©2012 NewTek, Inc. All rights reserved. www.newtek.com

Image courtesy of Chris O’Riley

The latest version of NewTek LightWave™ 3D animation software takes your art

to the edge. A complete palette of tools, LightWave 11 is professional, faster

and way more powerful. TV. Film. Architectural visualization. Print. And Game

development. Get incredible detail. Instancing. Flocking motion. Fracture. Bullet

Dynamics. Virtual Studio Tools. HyperVoxels™ Blending. GoZ™ technology.

Freedom to stretch your imagination. For real.

www.newtek.com/smor call 1.800.368.5441

4 | T H E O F F I C I A L C R E A T I V E R E S O U R C E F O R N E W T E K U S E R S w w w . N e w T e k . c o m 5

The Tiny TV Transformer By Donetta Colboch

No matter how clearly we think we can predict the future, what really happens is usu-ally a surprise. Television is undergoing a transformation that not one media profes-sional, pundit or prognosticator saw coming even a few years ago.

While most were looking at the ushering in of HDTV as the beginning of a grand new era in television, few imagined that it would be screens that fit in the palm of your hand that would shake the foundations of television.

In television today, the “second screen” is the great transformer. The audience is now turn-ing to their laptop or netbook computer, media tablets like the Apple iPad or the ubiquitous smartphone — found in the pockets of consumers worldwide. These new screens are giving viewers immediate access to breaking news, photos, video clips and other content they are unable to see on traditional TV.

The Nielsen Company released data in October 2011 revealing that 40 percent of tablet and smartphone owners use the devices while watching television. The Nielsen findings also revealed that 29 percent of tablet owners looked up information related to the TV program they were watching online, and 42 percent visited social networking sites during the show.

It’s no wonder that so many traditional video producers are transforming their shows into “media productions” and themselves into “media publishers.” They realize that television is no longer just about the show. It’s about viewer engagement that transcends the split-second decision whether to change the channel. It’s about reaching out to viewers through show-related websites, social media like Facebook and Google+ and even Twitter. It’s also about monitoring messages from viewers and integrating their thoughts and ideas into the TV show, many times as it’s unfolding.

This type of viewer engagement doesn’t end when the show does. Today’s media publish-ers package unaired material, organize online chats and tease the next on-air show for hours and hours after the television show ends.

Consider the implications of this enhanced engagement. Not only does this second screen programming strengthen the underlying television show, but it also creates impor-tant, new revenue opportunities that no one imagined a few years ago. Best of all, since younger viewers tend to engage in “second screening,” as one pundit has described it, these revenue sources are likely to only grow bigger with time, as more young people pick up the tablet and tune in.

In this edition of NewTek Magazine, you will find many stories about media publishers who are tapping into the opportunity second screening offers. Some have taken their efforts to the extreme; others are still finding their way. Still others don’t even have a TV show, but are tapping the power of Web streaming to build viewer engagement.

The common thread among them is none can be regarded simply as a video producer. They truly are media publishers distributing stills, video, text, graphics and other content elements through Web streaming, websites and social media to better tell their stories and attract and hold the attention of their audiences.

Volume 3 - Number 1: 2012 | NewtekmagaziNe.com

editor-iN-chiefDonetta Colbocheditor@newtek.com

creatiVe director/desigNKiller Kite Productions | killerkite.com

PhotograPhersPhil Cassell, Tyler Nguyen, Guillaume Gaudet, Jessica Chou, Sulinh LaFontaine

coNtributiNg writersDonetta Colboch, Kris Gurrad, Charles Quigley, Claudia Kienzle, B. A. Philips, Cathy Sherman, Kevin Mortimer, Adora Svitak, K. T. Reeder, O. J. Zukerman, James Lynch Jr., Courtney E. Howard, William Vaughan, Andrew Cross

Readers are invited to submit stories and story ideas via email to Donetta Col-boch: editor@newtek.com.

Newtek coNtributorsCarter Holland, EVP, Worldwide MarketingPhilip Nelson, SVP, Artist and Media RelationsRob Powers, VP, Head of 3D DevelopmentEllen Camloh, Product Marketing Manager

Newtek corPorateTim Jenison, FounderJim Plant, President and CEODr. Andrew Cross, CTOSteve Doubleday, CFOChuck Silber, COO

Copyright ©2012 by NewTek, Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part, in print or on the Internet, without written permission is prohibited. TriCaster, 3Play, LightWave, IsoCorder, LiveSet, LiveText, SpeedEDIT and Time-Warp are trademarks of NewTek, Inc. LightWave 3D is a registered trademark of NewTek, Inc. All other products or brand names mentioned are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders.

Printed in the USA. Cover Image: Guillaume Gaudet.

First Word: The Tiny TV Transformerby Donetta Colboch, Director, Media RelationsThe unfolding transformation in television is coming from a small, yet powerful source.Page 5

Make Your Own Transitions With Animation Store Creatorby Kris GurradA step-by-step guide to unleashing the power of high-quality animated transitions with ASC.Page 6

Certified for Successby Charles QuigleyNewTek’s new TriCaster operator certification program will open doors for opera-tors and give the folks who hire them peace of mind.Page 10

The X Factor Second Screen Experienceby Claudia KienzleProducer Marc Scarpa is using TriCaster to help build a participatory fan experience for The X Factor’s live online pre-show.Page 12

A Rule To Live Byby B.A. PhilipsWebStream Productions leverages TriCaster and the “90-20 Rule” to find success.Page 16

The Dream Rolls Onby Cathy ShermanThe John Lennon Educational Tour Bus is taking its message worldwide on the Web.Page 20

Extreme Exposureby Kevin MortimerThe St. John Television Network is building an audience online and on TV with TriCaster.Page 27

Teaching Teenby Adora SvitakA 14-year-old Washington State girl finds she can take her educational message to other kids online.Page 30

NewTek at NAB 2012by K. T. ReederNewTek will present three new integrated production powerhouses at this year’s broadcast conclave in Las Vegas.Page 32

Don Sperling Sounds Offby O. J. ZukermanThe man responsible for the media operation of the New York Giants talks about building fan involvement with the team by tapping the potential of social media and online video.Page 37

Ultra-Sound Medicineby Charles QuigleyBrandon Winchester, M.D., trains anesthesiologists worldwide in a specialized technique via the Web.Page 43

NewTek 3Play 820by James Lynch Jr.How one replay operator found success and reduced stress in the pressure cooker of live sports production.Page 46

Monumental Maneuversby Courtney E. HowardPre-visualization specialist Radical 3D taps LightWave 3D to take CG aerial dog-fights to a new level for George Lucas’ Red Tails.Page 48

Review: LightWave 11by William VaughanExploring the latest release of LightWave 3D reveals many powerful refinements.Page 52

EXCEPT Netherlands Visualizes Sustainable Livingby Claudia KienzleA visionary company develops a sustainable, ecologically balanced view of what can be with LightWave 3D.Page 56

Iron Sky: Conquering the World, One Theater at a Timeby Courtney E. HowardA handful of animators unleash the power of LightWave 3D to create more than 140 shots for a new sci-fi film about invading Nazis from the moon.Page 60

Toy Design That Grabs Your Attentionby Courtney E. HowardA concept and design studio visualizes toy prototypes with LightWave 3D.Page 64

Unfolding the World of Bunrakuby Courtney E. HowardOrigami Digital owner and VFX supervisor Oliver Hotz puts a LightWave 3D work-flow in place for CG-laden Bunraku.Page 70

Evolving Artist[ry]: One Man, One Toolby Courtney E. HowardAnimator and illustrator Chris O’Riley owns his craft with LightWave 3D.Page 74

Last Word: So Much More Than A Showby Andrew Cross, CTO, NewTekIn the 21st Century, there’s far more to making television than producing on-air product.Page 78

FIRS

T WO

RD

6 | T H E O F F I C I A L C R E A T I V E R E S O U R C E F O R N E W T E K U S E R S w w w . N e w T e k . c o m | 7

Editor’s Note: Since this article was written, NewTek has announced

three new models of TriCaster, all of which offer Animation Store

Transition functionality.

beginning with TriCaster 850 EXTREME, NewTek has enabled high-quality animated transitions in HD on TriCaster. The included transitions are a great start,

but what if you want to use your own logo or graphics pack-age to enhance your production value? That’s where Ani-mation Store Creator comes to the rescue. ASC makes it extremely simple to take your own graphic look and create a transition that can be used anywhere in the TriCaster.

creatiNg Your look

Animation Store Creator’s primary function is to compile your elements into a TriCaster animated transition. That al-lows you to create the transition graphics in any applica-tion you choose. For example, you could build elements in LightWave, composite them in Adobe After Effects and then import that completed render into ASC for conversion into a transition file. Just about any animation you can make can be converted into something ASC can use.

An Animation Store Transition can consist of two layers. The first is the Overlay Animation. Think of this as your ac-tual graphic transition. You may use your logo or any other full-color elements to make up this layer. The second is an optional Transition Animation. This layer is a mask layer and allows you to control the reveal of your background video as you wipe from source to source. The transition layer

should animate from full white to full black with no transpar-ency. The transition supports full transparency, so grayscale colors will be interpreted as semi-transparent areas in the transition. That makes it possible to do soft wipes and par-tial dissolves inside your Transition Animation.

If your Overlay Animation goes full-screen, covering the entire screen at any point in the transition, you can skip the Transition Animation and use a cut frame inside ASC to se-lect the frame where the background take will occur. That allows you to run a full-screen animation and at the selected cut point, the source on preview will be taken to air under-neath the Overlay Animation layer.

You should create the animation at the highest resolu-tion you intend to use. So if you need to use the transi-tion in a 1080i production, the best resolution to create the animation would be 1920x1080 at 29.97 frames per sec-ond. You can create the animation at the exact length you will play it in the TriCaster. ASC also allows you to attach sound effects to the in and out moves of the transition.

Animation Store Creator works with image sequences. The easiest format to use is a .PNG sequence. That can be rendered easily out of SpeedEDIT, After Effects or any other compositing application. Render one sequence for the Overlay Animation and a second one for your Transi-tion Animation. The sequences should be exactly the same length. Copy those to a flash drive or over your network to the TriCaster. Now, it’s time to compile the transition.

buildiNg the effectAnimation Store Creator is in-

cluded on the EXTREME models of the TriCaster. The application can be found in the Add Ons sec-tion of the main TriCaster menu. Once you’ve launched ASC, building the transition is actually quick and straightforward. First, load the image sequence for the Overlay Animation.

On the left side of the ASC look for the Overlay Animation drop-down menu and select Browse. Navigate to your image sequence and se-lect one of the frames. Choose the frame rate that matches your origi-nal sequence - probably 59.94 for 720p and 29.97 for 480i or 1080i. Next, do the same with the Transi-

tion Animation, select the drop-down menu and browse to find the transition animation on your hard disk. If you are using a cut frame instead, you can scrub the timeline to find a suitable frame and then choose Set to confirm the change. Moving the scrub bar back and forth also will allow you to preview the transition and make sure it looks correct before export.

The next step is adding sound. ASC allows you to import a .WAV file and attach it to forward and reverse directions of the transition. In the Audio Track section, use the drop-down menus to browse and select the sound files you wish to use for the transition. Next, choose a thumbnail frame. This is the icon that will show up in the switcher and browsers to help you identify the effect. Use the scrub bar to find a de-scriptive frame in the transition and then hit the set button in the Export Properties section. You can also adjust the qual-ity of the effect here.

If you plan on using many Animation Store Transitions, you may want to leave this on normal. If you have just a few you can bump up the quality. The switcher memory indicator at the top of the screen will give you an idea of how much of your memory this effect will use.

goiNg liVeTo use this new transition in the switcher, it needs to be

exported. First, save the project and give it a name. If you need to make any changes later, you’ll be able to open up the project without having to start over from scratch. Next, choose File->Export to Live from the menu. That will render the effect and place it in the user transition list inside the TriCaster.

Make Your own TransiTions

with AnimAtion Store CreAtor

By Kris Gurrad

Animation Store Creator compiles elements into a TriCaster animated transition.

8 | T H E O F F I C I A L C R E A T I V E R E S O U R C E F O R N E W T E K U S E R S

If you need to use the new transition on more than one machine, use the Create Installer feature to make an easy installer. You can use that installer file to place that transition on any TriCaster that supports Animation Store Transitions.

Once the effect has rendered, exit out of Animation Store Creator and back to the TriCaster main menu. Now it’s time to test out the effect. Open any of your sessions and launch Live Production. To load your new transition, select a transition bin on the BKGD layer (other than the FADE) and click the gear icon. Click the drop-down menu and select the Browse option. Along the left side of the Media Browser, you’ll see an Animation Stores group, the same place you

would have selected any of the stock transitions. Your tran-sition should be under the User section with the name and thumbnail you gave it inside ASC. Select your transition and click the OK button.

Select sources on the PGM and PVW buses and hit the AUTO button to see the cool results.

Not just for backgrouNd traNsitioNs

Animation Store Transitions are not limited to just Pro-gram to Preview background transitions. You can also use them in any of the keyers on TriCaster. With some clever work in your graphics applications, this can have some re-ally cool applications inside of TriCaster. You can even use them to reveal on or build a matching lower-third still or title graphic built in TriCaster. Using an Overlay Animation that reveals your editable title graphic or LiveText source inside of TriCaster, you can give the appearance of lower thirds that animate onto the screen, without having to pre-render them all as separate movies. You can also achieve effects like building on a scoreboard graphic.

In the example above, the Overlay Animation builds on the scoreboard graphic and then disappears, while the Transition Animation reveals each piece of the “real” lower-third graphic piece by piece coming into the system from LiveText on a network input. The result is a seamless animation that appears to build on the graphic with ani-mated lens flares, full animation and even sound effects.

Animation Store Transitions allow you to take your produc-tions to the next level. Best of all, they don’t tie up a DDR or other switcher resources to do so, and they couldn’t be any easier to build! With Animation Store Creator, your TriCaster EXTREME can produce professional transition effects that rival any other switcher and are simple to use in your productions.

Animation Store Creator works with image sequences, the easiest of which to use is a .PNG sequence.

As use of NewTek TriCaster integrated production solutions continues to accelerate for TV shows, In-ternet streaming content and presentation applica-tions, producers increasingly find themselves with a common concern: “How do I find an operator who

knows TriCaster?”That’s a fair question. After all, there’s a lot on the line dur-

ing the production of a live show and no real chance for a do-over in post. So, regardless of how many powerful production features are built into the TriCaster or how incredibly afford-able it is, if a producer isn’t comfortable that it will be put to its best use by a competent professional, that’s a problem.

At least it was until December 2011 when NewTek imple-mented a testing program to certify TriCaster operators as ex-perts on the integrated production solution. “I want a certified operator to be ready for anything,” said NewTek Training Pro-grams developer Dave Hibsher, the person who is responsible for actually creating the certification test and building a cur-riculum to prepare people to take it.

“If a certified operator is going to kind of be a gun for hire, that person needs to be ready for whatever production needs are required for a particular show. I want certified operators to be experts who know more than simply how to do the most common things with TriCaster,” he said.

test aNd curriculumThe new TriCaster certification test is a 75-question, multiple-

choice exam administered at authorized testing centers around the country, said Don Ballance, NewTek director of Training and Education-Worldwide. Questions are drawn randomly from a much larger bank of questions so no two exams are identical.

Test takers are given 90-minutes to complete the online exam, which focuses on nine different areas in which they must demonstrate their knowledge and skills. Some of the areas tested include physical setup of TriCaster and general video knowledge; live operation; network streaming and working with audio. Because title pages are such a common element in productions, there are also some questions regarding use of NewTek’s LiveText character generator.

To achieve the highest possible score on the exam, NewTek recommends students study the TriCaster 850 EXTREME and control surface.

“The exam is not a fact-based test,” explained Ballance. “It is a performance-based test in that some of the questions will present a scenario and the person taking the test will be required to know what to do. For example, the test might show an operator’s monitor screens with something wrong and ask how to fix it. It won’t ask: ‘How many inputs does the TriCaster have?’”

The fee to take the certification examination is $150, which is payable to authorized NewTek testing centers. Scheduling a time to take the exam is also handled by the test centers. Cur-rently, there are more than 20 testing centers in North America, including NewTek resellers and digital media training organiza-tion Future Media Concepts.

NewTek also has developed a curriculum for schools, training centers and resellers to use if they choose to of-fer an exam prep course, said Ballance. The curriculum is a combination of videos that present exercises and informa-tion designed to develop TriCaster expertise in students. It also includes both student and teacher handouts that are an integral part of the curriculum. The teacher handouts guide instructors through teaching the class, and the stu-dent handouts lay out all of the information in class and offer added explanation. The price to take the prep course will vary depending upon the training center.

While NewTek is making the curriculum available to help stu-dents, it is not necessary for those wishing to take the certifi-cation exam to have completed the class. Both Ballance and Hibsher acknowledge it is possible for those with a desire to learn to prepare for the exam by using free resources available on the NewTek website, including the TriCaster manual, a sam-ple 15-question test, two-hours of training video and TriCaster forums and facts.

Having developed a curriculum and exam for TriCaster oper-ator certification, Ballance said he expects to see a good deal of interest from high school and college educators wishing to add a TriCaster class that ultimately will lead to certification. “The Pinellas County (Fla.) School District came two years ago asking for a curriculum to teach TriCaster operation,” said Bal-lance. “They have about 10 TriCaster systems and may serve as a beta site for a school district-wide deployment of the cer-tification training and testing.”

beNefitsEarning TriCaster operator certification offers a variety of

benefits, said Ballance. Besides setting an operator apart from those who have not yet obtained their certification, being certi-fied opens doors to live production situations where there is a high demand for operators who have proven their TriCaster bona fides.

With TriCaster certification, operators can prove to potential clients that they know their stuff and ultimately get hired more often and for better jobs. That’s a particularly important benefit in a business like live video production, said Ballance, because so many operators are freelancers who need an edge in set-ting their services, and ultimately their businesses, apart from the pack. Becoming certified also opens up the possibility of teaching TriCaster skills to other people, he added.

Producers can expect to reap a few benefits from the TriCaster operator certification program as well, Ballance said. Primarily, they can have confidence that the certified operator they hire has the competencies required to complete a production successfully. That is because the certification exam tests operators’ operational

abilities. Another important benefit is having an objective way to benchmark the skills of employees and potential hires.

class dismissedIn developing the certification program, NewTek realized that

everyone would come to the process with a different set of skills, experience and knowledge. TriCaster operators with a working knowledge of all of the facets of the integrated pro-duction solution should be able to take the test and pass with minimal preparation, said Hibsher.

Those who have worked with other switchers but are new to TriCaster may need only to spend a few hours watching the videos on the TriCaster, he added. For those with little to no experience with video production, a two-day class like the one offered by Future Media Concepts may be the best solution.

Regardless of where someone starts, however, the goal is the same. Obtaining TriCaster operator certification is a ticket to better and more jobs. The certification is a sign to potential employers that the person they are considering for a produc-tion is capable of getting the job done right.

1 0 | T H E O F F I C I A L C R E A T I V E R E S O U R C E F O R N E W T E K U S E R S w w w . N e w T e k . c o m 1 1

oNliNe certificatioN resourcesNewTek offers a number of resources on its website to help those wishing to take the TriCaster operator certification test succeed. These links are a great place to start.

details about the examhttp://www.newtek.com/support/certified/ support-certif-get-certified/403-tricaster- certification-get-certified-details.html certified oPerator directorYhttp://www.newtek.com/support/certified/support- certif-get-certified-op-directory.html fiNd testiNg ceNtershttp://www.newtek.com/support/certified/support- certif-get-certified/test-center-locator.html oPerator agreemeNthttp://www.newtek.com/support/certified/support- certif-get-certified/operator-agreement.html exam resourceshttp://www.newtek.com/support/certified/support- certif-get-certified-exam.html Practice examhttp://www.newtek.com/support/certified/support- certif-get-certified-exam/practice-exam.html dowNload user guideshttp://www.newtek.com/support/documentation.html

Certified for Success

Newtek launches a tricaster operator certification Program aimed at helping

People earn their bona fides with the integrated Production system.

