Disney Killing Pixar, Chimera VFX Short & CGI Portraits
(dailyfinance.com) John CarterAfter two lackluster weeks at the multiplex, Disney (DIS) realizes that it won't be making money on John Carter. The family entertainment giant is taking a $200 million writedown on the big-budgeted flop, resulting in Disney's studio subsidiary posting an operating loss between $80 million and $120 million for the current quarter, which ends this month.
It was a foregone conclusion that Disney would be taking a hit on the sci-fi movie, but even jaded analysts didn't think it would be this high. In other words, the lofty $350 million amount that has been estimated to be the film's production and marketing budget may actually be too low.
Ouch!
Poisoning Pixar
The charge stings, but Disney's been here before. It also took a hit last year when Mars Needs Moms bombed. However, this is a sensitive release.
Andrew Stanton -- the award-winning Pixar director behind Finding Nemo and Wall-E -- was the one behind John Carter, and now skeptics will begin to wonder if his success in theatrical animation means little when it comes to live action.
However, don't be surprised if cynics begin wondering if Disney is simply snuffing the creativity out of the great minds it acquired in its Pixar and Marvel purchases.
Andrew Stanton
It seems like an outlandish notion, but things appear to have been going downhill since Disney spent billions to acquire the two celebrated content creators. Let's take Pixar's Cars 2 out for a test drive. After years of Pixar blowing film critics away, ratings aggregator Rotten Tomatoes shows that just 38% of reviewers liked the film.
Marvel to Behold
Marvel's state is harder to discern since third-party studios and outside directors are the ones dictating the fate of its comic book properties, though it may not be a coincidence that the most poorly reviewed installments in the Iron Man and Spider-Man franchises were their most recent sequels.
Disney is counting on Pixar's Brave and Marvel's The Avengers to save the year. If one or both wind up generating disappointing box office receipts, it will lead to even more critiques of the Disney culture and the influence that it has had on Pixar and Marvel.
Disney can always point to general weakness at the box office. Movie attendance hit a 16-year low last year. However, that trend should have also kept the company from letting the film's budget spiral out of control.
Perhaps Disney was too busy thinking about the merchandising and theme park possibilities than the execution. Instead of building high-tech Avatar-themed attractions the way it will at one of its Florida theme parks, it could've made John Carter the marketable property to enhance its Animal Kingdom park.
It's not to be. Now let's see what Disney can do about keeping Pixar and Marvel from faltering in the future.
Wrath of the Titans VFX Creature Feature: Chimera
(joriben.com) Known as one of the the Greek Mythology's most vicious monster, Chimera is taking the center stage on the upcoming Clash of the Titans sequel, Wrath of the Titans. Warner bros. releases this video featuring the part lioness, part snake and part goat monstrosity with commentaries from the director, writer and special effects crew. Watch the video after the jump.
As expected the designer goes beyond what Chimera should look like. Instead of sticking with the original design, he kind of played with the concept creating a much more scary and epic concept design.
Wrath of the Titans' Chimera now contains two heads as oppose to the original that the other head should be just sticking out of its spine and the heads neither look like a lion or a goat but more demonic and menacing. The snake tail is still there but one interesting addition to Chimera is the pair of wings. As if a flightless Chimera is not scary enough. But true enough, the creature's appearance becomes more badass with those contraptions and it makes the monster more tougher to beat not to mention that it is also huge. Definitely it will be a treat and I'm absolutely looking forward to see Chimera in action when Wrath of the Titans opens in cinemas next week.
VIDEO - Take a look: http://www.joriben.com/2012/03/wrath-of-titans-creature-feature.html
Stunning Realistic CG Portraits
(inspirefirst.com) 3D computer graphics (CG) is the newest flavor of the month that creates the most attention-grabbing and unbelievable effects. It is always amazing to see that to what extent computer graphics can imitate human characteristics. Artists are very much skilled in creating amazingly realistic computer graphics that can easily be mistaken for the live photography.
Take a look: http://www.inspirefirst.com/2012/03/16/stunning-realistic-cg-portraits/
Digital Domain To Present at Maxim Group Growth Conference
PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla., Mar 22, 2012 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- A leading digital production company focused on visual effects, original content animation and major studio co-productions, announced that Jonathan Teaford, CEO of Digital Domain Institute, the company’s for-profit post-secondary educational institution, will be presenting at the Maxim Group Growth Conference. The presentation is scheduled for 1:30pm EDT on Monday, March 26, 2012, at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in New York City.
Digital Domain Media Group (ddmg:NYSE) leverages its expertise in digital visual effects (VFX) and computer-generated (CG) animation across a group of interrelated businesses. At its foundation is Digital Domain Productions (DDPI), an award-winning digital production company founded in 1993. This leading provider of visuals has contributed to more than 80 major motion pictures, including Titanic, the Transformers series, Real Steel and TRON: Legacy, as well hundreds of commercials. DDPI also converts two-dimensional (2D) imagery to three-dimensional (3D) imagery and holds key patents in this area. Mothership, a DDPI subsidiary, focuses on creating advertising, entertainment and branded content from concept to completion, across multiple media platforms. DDMG, its work and its employees have been recognized with numerous awards, including seven from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. The company is building on its success in VFX to participate as a co-producer in major studio productions and is currently in production on the upcoming live-action sci-fi feature film Ender’s Game. DDMG is also applying its CG expertise to produce original, family-friendly animated feature films at its subsidiary Tradition Studios. The first movie, The Legend of Tembo, is in pre-production and two more features are in development. The company’s education subsidiary, the Digital Domain Institute, sets a new standard in digital media education through a pioneering public-private partnership with The Florida State University College of Motion Picture Arts. DDMG is expanding its worldwide footprint of the highest quality visual effects and animation at the lowest possible cost through global partnerships in India and China. The company has studios in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Florida, Vancouver, Mumbai and London, and is currently establishing a studio in Beijing. http://www.ddmg.co
Dreamworks Anim To Save $10m For Dumping Paramount
(BusinessWeek) Shares of Dreamworks Animation SKG Inc. climbed more than 2 percent on Monday as an analyst raised his price target and rating for the movie studio, saying concerns about increased production costs and an uncertain distribution deal are probably overdone.
THE SPARK: PiperJaffray's James Marsh said in a client note that there are few details so far on a new agreement for the distribution of future films, but that the probable outcome will add to earnings and provide more flexibility for the business.
"In the end, we see the company saving $10 million or more in distribution expenses and gaining more flexibility in evolving digital distribution channels," the analyst wrote.
Model Sculpture of Hatbox Ghost for Guillermo del Toro’s ‘Haunted Mansion?’
(latino-review.com) Is this the sign of life for Guillermo del Toro’s “Haunted Mansion?”
Since the announcement at San Diego Comic-Con International 2010, there was very little news about the 3D remake project except that it will revolve around the Hatbox Ghost from the Disney ride.
On Ain’t It Cool News site, head geek Harry Knowles discovered a photograph of a model sculpture of the Hatbox Ghost on the web site for Illusion Industries.
It’s pure speculation at this point, because Illusion Industries do not have the “Haunted Mansion” as one of their official projects. And, it may just be a privately commissioned project.
Nonetheless, it looks like a pretty good model sculpture of the Hatbox Ghost.
Check it out: http://latino-review.com/2012/03/22/model-sculpture-hatbox-ghost-guillermo-del-toros-haunted-mansion/
IMAX is Doing for Hollywood What 3-D Couldn't
(usatoday.com) Despite tickets that can run more than $15 each, IMAX box office is leading the industry's rebound in revenue and attendance. Through the first six weeks of the year, IMAX reports, ticket sales hit $55 million, a 45% increase over the same period in 2011. Analysts project that, given the tent-pole movies heading to IMAX this spring, the first quarter could finish up more than 70% over last year.
The surge well outpaces the industry's overall rebound, which has seen ticket sales and revenue rise about 20% over last year.
"There's a consensus that with all the ads, all the gimmicks Hollywood pulls, IMAX is the real deal," says Hollywood.com's Paul Dergarabedian.
The colossal format — which requires screens up to 60 feet tall — is pulling more than its weight in ticket sales, even for duds.
Last week's $250 million fantasy opus John Carter, for instance, opened to a mediocre $30.2 million on 3,749 screens. On the 289 IMAX screens on which Carter played, however, it pulled in $5 million — or 17% of the debut.
IMAX is "fulfilling the promise that 3-D didn't keep, that it would be unlike anything you've seen," says Jeff Bock of Exhibitor Relations. "And unlike great sound or 3-D glasses, you can't replicate IMAX at home unless you have a six-story screen."
Of the nation's 425 IMAX theaters, 325 now show commercial films (the rest are attractions at museums), a trend that took off in 2007, when Transformers and Spider-Man 3 were shown in the format. There are about 39,000 standard-screen theaters in the U.S.
Last year, nine of the 10 top-grossing films included IMAX presentations.
Analysts expect similar returns in 2012, where the first hit, The Lorax ($158 million), included IMAX screenings. Other titles, including Friday's The Hunger Games and next month's re-release of Titanic, are headed to the format.
IMAX CEO Rich Gelfond says the number of IMAX screens has tripled since 2008 because of audience "demand to see event films in IMAX."
The key, Bock says, will be in maintaining an "event" atmosphere.
The Price Of The VFX Overtime Death March
(vfxsoldier.wordpress.com) An article is making the rounds promoting the 40-hour week and explains how long work hours have proven to cost workers and their employers more of their time, their money, and their health.
It’s a heresy now (good luck convincing your boss of what I’m about to say), but every hour you work over 40 hours a week is making you less effective and productive over both the short and the long haul. And it may sound weird, but it’s true: the single easiest, fastest thing your company can do to boost its output and profits — starting right now, today — is to get everybody off the 55-hour-a-week treadmill, and back onto a 40-hour footing.
If you are a professional in the VFX industry you are probably familiar with the death march that is months of 60+ hour weeks. A reader emailed me to ask: “Why does the VFX industry continue to work crazy and exhausting hours like this?”
To be frank, the reason why is because we accept it and we love it.
The article cites 3 reasons for crunch time and I feel it nails the issue right on the head for why the VFX industry is the same way:
1. We have an obsession for VFX.
2. We have turned into “VFX Jocks”.
3. The industry has no union.
The Obsession For VFX
It’s good to like what you do and it’s one thing to love it, but I find many VFX professionals are obsessed with VFX. Many volunteer to work a 12 hour day or ask to come in on weekends to quench their obsession to bring perfection to their VFX work. This practice has turned long hours into the norm and has become an acceptable practice.
In pursuit of that perfection we choose to sacrifice time with friends, family, and our own health and sanity. I think it’s great to strive for perfection, I just prefer to do it Monday through Friday from 9am to 5pm. I like VFX but I don’t love it and I personally get creeped out by people who are obsessed with it. I prefer being with friends and family and having a chance to enjoy some of the fruits of my labor and having time to take care of personal errands.
The author of the article points to this obsession called “passion” for work as to one of the reasons for the explosion of overtime:
Asperger’s Syndrome wasn’t named and identified until 1994, but by the 1950s, the defense industries in California’s Santa Clara Valley were already drawing in brilliant young men and women who fit the profile: single-minded, socially awkward, emotionally detached, and blessed (or cursed) with a singular, unique, laser-like focus on some particular area of obsessive interest. For these people, work wasn’t just work; it was their life’s passion, and they devoted every waking hour to it, usually to the exclusion of non-work relationships, exercise, sleep, food, and sometimes even personal care.
James Cameron made a similar observation during the making of Titanic:
The Digital Domain guys are brilliant, but sometimes I think they’re idiot savants.
Rise Of The VFX Jock
As the obsession for VFX became the norm, it became a potent mix when combined with a competitive work environment. VFX professionals developed a jock-like mentality similar to sports athletes that are eager to prove the idea that “pain is temporary, VFX is forever!”
It starts with casually letting others know that you work longer hours. Then some start challenging others or calling them out for going home early: It becomes a sport.
I was appalled by the mentality displayed on some of the productions I’ve been on. I remember one co-worker happily cheering LucasFilm for firing a woman because she was pregnant. I’ve come across workers that told me that if the company wanted to slash their pay by 50% they would happily accept it because they love their job. I’m all for competition but I want to compete in a race to the top, not a race to the bottom.
So we look at the long hours as a symbolism of pride. I think much of this stems from the cyclical and nomadic nature of the industry: We are unable to display the fruits of our labor by having families or firmly rooting ourselves down and have some ownership in our lives. So we use the scars as a substitute to show how much we love VFX and also how much we love the companies we work for. The author rightly points this out. She calls them internal entrepreneurs:
The new ideal was to unleash “internal entrepreneurs” — Randian übermenschen who would devote all their energies to the corporation’s success, in expectation of great reward — and who were willing to assume all the risks themselves. In this brave new world, the real go-getters were the ones who were willing to put in weekends and Saturdays, who put their families on hold, who ate at their desks and slept in their cubicles. Forty-hour weeks were for losers and slackers, who began to vanish from America’s business landscape.
De-Unionization
The author points out that it was the Unions who helped mandate the 40-hour week and were also the guardians. As the 80?s came along unions became the convienient punching bag and membership eroded. Corporations were successful in capitalizing in fear and lumping unionization with inefficiency, laziness, and free-loading.
The reality of course is that none of this is true. Forbes had an article about German auto workers: They are all unionized, produce twice as many cars as the US, and are paid twice as much. I also found that the most competitive countries in the world have the highest rates of union membership: Do Unions Make Us Less Competitive?
For VFX companies that are fearful of unreasonable client demands, a union can sometimes be a convienient bad guy preventing the use of expensive overtime.
Why Do Employers Continue The Death March?
With all this evidence that shows extended periods of crunch time being bad for workers and especially bad for productivity and profits, why do employers continue with the death march?
I believe there’s a huge disconnect between management and the VFX crew. I think most producers don’t have intimate technical knowledge as to what we do. They are concerned with bid days or when something is finaled or kicked back. So when they find a production that is falling behind, the question isn’t how to fix the problem, the question is how can we scale the amount of time and people dedicated to the task. The harder question that needs to be answered is why a particular task has fallen behind. This industry has always chosen the easy answer to the problem. The easy answer usually ends up being the costly one.
Crunch time usually comes from failures in planning. I’ve been in meetings where supervisors throw out wild unrealistic ideas of how the pipeline will work. Nothing is ever stress tested. No simple experiments are done to prove a concept which could point out future problems early on. Instead it’s just put your head down and plow through the work using brute force. The industry also suffers from a herd mentality. If another shop burns a shitload of overtime well so should we! If they go to Vancouver so should we! If they stick their head in a blender so should we!
I also believe there is a certain level of fear production management has with supervisors and clients. Sometimes a panicked coordinator will tell me the client wants to see something Monday and needs me to come in Saturday. So I agree only to realize the work I plowed through doesn’t even get reviewed until the following week!
Why did the production waste my time and company money for a task that really wasn’t needed? What I’ve learned is that the client or supervisor will say something like “it would be nice to see that Monday” and production goes into this frantic trauma thinking they need to see it Monday when in fact they don’t.
There are other times where I’ve found some companies that use the death march to just overbill the client. I’ve been asked to come in on weekends with nothing to do. While this isn’t true for every company, what I learned was the company was able to charge the client another bid day. I wouldn’t be surprised if a company charged a client bid days when artists weren’t even in for work.
At the end of the day the massive amounts of wasteful overtime is just another example of how careless the industry is about earning a profit. We see instances where executives earn more from the golden parachutes they earn by seeing the company fail. We see them compete to chase work in subsidized regions just so the client can obtain a rebate while they burn through millions in infrastructure costs, labor mobilization, and increased overhead.
This industry is in the middle of a Mexican standoff with an absurd twist: Instead of having their guns pointed at each other, they’re pointed at their own heads.
A New Adaptation Of Orwell's "1984"
(darkhorizons.com) Imagine Entertainment and LBI Entertainment are teaming to develop a new film adaptation of George Orwell’s seminal dystopian literary classic "1984" says Heat Vision.
Set in a world of perpetual war, pervasive government surveillance, and incessant public mind control, the story centers on Winston Smith who works for the Ministry of Truth which is responsible for propaganda and historical revisionism.
Because of the childhood trauma of the destruction of his family — the disappearances of his parents and sister — Winston Smith secretly hates the ruling Party, and dreams of rebellion against them and their deified Party leader - Big Brother.
Written in 1948, the property has previously been adapted several times before - most notably in 1984 itself starring John Hurt and Richard Burton. More notably however the novel has had major influences in the artistic, cultural and even political arenas over the past few decades with concepts from it becoming synonymous with denoting totalitarian authority.
The producers, including Julie Yorn, Brian Grazer and Ron Howard, are out to writers to find a take on the material before setting it up at a studio. Street artist Shepard Fairey is also involved in the project.
CGI Experts Say Flying Bird Man Is Fake
(gizmodo.com) The internet is hysterically flapping its wings over a video that portends to show a man flying. Flying like a bird! But is it real? There's no consensus, but George Lucas' CGI masterminds say it's a big avian hoax.
We spoke with Ryan Martin, Technical Director at preeminent Industrial Light & Magic, who not only offered his own take, but that of over a dozen coworkers. He asked me to forgive the delay in their response because they've "all been pretty busy finishing up The Avengers." Yeah.
Here's their case:
Okay, so I don't see any glaring visual problems, but that's expected when the quality is as shitty as this. But that's the first thing that makes me question its authenticity. They're able to afford to build this thing, but can't invest in proper video equipment, or... a tripod. If I were to make a fake video with the intention of going viral, I would make certain that the quality was as poor as possible to disguise any flaws in poor cg work. Another big visual issue I have with this video is the stability of his head during flight. Try and keep your head that still while waving your arms up and down when they aren't attached to a giant wing contraption. Still, it seems almost too crazy to be fake and I was unable to find other glaring flaws with the video. So, I've queried our entire facility because we have some pretty amazingly smart people here. Here's what some of them had to say:
Employee 1: "without a doubt, fake"
Employee 2 (also a pilot) "the camera seems very strange. I know that when I am flying in an airplane, I don't look straight ahead all of the time. Also, the only way people have been able to propel themselves above the ground have been by bicycle arrangements to power a fixed-wing aircraft. A human powered helicopter managed 10 seconds of flight about 5 inches above the ground. The legs are much more powerful than the arms.
I have serious doubts about it just on the physics and physiology points alone. "
Employee 3: "I agree, I saw that earlier today. I can't spot any glaring visual problems, but the physics just don't add up."
Employee 4: "Bad physics, shaky cam with bad focus (always a giveaway) and the most steady head I've ever seen on a guy flapping his arms in order to not break every bone in his body. FAKE."
Employee 5: "check out this video
CGI Experts Say Flying Bird Man Is Fake (Update 2)
and some others....
http://www.humanbirdwings.net/my-recent-videos/
he is talking about the motors that assist his flying, so he isn't flapping all by himself.
if its a hoax, its a pretty elaborate hoax, because he has been trying t build up trust for months before hand."
Employee 6: " it is a matter of weight ratios! Have a look at the gossamer condor surface area of the wing to sustain flight at 1.5 miles an hour."
Employee 7: "6 December 2011,For weeks I have been programming the HTC phone and the Wii remote to work together in order to let them flap my wings in the right movement.",,http://www.humanbirdwings.net/project-timeline/" I've had my wiimote just shut off suddenly without any warning. Sounds like marketing bs or soon to be granted Darwin award."
Employee 8: "I constantly see gliders taking off (Fort Funston in Daly City) and It doesn't look right to me:
- the motion of the wings and physics looks bogus to me. the flapping motion is weird to me.
- the wing cloth, totally looks like cloth simulation. the cloth look structurally too rigid looks like a thick velvet.
- the wing clothing material looks CGI."
Employee 9: "Look how steady the GoPro footage is. You seriously think his neck is that stable when flapping his arms? To get that high and not move your head around an inch to take in the view? FAKE"
Employee 10: I have to wonder where the power is coming from (where are the batteries, etc). The most efficient for human transportation appears to be a fixed wing aircraft. You can get very good results from a good laminar wingform and a low power engine/motor. His wings will definitely not provide the aerodynamics to haul a 180 pounds in the air. The largest bird had a 23 foot wingspan, and was only 171 pounds. It also had very large pectoral muscles to handle the power needed.
Employee 11: "The wing-loading is crazy. ,,Also, a major purpose of a tail on a bird or airplane is to counter-act the forward pitching moment of the wing. If you could get your weight down to about 50 pounds for those wings, you would still find yourself rolling forward. Straight-wing flying wings need a specific twist, or large dihedral, to maintain stable flight (both of which kill lift). The configuration in the video is prone to gerbilling.,,I think the animation cycle on the figure is borrowed from the monkeys in Wizard of Oz."
Emphasis added. Martin even produced a smoking gun:
Okay Sam, They wouldn't let this go without getting to the bottom of it. We've got proof it's faked.
The proof comes from one of their other videos and the guys here are genuinely impressed that it's taken so long even for us to determine the truth.
These guys are fooling everyone.
Watch this video:
CGI Experts Say Flying Bird Man Is Fake (Update 2)
CGI Experts Say Flying Bird Man Is Fake (Update 2)At 1:45, you can see a little black square on the fabric
CGI Experts Say Flying Bird Man Is Fake (Update 2)Now, without cutting, the camera pans down and then back up again. When the camera pans up, the wing is cg. You can tell because the model they used didn't have perfect textures
It's a pretty good fake, but it is absolutely fake.
Again, emphasis added.
We also talked with a CGI brain at Visual Playground, who spotted what he says is another giveaway:
Ok...not on the vid...but on their site...a bit of a giveaway. this vid:
CGI Experts Say Flying Bird Man Is Fake (Update 2) contains screen shot of the prototype 3D model of the wing movements. The program is Maya, a 3D program primarily used by CG artists. I would think if this was the engineering vid it claims to be they would be using a 3D modeling program more suited to physics based modeling. Also the toolbar they have loaded atop the program is the 'Cloth Simulation' area of the program, which is used create such effects as fabric wings moving through air...hmmm. This isnt 100% proof but it is strange for them to have such a detailed ANIMATED model in a CG program rather than a engineering one.
So if it's a fake, it's a pretty masterful one. Even the Star Wars guys are impressed.
Update: Martin has more refutation out of ILM:
Even more definitive evidence from on of our veteran compositors:
CGI Experts Say Flying Bird Man Is Fake (Update 2)CGI Experts Say Flying Bird Man Is Fake (Update 2)"At 0:18 - the cast shadows of the three fellas on the wings are another giveaway. The shadow on screen right, for example, was created using an articulate of the man himself, then hand-animated and warped to look like a cast shadow on the wing. Watch how the cast shadow does a moon-walk/shuffle, incongruous with the man himself.
All that said, it's still very well done. Good stuff. And I truly believe this is a healthy exercise for folks who do this stuff for a living."
Update 2: Another heavyweight CGI alum weighs in:
CGI Experts Say Flying Bird Man Is Fake (Update 2) I've been in CG for 15 years, and worked at some of the largest studios like ILM and Weta Digital. This is 100% without a doubt a digital composite, which is great! When I saw this video I was happy to see that somebody really took the time to integrate good CG into a viral video. So many hackneyed attempts are passed around, and this one really stands out. A lot of people have been fooled, so I thought I'd show how trained Hollywood visual effects artists can spot CG when ley people can't. The ILM guys that pointed out the crappy footage were right - that's what covers 90% of the problems. You actually WANT bad footage to put CG into, because the shaking covers many mistakes. So I stabilized the shot, as you can see here, and the problems leap out. First thing that you might be surprised by, is that the PEOPLE are digitally composited into the shot too! Everyone has been focusing on the wings but the people running in frame were shot separately and then added to the shot later to save on work. Rather than "Roto" the people (trace their outline frame by frame to put CG objects behind them), the makers of this video thought it would be easier (and it is) to just add them on TOP of the CG wings later. In the stabilized shot, look how there is motion blur on the three actors and the wings when there is none on the background. This is due to the fact that a "2D" motion blur plugin was used. The computer calculates the change in pixels from frame to frame and blurs the pixels the more the pixels change. The problem is, these actors already had motion blur on them when they were first shot. When you composite them into the footage, motion blur gets added AGAIN. This is why they go very blurry when the rest of the shot doesn't. The makers of this video tried to hide the fact they did this by having the two characters on the right run off screen, and then come back into frame. The actual footage that was shot on this day was a blank field, and the characters running in from screen right. Look closely at the shadows on the ground of the middle character. There is only only leg on the ground, and it slides with his movement. There's even some frames where the shadow is on the wrong side of the foot. The screen left character transitions (simple fade) between the digitally composited version of himself and the version of him on the ground between frames 90-92 of my video. The cg artists then have to roto the foreground characters minimally for the rest of the shot. A very valiant attempt, plain as day to a CG artist.
This is really convincing CG work, but the public needs to understand that CG artists can detect things the same way a master chef can detect the ingredients of a dish. I take my hat off to these artists for their commitment to this project, creating and releasing so many videos with convincing graphics that have fooled a LOT of people. It's the perfect PR for a visual effects studio. Wish I'd thought of it!
Henson to Make Sid the Science Kid Feature
(comingsoon.net) Taking advantage of growing collaborative opportunities in new territories, The Jim Henson Company has inked a deal with Shanghai, China-based animation studio Nine Eyes Stone & Shanghai Animation Film Studios to co-produce Sid the Science Kid: The Movie, a 3D, CG-animated feature film based on the company’s hit kids TV series.
The feature film (written/executive produced by Bradley Zweig, and executive produced by Henson’s Lisa Henson and Halle Stanford) follows the story of Sid and his classmate Gabriela who, after winning a science experiment contest, get to experience a new modern science museum before it opens. After encountering an eccentric scientist (Christopher Lloyd of Back to the Future) whose robot tour guides go rogue, the pair must work together with the contest winners from China to save the day.
The Jim Henson Company will handle distribution, including licensing, video and merchandising, and rep the movie globally outside of China, holding all theatrical, television, DVD and digital platform rights. As part of the deal, Nine Eyes Stone & Shanghai Animation Film Studios have acquired distribution rights for the existing TV series and the film in the Chinese market.
Christopher Nolan Screens 'Dark Knight Rises' for Warner Bros
(hollywoodreporter.com) Sources tell The Hollywood Reporter that Nolan on Friday presented his first cut of 2012's most-anticipated film to top Warner Bros. executives, including film chief Jeff Robinov and production president Greg Silverman.
The movie doesn’t open until July 20, but Nolan has allowed himself plenty of time to fine-tune the film as he and the brass see fit. Sources say Nolan has been a fixture on the Warners lot during the past few days after finishing a monthslong shoot and editing process. The follow-up to 2008's $1 billion-grossing The Dark Knight was filmed in locations as diverse as Los Angeles, New York, New Jersey and Pittsburgh as well as in parts of India and the U.K.
The Batman tale returns most of the cast from Dark Knight, including Christian Bale, Morgan Freeman and Gary Oldman, along with a new crop of luminaries including Anne Hathaway, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Marion Cotillard and Tom Hardy as villain Bane.
The movie opens a week after July's Comic-Con convention, which Nolan has never attended. Nolan’s previous tentpole movies – Batman Begins, The Dark Knight and Inception – have opened before Comic-Con during their respective summers, but in light of the latest movie’s release date, speculation has already begun that this year will be different.
The Best (and easiest) Special Effect You Can Do To Freak Out Your Friends
(io9.com) The best (and easiest) special effect you can do to freak out your friendsSome special effects are incredibly easy to do — with science. Find out how to pour an 'empty' pitcher on candle flames and cause them to suddenly go out. It's a fun and easy effect for your supernatural movie, fake seance, or just freaking out your friends.
Of course there's a reason why I put those quotes are around 'empty' and 'water.' The pitcher in this experiment isn't actually empty. It's just filled with something you can't see. You also can't smell or taste it. The only time you know it's there is when you can feel it fizzing through your soda - or when it chokes you to death because you've been locked in an airlock. It's carbon dioxide, and it is one of the things that will make a candle go out.
A candle needs three things to keep burning. The first is basic fuel, which is provided by the paraffin wax drawn up through the wick. Another is heat, which is provided first by a match, and then by the burning of the candle itself. The most effective way of putting out a candle, or any flame, is taking away its oxygen. Carbon dioxide is a heavy molecule, heavier than the oxygen in the air. Although it does get joggled around by the atmosphere, and can be found at any height, it will stay for some time in the bottom of a container. And if that container is upended in the air, the carbon dioxide will pour out of it, just like liquid does.
The results of the combination of bicarbonate of soda, also known as baking soda, and vinegar is well-known. The fizzy explosion is a staple of many elementary-school volcanoes. What you're seeing in the fizz is a double reaction. The acetic acid (CH3COOH) in the vinegar and the baking soda (NaHCO3) swap some atoms. The acetic acid snatches away the sodium (Na) atom, while the baking soda grabs an extra hydrogen. This causes the baking soda to become carbonic acid (H2CO3), which is unstable. It breaks down into carbon dioxide (CO2) and water (H2O). The many bubbles causing the fizzy explosion are the escaping carbon dioxide.
The best (and easiest) special effect you can do to freak out your friends Going back to our illusion, it's simple enough to get a lot of carbon dioxide from these common kitchen items. Swirling the fizz breaks open those bubbles and releases them into the air. They can be kept in a new, covered container for a short while, or you could simply cover up the bottom of the pitcher where the reaction is taking place. Pour the pitcher over the candles, and it looks like they are going out all by themselves. If you can hide yourself and the picture completely, this is also a good way to get selected candles to look like they're putting themselves out. All in all, a cool effect that you can do in your kitchen.
