Our After Effects courses have been some of the most popular at fxphd, so we're gonna yet again try something a bit different with this course. We'll be concentrating on motion graphics design, tackling a variety of design-centric projects with a mix of professors. We've found that one of the best ways of learning new tricks to add to ones arsenal is by watching others work. There's always more than one way to do something and it's been incredibly useful to see a variety of approaches.

Professors working on classes during the term include a new fxphd prof, CJ Dugan. Dugan is a chicago-based motion graphics designer whose sense of humor generally comes through in is designs. His philosophies will add a new dimension to the returning mix of profs, including Danny Princz and John Montgomery.

More details coming soon....but you won't be disappointed.

Professor: CJ Dugan (FizorZed)

AFX301 - A Guerrilla Filmmakers Guide to After Effects

One of the most popular articles in recent months over at fxguide was our story about Gareth Edward's work on Atilla the Hun. Edwards was one of the first traditional film students to combine live-action drama with digital effects. After graduating, he went on to work at many of the UK's leading post-production facilities as a freelance visual effects artist. Eventually becoming frustrated with the "factory approach" to every project, he soon branched out on his own creating many high-end computer graphics for television clients including BBC and Discovery, all of which were completed entirely on own "from his bedroom". Some of his work went on to win various accolades, including a British Academy Award and Emmy nomination.

He has since returned to his filmmaking roots directing the BBC drama "Attila the Hun", which contained over 250 HD visual effects shots, all of which were created by himself in less than five months. The post used After Effects, Premiere, Photoshop, Mocha, and 3dsMax -- all easily accessible tools for visual effects artists. Needless to say, we thought this whole experience would make a great "real-world" fxphd course and are excited to be adding this new course to the mix at the site. The course will cover a ton of techniques and approaches Edwards uses on the job, focusing on the art, the artist's eye, and the craft. If you're a compositor who doesn't use After Effects you'll still pick up a ton of useful information from the course.

Edward's course will begin by breaking down shots, techniques, and workflow used in the actual production of Atilla the Hun. This in-depth coverage of the real world project will then shift gears into producing a complex visual effects shot with footage shot specifically for the course. Members will recreate the techniques used in one of the signature shots of the project -- that of 30,000 Huns storming across an open field in an aerial shot.

Professor: Gareth Edwards (GarethEdwards)

Class 1: An introduction to the course workflow, using the Adobe suite, Premiere and Excel. Initial set up for an effects shot in After Effects. Tracking in AE using nulls for multiple track points and exporting a time-remapped frame for a clean background plate in Photoshop. Illustrating the power of the Adobe suite in creating a quick proof of concept.

Class 2: Creating a matte painting. Follows a breakdown from initial sketch to importation of photographic elements and eventual rendering into a completed matte. Multiple examples using pre-rendered 3D and ways to add realistic details with photos and video to nest them further into a realistic matte.

Class 3: Tricks within After Effects focused on crowd duplication recycling elements to create variation. Tips for rotoscoping quickly, and using other programs such as Mocha and Boujou. Faking 3D space with a 2D image in After Effects using created or imported layers.

Class 4: Issues with parallax when creating drag and drop armies. Keying tips. Using a plug-in for 3DSmax to export camera data directly into After Effects.

Class 5: The "poor man's" Massive shot. Detailed example into using particle systems to animate huge crowds using avatar loops and tracking with multiple layers in both 3D and After Effects.

Class 6: Creation of another massive crowd charge, but using primarily After Effects instead of 3D particle clouds. 3D tracking in Boujou to provide tracking for a helicopter pass. Step by step process of constructing a proof of concept trial for the scene with provided footage.

Class 7: Making changes to the previs shot before committing to a finalized look. Randomizing the group of tourists further with additional avatars.

Class 8: A trick for grouping layers to simplify randomizing of avatars. Preparation of individual avatar passes for final composite.

Class 9: Additional passes are added to the composition to add further effects and grounding, including dust, bush intersection, color correction, light grading and glints.

Class 10: Reconsidering aspects of the shot for possible correction or tweaks. Correcting shadows and motion blur. Further example of a "poor man's" Massive with a different background plate, and class conclusion.

AUD101 - Introduction to Digital Audio Post

For this course, we will cover some of the concepts and processes for working with digital audio -- which is often overlooked (or at the very least, misunderstood). This will include a quick review of the basics, and then we'll jump right into typical challenges, problems, techniques and solutions faced when dealing with audio. We will avoid focusing on a specific software application, but special coverage will be given to Pro Tools, Soundtrack Pro and Logic Studio and related plugins.

This course is taught by Kristin Martin (an multimedia designer and musician) and David Fleminger (an audio producer, composer and musician), each having more than 15 years experience in audio postproduction, music production, sound design and composition. Clients include Apple, Adobe, Sun Microsystems, Bank of America, Mattel, Leapfrog and many others.

Professor: Kristin Martin (kcmartin)

Class 1: Tour of digital audio basics Description of sound and related terms, frequency spectrum, A/D and D/A converters, sample rate and bit depth. We also present an overview and demo of equalization (EQ), monitoring tips, an overview of dynamics signal processing and a compression demo.

Class 2: Tool basics Major audio applications -- ProTools, SoundtrackPro, LogicPro and Peak Pro; other audio applications and workflow tools. Plugin formats, demos of a few useful plugins. Hardware overview -- audio interfaces, control surfaces, mixers, monitor speakers.

Class 3: Basic sound for picture Basic editing operations: trimming, fades, crossfades. Automation: Track, plugin and MIDI data. Sound for picture basics: spotting sound fx, volume and panning. Sync and timecode overview.

Class 4: Audio project and file management Project setup in ProTools and Soundtrack Pro (audio file and multitrack projects). Common audio file types. Project interchange formats and demos. Methods for using plug-ins.

Class 5: Basic problem-solving, microphones and acoustic treatment Fixing audio level issues with normalization and compression. Noise removal and reduction using EQ, spectrum display, Izotope RX and Sound Soap Pro. Microphone types and basic technique. Acoustic treatment for your studio or workspace.

Class 6: Music loops and sound effects Music loop libraries, Apple Loops overview and demo, selected online resources for audio. Using the Final Cut Studio / Logic Studio sound effects library, recording your own sound effects and an overview of Foley.

Class 7: Mixing and Output Submixes/Stems and busses in Pro Tools and Soundtrack Pro, stereo mixing, surround 5.1 mixing overview, bounce to disk in Pro Tools, export options in STP, Data compression and distribution formats for audio files.

Class 8: Project-based class Project set up -- importing video and OMF. Fixing selected dialog problems, adding ambiance and sound effects. Creating a soundtrack. Putting it all together in a mix.

Class 9: Advanced Audio Tools Working with clipped audio in RX Declipper. Hum and buzz in RX Hum Removal and RX Denoiser. Equalization matching. Time compression and expansion tools.

Class 10: More Advanced Audio Tools Elastic Time in Pro Tools. Lift and Stamp for reusing effects, Multitake Editor for simplifying voiceover recording in Soundtrack Pro. Spectral Repair for damaged audio in Izotope RX.

AVD101 - Avid for Indie Film and Commercials

In this course, we cover the new Avid Media Composer 3 software, available on both Mac and Windows platforms, with a focus on Independent filmmaking and new media projects. In the first few courses, we take you from Final Cut - the standard tool for most Independent Filmmakers - into Avid - the standard in Hollywood. We will focus on the similarities and differences, with many, many examples.

After that, we will cover three different projects and how they'd be edited in Avid:

An episode of That Media Show, shot in 4k on the RED One, against a green screen.
A commercial, shot for a San Francisco client, shot on the Sony PMW-EX1 (1080p 24p)
Several scenes from a feature film, shot on three JVC GY-HD200 series cameras.

By the end of this course, you will have been provided the knowledge and the footage to have completed a popular video podcast, edited a commercial for a real California client and edited several scenes from an upcoming feature film. You'll have created gunshots, fixed audio problems with Avid and have a working knowledge of Avid Media Composer, the standard in Hollywood feature films and television.

Professor: John Flowers (jflowers)

Class 1: Avid Media Composer 3 for Final Cut Pro editors, Part 1 We cover the differences between Final Cut and Avid Media Composer, with a focus on the idea of modes in Avid.

Class 2: Avid Media Composer 3 for Final Cut Pro editors, Part 2 We start editing a project in Avid, going back and forth between Avid and Final Cut, to illustrate the differences between the two editing systems, focusing on the key ways to solve problems in Avid.

Class 3: Importing footage in Avid, focusing on the different types of media and where they are stored.

Class 4: Now that we've imported footage and understand the basics of editing, we cover putting together a full episode of That Media Show, starting with editing and sound work.

Class 5: Continuing the edit, we start to use the built-in keying tools and other effects, along with Red Giant's Primatte keying software (an important tool in any editing arsenal). We talk about rendering and delivery to different tools for visual effects work.