By Charles Quigley

NewTek makes sample test questions for its new TriCaster operator certification test available on its website.

1 2 | T H E O F F I C I A L C R E A T I V E R E S O U R C E F O R N E W T E K U S E R S

stemming from Cowell’s passion for social media, The X Factor (U.S.) capitalized on another significant media trend — weaving social media feedback into the fabric of

the live television broadcast in real-time. Among its many social media and online initiatives, X Factor Digital — a production unit associated with the show — produced the one-hour X Factor Pepsi Pre-Show Live — a novel cyber event designed to drum up excitement prior to the show’s Wednesday 8 p.m. telecast.

The pre-show capitalized on yet another television industry trend — the use of integrated production systems (IPS) to re-duce the capital investment, budget and manpower needed to produce innovative live telecasts, especially targeting online au-

diences. X Factor Digital chose to use TriCaster 850 EXTREME, the industry’s premier IPS by NewTek, a broadcast technology innovator in San Antonio, Texas.

eNgagiNg faNsSituated within a Sweetwater JOECO custom control room

adjacent to CBS studios, TriCaster served as the powerful, integrated central hub of a bustling streaming media work-flow. Priced at less than $50,000, TriCaster 850 EXTREME provides firepower comparable to a hi-def truck for a tiny fraction of the cost. And by integrating all of the key func-tionality of live television production — including switching up to eight HD camera signals, adding animated transitional effects and text, as well as video encoding — a single opera-tor can man the entire show.

For a webcast, the X Factor Pepsi Pre-Show Live was fast-paced and intense with high production values. Prior to each of season one’s 26 episodes (airing from Sept. 22 through Dec. 22, 2011), X Factor fans could tap into this innovative programming format using their smart phones, tablets or browsers.

Once online via the xfactorusa.com portal, fans became an integral part of the pre-show’s unique format. They could tweet or post Facebook comments about behind-the-scenes interviews with contestants and judges, com-mentary by co-hosts Dan Levy and Taryn Southern and roving correspondent Jim Cantiello, or any of the activi-

ties caught by special con-testant cameras placed on the legendary CBS Televi-sion City lot in Hollywood, Calif., where The X Fac-tor is produced. Real-time social media feedback, Skype calls with fans, and on-camera interviews with special fans and other guests were kneaded into the live content in a dy-namic way.

feedback from the twitter-sPhere

“Our goal was to create a compelling ‘participatory’ fan experience that comple-mented the main show by conveying that night’s key storylines to viewers in the digital media space,” said Marc Scarpa, producer/di-rector of X Factor Digital’s X

Factor Pepsi Pre-Show Live. SYCOtv — a partnership between the show’s creator Simon Cowell, Fox Networks, Freemantle and Sony Music — pro-duced The X Factorusa.com experience. Scarpa was hired by Sony Music, which was responsible for producing all of X Factor Digital’s online efforts, including the pre-show.

“As fans responded to what they were seeing, their feed-back — contributed via social media, mobile devices, Skype and other platforms — actually impacted and shaped the cre-ative direction of the show,” said Scarpa. “Feedback from our fans would actually change the trajectory of topics or people we focused on, making them true participants in this engaging, live multimedia event.”

Perhaps the most pivotal participant of all was NewTek’s TriCaster, which absorbed all of the incoming video, audio and social media data to produce and output a polished webcast.

w w w . N e w T e k . c o m | 1 31 2 | T H E O F F I C I A L C R E A T I V E R E S O U R C E F O R N E W T E K U S E R S

how Producer/director marc scarPa guided a ParticiPatorY faN exPerieNce for

the x factor’s liVe oNliNe Pre-show.By Claudia Kienzle

In recent years, primetime television has embraced a new trend—singing competitions that combine live musical entertainment, rivet-ing personal dramas and highly charged theatrical spectacles. This was the case with season one of The X Factor, another Simon Cowell invention that proved itself on British television and in 41 worldwide markets before joining the Fox lineup for its U.S. debut last fall.

Marc Scarpa, producer/director of X Factor Digital’s X Factor Pepsi Pre-Show Live, engages viewers with the show before it even airs.

PHOTO COURTESY OF JESSICA CHOU FROM THE HoLLywood RePoRTeR

With TriCaster’s integrated functionality, Scarpa only needed to interact with a single operator, his Technical Director Victor Borachuk, to craft the live presentation.

eNabliNg techNologYWhile TriCaster contains all of the tools needed for high-qual-

ity live television, in this particular instance it was configured to interface with a wide array of high-end, third-party video and audio gear, including an audio mixing board, large multiview display and a video/audio patch bay.

Four of TriCaster’s eight video inputs were dedicated to Sony PDW-F800 XDCAM HD 4:2:2 camcorders that operators were using to capture live video from the set inside the press tent adjacent to the studio facility and X Factor Digital’s trailer. Other video sources included pre-produced video packages that were stored on TriCaster and rolled-out live or as “look lives.” There were also program opens, closes, bumpers and other graphics assets created using After Effects and input into TriCaster as .mov files for live play-out.

Rather than renting an expensive, high-end HDTV mobile production truck, (where one day’s rental fee would equal or exceed the fully outfitted cost of a TriCaster 850 EXTREME), X Factor Digital chose to base its remote production of the pre-show on a TriCaster. TriCaster was stationed inside a large trailer retrofitted with equipment racks to hold broadcast gear and sufficient console space for several work areas.

While one TriCaster operator could manage the switching and graphics of the show, Scarpa had a wide array of crew people — including an engineer-in-charge, audio mixer, two encoding engineers, assistant director, several utilities, a tele-prompter op, a social media producer as well as writers and executive producers — within the digital control room.

In total, roughly 45 people contributed to X Factor Digital’s content creation efforts, several of which were directly or indi-

1 4 | T H E O F F I C I A L C R E A T I V E R E S O U R C E F O R N E W T E K U S E R S

rectly associated with the pre-show itself. The custom control room also used CBS Studios’ blazing fast 450Mb/s fiber infra-structure, as well as Bright Cove and Akamai’s content delivery network services. According to Scarpa, CBS Studios’ phenom-enally fast data connection and technical expertise were criti-cal to this production because of X Factor Digital’s demanding multi-device-streaming media challenges.

social media iNtegratioN“Since we were getting over 2,000 tweets per minute, our

social media producer used a software-based social media curation solution called Mass Relevance to filter out those in-coming tweets that were particularly relevant to what was be-ing said at that moment in the pre-show,” said Scarpa. They would filter tweets based on keywords such as the judges’ names — including Simon Cowell, Paula Ab-dul, Nicole Scherzinger, or L.A. Reid — as well as the names of competing singers or singing groups, and any other key topics for that night’s storyline.

“We used TriCaster’s Text Overlay feature to place the social media elements right onto the screen in appealing displays, such as transpar-ent boxes, lower-third supers, and other non-disruptive graphics that popped in and out,” said Scarpa. “So if our host was asking Simon Cowell about Melanie Amarro, (the contestant who ulti-mately won season one), we might have had an overlay of a tweet, such as ‘Good choice, Simon,’ or any other select tweet about his thoughts on that performer.”

TriCaster supports the input of social media data, includ-ing tweets, Facebook posts, pictures and videos, from any iOS (iPhone operating system) device, such as an iPhone, iPad or MacBook Pro. The user interface also offers one-button Internet streaming that allows use of Adobe Flash or Microsoft Windows Media to deliver a full HD live stream directly to the Web.

ideal for NoN-traditioNal fareSince it is equally at home in the Web streaming and tra-

ditional broadcast worlds, TriCaster includes other helpful streaming features, such as the ability to simultaneously ar-chive the webcast for later viewing and support for multi-bitrate streaming profiles. TriCaster’s Streaming Profile Manager also has an integrated browser that makes configuration, importing and previewing of Web streams quicker and easier. Users can save and manage all of their preferred settings for instant ac-cess at a later date.

All of TriCaster’s functions are readily available to the op-erator via an intuitive interface and the ability to display all of the necessary video signals, buttons and control panels on a widescreen multiview display. The operator can monitor all of the video associated with each camera, as well as the preview and program signals.

There’s also a live production switcher control panel on the interface giving the operator control over all 24 available channels, including eight external video sources, eight virtual mix/effects channels, five internal digital media players, two external network inputs, frame buffer and black. The interface also displays a full digital audio mixer and tools for creating digital video effects and transitions, as well as a virtual set system. All of the sources on the display can be named to avoid confusion.

With the addition of a third-party system for robotic camera con-trol, a single operator could manage an entire multi-camera produc-tion with high-quality results using TriCaster. But it’s also versatile enough to benefit a high-caliber, dynamic, primetime television show by streamlining the cost and technical complexity of the workflow.

Powerful storYtelliNg tool“TriCaster is a multi-faceted tool that allows me as a direc-

tor to have one point of contact to execute multiple functions in the programming workflow. The compact nature of this unit frees up a seat or two in the control room so we can have a social media producer and others tasked with managing other non-traditional elements of the show,” said Scarpa.

“And financially speaking, there’s nothing on the market that comes even close to what TriCaster can do at that price point,” he added. “HD trucks will not go away, but my guess is that you’ll see more and more of them — especially smaller trucks and Sprinters — outfitted with TriCasters in the future.”

The impact of TriCaster is “immeasurable” because it’s em-powering content creators to tell their stories and produce new kinds of programming quickly, inexpensively, and with high-quality — in many cases content that would otherwise never get produced, he said.

“This is especially true for younger producers just starting out who don’t have million-dollar budgets to get their multi-camera shows done using conventional HD trucks and studios,” said Scar-pa. “In my opinion, TriCaster is ushering in a complete paradigm shift, helping people to tell their stories. It’s got the ‘X Factor.’ ”

w w w . N e w T e k . c o m 1 5

exploring the creative Potential of emerging mediaWho is Marc Scarpa?

By Claudia Kienzle

Before stepping into the role of producer/director for X Factor Digital’s X Factor Pepsi Pre-Show Live, Marc Scar-pa had been honing his craft on many high-profile new media projects.

“The programming I like to create is participatory, real-time, and experiential. This means that it’s an experience happening in the moment where the participant — tradi-tionally known as the viewer — has an active role in the creation and conversation surrounding the programming itself,” said Scarpa.

To enable well-crafted storytelling, Scarpa has been using the NewTek TriCaster integrated production so-lution for about 10 years now. Besides having all of the necessary functionality to produce a high-quality live broadcast within an affordable, compact system, TriCaster also builds in many tools specifically designed for live media streaming.

As a content creator, Scarpa is not limited to any par-ticular platform, technology or tool, but rather chooses whatever medium is right for the project. His impressive bio can be read at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marc_Scarpa, but here are some of the highlights.

He is an executive board member and the founding New York Chair of the Producers Guild of America New Media Council and a recipient of the Marc A. Levy distin-guished service award. He won a Webby Award in 2010 for Best Event/Live Webcast for his work on the 52nd Annual Grammy Awards. For this CBS awards special, Scarpa developed, produced, and directed the first participatory online experience for the Grammy Awards, including 72 hours of continuous live streaming media coverage on Grammy.com, among other sites consumed by 3.8 million unique visitors.

He also produced Earthday Live!, a seven-hour live on-line participatory broadcast that bridged the in-person attendance of 250,000 on the National Mall in Washing-ton, D.C., with the online world of several million people in 18 countries.

“With participatory media, we’re not dictating the con-tent to viewers. Participants are shaping the nature of the content itself — in real-time,” said Scarpa.

PHOTO COURTESY OF SULINH LAFONTAINE

With TriCaster’s integrated functionality,Scarpa only needs to interact with a single operator.

According to Mac Scarpa, The X Factor gets 2,000 tweets per minute from fans during the show.

1 6 | T H E O F F I C I A L C R E A T I V E R E S O U R C E F O R N E W T E K U S E R S

Many are familiar with the 80/20 Rule; it’s been applied to everything from wealth to work.

It’s not uncommon to hear things like: “80 percent of the wealth is in the hands of 20 percent of the people;” or “80 percent of sales come from 20 percent of the customers;” or even “80 per-cent of complaints are generated by 20 percent of the people.”

But for John Servizzi, president and CEO of WebStream Pro-ductions, in Indianapolis, the 80/20 Rule misses the mark. That’s because the key to his company’s success can be credited to a business philosophy best described as the 90/20 Rule.

Servizzi has built a successful sports production business by offering clients like NCAA.com, Turner Sports, collegiate athletic conferences and indi-vidual colleges and universities turnkey game production and webstreaming services. The se-cret to his success –the 90/20 Rule- boils down to offering cli-ents 90 percent of the produc-tion value the public is used to seeing on network television sports coverage for 20 percent of the cost.

“Really what you do is you watch television and work with television people, and you deter-mine what they are doing,” says Servizzi. “How they are doing it isn’t really relevant. It’s watching what they do and seeing the inno-vation they bring to the table.

“It’s almost reverse engineer-ing. It’s figuring out how I can achieve the same thing they are, or at least 90 percent of what they are doing, at 20 percent of the cost. That’s where the creative engineering begins.”

That strategy has served Servizzi well since founding Web-Stream Productions in July 2006. Since then the company has produced streaming coverage of fencing, water polo, bowling, golf, track and field, cross country and, of course, the twin mainstays of college basketball and football. “The expectation is there that universities will provide — espe-cially at the Division I level — a video stream of their events, especially if they are not on television,” he says. By offering production values that approach the best that television has to offer at 20 percent of the cost, Servizzi is creating value for his customers, which have rewarded the company by booking WebStream Productions for more than 500 events over the past year. Offering value based on the 90/20 Rule

to clients has made WebStream Productions a zero-debt op-eration without outside investors that’s profitable and self-sustaining, he says.

Value-based ProductioN techNologY

What makes it possible for Servizzi to deliver on the 90/20 Rule is a perspective on technology that sees it as a means to an end and having a clear understanding of the goal that is try-ing to be accomplished.

“You know the major networks do some things that I’m not sure the casual sports viewer ever notices,” says Servizzi.

Pointing to the St. Louis Cardinals-Texas Rangers World Se-ries, Servizzi says, cutting-edge production tools, like the FOX infrared “Hot Spot” camera are innovative, but he won-ders how much the casual viewer — the same sort of viewer he targets with his streaming sports productions — notices.

“There is a lot of money being spent and bless them for doing that because they are the innovators of the industry,” he says.

Such costly innovation coupled with a view held by many in the sports production community that only certain brands of video production technology can deliver a quality product create a sweet spot for WebStream Productions, which is will-ing to employ significantly less expensive alternatives. “I have never walked onto a job site and heard anyone demanding a Craftsman hammer,” he notes.

w w w . N e w T e k . c o m | 1 7

A Rule to live By

WebStream ProductionS findS buSineSS SucceSS living by the “90/20 rule.”

by b.a. Philips

WebStream Productions combines powerful, yet affordable production technology like the NewTek TriCaster and 3Play 820 to make streaming a financially sound decision.

At the core of the production technology Servizzi deploys in WebStream Productions’ Sprinter production truck, its pair of production trailers and fly-pack is the NewTek TriCaster pro-duction switcher. “We’re using TriCasters in every flavor that’s available,” he says.

The NewTek TriCaster, which is offered as six models, is a production solution that packs the switching, graphics, char-acter generation, recording and audio mixing tools needed to produce live network-quality HD or SD video, such as sports, into an affordable package. For WebStream Productions, its integrated support for directly streaming to the Internet is an added benefit that helps Servizzi to meet his clients’ produc-tion and distribution expectations at an affordable price.

Another critical piece of technology central to delivering on the 90/20 Rule is the NewTek 3Play slow-motion replay system.

“The 3Play 820 has really given us the ability to do nearly every-thing that those larger replay systems do,” says Servizzi.

The 3Play 820 is a 10-channel slow-motion replay system offering two simultaneous fully independent switchable play-out channels, up to eight simultaneous record channels and 200 hours of HD recording.

WebStream Productions employs the 3Play 820 to add instant replay of slow motion clips, assemble packages, put together half-time highlight reels and even provide game of-ficials with access to instant replays of questionable calls —

something that normally would be reserved for the relatively small number of college games that are produced using high-end production trucks.

When the game is over, the 3Play 820 plays an equally important role. “At the end of a game, we want to be able to deliver raw highlights, and we want to be able to maintain raw footage on all of the plays — clean high-quality video,” explains Servizzi. “The 3Play enables us to do that in a very simple workflow. It allows us to build a library of assets, and then moving forward when we see the same team three weeks down the road, we have great video for our pre-game show.”

“I think really as far as things go, the 3Play 820 has been a major game changer for producers at our level,” he adds.

Delivering on the 90/20 Rule requires more than simply find-ing powerful, yet affordable alternatives to higher priced pro-

duction technology, says Servizzi. It also requires experience and judg-ment to know when it makes sense to spend a bit of extra money to achieve what viewers expect.

Nowhere is this more evident than with the cameras Servizzi de-ploys for football and baseball cov-erage. Typically, Servizzi uses pro-sumer-level cameras with HD-SDI output. However, this level of cam-era — while capable of producing remarkable HD imagery at a low price — suffers from one limitation that makes it unsuitable for certain camera positions at baseball and football games.

“There is a problem of glass,” explains Servizzi. “If you want to get a good shot from distance, you are going to want to get a bigger camera, because frankly none of the low-end prosumer cameras have the kind of glass you’re go-ing to need.” Often for big football

stadiums, Servizzi will field a higher-end HD camera that accepts interchangeable lenses so he can rent a 40x lens with a doubler.

Knowing where to spend a little extra money keeps viewers and clients happy and maintains the goal of the 90/20 Rule. “If you are trying to do a baseball game with a 20x lens in center-field, you are in trouble. That’s just the reality,” he says.

“If that camera in centerfield can’t zoom past second base, boy, the people at home are going to know that. They are go-ing to know that’s not what they are used to seeing. So we have to raise the ante a little bit on those shows.”

1 8 | T H E O F F I C I A L C R E A T I V E R E S O U R C E F O R N E W T E K U S E R S

Beyond the technology, there’s always the expense of hiring a production crew. But here too the evolution of lower cost technol-ogy used to stream video on the Internet is having a surprising and welcomed effect on WebStream Productions’ staffing costs.

In the mid-2000s when Servizzi started his company, streaming video on the Web was a rarity on college cam-puses. “We would frequently go into places that had never streamed video, and in a manner of speaking, we became evangelists for streaming,” he recalls.

Servizzi spent a lot of time talking to athletic departments and working in some respects as a consultant to universities and conferences to educate them not just on the benefits of stream-ing but also on how to add that capability on campus. “So now, five years on, we walk onto those campuses, and they are cur-rently streaming. The infrastructure, it used to be like pulling teeth just to get enough bandwidth. Now we walk in and can

have a reasonable expectation that the infrastructure is going to be in place. Man, has that made things easier.”

As a consequence of adding streaming, these same univer-sities have been developing a pool of video production talent to support their efforts that WebStream Productions can draw upon as crew for its sports productions.

“We have looked at all of these universities that have begun streaming as an opportunity, because when we go into these campuses to produce games we have competent crew that is working throughout the year and knows what it is doing that we can draw upon,” he says.

the other 10 PerceNt If WebStream Productions is able to deliver 90 percent of the pro-

duction value of a big game produced for television, what’s missing?

In other words, what elements make up the other 10 percent? According to Servizzi, that 10 percent is a rather random col-

lection of pieces, including such things as the on-field down and distance, the electronic line of scrimmage and first-down line in football. However, he believes lower-cost tools are on the way, and it should take between 18 and 24 months before they become available. There are other missing elements, too.

“Generally speaking, graphics are a little stripped down,” says Servizzi. “We don’t always animate on and off the screen. We don’t have the situation where a three-pointer in basketball is hit and the number flips and sparkles. But again, the causal viewer won’t notice these things are missing.”

