Magick Lantern has been quite busy lately, adding new faces, new equipment, and completing new projects.

Joining the Magick team this past winter was Alphonso Dormun, an experienced Avid editor/compositor and graphic artist who combines the speed and skill of an editor with a designer's eye for graphics and animation, through After Effects. After taking a break last summer to compete across Europe as a sponsored skateboarder, Alphonso has been busy in Magick's Avid and After Effects suites working for clients such as CNN, Gospel Music Channel, J Walter Thompson, TNT and Karastan. (Editor's note to self: buy skateboard, take lessons, tour Europe, get swank job at Magick!)

Magick didn't just add skateboarders this winter, they also added another DS|HD suite. The new DS Nitris suite opened for business at the first of 2005. It is the latest, fastest and most powerful version of Avid's phenomenally successful DS series of high-end editing and compositing hardware. Magick's new Nitris suite will have full HD capability (compatible with all HD formats) along with full SD capability. Like their current suites, the new DS Nitris will

feature HDTV flat-screen plasma monitors, the latest in DS software and graphics and effects plug-ins. Magick's DS Nitris will also feature the Avid|DS Remote Processing System that allows editors and artists to experiment and work with clients while intensive

rendering is processed in the background. Rounding out Magick's winter, the company partnered with Time-Warner's Cartoon Network Latin America on a High Definition promo package. The package featured four international soccer stars, Roberto Carlos, Andres D'Alessandro, Mauricio Pinilla, and Oswaldo Sanchez, as well as Cartoon Network characters like Batman, Bubbles from the Power Puff Girls, Courage the Cowardly Dog, and Porky Pig.

Production crews from Cartoon Network Latin America traveled the world to three different countries to shoot High Definition footage of the soccer stars. The footage was then sent to Magick Lantern for post production. Shooting and editing in High Definition gave the animators a great deal of creative latitude to place the characters in the scene. After the animation was composited, Magick used the DS suite to version all spots with final color correction, logo animation and other finishing touches.