease a little bit Pre-gain and then my image well matched the client’s one. Also while doing compositing and color correction work, it was very handy to turn on LUT for the view, and see the final colors even before adding the FileLUT node.”

Koryshev also tried the network render feature of Fusion for the first time and was surprised by the simplicity of setting it up in Fusion. “This option let me continue compositing while rendering my previous pretty heavy and long range shots. It was a huge time saver with the deadline impending, and the simplest and the most valuable network render tool I’ve ever seen,” he concluded.

Press Photography

Product photos of Fusion Studio and all other Blackmagic Design products are available at www.blackmagicdesign.com/media/images.

About Blackmagic Design

Blackmagic Design creates the world’s highest quality video editing products, digital film cameras, color correctors, video converters, video monitoring, routers, live production switchers, disk recorders, waveform monitors and real time film scanners for the feature film, post production and television broadcast industries. Blackmagic Design’s DeckLink capture cards launched a revolution in quality and affordability in post production, while the company’s Emmy™ award winning DaVinci color correction products have dominated the television and film industry since 1984. Blackmagic Design continues ground breaking innovations including 6G-SDI and 12G-SDI products and stereoscopic 3D and Ultra HD workflows. Founded by world leading post production editors and engineers, Blackmagic Design has offices in the USA, UK, Japan, Singapore and Australia. For more information, please go to www.blackmagicdesign.com.

Fremont, CA - September 28, 2018 - Blackmagic Design today announced that Los Angeles based visual effects (VFX) house Muse VFX used Fusion 9 Studio, its VFX and motion graphics software, on FX’s critically acclaimed drama Legion.

Led by Founders and VFX Supervisors John Gross and Fred Pienkos, the Muse VFX team used Fusion Studio for the second season of the hit television series. “A lot of our work on the show’s VFX revolved around characters and creatures, everything from monsters to mice,” said Pienkos.

One of those creatures was the "Delusion Monster," which began in the season’s first episode by hatching from an egg and grew over the season run to gigantic proportions.

“The baby 'Delusion Monster' was always covered in sticky black goo and it left footprints wherever it went, so I came up with a way to create them in Fusion Studio,” said VFX Generalist Bryan Ray. “The Ambient Occlusion (AO) buffer from the render showed where the creature's feet touched the floor, so I used the Trails tool to make the footprints linger after he took another step. Then I used a couple of custom macros to give the footprints some volume and reflectivity.”

By episode six, the “Delusion Monster” had grown in scale to fill entire rooms. To help with its lighting, Muse VFX used Fusion Studio’s SDK to create MultiMerge Fuse for performing merges, which is now available for public use through Reactor, a free and open source package manager for Fusion and DaVinci Resolve.

Ray explained, “The 'Delusion Monster' was black and shiny, like tar, and in some scenes the lights were strobing; all of which made lighting him a challenge. The detail in the surface quality and lighting required many revisions in order to achieve the look and there just wasn't time to push that many new renders through.

“We gave ourselves more flexibility by rendering lighting passes, and in some cases we had as many as seven lighting renders. Achieving the desired look usually required balancing them against one another, but with so many individual Blend controls to adjust, compositors were spending a lot of time clicking between the Merges. I used Fusion Studio's SDK to create a MultiMerge Fuse to alleviate that problem. MultiMerge presents the artist with a list of inputs and Blend sliders all in one control panel, not unlike a studio's lighting console.”

According to Muse VFX, Fusion Studio’s 3D compositing environment was a critical component of several shots throughout the season. For one shot, Muse VFX had to add a CG needle to a compass. “We were still working out the design with the client, so we knew that modeling, animating and rendering in 3D software would take too much time. Instead, we used a plugin in Fusion Studio to build the needle from a spline. This allowed us to quickly iterate the shape and decoration of the needle, turning around a dozen versions in less than a week,” noted Ray.

