Worth a mention - 12/21/09

Avatar Soars - $73M Domestic

(ERC Box Office) Snowstorms battered the Northeast all day on Saturday and it greatly affected the box office in those regions as theaters closed early, but that didn't stop James Cameron's sci-fi fantasy epic Avatar (20th Century Fox) from becoming the second-highest opening movie of December with $73 million in 3,452 theaters including a record number of IMAX and Digital 3D venues, many of which had sold out before the weekend.

ERC reports that Cameron's latest movie grossed $225 million worldwide in 106 territories in its first weekend, which means its well on its way to the $600 million plus it needs to recoup its reported cost. Considering its CinemaScore exit polls across the board were either "A" or "A+," one can expect that the movie will continue to do big business over the holidays, potentially becoming the seventh movie of 2009 to cross the $250 million mark and even the third to $300 million.

Also, as our pals at ScreenRant.com noted, Avatar also can claim to have the biggest opening for an original property i.e. not a sequel or being based on an existing thing, beating out Pixar's The Incredibles and Finding Nemo for that record.





Pixar's 'Up' Wins Detroit Film Critics Society's top award

(Imlive.com) t's official: The Detroit Film Critics Society has chosen "Up" as the best film of 2009.

As a voting member of the group, I have to say it wasn't my first choice; I preferred "Inglourious Basterds" out of the five films on the ballot. But as I commented in previous years -- in 2008, when we selected "Slumdog Millionaire," and in '07, when "No Country for Old Men" won -- I can live with it. The Pixar animated film is a true wonder, filled with imaginative storytelling, characters and imagery.

I'm also thrilled that Christoph Waltz won Best Supporting Actor for "Basterds" - that's a bingo! He seems like a frontrunner for the Oscar.

Here's the complete list of winners:

Best Film: "Up"

Best Director: Pete Docter, "Up"





"Transformers 3" Looking For The Best Pre-viz Animators

(thefilmstage.com) A message was posted today on Michael Bay’s official website regarding Transformers 3. It reads as follows:

Nelson here…

We are looking for the best pre-viz animators to help build the team for Transformers 3. Maya expertise is a must.

Please email your resume in Word or PDF format along with the URL of your reel to the webmaster.

This is a first for me. I have seen many advertisements for casting for a movie like this, but never for crew members. Is Michael Bay scraping the bottom of the barrel for crew? Probably not, but this says something for the direction they might be heading in for Transformers 3. Low budget… probably not. Small time actors… definitely not. But looking to new sources for ideas for the next film… sounds like a good bet to me.

Would you want to be a part of the crew for Transformers 3?

Source: http://thefilmstage.com/2009/12/16/bay-going-off-grid-for-transformers-3-crew/





Peter Jackson's New Project to Adapt Science Fiction Series

(stuff.co.nz) Peter Jackson is secretly working to adapt the Mortal Engines fantasy novels for the screen.

The hush-hush project is understood to be in early development, with work on the first of the four books under way, industry sources say.

Weta Workshops is also believed to be working on designs for the science fiction series, which features giant mobile cities.

A spokesman for Jackson did not deny the project was on the books yesterday, but said "any comment should come from Peter".

Jackson, who is understood to have had the rights to the books for some time, was unavailable for comment.

The books, by Peter Reeves, are set in a post-apocalyptic world where cities have become giant vehicles and must consume each other to survive. Mortal Engines is the first book in the series, and has won a Nestle Smarties Book Prize and was shortlisted for the 2002 Whitbread Award.

The fantasy books are the latest in a series of adaptation projects Jackson has taken on.

His film adaptation of The Lovely Bones premiered in Wellington last week, and he is producing The Hobbit – the prequel to his highly successful Lord of the Rings trilogy – and Steven Spielberg's version of the Belgian comic The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn.

Jackson has also optioned the rights to the historic-fantasy Temeraire novels, which tell an alternative version of the Napoleonic Wars where tame dragons are used for aerial attacks.

World War II film Dambusters, which he produced and Kiwi film-maker Christian Rivers directed, is due for release next year.

Earlier this month Jackson also said he was contemplating making a World War I film about Gallipoli.





Kevin Bacon Goes Bad For "Super"

(darkhorizons.com) Kevin Bacon will play the villain in the upcoming action-comedy "Super" for This Is That and Ambush Entertainment reports Screen Daily.

Bacon will play Jacques, a smooth-talking drug dealer who steals the wife (Liv Tyler) of an average guy (Rainn Wilson), causing the latter to become a one-man crime-fighting force known as The Crimson Bolt. Ellen Page also stars.

"Slither" writer/director James Gunn helms the project which is shooting until next month in Shreveport, Louisiana.





Big Layoffs At Heavy Iron Studios

(kotaku.com) We've learned over the weekend that most of the employees at Heavy Iron - a former THQ subsidiary that's best-known for its movie tie-in games - may be spending the holiday season looking for a new job.

Sources have told Kotaku that around 60-70 of the studio's staff are to be laid off this week, most likely on Wednesday. This week being Christmas. With a total headcount of just over 100, that's a sizeable percentage of the studio's total workforce.

Losing your job is never a good thing, but losing it over Christmas? That makes it twice as hard.

Heavy Iron were once a THQ studio, responsible primarily for games based on Disney/Pixar cartoons, though they also released Evil Dead: Hail to the King. The company were let go from THQ earlier this year as part of the publisher's cost-cutting measures.




Mo-Cap Character Breakdown for Disney's YELLOW SUBMARINE Remake

(iesb.net) Walt Disney Pictures and "El Bob-O" are currently casting for the Yellow Submarine remake, another motion capture film, yippee (sarc).

A few months ago, it was reported that casting had begun for the lead roles - John, Paul, George and Ringo. There was also some talk that Bob was hoping to get Ringo and Paul to come in and do their own character's mo-cap. Can't we just motion capture a better director?

With that said, IESB has got the casting breakdown for some of the "other" mo-cap characters to be featured in the film.


Yellow Submarine (additional roles)

Director: Robert Zemeckis

Motion Capture
Studio: Disney

STORY LINE: Follows a singing group of 4 British young men that are asked to help a land that has been overtaken by mean spirited creatures. They are recruited by an escapee to come and bring joy and music back to the land...

This film will be done in the Motion Capture technique that has been used in features such as BEOWULF, THE POLAR EXPRESS, A CHRISTMAS CAROL and MONSTER HOUSE.

[JEREMY HILLARY BOOB, PH.D.] A strange, short, brown-furred man with a blue clown face. An intellectual loner that speaks in puns, riddles, and rhymes. Lives in the Sea of Nothing...CO-STAR AGE: 30-60. STANDARD R.P. ENGLISH ACCENT

[CHIEF BLUE MEANIE] Head of the "Blue Meanies." A rotund blue menace with erect dog ears, sick yellow teeth, and a bi-polar lashing tongue. Angry, bitter, vengeful. Hates music, Pepperlanders, and The Beatles...CO-STAR AGE: 40-60 YRS OLD - STANDARD R.P. ENGLISH ACCENT

[MAX] Chief Blue Meanie's fearful assistant / henchman. Executes the Chief's orders to attack Pepperland. Often the victim of Chief's jokes, fits, and verbal abuses. Wears a large "M" on his chest...CO-STAR 25 - 60 YRS OLD - STANDARD R.P. ENGLISH ACCENT

[FRED (AKA, "OLD FRED" & "YOUNG FRED")] Captain of the Yellow Submarine. At the request of Lord Mayor, seeks out The Beatles to save Pepperland. Often breaks into fits of excited exasperation...CO-STAR 50-70 YRS OLD - STANDARD R.P. ENGLISH ACCENT

[LORD MAYOR] Mayor of Pepperland. An ancient man with deep creases in his face and a long history with the land and its population. Ancient, Old and Tired voice
.tends to sound like it creaks out of him. Tires easily. Plays the cello...CO-STAR VOICE SHOULD SOUND 80-100 YRS OLD - STANDARD R.P. ENGLISH ACCENT





Marvin the Martian Gets Set Up as a Feature Film at Warner Bros.

(movieweb.com) It seems that a Warner Bros. adaptation of an animated classic character is moving forward. According to the Los Angeles Times' Hero Complex Blog, Alex Zamm has signed on to direct Marvin the Martian at Warner Bros.

Paul Kaplan and Mark Torgove have also signed on to write the film. Not much is known about the story, but it was said that the film will be a live-action/CGI hybrid, with the title character with live-action characters surrounding him.

It was said that some of the visual effects work will start up in 2010 and the filmmakers are aiming for a 2011 release.





Indian firm behind visual effects in Avatar

(business-standard.com) A significant part of James Cameron’s mega epic Avatar, with a budget of over $230 million (nearly Rs 1,100 crore) — the most expensive Hollywood movie ever made — has been brought to life by an Indian visual effects (VFX) company — Prime Focus.

The company earned $4 million (over Rs 18 crore) from a deal to create 200 shots of the 1,600-odd shots in Avatar. Fox Star Studios is believe to have spent $180 million (over Rs 840 crore) on special effects.

Prime Focus is increasingly becoming a hot favorite among Hollywood filmmakers and, as a result, has worked on some box-office blockbusters like New Moon and GI Joe. Almost 80 per cent of New Moon’s special effects were done by Prime Focus.

“It takes at least six months for one Hollywood project. Therefore, we sign three-four movies in a year,” said Namit Malhotra, founder and global CEO, Prime Focus.

According to Malhotra, Hollywood is a big market and one needs to be where the business comes from. Therefore, Malhotra has set up facilities in New York, London and Los Angeles, apart from the India set-up. “Most of the work is done there for Hollywood projects simply because India is not yet ready for the level of work international studios want,” added Malhotra. Prime Focus has a 1,200-strong workforce of which almost 750 personnel are based in India. Going forward, Prime Focus plans to outsource work to India, for which it is training its Indian team.

“Eventually both projects will be jointly handled by the international and Indian teams,” said Malhotra.

In addition to the international movie business, Prime Focus is a name filmmakers swear by in Bollywood too. Special effects of almost all big-ticket Bollywood films, like Blue, Paa, Wake up Sid, Ajab Prem Ki Ghazab Kahani and De Dhana Dhan came under Prime Focus’ fold. The company is now working on the much-awaited Karan Johar-Fox Star Studios’ My Name Is Khan, starring Kajol and Shah Rukh Khan. Prime Focus works on almost 50 Bollywood films in a year, controlling over 65 per cent of the domestic market.

