Adam Howard

Proud to see how raw facial performance capture transforms into expressive digital characters APPLE ARTS STUDIOS Motion Capture Services. With 15+ years of experience, we continue delivering high-quality motion capture solutions for films, games, and virtual production. #MotionCapture #FacialCapture #VFX #Animation #VirtualProduction

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I think Jon Finger is on to something here 🤔.... I posted about this possible future about a year ago.....🔮.. AI Underground Distribution Networks (Neo & White Rabbits) https://lnkd.in/e47HMqk8 Follow 🐇🐇🐇...? ..... 🔴 or 🔵....?

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Saying something has "No CGI" or "No VFX" in a film/show is not cool, especially when there's obvious CGI/VFX in them and there are even credits countering these statements. You're essentially insulting and slapping an entire hard-working department in the face and seemingly trying to discredit and erase them. We are here, we always have been, so please for the love of filmmaking, stop this trend. We can all appreciate practical approaches, but VFX exists in ways that many people forget so please remember that we're all collaborating artists and we all deserve respect for one another's craft without trying to erase each other's contributions. #vfx #filmmaking #television #visualeffects

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Design and production siloes are killing experiential projects. Every day we see design concepts that: - Don't match the budget - Aren't feasible from an engineering perspective - Are missing key specs - Are open to misinterpretation by fabricators - And raise many other red flags Because production experts aren't weighing in during the design phase. Catching these things early is all part of the collaborative workflow here at Bridgewater. We don't like surprises and neither do our clients. But far too often one firm designs it. Another one builds it. And guess what happens? #experientialdesign #experientialagency

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🎁 Free Scan #1 of 10 is here! (new pack) 🚀 Production-ready asset for Virtual Production, pre and post-production. Over the next 10 weeks, I'll be releasing a new, hyper-detailed 3DGS scan each week for you to use in your projects. This is a continuation of our large library of assets for the film industry. We're starting with this beauty: ➡️ https://lnkd.in/dw_xhXRn Want access to our entire, constantly growing library of free scans? Let me know, and I'll send you the link. I share goodies like this in almost every post, so stay tuned! Why is 3DGS the new reality for filmmaking? This isn't just "another technology"; it's a fundamental shift. Instead of spending weeks on pre-production, imagine this: ✅ Pre-production in hours, not days: We scan a complex location in a couple of hours. The director and DP can "walk" through it in VR the same day, planning every shot. ✅ No more "plastic" look: The main pain point of VP is the "game engine feel" of virtual sets. Our scans are a direct capture of the real world. We use a hybrid approach: LiDAR for huge spaces and custom multi-camera rigs for "hero" assets to ensure every detail is photorealistic. ✅ Seamless Integration: We don't just hand you a.PLY file. We are your R&D team. We'll show you and introduce you to the best solutions and plugins on the market for Unreal Engine, Unity, Nuke, After Effects, and Houdini, so you can painlessly integrate these assets into your pipeline. 🛠️ Hardware: An Honest Conversation XGRIDS scanners in Europe. But I'm not here to just sell you a product. I'm a practitioner, and my job is to help you choose the right tool. ➡️ LiDAR Scanners (XGRIDS): Perfect for massive scenes. But they have their flaws (dynamic range issues, "sky sticking"), which I write about often. If you buy a scanner through us, you get my personal, extensive expertise and consultation on how to work around these issues and achieve ideal quality. ➡️ Custom Rigs: For "impossible" tasks that require maximum detail (like in projects for Apple or Meta), I create unique multi-camera systems. If standard equipment can't do the job, we invent it. 🤝 Let's Build the Future Together! We're looking for interesting teams and projects to collaborate with. If you want to integrate 3DGS/4DGS into your pipeline but don't know where to start, or if you have an ambitious idea that others have dismissed, you've found the right person. Calendar: https://lnkd.in/dX_Gf9G5 Is the xgrids lixel l2 pro price justified for a small studio? Maybe not. Rent it or hire a pro. But if you do huge sites, this lidar for construction is a money printer. Here is the ROI breakdown: https://lnkd.in/dPPg6FQf XGRIDS & Nucleus4D #3DGS #4DGS #VirtualProduction #ImmersiveCinema #VolumetricFilm #LEDStudio #PostProduction #FilmMaking #Teleportour #ShramkoScan #Volinga #xgrids #volumetric #photogrammetry #ShramkoVR #ShramkoCamera #ShramkoSoft

