Toolbox

The Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE®), a leader in motion-imaging standards and education for the communications, media, entertainment, and technology industries, announced that the Society has elected its new officers and governors for the 2016-2017 term.

“The elections bring the board an impressive array of industry leaders, all with a history of contributing valuable expertise and extraordinary energy to SMPTE events and standards work,” said SMPTE Past President Wendy Aylsworth, who served as nominating committee chair. “As we enter an exciting centennial year, the Society will benefit from our board of governors’ collective experience and ongoing commitment to the Society’s three pillars of education, standards, and membership.”

Three SMPTE officers were re-elected and will continue in their current roles on the SMPTE Board of Governors for another two years. Paul Stechly, president at Applied Electronics, will continue as the Society’s finance vice president; William C. Miller, president at Miltag Media Technology, will continue as membership vice president; and Alan Lambshead, retired from Evertz, will remain in the role of standards vice president.

Eight SMPTE governors were elected to serve in posts throughout the world, and five of these 2016-2017 board members were elected as incumbents. The re-elected governors include Randy Conrod, senior product manager for digital products at Imagine Communications, who will again serve as Canadian region governor, as well as John E. Ferder, director of studio and postproduction engineering at CBS, who will continue as New York region governor. Daniel A. Burnett, senior director of sales for broadcast and media solutions at Ericsson, will continue his tenure as Southern region governor. Patent attorney Mark A. Narveson of Artegis Law Group will serve as Western region governor. John Maizels, a broadcast engineer with Entropy Enterprises, will again hold the role of Asia-Australia region governor.

John A. Luff of HD Consulting will take on a new role on the SMPTE Board of Governors, serving as Eastern region governor, and Patricia Keighley, senior vice president and managing director in the office of the chief quality officer (CQO) at IMAX, will return to the board and once again serve as Hollywood region governor. Bruce Devlin, chief media scientist at Dalet, has been elected to serve as governor for the Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Central, and South America region.

Officers and governors elected for the 2016-2017 term will serve on the SMPTE Board of Governors along with other board officers, regional governors, and directors of specific areas including standards, education, and membership. Directors will be appointed in January 2016. At that time, the SMPTE Board of Governors also may appoint governors at large.

Officers who were not up for re-election and who continue on the SMPTE Board of Governors include Robert P. Seidel, of CBS, as president; Wendy Aylsworth, retired from Warner Bros., as past president; Matthew Goldman, of Ericsson, as executive vice president; Patrick Griffis, of Dolby Laboratories, as education vice president; and Peter Wharton, of BroadStream Solutions, as secretary/treasurer.

Governors who continue on the SMPTE Board of Governors through their 2015-2016 term include Merrick Ackermans of MVA Media Consulting (Southern region); Stephen M. Beres of HBO (Hollywood region); Angelo D’Alessio of Cine Design Group (EMEA, Central and South American regions); William T. Hayes of Iowa Public Television (Central region); Sara J. Kudrle of Grass Valley, a Belden Brand (Western region); K.L. Lam, retired from Hong Kong Cable TV (Asia/Australia region); Pierre Marion, retired from CBC-Radio Canada (Canadian region); John McCoskey of Coherent Media (Eastern region); Andrew G. Setos of BLACKSTAR Engineering (Hollywood section); and Douglas I. Sheer of DIS Consulting Corp. (New York region).

Solid Angle SL, developer of the Arnold advanced image renderer, has brought Darin Grant aboard as VP of engineering. Former CTO at Digital Domain and Method Studios and having held senior technology roles at DreamWorks Animation and Google, Grant will help the company scale development operations as its customer base continues to grow, and lead its cloud rendering initiative.

Grant reports to Solid Angle founder and CEO Marcos Fajardo, who continues to lead the company’s technology vision. “Darin has a long history leading massive technology efforts in VFX and computer animation at big global studios. And like we are, he’s passionate about making sure production needs drive development,” Fajardo said. “Having Darin on our team will help us scale our efforts and bring fast, accurate rendering to all kinds of productions.”

Prior to joining Solid Angle, Grant was CTO of Method Studios where he focused on unifying infrastructure, pipeline, and workflows across its many locations. Prior to that he was CTO of Digital Domain and head of production technology at DreamWorks Animation where he guided teams to maintain and enhance the company’s unified pipeline. He has provided strategic consulting to many companies including The Foundry, Chaos Group and Autodesk; most recently collaborating to create a Pipeline Consulting Services team and advising around cloud enablement and film security for Shotgun Software. He began his career in visual effects developing shaders as rendering lead at Digital Domain. Grant is a member of the Scientific and Technical Awards Committee for AMPAS and the Visual Effects Society.

“Having followed the development of Arnold over the past 17 years, I have never been more excited about the future of the product than I am today,” Grant said. “Broadening our availability on the cloud and our accessibility from animation tools while allowing Marcos and the team to drive innovation in the renderer itself allows us to move faster than we ever have.”

Arnold is used by 500-plus studios worldwide including Aardman Animations, Framestore, ILM, The Mill, and Sony Pictures Imageworks, and thousands of individual artists. Arnold is designed to efficiently process complex geometric datasets while at the same time simplifying the pipeline. Visuals for productions including “Everest,” “Game of Thrones,” and “Gravity” were rendered using Arnold. The software is available as a standalone renderer, an API, and set of plug-ins for 3D applications including Maya, Softimage, Houdini, Katana, and Cinema 4D on Linux, Mac OS X and Windows. Solid Angle has offices in Madrid and London.

The first thing you need to know about Apple's iPad Pro is that it's, well, giant.

About an inch longer than a standard sheet of paper, the Pro features a 12.9-inch diagonal display, giving it 78 percent more surface area than the 9.7-inch iPad Air 2. At nearly 1.6 pounds, the Pro is heavier than current models, but not much more so than the original iPad from 2010. There's room for four speakers, compared with two on other iPads.