Formed in 1995, Prime Focus has climbed up the ladder, working first on ad films and then television content, and now on movies. The company took a big leap in 2006 when it raised Rs 115 crore from the capital market.

It acquired a stake in UK-based high-end post production facility VTR Plc, which helped it set shop in UK. It also acquired a visual effects boutique Clear Plc. It later forayed into North America through an acquisition. Prime Focus’ market cap is around Rs 296 crore.

The Indian VFX industry’s size in estimated at Rs 280 crore in 2009, versus Rs 230 crore in 2008. By 2013, the VFX industry in India has the potential to grow to Rs 560 crore, according to Ficci-KPMG’s report.





3D CGI "A Christmas Carol" Box Office Slow But Steady

(comingsoon.net) Disney's A Christmas Carol earned $3.4 million over the weekend and has earned a total gross of $130.7 million since opening in early November.





Taylor Swift Rumored for 'Supergirl' Reboot

(cinematical.com) Hollyscoop reports that country music star Taylor Swift is in talks to headline a planned Supergirl reboot at Warners. An unnamed insider states, "A number of young stars are being mentioned for the title role in a Supergirl movie and possible TV spin-off and Taylor is top of that list. She has all the right elements to be a positive role model to..." -- YO, TAYLOR. I"M REALLY HAPPY FOR YOU. I'MMA LET YOU FINISH, BUT BATGIRL IS ONE OF THE GREATEST SUPERHEROES OF ALL TIME.

Do I personally believe that Warner Brothers is launching a new Supergirl film? No. If they were looking to reboot a Kryptonian, it would be Superman, and at this point there's no forward momentum on new Superman movies. Hollyscoop's unnamed source sounds like internet rumor-milling at its most obvious. Swift has the right look for the part, but any fanboy worth their salt can play "cast the superhero" all day; it doesn't make it a reality.

If cast, Swift would be filling in the red boots once worn by Helen Slater in 1984's much-maligned live-action version of the DC Comics character. You can watch the trailer for the original Supergirl film after the jump.






How ILM Rescued Avatar's Special Effects

(CNET News.com's) About a year ago, with James Cameron's science-fiction epic "Avatar" well under way, it became clear that Weta Digital, the visual effects studio doing much of the computer generated imagery (or CGI) on the project, was a bit in over its head.

At that point, the movie, which opened Friday, was about 40 minutes longer than it ended up being, and what was needed to finish the project was another company that could come in and lend a helping hand - and do so at the same, very high level, that Weta was working at.

And that's where Industrial Light & Magic came in, recalled John Knoll , the Oscar-winning visual effects supervisor tasked with parachuting in to help finish what was, more than on most films, the crucial job of crafting the "Avatar" CGI work.

What followed was months of coordination between ILM, Weta, and Cameron's production company, Lightstorm Entertainment, with a primary goal of ensuring that the two visual effects teams (one in San Francisco and the other in New Zealand) avoided any unnecessary duplication of effort, even as both sometimes found themselves working on effects for the same movie sequences.

For ILM, this wasn't the first time it had been called in to help rescue another effects house, but it may well have been the first time it did so for one as big and as accomplished as Weta. And while ILM's overall contribution to the finished film was minor compared to Weta's, the fact that "Avatar" came out on time and is being seen as a visual tour de force is certainly due, in part, to ILM's ability to come in and, if not save the day, at least contribute mightily to the day turning out well.

For Knoll, the challenge of working alongside Weta was about identifying a body of work that limited the number of assets the ILM team had to develop and which would allow them to be the most helpful. Ultimately, they were handed the keys to creating the visual effects for many of the specialized vehicles in the film, including the Valkyrie, a large shuttle used to move people and equipment, and several different types of helicopters, as well as the landscapes those vehicles lived in.

ILM also did the effects work on the film's final battle scene, taking responsibility for the shots of all the vehicles taking off, as well as the sequence's cockpit interior shots.

Working together on a Scene

For the most part, the teams at ILM and Weta worked on different scenes, but Knoll said there were some in which the two companies handles different parts of the same sequence. An example, he said, was a scene in the film where a group of helicopters attack the giant "home tree," where the Navi, the humanoid alien race in the film, live. Knoll said that the effects in the scene were mainly put together by Weta, but ILM handled all the shots in which the camera looks back toward the choppers.

In the scenes where the two effects houses both were charged with creating shots, the challenge was figuring out how to "checkerboard" the shots, Knoll said, especially because in some cases, ILM didn't know what Weta's work looked like.

"You keep cutting back between ILM shots and Weta shots," Knoll said. "They're really intermixed. I was worried, because we had to get going and go pretty far down the line before we had any Weta shots to refer to. We were both doing development in parallel."

This might have been a serious problem on many film projects, but with "Avatar," both ILM and Weta were working from extremely detailed templates given to them by Cameron. Knoll said that the templates gave his team very specific direction on how they should construct their shots, down to rough indications of the lighting in the scenes.

"It did help that the templates were so specific," Knoll said. "They were very detailed and Jim [Cameron] was very insistent: 'I've put a lot of time into making sure these are exactly what I want them to be, so you need to do a good job of matching that.'"

Still, with both houses working in parallel, there was certainly a bit of a race to finish a shot, Knoll said, because the team that was fastest would be able to more or less set the tone for the whole scene. "Whoever gets there first is who drives it," he said.

"For example, in the home tree sequence, we have to fire a bunch of missiles," Knoll recalled. "[There wasn't] anything established for what the missile trails look like. We did our own version of the what [they] would look like and Jim liked it, so that's what Weta had to match."

Of course, in other cases, Weta would finish first, and ILM would have to match what the New Zealanders came up with. And in some cases, it was a bit of "splitting the difference," Knoll said. Ultimately, he added, he hopes that audience members won't be able to tell that two separate visual effects teams shared the work.

All-CGI Explosions

One benefit for the entire film industry of having ILM step in to help out on "Avatar" may be that in working on the project, Knoll and his team came up with a new way to completely computer-generate large-scale, close-up explosions.

Until now, big fiery explosions in CGI-heavy films have been shot with live camera and then had visual effects added to them. But Knoll said that because of some of the limitation of matching Cameron's templates for "Avatar," there was no practical way to meet the movie's explosive needs with live-action.

"We've done CG explosions in the past," Knoll said, "but never with this level of realism, and never this close up."

Fortunately, ILM had pioneered the rendering of the visual movement of fluids in films like "Poseidon" and "Pirates of the Caribbean," and Knoll knew that the shape and movement dynamics of an explosion were similar to that of water.

"The same underlying engine is being used on this," Knoll said. "The motion of the underlying gas is similar to the motion of fluids. The medium is relatively uncompressable. So when there's movement of the medium, it can't change volume real dramatically. So if you push on one side, something has to push on the other side."

That meant that ILM could take the graphics engine it had created for fluid shots in the previous films and apply the same basic technology for the explosions in "Avatar." Though there are clearly some major differences between fluid and big fire - notably that as fuel burns, fire expands, and then retracts when the fuel goes away, the technique was similar enough that the technology could be adapted to the needs of "Avatar."

"I think this is going to be an important technique (for the industry) in the future," Knoll said, "to tailor-make an explosion that looks good close up."

http://iphone.cbsnews.com/site?t=wbIDqDTx9p1HRJFC1PZMoA&sid=cbsnews_ip





'No Child Left Behind Law' Killing Computer Science

(washingtonpost.com) It would be hard to find a student at Stone Bridge High School who has never used the Internet for a research assignment, socialized with Facebook or played a video game.

But few know much about how computers and the Web actually work.

About 70 students at the Ashburn school are taking introductory or Advanced Placement courses this year in computer science, getting a glimpse behind the games and Web sites they use all the time.

For an hour and a half every other day, they enter a bracket-and-parentheses-laced world and practice speaking and writing in Java and C++. If they stick with it, they will be part of an elite group that is exceedingly employable, economists say, even in a recession.

In Loudoun County, sometimes called the Silicon Valley of the East, fewer than 5 percent of all high school students took a computer science class in each of the past three years, and the numbers are slipping slightly.

Nationally, the portion of schools that offer an introductory computer science course has dropped from 78 percent in 2005 to 65 percent this year, and the corresponding decline in AP courses went from 40 to 27 percent, according to a survey by the Computer Science Teachers Association.

In the spring, the College Board, citing declining enrollment, canceled its AP computer science AB class, the more rigorous of its two courses in the subject.

The result of sporadic or skimpy computer science training is that a generation of teenagers great at using computers will be unlikely to play a role in the way computer technology shapes lives in the future, said Chris Stephenson, executive director of the New York-based Computer Science Teachers Association.

"Their knowledge of technology is very broad but very shallow," she said.

That has economic implications. "If you look at history, the nations with economic superiority are building the tools the rest of the world is using," Stephenson said.

The slide in computer science education is surprising at a time when politicians are bent on fueling innovation by sharpening the math, science and technology skills of the future workforce.

Stephenson said computer science classes might be an unintentional casualty in the push to increase academic standards. Computer science is not considered a core subject by the No Child Left Behind law, which influences school priorities and budgets.





Clash of the Titans to Shoot More VFX Scenes

(Los Angeles Times) Avatar star Sam Worthington revealed to the Los Angeles Times that they are going back to shoot more scenes for Clash of the Titans.

"We're going to be shooting more scenes in January, so we're going to be right up against it -- the movie comes out in March," Worthington said. He further explained that "there were some creaky parts but they are the parts that we knew were creaky and that we knew were going to be creaky going into it.

But most interesting were the following quotes. "The studio is also letting us add some gods and scenes. And they're talking about making the movie a 3D film."

The Louis Leterrier-directed film is scheduled to hit theaters on March 26. To watch the trailers and view photos, click here.





Pre-Prod On Next Bond Film On Hold

(comingosoon.net) Peter Morgan (Frost/Nixon, The Queen) talked briefly to MI6 about what we can expect from James Bond 23.

The site says that Morgan has been writing the first draft of the screenplay from July until October of this year. "It's a shocking story", he said after admitting he couldn't give anything more away.

Pre-production work on the 23rd installment, and third 007 film starring Daniel Craig, has been put on hold until the expected sale of MGM goes through.







ILM Advances Avatar FX: Totally Amazing Fake Explosions

(wired.com) The Industrial Light & Magic team that helped with Avatar’s amazing visual effects harnessed past work creating water effects to produce more convincing explosions in James Cameron’s 3-D epic.

“We’ve done CG explosions in the past,” ILM visual effects supervisor John Knoll told the Geek Gestalt blog, “but never with this level of realism, and never this close up.”