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DaVinci Resolve 20.1 is live, and it just made immersive workflows real. If you edit, grade, do VFX, or mix audio, this update is worth opening Resolve for. This application provides native Apple Immersive Video support, enabling users to edit, color, add visual effects, mix spatial audio, and deliver content for Apple Vision Pro seamlessly within a single application. Quick highlights you can actually use: - Apple Vision Pro monitoring + Immersive Viewer: Pan, tilt, and roll immersive clips on your monitor or stream directly to Vision Pro for real-time previews. - Spatial audio support in Fairlight: Apple Spatial Audio Format support and 3D panning tools enable true spatial mixes, ideal for immersive storytelling and live performance work. - Fusion & AI upgrades: Magic Mask improvements, a new 3D title, USD-friendly VFX tools, lens-space corrections, and immersive patcher utilities. - Better VFX pipeline for stereoscopic/immersive footage. Newsshooter offers enhanced editor usability and a free version. It includes MultiText character and paragraph styling, CSV import for column-aligned text, improved safe-area tools, clip compositions that respect timeline resolution, and higher-precision timeline support. Why this matters: You no longer need 3 or 4 apps to build immersive experiences. Resolve is stepping up as a single platform to create spatial video and spatial audio, from ingest to final delivery. That changes how teams plan immersive projects and lowers the barrier for creators. #DaVinciResolve #ImmersiveVideo #AppleVisionPro #SpatialAudio #PostProduction #editingworkflow #videoeditordxb #dxbvideoeditor #creativecontent #editingupdates #softwareupdate

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I don’t write scripts for these. I ask questions and listen. The story reveals itself in the interviews - the pauses, the unexpected answers, the moments someone says something they’ve maybe never said out loud before. That’s where the real film lives. This video for WTS Puget Sound was built that way. Real conversations. Real people. Shaped into a story that makes you feel something, and understand why the work matters. Because the most powerful stories aren’t manufactured. They’re discovered. When organizations try to “sound polished,” they often lose what makes them human. My job is to find the human part - and build a narrative around it that connects. If your organization has something meaningful happening inside it, there’s a story worth telling. You just have to be willing to listen long enough to find it.

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Color Grading Sets the Mood, and It’s More Powerful Than You Think. Have you ever watched a movie where the scene felt warm and nostalgic or cold and tense, even before a single word was spoken? That’s the magic of color grading. It’s not just about making footage look pretty. It’s about guiding emotions, setting the tone, and supporting the story visually. From warm golden tones in love stories to harsh blue-greys in thrillers, color grading silently shapes how we feel. In today’s world, every social app offers filters. But filters aren’t color grading, they’re shortcuts. Color grading is a craft. It involves controlling contrast, shadows, highlights, saturation, and hues, all customized to suit your brand, story, or message. Whether you’re a content creator, filmmaker, marketer, or brand — your video isn’t finished until it’s graded. We live in a visual-first world. If you want your content to stand out, connect emotionally, and look truly professional, you must be grading your visuals. Don’t just add a filter. Set the mood. Tell a story. Make them feel. #ColorGrading #ContentCreation #VisualStorytelling #Filmmaking #VideoEditing #PostProduction #CreativeStrategy

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One project that consistently appears in public records and media coverage is the proposed Las Vegas Spaceport, developed by United Spaceports Corp. near Pahrump, Nevada. While still early-stage, it is often discussed as part of a broader shift toward multi-use space infrastructure rather than single-purpose launch facilities. From a research standpoint, the project aligns with several long-term industry trends: improving efficiency in air and space travel (including spaceplane concepts), applied research into water and resource-management systems relevant to both Earth and space environments, and academic exploration of next-generation energy concepts tied to long-duration missions. The space economy is increasingly described as a “Formula One–style space race,” where infrastructure readiness, rapid innovation, and integration matter as much as launch capability. In that context, spaceports are being designed with future-facing concepts in mind, including space tourism, orbital habitats, lunar operations, and resource exploration. Education is another core theme, with spaceports frequently positioned as hubs for STEM pipelines, NASA-style training, and college-level programs for teens through adults preparing for future aerospace careers. Finally, there is growing academic and industry discussion around SEC-compliant real estate and infrastructure ownership models, including fractional or tokenized structures, explored strictly as research into how large-scale space infrastructure may be financed and governed. My interest is purely educational and analytical: understanding how these systems intersect and how space infrastructure may influence future policy, education, sustainability, and capital frameworks. To help make an impact or invest talk this man he will sit you down with the founder Rob Lauer: Christian Thompson CMO 7024187999 spacportlv@gmail.com