In season two, David Haller and his friends joined forces with the government agency, Division 3, to combat their common enemy, the Shadow King. A long establishing shot of the Division 3 building required a handoff from a 3D camera move to the camera motion produced on set. Ray explained, “The camera started in an extreme wide shot of the city skyline, dominated by the Division 3 building. It flew in through a window, down a long hallway, and ended on a view through a barred jail cell window. The ability to import an Alembic camera file and match its position to a camera created with Fusion Studio’s Camera Tracker made the handoff seamless.”

Based on the Marvel Comics by Chris Claremont and Bill Sienkiewicz, Legion is the story of “David Haller” (Dan Stevens), a man who believed himself to be schizophrenic only to discover that he may actually be the most powerful mutant the world has ever seen. The series also stars Rachel Keller, Aubrey Plaza, Bill Irwin, Navid Negahban, Jemaine Clement, Jeremie Harris, Amber Midthunder, Hamish Linklater and Jean Smart.

Press Photography

Product photos of Fusion Studio, DaVinci Resolve and all other Blackmagic Design products are available at www.blackmagicdesign.com/media/images

About Muse VFX

Muse VFX is an award-winning team of artists and producers specializing in the design and creation of imagery for television, feature film, commercials, special venue projects and online entertainment. For more information, visit: www.musevfx.com

About Blackmagic Design

Blackmagic Design creates the world’s highest quality video editing products, digital film cameras, color correctors, video converters, video monitoring, routers, live production switchers, disk recorders, waveform monitors and real time film scanners for the feature film, post production and television broadcast industries. Blackmagic Design’s DeckLink capture cards launched a revolution in quality and affordability in post production, while the company’s Emmy™ award winning DaVinci color correction products have dominated the television and film industry since 1984. Blackmagic Design continues ground breaking innovations including 6G-SDI and 12G-SDI products and stereoscopic 3D and Ultra HD workflows. Founded by world leading post production editors and engineers, Blackmagic Design has offices in the USA, UK, Japan, Singapore and Australia. For more information, please go to www.blackmagicdesign.com

Fremont, CA - September 18, 2018 - Blackmagic Design today announced that Los Angeles based visual effects (VFX) company Flash Film Works used its VFX and motion graphics software, Fusion Studio, on Studio 8’s action adventure drama Alpha.

An epic adventure set in the last Ice Age, Alpha tells a fascinating, visually stunning story that shines a light on the origins of man’s best friend. While on his first hunt with his tribe’s most elite group, a young man, Keda, is injured and must learn to survive alone in the wilderness. Reluctantly taming a lone wolf abandoned by its pack, Alpha, the pair learn to rely on each other and become unlikely allies, enduring countless dangers and overwhelming odds in order to find their way home before winter arrives.

During their perilous trek, Keda falls through ice and is trapped below the surface. The Flash Film Works team used Fusion Studio to create the VFX sequence.

“The fall through the ice was shot in a tank, with wax used on top as the ice. It needed to look more realistic, so we used Fusion Studio to remove a lot from the plate and add 3D objects back in, so the ice would break in a certain way,” said VFX Supervisor William Mesa.

“Once Keda is in the water, there’s a strong current that pulls him. We used Fusion Studio’s 3D particle system to add ice fragments and bubbles to the water to really show the flow of the current,” Mesa continued. “Then we composited in Ice Age era fish and underwater landscapes to make the water come to life.”

With Keda being trapped under the ice, the Flash Film Works team also used Fusion Studio for face replacements between actor Kodi Smit-McPhee and his stunt double. Then they used Fusion Studio’s 3D tools to project the ice sheet under the water, making it extend even further.

Compositing Supervisor Jeremy Nelson explained, “During the scene, the wolf is looking down at Keda as he struggles under the ice. Some shots were done with a stunt double, so we had to take Smit-McPhee’s face and put it on the stunt double’s body. For this, I used Fusion Studio’s tracking tools to track and stabilize both plates, so I could marry them together. I then used the grid warper to match the faces and retiming tools to fine tune things, so the face’s movements really matched the actor’s performance.”

