Director Fernando Arrioja recently worked on "Cold Practice," a CG-intensive spot for Coors Lights via ad agency Bromley. This involved shooting in the snowy conditions of the Rockies, as well as working with Mexico's soccer greats against greenscreen and recreating snow with salt in a studio in Mexico City. http://bit.ly/ublbXM

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We're excited to welcome the Clyde Brothers & Esteban Sapir to our directorial roster! They all bring amazing vision and energy to our team. Please take a look at their recent work.

Clyde Brothers: http://bit.ly/vdfGzF
Esteban Sapir: http://bit.ly/w4JhNL

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Truly scrumptious! Our very own TV cooking superstar, Patricia Jinich of "Pati's Mexican Table," shares her secrets to adding Mexican flavor to your holiday dessert table on the "Today Show": http://on.today.com/vRT8JN

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Xrev - Trial Survey Competition Results

Results of a recently conducted survey on the Revit Add-in Xrev Transmit - designed for issuing Revit sheets to PDF, DWG, DWF etc with automatic naming and filing, including a drawing register/transmittal.

Survey Results

What people are saying:

"We have users who want to marry you they are so happy with the time savings"

"Excellent product - I couldn't Revit without it"

"The time savings are great.  Everyone loves using it."

"We absolutely love the product.  It has exceeded our expectations and is a pleasure to use"

"Xrev Transmit makes tasks that have always been tedious, fast and dare I say it enjoyable"

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Easily changing building levels

I'm always amazed when people don't know about this very easy process of changing a building's Levels to reflect the actual RL's of the site.

All to often people tell me how they go through the tedious process of selecting all their levels and using the move command, then have to select all their views/details/text etc and move it all up or down to align with the new location.

Are you crazy!!  Never do this!

Revit has multiple coordinate systems.  An internal coordinate system and a shared coordinate system.  By default all coordinates, whether they be levels, spot elevations, contour tags, spot coordinates all report the internal coordinate system.  Each of these can be easily changed in their TYPE properties to use shared.  Unfortunately the Nomenclature varies, but the principle is the same:

Level Type Properties: (change "Elevation Base" to shared)

Spot Elevation Type Properties: (change "Elevation Origin" to shared)

Spot Coordinate Type Properties: (change "Coordinate Origin" to Shared)

Contour Label Type Properties: (change "Elevation Base" to Shared)

Best Practice the Internal Coordinates of "Ground Level" should always be 0.

To move the building:

1. Switch to an Elevation/Section,
2. On the Manage Tab, Project Location Panel, Position Drop down, Choose "Relocate Project"
3. The tool works just like the move command, select the base point to move relative to, then the distance and direction you want to move it in (best to only move it vertically in elevation/section).   In this example I'm going to move my levels 6000mm up.
4. Done, coordinates have been changed, all views are still intact and no cleanup required.  For those who have been doing it some other way.  Please don't do anything irrational.  Think of all the time you can now save...

This method is also better when working with multiple discipline models and the copy/monitor.  If people are using the move command to move their project around it causes everyone grief in this scenario.

Hope this helps.

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Lots of congratulations to go around at the moment; commercial director Jeannette Godoy has made the Shots 2011 New Director of the Year Short List, proving what we already knew -- she's really, really awesome and on her way to very great things.

Director Simón Bross took on producing duties in addition to his ad work, helping to usher the documentary "Carrière: 250 Meters" to the San Sebastian Film Festival. The film traces the life of Jean Claude Carrière, long-term collaborator of legendary Spanish filmmaker Luis Buñuel.

Director Ted Melfi sold his feature film script "St. Vincent Van Nuys" to Fox; the story, in the vein of AS GOOD AS IT GETS, follows a fatherless boy as he befriends a grumpy old man and the two develop an unlikely relationship.

Andres Muschietti, one half of our Doble Nelson directing duo (plus beloved producer/sister Barbara Muschietti) are hard at work on MAMA, the horror film executive produced by Guillermo del Toro. The story follows a couple caring for their young nieces and nephews as they face off against a supernatural force intent on taking them back.