In a way, we are magicians. We are alchemists, sorcerers and wizards. We are a very strange bunch. But there is great fun in being a wizard. -Billy Joel
A New “Slayer” of Dragons, Effect Shot Give-Aways, & 8 Go-Motion Monsters
"Slayer" To Battle Dragons For Legendary Pictures
(The Hollywood Reporter) Legendary Pictures has its sights set on a fantasy entitled Slayer. The Hollywood Reporter has word that the company has picked up the script from newcomer Martin Helgeland.
Set in present day, Slayer has a doctor dealing with the loss of his father and uncovering the truth about his dad's identity. Not only was his father a dragonslayer, but the doctor is next in line to take up the mantle.
Alex Garcia and Alex Hedlund will produce with Brian Helgeland (the father of Martin and the writer of films like Payback and Mystic River) executive producing.
Russell Crowe Will Play Noah For Darren Aronofsky
Aronofsky originally wanted Christian Bale for the lead, but that didn’t pan out. Crowe was rumored for a while, then it was reported he was in talks and now it has become a reality.Here’s Aronofsky on why he wants to tell the story of Noah:
”Since I was a kid, I have been moved and inspired by the story of Noah and his family’s journey. The imaginations of countless generations have sparked to this epic story of faith. It’s my hope that I can present a window into Noah’s passion and perseverance for the silver screen.”
I really can’t put in to words how excited I am for this film. In my opinion Aronofsky hasn’t made a bad film. My favorites from him are The Fountain and Black Swan. Whenever Swan is on cable I will literally turn from whatever I’m watching. I don’t mean to be hyperbolic, I simply love this film. It was my pic for best picture of 2010 and was worlds better than the pretentious The King’s Speech. When will this world’s fascination with British Royalty finally end?
Aronofsky wanted to start shooting in the spring, but now it has been pushed back to July. There will be more casting announcements coming, so stay tuned for updates.
6 Dumb Things That Make Special Effects Less Effective
(gammasquad.uproxx.com) Most of the movies us nerds are looking forward to in 2012 have something in common — lots and lots of special effects. So, let’s talk special effects for a bit.
The things that can be done with special effects today are amazing, and yet despite all the advances in technique and technology, a lot of special effects still aren’t particularly convincing. More often than not the fault doesn’t lie with the effects technology itself, but in how the effects are presented.
Basically a lot of movies do dumb things that rob their amazing effects of all their impact. Stuff like…
Using CG Effects When They Don’t Have To
This is one of my biggest pet peeves — when movies break out the CG effects for minor stuff that doesn’t require them. A spider has to crawl on some lady’s arm? You could just get a tarantula from a pet store and plunk it on her arm, but nah — better computer generate that s–t!
While I generally enjoyed the movie, Chronicle was particularly bad for this. The movie’s about three teenage guys gaining telekinetic powers, and for the first half of the flick all they use them for is small stuff like making cameras float, or pushing cars around a parking lot. It’s all stuff that could have been done with simple practical effects, and yet they pull out the CG for all of it.
That said, the scene where they make Pringles fly into their mouths will blow your mind.
When movies resort to CGI for such minor things, it almost always looks bad because, really, it’s just a spider on a lady’s arm or a floating camera. It’s not a big showpiece shot, so the effects artists aren’t going to put that much effort into them, but here’s the thing — these “unimportant” shots looking like crap will make viewers less likely to accept the big stuff later on.
I don’t know about you, but once I notice a few really unconvincing special effects my brain goes into “spot the s–tty CGI” mode. Because of that lame spider or floating camera early on, my brain doesn’t want to accept the giant ape or superhero effects showdown that comes later. In other words, if a scene is too unimportant to bother making your CG effects look decent, don’t even bother with ‘em.
The advent of CGI means filmmakers no longer have to worry about the limitations of actual physical cameras — they can create scenes entirely in the computer and have a virtual camera that dives, swirls and swoops around like no real camera actually could.
These virtual cameras are fine if used with restraint, but they rarely are — even great directors like Martin Scorsese go overboard with them. His latest movie, Hugo, is full of scenes where the camera swooshes through twisting corridors full of complex machinery and clockworks — these scenes are supposed to be exciting I think, but they didn’t make much of an impact on me. Based on the impossible way the camera was moving my brain immediately concluded “oh, okay, we’re taking a cartoon break” and didn’t reengage until the camera stopped flying around.
CG effects are basically just extra detailed cartoons — don’t call attention to the fact with a “camera” straight out of an animated Disney movie from the 90s.
Making Everything Too Darn Pretty
“Hey, CGI is great at making dinosaurs, explosions and exploding dinosaurs look awesome. Let’s use it to make everything look awesome!”
I can understand the line of thinking, but things usually go wrong once filmmakers start to apply too much CG spackle to a movie’s background elements. Movies like Avatar and Kingdom of the Crystal Skull have these super bright, crisp, colorful, detailed virtual sets — which ultimately make everything look fake.
I think some filmmakers think making movie backgrounds look like something out of a Saturday morning cartoon will help cover any cartoonishness in the CG effects and characters. That everything will come together as a cohesive Crayola-colored whole and be convincing.
James Cameron’s favorite crayon is purple.
It doesn’t really work though. Would Jurassic Park’s dinosaurs have looked more convincing if that movie took place in the primary colored plastic jungle of Kingdom of the Crystal Skull? Hell no. Environments that look like something that might actually exist in the real world lend an extra air of believability to CG effects. For instance, I found District 9?s aliens far more believable than Avatar’s, and a lot of that has to do with the fact that District 9 took place in a realistic looking slum, while Avatar took place in a purple and pink acid trip.
Showing Off With Big Crowd Scenes
You know the type of scenes I’m talking about — the two armies line up and the virtual camera soars across an endless field of soldiers/orcs/Jar Jar Binkses. It always looks unconvincing because the effects artists don’t have the time to detail every single figure in the horde — they just hit copy-and-paste until the field is full, and it’s obvious. Until you come up with some crazy computer program or algorithm that can actually make big crowds look convincing, please stop trying to impress us with them. It’s just not working.
Bouncing Back and Forth Between Practical and CG Effects
Superhero movies are particularly bad for this — one moment Spiderman is an actual guy in an actual costume who looks solid and believable, next he’s a rubbery CGI creation ping-ponging around the walls. The constant back-and-forth, often multiple times per minute during action scenes, just makes the CGI stick out like a sore thumb.
I say if more than 50% of your action scene is going to be done using CGI, just do the whole scene in CGI. Switching back to real people and practical effects for some shots may save a little money, but it comes at the expense of believability and cohesion. If your special effects budget is running low just cut that scene from earlier in the movie with the CG spider on the lady’s arm.
Focusing on those Dead Dead Eyes
CG effects have come a long way, but dammit, they still can’t quite do eyes. I know you want to showcase Andy Serkis’ acting, but dammit, those slow zooms into the dewy eyes of Gollum/King Kong/Caesar the chimp are always a bad idea.
U.K. Budget 2012: Tax Breaks Extended to Animation and Games Industries
(guardian.co.uk) George Osborne's 2012 budget will extend the tax breaks to ensure that Aardman Animations, the creator of Wallace and Gromit, will remain in the UK. Photograph: Graeme Robertson
Wallace & Gromit will continue to be produced in the UK, the chancellor has claimed in his budget speech, as he unveiled a film industry-style tax break to encourage the development of the animation and video game sectors.
The financial incentive announced by George Osborne will also apply to high-cost dramas, such as Titantic and Downton Abbey, details of which had been briefed out last week during the prime minister's trip to the US and were confirmed in the budget announcement on Wednesday.
The chancellor told the Commons that it was the policy of the government to keep Wallace & Gromit exactly where they are – a comment that prompted cheers from Coalition benches as it was also a dig at Labour leader Ed Miliband, who is sometimes likened to the cheese-loving plasticine hero.
Aardman Animations, the Bristol-based independent producer behind Wallace & Gromit, has, alongside other animators, been calling for the Treasury to introduce a tax relief to support British production, at an estimated direct cost to the Exchequer of £17m a year. Animation is a £300m-a-year industry that employs 4,700 people directly.
British animation has been in decline in recent years as other countries have offered generous subsidies for cartoonists to move abroad, with Bob the Builder now produced in the US, Thomas the Tank Engine in Canada and Noddy made in Ireland. The industry believes the result is British pre-schoolchildren now see largely foreign-made content.
Details of the new tax break scheme remain sketchy, with Osborne only announcing an intention to proceed, subject to obtaining state-aid approval from the European Commission and a consultation.
But the tax breaks are expected to operate on similar lines to film, in which projects filmed in the UK qualify for a 20% or 25% break depending on the production budget.
The video games industry employs an estimated 9,000 people in the UK working in 300 studios, but development jobs have been moving to locations such as Montreal in Canada where tax incentives have helped slash the cost of developing games which can reach £50m for high end titles.
Games industry trade body UKIE said that a games tax relief would create an estimated 4,700 direct and indirect jobs, and generate £188m in investment by studios. The Department of Culture, Media and Sport said the break would create and protect 1,650 studio jobs, and contribute £280m to GDP.
An estimated £350m a year more would be spent in the UK as a result of the drama tax incentive, according to estimates on behalf of a group of drama producers. They argue that the economy would benefit to the tune of £1bn when taking into account the wider benefits from the greater employment and investment.
Julian Fellowes's £1m an hour ITV1 drama Titanic, which starts on Sunday, was shot in Hungary because it was cheaper to build a replica of the ship in landlocked central Europe than film where the original ocean going liner was built, at the Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast.
Andy Harries, chief executive of Wallander producer Left Bank Pictures, said the tax relief would give British television a much needed shot in the arm.
Glenn Whitehead, executive vice president business and legal affairs at US cable network HBO said: "Today's news on a new tax incentive has turned the UK from one of the most expensive options into a competitive and affordable location."
The 8 Best Go-Motion Monsters (and Robots)
(toplessrobot.com) ?What do the films RoboCop, Dragonslayer, and Empire Strikes Back all have in common (other than being defining films of 80's cinema)? All of them employed the then-groundbreaking animation technique coined "go motion" -- co-developed by legendary visual effects artist Phil Tippett and Industrial Light and Magic. Inspired by the special effects of Ray Harryhausen in the film The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad, a young Tippett knew where his destiny lay and quickly pursued a career in special effects animation, eventually finding himself working in Industrial Light and Magic's animation department and bringing to life creations such as the AT-ATs and tauntauns of Hoth. By the mid-80s, Tippett ventured out on his own and founded the Tippett Studio to create animated sequences for both film and television; his work garnering numerous awards and nominations for his innovation and the incomparable skill of his craft.
As revolutionary as go motion was, its legacy was sadly short-lived having lasted less than 15 years. By 1993, the release of Jurassic Park and its use of CGI over go motion was the final nail in the coffin for Tippett's animation technique. Even though Tippett Studio would shift focus and work primarily with CGI to keep with the times, modern cinema lost a technique that harkened back to the days of Harryhausen and Willis O'Brien, with no one stepping up to the plate to use go motion once more for old times' sake. But just because go motion is no longer in favor with modern filmmakers certainly doesn't mean that the creatures that came to life because of it are any less memorable or inspiring. Check out 8 of the best go motion monsters (and robots)!
The Top 8 - Take a look: http://www.toplessrobot.com/2012/03/the_8_best_go_motion_monsters_and_robots.php
Ask Me To Ask the Pixar Animators Anything!
(wired.com) After my article about the archery in Brave ran here, I got a call from a publicist at Disney. He wanted to know if my interest in Brave was solely due to the archery. I explained that I’m a life-long cartoon and animation nut, love Pixar and Disney, and have actually studied traditional and computer animation, that I am a cartoonist, and that I’m of Scottish ancestry, so this movie hits every button I have. He then asked if I would be interested in visiting Pixar to meet the people who made the film.
Would I be interested? Is Indiana Jones interested in ancient artifacts? Is Bruce Wayne interested in stopping crime? Is Han Solo interested in money? Am I interested, he asks! That’s what I thought in the microsecond it took to form the words “heck, yeah!” Then I went to talk to the boss at my new job, where I’ve been on-staff for all of three weeks. Her immediate response, when I asked for time off and said why, was “You have to go! It’s too cool not to!”
So I’m going to visit Pixar the first week of April, along with about two dozen other bloggers, mostly from sites focusing on family and parenting. As soon as the list of attendees was sent out, several of them friended me on Facebook, and they seem like a fun bunch of people. I’m looking forward to the trip.
“Yes,” I hear you cry, “that’s nice for you, but what does it mean to me?”
It means I need your help. What questions would you like me to ask the Pixar animators? Post your questions in the comments section here, or on the new GeekDad Community forum, and I’ll take them with me and ask, then report back with the answers. You can ask questions about Brave, or about Disneynature’s new film Chimpanzee, which opens on Earth Day, or about the short film La Luna, which will be screened along with Brave when it comes to your local theater. You can also ask questions about the new Walt Disney Family Museum in San Francisco, which I will also be visiting. I’m particularly looking forward to that; my friend Floyd Norman, a bona fide Disney Legend, was a consultant for the museum, and the little bits he told me about it sound fascinating. I can’t wait to share it with you.
Please submit your questions before April 3; that’s when I head north to Pixar. Come on, what are you dying to know about Brave and Pixar?
Source: http://www.wired.com/geekdad/2012/03/ask-the-pixar-animators/
Industrial Light & Magic Visits VFS
(commerciallighting.co) Industrial Light & Magic visited VFS Animation & Visual Effects students for a unique presentation in the course of SIGGRAPH 2011. Senior Recruiter Sarah Alvarado and University Relations Manager Anita Stokes were joined by 3D Animation & Visual Effects grads Scott Jones and Simeon Bassett.
CGI IMPROVES QUALITY OF LIFE
(postagevfx.com) The combination of CGI and 3D printing no longer just serve the do-it-yourself designers and product model makers of the architectural industry. The creativity behind CGI now improves quality of life.
Last June, an 83-year-old woman in the Netherlands received a new jawbone that Belgian manufacturer LayerWise created with a 3D printer. The dilemma associated with this woman’s jaw surgery inspired this world first acheivement.
According to Mashable Tech, doctors feared that reconstructive surgery to fix the woman’s infected jaw, at her age, could have caused complications. Replacing a complete bone with a 3D printed implant was an innovative and successful choice.
LayerWise Manufacturing Director Peter Mercelis reported to Innovation News Daily that the creation of implants with this 3D printing technology “speeds up surgery and patient recovery, and reduces the risk for medical complications.” Surgeons finished the operation in only four hours (instead of the estimated 20 hours with traditional practices) and the woman returned home from the hospital after just four days (instead of 2-3 weeks) while speaking and swallowing normally. Less time in surgery and less time in the hospital racks a less expensive medical bill.
In order to produce the implant, LayerWise used a 3D printer with a lazer which melted titanium powder into the shape of a jawbone and built the implant in layers. The woman’s new jaw weighs 1/3 heavier than her previous one. Even so, doctors believe she will quickly adapt to the feel of the new implant.
Doctors now see a future for the creation of more implants with 3D printing technology. Dr. Jules Poukens, from the Biomedical Research Institute at Hasselt University in Belgium, led the surgical team to replace the woman’s jaw. He says, “Computer technology is causing a revolution in the medical industry.”
BBC News reported that engineers at Washington State University last year demonstrated how 3D-printed ceramic scaffolds could be used to help the growth process of new bone tissue. After experiements with animals, the team approximates that this technology can be used to improve human life in a few decades.
Such research and technological advancements point to an even greater potential for the world of CGI and 3D printing.
"Hell Baby" To Gestate Into Feature Film
(comingsoon.net) Darko Entertainment and Principato-Young Entertainment announced today the companies will produce Hell Baby, which will mark co-screenwriters Thomas Lennon and Robert Ben Garant's feature film directorial debut. Darko Entertainment will finance the film. Rob Corddry and Leslie Bibb have signed on to star. Hell Baby will be produced by Darko Entertainment's Sean McKittrick, Jeff Culotta and Ted Hamm; Principato-Young's Peter Principato and Paul Young; and Garant/Lennon Productions. The film is set to start production on location in New Orleans in April.
In the horror comedy Hell Baby, a young expectant couple moves in to New Orleans most haunted fixer-upper and calls upon The Vatican's elite exorcism team to save them from a demonic baby. Lennon and Garant will portray that team.
Practical VFX - FONCO Hits Wondercon
(aftimes.com) Fonco was founded in 2000 by Fon Davis, as a design and fabrication studio specializing in miniatures. Over the decade we have been in business, Fonco has been joined by a very creative and motivated group of artists, many of whom have worked for companies like Lucasfilm, Industrial Light and Magic, and Disney. In addition to picking up incredible talent, we have grown into a 1700 square foot facility, which includes a complete art department, fabrication shop, and photography studio. We now handle full production services from early design and story development through post production, always with a focus on visual story telling.
PHOTOS - Take a look: http://aftimes.com/2012/03/wondercon-2012-fonco/
STAR WARS: DISCOVERY SCIENCE CENTER EXHIBIT - MODELS, MODELS, MODELS!
When I first heard about the Star Wars exhibit in Seattle for the Star Wars: Where Science Meets Imagination, my jaw dropped. My busy schedule and high gas prices would not allow me to travel to make a visit at the time. However, I luckily heard that this exhibit was traveling to Santa Ana, California and has been on my mind since. Since Wondercon was going to be held in Anaheim this year, it was my chance to kill 2 birds with 1 stone. A win, win situation.
Take a look: http://asiandoood.wordpress.com/2012/03/20/star-wars-w-s-m-i-discovery-science-center-exhibit-part-1/
New Event Guest Speaker from Industrial Light & Magic
We announced our surprise guest speaker for Digital-Tutors Night of Hollywood Visual Effects earlier this week, and the lineup of speakers for the event is looking nothing short of spectacular.
ILM Layout Supervisor, Colin Benoit will present on his work from Rango and other projects.
Colin Benoit joined Industrial Light & Magic in 2001 as a Technical Assistant and soon after moved into the layout department, where he has been ever since.
Benoit has worked as a Layout Supervisor on Poseidon and Iron Man, as part of a small, fast-paced pre-visualization team on Speed Racer, and as an Animation Sequence Lead on Star Trek, supervising camera work and animation for the space jump sequence.
Most recently, he led the layout team on Rango, ILM's first animated feature, where he's had the opportunity to work extensively with Director Gore Verbinski to help achieve a style that is incredibly unique for the animated film genre. He is currently a Layout Supervisor on Pacific Rim.
Benoit received his Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from Cornell University, where he studied robotics.
If you are in the area or are traveling in, please RSVP before seating is full. We can’t wait to see everyone on March 28th.
Lawmakers Seeking Warning Labels for Most Video Games
Almost every game will be required to carry a warning label like those found on cigarettes if a new bill introduced to Congress this week proves successful.
Introduced by Joe Baca (D-California), the “Violence in Video Games Labeling Act” (H.R. 4204) would require all games rated E, E10+, T, M, and AO by the Entertainment Software Rating Board to carry a stamp that reads, “WARNING: Exposure to violent video games has been linked to aggressive behavior.”
The only games that would be excluded from the labels would be titles rated EC (Early Childhood). The label is to be placed in a “clear and conspicuous” location on the game’s box and is not limited to physical games.
If it’s signed into law, the Consumer Product Safety Commission would have 180 days to create rules that require such games to bear the warning label.
In a press release on Baca’s website, the lawmaker lambasted the video game industry for not having a system in place to warn users of the “potentially damaging content” in games.
“The video game industry has a responsibility to parents, families, and to consumers to inform them of the potentially damaging content that is often found in their products,” Baca said. “They have repeatedly failed to live up to this responsibility.”
Baca said the Violence in Video Games Labeling Act is a response to what he calls increasing evidence that games are connected to a plethora of short- and long-term “detrimental” effects.
“Meanwhile, research continues to show that playing violent video games is a casual risk factor for a host of detrimental effects in both the short- and long-term, including increasing the likelihood of physically aggressive behavior,” he said. “American families deserve to know the truth about these potentially dangerous products.”
Baca said studies from the journal Pediatrics, the American Psychological Association, and the International Society for Research on Aggression highlight a connection between violent games and aggressive tendencies in children and teenagers.
Frank Wolf (R-Virginia) is co-sponsoring the bill.
“Just as we warn smokers of the health consequences of tobacco, we should warn parents–and children–about the growing scientific evidence demonstrating a relationship between violent video games and violent behavior,” Wolf said.
A representative from the Entertainment Software Association issued the following statement to GameSpot:
“Unfortunately, Representative Baca’s facially unconstitutional bill–which has been introduced to no avail in each of six successive Congressional sessions, beginning in 2002–needlessly concerns parents with flawed research and junk science. Numerous medical experts, research authorities, and courts across the country, including the United States Supreme Court, exhaustively reviewed the research Representative Baca uses to base his bill and found it lacking and unpersuasive. Independent scientific researchers found no causal connection between video games and real life violence.”
This is not the first time Baca and Wolf have put forth legislation seeking to stamp games with warning labels. In 2009, the congressional pair brought forth the Video Game Health Labeling Act, which sought to place a health warning on games rated T or above. That bill was unsuccessful.
"You push the button, we do the rest." -George Eastman
Depp Stalls Pirates 5, dNeg Recruits School Leavers, & VFX Meets San Diego
Pirates of the Caribbean 5 Script Done, but Depp in No Hurry to Shoot
(superheroauthority.comz)
After "Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides" managed to only pull in $241 million domestically—the lowest of all four films—it still managed just over $1 billion worldwide. Because of its overall take at the box office, you can bet Disney has been planning a fifth film.
The script for a fifth film was handed in back in May 2011, per The Hollywood Reporter.
Superstar actor Johnny Depp, also told The Hollywood Reporter he is "in no hurry" to reprise his role of Captain Jack Sparrow, despite already being signed on to play the famous on-screen pirate.
"We should hold off for a bit," Depp said. "[The movies] should be special, just like they are special to me.
Seeing as how Depp is the big draw of this franchise it appears Disney has been honoring his request, since no word of pre-production or a shooting schedule has been announced, yet.
Depp has earned a reported $350 million for his part in all four films, so you can bet when he's ready, Disney will be too and green light production immediately.
Money talks with this franchise and hopefully the script of the fifth film will be much better than the script of "On Stranger Tides" was.
Double Negative To Recruit School Leavers
(PRNewswire) Facebook, Twitter, RSA Films, Aardman Animation, Saatchi & Saatchi, Omnicom Media Group, Spotify, Zynga, global gaming company Activision and special effects company Double Negative are just some of the 100 creative and digital media companies uniting behind an innovative new recruitment drive across the country to fast track 300 young people into employment in the UK. Spearheaded by advertising trade body the IPA, (Institute of Practitioners in Advertising), this unique initiative has the backing of Govt with Ed Vaizey, Minister for Culture, Communications and Creative Industries championing it.
Called the 'Creative Pioneers Challenge', applications open today (Tuesday 20th March 2012) and anyone aged 16+ can enter at http://www.creativepioneers.co.uk. Deadline for entry is noon on Friday 27th April.
Successful applicants will begin work in September in a rich variety of roles as apprentices or paid interns in television and film production, gaming, digital technology, web design and analytics, social media, media planning and buying, creative services, marketing communications and advertising. Furthermore budding entrepreneurs with a strong creative business idea can also apply, and if selected will get access to the best in the business, and support to get their idea off the ground via office space, mentoring or investment.
The Creative Pioneers Challenge marks the latest phase of Nicola Mendelsohn's IPA Presidential agenda. It is being supported by sector skills council Skillset, and in partnership with UK's leading urban media brand Metro who will be running a four month editorial and promotional campaign in 50 cities around the UK.
SaysCulture Minister Ed Vaizey: "This brilliant scheme will create hundreds of exciting and rewarding new jobs for young school leavers in the creative sector. The creative industries represent a massive opportunity for growth and the IPA and the companies involved in this challenge are to be commended for nurturing and developing the next generation of film directors, web and video game designers, advertising chiefs and marketing experts."
Says Nicola Mendelsohn, IPA President and Executive Chairman and Partner, Karmarama: "When almost a million 16-24 year olds are out of work, the need for this sort of initiative couldn't be more apparent. One hundred companies across the creative and digital media sector, and across the country, have pulled together to give 300 school leavers the opportunity to get fast tracked into their first real job, or to realise their dream of turning a business idea into a company start up. It's a real first - an employer-led collective committed to finding a solution to the national need. And the creative and digital media sector is well placed to do so, because there is high growth and big ambition for the UK's potential. The government thoroughly supports us in this, as we play our part in helping the economy to recover.
Furthermore, we hope this nationwide hunt for digital and creative talent will help push apprenticeships into the mainstream and make our industry more accessible. We want young people from any background to enter; it's not just about qualifications, it's about having the right mindset and attitude; it's about seeing yourself as part of the next generation of creative pioneers. This country's position in the world market relies on us being ready for our digital future as well as our ability to innovate."
Shortlisted candidates will take part in a speed dating event with companies offering placements and the winning candidates will be announced at the end of July.
Go to http://www.creativepioneers.co.uk
Hunger Games Looks For $120 million Open
(comingsoon.net) Could The Hunger Games be heading for a few box office records? Opening in March could be seen as a problem because other than schools on Spring Break, it's not exactly thought of as a month where blockbusters would normally open (versus the summer), at least not until the release of Zack Snyder's 300 back in 2007. Currently, the March opening record to beat is Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland, which opened with $116 million in March two years ago, and we think The Hunger Games can kick that number to the curb. Even without an added bump from 3D prices and the Saturday bump that comes with a PG family movie, it's likely to end up with nearly half its opening weekend business on Friday, including Thursday midnights. We think that opening day could come close to $60 million (roughly $25 million from midnights)--those paying attention will immediately realize that this is more than the amount we predicted the movie would make its opening weekend three months back--and that should lead to an opening weekend in the $120 million range, maybe a little higher. That should be a good base for the movie to end up grossing just over $300 million even though the next couple of weeks have some strong movies to offer competition for all audiences.
VFX Is All Going To… San Diego?
(vfxsoldier.wordpress.com) I came across an article (paywall) that reported San Diego 3D conversion company Legend3D has approached the mayor of San Diego to lobby for tax incentives. The hope is to attract 5000 (yes, 5000) VFX professionals from LA and other locations to convert various studio film libraries into 3D.
The mayor has put together a task force to look into the possibility. However as much as I’m sure many VFX professionals would love to soak up the fun and sun in “America’s Finest City”, I have to be incredibly skeptical about this.
First off, the current subsidy race is incredibly expensive. Even California which supplies film subsidies to lower budget productions, has been criticized for being uncompetitive:
California’s program is uncompetitive with locations such as New York, Louisiana and Canada that offer $400 million to $500 million per year in subsidies, have no caps and offer much higher percentages.
Furthermore, Legend3D’s business model is pretty risky. According to the article they offer to convert the studios’ libraries for free with the promise they get a portion of the revenue on it’s release. In this biz, it’s expected that the backend deal is a suckers bet.
The lofty goal of luring 5000 VFX professionals is admirable but in a cyclical industry, people need to be able to jump to other places and San Diego doesn’t have that. That was sort of the problem with Sony New Mexico.
Finally, it’s important to note that Legend3D has also had a partnership with various facilities in India to employee over 800 workers to help in the conversion process. If VFX is supposed to go all to India why is there such an ambitious attempt to get 5000 workers to do it in San Diego? Perhaps because even supposedly trivial tasks like conversions require well paid artistic and technical professionals?
"Chronicle" Helmer Directs "The Red Star"
(darkhorizons.com) "Chronicle" helmer Josh Trank is developing to direct the Soviet-themed sci-fi fantasy graphic novel adaptation "The Red Star" for Warner Bros. Pictures and Original Film says Deadline.
Christian Gossett's comic is set in an alternate USSR where futuristic technology co-mingles with magical elements, while the protagonist is a Red Fleet soldier who goes up against an ex-leader who rules with an iron fist.
Jason Rothenberg penned the script while Neal Moritz will produce. Warners picked up the project after Universal put it into turnaround.
Over 160 VFX Shots for "21 Jump Street" Produced By duMonde Visual Effects, New Orleans
(broadcastnewsroom.com) duMonde Visual Effects has produced and delivered over 160 VFX shots for the new action/comedy film "21 Jump Street" for client Sony Pictures. The film opened nationwide on March 16th.
For "21 Jump Street," duMonde produced numerous creative CGI sequences, including various scenes in which the lead characters played by Jonah Hill and Tatum Channing experience hallucinations and fantasies. Other CGI-heavy sequences produced by duMonde include a car chase scene, CG-generated motorcycles and a big limousine explosion. duMonde also provided fluid dynamics, set extensions, and blue screen/composites, as well as several action scenes that included superstar Johnny Depp, who appears in this film and originally starred in the "21 Jump Street" television series.
duMonde co-founders Richard Edlund and Helena Packer served as VFX Supervisors on "21 Jump Street."
ABOUT "21 JUMP STREET":
Sony Pictures' "21 Jump Street," which opened March 16th, stars Jonah Hill, Channing Tatum and Ice Cube, in a story about a pair of underachieving cops who are sent back to a local high school to blend in and bring down a synthetic drug ring. The film, which grossed $ 35-million in its opening weekend, was directed by Phil Lord and Chris Miller. For more information, please see: http://www.21jumpstreet-movie.com/?hs308=JMP6186
ABOUT duMONDE VISUAL EFFECTS:
duMonde Visual Effects is a creative collaboration between Academy Award winner Richard Edlund, ASC, and Helena Packer, award winning visual effects supervisor. Launched in New Orleans in 2011, duMonde is an all-inclusive visual effects company bringing together over 30 years of experience in the industry.