Flash Films Works also relied on Fusion Studio for additional compositing work on the film. “Whether we were adding people to various shots or changing the landscape to add mountains for flyover scenes, Fusion Studio was our go to tool,” concluded Mesa.

Press Photography

Product photos of Fusion Studio and all other Blackmagic Design products are available at www.blackmagicdesign.com/media/images

About Alpha

Directed by Albert Hughes (The Book of Eli, Menace II Society), and starring Kodi Smit-McPhee (X-Men: Apocalypse, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes) and Jóhannes Haukur Jóhannesson (Atomic Blonde, HBO’s “Game of Thrones”), Alpha was written by Daniele Sebastian Wiedenhaupt, based on a story by Albert Hughes. It was produced by Andrew Rona and Albert Hughes.

About Blackmagic Design

Blackmagic Design creates the world’s highest quality video editing products, digital film cameras, color correctors, video converters, video monitoring, routers, live production switchers, disk recorders, waveform monitors and real time film scanners for the feature film, post production and television broadcast industries. Blackmagic Design’s DeckLink capture cards launched a revolution in quality and affordability in post production, while the company’s Emmy™ award winning DaVinci color correction products have dominated the television and film industry since 1984. Blackmagic Design continues ground breaking innovations including 6G-SDI and 12G-SDI products and stereoscopic 3D and Ultra HD workflows. Founded by world leading post production editors and engineers, Blackmagic Design has offices in the USA, UK, Japan, Singapore and Australia. For more information, please go to www.blackmagicdesign.com

Fremont, CA - August 14, 2018 - Blackmagic Design announced today that post production facility DigitalFilm Tree (DFT) has moved its full pipeline, including editorial, color, visual effects (VFX) and delivery, into the newest release of DaVinci Resolve Studio, version 15, which was released this month.

Always pushing the boundaries of technology and cinematic art since 1999, DFT is no stranger to being a first adopter of the newest technology, a reputation which has kept it at the forefront of the industry as a top finishing house for high-end broadcast, OTT and feature film projects. Notably, DFT was one of the first companies to use Blackmagic Design’s DaVinci Resolve Studio, in 2009 on "NCIS: Los Angeles,” shortly after Blackmagic Design purchased DaVinci Systems.

The move to DaVinci Resolve 15 Studio was carefully planned and was the culmination of a series of tests on the public beta since its release at NAB in April 2018. “We always focus on providing customers and artists with the best tools available,” said Ramy Katrib, Founder and CEO of DigitalFilm Tree. “We knew the final release of 15 would come soon, so we used the public beta to methodically test and integrate DaVinci Resolve 15 Studio into all our post departments.”

One of the biggest advancements in the new software was the addition of Fusion VFX, and DFT’s incorporation of the tools into its VFX department was both welcome and complex. “We wanted to utilize the unique workflow that DaVinci Resolve 15 Studio offers, allowing all our artists from editorial, conform, color, and VFX to work in the same project at the same time,” said Katrib. “Rather quickly, our VFX and color departments started using Fusion because it’s right there in DaVinci Resolve Studio, with little to no round tripping to other apps! Even in the early stages, we are experiencing the power of Fusion and the efficiency of real time collaboration.”

With DaVinci Resolve 15 Studio, post production collaboration is fully realized, and it was these tools that motivated the entire company to make the transition quickly. “I was already comfortable with the speed and power of the Color page in DaVinci Resolve Studio,” said Patrick Woodard, Senior Colorist at DigitalFilm Tree. “However, now with DaVinci Resolve 15 Studio, I can work interactively with other artists while I grade, making our team far more efficient and creative than ever before.”