Class 6: Output, exporting and other oddness. Avid is a beautiful, powerful and complex system if you're used to Final Cut or have used other editing systems, like Vegas or Premiere.

Class 7: We assemble our project, export it for final color correction and visual effects and walk through examples using After Effects and Magic Bullet Looks, along with built-in color tools in After Effects CS4 and Avid Media Composer.

Class 8: We import, edit and assemble an entire commercial, from an actual client in San Francisco, and talk through the various issues from the shoot, with a focus on timing, visual effects and audio as it relates to movement.

Class 9: We go back into Final Cut and review a full assembly of a feature film, then move into Avid and re-assemble the film with an eye toward editing, pacing and completion.

Class 10: We discuss advanced techniques in Avid Media Composer, with an overview of some of the amazing Boris FX and Avid FX tools that come with Avid Media Composer 3.

BKD211 - Background Fundamentals January 09

Background Fundamentals is our "required" course for fxphd members and covers a wide range of topics -- the fundamental building blocks of visual effects. This term we return to our magazine format, covering subjects from the business of vfx to some complex algorithmic work recently published at Siggraph.

This term we will have classes on (order may change during the term):

Ads Neuro understanding of how and why some ads are effective and impressive and some are completely forgetful. This will explain what many of us know to be true: great ads capture your imagination and really connect. We show you why and how -- and how this information helps you as an artist.
Copyright Issues What can you do to protect your art and what are your rights with clients.
Geek Out Noise, turbulence and the theory behind complex simulations.
Linear Compositing and Rendering Building from our very successful discussions on LUTs and gamma, we explore in more depth how to set up a truly professional technical pipeline and how to avoid having to cheat to make simple things work. In some applications such as After Effects this is now so much easier but in Max and Maya linear maths does not come easily.
Big Productions, Part 1 How to do a really large show running into the hundreds of shots.
Big Productions, Part 2 How to stage a big animated film.
Geek Out with Computational Photography: This is one of the most interesting area of photography and general graphics research. Not much has been commercialized yet but this one area hold the promise of 'magicial' advances in vfx from new complex ways of dealing with photograph.
Image-Based Modelling We look at the state of the art in image-based modeling and how you can use it.
Trailers The trailer has become an art form in its own right and we look at how they are made and what makes a good trailer.
TBA On location somewhere around the world.

Professor: Mike Seymour (mikes)

C4D201 - Cinema 4D and Design

The main focus of the course will be using Cinema4D to create motion graphics. Through all the classes, general workflow and project management will be discussed, including organizing the object manager, use of layers, XRefs, and managing layouts. We will look at practical uses for many of the available modules, including MoGraph, Thinking Particles, Hair, Cloth and Sketch and Toon. This will also involve use of Xpresso, materials, some post effects and lighting and rendering techniques.

Professor: Tim Clapham (hypatim)

Class 1: Part 1 of 2 - Building a 3 second logotype animation in Cinema4D using Mograph and Thinking Particles

Class 2: Part 2 of 2: Building a 3 second logotype animation in Cinema4D using Mograph and Thinking Particles

Class 3: A workshop exploring the use of MoGraph and Particles

Class 4: Creating a logo, part 1 of 2

Class 5: Creating a logo, part 2 of 2

Class 6: This week we will look at different methods of breaking objects apart. This will include the ExplosionFX deformer, PBlurp, PFragment and lastly a look at using MoGraph in combination with deformers to achieve similar results.

Class 7: A look at uses for Cloth and Hair. We will first of all make a bouncy hairy letter using cloth and hair. Then we will look at ways of fixing points on cloth and cloning onto the cloth using MoGraph. Finally we will look at cloning polygon object with hair.

Class 8: Part 1 of 3: Taking a concept and developing it into a completed animation. Week 1: look at some simple storyboards and artwork, break it into separate files ready to be imported into Cinema4D, use XRefs to create various logo types and copy, and setup a camera rig and block out the first stage of the animation.

Class 9: Part 2 of 3: We'll add detail to the logotypes we've already created, use MoGraph to add some detail, and adjust the F-Curves to fine tune the camera path we have already made.

Class 10: For the final week we will add in a few more details to the scene, animate some of the elements using mograph, then render out some passes and also export the 3D data to After Effects. The final part of the class will be taking the passes and 3D data into AE to add some effects.

CLR201 - Grading with Apple Color

This next level grading course builds upon our introduction to Apple's Color software. In the first course, fxphd helped users hit the ground running by introducing the basics to color correction using this application. In our 200 level offering, taught by colorist Kelly Armstrong, users will apply these tools in a more subjective and creative manner to forward the technical capabilities of the software in a more artisitic format.

Content will vary from various types of stock in different resolutions as well as imagery which will include but not be limited to nature scenes, dialogs and short films. This class will delve into the aspect of color correction from a higher, creative viewpoint rather than technical, straightforward vantage point.

We'll look at a scene and take various approaches to correction. It's extremely common for a colorist to have to dramatically change the mood of scene on the fly during a grading session, under the supervision of clients. For example, we will look at a scene shot straight out of the gate, and create looks that reflect different points in time, from scratched up vintage film to a 70's era tinted look. Or help a DP turn a grey, gloomy day into a sunny day for continuity purposes. The class will be able to try their hand at this at the same time and then talk about their success afterwards.

Armstrong spent 20+ years as a colorist at Avenue Edit Chicago, and now freelances working off of Color. While at Avenue, she worked primarily on national commercial work, including spots seen during the Super Bowl, Olympics and Academy Awards for clients including Coors Light, McDonald's, Addidas and Michelob. Along with commercial work, she has color corrected music videos, documentaries, independent and feature films.

Professor: Kelly Armstrong (Kellyarmstrong)

DAV210 - Grading with da Vinci Resolve

da Vinci grading systems such as the 2K have been at the top of the industry for grading commercials, episodic television, music videos, and film. Over the past year or so, their next generation Resolve system has begun to be installed in earnest at top facilities around the world. Their use of multiple NVIDIA CUDA hardware boxes allows realtime performance in grading image resolutions up to 4K.

This introductory course, taught by colorist Charlie Ellis, is designed to provide a solid foundation of how the system works and designed to get users who are unfamiliar with Resolve up to speed quickly. The course begins with an overview of the hardware, including the dedicated grading panel. Members will then learn how setup projects, load footage into the system with EDLs, prepare timelines for grading, and then dive into actual grading. The various tools will be examined including how to grade with primaries and secondaries, and isolating grading through masking and tracking. After the operational foundation is laid, the last part of the course will take this knowledge and examine using the tools to grade a variety of footage creatively.

Ellis is a colorist working at Blackmagic Design Post Production in Singapore (yes, same Blackmagic but different division). He helped oversee the adoption of Resolve at the facility, where they specialize in commercials, high definition documentaries, television series, and feature film finishing.

DIT201 - The Digital Image Technician

This course is designed for all technical creatives who wish to work on-set, up close and personal with the camera, but who also like to dabble in a little bit of post production. The DIT (Digital Imaging Technician) must have a base of knowledge to cover a wide range of areas within the pipeline from pre-production to post and be able to answer queries from editing to resolution, frame rates and colour grading.

The course will start with traditional film workflows, move into the digital era, and then transition into the workflows for various cameras such as the Red One, Panasonic P2, SI2K, Genesis and Phantom. We will look into colour spaces, LUT's, RGB, YUV. What does it all mean? Breaking down video signals, sampling and compression. We will finish off with several workflows and optimizations for multiple scenarios and the pros and cons of each workflow.

The DIT Professor for the course is Australian based Allen Chesser -- aka Chesh. Chesh was the first Red Camera data wrangler in Australia, working on the feature The Nothing Men. The sudden intake of Red cameras brought him a lot of work in tv commercials before he headed to Melbourne to work on Alex Proyas' Knowing.

Professor: Allan Chesher (cheshmonkey)

Class 1: Changing The Film Industry Traditional film pipeline and the change into the digital era. How new technology such as the Red One is changing the way film-makers approach and shoot films, playback and view shots on set, and handle the massive amounts of data in post. We will also delve into Varispeed frame rates, over cranking, resolution, and formats (SD, HD, HDV, 720P, 1080P, 2K, 3K and 4K).

Class 2: Red Camera Data Technician Changing the ideal of a traditional DIT. The processes involved in on-set data archiving used for the feature film Knowing and the issues raised with shooting a big budget feature on developing technology. The hardware and software used, pits and traps, and what to look for. Explaining the lingo in transfer protocols, firewire, USB, ESATA, megabytes and megabits, and data recovery.

Class 3: Video Split, R3D Apps and rough grading on set Setting up a video village for a commercial shoot. Using Final Cut Pro and AJA for video split, capturing, playback, and on-set editing. On-set rough grading of R3D material using Red Alert and Red Cine and their pros and cons. Exporting still frames and grading for the DOP as grade references. Grading in Photoshop and Lightroom.

