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Press Release

Blackmagic Design announced that BAFTA award winning animation company Axis Animation has used Fusion Studio to complete compositing work on the opening cinematic for Microsoft’s new “Halo 5: Guardians” Xbox game in collaboration with 343 Industries.

Founded in 2000, Axis Animation has grown into an internationally renowned animation studio, which now boasts a multi talented team of more than 110 artists and spans two UK locations. Fusion Studio has been an integral part of the studio’s VFX pipeline for many years now. The team has worked on a wide variety of games projects for high end titles including League of Legends, Call of Duty, Alien Isolation, and more.

This latest cinematic for 343 Industries is the studio’s most ambitious project to date according to Sergio Caires, CG supervisor at Axis Animation. “Throughout the entire project, Fusion Studio ensured we were able us to finesse the final picture to perfection,” he begins. “It did what Fusion always does for every project we’ve worked on with it over the past fifteen years, helping us pull together all of our passes and giving us a fast, interactive compositing environment regardless of what we ask of it.”

Boasting more than four million views on YouTube, Axis Animation’s latest action packed “Halo 5: Guardians” cinematic introduces the main characters of Halo’s Fireteam Osiris, delivering a mission briefing before launching viewers into a preview of the gameplay world. In one continuous take, the team jumps out of a Pelican dropship to join a massive battle, which features hundreds of characters, vehicles and ships on a snowy mountain landscape.

To complete the project, a team of between 15 and 20 Axis Animation artists worked for six months, modeling, rigging, animating, lighting and rendering the final assets. Fusion Studio was then used for all of the compositing work, bringing together the hundreds of elements and render passes needed for the game cinematic to come to life.

“I approached compositing the sequence in a way that meant a lot of the elements, and all the main passes, actually lived in a single scene file,” explains Sergio. “This was a big challenge, especially when you consider the fact that the Halo 5 project included such a long, uninterrupted opening sequence, but was driven by the way we had planned to work on these shots. It was far easier to have a small number of artists focus on one difficult scene than to let many different artists start working on it, which would have been counterproductive.”

“I think the biggest success is the visual impact of the opening cinematic,” he concludes. “This is a perfect blend of the amazing choreography created by the team at 343 Industries, and the insane levels of detail, subtlety and action that our team added via the lighting and FX work.”

Press Photography

Product photos for Fusion Studio and all other Blackmagic Design products, are available at www.blackmagicdesign.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.

Press Release

Blackmagic Design announced that Tokyo Laboratory LTD (Togen), a film laboratory with 60 years of history, has installed Blackmagic’s new Cintel Film Scanner, where it will be used to provide real time, Ultra HD digital film scanning and keycode telecine.

Togen provides a wide range of services including telecine, editing, color grading and the latest DCP mastering, as well as traditional film service such as developing, timing and printing.

“We were looking for a successor to our current telecine system,” said Naoki Moriizumi, manager in the Digital Process Group of Togen. “Cintel is capable of scanning in real time, as well as capturing both images and audio so we can use it like a telecine system. Furthermore, we use DaVinci Resolve Studio as a grading system, so we know that we will be able to work efficiently using both Cintel and Resolve.”

“It is good that Cintel supports three perforations,” said Togen colorist Yasuhiro Matsumoto. “These days filming with three perforations is widely used for DI and TV commercials. Regular film uses four perforation shooting, with those shot on film but delivered digitally using three perforations shooting. And it is a great that Cintel can be synchronized to flash a light source in the center of a frame, even though it keeps running while scanning. Also, there is no distortion as films are kept as flat at scanning. It is great to be able to get 4K30P scanning in real time with this price range.”

“It is also easy to scan using Cintel. It’s safely designed, so that even if you make mistake in loading a film, you get an error and the film doesn't get any tension so you don't have to worry about damaging your negatives,” said Matsumoto.

“One of our film services is developing negatives,” said Katsuji Nishino, general manager in the Image Media Department at Togen. “We use an HD telecine system to check developed films. Usually films are brought in at night, and we deliver developed films the following evening. In the past, we’ve had to stop telecine jobs for film checks, which is not efficient. So we began looking for equipment with HD quality for checking negatives, and saw the Cintel Film Scanner at Inter BEE last year. With Cintel, we can check images with the HD monitor while scanning.”

Also, the team at Togen appreciate the keycode telecine, which they use to create video with keycode burnt in for offline material. "Currently we capture tape which we did with HD telecine, and burn in keycode using Resolve, and then export it as QT file for offline editing. The workflow will be improved drastically using Cintel Film Scanner, as we can capture images into Resolve directly," concluded Nishino.

Press Photography

Product photos of Cintel Film Scanner are available at www.blackmagicdesign.com/press/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.

The new VariCam 5.0 update adds several new features, including grading (via LUT/CDL) during playback or during recording (CDL), AVC-Intra422 format support, recording mode with no audio track, AVC-Intra100 60i/50i format (VariCam 35 only), selection of ISO640 - ISO2000 in the V-Log or V-709 setting (VariCam HS), and a menu to match the file name of clips recorded in MAIN and SUB recorder. Expected time for update is approx. 60 min, and the file can be downloaded here.

This update adds support for ATEM Talkback Converter 4K as well as new improved Converters Utility design for updating firmware and managing all Mini Converters. This software package allows you to set up and update your ATEM Converter, Mini Converter, DVI Extender or OpenGear Converter. In addition to support for ATEM Talkback Converter 4K, there is a new configuration utility and general performance and stability improvements. The software support Mac OS X 10.11 El Capitan and 10.10 Yosemite, as well as Microsoft Windows 10 64-bit or Windows 8 64-bit.

Adobe released a new version of Adobe Photoshop CC 2015, and the new Adobe Fuse CC (Preview). The 2015.1 update to Photoshop is a major release with:

• New Artboard capabilities.
• Direct import of SVG files that you can rescale in your designs.
• A touch interface to enable you to work directly on the screen with a stylus or your finger (with the right hardware of course).
• Creative Cloud Libraries improvements that speed up your asset access and management workflows.
• Design Space (Preview) is now available to more customers and in more languages. This is a new space inside Photoshop to address the workflows of today's web, UI and app designers.

In June, Adobe acquired the company Mixamo, and today they release Adobe Fuse CC (Preview), a new product with an integrated Mixamo workflow into Photoshop/ This integration is an early step toward Adobe's goal of delivering designer-focused 3D capabilities to give users significantly greater design flexibility and creative options. As of now, it focuses on 3D human characters, but promises many future possibilities. Adobe Fuse CC (Preview) is a desktop application that enables artists of any level or background to easily build 3D human characters in minutes. Designers with no previous 3D experience can quickly assemble unique combinations of existing body parts, clothing items and endless texturing options to make 3D characters to use in projects for graphic design, images and more.