Unlike other tool sets, DaVinci Resolve 15 combines the power of a full NLE, award winning color, Fusion VFX, Fairlight audio and delivery tools together in one application. Artists at every level can work on the same timeline at the same time, increasing both efficiency and speed of delivery. “With today’s quick turnaround demands and fast technical and creative revisions, it makes sense to have editorial and conform, color and VFX all making forward progress, at the same time,” said Katrib. “Whether at DigitalFilm Tree or remotely, DaVinci Resolve 15 Studio allows our clients to iterate across the entire post process in one timeline. Now when they sign off, our delivery times are far shorter because we output the final master right from DaVinci Resolve Studio. Throughout the mastering process, we present our clients with a persistent camera RAW finishing environment. Post production is exciting again, with amazing collaboration across technical and creative departments, on every project!”

More than four years ago, DFT leveraged DaVinci Resolve Studio and its IT logistics capabilities to offer remote post services. At first, they offered remote DaVinci Resolve Studio color systems for clients across the world, allowing them to see and sign off on their projects as if they were sitting in a brick and mortar color bay in Los Angeles.

“As we are evolving to IP-based post processes and services, DaVinci Resolve Studio brings the entire post process to our clients, wherever they are, far or near,” said Katrib. “Current clients utilizing our remote post services, which we call GeoPost, include TBS’ ‘Wrecked’ for which we provide remote dailies from Fiji, ABC’s ‘American Housewife’ for which we provide remote color and VFX review, and the CW’s ‘The 100' for which we provide remote titling, conform, color and VFX review.”

With DaVinci Resolve 15 Studio’s expanded collaboration and remote features, Katrib is excited to grow DFT’s services on a global basis. “DaVinci Resolve Studio continues to be a game changer, and it’s everywhere. Now, with a complete shared workflow in one package, the post production paradigm will change dramatically for everyone and for the better.”

Press Photography

Product photos of DaVinci Resolve Studio and all other Blackmagic Design products are available at www.blackmagicdesign.com/media/images

About Blackmagic Design

Blackmagic Design creates the world’s highest quality video editing products, digital film cameras, color correctors, video converters, video monitoring, routers, live production switchers, disk recorders, waveform monitors and real time film scanners for the feature film, post production and television broadcast industries. Blackmagic Design’s DeckLink capture cards launched a revolution in quality and affordability in post production, while the company’s Emmy™ award winning DaVinci color correction products have dominated the television and film industry since 1984. Blackmagic Design continues ground breaking innovations including 6G-SDI and 12G-SDI products and stereoscopic 3D and Ultra HD workflows. Founded by world leading post production editors and engineers, Blackmagic Design has offices in the USA, UK, Japan, Singapore and Australia. For more information, please go to www.blackmagicdesign.com

About DigitalFilm Tree

DigitalFilm Tree is an award-winning post production and software development company. Over 18 years ago, DigitalFilm Tree (DFT) was first to usher in file-based workflows in media and entertainment industry on projects like “Cold Mountain” and “Scrubs.” Today DFT is the leading provider of remote, cloud-based post services and software solutions for productions the world over. DFT champions a multidisciplinary culture of world-class creative and technical talent, providing clients like ABC, CBS, Fox, Netflix, HBO, Turner, and Warner Bros. an unparalleled user experience.

Fremont, CA - May 15, 2018 - Blackmagic Design today announced that Los Angeles-based visual effects (VFX) house Trick Digital used its VFX and motion graphics software, Fusion Studio, on the film “The Last Movie Star.”

Starring Burt Reynolds, “The Last Movie Star” follows an aging, former movie star as he faces the reality that his glory days are behind him. Also starring Ariel Winter, Chevy Chase, Clark Duke and more, “The Last Movie Star” is written and directed by Adam Rifkin and was recently released by A24.

VFX Supervisor Adam Clark and his team at Trick Digital were tasked with doing the VFX for the film, including a number of complex sequences that place Burt’s character, Vic Edwards, in some of Burt’s real-life notable films, such as “Smokey and the Bandit” and “Deliverance.”

