Co-Founder Sean Quinn announced, “Thought Equity Motion is a worldwide leader in the stock footage industry, and they maintain very high standards for the footage they’ll accept. We’re excited and proud to be a part of the Thought Equity Motion network.”

AIC will be among such prestigious networks as National Geographic, Paramount Pictures and the NCAA in providing TEM with high quality stock footage.  Throughout the company’s development, we have had the opportunity to work internationally, with locations ranging from our Philadelphia home, to New York and even as far away as Switzerland.  We are proud of this opportunity to present our extensive and diverse library to a wide audience in many different media outlets.

To view examples of our footage, please visit The Furnace.

According to Producer Brett Zuckerman, “This up and coming team has a personality and an attitude that is great for TV and football at large.  We are excited to be a part of the process, and document the growth of Temple football.”

The series will consist of 12 episodes in which there will be six shows about the football program, while the second half of the series will be dedicated to Temple’s basketball program.  The title of the second half of the series will be announced at a later date.  These 30-minute shows will run on CBS College Sports and Comcast SportsNet.  AIC will also be producing web features that will allow the fans to get a closer look at the teams as they go through the season.

According to Chris Sladek, Editor, “When we first heard the idea, we saw it as a significant challenge, but as with any project, all that matters is getting the entire team on the same page and making what’s being depicted look believable.”  Just as a viewer will catch a “jump cut” in a movie, a spectator can just as easily see if a composite is missing something.  People will admire a successful commercial, but a critical eye will often notice irregularities between the animated and the real.  It takes a carefully coordinated marriage of precise cinematography, computer generated graphics and compositing in order to create a world that is believable to the viewer.

Due to the nature of the project, which largely consisted of composited imagery, the bulk of the work was done in Adobe After Effects and assembled in Final Cut Pro. The creative team compiled plates from still and motion elements to create the inspiring environments in the spot.  As Fred Segro, Editor/Animator, described, “What appears to be one continuous shot from space zooming down to a few miles above Philadelphia is actually two separate compositions of close to 100 layers stacked and distributed through a 3D space.”  The graphics and photography teams supplied Freddie and Chris with an assortment of imagery that best represented Philadelphia’s business culture.

The significant difference between the Select Greater Philadelphia spot and other projects done at AIC was how the color grading was completed.  The majority of color correction for the spot was done in After Effects, whereas on most projects, AIC more frequently grades in Apple Color.  According to Chris, “Color is usually seen as a superior program when it comes to color correction but the tools in After Effects, when used properly, can achieve very similar high quality results.  In this case, performing basic color grading in After Effects saved a lot of time, as well.”  Color was then used for the final color grading for broadcast.

View the Select Greater Philadelphia spot in our Showcase.

“From Space” is a :30 spot for Select Greater Philadelphia, an arm of the Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce that promotes Greater Philadelphia as a destination for business.  The spot starts with a push over the shoulder of an astronaut floating in an orbiting spaceship, then continues through the portal window to follow a ball of light flying through space toward the earth, and ultimately settles in the hands of a businessman in the heart of Philadelphia. The camera then pushes in on the ball of light to reveal vignettes composed of individual elements highlighting the advantages of doing business in the area and the diversity of businesses already doing so.

The majority of the spot was done via green screen and compositing work done primarily in After Effects, entirely within the walls of AIC. Using our studio, we set up both our astronaut and businessman against green screen.  Each of these characters posed their own challenges; in the case of the astronaut, we wanted to simulate weightlessness.  The businessman required golden-hour lighting, which is short-lived.  Depending on the budget, weightlessness is not necessarily a difficult effect to fake.  However, lacking the ability to hire a wire team and suspend our subject, we needed a more low-tech solution.  By placing our astronaut on an exercise ball, we found he could both shift his weight, and roll forward or backward without changing the position of his torso.  After performing a few tests, we found that this “effortless” movement was instrumental is selling the effect of weightlessness.  The only thing left was to properly motivate lighting and find the right plate to simulate the look of a spaceship overlooking the Earth – the latter was almost entirely a matter of research by our graphics team.