"TRON 3" To Explore Digital Life and Death
(darkhorizons.com) "TRON: Legacy" scribes Adam Horowitz and Edward Kitsis tell io9 that another "TRON" sequel continues to be shaped.
At last report David DiGilio is penning the follow-up because Horowitz and Kitsis are busy with their commitments to ABC's "Once Upon A Time", the pair are instead serving as co-producers on the third "TRON".
"Joe [Kosinski, director] is right now shooting 'Oblivion', but we've had a lot of meetings and conversations and we've seen the first draft of the 'TRON' sequel. Sometimes movies don't happen as quickly as you want... Our hope is to get something going sooner [rather than later]" says Kitsis.
The pair also drop the hint that "the definition of life and death in the digital realm will be explored in the sequel".
Speaking of the "TRON" franchise, Heat Vision reports that "The Raid" composer Joe Trapanese is set to do the score for the upcoming prequel series "Tron: Uprising". Said series will connect the dots between the original "TRON" and "TRON: Legacy".
The 10 Best Special Effects Movies Ever
(likethisposts.blogspot.com) Ask any fanboy and they’ll tell you that one of the big reasons they go see a science fiction or genre movie is to have their face melted off by awesome special effects. Over the years there have been some amazingly convincing effects created, and we’ve compiled a list of the 10 movies that pulled off their special effects so well that they still hold up years after the original release.
The 10 - Take a look: http://likethisposts.blogspot.com/2012/03/10-best-special-effects-movies-ever.html
Disney in $200m Writedown for 'John Carter'
(Financial Times) -- Walt Disney will incur a $200m writedown on John Carter, the action film based on the Edgar Rice Burroughs novel which has failed at the box office despite a $300m production budget and an extensive global marketing campaign.
The film about an American civil war hero who journeys to Mars is shaping up to be one of Hollywood's costliest flops. It has generated $184m in global ticket sales but with about half its takings going to cinema chains, Disney has had to adjust its earnings guidance for the quarter to reflect the film's performance.
The company said its "current expectation" is that its movie studio division will incur an operating loss of between $80m and $120m for the quarter following the release of the movie.
The writedown deals a blow to Rich Ross, the chairman of Walt Disney Studios, who has been trying to improve returns at the division following a restructuring and a focus on films made under the Disney, Pixar and Marvel brands.
The studio has better prospects for the rest of the year, when it will release Brave, the latest film from Pixar, and The Avengers, a superhero movie featuring characters such as Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk. Disney said the two movies had "tremendous potential to drive value for the studio and the rest of the company".
However, the abject failure of John Carter is not likely to be forgotten in an industry where a single flop can wipe out a studio's annual profits. Hopes were initially high for John Carter: Its director, Andrew Stanton, had made the critically lauded and commercially successful Finding Nemo and Wall-E.
But the director openly admitted to struggling with the transition from animated film-making to live action directing. Meanwhile, Burroughs' source material, which inspired filmmakers such as James Cameron, has failed to energise young, male cinema goers, a crucial demographic for any big-budget action movie.
The film comes a year after another costly Disney flop -- Mars Needs Moms -- but although it is likely to provoke some soul-searching at the company, privately executives are standing behind Mr Stanton and saying the company will continue to take risks in the pursuit of creative success.
John Carter was "greenlit", or put into development, by the previous management regime at Disney's studio. Since the departure of Dick Cook, the former studio chairman, Disney has cut its marketing costs and reduced the headcount at its home entertainment division to reflect an industry-wide slump in DVD sales.
It is also producing fewer movies, concentrating instead on distributing titles produced by DreamWorks, the movie studio created by Steven Spielberg, Pixar and Marvel, the comic book publisher it acquired in 2009 for $4bn.
Animated Sean Connery Film to Debut in Sonoma
(sonomaportal.com) The Sonoma International Film Festival has scored the U.S. premiere of “Sir Billi,” an animated film with Sir Sean Connery voicing the lead role.
Connery plays a skateboarding grandfather and veterinarian trying to save the last beaver in Scotland with the help of his goat Gordon, voiced by Alan Cumming. The film is the first full-length animated feature to be produced entirely in Scotland.
“We are thrilled to host the U.S. premiere of ‘Sir Billi’ featuring the powerfully dynamic voice of Sir Sean Connery,” said Kevin McNeely, director of the April 11-15 festival.
Sascha Hartmann directed the CGI film from a screenplay written by his wife Tessa Hartmann. The husband and wife duo will appear with the film in Sonoma for its first American showing.
Smithsonian Scores with ‘Art of Video Games’ Exhibit
(herocomplex.latimes.com) The dawn of popular video games can be traced back to a small white square ponging back and forth across a basic black screen. A few generations later, games have transformed into full-throttle cinematic experiences with orchestral scores, stunning visual effects, creative narratives and in-depth player interaction.
Though some may debate the validity of video games as an art form, the Smithsonian American Art Museum is celebrating the medium with “The Art of Video Games.” The Washington, D.C., exhibition explores the 40-year evolution of the form with images and videos from 80 classic games voted on by the public online last spring. Those that made the list include Pac-Man, Donkey Kong, Tomb Raider, Final Fantasy and Super Mario Galaxy.
Sketches, digital photographs and several gaming systems representing classic machines from their respective eras, such as the original wood-grain Atari VCS console and Sony’s PlayStation 3, are featured.
Chris Melissinos, curator of "The Art of Video Games" (Smithsonian American Art Museum)
“Video games today stand as this extraordinary art form that is an amalgam of all traditional art from sketching, painting, sculpture, music and narrative,” said curator Chris Melissinos. “It gives the opportunity to anyone to have an expressive voice.”
Melissinos, former gaming officer for Sun Microsystems, sees video games as a fusion of computer technology and art. Three distinct voices are involved: The designer or artist who is telling the story; the game itself (how the mechanics and controls are presented); and the player, who brings his or her own perspective and personal experiences to the game.
“This is where the game becomes art,” he noted, citing 2009?s Flower, as an example of players’ choices (in this case, which way the wind blows) creating different feelings. Touted as a video version of a poem, Flower was co-created by China-born Jenova Chen, who grew up in very urban Shanghai. A move to California, with its lush hills, inspired him to try to evoke that emotional response.
Initially, the process of creating video games was a task for one person who produced the coding, audio, graphics, box art and instruction manual. Leap ahead a few decades and game production now can involve 200-member teams collaborating on one vision. “It’s a process not unlike a massive movie production,” Melissinos said. Electronic Arts’ recent release, the multiplayer online game Star Wars: The Old Republic, had an estimated $200-million price tag.
Marble Madness, 1992, Mark Cerny, Steve Lamb, SEGA Master System. (Smithsonian American Art Museum)
Many game designers are influenced by traditional fine art. Visual and sensory elements in Tetsuya Mizuguchi’s Rez were inspired by Wassily Kandinsky. Echoes of M.C. Escher are evident in Marble Madness.
In addition to five playable games (Pac-Man, Super Mario Brothers, the Secret of Monkey Island, Myst and Flower), a performance of video game music by the University of Maryland’s Gamer Symphony Orchestra is scheduled, along with a discussion by the father of electrical gaming, Atari founder Nolan Bushnell.
The exhibit runs through Sept. 30, then travels to 10 venues across the U.S., though, currently, none are in California.
Homeowners Appeal Huge Lucasfilm Studio Plan for Grady Ranch
(Marin Independent Journal) The Board of Supervisors will get a chance to weigh in on plans by George Lucas to build a huge film production studio on the old Grady Ranch.
The Lucas Valley Estates Homeowners Association, appealing approval of the project in their neighborhood by the Planning Commission, asserts that "plans for this project were not subject to full notice and review and lack sufficiently-detailed information." In addition, "questions remain about the risks to public safety and many other impacts to the habitat and residents."
The association said officials failed to comply with California Environmental Quality Act regulations, approved a plan inconsistent with residential zoning and improperly assumed Lucas has vested rights to build.
Tom Taylor, an association board member, said in a statement issued this week that "none of the neighborhood's concerns were addressed by the Planning Commission."
County supervisors approved the land use and a bigger project in 1995 but Lucas never built it, and returned last year to request revisions that reduce its scope.
The project would transform 52 acres at the Grady Ranch into a three-story digital technology fortress flanked by two towers rising amid 187 acres of open space.
The 263,197-square-foot building would feature just about everything 340 movie-making employees, actors and guests would need. Plans include 51,000 square feet of film stages, 27,918 square feet of screening rooms, a
4,381-square-foot cafe, a 1,151-square-foot kitchen, 19 units providing 11,228 square feet of guest quarters, a general store and a gym. The building would top underground parking for 202 cars and 24 bicycles.
Outside, plans include nine bridges spanning creeks, as well as a cave to age casks of wine from the filmmaker's vineyards.
Excavated material would be used to build a knoll hiding the project from neighbors, and to shore up, raise and restore Miller, Grady and Landmark creeks. The entire project would be largely hidden from view, especially as landscaping matures.
Supervisors will review the project at 1:30 p.m April 3 at the Civic Center.
Zenescope Entertainment Launches Kickstarter for Grimm Fairy Tales Animated Series
(geekadelphia.com) Grimm Fairy Tales, the flagship series from Horsham-based Zenescope entertainment, has been a runaway success since its start in 2005. Our own David Goodman has had plenty of nice things to say about the comics over the years.
But what if instead of just comics we could have an animated series that dug deeper in to Joe Brusha and Ralph Tadesco’s dark take on the brothers’ classic stories? What if that series was animated by the dudes who do pretty much all the good shows on Adult Swim. That’d be awesome, right? Right. Time to warm up those wallets again, geeks. Here’s the pitch, straight from Brusha:
We believe that our Grimm Fairy Tales comic book series would make an excellent animated series, and we’ve been pitching the idea to the Hollywood big-wigs for years. They’ve said “There is too much Fairy Tales stuff out there”, or “No one wants to see a gritty, dark, modern take on the fairy tales.” That’s where they’re wrong. We have tons of devoted fans that would love to see more of our series, and that is our chance and yours to make it happen.
Grimm Fairy Tales has been the flagship series of Zenescope Entertainment since the company started. Zenescope has grown to a top comic book publisher due to its continued success. Grimm Fairy Tales is currently the longest running independent color comic being published today and has over 1 million copies in print.
Jon Schnepp will be directing this project. He is one of the hottest animation directors in Hollywood, having already seen a great deal of success working on such series as Aqua Teen Hunger Force , Metalocalypse, and the Venture Brothers. Not only will Jon be working closely with the creators of the comic book, Joe Brusha and Ralph Tedesco; Zenescope will be enlisting Titmouse Inc, one of the premiere animation studios, to help with this vision.
Titmouse Inc is a premiere animation studio with top-tier talent and experience. Jon Schnepp has worked with them before on many of his projects, and much of their work rounds out the Adult Swim animation block on Cartoon Network. Their variety of experience is suited well for the Grimm Fairy Tales animation series anthology.
We also want to include you, the fan, in the process as much as possible. Bringing this project to life is going to be hard, and we want you to get to see behind the curtain. That’s why we’re going to be shooting a lot of exclusive, behind-the-scenes footage to include with the series so that you really get to see how we made it all happen.
VIDEO Pitch - Take a look: http://geekadelphia.com/2012/03/19/philly-area-zenescope-entertainment-launches-kickstarter-for-grimm-fairy-tales-animated-series/
Michael Bay Responds to Fan Outrage About ‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles’
(popwatch.ew.com) Producer Michael Bay, who upset fans when he announced that he would be changing the origin story of his upcoming live-action Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles reboot by making the turtles “from an alien race,” has responded with a statement on his website.
“Fans need to take a breath, and chill,” wrote Bay. “They have not read the script. Our team is working closely with one of the original creators of Ninja Turtles to help expand and give a more complex back story. Relax, we are including everything that made you become fans in the first place. We are just building a richer world.”
I assume that Bay has never actually told anyone to “chill” or “relax,” as those are pretty much the most incendiary words you can say to an upset person. Fan reactions were overwhelmingly negative on Twitter and Facebook yesterday, and one of the voice actors from the original 1990 movie even spoke out against Bay’s plans. Robbie Rist, who voiced Michelangelo in the first live-action film adaptation, posted an open letter to Bay on his Facebook, saying that Bay is “sodomizing” the first set of movies and causing “the rape of our childhood memories.” Oooo-kay, Robbie: Chill.
“2001 was a small step for Stanley Kubrick, but it was a giant leap for special effects.” -John Culhane
Dark Tower To Rise, ‘Avatar World’ On Hold, & May Moebius Live Forever
Could The Dark Tower Rise at Warner Bros.?
(Deadline) When news broke last summer that the multi-tiered adaptation of Stephen King's epic The Dark Tower series would not move forward at Universal Pictures, Warner Bros. was named as a potential new home for the project. Today, Deadline reports that WB is, indeed, negotiating to bring the project to the screen.
First announced in the fall of 2010, the saga of Roland Deschain, the Gunslinger, was to be developed as a big-screen trilogy and tie-in television series (to feature the same cast).
Ron Howard was attached to the project to direct at least the first part of the series and would have overseen the rest of the massive adaptation. Javier Bardem was said to have landed the role of the Gunslinger with Akiva Goldsman and Mark Verheiden tackling the writing duties.
If The Dark Tower does, indeed, wind up at Warner Bros., it could potentially connect to the studio's adaptation of King's The Stand, in development to be directed by Ben Affleck as the books share a character in The Stand's chief antagonist, Randall Flagg.
‘The Lorax’ Defeats ‘John Carter’
(awn.com) Universal and Illumination Entertainment's environmentally themed Dr. Seuss' The Lorax held first place at the box office for the second week straight, earning $39.1 million for a total of $122 million.
Disney’s sci-fi epic John Carter, which opened on Friday, opened to an estimated $30.6 million. The 3D feature cost $250 million to produce.
Disney's Avatar World on Hold?
(thedisneyblog.com) Apparently cooler heads are prevailing at Walt Disney Parks & Resorts and the idea of building a themed area dedicated to the worlds created by James Cameron in his Avatar movies at Disney's Animal Kingdom is getting a second look.
The biggest plot of land available at Disney's Animal Kingdom was at one time designated to be built as a new land with animals and culture from Australasia region. The park already has a few animals that fit that mold, but they aren't getting much traffic due to their off the path locations. Plus it would allow them to tie in the popular Finding Nemo movie along with other aquatic beasts, something very much missing from DAK at the moment.
The plans for Australia were pretty much in place before Tom Staggs had his ah-ha moment while walking through DCA. But Staggs had only recently moved into his position above Walt Disney Parks & Resorts and wasn't 100% familiar with the vision and goals of Disney's Animal Kingdom. Staggs only new that the park needs some help with keeping guests attention a full day and that Disney World was getting their pants handed to them by the Boy Wizard up the street. So a giant movie property like Avatar was available and Staggs smartly snagged the themepark rights to it.
However, that's not to say Avatar is a perfect fit for Disney's Animal Kingdom. That seems to be the growing consensus and word is that Avatar could be put on indefinite hold for DAK, perhaps popping up instead for the first time in Shanghai or as a stand alone Location Based Entertainment property in Hawaii near Aulani. The first sign of this would be a move to start construction on Australia at Disney's Animal Kingdom.
French Comics Icon Moebius Dead at 73
(awn.com) The French comics icon, painter and fantasy illustrator Jean Giraud is dead at 73, according a report by the BBC and other news outlets in Europe.
Giraud drew for more than 50 years, under various names, but was most widely known as Moebius, the pen name he began using in the 1960s. According to the Los Angeles Times’ Hero Complex, this year marked the 55th anniversary of his first published work.
Last year’s release of Tron: Legacy was a reminder of Giraud’s work and influence among filmmakers; he was responsible for design elements in 1982?s Tron, The Fifth Element, The Abyss and Ridley Scott’s Alien.
In 2010, the Fondation Cartier Pour L’Art Contemporain in Paris staged a lavish five-month exhibit of the artist’s work that included small humble sketches and majestic wall-sized pieces. The exhibition nodded to the some of the characters that he returned to again and again, among them the unspeaking Arzak, who glides above the peaks and canyons of distant worlds, and Michael “Blueberry” Donovan, the peripatetic American Civil War vet who first roamed a Leone-like Old West in 1963.
Digital Domain Institute Begins Inaugural Class
(awn.com) Press release from Digital Domain:
WEST PALM BEACH, FL -- The Digital Domain Institute (DDI) and the Florida State University College of Motion Picture Arts (FSU), opened its doors to its inaugural class of students in West Palm Beach.
The Institute, a pioneering public-private collaboration, takes a “best of both worlds” approach to digital arts education by blending creative and professionally-geared technical training, and bringing inspiring filmmakers fresh from blockbuster movies into the classroom to share techniques and experiences.
DDI’s spring session began in the Institute’s temporary facility, co-located with FSU at 477 South Rosemary in City Place, where students began a 10-week Digital Arts Essential Skills program -- comprehensive technical training in foundation digital arts skills. For its summer session, DDI will add new courses and expand its footprint on Rosemary. In preparation for the start of its fall dual-enrollment 3 Year Diploma Program offered exclusively with FSU’s Bachelor of Fine Arts in Animation and Digital Arts Program, the school is also expanding into new space nearby, to accommodate more students and additional lab and screening facilities. DDI administrative offices, co-located with FSU, are at 560 Okeechobee.
West Palm Beach Mayor Jeri Muoio said, “I am pleased to be a part of the partnerships with Digital Domain and Florida State University. I welcome the first group of students to the area, where the South Florida weather is beautiful and they can benefit from the prestige that an FSU degree carries with it. It is a very exciting time for our City, with many opportunities for our youth in the future.”
“We’re thrilled to be starting classes, and the excitement among our instructors, students, and faculty is super high,” said DDI Director of Education Bruce Bullock. “We’ve been working toward this vision of lifelong learning and practical, professional training for a long time, and we’re grateful to the forward-thinking community of West Palm Beach which has helped us make it a reality. Their generosity is helping us to prepare a generation of students for careers in a growing industry.”
“Our mandate is to prepare students for successful careers in the motion pictures industry, but our vision goes beyond that – to give students opportunity to work on blockbuster films alongside the world’s top digital artists,” said Florida State College of Motion Picture Arts Dean Frank Patterson. “The start of classes at Digital Domain Institute is the beginning of that process. As an educator, these are the kinds of opportunities you dream about for your students.”
How to Create Oscar-Winning VFX
(macworld.co.uk) Pixomondo's VFX supervisor for Hugo, Ben Grossmann, reveals how effects used for beauty and to subtly affect the audience's emotions took this year's VFX Oscar - and how artistic use of stereoscopic 3D can envelop an audience in a story.
At the Oscars last month, Martin Scorsese's Hugo picked up the prestigious Visual Effects gong - as well as awards for Art Direction, Cinematography, Sound Editing and Sound Mixing. The movie is an enchanting tale of a child who lives in a train station in Paris fixing clocks and who goes on to connect with one of the pioneers of early filmmaking and special effects, Georges Mlis. Its creators indulged in a huge amount of experimenting of their own - this being Scorsese's first kids' film and first foray into stereoscopic 3D.
Key to bringing to life the golden hues of the train station, where most of the film is set, were the visual effects created by VFX group Pixomondo across its studios in London, Los Angeles, Toronto, Germany and China. While Hugo's rivals for the VFX Oscar - Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 , Real Steel, Rise of the Planet of the Apes and Transformers: Dark of the Moon - used visual effects primarily to add excitement, Scorsese's film used them to inspire a much wider range of emotions and wonder, and to subtly enhance the interplay between characters.
We sat down with Pixomondo's VFX supervisor Ben Grossmann (below) to discover how they tapped into the spirit of the film's subject to produce a tribute to cinema's pioneers.
DA: How did it feel to win an Oscar?
BG: "It was quite a surprise, as [the contenders] were such a great body of work. Harry Potter represents work that's gone on for over 10 years. We really expected the Academy to give some recognition [to them]. Any of the other films deserved to win on different merits."
"Quantic Dream" - Real Time CGI Animation Running on a Playstation 3
(forum.nin.com) From the developers of Playstation 3's Heavy Rain.
VIDEO - Take a look: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-pF56-ZYkY&feature=player_embedded
The Garbage Pail Kids Return to the Big Screen
(Deadline) The Garbage Pail Kids are returning to the big screen. Deadline has word that PES, an artist best known for his short films, will direct an all-new feature-length adaptation through The Tornante Company. Relative newcomer Michael Vukadinovich will provide the screenplay.
First released by the Topps Company in 1985, Garbage Pail Kids were a series of trading card stickers that, parodying the popular line of "Cabbage Patch Kids" dolls, offered gross-out character designs based on simple puns.
Great Moments in Computer Generated Imagery
(unrealitymag.com) While I don’t have the problem with CGI that some people do, there are days (and movies) that have me wishing filmmakers would just cut back on it. That said, there are other movies that use it in a truly legitimate way. Smaller movies like Mirrormask are able to bring wild dreams to the screen on a tight budget, and bigger movies like The Dark Knight mix CGI with practical effects to evoke a subtly heightened reality.
And then there are people who put CGI right smack in the middle of the shot and we never notice it. Or I don’t. Well, I do, but only after I have it pointed out to me by a director commentary or something. MOVING ON.
Here are five examples of CGI that totally fooled me.
Take a look: http://unrealitymag.com/index.php/2012/03/13/great-moments-in-computer-generated-imagery/
Digital Frontier Employs ThinkingParticles on ‘Tekken’
(awn.com) Production company Digital Frontier used thinkingParticles, one of the flagship VFX products developed by cebas Visual Technology, to create the visual effects for Japan’s 3D computer-animated CG film, TEKKEN Blood Vengeance 3D.
Based on the successful game franchise TEKKEN from NAMCO BANDAI Games, the movie, directed by Yoichi Mori and written by Dai Sato, is a standout piece of art offering a thrilling storyline and high quality visual effects.
Based in Tokyo, Digital Frontier has been engaged in large-scale production of CG feature films for the movie and game industries since it was founded in 2000.
Digital Frontier’s Senior Designer Yoshiharu Komiya and Designer Gen Ito shared their experiences working on the movie, using thinkingParticles™ and the challenges they faced in creating such compelling scenes.
When asked about the most difficult aspect of the project, Ito explained that simulations were becoming more complex, with much more realistic looking results. “In my opinion, automatically handling secondary fracture effects is one of tP's strengths,” he added.
“I was expecting tP to be difficult to use, however it was not. The FX TD creates a complex setup of multiple nodes then the designers only have to fiddle with object replacement and parameter settings! You can easily create complex effects with tP," Komiya said.
Disney Is Making A Sci-Fi Movie Titled ‘Paladin’
(latinoreview.com John Carter opened this weekend, and even though it’s only Saturday it’s not looking good. Early reports have Carter opening at around $28 million for the weekend. While that’s no small amount, considering the budget was somewhere north of $200 million it doesn’t cut the mustard.
Never the less, Disney is pushing forward with another sci-fi flick. This time its an original film called Paladin. Not much is known about the it other than Max Borenstein is writing the script.
I was hoping John Carter would perform better. We need a new sci-fi franchise. One that isn’t Avatar, which borrows heavily from Carter as well as a host of other films.
Whenever I hear Paladin all I can think of is this scene from Stand By Me.
Maguire Produces Alien Tale "5th Wave"
(darkhorizons.com) GK Films has acquired the film rights to Rick Yancey's young adult sci-fi novel trilogy "The 5th Wave" which they will co-produce with Tobey Maguire's Material Pictures reports Variety.
The story follows a teenage girl who survives an alien invasion only to then search for her brother, who may or may not have been abducted by human-looking extra-terrestrials. She is helped by a boy who might also be an alien in disguise.
Maguire, Matthew Plouffe, Graham King and Tim Headington will produce. Sony Pictures will likely co-finance and distribute.
USS Enterprise 1701E Recreated - Beautiful CGI Video
I recommend watching the top quality version.
This looks like it could be cut straight from the movie - even down to the film grain.
VIDEO - Take a look: http://www.hobbytalk.com/bbs1/showthread.php?t=356681
You Ready for a Film Noir Puppet Comedy From Jim Henson's Son?
(splitsider.com) Yeah, you read that headline right. Jim Henson's son Brian Henson is directing a film noir comedy with puppets called The Happytime Murders. It looks significantly darker than The Muppets (these puppets smoke cigarettes!) but hopefully it'll have the same imaginative sense of world creation. Here's a description:
In a world where puppets co-exist with humans as second class citizens, puppet private eye and disgraced ex-cop Phil Phillips is hot on the trail of the serial killer who murdered his brother and is now targeting the cast members of the famous 80s television show The Happytime Gang. As the killings continue, Phil’s former flame, Jenny, is next on the list. It’s up to Phil and his ex-partner, Detective Edwards, to find the culprit, but as bad blood and old resentments resurface the clues start pointing to the only viable suspect, Phil himself. Now he’s on the run with only his wits and hard headed determination, as he tries to solve The Happytime Murders.
Concept Art: http://www.themoviebit.com/2012/03/concept-art-from-puppet-film-noir.html
What Forces Shape You?! by Lucasfilm Ltd
(dyrmdaily.com) What is it that shapes the characters of the popular Star Wars movies? What makes them into the people that they are? The new exhibition starting April 19 2012 by Lucasfilm Ltd. takes you deeper into the core of Star Wars by bringing you a whole new understanding of it’s world.
The exhibition takes you on an interactive quest in which you explore the origins of the characters, the influences that shape them and the choices they make during their life. There will be shown how subtle changes in the lives of characters, may have changed how they are and act in a huge way. Enemies become allies and friends become foes.
The exhibition goes onder the slogan: “The forces that shape us.” Which targets both you and the characters in the movies. Visitors will be invited to take part in the story of Star Wars in which they will be able to create a character based on themselfes making several choices in life. When you leave the building you will have created your own Star Wars identity by comparing the elements of the saga with your own life.
So if you happen to find yourself in Montreal, Canada , in one or two months, be sure to hop along on a journey through the universe.
Official Website: http://www.starwarsidentities.com/
Bringing Tentpole Productions Back To California - A Study
(headwayproject.org) Reaction: If the analysis had looked at “tent pole” films – the films that the studios spend enormous amounts of money on, they would have found the tax credit has had ZERO effect on these films and where they are produced.
Further investigation would have found the state of California is losing tremendous amounts of tax revenue and jobs as the vast majority of these “tent pole” films are no longer produced in the state of California -
If the study was to look at WARNER BROTHERS, LEGENDARY PICTURES, 20th Century Fox and DISNEY (to name a random few) – thorough research would find that over 80% of these studios 100mil plus budget films are NOT made in California haven’t been made (produced) in California for the past 3 years or even longer.
I work in film and I have worked on 3 films in the past 2 years with combined budgets that total in excess of $750 million dollars – none of these 3 films have been made in California – and that’s ONLY 3 films..there are literally dozens of films in production at any given time and the majority are no longer made in California – the tax revenue and job losses to the state are staggering and going VERY,VERY under reported…this is a huge issue that no single agency or investigator seems to be able to get an accurate handle on
It sure would be nice if your little organization could bring this issue to light….and maybe wake up the legislators in Sacto who seem to believe tax credits for film making is welfare to millionaires..in one sense it is, but its also related to huge losses in tax revenue and jobs in the state economy.
In Responce:
Dear Richard: thank you for your post. The reason that we have not attempted to measure the impact of the California Film & Television Tax Credit program on large films (production budgets above $75 million) is precisely because, as you point out, they are excluded from eligibility from this program. However, while the current tax credit program excludes these “tent pole” productions, our report does address the issue in multiple places. On the very first page of the Introduction I present a list of nine large films with aggregate production budgets in excess of $1 billion that are currently all in production outside of California. On page 31, under the discussion of restricted transfer of tax credits, I point out the irony that big studios are the best equipped to monetize these tax credits but they are excluded from this program because they generally make big movies with budgets greater than $75 million and are ineligible for California’s program. Moreover, the first of our five recommendations, beginning on page 34, specifically addresses this issue and recommends that the size of the program be increased from $100 million to $200 million, with the new $100 million specifically earmarked for large productions so that they can participate. And our next recommendation explains how this would work, and why we think 12% is the right amount of tax credit to offer to such larger productions. Finally, both the LAEDC and The Headway Project reports discuss the benefits in terms of jobs and tax revenues that the bigger productions are able to provide, and that is why both organizations recommend strategies to bring them back to California. In short, you and I are in agreement on the need to focus on the really big productions and develop an incentive program specifically targeted to get them back in California.
Download the full study: http://www.headwayproject.org/downloads/Headway_Entertainment_Report.pdf
James Cameron Builds Future Tech Submarines for Avatar 2
(pakistantoday.com.pk) LOS ANGELES - It’s not a surprise that James Cameron plans on taking Avatar 23 into the sea, but it news on how he plans to get there. He already has told Sam Worthington that he’ll be filming underwater, and now Sigourney Weaverhas offered more insight on how Cameron plans on shooting under the sea. In an interview with Italian website Bad Taste (via /Film), Weaver dished that Cameron might need to have some special submarines built so he can shoot the upcoming movie. “Cameron will only begin filming the new ‘Avatars’ after having gone underwater in a specially built submarine,” she said. “It is thought that he would like to go to the Mariana Trench.
Re-beginning work on ‘Titanic’ for the 3D version has also given him many inspirations for ‘Avatar’.” This wouldn’t be a first for Cameron. He used submarines to help shoot “Titanic” as well as his nonfiction 3D IMAX projects, “Ghosts of the Abyss” and “Aliens of the Deep.” But it is interesting that he seems to need advanced technology to help him shoot “Avatar 2? and “3.” Also worth noting is that the Mariana Trench mentioned is the deepest part of the Earth’s oceans. That could explain why “Avatar 2?s” release date is somewhere between 2014 and 2016.