Class 4: Workflows and The Data Coordinator The responsibility of archiving various formats of footage offsite and verifying the integrity of the image. Managing the data and the evolution of the image through transcoding. The role of the Data Coordinator in analyzing bottlenecks in workflow, time-management and testing a pipeline.

Class 5: Digital Imagery, Colour Spaces and Sampling Square and rectangular pixels. The De-Bayer mosaic on the Red ONE, CCD, CMOS, LUTS, RGB and YUV

Class 6: Digital Cameras in-depth A look at the Sony and Panavision high end cameras including Genesis camera and its pros and cons. What they shoot on, how to deal with the footage that comes in and Panalog.

Class 7: Digital Cameras -- The dark side of the moon Having a look at the Panasonic P2, Phantom and SI2K cameras and how they work. Shooting to digital media and a tape-less workflow. Transcoding high-speed footage and getting that footage into an existing workflow.

Class 8: File formats and Compression Which codec to use and why? Compressed vs uncompressed. Comparison tests between files sizes vs image quality. Video signal, making sense of the numbers 8:4:4, 4:4:4, 4:2:2, 4:2:1, 4:2:2:1, 4:2:2:4(A). Image formats, JPG, PSD, PNG, Tiff, Dpx, Open EXR and video formats Pro-Res, Divx, Avi, Sorenson and QT MOV

Class 9: CSV files, a look at Redemption and various RAID options

Class 10: Grading with RedAlert, Photoshop, Lightroom and a look at a few useful workflow tools such as Monkey Extract, Crimson and Scratch.

DOP301 - On Set Day and Night with RED One

A combination of the very popular RED and DOP courses, this 300 level course answers the question 'what does it take to film a low to mid budget feature film with the RED?'. We will cover everything from camera testing, a test shoot, lighting, and output through post production. Additionally, we will extend upon last terms DOP 201 course and cover more complex lighting and staging issues, complete with lighting diagrams and notes.

Professor: Mike Seymour (mikes)

Class 1: On location for a recce (reconnaissance) of this terms shoot. A successful recce could be the make or break of a shoot. Mike and Ben discuss about all the things we need to look at in preparation and anticipation of the shoot as well as what you need to bring with you on the recce.

Class 2: We head into the test bay at our rental house to ensure all the gear we will need for our shoot works together and that nothing is left out. We look at accessories, lenses and on set IO requirements.

Class 3: Part 1 On set - we observe the actors and director walking the space, followed by the technical walk through which reveals the lighting and grip requirements for the discussed shots

Class 4: Part 2 On set - setting up to shoot the day scene

Class 5: Part 3 On set - Setting up and shooting the night scene

Class 6: Options for on-set monitoring, LUTs and the DIT

Class 7: Red One's ISO/ASA concept, simple FCP workflow for commercials, Ben and Mike's discussion about lightmeters

Class 8: A look at the House shoot edit with editor Enzo Tedeschi

Class 9: Mike talks about post feature film workflow

Class 10: We are off to grade our DPX files with the da Vinci Resolve to explore the final stage of the story telling process before the film out and completing the DI workflow

DRK301 - VFX and Indie Films

In this course, veteran no-budget filmmakers Michael Scott and Ryan Wieber discuss how to make a high-quality film with little to no money, but with few to no compromises. This course will run the gamut from theory to tech, prep to post, exploring the crucial, yet oft-neglected interrelationship between production and post. This course will also cover some fundamental principles of digital filmmaking that everybody ought to know, utilizing examples from Scott and Wieber's prior work as well as new material created for the course.

Professor: Michael Scott (DorkmanScott)

Class 1: Discussion of the two meanings of "Get it in camera.", and our opinion that sometimes the "why" of an effect -- the way in which it serves the story -- can be a more important question than "how". And, using the "severed arm" sequence from our film RvD2 to demonstrate how we attempted to get the most realism possible out of an unreal moment.

Class 2: This class, the first of two classes focused on shooting fight scenes, begins with a conversation with fight choreographer Anthony Alba regarding his background and his process when creating a fight scene for a movie. Then we jump to the actual shoot of a fight scene that he created expressly for this class. The class is a "fly on the wall" view of the process, with tips and tricks shared throughout, all in preparation for next week's class, when we will edit the footage.

Class 3: In this week's class, we talk through the editing process of the fight scene we shot in last week's class. We discuss organizing the project, picking the best takes, and then making the tough decisions of what to show, and what's gotta go. We start with the raw takes and have a full cut by the end of the class.

Class 4: "Speed Compositing" Tips, tricks, and techniques for turning around a large number of shots in a small amount of time, organization, workflow recommendations, and high-volume batch compositing.

Class 5: In our last class before the midterm break, we go back to concrete examples from our film Ryan vs Dorkman 2, and break down some of the other visual effects challenges we faced in the film, including a discussion of the popular wall sequence.

Class 6: VFX Supervising What you really need to know on-set

Class 7: Indie Digital Post Technical issues for low-to-no budget post

Class 8: This week we get back to hands-on, real-world applications of concepts with a short driving-on-greenscreen sequence, showing the production and post-production concerns of a very common VFX scenario.

Class 9: Cloning sequence, Part 1 Planning, shooting, and rough edit to pre-visualize the effects.

Class 10: Cloning sequence, Part 2 A closer look at editing for vfx, and various techniques are used to finish a few shots in the sequence.

EDT201 - The Craft of Editing

In this class, hosted by senior editor Liz Tate, we will investigate the theories and workflow of editing in the world of advertising post-production. Students will learn techniques for enhancing their editing skills in dialogue editing, sound design, pacing, and FX/design. By following a project from start to finish, the class will focus on the role and responsibilities of the editor in the post-process.

For the first time at fxphd, individual projects and critique will be integral to a course. Students will be given two editing projects to accomplish and critiques will be given as part of the classes. It's a great way to learn and we hope that a large number of members will take part in these assignments.

Liz Tate graduated from Northwestern University with a B.S. in Radio/TV/Film. In her 20+ year career in editing, she has mentored more than a dozen assistant editors to help them polish their skills to become editors. She recently partnered to start her own post-production company, Hootenanny, in 2008. Past and present clients include American Express, Southwest Airlines, Crate&Barrel, JCPenney, and Reebok.

Professor: Liz Tate (liztate)

Class 1: The basics of Editing We investigate what the job of the editor entails, as well as discuss classic editing theory by showing examples from a variety of projects and films.

Class 2: The workflow What happens when the job walks in the door? How to systematically breakdown the film, begin your cut, and make sense of it all.

Class 3: Putting theories to the test In this class, we discuss continuity editing, montage, pacing, and editing for punctuation. Students will learn techniques for creating each style, and discuss reasons for using one style over another. Students will be assigned Project #1 as their first editing project (deadline: end of break week).

Class 4: The role of sound in the rough cut Sound in all its forms will be examined, from sound design in the rough cut, to editing music and voiceover.

Class 5: Keeping it in sync We will take apart dialogue editing, talk about its conventions, and learn how to cut a scene from various focal angles. Students will also learn tips for keeping complicated cuts in sync during the editing process.

Class 6: So now you're an editor The class will focus on critiques of Project #1. We will also visit with Jerem Sloan, an editor in his first year of cutting, to talk about his experiences transitioning to the first chair. Project #2 will be assigned (deadline: end of week #9).

Class 7: Adding to your arsenal How to incorporate simple elements of design, effects, and color to polish off your rough cut.

Class 8: Condensing a story How do you tell a story in a limited amount of time? The class will discuss techniques for cutting a story to a specific time, or just getting the fat out of your cuts.

Class 9: The world of the advertising editor Students will follow the example project discussed in the class through its finishing stages in audio, color grading, and on-line editing. Preparation for these studios, as well as the responsibilities of the editor in each of these places will be addressed. Will include interviews with colorists and audio engineers about how they like working with the editor.

Class 10: Wrap-Up and Forum Questions Project #2 will be critiqued. A discussion of tips for getting a foot in the door at a post facility, as well as preparing yourself with the skills you need to be successful as an editor or assistant editor. Topics generated out of the on-line forums will be discussed.

FLM102 - Introduction to Flame

Our new introductory flame course is designed to get artists up and running in the software so they can be confident working on scenes and spots in the app. We get a lot of questions from potential flame artists asking if they should take the course even though they don't have easy access to a flame or flint system. The answer is an emphatic "yes". The course is designed with the understanding that your time might be limited on the system -- for instance, maybe you're a junior artist who can only get on the system at night or you will be doing an internship at a facility in the coming months. By taking FLM102, when you get time on a flame, you won't have to waste hours finding your way around the software.

Taught by fxphd co-founder and longtime flame artist John Montgomery, the course begins with an exhausting overview of the system and the UI. This is important considering flame doesn't follow many of the standard desktop conventions users might be familiar with. Once that is done, we'll quickly dive into the various modules with a project-based approach to learning them. Our goal is to have course members be able to execute entry to intermediate level jobs on the flame by course completion. At the end of the term, an online certification exam will be available in order for you to test your knowledge.