Angel Gracia's FROM PRADA TO NADA won the audience's choice for best film of the year at Univision's "Premios Juventud" youth awards show... That's in addition to Alexa Vega taking home Favorite Movie Actress at the Alma Awards (beating out Christina Aguilera, Cameron Diaz, Selena Gomez and Eva Mendes).

Finally, The Cortez Brothers adds two new siblings...

Pilar de Posadas is a former Executive Producer at Flehner Films, overseeing productions in North, Central and South America as well as Spain and France. Fluent in English, Spanish, French and conversational Portuguese, she perfectly embodies the international experience of The Cortez Brothers.

Jerome Williams, a native New Yorker, brings over 14 years of executive entertainment experience to The Cortez Brothers. As SVP with Exodus Film Group, he negotiated the deal to develop, produce and finance the first animated project for Tyler Perry Productions. With Williams as a producer, Exodus' 2008 animated feature, IGOR, grossed over $20 million in domestic box office.

Pilar will be handling all of our television initiatives, while Jerome contributes his extensive management experience to our family.

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But my structural slab isn't flat!

Set downs in structural slabs or falls to slabs can be tricky to achieve.  Below are some of the methods I used to make things simpler:

• The first question you need to ask is do I need a thickening where the recess is? If so, then the correct approach would be to simply model another floor with the required negative level offset and overlap the floors. Then provided the floors are of the same materials and both have the same structural property then you can simply use the Join Geometry tool to clean them up.

• However, if you don’t need a thickening Revit 2012 allows you the ability to create families with Voids that can cut multiple elements in the project: 

1. Create a new Generic Model family - I like to use face based; 
2. Add reference planes to control its length and width by instance, and its depth by type. 
3. Then add a void and constrain it to the reference planes. 
4. Now ensure you check the option “Cut when nested”. 
5. Finally create an initial type for a standard set down depth. 
6. Then just load into your project, place where needed and drag the grips to make it the appropriate size.
7. Then use the Cut geometry tool, select the floor you wish to cut and then the generic model family to have it cut the floor. You can even have it cut structural beams and multiple floors.

• For balconies with structural falls to the top face only you can use the point editing tools to drop edges/points lower to create the falls and ensure the layer of the floor is set to be “variable” in its properties. However, if the balcony isn’t rectangular, may be it is L shaped, then this approach can result in all sorts of triangulation edges – this can be worked around by turning off “interior edges” in the visibility settings. But you could also produce a similar generic model family for falls (using a void blend). This way the fall could also cut structural beams as well!

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The first season of our debut television show, "Pati's Mexican Table," has garnered some impressive statistics since hitting the airwaves... It's now available in some 108 million homes in the U.S., and has a mind-boggling carriage rate of almost 94% nationwide. We are deeply and deliciously in pre-production on the next season of the popular cooking program.

The Cortez Brothers' Storytelling Department congratulates two projects it had a slight and hopefully mostly-imperceptible hand in on making it into the pages of Variety recently... Metanoia Films' "Little Boy," directed by Alejandro Monteverde, is a family drama set in 1940s America at the start of World War II; director Fede Alvarez's reboot of the cult horror pic "The Evil Dead," co-written by Alvarez and Rodo Sayaguez, was given a touch-up by screenwriter Diablo Cody and will be produced by Sam Raimi (writer/director of the original) of Ghost House Pictures.

More film-related accolades are in order for part of our Doble Nelson directing team; Andres Muschietti expands on his fantastic short film, turning it into the feature-length "Mama," co-written with our equally beloved Barbara Muschietti, which is currently being produced by Guillermo del Toro. The story follows two girls who flee from a ghostly woman they believe to be their mother.

Our company welcomes a new hire, Pilar de Posadas, to head up our brand spankin' new television department. She'll be helping establish a slate of programs, both Latin and non-Latin, reality and fiction, for the Cortez Brothers.

We've shuffled and fine-tuned our roster with some great new directors...

JEANNETTE GODOY started her career as a choreographer, most notably bringing her energetic dance moves to Sir Mix-A-Lot's famous "Baby Got Back" video; fast-forward to 2011, when SHOOT MAGAZINE named her as an Up-And-Coming Director to watch (amongst many, many reasons we're happy to have her for the Hispanic market).