Instead of filming real explosions that were later sweetened with effects, ILM applied lessons about the visual behavior of fluids, learned during the making of Poseidon and Pirates of the Caribbean, to create believable explosions from scratch. “The same underlying engine is being used on this,” Knoll said. “The motion of the underlying gas is similar to the motion of fluids.”

The Geek Gestalt article reveals more about the ways the ILM visual effects team worked with Weta Digital to create Avatar’s stunningly believable alien world, an immersive 3-D spectacle that must be seen in theaters to be truly appreciated. Reviews for the movie, which is probably the most expensive ever made, have been strong. Early estimates put Avatar on track to earn $73 million during its opening weekend, a record for a 3-D film.

Source: http://www.wired.com/underwire/2009/12/avatar-explosions/




Mythbusters to Test Star Trek Mythology

(tvsquad.com) How cool is this? On Mythbusters, the guys are going to test the Captain Kirk Gorn Cannon. If you have no idea what that is, you -- my Star Trek friend -- are not a Trekkie (or a Trekker depending on which camp you follow). If you do know, you have to watch, and if you don't know but are curious, you still have to watch Mythbusters on Discovery, Monday, December 28 at 9 p.m.

Basically, the Mythbusters will take a great scene from Star Trek and bring it to life. In the season one episode, Captain Kirk is put on a barren planet and forced to battle the commander of an alien ship in one on one battle. Some super alien is manipulating the two into fighting with the fate of their ships on the line.

You might remember this episode -- "Arena" -- as William Shatner versus the worst-costumed alien ever in ST history. It's a guy in a rubber lizard suit. At the climax of the episode, when Kirk is getting his ass kicked by the Gorn -- that's the name of the lizard man species -- Jim realizes that the elements to create gunpowder are right there on the planet.

With Spock and the crew watching from the bridge of the Enterprise, urging him on and explaining to the audience what the hell is going on, Kirk builds a makeshift cannon out of bamboo, sulfur, coal, potassium nitrate and diamonds. He uses it to blast the Gorn and win the battle.

I always thought that was a great pre-MacGyver turn in Star Trek. It was brilliant. However, does it really work... could such a cannon be concocted like that? That's what Mythbusters plans to test. Take a look at the preview:

If you want to watch the original ST episode, check out "Arena" on SlashControl.

Worth a mention - 12/22/09

Iron Man 2 NOT in 3-D

(comicbookmovie.com) There was spectulation in September that Marvel was considering 3D, but MarketSaw has reported that they have a credible source explaining that the film will definitely NOT be in 3D.
"Jim here. Got some rather bad news for S3D fans out there. I have it from a very good source (one very much in the know) that IRON MAN 2 will NOT be made in stereoscopic 3D. It was being considered back in September of this year.

I am VERY disappointed to say the least as I thought the *FIRST* one should have been made in S3D - let alone the second. I think Marvel is wasting a valuable opportunity to get this done and of course they are leaving a lot of money on the box office table by not doing it as well.

I am digging for more info on this but from what I can tell you - it is a no go for 3D. I do know that IRON MAN 2 is not the ONLY property that Marvel is considering for S3D! More when I get it."

To tell you the truth, I am very glad this film is not in 3D. I feel it is just a an annoying gimmick for the studios to make more money. I really hope they don't try this with none of the Upcoming films, Thor, Captain America, and specially not The Avengers. And I truly hope Marvel doesn't add the 3D because of the third installment of Iron Man. Great News.





Lucas' Red Tests

(movies.ign.com) So George Lucas' Tuskegee Airmen film Red Tails has finished shooting, and now word has it that the man himself is considering using consumer-level DSLR digital cameras for pick-up shoots on the project. And not just that, but the oft-mentioned Star Wars live-action TV series is apparently also under consideration for use with the groundbreaking technology.

Slash Film noticed this tidbit on DSLR blogger Philip Bloom's site, and while it's all a bit techie sounding, this does give us an idea of where Lucas wants to go with his future projects. Bloom explains how he shot some test footage on Lucas' ranch for Lucasfilm's producer Rick McCallum and head of post-production Mike Blanchard.

"I had, at this point, never seen my work projected on a really good projector before so this was going to be a real test of the cameras," says Bloom. "Rick and Mike wanted to see how well the footage held up on the big screen. They had shot some stuff and weren't happy with what they were getting. … I was nervous. Never having seen my work on a big screen as good as this, but also George Lucas came in to watch and also the legendary sound designer Ben Burtt. My heart was racing. I watched as the edit played and they loved it."

The post by Bloom is also interesting because it offers a glimpse into the world of the Hollywood elite. It turns out that while staying at the ranch, Bloom got to sleep in the "Federico Fellini apartment" -- which is the bed Clint Eastwood always stays in. And then guys like Quentin Tarantino apparently just drop by from time to time.

"Then Quentin Tarantino came in as he was due to talk at a screening of Inglorious Basterds and George said to Quentin, come see this," he continues. "Quentin waxed lyrical, calling it Epic and William Wyleresque and was shocked it was shot on a DSLR. He had no idea you could shoot HD video on them or they were so good."

The bottom line: "Mike and Rick were over the moon. They didn't know how well these cameras would hold up on the big screen and it passed with flying colours. Lots of swear words of incredulity were used!"

As Bloom notes, Lucasfilm has always been at the forefront of digital technology, and Lucas and McCallum are obviously seeing the potential that theses cameras are offering. The pick-ups planned for Red Tails next year will mostly be "intimate in cockpit stuff and flying shots," which the DSLRs will be perfect for because of their size and ease of use.

"They were also looking at new ways to shoot the much anticipated Star Wars live-action TV series," Bloom adds. So, you know, there's that too.

Source: http://movies.ign.com/articles/105/1056838p1.html





Using ZBrush in Avatar

(vizworld.com) “Patton” on the ZBrushCentral forums has posted some early concept work from Avatar showcasing some of the early modeling and design work that went into the project 3 years ago using ZBrush.

I started working on Avatar 3 years ago and was working with Zbrush 2 ( that means no subtools!!) I had to work on a fairly slow laptop so that I could work directly with Jim Cameron on the mocap stage.

I was really green as a 3D artist but jumped in with both feet, after all this time I still really love the stuff we produced at Stan Winston Studio / Legacy effects.

I was part of the group of artists that Designed the Na’vi characters I was responsible for working out Jake (Sam Worthington) and Neytiri (Zoe Saldana) Digital sculpts with expressions as a proof of concept for the look of the Na’vi people. I also did the designs for Norm (Joel Moore) as well as the Grace ( Sigourney Weaver}.

Source: http://www.vizworld.com/2009/12/zbrush-avatar/





Is PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN 4 About to be Anchored?

New Disney chairman Rich Ross has made an immediate impact on his company’s future film production slate since taking on the job two months ago.

He quickly made the high profile cancellation of McG’s 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea (a big budget tentpole for them) and after the big flop that was Old Dogs recently – caused much embarrassment to those involved by killing off the Wild Hogs sequel (from the same director and John Travolta) and actor Robin Williams’ farce comedy Wedding Banned.

Ross, a guy I might quickly begin to like at Disney, is clearly not afraid to flex his muscles and cancel productions with the wrong talent on board or films that don’t make sense either creatively or financially.

So with a couple of high profile executions recently, what do we make of three possibly connected developments that have taken place over the past month or so, which could effect a MASSIVE tentpole at Disney.

1) Johnny Depp signs on to make the sexy spy thriller The Tourist with Angelina Jolie next March, right when he should be filming Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides.

2) This week, Terry Gilliam states that Depp has now suddenly found time in his packed schedule to shoot the time-traveling character role in his recently resurrected The Man From Don Quixote.

3) Nine director Rob Marshall starts to sound a bit iffy/iffy towards Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, a movie whose filming start date seems to have been pushed back two months without any kind of announcement and is now looking a little less like a movie that will definitely set in stone happen.

Here’s what Marshall said…

We’re still trying to figure out if it’s going to all happen. If it happens–I think Johnny’s doing a movie with Angelina Jolie in the spring [The Tourist] — so if it happens, we’ll start in the summer, and we’ll see. I’m excited. If it happens, it happens. I’d be thrilled. I just love Johnny and I’m excited about the genre.

There’s an awful lot of “if’s” now appearing for a film that sure sounded like it “would” be happening a little while back.

Has the Disney terminator Rich Ross struck again – or am I looking for a story when there isn’t really one to find?

You tell me. Depp is sure packing his 2010 schedule though… and Ross seems to be a results guy and Nine doesn’t seem to be all that. So… well, again, you tell me.




Avatar At The House Yoda Built

(nbcbayarea.com) As you've already heard, the special effects in Avatar are flat out eye-poppingly awesome. So it should be no surprise that, to track down how they were put onto the big screen, we went to Industrial Light and Magic, the house Yoda built.

Set back in San Francisco's quiet Presidio, ILM is legendary for its movie effects, from Star Wars, to Pirates of the Caribbean, and now to Avatar. John Knoll, who has an Oscar on his mantel thanks to Pirates, sat down to talk with us about how his team put the jaw-dropping effects onto the big screen, and what it's like to work with mercurial director James Cameron.

Put it this way, Knoll says with Cameron, "You know exactly where you need to go, it's just a matter of getting there." Unlike many directors, who come to ILM with humility and a lot of questions, Cameron came with a map, and a long to-do list. Money, obviously, was no object. "This was really diving in," Knoll says. "With both feet."

Some $300 million later, Avatar is hauling in good reviews, big money ($3.5 million in the early Friday hours), and lots of Oscar buzz. Unlike most "effects" movies, that feature three or four scenes to strut their stuff, Avatar creates a whole different world. And you're immersed into it. It's 3D, but not with swords flying out of the screen at you; this is an entire 3D world we haven't seen in a movie before.

The guess here is that, as people line up to see it over the next few weeks, Hollywood will have taken a turn: A new kind of special effects movie, that will likely change the way films are made in the future. Much like Cameron's last big-budget blockbuster, Titanic. Which, you may remember, cleaned up at Oscar time.

And how does it feel to have created this buzz? Says Knoll, "I have to see other people's reactions. It's rewarding to see what they think." He should prepare for a lot of rewards.





3D "Captain EO" Returning to Disneyland

Michael Jackson's Captain EO, the 17-minute film made exclusively for Disney's Theme Parks, is returning for a limited engagement to Disneyland in California in February 2010. It was announced on December 18 that this revolutionary 3-D film, which cost an estimated $30 million to make, would finally be shown to audiences again after a 12-year absence.