Servizzi cautions, however, that this balancing act he performs with technology, price and meeting viewer expec-tations isn’t about low-balling the competition. “On shows of this level, it’s not a matter of us bidding against a major

production company,” he explains. “Our business model has never been to go in and undercut the big guy.

“You know, they’re doing it for $45,000; we try to do it for $2,500; and we’ll blow them out of the water. The reality is the shows we are doing simply wouldn’t get done if we weren’t doing them.”

More commonly, WebStream Productions is faced with a situa-tion in which a university or other enterprise is trying to get some-thing produced and streamed on the Internet for a certain price. “They can’t spend a dime more,” he says, “so we are faced with answering, ‘How are you going to make that happen?’”

“We are very strict on one thing — and I am adamant about it,” he says. “If we do an event, our coverage will be done well, and it will be a TV experience. Frankly, if I don’t think I can deliver it on the budget, I don’t take the job. That is one of the things that differentiates us as a company. We do say no.”

w w w . N e w T e k . c o m | 1 9

Webstream Productions has streamed more than 500 events, such as college basketball and football as well as less followed sports like water polo and golf, within the last year.

WebStream Productions has built two production trailers, a Sprinter production truck and fly-pack with the goal of delivering affordable, yet professional sports productions to be streamed.

2 0 | T H E O F F I C I A L C R E A T I V E R E S O U R C E F O R N E W T E K U S E R S w w w . N e w T e k . c o m 2 1

The Dream Rolls OnNewTek’s TriCaster spreads the message of the John Lennon Educational Tour Bus to the world.By Cathy Sherman

For 15 years, the nonprofit John Lennon Educational Tour Bus has helped to make dreams a reality for students of all ages across the United States and Canada with its mobile state-of-the-art audio recording and HD video production studio.

“Every year, the Lennon Bus kicks off its season equipped with all the latest and greatest HD audio and video equipment from our supporters,” said Hans Tanner, one of the three engi-neers on board the Bus. “This year, we were outfitted with an awesome new device — the NewTek TriCaster 850 EXTREME with the TriCaster 850 CS.”

The Bus debuted TriCaster live streaming at the vehicle’s 15th anniversary celebration in January at the 2012 NAMM (National Association of Music Merchants) Show in Anaheim, Calif.

The dream is made possible by the many partners and spon-sors that believe in the mission of the Lennon Bus and with the support of Yoko Ono, John Lennon’s widow, according to Brian Rothschild, executive director of the Lennon Bus.

The on-board engineers help students write, perform, record and produce original songs and complete music videos in one day. Now with TriCaster, students also can explore broadcast-ing and live streaming. TriCaster 850 EXTREME can switch up to eight live HD video sources, provide discreet, ISO recording of each video source, key text and graphics over live video and compress video out for live streaming on the Web. Its many other features and options include full audio mixing, virtual set inte-gration and full-featured character generator.

“It’s our goal to have students involved in all aspects of the production so that they can see what the workloads are, see what opportunities are out there and then experience them dur-ing their day on the bus,” according to Jeff Sobel, chief engineer for the Lennon Bus.

“There have been times when students thought they wanted to be musicians until they saw the video switcher and then real-ized that that was their life’s dream,” said Sobel. “They didn’t even know that was a career that was out there. It’s our mission to open their eyes to the possibilities.”

How can producers on the Bus create a live show to be streamed at no more than 850kb/s so that viewers watching via the Internet can watch a high-quality show unencumbered by annoy-ing buffering while at the same time capturing all HD video sources at their maximum resolution to build a complete show later in post-production?

The answer is TriCaster 850 EXTREME’s pio-neering IsoCorder multitrack video recording that allows up to eight camera inputs to be recorded at full resolution, while simultaneously streaming program out at a bit rate that’s acceptable for an Internet audience.

“Because TriCaster can record on multiple tracks, we’re recording the full resolution pro-gram output in the TriCaster,” said Sobel. At the same time, producers on the Bus are encoding the live event at 850kb/s and streaming it from the TriCaster. “So we’re still keeping the full HD qual-ity that allows people to watch the program live at a very reasonable bit rate live stream,” he added.

To stream live shows from the Bus, the produc-tion crew relies on a satellite uplink mounted to the top of the vehicle. TodoCast, the company providing the uplink, is responsible for the band-width needed to contribute content and manages all aspects of online delivery.

2 2 | T H E O F F I C I A L C R E A T I V E R E S O U R C E F O R N E W T E K U S E R S

The Bus makes 200 stops traveling 10 months a year, providing free hands-on programs to students in high schools, colleges and student groups and offers a variety of free workshops and other programs at mu-sic festivals, concerts, conventions and community organizations. Stu-dents often have the opportunity to work with professional musicians, such as The Black Eyed Peas, who have recorded some of their music on the Bus.

“The Bus reaches 250,000 students a year,” Rothschild said. “It provides access to young people who never would have had the opportunity to use these instruments and digital equipment. I think the Bus has visited just about every state through the years.”

“We see the Bus as the living legacy of John Lennon and his belief in artis-tic expression,” Rothschild said. “The Bus continues to evolve as technology improves. Every year, we incorporate new products and new techniques.

“That’s where TriCaster comes in. It allows us to share what we’re doing with the world. We’re at the dawn of what live streaming can do for us right now. We’ve wanted to do this for a long time. We looked for the right solution and the right partner, and that was NewTek. TriCaster is the most amazing piece of equipment in the world for live streaming.”

achieViNg balaNceOften video productions originating from the Bus are destined to serve

two audiences: those who will watch live online as an event happens and those who will watch a show to be distributed more traditionally, such as on TV or on DVD, after the event. Differing expectations between the audiences and unique technical characteristics of each distribution medium create a production challenge.

Inside the Bus, three compartments that can be separated by special sliding glass walls, serve as control room, studio and chromakey set. Five robotically controlled Sony HD cameras are ceiling mounted throughout the bus, giving good coverage of the interior. These cameras are permanent and controllable from the switcher area.

“We also have mobile Sony HD PMW-EX1 and PMW-EX3 video cameras that can patch into TriCaster so that we can get more creative positioning and movement by mixing those in with the robotically controlled cameras,” said Sobel.

“On top of that, depending on the event, we can use prerecorded video on the DDR, plus more graphics that we fly in there, as well.”

lightiNg uP facesRecently, producers on the Bus have begun experimenting with TriCast-

er Virtual Set Editor that will allow them to add a new level of creativity to their shows.

“The virtual sets turned out to be a really cool thing. Because we have a green screen, a Reflecmedia Chromatte fabric system set up in the back of the Bus, we did a couple of mock set-ups where we put people in vari-ous virtual sets. We were really blown away by the possibilities there. We’re having custom virtual sets designed for us, which we’ll be using in a lot of upcoming videos that we’re planning.”

TriCaster’s virtual sets give students an opportunity to be a broadcaster for a day, said Tanner. “The ability to live key a green screen alone has lit up the faces of hundreds of students from the dozens of schools we’ve already visited this year,” said Tanner. “Seeing their friends go from being in front of a piece of green reflective fabric to a virtual newsroom within seconds is so

w w w . N e w T e k . c o m 2 3

intriguing for them, and adds a level of magic to the Bus experience that is hard to equal.

“And from a novice standpoint, the device isn’t hard to use,” said Tanner. “It takes literally sec-onds to explain the difference between the pro-gram and preview channels, as well as the fact that each number corresponds to a different an-gle. And as most know, that’s just the tip of the iceberg. The learning curve is extremely smooth, and the TriCaster’s depth is insane. There’s so much you can do with it, and it’s made our lives on the Bus so much easier.”

creatiVe, PracticalThe producers on the Bus not only have taken ad-

vantage of the traditional video production switcher capabilities of TriCaster, but also have identified ways to leverage its unique production features to add new levels of creativity to their shows.

For example, TriCaster support for the Apple AirPlay wireless link from iPads may soon add a new element of creativity to shows about aspiring musicians participating in workshops. “We’ll do our standard workshop with the students where we have them create a song and shoot a video, but we have them work predominantly if not ex-clusively on the iPad and iTouch” said Sobel.

At SXSW in Austin, Texas, the Lennon Bus production team prepares for a webcast.

To capture the highest quality HD signals for posting down the road while streaming lower bitrate shows at the same time to the Web, the Lennon Tour Bus leverages TriCaster’s IsoRecording capability.

“One of the nice things about the TriCaster is that with the AirPlay technology, we can send the displays from the iPad over to the TriCaster and get actual display feed off the devic-es, which is really cool.” As an added benefit, there is no need to send a camera operator out to the workshop just to do over-the-shoulder shots of students running music software on the devices because their on-screen work is transmitted directly via AirPlay to the TriCaster.

Another example is the TriCaster’s built-in audio mixing capabilities, which make setting up and producing some show segments easier, said Sobel. While the Bus uses Avid Pro Tools to mix its musical performances, there’s often a need to mic and mix interviews before a set. For this appli-cation, the producers on the Bus use the TriCaster’s eight-input audio mixer to mix interview segments and then im-mediately take a Pro Tools mix of musical performances, he explained.

While AirPlay input support and audio mixing aren’t the kind of capabilities typically associated with a professional video production switcher, a logically laid out, easy-to-use control panel is, and here too, TriCaster delivers for the producers on the Bus with the TriCaster 850 CS control surface.

The control surface, which is a tangible, control-for-control match of the TriCaster 850 EXTREME virtual interface, makes doing live shows easy. “When you start using the TriCaster 850 CS, it’s hard to imagine doing a live show without it. It’s intuitive and totally reliable,” said Sobel.

sxswThe Lennon Bus spent a week in March at the South by

Southwest Conference in Austin, Texas, where it live streamed interviews and performances every day, including an interview with filmmaker Kevin Smith. Among the live streamed perfor-mances was an acoustic session by Rachael Sage, The John Lennon Songwriting Contest winner.

Austin is a long way from the live national broadcast 15 years on ABC’s Good Morning America, that gave birth to the idea for a mobile production studio to help children make their dreams a reality, said Rothschild. At that time, the Bus simply was intended to be a short-lived promotional vehicle for the John Lennon Songwriting Contest, which Rothschild, music manager David Sonenberg and Lennon’s widow, Yoko Ono, created in 1997.

Back then, students wrote, recorded and performed a song on the morning show. Today, however, people around the world can share in the mission of the Bus to reach young people interested in music and audio and video production — not simply at limited venues where it appears, but worldwide via the Internet.

“TriCaster is at the heart of those events, helping us to com-plete our mission and spread our message to the world. We are so happy to have this tool at our disposal and love sharing it with those who step aboard be they young, old, big or small,” said Tanner.

2 4 | T H E O F F I C I A L C R E A T I V E R E S O U R C E F O R N E W T E K U S E R S

Tell your story. Touch your fans. Everywhere.

For more information, visit newtek.com today.

© 2012 NewTek, Inc. TriCaster is a trademark of NewTek, Inc. All rights reserved. Web: newtek.com

The Lennon Bus streamed several interviews from SXSW in March, including a conversation with filmmaker Kevin Smith.

2 6 | T H E O F F I C I A L C R E A T I V E R E S O U R C E F O R N E W T E K U S E R S w w w . N e w T e k . c o m 2 7

While the quality of sports coverage at virtually every major college has increased significantly to keep pace with what fans see on network television, the budgets required to carry it out still lag behind. That’s why integrated pro-duction systems, which bring all of the features and func-tionality of a traditional video and audio control room under the control of a single operator, have become so popular.

St. John’s University is located in New York City‚ the No. 1 media market in the nation that features 10 profes-sional sports teams and 40-some colleges and universi-ties, each fighting for headlines and broadcast space. The Athletic Communications unit within St. John’s De-partment of Athletics is responsible for generating pub-licity for the Red Storm’s 17 men’s and women’s varsity athletic programs.

To help carve out its place in the “media capital of the world,” a rotating team of seasoned freelancers and St. John’s Athletic Communications undergraduate and graduate students produce more than 120 live games in HD (720p or 1080i) each year.

Like many university-based operations, these multi-

camera sports productions can be seen live via the school’s dedicated sports website (http://www.Red-StormSports.com/). But taking it a step further, the school gives its alumni, fans and supporters the ability to keep up with their favorite Red Storm teams on televi-sion — via national networks, such as the CBS Sports Network, available to about 92 million subscribers, or SportsNet New York (SNY), a New York-based regional cable outlet available to about 15 million. ESPN also car-ries many St. John’s produced games on ESPN3, avail-able in about 70 million households nationwide, online at WatchESPN.com, on smartphones and tablets via the WatchESPN app and through ESPN on Xbox LIVE.

The school has been using NewTek TriCaster systems for the past six years in standard-definition (SD) digital resolution, and, coinciding with its move to all high-defi-nition (HD) production this year, is now using a TriCaster 850 EXTREME system. With it, anyone can simultane-ously produce, live stream, broadcast, project and re-cord HD and SD network-style productions. One opera-tor or small team can switch between multiple cameras, virtual inputs and live virtual sets, while inserting clips,

St. John Television Network taps power of triCaster 850 EXTREME for online and television sports coverage

By Kevin Mortimer

EXTREME EXPOSURE

w w w . N e w T e k . c o m 2 9

titles and motion graphics with multi-channel effects.easiNg the fiNaNcial burdeN

For St. John’s, producing all of this content would be financially daunting without the cost-effectiveness of the TriCaster system. It offers various modules that address portable live production, video editing, 3D animation and special effects tools. This can include a fully loaded, 24-channel switcher as well as software to produce high-quali-ty video, text, graphics, animations and virtual sets. In addi-tion, each TriCaster system features networking inputs that allow users to send video and audio wirelessly from iOS devices, such as iPad, iPod or iPhone, into a live produc-tion. TriCaster also allows users to bring in displays from a PC or Mac, using NewTek’s unique iVGA technology.

Those operating TriCaster at St. John’s include both professionals and students under the umbrella of the Ath-letic Communications unit. The St. John Television Net-work (STJ-TV) enjoys the versatility of the system, accord-ing to Mark Fratto, Senior Associate Athletics Director for Communications, St. John’s University.

TriCaster is used to produce home games across nine different sports seasons and is transported to campus arenas and stadiums in a fly-pack, with a series of relat-ed cases in tow. Fratto said the system can be used to produce a basketball game in the afternoon and a soccer playoff game at night on the same day. St. John’s students have grown used to operating the TriCaster system while courtside for basketball games or in the press box during a baseball game.

For its multi-camera productions, Fratto’s team uses four Canon XF305 and one XF105 HD cameras. The games are streamed live directly from TriCaster for Internet-based or cable TV network broadcasts.

To get the signal to its TV partners, St. John’s has used traditional satellite transmission in the past, but Fratto’s team is moving toward a system to transmit live HD video as an IP stream over the Internet to ESPN, CBS and other broadcast outlets. Fratto said the combination of TriCaster production and IP transmission saves his department tens of thousands of dollars per event.

mixed ProductioN crew“We love that the system is so compact, portable and ver-

satile that we can take it from venue to venue and not miss a beat,” said Fratto. “It’s so easy when it comes to set up and break down and so powerful that we’re able to stream content directly to the Internet as well as to TV networks and their mo-bile and Internet platforms. And we can produce instant high-

lights that can be ready for ESPN’s SportsCenter that night. It’s really amazing what we accomplish with TriCaster.”

Fratto and his staff had no previous video production experience before using the original TriCaster STUDIO system in 2006, he said. Six years later, Fratto oversees a STJ-TV team that produces high-quality telecasts that equal regional sports network broadcasts.

“We’ve come a long way, that’s for sure,” said Fratto, adding that STJ-TV now has one full-time person who is trained in traditional video production (Sean McCluskey the school’s new Director of Multimedia Services) and has also retained the services of sports production veteran Neil Gallow as a consultant.

“NewTek has helped us get to where we are today,” said Fratto. “We can’t say enough about the support we’ve re-ceived from the company. They really understand the rev-enue and exposure benefits of college sports coverage and are always eager to help us.”

STJ-TV has devised a production model in which some professional camera and graphics operators are teamed with undergraduate and graduate students. Students are therefore able to gain on-the-job training and experience by working in what is comparable to a professional set-

ting. Fratto is quick to note that they will be competing in the professional job market soon after they graduate, and having experience operating TriCaster makes St. John’s grads more attractive to would-be employers.

traiNiNg future ProfessioNals

Of course, the downside to using students for production projects is a lack of work experience to begin with. Yet, Fratto said, most participating students at St. John’s are up and running on the system within a few weeks of training. That’s key because ESPN, CBS or SNY — all highly rated sports channels — won’t stand for second-rate production values.

“We have 18-year old producers who are creating con-tent for national platforms like ESPN,” Fratto said. “That’s the biggest advantage. The live and on-demand video products that we are creating with TriCaster are profes-sional grade. Realistically, we don’t foresee a multimillion dollar TV network truck coming onto campus and allow-ing a college freshman to run a sports production. Yet, we produce similar results every day here at St. John’s.”

The school likes TriCaster so much, in fact, that STJ-TV has been added to the curriculum. This year, for the first time ever, St. John’s made available a practicum class in live sports production. The course makes extensive use of TriCaster and the many workflows for which it can be used.

“TriCaster can do so much in such a small package,” said Fratto. “We can plug in a laptop and import graph-ics created with the TriCaster’s built-in LiveText 2 software that we created that afternoon. We now have multiple lap-tops loaded with NewTek software to create and manage professional on-screen graphics that are imported seam-lessly into the game coverage.”

LiveText 2 software also is used to produce audio and video elements for the large arena video scoreboards on campus.

origiNal tricaster still goiNg stroNg

“We began in 2006 with the original TriCaster STU-DIO product, and now we’re using the latest NewTek 850 EXTREME system,” said Fratto. His team also still uses the original TriCaster system for support, which can accommodate up to six camera inputs. “That origi-nal system is still in use for live online streaming and video scoreboard images. It’s been a workhorse for us,” he said.

The logistics of determining when and where the TriCaster systems will be used as well as who will op-erate them takes a great deal of coordination. While staffing and scheduling for these productions is com-plicated, especially when multiple events are going on, the performance of the TriCaster each and every time out is consistent.

“The newest system (purchased in August 2011) is the most reliable system we’ve had to date, although all have performed admirably,” said Fratto. “NewTek has really evolved the system’s operating software and got it right. We can create professional HD video productions at a relatively low cost, no matter who’s operating the hardware. It’s opened new doors for student-athletes and coaches to benefit from expo-sure and has unleashed potential for revenue streams through sponsorship, advertising and subscription-based consumption. At the end of the day, that’s pretty incredible.”

Discussing the limited funds the operation has to work with, Fratto said his team is happy to impress with their ability to replicate a $45,000 traditional truck production for only a few thousand dollars.

“Our students, campus leadership and television network executives find that to be pretty amazing, and so do we.”

2 8 | T H E O F F I C I A L C R E A T I V E R E S O U R C E F O R N E W T E K U S E R S

St. John’s students as young as 18 produce content for national platforms like ESPN, says Mark Fratto, SJTV Senior

Associate Athletics Director for Communications.

The St. John Television Network uses TriCaster to produce home games across nine different sports seasons.

To most people, there’s something a little incon-gruous about the idea of a student — particularly

an eight year old — as a teacher. Even now that I’m 14, there’s usually a double take of some kind at my title of “student, author, speaker, teacher.”

The published book is fairly self-explanatory, but teaching? How does that even happen? With the de-but of my first book came frequent presentations at schools, local at first, but increasingly national as more principals and teachers found out about my work.

I began teaching many years ago, with presenta-tions on a beat-up laptop I toted to schools to get students enthused about reading and writing. I re-member one of the first lessons I taught. How could I forget that nerve-wracking assembly at the local el-ementary school? The teachers herded the children into the gym, and as I stepped in front of the micro-phone I gulped down my nervousness and began to speak about poetry and stories. At the end of the lesson, I started writing a story collaboratively with the students, taking suggestions from the crowd as to what plot turns should happen next.

When the audience began asking questions about what books I would recommend and later clapped appreciatively at the end of my lesson, I felt a small glow of satisfaction. And so my teaching career be-gan. I was eight years old.