Professor: John Montgomery (johnmont)

Class 1: An overview of the flint/flame, including hardware, the software and UI conventions you need to know.

Class 2: The start of a multi-class tv ident project. A first look at action, paint, masking and more.

Class 3: Our first in-depth look at Action. Using the camera to create a 3D environment for the ident, layering types, creating the black/white city look and more.

Class 4: Continuing the indent, with a look at keying techniques in Action.

Class 5: Finishing off the ident. Premult v. unpremult action layers, adding graphics with reflections, cheating the 3D look with layering.

Class 6: Beginning an example tv commercial project, starting with an EDL assembly from videotape. A comparison between a standard NTSC assemble and using 24P mastering to make life easier.

Class 7: Timeline editing basics: trimming, sliding, swapping shots. Grading a shot and layering water effects on the scene to set the look of the spot.

Class 8: Batch, Pt 1 of 3 A simple batch tree, recreating the colour grading and layering done in the previous class, context viewing, and outputting. Also, a brief look at two timewarps.

Class 9: Batch, Pt 2 of 3 Beginning the opening shot using a mix of Action nodes and direct nodes in batch. A quick look at desktop paint to fix up a water drop for distorting.

Class 10: Batch, Pt 3 of 3 The Distort node, Text, Optics, and Sapphire Sparks all help take the opening graphic to completion.

FLM203 - Flame in Production II

This course is in the spirit of our most popular courses here at fxphd: doing some cool shots and providing the footage for you to work along on the shots yourself. Professor and Dean Mike Seymour will be compositing a bunch of shots and looking at a range of new features in the 2009 versions of Flint/Flame. In addition to compositing shots using Flame's built-in tools, this course will also use the Foundry's Furnace plugins to tackle the work. Members who enroll in the course will be able to obtain a free 90-day educational license of Furnace for Flame/Flint/Smoke (sorry, but licenses for other platforms cannot be provided).

Areas covered over the course of the weeks:

Flame and HDR, grading and working in high bit depths
Keying and working with Digitally captured material
Wiretap Central
Workflow Improvements
3D Tracking
Updates on keying and tricks for better keys

Generally we will just work through shots we have done and along the way explain the new features of Flame while also using the extremely cool Furnace plugins. Mike and John have done entire courses in the past on Furnace and these new classes hit our favourite plugins and cool tricks to do with them. It will also explain some of the theory behind the tools.

Professor: Mike Seymour (mikes)

FLM204 - Flame, Smoke, Expressions and More

Recent versions of Flame and Smoke have blurred the line between products, as Smoke gains BatchFX and Flame gains a more versatile editing timeline. This class is designed to be appealing to artists and editors alike, covering topics which are generally applicable across both products. The common thread throughout the term will be taking a look at expressions and how they can help you as an artist and editor. Professor and Dean John Montgomery will tackle a wide variety of workflow expressions -- ones any artist can use on a daily basis to simply changes to more esoteric, hard core maths which demonstrate both the power and limitations of the feature.

In addition to expressions, Montgomery will also be covering other aspects of the software such as infrastructure (Configuring for Open FS vs. Stonefs, Wiretap Central) and working with RED and XML/AAF.

This course will deal with some subjects and material that has been covered in other (now retired) fxphd courses such as the FLM201 expressions course. However, with changes in the 2009 and 2009X1 releases a lot has changed in the software, so we felt a need to retire the old create a new course. We realize many of you have taken our past offerings and will keep this in mind to bring new and useful material into this offering.

Professor: John Montgomery (johnmont)

Class 1: Expressions An overview of what will be covered in the course and then diving directly into creating expressions you can use daily.

Class 2: BatchFX and the Timeline Flame artists find the timeline overwhelming. BatchFX is a new paradigm for Smoke editors. This class will find the common ground for both and show why the 2009 improvements are so powerful.

Class 3: Expressions Custom user expressions and using expressions to control layer slip, using selection order, creating counters, and offsetting animations.

Class 4: Expressions An improved bi-cubic grid resizer for warping and distorting, camera shake, custom nodes.

Class 5: RED Who hasn't been asked to do a job using RED footage? With all the continual changes, it's tough to keep up with the latest tools and software. While we've covered dealing with RED footage in the past, we offer our most up-to-date recommendations. This is based upon real-world workflow we've used for short films and commercials at our partner facility Hootenanny in Chicago.

Class 6: Expressions Using expressions to animate OpenEXR textures on 3D geometry to create a completely graphical spot.

Class 7: Infrastructure A look at configuring your system for Open FS and the differences between this and the Stonefs filesystem. Also, using scripting, command line tools and Wiretap Central to get clips in and out of your system.

Class 8: Math and Expressions Don't run and hide -- math is incredibly useful for creating expressions. We'll provide the building blocks to build more complex expressions.

Class 9: Working with FCP and Avid Strengths and weaknesses of EDL, XML, and AAF for getting material into your system.

Class 10: By Popular Request Users in the forums request items to be covered in the course.

FUS101 - Introduction to Fusion

Matt Leonard leads our Fusion course at fxphd. His sphereVFX company has been doing Fusion training for years, including creating an intermediate level DVD for the app. Leonard has worked in the animation and visual effects industry for over sixteen years producing state-of-the-art work for feature films, broadcast and commercials in the UK and US markets.. He has set up and run animation divisions in five companies, overseen animators and compositors, worked as a CG Supervisor on various projects and has overseen live-action shoots.

Professor: Matt Leonard (mattdleonard)

View a short sample clip from one of the FUS101 classes

Class 1: This class looks in depth at the user interface of Fusion 5.2 and shows how to create your first composite

Class 2: This class looks at replacing a sky in a scene along with adding a sign and video screen to the side of a building. We are mainly at Transform and Warping nodes within Fusion but we also cover some Colour Correction Matte and Effects Tools

Class 3: In this class we look at the colour correction tools inside Fusion 5.2, Depth Pixel tools for utilizing additional colour channels such as U, U and Normals, and a quick look at openEXR

Class 4: In this class we look at the Masks and rotoscoping tools, specifically Rectangle, Triangle, Elipse, Bitmap, Mask Paint, Wand, BSpline and Polygon Mask

Class 5: In this class we look at the Keying and Matte tools along with Light Wrap techniques and Macros

Class 6: In this class we cover Tracking, Stabilization and Corner Pinning

Class 7: In this class we cover Paint, and the time manipulation tools

Class 8: In this class we cover all the main aspects of 3D in Fusion

Class 9: In this class we cover more of the 3D functionality in Fusion, focusing on Point Cloud data, Camera Projections, and .fbx and 3rd part data importing

Class 10: Introduction to particles, and a bonus class covering 25 new nodes not covered in the other lessons, along with a more detailed look at Fusions Graph Editor

FUS201 - Intermediate Fusion

Matt Leonard leads our intermediate Fusion course at fxphd, building upon his 100-level introductory course. Since members have learned the basics in FUS101, Leonard will cover using the app on a project basis, tackling scenes over several classes in order to show how to truly get the most out of the software. From greenscreen keying, to tracking and using 3D projections, to graphics design, you'll see why Fusion is used by so many different types of artists.

Leonard's sphereVFX company has been doing Fusion training for years, including creating an intermediate level DVD for the app. Leonard has worked in the animation and visual effects industry for over sixteen years producing state-of-the-art work for feature films, broadcast and commercials in the UK and US markets..

Professor: Matt Leonard (mattdleonard)

Class 1: I Love Sarah Jane, House Damage We start our new course with a straightforward visual effects shot taken from the short film, "I Love Sarah Jane". In this class we'll look at transforming a smart residential home into a busted up, graffiti scrawled, zombie trashed house. We'll use a collection of techniques including roto, tracking, paint, colour correction and much more.

Class 2: Robots and Wendy House Our second project for the course spans three weeks and involves adding multiple CGI robots into a handheld, live action plate shot on the RED camera. The shot will involve multiple compositing tricks including multi-pass renders, tracking, roto, sky replacements, colour correction, and a bunch of integration techniques such as light-warps, edge-blurs, and more.

Class 3: In the second of three classes covering the Wendy House and CGI Robots we focus on Material/Object ID customization, Camera Projections and Normals.

Class 4: Continuation

Class 5: Motion Graphics in Fusion Our next project spans a couple of weeks and really shifts gears into the area of motion graphics. Our project is to create on-screen graphics similar to those seen in Iron Man, Minority Report or The Island. We'll be using a mixture of live action along with graphical elements created in Photoshop and Fusion. All these will be treated to create a very animated, stylised, motion graphics look.

Class 6: Continuation

Class 7: Lexus Commercial In yet another three week project we create the illusion of a camera pull back through the inside a car while driving down the road. What we have to work with is quiet different; a stationary car shot on a green-screen stage. To pull off this complicated shot we'll be looking at creating a 3D pan and tile environment, adding contact lighting, realistic reflections and a host of tricks to create the illusion for a moving car.