Director Adam Rifkin explained, “Although technically it’s a fictional story about faded fame and growing old, the character of Vic Edwards is clearly based on the real Burt Reynolds. As a result, I wanted to use famous scenes from some of Burt’s most iconic films to show the juxtaposition between Burt in his prime and the Burt of today. In these fantasy sequences, old Vic confronts a cocky young Vic about his reckless choices. He tries to give his younger self advice about slowing down, but of course it all falls on deaf ears.”

“For those scenes, we used Fusion Studio to composite out the other actors and add modern day Vic,” Clark said. “For example, in one scene Vic is traveling down the road with Lil, Ariel Winter’s character. He begins to nod off and all of a sudden, he’s back in ‘Smokey and the Bandit,’ traveling down the road in the passenger side of the Trans-Am with his younger self in the driving seat as Bandit.

“To achieve that, we first used Fusion Studio to rotoscope Sally Fields out of the shot. However, since her hair was blowing in the wind and she’s moving across the car in the shot, we ended up having to completely replace the background. This meant using Fusion Studio to rotoscope Burt’s Bandit character out of the shot and then rotoscoping him back in, along with Vic. We used Fusion Studio’s rotoscope and keying tools to do this frame-by-frame. We also used some of its paint features to make the background consistent, replacing signs and removing repetitious images that were looped.”

Trick Digital also used Fusion Studio on a similar sequence where they inserted Vic and removed Jon Voight’s character from a canoe in “Deliverance.”

“For the scene, Burt was shot against a green screen and we used Fusion Studio to key him in the frame after we rotoscoped Jon out,” Clark continued. “Since it was in a canoe, it was a trickier to match Vic’s motions so they’d look natural as the canoe rocked. We ended up animating different segments of his body so they’d naturally move with the canoe as it floated down the river. We then used Fusion Studio to paint in water around Vic to blend with river, as well as remove parts of the background when needed. Once Vic was in the canoe and looking natural, we used Fusion Studio to add back in some of the details that were removed during the composite, such as a fishing line that’s across him.”

Clark and his team also used Fusion Studio for VFX sequences such as changing locations, building new exteriors, replacing signs and landmarks, and more.

“We relied heavily on Fusion Studio’s painting, tracking, rotoscoping and keying tools for our work on the film,” Clark concluded. “We also used DaVinci Resolve Studio within our workflow to pull and insert VFX plates.”

Press Photography

Product photos of Fusion Studio, DaVinci Resolve Studio and all other Blackmagic Design products are available at www.blackmagicdesign.com/media/images

About Blackmagic Design

Blackmagic Design creates the world’s highest quality video editing products, digital film cameras, color correctors, video converters, video monitoring, routers, live production switchers, disk recorders, waveform monitors and real time film scanners for the feature film, post production and television broadcast industries. Blackmagic Design’s DeckLink capture cards launched a revolution in quality and affordability in post production, while the company’s Emmy™ award winning DaVinci color correction products have dominated the television and film industry since 1984. Blackmagic Design continues ground breaking innovations including 6G-SDI and 12G-SDI products and stereoscopic 3D and Ultra HD workflows. Founded by world leading post production editors and engineers, Blackmagic Design has offices in the USA, UK, Japan, Singapore and Australia. For more information, please go to www.blackmagicdesign.com

Blackmagic Design today announced that Editor Alan Edward Bell used its visual effects (VFX) and motion graphics software, Fusion 9 Studio, while editing the film “Red Sparrow.”

”Red Sparrow” is a new spy thriller from 20th Century Fox about ballerina Dominika Egorova (Jennifer Lawrence) who is recruited into Sparrow School, a secret Russian intelligence service. On the search for a mole within the Russian government, Dominika’s first target is an American CIA agent (Joel Edgerton). Also starring Jeremy Irons, Matthias Schoenaerts, Mary-Louise Parker and more, “Red Sparrow” was directed by Francis Lawrence and edited by Alan Edward Bell.