Although it is billed as a 3-D film, Captain EO is really a 4-D film, utilizing not only spectacular 3-D effects requiring the viewer to where 3-D glasses, but also external in-theater effects including lasers shot over audience members' heads and effects such as smoke and stars coming out of the ceiling and walls. According to Wikipedia, at the time it was the most expensive film ever produced on a per-minute basis, averaging out at $1.76 million per minute.

The film was directed by Francis Ford Coppola and executive produced by George Lucas. The film stars Michael Jackson as Captain EO, the leader of an alien spaceship crew. Captain EO and his crew face destruction from the evil "Supreme Leader" played by Angelica Huston. The film, which could be considered a music video, features two Jackson songs, "Another Part of Me" which later appeared on the Bad album, and "We Are Here to Change the World", which finally appeared on the 2004 compilation, Michael Jackson: The Ultimate Collection.

The film premiered at Walt Disney World's Epcot Center in Orlando, Florida on September 12, 1986. It debuted six days later at Disneyland and ran continuously through April 1997. Captain EO played in the 500-seat Magic Eye Theater in Disneyland's Tomorrowland. To celebrate the premiere at Disneyland, the park remained open for 36 hours continually and attendees received a souvenier t-shirt. Captain EO was also shown at Disney Parks in Japan and France.

Disneyland reports that “Honey I Shrunk The Audience” will be closing sometime in the next few weeks to make way for Captain EO’s return.





Hawkman Movie Soon Taking Flight?

(screenrant.com) The guys over at Collider picked up on a story yesterday that was first floated by Pajiba, regarding DC/WB possibly moving ahead with a Hawkman movie. I don’t really have all that much trust in Pajiba, but Collider’s report at least warrants us discussing the subject. Good guys over there.

Apparently, since the formation of DC Entertainment earlier this fall, the DCE/WB squad has been working hard on trying to catch up to Marvel in the super hero movie game (makes sense). This is pretty much the point of DCE – streamlining creative properties into profitable multimedia franchises – and reportedly, they are striving to make it happen, including getting some of their second-tier heroes (Hawkman) developed into Iron Man success stories.


Producers like Joel Silver and Akiva Goldman – who have been working with superhero properties for awhile – are being name-dropped as the sort of big guns who will make some of these DCE/WB projects into big screen realities. A few movies that have already gained traction are The Green Lantern, The Flash, Shazam! and the upcoming adaptation of Lobo. Well, Hawkman is now rumored to be on deck for a movie makeover.

Of course, a Hawkman movie is one of those things that’s been talked about by both fans and Hollywood players alike for…ever, maybe. Well before comic book movies blew up during the “oughties,” most of us were already having those discussions about seeing our favorite DC superhero(es) on the big screen. “Wouldn’t a ‘Hawkman’ movie be awesome?” was definitely part of the conversation at one point or another.





TyRuben Ellingson Designs Vehicles for 'Avatar'

(urbanacitizen.com) ST. CLOUD, Minn. (AP) - St. Cloud native TyRuben Ellingson is no stranger to working at the forefront of pioneering film technology.

After working as virtual effects art director on the Steven Spielberg-directed "Jurassic Park," a film featuring pace-setting computer generated imagery, Ellingson thought he'd never work on a film like it again.

Then, film producer John Landau called him in to be a concept designer and lead vehicle designer for James Cameron's "Avatar" starring Sigourney Weaver, Michelle Rodriguez, Sam Worthington and Stephen Lang.

"I remember looking at ('Jurassic Park') and thinking, 'This is going to freak everyone in the world out,'" Ellingson recalled. "When I got involved in 'Avatar,' it started to feel the same way. It started to feel like what Jim was proposing was so huge and so out of control and so dynamic, it started to make me think, 'Whoa.' This is going to make an impact on culture."

"Avatar" is the first narrative film from Cameron since 1997's "Titanic," a film that racked up 11 Academy Awards and a record $1.8 billion worldwide at the box office.

"Avatar" was a grand idea in Cameron's mind before "Titanic," but the technology of the time wasn't ready. He waited a decade before starting production on his action-adventure, interstellar love story.

What puts the film on the cutting edge is the way it mixes live action and computer animation to create an eye-popping, vivid alien world.

"It's going to be so memorable and so relevant to conversations for the next six months to a year," Ellingson said shortly before the film opened. "But I'm going to say something very risky. I think two weeks after the movie comes out, people are going to stop talking about it in terms of the technology, visual effects and CGI. I don't think that's where the heart of the movie lies."

More: http://www.urbanacitizen.com/main.asp?SectionID=21&SubSectionID=126&ArticleID=152661





A Cross Between 'Shrek' And 'Lord Of The Rings'?

(splashpage.mtv.com) "Sherlock Holmes" producer Dan Lin is currently hard at work on a very different but no less enigmatic film project — none other than the adaptation of cartoonist Jeff Smith's "Bone."

Details on the comic book film have been fairly scarce, though Smith has previously said that he's happy with the project's progress so far. But Lin, who is producing "Bone," had more detailed comments to offer when speaking with Collider about the film. Specifically, Lin said that he and the "Bone" crew are striving for a tone that mixes the best elements of "Shrek" and "Lord of the Rings" together.

"It really looks like a mix of Shrek as far as the three Bone characters and their comedy, their Looney Tunes of Marx Brothers comedy set in a Lord of the Rings world," said Lin. "I mean, the best way tonally again is Shrek meets Lord of the Rings. Very fantastical but between the Bone characters just a lot of comedy."

Lin revealed that Australian writer Justin Monjo is working on the film's screenplay, while Animalogic — the folks behind "Happy Feet" and Zack Snyder's upcoming "Guardians of Ga'Hoole" — is responsible for the animation and visual effects on "Bone." There's also hope that a director could be hired as soon as January.

"We've met with several directors and we hope to come to a director decision by January and Jeff Smith has been very intricately involved in the development process with us," said Lin. "I'm thinking in first quarter of next year you'll hear who's the director of Bone and that'll give you a sense of where we're going."

The producer said that "Bone" is aiming for a rating of either PG or PG-13, and that the current dilemma facing the production is exactly how much of Smith's original work should be adapted for the first film.

"If anything, right now we're discussing how many books should be in the first movie and if we do things right hopefully there'll be multiple movies to tell," said Lin. "But right now there's a discussion of do we use the first 3 books? Do we use the first 4 books of Bone? That's the discussion but the source material is all from Jeff's books."





USC's Unique Facial Screening Technology Lauded in Avatar

(uscnews.usc.edu) Paul Debevec, associate director for graphics research at USC’s Institute for Creative Technologies, research assistant professor Abhijeet Ghosh and postdoctoral researcher Wan-Chun Ma have been recognized with film credits for their work using the institute’s facial screening technology in Avatar.

Working with the visual effects artists at the New Zealand-based company Weta Digital, the institute’s graphics laboratory scanned the faces of many of the film’s principal cast members using Light Stage 5, the latest geometry and appearance capture system. This innovative technology, housed at the institute’s Marina del Rey campus, captures the shape, shine, color and texture of an actor’s face down to the level of each fine pore and wrinkle.

The detailed scans were used by Weta Digital during its process of creating the film’s photorealistic digital humans and creatures, which are being lauded as a groundbreaking achievement in the evolution of digital filmmaking.

Avatar joins a growing list of movies that have used the Light Stage technology. Others include Spider-Man 2, Spider-Man 3, Superman Returns, King Kong, Hancock and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.





"Wolverine" Pirate Just A Patsy?

The FBI has accused the man who allegedly was first, or among the first, to upload a pirated copy of "X-Men Origins: Wolverine" that circulated online in April. What authorities have apparently yet to do is identify the original source of the leak.

On Wednesday, after Gilberto Sanchez was charged in New York with violating federal copyright laws by posting "Wolverine" to a file-sharing site a month before the film's theatrical release, he told reporters from The New York Daily News: "It's just ridiculous. I bought it from a Korean guy on the street for five bucks. Then I uploaded it. I didn't make any money."

In the months after the leak, "Wolverine" went on to gross $375 million worldwide, so it doesn't appear the pirated copy prevented the film from turning a profit. But 20th Century Fox, which produced the movie, argues the unauthorized version was watched about 14 million times online and no matter how one slices it, the leak cost the studio big money.

Full Press: http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10420059-93.html

Worth a mention - 12/18/09

Avatar Looks To $100M Open

(mtv.com) The cautionary estimate is that "Avatar" will bring in around $60 million in its opening weekend. Bock feels that the number will fall between $80 million and 100 million — perhaps even more than that.

"I definitely think that it has a chance [to break $100 million]," Bock said. "Only two other films now — 'New Moon' and 'Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire' — have opened at over $100 million during the holiday season. So it doesn't happen very often."

One thing weighing heavily in favor of "Avatar" is the higher ticket cost associated with 3-D and IMAX 3-D digital screenings. The lion's share of scheduled showings — more than two-thirds — will run under these premium conditions, which is sure to have an impact on the opening-weekend earnings.

"Considering that [a holiday movie breaking $100 million in its opening weekend] has only happened twice, I'd have to go with that number," Bock said. "That said, depending on how many people go 3-D versus 2-D, we're talking about a big uptick in pricing, so we could be talking about $120, $130 million."




Paramount Pictures 2010 VFX/Anim Tentpole Preview

(Paramount Pictures)

January 15, 2010 (Wide)
The Lovely Bones (Drama) (View Pics)

March 26, 2010
How to Train Your Dragon (Animated Fantasy-Adventure) (View Pics)

May 7, 2010
Iron Man 2 (Action Adventure) (View Pics)

May 21, 2010
Shrek Forever After (Animated Fantasy Comedy) (View Pics)

July 2, 2010
The Last Airbender (Fantasy Action-Adventure) (View Pics)

November 5, 2010
MegaMind (Animated Comedy) (View Pics)





Hoodwinked Too Gets Hoodwinked And Pushed Back

(cinemablend.com) Hoodwinked Too Gets Hoodwinked And Pushed Back It’s still hard to believe that Hoodwinked was successful. It had terrible animation that I could have made on my very first Acer PC, running Windows 98. The voice acting was awful, just a slew of big names who showed up to read lines. And the plot, while interesting, was executed sloppily. Despite all of this, the movie made millions and warranted a sequel. But it won’t be coming as soon as we thought.

According to the LA Times, The Weinstein Company has decided to push back the release of Hoodwinked Too: Hood Vs. Evil from its original January 15 release date to some time in February. A Weinstein executive cited their desire to push Youth in Revolt (coming out January 8) as well as the need to tweak some of the animation. There are also fast food tie-in deals that have yet to be closed.