Class 8: Continuation

Class 9: Continuation

Class 10: Aftermath This shot, originally created by Theodor Groeneboom, shows off Fusions 3D and particle tools to the max. This final class goes step by step through the process of creating a building explosion from a single photograph. We'll be covering a whole mixture of techniques and tools including camera projection, particles, colour correction, paint, roto, to name a few.

HOU101 - Introduction to Houdini

Taught by Valerie Cripps, this new introductory course will give you an introduction to Houdini 9.5, getting you familiar with the interface, procedural workflow, and some basic fx principles. The software is vast and used in most of the big production houses for many types of film effects. Getting these basics is a great way to open the door to creating killer visual fx for film production. Over the course of the term, you will learn the building blocks necessary to create a foundation for further production lessons in Houdini with a mind to creating film effects. The course begins with a solid overview of the UI and application principles and then dives into a sample project for the rest of the term.

Cripps worked at Side Effects Software for 7 years before going into production in 2003. She has worked as a freelance fx and lighting artist at Sony Imageworks, CBS and Rhythm and Hues on films such as Superman Returns, Spiderman 3, and Mummy 3, among many others, working on effects such as swarms of flying locusts, flames, crowds, snow, dust, clouds and more.

Members may use the Houdini Apprentice addition, which is available as a free download from the Side Effects web site. For only $99, a Starving Artist Edition of the software is also available which allows for watermark-free renders up to HD resolution -- perfect for adding a shot to your demo reel. Both versions of Houdini Apprentice include all of Houdini Master's features except for the ability to render to third party renderers. Files created using the Apprentice versions cannot be opened in the full version of the software. However, upon upgrading to the full version, Side Effects will do a one time conversion of all your non-commercial work to Houdini's commercial format.

Professor: Valerie Cripps (ValCripps)

Class 1: Intro to the Interface, Part 1 Get an intro to Houdini's node based, procedural workflow, learn about all of the different types of editors (from modeling to compositing), get your work flow and personal settings going, and find out where to get help, plug ins and more.

Class 2: Intro to the Interface, Part 2 Now that I've shown you where most everything is, let's get used to the interface via a very simple example and put into practice what we learned in the first lesson, so we'll be rockin' as we go through the rest of the term.

Class 3: Project Introduction to our 8 lesson project that we'll complete throughout the term. This lesson includes getting started with the geometry editor, some basic procedural modeling principles and creating and file setup in Houdini.

Class 4: We continue our project setup with this week's lesson: Animating in Houdini (both keyframing and using expressions), the channel editor, and more.

Class 5: Getting to the meat of Houdini FX - particle attributes and the geometry spreadsheet. This week we get our project set up for particle editing, where we will learn some hard core principles of fx production.

Class 6: Based on what you've learned, you are now ready to play with POPs and editing particles - more good Houdini learning and the next step of our 8 lesson project.

Class 7: This week we get familiar with editing cameras and lights, grouping objects, coloring nodes, and more tricks of the interface to make production a streamlined process.

Class 8: We take a look at what we've been creating by setting up render passes and layers for comps this week.

Class 9: This week we look at our compositing passes, and see how it all fits together making procedural tweaks and trouble shooting anywhere along the pipeline that we've created for our project. Setting up the proper procedural work flow allows for making changes from beginning to end - something you need and love in production.

Class 10: Review of principles we have learned along with future directions, more tricks and tips, that all make sense now that you are Houdini-fied.

MSV101 - Introduction to Massive

This course, taught by Geoff Tobin, aims to give an introduction to the inner workings of Massive from the ground up, introducing core concepts such as fuzzy logic and how it relates to creating an AI brain for a Massive agent. In order to demonstrate each of the aspects of Massive we'll develop a vehicle agent and show how a simple traffic simulation can be created. Massive is the artificial-life crowd simulation software developed for The Lord of the Rings trilogy and used on major motion pictures, TV shows and commercials.

Tobin is a Lead Massive TD working at Weta Digital in Wellington, New Zealand. He started working in the industry in 1993 as an animator using SideFX Prisms, Alias PowerAnimator and Maya. Geoff has been working with Massive since 2000 and was involved with its early development in creating the crowd scenes for The Lord of the Rings trilogy. He has since used Massive in motion pictures such as I-Robot, King Kong, X-Men 3, Eragon, Bridge to Terabithia and The Day the Earth stood still.

Members of fxphd will have access to the full version of Massive software via the vpn. The software is only to be used for educational purposes or building shots for a personal (individual) demo reel.

Professor: Geoff Tobin (geoff_tobin)

Class 1: Getting started The introductory class will give a general overview of Massive and introduce concepts such as fuzzy logic. We'll take a tour of the user interface and look at the various aspects of the software such as the brain, body, motion and scene pages and how they relate to each other. I'll also discuss the usual pipeline of a massive project in a production environment.

Class 2: Body Shop In this class we will begin building the car agent. We'll take a closer look at the body page and how to create a skeleton in Massive. We'll also create a basic brain to drive the car.

Class 3: Brains! Part 1 This lesson will give detailed coverage of each of the brain nodes and how they interact. We'll discuss fuzzy logic in the context of a Massive brain and show how the brain implements fuzzy logic to define the agent's behaviour.

Class 4: Brains! Part 2 We will continue building the car brain to include acceleration and braking controls as well as simulating effects such as weight transfer - the way the car's body leans during turns and pitches forward and back when accelerating.

Class 5: Senses In this class we'll cover how a Massive agent uses it's senses such as sound, sight, touch and agent fields to allow it to be aware of and react to other agents.

Class 6: Environment, Part 1 This lesson will look at how a Massive agent interacts with it's environment and introduce concepts such as terrain adaptation, flow fields, terrain maps and lanes.

Class 7: Environment, Part 2 We will use what we learned in the previous class to create a simple city environment for the car agents to inhabit. We'll also create a traffic light agent to control traffic flow.

Class 8: Pedestrians In this class we'll add pedestrians to our city scene and show how they can interact with each other and the cars.

Class 9: Variation This lesson will show how you can use agent variables to modify an agent in order to create different kinds of vehicles that share a common brain.

Class 10: Detailing The final class in this course will cover attaching geometry to an agent and assigning materials to allow us to create a production quality render. We'll also revisit variation and variables in the context of geometry and materials and show how to create an even greater variety of vehicles.

MYA101 - Introduction to Maya

Taught by Matt Leonard, this Maya course is aimed at those who have little or no experience in 3D, or post-grads who know another system, such 3DS Max or Softimage|XSI but want to expand their software skills. The course is designed to cover almost all the main areas of Maya's vast toolset including modeling, animation, dynamics, shader building, lighting and rendering. The aim of the course is to keep it as project focused as possible and although we won't be producing a full animation every week the course is designed to get you full up and running and able to start producing greats shots for your reel as soon as possible.

Matt has been in the 3D and visual effects industry for 17 years and has produced work for feature films, commercials and large corporate projects. He has been involved in setting up post production departments, overseeing small teams of animators and compositors, along with acting as CG Supervisor on a number of projects. He has spoken at various events and shows on behalf of Autodesk and eyeon, had various articles published in magazine and journals and has beta tested Maya, Nuke and Fusion. He currently runs his own company in the UK.

Professor: Matt Leonard (mattdleonard)

View a short sample clip from one of the MYA101 classes

Class 1: This first extended class looks at creating a 3D logo. We look at modeling, shading, animation, lighting, camera and rendering

Class 2: The first of two classes looking at Modeling. This class we cover Curves and Surfaces including: Revolve, Loft, Extrude, Planar, Birail and Sweep.

Class 3: In this class we continue to look at modeling. The week we cover Polygons, Sub-Division Surfaces and NURBS

Class 4: This class we look at the basics of keyframe animation, adding an object to a path, working with deformers, and the various tools for previewing your animation including ghosting, motion trails, turntables and Playblasts. The class also covers the two main animation editors, the Dope Sheet and Graph Editor

Class 5: This class will look at all the basics for setting up a character for animation including setting up a skeleton, skinning (having the skeleton deform the skin), animation deformers (for muscle bulges, etc), constraints and blend shapes. The class will also cover the use of Trax, Maya's non-linear animation editor

Class 6: This class will look at the different types of particles available in Maya and their uses, particle emitters, defining and editing the particles once created, and controlling the particles once emitted using various fields such as gravity, wind, turbulence, and particle collision events and instances

Class 7: This class will look at creating soft bodies, active & passive rigid bodies, rigid body constraints and collisions

Class 8: This class will look at shaders, textures and utility nodes

Class 9: This Class will look at 6 types of lights, 3 types of cameras and Projections Camera

Class 10: This class will focus on setting up a project for rendering, covering the main Maya software renderer, the hardware renderer, vector renderer, brief look at mental ray, and render layers. Bonus: Set Driven Key, Expressions and .MEL

MYA210 - Intermediate Maya III

Professor Matt Leonard is an fxphd favorite. He's taken a look at the previous Maya courses offered and will be filling in the gaps and providing more detail on subjects already covered. A key collaborative aspect of the course will be providing elements for the 'zombie' film Last Caress -- working with the character development class to provide support. Leonard has worked in the animation and visual effects industry for over sixteen years producing state-of-the-art work for feature films, broadcast and commercials in the UK and US markets. He has set up and run animation divisions in five companies, overseen animators and compositors, worked as a CG Supervisor on various projects and has overseen live-action shoots.