However, I was limited by the usual confines of being eight years old — namely, that I couldn’t jet around the nation without parental supervision, and I was still a stu-dent with homework to do myself. So I began exploring other ways to connect with schools over a distance.

When I first began using the NewTek TriCaster to film and stream my lessons, I must admit that I was characteristically a little more in awe of the amazing special effects (“Did you see that, Mom? Look, I’m in a virtual studio!”) than focused on what new things it would empower me to do. But I quickly realized the strategic importance of having such a powerful de-vice available to help me broadcast my teaching.

Whereas before I was limited to however many students I could reach in one classroom, I now had the ability to make professional videos for live streaming my teaching and posting archived videos online for people to watch on-demand.

As a teacher there is nothing more empowering than the ability to extend my “classroom.” Indeed,

by recording and live streaming my lessons, the number of potential students is only limited to the number of people on the Web. Indeed, as my audi-ences grow, my goals and topics have as well.

I began with a singular focus on the language arts; while reading and writing is still my main topic, I have also begun teaching a popular introductory series on U.S. government for elementary and middle school students, “A Kid’s Guide to U.S. Government,” as well as producing videos for the more current events-minded viewers. I hope to help make oft-heard but sometimes confusing phrases like “primaries and caucuses,” “social versus fiscal conservatives,” and “Super PACs” understandable.

I have many goals in teaching language arts, history and current events, but one of the largest is to help students understand the world they live in — whether by seeing persuasive writing technique in a magazine ad, or understanding the complex machinations of the politics covered on the nightly news. I’m able to do this more effectively by speaking to a larger audience with TriCaster’s video production and live streaming.

From the outside, my house in a serene residen-tial neighborhood looks just like any old house — a yard that needs work, a welcome mat drenched in pine needles — but I’m guessing few houses have what I have inside. Below our messy kitchen and our piano-centric living room is the exuberant center of activity that is the basement studio.

I’m lucky enough to be able to use TriCaster to connect with students from around the world. As I expand the causes I advocate for (literacy, youth voice, ending world hunger, education reform) and develop more teaching programs for eager learners around the world, I think back to my early days as that eight-year-old standing in front of the micro-phone, and I realize that really, yet again, my teach-ing career has only just begun.

Editor’s note: Adora Svitak writes, teaches andwebcasts from her home in Washington State. Adora, author of Flying Fingers,entered the national spotlight at age seven on Good Morning America. Co-host Diane Sawyer described her as “a tiny literary giant.” In 2010, Adora spoke at the TED Conference — her talk “What adults can learn from kids” has received more than 1 million views. To learn more about Adora, visit http://www.adorasvitak.com/.

w w w . N e w T e k . c o m 3 13 0 | T H E O F F I C I A L C R E A T I V E R E S O U R C E F O R N E W T E K U S E R S

Fourteen-year-old Adora Svitak reaches students around the globe with her varied curriculum via the Web and the NewTek TriCaster.

By Adora Svitak

Teaching Teen

PHOTO BY TYLER NGUYEN

3 2 | T H E O F F I C I A L C R E A T I V E R E S O U R C E F O R N E W T E K U S E R S

A drive to innovate, deliver superior value and meet evolving video production requirements has defined NewTek’s approach to product development since its earliest days. True to form, the company goes to the 2012 NAB Show (April 16-19) in Las Vegas, NV, with three new integrated production solutions that fulfill its mission of offering the utmost in performance, quality and value.

In many important ways, the new solutions also speak to an ongoing, dramatic change in video production that has seen online video streaming emerge as an important element to the overall success of many productions. As everyone from a network television executive to a pastor of a local church can attest, streaming video via the Internet reaches audiences in ways TV can’t. Not only does it extend the show well beyond the confines of linear TV, but it also helps producers maintain engagement with viewers in ways that were unimaginable even a few years ago.

While NewTek was quick to recognize this emerging trend and address it with its earliest TriCaster products, this latest generation of TriCaster solutions elevates the company’s com-mitment to delivering content to a host of so-called second screens by putting its highest level video production tools

into the hands of producers — regardless of whether they are producing for TV, an online video stream, social media or any combination thereof — who previously may have found them beyond their budgets.

Indeed, it would be fair to say that these new products are so significant in what they offer and the value they deliver that they rep-resent a complete revamping of the NewTek TriCaster product line.

tricaster 455 aNd tricaster 855NewTek is unveiling the TriCaster 455 and TriCaster 855 in-

tegrated production systems at the NAB Show. These new inte-grated product solutions replace the TriCaster 450 and 850 series (including EXTREME models). They also eliminate the need to buy a separate CS option from NewTek, because a real, tangible control surface is included in the price of the systems.

TriCaster 855 is a facility-class, 24-channel integrated pro-duction solution for shows requiring up to eight cameras. It is equipped with five digital media players for video clips, graph-ics and titles and two network channels for sharing computer screens and displays from wireless iOS devices. It has eight M/E-style virtual inputs and three outputs. Its size, capacity

and capabilities are scaled for professionals who produce big, live productions to air, projectors and the Web.

When portability and limited space, such as in tight booths and small studios, is a concern, TriCaster 455 is the right solu-tion. It is scaled for mobile use to let professionals produce live shows anywhere there’s a small footprint. This integrated pro-duction solution is a 14-channel switcher for up to four-camera productions. It comes with four digital media players, support for two network sources, four M/E virtual inputs and two out-puts. TriCaster 455 provides one-button Web streaming and at the same time can drive screens on air or in house.

While both support all of the features offered by their respective TriCaster EXTREME predecessors, each is packed with additional features that elevate their production capabilities to a new level.

One example is NewTek’s pioneering IsoCorder record-ing technology. Formerly an optional feature for predecessor TriCaster models, IsoCorder recording of each input channel is a standard feature on both TriCaster 455 and TriCaster 855. With IsoCorder, it is possible to record one video source per input.

NewTek didn’t stop there, however. With both new products, it is doubling down on the power of IsoCorder technology by

recording native QuickTime files with timecode. Doing so will allow producers to import QuickTime files and timecode direct-ly into virtually every non-linear editing application available for both the Mac and PC.

By relying on IsoCorder technology recording and new QuickTime with timecode support, producers can access all content with per-frame timecode directly from within their NLEs. QuickTime recording also will make it easier to upload video to any website because there’s never a need to run con-tent through a transcoder.

At the NAB Show, NewTek also is announcing QuickTime codecs for its SpeedHQ files so that producers can import files created on a Mac or PC directly into TriCaster without worrying about file conversion. With SpeedHQ’s support for an alpha channel, it is now possible to import titles from Apple Motion, for instance, very quickly and painlessly.

New real-time warping effects are another area where New-Tek has raised the production bar. The new TriCaster solutions take user-definable transitions to a new level by allowing pro-ducers to build their own transitions that warp to underlying video. This, for example, makes it is possible to fly video away

w w w . N e w T e k . c o m | 3 3

tricaster 455

NewTek aTNaB 2012

By K. T. Reeder

three New tricaster integrated Production solutions are Poised to begin helping Video Producers meet their evolving requirements for Program content

NewTek’s new TriCaster 455, a portable integrated production solution with IsoCorder recording technology included, provides 14 channels of switching for productions requiring up to four cameras.

3 4 | T H E O F F I C I A L C R E A T I V E R E S O U R C E F O R N E W T E K U S E R S w w w . N e w T e k . c o m | 3 5

tricaster 8000

tricaster 855on a cloth or integrate warping video into transitions in a limitless number of other ways.

Many producers will appreciate the reduction of switcher la-tency to as low as one frame. For certain applications, such as a house of worship using a video projector, this ultra-low latency is critical to eliminate perceptible differences in time between live action and switched video.

Both TriCaster 455 and TriCaster 855 also include audio mixing with seven-band equalizer and full stereo compres-sor/limiter per output; exclusive transition effects previously only available on TriCaster EXTREME models; transitions with sound effects; hardware and software fail safe to protect against loss of Program Out even in the event of a catastroph-ic system failure; Apple AirPlay input support; built-in push-button live streaming; Live Virtual Set support; and multi-view monitoring support.

The other remarkable thing about TriCaster 455 and TriCast-er 855 are their prices. The NewTek TriCaster 455 including control surface has a suggested retail price of $19,995, while TriCaster 855 with control surface retails for $29,995.

tricaster 8000At the NAB Show, NewTek also is breaking new ground with

the unveiling of TriCaster 8000, its new top-of-the-line integrated production solution for the next generation of video production. TriCaster 8000 is a full eight M/E (Mix/Effects bus) integrated pro-duction solution with up to eight cameras, 14 configurable out-puts, switcher operation snapshot macro setup, assignment and single button triggering, four downstream keyers, control surface and much more.

With a suggested retail price of $39,995, TriCaster 8000, which includes a hardware control surface, represents a break with the underlying concept of past production switcher de-sign, namely that a production switcher’s function is simply to

provide the Program Out feed that drives a local or network TV show. With TriCaster 8000, NewTek recognizes that today’s video production is just as much about delivering content to a wide range of second screens via the Internet and social media sites as it is about delivering a finished show to air.

NewTek has designed TriCaster 8000 to, among other things, replace the laborious, time-consuming process of posting vid-eo to the Web — typically done after hours of editing offline — with in-show publishing of up to eight subsections of a show, such as interviews, still images and alternate camera angles. In essence, this functionality transforms a technical director into a media publisher, who can feed the show or any subsection of it to an array of different destinations.

However, while TriCaster 8000 makes it simple to meet today’s growing demand to feed content to multiple second screens, it would be a mistake to underestimate the sheer pro-duction power this new integrated production solution brings to any television production.

TriCaster 8000 is equally well-suited for large and small shows, alike. Its eight input channels are expandable via soft-ware control of an upstream router to virtually any number of camera inputs required. Input signal support includes HD/SD-SDI, SD component, Y/C and composite. It offers 14 fully configurable outputs, including: HD/SD-SDI and analog video support; HDMI; two projector outputs; and two DVI/HDMI or analog multi-view outputs.

The new integrated production solution supports a high de-gree of customization with its multi-view outputs. Video sources can be laid out in any fashion desired. Various overlays, such as 4:3 safe area boundaries, can be applied. A checkerboard can be displayed to show where an Alpha channel or key is, and virtual VU meters can be displayed as well.

NewTek has included eight full M/E rows in TriCaster 8000 out of a desire to offer users complete flexibility in switcher set. With TriCaster 8000, dreaming up elaborate workarounds to switcher

limitations is a thing of the past — a hugely valuable benefit to producers or technical directors who want to set up a show as they see fit. TriCaster 8000’s eight M/E rows offer full re-entry without added latency and allow the use of M/E rows within M/E rows as well as up- and downstream overlays, and four layers of overlay each with its own 3D position and effects system.

TriCaster 8000 is loaded with tremendously powerful effects. It offers the ability to include per-effect-warping of video; pro-vides for overlays; supports per pixel alpha blending between sources; and includes fly-on and fly-off audio effects support. It also can be used to create transitions and overlay effects.

The system’s virtual set feature comes with what’s sure to be a show stopper: up to eight hot spots per video source. Think of a hot spot as an on-screen trigger that activates any imaginable switcher macro. A hot spot, for example, could be triggered by a news presenter with the wave of a hand through a defined area to execute keying in the latest election results from a hotly contested precinct.

TriCaster 8000 allows up to four sources, all individually posi-tionable, in any virtual set. The virtual sets provide for four layers of overlay, each with its own 3D positioning and effects system. It also supports 3D pan and zoom on any virtual set with user-defined presets.

The virtual camera support that’s part of TriCaster 8000 lets users fly the camera around within the set. Users can preset camera positions, zoom in and out and pan from one presenter to another. TriCaster 8000 also provides for full-motion tracking on every input.

Like TriCaster 455 and TriCaster 855, the new TriCaster 8000 delivers IsoCorder recording of video sources. Here too, native recording is done in QuickTime with support for timecode recording.

TriCaster 8000 also includes some interesting audio features, such as support for the Avid Artist Mix external audio control surface, the remote audio mixing app for the Apple iPad and separate control of audio recording level.

fade to blackOnce again, NewTek is embracing the future of video pro-

duction with its NAB Show new product introductions. All three new integrated production solutions reflect a willingness on the part of NewTek to continue driving product development forward, not in a vacuum, but guided by real-world lessons learned every day from interacting with its customers.

With content distribution to a wide array of second screens becoming a fact of daily life for so many video producers, the enhanced ability of TriCaster to support a production workflow aimed at making it simpler and faster to meet these demands could not be better timed. Nor could NewTek’s de-cision to once again add important new production capabili-ties and thereby enhance the value of these new integrated product solutions.

With its latest TriCaster introductions, NewTek is helping me-dia publishers position themselves to satisfy the evolving video production demands of the 21st Century.

TriCaster 855 is NewTek’s new facility class, 24-channel integrated production solution.

The TriCaster 8000 is designed for a new era of production in which feeding a variety of media types to multiple media outlets is a priority.

Radio, television and newspapers have long kept fans connected with their favorite teams. But opportunities are emerging online for forward-thinking sports organizations to engage their fans with new tools, ranging from live streaming video and on-demand highlights to interacting via social me-dia websites like Facebook, Google+ hookups and Twitter.

The NFL’s New York Giants, winner of Super Bowl XLVI, are among the most successful at exploiting these op-portunities. The team employs a comprehensive lineup of online vehicles to complement its presence in traditional media — all with the goal of deepening the bonds the sto-ried organization has with its fans.

The man who oversees developing and delivering content across all media platforms for the organization is Don Sperling,

vice president and executive producer for the New York Football Giants. A television production veteran, Sperling came to the team five years ago to build up Giants Entertainment, a full ser-vice production company. Sperling ultimately is responsible for stadium game presentation produced with seven HD cameras and a state-of-the art control room, 11 TV programs produced by the team, Web content, social media and even radio.

NewTek Magazine spoke with Sperling about how Gi-ants Entertainment is leveraging streaming video, the team’s website and social media to build a greater rela-tionship with fans and the role of the NewTek TriCaster as an integral piece of that strategy.

Newtek magazine: How does Web-based video distribu-tion fit into the overall communications goals the New York Giants organization has established?don sperling: It is a key part of our communications strat-egy through our website and links to our website, through Facebook and through other social media. We utilize the TriCaster in a studio setting and also a field setting to give the public access to our players and to our shows and to send out the messages of the organization.

We do features, short features and full shows. We do live call-in shows for our fans. So it creates a one-way and a two-way conversation and message with our fans.

Increasingly we are trying to do more two-way with the advent of Facebook and the advent of Twitter and other social media outlets. We try to then take our video and make it more interactive. The TriCaster helps in creating that environment.

Nm: Didn’t you employ this two-way communications strategy using social media and the TriCaster at the Super Bowl?

ds: We had social media night where we had two things going on simultaneously. We had a live feed streaming out through TriCaster on the Web. We gave all of our players

their own hash tags, and we basically had live interviews with our players talking and the fans asking questions on Twitter through a live interface with their own hash tags with our hosts. We fed that out for an hour.

At the same time we were shooting that and doing cut-ins and cutting back and forth, we had another room next door where we had four players over that hour talking about 15 to 20 minutes each to 40 lucky fans who had won a Google+ hangout.

Forty fans got to video chat — direct one-on-one video chats — through their computers with our players, and we were capturing that and intercutting that content through the TriCaster. We really created a social media night. We had a Google+ hangout chat, and we had live Twitter questions being answered and streamed on our website. The Twitter pages blew up. It was incredible. It was one of the best things I think we have ever done.Nm: Sounds like the Super Bowl social media night was quite a success.ds: We really have been lauded by a lot of people. You know, you really hate to beat your own chest and pat your-self on the back, but in this case we all felt like that was

w w w . N e w T e k . c o m | 3 7

The Vice President and Executive Producer of Giants Entertainment Discusses Web Streaming, Social Media and the Importance of Protecting the New York Giants Brand Image.

By O.J. Zukerman | Photos by Guillaume Gaudet

3 6 | T H E O F F I C I A L C R E A T I V E R E S O U R C E F O R N E W T E K U S E R S

Don Sperling Sounds Off

OK. Even Mark Cuban (owner of HDNet and the Dallas Mavericks), who was at the Super Bowl, said it was one of the best things he had ever seen in the social media environment.Nm: Beyond Super Bowl social media night, what does the typical week for Web-distributed video from the New York Giants website look like?ds: We have so many small features. We’ll do a morning and an afternoon re-port. Those are live to tape. We will do a live call-in show in the morning, which is audio only. A call-in plus that goes over giants.com.

We’ll shoot a host of different features, like Papas Perspective, a clip with Joe Skiba, and interviews. We’ll have our Giants’ Insider. We have player shows

like Roll Call with Antrel Rolle; Dave Tollef-son does a show with us. We have Can-ty’s Corner with Chris Canty. These are five-minute mini shows that we tape. We’ll utilize the TriCaster, and sometimes we’ll tape it and send it over the Web later.

Then on Thursday, we have Big Blue Hits, which is a half hour show on camera that we do in our studio. We bring play-ers in and have different commentators. We have fans do live call-ins and talk to the players, and they answer the ques-tions. We’ll simulcast special events.

For instance, when we had our rally at the stadium after the parade following the Super Bowl, we streamed that from the website. We produced that through the stadium system, but we took the switched feed and sent it out through the TriCaster to our fans.

3 8 | T H E O F F I C I A L C R E A T I V E R E S O U R C E F O R N E W T E K U S E R S

Nm: From a production value point of view, are you able to achieve online what TV viewers are accustomed to seeing? ds: I think so, especially with all of the upgrades that New-Tek has done with the TriCaster. I think if you go in to a production with a plan and say, “This is what we want to achieve,” you can do it.

I don’t think you want to do something that’s never been done before, because that’s not smart television in general. Producing content with the TriCaster for the Web is TV in a much more economic fashion.Nm: I would imagine that there is no comparison when it comes to the budget set aside for Web vs. TV video production.ds: Oh yeah, there is no doubt.Nm: So, how have you gone about delivering a product that is similar to TV from a quality point of view while working from a different sized budget?ds: We do certain television shows live to tape, which we send out via satellite or fiber. We shoot those a lit-tle bit differently in the studio, not using the TriCaster.

But then there are shows that are basically done for the Web that have a look and feel of an elevated type of production, but aren’t necessarily the network-type of show where you would use the EVS machines and multi Chyron graphics.

However, most of the shows we do you can use the TriCaster because there are only a limited number of shows that we do on TV, and many more that we do on the Web.Nm: Many organizations streaming video content on the Web have to balance the quality of the end product delivered with the bandwidth available to most people viewing on the Web. How have you approached that balancing act?ds: It’s always a concern. Our cameras are really good. We use Sony 700 XDCAM cameras; we have Sony EX cameras. So the quality of cameras that we’re using, the quality that we send out is important, because it really is important to your brand.

w w w . N e w T e k . c o m | 3 9

Anytime you put your players, your team, your game, your organization, your uniform, your brand, your logo in front of people, it has to look great because that is your brand and that is the message you are sending out to everybody. This is what the Giants represent. And as you know we have a very long, storied franchise –one of the most well-known sports franchises in the world, and we are very, very concerned, and we care about that brand and we protect that brand.

The New York Giants use TriCaster in a studio and on the field to give the public greater access to its players.

In addition to original TriCaster-produced programming, Sperling takes feeds from his operation’s traditional control room and streams them to the Web.

From its control room in East Rutherford, NJ, Giants Entertainment produce and stream a wide variety player, coach and fan call-in shows with TriCaster.

4 0 | T H E O F F I C I A L C R E A T I V E R E S O U R C E F O R N E W T E K U S E R S

Anytime you put your players, your team, your game, your organization, your uniform, your brand, your logo in front of people, it has to look great because that is your brand and that is the message you are sending out to everybody. This is what the Giants represent. And as you know we have a very long, storied franchise — one of the most well-known sports franchises in the world, and we are very, very concerned, and we care about that brand and we protect that brand.