Our second subject, a businessman, was also shot on green screen.  The first challenge of this shot was in finding the background plate the businessman would ultimately be comped against.  This shot in particular was meant to have camera movement to it, so we had to be sure that we had a location that was interesting enough for a whip-tilt that would follow the path of the ball of light into the waiting hands of the businessman.  Using the Comcast Center in Center City was an obvious choice to Enrique, given the importance of the building to the Greater Philadephia area, and its pure aesthetic values.  However, shooting during sunrise (as the script dictated), also meant racing the sun when shooting on location.  Since we had already budgeted a day on green screen, using a controlled lighting environment to capture a static subject eliminated a major challenge of any production—beating the clock.

The only on-location shooting was done to satisfy the need for plates to which the flying ball of light would be comped into.  Enrique Mendoza was clear from the outset that each of these shots would have to be visually breathtaking, and so we decided that using the same golden lighting in each scenario would be the most effective.  Using the Canon 5D, I could easily move from one location to another, utilizing a full sensor, a small crew, and the proper time of day to get some of the more memorable views of Philadelphia that I have captured to date.

Once I wrapped up my shooting, I handed over the reigns to Chris Sladek and Fred Segro to start inserting backgrounds for our green screen, adding in the flying ball of light, and creating all the elements (shot by Nikki Sherman) that would represent the benefits of bringing a business to the Select Greater Philadelphia area.  For an examination of their great contributions to the piece, look for Part Two of this blog, coming soon.

One of the biggest challenges to Season 1 is that many of the episodes were shot on a very tight time frame.   In particular, the Aloha Prep Bowl in Hawaii and the U.S. Army All American Bowl in Texas were set to air live on TV, so all of the prior episodes needed to have already aired before these games occurred.  In the case of the two Hawaii episodes, the turnaround time for the first of these shows was just three days after the production team’s return to the office.

Sean and Enrique while on-set for the Philadelphia hometown visit, during one of the rare times they were not reviewing footage with the editors.

While the tapeless format of the show (discussed by cinematographer Brett Zuckerman in Shooting The Ride Hawaii) expedited the ingest process, the most important aspect of post-production was to develop a quick, efficient workflow.

As expected, the first episode proved to be the most challenging, for all involved in post-production needed to adjust to the preconceived documentary style, as well as  develop the graphics packages and musical palette for the show.  “Once that was all in place, we knew that the timeline was only going to get tighter,” said Director Enrique Mendoza, so it was important to develop a solid workflow early in the season.

This required editors Freddie Segro and Chris Sladek to drastically change their preferred editing styles of meticulously going through footage prior to beginning the full editing process.  “With a seven-day deadline, you can’t really nitpick,” notes Sladek from his editing bay.

This was especially difficult for Segro, whose perfectionism was tested throughout the season.  “ You don’t want to skip anything, so you want to go through all of it, but when it comes down to a deadline like this it gets tough,” he says.

Two valuable systems were utilized throughout the season: Final Cut Server and Director’s Notes.  Both editors were thrilled with the ease of Final Cut Server, and used the software on a regular basis while searching for specific clips or time codes.

“Final Cut Server has turned into a valuable tool. The use of Final Cut Server has allowed us to access assets on the fly, and to split our editing efforts, facilitating a faster turnaround time,” noted Mendoza, while adding, “As we go into producing a DVD collection of the season, we will use Final Cut Server heavily to access deleted scenes that were not able to fit into the timeline of the show.”

Also of help were a series of Director’s Notes, compiled by Mendoza, as well as Executive Producers Sean Quinn and Kate McGuiness.  These Notes became like a second version of Final Cut Server, just on paper.  Editors could sift through the pages when looking for a particular shot, and be able to locate time codes and camera angles quickly.

As the season progressed, those compiling the Notes began to use their iPhone App “Voice Memos” to easily take note of events happening while out in the field, which made the process of actually creating the Director’s Notes much easier and more accurate, as there was no down time between the actual events happening, and the notation of what was occurring.

A moment in Edit Suite 1 with Chris and Fred

When it came to the actual editing process, Chris Sladek and Freddie Segro learned to work closely together, despite their distinct preferred editing styles, and with the assistant editors.  They also made sure to check in with each other on a regular basis, because even with two editors on one show it was very important to be sure that it appeared as if just one person was editing the show.

The editing team began each episode by sitting down with Director Enrique Mendoza to determine the objective of that episode: some episodes were expository, revealing personalities and football skill, while others had to center around player eliminations or organic drama that occurred on or off the field.