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I get asked semi-often by small production companies or solo videographers how to make the jump. Where do you find clients? How do you get the bigger work? HOW DO YOU SHOOT ON AN ALEXA?!?! Everyone in video wants to work with better gear, more robust crews, killer talent. That's the goal. But the misstep I see is people thinking they need to execute it all themselves or only work with people at their same skill level... and then trying to convince prospects to give them the budget to play in a bigger sandbox, with no real executional know-how. That's backwards. When I moved to Indianapolis, I spent the first year or two just taking crew out to lunch and coffee. People who were better than me. Who had more gear than I did. Who knew more people. No agency relationships. No big brand contacts. Just a few small $1,000 video gigs here and there to keep afloat. It felt slow and I wondered if I was wasting time. But in retrospect, what I was actually doing was building a foundation. I was learning who had my back, who delivered, who I could trust when it mattered. And once I had a real community of crew in place, I could walk into a client meeting and speak with real conviction about pulling off their vision. Because I wasn't bluffing. I knew exactly who I'd call and what they were capable of, and that client had likely worked with those people in years past, so there was familiarity. That confidence is what landed us our first real job. And the crew behind me is what made sure we delivered. I didn't need to know how to pull off every step... So letting go of control and embracing the expertise of others is what allowed us to start to grow. Crew that has your back is worth their weight in gold. If you're early in this, don't skip that step. Invest in your community before you chase the big clients. And then maybe you'll shoot on an ALEXA.

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News from our California Film Commission, as reported by Variety this morning! The approval of funding for five studio films and 43 independent features showcases a substantial $94 million in tax credits. This milestone not only signifies progress but also demonstrates crucial support and accountability for our thriving film industry. It's a significant stride forward in the right direction on a complex issue and our industry has shifted away from decades of SOP #FilmIndustry #TaxCredits #CaliforniaFilms. https://lnkd.in/gxJ3AaUZ

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L.A. Production Activity Falls Below 2023 Strikes - new article: https://lnkd.in/gKhgW9da - plus Los Angeles On-Location Production Declines Yet Again In Q3 - article: https://lnkd.in/g87Ac8JC - Production in Los Angeles continued to be anemic over the last three months, falling below the level of activity recorded during the 2023 writers & actors strikes - The decline in location shoots was led by a sharp drop in reality TV production, which recorded its second-worst quarter in the last 15 years

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Covenant Pulse Protocol DRÆM SEQUENCE Submission DRÆM SEQUENCE isn’t just another render challenge it’s a global 3D community event where artists from around the world synchronize their creativity to the same 120 BPM heartbeat. For 30 days, we’re all building visuals around a shared rhythm. Same tempo. Same keyframes. Completely different visions. My submission transforms that 120 BPM pulse into a Covenant-inspired sci-fi light ritual. Massive alien doors respond to each on-beat keyframe (0-120), glowing, charging, and awakening in perfect sync with the beat. This challenge is huge because: Every artist works within the same strict timing framework Camera specs and tech specs push cinematic discipline Judging spans idea, lighting, composition, animation, and overall appeal Only one submission per artist A curated Top 100 montage raises the bar even higher It’s not just about making something cool it’s about precision, storytelling, and technical execution under shared constraints. This piece represents my interpretation of rhythm as architecture turning light, scale, and motion into a synchronized alien ceremony. Good luck to everyone in DRÆM SEQUENCE. Let the beat decide. Tags #DraemSequence #120BPM #BeatSync #SciFi #HaloInspired #Covenant #AlienArchitecture #CinematicLighting #3DAnimation #EmissiveLighting #Procedural #EnvironmentArt #HardSurface #GameArt #UnrealEngine   #Blender3D  

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A trailer raised $400,000. No distributor. No studio backing. No guarantee the film would ever exist. Just a visual and a story strong enough to make people reach for their wallets. That's The Lovers, from Studio Heartbreak.  A project Otsu Labs is part of. The trailer dropped in 2023.  By the time the campaign closed,  there was enough to produce 20 minutes of high quality animation. The model is simple. If you can't fund a full production, don't wait until you can. Package what you have. Make the best possible version of the first chapter. Put it in front of the right audience. Let them decide if it's worth finishing. It's the same logic as Steam Early Access. Some of those games took 10 years to ship. But the audience stayed because they believed in what they saw early. Studio keeps working. Audience gets something real to follow. Nobody waits for permission. Nobody waits for a greenlight that may never come. The film gets made because the people who wanted it helped make it possible. That's not crowdfunding as a last resort. That's a distribution model built on trust. #KhoaTrinh