But we gauge what we can do. When we do things over the Web, there are certain things we would use it for and certain things we wouldn’t. But we make that judgment on a case by case basis.Nm: So what has been the response from the audience? Have they been pleased with the video streaming smoothly, or do you get calls from Web viewers who complain about fits and starts related to insufficient bandwidth, or has adaptive bit rate and other streaming technologies eliminated those sorts of concerns?ds: I think that has all kind of played itself out. Yeah, four years ago we used to. But with greater bandwidth, higher speeds and our use of Akamai delivery systems, with the NFL backup, we are having a lot of success getting out a smooth, seamless broadcast.

Of course, things happen here or there. Something breaks down. This place isn’t good; the connection is slow; we are in another stadium, and they don’t have a good connection. But most of those issues have gone away with time.Nm: You’ve been using the NewTek TriCaster for about four

years. Did its toolset and price help you achieve what you wanted to accomplish on the Web?ds: Absolutely, and right from the start NewTek has been very good. Anytime we needed a replacement or a part, they were there for us. We used to take the TriCaster on the road with us everywhere and ship it and bang it and knock it. And they were great. If we needed a part or an upgrade, or when we needed the HD upgrade we got that right away. Or, we needed the new control surface or any kind of part, they were great.Nm: How has the TriCaster played into the return on invest-ment equation formulated by the Giants for its Web pres-ence? ds: Our costs are minimal and our content is optimal so as an ROI, it’s a win-win.Nm: You mentioned that you upgraded since acquiring that original TriCaster? What are you using now, and what pro-duction features of the latest acquisition are you finding most beneficial?ds: We like the new control surface. That makes the work-flow a little bit easier and smoother. We also like having HD, because we shoot everything in HD and don’t use anything that’s not in HD. We have been HD now for two-and-a-half years, and it’s incredible. When we get footage that’s not HD, we have to put wings on it. And you see that so clearly, so easily. It’s like, “Oh my gosh, look at that.”

So the quality is really important and again that goes back to the brand. Protecting the brand is a key issue, and the TriCaster does a great job with that.

One medical visionary is on a quest to leverage NewTek’s TriCaster and Web streaming technology to train anesthesiologist worldwide on a technique that can reduce complications and improve outcomes.

4 2 | T H E O F F I C I A L C R E A T I V E R E S O U R C E F O R N E W T E K U S E R S

despite a prolonged national debate over how healthcare will be paid for and delivered in the United States, it’s hard to argue that continued progress in medicine hasn’t im-

proved care, shortened recovery times and produced better out-comes for millions of patients throughout the country.

Patients, who likely lack a historical perspective, may be un-aware of how far medicine has progressed. But most physicians and other healthcare providers could tick off dozens of advance-ments, such as improvements in various heart treatments that have reduced death due to coronary artery disease by 40 percent since 1998, targeted therapies for cancer like Herceptin used in breast cancer treatment that have produced significant improve-ments in survival, and combination drug therapy that has dramati-cally extended the lives of HIV/AIDS patients.

Another cutting-edge medical development for many facing surgery is a technique known as ultrasound-guided regional an-esthesia blocks. These blocks allow anesthesiologists with the assistance of ultrasound imaging to administer anesthetic around a desired nerve or nerves and have visual confirmation that the block is being delivered precisely where it is needed. For anesthe-siologist, surgeons and patients alike, ultrasound-guided regional blocks can mean fewer complications and improved success.

While these benefits are impressive, there is a problem. Thou-sands of anesthesiologists around the world have no training whatsoever in performing the procedure. Further, given their de-manding schedules, most don’t have the time to travel to a cut-ting-edge academic hospital and participate in intensive on-site training to become proficient in this advanced technique.

However, at least one physician is addressing this problem head-on through the use of advanced video and Internet streaming tech-nology to make training in ultrasound-guided regional anesthesia procedures available to anesthesiologists worldwide. Shortly after completing his anesthesia residency at Duke University Medical Cen-ter in Durham, NC, Brandon Winchester, M.D., learned firsthand how great the desire was by a large number of anesthesiologists to learn how to use ultrasound to help them administer regional blocks.

“I learned how to use ultrasound for anesthesia techniques from some of the world’s leading experts at Duke. They were my mentors. What I realized once I graduated from residency was this was much more of a unique set of techniques than I had real-ized when I was learning them,” says Winchester. “I realized there are literally thousands of anesthesiologists interested in learning these techniques that I just so happened to have become quite good at by learning from some of the experts just sort of by hap-penstance by being at Duke.”

At first, Winchester took the traditional approach to continu-ing education by successfully working his way into the medical teaching circuit and traveling to medical conferences a couple of times a month where he could teach the techniques in person. But Winchester found that approach to be lacking in two ways: first, he could never reach all of the anesthesiologists who wanted the specialized training; second, he questioned if a single in-person seminar was enough training.

“We weren’t able to provide what I felt to be the necessary fol-low-up education for those attending on-location training to learn

these techniques and become proficient themselves,” says Win-chester. “In other words, we were basically setting them free in the wild prior to them learning their skills to survive.”

garage classroomIt occurred to Winchester that the Web was the ideal way to

provide education to those anesthesiologists who hadn’t been reached in person, as well as a great way to provide ongoing edu-cation to ensure training in the technique was thorough enough for the long term.

In summer 2009, Winchester did his first webcast on the ultra-sound-guided procedure for a group of physicians in Beijing. “I did it out of my garage, and it was about 100 degrees inside there on that July 3 day,” says Winchester. While his garage wasn’t air conditioned and the heat made things uncomfortable, Winchester was satisfied with the educational experience he was deliver-ing. Hiring a Chinese interpreter from Raleigh, NC, Winchester streamed a live lecture on the procedure to physicians in China with subtitles and voiceovers in their native tongue. “It went over very well,” recalls Winchester.

Less than a year later, Winchester teamed up with several other physicians to found Docstream.com, a Web video services com-pany that provides the larger medical community with a way to stream live and on-demand video to help doctors learn about the latest advancements and procedures. For Winchester, however, the main focus remained on ultrasound-guided regional blocks and how to leverage webcasting to achieve his goals.

Before ever presenting that first online class to physicians in China, Winchester learned some valuable lessons about doing a webcast that would help him as he proceeded. For instance, an extensive search for the right streaming technology taught him how important reliability is to success. Winchester personally demoed several alternatives and says it soon became clear that the number of system crashes he was encountering disqualified the technology he was considering. “After trying all of these approaches and see-ing how often I got a Blue Screen of Death and how often my cap-ture equipment wasn’t working adequately, I realized it was going to be worth it to look at a higher-end solution for webcasting,” he says. “That was when I discovered the NewTek TriCaster.”

medical lectureInitially, Winchester built his streaming setup around the

TriCaster STUDIO, a small, lightweight production powerhouse with support for SD video switching, virtual sets, audio mixing and the other tools needed to produce his webcast and stream it live.

For his Web streaming lecture, Winchester settled on producing a live two-shot show. One prosumer camcorder shoots Winchester on a green screen and feeds the signal to the TriCaster as Input A.

w w w . N e w T e k . c o m 4 3

Ultra-SoUndMEdICInE By Charles Quigley >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

“I realized after that first webcast that I not only wanted to do these webcasts and procedure casts, but that I also was interested in trying to capitalize on the emergence —both from an equipment standpoint and a bandwidth stand-point— of the ability to do high definition webcasting. “

The TriCaster places Winchester in a virtual set. Winchester, who recently joined the world-renowned Andrews Institute for Ortho-paedics & Sports Medicine, in Gulf Breeze, FL, uses the TriCaster to place a background image of the institute shot in the evening through a window on the virtual set. The TriCaster also overlays a logo of the institute on the virtual desk from which Winchester teaches. Input B on the TriCaster is assigned to Winchester’s Mi-crosoft PowerPoint presentation. Winchester uses the PowerPoint slides full-screen or keyed over his shoulder on the virtual set, de-pending on whether he wants his audience to see his facial expres-sions as he explains the technique or he wants them to see all the detail of the procedure presented as a still image on a slide.

“Since it is only a two-shot setup, if I am detailing something that requires full screen on the PowerPoint, I use a USB foot pedal that I programmed to act as the Enter key on my keyboard,” explains Winchester. “I can just hot swap it back and forth controlling the TriCaster with the foot pedal to switch between those two shots.”

To maintain eye contact with his audience, Winchester feeds his PowerPoint presentation to a monitor placed in front of him on which his camera is mounted. “I am always looking at the audi-ence that way,” he says.

Shortly after deploying this type of two-shot setup for his inaugural webcast to the physicians in Beijing, NewTek introduced the TriCast-

er 300, a more powerful production solution with support for high definition television – a major benefit for someone like Winchester.

“I realized after that first webcast that I not only wanted to do these webcasts and procedure casts, but that I also was inter-ested in trying to capitalize on the emergence — both from an equipment standpoint and a bandwidth standpoint — of the abil-ity to do high definition webcasting. That realization just happened to time very nicely with the introduction of the TriCaster 300, so I quickly upgraded,” says Winchester.

At about the same time he began using the TriCaster 300, Win-chester improved his garage-based production studio, adding air conditioning to make it tolerable during the summer heat, carpet to absorb sound and reduce echoes and professional lighting and prosumer Canon Vixia HD cameras to enhance video quality.

Winchester recalls that moving to HD expanded his vision about what was possible with Web-based training. “I basically turned my sights from this regular webcasting that I was doing — just giving PowerPoint talks via the Web — to medical webcasting and multi-camera procedures.”

Procedure-castiNgWhile he continued to present the online equivalent of medical

lectures with slides, Winchester began preparing to stream the procedure live from a pre-operative holding area at Duke Uni-versity Medical Center. Approaching the design and build of this system presented unique challenges. Unlike the garage studio, a pre-operative room is a busy place. There, an anesthesiologist takes a thorough medical history from the patient, starts IVs, ad-ministers pre-operative sedation if needed and ultimately does the ultrasound-guided regional block. So Winchester had to design his streaming system to be as unobtrusive as possible. “Building a system that is able to do this in a guerilla-style manner is very tricky, and I’m still to this day making tweaks,” he says.

Working with fellow physicians and engineers, Winchester converted a common endoscopy cart into a mobile video plat-form to hold all of the video gear needed to live stream the ultra-sound-guided procedure or record it for on-demand playback. Winchester built up his video cart with the NewTek TriCaster 300 serving multiple roles, including as an HD video produc-tion switcher, a digital disk recorder and a live video streaming source. He added two prosumer HD camcorders outputting HDMI signals as sources to the TriCaster. The output of one of the cameras, as well as the video output of the ultrasound machine, which is scan converted to 720p HD, are wirelessly transmitted to receivers that feed two TriCaster inputs. The other camera, which is affixed to a six-foot articulating mechanical arm that extends from the cart, positioning a camera overhead to capture a close-up of Winchester’s hands, is hardwired to a third TriCaster input.

The wireless video transmitters and a remote pan-tilt-zoom con-trol system for the camera stationed on the end of the boom, Win-chester says, help to minimize the obtrusiveness of the video rig in the pre-operative room. “I approached this with three goals,” says Winchester. “A, to make it wireless; B, to be as portable as possible; and C, to be as maneuverable as possible with as much control as

4 4 | T H E O F F I C I A L C R E A T I V E R E S O U R C E F O R N E W T E K U S E R S

possible to eliminate the need of going around the room and repo-sitioning cameras and having a camera man for each one.”

The goal of a procedure webcast is to allow Winchester’s audi-ence to have a view of the ultrasound-guided regional anesthesia procedure that is as good as, if not better than, viewing the tech-nique in person. To accomplish that, Winchester delivers three HD views: the high-resolution video from the ultrasound machine; a “big picture shot” from an HD camera mounted to the ultrasound machine that conveys how the patient is oriented on the table, where the anesthesiologist is positioned relative to the patient and how Winchester’s equipment is arranged; and a close-up shot of Winchester’s hands showing where he inserts the needle to ad-minister the block and how he positions the ultrasound probe. “After producing some of these webcasts without the close-up, it became obvious that something was missing. Adding the close-up shot of the hands has been critical,” he says.

Unlike the webcasts of the PowerPoint lectures, Winchester leaves performing the actual switching of video sources, adjusting pan-tilt-zoom angles, riding sound levels and ensuring the produc-tion is streaming or being recorded to disk to someone other than the anesthesiologist who is performing the procedure. For that task, mouse clicks and the simplest of keyboard commands, such as hitting the spacebar and Enter key to switch between sources, are used. Winchester also has programmed a wireless Microsoft Xbox 360 controller to run the TriCaster, which provides a tactile control surface that can be used without looking at a computer monitor.

At the Andrews Institute where Winchester now works, it is common for two anesthesiologists and a regional fellow to per-form the procedure, he says. In these cases, one anesthesiolo-gist performs the procedure or directs the fellow in performing the

procedure and the second anesthesiologist runs the video pro-duction and moderates the procedure for the online audience. In other instances, there may be only the regional fellow or a resident and an anesthesiologist. In this setup, the anesthesiologist only runs the switcher in so far as directing and teaching the fellow or resident, who has a view of the program output of the TriCaster. In either case, says Winchester, the primary focus of the doctor performing the procedure remains on the patient and there is no decrease in the quality of care delivered, he adds.

future focusFor the time being, Winchester says Docstream.com will con-

tinue to focus on providing online video channels for fellow physi-cians and medical institutions to present their specialties. How-ever, he is confident that a medical video production cart similar to the one he uses to stream and record the ultrasound anesthesia procedure can help other doctors and facilities push the envelope of continuing medical education.

While Winchester doesn’t see himself actually integrating the video gear and marketing and selling the cart as a business model Docstream.com wishes to pursue, he does envision the possibility of a strategic partnership with the right company, should it come along, to offer the rig to other physicians and medical institutions so they too can stream specialized medical procedures to their peers.

Docstream.com’s website quotes a story from news-medical.net as reporting that by 2016 half of all continuing medical education will be done online. With the potential for platforms like Winchester’s TriCaster-based video production cart to be used by specialists in other medical procedures, a lot of that education is likely to be done with live and on-demand video footage of actual procedures.

w w w . N e w T e k . c o m 4 5

Dr. Brandon Winchester streams instruction on regional anesthesia via the Web to physicians around the globe.

Dr. Brandon Winchester converted an endoscopy cart into a mobile video platform

complete with a NewTek TriCaster.

as a replay operator, I know firsthand that any event in a production can fly by, never to be retrieved or re-corded, without having the right tools.

I was in just one of those situations during a live broadcast not too long ago. I had too much on my plate, and my replay machines couldn’t do what I was asking. I needed to record three separate camera angles at once, but I only had the abil-ity to record two. On top of that, these particular machines stopped recording while I used the replay function.

Making matters even worse, I needed to keep track of each event with a pen and paper, which greatly interfered with my ability to concentrate on game action for replays. The crowning impediment to doing the job right was being responsible for creating highlights while at the same time running replay. It was a balancing act that the machines couldn’t handle, and neither could I. That was before I had the NewTek 3Play 820.

The 3Play 820 is an efficient, flexible and reliable replay sys-tem with the ability to continuously record up to eight sources of video in a variety of formats. Instead of running two separate re-play machines, I have two separate and independent channels.

With these two channels I can provide the director with two different replay angles that he can decide to go to or not.

I can quickly label key highlights, create playlists and run replay without having to worry about missing a single frame of video. In other words, if an event was missed during a replay, I have the ability to shuttle through time in the clip list, find the event and then play it out as another replay or store it in the playlist for later use.

In a fast-paced, high-stress sports environment, it is impera-tive that all angles of the event are captured and quickly accessed for playback. It is my responsibility to make sure that all of the important events are captured and then turned into a creative, interesting replay or highlight package for the production.

sPeed is eVerYthiNgReplays, commercials and highlights need to be ready within

a moment’s notice. The 3Play 820 is the answer to each of these

demands. Multi-angled replay looks within a single replay se-quence can be ready quickly and efficiently. When the director asks for a replay angle, I am able to call up the angle in the clip list and let him know that it is ready as soon as he wants it.

When I first sat down with the 3Play 820’s replay panel, I immediately felt at home as a replay operator. The basics were there with the mark-in and mark-out buttons. It also was instantly clear to me how to jump between Channel A and Channel B for multiple replay angles.

In any given situation during a game, I can offer the director multiple replay looks from both channels. The two channels then give the director the flexibility to cut or dissolve between replay angles. The 3Play 820’s control surface brings the inter-face to my fingertips. I am able to efficiently trim and organize events from the clip list and drop them down into a playlist for event highlights.

After using the 3Play 820 for just one game, I realized just how much flexibility I had running this machine. I was able to create highlight packages quickly before breaks, provide multiple slow motion replays at one time and keep track of the specific players the producer called for. I truly experienced a great sense of relief from having the power of the 3Play 820 at my fingertips, and from that point on I was able to be as creative as I wanted to be.

The 3Play 820 also makes it easy to organize clips with custom labeling, which helps a lot when looking for a very specific event. Prior to having the 3Play 820, when a producer would ask me to gather clips and create a highlight playlist of a specific player, I used a pen and paper to mark down clip numbers so I could go back and create the playlist later.

To create a good-looking playlist using this approach was time-consuming and tedious. It was also very stressful trying to run replay and use pen and paper to keep track of certain players. As a result, the production suffered from not living up to its full potential.

In a similar situation with the 3Play 820, I was asked to keep track of multiple star soccer players during a game. Instead of

4 6 | T H E O F F I C I A L C R E A T I V E R E S O U R C E F O R N E W T E K U S E R S

using a pen and paper, I labeled the clips of each star player with the appropriate name and number on the 3Play 820’s interface. I was then able to recall all of the highlight clips in an instant by using the filter tab.

I simply typed in a player’s name and number and all of the clips lined up in the clip list. I added the highlights into the playlist, and I had a fantastic looking player package ready to be played on air in a matter of seconds, which greatly im-pressed the producer.

The 3Play 820’s clip list and playlist are organized into banks and pages. The clip list has four banks with four pages in each bank, or a total of 16 pages. I use all of these banks and pages in a single project when I run replay in a sports tournament.

When there are multiple games in one day and also multiple game days, I can easily organize games in a way that lets me find them over the course of the tournament. I use the banks in the clip list to designate the game day of a tournament and the pages for individual games.

For instance, Bank 1, Page 1 is assigned to game day No. 1 for the first game. Bank 2, Page 1, is used for game day No. 2 and the first game. In this way, when a producer asks me to find a particu-lar play in a different game on a different day, I know exactly where to look. I also label each bank and page with a specific name, which makes it even easier to find a particular game.

I use the playlist banks and pages a little differently. I may be responsible for highlighting many different star players over the course of a sports tournament. So I use the pages in the playlist as the player highlight packages.

Again, I am able to custom label each page in the playlist so I know exactly what page each specific player is under. For example, in a baseball tournament, I highlighted the two star pitchers’ strikeouts. I created two separate playlists and added the clips of their strikeouts during the game in their own playlist. Near the end of the game, the producer wanted to highlight the game’s great pitching.

From Channel A, I recalled the playlist of one pitcher, and from Channel B I recalled the other. Seconds after the pack-ages were called for, I had them ready, and we were able to show each pitcher’s highlights one after the other.

It’s one thing to just gather clips and play them back, but it’s a whole other story when some creative, professional looking ef-fects are added to the highlights to create an interesting story.

The 3Play 820 gives me the tools in the playlist to edit clips in such a way as to make them interesting to watch. I see the play-list as a live video editing machine when I am creating a package. I capture an event by marking in and out points in the clip list. I then select the angle I like and drop it down into the playlist.

As I repeat these steps, I create a vertical timeline in the playlist. I can then add or trim time, change the speed, move clips into different orders and even have the option of leaving the clips’ natural sound or taking it out. I can also add dis-solves between the playlist clips.

All of these functions are important to me because every show has a different style. I’ve had producers who wanted final

highlights with dissolves between every clip and others who wanted cuts between the clips. With the 3Play 820, I can deliver whatever look is desired. As an extra benefit, I can even import a music clip and play it over my playlist.

