July 2 SAN FRANCISCO - Phoenix Editorial & Designs (www.phoenixedit.com) has announced several staff additions. Julia Sonder-Patchin and Zara Finlay have joined the studio as senior producer and producer, respectively. Associate producer Lindsay London has also joined the company, along with assistant editor/IT manager Russ Miller.  

July 1 PALO ALTO, CA - HP (www.hp.com) has released a new AMD processor-based quad-core workstation that's priced at just $599. The entry-level xw4550 includes the Quad-Core AMD Opteron processor and an Nvidia Quadro NVS 290 card.  

July 1 SEATTLE - Getty Images (www.gettyimages.com/one80) has created One80, a new rights-ready collection of high production value conceptual footage. The 2,500-clip collection was created under expert art direction and contains cutting-edge sports action, aerial footage of hard-to reach locations, fully model-released crowds and conceptual lifestyle shots.  

July 1 HOLLYWOOD - Design, branding and animation house S4 Studios (www.s4studios.com) recently completed work on its first independent animated short. Fraidy Cat is a Flash-animated short that was written by S4's Larry Le Francis and directed by Geoffrey Kater. The animation is the first in a planned series of horror-genre shorts that will be produced and marketed by the studio.  

June 30 HOLLYWOOD - VFX facility Rhythm & Hues relied on Maxon's BodyPaint 3D to address a number of the complex texture painting challenges they were faced with in creating scenes and characters for Universal Pictures' The Incredible Hulk. Most notably, the application was used to create the lead character's muscle-popping green skin.  

Using the Boris Continuum Complete Rays Cartoon filter in Final Cut Pro to generate a volumetric lighting effect on an animated text element. The BCC Rays Cartoon filter will also give text the appearance of being made of neon lights.  

TORONTO - Soho VFX relied on BlueArc's Titan storage solution to complete its VFX work for Marvel Comics/Universal Studios' The Incredible Hulk. The studio upgraded to the Titan after realizing the restrictions of their own home-grown IT infrastructure back in 2005, when they were working on The Chronicles of Narnia DVD release.  

SAN FRANCISCO - Kontent Films and Core Studios recently teamed up to create a VFX-driven two-minute music video that promotes Sony's Playstation 3. Kontent's Eric Escobar directed the project, which is based around a live action actor who is immersed in a virtual world that surrounds him with game content and video media.