It sounds like Cameron still has a lot of work to be done before filming can begin. Cameron spoke about the ocean world recently and seemed excited about his filming possibilities. “You know, the fictional Na’vi people and I want them to feel that excitement of discovery of a new world that they’re going to see things that they haven’t imagined,” he said. “All that sort of the perk package of the first movie is still going to be there. And the themes will be there and be played out in a way that I think people can accept.”
More States Offer Perks To Attract Video Game Makers
(paidcontent.org) When former Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling moved his video game company 38 Studios to Rhode Island in 2010, the decision was not just a snub to the state of Massachusetts. It was also part of a growing rivalry in which states are competing to create a “digital Hollywood” on their soil.
According to lawyer Sean Kane, 21 states and all 10 Canadian provinces are now vying for a slice of the video game pie. He says that many places are retooling incentive packages that were originally put in place to attract movie productions.
SEE ALSO: Curt Schilling's 38 Studios Saves Big Huge Games From Extinction
“A lot of jurisdictions like game companies better than films because the film industry is transient.” said Kane, who advises gaming clients about incentives at Pillsbury. He added that a gaming hub can mean hundreds of very well paid individuals settling down in an area.
While Northern California remains the pre-eminent hub for game developers, places like North Carolina and Rhode Island are creating hubs of their own through aggressive loan and tax incentives. In some states, like Louisiana, the incentives are in the form of cash subsidies that can be redeemed or exchanged.
Kane says the incentive led game giant Electronic Arts (NSDQ: ERTS) to build testing facilities near Louisiana State University that employ 600 people.
The subsidies are not universally popular and one New Orleans study suggested they are not worth it (in the case of films at least). As for Schilling’s 38 Studios, the Rhode Island governor initially questioned the wisdom of offering a $75 million loan guarantee to someone who he said might have faked a famous World Series incident involving bloody sock.
Schilling himself appears to be thriving in Rhode Island. His studio last month released “Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning,” a fantasy game designed by industry luminary R.A.Salvatore.
'John Carter': How Big a Bomb is it?
(insidemovies.ew.com) One month ago, Andrew Stanton was optimistic about making a sequel to John Carter, his $250 million sci-fi adventure about a 19th-century outlaw (Taylor Kitsch) who is teleported to Mars in the midst of an alien war. “I’ve been spending the last six months writing the next one with Michael [Chabon],” he told EW in February.
Then John Carter opened to a middling $30.1 million last weekend, making Stanton’s goal seem about as realistic as his movie’s interplanetary premise. Even if the film manages to earn $100 million domestically plus $150 million or so more internationally, John Carter could still end up as a failure for Disney once marketing costs (reportedly $100 million) and distribution fees are factored in. “Moviemaking does not come without risk. It’s still an art, not a science, and there is no proven formula for success,” said Walt Disney Studios chairman Rich Ross in a statement. “Andrew Stanton is an incredibly talented and successful filmmaker who with his team put their hard work and vision into the making of John Carter. Unfortunately, it failed to connect with audiences as much as we had all hoped.”
With its studio admitting defeat, is John Carter ready to join the ranks of legendary flops like Ishtar and Heaven’s Gate? Not necessarily. “Those movies lived and died on domestic box office,” says Vincent Bruzzese, president of the Worldwide Motion Picture Group, a research firm employed by many major studios. “Unless someone knows the details of John Carter’s financials, the foreign sales, the DVD, pay TV, all that, it’s very difficult to comment.” But he adds that Disney’s huge investment in John Carter placed unrealistic pressure on the movie’s box-office performance. “If you have to be Avatar or Titanic to break even, then good luck.”
International grosses might be John Carter’s saving grace: The movie has already taken in over $70 million overseas. “Visually stunning movies translate into any language. And international audiences love the 3-D component as well,” says Paul Dergarabedian, a box-office analyst at Hollywood.com. “I’m still saying wait and see. Nobody makes a $250 million movie hoping for a $30 million opening. But the $100 million worldwide was not a bad result.”
- I've eaten most of my meals standing up, twelve feet from a monitor, looking at the screen through a little monocular to check the detail on the makeup. -Dick Smith
Prometheus Goes IMAX, Rick Baker on Men In Black 4, & Muppets Get Sequel
‘Prometheus’ To Be Released in IMAX 3D
Sir Ridley directs and produces the film, which is written by Jon Spaihts and Damon Lindelof. Prometheus: An IMAX 3D Experience features a stellar international cast that includes Noomi Rapace, Michael Fassbender, Guy Pearce, Idris Elba, Logan Marshall-Green and Charlize Theron.
Greg Foster, Chairman and President of IMAX Filmed Entertainment said:
“Ridley Scott is one of the best storytellers of our time, whose groundbreaking films Alien and Blade Runner changed the landscape of the science-fiction genre. We’re excited about Prometheus and proud to add him to the prestigious list of directors whose films have been presented in IMAX.”
The IMAX release of Prometheus will be digitally re-mastered into the image and sound quality of The IMAX 3D Experience® with proprietary IMAX DMR® (Digital Re-mastering) technology. The crystal-clear images coupled with IMAX’s customized theatre geometry and powerful digital audio create a unique environment that will make audiences feel as if they are in the movie.
FX Makeup Honcho Rick Baker Tips 'Men In Black 4'
(slashfilm.com) Empire Magazine has a feature on the upcoming Men in Black 3 in which director Barry Sonnenfeld talks at length about the film’s troubled production. They also speak to Oscar-winning effects man Rick Baker, back for his third MIB film, and in his interview he says something which, depending on the interpretation, could be considered a MAJOR SPOILER going ahead. If you are worried, skip to the next bolded set of words below to avoid.
Here’s the SPOILER quote from Baker, courtesy of Comic Book Movie:
At least we’ve got Josh Brolin now to carry on with Tommy’s part…
We know that Men in Black III is a time travel film featuring J (Will Smith) going back in time to meet a younger version of Tommy Lee Jones’ character K, played by Josh Brolin. So, knowing that, Baker’s statement could mean a few things. The most obvious would be that K dies in the film. But if that’s the case, how does his younger self survive? Well, maybe the younger self comes back to the future. Or, it’s possible Men in Black 4 will be some sort of K centric prequel. Either way, it’s a juicy tidbit of information.
Disney Gets Things Started With Muppets Movie Sequel
(spinoff.comicbookresources.com) Disney’s rejuvenation of Jim Henson’s Muppets franchise with a new film last year not only introduced a new generation of fans to the characters, but also made bank — nearly $155 million worldwide — attracted all kinds of cross promotion and even won an Oscar for best original song. So, it should come as no surprise that a sequel is in the works.
Variety reports the follow-up will be written by Nicholas Stoller, who collaborated on the first film with star Jason Segel. The actor won’t be co-writing the sequel because of commitments to How I Met Your Mother, This Is 40 and other projects, but director James Bobin will be step in to help Stoller.
The sequel has been talked about by everyone, including Miss Piggy and Kermit on the press tour, but now it’s official.
Cinesite Gets its VFX to Mars for John Carter
(digitalartsonline.co.uk) VFX house Cinesite has completed over 800 visual effects shots and converted over 87 minutes into steroescopic 3D for Disney’s John Carter, which is hits cinemas today (unfortunately generating some hilarious bad reviews).
Cinesite created the majority of the film’s environments, including the opposing cities of Zodanga and Helium, and the Thern Sanctuary, as well as a big air battle and full-screen CG digi-doubles of John Carter and Princess Dejah. The environments were populated with CG crowds and hundreds of CG props.
Cinesite spent over two and a half years working on Oscar-winning filmmaker Andrew Stanton’s first live-action feature film, which based is Edgar Rice Burroughs 'Mars' series of novels. Senior visual effects supervisor Sue Rowe headed up Cinesite’s efforts, working closely with Stanton and spending several months on set in the UK and Utah.
For the travelling city of Zodanga, Jon Neill and his team created the mile-long myriapod-like rusty metal tanker that roams the surface of Mars extracting the vital fuel element ‘radium’. Cinesite populated the city with an arsenal of warships and troops, before furnishing it with more than 200 CG props. The city was heavily textured to give it an industrial look and feel, and a sense of scale needed to be cleverly depicted to give the audience the full experience of a huge moving city. Timed animation caches were used to ensure the 674 digital legs moved randomly. The team also had to scale up and efficiently manage Cinesite’s render farm to cope with the challenge of rendering two-billion-polygon shots with up to 20,000 objects.
Christian Irles oversaw Princess Dejah’s city, Helium (above), which houses the Palace of Light (seen at the back). Seen from various angles and used as the backdrop for the final battle sequence, Helium has a clean and elegant look and feel. The team created a matte painting of the outside of the city and, using photogrammetry projections, built up the terrain using high-res stills taken on location in Utah.
For the Palace of Light, dubbed by Stanton as ‘the jewel of the city’, the team modelled the exterior as a full CG building and digitally extended the live-action set to create the interior and the illusion of the palace scaling up to hundreds of feet. The cathedral-like structure has solid vertical ribs supporting glass feather-like wall panels. Dealing with a glass structure in a moonlit scene presented a huge challenge for shaders, reflections and refractions.
Ben Shepherd supervised the huge aerial battle between Zodanga and Helium. His team created each side’s airships, which use solar wings to travel on light, as well as explosions, cannon fire, digital people, a CG Thark City environment and set extensions based on photogrammetry. The giant airships are seen at close proximity so the detailing needed to be precise. The challenge was to achieve the desired look, which was a 19th Century-style sailing ship to reflect the time the novels were written, while giving them a modern twist with the use of solar wings. Each of the solar wings was covered in hundreds of tiles which were individually animated to create a shimmering effect as the airships fly through the sky.
Simon Stanley-Clamp led Cinesite’s work on Thern, the mysterious power controlled by the Thern priesthood which appears in various guises throughout the film. Briefed by Stanton to create something ‘that has never been seen before’, the initial challenge was defining what the effect would look like.
The Thern effect system was built using a combination of Maya, Houdini and in-house software. Based on the principles of nanotechnology, it provided a semi-automated way to ‘grow’ Thern into any environment and geometry. It took a full year of development time to evolve and bring to the big screen. Thern’s most impactful state is in the Thern Sanctuary, a huge cavern where its scale, depth and complexity can be fully appreciated by the audience in stereo 3D.
When Two Monitors Aren't Enough
(pcadvisor.co.uk) More and more people are working with more than two monitors. But does piling on the displays boost productivity and justify the cost?
"The more monitors, the merrier" seems to be the philosophy of a growing number of consumers who have taken advantage of historically low prices for flat-screen displays, along with improved hardware and software support, to connect two or more monitors to a desktop.
Is this a good thing? People who have made the transition to multiple monitors seem to think so. Studies performed for monitor makers show that people appreciate having a second display that they can use to get to information quickly without having to toggle or resize windows.
But while most people who use two displays like having them, that doesn't establish that such setups make workers more productive. "You could be playing solitaire on two screens," says James Anderson, professor of communications at the University of Utah.
"It's all about the kind of work you do and how you manage available resources," says David E. Meyer, a University of Michigan psychology professor who specializes in cognition and perception. Meyer says that extra monitors improve your productivity only if they put tools and information that you need within easy reach. For example, a lawyer benefits from having multiple law books handy, and a researcher can write reports on one display while perusing spreadsheet data on another screen.
Unfortunately, Meyer says, people all too often devote extra screen real estate to applications that may distract them from work. Keeping an email application, a Facebook page, or a Twitter feed open on a separate screen creates an ongoing temptation to drop what you're doing in favor of a little diversion. As yet, no rigorous studies have assessed the productivity costs involved in switching between unrelated tasks--but presumably there is some overhead involved in figuring out where you left off--or what Meyer describes as "regaining situational awareness." This takes at least several seconds, and such adjustment time can add up over the course of a working day.
"People dramatically overestimate their ability to manage their environment," Meyer says, adding that in some ways, using multiple monitors to keep all sorts of data visible is analogous to using a cell phone while driving.
Multiple Monitors Become More Popular
Whether or not people need and benefit from multiple monitors, sales data suggests that such setups--once found primarily in niche markets such as Wall Street--are becoming more common. Rhoda Alexander, senior monitor and tablet analyst for IHS iSuppli, says that monitor sales of 179 million in 2011 far outpaced PC sales of about 130 million, suggesting that many people are buying more than one display for their new desktops.
But IDC analysts Stephen Buehler and Linn Huang point out that in some of the surplus sales may not be associated with multiple-monitor setups. Instead, they say, buyers may be planning to use them in connection with docking stations for laptop PCs, so that travelers whose primary computer is a laptop can use a larger display when they're working at their desk. Some of these users undoubtedly keep their notebook displays open as well, but others simply substitute a single larger display for the laptop's smaller one.
Users who opt for additional monitors find that adding a second display to a desktop setup is easy and typically entails no more cost than the price of the display and a cable. The built-in Intel graphics on most current PCs support two displays, and Windows Vista and Windows 7 simplify setup.
However, if you want to operate three or more displays from one PC, things get more complicated, and you have to make some choices. At the high end, DisplayPort technology, which is making some inroads in the market, lets you run multiple monitors from a single graphics processor. For example, AMD's EyeFinity-enabled graphics boards support up to six DisplayPort-enabled displays.
The problem for users is that DisplayPort adoption on the monitor side has been slow and even now is available only in a handful of high-end displays. However IDC's Buehler and Huang say that they expect DisplayPort to gain traction later in the decade.
Another option is to add traditional graphics boards to your system, assuming that your PC has empty slots. This approach makes it easier to use legacy monitors since you can choose graphics cards with the connectors you want (such as VGA analog hookups, DVI-I, or HDMI). On the other hand, buying multiple graphics cards is expensive, and installing them (even when your computer has available slots) isn't always fun.
Full article: http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/news/pc-peripheral/3343463/when-two-monitors-arent-enough/
3D Animated "Gnomeo & Juliet" Sequel Moves Forward
(slashfilm.com) Elton John‘s Rocket Pictures is getting the ball rolling on Gnomeo & Juliet: Sherlock Gnomes, a sequel to last year’s 3D animated adventure about lively lawn ornaments. John has begun composing new tunes for the film, while returning writers Andy Riley and Kevin Cecil are at work on the script. No director is attached at this time, though the search has already begun. The new film will see Gnomeo and Juliet calling on “the great ornamental detective” Sherlock Gnomes to find out why gnomes have been mysteriously disappearing from suburban England.
Rocket CEO Steve Hamilton Shaw describes the film as “a fun, broad family film” with “strong musical elements.” James McAvoy and Emily Blunt, who voiced the title characters in the first movie, will likely return, though their involvement has not been confirmed at this time. [Deadline]
James Cameron Plans Mariana Trench Dive/Shoot - 7 Miles Down
(Reuters) - "Titanic" film director James Cameron on Thursday unveiled plans to pilot a specially designed submarine to the deepest point on the planet, the Mariana Trench in the Pacific Ocean southwest of Guam.
The real-life adventure, as opposed to the ones Cameron has created in films such as "Avatar" and "Aliens," will see Cameron travel 7 miles (11.2 km) below the ocean's surface, where he will collect research samples for marine biology and geology.
The lowest point of the Mariana Trench, known as "Challenger Deep," has been reached only once before in 1960 when U.S. Navy Lt. Don Walsh and Swiss oceanographer Jacques Piccard spent 20 minutes there in the bathyscaphe Trieste. Cameron plans to spend six hours there.
"The deep trenches are the last unexplored frontier on our planet, with scientific riches enough to fill a hundred years of exploration," Cameron said in a statement.
The exploration is a joint project by Cameron, the National Geographic Society, and watchmaker Rolex that is being called the "Deepsea Challenge" and is designed to expand knowledge of unknown portions of Earth.
Cameron's submersible represents breakthroughs in materials science, structural engineering and imaging through an ultra-small, full ocean depth-rated stereoscopic camera.
While he is perhaps better known for movies, Cameron is no stranger to underwater exploration. For "Titanic," he took 12 dives to the famed shipwreck in the North Atlantic, leading him to develop deep see film and exploration technology.
Since then he has led six expeditions, authored a forensic study of the Bismarck wreck site and done extensive 3-D imaging of deep hydrothermal vents along the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, the East Pacific Rise and the Sea of Cortez.
"Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol" Sequel? Oh Yes
(slashfilm.com) After the fantastic fun that was Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, I’m eager to see Tom Cruise (and/or Jeremy Renner) return for another go. Thanks to the film’s box office performance, it seems Paramount is as well. Asked at a shareholder meeting whether the studio had “any plans to develop an additional sequel,” Philippe Dauman, CEO of Paramount’s parent company Viacom, answered “Oh, yes.” It’s not big news and it’s not surprising news, but it’s welcome news all the same.
Journey 3 Targets 2014 Release
(The Wrap) Earlier this week, we learned that a follow-up to Journey 2: The Mysterious Island is in the works now that the 3D family adventure has earned $272 million worldwide on a budget of $79 million.
The Wrap adds that Dwayne Johnson is in talks with New Line/Warner Bros. to return in the role of Hank Parsons, the stepfather of Josh Hutcherson's Sean. Hutcherson, who starred in the first Journey as well with Brendan Fraser, is also expected to return.
Brad Peyton will again sit in the director's chair and will be using a script by Brian and Mark Gunn. Beau Flynn, Tripp Vinson and Charlotte Huggins are producing.
There's no word yet on whether Michael Caine, Vanessa Hudgens, Luis Guzman and/or Kristen Davis will return for the third installment.
The studio is targeting a 2014 release for Journey 3.
2012 CG STUDENT AWARDS NOW ACCEPTING SUBMISSIONS
(awn.com) London, UK (March 5th, 2012) – The Tasman Theory Pty Limited is now accepting submissions for the 2012 CG Student Awards. The event is split into three categories: Student of the Year, Studio Internships, People’s Choice. There is a prize pool of over $100,000USD and ten (10) Studio Internships. The deadline for submissions is 20th May, 2012. Winners announced 1st June, 2012.
The rules and online submission form are available at: http://www.cgstudentawards.com.
The CG Student Awards has an extensive list of high profile companies sponsoring the event. Our five platinum sponsors include Autodesk, Ballistic, Conceptshare, Digital-tutors, and Next Limit Technologies. Other notable industry sponsors include: Pixologic, NVIDIA, Adobe, The Foundry, Stash Media, Side Effects Software, Smith Micro, and 3D Artist Magazine.
Leading production studios Double Negative, MPC, Framestore, Prime Focus, The Mill, and BlueBolt are also offering 10 professional internships throughout Europe, Canada, USA, and India. Each studio offers slightly different internships, but an internship winner can expect to receive 2-4 month professional experience, support and guidance from industry leading experts, standard intern salary, and an amazing opportunity to network and prove your skills.
“We've been amazed by the quality of our interns we picked up from the CG Student Awards. During their time with us, the interns gained the respect of our senior crew members and made a tremendous contribution to the lighting, fx, rigging, modelling and texturing of all our current movies” said Karl Wickens, Co Head of 3D Double Negative.
"I never really thought I would win the title of Student of the Year. It opened the door for me into the visual effects industry. After the Internship at Framestore, they hired me straight away" said Maximilian - Gordon Vogt.
"This opportunity changed my life and I now find myself rigging on major blockbuster movies, a dream come true" said Elliot Stammers.
About CG Student Awards
Formerly hosted at CGCoach.com, the CG Student Awards is an annual event which showcases and rewards excellence in computer graphics from students and recent graduates. To date, the event has already helped kick-start the careers of countless digital artists and given away over $100,000 in prizes. Qualified students at schools from all over the world are encouraged to submit their demo reel and artwork to our judging panel and compete for prizes and internships at the world's leading production studios.
Full details can be found here: http://www.cgstudentawards.com
Official event logos can be downloaded here: http://www.cgstudentawards.com/media-kit
Warner Bros. Picks Up Comic Book Lucid
(Variety) Warner Bros. Pictures has picked up the film rights to Archaia Entertainment's comic book mini-series "Lucid" for writer-producer Akiva Goldsman to develop and produce, reports Variety. Zachary Quinto's production company Before the Door, which created the book, also is on board. The title is described as follows:
Welcome to the world of LUCID, the action-packed pop-fantasy that draws inspiration from the spy genre, Arthurian legend and 21st-century folklore! Dark forces are conspiring to prevent humankind from reaching its true potential. Thankfully, as newly appointed ?Protector of the Realm,? Agent Matthew Dee uses his skills as a covert spy and Combat Mage to ensure America?s freedom from the grip of evil.
The four-book series was written by Michael McMillian (Steve Newlin in HBO's "True Blood") and illustrated by Anna Wieszczyk. The trade adds that a screenwriter has not been hired yet.
"Lucid" is the second deal for Archaia with Warner Bros. and Goldsman after recently picking up dinosaur-tale Bolivar.
Israeli President To Visit DreamWorks Animation Today
LOS ANGELES (CBS) — Israeli President Shimon Peres is scheduled to meet with entertainment industry leaders Friday as part of his four-day visit to the Southland.
Peres, 88, will discuss the link between Hollywood and education, as well as peace and tolerance, when he meets with the heads of DreamWorks Animation.
He sat down with former CNN anchor Campbell Brown Thursday night at the Beverly Hilton for a wide-ranging discussion, telling roughly 1,000 audience members that other options will be taken if diplomacy is unable to cut back Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
“President (Barack) Obama said it very clearly – he doesn’t exclude even a military option,” Peres said. “If we can do it without shooting, far better, but if not, there will be other options.”
Peres wrapped up a tour of Northern California earlier this week, where he also received a warm welcome from Gov. Jerry Brown and the mayor of San Francisco, who presented him with a ceremonial key to the city.
He will be honored at a Hollywood reception Saturday night and meet with Latino and Jewish leaders in Beverly Hills on Sunday morning.
The Argument: Why War Horse’s Puppets Win by Flaunting Their Artificiality
(torontolife.com) War HorseSince it was first staged more than four years ago, War Horse has enjoyed the kind of success that’s usually reserved for Disney extravaganzas and jukebox musicals. The show, adapted from a 30-year-old children’s novel by the British author Michael Morpurgo, is about Joey, a spirited, rust-coloured stallion sold to the British cavalry during the First World War, and the valiant quest of his young former owner to retrieve him. After premiering at London’s National Theatre in 2007 and shattering box office records, it quickly moved to the West End and then to Broadway, earning the Tony Award for best play last spring.
On paper, War Horse seems like another formulaic tearjerker—a variation on Black Beauty or Seabiscuit, with some trench warfare thrown in. What sets the show apart is its use of puppets: Joey, like the other horses in the play, is a clunky-looking mechanical contraption made of wooden planks and nylon stretched over a corset-like cane frame. He bears little resemblance to a real animal. The three puppeteers who control him make no effort to conceal their presence. The one in charge of major head movements is not even inside the frame of the horse—he stands next to it in full view of the audience.
But from the moment Joey hobbles onstage as a young foal, stick-legged and unsteady, he’s as alive, and emotionally resonant, as any of his human co-stars.
Joey is the creation of the Handspring Puppet Company of South Africa. In 2004, the company created a life-size giraffe puppet for a production called, coincidentally enough, Tall Horse. The British theatre director Tom Morris saw the show and asked Handspring to fashion a rideable equine version of the giraffe for War Horse. Starting with a plank of wood suspended between two men, Handspring designers Adrian Kohler and Basil Jones went through a long process of experimentation before arriving at a lightweight, three-dimensional frame and a lever-based operating system. Joey’s original puppeteers spent months visiting horse farms, watching videos of horses and studying horse psychology to ape the mannerisms, bulk and power of a full-size stallion.
The results are uncanny. Joey stands patiently through stretches of dialogue, craning his neck and poking around for food. He whinnies softly, snorts, flicks his tail and twitches his ears. When stressed, he rears back and neighs, and when sent into battle, he breaks into a heart-pounding, thundering gallop. It’s this counterintuitive realism that makes Joey such a marvel—the play’s ability to make you believe in him is its most staggering achievement.
War Horse’s reliance on old-fashioned screw-and-joint puppetry is an anomaly in this era of hyper-realistic CGI and theatrical pyrotechnics. We watch Pixar movies and can count the characters’ pores, and play immersive, multi-dimensional video games enriched with motion-capture technology. It’s effortless magic, requiring nothing from us except to sit back and marvel at the display. The puppets in War Horse engage the audience on an entirely different level—Joey’s conspicuous puppetness doesn’t merely create an illusion, it adds a degree of wonder missing from attempts at seamless realism. When Joey is injured trying to clear a barbed-wire fence, we feel for him as we would a real horse.
Joey is a throwback to a more engaging form of theatre. The show also flips a defiant middle finger at the laboured theatrical attempts at mimicking movie magic. Historically, theatre has asked its audiences to do some of the heavy imaginative lifting. In The Tempest, a bare stage is a deserted island because Shakespeare says so. In Sarah Ruhl’s Eurydice, a father builds his daughter a room out of one long strand of string. Our mental participation enriches the experience: we get a hand in bringing that theatrical world to life. Film, by contrast, is a much more passive medium—its location scouts, cinematographers and special effects technicians do most of the work, and anything that might disrupt the illusion is digitally erased.
Big-budget theatre, instead of embracing its own limitations and offering an alternative to the perfect realities conjured by film, TV and video games, has gravitated toward splashier, movie-like productions. The strategy has worked on an economic level—theatres are now routinely filled with people who would never have bought tickets to see the latest Neil Simon drama or Sondheim musical—but the result has been an artistic flatline, with more and more marquees touting musical versions of movies best left undisturbed.
Worse, the special effects that are increasingly worked into theatrical productions often flounder onstage. In her film incarnation, Mary Poppins appears to glide ethereally over the foggy rooftops of London. Onstage, this signature moment becomes a far less enchanting zip-line ride into the balcony of the Princess of Wales. Half the thrill of Spider-Man: Turn off the Dark is waiting to see if the cast makes it to the final curtain unharmed. Theatre simply can’t compete on that level—the space is too restrictive, and the proximity of a live audience makes every crack in the façade painfully obvious. Seeing Poppins hanging from the ceiling doesn’t enhance our belief in her magical nature, it kills it.
Mirvish Productions has made a fortune putting on wham-bam theatrical blockbusters, so it’s somewhat ironic that at the centre of its latest hit is a puppet made from a tangle of wood and screws. Puppets embody the collaborative process of the theatre, coaxing the audience to imprint life onto an otherwise inanimate object. They demand the ultimate suspension of disbelief.
VIDEO - Artificial Horse: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7u6N-cSWtY
The Osbournes Producing Stop-Motion ‘The F’n Osbournes’
(screenrant.com) The legendry Heavy Metal rocker Ozzy Osbourne and his family (Sharon, Jack, and Kelly) will be lending their voices to stop-motion animated versions of themselves in a new Cuppa Coffee Studios-developed comedy, creatively dubbed The F’n Osbournes. Although, according to the Canadian animation house, the “F” stands for “family.”
Cuppa Coffee Studios’ president and show creator Adam Shaheen says the new primetime series “combines absurd animated sitcom premises that only the Osbournes can pull off!” Shaheen, goes on to add “Although it is a cartoon, [The F'n Osbournes] is certainly not one for little kids, bearing in mind the family that are at the root of it.”
Shaheen, whose Toronto-based company also developed Comedy Central’s Ugly Americans will co-executive produce the series, along with both Sharon and Jack Osbourne. In a statement, Sharon Osbourne said, “Teaming up with Cuppa Coffee has spawned a great opportunity to produce a unique animated prime-time show, I’ve been excited about animating our often crazy lives for a while now.”
Cuppa Coffee looks to finalize sales of the series to a television network this April at the MIPTV gathering in Cannes. Twenty episodes of The F’n Osbournes have been planned – and, if all goes as designed, production will begin this summer.
The F'n Osbournes - Ozzy
Since the Osbournes’ self-titled MTV reality show saw its final episode in March 2005, the family’s matriarch has been keeping busy with her on and off screen projects. Sharon can be seen co-hosting CBS’ daytime talk show The Talk, as well as appearing as the “nice” judge on America’s Got Talent.
The F’n Osbournes also marks another collaboration of Osbourne and her son Jack, as the two co-produced a few documentaries based on their family, the most resent being the upcoming, Wreckage of My Past: The Story of Ozzy Osbourne.
-Digital effects have a flip side. After Yoda became CG, I missed the interaction with actors, the physicality." -Frank Oz
John Carter Rejected, Vancouver VFX Living Costly, & ILM A Digital Age Drawing Board…
‘John Carter’ Rejected By Women of All Ages - Could Be Biggest Write-Off Of All Time
(deadline.com) Hollywood is in a tizzy over the early tracking which just came online this morning for Walt Disney Studios‘ John Carter opening March 9th. “Not good. 2 unaided, 53 aware, 27 definitely interested, 3 first choice,” a senior exec at a rival studio emails me. Another writes me, ”It just came out. Women of all ages have flat out rejected the film. The tracking for John Carter is shocking for a film that cost over $250 million. This could be the biggest writeoff of all time.” I’m hearing figures in the neighborhood of $100 million. And the studio isn’t even trying to spin reports of the 3D pic’s bloated budget any more.
Now, to be fair, this very soft tracking has been expected. The studios’ private reports have shown for some time very soft awareness and very little wannasee. So what’s Disney’s explanation? “It’s the last leftover from the previous regime of Dick Cook,” an executive who works for successor Rich Ross reminds me. “We’re not running away from the movie. Our job is to sell it.” Then again, Cook also left Ross Alice In Wonderland to sell, too, along with other hits and a few misses.
