Film makers are breaking new ground
with ATI technology
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“Magical” effects by California’s Mogg Studios rival
anything by big studios today
Independent film producer Paul Mogg expects his latest high-definition feature
film and stunning special effects to turn heads in industry circles thanks
to next-generation film techniques powered by ATI technology.
Mogg considers his small-budget film Carrier to
be a stunning example of how small production companies
like his Mogg Studios Inc. are using computer technology
to level the playing field and produce movies and special
effects to rival anything coming out of Hollywood’s
big studios.
“We have truly pushed the envelope to produce what
are magical effects that we simply could not have achieved
previously,” says Mogg, whose Alameda, California,
studio uses Apple G5 workstations powered by ATI Radeon™ X800XT
Mac Edition graphics processors. “The future is finally
here and there is no doubt that this is the way to go.
We have really leveled the playing field to the point that
we are able to compete with anything being done in a big-budget
studio production.”
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Using a $150,000 Panasonic Vari-Cam high-definition digital
video camera, Mogg and his team shot 30 hours of high-definition
footage over three weeks to produce a whopping three terabytes
of digital content for Carrier.
Combining ATI cards and Apple workstations with software applications
like Apple’s Final Cut Pro HD, Motion and Logic Pro 7,
plus Adobe Creative Suite, Mogg’s goal was to exploit today’s
technology for the ultimate in production quality, performance
and reliability.
“Choosing ATI as part of our set-up was a no-brainer for
us. There was never any question that we would use the best cards
we could find – ATI’s Radeon X800XT Mac Edition,” said
Mogg. “We’ve been using ATI cards since the beginning
and once again it made all of the difference for us.”
Small budgets, BIG ideas
The final cut of Carrier, starring Mackenzie Firgens of the upcoming
Hollywood motion picture “Rent”, is expected to be
a 105-minute production that Mogg plans to enter in the major
2006 film festivals such as TriBeca, Sundance and the Toronto
Film Festival. Carrier, which Mogg calls a drama with science
fiction overtones, is also expected to appear as a trailer on
Apple.com.
“The film Carrier is about relationships between people
but it has a science fiction element to it that required some
really dramatic special effects,” Mogg explains.
A retired aircraft carrier, the USS Hornet based in California,
is the centerpiece of the film and served as the set for about
half of the three-week shoot. In one special effects dream sequence,
the aircraft carrier takes flight. Creating the effect involved “compositing” several
layers of high-definition video into one, a complex process made
simple, fast and reliable by ATI’s graphics processors
working with Apple video-editing software.
“Without the technology now available from companies like
ATI and Apple, you just couldn’t think of doing that sort
of scene on a low-budget film. It was just out of our realm.
We wouldn’t even be able to think of doing this sort of
stuff as recently as about a year ago. But today we can do it
and compete with Hollywood.”
High definition creates the need for speed
Radeon X800XT Mac Edition graphics cards delivered real-time
rendering and editing that made Carrier’s special effects
both achievable and affordable despite the massive amount of
data generated by high-definition video that has four-times the
resolution of regular digital video.
“For us it’s all about speed. Because we’re
dealing with HD, we need as much speed as we can possibly get,” Mogg
says. “If you’ve got to sit around for hours waiting
for a composite to render, you’re wasting precious time
and money. With the ATI card, it’s real time - we don’t
wait for rendering. It’s quite incredible. Pure speed.
ATI is really at the forefront of providing the graphics pipeline
we need.”
Mogg Studios editor Joel Fuller credits ATI’s X800XT Mac
Edition cards with delivering lightning-fast rendering and fluid
editing that, when combined, accelerated the production process
while adding a new dimension of quality to the film.
“Editing in high-definition was a breeze because the ATI
cards have such massive throughput to display high-def so easily,” says
Fuller. “I can’t speak for the film industry, of
course, but I know that anyone who’s working on an Apple
workstation with Final Cut Pro or other pro-applications are
definitely using top-of-the-line technology like ATI graphics
cards. Today it’s about the pipeline and pushing content
through as fast as possible and ATI has been pretty much out
in the forefront in providing real time performance and real
time rendering. ATI really made it happen for us.”
Film makers take advantage of 3D gaming technology
Fuller is a former game developer who says that film makers today
are taking advantage of advances being made by ATI in the 3D
gaming space to achieve important breakthroughs in movie production.
On the Carrier project, for example, ATI has allowed Mogg Studios
to cut its editing process in half, something Fuller is still
shaking his head over.
“There’s a lot of marketing hype about some products
promising to deliver this and deliver that but ATI’s stuff
is for real, it’s working in production now. ATI today
is at least one step ahead of the competition in providing the
fastest and most robust tools,” says Fuller.
The line traditionally separating the capabilities of Hollywood
studios and independent producers “is getting quite blurred,” he
adds. Today’s potent combination of ATI graphics cards
with Apple hardware and applications is affordable enough for
independents but powerful and reliable enough to be attracting
the attention of Hollywood studios.
“It’s wonderful to see that the technology available
is leveling the playing field. The fact is that Hollywood is
also going with this stuff as well, bit by bit. It is that good,” Mogg
says. “We’re virtually producing something that you’ll
be able to show on a 40-to-50-foot screen with the same kind
of detail that you see in a 35-millimetre film.”
Mogg goes as far as to predict that an exciting new era is emerging
for independent film makers.
“The opportunity is there now for independent filmmakers
to do quality work and that’s been brought about by technology.
None of this was possible just a couple of years ago, to think
of doing a feature film that could compete with Hollywood on
a visual level using a much lower budget. Our goal was to put
something together that can compete with bigger-budget Hollywood
films and we think we’ve achieved that.”
