On November 11, at the USC School of Cinematic Arts, ETC’s AR Salon gathered a group of industry experts to discuss their experiences in augmented reality. ETC executive director/chief executive Ken Williams opened the event to welcome attendees, many of whom are already engaged in producing AR projects. Phil Lelyveld, ETC’s VR/AR program lead, spelled out the salon’s organization, which consisted of 10-minute presentations on the business of AR and the art and technology of AR, followed by discussion workgroups. Continue reading ETC’s AR Salon: Industry Experts Discuss Augmented Reality

The Entertainment Technology Center at USC, through its Project Cloud initiative, has selected filmmaker Christine Berg and writing partner Simon Shterenberg to receive the 2016 Innovative Technology Award for their AR/VR/Cloud-based project, “Wonder Buffalo.” Berg and Shterenberg developed the script at the Writers Guild Foundation’s Veterans Writing Program, which pairs military veterans with WGA film and television writers. “Wonder Buffalo” is the third short to be produced through ETC’s Project Cloud to explore and test next-gen production processes and technologies. Continue reading ETC Recognizes ‘Wonder Buffalo’ Creators for Innovative Tech

The Entertainment Technology Center at USC (ETC), Equinix and Google are coming together to raise awareness of new cloud-based workflow technologies for creative companies. On September 19th at Google’s Venice, CA headquarters, the companies will host an event for industry professionals to learn how cloud-based workflows are changing media and entertainment. The event will feature presentations and an engaging panel discussion to illustrate how facilities large and small can leverage the cloud to decrease workflow latency while increasing security and productivity. Continue reading ETC, Google and Equinix Present Next-Gen Cloud Workflows

The Hollywood Professional Association announced that Michelle Munson, co-founder and CEO of IBM company Aspera (IBM and Aspera are both silver sponsors of ETC@USC), will receive the organization’s prestigious Charles S. Swartz Award. “The HPA Awards recognize creative artistry, innovation and engineering excellence in the professional media content industry and the Charles S. Swartz Award honors the recipient’s significant impact across diverse aspects of the industry,” explains the release. This year’s HPA Awards ceremony is slated for November 17 at the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles. Continue reading HPA to Present Charles S. Swartz Award to Michelle Munson

As the latest in its ongoing Digital Town Square series, the Entertainment Technology Center at USC held a symposium on “Rethinking Digital Archiving and Storage” on June 9 at Amazon’s Santa Monica facilities. Approximately 80 people from all the major Hollywood studios, archivists and post production professionals participated in the interactive forum that examined the challenges in current archiving and storage practices, the pressures to change those practices, and emerging solutions. Continue reading ETC Hosts Digital Town Square on Digital Archiving, Storage

One of the more compelling demos during Netflix’s latest Hack Day was a virtual reality showroom using HTC Vive’s room-scale VR. Developers Joey Cato, Marco Caldeira and Adnan Abbas created “The Netflix Zone,” where subscribers can peruse titles on shelf racks arranged by categories and personal recommendations. Movies and original shows such as “Orange Is the New Black” and “House of Cards” appear on shelves as VHS cassettes. When you select certain cassettes, the shop morphs into a setting that reflects the title. Continue reading The Netflix Zone: Virtual Video Store Showcased at Hack Day

At the London Hotel in West Hollywood, the Entertainment Technology Center @ USC unveiled “The Suitcase,” a 20-minute film that serves as a proof of concept for production in the cloud. “We wanted to examine how we create a common framework for all the different resources you’re dealing with in the IT environment,” said ETC Project Cloud senior project lead Erik Weaver. “This short film was a way to bring those things together — including an end-to-end HDR color workflow and metadata — and test them out.” Continue reading ETC@USC Tests Production in the Cloud with ‘The Suitcase’

ETC@USC has scheduled a panel discussion — “Audience Intelligence at the Frontier: AI, Neuroscience & the Data Revolution in Hollywood” — for Tuesday, June 21. Yves Bergquist, co-founder & CEO of Novamente, and director of ETC’s new Data & Analytics Project will moderate. Leading data scientists, neuroscientists and senior studio execs will discuss the application of next-generation cognitive computing to the audience intelligence challenges in Hollywood. Sponsored by Cloudera, the event will take place 2:00–4:00 pm at the USC Ronald Tutor Campus Center, followed by a cocktail reception. For more information and to register, visit the panel’s Eventbrite page. Continue reading ETC Panel: AI, Neuroscience & Data Revolution in Hollywood