Bell used Fusion Studio as one of his editing tools while cutting the film, using it to create performance enhancing VFX during the editing process. He explained, “With performance enhancing VFX, you merge together editing and compositing to get the best cut, whether you’re heightening actors’ performances, helping with cohesion, or adding impact. By using Fusion Studio within my editing workflow, I can easily merge together different takes or make subtle changes to help amplify a scene.”

For example, Bell used Fusion Studio while editing “Red Sparrow” to merge together actors’ performances from different takes when it was needed to preserve the performance or further the story.

“There is a scene after Dominika finishes her Sparrow training and is reunited with her mother. In one take, Jennifer’s performance was very powerful as it showed a sense of dread, however, in another take they added a line that underscored her character’s determination and furthered her motivation. Instead of compromising on the performance or just slipping in the audio but not the visual, which is what editors have done in the past, I used Fusion Studio to combine the two takes together, layering Jennifer’s performances on top of each other,” Bell said. “I used Fusion Studio’s new planar tracker to track and stabilize the image. I then composited Jennifer’s mouth out of the first shot, and morphed the mouths together. Dominika’s motivation for the rest of the film is colored by that line, so it was important that we got it in, and because of Fusion Studio I was able to do it seamlessly.”

“Throughout the film, Dominika goes through varying stages of facial bruising and some hemorrhaging in her eyes,” Bell continued. “Using Fusion Studio, I was able to enhance and smooth out the way Jennifer’s bruising looked while editing, so when we previewed the film it was seamless.”

Bell concluded, “We used a lot of wide shots for this film, which meant that when I needed to rely on performance enhancing VFX, the backgrounds often needed tweaking to get things to line up. I frequently used Fusion Studio’s grid warper to make sure the background would match and that things were cohesive between cuts.”

Press Photography

Product photos of Fusion Studio and all other Blackmagic Design products are available at www.blackmagicdesign.com/media/images

About Blackmagic Design

Blackmagic Design creates the world’s highest quality video editing products, digital film cameras, color correctors, video converters, video monitoring, routers, live production switchers, disk recorders, waveform monitors and real time film scanners for the feature film, post production and television broadcast industries. Blackmagic Design’s DeckLink capture cards launched a revolution in quality and affordability in post production, while the company’s Emmy™ award winning DaVinci color correction products have dominated the television and film industry since 1984. Blackmagic Design continues ground breaking innovations including 6G-SDI and 12G-SDI products and stereoscopic 3D and Ultra HD workflows. Founded by world leading post production editors and engineers, Blackmagic Design has offices in the USA, UK, Japan, Singapore and Australia. For more information, please go to www.blackmagicdesign.com.

CHICAGO—When it came to bringing my latest project—the thriller film “My Daughter Was Stolen,” which premiered on the Lifetime Movie Network March 9 after a run in select theaters—to life, I knew I could rely on Blackmagic Design for my production and post-production needs.

For this project, I relied on the DaVinci Resolve 14 Studio editing, color correction and audio post application and Fusion 9 Studio visual effects (VFX) software.

EDIT WHILE YOU WORK

As the post supervisor and colorist for the project, the team and I used DaVinci Resolve Studio for color grading, editing and sound design. In post, DaVinci Resolve Studio truly shined, allowing us to switch back and forth between editing and color grading via the collaboration mode.

We edited the film while it was still being shot, so this feature was a standout. For example, we would copy the previous day’s footage to the server via the clone tool and then our assistant editor would edit the metadata and label the clips by scene and take, all while our editor was editing the clips already finished. DaVinci Resolve Studio handles 4K RAW footage, so we never had to downgrade the quality. Saving time on things like this allowed the assembly edit to be completed in a day or two after filming wrapped and allowed me to color grade simultaneously.