The original film was released on January 15 and obviously did very well, so it’s hard to say how this move will affect the flick (it may have to go up against Shutter Island or Kevin Smith’s Cop Out). But really, is anyone waiting for this to come out anyway? While Hoodwinked was initially successful, it definitely doesn’t have half the staying power of a Pixar movie.





From 'The Jazz Singer' to 'Avatar': A Look at Historic Technological Movie Tricks

(jacksonville.com) James Cameron's "Avatar" mixes live-action filming with an array of technological tricks: 3-D, motion capture, computer animation and green-screen technology, among them. It hasn't been cheap; the movie's budget is said to be at least $300 million. But early reviews have been largely positive, and many in Hollywood are hoping that "Avatar's" technological wonders can transform the movie industry at a time when it needs a jolt. Here's a look at other movies that popularized some technological advances in movie-making — some that stuck around, and some that didn't.

"The Jazz Singer" (1927) featured a few lines of actual people speaking, as Al Jolson uttered these famous lines: "Wait a minute, wait a minute. You ain't heard nothing yet." The talkies had arrived ...

"King Kong" (1933) couldn't have been told without stop-motion animation. It had been done for decades before, but legendary special-effects wiz Willis O'Brien, moving a King Kong puppet a tiny bit for each new frame of film, really wowed the masses.

"Becky Sharp" (1935), based on Thackery's novel, "Vanity Fair," is credited with being the first feature film shot entirely in Technicolor - though filmmakers had been experimenting with color techniques almost since the beginning. It was followed by hits such as "The Trail of the Lonesome Pine" (1936) and "The Adventures of Robin Hood" (1938). And though black-and-white dominated for years afterward, the new technology's promise was made clear in 1939, when Dorothy arrived in Oz in "The Wizard of Oz" and when Atlanta burned in "Gone With the Wind."

Disney's "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" (1937) was the first full-length animated feature, and it holds up just fine today.

"The Thief of Bagdad" (1940) won an Oscar for its many special effects, including the technique of shooting actors in front of a blue screen, then blending their images with other footage - allowing the fantasy film's fantastical images to come to life. The technology has been used by TV meteorologists and hundreds of films since.

"Bwana Devil" (1952), an African adventure yarn, kicked off a short-lived 3-D craze in the '50s. It's been used fitfully since then, most recently in "Avatar" and at last weekend's Dallas Cowboys football game (most fans didn't seem that thrilled with the images on the big stadium screens).

"The Robe" (1953) was a biblical epic that introduced audiences to widescreen Cinemascope, as movie execs tried to find a way to lure viewers away from tiny TVs.

"Scent of a Mystery" (1960) introduced audiences to Smell-O-Vision, in which scents were pumped into the auditiorium at the appropriate time. Audiences quickly said "No thanks."

"Tron" (1982) didn't do great at the box office, but it was the first feature to make wide use of computer-generated images - images that exist only digitally - as it took us along with a programmer who enters the world of his computer. A no-doubt flashier sequel is planned for next year.

Cameron's "Terminator 2: Judgment Day" (1989) really showed the potential for CGI, with its liquid-metal villain, the first main character to be created entirely digitally.

"Toy Story" (1995) was the first feature-length computer-animated film, so successful it pretty much pushed hand-drawn animation to the sideline (though it's mounting a comeback with "The Princess and the Frog").

"Star Wars: Episode II — Attack of the Clones" (2002) was the first major live-action feature to be shot entirely digitally, without film.

In "The Polar Express" (2004), Robert Zemeckis used motion-capture technology (in which actors' performances are digitally tinkered with) for an entire movie. He would do the same in "Beowulf" and this year's "A Christmas Carol."

Blu-ray 3D Standards Finalised

(darkhorizons.com) The Blu-ray Disc Association has announced that a 3D Blu-ray specification standard has been finalized reports CNet.

Using the new MVC codec, an extension of the MPEG-4 AVC codec currently used by most Blu-ray discs, 3D films will require around 50% more space than their 2D counterparts while the discs should be backwards compatible with existing Blu-ray players.

To take advantage of it though it will require a 3D capable Blu-ray player, PS3 owners will get an operating system update that will make theirs 3D capable. However it will likely also require a new TV set capable of supporting stereoscopic 3D which may be a hitch as none have really hit the market yet, and there's simply not enough titles to take advantage of 3D capability.





Morpheus to Fight Predators

(ShockTillYouDrop.com) Laurence Fishburne ("CSI," "The Matrix" trilogy) has joined the cast of Robert Rodriguez's Predators, now filming in Austin, Texas under the direction of Nimrod Antal.

Fishburne is playing a character named Roland in the film. He joins a cast that includes Adrien Brody, Topher Grace, Danny Trejo, Walton Goggins and Alice Braga.

They play a disparate group of people who land on the Predator home planet only to discover "unspeakable horrors."

20th Century Fox is targeting a July 7, 2010 release for the film.




Stunning Demo Reel of VFX Impresses

(infoaddict.com) Wow. Stargate Studios, founded in 1989, has worked created special effects for a ton of movies and television shows. They are now showing off their proprietary Virtual Backlot Library that offers real-time compositing. Compositing is a popular, cheap method of adding background to live-action via a traditional green screen, but Stargate has elevated the art to new heights, as is evidenced by this newly released demo reel. This is impressive work indeed.

Take a look: http://www.infoaddict.com/stunning-demo-reel-of-green-screen-special-effects-impresses




Toy Story 3 to Get IMAX 3D Release

(IMAX Corporation) IMAX Corporation and Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures today announced that Toy Story 3 will be released to IMAX 3D theatres simultaneously with its wide release on June 18, 2010. Toy Story 3 will be digitally re-mastered into the unparalleled image and sound quality of "The IMAX Experience" with proprietary IMAX DMR (Digital Re-mastering) technology.

Commenting on the announcement Bob Chapek, president, Distribution, The Walt Disney Studios, said, "We're very excited to once again unite Disney Digital 3D with The IMAX Experience, and to do it for the long-awaited release of 'Toy Story 3' is a real treat. A film like this is designed to take audiences on an exciting thrill-ride adventure, making it a perfect match for both 3D and IMAX."

"We have always envisioned the 'Toy Story' franchise as an ideal fit for 'The IMAX Experience' and we're very happy to finally turn that vision into a reality," said IMAX CEO Richard L. Gelfond. "This film also fits nicely into our 2010 lineup, ensuring that families will be able to start the summer holidays with a fun Disney release in IMAX."




2,400 Hours to Make 1 Second of Action

(nypost.com) Hundreds of of graphic artists linked up the world’s third-biggest computer setup and invented new camera systems to create the astonishing 3-D futuristic world of “Avatar,” James Cameron’s new sci-fi thriller.

With a whopping $489 million budget, the groundbreaking movie — the most expensive ever made and Cameron’s first since 1997’s “Titanic” — is meant to immerse audiences in high-tech imagery and ensure they leave the theater asking: “How did they do that?”

Cameron’s team hired WETA Digital, the same New Zealand company behind Gollum and other special effects in “The Lord of the Rings” films, to create the artificial yet realistic-looking images in “Avatar.”

“WETA Digital ended up having more than 800 employees just working on their effects,” said Jon Landau, Cameron’s co-producer.

Some of the film’s shots required 100 computer hours for each frame — or 2,400 hours of computing time for each second of film, figuring each second requires 24 frames.




Dan O'Bannon Dead at 63

(examiner.com) Some sad news from the world of film making yesterday. Screenwriter, director and actor Dan O'Bannon has passed on at age 63.

O'Bannon was responsible for some of the favorite sci-fi/horror myths of our generation. He wrote the screenplay for a little film called Alien, directed by Ridley Scott, (you may have heard of it), and worked on all the sequels. He was also responsible for The Return of the Living Dead, the amazing George Romero zombie satire, and he worked on the Total Recall script and created the B-17 sequence in Heavy Metal. Not only that, but he provided the screenplay and served as Special Effects Supervisor on the John Carpenter flick, Dark Star, and he worked on a film called Star Wars. You may have heard of that one, too.





When VFX Become 'Vomit Inducing'

(abcnews.go.com) "Avatar" is one of the most expensive movies ever made. This year's most eagerly awaited release cost $237 million to make and another $150 million to market. One of its stars, Sigourney Weaver, described "Avatar" as "like 'Gone with the Wind' in space."
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The movie's special effects may bring some unpleasant side effects.

James Cameron's last opus was of course "Titanic," the highest-grossing movie of all time. Early reviews of Avatar were very positive, the film is being hailed by some as "The future of cinema."

The epic, which runs two hours and 41 minutes, premiered in London to wild applause. But some see Cameron as a vainglorious auteur and seek to puncture his perceived pretension. One anonymous critic claimed the ground-breaking 3D effects in "Avatar" are, I quote, "vomit inducing." Word quickly spread through the blogosphere.




Does Your Work Space Repulse Women?

(arstechnica.com) New research suggests that a stereotypical programmer's workspace—Star Trek posters, empty Mountain Dew/beer cans and all, according to the article—may be a significant reason why more women are not entering into computer science disciplines and fields. While my formal training is as a chemical engineer, I have been programming since my parents enrolled me in computer camp when I was eight and didn't have many friends at home. In the intervening 23 years, I can probably count on one hand the number of times my computer workspace has been clean as opposed to looking like a bomb went off, but it has never looked like a sophomore male's dorm room... except my second year of college when I took all those computer science classes.

Where other STEM fields (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) are seeing the percentage of women enrolled increase, computer science is going through a decline. The study, published in Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, finds that the feeling of ambient belonging—a sense of how well one feels they fit into a field—is not there for women in computer science. "When people think of computer science the image that immediately pops into many of their minds is of the computer geek surrounded by such things as computer games, science fiction memorabilia and junk food," said Sapna Cheryan, a University of Washington assistant professor of psychology.

The authors describe this feeling as one that is garnered on a first impression of a space. "You look at the objects and make an instant appraisal of how you would fit with the objects and the people who are typically found in that environment. You also make a judgment of 'I like it here' or 'I don't belong here,'" said Cheryan.

To assess such a feeling, the authors set up a series of four experiments that were designed to aid understanding of whether stereotypical surroundings may cause women to choose fields of study over computer science.

The participants, over 250 male and female students not enrolled in a computer science course of study, and were ushered into a classroom that was either filled with stereotypical computer science objects, or one with generic crap. They were told the room was being shared with another class, and after a few minutes were asked to fill out a questionnaire probing their feelings about the room.