Disney is nervous, really nervous, but trying to hold out some hope. ”We know that we have a long way to go. It’s still four weeks out, and the bulk of the media hasn’t hit yet. Our Super Bowl ad did what we intended it to do: have a pop of awareness. On Sunday we launch a full campaign with 90+% of all of our media ready to go.” Problem is, John Carter (formerly titled John Carter Of Mars) only has a two-week window before Lionsgate’s hotly anticipated The Hunger Games opens March 23rd.
Disney is still planning a gigantic worldwide day-and-date push for John Carter with all the frills no matter how dismal its prospects look. ”After all the movie has Andrew Stanton of Finding Nemo and Wall-E,” an insider explains to me.
Industrial Light & Magic: Drawing Board for a Digital Age
(nytimes.com) SAN FRANCISCO — The Yoda fountain greets you first, the little guy sagely standing sentry outside a former veterans hospital in the leafy acres of the Presidio. Inside there are a couple of Stormtroopers and the dark lord himself, Darth Vader. Around the corner E.T. is flying in his bicycle basket, over the head of Slimer, the green meanie from “Ghostbusters,” and a roaring dinosaur from “Jurassic Park.” Emerging from a closet, R2D2 beeps and coos and spins down the hallway. Visiting Industrial Light & Magic, the effects shop founded by George Lucas, is like touring childhood, coasting through a collective memory of wonder.
The company, which pioneered digital effects starting in the 1970s, has put its “gee whiz, how’d they do that?” stamp on hundreds of movies (“Titanic,” “Forrest Gump” and the “Indiana Jones” and “Mission: Impossible” series, among others). Mementos like cars, spaceships and creature tongues line the hallways of its campuslike headquarters here, alongside framed Italian film posters from Mr. Lucas’s collection. As usual Industrial Light & Magic is a player in the technical categories at the Oscars, nominated this year for the visual effects and sound in “Transformers: Dark of the Moon” and the sound in “War Horse” (done at Skywalker Sound, a related company). But it is also a nominee in animation, with its first full-length animated film, “Rango.”
Directed by Gore Verbinski (whose credits include the first three “Pirates of the Caribbean” movies, also Industrial Light projects), “Rango,” about a lizard, voiced by Johnny Depp, who becomes a small-town sheriff, is in some ways an anomaly in contemporary animation: it is 2-D, not 3-D, and the filmmakers invented characters and story lines while hanging out together in a house. Then, instead of being locked alone in a booth, the actors recorded the voices together on a soundstage, wearing cowboy hats and using doofy props to improvise. This shambling style would seem at odds with the digital precision of Industrial Light. And that is exactly what veterans of the company liked about it.
In the popular imagination digital filmmaking — animated or live action — is a clean, sterile process, a lot of button pushing and knob tweaking. Though there’s some truth to that, this is an image that its pioneers, like the people at Pixar and Peter Jackson’s Weta Digital, have tried to controvert. In reality animators and effects maestros alike strive to inject humanity, in the form of blemishes and surprises, into their work, and that often takes hand-cranked effort — even if it’s surrounded by millions of dollars of high-tech wizardry.
“Computers want to make everything perfect, they want to make everything shiny and clean and polished, and we’re always trying to beat that out of them,” said Hal Hickel, the animation director of “Rango.”
Set in the fictional town of Dirt, with a cast of mangy, hard-to-identify animals, “Rango” is a good example of imperfection: the look is all dusty and sweaty, with stray grit and hair. Mr. Verbinski, who made his animation debut with the film, called it fuzz, and he was constantly asking his animators to add it into shots.
“What he meant was, find some imperfections, put a little hitch in it or a little twitch under the character’s eye or just some little idiosyncrasy,” Mr. Hickel said. “Gore would say we were always having to fabricate anomaly.”
In his office, beneath a sign reading “No Right Angles,” John Bell, the supervising art director of “Rango,” pulled out a sheaf of his drawings to demonstrate. Yes, paper sketches: Mr. Bell, a longtime animator who has worked on films from “Back to the Future” (he helped design the hoverboard) to Steven Spielberg’s “A.I.,” begins his work with a notepad and a fat carpenter pencil. “I’m a 20th-century holdover,” he said, laughing. For “Rango” he drafted the flophouse and the mayor’s mansion, considering details like whether the doorknobs would be shiny or rusted, and what oil paintings the mayor might have of himself.
“Everything has to be thought of, everything has to be designed — the path of the sun, what’s the dirt look like,” he said.
For inspiration animators and effects experts look to art, books, movies and, naturally, YouTube. “I was just looking at something this morning, it was a crow snowboarding down a snowy roof in a little piece of plastic,” said Mr. Hickel, who began his career at Industrial Light with “The Lost World,” the sequel to “Jurassic Park.” “You look at that, and you think: ‘Someday I’m going to have to animate a snowboarding bird. I better hold onto that.’ ”
Of course at Industrial Light, there are also high-tech resources. The image-capture studio, ringed with 45 high-fidelity cameras, employs technology used in the military and medical fields, as well as proprietary software. James Cameron and Michael Bay have come through, for “Titanic” and “Transformers.” In a corner, near a beat-up mannequin, hung a motion-capture suit. “Almost every movie we have has some form of what we would call a digital double or a humanoid performance,” said Mike Sanders, a digital supervisor at Industrial Light.
For “Rango” the studio was used as a stand-in soundstage; monitors showed different views of the townscape of Dirt. “The camera system in this room is triangulating where these points are in space,” Mr. Sanders said, handing me an iPad-like device that functioned as a joystick. “Computers back there tell us: ‘I know where you are in the room. I’m going to put you in the same spot inside the town of Dirt.’ ” As I walked around the room with the joystick, angling it, I moved through Dirt, getting a new perspective on the scene — a real-life way to navigate through digital space. It’s a tool, Mr. Sanders said, to tell animators where a camera should go or how to set up a shot, and it felt like being inside a very cool video game.
Coolness is definitely a factor at Industrial Light & Magic. “What’s next?” Mr. Sanders said. “How can we outdo ourselves? That’s a big part of storytelling.”
Sometimes, though, all they need is a body. Faced with a tight deadline on “Titanic” and a scene on the deck that wasn’t really working, Mr. Sanders pulled an all-nighter. “I got the deck chair, and I just shot in the motion-capture library, doing different things in a deck chair,” he said. He altered his image digitally later, but he is literally every body on the deck of the “Titanic.” Mr. Bay too has appeared in some scenes in “Transformers,” only to be digitally scrubbed later.
For “Rango” Mr. Verbinski videotaped his cast members as they did their voice-overs and gave the footage to the animators as a template. Speaking of Isla Fisher, who voiced the love interest, Beans, Mr. Hickel said, “Gore would go through it with us and say: ‘I love what Isla’s doing here with her eyes. It’s very funny. And Johnny’s got a great hand gesture here on this line.”
It’s a technique that animators use themselves, in much more DIY fashion. In a corner of the compound there is a little room lined with mirrors, where they go and tape themselves performing scenes. “We go a lot into our acting room,” said Maia Kayser, who animated Beans. “It’s a fun part of the process, because it’s a good way to explore ideas.”
That these multimillion-dollar blockbusters are made in the same way many of the creators first approached them — acting out their favorite scenes privately — is not lost on the people here. How many people at Industrial Light are “Star Wars” nerds? “Pretty much all of them,” Mr. Hickel said cheerfully. “You’ve always got some people who try to be cool about it. They’d be like: ‘Who was that snow creature that attacks? I can’t think of what the name is,’ and you know full well that they know it’s a Wampa.”
San Rafael's 32TEN Studios Quickly Signs 3 Prod Companies
32TEN Studios has Signed Three Production Companies to Relocate into Historic Site (www.32ten.com)
San Rafael, CA , February 15, 2012 | SHOOT Publicity Wire | --- Recently launched 32TEN Studios, a new company based in San Rafael, CA, that provides stage rentals and both practical and digital VFX services, has signed three initial subtenant companies which will soon relocate into the historic site. The announcement was made by Tim Partridge, President/CEO, and Greg Maloney, COO, of 32TEN Studios.
RipplFX was the first outside production company to sign as a subtenant to 32TEN Studios. RipplFX is a mobile app developer and trans-media production company currently building a library of content for distribution across multiple platforms for books, games and films. "When I was introduced to 32TEN, I knew it would be the perfect environment to grow our operations. We are proud and excited to be part of this creative community and the legacy that has come before and continues today. Being here for just a short time has already had a wonderful impact on our clients and partners," said Nicole Lundeen, RipplFX CEO. RipplFX is currently producing a series of mobile apps and trans-media strategies for the publishing, education, and entertainment industries.
Jessen Productions will also be taking office space at the 32TEN Studios stage and office complex. Charles "Chuck" Jessen is a 28 year advertising veteran, having worked for ad agencies DDB, BBDO and Young & Rubicam on such accounts as Chevron, Clorox, Microsoft and Apple. Jessen Productions' commercials have been featured on "World's Funniest" TV programs around the globe. "32TEN is the ideal place for me," writer/director Jessen said. "They have the facilities I need, and are creating a community of like minded people that will certainly help keep our creative juices flowing."
Commercial production company GB-Films will also be taking office and edit room space at 32TEN Studios, starting on March 1st. " We love the creative atmosphere that is forming here at 32TEN, and of course the history in the building itself is inspiring," said Andy Hill, CEO and Creative Director, GB-Films. "I'm looking forward to bringing my clients to this legendary soundstage and creating engaging content for them."
Said Mr. Partridge, "Within only a month after we announced the launch of our new 32TEN Studio venture here in San Rafael, we are delighted to have so quickly signed three dynamic companies as subtenants in our facility. Our goal for 32TEN Studios is to add a sense of revitalization to the long-standing film production community located here in Marin, CA. Our soundstage is already fully booked up throughout the month of February with commercial projects, while our Practical Effects Team is already engaged in bidding for shots on three upcoming indie and studio feature films."
'Rango' Progression Reel Showcases the Evolution of Its Animation (Video)
Paramount and ILM releases a two-and-a-half-minute clip examining the effort that went into creating the film's dusty, distinctive landscape.
VIDEO - Take a look: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/race/rango-progression-reel-oscars-gore-verbinski-paramount-animation-291967
India's 2012 Budget: 10 Years Tax Holiday for Animation Industry
(economictimes.indiatimes.com) FICCI in its pre-budget memorandum has given the following recommendations for Animation, Gaming & VFX industry:
> On the lines of IITs and IIMs, Government should consider setting up Centers of Excellence for the Animation, Gaming & VFX Industry which also offers opportunities for applied and commercial and others type of arts.
> 10 Years Tax Holiday for Animation Industry.
> Lifting of service tax on studios developing original content.
> Exemption of Import Duty on Hardware for a Period of 10 Years.
> Provision of 50% reimbursable MDA (Market Development Assistance) for travel and registration fees to international market events. Government to extend support under MDA/MAI activity - exhibiting Indian companies, by setting Indian Pavilions in the world markets. What is needed is to help bring local production companies to international markets, collected and disseminate information and help support the infrastructure needed for a healthy media market to develop.
> To promote domestic gaming market, Excise Duty on local manufacture should be brought down from 12.5% to 0% (similar to film and music industry). This will enable CVD to be brought to zero also. The effective reduction in taxes would be around 15%. Import duty on consoles (Gaming hardware) which will increase the installed base to enable the local developer ecosystem to flourish needs to be brought down to 0%.
> Mandate should be given to commercial bankers to treat animation sector on priority. This will enable them to provide funds at concessional rate.
> Encouragement should be given to entities through reduced tax rates/incentives (exempt withholding taxes for overseas payments to foreign artists stationed overseas) for exploitation of own developed content in overseas markets.
> The MAT applicability for units undertaking animation work in SEZ should be withdrawn to encourage export of animated contents.
> The government should introduce subsidies like a CNC Fund (in France) to fund animated content co-produced and developed in India to enable Indian producers to be competitive on a global scale.
'World War Z' Cleared Of Hungarian Weapons Trafficking Charges
(huffingtonpost.com) Good news: as far as Hungarian officials are concerned, Brad Pitt has no ties to illegal arms traffickers.
Back in October, a Hungarian Anti-Terrorism Unit stormed a warehouse that contained 85 fully-functioning assault rifles intended for use on Pitt's upcoming zombie film, "World War Z." It's illegal to transport working weapons into the country, and because the guns, which were sent from the UK to Budapest, were easily readjusted to fire live ammunition, they were considered an illicit shipment.
Now, according to Hungarian outlets, Pitt's crew has had the charges dropped on a technicality: because the shipment came in to the duty-free area of the country's airport, and there was no one there with ownership rights initially waiting to receive them, it is impossible to hit any specific party with the illegal trafficking charge.
If accurate, it's good news for Pitt, who can now enjoy the upcoming Academy Awards -- where he's up for two statues, including Best Actor -- safe in the knowledge that there will be no Hungarian police out to take him down.
Wellington Banking on Return of Blue Magic
(stuff.co.nz) Sir Peter Jackson's Weta Digital is expecting that film director James Cameron will make Avatar 2 and 3 in Wellington, film industry sources say.
It is a job that could be worth hundreds of millions and employ hundreds of people for several years but it is not yet a done deal.
Confidence that Cameron would choose Weta and Wellington again to make Avatar 2 and 3 rose when the director recently bought two farms in the Wairarapa.
Cameron having a base here is seen as a "positive" sign that his decision will favour Weta. He has expressed a desire to shoot the sequels here but a decision is yet to be announced by his company Lightstorm Entertainment.
About $362 million was spent in New Zealand making the first Avatar 3-D film, employing hundreds of digital animators in Wellington for years on the complex computer-generated images.
Avatar employed more than 1500 people in New Zealand and injected about $100m into the Wellington economy alone. As well as the digital animation, Weta did the conceptual design, specialty costumes, props and weapons for the film.
Two Weta sources said they hoped Wellington would be picked. "Fingers crossed," one highly placed source said.
The other said Cameron's move to the farm, which is about 15 to 20 minutes by helicopter from Weta's base near Wellington airport, gave greater confidence.
Film Wellington manager Delia Shanly said they had heard the rumours of Avatar sequels being made in Wellington, but there was nothing concrete.
"It would be absolutely amazing to have them back here," she said. "It put so many millions into the Wellington and New Zealand economy. It would just be amazing (to get parts 2 and 3)."
While Cameron's decision to buy a farm here did not make the decision a certainty, "it is not unpromising – it is a very good sign".
In another good sign for Weta, US director Steven Spielberg this week confirmed that Peter Jackson would direct the second Tintin movie in a planned trilogy. Spielberg said Jackson would go into production on the Tintin sequel as soon as he finishes work on The Hobbit films.
Released last year, the first Tintin film has already made US$371m worldwide.
Avatar also got $52m in tax breaks from Kiwi taxpayers despite it becoming the biggest selling movie of all time, making more than US$2.8 billion for Twentieth Century Fox studios.
That is part of Fox Entertainment Group, in turn owned by media mogul Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation.
In the 2010 June year, Twentieth Century Fox made a US$1.35b profit on the back of Avatar and Ice Age. Some estimates put Avatar's absolute profits for Fox at more than US$1.15 billion, even more profitable than Cameron's other blockbuster, Titanic.
Shanly said the tax breaks were vital for the film sector to attract filmmakers to New Zealand.
New Zealand was also attractive for non-unionised labour and skilled staff at companies.
"If we didn't have a 15 per cent tax break we wouldn't even begin a conversation with these [overseas] film makers," she said.
New Zealand was never going to be the $2 Shop of film making and should not try to be a cheap destination.
But people like Cameron were attracted here by highly skilled people who can deliver.
"We have a huge reputation for our talent and they can make something happen, even it has never been done before," Shanly said.
Part of the production of Avatar was based in Wellington, including the world-class facilities at Stone Street Studios, Weta Workshop and Weta Digital. The three groups are jointly owned by Sir Peter Jackson, Sir Richard Taylor and Jamie Selkirk.
There was also live action shooting in other parts of the city for Avatar.
The film was seen as a technological breakthrough by Weta Digital, following on from the visual effects work in Jackson's King Kong and The Lord of the Rings films.
For Avatar, Weta used high definition video cameras attached to an actor's face to capture highly realistic facial animation for the characters in the science fiction film.
The fact that Weta had delivered in the first Avatar and helped make Cameron pots of money were seen as factors in Wellington's favour.
Making the sequels would also add to the continuity of the movies and maintain Cameron's vision for the world of Avatar, set on the fictional planet Pandora.
It would also slot in nicely to the Weta work schedule, after the two Hobbit films are completed during the next two years. However, Wellington could be over-ruled by a producer who was looking at the bottom line, possibly seeking bigger tax breaks elsewhere.
Fox did not respond to requests for comment about Avatar.
Reports last year also cast some doubt about a return to Wellington for the Avatar sequels.
Cameron and his team have moved to the MBS Media Campus in Hollywood where Pirates of the Caribbean and Iron Man were made. Avatar producer Jon Landau said in June last year that the campus would be the "heart of the next two Avatars".
But at the time Weta boss Joe Letteri said Wellington was still in the running for Avatar 2 and 3, and that Cameron had visited Weta to discuss its possible involvement. MBS Media could be used for performance capture with other work done in Wellington.
WETA is the second largest digital animation company in the world, just behind US giant Pixar, with about 900 staff now working on two Hobbit movies and visual effects for Superman – Man of Steel.
The first Hobbit film should be finished at the end of this year and the second the year after. The Superman film is slated for 2013, as well as another film, Elysium, with Weta doing work on conceptual designs and physical effects.
Elysium is another science fiction film set on a planet in the distant future, written and directed by Neill Blomkamp, who also directed District 9. Elysium stars Matt Damon, Jodie Foster and the main production is being done in Canada.
The follow-up Avatar movies are expected to be shot back to back and released in December 2014 and 2015 respectively, according to reports last year which quoted Cameron saying he was working on the two scripts.
However, the first film was long delayed and some international references suggest Avatar 2 will come out in 2016, not 2014.
Given the huge amount of work and time taken to produce the first Avatar film a decision on where to make it could be made in coming months.
The first Avatar is the biggest selling movie of all time, unadjusted for inflation, making about US$2.8 billion worldwide. Cameron's Titanic, made in 1997, grossed US$1.8 billion, at the time also the biggest selling movie.
Despite the huge success of Avatar, which earned US$350m for Cameron alone, New Zealand taxpayers kicked in almost $53m to make it.
Avatar received a total of $52.9 million from the Large Budget Screen Production Grant based on qualifying spending of $362.8m, according to Film Commission figures.
The grant was given to the film production company 880 Productions, part of the Fox studios empire.
Weta Digital's Letteri was travelling overseas and could not be reached for comment.
A Weta spokesman in Wellington said there was "not much we can say". The decision was up to Cameron's production company: "They have all the cards."
Letteri is expected to attend the Oscars on February 26, where he is nominated for a Visual Effects award for work on Rise of the Planet of the Apes.
It is the sixth Oscar nomination for Letteri, who was also won the award for Avatar in 2009 and King Kong as well as two Lord of the Rings films by Jackson. He was nominated but did not win for I, Robot.
Meanwhile, Shanly said having Cameron living in New Zealand would bring the film world closer to Wellington, given his international connections.
The first Avatar film did not involve much location shooting – most work was done in a studio.
Avatar was "the most prominent film in the Western world, so having that based in Wellington, showed that Wellington could perform" Shanly said.
It was the first major international film done in Wellington that was not made by Jackson.
Cameron was a director at the top of his creative game who had chosen Weta to create a "ground-breaking" vision of the science fiction world of Pandora.
"He chose Wellington. That is a real stamp of approval," Shanly said.
"And Wellington did it extremely successfully."
Dreamworks Animation Keeps ‘Panda-ring’ to China
(chinafilmbiz.wordpress.com) February 17, 2012 from Beijing, China I’m happy to be reporting today from Beijing, where I’ve just finished a second day of investor meetings on my 10-day, multi-city China trip. Things are going quite well; the level of interest among investors wishing to fund films made outside of China is higher than I’ve ever experienced. With a little luck I’ll be making an announcement regarding my company, Pacific Bridge Pictures, in the coming weeks.
Of course, any announcement I might make would pale in comparison to the one apparently being engineered by Dreamworks Animation (DWA) CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg. Although it hasn’t happened yet, it’s been widely reported that Katzenberg has arranged to have China’s President-apparent Xi Jinping announce today the formation of a new three-way, Chinese government-backed, $2 billion joint-venture between DWA, Shanghai Media Group, and China Media Capital.
According to reports in the Chinese press, under the terms of the joint venture the three companies will construct a studio facility in Shanghai with the intent of developing and producing film, television and live stage productions aimed at the booming Chinese media market.
None of the partners has deigned to comment or confirm the reports, but we’ll presumably know today whether there is truth to the story.
Assuming it is true, I’m giving Jeffrey Katzenberg a virtual kowtow of admiration and respect for his exemplary showmanship. Enlisting China’s President-to-be as his emissary is a brilliant political and public relations coup, and a win-win both for him and for Xi. As he prepares to assume the mantle of leadership in the People’s Republic, Xi gets to demonstrate China’s largesse (and importance) to the U.S. by showering a major Hollywood company with a $2 billion ‘gift,’ while deflecting attention from China’s extremely one-sided behavior with respect to entertainment trade. For Katzenberg, Xi’s endorsement would cement his standing in China’s animation business, and also send an important signal to Hollywood that he sees China as his most important territory after North America.
Although they have been quieter until now than DWA, Hollywood’s other major animation companies should not by any means be counted out. It hasn’t escaped the attention of Universal’s Illumination or Disney’s Pixar that China’s family animation market tripled in size in 2011 versus the prior year.
REAL STEEL: The Visual Effects, SimulCam, & Practical Robot Animatronics
(collider.com) When director Shawn Levy’s Real Steel opened last October, it surprised quite a few people. For one, the so-called “robot boxing movie” packed a whole lot of heart. While some may have been expecting wall-to-wall robot fights, they soon found out that buried beneath this sci-fi adventure was an emotional father-son story. Secondly, audiences discovered that Real Steel featured some of the best visual effects of the year. I nstead of relying solely on CG for the numerous robot-boxing matches, Levy opted for a nuanced blend of practical effects and cutting-edge motion capture technology. What resulted was some of the most seamlessly blended effects in recent memory. When it came time for the Oscars to announce the contenders in the Best Visual Effects category, it was no surprise that Real Steel popped up on the list.
As we’re just a few weeks away from the Academy Awards, Steve got the chance to sit down with Levy earlier today to talk about the visual effects in the film. In addition to musing on the hybrid effects approach, the SimulCam technology that made the effects possible, and what sets Real Steel apart from the other VFX nominees, Levy also provided a few updates on the Real Steel sequel, specifically talking about how their approach to Real Steel 2 was directly influenced by what demographics responded to Real Steel most passionately. Hit the jump to watch the full interview.
Video - FX Cuts From The Film: http://collider.com/shawn-levy-real-steel-sequel-interview/145178/
John Carter Producer: Pixar Backlash to Blame for Cars 2 Oscar Snub?
(movieline.com) Last summer’s Cars 2 marked a notable footnote in the history of Pixar Animation, just not a good one; despite opening to the studio’s sixth-highest worldwide take to date, the sequel to 2006’s Cars earned middling reviews, prompted critics to deem it a commercial cash-grab, and eventually – maybe most shockingly, given the studio's track record – became the first Pixar film not to nab an Oscar nod for Best Animated Feature since the category was inaugurated. Could it be, as Pixar producer Lindsey Collins suggests, that Cars 2 was Oscar-snubbed because of anti-Pixar backlash?
Speaking with press today in Phoenix, Arizona for John Carter, which she produced for longtime Pixar collaborator Andrew Stanton, Collins assessed why Cars 2 was overlooked in favor of five other animated films (A Cat in Paris, Chico and Rita, Kung Fu Panda 2, Puss in Boots, and Rango).
“The fact that [Cars 2] was a sequel -- in a way it’s funny, because obviously from a franchise standpoint people love sequels,” Collins explained. “And certainly from a franchise standpoint Cars 2 did insanely well, such that we can’t even count it as a good metric to tell us whether or not to do sequels.”
Sequel status aside, Collins surmised a larger reason was working against the John Lasseter-directed pic, which was the first Pixar film to earn an overall “rotten” score on Rotten Tomatoes. “I think it had the fact that Pixar has dominated going against it,” she added. “At a certain point there was going to be somebody who was going to take the fall a little bit. It was going to be like, ‘Eh, we don’t like that one.’”
Then again, Cars 2’s nomination miss could also be chalked up to the relatively deep field of animated films in the running for Oscar this year – many of which surprised Collins and defied her own expectations of the competition. “I see every single one of these things because my kids drag me to them all, and to me it felt like God, there are some great animated films this year. I actually had one of those, ‘There’s two hours of my life that I’m never going to get back’ [thoughts], and then you walk out like, ‘Actually, that was quite good!’”
Among the “great pictures” not spawned from Pixar that Collins had praise for? “I loved Rango," she admitted. “There were actually some great pictures this year.”
As for the cold critical reception and accusations of crass commercialism Cars 2 received, Collins maintains that Lasseter “truly, truly loves” the sequel -- and Pixar, she says, supports the films its stable of directors want to make. “John loves that world, he loves those characters. We got accused of being very commercial with it and it’s kind of funny, it’s so ironic because if you’ve met John Lasseter there’s not a disingenuous bone in that man’s body.”
Zorro Reboot To Be Futuristic
(slashfilm.com) Fox is rebooting Zorro, and now plans to put Gael Garcia Bernal behind the mask. Zorro Reborn will be a “futuristic reboot” of the Zorro tale that will reportedly be set somewhere quite different from the story’s classic locales.
Fox won’t comment, but let’s hope that the script, by Glenn Gers and Lee Shipman & Brian McGreevy, is to Zorro what Outland was to High Noon. (That is: “In Spaaaaaace!”) All we know for certain is that Bernal will be “the Spanish swordsman as a masked vigilante bent on revenge.” Which is to say, he’s playing Zorro.
No director is on board as of yet.
The Most Expensive Places To Live In The VFX Industry
(vfxsoldier.wordpress.com) VFX Artist Aruna Inversin has a great post on Vancouver’s skyrocketing real estate prices:
Making a decision to move up north is not a small feat, especially in this rough and tumble world of the quick buck, cheap labor, and inadequate contracts. Here’s one reason to think twice.
Demographia, a property-affordability survey published by Illinois-based consultant Wendell Cox, estimates that median real-estate prices in Vancouver are 9.5 times median household income. Only Hong Kong and Sydney are less affordable by that measure. (New York comes in at 5.1.)
I’ve written a few posts on how Vancouver’s real estate market is the most unaffordable in the world.
However, even if real estate is affordable, I’ve written that VFX artists shouldn’t buy a home because the nature of the industry is project based. Even if you had gainful employment in Los Angeles, bouncing between Imageworks, Disney, DreamWorks, Digital Domain, and Rhythm & Hues are still long commutes from the suburbs. A mortgage is for 30 years, nobody had been at the same vfx company for that long… unless you’re George Lucas.
The Cost Of Living
Furthermore, even if you were just renting, you are subject to huge costs of living. There is a cost of living index taken every year by Mercer which helps companies measure the cost of living for employees about to make a move. It’s based off measuring housing, transport, food, clothing, household goods and entertainment. You can view the whole list here. I’ve listed cities where major VFX facilities reside below:
* 8 – Singapore
* 14 – Sydney
* 18 – London
* 65 – Vancouver
* 77 – Los Angeles
* 95 – Mumbai
* 106 – San Francisco
* 136 – Wellington
What’s crazy about this list is that Vancouver, Singapore, and London which are commonly known to pay lower rates than Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Wellington rank way up in the cost of living index. But there is one more huge burden we are forgetting when we choose to make the jump:
TAXES!!
I’ll bet not many VFX artists based in the US know this but if you chose to go work in another country, you still have to pay taxes on foreign income, even if you paid foreign taxes. A co-worker recently asked his CPA about moving to Vancouver and basically gave him this advice:
You need to make sure to stay out of the US for 18 or more months to not pay any US or CA state taxes. You can deduct the taxes you pay in Canada but will still owe money to the US fed if you stay out less than a year. You will still be taxed as a CA resident unless you stay out of CA for more than 18 months.
Obviously I’m hearing this from one person so if you know differently please comment below.
I’m always intrigued by colleagues who are in London one project, then bounce to Vancouver for another project. How does anyone save money doing that? If you’re one of those people feel free to comment. What’s your savings percentage? Whats your total tax percentage after deductions?
'Planet of the Apes': The Digital Muscle Behind the Oscar Nom
(hollywoodreporter.com) Raising the visual effects ante by creating smart simians, Peter Jackson's Weta Digital -- which already has brought orcs and Na'vi to life -- is hoping for a sixth Academy Award.
This story originally appeared in the Feb. 24 issue of The Hollywood Reporter.
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It's no surprise that Weta Digital, the Wellington, New Zealand-based visual effects company co-founded by Peter Jackson, is known as the house The Lord of the Rings built -- it was rewarded with visual effects Oscars for all three Rings movies. But in the nearly 10 years since the last Rings, Weta has proven it can go beyond Middle-earth, bringing to life all kinds of creatures from King Kong to the blue-skinned Na'vi of Avatar.
PHOTO: 'Rise of the Planet of the Apes' First Look: The Many Faces of Andy Serkis
In 2011 alone, Weta handled visual effects for X-Men: First Class, helped realize Steven Spielberg's The Adventures of Tintin and animated a new generation of intelligent simians for Fox's Rise of the Planet of the Apes. Its contributions to that last film have earned the company a spot in the current contest for the visual effects Academy Award and won it two Visual Effects Society awards.