Immediately after these decisions were made, both editors began the arduous process of syncing the multi-camera footage.  As noted above, there simply was not time to actually watch everything, so it was important to get through this process as quickly as possible.  CJ Bennett’s hometown game alone consisted of eleven hours of footage, but Sladek was able to successfully sync it in three hours.  Syncing also provided the ancillary benefit of allowing the editors to become familiar with the footage.

It was, however, imperative for the editors to watch every interview from start to finish, as they used these interviews to sketch out and sculpt the episode blocks.

At this point, they began to place B-roll over the interview subjects, and that was when the Director’s Notes and Final Cut Server became crucial to the editing process.

As the editors approached the end of their initial cuts, they each made sure to send AIC’s in-house composer, AJ Khawaja, copies of the episode blocks.  The moment Mendoza reviewed a block and declared it locked, Khawaja would begin working on the audio and original music.

After the score was placed over the video, Sladek spent nearly a full day per episode on color correction in Final Cut Studio’s Color program before finally sending the finished product to Compressor.

Chris and Fred work in Color

By the time the episode was sent out for Closed Captioning, less than a week had passed, yet the AIC crew had succeeded in creating a truly unique show.  According to Segro, the most important thing that he had to remind himself about was to not feel overwhelmed by the amount of footage that needed to be sorted.

Sladek knew that he would be working long hours, so he began each day by setting goals for himself regarding how much he wanted to get done for the day.  He also developed a system of creating a 20-minute sequence, then quickly knocking it down to 15, 8, and 4 minutes.  This allowed him to see the big picture, and make sure he didn’t miss anything important.

In the end, it all was about putting in the hours by the entire AIC staff.

All one has to do is watch The Ride to see how teamwork pays off.  Mendoza praised the staff by saying, “The thing that has made it all happen is simply that our team is really, really talented and incredibly dedicated. I know that I can hand them anything, and they’ll make it happen.”

The editors became so in-tune with each other that they occasionally wore the same shirt!

The solution of using the P2 Proxy Encoder cards would not have even been considered if the proxies did not carry all the audio that was being sent into the camera.  Once we conducted a test and found that all the audio and video could be played through Final Cut Pro, we also learned that all four channels of audio we had running were compressed into two, and that the audio would have to be rendered. Nevertheless, we knew we had our solution. Did I mention that a 12-hour day of documentary-style shooting only requires a single 2GB SD card per camera?

Shooting using the P2 Proxy Encoder Cards was as easy as I could have imagined, but we would still have been left with all the footage to sort through and no time to do it without an on-set method of documenting our footage.  In the earliest episodes of The Ride, we learned the value of giving Enrique Mendoza, the director, and Executive Producer Sean Quinn a place to record their thoughts minute by minute so we knew how the storyline shaped up and what they considered important.  This was also a good way for me to note when I had a shot the editors should be sure to come back to or captured a moment only someone looking through the lens would know about.  Each note was recorded along with the time of day.

By setting the cameras to record time-code in free-run and re-synching every few hours, our editors could find everything the director considered noteworthy just by matching the time-code in the clips to the time of day in the director’s notes.

The editing process was not without caveats, one of the most problematic being the low resolution of the proxies.  In some clips, the editors could not always see if a boom dropped into the shot, or they could not see some details in shadows we would rather not be in the show, which on occasion led to later revisions.

The real grunt work of the post workflow comes in the form of relinking files.  The proxies do allow the option of burning in time code, so you can be sure when you go back to your original footage that you have what you are looking for.  However, they do not carry an identical file name to the full version, which means individual file relinking.  This, to be blunt, is a pain.  This does not necessarily have to be the case, but for our show, it was a necessity.

The HPX 3000 allows the user to choose the filename that the camera will create, rather than forcing you to go back to your footage and rename it later, or risk repeating file names.  This is done using Clip ID Type 2.  This allows the camera operator to set the camera ID, date, and a sequential order of files as I please—i.e. ACAM010120100001 ABC1. This naming convention is ideal for our show, especially since we run as many as five cameras in a day, but this is NOT the file name that shows up on the proxies.  The proxies carry a Global Clip ID, which is a random smattering of letters and numbers that is meant to be unique, but they are not—they sometimes repeat.  This causes the dreaded “do you wish to overwrite file name xxxx?” warning when importing the files. The Global Clip ID is always present when creating clips, even if you choose the self-naming option previously mentioned.  The letters and numbers at the end of my fictional file name above are the first few digits of the global clip ID, which may be longer depending on how many total clips are captured.  The alphanumeric ID will not be enough to get FCP to recognize the original clips and relink them, which is why your editors will have to do it manually.  However, if you have created sequential file names that specify the camera a clip was shot on, and the date of creation, this process should not be nearly as difficult as simply time consuming.