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Very excited about this news because it's a step in the right direction towards rebuilding California as a hub for animation production. But, I'm very disappointed at the choice of shows being supported. It's not that Adult Swim’s President Curtis(Adult Swim), a Rick and Morty spinoff, and 20th Television Animation’s Stewie, a Family Guy spinoff aren't great shows. It's that they're already funded and supported by a distributor. These aren't the projects that actually need help! This is just an acceleration of the K-shaped animation economy where fewer and fewer are getting all the work, while the middle and independent efforts careen to the bottom and to bankruptcy. I hope subsidies continues because Cali really needs it. But, I hope they choose a more diverse set of recipients going forward. #animation #cartoons #survivinganimation

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I built a tool I wish existed when I started working in virtual production. 🎬 One of the most frustrating gaps in any VP or Techviz pipeline — only you know exactly what your virtual camera sees, but there's no clean, accurate, renderable way to show it to the rest of the team. Debug overlays don't render. Manual setups take too long. And guessing is never good enough when production decisions depend on it. So I spent my nights and weekends solving it. 𝗖𝗶𝗻𝗲𝗙𝗿𝘂𝘀𝘁𝘂𝗺 is now live on Fab — a native UE5 plugin that gives your cine camera a physically accurate, fully renderable frustum in the scene. Driven by real sensor and lens data. One click. No guesswork. No manual setup. Just the exact field of view — visible, accurate, and ready to render. ✅ 𝗦𝗲𝗻𝘀𝗼𝗿-𝗮𝗰𝗰𝘂𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲 ✅ 𝗥𝗲𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿𝘀 𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘆𝘄𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲 ✅ 𝗢𝗻𝗲 𝗰𝗹𝗶𝗰𝗸 This one is for the technical directors, previs artists, VP supervisors, and production designers who are tired of approximating what the camera sees. UE 5.6 and 5.7. Available now on Fab🔗 https://lnkd.in/dfd2XGFM #UnrealEngine #VirtualProduction #TechViz #Previs #CineFrustum #UE5 #FilmTech #RealTimeFilm #Fab #CinematicTools #VFX

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By the late 1950s, Hollywood’s directors of photography were looking for a smaller, lighter studio camera that built on the legacy and features of the venerable Mitchell BNC. The engineers at Mitchell Camera went back to the drawing board to design a spinning mirror reflex camera that maintained the much loved variable focal plane shutter, their world-renowned movement, and could be used handheld or in a blimp. In 1960, Mitchell introduced the Mitchell R-35 which featured a spinning mirror reflex through-the-lens viewfinding system, maintained the 180 degree variable focal plane shutter that was adjustable while the camera was running, incorporated Mitchell’s dual pin registered movement capable of speeds from single frame to 120 frames per second, allowed for full aperture viewfinding while giving the operator the ability to see beyond the full aperture frame lines, offered a wide range of motors for studio and location work, launched the Bausch & Lomb Super Baltar lenses, and introduced the unique 400’ inverted magazine with shoulder rest. This inverted magazine, as well as the lighter, more streamlined form factor made a camera with the rich feature set of the BNC into a hand-holdable production tool. Other key features of the Mitchell R-35 included a built-in viewfinder magnifier for critical focus, color and monochrome contrast filters, and a bigger, brighter eyepiece. The Mitchell R-35 was at home both on a tripod or on the operator’s shoulder. After two years of review by industry professionals, the R-35 was re-engineered and re-introduced as the Mitchell Mark II 35mm Studio Reflex Camera, commonly referred to as the Mark II. With the Mark II, Mitchell maintained the overall form factor of the R-35, improved the film transport, increased the top speed to 128 frames per second, improved the magazine handling capabilities, and overall improved the usability of the camera. We are pleased to offer this lovely example of a Mitchell Mark II that comes from the collection of cinematographer John Hora. https://ln.run/1SKM- #CinemaGear #MitchellMarkII #cameras #35mm #film #mitchellmk2

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A 90-second hero asset isn't built in the edit. It's built in the shot design. Bad coverage can't be fixed. Good coverage makes editing invisible.

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