Rupert Wyatt, the movie's director, knew he would have to go the computer-graphics route to bring Caesar and his fellow apes to life. "I was never a fan of using live animals for numerous reasons. Morally -- and practically," he says. "It would have been very hard to get them to do very specific things from a narrative point of view. Our one option was CGI, specifically using performance-capture."
Weta was a natural place to turn because it has been at the forefront of performance-capture. So Andy Serkis, who proved the viability of the process in Rings -- for which Weta experts filmed his movements and transformed him into Gollum -- was drafted to play Caesar. With a big part of the movie's $94 million budget going toward visual effects, Weta artists relied on both science and art.
PHOTO: Rise of the Planet of the Apes: Hollywood Premiere at Grauman's
The artists used medical data, explains VFX supervisor Dan Lemmon, to create "a new system of muscle and skin simulation. Basically it adds an additional level of simulation on top of the facial performance. Things like the way the muscles wrinkled and the way the flesh got mushed around on the face were a much higher-fidelity solution than we have had before." They even added touches like moisture beads on the apes' lower eyelids. Adds Lemmon, "We introduced advances on our translucency model to make the way the light interacts with the skin and the eyes more realistic."
Such attention to detail has made Weta, and its 850 employees, very much in demand. It is working on Jackson's two new Hobbit movies, currently in production, Ridley Scott's Prometheus, Joss Whedon's The Avengers and Zack Snyder's Man of Steel.
VFX supervisor Joe Letteri, a four-time Oscar winner and Jackson's partner in Weta, says: "Having Peter here definitely helps. We have been lucky to get these interesting projects and to be able to work with good directors on them. We are able to immerse ourselves wholly in a project, contributing ideas as well as techniques."
THE OTHER NOMINEES FOR BEST VISUAL EFFECTS OSCAR
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2
Tim Burke, David Vickery, Greg Butler, John Richardson
This is the final opportunity for the Academy to recognize the effects in the Potter franchise with an Oscar statuette. The series' most ambitious effort included loads of R&D and a collection of elements from CG characters to, for the first time, a fully CG Hogwarts school in which to stage the climactic battle.
Hugo
Rob Legato, Joss Williams, Ben Grossman, Alex Henning
With an emphasis on the artistic use of visual effects, echoing the film's focus on the history of movies, the effects team incorporated a range of techniques including CG, models and stop-motion. Even with its runaway train, "the movie doesn't stop and turn into a VFX moment," says Legato. Pixomondo was the primary effects house on the film.
Real Steel
Erik Nash, John Rosengrant, Dan Taylor, Swen Gillberg
Lead visual effects house Digital Domain brought virtual production techniques on location, using performance-capture to make the 'bot bouts feel natural in their live-action environments. Says Nash, "Using the SimulCam system developed for Avatar we could 'see' the fights on a monitor during principal photography and react to what was happening."
Transformers: Dark of the Moon
Scott Farrar, Scott Benza, Matthew Butler, John Frazier
Industrial Light & Magic really upped the complexity on the latest Transformers film with 3D and the most complicated creature the company had ever created -- the snakelike Driller, made up of 70,051 parts. Says Farrar, "The Driller wrapped around that tilted building demonstrates everything we put into these movies."
Weta's Sir Richard Taylor Is 'New Zealander of the Year'
(tvnz.co.nz) Sir Richard Taylor, who was named New Zealander of the Year last night, said it is "critical" young Kiwis do not think they have to leave the country to achieve their goals.
Speaking on TV ONE's Breakfast programme Sir Richard said it is "critical that they know they can do incredible things here in New Zealand. And our case, less than 15-minutes from the university where we studied".
"It's an incredible country that allows you to live your dreams and fulfill opportunities - that otherwise you may not be able to get in a bigger pool," he said.
The Weta Workshop founder was crowned New Zealander of the Year at a gala dinner in Auckland and used his acceptance speech to pay tribute to the creative industries.
Weta employs more than a thousand people, earns hundreds of millions of dollars a year and has scooped numerous Oscars for its special effects.
At the ceremony Sir Richard said he had to learn a lot about the industry from when he first moved to Wellington at the age of 17.
"I didn't appreciate television series were filmed in sets built specifically for the show," he said.
"I literally thought Close To Home was filmed in people's houses in Lower Hutt so it's been quite an education along the way."
Shining example
Sir Richard was described as an extraordinary New Zealander, who set a shining example by being a global player in the international movie industry, but choosing to base himself in New Zealand.
He told Breakfast that communities, councils and governments seem to acknowledge the creative industries are going to play a major part in the country's future.
"Our intelligent thinking and our creative ability can have a huge impact taking our brand out to the world," said Sir Richard. "We find that the support and encouragement that we get from those groups is second to none."
Sir Richard said since Lord of the Rings, Weta has opened up a number of different business opportunities, and that they hope to continue on the path of diversification.
"The new world is unfolding in front of us where there's cross media opportunities and fool be us if we can't stay ahead of it," he said.
The Wellingtonian beat Doctor Sharad Paul, a skin cancer specialist who also runs a bookstore that benefits low decile schools, and Dame Suzie Moncrieff, who started the World of Wearable Art competition.
Meanwhile, Sam Johnson, the face of the Canterbury Student Volunteer Army that helped with the Canterbury quake clean up won the young New Zealander of the year.
In accepting the award, Johnson paid tribute to the hundreds of students who were part of the army - saying they are his heroes.
The 23-year-old travelled to Japan after their major earthquake and tsunami to help universities there set up similar armies to help with the clean-up.
Oscars 2012 Predictions: Best Visual Effects
(wazootech.com) Were this a sane world where Oscar voters paid the smallest shred of attention to populist popcorn flicks that happen to be ? in addition to mega-bucks-grossing juggernauts ? freaking great movies, then the Best Picture nominees might look a little more like the Best Visual Effects ones (and less like this year’s top-prize picks currently going unwatched in theaters across the country).
“Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2? isn’t just the biggest movie of 2011 ($1.3 billion in box-office receipts) but the finest installment of that venerable franchise. “Rise of the Planet of the Apes” is, in a word, so totally amazingly oh-my-lord awesome. Is that more than one word? Too bad, because “Apes” looked great, spun a heartbreaking character tale in the middle of a sci-fi thriller, and gave Andy Serkis, as the motion-captured central simian, the opportunity for one of the most affecting performances of the year. “Hugo” was pretty great too ? and at least Martin Scorsese’s film, alone among the Visual Effects nominees, also nabbed a Best Picture nod. And while we won’t go so far as to say “Real Steel” and “Transformers: Dark of the Moon” are excellent films, they’re both certainly fun (something we can’t say about Best Picture honoree “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close”).
The Visual Effects category, then, represents a sort of guide to some of the year’s great geeky movies. Here are our predictions for this category in 2012:
Who Will Win: “Rise of the Planet of the Apes” and the visual-effects whizzes at Weta Digital (the folks behind “Avatar”) have this category wrapped up. Their motion-captured apes were not only leaps and bounds more compelling than the mask-wearing creatures in past “Ape” films, but they were the year’s most stunning CG creations. Weta was so successful at grafting an ape’s body and facial features onto Serkis’ figure that you simply forgot you were watching a human actor. In any other year, “Hugo” would be well positioned to take this category. And the hour-long battle sequence at the end of Michael Bay’s “Transformers” was a staggering achievement. But this is no ordinary year. “Apes” for the win.
Who Should Win: Yeah, “Apes” for the win. It’s all too seldom the case that the most deserving nominee actually wins a category. Not so at this year’s ceremony. Our only beef is that in addition to topping this category, Serkis didn’t get any love in the best supporting actor category. There remains a reluctance on the part of awards-season insiders to honor an actor if his performance comes wrapped in pixels. One day, no doubt, that will change. And when that happens, perhaps we’ll all look back at Serkis’ turn as rebel leader Caesar and agree it was one of the best of 2011.
14 Academy Award-Nominated Movies: One Thing in Common
(eon.businesswire.com) SAN RAFAEL, Calif.--(EON: Enhanced Online News)--Digital artists devoted days and years behind the scenes to help create the movie magic seen in many of this year’s Academy Award-nominated films. In the categories for Best Visual Effects and Best Animated Film (Feature and Short) in particular, many artists relied on the same set of tools — Digital Entertainment Creation (DEC) software from Autodesk, Inc. (NASDAQ: ADSK).
“Great films depend on great storytelling and our technology is designed to enable artistic vision”
“Great films depend on great storytelling and our technology is designed to enable artistic vision,” said Marc Petit, senior vice president, Autodesk Media & Entertainment. “We congratulate the multitalented teams of artists from North America, New Zealand, Europe and Asia, and we are proud of Autodesk software’s role in helping them create these extraordinary movies.”
Full article: http://eon.businesswire.com/news/eon/20120216006331/en/Academy-Awards/Best-Visual-Effects/Best-Animated-Feature-Film
Greg Cannom Does FX for Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter
(makeupdrshari.wordpress.com) While munching on tasty Valentine’s Day, Lindor chocolate truffles and applying for a few makeup jobs online, I ran across the recently released trailer, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (2012). The movie is based on the popular book of the same name by Seth Grahame-Smith which was first published only 2 years ago.
Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter was produced by Tim Burton and directed by Timur Bekmambetov (he directed Wanted, Day Watch and Night Watch, all favs of mine) and staring Benjamin Walker, Rufus Sewell and Dominic Cooper.
But on to the important stuff, like who did the makeup for this film. Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter has a huge makeup department, including the incomparable Greg Cannom. While I am very interested in seeing the work of this great crew of artist, (whom I have listed below) the trailer isn’t very promising, I actually laughed at the end of it. The featurette is much more interesting than the trailer. I have embedded both below for your viewing pleasure.
VIDEO - Trailer - Take a look: http://makeupdrshari.wordpress.com/2012/02/15/greg-cannom-does-fx-for-abraham-lincoln-vampire-hunter/
Think Twice: VFX in Vancouver
(digitalgypsy.com) As many of you are aware, Vancouver is having a wonderful boom for VFX jobs. This benefit is three-fold. Companies get cheaper labor (theoretically), artists get cooler films to work on, and students get a foot in the door. However, the reality is anything but.
I love Vancouver. I lived up there for six years, and I felt at home. Great weather (aside from the rain), easy access to outdoor amenities, and it was just a really great place for an international city that is still in North America, and easily accessible by Californian VFX artists. Making a decision to move up north is not a small feat, especially in this rough and tumble world of the quick buck, cheap labor, and inadequate contracts. Here's one reason to think twice.
Demographia, a property-affordability survey published by Illinois-based consultant Wendell Cox, estimates that median real-estate prices in Vancouver are 9.5 times median household income. Only Hong Kong and Sydney are less affordable by that measure. (New York comes in at 5.1.)
Insane. The source for this is the NY Times, link located here. Why is this important? Well, thinking of where to live, and how much it will cost can significantly impact your quality of life. For families, it can be very tough to up and move, even to someplace within a couple hours flight.
The Canadian Real Estate Association says the average house price in Canada in April was C$372,544, up 8% from last year. In Vancouver, it was more than twice that, at C$815,252, up 21% from a year ago.
An average house in Vancouver cost 815 grand! Why should this even affect you if you're only renting up there? Well, you'd definitely need more than one roommate, and for families, that's a no go. This also affects the low end of the market, as many of the young people, the people that are tech savvy, the ones that these companies are trying to recruit to work on their popular VFX films, are heading to greener pastures where it is more affordable to live. You're not going to want to live in Surrey and commute at least an hour in traffic to downtown Vancouver to work long hours. You'll want to live in Yaletown, maybe Arbutus, South Granville, or maybe Kits and West End. The majority of the VFX studios are in South Granville, Fairview, Downtown, and Mt Pleasant. Subsidies only help the companies, they don't really help the artists. Sure you can ask for more money, but will a company want a student asking $40 an hour, or a seasoned professional asking $60? Mind you, the overtime laws in BC are very different from California, so if you're banking on getting time and a half and double time in the crunch, good luck if it's not written into your contract!
Companies are getting the itch to open up facilities up north, but often don't realize that it's not just about having a northern satellite office to get the vfx work, it's also about getting artists to fill those spots. Not just any artists, but seasoned professionals, most of which are not in BC and may not want to move for something that may not be permanent. All the seasoned artists in Vancouver are already at facilities of their choice which have been around for a decade already! Would you make the jump from a boutique in Vancouver to Sony Vancouver, DD Vancouver, or Scanline Vancouver? Especially if you've got an established team and repertoire with your crew at your boutique? If artists in Los Angeles can't or won't make the jump to Vancouver, do these companies really think they can find the quantity of people up north with the same experience? Time will tell. BC labor law also requires a certain major percentage of Canadian employees in a company, and if the majority of the talent come from outside Canada, will this even work? Time will tell.. London did it, and is doing amazingly well at this time.
I took my kids to see 'Lost in Space' . A bunch of good actors running around shooting at special effects on a soundstage? I felt like I was on an acid trip. -Tom Berenger
Avengers FX Fleshed Out, Pac Rim Creatures Big MF-ers, & R2D2 Meets Rango…
Special Effects Supervisor Talks Avengers Opening Sequence
(Starburst Magazine) Hydraulx special effects supervisor Chris Wells gave Starburst Magazine some interesting info on the opening sequence for Marvel's The Avengers that the company is overseeing.
"We're doing what essentially boils down to the prelude of the movie," he said. "There's a whole intro that happens before you start even getting the titles and it's pretty big. There's nothing small in this movie. I went to a screening with all the temporary visual effects and it was pretty fleshed out. It's a long movie but it doesn't feel like it. Out of all the comic book movies and franchises I've worked on, this is the best one I've seen so far."
That is certainly good news for the fans, considering he's worked on the "X-Men" films, Captain America: The First Avenger, The Incredible Hulk, Fantastic Four, Green Lantern and many more.
He was also asked if the film would be driven by action or the character-oriented work that writer/director Joss Whedon is known for. "I think they nailed both," he said. "I think he did a very good job of setting up the characters based on what we know from the Marvel franchise, integrating them together with all their differences and similarities and then getting on with business. And just when you think the movie is a character piece it just goes nuts."
Confirming that the Red Skull is not in the film, he added: "I promise you it's not going to be boring. This thing has gone so big that Marvel are dwarfing their other franchises. For people who enjoy the comics and haven't really liked the way some of the characters were treated in other movies, I think they're going to be a little more appeased by this one. Especially the Hulk. They let the Hulk be Hulk and that's great. He acts more like the comic book Hulk. It's fun. My biggest problem with every single superhero movie is I don't think the payoff ever matches the build up. This one definitely does."
Pacific Rim Creatures To Be "Big MF-ers"
(io9.comz) Star Idris Elba, whose credits already include the twin apexes of modern entertainment in The Wire and Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance, discusses the creatures and the use of CGI in Guillermo del Toro's monster-fighting epic:
"It's hard to say. Godzilla would throw out the wrong sort of image, I think. We are talking about some big MF-ers...There's a lot of actuality in this one because he's created huge sets. I mean, we've taken over four sets in Pinewood in Toronto and built a lot of the stuff that you might see. Yes, there is huge CGI I'm sure, but we built a lot of stuff too."
Where R2-D2 and Rango Meet
(carpetbagger.blogs.nytimes.com) I didn’t think we’d ever be as bowled over as when we paid a visit to Pixar. Well, it turns out that San Francisco is filled with jaw-dropping digital film studios. We stopped by Industrial Light & Magic, George Lucas’s special effects shop, where we got to talk to R2-D2, hug E.T. and learn all the secrets of making the company’s first Oscar-nominated animated feature, “Rango.”
VIDEO - Take a look: http://carpetbagger.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/16/where-r2-d2-and-rango-meet/
Wachowskis' Cloud Atlas To Be "Astonishing - Remarkable"
(comingsoon.net) Empire magazine got a chance to talk to Hugh Grant about his roles in the Wachowskis and Tom Tykwer's Cloud Atlas.
"I have six cameo parts in this strange, ambitious film," Grant said. "I do a lot of killing and raping. I wear an awful lot of prosthetic make up, too. You probably won’t know that I am in the film! But it was a laugh."
The magazine says that the actor described his characters as "incredibly evil". He added: "I slightly called my own bluff. In one of the parts I am a cannibal, about 2000 years in the future, and I thought, 'I can do that. It's easy.' And then I am suddenly standing in a cannibal skirt on a mountaintop in Germany and they are saying, 'You know, hungry! We must have that flesh-eating, like a leopard who is so hungry...' and I am thinking, 'I can’t do that! Just give me a witty line!'"
So how does he think the complex film, also starring Hugh Grant, Halle Berry, Hugo Weaving, Ben Whishaw, Susan Sarandon, Jim Broadbent, Bae Doona and James D'Arcy, will turn out? "I have seen little bits of cut footage and it is just astonishing. I probably had 20 shooting days, and each of them is shooting their own part of the film with their own crews. It’s remarkable."
Warner Bros. Pictures has not announced a released date for the film yet.
8 Movie Special Effects You Won't Believe Aren't CGI
So maybe we need to stop and appreciate the mind-blowing scenes that were done the old-fashioned way -- with stunts, models and borderline insanity.
#8. The Dark Knight -- The Big Chase Scene
It was a chase that destroyed the Batmobile, a Joker-themed semi, a dump truck, a paddy wagon, multiple cop cars and God knows how many bystander vehicles. And that shit was worth it.
Two specific points during the insane car chase at the halfway point of The Dark Knight are so over-the-top they seem like they would have had to be computer-generated, if for no other reason than they would have killed the stunt drivers.
The first is when the Batmobile first shows up to take out the Joker's convoy. It speeds in ...
... and offers what equates to a vehicular uppercut to a garbage truck.
The scene ended up in the trailer and inadvertently encouraged a bloat of fanboys to flock to their keyboards and pound out protests against the fake-looking CGI in the movie. But as Christopher Nolan has proved time and again, he doesn't mess with that shit if he doesn't have to.
No, what you are actually seeing there is a complete one-third-scale model of the Batmobile, the garbage truck and a large section of lower Wacker Drive in Chicago.
They stuck the two vehicles on a guide and smashed those mothers together. What you see in the film is the result.
Even the damn 180-degree move that the Batmobile pulls off at the end was done by a radio-controlled model.
So what about the climactic moment in that scene when they flip the Joker's 18-wheeler after Batman clotheslines it with a grappling hook? If that was a model, it was pretty goddamned convincing.
The flipping of the semi was accomplished with a technique known in Hollywood as flipping a real goddamned semi. To get the mind-boggling amount of upward force needed to lift the big bastard head over heels, the FX crew built a huge steam-piston mechanism in the trailer.
Of course, then the challenge was to make it look like this insane stunt was occurring right in the middle of the banking district in Gotham. So how the hell do you pull that off? Build a miniature city and edit in the truck somehow? Film the truck out on an open course and use CGI to fill in the background? Shit, no! They just went to downtown Chicago, closed off a street and flipped their goddamned semi.
Why? Because that's how Batman would do it. CGI is for squares.
#7. Independence Day -- The Wall of Flames
You can mock its many plot holes if you want, but we're pretty sure the reason Independence Day dominated the box office in 1996 was because millions of people thought that seeing New York slowly enveloped by a gargantuan ball of fire was worth every cent of the ticket price. The ad campaign sold the film on that image -- the fire rolling down between New York skyscrapers. And by God, we lined up on opening night.
Seriously, you can leave after this scene.
And even if you watch it today, there's something oddly realistic about it, especially when compared with more recent Roland Emmerich stuff like 2012, which made the destruction of L.A. look like a very expensive video game cut-scene:
The difference, of course, is that the fire in the streets in ID4 is not CGI. It's real fire.
That sort of thing isn't easy to do in real life -- after all, how do you make the fire go sideways? Fire doesn't normally plume horizontally, which is a good thing most of the time, but the whole point of the aliens' city-destroying weapon was the unearthly way the blaze would slowly spill outward and engulf the city.
For the effects team, the solution to this shot was relatively simple.
Can you tell what you're looking at? That's a model city on its side. You'd probably recognize it better like this:
They called it the death chimney. Just turn the city model sideways, put the pyrotechnics at the bottom and put the camera at the top. Then they shot the explosion at a high shutter speed so that when the film was slowed down, they got their horrific, creeping wall of unstoppable fire.
See, this is how destruction used to be filmed back in the day. Someone spent weeks making a detailed model of New York, then you set it on fire and hoped to hell you didn't screw it up so they'd have to build it all over again (because then the model builder would find you in the parking lot and beat your ass).
Video and pics - The Other 6: http://www.cracked.com/article_19140_8-movie-special-effects-you-wont-believe-arent-cgi.html
Will Academy Voters Learn Anything From the Transformers 3 Oscar Campaign?
(movieline.com) Yes, I just wrote the words "Transformers Oscar campaign." Sigh. It's time we come to terms with the fact that each installment in Michael Bay's robot action series has technically been nominated for one or more Academy Awards -- deservedly so, really, given the technical achievements these CG metal-on-metal bashfests have under their belt, even if everything else in these films are aggressively, brain-numbingly mediocre. But Paramount aims to take home one of them statuettes this year, by god, and so they've created an awards campaign to break through to Oscar voters in the most effective way possible: Through their TV sets.
Bay's billion-dollar summer hit Transformers: Dark of the Moon is nominated in three technical categories: Sound Editing, Sound Mixing, and Visual Effects. No matter how much you may loathe this series, one thing is irrefutable: Transformers 3 boasts some of the best vfx of the year. That churning building-chomping giant bot thing cutting down a skyscraper in glorious, shiny detail? Mesmerizing, really. Bay slowing down his previously indistinguishable CG robot action for the third film actually helped highlight the amazing visual work he and his team pieced together out of bits and data, and though the first Transformers lost the Visual Effects Oscar to The Golden Compass (the second lost Best Sound Mixing to The Hurt Locker), 2012 seems like the year for a Transformers win for vfx. (Dark of the Moon is up against Hugo, Deathly Hallows Pt. 2, Rise of the Planet of the Apes, and Real Steel in the category.)
Which brings us to the two sound categories. Does anyone out there who's not a sound engineer actually understand the difference between Sound Editing and Sound Mixing? Fine, I'm sure there are a handful of expert McKnowitalls out there. (Essentially, editing is the selection/assemblage of sounds and mixing is the blending of all sounds/dialogue/audio for the final film.) But you know who doesn't understand the difference between the two? Normal people, and a whole lot of Oscar voters.
That's probably why Paramount's Transformers Oscar spot doesn't even bother distinguishing between the two sound categories. "Just vote for us across the board!" the campaign practically screams, and why not? The goal of these spots is basically to put Transformers in the minds of the voters -- the ones who can be swayed by a TV commercial telling them that these are the best effects of the year. Take a look at the ad belo
Haruo Nakajima Puts on the Godzilla For The Last Time
(youtube.com) This short, 2-minute clip shows Haruo Nakajima putting on the Godzilla suit in 1983 for a photo shoot in a magazine called Uchusen. The suit is NOT the one used for Fake Godzilla and the ending shots from Terror of Mechagodzilla, but another one made in 1979 for Godzilla's 25th anniversary.
This would be the last time Nakajima ever donned a Godzilla suit.
VIDEO - Take a look: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GE6WpMQS6I8
Trumbull Lights Up 'Hypercinema'
(variety.com) Last week must have been surreal for Douglas Trumbull.
On the one hand, he was showered with accolades -- the George Melies Award from the Visual Effects Society, honoring his pioneering vfx work; and the Sawyer Award, an Oscar statuette, from the Academy for his work across a wide range of technological and creative fronts -- but while he was being feted by the industry's movers and shakers, he's still seeking financial backing for those innovations.
And while Trumbull got a lot of press for his efforts to upgrade cinema images, few seem to entirely grasp just how revolutionary his efforts could be. Trumbull is not just talking about a better way to present movies. He wants to fundamentally change movies themselves -- some movies, anyway.
Working on a stage on his property in Massachusetts, Trumbull is combining high frame rates and 3D on the production side with advanced projection tech and curved screens that get brightness up to 30 foot Lamberts -- more than a full stop above the current standard of 14 foot Lamberts for standard 2D projection, and several stops above the typical brightness at multiplexes for 3D.
Trumbull hasn't come up with a formal name for the suite of technologies, but he's calling it "Hypercinema" for now. He told Variety he doesn't want to change all movies over to Hypercinema: "I think 24 frames-per-second movies on normal movie screens is a wonderful, beautiful, long-lasting art form that will go into the future and it is completely appropriate for most films, actually."
But the major studios are mostly in the blockbuster business, said Trumbull, and it's blockbusters that stand to benefit from his innovations, which would amp up cinema spectacle and showmanship to new heights.
Beyond that, though, Trumbull is aiming at something more profound.
"No one in the industry has seen a 3D movie at 30 foot Lamberts at 120 frames per second," he said. "What happens when you get into this hyper-real realm of a movie, that seems to be a window onto reality, is that the entire cinematic language begins to change." He wants to make a movie using Hypercinema and move away from the master shots, two-shots, over-the-shoulder shots and close-ups we've all seen thousands of times, to create "an experience of tremendous participation in an alternate world, which I think people will crave and are ready to pay for."
If Trumbull is right, then he may have put his finger on a big problem facing the movie industry, bigger even than poor presentation and tired storytelling: What if auds are becoming bored with the very medium itself?
Today's audiences are media-saturated, after all. And it's hard to surprise them doing the same old thing. Audiences pony up for novelty and surprise. Videogames have that. Do Hollywood features?
Right or wrong, Trumbull is walking a lonely road. Even tech-forward directors like James Cameron, Peter Jackson and Michael Bay tend to use their advanced tech to tell stories in traditional ways. There's little talk of new techniques for new tech.
"I think I am a complete lone wolf in this area," Trumbull said. "I don't hear anybody that is even thinking about it."
He lamented the lack of technology departments at the studios and exhibitors, but he hopes to find investors to move his efforts along. "I have just decided I have got to show (the movie industry) what the result will be if you do all these thing simultaneously and then back up a little bit and see if the industry wants to go there.
"I can't make it go there," he said. "I can only lead a horse to water."
Laurence Fishburne Joins Sci-Fi Thriller The Colony
(comingsoon.net) The Hollywood Reporter says that Laurence Fishburne will star in Canadian sci-fi thriller The Colony, to be directed by Jeff Renfroe. The $16 million film will shoot in Toronto from February 22 to March 30.
Kevin Zegers is also joining the cast of the film, "about a group of underground survivors after the next Ice Age fending off an invasion of feral cannibals."
Renfroe wrote the script with Patrick Tarr, Pascal Trottier and Svet Rouskov. Alcina Pictures is producing the movie with Item 7 and Mad Samurai Productions.
Animation - VFX Studios Chasing Tax Credits
(animationguildblog.blogspot.com) As Blue Sky Studios moved to Connecticut for tax credits, so Sony ImageWorks New Mexico leaves for Sony ImageWorks Canada. Which leads to this:
The newly formed Cosgrove Hall Fitzpatrick Entertainment has joined a growing number of animation companies to call on the Government to introduce tax credits to help the industry remain competitive.
Under the Animation UK banner, a host of animation firms are lobbying to get the same production tax breaks as seen in countries including Canada and Ireland. ...
Another name for "tax credit" would be "tax subsidy." There's really no difference between handing some businesses free money to set up shop in your state or your nation, and giving them a tax credit.
And I'm not here to piss and moan about it, but when guvmint cash flows get tight, nations and states take the "tax credit" away. And then the previously-favored company hot foots it to the next haven. It's a never-ending hunt for cash.
And it sometimes ends badly,
Updated "Fantastic Voyage" To Be Hands On Journey
(io9.com) Shawn Levy revealed his plans for his Fantastic Voyage reboot, which is currently undergoing some rewrites on the script:
"We all remember the original or we have a dim memory, but it was like miasmic views out a submarine window. It was like ‘Oh globules of blood cells!' My whole thing with Jim Cameron who's the producer on that movie is like, let's get out of the boat; let's be tactile and hands-on. Part of the reason why the budget for my Fantastic Voyage is not small is that we're talking about free dives in the body with real full-scale underwater sets, so it's not just looking at the shit, maybe it's climbing up the fucking spine. It's real, full-scale underwater 3D practical sets."
"Ghost Rider 2" Looks For $30m Open
(reuters.com) Despite the strong advance tracking, Sony declined to talk about the marketing and is tamping down expectations.
The studio estimates the movie will open to somewhere in the low $30 million range over the four-day Presidents Day weekend, although other box office observers predict it will bring in around $35 million.
That's still less than the first installment of the franchise, which opened to $45.4 million over the same weekend five years ago, but a good enough start given the film's lower cost and the potential for a more leggy run.
Bay Area Geek Dream Jobs Listing
(sharedwing.net) The Bay Area is a haven for geek dream jobs at famous geeky companies, from companies involved with films like The Matrix, Shrek, Star Wars, Monsters Inc., etc., to one of the biggest publishers of anime and manga, to the home of comics like "Squee," to legendary retailers like Dark Carnival. You might as well work somewhere interesting, right?