For a comprehensive white paper on using the P2 Encoder System, check out Panasonic’s web site

Written by Cinematographer of The Ride Brett Zuckerman

We bring to you a nature inspired, photography based wallpaper to enchant your desktop.

The intention of this wallpaper is not just to bring you desktop beauty, but to demonstrate how very simple photos can be composited to create a wonderful image full of imagination and creativity. We hope that our wallpapers inspire you to create your very own piece of original artwork. However, bringing you just another inspiring desktop wallpaper isn’t enough. We also want to give you some great resources to obtain some compositing imagery of your very own.

1920×1200 | 1680×1050 | 1600×1200 | 1400×1050 | iPod

Starting out with an original photo of a desolate landscape was a great foundation for this photographic composite. However, additional imagery was needed to create the final wallpaper you see here.

ORIGINAL LANDSCAPE: Photo by Enrique Mendoza, Hawaii, USA

With all the resource websites out nowadays it was easy to find free imagery to work with. The following links are resource websites where you can find free/cheap usable textures and images for both personal and commercial works.

NOTE: INDIVIDUAL SITES AND PHOTOS HAVE DIFFERENT LICENSING OPTIONS AND THEREFORE LICENSING FOR EACH INDIVIDUAL IMAGE MUST BE UPHELD IN CORRESPONDENCE TO THE LICENSE AGREEMENT SET
FOR THAT SPECIFIC SITE OR IMAGE.
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We hope you enjoy the beauty of photography and this new wallpaper; and if you missed our previous series or would like to be the first to get the next set coming then subscribe to our RSS feed and stay updated on the happenings here at Aurora Imaging Company.

Greg helps out on-set.

As of now, about four months into my internship, I haven’t made coffee for anyone. It’s probably because I’m too busy editing videos for Valley Forge Military Academy or Villanova University. When I’m out of the office and on a shoot, I’m helping our Director of Photography, Brett Zuckerman, change lenses, switch cards, light scenes, and set up rooms. I’ve gained experience on a weekly basis with everything from grip work, lighting for both indoors and outdoors, camera operations, and even art direction. Like a sponge I’ve absorbed and soaked in a little bit of everything. I’m constantly learning from my mistakes and becoming more efficient in both on-set production and post production. I couldn’t have asked for more in an internship and consider myself very lucky to have found such a company where I can practice what I know and learn more everyday.

Fellow intern Sergio learns some tricks of the trade while on-set.

At a small, up-and-coming company like Aurora, there are plenty of clients and enough work to keep everyone busy. There is no room to treat interns like interns because there is simply too much work to do. If I don’t know how to do something, the other employees are very helpful and sit down with me to show me their best solution. They do this so that later, I can do it all on my own, without needing their help. Rarely have I been asked to look something up because the other employees are too busy and don’t have the time to help me. They actually care (which is rare in this industry) about my individual growth and development. No matter what the job calls for, they want to see me learn and grow in all areas. Throughout my internship, I’ve had the chance to travel. I was in Boston to shoot interviews and Broll for Bentley University. I’ve also been to Lehigh and Villanova University as well for a variety of projects. Seeing different universities and traveling in general has been exciting for me. Knowing my way around campuses not my own is quite fun and makes for great stories when I return home to my campus.

Marketing intern Liz has been able to experience production days during her internship.

The week after New Years was an exciting one. The majority of our company (including interns) flew down to San Antonio, Texas to shoot the final episode of our show, “The Ride”. This trip was the best week I’ve had working for Aurora, and hands down, the most enjoyable. Being involved in such a large production was an excellent learning experience for myself and others as well. We all realized that our work, some of which was for NBC, is top notch. It’s a confidence booster when you see our little company doing so much, and being involved makes me realize that what I’ve learned from Drexel, and this position at Aurora, really does have an enormous value on a larger scale. Being on the field of the U.S. Army All American Bowl could not have been more of a moment for Aurora and myself, and I’m very glad to have been a part of it.