The distribution company behind such great breakthrough films as Pulp Fiction, The Crying Game, Clerks, Sex, lies and videotape,  The English Patient and No Country for Old Men has officially been laid to rest. Miramax Films, the pioneer’s of the indy film movement who were the brainchild of Harvey and Bob Weinstein have finally laid off the reminder of their workforce. According to Disney, who acquired the company in 1993 for $70 million, “Miramax will consolidiate its operations within Walt Disney Studios, and will be releasing a smaller number of films than in previous years. But it will continue to operate within the Walt Disney Studios.” However, in October Disney already announced that Miramax would cut down its production by 70%, down from 6 or 8 movies a year to just 3. Some the of more recent offerings ended up as flops such as Cold Mountain and The Four Feathers. One thing is for sure, with so many remakes and carbon copies out there Miramax was the one company that seemed to make major motion pictures that mattered and carried some sort meaning. This will be a very sad day for true film lovers out there.

Reprinted from a Boris FX press release

Boris FX, the leading developer of integrated effects technology for video and film, announced that the Boris Continuum Chroma Key Unit now includes a Chroma Key Studio filter for real-time previews and rendering in Apple Final Cut Pro, Motion, and Final Cut Express.

Chroma Key Studio builds on the strength of Boris Continuum Complete’s keying and compositing tools with features such as a best-of-breed chroma key process, spill suppression, matte choker, and a light wrap compositing step. All four tools are combined in one, easy-to-use filter; users do not need to stack multiple filters to pre and post process video. Read the rest of this entry »