The NewTek 3Play 820 brings a new level of production to a wide variety of users because it’s so affordable. Now all of the unique and exciting new features it brings to the table can be part of every webcast or broadcast.

As a replay operator, I don’t ever have to worry about missing specific angles because I am always recording eight different sources — even though I may be working on some-thing else. I am always neat, organized and quick to recall my clips because of the unique labeling and filter feature.

I have flexibility and creativity in my in-game highlights with all of the playlist clip features. My director can have different options because of my two output channels. Now that I have the NewTek 3Play 820, I can add a professional, creative flare to productions each and every time.

about the authorJames Lynch Jr. is a professional replay operator for NPi Audio Visual Solutions, a provider of end-to-end mobile production services based in Cleveland, OH.

w w w . N e w T e k . c o m | 4 7

NewTek 3Play 820A replay operator finds success, reduces stress and pleases producers with the results he achieves using NewTek’s powerful, yet affordable professional slow-motion replay system.By James Lynch Jr.

The NewTek 3Play 820 is an efficient and reliable replay system offering the flexibility needed for live sports production, says professional replay operator James Lynch Jr.

4 8 | T H E O F F I C I A L C R E A T I V E R E S O U R C E F O R N E W T E K U S E R S w w w . N e w T e k . c o m | 4 9

The first African-American military aviators to serve in the U.S. armed forces endured and overcame adversity, including racial segregation and discrimination, during World War II to fight in defense of freedom. Despite others’ attempts at denying them their own freedoms, the Tuskegee Airmen risked life and limb to help bring an end to what was to become the deadliest conflict in human history. These trailblazers trained and flew with distinction, achieved success in virtually all of their missions, aided in the victory of the Allies, and, nearly 70 years later, continue to win accolades.

In 2007, President George W. Bush awarded roughly 300 Tuskegee Airmen the Con-gressional Gold Medal. In 2008, a portion of Route 6 outside Atlanta was renamed in hon-or of the Tuskegee Airmen. In 2009, more than 120 Tuskegee Airmen accepted President-elect Barack Obama’s invitation to attend the inauguration of the first African-American president of the United States. In 2012, New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority Regional Bus Operations renamed its 100th Street depot to the “Tuskegee Airmen De-pot.” The same year, renowned filmmaker George Lucas debuted Red Tails, a tribute to the Tuskegee Airmen nearly a quarter of a century in the making.

uNique uNdertakiNgProduction of Red Tails proved to be as unique as its subject — a heroic group of

black U.S. Army Air Force (USAAF) servicemen who painted the tails of their aircraft

visual effects (VFX), while one firm — Radical 3D in Venice, Calif. — handled all of the pre-visualization (previs).

Mike Blanchard, head of post-production at Lucasfilm who works closely with pro-ducer Rick McCallum and Lucas, was creating the video storyboard for the film with the help of Dog Fights, a series that Jason McKinley, owner of Radical 3D, a high-end computer graphics (CG) animation company specializing in television and movie special effects, created and directed for The History Channel. McKinley’s work on the series won him an invitation to Skywalker Ranch and to “take a run at the opening sequence” of the film, he says.

“We pre-vised 100 to 130 shots using [NewTek’s] LightWave 3D, and they were really happy with it,” recalls McKinley, pre-vis supervisor and technical consultant on Red Tails. They were so pleased, in fact, that they asked McKinley and the Radical 3D team to previs the last 600 shots of the film, the climactic end sequence with flight dynamics, planes, and aerial combat. “Originally, it was going to be 300 shots, but they kept expanding it and said ‘keep going.’”

McKinley oversaw pre-vis of all the shots, as well as a staff that averaged six artists but extended to 10 at times, with modelers and others working on the project. “You can do a lot more with a small crew with LightWave than you can with any other software package,” he says. “You have a great pool of generalists, and it enables you to do things on a budget better than the other

red and became known as “Red Tails.” Like the airmen, the film had a precarious start, but a strong and lasting finish.

Lucas first envisioned the film as a nar-rative in 1988, but, 24 years later, ended up releasing one of the first action films with an all-black cast. It is a fictional por-trayal based on a wealth of historical re-counts from surviving Tuskegee Airmen and the pilots’ mission logbooks from the 1940s. The film is replete with impressive aerial feats and combat maneuvers, all reproduced digitally but based on factual combat events.

Just as WWII united powerful militaries from around the globe, Red Tails brought together some of the best talent and brightest minds in the business world-wide. Various remote studios contribut-ed computer graphics imagery (CGI) and

software packages that I’ve dealt with. LightWave helps us get the job done for the tight budgets that are out there these days.”

Filming took place over five months in 2009 in the Czech Republic, Italy, Croatia and England. Pre-vis spanned roughly six weeks for the opening sequence and 12 weeks for the closing sequence. McKin-ley credits his software tool of choice with helping speed production.

“LightWave is the fastest software out there, period,” says McKinley. “There are a lot of very good software packages out there, but they all take longer to do things. Nothing can touch LightWave.” McKinley and his team were able to streamline their workflow further by taking advantage of the assets and experience gained while working on Dog Fights.

“We have one of the largest CGI libraries of military airplanes in the world,” explains McKinley. “We already had a lot of those assets built, and we also had seen almost every air combat maneuver. I interviewed more than 100 pilots, almost all of them aces. We had really strong insight into the kinds of maneuvers they used.”

maximiziNg motioNLightWave has been McKinley’s tool of choice since he started his career in 1992.

“It has always been my tool, and it has done really well for me,” he says. “You can get great looks out of every software out there if you have great people, but for speed and getting a good look, LightWave is untouchable.

“It helped me sell Dog Fights, helped us produce Armageddon, and helped us re-ally well on Red Tails, especially with the motion tools that are good for flying things around. In fact, it made my career on flying things around; LightWave has done really well for me.”

McKinley and the Radical 3D artists relied on LightWave’s Graph Editor, a Virtual Stu-dio tool introduced in version 10 that enables hand-editing of live-captured and virtual performances, for Red Tails. “The ease of the motion graph editor was really strong for us,” he explains. “We used it a lot; it just makes flying things around very easy.”

“LightWave is easily the fastest, get-a-good-look-as-fast-as-you-can software out there — without a doubt. There’s no muss, no fuss,” says McKinley. “Everything is built in: You get your modeler, great animation, and a great renderer — all in the same box, ready to go.”

outside the boxThe Radical 3D team produced roughly five different models and three separate

environments for the project. “It was all pre-vis, but it was nice looking; it wasn’t cheesy,” explains McKinley. “I think it helped [the other studios’ CG and VFX artists] realize a lot more with pre-vis looking better than what they were used to.”

Radical 3D artists worked remotely with the client, Lucasfilm, and submit-ted a series of QuickTime files every day. They also handed off their pre-vis work to Industrial Light & Magic (ILM), a divi-sion of Lucasfilm.

“ILM took all the pre-vis we had, all our scene files and motion files from LightWave, with zero issues,” McKin-ley says. “They used a lot of those mo-tion files in the final animation — that was gratifying. There are shots in the film that are literally exactly the same as our pre-vis — nothing changed, not even a camera. Then you can see ones where they changed the camera a little bit, but it’s the same airplane motion. And then there are others that are a composite or hybrid of a couple shots we did.”

sigNificaNt sequeNces

McKinley and his team are especially proud of two sequences comprising “the big money shot of the entire film.” Origi-nally, the film’s final shot was one gigan-tic, climactic battle.

5 0 | T H E O F F I C I A L C R E A T I V E R E S O U R C E F O R N E W T E K U S E R S

“The Red Tails escorted the B-17s during a massive propeller-driven, BF-109 at-tack. They fight them off, and then one of the planes gets hit. They stay with it, and then jets attack; they fight those guys off and one of the heroes is killed. It was a massive, 600-shot sequence,” McKinley recalls. “In the final film, they split it into two separate sequences: an escort mission where they were attacked by the regular BF-109s and the last sequence, where they were attacked by the jets and defending the lone B-17.”

In one sequence, “one of the Tuskeegee Airmen is on the tail of a German ace, who does an insane, high-speed, tail rotating maneuver where he actually spins the plane a full 360 degrees in mid-air and shoots the Tuskeegee Airmen as he flies by,” says McKinley. “Later on in the film, one of the Tuskeegee Airmen does the same maneuver and shoots a plane down — and that was the money shot used to promote the entire film. Every trailer ended with that shot — that was gratifying to see.”

It was a real aerial combat maneuver that pilot Richard Candelaria, member of the 435th Fighter Squadron, 479th Fighter Group, described to McKinley during his research for Dog Fights. Candelaria performed the maneuver in WWII while being chased by a BF-109G German fighter that he could not shake. “In a last ditch effort, he pulled this stunt,” says McKinley. “It was such an iconic move; the fact that it was real is even better. Matt Zeyn and Tom Bremmer did a great job with it. We used LightWave for that shot.”

The move wasn’t in the storyboard or the story, but Radical 3D artists put in the pre-vis. “They were so happy with it that it became a story point,” McKinley notes. “We are really proud of that one, specifically.” It is rare, but gratifying when impressive graphics influence the storyline.

Looking back, McKinley and his team of artists at Radical 3D continue to be impressed with Red Tails. “Just the sheer scale of the project… The film has 60 minutes of 100 percent CGI with 1,600 effects shots. It’s a massive-scale project,

and it takes someone like Lucasfilm to do it.”

Producer McCallum is equally thrilled with Red Tails and its impressive effects, all of which started in pre-vis. He also credits the pre-vis process with helping not only save money, but also better focus the director, who might not have experience working with VFX. “Without pre-visualization , we couldn’t have done anything,” he says. “With someone like [McKinley] doing pre-vis and a company like Halo doing animatics, it changes everything — the whole dynamics.”

w w w . N e w T e k . c o m 5 1

LightWave is easily the fastest, get-a-good-look-as-fast-as-you-can software out there — without a doubt. There’s no muss, no fuss.

Industrial Light & Magic took all of the pre-visualization work done by Radical 3D, including LightWave scene and motion files, without any difficulty, says Radical 3D owner Jason McKinley.

Jason McKinley and his team of LightWave animators at Radical 3D created hundreds of pre-visualiza-tion shots for the George Lucas film Red Tails.

‘true refiNemeNt seeks simPlicitY.’ – bruce lee

Any studio producing quality work knows that the last 10 percent of any production is actually 90 percent of the work. It’s in

this phase of the production that the tertiary de-tails and refinement take place and the results can set the professional digital artist apart from the amateur.

With the release of version 10 last year, New-Tek began showing a new level of refinement to many areas of LightWave, making it the most solid version in years. In just a year’s time since that release, a new update, LightWave 11, has hit the market with new tools and enhancements that continue to show the development team’s focus on refinement. I’d like to highlight some of the new tools and enhancements that have increased my productivity and ability to tackle challenges quickly while in production.

5 2 | T H E O F F I C I A L C R E A T I V E R E S O U R C E F O R N E W T E K U S E R S

what’s New?The LightWave interface continues to undergo enhance-

ments that might go unnoticed at first glance but will quickly become apparent during production. It shows a new level of refinement to tools that we’ve grown to love. The Node Editor has received a healthy facelift that also includes new function-ality, like the ability to search for a specific node using a variety of search options and the ability to add multiple nodes all at one time, instead of one at a time. Using the new node tree list is cleaner and easier to navigate, and the ability to connect and disconnect nodes when viewing the flow zoomed out is a big

game changer when work-ing with large flows within the node editor.

The Graph Editor has been given some polish as well with a slicker look and the ability to zoom and pan in a more natural way. Inter-face changes can be found all throughout Layout that speed up workflow, like the inclusion of Morph Mixer under the Deform Tab in-stead of it being hidden in a drop-down menu. This was a nice find for me person-ally since all the character models I work with include sets of facial morphs. Ren-der options have been moved to a single panel so

that it isn’t necessary to bounce around to multiple panels to adjust settings that deal with rendering. It’s worth noting that the options can still be found in their original location as well for users who have grown accustomed to them being in a certain spot. Although these enhancements to the inter-face aren’t game changers, they have made an impact on my workflow that would be hard to live without.

The workflow for rendering multiple passes for compositing has been improved with the Compositing Buffer Export panel. This makes light work of breaking out multiple passes for saving and viewing and is sure to be a hit with render wranglers and compositors.

what about New tools?Although LightWave 11 appears to have a focus on

refining the existing tools, that doesn’t mean there is a lack of new tools. GoZ, the interchange tool that al-lows LightWave to send data to and from ZBrush, is by far my favorite new feature of LightWave 11. I’ve been working on several projects recently that require me to bounce back and forth between the two apps, and I couldn’t be happier with workflow in LightWave 11.

Whether I start in LightWave and send a base mesh over to ZBrush for detailing, or I start in ZBrush and send a digital sculpt over to LightWave for animation and ren-dering, it’s all handled in seconds. The first time I sent a

w w w . N e w T e k . c o m 5 3

3D EXPLORING the latest release

of newtek’sLIGHTWAVE 11

LIGHTWAVE LIGHTwaVe ReDeFINeD

By William Vaughan

Review:

Using GoZ and Shadow Catcher Material Node. IMAGE BY AMY CHEN

The workflow enhancements found within the Node Editor , like the new node tree list, speed up the texturing process.

The Composing Buffer Export panel makes light work of rendering multiple passes in LightWave 11.

LightWave 11’s GoZ implementation is seamless allowing for ZBrush to easily fit into any LightWave pipeline.

ZBrush sculpt over to Layout I was shocked that all of the maps (Color, Displacement, etc.) were setup and ready to go.

GoZ has completely changed my workflow for the better and has allowed for a seamless integration of these two powerful programs. The fact I can use ZBrush to create endomorphs for my characters has cut character setup in half.

LightWave’s UV tools haven’t seen any updates in years and are in dire need of unwrapping tools, so I have found that I can pop into ZBrush and use its UV Master tools and within seconds be back over to LightWave with a fully UV’d character mesh ready for texturing. If I could change anything with the GoZ implementation I’d prefer that the color map coming from ZBrush be applied to the Node Editor versus the Texture Editor, but that might just be my personal preference.

I’m a big fan of having the tools I need to quickly get the job done. When I first heard that LightWave 11 was going to imple-ment built-in instancing, I was somewhat apathetic about it since I have used third-party tools, like HD Instance, for years that “got the job done.” However, LightWave 11 exceeded my expectations with an easy-to-use instancing workflow that simply works as ex-pected. The instant feedback with VPR and the clean workflow should be a standard for all future features added to the software. In addition to instancing, LightWave 11 also includes Flocking, which can be used to generate realistic motions on crowds, such as fish, bats, insects, animal herds and more. I’ve yet to use flock-ing in production but look forward to adding that new level of de-tail to crowd animation that would otherwise be too taxing on a short production schedule.

Although LightWave has had a dynamics engine built in for more than 10 years now, LightWave 11 now includes Bullet Dy-

namics directly in Layout. This production proven physics en-gine is extremely fast and easy-to-use. Combined with the new Fracture tool, which pre-fractures objects into multiple compo-nents, Bullet Dynamics allows for intricate animations of objects shattering, exploding and collapsing to be produced with little effort. Bullet was recently used on the production, Time Slice, by the students at the Digital Animation and Visual Effects School in Orlando easily saving them weeks of work and allowing for a more accurate simulation of destruction. You can watch Fracture and Bullet in action in the short film online at: http://www.dave-school.com/index.php/gallery/block-04-movies/310-time-slice.

Although I shy away from scripting, I’m excited that Light-Wave 11 now includes Python scripting. Python has quickly become “the” industry standard programming language in

5 4 | T H E O F F I C I A L C R E A T I V E R E S O U R C E F O R N E W T E K U S E R S

most studio pipelines. Now that it is included in version 11, we should start to see more artists writing tools for LightWave.

LightWave 11 also has added more functionality in its Virtual Studio Tools, allowing more controller types and the ability to configure the controllers to control any aspect of LightWave that can be animated. I’m excited to try real-time puppeting inside of LightWave for my characters, after seeing Lino Grandi, NewTek quality assurance manager, 3D Develop-

ment, and Rob Powers, NewTek vice president, head of 3D Development, demonstrate the Virtual Studio Tools at the VFX Minds event in Los Angeles. FiberFX also has seen enhance-ments, most notably in the rendering department with new volume rendering modes and faster render times. Styling the fibers also seems to be more interactive and more stable.

One of my favorite additions to LightWave 11 is the new Shadow Catcher material node. It’s a simple plug-and-play node that allows for any surface to render only shadows and reflections of other scene items while ignoring the model’s

surface itself. This makes integrating CG elements into background plates extremely easy. Amy Chen, one of my students, used it on her TaterMech com-posite to marry her CG robot with a photograph in no time.

Many areas of LightWave 11 have been refined, such as the performance of IK evaluation. Scene loading speeds and multi-layers objects also are now faster to work with. VPR now allows users to select a surface by clicking on the object in the viewport, and lens flares are now supported in VPR. These are all small items when considered by themselves, but when grouped together they help make the release feel solid.

It’s obvious that the LightWave development team has been working closer with its users than ever, lis-tening to their requests. There are many enhance-ments to LightWave that can easily be traced back to user requests, and it feels like there is more communi-cation between studios and the development team.

With that said, I would have liked to have seen Mod-eler get some attention in this release. It hasn’t seen any major enhancements or additions in more than a decade and is showing its age. The other packages have caught up to, and in some cases surpassed an area that LightWave dominated. I also look forward to rigging and animation enhancements, primarily for character animators. Animation layers would go a long way for increasing my workflow.

Overall, LightWave 11 is by far the most stable, solid version of my favorite software workhorse that I’ve experienced. The new tools and features are being implemented with tight integration and with the end user in mind. There is a new level of refine-ment that shines in the latest version, and I hope to see NewTek continue down this path.

‘the source of geNius is imagiNatioN aloNe, the refiNemeNt of the seNses that sees what others do Not see, or sees them differeNtlY.’ — eugeNe delacroix

w w w . N e w T e k . c o m 5 5

Instancing allows for mass duplication with little overhead.

Destroying this statue object took seconds in LightWave 11 with Fracture to pre-cut the object and Bullet Dynamics to collapse it.

Amy Chen’s Tatermech composite was a snap to create using the Shadow Catcher Node.

Performance has been improved for the IK rigs to speed up character animation, allowing for easier and smoother posing while working.

FiberFX instance accelerator demonstrates benchmarked rendering improvements of 2x for complex situations.

excePt iNtegrated sustaiNabilitY

helPs PeoPle imagiNe ecologicallY

sustaiNable eNViroNmeNts with 3d

imagerY created with lightwaVe 3d.

Imagine a world that is sustainable. Where resources like

sunlight, water, greenery and food are managed and con-

served for ecological balance — a place where people

can reside in an environment that fosters health, well-

being and a connection to their surroundings.

Except Integrated Sustainability is one of a rare breed

of companies focused on dreaming up ways to live on this

planet without harming it. With LightWave as its go-to 3D

animation system, Except helps people imagine the inno-

vative, ecologically sustainable environments they’ve de-

signed by portraying them in credible, detailed 3D stills

and animations.

PlaNet-frieNdlY

Corporations and governments are among the entities that

ask Except’s environmental consultants, architects and sci-

entists to “bio-engineer” ways to make their buildings, facto-

ries, complexes and even grand-scale urban projects energy

efficient, sustainable and ultimately socially and economi-

cally rewarding.

“In many cases, people are already living in the settings

to be transformed for sustainability. And it’s very difficult to

get them excited about the proposed changes — and gain

their trust and confidence that the proposed renovations will

make their surroundings more beautiful, pleasant and enjoy-

able — if you can’t convey what it will be like to live there,”

said Tom Bosschaert, managing director for Except’s office

in Rotterdam, the Netherlands.