KARIM OUARET brings his own background in music videos and promos to the table, not to mention experience with Fox Studios, multilingual filming and rhythm, fashion and still photography.

FATTY, meanwhile, got a peculiar start in the world of advertising, creating a homemade commercial for a TV show contest; his first place prize led him to a workshop at the New York Film Academy. From there he served as AD under a number of the commercial world's most talented and award-winning Argentine directors (including Lucho Bender), then branched out by becoming a skilled director in his own right -- and a perfect addition to our lineup of great directorial talent.

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Revit 2012 - AS1428.1-2009 Door Circulation Checker

Hi Everyone,

Sorry I still haven't posted the video and datasets from RTC2011, I will do it when I get a spare few hours, need the incentive to sit down and record it all!

In the meantime I thought I'd share a little freebie, especially useful for all Australian users.  I have compiled a detail component family to graphically represent disabled circulation requirements as per AS1428.1-2009 to match Figure 31.  It has been setup to be completely fool proof, that is if you set any values that don't comply to this standard, you will get a nice large warning advising that the door doesn't comply.

It has some pretty darn long nested conditional statements (each about half a page of single line text) to match the requirements.  To help manage such long formulas I used an Excel spreadsheet to compile the formulas directly from the table.

Hope all find this useful.  Please let me know if you do as it may give me incentive to post some more...

Technically you could nest this family directly into your doors and use some formulas to to have it set to the appropriate sizes.  However, you may find that when you flip your door it will flip around the centre of the extents of the family and not about its origin.  A really annoying limitation of Revit that drives me nuts!!

Door Circulation Family.

Download it here and the Type Catalogue of standard sizes here.

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RTC USA - Conference Materials

As some of you may know myself and many other Reviteers are currently attending and speaking at the Revit Technology Conference in Huntington Beach, California.

For those attending the sessions I will post links to the course materials, including presentation and datasets when I return to Australia.  These materials will also be available for download from the RTC ftp site.  Access details are typically emailed out to attendees with a couple of weeks of the conference completion...

Hope all attending are getting a lot of information out of it.  I've picked up a few little things that I've missed in the recent version - as such it is a very worthwhile trip.  Hope more people show interest next year and make this event a regular mark on your calendar!

Cheers,
Chris Price
aka Mr Spot :)

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Australia and New Zealand Revit Standards Released (ANZRS)

Want to make top quality content.  The first step would be to download the extensive document pack from ANZRS!  This has been 2 years in the making after being raised at the Revit Technology Conference.

http://anzrs.wordpress.com/

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The Cortez Brothers announces a few new names and faces on our roster, all of them very talented directors and directing teams with more than a little Latin flair...

Los Angeles-based ANTONIO VON HILDEBRAND divided his childhood between Bogotá, Colombia and the Amazon jungle. He moved to Europe as a teenager, then to New York to continue his professional studies in publicity and design. He got his start as a creative at the Bates Agency in NY, then became a Creative Director at the JWT Agency in Mexico City, creating campaigns for Diageo, Ford, HSBC, Nestlé and J&B Scotch Whisky. He is the creator and producer of "Addiction," a hybrid series that bridged the worlds of advertising and television; it was acquired by Warner Brothers and developed by Silver Pictures for the North American market. He was the executive producer of CORMAN'S WORLD: EXPLOITS OF A HOLLYWOOD REBEL, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2011. His feature-length documentary PABLO'S HIPPOS, commissioned by BBC/Storyville and the Sundance Channel, revolves around the life of drug dealer Pablo Escobar and his favorite pet -- a hippo.

GUIDO BELFORTE does the impossible -- he combines whimsy and reality in one package, turning stories that looked fantastical on paper into true, believable slices of life. His background in graphic design (he holds a degree from the University of Buenos Aires) and fillmmaking (studying at NYFA in New York) led him to an impressive career as a Creative and Art Director at McCann Erickson and J.W. Thompson, among others. He holds a Master's in Corporate Communication and Advertising from the Complutense University of Madrid, which speaks to his deep understanding of how to effectively craft good stories that make both clients and audiences happy. Belforte speaks fluent Spanish and English and is a recent Cannes Finalist for his Telecinco work.

