Stage 3 Media Inc., an independent production company specializing in new media entertainment, today proudly announced Guinness World Records‘ recognition of their web-based science fiction series Sanctuary as “Highest Budget for a Direct-to-Web Broadcast.” Full production and visual effects design costs for eight Sanctuary webisodes averaging 15-minutes in length were completed by Stage 3 Media for $4.5 million CDN. more

Los Angeles, CA - (May 25, 2007) - Entertainment and design company Imaginary Forces (IF) was recently called upon by Walt Disney Pictures to create a teaser for its upcoming feature, “National Treasure: Book of Secrets.” The teaser breaks today with the premiere of “Pirates of the Caribbean: At World‘s End.”

In the “National Treasure” sequel, treasure hunter Benjamin Franklin Gates (Nicolas Cage) looks to discover the truth behind the assassination of Abraham Lincoln by uncovering the 18 missing pages from assassin John Wilkes Booth’s diary, and embarks on an adventure with many surprising twists. more

Steve Andrich, Scott Whitham and Billy Paul Join the Award-Winning Company Led By Director Jeff Odiorne and Exec. Prod. Jonathan Isen

HAVERFORD, PA - Building on their already impressive creative reputation, Phasmatrope Studios (www.phasmatrope.com), the two-year-old award-winning creative/production company led by Director Jeff Odiorne and Executive Producer Jonathan Isen, has expand their creative capabilities considerably with the addition of directors Steve Andrich, Scott Whitham and Billy Paul. more

Look Solutions‘ Unique Hazer is hitting the road with lighting designer and programmer Sylvain Milot who uses the haze machine to augment lighting for the new VNV Nation tour and tours for other leading bands.

“I use Look hazers for every show on every tour I do,” says Milot. “I‘ve tried a lot of hazers and had problems, but I‘ve had no complaints about my Unique Hazer. I especially like the fact that it‘s water-based; for me, water-based is the best. It doesn‘t interfere with the bands or with other equipment.” more

Hollywood, CA, May 31, 2007 - “A Tribute to TV Main Titles,” an historical look at some of the more famous and not-so-famous TV titles from the 1940’s to today, will be presented for the first time ever by MDots during the PROMAX/BDA Conference. The session will be held on Thursday, June 14th at 2pm.

Joining panel moderator Marty Wall, Creative Director, Mdots Design & Creative, will be panelists Kasumi Mihori, an Emmy Award Winning title designer, Earl Jenshus, an Emmy nominated title designer, and Billy Pittard, whose acclaimed former company Pittard Sullivan designed and produced several hundred TV main titles, winning 5 Emmy Awards for “Outstanding Main Title Design.” more

San Jose, California, USA - May 30, 2007 - Blackmagic Design Inc. today announced Intensity Pro is now shipping and available now from Blackmagic Design professional video resellers worldwide.

Intensity Pro is a new low cost and extremely high quality video capture and playback card for professional videographers that features HDMI, analog component, NTSC, PAL and S-Video capture and playback.

Intensity Pro was demonstrated at the recent NAB 2007 show, where it won several leading industry awards. more

New designer FxPacks from Noise Industries partners Core Melt, Idustrial Revolution, and SUGARfx, extend the visual effects capabilities of Apple Final Cut Studio 2

Boston MA - May 30, 2007 - Noise Industries, developer of visual effects tools for the postproduction and broadcast markets, today announced Noise Industries partners Core Melt, Idustrial Revolution, and SUGARfx have launched “FxFactory Expansion FxPacks” for the new Apple Final Cut Studio 2.0 release. FxPacks are developed by Noise Industries and its partners using the Noise Industries FxFactory Pro plug-in manager. The FxFactory Pro plug-in manager provides non-developers such as visual effects artists a user-friendly graphical user interface to create additional effects for the Apple Final Cut Studio package. more

From the depths of Indonesia‘s Manokwari Bay to a blast furnace in a Pennsylvania steel mill, from the strife-torn Middle East to the soundstages of Hollywood, Canon‘s affordable digital high definition camcorders are earning high praise from a wide variety of professional users for their superb picture quality, ease of use, and versatile feature set. more

Vizrt products used to launch new stations, provide election and weather coverage

Bergen, Norway, May 30, 2007 - Vizrt, the world‘s leading producer of real-time 2D and true 3D graphics system for TV, has expanded the widespread use of its systems into new areas of the Middle East and Africa. Vizrt, based in Norway, recently completed several extended projects with three television stations located in Lebanon, Bahrain and Egypt. Vizrt systems already enjoy significant deployment in Jordan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Pakistan. more

A pair of grandMA consoles is accompanying Beyonce on her world tour, which kicked off in Tokyo and excited Australia before commencing its European leg. A.C.T Lighting is the exclusive distributor of the grandMA in North America.

With the tour described as a cross between a theatrical play and a rock ‘n roll show, the grandMAs control an extensive array of media servers and lighting instruments. Show numbers run the gamut from theatrical-style, classic Baroque scenes to old-school R ‘n R acid guitar solos to gold-plated hip-hop extravaganzas. The set is dominated by a tracking staircase unit where the band and back-up vocals live, entirely fitted with Barco‘s OLite modules. Complementing the staircase unit are drapes, which fly or track in and out to create not only additional scenery but also projection surfaces. more