FILM/ANIMATION/EFFECTS
* American Zoetrope | Film | San Francisco
Unknown
* Giant Killer Robots | Visual Effects | San Francisco
Click on "JOBS"
* ILM | Visual Effects | San Rafael
http://www.ldlhr.com/jobs.html
* Lucasfilm | Film | San Rafael
http://www.lucasarts.com/company/job/
* Matte World Digital | Visual Effects | Novato
http://www.matteworld.com/hr/index.html
* Palma VFX | Animation and Visual Effects | San Francisco
Unknown
* Phoenix Edit, Effects, & Design | Editing and Visual Effects | San Francisco
Unknown
* PDI/Dreamworks | Digital Animation/Effects | Palo Alto
http://www.dreamworks.com/jobs/index2.html
* Pixar | Digital Animation | Emeryville
http://www.pixar.com/companyinfo/jobs/index.html
* Sony Pictures Imageworks | Digital Effects and Animation | Novato (Culver City)
http://imageworks.com/hr/index.html
* Skywalker Sound | Sound/Post-production | San Rafael
http://www.ilm.com/jobs.html#sound
* Tippett Studios | Visual Effects | Berkeley
Current Openings
* W!LDBRAIN | Animation | San Francisco
http://www.wildbrain.com/careers.html
* Zealot Pictures | Film | San Francisco
Posts on craigslist.org
VIDEO GAMES/COMPUTER GAMES
* Activision | Games | Novato, San Francisco (Santa Monica)
Careers @ Activision * Also has listings for Shaba, Toys for Bob, and Vicarious Visions
* AiLive | Artifical Intelligence | Palo Alto
http://www.ailive.net/careers.html
* Atari | Games | Sunnyvale (New York, France)
http://corporate.infogrames.com/corp_hrmain.php?action=showjobs&locationID=3
* Bay Area Sound | Sound/Voice Acting | San Francisco
Unknown
* Blue Shift | Games | Palo Alto
Unknown
* Capcom | Games | Sunnyvale (Japan)
http://www.capcom.com/jobs/
* Cryptic Studios | Games | Los Gatos
Current Openings
* Double Fine | Games | San Francisco
http://www.doublefine.com/jobs.htm (bonus points for funny)
* Electronic Arts/Maxis | Games | Redwood City
http://jobs.ea.com/
* Eidos | Games | San Francisco, Menlo Park
http://www.eidosinteractive.com/corporate/jobs.html
* Factor5 | Games | San Rafael
http://careers.factor5.com/
* Flagship Studios | Games | San Francisco
http://www.flagshipstudios.com/jobs_main.html
* *NEW* Gaia Online | Games | San Jose
http://corp.gaiaonline.com/careers
* Global VR | Arcade Games | San Jose
http://globalvr.com/company_career_opportunities.html
* Hyperpia | Games/Platforms | Fremont
http://www.hyperpia.com/jobs.html
* Konami | Games | Redwood City (Japan)
http://www.konami.com/gs/jobs.shtml
* KRU | Games | Santa Clara
Unknown
* LindenLab | MMOG | San Francisco
http://lindenlab.com/employment
* Lamplighter Studios | 3D Models/Animations/Enviros for Games | San Francisco
Posts on craigslist.org
* LucasArts | Games | San Rafael
http://www.lucasarts.com/jobs/
* Namco Bandai | Games | San Francisco (Japan)
http://www.namco.com/pane_single.php?res=careers
* NCSoft | Games | Mountain View (Korea)
http://www.plaync.com/us/jobs/jobs_norcal.php
* Nihilistic | Games | Novato
http://www.nihilistic.com/careers.php
* Nintendo | Games/Hardware | San Francisco (Japan)
Taleo.net Job List
* Page 44 | Games | San Francisco
http://www.page44.com/employment.html
* Perpetual | MMORPGs | San Francisco
http://www.perpetual.com/jobs/
* Planet Moon Studios | Games | San Francisco
http://www.planetmoon.com/contact_2.html
* PopCap | Games | San Francisco (Seattle)
PopCap Games - Careers
* Pronto Games | Games | Emeryville
Jobs
* ROBLOX | Games | Menlo Park
http://roblox.com/info/Jobs.aspx
* Secret Level | Games | San Francisco
http://www.secretlevel.com/main.php?page_type=item_pages&page=jobs_listings
* SEGA | Games | San Francisco (Japan)
http://www.sega.com/corporate/corporate.php?item=corporate_jobs
* Slipgate Ironworks | Games | San Mateo
http://www.slipg8.com/
* THQ | Games | Santa Clara (Agoura Hills)
http://careers.thq.com/thq/cc/Home.ss
* Three Rings | Games | San Francisco
http://www.threerings.net/jobs/
* TikGames | Games | San Mateo
http://www.tikgames.com/Jobs/tabid/60/Default.aspx
* Totally Games | Games | Novato
http://www.totallygames.com/jobs/
* UbiSoft | Games | San Francisco
http://jobs.ubi.com/
More: http://www.sharedwing.net/geekjobs.html
Raleigh Studios, Pontiac, Mich. Film Production Site, Fails To Make $630,000 Bond Payment
(huffingtonpost.com) So much for Michigan's economy-boosting film industry. The financial struggles now have a Pontiac production studio gouging the state pension fund, and demonstrating the negative effects of the state's film incentive cap.
Raleigh Studios wasn't able to make its Feb. 1 payment of $630,000 to out-of-state bondholders, the Macomb Daily reports -- instead, the guarantors of the bond, the State of Michigan Retirement System (SMRS), paid $420,000 of the total.
Raleigh lost business after cuts to the state's film incentive program deterred film crews from setting up shop in Michigan.
In 2010, the state gave out $115 million in rebates to film productions. After the incentive program was capped at $25 million in October, there was a steep drop in companies applying to film in the state. December legislation instated a new system of cash subsidies for films, with an easier application process, but the cap on total spending remains $25 million.
According to the Detroit Free Press, Raleigh Studios expects to make its coming August 2012 bond payment, assuming filming picks up.
The studio itself, built in 2010 on a former General Motors truck plant cost a $80 million. It required extensive state and federal backing, including a total of $18 million in bonds (all guaranteed by the SMRS), $11 million in state tax credits and more than $18 million in federal dollars, according to the Hollywood Reporter.
It is most known for being the filming site of "Oz: The Great and Powerful," a Walt Disney movie, with a star-studded cast featuring James Franco, Mila Kunis, Rachel Weisz, Michelle Willams and Zach Braff. "Oz" was filmed at Raleigh in 2011 and is slated for a 2013 release.
M5 Industries No Longer Doing Visual Effects
(m5industries.com) I am Jamie Hyneman. Thanks for visiting the M5 site. We have a long history of doing visual effects for movies and commercials, in fact have done almost a thousand of them over the last 20 years. By we, I mean myself and numerous artisans in the San Francisco area that I have worked with or who have worked for me at M5 or Colossal Pictures when it was still around. This kind of work has always been done here on a free lance basis, and most of the craftspeople and my company, M5, are spin offs of the momentum created by the Star Wars legacy out of Lucasfilm at San Rafael. To be straight, I never worked on any of them, but there have been hundreds of people over the last decades in the bay area that have, and the model shop at ILM, M5, Colossal pictures and other shops around here shared this resource and help provide their livelihood.
At this point, while M5 is still here, we are pretty well dominated by Mythbusters of the Discovery Channel. We aren't doing special effects any more. If we have inquiries, we forward them to Kerner Optical, which used to be the ILM modelshop. They do great work, and many of their staff are who we would have had do projects for us.
M5 is still doing some outside work, but it is mostly R&D. Pet projects I can't resist taking on, as it were. We have been involved in developing electric vehicles, various lifesaving devices, and consulting on work in particular that falls outside the normal categories or would be considered problematic. I like a good problem to solve.
Mythbusters.....well, we are still quite happily producing the show. In fact it just keeps getting better. We all still have all our limbs- maybe a few more scars than we had when we started, but I think all of us on the show wouldn't do anything else if we had a choice. We just flat out have a lot of fun. Plus we have learned things that you can't imagine from doing this work.
Take the website tour: http://www.m5industries.com/
-H I have no fond memories about the Godzilla costume, because it was such hard work. - Haruo Nakajima
A 3D Menace, Pacific Rimming, & Prometheus II
"The Phantom Menace 3D" Box Office Finds The Force
It was a very bouyant weekend, 30% up on last years matching frame with four movies grossing north of $20 million, a first for February. Impressively The Phantom Menace brought in enough to become the 29th biggest opening for a February. Not bad for a 13 year old film that was only released on Blu-ray a few short months ago.
Beyond that, the $23 million elevates The Phantom Menace domestic box office total to $454,088,301, taking it above E.T and Shrek 2 into the all-time 5th position, just behind A New Hope. While it only requires another $6 million to pass A New Hope it's unlikely to catch the 3rd place film The Dark Knight which is currently $79 million ahead.
On the worldwide front The Phantom Menace has risen from 18th to 15th positon, passing two Harry Potter entries Half-Blood Prince and Order of the Phoenix. With $947,317,558 worldwide and international figures yet to arrive it's a formality as to whether or not The Phantom Menace joins the billion dollar club. To put our prediction hats on, an admittedly optimistic $200 million worldwide haul would pull the film into the all-time 3rd position, just ahead of Transformers: Dark of the Moon.
So, now we wait for the official announcement of Attack of the Clones 3D for February.
‘Pacific Rim’ Production Update From Guillermo del Toro
(screenrant.com) Just because fan-favorite filmmaker Guillermo del Toro is in the midst of shooting his most expensive blockbuster to date – the 25-foot-tall robots vs. monsters sci-fi epic, Pacific Rim – doesn’t mean he’s slacking off, as far as keeping in touch with fans about the current status of the project.
Principal photography commenced on Pacific Rim back in November 2011, with a rising-star-studded cast that includes actors such as Charlie Hunnam (Sons of Anarchy), Idris Elba (Prometheus), and Charlie Day (It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia). It marks the first project featuring del Toro in the director’s seat since Hellboy II: The Golden Army hit theaters back in 2008.
One of the more noteworthy tidbits that del Toro dropped recently (via his official fansite) is that he’s penned several revised drafts of the Pacific Rim shooting script – which was originally written by Travis Beacham (Clash of the Titans) – with screenwriters ranging from Neil Cross (Luther) to Drew Pearce (Iron Man 3) and even Saw franchise duo Marcus Dunstan and Patrick Melton having also devoted a few days-to-weeks’ worth of input.
Hence, while the central narrative concept (ie. humans pilot giant robots to battle monsters from another dimension) for Pacific Rim remains the same, many important plot and character elements have been altered and refined from Beacham’s earlier draft. So, that’s encouraging, considering that Beacham’s previous work left many worried that his Pacific Rim script would suffer from a lack of substance to go with all the flash and bang.
Similarly, the diverse range of talent that del Toro has “consulted” about Pacific Rim – and who, the filmmaker says, have all ultimately “chipped in with ideas that I love!” – should help ensure the final movie turns out better than his previous big-budget sci-fi monster flick, Mimic. Not having to deal with loads of studio interference should also help, as del Toro has long claimed was the case with that 1997 title. But, we digress…
On the topic of the human-controlled mechanical suits (or, rather “robots”) that will be present in Pacific Rim, del Toro had the following to say, with regards to their design:
I never “bend” a property to fit me. I just fall in love with the stories and give it my everything, so – don’t worry about [Mechas like The Golden Army in 'Hellboy 2']. These are proper robots but they obey our own sensibilities in design. I am not making them gear or steampunky at all but I also don’t want them to be just a “riff” on preexisting designs from Anime or games.
It would definitely be easy for del Toro to partially rip off the design of “piloted Mechas,” from films like Avatar and The Matrix Revolutions – or animated series such as Neon Genesis Evangelion – but, if anyone can devise a clever new variation on that trope, it’s the guy responsible for imagining the fantastical creatures of Pan’s Labyrinth. Then again, did anyone really expect any less from del Toro?
One last thing to note – del Toro also mentioned that “a top-tier composer” will be providing the score for Pacific Rim, but that it won’t be someone he’s worked with previously. That sadly discounts Oscar-nominee Javier Navarrete (The Devil’s Backbone, Pan’s Labyrinth) as an option, but hopefully a fitting alternative will be selected.
Pacific Rim remains set to hit U.S. theaters on May 10th, 2013.
SGI Shares Plunge 23%
(cbsnews.com) SAN FRANCISCO — Silicon Graphics International Corp.'s shares plummeted 23 percent Wednesday after the provider of computer equipment and services reported its profit margins are shriveling. The sell-off produced the steepest one-day plunge in the stock since Rackable Systems bought Silicon Graphics out of bankruptcy court for $42.5 million and adopted the company's name nearly three years ago.
THE SPARK: After the market closed Tuesday, SGI reported a loss for its most recent quarter and provided a disappointing earnings outlook for the rest of its fiscal year ending in June. Management traced most of the company's problems to Europe, citing the continent's fragile economy amid government debt woes and the high cost of doing business there. About 48 percent of SGI's revenue comes from outside the U.S.
SGI, which is based in Fremont, Calif., lost $2.3 million, or 7 cents per share, in its fiscal second quarter, which spans October through December. If not for certain accounting items, the company said it would have earned 4 cents per share, Even on that basis, the results were far below the average earnings estimate of 25 cents per share among analysts polled by FactSet.
Even more unsettling for investors, SGI's margins are still being squeezed. Although management anticipates bringing in more revenue than previously budgeted, SGI's adjusted earnings per share for the year ending in June are expected to range from 15 cents to 30 cents. The previous forecast had called for adjusted earnings per share of 60 cents to 80 cents. Analysts, on average, had forecast 67 cents per share.
Ridley Scott Already Thinking About A Sequel To Prometheus
(perezhilton.com) Ridley Scott has been seriously bitten with the sci-fi bug, as after he completed Prometheus, he decided to direct a follow-up to Blade Ranner - and is now apparently already thinking about a sequel to the aforementioned Alien prequel!
He explains:
"I just thought Prometheus was so enjoyable - returning to the world of science fiction was so fun - that I wanted to [go back to Blade Runner, too]. I'm also thinking about what the hell I might do for a Prometheus 2."
And when questioned about the validity of his comment, he responded by knocking on a wooden table and smiling!
Oh, hell to the yes!
If Prometheus is as good as we think it's going to be, then get moving on the next one! Please!
"Nerd Oscars" Puts Hollywood's "Backroom Boys" in the Spotlight
(TheWrap.com) The Academy's Scientific and Technical Awards ceremony has been dubbed the nerd Oscars before -- but after Saturday night's show at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel, you could also call it the anti-Oscars.
After all, the show began with something that the big show has decided to do away with this year: the live performance of an Oscar-nominated song, in this case the Oscar-winning "Falling Slowly" from Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova.
It included far more smart guys than movie stars. Not one of the winners had his speech interrupted by music, even if he pulled out a piece a paper and read a list of thank-yous.
(The choice of pronoun is not sexist: Not one of the 30 winners was female.)
And near the end, it featured a very lengthy and literate speech that took to task all those who think the Academy Awards need updating or freshening.
You won't find any of those things at the big show in two weeks, but they were all on display at the Sci-Tech Awards, an annual tribute to the people who put the Sciences in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
The Sci-Tech Awards are a night when an actress (this year, Milla Jovovich) gets to use phrases like "mico-voxels" and "active servos" and "inner actuators" and "motion vector fields" and "high-efficiency anti-halation layer."
"I won't be taking questions," said Jovovich after donning a pair of glasses but before tackling the lengthy and technical descriptions of the eight achievements that were awarded with Sci-Tech Awards by the Academy's Scientific and Technical Awards Committee.
In a way, the Sci-Tech Awards honor the folks who give the tools to the ones who'll be getting higher-profile Oscars two weeks from now.
It's easy to say that if it weren't for these guys, Harry Potter wouldn't have his magic and the Transformers wouldn't be able to transform -- but it goes beyond that, because the technological advancements also make it possible for cinematographers to shift focus quickly, and directors to position cameras on moving vehicles, and for films to be preserved for generations to come.
They help the big-budget CGI flicks and the smaller art movies; they can help Martin Scorsese make "Hugo," and help preserve the old films that are celebrated in "Hugo."
So while the Sci-Tech Awards are occasionally the subject of a punchline or two on the Oscar show, they're also a necessary part of what the Academy does.
And they drew a full house to the Beverly Wilshire's ballroom -- including Oscar show producers Brian Grazer and Don Mischer, who sat near the front but were powerless to stop even the lengthiest of the night's speeches.
And as one winner, Pictorvision's Michael Vellekoop, said, "It's really exciting to climb out into the limelight for us backroom boys."
As usual, the evening began with the Sci-Tech Committee chair, Richard Edlund, welcoming the guests and adding, "Just as in part years, we'd like to ... begin the evening's festivities with some great entertainment."
At that, a chuckle came from one table; at the Sci-Tech Awards, "entertainment" typically means a ventriloquist straight from Branson, Missouri.
But this time the Academy wasn't messing around: They'd called Hansard and Irglova, whose "Falling Slowly" is one of the most beloved Oscar-winning songs of recent years.
And the duo were eager to participate: "The Oscar show is such an amazing memory for us," Hansard told TheWrap before going on, "that it was a no-brainer for us when they asked."
Their three-song set was warm, inviting and exceptionally well-received, with Hansard saying "this is for Whitney" before going into a tender final verse of Van Morrison's "Into the Mystic," and then dedicating "Falling Slowly" to publicist Ronni Chasen, who was killed in a shooting in November 2010.
Edlund and Academy president Tom Sherak then congratulated the winners and lauded the achievements of the Academy's Science & Technology Council, which presents public programs, is working to set industry standards for visual formats, and has just released "The Digital Dilemma 2," the follow-up to its well-received 2007 report on film preservation.
The Sci-Tech Awards themselves come in three types: the Technical Achievement Award, which brings with it a certificate; the Scientific and Engineering Award, a plaque; and the Academy Award of Merit, an Oscar statuette.
On Saturday, the Academy bestowed two certificates, for one achievement; 23 plaques, for six achievements; three Oscar statutettes; and two honorary awards, the John A. Bonner Medal of Commendation and the Gordon E. Sawyer Award.
"Sitting in front of the computer 10 hours a day really doesn't prepare you for this kind of speech," said Mark Elendt, who as one of the creators of "micro-voxels in the Mantra software" was one of the night's first winners.
Two of the night's winners, Dr. Jurgen Noffke (designer of ARRI Zeiss Master Prime Lenses) and John D. Lowry (head of the company that created the "Lowry Process" for noise reduction and image enhancement) passed away before the ceremony, leading to emotional moments onstage, particularly when Lowry's team and his widow accepted his award.
The presentation of the three Academy Awards of Merit, which went to the ARRILASER Film Recorder, was what the Sci-Tech Awards calls an "upgrade" -- the achievement won a plaque in 2001, but over time has proven itself to be so important that the committee voted to award it Oscar statuettes this year.
The evening culminated with the two honorary awards -- including Sci-Tech's top honor, the Gordon E. Sawyer Award. It went to legendary visual effects creator Douglas Trumbull, whose career in effects includes "2001: A Space Odyssey," "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" and, recently, "The Tree of Life." Trumbull also has worked as a director, inventor and advocate for improved methods of filming and exhibition.
"I want to accept this in terms of an affirmation of my work, which is ongoing," said Trumbull, who went on to describe his current vision: "I am trying to figure out how to make a movie that you are in, rather than looking at."
The goal, he said, is simple: to enable Hollywood to make movies "so big and cool and so spectacular that people want to go out to the movies to see them."
But the other honorary winner, visual effects technologist Jonathan Erland, gave the night's biggest, longest and most all-encompassing speech.
An early member of ILM who worked on "Star Wars" and went on to work in research and development on a large number of film-related projects, Erland delivered an enormously long speech that paid tribute to his mentors ("what a league of exemplars they were") and then to the Academy itself.
He mentioned the Chinese curse "may you live in interesting times" and quipped, "We're now way past interesting -- we're all the way to white-knuckle fascinating."
But the way for the Academy to adjust to the new, changing era, he insisted, was not to change in an attempt to stay relevant, or to make alterations in the Oscar show to attract a younger audience.
"The show exists to support the awards, and the awards exist to support the Academy's mission to promote the excellence of motion pictures," said Erland. "If we are now to become what some people think young people want today, what the hell will they have to grow up for?"
He also called for the creation of a new Science Branch of the Academy, said he was creating a new nonprofit institute for motion picture study, and said, "I look to history to light a way to the future."
Along the way, he found a quote from screenwriter and director William C. DeMille that might as well serve as the unofficial motto for the Sci-Tech Awards: "If we don't get the science first, you ain't gonna get no art."
Disney's "Maleficent" Next For Angelina Joli
(darkhorizons.com) Speaking at Berlinale to promote "In the Land of Blood and Honey", actress Angelina Jolie confirmed that Disney's "Maleficent" will be her next project.
"I haven't acted in two years, and I haven't done anything else since this [Land of Blood and Honey]. The next thing I am looking at is a Disney movie" the actress revealed to The Hollywood Reporter.
"Maleficent" is Linda Woolverton's revisionist take on "Sleeping Beauty" which switches the focus to the evil Queen of the story. The project has taken on a new energy in recent weeks as "Avatar" and "Alice in Wonderland" production designer Robert Stromberg has come onboard to direct.
Jolie was also linked to a Luc Besson movie which was to begin shooting in April but that appears to be no longer the case.
And the BAFTAS Go To "Rango"
(animationmagazine.net) The weekly shower of big awards to Gore Verbinski’s feature Rango continued on Sunday (Feb. 12) when the quirky CG-animated movie received the Best Animated Feature BAFTA Award during a star-studded event at the Royal Opera House in London’s Covent Garden. The film’s competition in this category were Steven Spielberg’s The Adventures of Tintin and Sarah Smith’s Arthur Christmas.
"Beetlejuice 2" Status - Don't Hold Your Breath
(darkhorizons.com) Author Seth Grahame-Smith tells STYD that the "Beetlejuice" sequel he's writing for Warner Bros. Pictures is moving along nicely.
"I met with Michael Keaton last week, we talked for a couple of hours and talked about big picture stuff. It's a priority for Warner Bros. It's a priority for Tim" he tells the site.
So how long before he gets to work? "Right now, I am writing an animated movie for Tim based on an idea of mine. Then I adapt 'Unholy Night' [based on the upcoming book]. The third I am hoping is 'Beetlejuice' in terms of writing schedule."
Doug Chiang's 'ROBOTA: Vengeance' on Kickstarter
The game ROBOTA: Vengeance tells a side story within the ROBOTA universe. At its core, it is a fast paced robot fighting and adventure game specifically designed to take advantage of the latest in gaming technology on mobile, tablet and social platforms.
But it is also much more. In the game, you will build your own custom robot in order to defeat giant enemy robots and genetically modified dinosaurs in gladiatorial combat while searching for the secrets that lie within you.
You play the role of a robot and must battle your way through increasing larger and harder foes in order to reach your goal and unlock the secrets to your origins. On your quest, you enhance and improve yourself by repairing and upgrading your parts as you go.
SiXiTS will create the game over a 5 - 6 month period. We are setting up a private online community exclusively for the Kickstarter backers to see the project prior to release and discuss their thoughts and feelings about the game's content and direction with Doug Chiang, ROBOTAs creator, and the SiXiTS team. This is a great opportunity to see and have input into the creative process that goes into creating an interactive and immersive world such as ROBOTA on a mobile device.
We will also be broadcasting video updates and progress on our Youtube channel.
VIDEO - Take a look: http://bryoncaldwell.blogspot.com/2012/02/doug-chaings-robota-vengeance-on.html
Harry Potter Wins the Visual Effects BAFTA
(joepavlo.wordpress.com) After a streak of eight vfx nominations in a row, the Harry Potter visual effects team finally turn that nomination in to a win on the final film of the series. Justice is done. Than you, Academy members!
Otherwise, it was a phenomenal night for The Artist – and deservedly so. OK, maybe a teensy bit too much so – but what a great film! Tinker Tailor did well too and although i agree that the film was stylish and well crafted, it still left me a bit cold. Good on them anyways.
My disappointments for the night was that no bling was flung at Midnight in Paris, my Week With Marylin or We Need To Talk About Kevin. Tyrannosaur, of course, got the outstanding debut award, but should have been nominated for more.
But… mustn’t grumble! All in all a great night for BAFTA and film in general. Stephen Fry was in his element as host and the show was filled with genuinely entertaining, moving and hilarious moments!
Transformers 3 Visual Effects Artistry Deconstructed
(slashfilm.com) It’s easy for some to completely write of Transformers: Dark of the Moon as a forgettable Summer big budget blockbuster, but I think it would be wrong to overlook the technical achievements of some of the awesome action sequences.
ILM and Digital Domain have both released videos breaking down all the work that went into the action you saw on screen. You might be surprised to find out that Optimus Prime, Autobots and Decpticons weren’t the only CG additions in the film. Whole real-world environments and complete shots were created within the computer – buildings, vehicles, bridges, skyscrapers, cities and planets.
For me, these visual effect breakdown videos are the closest thing we have these days to the “Movie Magic” specials from my childhood. While I agree those were more fun, and nothing will beat the magic of practical effects done right, its still fun to get a look behind the curtain and see how the magic was constructed. Watch the videos embedded after the jump.
LA Times Looking To Speak With VFX Artists
(vfxsoldier.wordpress.com) In my last post, VFX Artist and advocate Dave Rand mentioned that Richard Verrier, an LA Times reporter who covers labor issues in the Hollywood industry, is looking to report on VFX workers who have been adversely effected by the current climate in the VFX industry.
I encouraged workers who have written to me about joblessness, health insurance issues, employee misclassification, labor law violations, unpaid wages, and subsidies, to contact Richard Verrier.
Write to: Richard.Verrier@latimes.com
An article in the LA Times would help bring the current events in our industry to the forefront. Please take the time to tell Richard your story.
Soldier On.
Warners Adapting Fantasy "Landover" Series
(darkhorizons.com) Warner Bros. Pictures has optioned the film rights to Terry Brooks' "Magic Kingdom of Landover" book series says Variety.
Based on the first book in the series, 1986's "Magic Kingdom for Sale -- Sold!," the story follows a recently widowed lawyer who finds an advertisement in an upscale Christmas catalog claiming to offer a magical kingdom for $1 million by a man named Mr. Meeks.
After he purchases it, he discovers he must unite the kingdom's denizens and creatures to stop an evil demon bent on destroying the realm.
Akiva Goldsman's Weed Road Pictures, Andy Cohen's Grade A Entertainment, and Weed Road's Kerry Foster and Alex Block will produce.
Universal previously tried to adapt the property back in 2005 with a script by Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel while Stephen Sommers was attached to direct.
Animation Studio Bests Pixar With Solid Record for Nominations
(online.wsj.com) When it comes to Academy Awards nominations, American-based licensing and film distribution company GKIDS is three for three. Since its founding in 2008, GKIDS has received an Oscar nod for every film it has released.
The three-person film outfit picked up two nominations in the best animated feature category this year for its movies "Chico & Rita" and "A Cat in Paris." The remaining nominations went to "Puss in Boots" and "Kung Fu Panda 2," both from DreamWorks Animation SKG, and "Rango" from Industrial Light & Magic, a division of Lucasfilm Ltd. The Academy Awards will be presented Feb 26.
'A Cat in Paris' is one of two GKIDS films nominated for an Oscar.
In 2010, GKIDS's first film, "The Secret of Kells," snagged a nomination, but "Up," from Walt Disney Co./Pixar Animation Studios, took home the Oscar.
Pixar's flawless nomination record was broken this year when its eligible film, "Cars 2" failed to win a nod. Paramount's "The Adventures of Tintin," directed by Steven Spielberg, also was denied in the category. It did, however, receive a nod for best original score
GKIDS president and founder Eric Beckman believes "Cars 2" and "Tintin" were passed over because the business model for animated films is changing. "There's a hole in the market. These big studios release their expensive tent-pole films with over $100 million production budgets, but audiences want to see interesting, beautiful different types of animated movies," Mr. Beckman said.
"Chico & Rita," which was made for a budget of $13 million, comes from Spanish director Fernando Trueba, who won an Oscar for best foreign film for "Belle Epoque" in 1994. He collaborated with designer and illustrator Javier Mariscal for eight years to create the animated film, which tells the story of two Cuban performers, Chico, a pianist, and Rita, a singer, as they chase their dreams out of 1940s Cuba and to New York.
"Chico & Rita" is an animated film for adults, said Mr. Trueba. The movie uses hand-sketched scenes based on the Ministry of Public Works of Havana photo archives. The film also delves into adult themes of love, sex and betrayal. "Using adults is opening a door for us to do something more interesting with animation," said Mr. Trueba, adding, "We reach a different but very interested audience." The film opened last Feb. 10 on one screen in New York and will roll out in 14 cities throughout February.
Inspired by classic film noir pictures, "A Cat in Paris" tells the story of Dino, a house cat by day and a burglar's accomplice by night. Each scene was hand-drawn and takes place primarily in alleys, across rooftops and atop the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. The $6.6 million budgeted "A Cat in Paris" is in French with English subtitles and is scheduled for release in the U.S. this summer, although it is already out internationally.
"We didn't send out 6,000 screeners or take out national ads in 'Variety,'" said Mr. Beckman of the Oscars campaigns for his two films. Instead he set up small private screenings on the Pixar and Disney lots, and courted the animation and film school communities in Los Angeles. "The Oscars are the great equalizer. You don't have to spend millions to reach millions, you look to a smaller group of people who know and like film," said Mr. Beckman. "But you've got to start with something super."