BURNING CORNERS is the bright young directing duo of Aaron Burns and Carlos Rincones. Former college friends and current visual effects superstars, they've worked their magic on a number of feature film releases, including GRINDHOUSE and MACHETE (from Troublemaker Studios' director Robert Rodriguez), as well as runaway viral hits like "The Raven" (from director Ricardo de Montreuil, which led to a studio deal and a starring role in the upcoming film version for Mark Wahlberg). Burns' feature film debut, BLACKTINO, made its South by Southwest Festival debut earlier this year; it's a black comedy about an awkward half-African-American, half-Latino teenager growing up in Texas. Rincones is in post-production on his own freshman film, MALAVENTURA, a Spanish-language teen comedy about growing up -- but not growing up too much -- in modern Mexico. Together, they offer fun, cutting-edge, young and hip stories for a modern, tech-savvy crowd.

The dynamic collaborative of SHINE is comprised of two friends who both caught the filmmaking bug at the age of 12 and went on to win some pretty impressive awards as adults. One is a multicultural director specializing in live-action comedy, interactive and CGI and who has worked with the Mill NYC for several years; the other is a Cannes Award-winning creative-turned-director who has worked on everything from Levi's to MTV and Nike. Together, they combine the best of both worlds -- great creative twists and the technical know-how to actually pull it off on-screen. Zany, off-the-wall and enjoyable on set, SHINE counts a number of clients (like the BBC, Gap, Geffen Records, Nike, Nickelodeon, ATT, and Ford to name a few) among the list of those they personally deem "Brave And Wise Enough To Have Worked With Us At Least Once." On the "Accolades and Awards From Those That Don't Know Any Better" list? Several Gold, Silver and Bronze Cannes Lions; 8 Silver Andy Awards; 2 Emmy Awards; Gold and Silver from the NY Film Festival; 4 Gold Clios; FIAP and 12 AHAA awards plus, literally, several shelves full of others.

Finally, Mexican native Tania Verduzco and Spanish-born Adrián Pérez operate together under the pseudonym LOS PÉREZ and gladly take shared credit for their joint activities, which include writing, directing, editing and music composition. Their collaboration began when they studied film together at the Center for the Study of Cinema in Catalonia, Spain, and blossomed through the years to the point that Tania recently took Second Prize in Cannes' Young Director Awards and was shortlisted for a Goya. Adrián, meanwhile, combines his film career with music; he's the singer and composer of CatPeople, one of the most important independent rock bands in Spain, and has composed number of different film scores and themes for TV commercials worldwide. Together, they have pooled their beautiful, visual and rhythmic work as directors for companies in both Mexico City and Europe. They are currently writing the screenplay for their first feature film.

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Revit 2012 Viewer Mode

Did you know that in the Revit 2012 suite there is now a special "Viewer" mode.  I only discovered this the other day.

Finally a reliable, built in method (without having to rely on demo modes) to enable the Principals, Engineers, or Revit Illiterate Architects access to a Revit model that they can't destroy.

With the viewer it allows all standard functionality but:

• You can't save or save as,
• Export or publish views/models if you make any changes,
• Print if you make any changes,

Still need to test out how this behaves in a worksetted file.  Can anyone comment on whether it borrows elements and automatically relinquishes them upon closing, or something similar?

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Revit 2012 & Nested Structural Columns Workarounds

If you've ever tried to nest structural columns or structural framing members and made them shared so you can tag the members independently of the host family, then there is a good chance you've come across this issue.  That is the column height or beam length defaults to its original size and ignores its constraints set by the host family.  Find out how to work around this.

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Revit Technology Conference USA & Australia - June / May

For those of you that I interested I'll be running 3 classes at the above events.

1. Architectural Advanced Families (LAB)
2. Structural Advanced Families (LAB)
3. One Model (Revit Server, Worksharing API, Bluestreak, Security - Is it possible yet?)