Professor: Matt Leonard (mattdleonard)

Class 2: Modelling Surface, NURBS, Subdivision Surfaces, Polygons

Class 3: Creating a 3D underwater environment

Class 4: Constraints and dynamics

Class 5: Paint Effects Making objects paintable, brush settings and attributes, painting

Class 7: Rigid Body Dynamics

Class 8: A look at the new features of Maya 2008 New features for the UI, general features, modeling, animation, characters and rendering.

Class 9: Trax Maya's non-linear animation system Part 1

Class 10: Trax Maya's non-linear animation system Part 2

NUK102 - Introduction to Nuke

Taught by Sean Devereaux, this new introductory course will expand upon the Foundry Nuke tutorials produced by fxphd. Nuke version 5 software will be available over the VPN to fxphd postgrads for non-commercial use (OSX, Linux, and Windows versions). Devereaux has worked at Digital Domain, ILM, RhinoFX and other facilities as a freelance artist, working on films such as Transformers, Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, I, Robot, Star Trek: Nemesis, and others. If you've viewed the Foundry DVDs, this course will cover the software in much more detail and is a great next step in learning the software.

Professor: Sean Devereaux (filmsoup)

Class 1: Everything you wanted to know about the nuke 5 interface but were not bored enough to ask! This class will give you all the in's and out's of nuke's workflow and layout.

Class 3: Pixel based image tracking including stabilization, match moving and motion blur.

Class 4: Awesome Keyers! The core keyer in nuke and the joy of rotoscoping!

Class 5: Super Awesome Keyers! Primatte, the IBK and the loneliness of keyng hair.

Class 6: Color Tools! An in-depth look at my favorites and an introduction to most of the others.

Class 7: Introduction to the magical world of 3D compositing! Requires nuke5.1v1 or later.

Class 8: An introduction to the 3D system in production. Importing camera and object data from various sources and an introduction to projections.

Class 9: Scene study: Using the 3D system to cleanup a shot and create monitor replacements at record speed.

Class 10: Wire/Rig removal. Nuke specific, but utilizing principles that can be used in any compositing software. Also, a brief introduction to gizmos.

NUK202 - Intermediate Nuke

Our new intermediate Nuke course picks up where the 100 level offering left off. Using Nuke version 5, professor Sean Deveraux will work through concepts in the app as well as lead several project-based classes. The 3D compositing environment of Nuke is one of its strengths, so several classes will dive fully into this feature with practical, real-world examples. Deveraux will also be covering the nuts and bolts of setting up Nuke for automation as well as taking a first look at Gizmos, Nuke's "macro" functionality. The focus is on the type of work that any compositor might run into while working at a facility.

Deveraux is our lead Nuke professor at fxphd. He has been using Nuke since 2000, working as a compositor at Digital Domain on Hollywood blockbusters such as How the Grinch Stole Christmas, I, Robot, and Star Trek: Nemesis. Using a variety of compositing packages, his freelance work has taken him to ILM (Transformers), Hydraulx (Rise of the Silver Surfer), and others.

Professor: Sean Devereaux (filmsoup)

Class 1: Warping Minds and Pixels. One of the key tools to any compositor's toolbox is image warping. This week we'll cover shape based warps with corner pin, the grid and spline warper and image driven warps using the iDistort node.

Class 2: Project Class 1 - 2D Photoshop in a 3D Nuke world. Using a massive layered Photoshop still we will build and animate a stylized forest to wow friends and influence recruiters.

Class 3: Gizmos for the geeks in all of us. The "macro" system in Nuke is called gizmos. We will create a "smart" gizmo utilizing expressions and user controls and learn how to add that gizmo to our nuke menus for others to access.

Class 4: Pimp my Nuke. Pimp my Nuke. Building on last week's course, we will further customize nuke by adding and setting default working resolutions on launch, setting up shot specific working directories and other tasks that nuke can automate.

Class 5: Project Class 2 - Set Building and Camera Projections. Some live action, some CG, some set geometry, some keying. All part of the fun in our second project based class of the term.

Class 6: Part 2 of a 2 part production class that covers keying, 3D Projections, color correction, cameras and much more.

Class 7: Another 2 part production class. Part 1 of 2 covers keying, 3D Cards, stabilizing and turning a still frame into multi-dimensional image using the 3D system.

Class 8: Part 2 of 2 covers advanced keying, setting looks and overall comp production tips as we finish our night balcony scene.

Class 9: Project Class 4 - Multi, Multi-Pass Compositing - Part 1 of 2 . A completely CG shot with many layers to comp and refine. Focusing on Multi-pass compositing, layer ordering and organizing your 3D assets.

Class 10: Part 2: A completely CG shot with many layers to comp and refine. More in-depth multi-pass compositing and making the best of your elements.

NUK210 - Nuke in Production I

Tahl Niran, one of our inaugural and most popular professors at fxphd, returns with a production-centric Nuke course. He'll be tackling a wide variety of projects using Nuke as his compositing application, and diving into other apps as necessary to complete real world production shots. More details will be coming soon.

Professor: tahl niran (aneks)

NUK301 - Advanced Nuke

This is going to mainly be a project-based course, with shots being examined and finessed over several classes. Sean Devereaux will be leading the charge as prof for the course, with a few special guest speakers. First, fxphd regular tahl Niran will be doing several classes covering integrating 3D elements into composites.

Frank Reuter, the worldwide king of Nuke tools and customization will be our guest speaker for two classes where he will cover Nuke 5 customization, tcl and python scripting as well as advanced gizmo creation with expressions galore! Frank faces difficult production challenges everyday and comes at Nuke with that vital problem solving background. No other person on the planet has as much production experience as a Nuke technical director and these two classes will crack the mysteries and tricks of custom Nuke wide open.

Professor: Sean Devereaux (filmsoup)

Class 1: This week we cover the Nuke 5 interface and the huge additions to the Nuke package including stereoscopic compositing and 3D lighting!

Class 2: Special Guest Professor: Tahl Niran covers translating 3D objects and data between external applications and creating and assembling advanced motion graphics in nuke 5!

Class 3: Special Guest Professor: Tahl Niran continues with 3d integration and motion graphics, looking at using the .obj geometry along with mutli-channel renders to produce the final composite

Class 4: Special Guest Professor: Tahl Niran looks at how to composite the exterior matte shot from 'I love Sarah Jane' with a focus on keying, integration and other production techniques

Class 5: Part one of a four part class to start and complete a full HD production composite. This class will lay the ground work for the weeks to come and explain all the details we need to start shot production.

Class 6: Part 2 of 4

Class 7: PRODUCTION: Part three of a four part class to start and complete a full HD production composite. Adding scrolling text around the set and a creative way to deal with set problems when nothing else will work.

Class 8: Some basics for creating and editing nodes via python. For example, attaching viewer, changing knob values, deleting nodes; using initi.py to add to plugin paths; adding favorite buttons to file browsers; writing a simple interface so user can input shot data on application launch to dynamically create favorites

Class 9: A continued look at Python scripting and Nuke customization

Class 10: The final class of our production shot. We've come 75% of the way to final, for those brave souls willing to go the distance, this class will help you get there.

PFT202 - PFTrack in Production

fxphd's popular camera tracking specialist Victor Wolansky returns with a course using PFTrack version 5 in production situations. The reality of post production compositing and visual effects is that an artist is often called upon to use several tools over the course of a job. Even at large facilities where artists' work is incredibly specialized, being familiar with workflows and other applications is incredibly helpful -- knowledge is power. That's where this course comes in.

Throughout the term, Wolansky will cover tracking situations in the latest release of PFTrack. But in addition, for several of the shots, he'll not solve the camera, but spend several classes taking the scene into other applications and finish them off. This might include doing previs in Flame, compositing in After Effects, or using 3DSMax to model, animate, and render. One project for the term will be sharing work he did for a client, creating a fighter jet fly through a cloud scene. He started by tracking the camera in PFTrack and then took the track into Flame where he could quickly and interactively animate the jet during a session supervised by the director. Next, he exported that data and did the final rendering in 3DSMax before compositing the footage.

PFTrack version 5 also introduced new features such as stereoscopic tracking and reference frames, which will be covered during the term. Members will have access to stereo footage filmed specifically for this course -- and Wolansky will solve the camera and use that data to generate 3D renders. As always, The Pixel Farm has been kind enough to provide access to their software via our secure VPN. The software is only to be used for educational purposes or building shots for a personal (individual) demo reel.

