Northern Lights Post 'Pumps up the Volume' with wondertouch's particleIllusion Software for VFX on Beastie Boys Latest Music Video "Ch-Check It Out"

Particle Illusion's Speed and Quality to Boost Workflow at Northern Light Post's Fast-paced, State of the Art Post Production Environment

ST. LOUIS, MO - (May 17, 2004) - wondertouch™, a leading software developer specializing in affordable, high performance particle effects tools for the visual effects industry, today announced that Northern Lights Post, one of New York City's leading creative editorial/post production houses, relied on its particleIllusion™ software to aid the extensive visual effects creation demands on the latest Beastie Boys music video, "Ch-Check It Out." Applauded for its speed, render quality and ease-of-use which allows artists to quickly and efficiently deliver quality effects in real- or near-real time, particleIllusion is now integrated into Northern Lights Post production pipeline in the Graphics and Finishing Department where it is running on the same dual Windows XP machines with its Avid DS Nitris system.

According to Ross Shain, HD editor/effects artist at Northern Lights Post, the "Ch-Check It Out" music video, off the forthcoming new CD "To the 5 Boroughs," portrays the band members humorously romping through a series of zany visual non-sequiturs, punctuated by their trademark hip hop musical style.

particleIllusion was used predominantly in the opening scene of the clip featuring a "Star Trek" TV-inspired parody where the Beastie Boys, dressed as Captain Kirk, Spock and Dr. McCoy, are beamed into the streets of Manhattan's lower eastside. Later in the video, the Beastie Boys dressed in safari garb are traveling through the Florida Everglades fighting off alligators as they ride a seemingly out-of-control fan boat.

     

"After a brief evaluation period, we were up-and-running with particleIllusion in just one day. We ultimately chose particleIllusion for the Beastie Boys video as our first foray using the software because its power, speed, and huge preset library allowed us to produce high-quality, realistic effects and textures to our shots quickly without going to a 3D package, said Shain. "Additionally, having the software on the same workstation as our HD graphics/finishing station allowed us to quickly pre-visualize effects and speed up our workflow. particleIllusion fills a gap that our other software packages do not provide."

"Northern Lights Post is known as a progressive facility that constantly pushes through creative boundaries. Their experience with particleIllusion is fairly typical of our users who can easily go from having no working knowledge of the application to delivering preliminary or final shots in a single day," said Alan Lorence, president of wondertouch. "This performance is mainly a result of particleIllusion's ease of integration into complex workflow environments combined with its existing library of over 1100 effects, and the fact that they can be so easily customized to fit the project in question. It's all about working smarter, and particleIllusion in creative hands is a smart tool!"

particleIllusion Tackles Numerous Effects Challenges

"In the fan boat scenes, the fan boat and Beastie Boys were initially shot on 16mm film against a green screen set while the background water plates were shot 24P HD on location in the Everglades," outlined Shain. "To create a realistic, shaky, high-speed chase feel necessitated that we add motion blur and camera shake to the entire composite as well as add animated water splashes and mist. The rendered particles were then imported into the Avid DS Nitris system and motion tracked to the movement of the boat."

In the Star Trek scene, the Beastie Boys are beamed down to appear. This effect was created by generating a difference matte between the characters and the background. "Relying on particleIllusion's real time preview feature, in particular, proved to be a major asset as I was able to show the director, Nathanial Hornblower, some quick examples of the beam down particles without having to render the final output," added Shain.

About particleIllusion

particleIllusion is a standalone particle effects application designed as an easy-to-use, low-cost, high performance tool to quickly and simply add particle effects to any image, animation, or video footage. particleIllusion features an ever-growing collection of hundreds of preset effects such as smoke, fire, explosions, water effects, sparkles, colorful artistic effects, and many others. particleIllusion features OpenGL hardware acceleration to provide real-time (or near real-time) previews of most effects and ultra-fast rendering of final output. In use the past three years at leading worldwide production facilities, particleIllusion has been used in hundreds of feature films, TV episodes, and broadcast commercials.

About Northern Lights Post:

Named one of Inc Magazine's 500 Fastest Growing Privately Held Companies in America, Northern Lights Post was founded in 1995 by editors Mark Littman and David Gioiella. Since then the company has earned a reputation as a leading creative editorial/post production house thanks to its work for such top advertising agencies as Saatchi & Saatchi, J. Walter Thompson, Lowe and Ogilvy; and television networks Comedy Central, ESPN, Sci-Fi Channel, USA Network and Voom HD. In addition, the company has edited numerous long-form television shows including MTV's popular show Cribs and numerous VH1 specials. Long-time supporters of the independent film scene, the company has also been behind such films as "Ursa Minor," a 20 minute short co-directed and edited by Gioiella (2003 NY Independent Film Festival) and the feature documentary "Red, White and Yellow," directed, produced and edited by Littman (winner of the Audience Award at the 1998 The Hamptons Film Festival; screened at the New York and Chicago Underground Festivals and the Bangkok (Thailand) Film Festival).

About wondertouch

wondertouch is a software developer specializing in particle effects for the visual effects industry. The company's flagship product, particleIllusion, is focused towards the needs of creative professionals working in the film post-production and pre-visualization, standard and HD video and commercial broadcast industries.

wondertouch founder Alan Lorence was the original programmer for Impulse's Illusion software. After acquiring rights for Illusion in July 2002, the company was established to continue the development, sale and support of the product under the name 'particleIllusion.'

wondertouch software products are currently available directly from wondertouch. The company is headquartered in St. Louis, Mo.