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Dylan's Pipeline 

By Michael Goldman

Martin Scorsese's recent documentary No Direction Home: Bob Dylan, was "one of the more challenging multi-format jobs we have ever dealt with," says Ben...

Indie Animation 

By Michael Goldman

The independently produced CG film movement takes another step forward with this month's release from the Weinstein Company, Hoodwinked. Producers insist...

Edit Review — Macromedia Studio 8 

By Frank McMahon

The merger with Adobe has not diminished the push for advanced software from Macromedia. The division has created one of its biggest updates yet in Studio 8, with a range of new features. The suite contains Flash Professional 8, Dreamweaver 8, and Fireworks 8, as well as Contribute 3 and FlashPaper 2. Macromedia Freehand is not around this time, but the company is reportedly still going to keep it on a development cycle. Much of the cool stuff is in the new Flash...

Edit Review — Autodesk 3ds Max 8 

By Frank McMahon

Autodesk (formerly Discreet) brings out a much-welcomed new version of its flagship animation system for desktops, 3ds Max 8. While the news of Autodesk...

Walter Murch’s HD View 

By Michael Goldman

RenderMan for Maya 

By John Monos

In the late 80s, the RenderMan standard was born, describing a series of rules and specifications for creating a 3D scene. Through the RenderMan Interface...

Edit Review — Apple Motion 2 

By Frank McMahon

Apple continues to refine and advance its motion graphics and compositing program Motion with version 2.0. Motion's hook is that just about everything happens in realtime, and for many media artists...

Road Editor 

By Michael Goldman

Author and filmmaker Ian Halperin shot his latest documentary, His Highness Hollywood, a film about the plight of struggling actors, using a Sony PD150...

Broadcast Science 

By Michael Goldman

As its name implies, Fight Science, an upcoming National Geographic documentary special slated for national broadcast in the spring of 2006, will showcase the science of martial arts. The “science” aspect involves documenting a complicated analytical process that scientists formulate as they examine the force, accuracy, speed, and range of movement produced by many of the world's leading martial artists...

Step by Step: Jarhead 

By Ellen Wolff

Sam Mendes, the Academy Award-winning director of American Beauty, is hardly associated with visual effects, but he needed them to create Jarhead for...