The survey found that women's who sat in the stereotypically decorated room expressed less interest in computer science than those who sat in the control room. Men, on the other hand, did not show a similar drop in interest. This lead the researchers to conclude that choices of classes or even major can be influenced simply by the decor of the offices, classrooms, and labs that a department has.

In a continuation on the theme, the researchers conducted three similar experiments. When faced with the choice of joining one of two all-female teams, the only difference being the objects found in the team's workroom—stereotypical versus nonstereotypical—women overwhelmingly (82 percent of the time) choose to work with the team based in the nonstereotypically decorated room.

When men and women were asked about job offers at two companies who both had a 50/50 gender ratio, where one was decorated with the usual computer science gear and the other more generic stuff, both genders preferred the nonstereotypical setting, women more so than men. The final experiment probed thoughts about working at a nondescript Web design company; again, women would choose a work environment that was not decorated in the stereotypical computer science way.

The work does show a definitive trend of nontechnical people not liking work environments that have stuff a 17-year-old male would have hanging on the walls of his room. However, outside of the occasional computer science TAs office or undergraduate dorm room, I cannot see how this stereotypical setup seems very, well... stereotypical—especially in the latter of the three experimental setups. While my personal workspace may look like an utter mess, it is not the image that my company (or any I have visited, worked with, or interviewed at) as a whole projects themselves to potential hires and customers.

Judging simply from the image that accompanys this article, the brightly colored Star Trek poster and game boxes strongly draw one's eyes and attention—after all, it's what they were designed to do! I would be curious if the disparity in ambient belonging remains if even just these two focal objects were removed from the "stereotypical computer science" workspace. Technical books and papers are one thing, but a huge color poster and unrelated video games are not what I would consider to be present in any sort of professional environment (short of a movie studio, or game development office), nor what I would think appropriate for a general use classroom at a University.

Prior work has shown that kids and teens (and by extension, I'll wager college-aged young adults) don't actually feel that the common stereotypes are descriptive of people who work in STEM fields. While I will agree that certain aspects of technical fields can be off-putting to individuals who don't know the field—compounded by arrogant jerks who revel in their smug superiority over such unenlightened people—it has been shown that by and large, people are interested if someone gives them the time of day to answer questions.

Many STEM fields suffer from a chicken-and-egg type problem. A group that is not adequately represented in teaching or high-ranking positions is by definition not present to mentor new people from that group, hence perpetuating a cycle that is very hard to break. While cleaning up the first impressions that may be perceived by those outside or new to the field will help, it will not instantly resolve the underlying issues. As the cryand for more competent technical individuals increases, however, every little bit of information that helps bring more people in is good.

Worth a mention - 12/16/09

James Cameron Confirms He Is 'Actively Involved' In 'Forbidden Planet'

(moviesblog.mtv.com) This time last year, a rumor emerged that "Avatar" director James Cameron might step up to helm a remake (of sorts) of the sci-fi classic, "Forbidden Planet." The possibility was sort of substantiated by Latino Review, who reported that Cameron had seen the script and "flipped" for it.

Shortly after, we had the opportunity to follow up with "Babylon 5" creator J. Michael Straczynski, who was reportedly developing the "Planet" script. As he told MTV News at the time, "I’ve always wanted to do something involving 'Forbidden Planet.' It’s my favorite science-fiction film of all time. I’ve watched the rights go from one company to the next. I heard that the rights at Dreamworks were about to expire and I went to Joel Silver and said I think if you move quickly you can grab it and I can write it. And he did. It’s the dream of a lifetime to play in that universe."

Straczynski went on to explain that he has a very specific plan for the project, something unique and fresh. "It’s not a remake. It’s not a reimagining. It’s not exactly a prequel," he explained at the time. "You’ll have to see it. It’s something that no one has thought of when it comes to this storyline." With all of this in mind, MTV's Josh Horowitz had to ask what was up with "Planet" when he spoke to Cameron recently at the "Avatar" junket in London.

"That's a project that I'm actively involved in, but I haven't made any decisions about it yet," Cameron said, adding "I love 'Forbidden Planet.'"

So the rumor as it was originally reported isn't quite accurate. Yet, anyway. Cameron certainly could still step up to direct, but something tells me he's probably going to want to dive back in for an "Avatar" sequel if this week's sci-fi epic performs as expected. And it should, given how freaking awesome it is.

Besides, it's not like Cameron can make a decision before he gets a feel for where the project is. Which he hasn't yet. "I haven't seen it yet," he said of Straczynski's script. "I'm supposed to get it here pretty soon."

So there you have it. Cameron is definitely interested in "Forbidden Planet," but he's not making any commitments to it yet. Publicly, anyway. All that said, I expect we'll eventually see this project blast into space. I'm just not sure that Cameron will be at the helm.




42 Crazy Awesome VFX Breakdowns

(ae.tutsplus.com) Are you ready to get pumped up? I could literally watch VFX Breakdowns all day and night... which probably explains my lack of sleep this past week. Well, I'm willing to suffer for your enjoyment... that's just the type of guy I am. Here are 42 of the most killer VFX breakdowns I could find on the web. Hold on to your jaw because it's about to hit the floor. I'm not liable for dental bills.

Take a look: http://ae.tutsplus.com/articles/roundup/42-crazy-awesome-vfx-breakdowns/




Stop-Motion Artists Get Shout-Outs For "Coraline" Golden Globe Nom

(awn.com) Henry Selick, director/screenwriter and producer: "This Golden Globe nomination is sweet validation for the years of hard work it took to bring 'Coraline' to life using stop-motion animation with the greatest crew of animators, artists, and technicians I've ever been privileged to work with. I share this nomination with all of them and we all share our thanks to the Hollywood Foreign Press."

Bill Mechanic, producer: "It is a very pleasant surprise and honor for our movie to be recognized with this nomination. The hundreds of artists who worked so hard and for so long on CORALINE all share in the joy."




Getting Wild About Facial Animation

(awn.com) At first, Spike Jonze wasn't sold on a CG approach to the facial animation for the creatures that populate his adaptation of Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are. He wanted to try animatronics, but his good friend David Fincher convinced him otherwise by showing him some of the early tests they were doing on The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (which, ironically, Jonze turned down). And that gave him the faith he needed to go down this path.

Not surprisingly, it was an unusual path -- even for CG.

The creatures were defined; the movie had been shot; and there was a rough cut, but the faces were static because of the masks. But the emotional impact was still apparent.

In steps Daniel Jeannette as animation/visual effects supervisor, who had previously worked on Happy Feet at Animal Logic after a prestigious stint at ILM.

"Early on, somebody said you should use CG creatures because it gives you the freedom to do what you want," Jeannette recounts. "It gives you a lot of control, but there's also a lot of limitation that comes with it. And, ultimately, you're talking about a lot of greenscreen work. This didn't work with Spike's vision of shooting on location or the core of the story, which is the relationship between Max and the creatures. It was better to have him interacting with actors in costumes. It was real, the performances were nuanced and emotionally it hits you in the gut."
Image
However, Framestore wound up doing all of the animation and vfx. Jonze was very hands on: directing and helping supervise the delicate and crucial task of "making sure these creatures lived and had a soul." Photo by Sonny Geras.

They tried a lot of techniques before realizing that the best approach would be limited facial animation enhancement whenever they needed lip-synch. In other words, strictly for the movement of the face, they only animated the eyes, lips, teeth and tongue.

And the faces in Wild Things were brought to life at London-based Framestore primarily using a new twist on an old technique known as "sequence projection" or "projection mapping," often used to create talking animals. For Wild Things, however, it had to be taken to a new technical and artistic level. Character suit performances were filmed with static faces. The faces or heads were tracked in 3D and a CG articulated head was animated on top to achieve the appropriate performance to match suit and dialogue.

Full Press with pics: http://www.awn.com/articles/article/getting-wild-about-facial-animation





Avatar : How Many People Does it Take to Make a Movie?

Take a look: http://blogs.sundaymercury.net/anorak-city/2009/12/avatar-how-many-people-does-it.html




When to Outsource Your 3D Model and Rendering Services

(max3dmodels.com) Imagine that your launch was successful and now customers want your animation in a 3D scene futuristic city model. You are an expert in animation, but not in 3D modeling and 3D models of the city are known to take weeks to do! 3D animation using the plan took 2 weeks and now wants a more complicated than a week. . . In the medium term and more to do. You can customize a stock 3D models of the futuristic city scene or subcontract. This project has an aggressive deadline and you're not very good at adapting 3D models of the city quickly. . . and outsourcing can allow you to focus on animation.

Sound familiar? Outsourcing 3D modeling and rendering and do it at home is a common problem 3D Model Animation Studios and artists face, especially when in a hurry to make 3D projects. When is a good time to outsource their 3D modeling? A golden rule of one of our customers is that "If anyone can do it in half the time I … Then it's time to give it away. My time is too valuable. "Normally, customers outsource 3D modeling and rendering 3D model, such as 3D scene of the city, you can customize or very effective by custom 3D services like 3D personal flat pyramid. For example, creating a 3D model of downtown New York scene in max, obj or 3ds file format. What could take weeks to do can make 3D model builder expert who specializes in 3D cities just a few days. So you get less frustration, turn faster and higher quality of results, it is worth spending money on. Here are some tips to help you know when outsourcing can work for you:

– Runs on something you're not very good and is not part of its powers. Also it will take time to learn and become more efficient at it.
– You have too many projects 3D trapped in the pipe and a limited budget prevent you from taking on more 3D artists on staff.
– 3D project is a cycle and thus avoid cuts in the future to ensure that you only need the right people at all times.
– 3D project is a project for a while.
– Positive for project bids 3D model as 3D models of the city.
– It's more productive and profitable for you to have custom 3D services experts agree. Even when you outsource 3D modeling to increase profits, as it saves more than half of the 3D project costs due to savings in labor costs. Outsourcing experts agree that having someone else do the areas that are not within its competence, can do more, and you can take advantage of lower labor costs and increase profits. Account can not do everything and there are other options and ways to improve your 3D development cycle and get your 3D projects to its customers and / or customers much faster and cheaper than the competition
– or face losing customers.

Once you've decided the best thing for you to outsource, consider using the experience of a 3D model of artists with a wide range of experience in custom 3D modeling and rendering, including 3D models of the city.





Star Trek 2 Probably Not Happening Soon

(411mania.com) In an interview with the New York Times, Paramount Pictures chairman Brad Grey seemed to indicate that Star Trek 2 is a ways off.