The specific class outline and schedule is dependent upon the projects -- rest assured that members who have taken Wolansky's courses in the past have not been disappointed.

Professor: Victor Wolansky (victorw)

PHD111 - this week @ fxphd January 09 Term

This week @ fxphd not really a course, but a weekly update video about about what's going on at fxphd.com.

Professor: John Montgomery (johnmont)

PHT201 - Digital Photography

Professor: Tim Wheeler (Tim Wheeler)

Class 3: Photographing the sunrise

Class 4: Working with digital photos in Adobe Lightroom

Class 5: Portraits, Part 1 : Beginning shooting portraits with Angie from fxguidetv

Class 6: Portraits, Part 2: continuing from class05 on shooting different styles of portraits with Angie

Class 7: Flash photography - location shoot with Tim Wheeler

Class 8: Long exposure with lights and laser

Class 9: Food photography

Class 10: Drinks photography

PNT203 - Matte Painting for VFX

fxphd has had several matte painting courses in the past that have dealt with the craft from a conceptual standpoint. As promised, building upon these is our photo-realistic matte painting course. This offering will explore the processes and skill required when creating high quality, realistic matte paintings for use in visual effects shots including:

� How to start a painting fundamentals
� Photoshop workspace, setting up for TVC's as well as for Film
� Composition and Balance
� Element Integration
� Final Touches and Output Workflow

The course will be taught by Kurtis Richmond who has worked on a diverse range of TVC and feature film projects, most recently working on The Spirit and Bedtime Stories at Sydney's FUEL international.

PSD204 - Photoshop and Illustrator CS4

fxphd favorite Rose Draper returns with a course covering the recently released Adobe CS4 Photoshop and Illustrator. She'll be covering a variety of subjects during the term, from graphic design to dealing with HDR imagery and more. When would you want to use the 3D features in Photoshop? What's the most flexible way to work between Illustrator and Photoshop? Draper will use her production experience to show you job-proven tips and processes that work best.

More details coming soon.....

Professor: rose draper (sibylline)

RED101 - Introduction to RED Workflow I

This course is designed to give you everything you need to know to post a RED project. If you have done RED201 and RED202, you may not need this course and we would recommend the Scratch 201 course instead. This course will be new and up to date, but it will cover ground that was also covered in RED201 and RED202. As the RED landscape is changing so fast, it is important to have one serious workflow course that explains RED and how to post it -- and this is it.

This course will not be on camera operation other than how it affects on-set monitoring and workflow. The course will build from the basics of RED to the more advanced scripting and also cover briefly the new Scarlet camera and how it will fit into the Red landscape. All modules such as RedCine and Red Alert will be completely revised from previous courses, to accommodate the latest releases of that software.

Professor: Mike Seymour (mikes)

Class 1: NAB 2008 Update: Interview with Ted Schilowitz from RED

Class 2: Basics of how the RED camera encodes. How that processing as well as in-camera decisions effect post handling

Class 3: RED and R3D workflow. From on-set to archiving, with tips for sensible handling along the way

Class 4: A look at various Red related file formats and third-party utilities

Class 5: How to breakdown and budget your RED project

Class 6: Working with RedAlert

Class 7: Colour space, LUTs and tips on shooting better green screen and the science behind it

Class 8: Redcine overview, how it can assist your project and play a part in your workflow independently or with other programs

Class 9: A quick look at the Red workflow options

Class 10: Getting the best image out of RedAlert and Red Cine, and John shows how to use Red generated footage in Flame using various LUTs

RED203 - RED One Production

How to understand and shoot with the RED camera. We will explore the theory and practice of shooting with the RED, discuss how the Mysterium sensor works and how to get the most out of it, and test the RED lenses. We'll also examine what .r3d files are, how they are encoded, rate and explore recording media, and compare RED with other common capture tools and show how to use it on set and show how to use the latest RED software builds and versions. This course would be ideal if you have just gotten or are about to get a RED camera.

Note: This course replaces RED 201 which will no longer be repeated. It contains some footage from the previous RED 202 course, but is primarily new footage

Professor: Mike Seymour (mikes)

Class 1: Chat with DOP Peter Holland about the RED in General, and how the .r3d data is encoded. Comparisons to other modern digital cameras.

Class 2: Looking at the accessories and addons for the Red One camera.

Class 3: Lens comparison: the Red 18-50mm, the Cooke 75mm and the new Red 18-85mm lens.

Class 4: Understanding Color space, Gamma space and LUTs

Class 5: On set - a look at monitor calibration and on set monitoring

Class 6: This week we look at the pro's and cons of the new FCP and colour workflow

Class 7: How to rate your Red an tops for avoiding that "video" look

Class 8: Time-lapse, stop motion and ramping

Class 9: Interview with senior colorist Warren Lynch, specifically talking about working with Red files.

Class 10: Comparison of shooting green screen in daylight and tungsten

RTO210 - Secrets of Paint and Roto

"We'll fix it in post." No doubt you've heard the phrase before. And while it may get thrown around more than it should, the challenge of 'the fix' often falls to the paint and roto artist. From removing pesky crew members or production rigging in frame, to altering background environments or clothing on actors, we're going to focus on the approaches and techniques of this invisible art using standard tools like After Effects, Photoshop along with supporting apps like Mocha AE and software from The Pixel Farm.

Professor Wes Ball will be examining real-world production shots from recent TV shows as well as newly acquired RED footage. As we walk through the completion of full shots, you will gain a solid grasp on the fundamental concepts of paint and roto and hopefully learn a few hard-won tips and tricks along the way. Ball will be using After Effects as his finishing tool of choice, but the techniques he'll be showing are applicable across many different applications.

Ball's freelance operation, OddBall Digital, works in a variety of areas in film and TV, one facet being paint and roto for prime-time television.

Professor: Wes Ball (wesball)

Class 1: We'll get an overview of the kinds of paint shots that often come up in a production situation. Many of the shots we look at in this class we will come back to in detail later in the course. We'll start looking into approaches and how to think about removing unwanted elements in the frame.

Class 2: Balloons We'll remove a distracting crew member from shot using cloned patches and simple frame grabs. We'll also briefly touch masks and tracking inside of after effects.

Class 3: Stairs Another crew member gets in the way. We'll go about removing him by replacing the entire half of the frame. We'll look at creating the patch in photoshop as well as simple tracking in after effects with hand tweaks using null parents.

Class 4: Helicopter Using RED footage shot by fxphd, we'll look at a simple method for removing rigging cables supporting a model helicopter until its explosive demise. Specifically we'll show how simple roto shapes, still frames, and color keys can get the job done.

Class 5: Mic Wire Sometimes you can get away with using blurs and different blending filters inside of after effects to remove unwanted elements. In this case, a mic wire is taped across a guy's bare chest and we'll wipe it away with a few filters and a quick mask track.

Class 6: Go Kart Part 1 of 2 We'll start upping the ante with a fairly difficult shot of another crew member walking straight through the middle of the scene. We'll look into some serious tracking with a zoom and handheld camera.

Class 7: Go Kart Part 2 of 2 We'll finish out the shot with an in depth look at roto. I personally do all my own roto, and strangely find the process relaxing (usually). Roto is what it is, but hopefully I can give a few tips and tricks to help you stay efficient and stress-free.

Class 8: Shoreline In this class, we'll take a fast-moving handheld shot out on the ocean and clean the distant shoreline of any distracting buildings, ships, or evidence of civilization. We'll look at stitching several stills from different times in the frame into one giant patch. We'll track it into the shot, and then briefly look at the roto involved with finishing the shot.

Class 9: To Be Determined.

Class 10: Grass canons In the last shot of the course, we'll look into some advanced concepts. We'll remove an entire crew on a grassy hillside. Sounds easy, but trust me it wasn't. We'll look into 3D tracking and ways to rebuild elements of the grassy hillside in 3D and merge them back into the shot.

SCR201 - Scratch and Grading RED

Jeff Olm takes this course on colour grading with the Assimilate Scratch. Scratch has become extremely popular due to its unique position of being able to natively read RED's .r3d files. Jeff is an experienced Scratch artist with a very strong visual effects background in over 50 features. He has just finished doing a stereo 3D Scratch colour grade on Journey to the Center of the Earth as a Stereo Colourist. Jeff covers general Scratch workflow , grading Red footage and even gives an overview of Stereography issues using Scratch's stereo grading tools.

Professor: Jeff Olm (jeffo)

Class 1: Scratch overview and R3D import

Class 2: Matrix, Primary, Scaffolds and Versions

Class 3: Texture, Canvas, Qualifier, Vectors and Tracking

Class 4: Project management and working with dailies

Class 5: How to organize your conforms and displays/layouts

Class 6: Getting creative with colour to create beauty passes and make your talent look their best

Class 7: Grading Red footage

Class 8: Editing features, keyboard shortcuts, conforming and plugins

Class 9: Using Scratch to play with 3D footage and what camera settings gets the best result

Class 10: Overview of what Scratch can do and how it can help our workflow on your project, and how to get the seat as a Scratch operator

SHK102 - Introduction to Shake

A general purpose introduction to compositing that uses one compositing application to cover the basic concepts of compositing in a step by step way. Professor Tahl Niran will use Shake and Photoshop to illustrate all the key areas of image compositing for visual effects.