“LightWave enables us to create rich 3D visualizations that

depict how our forward-thinking, ecologically sound solu-

tions will be used on various physical projects, as well as

what it will be like in those spaces,” said Bosschaert.

bY claudia kieNzle

ExcEpt NEthErlaNds

VIsualIzEs sustaINablE

lIVINg

5 6 | T H E O F F I C I A L C R E A T I V E R E S O U R C E F O R N E W T E K U S E R S w w w . N e w T e k . c o m | 5 7

w w w . N e w T e k . c o m | 5 9

artists can use LightWave’s Viewport Pre-view Renderer (VPR) to preview what the finished rendering will look like — which greatly speeds up the whole workflow. “CTRL-clicking a surface in VPR imme-diately selects it for editing, saving huge amounts of time in hunting down surfac-es for complex scenes,” he said.

Radiosity is an extremely critical 3D tool for showing the ambient properties of light and shadows, such as the way light shines, changes and reflects on objects and surfaces within architectural spaces. LightWave provides a capable radiosity toolset, but on complex 3D animations, Except artists augment their radiosity capabilities by using KRay, a LightWave plugin focused on 3D animated radiosity, illumination and rendering.

For the BK City Slim Project, Except designed plans to refurbish an historic, architecturally striking, brick building at the Technical University of Delft to make it energy efficient, carbon neu-tral and sustainable. Since it serves as the center for architectural learning at TU Delft, Except drew-up plans that pushed the envelope on environmen-tally friendly design.

3D stills were created using LightWave to showcase areas of the building, such as an adjacent Green Lung Energy Harvest-ing Atrium. One of the 3D stills showed how sunlight pours into the atriums’ glass ceiling and walls to create an ethereal, climate-controlled interior with walkways encircling gardens, and reflects on plants, tree leaves and flowers. Another 3D still shows how the same space would look at night, as lit by artificial lighting.

Bosschaert began using LightWave in 1997 and has remained a loyal customer ever since. While he began using it sim-ply because the project he was working on required it, LightWave won him over, starting with its 3D modeler.

“I’ve never seen a program that allows you to have so much control yet stays completely out of your way,” Bosschaert said. “Whether it’s a table and chairs, grass growing on a wall or a giant hydro-electric dam, I can quickly make anything I need, often with just five or six core LightWave tools. I don’t have to think about whether the program can do it. It’s just like swimming in water.”

This was the case with “Schiebroek-Zuid,” a post-war Rotterdam social housing project slated for a sustainability makeover. Commissioned by housing corporation Vestia and agricultural research network Innovatie-Netwerk, Schiebroek-Zuid required extremely complex, colorful 3D illus-trations of how the futuristic, renovated community would look, including a pedestrian corridor, Metro Plaza, Water Park, and Central Markets.

“Unlike visual effects for movies, our spatial representations need to be biologically accurate, incorporating natural elements indig-enous to that place, such as plant life, forests, climate, water and sunlight,” said Bosschaert.

PlaNs for lifeWhile most of the visualizations that Except produces are large,

high-resolution stills, the team does full 3D modeling for every illustration. This extra work pays off in the long run whenever clients decide they want to see that still frame expanded into an animated clip. Since the 3D objects and scenes are already built, artists only have to move LightWave’s 3D camera around rather than starting from scratch.

5 8 | T H E O F F I C I A L C R E A T I V E R E S O U R C E F O R N E W T E K U S E R S

To promote “Polydome,” a revolutionary approach to green-house agriculture developed by Except’s ecological engineers, the company expanded its collection of 3D scenes into a two-minute animation accessible on YouTube and Except’s website, www.except.nl. A voice-over and text were added to explain the significance of a greenhouse ecosystem that can produce high yields of foods with no negative environmental impact.

In many cases, LightWave is used for 95 to 100 percent of the 3D modeling, animation and rendering of these 3D visualizations. Except has several artist/animators who are proficient at LightWave, but the program’s powerful toolsets and features make it rare that more than two must work on any given project.

As a member of the beta-testers group, Except was advanced two seats of LightWave 11, prior to its official release in early 2012. Light-Wave 11 enhances many of the core tools and features that Except’s design team uses the most, including instancing and radiosity.

“Since we work on sustainable developments, we use a lot of greenery and vegetation,” Bosschaert said. “So, when we need to create a 3D wooded area or forest consisting of hundreds of trees, instancing is the only practical way to do it. The instancing engine lets us model and replicate biologically accurate trees but render them as a group to conserve processing memory and power.”

suN-dreNched treesTo give identical trees or leaves a random, natural look,

LightWave lets artists change proper-ties such as orientation, reflections, color

or scale randomly. As they fine-tune the characteristics of their 3D scenes, the

bosschaert began

using lightwave in 1997

and has remained a loyal

customer ever since.

while he began using it

simply because the

project he was working

on required it, lightwave

won him over, starting

with its 3d modeler.

energia Productions entrusts its first full-length, visual effects heavy feature film, a dark sci-fi comedy poised to take the world by storm, to Newtek’s lightwave 3d.

From humble beginnings in the Northern European na-tion known better for angry bird games or mobile phones, Energia Productions has stormed onto the movie scene and stirred up a groundswell of interest and excitement in antici-pation of the Finnish visual effects house’s first full-length feature film, Iron Sky.

Premiering at the Berlin Film Festival in early February 2012, Iron Sky became a social media phenomenon, logging more than 5 million YouTube views of the Iron Sky trailer and more than 100,000 Facebook and Twitter fans. The movie premiered in North American in March at SXSW in Austin, Texas.

aN origiNal coNcePt uNfoldsIron Sky is unique for several reasons, says Kelly “Kat”

Myers, CG supervisor and LightWave 3D team leader for Iron Sky visual effects at Energia Productions in Tampere, Finland. Iron Sky’s storyline and the way the film came about are radical departures from the norm. In fact, a por-tion of the film was funded by fans of Samuli Torssonen, a Finnish film writer, director, actor, producer, and owner of Energia Productions known for his inventive short films.

The premise of Iron Sky? In 2018, an American astronaut is captured by Nazis, who via a secret space program, fled Germany at the end of World War II and relocated to the dark side of the moon. For more than 70 years, the Nazis have been assembling a space armada, finalizing their flagship spacecraft and plotting the invasion, assault and conquest of earth from their massive, swastika-shaped moon fortress.

Sounds crazy, right? “Can you imagine trying to pitch that in Hollywood? It might have some legs if you were an estab-lished producer or director with a few solid shows and a run of movies under your belt. However for a bunch of guys out of Finland who had done a Star Trek parody in the basement of someone’s house shot on blue screen and the CG done on less than 10 computers? Come on.... Never would have hap-pened,” says Myers. “Still, the idea is brilliant and because they had done such a fantastic job with their social media initiatives to promote Star Wreck, it was natural for them to carry that fan base over into Iron Sky, which was immediately accepted by their fans and caught on quick.”

small team, big resultsWithin hours of joining the production crew, Luke Whitehorn,

an experienced third-party LightWave plug-in developer based

in the UK, teamed up with Myers to work on the shots for the Cannes Film Festival teaser, which would later be used to help sell the film into several territories. Using Skype for communi-cation and Dropbox as a remote server for LightWave content, Torssonen was able to check the progress, add assets, tweak content as necessary and send to the render farms before the team eventually migrated to Tampere.

The LightWave 3D team working on Iron Sky included just five people at any one time: Myers, Whitehorn, Tors-sonen, Tuomas Kankola and later, Lee Stringer. “All in all, it was a very small crew considering the scope of the film and how it was shot,” says Myers. “The amount of virtual set work on the film is staggering and the compositors, many of whom had never done anything like this, did an amazing job. But it was the LightWave crew that carried the film to release.”

6 0 | T H E O F F I C I A L C R E A T I V E R E S O U R C E F O R N E W T E K U S E R S w w w . N e w T e k . c o m | 6 1

On the other side of the shop, a team of 15 to 25 artists worked in Autodesk Maya and The Foundry’s Nuke. Torssonen produced the original shots shown in the teasers and trailers leading up to the pre-production phase in LightWave. He enjoys a rich history with LightWave, which he used on Star Wreck and in the pre-production and conceptualization of Iron Sky.

iNsert sPace battle Torssonen’s rule was that anything beyond five meters from

the camera—or the actors—in a shot would be virtual set ex-tension elements created later in the computer. “When you step off of those virtual sets and get into space combat, aerial combat and lunar landscapes with things blowing up every-where, things change drastically in terms of the scope of the work,” explains Myers.

In total, the LightWave team worked on more than 140 shots, each averaging between 200 and 500 frames, out of the film’s

800-plus total shots. One shot in particular that Myers’s team worked on spanned roughly 6,000 frames and was largely completed by one artist (Lee Stringer).

The very first shot Whitehorn and Myers did together was almost 800 frames, using the new features of LightWave 11 to achieve results that would have been impossible to accom-plish in previous versions. “Other teams on the project tried to achieve the same results with other software but failed,” ex-plains Myers. “Time was quickly burning away along with the VFX budget. (Torssonen) made the right decision to bring in a LightWave team to continue on and complete the film.”

The scope of what needed to be accomplished wasn’t al-ways clear. “It got a bit daunting when the script called for an ‘epic space battle’ on page 70 for instance, and all it said was just ‘Insert space battle,’” says Myers with a laugh.

Time was not on their side. “Often when we saw the rough edit for the first time there would be a black card onscreen for five to 10 seconds describing what is going on, followed by a dozen other shots of varying length that were ours to finish, says Myers. “Meanwhile half of the other team’s shots were done and in the movie.”

Myers continues: “The difference to us was they had a year and a half to get to that point with their shot count and three to four times the amount of people working away on material that was essentially locked by the edit itself. It wasn’t really going to change much, if at all. We had three to five artists and four to six months to fin-ish what we needed to do and up to that point, it hadn’t really

been locked into the edit because it largely didn’t exist at all.

“Before shoot-ing began, some early boards were created based on older drafts of the script, but so much had changed dur-ing the shoot, and again in the edit, that we didn’t have anything we could use to start piecing animatic sequenc-es together.”

Myers, Torssonen and Stringer worked together to break up the shots among the LightWave team starting with advanced pre-visualization and get the material to the Iron Sky editors. “We had to conceptualize the shots fast. Other departments ab-solutely had to have near final timings and direction for picture edits and mix-to-picture work that was being done by the sound engineers for the film in parallel. We couldn’t stop.”

extreme Vfx sPokeN here “Working with Samuli was great because he could jump

in and mock up something in LightWave, helping to translate Timo’s vision,” says Myers. “Language was a problem initially as they would have to speak Suomi (Finnish), to each other to work out the problems. Our universal language ended up being LightWave itself. Samuli would set up the basics of a shot, and

6 2 | T H E O F F I C I A L C R E A T I V E R E S O U R C E F O R N E W T E K U S E R S

then hand it over to us. In the end, not having boards was a good thing as we were creating our own directly in LightWave, saving time and money.” Iron Sky director Timo Vuorensola needed to see near final production renders when working with the editors so they could wrap their heads around the combat sequences in relation to the rest of the movie.

Torssonen and Myers decided to shift more of the work away from Maya and mental ray to LightWave. “It looked better and the material was produced faster in LightWave,”

explains Myers. “And while it would mean more work for us, the show demanded it be done. It became

painfully clear that we needed to give the models a facelift, build in additional details and fix ma-

jor geometry problems then optimize everything for speed and render quality. Essentially, we put the

models on a diet and whipped them into shape so we could use them effectively and efficiently—getting them ready for the big screen.”

Models that the LightWave artists inherited from the less-experienced artists “looked passable from a distance but wouldn’t hold up on closer shots,” says Myers. “It was due to a dependence on texture maps that were insanely large (10K), combined with models that were over built or needed more modeling work.”

“When [the modelers from the other packages] started to see how we work in LightWave—how we would go about fixing, texturing and lighting the models—they were a bit as-tonished,” he adds.

Model cleanup was done primarily in LightWave, as were additional texture modifications and enhancements using LightWave’s nodal texture system. Adobe Photoshop and Eyeon’s Fusion helped to optimize the texture image assets for balance in render and speed—not only inside the render

engine for LightWave, but also to reduce the load on the network pulling assets, textures and more into the render nodes,” explains Myers.

“It was critical because the network and server infrastruc-ture we had to work with had limitations. We had to optimize the data going to each node, reducing network load and serv-er strain while the compositors were pulling 2K and 4K plates off NAS units at the same time,” he says. The LightWave team helped the compositors balance load and resource sharing by making its footprint on the network as small as possible.

streamliNiNg the shotsEach artist on the Iron Sky LightWave team was responsible

for setting up and submitting his assigned shots to render. “With other render applications, that’s next to impossible because most artists that use other apps only focus on certain tasks or skill sets,” says Myers. “Because the renderer is built-in and an integrated part of our workflow, LightWave artists can take

shots to final without depending on a full-time ‘shader writer’ or rendering manager.”

By exploiting a combination of LightWave’s Viewport Pre-view Renderer (VPR) and full renders directly inside Light-Wave Layout, Iron Sky’s Light-Wave team knew exactly what they were getting before send-ing shots to the render farm.

a big achieVemeNt for all

On Iron Sky, the artists made full use of all LightWave utilities, including the software devel-opment kit (SDK), with which Whitehorn quickly wrote plug-ins that helped the team stay orga-nized. “The entire package was used throughout the show, and

each area of the package gave us what we needed to continue to meet deadlines,” says Myers. “LightWave is all over this movie. Most of the VFX seen in the theatrical trailer are Light-Wave shots, and we are not talking about little side shots or set extensions. I’m talking about the fact that some of the biggest punch-you-in-the-face shots of the film are in that trailer. There is obviously a lot more in the film, but that’s a good example of what LightWave accomplished in the movie.”

“We did the show under some heavy restrictions from a time, budget and scope of the project point of view,” says My-ers. “LightWave helped get the show green lit and financed. In the places where it wasn’t used, those were the spots that put the film at risk of not delivering. LightWave is the package that got the show finished, and we demonstrated how powerful it was every step of the way.”

w w w . N e w T e k . c o m | 6 3

Each LightWave artist on the Iron Sky was responsible for setting up and submitting his assigned shots to render.

The Iron Sky script simply said “Insert space battle,” which CG supervisor Kelly “Kat” Myers and the movie’s LightWave 3D team did despite demanding deadlines.

6 4 | T H E O F F I C I A L C R E A T I V E R E S O U R C E F O R N E W T E K U S E R S

Applehead Factory is all about creativity, passion and execu-tion. When the company opened its doors in 2002, it offered one simple product — DrinkMaster Says, a card game full of

wild rules and challenges that involve — you guessed it — adult bev-erages. To this day, the game remains a popular seller in stores like Spencer Gifts. However, in 2003, the company decided to delve into producing a more tangible form of entertainment — Teddy Scares, a series of offbeat, but loveable, zombie teddy bears that have been transformed from the soft cuddly teddy bears they once were to the stitched, scarred and reassembled bears they are today.

Following the first series of Teddy Scares, which touts ap-proximately 20 exclusive bears and features comic books, ap-parel, and more, Applehead Factory embarked on its second line of toys featuring Tofu the Vegan Zombie. This seven-inch vinyl toy not only expanded the company’s zombie reach, it also introduced LightWave 3D into the creative pipeline. And, it wasn’t long before LightWave was being used to generate 3D prototypes for all Applehead products, including Teddy Scares.

“We quickly realized that we could save a massive amount of time and eliminate potential headaches before

w w w . N e w T e k . c o m 6 5

Creative concept and design studio Applehead Factory relies on NewTek LightWave 3D to visualize toy prototypes and deliver the goods By Courtney E.Howard

6 6 | T H E O F F I C I A L C R E A T I V E R E S O U R C E F O R N E W T E K U S E R S w w w . N e w T e k . c o m 6 7

Applehead Factory saves time and

headaches by producing dimensional

prototypes with LightWave 3D.

going into final production by creating our toys in LightWave 3D,” explains Applehead Factory art director Joe DiDomenico. “Be-ing able to deliver a dimensional proto-type to our manufacturers in China helps remove the confusion that often comes with manufacturing and delivering a toy using 2D schematics.”

In addition to designing its toys in Light-Wave, Applehead Factory uses LightWave to create photoreal product renders for packaging materials—a huge advantage since the packaging is created as the toy is being manufactured. By delivering a photoreal im-age of the product in unison with the toy design, Apple-head eliminates the need for a product photo shoot—saving time and money in the deliv-ery of the final product.

“A benefit of using Light-Wave to generate 3D prototypes is the use of its photoreal render-ing engine,” explains Applehead president Phil Nannay. “We are able to produce imagery of products that we can easily put in front of our retailers and distributors for pre-orders. It also allows us to test market products to see

how many units of a particular product we should produce, which helps us streamline costs on many levels.”

exPaNdiNg the busiNess of 3d

In 2011, Applehead Factory returned to its roots, developing a new product in the Drink Master Says series — DrinkMaster Says Super Quarters. Once again, LightWave proved instru-mental in creating the plastic tray prototype and the final product shot for the packaging. The CG product shot was also used to pre-sell the item to stores and to get early feedback from distributors. Then when it came time to manu-facture the game, the LightWave OBJ file was exported to an STL file and sent to the manu-facturer where steel molds were generated for the production of the toy.

Applehead continues to integrate LightWave in its marketing and sales promotions, using the software to create mockups of point-of-pur-chase countertop displays. Online and virally, the company has also used LightWave to pro-duce Teddy Scares and Tofu the Vegan Zombie

animated shorts, which have received numerous awards including a Telly Award.

“Most people see LightWave as a way to create visual effects for movies and television,” says DiDomenico, “But we immediate-ly realized it could make the development of our products better, easier and faster. The use of LightWave in our studio has com-pletely changed our pipeline for the better.”

go ahead, braNd Your owNApplehead Factory not only creates Teddy Scares for its devot-

ed followers, it also creates custom Teddy Scares for businesses looking to extend their brand through custom products. Some of the company’s newest creations, created entirely in LightWave, debuted in late 2011. These included two eight-inch custom Teddy Scares — one bear was designed exclusively for Vamp Fangs, and the other, Hester Golem, was created for Eastern State Peniten-tiary’s annual “Terror Behind the Walls,” one of the largest haunted attractions in the United States. Last year marked the fifth year Applehead Factory has produced a custom bear for the Eastern State Penitentiary event.

Collectively, the artists at Applehead offer a wealth of experience working on projects for companies such as Pixar, Dreamworks, NASA and many others. As Applehead Factory continues to at-tract new business with custom toy, animation and design services targeting companies that are ready to take their brand to new ex-tremes, LightWave 3D will remain the company’s go-to 3D software every step of the way.

Visit the aPPlehead factorY website at www.aPPleheadfactorY.com

6 8 | T H E O F F I C I A L C R E A T I V E R E S O U R C E F O R N E W T E K U S E R S

©2012 NewTek, Inc. LightWave is a trademark of NewTek. All rights reserved. All other marks are the property of their respective holders.

six months, 10 artists, and LightWavesix months, 10 artists, and LightWave

7 0 | T H E O F F I C I A L C R E A T I V E R E S O U R C E F O R N E W T E K U S E R S

Bunraku, the second film from acclaimed director Guy Moshe, is a unique blend of cutting-edge computer graph-ics and choreographed live action, comic book and video

game styles, gritty reality and fantasy and samurai and spaghetti western genres.

Crime boss Nicola the Woodcutter (Ron Perlman) commands an army of thugs headed by nine deadly assassins in a post-war future without guns. Citizens of the small town, terrorized by Nicola’s re-gime, wait in hope of a hero to save them. A mysterious drifter (Josh Hartnett) and young samurai (Japanese star Gackt) soon cross paths and with guidance from the local bartender (Woody Harrel-son) join forces in a quest to overthrow Nicola’s tyrannical reign. At Nicola’s side are Alexandra (Demi Moore), the femme fatale, and Killer No. 2 (Kevin McKidd), Nicola’s lethal right-hand man.

w w w . N e w T e k . c o m 7 1

Creative CG, Stunning VFX and

True Artistry Blend to Deliver an

Onscreen Experience Unlike Any Other

By Courtney E. Howard ‘Bunraku’Unfolding the World of

Bunraku combines computer graphics and choreographed live action to create a movie genre unto itself.

origami origiNalitYThe one-of-a-kind film, which debuted on Sept. 30, 2011 in

a limited release, delivers an impressive cast and a wealth of eye-catching, awe-inspiring visuals — all within a $25 million production budget. Bunraku is written and directed by Moshe, based on a story by Boaz Davidson.