CG Starship Trooper Film's 1st Character Shot Posted
(animenewsnetwork.com) The official blog for the new computer-animated Starship Troopers: Invasion film posted the first image of one of the characters on Wednesday. According to the blog, the character is Major Henry "Hero" Varro:
He was the commander of the K-12 team at Fort Casey, but he is arrested for insubordination by Dr Carl Jenkins. He is a prisoner on the ship Alesia as he is being transported to Earth for court martial. While it's not immediately apparent why he's perceived as a threat, we do know that he retains the respect and admiration of all those that served under him. His experience, in combination with the undying trust of the troopers, is an asset the Federation won't be able to survive without indefinitely…
The new film draws design cues from Paul Verhoeven's loose 1997 live-action film adaptation of Robert A. Heinlein's original novel. The blog had previously posted starship designs, as well as a rough illustration of a suit drawn by Shinji Aramaki (Appleseed). Aramaki is directing the new film, which is due out in summer 2012.
Flint Dille is writing the screenplay for the film after working as a story editor on The Transformers and G.I. Joe television series of the 1980s. The staff commissioned illustrator Hidetaka Tenjin (Macross Frontier, Macross Zero, Hellsing Ultimate) to create a teaser poster for the film. Joseph Chou (Appleseed films, Halo Legends, proposed live-action Evangelion) is producing the new project. Edward Neumeier and Casper Van Dien of the live-action Starship Troopers film are executive producers.
Take a look: http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/interest/2012-02-09/cg-starship-trooper-film-1st-character-shot-posted
How 'The Phantom Menace' Influenced Blockbuster Special Effects, Despite Everyone Pretending Not to Notice
(popwatch.ew.com) When Star Wars hit theaters in 1977, it was a jaw-dropping spectacle of game-changing visuals, and when it hit my family’s VCR in 1992, it was still exactly that. Some films’ technical achievements endure through the ages and I have a feeling that, even without George Lucas’ digital face-lifts, the original trilogy’s effects would still look impressive today. Other FX milestones, like say the work of Ray Harryhausen, may not be quite so protected against the kitchification of time, but are still awarded their due reverence in the history of the field.
The Phantom Menace, however, is an interesting case. It’s one of the few films whose impressive technical achievements were in service of a story so bland and characters so one-dimensional (forget 3-D) that the annals of cinema history are unable to separate one from the other. This is unfortunate because, by all rights, the prequel not only boasted some of the most impressive digital effects to date, but also ended up influencing, for better or for worse, how Hollywood has made blockbusters ever since.
People often point to Gollum as the first fully CGI, motion-capture major character in a film, but they’re forgetting a certain floppy-eared, syntax-challenged Gungan. Now, some things are better left forgotten, and I’m sure many put Jar Jar Binks — the comic-relief figure audiences needed relief from – in that category. But it’s tempting to wonder: If Binks’ personality hadn’t been equivalent of taking a cheese grater to the face, would he currently be lauded as an important VFX stepping stone?* Similarly, the massive battle scenes in The Lord of the Rings were predated by the prequel’s droid-Gungan skirmish, yet the former is far better remembered than the latter.
The Phantom Menace was the first Star Wars film not to win the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects, losing out to the bullet-dodging tai chi of The Matrix. There’s no doubt the Wachowskis blended their technology more seamlessly into their story; George Lucas was never very good at directing actors, and even less so when their only visual cue is a giant expanse of green fabric. (It only takes one look at Liam Neeson’s stoically unfocused stare whenever he’s supposed to be reacting to something that isn’t there to see that these actors were entirely on their own.) But The Phantom Menace still may have had more influence on subsequent big-budget films than people realize. Few blockbusters nowadays opt for the more contained aesthetic of The Matrix, but Lucas’ more-is-more, rolling hills of greenscreen, approach has essentially become norm. There’s very little that doesn’t look overbusy and plastic, and a 90 percent postproduction film like Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland owes a lot to Lucas opening that particular Pandora’s box of synthetic wonders, from which even James Cameron’s Pandora partially sprung.
Thomas Edison Inspires the Oscar Awards You Don't See
(physorg.com) February 11 is the 165th anniversary of Edison's birthday, and an appropriate date for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to hold their Scientific and Technical Achievement awards in a ceremony, hosted by actress Milla Jovovich at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel in Beverly Hills, Calif.
Most people want others to notice the result of their hard work, whether it is a newly finished home renovation or a freshly painted car. But for the scientists and engineers who work behind the scenes on movie sets, the mark of their success is when audiences don't notice their work at all.
Making Clouds
Seeing clouds in the sky is common, but creating realistic-looking clouds is a challenge. Usually, Andrew Clinton, a 3-D graphics programmer and Mark Elendt, a senior mathematician with Side Effects Software, use computer software to generate voxels -- 3-dimensional pixels -- which show volume in order to create clouds, smoke, or fire, but there were limits to the software. There were times when Clinton and Elendt wanted to split a voxel into micro-voxels.
"For example, if a cloud is very far away (covering only a few pixels), the cloud might only be split into a few micro-voxels," said Clinton and Elendt. As a result Clinton and Elendt invented and integrated micro-voxels into Mantra computer software. Micro-voxels were used in 2007's "The Golden Compass" and "TRON: Legacy" in 2010.
Film Recording
In 1993 when "Jurassic Park" premiered in theaters, audiences were immersed a world of digitally produced images -- but they didn't even notice the artificiality.
"In order to bring these effect shots to the analog film world, a device is required which takes the digital images and records them onto 35-mm photographic film, picture by picture," said Johannes Steurer, principal engineer and project manager of the ARRILASER at ARRI. "These film elements can then be used in the ongoing film production process like regular film shots and distributed to the film theatres."
The ARRILASER is the first device where audiences could not tell if the images were digitally modified or not. According to Steurer, this changed the whole process of feature film production because now, you could complete feature films in digital.
"The device consists of a computer that receives the image data from a network, some complex control electronics, a set of laser light sources in various colors, a deflection system that scans the laser beam onto the film, and mechanism to advance the film," said Steurer.
Movies such as the Lord of the Rings trilogy and the Pirates of the Caribbean series all used ARRILASERED technology.
Full article: http://www.physorg.com/news/2012-02-thomas-edison-oscar-awards-dont.html
I think the audience would like to see movies that are stunning to watch. I really think they'd like to see spectacles. -Jan de Bont
Paradise is Lost, Space 1999 Udated, & VFX Misconceptions
Alex Proyas' Paradise Lost Called Off, & Digital Domain's Local Office
(if.com.au) Alex Proyas' sci-fi epic Paradise Lost has been scrapped after the filmmakers and Legendary Pictures were unable to agree on a final budget.
Australian sources have confirmed the decision (first reported by Deadline.com), which represents a major blow for the local industry. The VFX-heavy tale about good and evil was expected to bring an estimated $88 million in production expenditure to New South Wales and create an estimated 1300 jobs.
However, escalating costs forced a production delay late last year in an attempt to reduce the budget to a reported $US120 million. But the gap between the filmmakers proposed budget and Legendary Pictures could not be breached.
NSW deputy premier and minister for trade and investment, Andrew Stoner, said the film's ambitious visual and special effects could not be accomplished within the proposed budget.
“This is a blow to the NSW film industry and will be very disappointing to the filmmakers and the crew and cast who were expecting to work on the film,” he said in a statement. “The NSW government remains committed to attracting international production. We will continue to take a proactive approach to marketing the state’s talent and facilities, especially in light of the high Australian dollar."
He said the state remains in negotiations with other movie studios to bring other film projects to the state and noted that Animal Logic had recently begun work on another animated feature film, Lego: The Piece of Resistance.
The government said Paradise Lost received no state financial subsidies because its production milestones were not met.
A government spokesperson said a planned Sydney office for VFX house Digital Domain will no longer be opened. Digital Domain was set to create the bulk of Paradise Lost's effects and was also an investor in the film.
However, the company is understood to be planning to bring other VFX projects to Australia, such as Ender's Game which is currently shooting in New Orleans, and is likely to maintain some Australian presence given the lucrative 30 per cent post, digital and visual effects production (PDV) rebate.
Paradise Lost had cast Bradley Cooper as Lucifer and Benjamin Walker as archangel Michael. It also included Australian actor Callan McAuliffe (I Am Number Four).
Morgan Freeman Joins Cruise in Post-Apocalyptic “Oblivion”
You wander over to the computer where someone has e-mailed you the set pics Will and Jayden Smith have been tweeting from their tropical set of “After Earth” and you, Morgan Freeman, think: “I should probably do one of these post apocalyptic movies.” But you say it out loud, because you’re Morgan Freeman.
Looks like MFree is jumping on the Tom Cruise vehicle Oblivion, Universals post-apocalypse movie under Tron Legacy helmer Joseph Kosinski. Oblivion tells the story of Cruse, the last man on a post-apocalyptic and “nearly uninhabitable Earth”, who stays “to repair ships that hunt down and blast a virulent alien species.”
No one knows who MFree is holding down as the script is currently being reworked by Michael Arndt of “I wrote Toy Story 3? fame. Odds on him playing God are about even from where I’m sitting.
Deluxe Acquires VFX, Animation & Post House 'Centro'
(sacbee.com) Deluxe Entertainment Services Group Inc. announced today that it has acquired Centro Digital Pictures, a leading provider of high-quality VFX, Animation and Post Production services to Chinese and U.S. feature filmmakers based in Hong Kong.
The Centro acquisition will be integrated into Deluxe Australia's well-established post, animation and distribution businesses, providing a trusted gateway for Deluxe's international customers looking to partner with Hong Kong and Chinese filmmakers. By bringing Centro into the Deluxe group of businesses, it will also provide access for regional content producers looking to finish and deliver high quality content into North American and European markets.
Centro's feature credits include the pioneering "Storm Riders" which it also produced; Stephen Chow's "Kung Fu Hustle" and "Shaolin Soccer"; Quentin Tarrantino's "Kill Bill"; "Mr Popper's Penguins" for 20th Century Fox;Zhang Yimou's "The Curse of the Golden Flower" and Disney's "The Muppets."
"We are very excited about the new opportunities for Centro as we join Deluxe's global organization," said John Chu, General Manager of Centro. "We have a common commitment to delivering the highest possible quality of customer experience."
"As one of the pioneers of digital post production, animation and visual effects in Hong Kong, Centro has brought together a tremendously talented team over the past twenty years to support the Chinese and Hong Kong filmmakers working in the region, said Alaric McAusland, Managing Director of Deluxe Australia. Under John Chu's leadership, Centro has grown to be a leading provider not just for local but international filmmakers as well," added McAusland.
Chu will continue to run the business reporting to McAusland. Centro's talent pool of VFX and animation artists is joining Deluxe as part of the transaction.
"Space: 1999" Rebooted Into "Space: 2099"
(darkhorizons.com) ITV Studios America and HDFILMS have announced plans for "Space: 2099", a contemporary re-imagination of Gerry and Sylvia Anderson's classic 70's British sci-fi series "Space: 1999" says The Hollywood Reporter.
The original series follows the inhabitants of Moonbase Alpha after a catastrophic accident involving nuclear waste from Earth knocks the Moon out of orbit and sends it hurtling uncontrollably into space. During their interstellar journey they encounter alien civilizations, dystopian societies, and mind-bending phenomena.
Martin Landau, Barbara Bain and Nick Tate starred in the series which ran for two seasons, the first dealing with more metaphysical themes and hints of a larger storyline while the second proved a more straightforward action series.
HDFILMS were behind ABC's recent revival of 80's sci-fi franchise "V" and Jace Hall will serve as executive producer. The project is still in development phase and has yet to be shopped to networks.
What is Social Media to CGI? An Online Marketing Firm’s Gold Mine
(house-home-centired.co.za) I have been keeping trail of the new movie “The Avengers” since the beginning of its proposal. The film is going to be breathtaking and the online marketing firm that handles its Facebook page is staffed by marketing geniuses. Why web marketing is crucial in promoting CGI films is the audience that watches the film may not have heard of the film or seen advertisement for it prior to its release.
With the rise in popularity in CGI films the need to advertise such a product is needless. CGI speaks for itself. Why social media would have to advertise CGI is beyond me. The promotion of a film on the other hand, definitely makes more sense. CGI is dominating the computer world of films and it is only a matter of time before the entire film will be completely CGI.
All of the superhero shows use CGI. CGI makes everything that is impracticable for a human to do seem legit. The film releases need promotion regardless of the wonders that CGI seems to do for the film. A social media agency would handle endorsing the CGI indirectly. Why social media is crucial for CGI is how it displays the use of the product.
While promoting “The Avengers” film, a social media agency would be advertising the need for the awesome power of CGI. This is why social media is crucial today. Social media lets me know what is greater in technology and what is the coolest to watch on screen.
You see how all those movies that have a bit of the fantastic have CGI now? The day of the puppet has slowly left over the years. Twenty years ago, CGI was in its infant phases. Without the power of a social media and the CGI product’s level of supremacy I think the CGI fad would have been twenty years late. Why social media is crucial is because of relevance. Social media lets me know what is crucial and CGI certainly is.
Effects Artist Made Movie Magic
(mercurynews.com) Always a fanatic for details and a lover of art, Jon Guidinger, 41, probably died thinking no one would ever know what details he sneaked into the films he helped create.
His family remembers fondly, though, how closely he researched his own work, whether he was sketching, painting, creating bronze statuettes or sculpting sets for major motion pictures, and they certainly remember his sense of humor.
"When he was working on sculptures for (the 2001 film) 'The Mummy Returns,' he did all the research into the old alphabets, and he dutifully engraved each of those pillars in the temple," Guidinger's younger brother, Craig, said. "He'd come around talking about sun gods, telling me about the language: 'This word is for beer.' He was so proud of it all. I think in the end one of those pillars said, 'I love beer' in hieroglyphics."
Guidinger died Feb. 3, two days after being rescued from a fire, which is still under investigation, in his Pittsburg home in the 2200 block of Fairbourne Drive. He'd been found in the kitchen, unburned but having succumbed to smoke inhalation and carbon monoxide poisoning, his family said. No arrangements for services have been set.
Guidinger left behind a body of work that included special effects, sculpting and other artistic contributions to movies like "Starship Troopers," "War of the Worlds," the "Matrix" sequels and all three "Star Wars" prequels. He did much of that work for George Lucas' famed special effects firm, Industrial Light & Magic, or ILM.
Full article: http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_19921549
CGI Animated "Hotel Transylvania" Loses Key Talent
(comingsoon.net) Though she was confirmed to be joining the production last November, EW is now reporting that Miley Cyrus has dropped out of the Sony Pictures Animation project Hotel Transylvania.
Directed by Genndy Tartakovsky ("Samurai Jack," "Dexter's Laboratory"), the film is officially described as follows:
Welcome to the Hotel Transylvania, Dracula's (Sandler) lavish five-stake resort, where monsters and their families can live it up, free from meddling from the human world. But here's a little known fact about Dracula: he is not only the Prince of Darkness; he is also a dad. Over-protective of his teenage daughter, Mavis, Dracula fabricates tales of elaborate dangers to dissuade her adventurous spirit. As a haven for Mavis, he opens the Hotel Transylvania, where his daughter and some of the world's most famous monsters – Frankenstein and his bride, the Mummy, the Invisible Man, a family of werewolves, and more – can kick back in safety and peace. For Drac, catering to all of these legendary monsters is no problem – but his world could come crashing down when one ordinary guy stumbles on the hotel and takes a shine to Mavis.
The 4th National Puppetry & Animatronics Summit
(nationalpuppetrysummit.com) The 4th National Puppetry and Animatronics Summit will be proudly hosted at the Victorian College of the Arts, University of Melbourne, 5 - 8 July 2012.
Building on the best experiences of the previous Summits, the 4th Summit will provide a stimulating and provocative program of workshops, masterclasses, and forums for policy discussions and debates that celebrate the arts of puppetry and animatronics.
An exciting new feature of the 4th Summit is the Simplot International Masterclass - a ten day performance project lead by internationally renowned puppet master Roman Paska which culminates in a presentation at the opening of the Summit. There will also be a film program and a Summit Club where puppeteers can perform experimental items and works-in-progress.
The Biggest Misconception In The VFX Industry?
(vfxsoldier.wordpress.com) Everyone knows subsidies are one of the biggest reasons US Studios choose to do VFX work in certain locations.
What could be the biggest misconception in the VFX industry is to think that it’s the facilities we work for that receive government rebate money. According to some that I talk to in the industry, it’s the studios that receive the money, not the facilities.
This was recently verified when I asked Former ILM General Manager and Digital Domain Founder Scott Ross about them. Here is what he said:
How I understand it is…. the studio says I need the budget to be $9….
The VFX studio bids the work in LA and the cost is $9 so the bid is for $10.
The VFX studio bids the work in BC and the cost is $9 so the bid is $10
But if the work takes place in BC, the studio receives a 25% rebate so now the work costs the studio $7.50, even though the work is bid $10.
The good news for the studio is they get $10 work for $7.50
The good news for the VFX facility is they get the work.
The bad news for the VFX facility is….. they get the work, which after change orders,redos, bad management etc., …. They get the shaft.
What about facilities owned and run exclusively in Canada?
It’s the same deal, the US Studio gets that money. That was revealed many months ago in a twitter discussion VFX artist Joe Harkins had with Adam Stern, owner of Canadian facility Artifex Studios. Here is what Mr. Stern tweeted when Harkins wanted to get rid of the subsidies:
@JoeHarkins honestly? maybe, but not sure. so hard to disagree. not like we get subs, they go to studios.
@JoeHarkins so still impossibly difficult to make money as #vfx studio, american or not, never mind profit… or big exec wages!
So think about that for a second.The VFX facilities get none of this rebate money being offered to the studios. The California facilities have to cover the extra costs of opening up a new facility, hiring production overhead, executives, and facility crew. Then they have to purchase all the hardware, software, and furniture. Then they have to pay for lodging, travel, and probably big raises to get key talent to move there.
How much do you think that costs? How about a fucking shitload? We’ve got to be talking millions of dollars. The idea that facilities are moving up there to save money is bogus. They lose money! The US Studios get the big payoff and they didn’t even have to lift a finger.
When you finally realize that you understand why I’m so strongly against this. It’s one thing to be on a path of self destruction, it’s another thing to break out a slip-n-slide drenched in gasoline to see if it will make the ride faster!
Studio Response: The Biggest Misconception In Subsidies for VFX
(occlude.wordpress.com) VFX Soldier has an interesting post on his site, here, about how subsidies for VFX go to the studios.
I’d like to add my POV from the studio side…
Yes, it’s true, we do get the subsidy money back. What’s not true, however, is that the money is pocketed by the producers or the studio.
Here’s a rundown of how it works:
Producers put together a deal for a movie, including a budget, timeline, etc, before they sell it to the studio. The proposed budget, which is capped by the studio, is what gets the movie greenlit. For example, the studio might say “we’ll make you’re $70 million proposed big robot movie, but can you get it done for $50 millon?” The producer goes out and finds a way to get it done, then comes back to the studio and says “Yes, we can do $50 million”. Studio then green lights the pic and all systems are go. It’s not that easy, of course, but that’s the idea.
So how did the producer get the film to work for $50 million?
That’s where your local government subsidy usually comes into play.
Let’s say this big robot movie was just never going to be possible to make at $60 million, and definitely not at $50 million, but, with a 25% subsidy from somewhere, the producer was able to make the pic for $70 million, because on the back-end the studio will get back their money.
So, the studio’s net is still $50 million, which is exactly where they wanted to be in the first place. Less exposure than $70 million, and less risk. Where did that $20 million go? It actually does go in people’s pockets- the labor, the locations, the talent, everything that goes into the film- as long as it gets spent in the location that qualifies for the subsidy. It goes mostly into the local economy, creates jobs, and allows people to live and work somewhere on a movie where there would ordinarily be nothing for them.
So how does the government benefit by doing that? Well, they usually do this in the form of a “tax credit”, allowing a local business to pay less taxes than are due. This means that your 25% subsidy is coming directly out of the pocket of the government that is granting it, in terms of revenue. The state itself is not actually spending money, they are making less. This of course affects the economy in other ways, maybe by having less money available for public services and whatnot. At the end of the day though, there is more money being spent in the local economy, more taxes being paid, and therefore a positive economic impact over the short term.
For VFX, it’s no different. The money going to the local VFX studio qualifying for the subsidy means that the VFX studio is getting the full amount. If the studio has $7.50 to spend but are getting a 25% rebate, the VFX studio can be paid $10, for $10 of work. Ideally, the VFX studio will get paid $10 for $8 of work, or $9 of work, and come out with a profit. This doesn’t happen though due to the current bidding model of business- companies bid less to get the work, and in some cases take losses to keep the doors open.
So, are subsidies a bad thing? Not if you’re a camera operator in Louisiana who wants to be working all the time. But if you’re a camera operator in Los Angeles, what do you do?
Time to pack your bags and move out…chasing subsidies is your new lifestyle kid.
This would be fine if it wasn’t for the crunch on your wages that happens due to lower cost of living in some subsidized markets. So, you move, you work somewhere for a year and you make less money- but you’re employed, and you’re able to live there. But then that runs out and you have to go find the next job. When that job asks you what you were making at your last job, well, that might just bite you in the ass. Not to mention labor laws in some of these places aren’t as good as they are in California.
So, sure, the subsidies go the studios…but not really- they go to the people working on the ground. The studio just made a $70 million big robot action movie for $50 million.
A year later the producer of another big robot movie shops his idea at the studio next door…
Studio: “Well, wait a second, we’re not making that for $70 million, those guys across the street made their big action robot flick for $50 million last year, we’re only doing $45 mil on this pic!”
Producer: “Fine, we’ll go to Montreal!”
Studio: “I love it, SOLD!”
Walt Disney World to Replace Audio-Animatronics with Live Animals in Disney’s Safari Ride
(insidethemagic.net) Rescuing “Little Red” the elephant will no longer be the climactic finale of Kilimanjaro Safaris at Disney’s Animal Kingdom come spring 2012 as Walt Disney World has announced plans to change the attraction.
More live zebra will be added to the vast savannah, in the process removing the “Little Red” Audio-Animatronics, truck, and surrounding area. It will all become a new watering hole featuring live animals, instead of the one fake animal the ride has featured since its debut.
Though Little Red will be going away, Kilimanjaro Safaris will still have a story, though likely a different one. When I asked if the “scare off the poachers” story will still be intact, Disney Parks Blog author Jennifer Fickley-Baker replied that “the attraction will still have a very strong and prominent conservation message.” She did not (or could not) elaborate further.
The changes are said to be completed by fall 2012, with the ride remaining open throughout.
FX Blockbusters Left Out of the Best-picture Race
(rgj.com) LOS ANGELES — The Academy Awards aren't necessarily meant to honor commercial films, but this year's show is flirting with paying tribute to the obscure.
Although Oscar rules now permit as many as 10 best-picture nominees -- a change designed to include more popular movies -- this year's slate of nine films features just one movie that's made more than $100 million: “The Help,” which earned $170 million this summer.
The previous two years each had 10 nominees and included five movies that did more than $100 million, according to Box Office Mojo.
"The Academy Awards were supposed to roll in movies that people had actually seen, to provide some balance," says Jeff Bock of industry tracking firm Exhibitor Relations. But in 2011, "we never got it."
The next two most popular nominees, Steven Spielberg's “War Horse” ($77 million) and Brad Pitt's “Moneyball” ($76 million) did solid, if unspectacular, business. And while there are two weeks to go before the Feb. 26 ceremony, analysts don't expect any films to join “The Help” in the nine-digits club.
That could alter the race, observers say. While “The Artist” ($21 million) remains a heavy favorite to win best picture, “The Help” could overtake George Clooney's “The Descendants” ($66 million) and Martin Scorsese's “Hugo” ($62 million) as a rival to the silent black-and-white film.
“The Help,” with its segregation theme, "is a 'cause' movie," says Keith Simanton, managing editor of the Internet Movie Database (IMDb.com). That and the film's box-office success make it this year's "populist nod," he says.
Many thought that designation would go to “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2 “($381 million). Prognosticators expected that the seventh installment would pick up a best-picture nomination, much like “The Lord of the Rings” did with its third and final installment, “The Return of the King,” in 2003. That film earned $377 million and collected 11 Oscars, including best picture.
"In 20 years, it's likely people will say ‘Harry Potter’ never got nominated," Simanton says. "Will they remember that ‘The Tree of Life’ ($13 million) was? I'm not sure."
Still, the Oscars weren't meant as a popularity contest, says Simanton, and some small nominated films are seeing atypical commercial success.
Woody Allen's “Midnight in Paris” did $57 million, a high for the director. And “The Artist” could do $50 million by the end of its run "pretty impressive for a black-and-white movie," Simanton says.
"Let's face it: The academy is an exclusive circle they're supposed to vote on what they like best," Bock says. "That doesn't have to match the taste of the masses."
7 Mind Blowing VFX Space Scenes From Movies
(screenjunkies.com) Space movies have always been a favorite of filmmakers and storytellers because, when it really comes down to it, films explore places we can't go ourselves. Considering they just shut down the space program, we probably won't be going deep into space any time soon. Along with this uncharted territory comes the possibility of all kinds of far out and mind-blowing scenes, and the seven films on this list definitely blew all of our collective minds!
The fight with the Alien in "Aliens."
James Cameron's epic action film "Aliens" ends with a final fight between Ripley and the massive mother alien, hand-to-hand. This can only happen because Ripley has loaded herself into a action mirroring forklift, for lack of a better term, allowing them to awesomely exchange blows. It's a scene that is considered a action classic. Ripley wins this battle by sucking the alien out into space, mind blowing in its own right. Cameron smartly set this scene up earlier in the movie by showing Ripley's ability to operate the forklift for labor purposes.
Just about everything in "2001: Space Odyssey."
While some of the effects could be considered a little dated today, just about all of the space scenes in "2001" are worth watching because of their unique and amazing vision of the future. Most of the sets and effects are practical, making them look more unique. This is true with just about everything Kubrick ever directed though. You've got to remember that man hadn't even landed on the moon when this movie was made, making everything that happened that much more mind-blowing.
The Slingshot in "Apollo 13."
When the astronauts have to turn off all their equipment and slingshot around the moon to have enough inertia to get back to Earth, the tension among everyone watching, in real life and in the theater, can be felt. This is only magnified by the shots of the small space capsule circling the moon. According to the actual astronauts, this was very close to how it actually looked when they circled the moon. It's probably a good bet that those space suits were no longer suitable for wearing afterwards, if you know what we mean.
The space ship explosion in "The 5th Element."
At the end of the "5th Element" where the massive space ship explodes and destroys all the bad guys, viewers are taken back to the mind-blowing explosions in action films. As outrageous as the explosion seemed, it was totally practical and necessary. At least, we think it was. The movie got sort of out of control by the end. But what is known for sure is that this was a big boom the likes of which space had not seen since the Death Star blew up at the end of Star Wars.
The exploration of our space future in "Wall E."
This animated gem allows us to follow a robot as he voyages through our wasteful space exploring future in Wall E. We are taken to many different planets, ships and just outer space in general. Animation may be the only type of movie that can go farther into space then any live action film can realistically go. It turns out that Pixar has our future pegged as a long, desolate, garbage haul. That's a bad hit, no matter how you look at it.
The Decompression scene in "Total Recall."
Much of "Total Recall" occurs on a colony of Mars, where no one can go outside due to the lack of atmosphere. At the end of the film, a wall is broken down and the vacuum of pressue sucks everyone out. The main bad guy, Vilos Cohaagen, is sucked onto the red earth and his eyes literally burst from his head. Totally awesome and quite literally mind-blowing. But that serves Cohaagen right. After all, he wouldn't give those people air.
The Fight Scene in JJ Abrams' "Star Trek."
The television show and the past "Star Trek" movies were decidedly weak when it came to action scenes. By the time the movies came out, most of the cast had been afflicted with arthritis. However, the new JJ Abrams version has some of the the most breathtaking fight scenes of any space movie ever made, showing the bright new future space movies have with the current technology in Hollywood. The best is the one has Kirk doing battle while plummeting toward the ground at super high speeds, which is a sky-diving scene that puts "Point Break" to shame.
Spy Opens Doors On New Creative Studio In Santa Monica
(postproductionbuyersguide.com) SPY, a FotoKem company offering creative finishing services for commercials and feature films, has opened a new studio in Santa Monica, Calif. SPY: LA extends the capabilities of its main facility in San Francisco, and will specialize in VFX based commercial productions.
SPY: LA began work in December on a number of visually compelling spots for such clients as UPS, Asics, THQ/UFC, Hillshire Farm and Canon. The new West Coast locale is within FotoKem's award-winning sound studio Margarita Mix.
Visual effects artist Scott Rader also joins SPY: LA as creative director and lead Flame artist. He previously worked at top VFX studios such as Radium, Hydraulx and Digital Domain. Rader's work on numerous television series, feature films, commercials and music videos as an Inferno artist/VFX supervisor has earned him nine Emmys, three Clio Awards, three PromaxBDA Awards and a VES Award.
"Anchored by Emmy Award-winning talent and industry leading technology, SPY: LA provides the same level of quality services that is offered in our San Francisco facility," says Co-Founder Eric Hanson. "The two studios are securely connected by a high speed network offering real-time interface capabilities between San Francisco and Santa Monica, and this west side location greatly enhances our ability to interface effectively with our clients."
George Lucas Updates 'Indiana Jones 5' Status
(Heat Vision) George Lucas was interviewed by Heat Vision about today's release of Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace 3D. At the end of the interview, he did mention Indiana Jones 5. The site told him that Steven Spielberg is waiting to hear from Lucas, to which he answered:
"I know, and I’m supposed to be working on it right now, but I’m talking to you instead (Laughs)."
Full article: http://www.comingsoon.net/news/movienews.php?id=86886
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Without taking away any of the visual effects work that animators and visual effects artists and programmers and technicians in the visual effects world, in my mind, Motion Capture is a form of digital makeup. -Andy Serkis