"As for J. J. Abrams, a producer and the director of Star Trek," the article reads, "Mr. Grey is looking for Star Trek 2. And Mission: Impossible IV. And possibly before either, what he called another 'tentpole' film to be directed by Mr. Abrams, and yet to be announced. … 'We have been wildly ambitious,' Mr. Grey said of his plans. 'It has much to do with the fact that we are feeling as strong as we are.'"

Obviously if JJ Abrams has to do another new "tentpole" film first, Star Trek 2 would have to be pushed back a bit.

The "tentpole" film in question may be Mystery on Fifth Avenue, a new adventure film that is apparently a cross between National Treasure and Jumanji.




'Avatar' Fails to Make AFI Cut

The American Film Institute largely avoided bigger studio movies and focused on smaller indie efforts as it compiled its list of the year's top 10 movies.

Announced on Sunday, the list, devoted to U.S. productions, included Pixar/Disney's 3D-animated "Up" (the No. 3 film to date with $293 million in domestic grosses) and Warner Bros.' boys-gone-wild comedy "The Hangover" (No. 4 with $277 million) but did not include James Cameron's "Avatar," which already is being lauded for its groundbreaking effects work.

Instead, the 13-person AFI jury opted for a second 3D-animated film, "Coraline"; two movies dealing with the impact of the Iraq War, "The Hurt Locker" and "The Messenger"; "Precious," the tale of an abused inner-city teenager; "A Serious Man," which follows a Job-like character as he faces life's setbacks; "A Single Man," which centers on a gay widower; "Sugar," a sports drama about a Dominican-born baseball player; and "Up in the Air," which focuses on a corporate-downsizing expert.




FBI makes arrest in 'Wolverine' Uploading Case

"X-Men Origins: Wolverine" was uploaded to a file-sharing network last spring, before its release to theaters.
(Credit: 20th Century Fox)

Update 7:50 a.m. PT: To include new information from FBI that suspect may not be source of the leak.

The FBI has accused a man of copyright infringement for allegedly uploading to the Web the feature film "X-Men Origins: Wolverine" last spring.

Gilberto Sanchez, 47, was arrested in the Bronx, N.Y., early Wednesday morning by FBI agents without incident, law enforcement sources told CNET. A spokeswoman from the FBI's Los Angeles field office, which led the investigation, confirmed the arrest.

If convicted, Sanchez faces up to three years in prison and a $250,000 fine or twice the gross gain or gross loss attributable to the offense, whichever is greater.

When the feature film from 20th Century Fox was leaked to the Internet in April, it caused panic in Hollywood because the movie, which reportedly cost $100 million to make, was not scheduled for theatrical release until May. The fear was that Internet distribution of an unauthorized copy would hurt ticket sales.

By the time the movie screened in theaters, the unauthorized copy had been watched 4.1 million times, according to market researcher BigChampagne.

According to a copy of a grand jury indictment that was unsealed last week in U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, Sanchez is accused of uploading the film to file-sharing network Megaupload.com under one of his online aliases, which include "theSkilled1" and "SkillyGilly."

The indictment does not say, however, how Sanchez allegedly obtained a working copy of the film and Laura Eimiller, an FBI spokeswoman, declined to provide those details. She did say that the agency has not ruled out more arrests. What this means is that Sanchez may not have been the source of the leak.

The copy that made the rounds online was rough. Many of the computer-generated graphics had not been inserted yet and the cables holding actors to simulate flying were visible.

The major studios say that films being leaked to the Web is a huge problem, and they have gone to great lengths to increase security. In this case, when the film first leaked, executives at Fox said they were confident that the person who leaked the movie would be caught because of forensic marks on the film copy.

Watermarks are inserted into varying film copies so that they can be identified and any leaks can be traced.

However, some proponents of content sharing claim that such leaks and the publicity they stir actually help ticket sales by building interest in a movie prior to its release--provided that the film is any good.

In 2003, a New Jersey man pleaded guilty to copyright infringement charges after uploading the superhero film "Hulk" to the Web weeks before its theatrical release. In that case, the man was sentenced to six months house arrest and ordered to pay a $7,000 fine.





George Lucas Loses Court Appeal Over Star Wars Costume Copyright

(timesonline.co.uk) George Lucas’s empire failed to strike back in the Court of Appeal today as he lost a multimillion-pound legal battle with the British creator of the Star Wars stormtrooper helmets.

Andrew Ainsworth recently began selling replicas of helmets and armour made from his original mould, prompting a $20 million (£12 million) lawsuit from Lucasfilm, Mr Lucas’s company. But yesterday a court agreed that he had not broken any British law — because his creations were not art.

“It’s taken five years but I think this should be just about the end of it,” Mr Ainsworth told The Times this morning. He is now recruiting sales and marketing staff and planning a big expansion of his memorabilia company.

Lucasfilm vowed to take the case to Britain’s new Supreme Court, saying that famous props such as the Daleks from Doctor Who could be freely copied under the Appeal Court’s ruling.
Related Links

Mr Ainsworth was a young industrial designer in Twickenham when he made the helmets in 1976, on a plastic forming machine that was usually “churning out kayaks and watersports stuff”. He was recruited via a friend who was working with Mr Lucas at the nearby Shepperton Studios.

“We just made it on spec. I didn’t even know it was for a film to begin with,” he said. Mr Ainsworth made 50 helmets, for which he was paid £20 each. He also made equipment for numerous other characters, earning about £30,000 from the Star Wars films. Lucasfilm’s earning from merchandise are estimated at several billion dollars.

In 2004, Mr Ainsworth closed his watersports equipment factory and dug out his original models. Realising that “the memorabilia market had really kicked off”, he began selling replicas.

Lucasfilm, acting to crush the rebel force, immediately sued him in the US. He did not defend the case — “taking on Lucas on his home patch is not a good idea” — and a California court awarded $20 million in damages against him, even though he had only sold 19 models in the US.

When Lucasfilm tried to enforce this in Britain, Mr Ainsworth appealed through the pages of The Times for legal help. “I got calls from about a dozen good lawyers,” he said.

During the battle that followed, Court 52 of the Royal Courts of Justice was invaded by stormtroopers and a fighter pilot from the forces of Emperor Palpatine.

Mr Justice Mannn ruled that they were not sculptures and so did not have copyright protections. They were instead industrial designs, which could be protected for only 15 years.

Yesterday Lord Justices Rix, Jacob and Patten agreed, dismissing Lucasfilm’s appeal. They said the helmet and armour had a “utilitarian” rather than artistic purpose, so “neither the armour nor the helmet are sculpture”.

They also ruled that Lucasfilm could not enforce its US copyright in Britain, but agreed with Mr Justice Mann that Mr Ainsworth did not himself own the copyright in the helmets.

Mr Ainsworth said yesterday “Anybody can now make them — but they’re not me. I make the original ones.”

He has been left with a legal bill of more than £2.5 million, although he will seek to recover many of his costs from Lucasfilm.

Asked how he might be celebrating his victory, Mr Ainsworth said, “I don’t know. Maybe we’ll go and find another galaxy.”

Worth a mention - 12/15/09

Should 'Avatar' Be Considered for Best Animated Oscar?

(ropeofsilicon.com) I'm not going to ask why Avatar isn't on the Academy's short list for Best Animated Oscar because the answer to that question is obvious… it wasn't submitted. Perhaps that's just the problem though. Why not? And don't go jumping to a quick decision. Let me give you a little food for thought. I might be able to make a case that will have you considering it much more than you may think.

How much of Avatar is CGI and how much is live-action? In reading an article at Gawker recounting a Hollywood Reporter article it says, "When completed, Cameron expects Avatar to be about 60% CG animation, based on characters created using a newly developed performance capture-based process, and 40% live action, with a lot of VFX in the imagery." That works for me considering there's most likely no real way to tell for sure.

Taking this into account, let's follow that up with a peek at the first part of the Academy's rules for what is and what isn't an animated film, at least in Oscar's eyes:

An animated feature film is defined as a motion picture with a running time of at least 70 minutes, in which movement and characters' performances are created using a frame-by-frame technique. In addition, a significant number of the major characters must be animated, and animation must figure in no less than 75 percent of the picture's running time.

Now the big question… Is Avatar animated? The first place I went in search for an answer to this question was the production notes for the film where it actually includes a separate section labeled IS IT ANIMATION? The section begins as such:

Ask the animators at WETA, and they'll tell you that the avatars and Na'vi are animated. Ask Jim Cameron, and he'll say the characters were performed by the actors. The truth is that both are right. It took great animation skill to ensure that the characters performed exactly as the actors did. But at the same time, no liberties were taken with those performances. They were not embellished or exaggerated. The animators sought to be utterly truthful to the actors' work, doing no more and certainly no less than what Sam, Zoo or Sigourney had done in the Volume. Of course the animators added a little bit, with the movement of the tails and ears, which the actors could not do themselves. But even here, the goal was to stay consistent with the emotions created by the actors during the original capture. So when Neytiri's tail lashes and her ears lower in fury, they are merely further expressing the anger created by Zoe Saldana in the moment of acting the scene.

One way of looking at the information above is to say instead of putting actors in rubber suits or makeup all James Cameron did was apply makeup and creature effects with CGI. Sort of like last year's Best Makeup Oscar-winner, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.

However, to the point of staying faithful to the actors performances similar techniques have been used in hand-drawn animation forever such as when the role of Snow White was acted out by Marge Champion as reference material for Disney animators for Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Also, as you can see in the video to the right, Helene Stanley was used for Sleeping Beauty. Obviously this is not the exact same thing as performance capture, but with this conversation it seems we're getting into varying shades of gray and it will ultimately come down to your interpretation of the facts.

Take all of this into consideration and what do you come up with? Is Avatar animated and if so, is it animated enough to be considered in the Best Animated Oscar category? What about the films I mentioned at the opening? The ones included on the short list for consideration.

To the question of how much of Avatar is CG and how much is live-action the answer was 60% CG and 40% live-action. Adding to this and having seen the film, I would put good money down saying there isn't a single frame of that film that doesn't include CG animation, let alone a scene that has more live-action elements than it does CGI. Compare this to Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel in which the only animation is six of the film's characters and based on that alone I think Avatar is already more of an animated film.

I already touched up on it a little bit, but how about performance capture? Like Avatar, Disney's A Christmas Carol is a performance capture feature with characters portrayed inside CG environments and it is considered animation. Doesn't this mean Avatar should be considered animation as well?

Look at the clip from Avatar to the right, to my knowledge there isn't a single element of that image that isn't CGI, it's simply performance capture, animated creatures and CG environments.