Moshe’s Picturesque Films, Ram Bergman Productions and Snoot Entertainment — all in Los Angeles — partnered to produce the film and bring Moshe’s vision to cinematic life. To realize the truly unique and strong visual style envisioned for Bunraku, the production team elicited the help of Oliver Hotz, owner and visual effects (VFX) supervisor at Origami Digital LLC in Los Angeles.

Moshe decided early on that he would tell the story of Bun-raku by filming entirely on a green-screen stage and using a wealth of VFX and computer graphic imagery (CGI). The crew filmed the live action over a 12-week period and on roughly 30 sets at MediaPro Studios in Romania.

Hotz, named VFX supervisor on the film, led a team of artists at Origami Digital as they crafted a novel folded paper — or origami, coincidentally — world of Bunraku. “The world it’s set in is almost circus-like in the feel of it, and it’s all origami,” said McKidd in a Los Angeles Times interview. “The whole universe is constantly folding paper to create a cityscape or interiors of rooms or the sunrise.”

greeN-screeN greatNess“Even though Bunraku was shot entirely inside of sound

stages, the director (Moshe) envisioned a massively ex-pansive world,” explains Hotz. Origami Digital was initially contracted to deliver about 90 of the more difficult VFX shots in the production, while Snoot Entertainment’s Snoot FX division was assigned roughly 300 A-over-B set exten-sions. The project’s VFX work soon grew in both quantity

and complexity, so the decision was made to reassign all work to Origami Digital.

The Origami Digital VFX team was responsible for creating virtually everything that wasn’t in the immediate set, including a view through the City Square’s main archway, a flyover from a Mob Office over the city and past several landmarks, and a colorful, paper-lantern sky. In all, Origami Digital artists deliv-ered more than 1000 shots, which can be seen over roughly 83 minutes of Bunraku’s running time.

Given the volume of VFX the team had to deliver for the movie, Hotz elected to farm out preparation tasks to other fa-cilities and enable artists to devote more time to the look and design of the shots. RotoFactory, together with Origami Digi-tal’s in-house rotoscope/paint team, delivered mattes for sev-eral green-screen sequences. Pixel Magic completed speed changes that were introduced in the edit stage. Algous Studios delivered the type of blood Moshe wanted in the movie, as well

as provided elements for Origami Digital’s comps and finished “blood only” shots that didn’t require any other VFX elements. Lastly, Imaginary Forces handled a montage sequence, “be-cause we had really liked the style of some of its other work and it fit perfectly into this movie,” explains Hotz.

desigN dePartureThe visual style of the work in Bunraku was a departure for

Hotz and his team at Origami Digital. “Most of our prior work was of a photorealistic/invisible style. Achieving the stylized look that [Moshe] wanted took a lot of trial and error, so we came up with a workflow that allowed for experimentation without incurring overages or getting into a major time crunch,” he explains.

“Another challenge was the length of the more intricate tran-sition shots that, at 2000-plus frames each, included a lot of geometry and passes to allow for control later, during com-

7 2 | T H E O F F I C I A L C R E A T I V E R E S O U R C E F O R N E W T E K U S E R S

positing. Perhaps our biggest challenge was doing this all with a small team. At our largest, we had 25 artists,” Hotz adds, “but we had a very good crew and a streamlined workflow that allowed us, on average, to get 40 to 60 shots out per week — including all the exploration time that the director needed.”

Hotz entrusted his Bunraku workflow to NewTek’s LightWave 3D, which he chose as the primary 3D application for all the modeling, texturing and rendering. Artists also used LightWave to do all of the setups for the shots. “We used [Autodesk’s] Maya to create a majority of the transition sequences where buildings had to fold and unfold, and then transferred the ani-mation back to LightWave for texturing, lighting and rendering. Not having to think about licensing the LightWave renderer on our render farm was a huge relief,” says Hotz. “We then used LightWave to create all the passes that we needed and then passed those off to compositing.”

iNteNsiVe iNtegratioNA smooth, tightly integrated production pipeline was a

prerequisite for Origami Digital artists to produce a wealth of scenes combining live action, CG with high polygon counts and striking VFX — all on a deadline.

“The integration of LightWave and Maya on the 3D side, as well as getting camera and geometry information from Light-Wave into our compositing software (Eyeon Fusion), was key to the speed in which we were able to crank out iterations of work,” says Hotz. “Having this seamless integration allowed me to make certain calls that would allow the artists to work more effectively. Sometimes, we would choose to use the geometry in the compositor rather than a 3D package, because we could make interactive changes while sitting there with the director.”

Origami Digital also enjoyed tight integration with its internal job tools. The artists did not need to create render folders or pass-es folders, he says. “We automated things like z depth or matte passes, and submissions to the render farm — all to make it easier on the artist, who could concentrate more on the creative work.

“The integration with Maya was also key in moving elements to and from LightWave,” Hotz says. “We used our own tools for that integration, and it was a very smooth process. We have a

very tight integration of LightWave with the rest of our tools, including our entire motion-capture pipeline.”

multiPle iteratioNsArtists need to be able to iterate to improve work, says Hotz.

“LightWave allows us to do that,” he says. “I find shading and texturing in LightWave so intuitive that we didn’t run into any slowdowns on that end, giving us the opportunity to explore many different looks in a very short amount of time.

“It has an extremely fast renderer, and where you usually shudder to use motion blur with [other] renderers, I don’t even have to think twice with LightWave,” Hotz explains. “We render with 3D motion blur.”

LightWave also proved to be highly effective with scenes having large polygon counts. “We had millions of polys for our transition shots, and we had a much easier time dealing with the geometry in LightWave,” Hotz continues.

lastiNg imPressioN Bunraku’s visuals are being compared to those of Sin City

and 300, both of which commanded much larger budgets than Bunraku’s modest $25 million price tag. “I am extremely proud of the work we have achieved,” Hotz says. “I’m equally proud of the way in which we were able to manage this project.

“Typically, a project with 1000-plus shots would only go to a large facility working six- and seven-day weeks to finish; or, it would be broken up into smaller, sequence-sized chunks and distributed to companies all over the globe,” says Hotz. “Due to our pipeline, tools and management, we were able to deliver this project in the time allotted, with a small crew, in Los Ange-les, without overtime or weekend work.”

What Hotz hopes independent movie producers take away from Bunraku is that high-quality VFX work is available to proj-ects of all sizes and budgets. “Going forward, LightWave will continue to be our primary 3D application and package of choice for modeling, texturing and rendering. Its speed, robustness and support for custom scripting are all key to our success as a pro-vider of 3D content to the entertainment industry,” he says. “We will definitely continue to use LightWave 3D for future work.”

w w w . N e w T e k . c o m 7 3

Bunraku was shot entirely on a green-screen stage and uses a wealth of VFX and computer graphic imagery (CGI).

NewTek’s LightWave 3D served as the primary 3D application for all of the modeling, texturing and rendering required for Bunraku.

7 4 | T H E O F F I C I A L C R E A T I V E R E S O U R C E F O R N E W T E K U S E R S

Artist Chris O’Riley can never predict what his next proj-ect will be, but he is always certain of one thing: the tool he will use to achieve it. For nearly two decades, he has

been tackling various animation and illustration assignments from major news outlets and advertisers, growing and expand-ing as a digital artist, using NewTek’s LightWave 3D.

“The very nature of magazine work is that the subjects are always different, often wildly so,” explains O’Riley. One week, it’s a 3D environment image depicting a military engagement for a major news source; the next week it’s a satirically styl-ized product for a business magazine story. On the advertis-ing side, his projects have ranged from automotive work for Porsche, sport drink images for Pepsi and modeling work for Harley Davidson to product shots for cosmetics companies like Avon and Clinique.

“What stands out to me are the unique challenges and re-quirements that come along with each job. It’s that constant problem-solving that has always kept me interested,” says O’Riley. In fact, he’s never backed down from a challenge, dat-ing all the way back to college.

solVed with softwareAs a graphic design student in college, O’Riley was instantly

interested in 3D modeling and animation; yet, illustrating detailed scenes with accurate perspective by hand was always challeng-ing. He soon learned, and became fascinated by, what was pos-sible with 3D software—and he continues to be impressed with the capabilities of his 3D tool of choice to this day.

“3D software was, at the time, an amazing solution,” recalls O’Riley. “I could build entire objects, compose scenes inside a virtual world, and then render out images with not only accu-rate perspective, but lighting, shading and movement as well. It was quite remarkable!”

O’Riley test-drove a few 3D packages before settling on a favorite: LightWave 3D. “I quickly took to its more Spartan user interface,” he says. “I always enjoyed (physical) model build-ing—using my hands, woodworking, carving, etc.—and Light-Wave’s minimalistic user interface appealed to me because it didn’t get in the way. Some programs seem try to do too much, others not enough; LightWave strikes just the right balance. More than any other program I used before or since, working in LightWave feels like I’m using my hands.”

haNds-oN artistA majority of O’Riley’s magazine work, for Time and other

well-known news sources involves presenting ideas in new, clever, humorous or satirical ways. “It might be a family de-picted as salt and pepper shakers, spark plugs made out of money, or an automobile with a mouth of razor sharp teeth,” he explains. “Sometimes it’s seamlessly merging two ideas or objects; sometimes it’s stylizing or exag-gerating an idea. In either case, it’s rare that I can be-gin with a base model, so for each image, virtually everything needs to be built from scratch for each concept.” The same is true

of his advertising work, which often involves fleshing out sever-al different concepts for an ad agency to present to its clients.

“Most jobs don’t lend themselves to purchasing off-the-shelf models, so everything needs to be purpose-built for each proj-ect,” explains O’Riley. “The speed of both LightWave’s modeler and renderer are absolutely critical for this type of work.”

LightWave’s subdivision-surface modeling tools enable O’Riley to quickly mock up low-resolution ideas or concepts, which can later be refined and rendered at high resolutions without the need to rebuild or remodel anything. “Very rarely do project deadlines measure more than a few days, and can be just a few hours in some cases,” he says. “Without the speed of LightWave’s modeler, that would be impossible.”

fast aNd PowerfulWhen Porsche was launching its Panamera sedan, the compa-

ny called on O’Riley to produce several eye-catching images for its debut. The artist needed to summon his creativity and imagina-tion for the important project, rather than spending time wrestling with, and potentially having his workflow bogged down by, ex-tremely large data sets. So, he turned to LightWave 3D to handle the auto maker’s original CAD (computer-aided design) files.

“The deadline didn’t allow for creating a new, clean mesh, so I had to pare down the CAD data as much as possible quickly and render it directly, retouching any geometry issues in post,” O’Riley recalls. “LightWave’s ability to handle enormous data sets proved critical. The polygon count was enormous, yet LightWave rendered it with seeming ease.

“When deadlines can be measured in mere hours, speed and efficiency are absolutely critical,” he says. “Here, again, LightWave excels, with a powerful tool set and a refined user interface that allows me to focus all my efforts on the task at hand.”

“I’ve worked with other modeling software, and it seems that I have to go through more steps or add numerous third-party plug-ins to accomplish the same thing I can achieve in Light-Wave out of the box,” says O’Riley. “LightWave has always al-lowed me to create everything from photorealistic to stylized renders in one all-inclusive package. LightWave has what I need built-in, and with a few tools and good problem-solving, there’s nothing it can’t do.”

The artist also considers his 3D software package of choice to be “comparatively light” on system requirements. “I could run it at all on my early, modest computer systems, and now,

w w w . N e w T e k . c o m | 7 5

Animator and illustrator Chris O’Riley

continues to hone his craft and meet

artistic challenges head-on, armed

with the latest tools in NewTek’s

LightWave 3D. By Courtney E. Howard

Evolving Artist(ry): One Man, One Tool

it’s extremely fast on the latest hardware,” says O’Riley. “That speed is essential for tight deadline work where clients can, and will, ask for major revisions at the last possible minute.”

masteriNg modificatioNsRevisions are an essential part of virtually any artistic or pro-

duction workflow and especially important in O’Riley’s high-profile work. “The feature that singularly changed and improved my workflow the most has been VPR interactive previews,” he

says, crediting the Viewport Preview Renderer introduced in LightWave version 10.

“The ability to see changes almost instantly allows me to refine surfacing, lighting, and other effects to a level that just wasn’t possible when the only preview was a full F9 render,” he explains. “On tight deadline work, it can mean the difference between making hundreds of small tweaks as opposed to a few tens. The result is a much more refined image that needs little to no retouching in post.”

LightWave has always had a powerful render engine, ca-pable of producing amazing effects, according to O’Riley. Nonetheless, “the addition of interactive previews drastically speeds the process of refining texturing and lighting, which al-lows me to truly get the most out of the renderer,” he says.

The artist also relies on VPR to work with, and impress, clients remotely from his studio. “With LightWave’s VPR pre-views and screen-sharing through services like Skype, clients have near-real-time access to exactly what’s on my screen,

and I maintain ready access to the ever-growing archive of resources and tools I’ve compiled over the years.”

coNtiNued eVolutioNA majority of O’Riley’s work is as a one-man crew. He

enjoys working in a team and the opportunity it affords him to learn from others with different talents and experience;

yet, at the same time, he takes pleasure in the satisfaction of solving unique problems that comes with working

solo. By singularly facing and overcoming challenges with each new and unique project, O’Riley continues to learn and to hone his craft.

“I tend not to be satisfied with my own work for very long! On some level, each project is a learn-ing experience, and I usually end most jobs with a list of ideas or techniques I think could improve the next,” says O’Riley. “So, while I have a few pieces that I’m currently pleased with, I know it’s just a matter of time before I’ve improved on them and no longer regard them with as much distinction!”

The artist is particularly pleased, albeit for the time being, with a fly image he recently produced for Digi-

tal Modeling, a new book by William Vaughan, owner of Applehead Factory and creator of Teddy Scares and Tofu, The Vegan Zombie. “I had modeled several insects in the past, and this image represents the culmination of everything I learned on those previous,” he notes.

Whereas the first insect (a wasp) was modeled in sections which were just placed together, the second (a mosquito) was modeled as a single, seamless mesh. “While this may have been an improvement in form, I wasn’t entirely satisfied with the level of detail I was able to capture. For the fly image, I was able both to model as a single, seamless mesh and to capture far more detail than on the previous two.” he says.

The texturing on this latest insect image was vastly improved, through the extensive use of weight and UV mapping. Camera effects, such as depth of field, also greatly enhanced its real-

7 6 | T H E O F F I C I A L C R E A T I V E R E S O U R C E F O R N E W T E K U S E R S

ism. “That’s an image I’m pleased with today,” O’Riley says, “but, as always, I have a list of ideas on how to improve upon it for the next one!”

camera comPatibilitYPhotography plays a big part in

O’Riley’s work, whether compositing CG elements into a photographic background or capturing images for texturing or ref-erence. “LightWave provides all the tools necessary to seamlessly combine CG with photography,” he says. “Alpha chan-nels, various buffer exports, front projec-tion mapping, fog, and especially interac-tive VPR rendering all aid in blending 3D elements with background plates.”

The artist also often uses mapped polygons or simple shapes set to “un-seen by camera” in LightWave to cast

reflections of photographic elements on 3D elements to be combined later. As always, the particular technique O’Riley uses depends upon the details, require-ments, and deadlines of a project.

“It’s exceedingly rare that I run into an effect that can’t be created using Light-Wave’s standard tools,” says O’Riley, “and the rare times I do, a solution usu-ally exists in the form of a plug-in or L-Script. With the tendency today toward multiple packages, each with its own subset of tools, it’s refreshing that New-Tek still includes everything in one single, affordable package.”

full circleO’Riley started his career in the 1990s

producing animations for myriad instruc-tion videos alongside an aerial photog-

rapher, until he was introduced to Time Magazine’s art department. What he thought, at the time, would be little more than the odd illustration job in between animation projects turned into 13-plus years of using LightWave for print im-ages in magazines and advertising.

“Before my detour into print work, my main interest had always been in anima-tion. I’ve been slowly getting back into that recently, and it’s definitely a direction I hope to continue,” he says. As maga-zines transition from paper to pixels, he is increasingly asked to create animated versions of his illustrations for the maga-zine’s tablet edition. “LightWave’s ex-tremely powerful and extensive animation tools have me covered,” he says. “The speed and efficiency of the program and the user interface are things that I haven’t found in any other application and that I would find difficult to live without.

“It’s amazing to think that I’ve been able to build a successful year career over the past 15 years using one soft-ware package,” says O’Riley. “When other companies have added features through high priced add-on packages, NewTek has always kept LightWave a single, all-inclusive program.”

to see more of chris o’rileY’s artwork, Visit www.V4digital.com.

w w w . N e w T e k . c o m | 7 7

LA

ST

WO

RD so much more

Than a showBy Andrew Cross

a funny thing has transpired over the past few years in the video production business. “Program Out” has come to seem an inadequate way to describe what is required of a production switcher.

If it weren’t so hard on the ear, the phrase “Program Outs” would be far more accu-rate. That’s because modern production is done for so much more than play out on a linear television channel. Today, a show goes beyond linear TV to include Web streams, Facebook posts, tweets, posts on Google+ and more — each of which demands its own unique content.

Indeed, if one were to look closely at some of the highest-dollar, most-popular and profitable TV shows on-air today, it instantly would become obvious how delivering appropriate content to these new distribution channels is already a vital aspect of production. Hours before these shows air, new media specialists are hard at work in their own production trailers, monitoring incoming fan tweets and sites, arousing interest with select video snippets and stills, all to preview the on-air production and generally help to build a level of engagement with viewers that otherwise would have been previously impossible.

These efforts don’t cease when the show airs. More and more shows are reaching viewers who are watching on TV and monitoring and discussing show-related develop-ments on a second screen, such as a laptop or iPad. In fact, the feedback these efforts generate from viewers is returned to the on-air show’s producers and is integrated into the flow of production. After the show, too, these efforts continue with extended online chats, playback of unaired clips and post-show interviews. Not only does publishing this otherwise wasted content increase viewer engagement, but it also generates important new revenue streams.

In effect, this leveraging of the Internet to stream video clips, publish still image grabs and actively engage in viewer input not only makes the core on-air show stronger, but also trans-forms the very nature of what television is in the 21st Century.

The other day, I was surfing around the Web and came upon a YouTube clip from the original Star Wars released in 1977 (and subsequently known as Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope.) The clip showed the Death Star’s destruction of Princess Leia’s home planet of Alderann. Can you guess what device was used on-screen to actuate the weapon that destroys the planet? It was a video production switcher.

The odd thing is that the production switcher in that old clip isn’t all that different from the switchers in use today. Sure, today’s models handle high definition television signals and may have a few more bells and whistles, but they are essentially unchanged. The problem, as I’ve already described, is that the requirements of a production switcher have changed dramatically. Today, producers need to publish content, including previously unused content, to multiple distribution channels via multiple “Program Outs,” sometimes even while the pro-duction is under way.

And that’s precisely where we at NewTek are headed with the design of our integrated pro-duction solutions. We are committed to providing the video production tools — whether they are for use on-air, online, on a projector, in a tweet or any combination thereof — that today’s producers need to keep pace with the demands of a new era of video production.

7 8 | T H E O F F I C I A L C R E A T I V E R E S O U R C E F O R N E W T E K U S E R S

Your audience.Your brand. Your story.That’s the beauty of NewTek Live Production EXTREME Solutions - you can deliver out-of-this-world live video content to your fans, at down to earth prices. NewTek helps you break tradition - go mobile, to the Web, and beyond.

©2012 NewTek, Inc. All rights reserved. www.newtek.com

www.newtek.com/tvtor call 1.800.368.5441