The Entertainment Technology Center@USC produced a live-action short, “Ripple Effect” to test new technologies and workflows, including the cloud, virtual production, and remote editing and visual effects. Supported by ETC member companies (Universal, Warner Bros., Microsoft, Technicolor, Equinix, Amazon Studios and Seagate), and other industry key partners, the project also introduced and evaluated a variety of tools and procedures that meet or exceed industry standards for a safe set during the COVID-19 pandemic. Executive producer Erik Weaver, virtual production executive director/producer, Kathryn Brillhart, virtual production supervisor, Greg Ciaccio, Read More
From ETCentric’s 2/1/21 post: On January 20, the Entertainment Technology Center at USC presented a Digital Town Square, the second of two “Ripple Effect” events. The 2.5-hour online program — “Breaking Down ‘Ripple Effect’ Part 2: Virtual Production” — was co-sponsored by Microsoft Azure and led by Erik Weaver, ETC Adaptive Production director and executive producer of “Ripple Effect.” The program examined lessons learned and virtual production principles of the live-action short. Participants included Hanno Basse, CTO of Microsoft Azure; Isaac Campos, CEO of xRstage/Global Trend Productions; Kathryn Read More
The Entertainment Technology Center@USC produced a series of hour-long conversations with USC students and ETC member company executives for its Fall 2020 semester “ETC Executive Coffee with…”. Executives from Universal Pictures, Verizon, Fox, Vubiquity, Equinix, and Dolby each hosted a session, (Universal Pictures hosted 2 sessions) with students from various USC schools including the School of Cinematic Arts, the Iovine & Young Academy, Marshall School of Business, Viterbi School of Engineering, and Annenberg School of Communication and Journalism discussing a wide range of topics like the future Read More
On November 19, the ETC’s Digital Town Square — Breaking Down “Ripple Effect”: A Case Study on COVID-19 Safety Protocols, Advanced Workflows and Virtual Production — held a 2 1/2 hour event, hosted by Equinix and the Entertainment Technology Center@USC. The webinar examined “Ripple Effect,” a recent live-action short produced by ETC that leveraged Safetyviz as well as remote and virtual production to improve safety in the return to media production. Moderated by ETC’s Erik Weaver, director of the Adaptive Production project, the webinar also included Greg Read More
ETC provided some insight of the successes and challenges encountered on its r&d short film production, “Ripple Effect,” Tuesday, September 2nd at the kickoff of NAB’s online series, Collectively Speaking. During the series’ Show & Tell Sessions, ETC’s behind-the-scenes looked at how production teams are adapting to and adopting the new rule book for safely re-opening in the time of COVID-19. Erik Weaver, ETC’s Director of Adaptive Production and Special Projects moderated the panel, “In Harm’s Way: Using Safetyviz to Mitigate Onset Liability,” with experts discussing the problems and adjustments of producing Read More
ETC’s VFX Working Group has published a specification for best practices naming image sequences such as plates and comps. File naming is an essential tool for organizing the multitude of frames that are inputs and outputs from the VFX process. Prior to the publication of this specification, each organization had its own naming scheme, requiring custom processes for each partner, which often resulted in confusion and miscommunication. The new ETC@USC specification focuses primarily on sequences of individual images. The initial use case was VFX plates, typically delivered as OpenEXR or DPX files. However, Read More
