One of my favorite tasks at the end of every year is digging into StudioDaily's analytics and tallying the pageviews for the most popular stories we published in the last 12-month period. The traffic stats always yield an interesting mix of content, from product reviews and case studies to NAB news and business stories. They reveal what we've been spending a lot of time thinking about in the last year and, sometimes, they reveal what we'll still be considering in the next one. Here's a look at the year that was — at least as we saw it.

#10 VFX Supervisor Richard Stammers on Prometheus

Director Ridley Scott's Alien, released back in 1979, had a profound impact on the look and design of science-fiction movies for decades to come and launched a long-running franchise. It''s no wonder that Scott's return to the nightmare world he created was one of the year's biggest movie events, earning widespread plaudits for its visual sense even from those who found the story lacking. Barbara Robertson's detailed interview with the film's VFX supervisor, Richard Stammers, was a big hit among our readers.

#9 Blackmagic Design's NAB Surprise? It's a Camera

You always expect to find a treasure trove of new technology at NAB, but there's an unusual charge in the air when a vendor unexpectedly pulls a rabbit out of its hat on day one. That was the case in 2012, when Blackmagic Design — after confirming its status as a disrupter with recent purchases of Da Vinci Resolve and Teranex — announced a $3,000 cinema camera with an intriguing form factor and the promise of very high-quality pictures. The camera was later plagued by manufacturing delays, but finally seems to be shipping. Check our complete coverage, tagged blackmagic cinema camera.

#8 A Thunderbolt CF Card Reader … and More!

Sometimes it's the little things that make a big difference when it comes to workflow, especially when you're trying to make a portable solution, like a MacBook Pro, as usable as possible. Google searches drove massive pageviews of this July blog entry by Scott Simmons on the Thunderbolt ExpressCard adapter from Sonnet, indicating the frustration faced by users trying to make the most of the MBP's limited set of interfaces.

#7 Digital Domain to 3D-Conversion Industry: You Owe Us Money

We wrote a lot of stories this year about the collapse of Digital Domain Media Group, the ambitious VFX conglomerate whose finances became an open book when CEO John Textor took the company public late last year. But this one, about Digital Domain's claims that it owned patents that covered all of the 3D conversion work being done in the visual-effects industry, really pointed up the trouble DDMG's faced in financing non-VFX initatives like its Florida-based educational institution Digital Domain Institute and animation studio Tradition Studios. Follow our digital domain tag for more of the story that led to the company's Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing just two months later.

#6 The MacBook Pro Retina Display: Is 15 Inches Good Enough for Editing?

Following on #8, above, the increased power of Apple's MacBook Pro line has become tantalizing for editors who dream of leaving the desktop behind for at least part of their working day. But Apple's decision to discontinue its 17-inch MacBook Pro with the introduction of the 15-inch and 13-inch Retina displays caused some consternation. Beth Marchant considered the trade-off between screen size and pixel density, concluding that this is one 15-inch screen that lets you get a lot of work done. (But about those Mac Pros? Apple still says they're coming in 2013. Maybe we'll get more info in time for NAB.)

Click here for the rest of the countdown.