I was really hoping to have the content of the Labs be directly based from the attendees requests.  However, so far the response has been far from overwhelming.  Especially considering that the Labs at the Australian event are sold out and wouldn't be surprised if the USA event isn't too far behind...

I'd really like the attendees to feel as though they've not only learnt something at the lab, but also to go away with something useful in terms of family content that they can use in their firms...

I plan on writing the 5 or so hours of training content over the Easter break so if you do have some suggestions please post your comments below!!  Remember, this is advanced some I'm going to touch some tricky topics including:

• Referencing Parameters
• Nesting
• Arrays
• Adaptive Components (depending on the suggestions)
• Family Type parameters
• Formulas (Conditional, Mathematical, Rounding, Trig etc.)
• Type Catalogues
• Shared Families
• Nested Detail Components
• Detail Level Control
• Best Practice
• Reference Planes / Lines / Points

I'm still contemplating whether I take the approach of setting up a bunch of half complete families and then we just tackle the tricky parts, or whether we go through the entire process of creating an advanced family from start to finish?

Otherwise I'll just pick some complicated stuff at random and hope that the bulk of people find the content useful.

BTW, I also believe that the Australian & New Zealand Revit Standards (ANZRS) for family creation are going to be released at this years event.  I've reviewed it and it is an excellent set of guidelines for creating families that will work with all disciplines and standardise online content if adopted by Autodesk Seek as well...

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Happy April 1st to our crew, friends and fans. As spring begins, we start with news that The Cortez Brothers has finally (finally!) secured rights to launch the much-beloved television series "¿Qué Pasa, U.S.A.?" as a musical. The show, America's first bilingual sitcom, was produced by and aired on PBS in the late 1970s.

The Cortez Brothers' production, "¿Qué Pasa, U.S.A. - The Musical," will retain its period setting, Little Havana locations and Cuban-American flavor, adding a variety of original songs to the mix.

Meanwhile, final discussions continue on "¡Three Amigos! Part Dos," a follow-up to the 1986 comedy hit with the ahead-of-its-time tagline of, "They're Down On Their Luck And Up To Their Necks In Señoritas, Margaritas, Banditos And Bullets!"

Finally, financing is nearly in place for "Son of Montana," the television pilot that follows the rise and fall of Tony Montana, Jr., son of the main character in 1983's groundbreaking feature film "Scarface." Production will begin in Oxnard and the Czech Republic this summer.

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The Cortez Brothers just moved offices this month, taking over a larger space down the street at 13445 Beach Avenue in sunny Marina del Rey. Ping-pong aficionados are cordially invited to try out our pro table, while our Editing, Production and Storytelling offices enjoy bigger and hipper digs just steps away.

Director Angel Gracia's feature film, "From Prada to Nada," gets a spiffy new poster and a fantastic first weekend in release. The first film out of the gate for Lionsgate's Latin-targeted Pantelion label, the movie enjoyed both our undying love and best wishes for success (since we manage Angel) as well as an overwhelmingly female audience (some 71%!).

Luis Gerard, meanwhile, did a cool movie-style trailer entitled "Sniper" that (trust us) makes reading French subtitles worthwhile.

Not one but two Cortez Brothers directors ended up on Hollywood's Black List for aspiring filmmakers recently; you can find Ricardo de Montreuil there for "The Raven" and Fede Alvarez for "Panic Attack." Actor Mark Wahlberg ("The Fighter," "The Departed," "The Perfect Storm") is attached to star in the upcoming feature version of "The Raven."

VP of Development Bernadette Rivero wrote a Latin-themed project for Warner Brothers that will make its debut over the next few months. We can't say much, except that it follows a Latin family in L.A. as they plan for a big event that doesn't exactly turn out as planned.

The Storytelling Department lends its services to an A-list director and production company working on a very scary screenplay we can't talk about, as well as a reality-based television series for a large TV network we also can't talk about. "Discretion" is a big word for us this year, as is "quality work."

Finally, the beloved writer we manage, Sierra Hall, releases a graphic teaser of her screenplay "The Machete Queen." Story by Sierra, drawings by the very talented Casey Maloney.

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