I also relied on several of DaVinci Resolve Studio’s new features like the Match Move filter, which helped me replace pictures and videos on television screens and cellphones. The advanced trimming tool was also very intuitive, allowing me to be very precise and quick.

[Read: The Helm Creative Grades Budweiser’s ‘One Last Ride’ Spot With DaVinci Resolve 14 Studio]

Our dialogue editor, who was in charge of adding sound effects, music and creating the final mix, used a combination of DaVinci Resolve Studio’s edit page for audio editing, as well as moved to the Fairlight Audio Interface page for setting up sub groups, main outs, dynamic filtration and final delivery stems. The addition of Fairlight audio to DaVinci Resolve 14 has really made a difference, as we can deliver projects the way we want without having to use other programs. Not only do we have advanced color grading and editing in one program, but we also can set up subs and mains and route everything accordingly, output the master and separate left, center and right surround channels all in one step.

THAT SPECIAL VFX

The only thing not done in DaVinci Resolve Studio was specific VFX, which was done in Fusion 9 Studio (all the green screen compositing was still done in DaVinci Resolve Studio), as well as some sound effects and foley editing, but we brought that into the program later as stems. While working on VFX, our artist relied on Fusion Studio’s planar tracking options and superb roto tools to isolate tracking areas. Some scenes that stand out include enhancing smoke and fire inside a burning room, creating a bullet that impacted a subject’s body with blood coming out of the wound and a cigarette bursting into flames that was on the floor.

The ease of use and how each product works so seamlessly with each other makes any creative’s job a dream. Blackmagic Design is truly reliable and allows you to do what you do best—create.

Ari Golan is an award-winning director and cinematographer and president and CEO of Atomic Imaging, Inc., and Golan Studios/GPI. He can be contacted atari@atomicimaging.com.

For more information, visit www.blackmagicdesign.com or call 408-954-0500.

SAN MATEO, CALIF.—The Golden State Warriors just keep on winning. The new NBA champions were among the initial pilot partners that GoPro has selected to produce content using the new Fusion 5.2K spherical camera. The team took advantage by using the camera to help capture its championship parade.

Fusion

GoPro began taking applications in April for the pilot program that would see partners receive Fusion cameras so they could demonstrate the creative potential. GoPro says that it received more than 20,000 applicants. In addition to the Warriors, initial partners include USA Today Network, Fox Sports, AccuWeather, Digital Domain, Getty Images, Legend 3D, Rapid VR, RYOT and travel vlogger Louis Cole.

“We are excited to get Fusion into the hands of creative professionals, both to see the content they create and also to receive feedback that helps us refine the overall user experience for when we launch Fusion to a broader audience later this year,” said Nicholas Woodman, founder and CEO of GoPro.

GoPro is keeping the application process for the Fusion Pilot Program open, with the expectation that more pilot partners will be added later this summer.

Fusion is expected to see a limited commercial release by the end of 2017.

See what the Golden State Warriors have already done with the Fusion camera below.

LONDON & SAN FRANCISCO—Carl J. Dempsey, former CEO of Wohler, and Steve Farmer have announced the launch of their new company, Fusion. The company will take part in the upcoming 2016 NAB Show, where it will spotlight its first product, the ORD-55, a 55-inch OLED 4K reference display system.

ORD-55

The ORD-55 features Independent Processing Quad Mode Operation (IPQ), where four individual processors provide independent control of all channels. In quad mode, the monitor provides four independent 27.5-inch FHD displays; it can also display one large 4K picture with three smaller FHD preview panes. Additional features include a single-link 12G input, viewing angle of 178-degrees, response time of 10 microseconds, 100,000:1 contrast ratio, ultra-wide color gamut, and 12-bit color processing.

Dempsey will serve as Fusion’s CEO, while Farmer is set to be its CTO.

Fusion will be located at booth SL11030 during the NAB Show, which runs from April 16-21 in Las Vegas.