The price is supersized, too. The iPad Pro starts at $799, compared with $499 for the standard-size iPad Air 2 and $269 for the cheapest iPad, the 2-year-old iPad Mini 2. A physical keyboard from Apple costs $169 extra, and the Apple Pencil sells for $99.

Designed with professionals in mind, the Pro is Apple's way of reaching new consumers as sales of iPads - and tablets in general - decline. Here are some things to know as the Pro starts appearing in stores this week:

THE PRO ISN'T FOR EVERYONE
Many people will be fine with the standard iPad Air, while others will prefer the portability of the smaller iPad Mini.

The Pro is for those who need the larger screen, including people who write, build spreadsheets or edit graphics and video rather than primarily reading or playing games. These are people who might otherwise be lugging around a laptop. If you're using a tablet just to watch Netflix, the Pro might be overkill, though movies and TV shows look and sound nicer.

IT'S NOT A LAPTOP
For writing, the Pro features Microsoft Word and Apple's Pages. But do you need a tablet for that? The desktop version of both apps can do far more, including keeping multiple documents open at once. The Pro is more for those times you want to leave the laptop behind, but might still need to write an email or touch up a report. The physical keyboard makes all that faster.

Where the Pro has the potential to excel is with artistic apps. Doodling, sketching and painting work better with fingers and a stylus than with a keyboard and trackpad. But apps on tablets have streamlined features designed to let you complete specific tasks quickly. More advanced features require a PC.

The iPad lacks a USB port, though you can buy an adapter. And it's designed for one user. Many other tablets and laptops support profiles, so many people can share a device with separate settings and even restrictions for children.

A BIGGER SCREEN ISN'T ALWAYS BETTER
The Pro has plenty of screen space to work with - nearly two standard-size iPads side by side. Photos, video and magazines come to life on the larger screen.

But in other respects the Pro doesn't make the most of the extra space. You can't, for instance, display more apps on the home screen. And when you open apps, often enough they're just blown up to fit the larger screen.

That's not universally true, and it's bound to change as software developers update their apps. The collaboration app Slack, for instance, creates a new column with menu options on the Pro. But for now such apps are more the exception than the rule.

GET THE KEYBOARD AND STYLUS
Although they'll push up the cost, you'll want to buy the Apple Pencil and a physical keyboard. Many of the Pro's unique characteristics require one or both. Otherwise, you're effectively buying a crippled device that's capable of so much more with the right tools.

Apple's Smart Keyboard serves as both a cover when stowing the iPad and a kickstand when using it, though you can't adjust the angle. Typing is much easier with a real keyboard, and having it restores many shortcuts common on Macs, such as command-C for copy. The keys don't feel as natural as they do on a laptop, but that could simply take more than a few hours of testing to get used to. One nice touch: The keys are completely sealed, in case you spill a drink on it.

The stylus, meanwhile, resembles a digital pencil that, for instance, can do shading when held at an angle. (Most draw only with the tip.) One neat trick: Hold two fingers on the Notes app to unveil a ruler, and use the pencil to draw a straight line.

HOW THE PRO STACKS UP TO OTHER PROS
Microsoft's Surface Pro comes closer to being a laptop replacement, particularly with a new keyboard cover that's studier and feels more natural on the lap. It runs standard Windows 10 apps and displays many windows at once, not just two. On the other hand, not all of those apps are designed with touch controls in mind, something that's fundamental to tablets.

Another alternative is Apple's "new" MacBook laptop - the minimalist model released in March, without Air or Pro in the name. It doesn't have a detachable keyboard, but the overall unit is light and thin, more like a tablet than a laptop.

Generally speaking, the Pro is designed primarily to extend the iPad's touch-optimized experience to office use; as part of that compromise, it just can't do everything a Mac can. So you can be disappointed and consider it a laptop-wannabe - or you can look on the bright side and think of the Pro as a giant iPad with benefits.

As part of Kodak’s ongoing celebration of 50 years of Super 8 filmmaking, the company has launched the Kodak Super 8 Filmmaking Challenge , and is seeking submissions now through December 21. The inaugural online contest, which is free to enter, is designed to showcase the wide range of creative uses of this small gauge format by passionate shooters from all walks of life who revere its unique look.

Filmmakers, home movie aficionados, documentarians, sports enthusiasts, musicians, promo/spot creatives and experimentalists from all over the world are invited to submit clips that were originated on Super 8 film and range from 15 seconds to 5 minutes. Entries will be taken in one of three categories: POV (fiction), Action (lifestyle) and Flashback (non-fiction).

Once the submission period ends, there will be two rounds of voting open to the general public. The semi-finalist round will begin December 22. The top three videos in each category based on audience votes, along with two semi-finalists from each category chosen by a jury, will be screened at a Kodak event at the Slamdance Film Festival in January 2016. Fifteen films will be chosen in total.

The second stage of voting will determine the overall first, second and third place Audience Award winners. A professional panel of jurists assembled by Kodak will select the Jury Award semi-finalists and winner.

Prizes will range from a Kodak PixPro SP360 Action Camera and a Pro8mm Rhonda Super 8 camera, to film stock, processing and swag, valued at up to $12,500.

The Kodak Super 8 Filmmaking Challenge is hosted on The Audience Awards contest platform. Entrants will need to create a valid Audience Awards account, free of charge. Viewers can also sign up for free to watch and vote for their favorite clips from December 22 to January 25, 2016.

All submissions must be shot on Super 8 film, either with or without sound. Hybrid productions need to be comprised of a minimum of 50% Super 8 footage. Clips can be from any year, original pieces of work or excerpts of longer form projects, and previously exhibited or distributed.