Two companies at last week’s NAB Show, Sphericam and Liquid Cinema, are making interesting contributions to the advancement of VR Cinema. Sphericam is preparing to launch a 6-sensor, 4-microphone spherical camera the size of a baseball into the prosumer market. The camera can internally stitch at 30 fps and, with an attached PC, output 60 fps live video. Liquid Cinema has developed a comprehensive yet simple-to-use software package for editing VR footage, adding effects, and, most interestingly, re-establishing the director’s intent for where viewers should look at cut-points within the video. Continue reading NAB 2016: Sphericam and Liquid Cinema Look to Advance VR

In a panel on the business of VR during ETC’s Virtual Reality Summit at NAB 2016, moderator Scott Lenet, president of Touchdown Ventures, asked panelists what will determine critical mass for VR. “All these new industries start with a lot of confusion over the right business model and technology,” said Reality Lab chief executive Halsey Minor, who is also chair/co-founder of Voxelus. “VR is right in the middle of that early confusing stage. But I do believe that this wave will move faster than any before it — by a longshot.” Continue reading ETC’s Virtual Reality Summit Dives Into the Business of VR

During ETC’s Virtual Reality Summit at NAB in Las Vegas this week, panelists, moderated by Fox Networks Group executive vice president of technology solutions Chris Blandy, considered the challenges in their experiences in producing live streaming VR. Fox Sports Media Group senior vice president of field and technical operations Michael Davies reports that, there are “some things you might think are captivating that aren’t.” “Some things surprise you,” he suggested. For example, “Boxing was great — we got a great camera position.” Continue reading ETC’s Virtual Reality Summit on Live Streaming Production

A compelling panel on audio technology during ETC’s Virtual Reality Summit at NAB emphasized audio’s importance to effective VR storytelling. Moderator Jacqueline Bosnjak, Q Department chief executive/partner, recalls how, when she saw “Catatonic,” a VR experience from Vrse, she immediately knew she had to work in virtual reality. She asked panelists about their approach to VR projects. “The thing we’re all exploring is bringing depth to the timeline,” said Felix & Paul Studios director of sound technology Jean-Pascal Beaudoin. Continue reading ETC’s Virtual Reality Summit Stresses Importance of Audio

ConductorIO VP of business development and operations Monique Bradshaw talked about the paradigm change from local, on-premise infrastructure to the cloud. “The paradigm shift means a fundamental change in approach of underlying assumption,” she said during an ETC Cloud Innovation Conference keynote at NAB. “We’re seeing a big change in the ways that companies are looking at their rendering.” In five years, she noted, 90 percent of respondents to a survey think they’ll have at least some of their rendering in the cloud, up from close to 60 percent today. Continue reading Cloud Conference: Moving From Local to Cloud Infrastructure

During ETC’s Virtual Reality Summit at NAB 2016, ETC VR/AR program lead Phil Lelyveld explained the continuum from augmented reality to virtual reality, adding that most of what we’ll be seeing is a mixed or blended reality. VR is predicted to be worth a tremendous amount of money: Goldman Sachs estimates $18.09 billion in entertainment by 2025, and DigiData puts that number at $30 billion. Among the top things that consumers would like to do with VR now, according to Ericsson ConsumerLab, is examine items when online shopping. Continue reading ETC’s Virtual Reality Summit Details the Current State of VR

Visual effects and rendering in the cloud was the topic of an ETC Cloud Innovation Conference panel at NAB 2016, moderated by Google Cloud Platform senior product manager Srikanth Belwadi. The scope of the issue was made clear by the fact that “The Good Dinosaur” required 110 million compute hours and 300 TB of active data space. Panelists from Thinkbox, Shotgun, Rodeo FX, Avere Systems, and ConductorIO discussed the challenges to producing VFX in the cloud — but also its inevitability.
Continue reading Cloud Conference: Challenges to Rendering VFX in the Cloud