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Positive Video, in Orinda, CA, was one of the first facilities in the U.S. to have a Paintbox. I think it arrived in late 1983. Roger Mocenigo was the artist wh
by Wistar 2y ago
Positive Video, in Orinda, CA, was one of the first facilities in the U.S. to have a Paintbox. I think it arrived in late 1983. Roger Mocenigo was the artist who ran it. Our first big project with it was Atari’s videodisc-based arcade game, Firefox.
For a few evenings in 1984 or maybe 85, Jerry Garcia rented the whole place out and played on the Paintbox.
We were also one of the first facilities to have a Quantel Mirage. We hired a math guru out of Berkeley, Eddie Elliot, to program the Mirage (Pascal). Jerry Garcia rented that, too. He had a bunch of analog graphics created on an Aurora system that he wanted to run through the Mirage.
- Lammy 2y agoNeat https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JjRcruWEedU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JjRcruWEedU
- Wistar 2y agoWow! What a relic! That video pre-dates me. By the time I got there in 1984, they had added an ADO. Not too long after that came the Quantel Mirage and a short time later a Bosch Telecine, (although the telecine had been delayed many months by a lawsuit over the color correction technology by a guy named Armand Sarabia of CCC). The telecine is where Lucasfilm transferred The Adventures of Andre & Wally B, the first CGI to feature motion blur. One night at about 3am a fist-fight between client guests broke out in the sunken client area in front of the edit suite console. A Jefferson Starship music video was being edited. Fun times.
- sherr 2y agoGreat story. Halcyon days. Was Garcia playing on the kit for a purpose or just fun? Did he create anything that was seen anywhere?
- Wistar 2y agoHe was fairly tight-lipped about the exact purpose of the psychedelic footage (Aurora run through Mirage). We guessed it was intended for live performance backgrounds but we never knew for sure. I do know it cost a small fortune as the edit suite with Mirage was at least $800/hr and perhaps more. Garcia booked it for several hours nightly for about 10 days or so. His Paintbox stuff appeared to be just to play around with the system. He’d show up with a portfolio of sketches on paper and disappear into the Paintbox suite for an hour or so at a time. His manager, a hard-nosed guy, would sweep the place to make certain no remnants or artifacts remained in our hands after the sessions.
- quantelpaintbox 2y agoI have a photo of Jerry on the Paintbox with Tony Redhead
- quantelpaintbox 2y agoWas it a commercial for Firefox? Love to see it