Even though development of the product has stopped, Shake is still very widely used in film compositing pipelines at the major studios and is likely to be one of the first tools an entry-level artist uses at the facility. With its affordable price point, the app is great way for up and coming artists to learn how to composite.

Professor: tahl niran (aneks)

Class 1: An introduction to the concepts of node based compositing and general introduction to compositing in Shake.

Class 2: In this class we cover the Shake interface, importing and exporting footage, as well as a basic introduction to the City Square project which we will be covering in depth throughout the term.

Class 3: Introduction to Mattes in Shake: Generating mattes and using mattes from other applications and introduction to rotoscoping.

Class 4: The Nuclear Blast comp. Using layers, transforms and filters to combine CGI and live action.

Class 5: This class covers transformations, using the curve editor for animation and an introduction to tracking.

Class 6: An introduction to procedural matte generation. Better known as Keying !

Class 7: Multipass compositing of 3d objects. Using a 3d robot to explore multipass compositing techniques and 3d integration in Shake.

Class 8: Log, Lin and Video. How to composite film images in shake and an introduction to various colour spaces.

Class 9: The China Square Composite. Part one of a two part class dealing with a sky replace and integration. Also installing macros in Shake and some good work habits.

Class 10: Part two of a two part class dealing with a sky replace and integration. Finessing the comp and useful tricks for dealing with hard to key areas.

SHK201 - Intermediate Shake I

Shake is the main stay of feature film compositing and in this course Tahl Niran focuses on the detailed workflow you need for real world feature film style compositing - but which are also relevant to other work such as compositing for commercials. This term we will be compositing a range of material from Cineon to Panalog and even traditional animation files. As shake is often used for compositing 3D - special attention will be given to this important area this term.

Professor: tahl niran (aneks)

View a short sample clip from one of the SHK201 classes

Class 1: Car Ad Part One - Tracking, Roto

Class 2: Car Ad Part Two - Sky Replacement, Multiplane, Colour Matching

Class 3: A Romantic Night - Smoothcam, Quickpaint, Primatte

Class 4: 2D animation composite using the mouse cell animation

Class 5: Advanced Multipass : Spaceship Part 1

Class 6: Advanced Multipass : Spaceship Part 2

Class 7: Intro to Expressions

Class 8: Removal and Plate Fixup - Lens Distortion, Clean Plate Generation

Class 9: The Oil Rig Part 1 & 2

Class 10: The Oil Rig Part 3 & 4

SHK302 - Shake (and More) in Production

A classroom is fine but does it really prepare you for your regular daily tasks as a compositor? We're very excited to have Tahl Niran, one of our most popular professors at fxphd, return for an all new advanced Shake in production course. Niran's courses have always been well received by postgrads and this course is sure to be no different.

The aim of SHK302 is to show the practical day to day approach the compositors use in production. Using the two most common scenarios for producion visual effects. Television commercials and film visual effects. Using two examples, the iPhone/Lexus spot and the short film I love Sarah Jane which was shown at Sundance, this course will demonstrate how to use a variety of tools to get the job done.

In production, software and a tools take a back seat. Technique and understanding are key. To this end the course will cover the principles and practice of bringing a series of shots to completion using a combination of Shake, Nuke, Maya, Boujou, Mocha and a few little bits and pieces. This also includes how to approach a shot creatively and from a design perspective and more importantly how to be flexible and client-conscious when approaching tasks. We will look at how to break down larger visual effects shots into manageable tasks and use composting and other visual effects techniques to maximise the quality and impact of the photographed material. In addition, we will be tackle key workflow issues including: file management, delivery and interchange formats and perhaps the most commonly requested topic. Colourspace management for film compositing.

This course is an advanced 300 level course and as such aimed at people with a solid knowledge in at least one compositing application and a grounding in the practical application of digital image management in a visual effects environment. Previous experience in either Shake or Nuke is highly recommended as is a knowledge of Photoshop and experience with a major 3D application is also beneficial.

Professor: tahl niran (aneks)

Class 1: Intro to the course, customizing shake under the hood to setup workflows for use during the duration of the project

Class 2: Setting up a rough comp of a shot from the Lexus commercial to begin visualizing the final result, using Shake and Photoshop

Class 3: A quick look at same shot from class 02, this time in Nuke, pointing out some color space handling differences. Also, starting the 3D elements and track in Maya, and a tip for finding good 3D models online

Class 4: Back to Shake, moving on with the comp, integrating 3D elements

Class 5: working with multi-pass compositing of floating point, multi-channel, exr files in Shake and Nuke, and more 3D prep in Maya

Class 6: Finishing the comp from a general compositing POV, but with a special look at getting the most out of Shake

Class 7: Starting a shot from "I Love Sarah Jane", where a number of techniques are used to add atmosphere to a scene by making a regular house look severely damaged using Shake, Nuke, and Photoshop. Also, using Mocha for roto.

Class 8: Another shot from "I love Sarah Jane" integrating a number of elements including a matte painting, sky replacement, and fog to completely transform the atmosphere of a relatively simple plate using Shake

Class 9: Continuing on with the finer tuning of the shot from class 08 in Shake

Class 10: A look at the closing shot from the Lexus commercial with keying, camera tracking, monitor replacement, and background replacement

SYN101 - Introduction to SynthEyes

Our fxphd tracking specialist, Victor Wolansky, takes members through the economical but incredibly powerful Syntheyes 3D tracking application. The course will be using the recent release of Syntheyes 2008. This course will give you the base knowledge you need in order to solve various types of shot.

Professor: Victor Wolansky (victorw)

Class 1: Tracking, solving, and using meshes in Syntheyes. Uses helicopter shot in desert.

Class 2: A bit of 3D tracking theory and a look at the manual tracker.

Class 4: A look at tracking stationary cameras on tripods with and without zooms. Also, a look at orientating the camera on a still or locked off shot.

Class 5: Stabilization and more tricks on orienting the 3D world with the footage.

Class 6: Tracking a DV shot and dealing with interlacing, compression artifacts, and an intro to masking.

Class 7: Brief on importing interlaced footage in a 3D app. A difficult handheld shot using manual tracking.

Class 8: Tracking a steadycam shot through the lab. Cleaning up trackers and prepping a shot for use in 3D.

Class 9: Tracking a shot with a lot of lens distortion. Adding distortion to CGI elements for use in compositing applications.

Class 10: Getting started with a very challenging shot. Instead of achieving a perfect track in one class, overall techniques are discussed that are useful when approaching more difficult shots.

SYN201 - Intermediate SynthEyes

Our Introduction to SynthEyes course got members up and running in the software as well as being able to address common problems that come up in post. This course will build upon the knowledge and tackle trickier and more complex tracks in SynthEyes than were addressed in the 101 course. Taught by our fxphd tracking expert Victor Wolansky, he'll dive into more detail in how to make sure you get the most accurate track possible and minimize camera drifting.

This course will also support the Advanced After Effects 302 course, providing 3D tracks for use in the main project for the term.

Professor: Victor Wolansky (victorw)

Class 1: A preview of the shots that will be tracked throughout the term. Manually tracking to guide and improve an auto track. Fine tuning manual trackers. Cleaning up the auto track, and solving the camera. Stabilizing the background, adjusting the trackers to match, and resolving.

Class 2: Working with tracking markers that leave and re-enter the frame. Adjusting Feature Size to get smaller, more accurate tracking points. Using the graph editor to identify and fix or delete bad tracking points. Using Lines to establish x, y, and z axis. Adding geometry for the screens, and exporting to 3DS Max.

Class 3: A continuation of the look at tracking for monitor replacement, using a new shot with many monitors. Dealing with motion blur. Using lines to calculate lens distortion. Additional methods for creating screen geometry.

Class 4: Continued practicing of previously learned techniques on a long, difficult shot, to master the basics before moving on in subsequent classes.

Class 5: Tracking of the car on the airport shot, learning about correct orientation and scaling so the car can be tracked and automatically be in the right place because of the correct scale between the two tracking.

Class 6: Second part of the car shot, now tracking the moving object

Class 7: Dealing with the "I Love Sarah Jane" bicycle shot, a shot that needs a lot of manual tracking and one of the most difficult ones to solve.

Class 8: Showing some tools that are very useful and unique like the green screen tool, the coalesce nearby trackers and the add many trackers with the lasso tool.

Class 9: Again the bike shot, but the very start, going through the big cloud of smoke with almost no visible trackers, how to deal with it.

Class 10: A BIG distortion shot and the whole workflow to deal with it.

January09 Term Courses Projected course outlines....subject to change

AFX204 - After Effects Motion Graphics Grab Bag