Finally, the one thing the four contending films listed above have in common is they all employ CGI, just like Avatar and many, many other films we could open this discussion to. I bring this upbecause it has pretty much been agreed upon around the Internet Avatar will be taking home the Oscar for Best Visual Effects, which creates an interesting conundrum. Why is the CG in Avatar considered visual effects while the CG employed for a Pixar or DreamWorks film simply considered animation? If Avatar is up for Oscar's Best Visual Effects award shouldn't Up and Monsters vs. Aliens be as well? The fact they aren't, but A Christmas Carol is, interests me.

Perhaps the real question is When is CGI no longer considered visual effects and when is it considered animation? The line has to be drawn somewhere because it seems extremely grey at the moment.





New Director Boards Creature From the Black Lagoon

(Los Angeles Times) Universal's Creature from the Black Lagoon has found a new mate in director Carl Eric Rinsch.

The L.A. Times reports commercial helmer Rinsch (and one time contender for the Alien prequel) has been tapped to direct the long-gestating remake.

Gary Ross penned the script, but Universal is starting over in the story stage.

Meanwhile, the man who was supposed to bring the Creature back to life, Breck Eisner, is moving on to The Brood remake.





Hollywood FX Artist to Direct Mexico's Biggest Film Ever

(cinematical.com) Everyone in Hollywood just wants to direct, but when it comes to visual effects artists becoming full-fledged filmmakers, the results aren't always great. Among those who've made the transition, for better or worse, are Joe Johnston (Jurassic Park III), Eric Brevig (Journey to the Center of the Earth 3D), Colin and Greg Strause (Aliens vs. Predator - Requiem) and Neil Blomkamp (District 9).

Joining them now is Dean Wright, Oscar-nominated for effects work on The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe and a veteran artist who had a hand in Titanic, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Kangaroo Jack and the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Wright, who got some of his directing experience handling the second unit filming for The Return of the King, is already at work on a Jesus biopic called Kingdom Come, slated for release in 2010. And now, according to Variety, he's already set up his follow-up, another epic, titled Cristiada.

Scripted by Michael James Love (Gaby: A True Story) the historical film will tell of Mexico's Cristero War, which took place in the late 1920s between Catholic rebels and the anticlerical Mexican government of the time. While the actual war lasted from 1926 to 1929, its roots were in the 1857 Constitution of Mexico, which aimed to rid the nation of its heavy Catholic influence. Following the Mexican Revolution, the new 1917 Constitution revisited such provisions for religious persecution.

Cristiada will reportedly be Mexico's biggest production ever, though the film will be in English. Coming off the LOTR and Narnia films, we can probably expect large battle sequences and great set pieces, yet it's hard to imagine Wright needing to apply his visual effects experience here. Between this and his Biblical epic Kingdom Come, it's presumable the filmmaker is now less interested in fantasy and science fiction than movies celebrating Christianity. Considering The Passion of the Christ grossed around the same domestically as each of the LOTR installments, it doesn't seem like a lesser direction to go in, either.





Framestore's Avatar VFX Crew Pulls 11 hour days for 7 Months

(thenational.ae) The buzz from the production company Fox is that Avatar represents a quantum leap for special effects, akin to the likes of King Kong, 2001: A Space Odyssey and Jurassic Park. But many fear that, due to its heavy reliance on digital effects, Avatar is just as likely to become the next Phantom Menace.

Despite these early reservations, the small number of reviews that have emerged in the past few days have been largely positive. The trade paper Variety called Cameron’s new world “a place worth visiting” and The Hollywood Reporter refered to the “jaw-dropping wonder” of Avatar.

“Special effects have become more than just embellishments within films, now they seem to be the driving force behind the way films are conceived and marketed,” says Simon Hunter, the president of the New York Film Academy, Abu Dhabi.

“Home cinemas have changed the reasons why we go to the movies, and now Hollywood is looking to create event pictures with extraordinary special effects that force people to see something on the big screen.”

Throughout his career, Cameron has pioneered the use of computer-generated imagery in films such as Titanic, Terminator 2 and The Abyss. Although much of Avatar is computer-generated, its live-action elements were filmed using the Fusion 3D camera system, invented by Cameron for the project.

“The potential pitfall is that when you have too many toys to play with and the focus becomes the toys and not the story. Story is still everything in filmmaking,” warns Hunter.

Avatar also uses the same actor-driven motion-capture technology that brought Gollum to life in the Lord of the Rings trilogy and can currently be seen in Robert Zemeckis’s A Christmas Carol.

To craft the most technically ambitious film in cinema history, Cameron enlisted the services of three of the world’s top visual-effects companies: Peter Jackson’s Weta Digital, George Lucas’s Industrial Light and Magic and the London-based outfit Framestore.

“It involved a hideous number of man hours. We simply didn’t do conventional working days,” says Jonathan Fawkner, a VFX supervisor at Framestore. The company won an Academy Award for its work on the 2007 film The Golden Compass and has also provided digital effects for the Harry Potter films, as well as The Dark Night and many others.

Avatar demanded that nearly 150 of Framestore’s artists and animators work 11 hour days for seven months – all for just three of the films special-effects sequences. By contrast, the team at Weta Digital spent almost four years on the film.

Having worked so intensely on Avatar, and with an acute awareness of the technological challenges involved, Fawkner believes that the film’s reputation as a giant leap forward in the evolution of special effects is well deserved.

“Does Avatar represent a pinnacle? I think so,” he says. “The technology is the best that’s available and James Cameron doesn’t set the bar low. There’s no wool to be pulled over his eyes. If he could have come to London and pushed a mouse around, he probably would have.”





Thor Writers to Pen Vampire Apocalypse

(The Hollywood Reporter) Ashley Edward Miller and Zack Stentz, who wrote Thor for Marvel Studios, will pen the futuristic vampire project Damn Nation at Paramount.

The Hollywood Reporter says that Dark Horse Entertainment is producing the adaptation, which is based on a comic by Andrew Cosby and art by Jason Alexander (not the "Seinfeld" actor).

Set in a U.S. evacuated after an attack from "inhuman nocturnal predators," the comic tells the tale of the survivors after the government has been forced to relocate to London while scientists search for a solution.





300 Prequel Moves Forward

(Los Angeles Times) Frank Miller says the new project, his follow-up to 300, now titled Xerxes, begins about 10 years before the events of 300, and Zack Snyder has expressed interest in it as a film property as well. "It's the battle of Marathon through my lens," Miller said. "I've finished the plot and I'm getting started on the artwork."

Miller said that during his research trips to Greece he realized that the myth and history overlap begins to blur, which adds to the storytelling allure. "The fact and the myth are inseparable and, believe me, when you go sailing for a while in the Aegean Sea, you start believing in Poseidon."

300 earned $456 million in theaters worldwide.






'Star Trek' Sequel To Reflect Contemporary War Issues

(latimesblogs.latimes.com) Here's what Roberto Orci, one of the show's key creators, had to say:

"We’ve literally had two meetings now. We haven’t decided anything but we’re starting to circle around some ideas. We got a lot of fan response from the first one and a considerable amount of critical response and one of the things we heard was, ‘Make sure the next one deals with modern-day issues.’ We’re trying to keep it as up-to-date and as reflective of what’s going on today as possible. So that’s one thing, to make it reflect the things that we are all dealing with today.

I asked Orci somewhat flippantly if that meant we might see Starfleet grappling with the ethics of torture or dealing with a rising terrorist threat or perhaps a painful, politicized war with the Klingons.

"Well yeah, those are the kind of issues we're talking about. Wow, you're good! But seriously that's the way we're thinking, that's an approach. So if you have any ideas ... "






Avatar Scores Best Motion Picutre Nom for the 67th Annual Golden Globe Awards

(The Hollywood Foreign Press Association) The Hollywood Foreign Press Association announced the nominations for "The 67th Annual Golden Globe Awards" this morning which you can view below. The awards will take place Sunday, January 17, 2010, at The Beverly Hilton with a live telecast airing on NBC at 8 PM (EST).


BEST ANIMATED FEATURE FILM
Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs
Fantastic Mr. Fox
Coraline
The Princess and the Frog
Up


BEST MOTION PICTURE - DRAMA
Avatar
The Hurt Locker
Inglourious Basterds
Precious: Based on the Novel "Push" by Sapphire
Up in the Air






Weta Workshop's Richard Taylor Joins With Infiniti To Build $200 Million-plus Fund

(Variety.com) Hong Kong private equity firm Infiniti Capital has set up a fund with the Chengdu-based Green Leaf Film Studios and Richard Taylor, co-founder of the Weta vfx house in New Zealand, to raise between $200 million and $400 million to invest in film, TV and other projects for the Chinese market.

The fund, called Panda Screen Prods., will focus on animated and visual effects-driven live-action products, especially those with merchandising potential. Some products will be China-focused, while others will have broader appeal.

Infiniti Capital’s Hong Kong subsidiary, Infiniti Advantage, will manage the fund.

Chinese productions will be co-produced by Green Leaf Film Studios and the team is in discussions with entertainment industry experts to support the project. The group is also in talks with the regional government about access to facilities, land and resources.

Milestone Capital, a New Zealand-based private investment group, helped set up the fund.

Infiniti Capital also has offices in Christchurch, New Zealand, and Sydney, Australia.





What Might -- and Might Not -- Win the Visual Effects Oscar

When it comes to the Academy Award for best visual effects, you might think there are too many possible contenders to put on one ballot. And you'd be right. That's why the Academy Visual Effects Branch Executive Committee has narrowed it down to a list of 15 semifinalists, from which the nominees and eventual winner will be chosen. Here's what's in the running now:

Angels & Demons, Avatar, Coraline, A Christmas Carol, District 9, G-Force, G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Sherlock Holmes, Star Trek, Terminator Salvation, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, 2012, Watchmen, and Where the Wild Things Are.

In a couple weeks, the committee will narrow the list down even further, to seven entries, and then 15-minute excerpts of those seven films will be shown to all the members of the Academy's Visual Effects Branch. The branch will then vote to determine the three actual nominees.

Scanning the list of 2009 releases, I note the following films that might conceivably have been nominated for this award but that didn't make the shortlist:

Drag Me to Hell, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, Land of the Lost, New Moon, Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian, Ninja Assassin, Surrogates, Underworld: Rise of the Lycans, X-Men Origins: Wolverine.

Considering a lot of the CGI work in shortlisted Sherlock Holmes is aggressively bad, I would argue that something like Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian should have taken its place, but I don't think I can muster enough energy to be truly outraged at any of the omissions. Can you?