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Creative Cow together with Aharon Rabinowitz, Pete O’Connell and Eran Stern has released three new After Effects Video Tutorials.

1. Advanced Rotoscoping Techniques for Adobe After Effects by Pete O’Connell
2. After Effects: The Next Level, vol, 2: CS 3 Tips and Techniques by Aharon Rabinowitz
3. Motion Design with Adobe After Effects by Eran Stern

Film compositor Pete O’Connell shows you the secrets of advanced rotoscoping that will save you hours, even days, on your toughest jobs. Eran Stern has quickly become one of the Cow’s most popular authors; here he presents tutorials for real-world motion graphics that you can start using right away. And Aharon Rabinowitz, one of the world’s true AE masters, leads you through AE CS3

A week ago a Russian Wanted trailer with new unseen footage was released. This movie looks great and promises a lot of great visual and digital effects.

“The story: What if someone came to you and told you your father was part of a secret organization and was one of the world’s greatest assassins and you have it in your blood to be one, too? “25-year-old Wes was the most disaffected, cube-dwelling drone the planet had ever known…” (Wanted a new VFX & DFX rich movie www.StrongMocha.com)

The movie is based on a comic book series by Mark Millar and J.G. Jones published by Image Comics.Wanted is directed by Timur Bekmambetov.

Other coverage:

• Wanted a new VFX & DFX rich movie (www.StrongMocha.com)
  
• World Exclusive Wanted Featurette (empireonline.com)
• www.wantedmovie.com has more on the story, pictures and some trailer.

The art of retouching clip from room.tv a Venice, CA based company shows how clips are polished these days.

This clip and the ones on room.tv web site shows a great before and after comparison from the wonderland of retouching. On room’s website you find more fx & design examples of their recent work. room’s mission is to merge editorial, motion graphics, computer animation and sound design into a complete creative experience. room edits commercials, music videos and films, design CG effects and title sequences and more.

room’s team members are:

Jeff Selis (editor), Elisa Bonora (editor), Bill Pollock (online artist/editor), Elad Marish (composer/designer), Brandon Toh (sound designer/mixer), John Musemecki (cgi arist) & Jason Barager (executive producer)

Andrew Kramer from videcopilot.net did release another great After Effects Video Tutorial. This time he is guiding you through the creation of smoke on a footage and how to stabilize it. Andrew was inspired by the book Adobe After Effects CS3 Professional Studio Techniques (Author Mark Christiansen) that we at StrongMocha.com recommend as well.  I did buy the book myself some weeks ago and learned a lot from Mark Christiansen’s book, of course not as much I learned from Andrew Video Tutorials or products videcopilot.net sells.

From Andrew’s announcement at videocopilot.net:

“In this new 2-part tutorial you will learn a great method for stabilizing footage in After Effects that smooths the result rather than freezes the tracking center. We will also create smoke flying behind a police car, which is as fun as it sounds.

This one tutorial has many great tips and techniques including, rotoscoping, expressions and matte blending.”

“I’d also like to thank Mark Christiansen for allowing me to demonstrate his stabilize technique in this tutorial. For more information about his great After Effects book” Click the book below

Some day’s earlier the same week videocopilot.net did release another useful Video Tutorial. The After Effects Video Tutorial “Smoke Screen” which teaches you how to use various compositig techniques to create these smoke designs in After Effects.

Please do not forget to support the work Andrew is doing. One great way to support videocopilot.net is to buy their products like Twitch. Twitch is available as a download version, buy Twitch here. Twitch from Videocopilot is a awesome After Effects plug-in. StrongMocha highly recommends this great plug-in.To learn more on Twitch you can read more here:

New Twitch (Vines) Tutorial @ videocopilot.net

Twitch - a “must have” After Effects Plug-in

Twitch After Effects Plug-in promotion video

Alternative you could start to stabilize and/or track footage with monet or mokey both from Imagineer Systems, however these products come with additional costs you may do not want to spend. View the product overview chart to see how Imagineer Systems products compare and what you are missing in your toolbox: Chart

Gareth Edwards did produce the 250 HD effects shots all by himself. Gareth was using Premier Pro, After Effects, mocha-AE, PhotoShop, 3D MAX and some more tools. Gareth spend almost 5 month on the post production.

fxguide did publish a great background story on the making of “One Man Against Attila the Hun”

“Every once in a while we get a story at fxguide that indicates just how far and how fast the industry is moving. The post on Attila the Hun, directed by Gareth Edwards, is one of those stories. Edwards produced the 250 HD effects shots by himself in five months using After Effects and Photoshop. Averaging 2 shots a day, it was one man against the armies of Attila the Hun…. Read the rest of the story on fxguide”

Make sure you watch the Quicktime movie that is on the page click on “Edwards prepared a shot breakdown QuickTime movie which you can download from fxguide.”

From writer/directors Larry and Andy Wachowski, the creators of the groundbreaking “The Matrix” trilogy, and producer Joel Silver comes the live-action, high-octane family adventure “Speed Racer.”

Slated for release on May 9, 2008, “Speed Racer” marks the Wachowski brothers’ first writing/directing collaboration since “The Matrix” movies. Joel Silver, who previously worked with the Wachowskis on “The Matrix” movies and “V For Vendetta,” is producing the film under his Silver Pictures banner.

The Visual F/X’s are looking promising, more can be found here “Susan Sarandon talks about the Wachowski Brothers SPEED RACER and confirms something revolutionary”

“Speed Racer” is a Warner Bros. Pictures presentation, in association with Village Roadshow Pictures, of a Silver Pictures Production.
More Information at speedracerthemovie.warnerbros.com. Images and Video Cortesy of Warner Bros Inc.

CGSociety and 3D World present a rundown of the Top 100 3D Movies as selected by the CG community. 50,000 individual user votes did decide which are the 100 greatest 3D movies.

One of my favorites vfx and dfx movie from 1999 made in to the first place. The Matrix introduced new and so far unseen special effects like bullet time (Bullet time Walk through here). John Gaeta and his team is the genious behind the visual effect.

Some Top 100 3D Movies DVD on Amazon: