Worth a mention - 11/12/10

IATSE Formally Announces Visual Effects Organizing Drive

(fxNewswire) For over a year IATSE has been working with members of the Visual Effects community to establish an organizing campaign for artists. To that end they are formally and publicly announcing that effort. In addition they have hired Jim Goodman as a full time representative whose sole responsibility will be to organize VFX artists into IATSE. After the jump you will find a link to a letter sent by International President Matthew D. Loeb to the Visual Effects Society with the details of this effort. Here is an excerpt:

“The IATSE represents more than 112,000 entertainment industry workers. Over 25,000 of our 60,000 members who work making motion pictures throughout the U.S. and Canada are in Los Angeles. These members enjoy the protections of the largest entertainment union in the world. The contracts under which they work provide for working conditions and benefit plans that are second to none. But there is an important group missing from our union, The Visual Effects Artists, and it is my firm belief that their rightful home is within the IATSE.”

Some background and the complete letter follows….

IATSE, the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees is the same guild that represents Cinematographers (local 600), Art Directors (local 800), Animation Guild (local 839), Motion Picture Editors Guild (local 700)… see this wikipedia entry for a complete list, but it is safe to say that the majority of people on a film set are under IATSE.

What does this mean? What about the recent IBEW announcements? How does this work with recent efforts of The Animation Guild to expand representation of Visual Effects artists? We have extended an invitation to both IATSE and IBEW to come on the fxpodcast and talk directly to artists and explain what they feel they can offer. We hope they will take us up on that very soon.

Full Letter: http://www.fxguide.com/qt/3129/iatse-formally-announces-visual-effects-organizing-drive



Skyline Looks For $15 Million Box Office Attack

(examiner.com) Skyline, the newest contender in the recent alien invasion craze gets a wide release this weekend. The sci-fi film has been gaining considerable buzz with mysterious trailers that don’t reveal much besides people being sucked into large spacecraft. The film has very little star power and hasn’t been focusing on that aspect. The big budget film hasn’t received much praise and probably won’t last long in theaters. Expectations are low with a predicted opening weekend of $9 to $15 Million.




Digital Domain Hiring Ahead of Schedule, Company Adding Another Port St. Lucie Location

(tcpalm.com) PORT ST. LUCIE — Digital Domain Holdings is moving ahead to hire 500 employees by 2014 in exchange for getting nearly $70 million worth of state and local incentives and is also expanding beyond expectations.

Digital Domain Holdings Chairman John Textor said the company has reached the 100-employee mark.

“Our target for year end is 61, so this puts us well ahead of that,” he said. “Our goal is to get to more than 500 people by the end of 2014. And at 100 employees and hiring very quickly, with a plan to hire an additional 200 by mid year (2011), we’re really going to blow away our projections.”

In exchange for city incentives, Digital Domain agreed to hire up to 500 people with an average annual salary of about $65,000.

Textor said an “overwhelming” majority of the 100 employees are local hires. Dozens, including one of the city’s laid off police officers, are from Port St. Lucie. Others are from Treasure Coast counties.

“The company is growing beyond planned,” Textor said.

In addition to an approximate 130,000 square-foot studio the city is building for the company in Tradition, Digital Domain Holdings also is in the midst of leasing 65,000 square feet of space on the eastern side of the city along U.S. 1, Textor said.

The lease is expected to be formalized within days. The company also acquired 4 acres last week from Tradition developer Core Communities for future expansion. The 4 acres front the Tradition studio and tie into Village Parkway. The company now has 19 acres in Tradition.

Digital Domain Holdings also occupies temporary space at Tradition Station, formerly Core Communities headquarters, and in the Kight Center for Emerging Technologies at Indian River State College.

The company also plans to build the Digital Domain Institute in West Palm Beach, a four-year program in advanced digital media supported by the College of Motion Picture Arts at Florida State University.

Last month, Digital Domain Holdings conducted a Tech Job Fair at Digital Domain Park. As a result of the tech fair, which drew thousands of job seekers, the company has hired 50 additional employees.

“We’re hiring every day now,” Textor said. “We’re off to a good start. Our fingers are crossed.”

Work performed in the Tradition studio will be much like what consumers would see in a Pixar or Dreamworks animated film, Textor said. The Tradition studio also will produce simulation programs for the U.S. military.

Digital Domain’s eastern location will focus more on 3-D visual effects for live-action feature films, a field the company hadn’t planned on entering, Textor said.

“The studio at Tradition was always intended to basically support our original content animation business where we’re doing full length feature films for the family-focused market,” Textor said.

The company’s studios in Venice, Calif., and Vancouver, British Columbia, produce visual effects for live action feature films, television commercials and animation for feature films. Digital Domain Holdings also has a growing studio in the San Francisco area, which is involved in similar work, Textor said.

“This facility that we’re opening up on the eastern side of Port St. Lucie will be an additional resource for our team out in California and Vancouver to do work that is complementary for projects that are happening in those studios,” Textor said.

Ghost Girl Sim effects

London based studio: Horsie in the Hedge Cinema helms GHOST GIRL effects with collabortion from California based; Marauder Film using the 5D.

http://www.vimeo.com/16735614




Paramount Set To Move On VFX Sequels

(blog.moviefone.com) During a Viacom conference call this week, the company talked up several of its future franchise projects that their studio Paramount Pictures plans to get moving on in the very near future.

Risky Biz Blog reports that according to the company, their planned reboot of the "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" and Jack Ryan franchises along with sequels to "Star Trek" and "G.I. Joe" are in active development.

In terms of timing, the studio says all these projects would not see a release before late Fall next year at the earliest, more likely most will be in 2012.

Amongst other facts garnered or confirmed during the call - "Star Trek 2" kicks off shooting in January, and the 'Turtles' reboot will be live-action.





New 'Call of Duty' Video Game Hits $360 Million in 24 Hours

(washingtonexaminer.com) NEW YORK — "Call of Duty: Black Ops" blasted entertainment records this week by raking in $360 million in its first 24 hours on sale, a dramatic and lucrative indication that video games have cemented their place as mainstream entertainment on a par with movies, books and music.

For the hordes of devoted fans who waited at midnight Monday to get their hands on the military shooter, this is hardly a surprise. For them, popping the new "Call of Duty" into a game console is the equivalent of turning on the TV to watch the Super Bowl or sitting back with a tub of popcorn to watch the latest blockbuster movie.

But while movies happen at you, video games allow the user to affect the story's outcome. That hands-on experience and interactions with other players fit the emerging social-media era where consumers demand a voice in whatever they do.

Across two years, with a budget well in the tens of millions of dollars, the developers of "Black Ops" created a world that immerses players in Cold War-era battles with settings ranging from 1960s Cuba to Vietnam and the Soviet Union.

Its intricate graphics and details — down to the gruesome sound a knife makes when pulled from an enemy's neck — are amplified in players' homes through big-screen TV sets and powerful speakers.

In one mission, which takes place with John F. Kennedy in the White House before the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion and the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, players must shoot their way through Havana to assassinate a young Fidel Castro.

Cuba state-run media has leveled harsh criticism at the game, calling it "doubly perverse" by glorifying assassination and stimulating "sociopathic attitudes in North American children and adolescents."

"What the United States couldn't accomplish in more than 50 years, they are now trying to do virtually," said an article on Cubadebate, a state-run news website.

Though game developers see their creations as art, not everyone agrees. Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments over a California law that seeks to ban the sale of ultra-violent video games to minors. Parents' groups and politicians say games should be regulated like firearms and tobacco rather than like books and movies, which are protected by the First Amendment. A ruling is expected next year.

Many liken these games to movies — and it's an apt comparison. Along with the hyper-realistic cinematic scenery and surprise plot twists, there are well-known actors — including Gary Oldman, Ed Harris and Sam Worthington — lending their voices to the game's main characters. Also, the motion-capture technology used to track actors' bodies is the same that was used in "Avatar."

Activision Blizzard Inc. sold 5.6 million units the day "Call of Duty" went on sale, according to the company. Its predecessor, "Call of Duty, Modern Warfare 2," sold 4.7 million copies in 24 hours to reap $310 million on its first day of sale last year. Within a week, it made $550 million.





Industrial Light & Magic Documentary Battles With Supernatural Werewolf

(latimesblogs.latimes.com) Industrial Light & Magic: Creating the Impossible: This new special marks the 35th anniversary of the design studio with footage of milestones and interviews (9 p.m. Encore). At the same time: Supernatural: What looks like a werewolf killing turns out to be the work of a skinwalker (Andrew Rothenberg) who’s taken the form of a family dog to avenge the dog’s owner’s enemies in this new episode (9 p.m. KTLA).




Disney Making 'Airman' Movie With Motion Capture

The best-selling novel 'Airman' is ready to take off in theaters. The $150 million film version of Eoin Colfer's 2008 novel 'Airman' will feature the same motion-capture technology that powered 2004's 'The Polar Express' and 2007's 'Beowulf'.

Writer Ann Peacock, best known for 2005's 'The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe', has been tapped to pen the script, according to Variety. Gil Kenan ('City of Embers') is set to direct and and Disney will produce in conjunction with Robert Zemeckis' ImageMovers company.

In the novel, the story centers around a boy named Connor living on an island off Ireland. After being blamed for the murder of the king and subsequently thrown in jail, the boy passes his time designing a flying machine that he had dreamed of for years. There's no word yet, though, on how faithful the film adaptation will be.

Peacock's schedule is quickly filling up these days. In addition to 'Airman', the writer recently sold the story of 'Odysseus' to Warner Bros. and her screenplay for 'The First Grader' is currently in pre-production for the BBC.




THX 3D Certification Honored

(3dtvwatcher.co.uk) THX, the system developed initially at George Lucas’ LucasFilm, has been acknowledged for its contribution to the advancement of 3D technology.

The International CES Innovations 2011 Design and Engineering Award was given to THX, acknowledging its work in testing thoroughly the quality of 3DTVs.

THX’s system uses over 400 tests to measure the quality of 3D hardware, and with the technology still in its infancy, such work will no doubt lead to the progression of hardware, and better products for the consumer market. Rick Dean of THX spoke about the unique nature of the project; “THX has introduced the world’s first and only 3D performance benchmark.”





Injured “Transformers 3″ Extra Almost Ready To Be Released from Hospital

(hollywoodnews.com) HollywoodNews.com: Gabriela Cedillo, who was seriously injured while being an extra on the set of “Transformers 3″, is finally almost ready to be released from the hospital. After a cable pulling one of the stunt cars came loose and struck her in the head, she has had to go under multiple surgeries, and still has a lot of rehab ahead of her.

Her attorney, Todd A. Smith told Radar Online, “We’ve had experts look at all of the apparatus and it was clear from their evaluation that the welding that was done to secure the attachment point on the rear axle of the stunt car was completely inadequate. They didn’t create a proper fusion.”

In regards to her care he added, “Gabriela is still in the Rehab Institute of Chicago but she’s about to be released home so she can be taken in for outpatient physical and speech therapy. She’ll have to go in multiple times a week for extensive rehabilitation care. She continues to have paralysis issues on her left side.”

Smith points out that Paramount Pictures haven’t been too “cooperative” with the accident and that they “seek to call this a freak accident.”





Behind-the-Scenes Photos of ILM’s Greats: Jurassic Park, Raiders of the Lost Ark, E.T., and Beyond

(vanityfair.com) Eight-time Oscar winner Dennis Muren is the first visual-effects artist to earn a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Ahead of Encore’s November 12 documentary about Industrial Light & Magic—the visual-effects arm of Lucasfilm where he is creative director—Muren shares behind-the-scenes photos from five of his famous projects: Terminator 2, Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Empire Strikes Back, Jurassic Park, and E.T.

Take a look: http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/features/2010/11/industrial-light-and-magic-201011?currentPage=all





Skyline Critics Snub VFX Sups Turned Directors

(rottentomatoes.com)

-"Skyline" plays like an effects guru's resume reel, not a movie.

Roger Moore
Orlando Sentinel

-A good example of what can visually be achieved on a tight budget, but an even better example of why filmmaking should be left to filmmakers.

Anders Wotzke
Cut Print Review

-We get some watchable flurries of hunt-'em-down suspense between the interminable kvetchings of the human prey, but the only salient reason to see this is the creature design, by those HR Giger-inspired wizards Alec Gillis and Tom Woodruff Jr.

Tim Robey
Daily Telegraph

-A laughably bad sci-fi mash-up with some above-average special effects.

Megan Lehmann
Hollywood Reporter




The Art of Big Bird: A Puppeteer's Alternative Career Path

(aolnews.com) -- They're two of the most recognized and beloved characters in American culture -- Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch. But did you know that before they made Sesame Street the most well-known neighborhood in the land, they served in the military?

In fact, after the two felt superstars were discharged, they almost worked for Walt Disney as animators and illustrators. Of course, Jim Henson would have had a major problem with this -- so he hired them first. The rest is history.

Well, in a manner of speaking anyway. It wasn't the puppets that served our country and almost worked for Disney, it was the man behind them.

Caroll Spinney, the voice and puppeteer of both Oscar and Bird, has had a fascinating career, bringing to life two mainstays of just about everyone's childhood. But he also had an entirely separate career path -- that of an illustrator and artist.

Caroll Spinney, the voice and actor behind Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch, shows us how to draw Oscar. Selections from his lifetime "alternate career" of illustration and animation are on display at ToonSeum in Pittsburgh, starting Saturday.

That's the story behind "The Art of Caroll Spinney," an exhibit opening this weekend at ToonSeum, a cartoon museum in Pittsburgh. The exhibit contains works that span Spinney's life, from his childhood cartoons to the comic strip he drew while in the Air Force and his books illustrating Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch.

"I started drawing when I was about 6 years old," Spinney told AOL News. "I was in love with the funnies [comic strips]. Back then, Bugs Bunny, Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck had their own strips, and you could see them every week in full color. I loved it so much, I drew my own comics."

Art runs in the Spinney family. His mother was a painter, and two of his children are illustrators. Even his granddaughter, age 10, draws.

"The things she produces ... it's like they're from an adult," Spinney said with a chuckle. "Better than mine, even."
Big Bird Carroll Spinney ToonSeum
ToonSeum
Big Bird walks the moon in this painting by Spinney, Bird's puppeteer and voice.

Spinney started his professional cartooning career at the young age of 12, penning a comic strip for an American magazine published in China. He got the gig through a friend's mother, and when he realized he could get paid actual money to draw a cartoon strip, Spinney couldn't say no.

"It was Chinese, so I couldn't draw it left-to-right. I drew it vertical, to match their print. I never understood why until much later," he said.

Drawing comics wasn't just a hobby that paid for Spinney, however. He claims it was providence.

"When I enlisted, a friend told me to bring my cartoons and art with me. 'It might open doors,' he said. Boy, did it," Spinney said.

Instead of shipping off to fight on the front lines of the Korean War, Spinney became an illustrator and painter for the Air Force, drawing and designing campaign posters. He also drew "Harvey," a cartoon for the military paper, which landed him an interview with Walt Disney when he was discharged.
Harvey, Carroll Spinney, ToonSeum
ToonSeum
Spinney drew "Harvey" for nearly four years while he was in the Air Force.

"It didn't pay much," he quipped. "But I did get to meet Walt. It was such an honor. He came into the office where I was interviewing."

However, the extremely low pay pushed him away from Disney and toward a Boston television production agency that animated title sequences for commercials and shows.

"I needed a hobby," Spinney said. "So I got into puppetry."

Through his contacts at the production company, Spinney became Mr. Lion on the "Bozo the Clown" show, a stint that lasted nine years and brought him to the annual Puppeteers of America festival in Salt Lake City in 1969 -- a fateful visit where he met Jim Henson.

"Jim was in the audience during a performance I was giving. Immediately after, he introduced himself and offered me a job on this new show he was just asked to do, 'Sesame Street,' " Spinney said.
Big Bird Carroll Spinney ToonSeum
ToonSeum
According to "Sesame Street" creator Jim Henson, Spinney's illustrations of Big Bird were the best.

Henson needed a puppeteer who was willing to do a daily gig for a child-oriented show. At the time, Henson was performing on variety shows such as "The Tonight Show With Johnny Carson," doing adult-oriented humor.

"The thought of doing a children's show wasn't something he thought he'd be very good at," Spinney said.

Henson asked Spinney to help him create, puppeteer and voice characters, starting with a friendly -- if incredibly big -- yellow bird and a green grouch based on a grumpy garbage collector in Henson's neighborhood.

That's where he met ToonSeum board member and friend Jim Martin.

"I was literally Oscar the Grouch's right hand," Martin explained with a laugh. "When [Spinney] ran Oscar, his right hand was in Oscar's mouth and his left hand was Oscar's left hand. So I was his right."

Together, Martin and Spinney brought to life many of the characters on "Sesame Street." As the years passed, Martin became a fan of Spinney's "other" art, illustration.
Big Bird Carroll Spinney ToonSeum
ToonSeum
Spinney has been drawing his whole life, but he only started working in puppetry as a hobby after getting out of the Air Force.

"He's quite gifted," Martin told AOL News. "He's not just a celebrity who draws or paints. He's an illustrator, animator, puppeteer. ... An artist through and through."

For years, Martin thought there was an entirely other side to the man who brought us Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch -- a side that people needed to see. So he conceptualized "The Art of Caroll Spinney" for ToonSeum.

"We are honored to present the works of Caroll Spinney," ToonSeum executive director Joe Wos said. "It is truly as if we are viewing a wonderful alternate cartoon universe where one of the world's greatest puppeteers shows off his talents as a cartoonist."

The exhibit, which runs from Saturday through Jan. 30, features original paintings, sketches and more. Spinney will be in Pittsburgh on the opening night for ToonSeum's annual fundraiser, "Ka-Blam! The Return of Saturday Mornings."
Big Bird Carroll Spinney ToonSeum
ToonSeum
Here's something you don't see on "Sesame Street" -- Big Bird in flight!

Martin explained that the goal of the exhibit was not only to showcase the artistry of one of the world's most beloved puppeteers, but also to show children, young and old, that they can do anything they open their hearts to.

"You never know where your life path will take you," Martin said. "Here's a man on the career path of an illustrator, and he became Big Bird, one of the most beloved characters in history."


Jon Favreau to Enter the Magic Kingdom

(Variety) Jon Favreau is now attached to Magic Kingdom, a family feature that takes place in a fantasy version of Disneyland, reports Variety.

Favreau, currently gearing up to release his Cowboys & Aliens with Universal next summer, will helm the project for Disney. Currently without a script (though a version by Ronald Moore was allegedly written and shelved), the project is being compared to Night at the Museum, treating the theme park in the same way that museums have been treated for that franchise.

Separately from Magic Kingdom, Disney is filming Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, the fourth film in the franchise, The Haunted Mansion with Guillermo del Toro, Tomorrowland and Jungle Cruise, all of which are based on existing Disney theme park rides.




Robert Zemeckis Return To Live Action Nixed?

(Deadline) Phillip Noyce is currently in negotiations for a film called Timeless from Relativity Media, reports Deadline.

Based on a spec script by Bill Kelly (Enchanted), Timeless is said to deal with a man who builds a time machine so that he can travel back and see his recently-deceased wife one last time.

Warner Bros. was recently said to be involved with a time travel film of the same name with Robert Zemeckis attached to direct. His Timeless was announced as marking his return to live-action filmmaking.

It is currently unclear whether or not these are, indeed, the same film or, if they are dueling time travels projects, which will retain the Timeless title.





Marvel Planning Spin-off for 'Iron Man''s War Machine

(nme.com) Following Marvel Studios' plans for Iron Man 3 in 2013, they have announced they are now planning a spin-off for film for the character's sidekick, War Machine. The studio also have plans to release Thor and Captain America in 2011, while The Avengers is set for 2012.

Pajiba.com is reporting that a pitch for a War Machine film has gone out to writers and an official announcement is expected to follow shortly.

In the comics, War Machine is the nickname of a second suit of armour created by Tony Stark that is used by his friend, Air Force Colonel James 'Rhodey' Rhodes.

Actor Don Cheadle has played the part in both Iron Man films, and is expected to reprise his role for both the The Avengers and the standalone film.





Avatar Inspires Groundbreaking VR Tool

(inavateonthenet.net) A development at the UK’s University of Abertay Dundee will open the doors to the use of incredibly sophisticated, 3D, virtual environments in sectors such as education or medical. Using virtual cameras, Wii-like motion controllers and techniques pioneered by James Cameron in Avatar; computer games researchers claim the system can be created for less than £100. Video content in main story.

James Cameron invented a new way of filming called Simul-cam, where the image recorded is processed in real-time before it reaches the director’s monitor screen. This allows actors in motion-capture suits to be instantly seen as the blue Na’vi characters, without days spent creating computer-generated images.

Project Motus, led by computer games technology lecturer Matt Bett, links the power of a virtual camera – where a computer enhances what a film camera could achieve – using a motion-sensor. This allows intuitive, immediately responsive camera actions within computer-generated worlds.

Bett said: “Avatar is a fantastic film in terms of its technical achievements. To push the boundaries of filmmaking required the creation of brand new techniques, which is staggering. What the Simul-cam technology allows is a kind of augmented reality, where the computer-generated world can be seen immediately.

“What I wanted to do was turn this on its head, and bring this power to home computers. Using a new Sixense electromagnetic motion controller, we can now manipulate a virtual camera in any virtual environment – be it a film, an animation, a computer game, or a simulation tool for teaching.”

Project associate Erin Michno, an undergraduate Computer Games Technology student at Abertay University, added: “This tool could completely change the way […] computer-aided learning is delivered to students around the world.

“In the classroom and lecture theatre, having this level of control for such a small price would allow some things which just aren’t possible – performing virtual operations live on screen, flying through the inside of an engine – in any school and any university.”





Dino De Laurentiis Dies, Aged 91

(indiemoviesonline.com) Dino De Laurentiis, passed away today at the age of 91.

Dino De Laurentiis, the Italian producer who gave us an ape-suited Rick Baker clambering up a model of the World Trade Center in 1976's King Kong remake, who honoured us with Brian Blessed bellowing “GORDON'S ALIVE?!?” in Flash Gordon, and who backed movies by such luminaries as Fellini, Bergman, Cronenberg and Lynch, has died in Los Angeles at the age of 91.

De Laurentiis took a sizeable blow in 1984 with the failure of the $40m big screen adaptation of Frank Herbert's off-world opus, Dune. The producer demonstrated there were no hard feelings over that titanic bust, by backing the next project from the director of said movie, David Lynch, which turned out to be Blue Velvet. His De Laurentiis Entertainment Group also produced Sam Raimi's Evil Dead II in 1987, and he and David Cronenberg (with whom he had previously collaborated on 1983's The Dead Zone) worked together on Total Recall, though that ultimately faltered due to disagreements over the script.




VFX on the Cheap: Is Hollywood Abandoning Found Footage Sci-Fi?

(techland.com) Apparently, the world of found footage sci-fi movies is very like the movie Highlander: There can only be one. After The Weinstein Company greenlit Timur Bekmambetov's Apollo 18 last week, two other movies that were planning to use the same "fake documentary footage shot by a character in the movie" gimmick have found themselves in trouble as a result. Is Hollywood realizing that some ideas can be overused?

Yesterday, Roland Emmerich dropped out of The Zone, his mysterious project that he was promising would be delivered at an amazingly low price ($5 million), without explanation, and then today, it's been revealed that Warner Bros has dropped Dark Moon, a project from producer Akiva Goldsman that it had purchased just last month. Both moves are believed to be as a result of Apollo 18's pick-up; while the plot of Dark Moon is close enough to Apollo's to make some sense of Warners' leaving the project (Essentially, both follow the idea that manned moon missions continued past Apollo 17, and that said missions had uncovered mysterious things happening on the moon; Dark Moon has since been picked up by indie company Dark Castle), the fate of The Zone is said to be down to more practical concerns; one theory behind the project's shutdown is that Emmerich was worried that Apollo's early March 2011 release date would have overshadowed the projected late March date for his own movie.

Whether or not Apollo 18 was behind either move, it's interesting timing for both - and surprising, too, considering the recent success of Paranormal Activity 2 and relatively low-budget nature of the genre. Could this be the end of found footage genre movies, or just another lull while it awaits another Cloverfield?




Ouija Board Game Movie Will Have Spirit Packed VFX

(popwatch.ew.com) Ouija-board-movieImage Credit: Time & Life Pictures Creative/Getty Images It looks like the Ouija movie, unbelievably, continues to be real. The L.A. Times reports that Michael Bay’s production company Platinum Dunes, which owns the rights to the title, are in serious talks with Taken director Pierre Morel to helm the film. This corroborates producer Brad Fuller’s hints that the Ouija movie will in fact be a rollicking action-adventure flick in which protagonists will periodically gather around an Ouija board, link hands, and solemnly consult nearby spirits as to the best course of action.

With a Battleship film in the works, talks of a Monopoly film, and now Ouija, it’s as if our entire childhoods will soon have film adaptations. What’s next? Chess: 3-D? Quick, somebody purchase the rights to Tic Tac Toe! At least, however, there’s a little bit more to Ouija than a recognizable brand name: Ouija actually started as a spiritual artifact, an occult divining tool that was even briefly used during World War I. The Parker Brothers slapped an electronic voice box on it and popularized it as a toy, but the Ouija board has a plenty of history and culture behind it.





"Y: The Last Man" Film Still In Limbo

(darkhorizons.com) "The Incredible Hulk" and "Clash of the Titans" director Louis Leterrier says he still wants to direct the film adaptation of acclaimed comic "Y: The Last Man", but the project itself is proving a difficult sell.

"It's kind of stuck somewhere now. I still want to do it. I'm passionate about it. But it's stuck. People don't know what to do with it. I'd love to do it, but I need people to finance it, and the people financing it don't know if it's a TV show a movie, or what it should be" the helmer told MTV News.

One approach that definitely appeals to him is as a big-budget serialised TV series, an approach that would be looked favourably upon by financiers and networks these days after the recent highly successful series launch of the zombie-themed comic adaptation "The Walking Dead" on AMC.




Old and New in Mix for Star Tours Sequel

(orlandosentinel.com) The Star Wars universe is expanding through a portal at Disney World. New droids and a new story will be introduced via the revamped Star Tours attraction at Disney's Hollywood Studios next year.

"The time period that we've chosen for the story this time around is causing us to go through and make some adjustments throughout the attraction," says Tom Fitzgerald, executive vice president and senior creative executive at Walt Disney Imagineering.

Disney is keeping many of the details secret, but executives have revealed that Rex, the pilot of the old version, will no longer guide guests. Through plot twists and turns, the pilot of the new Star Tours will be C-3PO, a pop-culture staple since 1977.

"In the shorthand storytelling format that we work in, where you have a few minutes as opposed to two hours, it's very helpful to have a character that the audience already knows — knows their personality, knows their quirks, knows their tone." Fitzgerald says. "It allows us to jump into the story much quicker."

Star Wars mastermind George Lucas has his hand in the relaunch of Star Tours, which also is being altered at Disneyland in California.





Analyst Downbeat on DreamWorks Animation: Megamind The New Shark Tale?

(hollywoodreporter.com) Megamind is struggling and shares of DreamWorks Animation are about 17% overvalued, according to a research note Wednesday.

Richard Greenfield, an analyst with BTIG Research, initiated coverage of DWA with a “sell” recommendation and $28 price target. The stock fell 16 cents on the day to $33.62.

Among his concerns is that Megamind took in a lackluster $46 million on its opening weekend. When you take into account 3D premiums and adjust ticket prices for inflation, the audience for Megamind was one-third less than it was for Shark Tale during its opening weekend in 2004.

“And nobody viewed Shark Tale as a successful film,” Greenfield wrote in his report.

He predicts Megamind will peter out at about $160 million at the domestic boxoffice; Shark Tale finished with $160.9 million.




TRON Legacy VFX Preview: De-Aged Jeff Bridges

(shadowlocked.com) We get a pretty good look at the 'de-aging' VFX on Jeff Bridges in this new trailer for Disney's TRON Legacy. The first shot is easier to buy than some of the later ones, but then taking the years off someone is just about the hardest visual effects challenge available. David Fincher notes in his commentary to The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button, that the simple shot of a de-aged Brad Pitt looking back over his shoulder in the 2008 movie was one of the most expensive, time-consuming and involved VFX efforts of the film - and even then, one can only just buy that shot.

Take a look: http://www.shadowlocked.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=925:new-tron-legacy-trailer-shows-more-of-younger-jeff-bridges&catid=62:movie-news




CGI Britannia

(bbc.co.uk) Paul Franklin is the CGI whizz and co-founder of Double Negative, the London-based visual-effects company that is behind much of the on-screen wizardry that Harry and his chums rely on. He told me that without Warner Bros' decision to base HP in the UK, the British visual-effects industry would still be getting by adding sparkle to commercials for household cleaners and fixing the odd frame or two on the occasional mid-budget movie.

Instead, London has become a world centre for CGI and post-production. A-list blockbusters are constantly rolling into town as ideas and out again as fully-realised, freshly-minted hits. Franklin reckons London alone accounts for 20% of the global CGI market, his company sitting at the top table with the very best in the world. He says that Warners' decision 10 years ago has helped British-based companies like his to develop the skills, software and contacts that would previously have been inconceivable.

He notes that if you walk into your local multiplex the chances are at least one of the movies will be substantially made in Britain. He alone has recently worked on Kick Ass, Harry Potter and Inception.

He showed me the CGI scene in Inception where a Parisian street folds in on itself; he then explained how the three-minute shot required three years, 100 people and a large team of photographers filing over half a million digital images. A huge investment for just 180 seconds?

Not really, says Franklin, when such a scene is the movie's "signature moment", defining in a few seconds of an advertisement the film's scale, ambition, quality and imagination to a public spoilt for choice.

The growth in the British visual-effects market has been between steady and dramatic. At the moment, Franklin says his company is full-to-bursting with major Hollywood blockbusters but has fewer smaller-budget films, a situation he puts down in part to the recent global recession.

Having recently interviewed Ray Harryhausen, the king of old-fashioned stop-frame special effects, I asked Franklin if he would ever turn his hand to directing as Harryhausen had done. Yes, he said, it was an idea that interested him. But he then made an interesting remark about British screenwriters.

They have yet to truly embrace CGI, he said: they still think it's there to fix problems and, if you're feeling terribly vulgar, specifically for a few shots. But few are constructing whole scripts around the technology.

This is unlike their Hollywood cousins who greedily indulge their imaginations knowing that CGI can turn even the most bizarre fantasy into cinematic reality. Franklin says the Brits have a habit - or a taste - for thinking around the European traditions of social realism and auteur movies. He wasn't suggesting that we should import American culture wholesale, or denigrating the current culture, but he sees an opportunity to build on what we have.

So perhaps the UK film industry could be an even bigger player in the global movie business. With CGI specialists becoming directors, with digital screens potentially reducing the dominance of American companies in distribution and with a domestic infrastructure of production companies and skilled technicians who are already among the world's best, this could be the next stage.

There is the issue of finding and retaining the talent. I was surprised how relatively little a senior CGI expert gets paid - more Hounslow than Hollywood - and Franklin said that the restrictions placed by the government on hiring large numbers of non-EU staff makes scaling-up difficult. Employing 50 programmers from Tokyo or California can be done - the points system favours such specialists - but it is a hurdle that must be overcome.

Barry Meyer, the Chairman and Chief Executive of Warner Bros, appeared genuinely excited about the Leavesden purchase when I met him yesterday. His high opinion of British film-making talent - in which he includes videogame companies and television production - was heartfelt.

But it is called a movie business for a reason: when the wrap party is over, the accountants count the cost. Sure, we may be good at stuff, speak the right language and make a decent cup of coffee. But that's not why the bean-counters really love us: it's because we're cheap.

The government gives foreign film-makers and studios attractive tax breaks to encourage them here. According to the UK Film Council, with the current favourable exchange rate and flexible working practices, it is now cheaper to make a film in Watford than in Hollywood.

This is an advantage, of course. But what has happened over the last 10 years is that the UK film business has taken that advantage and built a sizeable industry. By the end of this year, inward investment from foreign film-makers will be near to £1bn. And who do we have to thank? Well, Warner Bros for sure: it was Warners' lead that others followed and that has helped build the infrastructure and skills base Britain currently boasts.

And then there's David Heyman, the British producer of the Harry Potter films, who steered the project with such skill. But behind it all lays an unsung hero: somebody who put her foot down and insisted that if there were to be a Harry Potter film, it would be made in the UK.

So, who is this champion of the British movie business? Step forward JK Rowling.




EA, Lucasfilm in Deal for New Star Wars Game

(bizjournals.com) Electronic Arts Inc. and Lucasfilm Ltd. on Thursday announced an updated global publishing agreement for the massively multiplayer online video game Star Wars: The Old Republic.

"With this new agreement, some publishing, marketing and distribution responsibilities previously designated to LucasArts will shift to EA, so that all publishing, marketing and distribution responsibilities can be centralized for efficiency," the companies said.

Financial and other details of the agreement were not disclosed.

The game "is designed to redefine the MMO category by introducing BioWare's signature storytelling and rich, emotional human performances to the genre," the companies said.

Star Wars: The Old Republic will let players explore an age thousands of years before the rise of Darth Vader when war between the Old Republic and the Sith Empire divides the galaxy.

Redwood City, Calif.-based EA (Nasdaq:ERTS) acquired BioWare in 2008 and operates an Austin design studio.

Electronic Arts Inc. and Lucasfilm Ltd. on Thursday announced an updated global publishing agreement for the massively multiplayer online video game Star Wars: The Old Republic.

"With this new agreement, some publishing, marketing and distribution responsibilities previously designated to LucasArts will shift to EA, so that all publishing, marketing and distribution responsibilities can be centralized for efficiency," the companies said.

Financial and other details of the agreement were not disclosed.

The game "is designed to redefine the MMO category by introducing BioWare's signature storytelling and rich, emotional human performances to the genre," the companies said.

Star Wars: The Old Republic will let players explore an age thousands of years before the rise of Darth Vader when war between the Old Republic and the Sith Empire divides the galaxy.

Redwood City, Calif.-based EA.





Tim Herlihy to Write Pixels Script

(comingsoon.net) Longtime Adam Sandler collaborator Tim Herlihy will write the script for Pixels, the big screen adaptation of French filmmaker Patrick Jean's web short that you can watch below. Sandler's Happy Madison will produce for Columbia Pictures. Jean will direct the film.

"Pixels" became a hit in April with its 1980s video game characters attacking New York City. The trade says the plan "is to make a 'Ghostbusters'-style action comedy in which characters come out of a video game to wreak havoc in the real world."




Working Title Conjures Merlin

(Heat Vision) Working Title has plans to develop a pitch based on the legendary character Merlin, reports Heat Vision.

Specifics on the film are unknown at this time, but the pitch comes from Jay Basu, writer of the 2005 film Song of Songs and author of the 2003 novel The Stars Can Wait.

Merlin, a key figure in Arthurian legend, has developed into a narrative archetype, referenced in cinema since its earliest days. Though there is currently a BBC television series with the title Merlin, also based on the character, it is unlikely that this film has any connection to that property.





How To Do Every Visual Effect Ever (Pretty Much)

(vfxhack.com) Smashing Magazine has posted a list of Best Tutorials For Cinematic Visual Effects. The post links to 62 techniques ranging from the 007 Intro to Meteor Crashes. So this one post contains all the knowledge you would need to make a tent-pole VFX feature or start your own effects boutique. Right? Seriously, if all this information was available to me when I got started, it would have been much harder to impress people by showing them a chrome sphere on a checkerboard.

Take a look: http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/05/04/best-tutorials-for-cinematic-visual-effects/


"Transformers 3" Principle Photography Wraps

(comicbookmovie.com) Tyrese Gibson has tweeted that Transformers: Dark of the Moon has officially wrapped principle photography today in Los Angeles.

His first tweet (around 11am EST) on the subject said:

I'm up. On set with what we all hope to be on the last day of filming of Transformers 3. I will keep you updated!!

This was followed five hours later with:

Confirmed::: Today will be last day of shooting Transformers 3.. Yippy!! God is the greatest .. We made!! Fans we won't let you down!!

Finally at about 8:50pm EST, he made it official:

Ladies and Gents we have officially wrapped the filming of Transformers 3! Cheers to my cast and entire crew! We did it baby!! God bless u!"




Hugh Jackman Chooses Wolverine Sequel Over Hosting Oscars

(heyuguys.co.uk) Whether or not you wish it were the other way around, Hugh Jackman has reportedly turned down the opportunity to reprise his hosting duties for the 83rd annual Academy Awards so that he can fulfil his X-Men Origins: Wolverine 2 obligations. Priorities, Hugh!

To be aired live on the 27th February next year, the Oscars will clash with his and director Darren Aronofsky’s planned location shoots in New York and Japan.

Proving popular back in 2009, Jackman had initially intended on returning for the 2011 ceremony after taking a year out. With the host usually announced on November 3rd, it is not yet known if last year’s hosts – who could forget Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin’s collaboration – will return for the second year running.





Connecticut to Backdrop $100M “Sub Thriller’’

(hartfordbusiness.com) A new $100 million movie that production officials are calling a "submarine thriller," will be shot in Connecticut, generating an estimated 200 temporary jobs, state officials announced Wednesday.

"Thunder in the Deep" is based on a series of six novels by author Joe Buff, and will be one of the largest films ever shot in Connecticut.

The saga details a fictional nuclear war at sea, set in the year 2030, officials said. Production time is estimated to be 5 months, beginning next spring.

Exact filming locations are still being secured.

Production officials said they were attracted to Connecticut for its "deep history with the submarine industry," as well as the generous tax credits the state offers to the film industry.

"Connecticut was a natural choice for this movie," Buff said.

Groton houses submarine builder Electric Boat and is one of the home ports for the Navy's nuclear sub fleet.

The state offers three film tax credit programs for production, infrastructure and digital animation. Since the credits went into effect in 2006, more than 100 productions have come to Connecticut, officials said.





The VFX Job Interview: Does This Sound Familiar?

Take a look: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5WMDb_gNv_c





'Despicable Me' Reaches $500M Milestone


UNIVERSAL CITY, Calif., Nov. 8 (UPI) -- Hollywood's animated comedy "Despicable Me" has crossed the $500 million mark at the global box office, Universal Pictures and Illumination Entertainment said.

With a current domestic gross of more than $248 million, the inaugural 3D CGI feature from Universal and Illumination is second only to "Toy Story 3" in domestic gross among animated films this year, the companies said.





Half of Weta Special Effects Crew Kiwis

(The Dominion Post) Weta Digital boss Joe Letteri says for the first time, more than half of the special effects firm's crew are New Zealanders.

"When I arrived nine years ago it was 25 per cent of the crew."

Work at Weta Digital peaked last year when more than 850 people from 46 countries worked on 3-D blockbuster Avatar.

Staff numbers currently sit at about 750. Current projects include TinTin, "a completely digital live film action in 3-D".

"We've been able to find people and work with schools and universities to encourage people to learn the skills we think would be helpful.

"The visual effects industry is so widely based – to come here and work on a film, you could be studying animation, photography, costume design, lighting, biomechanics, mathematics – there are so many aspects to what we do that if you have an interest in making that kind of film you can fit in what your interest is."

Mr Letteri gave special effects buffs attending the AnimFX annual conference in Wellington on Saturday a rundown of the techniques used to create Avatar, which is expected to spawn two sequels.

These included drawing up detailed models of how muscles, skin and skeletons work.

"That gives us a much better starting point for characteristics and creatures we create from here on. A lot of the groundwork we did on Avatar was to take things out of, strictly, the domain of making the pictures and focusing on the underlying science.

"This was that great push to get us to that platform where we can create all those worlds in 3-D. There are other things that will come in the future and they are always dependent on the story. You have to speak with the director and see what is the script, what is it we are trying to solve?"

Events such as AnimFX had contributed to a growing understanding of how films were made, he said.

"People now have so much access to a lot of the tools that 10 years ago would have been out of reach unless you were in a large facility. The concepts of what goes into making a film like this are much more available."





Journey 2: The Mysterious Island Starts Principal Photography

(New Line/Warner Bros.) Filming has begun on location in Oahu, Hawaii, for the 3D family adventure Journey 2: The Mysterious Island, directed by Brad Peyton (Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore).

Josh Hutcherson will reprise his role as young adventurer Sean Anderson in this follow-up to the 2008 worldwide hit Journey to the Center of the Earth 3D, the first live-action film ever to be shot in digital 3D. Dwayne Johnson stars as Sean's stepfather, Hank Parsons; Michael Caine as Sean's grandfather, Alexander Anderson; Vanessa Hudgens and Luis Guzman as a father-daughter tour guide team; and Kristin Davis as Sean's mom, Liz Anderson.

The new journey begins when Sean receives a coded distress signal from a mysterious island where no island should exist — a place of strange life forms, mountains of gold, deadly volcanoes, and more than one astonishing secret. Unable to stop him from going, Sean's new stepfather joins the quest. Together with a helicopter pilot and his beautiful, strong-willed daughter, they set out to find the island, rescue its lone inhabitant and escape before seismic shockwaves force the island under the sea and bury its treasures forever.

Journey 2: The Mysterious Island is being produced by Beau Flynn & Tripp Vinson, and Charlotte Huggins from a screenplay by Mark Gunn & Brian Gunn, story by Richard Outten. Serving as executive producers are Michael Bostick, Evan Turner, Marcus Viscidi, Richard Brener, Samuel J. Brown and Michael Disco.

The creative filmmaking team includes director of photography David Tattersall (Gulliver's Travels), production designer Bill Boes (Fantastic Four), costume designer Denise Wingate (Wedding Crashers) and Academy Award nominated visual effects supervisor Boyd Shermis (Poseidon).

Beginning in January 2011, production will move to Wilmington, North Carolina, to finish shooting after the holiday hiatus, and is scheduled to wrap principal photography in February 2011.

Journey 2: The Mysterious Island is a New Line Cinema presentation, a Walden Media and Contrafilm production and will be distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures, a Warner Bros. Entertainment Company.





Animation Companies Should Have a Post Production Visual Effects Department

(myarticledirectory.ie) Going to the movies is a regular treat for many of us. No matter where in the world we reside, we all know how important film visual effects are. For the ordinary movie enthusiast, it is what makes going to the movies a heightened and memorable outing and experience. Those who are in the corporate world understand that film visual effects is an art that can push a particular message or proclamation into the realms of the extraordinary.

In order for animation companies to be regarded as value-adders by a corporate client, they must be able to provide a service that extends from a quote through to creating film visual effects and then have the ability to hand over to the post production visual effects experts. This process should leave no gaps.

In order to accomplish such a streamlined production it is necessary for the creators to understand their client’s needs. However, such a team should also have the knowledge to make suggestions and improvements to those requirements for film visual effects. Animation companies like Go2Productions have enough understanding and experience with corporate clients to provide a complete and comprehensive package. Clients know how much such a project will cost and they also know exactly what they can expect for their money, right up until the final post production visual effects.

Full Press: http://myarticledirectory.ie/2010/11/animation-companies-should-offer-film-visual-effects-and-have-a-post-production-visual-effects-department/




The 5 Best SFX Companies On Earth

(blog.onthebox.com) We are set to be invaded yet again this Friday when Skyline hits our cinemas. How unlucky can one planet get?! Needless to say beams of light will be abducting humans all across the world, and we will be following an unlikely group of Americans as they make a bid for survival. Fingers crossed! The SFX company Hydraulx creates the impeccable visual effects for the film and in celebration of Skyline’s release this Friday, here are the five leading SFX-bringers from around the world.

5: Hydraulx (Santa Monica, CA)

Based out of Santa Monica, CA, hy*drau”lx is a visual effects studio founded in 2002 by the Brothers Strause, Gregor and Colin. No project too great, no detail too small; the studio specializes in realistic effects that blend seamlessly and it has a stacked resume to prove it. The company is credited with creating the gritty, illustrative graphics for 300 and the impossibly believable reverse aging of Brad Pitt’s character in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Oh, and ever see Avatar? They had a hand in that too. Whatever you say about a storyline that pilfered plots from countless other classics, the effects were peerless.

4: Double Negative (London/Singapore)

Europe’s largest provider of SFX, Double Negative is based in the heart of swinging Soho and boasts a team of over 750 staff in London alone. They have a Singapore branch as well with 55 employees; thus, their studio is able to work on a vast array of films at once. In 2010 they have composed some of the most ambitious effects on film this year, including Inception, Iron Man 2, Sherlock Holmes, Prince of Persia: Sands of Time, and Scott Pilgrim vs. The World.


3: Animal Logic (Sydney, Australia)

Australia’s premiere visual effects studio is on the rise to become a powerhouse in the SFX industry and popped a bit further down under to help with large sections of the first Lord of the Rings film a few years back. Animal Logic was originally known for its high-end design and production effects in commercials and television. Recently, the company has worked on large-budget film projects, including The Matrix, The Matrix Reloaded, Moulin Rouge!, and House of Flying Daggers. The company’s first animated film, Happy Feet, melted the hearts of women around the globe and was a critical success.

2: Weta Digital (Wellington, New Zealand)

Named after a native New Zealand insect and probably the only name on this list anyone outside the industry has actually heard of, Weta Digital reigns supreme as the most sought-after SFX house. The studio’s involvement in The Lord of the Rings Trilogy, King Kong, and Avatar, exclusive software, and its several Oscar and BAFTA wins make the company the undisputable world-leader of SFX. Founded by by Peter Jackson, Richard Taylor, and Jamie Selkirk in 1993 to produce the digital special effects for Heavenly Creatures the digital company has a famous props sister company, Weta Workshop. The firm seem to revolutionis the SFX industry with every newest release; we can’t wait for its current project, The Hobbit, to hit screens in two years.

1: Take a look: http://blog.onthebox.com/2010/11/10/the-5-best-sfx-companies-on-earth/





Roland Emmerich Shuts Down The Zone

(The Hollywood Reporter) Just a week after news broke that Roland Emmerich was planning a found-footage science fiction film dubbed The Zone, comes word, courtesy of The Hollywood Reporter, that the project is no more.

Though the article theorizes that similar rival projects may be the cause for the The Zone's cancellation (notably Apollo 18), no official reason is given.

Alleged to be an alien invasion story that would have starred an unknown cast, The Zone would have been atypically low-budget for Emmerich, planned at under $5 million.




Fox Resurrects "Walking with Dinosaurs"

(darkhorizons.com) 20th Century Fox has snapped up domestic rights and several key territories to BBC Earth's $65 million family feature "Walking With Dinosaurs 3D" reports Variety.

The film is based on the popular late 90's BBC documentary series created by Tim Haines which reached an audience of 700 million at the time. No word on what the story or narrative structure of the film would be other than it being a combination of live-action footage and CGI creatures with a family audience being squarely targeted.

Neil Nightingale and Pierre De Lespinois are co-directing from a script by John Collee ("Happy Feet"). Announced a week ago at the American Film Market, the project is now sold out worldwide with pre-sales essentially covering almost all of the film's budget. Fox is planning a tentpole release for the film in 2013.

Other films selling well at AFM this year are George Clooney's political thriller "The Ides of March", the film adaptation of "Hunger Games", and Andrew Dominik's "Cogan's Trade".




Paramount Running Out of Time for ‘Dune’ Movie

(latinoreview.com) Deadline is reporting that Paramount Studios will be done with “Dune” by next spring if it does not start production by then. The studio wants to proceed cautiously, especially on any project with a price-tag above $100 million.

If the studio walks from the project, then Paramount would forfeit six figures the studio paid in option costs and risk development costs.

It was also reported the rights holders won’t grant another option extension to Paramount. The current rights holders are the Frank Herbert estate and ABC.

Current producer Richard Rubinstein has made it clear that Paramount needs to start production or let the project go by next spring.

“We don’t want to extend an option and watch the studio take seven years,” said Rubinstein. “This is on a short tether. It’s a major book franchise, you can’t walk into a store and not see a shelf full of Dune books.”

Gig Patta’s Take: Paramount has the right to be paranoid about investing hundreds of millions of dollars into a big budgeted sci-fi movie after the 1984 David Lynch-directed version of “Dune.” I would prefer a good “Dune” movie with the right script and director. So proceed with caution.





John Stevenson to Helm ‘Alien Rock Band’

(slashfilm.com) John Stevenson co-directed Kung Fu Panda for DreamWorks Animation, but he’s not returning for the sequel. In fact, he won’t be working with DreamWorks at all in the coming years, as he’s signed a producing/directing pact with Vanguard Films, and already has his next film lined up with them. He’ll be directing Alien Rock Band, a live action/CGI hybrid that revolves around a garage band from Earth which journeys across the Universe to qualify for a shot at superstardom in an Intergalactic Battle of the Bands, where they’ll have to compete with multi-armed alien monsters. Planned “celebrity cameos”—ugh—include Eminem and Katy Perry.


Indiana Jones 5 - 'No Time Line' For Production

(mtv.com) Both Harrison Ford and Shia LaBeouf have dropped tidbits to the press about plans for a fifth "Indiana Jones" film, following the $786 million success of "Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" in 2008.

But on the red carpet for the "Morning Glory" premiere this weekend in New York City, Ford told reporters there are currently no plans whatsoever for "Indiana Jones 5."

Yet Ford told MTV News just the opposite before the premiere, informing us that Indy creator George Lucas has the project lined up and the 68-year-old actor can't wait for the chance to crack the archeologist's whip once again.

"It's on George's plate, and I'm hoping he's working hard at it, because I'd look forward to doing it again if the three of us could get together — George, [director] Steven Spielberg, myself — I'd love to do another," he said.

While he expressed enthusiasm for the project, Ford stopped short of doling out further details, saying only, "I'm not at liberty to tell you what I know and what I don't know."

This past summer, LaBeouf went into a touch more detail about the production, though he didn't address rumors that the story would take Ford and LaBeouf to the Bermuda Triangle.

"I got called into Steven's office, and he pitched a little bit to me and it sounds crazy," LaBeouf said. "It sounds really cool."

Almost two decades passed between the premiere of "The Last Crusade" in 1989 and the debut of "Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" in '08. So how much time is going to pass before fans get a chance to buy tickets for a fifth franchise installment?

"No timeline. While I'm alive, I hope," Ford laughed. "It'll be better for everybody."




Disney Plans Tiki

(The Hollywood Reporter) Disney is said to be planning Tiki, from a spec script by Michael Wilson and Ahmet Zappa

Details are few right now, but the script is said to be a family adventure film inspired by Hawaiian folklore.

Wilson and Zappa recently sold a pitch to Disney called Monster Relocation Program, details of which are also currently limited. Zappa, the son of the musician Frank Zappa, is the author of a children's book, The Monstrous Memoirs of a Mighty McFearless, the rights to which are also owned by Disney.





Digital Domain Holdings Passes 100-Employee Mark

PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Digital Domain Holdings today announced that it has hired more than 50 new employees since its recent Tech Fair at Digital Domain Park, elevating the company’s total count of Florida-based employees to more than 100. Digital Domain Holdings is the beneficiary of a state and local incentive package and, in return, has promised to create at least 500 jobs in Port St. Lucie by 2015. The recent hires put the company well ahead of its 2010 year-end target of 61 newly created jobs.

“Overall, I’d say that we were very pleased by the caliber of talent in the area and thoroughly enjoyed reviewing their work and meeting with many of them at the Tech Fair”

Digital Domain recently announced a goal to accelerate its hiring pace well beyond the incentive targets by hiring more than 200 new employees before midyear 2011. The company continues to evaluate individuals that either pre-register at its website, attended its recent Tech Fair, or that have been identified through recent visits to universities and trade schools, principally focused on those within the state of Florida.

In the weeks preceding the October Tech Fair, more than 1,000 people pre-registered for the event and submitted their credentials online at the Digital Domain Holdings website. Each and every applicant was reviewed by the company’s team of recruiters and industry-veteran digital artists, not only for the company’s immediate project needs but also for its continued expansion. “Overall, I’d say that we were very pleased by the caliber of talent in the area and thoroughly enjoyed reviewing their work and meeting with many of them at the Tech Fair,” said Stan Szymanski, head of digital studio at Digital Domain Holdings.

The overwhelming majority of new employees are from St. Lucie and its adjacent counties. They range from recent graduates to industry veterans and have graduated from schools such as Indian River State College, Florida Atlantic University, Florida State University and Ringling College of Art and Design.

All of the newly hired digital artists will be enrolled in an extensive visual effects training program, “The VFX Boot Camp.” This training program will introduce the artists to the many disciplines of Visual Effects, the personal and interpersonal skills required for success, as well as to software applications currently in use in the international visual effects market.

“We are thrilled to offer jobs and career opportunities to local digital artists and look forward to hiring many, many more in the months to come,” Szymanski said.





Warner Bros. Acquires Leavesden Studios - New UK VFX & Animatronics Base of Operations

(webnewswire.com) London – On Wednesday 10th November, Warner Bros. will announce the completion of its purchase of Leavesden Studios, and unveil plans for an in excess of £100 million re–building and expansion programme that will create Warner Bros. Studios, Leavesden – a permanent UK film production base for the company. The announcement will be made at Claridges Hotel by Barry Meyer, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer and Alan Horn, President & Chief Operating Officer, Warner Bros.

Warner Bros.’ purchase makes it the only Hollywood studio to possess and operate its own production facility in the UK. Once complete, Warner Bros. Studios, Leavesden will enjoy one of the largest back–lots in Europe, represent approximately a third of the dedicated stage space for major film production in the UK and be able to accommodate a number of major Warner Bros. and third party film productions each year as well as TV and advertising productions.

Warner Bros. has used the studio facilities just outside Watford, north-west of London, since 2000, including the production of all eight Harry Potter films as well as many other recent Warner Bros. hits, including The Dark Knight and Inception.

Having received all necessary planning approvals from Three Rivers District Council and Watford Borough Council, Warner Bros. is now set to build on that contribution with the re–development of the 170 acre site that will see the refurbishment and expansion of the studio, increasing its ability to provide for services such as visual effects, prosthetics, animatronics and film editing, as well as expanding the external filming and production areas.





Weta Digital Faces Blowout in 3D VFX Storage Requirements

(arnnet.com.au) Lord of the Rings, The Day The Earth Stood Still and Avatar share a couple of common threads – they are major, special effects-heavy studio productions, and the digital effects were created by New Zealand-based Weta Digital.

Formed in part by Academy Award-winning director, Peter Jackson, Weta Digital is now a major global effects studio, with 14 major features under its belt, and another two coming. It has operated in collaboration with A-list filmmakers including Alex Proyas, Stephen Spielberg and James Cameron.

These movies operate to very fine production windows and missing a lucrative launch date or holiday season is inexcusable for a multi-million dollar production.

As a result, Weta Digital cannot afford downtime in its own systems.

Since the organisation is dealing with huge media files, an efficient storage infrastructure is critical to Weta delivering the movie on time. “The demands are getting more and more as time goes on,” NetApp account executive, James Kennedy-Moffat, said.

Kennedy-Moffat operates out of Wellington in New Zealand and, as Weta’s storage partner, NetApp is well-placed to observe the changing demands media and entertainment organisations have for storage.

“Under peak load, when things are really happening and the director is standing over the artist’s shoulder, the artists are all accessing the same data – it gets hot and things slow down.”

It’s only going to get worse. The advent of 3D technology has essentially tripled the workload for a typical effects project. Now an object needs to be rendered three times (right eye, left eye, centre) to create the 3D effect.

Full Press: http://www.arnnet.com.au/article/367353/entertainment_dealing_storage_demands/





Dreamworks Animation Selects Nuke As Compositor Of Choice

LONDON, November 08, 2010 | SHOOT Publicity Wire | --- Leading visual effects software developer, The Foundry (www.thefoundry.co.uk), today announced that CG animation studio, DreamWorks Animation SKG, Inc. (Nasdaq: DWA) has purchased a site license of Nuke to enhance its in-house pipeline beginning in 2012.

DreamWorks Animation is devoted to producing high-quality family entertainment through computer-generated (CG) animation. In 2004, DreamWorks became the first animation company to produce and distribute two CG animated features in a single year, including Shrek 2, the fifth highest-grossing movie of all time on a domestic basis. This year DreamWorks Animation set another record by becoming the first studio to have released three CG animated feature films, all in stereoscopic 3D. They accomplished this feat in part by relying on state-of-the-art technologies to enable the artistic vision of their filmmakers.

Nuke will soon become an important part of DreamWorks Animation's technological toolset. The studio plans to use Nuke beginning on its 2012 feature film release, "The Croods".




How to Raise Your Profile As A CG Artist

(blenderguru.com) Let me start with a story.

A little over 5 years ago I graduated from high school with the goal of one day becoming my own boss and working from home as a freelancer. I envisioned myself waking up in the morning, jumping on the computer and jamming away at what I loved. To me it would be easy! All I needed to do was a make decent portfolio and the job offers would come flooding in. Or so I thought…

I started up my first company in 2006 called Silver Screen Fx. I somehow got the idea that the short film industry was booming and that I could make easy cash doing VFX. Sadly not only is the industry extremely broke, but I also sucked at VFX. That business closed within a year.

I realized I needed to expand my services to include all things 3d and also improve my portfolio. Once I did this I started up my second company called Ironbark Studios, which was a fancy name for ‘lone freelancing artist’. And whilst my work had improved I was still geting no work. And by no work I mean, absolutely NONE. That business also closed down.

It was around that time that I came across this quote:

When I read this quote, alarm bells went off. I finally realised that I had spent many years improving my portfolio, but none on marketing! I simply assumed that being a ‘good artist’ would be enough to get employed.

I realised that if I wanted to make it in this industry then I needed to get educated in the art of marketing.

So I did an internet marketing course by Yaro Starack, David Risley and Dale Beaumont. Although these courses cost me about $6,000 in total, they paid for themselves quickly. I started BlenderGuru.com and am now finally living my dream of waking up each morning and working from home on my computer.

This presentation will be a consolidated, cutdown version of everything that I learned in those course but geared specifically for you, the artist.

So without further ado, let me begin by debunking a myth:

Many artists believe that simply being ‘good enough’ is all it takes. “Once you have a decent portfolio the work will come to you.” It’s sounds good in theory but unfortunately it just isn’t true.

Let me give you an example… instead of 3d artist, let’s say you were a theme park designer and you built the worlds best rollercoaster!

You spent years designing it to make sure it had all the right loops, corkscrews and g-forces. It was hands down the best rollercoaster ever made!

But foolishly you built it in the middle of a forest where nobody could see it:

If you sat by the entrance on open day and waited for people to show up, do you think they would?

No! Because nobody knows it exists! It’s only when you get off your arse, head down to the nearest town and hand out fliers that people will actually see it, acknowledge it and eventually ride it.

The same is true for your 3d artwork. Let’s say you created this stunning piece (Jeff Miller):

But foolishly you left it in your hard drive and didn’t upload it anywhere.

Do you think that if you sat by the phone and waited, that anyone is going to call you up with a job offer? No! Because you haven’t shown it to anyone!

It’s only when you distribute your artwork across the internet that you will people will actually see it and you can start reaping the benefits of all your hard work.

The next myth is somewhat confronting as it’s something we’re all taught throughout school:

“If you didn’t get the job it means someone else was better than you.”

In the traditional job market this is true: When an employer receives 50 applicantions for a job, they choose the best person for the job and give it to them. Unfortunately though, this doesn’t always happen in the online and freelancing market.

Full Press: http://www.blenderguru.com/raise-your-profile-as-an-artist/





Starz Animation Toronto Providing CGI for "Robosapien: Rebooted"

(toonzone.net) Starz Animation Toronto will be providing the CGI animation for the title character in Crystal Sky Pictures' Robosapien: Rebooted. The live-action/CGI animated hybrid film is based on the Robosapien toy line by WowWee, and will also star Bobby Coleman, Penelope Ann Miller, and Dave Eigenberg. The movie will be produced by Avi Arad and Steven Paul, and currently has no set release date.

Robosapien: Rebooted tells the story of a robot boy and a human boy (Coleman), who team up to thwart the evil ambitions of the organization that funded the robot’s creator, and to free the boy’s kidnapped parents.

“How fortunate to find a winning project like this, with partners the caliber of Avi and Steven,” Starz Animation Toronto Head of Studio David Steinberg said. “This is the perfect fit for our studio, leveraging both the VFX strengths that we have built over the past year and the great character performance animation we are known for.”

“Robosapien: Rebooted is a special undertaking for us, and we needed to entrust the performance animation of our title character to a studio with the creativity and experience to do it justice, and the talented artists at the Toronto studio are clearly the ones to handle this,” Paul said. “We’re confident the high-end animation that we’re adding to this already exceptional project will make this one of the most sought-after projects at the upcoming American Film Market.”





8 Days to 'Skyline': Top 10 Excellent FX From The Brothers Strause

(iamrogue.com) With Skyline making its way into theatres this coming November 12, it seemed like the right time to look back at the films that The Brothers Strause have been a part of. Their talent for visual effects has enhanced a wide range of movies. The following is Part 2 of our Top 10 Most Excellent FX from Colin and Greg. You can check out Part 1 here! So read on and enjoy some of The Brothers Strause “most excellent” effects.

5. Constantine (visual effects supervisor)

This groovy flick has effects galore and Keanu Reeves kicking ass. This is a stylish slice of cinema that offers up major thrills for fans of the supernatural.

4. The Incredible Hulk (visual effects supervisor)

This reboot with Mr. Edward Norton was exactly what fans needed. While Ang Lee offered up an interesting vision of the Hulk, this one seemed a little more on target with fans.

3. 300 (visual effects supervisor: Hydraulx)

300 was such a visual feast. From the amazing battles to the use of color, it was an absolute treat to see this level of violence presented in such a beautiful way.

2. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (digital effects artist)

Speaking of great films, Benjamin Button hit all the right notes for me. Maybe it was a little too similar to Forrest Gump, yet the amazing special effects and Brad Pitt’s performance made for a fantastic film.

1. Avatar (visual effects designer)

Whether you liked the story or not, there is very little that can compare to Avatar visually speaking. Clearly, Mr. Jim Cameron is the genius behind it all, but it took a huge group of very talented people to bring it to life.





Mythbusters Grant Imahara Talks C3PO Suit

At this year’s w00tstock geektastic cabaret, MythBusters Grant Imahara did a presentation about this character appearances dressed as C-3PO for Lucasfilm as he was working full-time for THX and ILM.

Grant talks about what’s like dressing up as Golden Rod to shoot car commercials in Japan, meet Oprah, and to open an amusement park in Australia with Hugh Jackman. He also describes other highlights while dressed as C-3PO like meeting Carrie Fisher & Magic Johnson.

Take a look: http://starwarsblog.starwars.com/index.php/2010/11/08/mythbusters-grant-imahara-talks-c-3po-suit/


Megamind Takes Over the Box Office

(boxoffice mojo) DreamWorks Animation's Megamind topped the weekend box office with an estimated $47.7 million from 3,944 theaters, a strong average of $12,082 per theater.

Featuring the voices of Will Ferrell, Brad Pitt, Tina Fey and Jonah Hill, the 3D animated comedy also earned $8.2 million internationally in just seven markets for an overseas total of $18.6 million so far. The film cost about $130 million to make and $160 million to market worldwide.




FilmDistrict Acquires Sci-Fi Film Lockout

(comingsoon.net) FilmDistrict, the recently announced company founded by Graham King, Tim Headington and Peter Schlessel, has acquired all U.S. rights to EuropaCorp's sci-fi action adventure film Lockout, starring Guy Pearce and Maggie Grace. James Mather and Stephen St. Leger will direct the film from their script co-written with Luc Besson, who also serves as the producer of the film. Peter Stormare and Tom Hollander co-star.

Set in the near future, Lockout follows a falsely convicted ex-government agent (Pearce), whose one chance at obtaining freedom lies in the dangerous mission of rescuing the President's daughter (Grace) from rioting convicts at an outer space maximum security prison.

"EuropaCorp is one of the most dynamic production companies with a great track record of delivering high octane product," says Peter Schlessel, CEO of FilmDistrict. "They make bold commercial movies which fit perfectly with FilmDistrict's mandate to release quality films in wide distribution."

"Luc and I, and everyone at EuropaCorp are thrilled there is a new and exciting distribution company in the U.S. We have great respect for Peter and the team, and this deal is about friendship and creativity," says Pierre-Ange Le Pogam, co-founder of EuropaCorp. "We are proud and excited to be a part of this new adventure, and we plan to deliver a unique film. We are looking forward to working with Peter, Bob and everyone at FilmDistrict. It will be fun."

"Luc and Pierre-Ange are creating a highly entertaining sci-fi film with classic action sequences, a gripping story and a great cast that audiences will love," said Bob Berney, President, Theatrical Distribution.





Top 6 Most Expensive Movies Ever Made

(mostexpensiveworld.com) Some movies director believe if they get more budget they can make a better and profitable movie. Some of them are correct and these are top 6 most expensive movies that you probably have seen and enjoyed.

6.King Kong

King kong had remade several times and King kong 2005 is the latest remade version.it was better, more realistic and the scenario are more natural. The Universal studio spent $207 million to remake this epic movie.it was worth spending I believe.

5. X-Men: The Last Stand

Although it cost $ 210 millions, no one denies its success. This movie hit box office in 2006. In the opening day alone, this movie gross $45.5 million and that was only in Canada and United states.In its opening week end, this movie had collected $103 million back to Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation and Marvel enterprise

4.Pirates of the Caribean- death man`s chest.

This adventure movie is the sequel of film Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl in 2003.Walt Disney pictures spent $203 millions and this movie gave a big revenue to this company Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest had recorded several box office hit include the most successful film after Titanic and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.

3.Spiderman 3:

Spiderman 3 once again written and directed by Sam Raimi. I personally like this movie and I had no doubt that millions of people arround the world ready to wait in the line to watch this movie. This movie cost $258 million and it gross $151,116,516 in the opening weekend. This movie definetly profitable and I can`t wait to see its new episodes next year.

2. Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End

Pirates of the caribean once again re-enter to become the most expensive film in this decades. This movie estimaded cost $300 millions and gross $ 309,404,152 only in United states. This movie is a gold mine and I think Walt Disney had no plan to make this release as the last episode of Pirates of the Caribean

1.Avatar – $500 million

Avatar was directed James cameron and 20th Fox century undoubtedly financed this movie with a budget up to half billions dollars. This is a breakthrough movie. It used a very advanced CGI technologhy. This movie plotted in an “imaginary world” and it was a magnet for millions of movie fans to see it. This movie gross $760,410,799 only in US. 20th Century fox once again bank a profitable business with this film.





Sci-Fi Thriller "Apollo 18" Acquired by Weinsteins

(darkhorizons.net) The Weinstein Company has acquired Apollo 18, the sci-fi thriller based on the screenplay by Brian Miller, winner of the inaugural Astana International Action Film Festival screenplay competition, founded by Wanted director Timur Bekmambetov. Trevor Cawood is set to direct the project.

Bekmambetov and Michele Wolkoff, President of Development for Bekmambetov Projects Ltd. (BPL) will produce the film.

Set to be shot documentary style, the film unearths lost footage from Apollo 18's undocumented and covert mission to the moon, revealing disturbing new evidence of other life forms.

Bekmambetov announced the contest this spring, in conjunction with Kazakhstan's first film festival held in Astana, Kazakhstan July 27-July 1, 2010. Five finalists from the United States, France, Kazakhstan, and the UK attended the film festival, which was a celebration of international action films. As part of the competition, Miller was awarded a cash prize and a development deal with BPL.

The film is slated to begin production this December for a March release date.





Spielberg Wanted To Direct A CGI Harry Potter Movie

(comicbookmovie.com) The LA Times have revealed that Stephen Spielberg came very close to helming the Harry Potter movies but lost out because he wanted to combine the books and use CGI...

The LA Times report that back when Warner Bros purchased the right to J.K. Rowling’s novels (for only $2 million!) they contacted DreamWorks in the hopes of securing a financial partner. Although they were hesitant to begin with, they soon signed up when the books became a hit and were keen on getting Spielberg to direct the first film. However, his ideas did not please Warner Bros.

"I did think it would be worthwhile for Steven Spielberg to direct. We offered it to him. But one of the notions of Dreamworks’ and Steven’s was, ‘Let’s combine a couple of the books, let’s make it animated,’ and that was because of the [visual effects and] Pixar had demonstrated that animated movies could be extremely successful. Because of the wizardry involved, they were very effects-laden. So I don’t blame them. But I did not want to combine the movies, and I wanted it to be live action."





ILM Doc Shows Lucas' Focus on Making 'Great Movies'

(news.cnet.com) When George Lucas talks about the raison d'etre of his award-winning visual effects studio, Industrial Light & Magic, his logic might strike some in the bottom line-obsessed world of Hollywood as heretical.

"I started ILM to help make great movies," Lucas told CNET recently. "That's what we're here for. We're not here as a big moneymaking organization. We're not here as a business. We're here to make great movies."

Of course, any filmmaker would probably want to say something like that, but Lucas may well be the one person for whom such a sentiment is legitimate.

"Obviously there are financial constraints that have to be adhered to" in working on a film, Lucas continued, "which are [difficult for outside filmmakers who hire ILM] because they have a real hard budget. When I do it, I'm in charge of the budget, so I can decide on a day-to-day basis what we're going to spend money on and what we're not...Nobody else can say that, because...I own the company, and I also am making the movie."

ILM and the process for creating award-winning visual effects it has developed over the last 35 years--whether profitable or not--is at the center of a new documentary by "The Pixar Story" director Leslie Iwerks. Titled "Industrial Light & Magic: Creating the Impossible," the new film premieres on the Encore cable TV network on November 12, and without a doubt, one of the best things about it is watching some of Hollywood's most prominent artists gush about how the famous visual effects studio has changed filmmaking forever.

It's no accident that the new film is packed with moments featuring the leading lights of the film industry. Iwerks was given access to countless hours of ILM archival materials, as well as to people like Steven Spielberg, Ron Howard, J.J. Abrams, Jerry Bruckheimer, and many others who have hired or worked with George Lucas' effects house since its creation in 1975.

"I think ILM's biggest accomplishment isn't any one [film]," Abrams, who directed 2009's mega-hit "Star Trek," says in the film. "It's that they've managed to realize the dream that any filmmaker would have, which is the ability to do anything."

That, of course, is the sentiment that keeps ILM at or near the peak of the visual effects industry. But the Lucas-owned studio, which has worked on nearly 300 films, and which has won 15 Academy Awards, wasn't always a world-changing organization. Indeed, it was started for one focused purpose, and with one specific client.

The original ILM logo, as displayed at a special screening of a new documentary about the award-winning visual effects studio
(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)

"With 'Star Wars,' I wanted to do an action picture," recalls Lucas in Iwerks' documentary. "I wanted to do something where I could pan with the spaceships, where there's a lot of really short cuts...a lot of rhythm, a lot of pace, a lot of movement on the screen. I wanted it to be very cinematic. And at that point in time, that was impossible. You just couldn't do that with special effects. So when the studio said, 'Well, how are you going to do that?' I said, Oh, well, we'll figure it out. But I had no idea what I was going to do."

What Lucas did, back in those heady days before "Star Wars" was perhaps the most successful film franchise of all time, was start a new outfit whose sole purpose was to design the effects he needed for his unlikely space opera.

Thanks to a vast and sudden shrinking of the special effects industry in Hollywood, Lucas was able to purchase a lot of the gear he needed for his fledgling operation at pennies on the dollar. And, setting himself up in a warehouse in Van Nuys, Calif., Lucas began what is now undeniably a march towards forever changing what the film industry sees as a realistic effect.

'Invent our way out'
Today, filmmakers like Spielberg take it as almost a given that effects houses like ILM can achieve even the most demanding goals. But back in 1975, when Lucas and his team of artists set out to begin work on "Star Wars," that was hardly true. Instead, as Iwerks illustrates in her documentary, the visual effects supervisors on the project found themselves in a constant battle against the limits of their art form. Yet rather than give in to those limits, they always looked for ways to break them down.

It would take hours, or days, to complete shots that would appear on screen for just seconds, and more often than not, Lucas and his ILM visual effects supervisors wouldn't have any precedent to turn to when trying to figure out how to complete a shot.

"We would paint our way into a corner," Richard Edlund, who worked on the film and later became an ILM visual effects supervisor, says in the documentary, "and have to invent our way out of it."

That meant innovations like the Dykstraflex, named after primary developer John Dykstra, an all-digital system that gave filmmakers a computer controlled system that allowed the programming of dynamic and repeatable elements and which facilitated combining multiple components into a single shot.

George Lucas poses for a picture with Leslie Iwerks, the director of the new documentary about ILM, 'Industrial Light & Magic: Creating the Impossible.'
(Credit: ILM)

"It was like we were in Florence during the Renaissance," recalls Bill George, an ILM visual effects supervisor.

And yet, a big part of why ILM was able to take these leaps forward in the "Star Wars" days was because Lucas was both the owner of the studio, and its only client. In the documentary, Lucas recalls being in meetings with his effects supervisors and being told that they couldn't get something or other done.

But Lucas would hear none of it. Instead of accepting that answer, he would tell his team that, yes, they could do it, and they would do it. He wouldn't accept the alternative.

I had a chance to ask Lucas about that sense of pure confidence at a recent private screening of the documentary at LucasFilm's San Francisco headquarters, and his answer highlighted his very surprising notion that ILM is supposed to be about enabling artists to create great work rather than obsessing about every last dollar.

"I have enough knowledge of what needs to get done that I'm allowed to make the leap," Lucas explained, talking about his control of budgets on his own projects. "I had a movie ['Star Wars']. I wanted it to be a great movie. I needed visual effects to do that. But I wanted the best visual effects...So if I say we will get this done, there's many times when I said I don't care. I know it's going to cost more than we thought, but we're going to do it. So I can say that. Nobody else can say that, because again, I own the company, and I'm also making the movie."

Full Press: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13772_3-20022033-52.html





Andy Serkis On Enslaved & Acting In Video Games

(guardian.co.uk) Since his breakthrough digital role as Gollum in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, Andy Serkis has become the film industry's go-to thespian on all things digital.

And after he won games critics' hearts (if not, perhaps, consumers) with his contribution to last month's Enslaved: Odyssey to the West, we thought we'd find out a bit more about what tempts a high-profile actor to spend hours wearing only a skintight black bodysuit covered in Pritt Stick and ping-pong balls.

Full Press: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/gamesblog/2010/nov/08/andy-serkis-enslaved-interview





The Hobbit: Why $93 Million, & Was It Too Much?

(odt.co.nz) The issue was the focus of national hysteria. The Hobbit was in danger of leaving loyal New Zealand soil to travel to some cheaper, foreign location, writes Sophie Gilmore of Logan Park High School.

Never again, it seemed, will little Bilbo gleefully frolic in native Kiwi bush.

The cause of this panic, of course, was the protest and resulting boycott of the film by the Actors Equity Union, led by Simon Whipp (who comes from Australia, so why is it any of his business anyway?)

This made executives at the film's production company Warner Brothers very cross, and threaten to take their movie where it was really wanted.

In a brief recap: in an interview on Campbell Live director Peter Jackson, who appeared on the verge of tears, said he felt "ambushed" by the protest, and wanted nothing more than to make the films here.

However Warner Brothers said, in tones which resembled a schoolroom telling-off, that continuing production here would be unlikely.

The Prime Minister John Key then jumped in to save the production, conferencing with the Warner Brothers executives and bringing about a law change, making him look more heroic than usual.

On top of this, the film company secured around $93 million dollars of subsidies from the government to fund and advertise their $600 million film.

The Hobbit would stay, but at a heavy cost.

Now, when you look at the figure, "$93 million" seems like an awful lot.

But will it be worth it in the long run? Key said "It was only commercial. We did the business, " which doesn't sound particularly conclusive.

It looks like everyone was so determined to keep the film here, that any price was reasonable.

A poll on the same Campbell live episode showed that ninety percent of people blamed the actors' union, not the film company, for all the trouble.

It seems that when we New Zealanders really get attached to someone - like Jackson- they can never do wrong, and we will always support them, no matter the issue.

Of course we must look at the other side, and see what the production company got out of it.

They used the strike to their advantage to gain more benefits, although they appeared to have no problem with the price of production before the strike.

The question is: was there ever any danger of them leaving at all? Have we been sneakily manipulated in our hospitality? What will we get out of the film that will make it so worth while? What was it we were all so desperate not to lose? The tourism potential, for a start.

Last year, tourism was the country's biggest export earner, bringing in $9.3 billion.

Much of this must be attributed to NZ's international fame as "Middle Earth", which will certainly be boosted again after these two films are made.

Another is the film industry potential.

Many massive-budgeted Hollywood films have been made here following the Lord of the Rings, because of the striking locations and also because of our good reputation, and more are on the way, such as the next two Avatar films.

Full Press: http://www.odt.co.nz/news/schools-news/135312/hobbit-why-93-million-and-was-it-too-much





Is CGI Still A Problem For Audiences?

(spinoff.comicbookresources.com) In this post-Avatar, post-Lord of the Rings world, are we at the point where CGI characters seem “real” enough in live-action surroundings that our eyes can’t tell the difference anymore? And, if not, will we ever get there?

I ask because of seeing Simon Pegg and Nick Frost talk about the (CGI-ed) title character in their upcoming comedy, Paul. In a recent interview with Empire magazine, however, they talk about the worry that having a third of your main cast be CGI brings, and how they plan to get around the problem. “If people don’t forget that Paul is a CG character within ten minutes of meeting him, we’ve done something wrong. He should not be anything special. He should be one of the gang,” says Frost, while Pegg adds, “There are bits of dialogue where he just talks and does a lot of theorizing about religion and sexuality and he swears a lot. We’ve not seen a CG character do that before.” Reading that, I thought, “Wait, swearing is the important novelty value here?” And then I thought, “People won’t forget that Paul is a CG character.”

I doubt many people would disagree with me that Avatar is, by far, the highpoint of CGI at this point. There’s no doubting the amazing amount of work that went into that movie’s visuals, and countless shots are breathtaking in their beauty and complexity. And yet… Is it “realistic” enough to fool you into convincing you to ignore the technique and fiction of it all? The Na’vi look photoreal, yes, but there’s still something about them – And I think it’s the facial movements, and the fact that there’s something too smooth, almost, about them – that seems false, and it breaks the spell just enough for the doubt to creep in.

At the Avatar Blu-Ray junket a few weeks ago, it was suggested by WETA spokespeople that CGI technology was at the point where news footage could be convincingly entirely fabricated, if someone had enough time and money (and motion capture suits), and no-one would be able to tell the difference. I’m not sure that’s true, just yet, but I think that every new big movie with CGI interacting with live-action is pushing us further towards that (It’s actually one of the main reasons I want to see Tron Legacy, to see how the de-aged Jeff Bridges looks). Doing so, and seeing CGI aimed towards a seemless transition with reality underlines Avatar director James Cameron’s assertion that CGI should be a filmmaking tool, and not a gimmick – an idea I can totally get behind – but it also makes me feel as if we’re all missing the point, occasionally. Yes, I’m looking forward to the point where Harry Potter can jump onto his broom and not look as if he’s suddenly lost all bones in his body or whatever, but… is there anything wrong with Paul, a character who comes from another planet, looking unreal? More often than not, CGI is used to create that which doesn’t happen naturally – Instead of becoming obsessed with verisimilitude, can’t that just be one aim for CGI, with another, equally important, one being to push how far it can take our imaginations? Not everything has to look real, after all. And maybe some things would look better not looking real at all.


Dreamworks Anim "Megamind" Plots $52 Million Open

(hollywoodinsider.ew.com)
Paramount is anticipating the $130 million Megamind to debut to about the same figure as DreamWorks’ last original animated film, How to Train Your Dragon, which soared to a $43.7 million opening in March. But Dragon didn’t have the star power of Ferrell and Pitt, and Paramount’s been promoting Megamind with the fervor of a gubernatorial candidate. Megamind will also benefit from an extremely wide opening at 3,944 locations, two-thirds of which will be showing the comedy in 3-D. Add in 195 IMAX 3-D screens, a short running time of 96 minutes, and an audience starved for family entertainment, and I’m thinking this thing should have no problem topping $50 million. (By comparison, Universal’s similarly themed Despicable Me grossed $56.4 million its first weekend in July).



Next James Bond Slated for November 2012

(Bloomberg) In the midst of complicated financial restructuring following their bankruptcy claim, MGM has issued plans for the future of their flagship James Bond franchise, reports Bloomberg.

The next, currently-untitled, Bond film is planned for November 2012 and the article claims that sequels will follow every other year.

The 23rd entry in the franchise, the film was originally set to star returning actor Daniel Craig as Bond with Sam Mendes attached to direct. Though it is very likely that Craig will still return, there is not yet a confirmation of Mendes' continued involvement.




DC Comic Book Tentpoles Ramp Up At Warner Bros.

(movies.ign.com) Now that the Warner Bros. throne has been inherited by exec Jeff Robinov, there's a lot of speculation about where he'll be taking the studio. And of Robinov's plans, one thing seems certain: more DC Comics movies. But no Shazam!

The Wrap is pondering the state of affairs at Warner Bros. during this transfer of power, and while they're light on details, they do say that "the long-gestating comic book adaptation Shazam! is said to be pretty much dead at the moment."


So what isn't dead? Robinov plans on producing fewer movies overall and more tentpoles, including "one or two" DC Comics properties per year. In addition to movies, DC boss Diane Nelson is also now tasked with "new monetization strategies for these titles, particularly online." So get that fan-fiction ready to go, guys!

As for specific characters or comics that may result from this strategy, The Wrap is vague and possibly uninformed. Aside from the obvious Dark Knight Rises, the untitled Superman reboot, Green Lantern and The Flash, the site mentions Wonder Woman, "which the studio is also looking to crack development on" -- seemingly unaware that a live-action TV series based on the character was recently put into development. Not that a WW movie couldn't also happen -- see Marvel's upcoming Hulk TV show.




Post-Apocalyptic "Akira" In Pre-Production With "Visual Artists” - Looks for Lead

(slashfilm.com) Zac Efron has apparently been offered the lead role in Albert Hughes’ upcoming live-action adaptation of the popular anime/Katsuhiro Otomo‘s six-volume manga Akira. I’m not able to confirm the offer, but one source tells me Efron is in talks, while another says that it is “far from a done deal.”

Set-up at Warner Bros through Leonardo DiCaprio‘s production company Appian Way, the project has been in development for some time with screenwriters Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby (wrote earlier drafts of Children of Men and are credited with Iron Man). Gary Whitta (The Book of Eli) had previously worked on the project.

Last we heard, producer Andrew Lazar said that Hughes is was busy “conceptualizing the movie with a bunch of visual artists” and working with a new screenwriter, Albert Torres (Henry Poole Is Here), to put his stamp on Akira. That draft was due in September. Hughes has also talked about the film being PG-13 and the idea that he might only direct the first of two planned films. (One adapting the first three manga volumes, and the second volumes four through six.)

The previous screenplay was set in a post-apocalyptic “New Manhattan” and will feature Akira’s famous red motorcycle. The original Katsuhiro Otomo anime was set in a futuristic and post-war city, Neo-Tokyo, in 2019. As for the casting, here is an excerpt from a previous posting by Russ Fischer:





‘Transformers 3′ Issues NYC Casting Call

(onlocationvacations.com) Looks like Transformers 3, which is currently shooting in L.A., will be filming in New York City next week. The extras casting company Grant Wilfley just issues the following casting call:

Grant Wilfley Casting is seeking the following for background work on TRANSFORMERS 3: the Dark of the Moon:

* Arabic/Middle Eastern, South Asian/East Indian, and African men and women with traditional ethnic wardrobe for work on Nov. 12 or Nov. 13.

Email a recent picture and contact information to casting@gwcnyc.com. Write the role for which you are submitting in the subject line of your email. Filming the week of November 8 in NYC.





The Foundry Release Mari on Windows

(fxguide.com) MARI was originally developed at Weta Digital to handle the exceedingly detailed look development and texture work demanded by Avatar. MARI copes easily with an obsessive level of detail – literally tens of thousands of textures – quickly and elegantly.
MARI has already been enthusiastically received across the world’s texture painting communities. Initially released on Linux in July, MARI has been adopted globally with a client list including Framestore, Double Negative, Method Studios, Animal Logic, and Digital Domain.

Now shipping, MARI 1.1 for Windows and MARI 1.1 for Linux add FBX Camera import, TGA support, a smart selection tool, canvas toolbar, perspective view, a normal shader and dramatically improved performance.

Matt Holben, CEO, Double Negative, said, “Development in the world of texture painting has been somewhat stilted in recent years, hence Weta’s development of MARI. We are all facing increasing demands in terms of scale and detail as new formats become the norm. MARI is what our artists have been waiting for. We have been employing it on production since alpha and are confident we are making the right move purchasing this software – even pre-release.”

Method Studios’ CG Supervisor, Scott Metzger, comments “There is almost no learning curve when using MARI. I was able to place artists with no experience in the software and get fantastic results very quickly. This is something that would never have been possible with Zbrush. MARI is the only plaint texture tool I want to texture in now.”
The Foundry has seen huge interest in MARI from artists working on Windows – across a broad range of industries including Games and product design – and so the company has invested in a significant engineering effort to ensure a timely release on this platform.

The aggressive development roadmap for the product continues into 2011. Amongst other things, The Foundry will be taking advantage of the exclusive deal with Walt Disney Animation Studios, announced in July, to incorporate elements of the studio’s internally-developed Paint3D technology into MARI.





Writers for Spielberg's New Sci-Fi Series Laid Off

(marquee.blogs.cnn.com) Having a boss who is one of the wealthiest men in Hollywood doesn’t necessarily translate to job security.

The Los Angles Times reports that most of the writing staff for Steven Spielberg’s new Fox sci-fi show “Terra Nova” has been let go. Those who received the ax include former "X-Files" writer Chris Brancato.

The series – which is being produced by a group including Spielberg and former News Corp. head Peter Chernin – is described as “a time-travel epic that toggles between the 22nd century and prehistoric times” with a pilot episode that reportedly cost nearly $20 million.

According to the L.A. Times, the network recently decided to use a strategy similar to the one used for the hit Fox show “Glee,” and unveil the series with a two-hour special in May and then bring the show back as part of the regular fall 2011 lineup.

But that tactic means employing writers while not much is going on. So instead, the show will either hire back the writers later on or, in the case of those who are unavailable, bring in new writers.

The show is set to feature a cast which includes “Avatar” co-star Stephen Lang.





Remake The Toxic Avenger In The Works

(comingsoon.net) Steve Pink, the man behind Hot Tub Time Machine, has come aboard the remake of The Toxic Avenger, reports Deadline. Pink will not only direct but will, alongside, Daniel C. Mitchell, provide the script.

The original film was set in Tromaville, New Jersey - a small American town, terrorized by criminals. Among the residents of Tromaville is Melvin, a nerdy emaciated janitor at the local health club. A gang of thugs devise a cruel hoax that goes horribly wrong as Melvin is cast through a third story window into a vat of hazardous toxic waste. However, an unexpected metamorphosis takes place. As the chemicals take hold of his body, Melvin turns into the Toxic Avenger, doer of good, and brutal mauler of evil.

Directed by Michael Herz and Lloyd Kaufman, the original launched their company, Troma Entertainment with "Toxie" as their corporate mascot. The original The Toxic Avenger spawned three sequels





Bubblegum Crisis 3D Live-Action MovieOn the Way

(denofgeek.com) Unless you're seriously into 80s anime, you may not have heard of Bubblegum Crisis. Starting as an OAV (Original Animation Video) series in 1987, Bubblegum Crisis could be best described as an animated take on the future-noir of Ridley Scott's Blade Runner.

Set in a 2033 Tokyo torn in two by an earthquake, the anime introduced the Knight Sabers, a quartet of female mercenaries, and related their ongoing battle against the GENOM Corporation and their army of robots called Boomers.

Best remembered for its distinctive, slinky character designs by Kenichi Sonoda, Bubblegum Crisis spawned several spin-offs (including Bubblegum Crash), tie-in videogames and a Dark Horse comic series courtesy of writer/artist Adam Warren.

According to Bleeding Cool, a 3D live-action adaptation of Bubblegum Crisis is in the works, with Anthony LaMolinara in the director's chair. LaMolinara is best known for his animation effects work on the first two Spider-Man movies, and Paul Verhoeven's Hollow Man.

Set to commence shooting next year, the film, called Bubblegum Crisis: Knight Sabers, is a (deep breath) Canadian-Chinese-English-Australian-Japanese co-production. The visual effects will be handled by Canada's Mokko Studios (who worked on X-Men Origins: Wolverine and Darren Aronofsky's divisive The Fountain), so it should certainly look the part.

No word yet as to who will play the Knight Sabers themselves, but with shooting expected to begin next May, we should have some casting news very soon.




Johnny Depp Will Be A Vampire in Tim Burton’s 'Dark Shadows'

(latinoreview.com) Once again Johnny Depp and Tim Burton will team up together for another film.

It will be for “Dark Shadows,” which is based on a television vampire soap opera. Depp will play Barnabas Collins, which was originally played by actor Jonathan Frid on the TV series from 1966-1971.

It was also previously reported the production was pushed back to April. Deadline also speculated the new start date for “Dark Shadows” may complicate director Kathryn Bigelow’s recruitment of Depp for “Triple Frontier” production in February.

Gig Patta’s Take: It would be nice to see Johnny Depp and Tom Hanks working together on a project like “Triple Frontier.” Depp and Tim Burton have a solid relationship for many years with a few films. Although I never heard of a vampire soap opera, but Depp could pull off anything. And I probably will expect Helena Bonham Carter to play some role in “Dark Shadows” too.

What do you think of Johnny Depp playing a vampire in “Dark Shadows?”






Return of the Jedi Screen-Worn Mask Readies for Auction

(news-antique.com) BEVERLY HILLS, CA – Considering how many Ewoks trolled the moon of the gas giant Endor as the Empire re-built its Death Star in Return of The Jedi, it’s amazing that more authentic Ewok masks and costumes haven’t shown up at public auction. That, however, is precisely the case, as evidenced by the advance buzz being generated by hardcore Star Wars fans as the Star Wars Ewok costume mask worn by actor Lars Green – who passed away in 2003 – in Episode VI prepares for its auction debut in Los Angeles.

The mask is part of Heritage Auctions Beverly Hills Nov. 13-14 Signature® Music & Entertainment Auction. It is conservatively estimated at $3,000+.

The mask has been consigned to Heritage by Green’s brother, Dr. Glen Green, a middle school teacher of U.S. History in Arcadia, CA. According to Green, there used to be even more to the costume, but time, his own children, and many Halloweens led to the disintegration of several key parts.

“There used to be hands and feet that went with the mask,” said Dr. Green, “but my kids used to wear it for Halloween every year, and wore out the hands and feet.”

While highly prized as a gift from his brother, Dr. Green had no idea the mask was worth anything until his middle school students let him know that what he had carried more than sentimental value.

“I’d take it out and put it on at school in October and the kids would go crazy for it,” Dr. Green said. “Recently the kids started saying, ‘you know, Dr. Green, that mask is worth a lot of money. You should sell it on eBay.”

Rather than taking his chances online, Green took the mask to the professionals at Heritage, who have seen a decided spike in interest in the mask based on both the popularity of the Star Wars franchise and the absolute rarity of intact examples of these costumes.

“We’ve been pretty much overwhelmed at the response to this mask,” said Kristen Painter, Manager of Music & Entertainment Auctions at Heritage. “People have been coming into our Beverly Hills office off the street, absolutely freaking out over this thing.”

There are two distinct schools of thought around the little Ewoks: Those who love the fluffy little gibberish spouting warriors, and appreciate their contribution to ultimate triumph of good over evil in Star Wars, and there are those who think it was the first completely blatant sop to merchandising in the long line of such plays that were to follow.

“No matter where you fall in this pop culture debate,” said Painter, “it’s difficult to ignore the impact that just seeing this piece makes. Strangely, it’s quite a powerful costume.”

This mask is just one of many such masks created for supporting players and background artists portraying the primitive, fierce, three-foot-high Ewoks who appeared in the 1983 sequel to Star Wars, as well as the made-for-television movies Caravan of Courage: The Ewok Adventure.



Pixar Not Planning "Toy Story 4"

(worstpreviews.com) After "Toy Story 3" hit theaters and became the highest-grossing animated movie, Pixar began thinking up ideas not only for a fourth installment, but also "Toy Story" short films.

Movieweb has now caught up with "Toy Story 3" producer Darla K. Anderson, who revealed that the fourth film is NOT in the works. "No we're really not," she said. "We have no plans for it at this point. We really worked hard at bringing 'Toy Story 3' to a conclusion."

Anderson added that the plan is still to move forward with "Toy Story" shorts. "We do have the short films that we are working on because we love the characters so much and want to keep them alive," she explained. "One of the short films will be in front of 'Cars 2' next summer."



'Rango' Video Game Saddles Up

(xbox360.ign.com) REDWOOD CITY, Calif. - Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ: ERTS) and Paramount Digital Entertainment today announced a distribution agreement that will catapult an upcoming Paramount property into the hands of gamers worldwide. Rango The Video Game, is an action-adventure title inspired by the upcoming animated feature film starring the voice of Johnny Depp.

Rango The Video Game invites players to continue on Rango's wild journey through new adventures inspired by the movie. The game is set in the Old West town of 'Dirt' where players romp through a gritty, pint-sized, Wild West filled with wild rides, off-color characters and frantic shoot-outs. Rango is Paramount Pictures' first full-length animated feature film; both the film and the video game will be released in March 2011.




'Hobbit' Movie Remains Under Funded

(npr.org) Movie studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Inc. has filed for bankruptcy protection, as part of a complex deal with its lenders that will see the company merge with Spyglass Entertainment.

The lenders, who are owed around $4 billion, will get some $2 billion in stock in the newly combined company, which will be run by Spyglass executives.

The court papers MGM filed Wednesday include a request to keep spending money in the coming months — including around $40 million to make "The Hobbit."

Here's a quote from the AP:

In the bankruptcy court filings, MGM sought approval to spend up to $125 million from its accounts on operations over the next 15 weeks.

About $40 million will go toward "The Hobbit," the two-part prequel to the "Lord of the Rings'' trilogy.

"The Hobbit'' is being directed by Peter Jackson and is half-owned by Time Warner Inc.'s Warner Bros., the person said. The two movies, being shot back-to-back, have a budget of around $500 million.

This latest hurdle might be an easy one for the film to get over — especially compared to the earlier challenges to the production.

So far, "The Hobbit" has undergone a change of directors, and labor issues in New Zealand nearly forced the studios to stop early production and film elsewhere.





Festival Gets Special Effect Guru Visit - Douglas Trumbull

(adelaidenow.com.au) THE man behind the special effects in movies from 2001: A Space Odyssey to Star Trek - The Movie is coming to the Adelaide International Film Festival.

Film Festival director Katrina Sedgwick said yesterday that Hollywood movie legend Douglas Trumbull would be one of the star attractions of the festival, which runs from February 24 to March 6 next year.

"If Douglas Trumbull had done nothing else after the stargate sequence of 2001: A Space Odyssey, he would still be one of the key figures of special effects filmmaking," Ms Sedgwick said.

"To follow this up with a career which encompassed works such as Close Encounters of the Third Kind , Silent Running and Blade Runner marks him as a legend in the evolution of special effects. We are delighted to have him as our very special guest."

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More recently, he announced he was sick of the film industry and has pioneered immersive entertainment at theme parks such as Universal Studio's Back to the Future ride and the Secrets of the Luxor event at the Luxor casino in Las Vegas.

Trumbull got his break after he worked for a company making effects for a film on the Apollo space mission for the New York World Fair in 1964.

Director Stanley Kubrick was impressed and hired him for 2001 .

At the festival Trumbull will give his insights into effects, and applicants will vie for a spot in a three-hour class with him.

The program highlights for next year's Film Festival will be announced on November 30, and the full program launched in January.






On Display: Alien Creature from John Carpenter's "The Thing"

This gruesome shape-shifting alien creature was featured in John Carpenter's 1982 remake of The Thing.

When a parasitic alien life-form infiltrates an American Antarctic research station it kills and assimilates other organisms. At one stage it it takes over the form of 'Vance Norris' (played by Charles Hallahan) and in an attempt to escape being burned alive, it separates his head from the rest of the body and sprouts crablike legs, amongst other things.

Rob Bottin was make-up effects creator and designer on the classic sci-fi horror, and responsible for creating the outlandish and over-the-top special effects that are still impressive today.

I'm not sure whether this is an original concept model, a prop used in the production of the movie or a reproduction for use in Universal Orlando's Horror Make-Up Show (where it was photographed on September 23, 2010), but regardless it's still an eye-catching creature design.

Take a look: http://hollywoodmoviecostumesandprops.blogspot.com/2010/10/alien-creature-from-john-carpenters.html





James Cameron Slams All Post-Production 3D Conversions, Excpet His

(portal.itproportal.com - familyvideo.com) Director James Cameron has hit out at "lazy" Hollywood studios who think that converting 2D movies to 3D at the last minute can earn them quick bucks.

According to Cameron, adding 3D effects during post production does more harm than good to the film.

Cameron made reference to “Clash of the Titans” which was filmed in 2D and converted to 3D at the last minute. The film subsequently failed at the box office, the BBC reports.

The director said that if studios want a good 3D movie, it had to be filmed in 3D from the very first day of production.

"My personal philosophy is that post conversion should be used for one thing and one thing only - which is to take library titles that are favourites that are proven, and convert them into 3D - whether it's Jaws or ET or Indiana Jones, Close Encounters... or Titanic," he said.

"Unless you have a time machine to go back and shoot it in 3D, you have no other choice. The best alternative is if you want to release a movie in 3D - make it in 3D."

To pay tribute to the lives lost during the catastrophe, James Cameron has mentioned that he's planning on re-releasing his three-hour epic, "Titanic," in theaters once again, according to Paste Magazine. The esteemed filmmaker also made mention of transferring his cherished movie to 3D.

"We've been moving very slowly to make sure that we do it right, and we've basically gone to every single vendor who does 3D conversion," he told the news outlet.



"Pride and Prejudice and Zombies" Likes Comedian Director

( Los Angeles Times) Comedian Mike White is now apparently the front runner to direct the period comedy/thriller "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies" at Lionsgate.

David O. Russell dropped out of helming the project not long ago, leading to all sorts of names from Jonathan Demme ("The Silence of the Lambs"), Mike Newell ("Prince of Persia") and Matt Reeves ("Cloverfield") said to be in contention. Reeves has since said he's definitely not taking part.

White, who penned "School of Rock" and directed "Year of the Dog", is said to be a good choice due to his skill handling very black comedy.





Does "Mars" Really Need Movie Tax Incentives?

(sltrib.com) Officials for the Governors Office of Economic Development and the Utah Film Commission recently have been pleading their case to the Utah Legislature to raise the state's motion-picture incentive -- the tax break the state gives to Hollywood productions who come film here -- from 20 percent to 25 percent.

Legislators have seemed receptive to the idea in interim meetings this fall. But a new roadblock has been raised against the notion: A position paper from Utah's ultra-right think tank, The Sutherland Institute.

The paper's author, Allan Carlson, opines that such incentives don't bring in the jobs and economic impact their supporters promise. He also argues that, in many cases, Hollywood "would film in the state even without the bribe." Carlson continues:

If you want to make a movie in a small Midwestern town, for example, one in Iowa is probably just as good as one in Indiana, and a bigger incentive – even if economically foolish from the perspective of the taxpayers – might tip the balance. Yet in many other cases, location is the driving force. One suspects that that was true for "John Carter of Mars." The landscape around Hanksville – red, dry, barren and rock-strewn – has been repeatedly judged by scientists and science fiction enthusiasts alike as the one spot on Earth that most resembles Mars. A movie designed to be set on Mars almost had to be filmed there. And in the context of a film with a budget reportedly more than $250 million, Utah's $5.5 million "investment" seems like a pretty small "lure." It might be seen simply as taxpayer money wasted.

Carlson's speculation about "John Carter of Mars" would be disputed by Marshall Moore, director of the Utah Film Commission. Moore told the Cricket in April that Disney (the studio making "John Carter of Mars") would not even allow its location scouts to set foot in Utah before the state raised its incentive to 20 percent.

Disney had been looking at neighboring New Mexico, which has a 25 percent incentive -- and in the last year or so has taken two major productions that Utah tried to land: The sci-fi blockbuster "Cowboys & Aliens" and the Coen brothers' Western remake "True Grit."




Hellboy Special Effects Artist Gets Directorial Debut

(horrornews.net) "Parasitic", which involves a sick fish being consumed by a nightclub bartender only to be infected and unknowing to her a parasite grows inside her only to burst out from her throat and control her like a puppet!

Parasitic will be Tim Martin’s directorial debut, for those of you that may not be aware Tim Martin is best known for his Special F-X work who has previously worked on titles that include; Hellboy, Spiderman and Alien vs. Predator to name but a few he is currently doing special F-X for The Thing remake.




'Harry Potter' Tickets Are Being Sold Out for Opening Day

(latinoreview.com) Better get your tickets now.

With just a little over two weeks left before the movie release, Harry Potter has casted a spell amongst the populace.

“Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1” has already sold-out 500 showtimes for Friday, November 19, according to Fandago.

At this rate, the ticket sales have outpaced each of the previous Harry Potter movies during the same sales cycle. Approximately 61% of the Fandango’s most recent daily ticket sales are for upcoming “Harry Potter” movie, beating out all the ticket sales for all current films combined.

“Even though the finale’s first part is more than two weeks away, fans are already showing their eagerness to join the final journal on opening weekend,” said Fandango COO Rick Butler. “We’ve seen more sold-out showtimes for this film than we’ve seen for any other film this year, at the same point in the sales cycle.”

“Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1” will be released on Friday, November 19.




Aardman Animation Renders CG-Animated 'Arthur Christmas'

(latinoreview.com) Every child wonders how Santa delivers Christmas presents all in one night.

The 3D, CG-animated “Arthur Christmas,” will answer the secrets of Santa Claus.

Sony Pictures Animation announced James McAvoy, Hugh Laurie, Jim Broadbent, Bill Nighy, Imelda Staunton and Ashley Jensen will be part of the voice cast for the animation.

Here is the official synopsis:

“McAvoy leads the cast as Arthur, the good-natured but clumsy younger son of Santa. Arthur LOVES everything to do with Christmas; indeed, he is the only one in his family still captivated by the magic of the holiday. Laurie will play Arthur’s older brother Steve, heir to the reins, a cool, incredibly capable guy who has given the North Pole high-tech efficiency, military-style precision. Broadbent plays Santa, who pictures himself as the guy in charge at the North Pole, but is now more of a figurehead as the operation has outgrown him. Nighy plays Santa’s 136-year-old father, Grandsanta, a cranky old codger who hates the modern world, is always grumbling that Christmas ‘was better when I was Santa’ and has a tense relationship with Steve, who he calls ‘A postman with a spaceship.’ Jensen will play Bryony, a lowly elf from the Giftwrap Battalion, with an eager-to-please attitude and an obsession with wrapping and bows. Imelda Staunton rounds out the cast as Mrs. Santa, dedicated wife and mother to her husband and sons.”

“We are thrilled to have assembled such a phenomenal group of actors for ‘Arthur Christmas,’” said director Sarah Smith in a press release. “Not only are they all terrifically funny, charming and characterful but they have also brought an emotional subtlety and depth that gives the film great heart.

The animation is produced by Aardman Animations for Sony Pictures Animation and slated for release on November 23, 2011.




VOTE: Best Special Effects in a Film of the Decade

(thescorecardreview.com) Every year we select the best in films and let our TSR fans score each and every one. Now it’s time to look back.
This is just one of 24 categories in The Scorecard Review Movie Awards: Best of the Decade (Almost). The nominations from above are the top two finishers from each year of The Scorecard Review Movie Awards.

Best Visuals – special effects

2002 – Lord of the Rings: Two Towers
2002 – Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones
2003 – Lord of the Rings: Return of the King
2003 – Matrix Reloaded
2004 – Spider-Man 2
2004 – House of Flying Daggers
2005 – Sin City
2005 – King Kong
2006 – Pan’s Labyrinth
2006 – The Fountain
2007 – 300
2007 – Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End
2008 – The Dark Knight
2008 – The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
2009 – Avatar
2009 – Star Trek

Vote Today: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=NW3D1P%2bxorMtAt82%2fOgwAz6o6KnNBa7GPeT0%2ffX3H24%3d





Movie Props: Adam Savage Teaches The Art Of Mold Making

You know Adam Savage as the co-host of the terrific MythBusters television show, but did you also know that Adam has a career as an effects designer and model maker for the movie industry? His sci-fi creations can be seen in movies such as movies Galaxy Quest, Bicentennial Man, Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones, The Matrix Reloaded and Space Cowboys, and others.

In MAKE Volume 24, Adam shares his model making skills in the form of an article titled "Hard Shell Molds." In the piece, he takes you step-by-step through the process of making a hard shell, or "mother mold," that can be used to make resin casts of large props (such as a futuristic ray gun). The process is quite detailed, finicky, and time-consuming, but Adam's directions are clear and thorough. I found the photos of the mold itself to be quite beautiful — a true work of art, even though its purpose is strictly utilitarian.

Back in MAKE Volume 08 Adam wrote a primer on how to make molds for casting small objects. It's a simpler process than making a hard shell mold, and a great place to get started if you want to learn about silicone mold making. You can read an intro to the article here. Unfortunately, MAKE Volume 08 is sold out, but if you subscribe to MAKE, you'll get full access to all 24 issues in digital format.

Source with pics: http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2010/10/adam_savages_mold_making_article_in.html


Marvel Budget Crunch Threatens To Kill 'The Avengers'

(latinoreview) 'The Avengers' Could Reach To A Halt Due To Money Issues There hasn't been any sort of halts on putting everything together for Joss Whedon's "The Avengers". Let's just pop that safe bubble right there, shall we. Yeah, that's right, there could be a delay on filming "The Avengers". Why? Well this sucker's predicted to have a relatively large budget since it does have a star-studded cast, a lot of visual effects and everything of that sort. The only real problem is that Marvel wants to make sure they have a rather small budget. Yeah, and I want to start phasing through walls like Kitty Pryde.

People are leaping on and off this project, the rumor that "The Avengers" could be pushed back to who knows when lingers in the air. Sounds like a bit of a mess right now, no? Hopefully the mighty people at Marvel can go and figure this budget mess out. After all, they don't want to loose any of their big stars due to any possible scheduling conflicts that could arise thanks to pushing back production.

Marvel takes a little bit of a gamble next year when they dish out the hard-to-sell "Thor" in theaters on May 6th, 2011. The Kenneth Branagh directed film stars Chris Hemsworth as the powerful warrior in this Shakespearian-like tale.



Scarlett Johansson To Become Mesmerizing Alien Huntress

(Heat Vision) Scarlett Johansson has signed on for the science fiction story Under the Skin.

The film, currently looking for buyers at the American Film Market, comes from director Jonathan Glazer (Sexy Beast, Birth) who co-wrote Under the Skin with Walter Campbell. The official description is as follows:

“Johansson plays an alien on earth, disguised as the perfect aesthetic form of a mesmerizing woman. She scours remote highways and desolate scenery looking to use her greatest weapon to snare human prey -- her voracious sexuality. She is deadly efficient, but over time becomes drawn to and changed by the complexity of life on earth. With this new found humanity and weakening alien resolve, she finds herself on a collision course with her own kind. Taking her point of view throughout, the film presents a unique look at our world through alien eyes.”

Johansson last appeared as Natasha Romanov (aka The Black Widow) in this past summer's Iron Man 2. She will next reprise the role for The Avengers.





No '3D' For Frankenstein

(digitalspy.com) Guillermo del Toro has revealed that he doesn't want to shoot his proposed Frankenstein movie in 3D.

Taking part in a Twitter Q&A with Digital Spy, the Pan's Labyrinth director dismissed the notion that 3D doesn't suit cinema, citing Avatar, Toy Story 3 and How To Train Your Dragon as examples of movies that have used the format to good effect.

However, del Toro admitted that he doesn't believe the new technology is suitable for every movie: "I don't want to see Jane Austen's Pride And Prejudice and see Mr Darcy in 3D. I don't want to see Wuthering Heights in 3D."

The director admitted that he had no interest in making The Hobbit in 3D when he was attached to the project, and went on to discuss the various movies he has in development.

"I do believe that big spectacle movies like Avatar or At The Mountains Of Madness or The Haunted Mansion should be in 3D," he remarked.

"Frankenstein, I will fight for it not to be in 3D, Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde I wouldn't like it to be 3D. Slaughterhouse-Five, I think Kurt Vonnegut would have smiled either way."




Digital Domain’s Tron Effects Praised by CNN

(blogs.palmbeachpost.com0 On Monday, West Palm’s city commission will formally allow Digital Domain to take over the city’s tent site and set up a digital animation college at Okeechobee and Dixie.

It’s perfect timing for Digital Domain owner John Textor. On Friday, CNN posted its review of a sneak peak of the new Tron sequel, praising the digital effects (funny if you remember the cheesy effects from the original Tron in the early 1980s).

Some nice effects in a Tron sequel certainly won’t guarantee success of an animation college in West Palm, but it shows that Digital Domain is a high-quality company.





Mumbai's First CGI Feature Mops up $35 Million

(Indiantelevision.com) MUMBAI: For Crest Animation Studios, the makeover to an animated movie production house is paying off. The Mumbai-based company's first CGI animated 3D stereoscopic film, Alpha & Omega, has grossed approximately $35 million in its seven-week run.

Released globally by co-production partner Lionsgate on 17 September, the movie continues its run in the USA, UK, France and some other territories.

"We expect the movie to earn an income of $100 million from all revenue streams including box office, home video and sale of satellite rights. The initial success of the movie has earned us credibility and could be a gamechanger for the Indian animation industry," says Crest Animation CEO AK Madhavan.

The film, made on a production budget of $25 million, is yet to be released in other major territories like Germany, Spain, Italy, Australia, Japan and Latin America.




"Hobbit Law" Change Slammed: No Sick Pay, No Holiday Pay, & No Paid Breaks

(3news.co.nz - stuff.co.nz) Labour MP Clare Curran says the Government's law changes surrounding the Hobbit movies are a "shambles".

In a post on the official Labour Party blog titled 'NZ law: brought to you by Warner Bros', she accuses National MPs of inconsistency in their explanations.

"Yesterday Steven Joyce said in the House that if we didn’t change the law under urgency then the Hobbit films wouldn’t be made here," writes Ms Curran, but: "In question time yesterday Gerry Brownlee insisted that Warner Brothers had no role in requiring this law change to go ahead."

The change to the law stops film industry contractors from claiming they are employees in disputes.

"The changes they are proposing to employment laws are entirely unrelated to the earlier dispute with the New Zealand Actors' Equity and the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance," says Ms Curran.

"That was about independent contractors wanting to remain as independent contractors but to negotiate collectively. This law change is about whether an independent contractor can be considered to be an employee."

Economic Development Minister Gerry Brownlee says the unions are at fault for jeopardising the shoot.

"We've pulled a dreadful situation out of the fire," he said.

"It is our workers who have won. Their jobs were put at risk by an Australian union."

Ms Curran however, says: "There’s no need to amend the Employment Relations Act. We’ve been making movies in NZ without problems for years… It’s about a shambles, opportunism and populism."

The new legislation creates a default position categorising all film production workers as independent contractors. This would not prevent parties from entering into employment agreements, but is likely to create a hurdle for workers who want to enter into employment agreements. Employers will be under no legal obligation to offer employment agreements.

A contractor is far worse off than an employee. He or she is not covered by the provisions of the Employment Relations Act and so is not entitled to sick pay, holiday pay, paid breaks or the employee protections under the Employment Relations Act. Contractors are powerless when his or her hours are chopped and changed and has lost the right to be treated with dignity and respect by his employer.





The Visual Effects Society Announce Student Award 2011

(visualeffectssociety) The VES is pleased to announce that it is now accepting submissions for its annual Student Award, exclusively sponsored by Autodesk, Inc., a world leader in entertainment software. The deadline for submissions is November 30, 2010, and the winning student will receive the award live at the 9th Annual VES Awards Show, to be held on January 28, 2011 at the Century Plaza Hotel in Los Angeles.

The student award is to recognize outstanding achievement in visual effects on any project that was created by a student or group of students while attending an accredited school. Qualified students at schools from all over the world are encouraged to send in their submissions before the November 30, 2010 deadline. The winning student will be provided with free airfare from anywhere around the world, two night's accommodation to attend the show, and one license of either the Autodesk Maya Entertainment Creation Suite Premium or the Autodesk 3ds Max Entertainment Creation Suite 3D visual effects software, at no cost (both Suites include Autodesk MotionBuilder and Autodesk Mudbox, the Premium Suite also includes Autodesk Softimage). Rules and Procedures can be found at www.visualeffectssociety.com/ves-awards.





How ‘Avatar’ Sequel Will Go Underwater

(blogs.forbes.com) Now that James Cameron has confirmed plans to make two sequels to his $2 billion-plus monster hit “Avatar,” the movie industry is clamoring to know about the cutting-edge technologies he’ll be using to make the fantasy world of Pandora even more dazzling.

Cameron hasn’t said anything about the technologies yet, but he has indicated that the first sequel will take place underwater. The U.K’s Daily Mail reported that the director “has commissioned a bespoke submarine, built of high-tech, man-made composite materials and powered by electric motors, which will be capable of surviving the tremendous pressures at a depth of seven miles, from which he will shoot 3-D footage that may be incorporated in Avatar’s sequel.”

Terrence Masson says Cameron, like “Star Wars” creator George Lucas, has a “history of inventing and pushing new technologies. I’m betting [Cameron is] going to push camera manufacturers to make smaller, lighter, cheaper, more accurate 3-D stereography rigs.”

Right now, 3-D camera rigs are heavy and bulky, so it’s hard to do several camera set ups a day, says Masson, who has worked on animation at Lucas’ Industrial Light and Magic and consulted for Disney and DreamWorks.

Richard Weinberg, a professor at the USC School of Cinematic Arts, says Cameron likely will use computer-generated technologies as well. “I can only guess he’ll do a combination of simulation of underwater characters and environments and take some cameras underwater like he did in ‘Titanic,’ ” Weinberg says. “If you’re filming underwater, you can only see so far. I would expect that there would be an integration of simulated underwater landscape with whatever he’s able to capture.”

Masson also says that Cameron will be sure to squeeze the most out of existing movie technologies for the “Avatar” sequels. “He optimizes existing technologies, and takes stuff out of the esoteric and bleeding edge and makes it work well on large scale productions,” Masson says.

The second “Avatar” movie is scheduled to begin filming next year and hit movie theaters in 2014; the third installment is slated for 2015.




Two New VFX Studios To Open In India

(c2clive.com) Hyderabad/Chennai, India 2nd Nov: Incorporated in July 2009 and in active production since December 2009, VenSat Tech Services Pvt Ltd (VenSat) is a rapidly growing provider of animation, visual effects, motion comics and 2D/3D conversion services to the global marketplace.

Almost a full year in operation, VenSat, today announced its business plans and roadmap for the future of the company. VenSat’s lead investor is IndoUS Venture Partners (IUVP). Based in Bangalore, India, IUVP is a leading venture capital firm that provides funding to new or growing businesses in India.

Its principals are individuals of Indian lineage who have built exceptionally successful careers, and companies, and now operate in investments in Indian companies to capitalize on emerging opportunities in the India of the 21st century.

VenSat is currently best known internationally for having created all of the visual effects (VFX) for the 2010 motion picture releases, ‘DABANGG’ and some of the complex VFX sequences for ‘ROBO’, which have become two of the highest grossing films in India this year.

Additionally, the company recently delivered a full-length animated motion picture for a major European entertainment group and all VFX for ‘LAND OF THE ASTRONAUTS’ for Studio Cineville, in the U.S., which was premiered and showcased at the Montreal Film Festival and at the recently concluded Mumbai Film Festival. Further, VenSat is currently among the handful of Indian studios already doing 2D/3D conversion work for major U.S. theatrical features.




'Affordable' VFX Service Launches in the UK

London, United Kingdom, October 29, 2010 --(PR.com)-- The Flynn Film Company (FFC) has announced the launch of a new creative and conceptually driven CGI/motion graphics production service called FX to go live on November 1st, 2010. The facility which will also target the commercial sector will primarily service independent filmmakers seeking to elevate the impact and quality of their storytelling through visual effects.

Steven Flynn, founder and producer at FFC said “having awesome visual effects that inspire and excite audiences is not something that only large studios can have access to. With careful planning, great conceptual design and with access to excellent production talent we can help independent filmmakers realise their vision, and do it on a budget that makes sense for them.”

FX offers filmmakers a range of critically important VFX development services that include visual ideation, storyboarding, character design and CGI production design in addition to the actual CGI animation processes and compositing. Placing considerable emphasis on the visual development and ideation cycle is a key aspect to the FX way of working. This according to Steven Flynn, is the way to ensure that effects work in harmony with the story and the characters that is both authentic and relevant.

The new company is currently handling the visual effects work on its first feature film “Scopia” and well commence pre-production on as yet untitled new film project set in space due to go into production in 1st quarter 2011.




Master Monster Maker Certificate

(3.bp.blogspot.com) This certificate was given out to those people who entered the Monster Model Building contest put on by Famous Monsters, Aurora Models, and Universal Studios.

Take a look: http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_q9gTdYDKI3U/TJtyxanIkGI/AAAAAAAADSY/kNHTs1f6hAg/s1600/MONSTER+MAKER+CERTIFICATE+MMW.jpg





MGM Files for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy

MGM officially filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy today to set in motion its pre-packaged reorganization plan:

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. ("MGM") today announced that it and approximately 160 of its affiliates have filed Chapter 11 cases in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York (the "Court") to seek confirmation of their "pre-packaged" plan of reorganization ("Plan").

MGM has sufficient cash on hand, and the consent of its lenders to use this cash, to fund normal business operations throughout the Chapter 11 process. MGM has filed "first-day" motions seeking immediate Court approval to continue paying its employees, vendors, participants, guilds and licensors in the ordinary course of business during the entire Chapter 11 process, for both pre-petition and post-petition obligations. MGM anticipates that the Plan will be confirmed by the Court in approximately 30 days.




Another 'Cutesy' Hollywood CGI Film Released

(SATIRE)

(dailysquib.co.uk) HOLLYWOOD - USA - World cinema-goers were today thankful for another wonderful CGI film release featuring well-known Hollywood actors' voices.

"We've got another Hollywood movie release with cutesy CGI characters, American voices and American mannerisms," Ernie Schlitz, a studio executive at Fox Studios told Film Weekly.

Cinema-goers in Paris, France were astounded by the new movie.

Pierre Gitanes, 14, on his half-term holidays said: "Every week they release a new film with the same tired old American actors' voices and really dumb fucking CGI penguins or some other stupid creature. They walk around the screen going 'Yo, yo, whassup?' or 'Du-u-u-u-de!' after the 380th CGI film release this year I just sat in my seat and wept."

In Britain, many cinemas held a day of mourning as another cutesy Hollywood CGI film release hit the towns and cities.

"We just had another cutesy American CGI film release. I even had one man slit his wrist in the back and last week we had a hanging," Freddie Arbunckle, the manager at the Bexleyheath Odeon told the Mirror.

2011 VFX Tentpoles To Be A ‘Blood Bath’ For Hollywood

(herocomplex.latimes.com)
Jon Favreau’s track record and the cast make “Cowboys and Aliens” a movie to pay attention to in 2011, but Favreau knows he is going up against some titans of the popcorn sector. “Do you know the list? It’s pretty staggering,” Favreau said. It is a deep roster: There’s the huge finale of the ”Harry Potter” franchise, Johnny Depp’s return to his signature role with a new “Pirates of the Caribbean” installment from Disney and a third “Transformers” film, which is Michael Bay’s follow-up to the 2009 mecha-movie that pulled in more than $836 million worldwide.

Then there’s the masked-man crowd, with four major superhero films: ”Green Lantern” starring Ryan Reynolds and directed by “Casino Royale’s” Martin Campbell ; “Thor” and ”Captain America: The First Avenger,” two promising projects from the ever-expanding Marvel Studios universe; and director Matthew Vaughn’s “X-Men: First Class,” which will take the prequel route to Fox’s mutant-hero epic. Also arriving are proven animation powerhouses, such as Pixar’s “Cars 2” and the DreamWorks sequel to ”Kung Fu Panda,” as well as a new “Winnie the Pooh” feature film that goes old-school bear with hand-drawn animation. “The Smurfs 3D” will seek out the youngest moviegoers, as will Robert Rodriguez’s return to kid fare, “Spy Kids 4: All the Time in the World.”

There are also some wild cards. “Rise of the Apes,” starring James Franco, aspires to take the “Planet of the Apes” property in a bold new direction, while “Super 8” is an alien-menace tale that follows “Cloverfield” in cinematic spirit and, with J.J. Abrams’ name in the credits, can’t be dismissed. On the comedy front, there’s “Zookeeper” with Kevin James, which might just as well be called “Paul Blart: Zoo Cop,” and ”The Hangover 2,” which might end up being a bender to remember.

Favreau said it’s great for moviegoers, but it looks like a steel-cage match for filmmakers and studio executives. “There’s not a weekend where there won’t be teeth on the floor. The audience wins but it’s going to be rough for people making these movies. Then there was the big rush to 3D, so you have all of these people fighting for a limited number of screens and to get the 3D done, since most of these are hybrids or conversions, so this is a technology that is still in the relatively early stages and there’s going to be a lot of blood pressures going up in the months ahead.”





"Walking With Dinosaurs" to Become Feature Film

(bbc.co.uk) Emmy Award-winning BBC show Walking With Dinosaurs is to be made into a 3D movie, the corporation has announced.

The teams behind hit films Happy Feet and Finding Nemo will be involved in the production.

The project is the first part of a three-film deal with Indian company Reliance Big Entertainment.

Documentary Africa 3D will be filmed alongside new TV series, Africa, while Life will look at the life cycles of the animal world.

Walking With Dinosaurs, which used state-of-the-art techniques to bring to life a prehistoric world, was a huge hit when it was first broadcast in 1999.

A live arena show based on the series has taken more than £124m in the past three years.

The 3D film will follow a migrating family of dinosaurs and will use live-action footage of scenery and locations alongside CGI creatures.

BBC Worldwide's natural history arm, BBC Earth, will make the new films with Reliance.

A previous BBC Earth film, Earth, has taken almost £75m at cinemas around the world since it was released in 2007.





Digital Domain Signs Contracts For Animation School

(palmbeachpost.com) WEST PALM BEACH — A movie animation college is headed downtown, after the city commission signed a contract with Digital Domain on Monday.

The computer animation company negotiated with the city behind closed doors for nearly a year to turn West Palm into an education hub that will complement a digital animation studio being constructed in Port St. Lucie.

With the lure of a downtown full of students and a high-tech industry, the city's Community Redevelopment Agency agreed to donate the city's Tent Site — prime realty at Okeechobee Boulevard and Dixie Highway — to Digital Domain, along with a $15 million loan to fund Digital Domain's collaboration with the Florida State University film school.

"This is good on so many levels," said Commissioner Kimberly Mitchell, an FSU grad who helped orchestrate the deal. "What we're doing here today, we'll look back 10 and 20 years from now and really recognize its importance."

CRA director Kim Briesemeister said the city included safeguards in the deal to reduce financial risk. Briesemeister said the $15 million loan will not be provided until the first phase of the project is completed, which includes a 150,000 square foot building that will house an FSU film school, a separate Digital Domain Institute and an animation studio. Briesemeister said she expects the building to be out of the ground by 2013.

Digital Domain Holdings chairman John Textor personally guaranteed a portion of the financing, Briesemeister said.

A second phase of the plan calls for a 350,000 square foot building. The city can repossess the land if the second phase doesn't materialize.

Dennis Grady, President of the Chamber of Commerce of the Palm Beaches, praised the city for completing the deal during the economic downturn. "It's great to see the City of West Palm Beach on the brink of being able to champion something that can bring jobs, energy and economic redevelopment to our community," Grady said.

There was no public opposition to the plan, and proponents included former Florida State quarterback Drew Weatherford. Weatherford, who served as an FSU booster liaison for South Florida, said the deal provides the university with a needed presence in West Palm.

The city's loan will be provided in increments as the school boosts enrollment. The city's agreement calls for the digital college to initially have 50 students, eventually increasing to 1,000.

FSU film school dean Frank Patterson said his school's collaboration with Digital Domain will begin in the fall of 2012.

"We're willing to take a lot of our resources, because it's a lot of millions of dollars here," Mayor Lois Frankel said, "and we are willing to put it up for the future of the city."




New Heavy Metal Animated Movie Coming Soon

(fangoria.com) That's right! Sony and Paramount are joining together for a new animated HM movie and it will be done in different animation in each segment. David Fincher and James Cameron are gonna co-direct and produce this movie since they are fans of the popular adult comic magazine that is still going strong and fans of the animated Sci-fi/horror/fantasy animated classic.

The film will incorporate different animation in 10 segments such as 2D traditional, CGI, Clay Animation, Stop Motion, Flash and Japanimation. Other directors will be Gore Verbinski, Zack Snyder, Jack Black, and Rob Zombie as 3 other directors will be announced.

I hope they hire Yoshiaka Kawajari (Ninja Scroll, Wicked City, Vampire Hunter D Bloodlust and Animatrix) or Katsuhiro Otomo (Akira) for an anime segment, Will Vinton for a clay segment and Henry Selleick for a Stop Motion segment. This should be awesome like the original movie.





What A VFX Union Could Do For You

(vfxsoldier.wordpress.com) This week the IBEW Union will be holding another informational meeting to continue conversations with artists and technicians about forming a VFX union in the LA area:

Sunday November 7th 1:00pm

The American Legion Hall

5309 S. Sepulveda Blvd.

Culver City, CA 90230

If you intend to have a long term career in the VFX industry I suggest you take some time this Sunday to attend and participate in this meeting. There are many questions to be answered.

For example, how much should artists pay to be a member of this organization?

Should they pay more up front and less as they continue membership or vice versa?

Finally, since I always hear this question:

What Does A Union Do For Its Members?

As a former skeptic of a union who became an adamant supporter after working at an Animation Guild signatory facility, I can tell you it does a lot.

Regardless of what organization we choose to represent us, a union will basically provide us with three things:

* Portable health and retirement benefits.
* Paid time off for illness and vacation.
* Establishment of wage minimums and enforcement of labor laws.

Since most of that is straightforward, I’d like to focus on the portable health and retirement benefits.

I’m delighted to hear that the IBEW will be offering access to the Motion Picture Industry Pension and Health Plan.

It’s a health and retirement plan that has become the one stop shop for most union workers in the entertainment industry.

It’s a huge plan that is paid for by employers through hourly contributions and studios through residuals from many of the films you and I work on.

As a former member of the Animation Guild I have personally received benefits that I feel were far superior than many of the non-union facilities.

Why do we need portable benefits?

VFX artists and technical directors are project-to-project workers and bounce around different vfx boutiques, vfx facilities, and animation studios frequently.

Unfortunately each company has it’s own set of health and retirement benefits with various vesting periods.

Some facilities don’t even offer benefits while others have complicated vesting periods that are longer than the length of your employment.

I’ve constantly missed contributions to a 401k because I was on projects that lasted 6-8 months where the eligibility requirements state that I have to be at a facility for over a year.

The potential opportunity in investment growth and tax liabilities can be huge for missing out on those contributions.

The same can be said for health insurance. As one artist put it:

It’s like I have to start my whole life over every time I go to a new facility.

It doesn’t have to be that way. DreamWorks and Disney Animation are signatories to a contract with The Animation Guild which is part of the IATSE.

They provide benefits through MPIPHP so if you get laid off or quit at Disney and get hired at DreamWorks, you can maintain continuing coverage of health and retirement benefits under the same plan.

Health Benefits At A Glance

Here is what I think you should know about the MPIPHP benefits. You can read the details in full here.

Variety

You have a choice between PPO, HMO and even get dental and vision coverage: Blue Shield, Kaiser, HealthNet, etc.

Wow, a visual effects artist with vision insurance? What a concept.

Low Costs

Compared to many vfx facilities, the health insurance costs with MPIPHP are much lower. I also contend it’s better than what the Visual Effects Society offers to it’s members. Also, check out this comparision of the plan to Digital Domain.

* There are no deductibles.
* There are no premiums.
* No extra costs to cover your spouse/partner or family.
* The copayments for doctor visitations etc are from $5 to $40.
* The maximum out of pocket expenses you will be responsible for in a year range from $800 to $1,100.

Bank Of Hours

As you work at a union facility, you build up a bank of hours to help you keep your insurance when you are not working or working at a non-union facility.

I’ve mentioned many times of how I worked at a union studio for 2 years, voluntarily quit to go to a non-union facility and found out that I was able to keep my health, dental, and vision insurance for almost 2 extra years.

I used this an negotiating leverage against my next employer to pay me more since I didn’t need their weaker health insurance.

Retirement Benefits At A Glance

Details of the retirement benefits can be viewed here. You basically get two retirement plans that are funded by the studios and employers. There is also a supplemental 401k that is usually administered by the union that is entirely funded by the employee if he/she elects to do so.

The Individual Account Plan

After two years, I was fully vested after 450 hours of work each year in over $14,000 in a retirement account that is conservatively invested.

I did not have to put a dime in that account and even posted a copy of my IAP statement here.

The Defined Benefit Account Plan

This is a traditional pension where you are eligible after 5 years of qualified years and paid a set amount of money every month for the rest of your life when you retire.

A qualified year is any calendar year in which somebody works 450 hours or more at a union studio.

So just to qualify all you have to do is manage to work at a union facility for 9 weeks (50 hours a week) a year for 5 years.

This would get easier as more studios sign contracts with the union.

After 5 years you could see an annuity of $400.

After 15 years it would be $1180.

After 30 years it would be $2358… $2358 paid to you every month after you retire until you die.

Retiree Health Benefits

If you work enough years at various union facilities, you are eligible to receive health insurance for you and your family after you retire and becomes supplemental to Medicare after age 65.

There For You No Matter Where You Go

The money you have in these accounts after you become eligible are there for you when you retire even if you leave the industry or the country.

The Choice Is Yours




Tintin and the Uncanny Valley

(heyman-slowdown.blogspot.com) Empire Online has given film fans their first glimpse into one of next year's most anticipated (and unwieldy-titled) films: The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn. The online response has ranged from enthusiastic 'oooh prettys' to rather less enthusiastic 'ewwww, creepys'. My opinion lies somewhere in between. The two pics - particularly the second, featuring Tintin, Captain Haddock and Snowy abandoned at sea - really do look quite visually brilliant, capturing Herge's unique cartoon style and couching it in realism, but they possess that weird, unnatural digital sheen that Robert Zemeckis's 3D animated films have. The result is a little unsettling.

The image of Captain Haddock (a mo-capped Andy Serkis) is the best example of my problem with this style of film-making. Like Tom Hanks in The Polar Express and Ray Winstone in Beowulf, the performance is there, perfectly captured by WETA's computer whiz-kids, but there's something a little too detailed about it. The exact aging spots on the skin, the individual strands of hair, the wrinkles under the eyes - they're all visible in crystal clear clarity. It's not how the movie camera captures human beings and it's certainly not how the human eye looks at them; this level of detail is exclusive to computers, and it sends me at least descending headfirst into the uncanny valley.

Another, bigger, concern is that I have the horrible feeling this could be a real missed opportunity, for both Spielberg and Herge fans. Had he shot either a straightforward animation or live action film, the director could have turned Tintin into a timeless Indiana Jones-style adventure - there is after all nothing more than an occupational difference between the two characters. I'm not saying that there's no hope of that now, but rendered in this hyper-real 3D, the film will always be a product of its time, likely to show its age as the years go by. And any Tintin film deserves to be more than just marker in history.

Still, a handful of images is nowhere near enough to judge one of Hollywood's most successful director's take on one of literature's most enduring characters on. Spielberg has consistently matched boundary-pushing special effects with a deft approach to character and story telling, and I hope Tintin is no exception. It's certainly a rare thrill to be approaching the film's release year with a sense of mystique still very much in tact. For better or worse, roll on 2011!





Square Enix Confirm Layoffs at IO Interactive

(um1nex.nl) Yesterday, word about layoffs at Hitman and Kane & Lynch studio IO Interactive hit gaming news sites. A Square Enix representative has since confirmed that "internal changes" have indeed affected IO.





Antiques Roadshow For Sci-Fi Movie Props

(criterioncast.com) SyFy is unveiling the latest in their run of reality / infotainment programming, in the form of Hollywood Treasure. We follow Joe Maddalena, the owner of Profiles in History, a gentlemen who finds rare and memorable movie props that have found their way onto his radar. Maddalena will examine the props, and estimate their current value in the current auction market, to help those looking to sell. In addition to meeting these folks who have had the movie memorabilia in their possession, we meet the truly avid collectors, who will stop at nothing to outbid one another, for the chance to own a real piece of Hollywood treasure.

I’ve recently had the chance to watch the first two episodes, in rough, unfinished forms. I can’t imagine much will change from what I had the opportunity to see, but take this with that grain of salt. As a film nerd, and physical media lover, this show is certainly directed at my demographic. It takes elements of shows like Antiques Roadshow, adds a dash of the Mythbusters style and humor, and pours in a healthy dose of nostalgia. Getting the chance to look into the world of movie prop auctions is very interesting, as well as meeting those people that spend tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars on rare movie memorabilia.

Some of the props we get to see are an original screen-used carpet bag from Mary Poppins, the Wicked Witch Of The West’s hat from Wizard of Oz, and even an original piece from Lost In Space! It looks like in some of the upcoming episodes, we’ll see props from King Kong, and Stargate show up as well.

I think where this show falls a little short for me, is on the technical details. What I love about the Antiques Roadshow format is that we get in-depth explanations on the value of the objects in question, and we learn fascinating historical trivia discussed by experts. Hollywood Treasure feels like a glossier, MTV-style version of that formula. We get quick cuts, exaggerated camera angles, and very few bits of real information. We don’t get a grasp on how Maddalena comes up with the price figures that he does, which may be on purpose, but we don’t ever get that explained. I want to get the science behind this, not so that I can use it practically, but just so that I know it exists. So that I have some intellectual stake in the eventual auctions that we see take place.

I’ll certainly continue watching this show as it airs, out of an interest in learning more about what has happened to some of the most iconic movie props. An upcoming episode features a look into Stan Winston’s studio, and the images I’ve seen look amazing! There is a lot of potential here, and I hope they run with it, but perhaps tone done some of the camera movements.





Black Swan: Audience Won't See Special Effects, But They'll Feel Them

(Sawf News) - Darren Aronofsky yesterday says that subtle special effects in his new movie 'Black Swan' will disorient the audience without them spotting the manipulation.

Speaking in a press conference at the London Film Festival on October 22 the director told press, "We started to really play with things once we got into post-production.

"Because I shot in widescreen, I started to think about where the audience's eyes might be so that we could actually manipulate the other side of the screen in very gentle ways and actually add to the tension and paranoia of the movie.

"So there are very slight manipulations of lots of different things throughout the film. They're very gentle things and probably most people won't notice them, but they may sort of feel them."





Hobbit Blamed for Rise in Dollar

(nzherald.co.nz) The New Zealand dollar has shot up against the US and some are blaming Hobbits.

Business correspondent Roger Kerr says the move started on Friday night when it moved up one and a half cents to 76.65, which could be due to Warner Brothers hedging its New Zealand dollar film costs.

He says the New Zealand dollar has gained against the Aussie as well on the cross rate, so it appears our currency is moving independently.

Mr Kerr says the New Zealand dollar being well above 75 US cents is not good for our export-led recovery.




Disney Duo Next Animated Project To Be ...A Discworld Movie?

(latinoreview.com) Disney Duo Musker & Clements Next Animated Project To Be ...A Discworld Movie? After The Princess and the Frog, Disney fans (including yours truly) were wondering what was next for Disney directors Ron Clements and John Musker. Pooh comes out in 2011, but Disney's animated slate has a hole in the 2012 schedule for the studio and nobody knows what's coming out in 2013/2014 from the animation arm of the studio. Looks like they might have their next project according to website Progress City.

My buddy Hunter over at Blue Sky Disney seems to think they may be right in assuming that the Disney duo's next pic will dive right into the crazy imagination of Terry Prachett from his 4th Discworld book, "Mort":

Blue Sky reported that the next hand drawn film from the Mouse would again be by the duo back earlier this year. At the time we knew it was a fantasy. I was told, but didn't reveal that it was based on a book by a famous fantasy author that was published in the 80's. This book fits the period when the book came out and the type of author that would provide this source material.

But is it true?

Yes, kinda. I will say that the film does take place in the Discworld series which is where the Mort book (fourth in the line of books, btw) takes place, but remember that this is an adaptation that won't necessarily be literal (no film adaptation really is). I got confirmation from the Bothans of this. The hero of the book shows that this is an entirely different kind of story than Walt Disney Animation Studio has told before, but it does have a princess in it. Remember that this is early in the process and things can change. It's at least three years before it will come out and the animation process is a long, bumpy and slow road. This project as well as "Reboot Ralph" and another to be announced "untitled project" give you a sense as to how the course will change in the Mouse's animation direction after that one year break.



Avatar Sequels Push To Revolutionize Cinema

(screenrant.com)
James Cameron continues to push the envelope of technology. See what revolutionary advancements the director plans for ‘Avatar 2 & 3′.

We recently learned that Cameron will shoot Avatar 2 and Avatar 3 back-to-back. But now he has revealed that groundbreaking 3D imagery is just not enough for the story he wants to tell.

Cameron is working on two revolutionary technologies that may actually change the industry forever. We said that before with his 3D technology, but 3D is still restricted to specific genres – not that it has to be.

First, the filmmaker plans to shoot at a higher frame rate than 24 frames per second – the universal cinematic frame rate.

“The only sweeping change between now and when we release the second Avatar film is I want to natively author the film at a higher frame rate and project it at a higher frame rate. I want to get rid of the motion artifacting associated with 24 frame display. Because movies are way behind, they’re a century out of date.”

“48, 60, 72, we’re looking at the efficacy of the different ones and different solutions. The projectors can do it right now, the projectors can run at 144hrz but they’re still displaying 24 frames content at 144hrz. The trick is how do you display 48 or 60 frame content, multiflashing it, the way 3D projectors do. So that’s one little bump I’m working on.”

Don’t worry if that made no sense to you – /Film explains it in more basic terms. Plenty of cinephiles out there will be right on the ball with Cameron’s explanation, but those are likely in the minority. A major part of the problem is that higher frame rates also require more data storage. Digital cinema is still a long way from the norm and movie theaters are reluctantly adding digital projectors to their collection.

Don’t expect change to start tomorrow, but if Cameron can accomplish this in an affordable way it will provide more information to work with in post-production. Filmmaking is constantly on the verge of revolution thanks in large part to Cameron’s dedication.

At the end of the day, Cameron’s main goal is to present his own stories in revolutionary ways – namely Avatar. His other intention is to create a software that can practically complete the post-production visual effects process in real-time.

On Avatar, Cameron created a machine that allowed cast and crew to watch playback in near-finished form. For example, it allowed Sam Worthington to see what his motion capture acting looked like in the artificial environment of Pandora without waiting months for the effects to be completed. But Cameron wants to improve that process.

“Then there’s some software development that we’re doing to make the process, our real time virtual production process more intuitive, faster, more real looking, more like the finished product. Right now we work at a proxy resolution. We create a 1980s video game looking end product, we give it to the visual effects company and they start over mapping all new high resolution assets to those low res assets. They start all over and do it all again and come out with a photo real end product. What we want to do is eliminate that middle step and start to close the gap between what our real time looks like and what the finished photo real looks like. Eventually, 15 years from now, we should be working real time in at a photo real image, almost like you do with photography. So it’s getting to the point where it’s indistinguishable from photography at the moment your doing it as opposed to waiting six months or a year.”

Most productions are thrilled to simply get a pre-visualization monitor to see a scene artificially played out on the computer before the cameras roll. This potential technology completely erases the waiting game that makes filmmaking so arduous. I can only imagine how angry Cameron gets when he hears the common on-set phrase, “Hurry up and wait.”

These advancements that Cameron downplays in his explanations are truly unprecedented. In fact, I’ve run out of words to describe how amazing it is. If he can bring these to a reality, then we may see CGI romps churned out in less than one year, which is truly astonishing.




Robert Zemeckis Promises The Roger Rabbit Sequel Is Still Happening

(cinemablend.com) Robert Zemeckis Promises The Roger Rabbit Sequel Is Still Happening When the news originally broke that the live-action/animation classic Roger Rabbit was going to get a sequel, excitement and/or outrage broke out among the film community. The prospect of 3-dimensionalizing Roger himself was terrifying to the purists and in this day and age, we couldn’t help but think that’s the way things were going to go. Fortunately, later last year, MTV sat down with the director and got out of him that 3D would be employed but not to the classic characters, implying that we may see a 2D animated world go head to head with a 3D animated world.

Once more MTV has caught up with the director and again the only answer they can get out of him is “It’s being worked on” as he jokes about the slowness of the writers, Jeffrey Price and Peter Seaman, the original scribes for the 1988 classic. Zemeckis, who hasn’t announced that he’ll direct a sequel but it seems very likely that will be the case, is playing his cards very close to the vest so as to not give anything away, but it’s sort of annoying how long he’s kept us on the hook for news. However, he does think the new script is great so that’s a good start.





Fractal PlanetScapes Inventor Dies at 85

(electronista.com) The mathematics professor who's lifelong work in applying mathematical formulas to the explain the complexity of nature gave rise to the term "fractals" and revolutionized computer graphics has died at the age of 85. Benoit Mandelbrot, whose name lives on in the mathematical set used to illustrate fractals, was born in Poland but lived in France in his early years, and did his most notable work while living in the United States, most recently as Sterling Professor of Mathematical Sciences at Yale until 2005. Prior to his Yale Position, Mandelbrot worked at IBM for over 30 years.

Mandelbrot first described the statistical model known as fractals (a term he coined) in a 1975 book, but it was his 1982 work The Fractal Geometry of Nature that moved his theories into the mainstream, helped largely by the emergence of computers powerful enough to create visualizations of sets of fractal equations such as Julia Sets and the now-famous Mandelbrot Set, which demonstrates that seemingly random "branching" as one might see in a maple tree is actually a series of increasingly-smaller set of shapes copied from the largest set in a repeating pattern.

Mandelbrot himself often used cauliflowers as an easy-to-see example, pointing out that each floret of the vegetable looked like the whole plant, and if you peered closer it was visible to the naked eye that the within the floret were miniature florets, and so forth.

This mathematical principle made it possible to measure intricately detailed large-scale items, like coastlines, that had never been exactly measured. Applied to computers, it allowed the replication of organically-complex 3D landscapes and other objects not perfectly geometrical, moving computer graphics far forward in their ability to be more naturalistic. Some of the first films to use Mandelbrot's ideas to make computer-generated objects include Star Wars (1977); more extensive use was made of fractal geometry to spawn the planetscapes used in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982) and many films since.




DreamWorks Animation 3Q Profit Doubles

DreamWorks Animation SKG Inc.'s (DWA) third-quarter profit doubled on strong revenue and margin growth, mostly from international box office for "Shrek Forever After," which is the company's highest-grossing international release.

Shares gained 4.8% to $36 in after-hours trading as the computer-animation studio's results topped Wall Street's expectations. The stock was down 14% this year as of the close.

DreamWorks Animation, which focuses on family fare, has seen declining profits in recent quarters, although for the first time it is releasing three animated feature films in a single year: "Shrek," "How to Train Your Dragon" and "Megamind," which will be released next week.

The company is releasing all its films in 3-D, though the higher ticket prices for that format have kept some consumers away. Meanwhile, it has seen its DVD sales of other titles outdo those of rivals because of its younger-skewing audience.

For the latest quarter, DreamWorks Animation reported a profit of $39.8 million, or 47 cents a share, up from $19.6 million, or 23 cents a share, a year earlier. The latest quarter included an $18 million expense related to a tax agreement with a former stockholder. Revenue climbed 39% to $188.9 million.




John Carpenter to Direct Darkchylde

(comingsoon.net) Director John Carpenter (the original Halloween, The Fog and The Thing) will be directing the feature film adaptation of Randy Queen's popular comic book series Darkchylde. Announced via a special teaser poster image from Randy and Sarah Queen's Darkchylde Entertainment and Carpenter's Storm King Productions, you can read their accompanying announcement below:

"Big progress for the Darkchylde feature film adaptation. The last we reported on the potential film WETA had revealed some test FX to the public.

Today, it was revealed (on Halloween of all days), John Carpenter is on board to direct Darkchylde. The film is based on the comic by Randy Queen about an amiable southern teen cursed to become the creatures from her many recurring nightmares. Every time Ariel Chylde transforms, she sheds her skin and a new nightmare emerges from her Id to act out her deepest, darkest impulses

John Carpenter and Sandy King's Storm King Productions have allied with Randy and Sarah Queen's Darkchylde Entertainment to produce the film, following the release of that aforementioned test footage created by Richard Taylor's Academy Award Winning Weta Workshop."





The Next Star Wars Could Be Shot Using Open Source Software and Hardware

(networkworld.com) George Lucas is generally credited with pushing the envelope in film making technology. Besides computer animation, Lucas helped pioneer the use of motion capture technology. Well if Lucas were going to film Star Wars today he might just be using both open source software and hardware to do so! Chris Church and his partners in Dynamic Perception are making motion capture and time lapse technology available to everyone via open source. Their Open MoCo project not only makes software to run cameras and equipment available under an open source license, but they also publish the specs for the hardware under an open source license as well.

I had a chance to sit down and spend about 20 minutes talking to Chris about the open source motion capture movement, open source hardware and much more. You can listen below:

Chris and company are not the only project around motion capture either. Chris gives credit to the Arduino open source platform for much of the micro-controller functionality that the Dynamic Perception equipment uses. Open MoCo has published the specs for the dollys and hardware both electronic and structural that will let anyone make state-of-the-art video. If you don't want to make it yourself, you can buy it from Dynamic Perception.

Chris started Open MoCo and Dynamic Perception to fuel his own hobby of filming. When he wanted to start using motion capture technology in his film, he was blown away with how expensive the hardware and software was. It was out of the reach of most hobbyists and even some professionals. So again as a hobby, Chris and his partner set about seeing how they could make motion capture available to everyone.

Chris's background in technology had already resulted in him being a big fan of open source software. He was also intrigued by the open source hardware movement. That along with his passion for filming have resulted in a full time endeavor of love for Chris.

So if you think you are the next George Lucas and need the technology to make your dreams and visions come true, check out the open source hardware and software from Dynamic Perception and Open MoCo. Oh, and pay no attention to those droids, now move along.




Emmerich Gets Into Low-Budget "Zone"

(darkhorizons.com) "Independence Day," "2012" and "The Day After Tomorrow" director Roland Emmerich is set to churn out another film in the sci-fi disaster genre with "The Zone" says the trades.

Shoot in the 'found footage' pseudo-documentary style ala "Cloverfield" and "Paranormal Activity", the story revolves around an alien invasion and will utilise a cast with relative unknowns improvising much of their performances.

The two lead characters will be a haggard middle-aged TV journalist and his young 20-something cameraman. Unlike Emmerich's previous mega-budget films, 'Zone' will be shot for just $5 million.

Guillaume Tunzini penned the script and Loucas George is a producer. Shooting kicks off in November and Sony Pictures is expected (but not confirmed) to distribute.






Weta Digital's "Reverse Engineered" Humans For 'Tintin': A First Look

(latinoreview.com - spectrum.ieee.org) A couple of days ago Empire was slowly revealing some clues to the first image from Steven Spielberg/Peter Jackson's "The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn." Now the site has finally revealed a first look the movie in their upcoming cover for the magazine plus two additional pics.

As part of a push to advance the state of the art for the highly anticipated Tintin movie, a team at Weta Digital is helping to devise a new generation of motion-capture software built on a foundation of physiological principles. The group is working on software that incorporates the underlying anatomy of the face.

”What I’m trying to do,” says team leader Mark Sagar, ”is reverse engineer all the expressions in the human face so we can understand the mechanical basis of, say, what makes a smile have a dimple. What makes the creases in a face when it smiles? It all depends on the anatomical structure of the face, the substructures beneath the facial tissue: the ligaments, the fat, the muscles, how the muscles are laid out in 3-D space.”

The Tintin film is a joint effort between Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson (Jackson cofounded Weta in 1993), with a budget rumored to be around US $135 million, well under Avatar’s reported $300 million to $400 million

Take a look: http://www.latinoreview.com/news/first-look-at-tintin-11581





Escape Studios Launches US Website

(Marketwire) - Today, Escape Studios, one of the most successful and well-respected CG academies in the world, launches its US-specific website and line of mentored distance learning courses. The expansion will support the growing number of international students and the industry's increasing demand for computer graphics talent all over the world.

Escape Studios website will enhance US students' ability to learn, engage with tutors and collaborate with fellow students. It also lays the foundation for the academy's international expansion before Dominic Davenport, CEO and founder of Escape Studios, moves to the US and opens a campus in Los Angeles during 2011.

The US website includes an e-learning engine that facilitates superior interactions between students and tutors, making the online learning experience faithful to the calibre of learning associated with Escape Studios. Security measures also enable students to work with peers on projects, privately communicate with tutors, and submit assignments. Social networks like Facebook and Twitter are integrated for peer collaboration and networking.



Practical Effects: KNB Walks With The Dead


(btlnews.com) With so many zombie films already familiar to audiences, KNB EFX Group Founder and artist, Greg Nicotero knew that he had to go in fresh direction with The Walking Dead. “My goal is to make these zombies feel different and new,” he explained. “That has to do with the material and the way it’s presented. In Dawn of the Dead, you buy them as zombies. We wanted you to be able to look at these people and not see the prosthetics but understand the differences among them. We tried to push the envelope.”

To start, Nicotero was consulted in the casting of actors who would play zombies in the various episodes. “We picked people who had really great faces, great bone structure and long necks and gaunt looking so that when you were adding prosthetics to them, it wasn’t as obvious that you had a fuller face,” he described. “We cast eight out of Atlanta and eight out of LA. We had dentures that locked on the outside of their lips and put prosthetic pieces over those. We wanted them to look like they were already starting to decompose.”

For the background people, some shots required a full panoply of zombies. “We auditioned 150 extras and I picked great performers with great looks,” Nicotero, 47, commented. “They had a visual style which fit with what we were trying to do. The graphic novel is specific – sparse hair, and rotted looking. We used sparse pieces and lenses – as if they had been walking around but there hadn’t been a lot of people to feed on. “

Since their shop is in the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles, Nicotero had to split the work between the KNB shop and the production hub in Atlanta. “A few actors flew to LA, and a few we cast in Atlanta and shipped the lifecasts back to LA,” said Nicotero. Jaremy Aiello was the key sculptor who found the looks of the zombies. Garret Immel, Andy Schoneberg and Jake Garber worked in Atlanta, but it wasn’t a big crew to churn out zombies. You have a visual cue as to what people are supposed to look like from the graphic novel.”

Greg Nicotero applying zombie makeup for The Walking Dead.

In one sense, this show is unlike typical zombie films which are often shot at night in the shadows. “With The Walking Dead we were in broad daylight in direct sunlight in Atlanta,” Nicotero revealed. “In the past, we had foreground, mid-ground and background makeups. Some of the people who put masks on in the background, we had to make sure that they didn’t get too close to the camera. For the big scenes, we had 150 masks in the background, some in the middle, and the others close up. “

To create the believable bloody flesh effect on the zombies, Nicotero borrowed a technique that he first employed on another big KNB film this year, Piranha. “We had tattoo-colored dried blood that we spattered on the zombies,” he detailed. “We did not brush the blood on. In Piranha, we did wounds on the victims and spattered blood on the sides of their faces. It implied more violence and it didn’t look brushed on. It thought that that was really important to me – to tell the story visually with the way the blood was applied.

“We had tattoo color blood that we used on Piranha and they were in the water,” he continued. “From a dramatic standpoint, you couldn’t have them coming out of the water with clean wounds. We spattered blood on these 3D wounds. They were wet looking and the blood looked fresh. All of those sequences played really well. We were pre-dressing the blood so that it was visual.”

Full Press: http://www.btlnews.com/featured/knb-walks-with-the-dead/



Union Bosses Receive Death Threats Over The Hobbit

(contactmusic.com) Union bosses and actors at the centre of the recent dispute over THE HOBBIT have contacted police after receiving death threats in the wake of the industrial action.

The Lord of the Rings prequel was thrown into jeopardy when unions in New Zealand instigated a boycott in a disagreement over performers' rights, and studio bosses threatened to scrap plans to film in the country.

The industrial action was lifted last month (Oct10) and movie bosses reached a deal to keep The Hobbit in the country, but some of the main players in the dispute have now become embroiled in a police investigation after receiving a number of threatening phone calls.

New Zealand actors Jennifer Ward-Lealand and Robyn Malcolm have allegedly been targeted along with Australian union boss Simon Whipp, head of the country's Media, Entertainment & Arts Alliance, and Actors' Equity organiser Frances Walsh.

A police investigation has been launched in Sydney, Australia, according to the Sydney Morning Herald.



F/X Wizards are Stepping Out from Behind the Curtain

(theglobeandmail.com) Today’s blockbusters live and die on their special effects. So it’s not surprising that the wizards of f/x are beginning to step out from behind the curtain and direct their own films.

The next month will bring two such efforts – both, coincidentally, about alien invasions. Skyline, due Nov. 12, is co-directed by Los Angeles-based sibling f/x specialists the Brothers Strause, and Monsters is the feature directorial debut of the British f/x expert Gareth Edwards (it will open across Canada in November).

“For years I was in love with film, but I was like Cyrano de Bergerac, always helping other guys on their dates with it,” Edwards told me in September, when his film played the Toronto International Film Festival. “It was like I was lending out condoms so this other bloke could have sex with the love of my life. Finally I said: ‘Enough’s enough, I’m going to get the girl this time.’ ”

It makes a lot of sense – and dollars. In most f/x-heavy movies, no matter how clearly the directors communicate how they want the effects to look, f/x supervisors have to redo them, often as many as 30 times, until all parties are satisfied. It’s a hair-raisingly expensive process. But since these directors are f/x-perts themselves, they know all the tricks and can execute them much more economically.

In Skyline, the splashier of the two releases, alien forces lull humans with mysterious blue lights, then launch a battle for world domination. Co-directors Greg Strause, 35, and his brother Colin, 34, started out on TV (The X Files), soon founding their own company, Hydraulx. It does films (Iron Man 2, Terminator 3, Avatar), music videos (U2, Britney Spears, Red Hot Chili Peppers) and commercials (Nike, Jeep, Pepsi). Skyline is their second feature as directors – their first was Aliens vs. Predator – Requiem.

Universal is mega-promoting its wide release, and a sequel is already in the works.

Monsters is smaller in every way. Its premise is that aliens arrived on Earth six years ago, so humans have become used to them. But they periodically erupt into violence – in this case in Mexico, forcing an American traveller (Whitney Able) and a journalist (Scoot McNairy) to flee through a “Red Zone” to the United States.

It was shot on the fly for a paltry $15,000, then tweaked in postproduction for about $500,000 more. Edwards, 35 – who did special effects for BBC-TV before founding his own company, The Monkey Experiment Ltd. – not only directed, but is also the writer, cinematographer, production designer and, naturally, f/x supervisor.

“I get the sense that some people in the industry aren’t happy with what I’m doing, because it undermines their ability to charge millions of pounds,” said Edwards, a cheeky guy with a deadpan sense of humour. “But effects people aren’t sitting at their desks because they love cutting ’round a person’s hand all day long. They’re there because they want to be filmmakers, in the same way that previous generations of directors started as cinematographers or editors. So I think we’re going to see more and more of this.”

Especially if the films are as handmade as Monsters. “When you read all my credits on it I sound like a control freak,” Edwards said. “But I couldn’t have been more out of control.”

He had only a loose outline for a script, and counted on his lead actors – a couple in real life, who have since married – to improvise their dialogue. Edwards (operating the camera) and his minuscule crew (a sound man, a local fixer and a line producer who’d cut his teeth on the Lonely Planet TV series) shot guerrilla-style on the streets of Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, Costa Rica and Texas, usually without permits.

Full Press: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/arts/movies/johanna-schneller/fx-wizards-are-stepping-out-from-behind-the-curtain/article1778326/



Richard Donner Disses CGI

(comicbookmovie.com) The Richard Donner Disses Transformers quote:

"I'm tired of it already. I'm tired of those ... what are those machines? Transformers! Really, I mean they were great but let's settle back people and focus on the characters. The characters in Superman are just wonderful."

Richard Donner made box office gold with Christopher Reeve starring as 'Superman' way back in the day in 1978. He is 100% correct when saying "The characters in Superman are just wonderful." Because they are. Donner did such an amazing job with the Superman franchise among other movie franchises, that it stinks he is getting so old because who doesn't want to see a 'Richard Donner' helmed movie?

And I want to see Wolverine in his mask! Why can't they come up with a successful CGI version of Hugh Jackman wearing the Wolverine mask, like they should have done and still could do with the Green Goblin? Why is this being overlooked?


New "Hobbit Law" Good for Avatar Sequels

(3news.co.nzz) The employment law changes demanded by Warner Brothers passed through Parliament under urgency today, drawing a clear distinction between contractors and employees in the film industry.

But while Labour claims the law’s shoddy wording will do more harm than good, Weta Digital – which is now in talks about two new Avatar movies – says anything that gives filmmakers certainty is good.

Labour's Trevor Mallard gave a graphic example of what he thought the Government had done in bowing to the Warner Brothers studio demand for new employment law over The Hobbit.

“A young Kiwi says, what has happened to New Zealand sovereignty? New Zealand's sovereignty is finished,” Mr Mallard said today.

After two days of urgency, the bill was passed into law.

The Government says the change – which distinguishes contractors from employees in the film industry – is about preserving jobs.

“If The Hobbit’s had exited here, or the production had exited here, so much of the expertise that is domiciled in New Zealand would have had to move with it and how we would have ever got that back is beyond me,” economic development minister Gerry Brownlee says.

And with The Hobbit now in the bag the movie industry is abuzz with more good news – two sequels to James Cameron's Avatar have been given the green light.

“Avatar was made mostly in Wellington, from the live action to the visual effects and Jim has indicated he'd like to do the same for Avatar 2 and Avatar 3,” says Joe Letteri of Weta Digital.

Avatar brought more than $300 million into the local economy while the film's backers got a $45 million tax rebate.

So if both are made here, the spending is likely to be as great as that for the two Hobbit movies - $600 million plus.

So Weta Digital is looking at a full order book for the next five years.

“The Hobbit films, the other films of course, we're still working on Tin Tin: The Secret of the Unicorn and there are a number of other films as well, we'll probably stay in that level, 750 – 1000 crew,” Mr Letteri says.

Mr Letteri says the timing of the Avatar announcement has nothing to do with The Hobbit laws, but agrees they will make New Zealand more attractive.

“Any time you can remove uncertainty from the mix is helpful for everyone,” he says.

But you will have to be patient for Avatar 2 and 3, James Cameron is yet to write the script for the first of the sequels due out in 2014.




Death’s Apprentice To Star In Disney Animated Feature

(bleedingcool.com) Bleeding Cool have recieved a tip-off that Ron Clements and John Musker, directors of The Princess and the Frog, Treasure Planet, Aladdin and other Disney animated features, are working on an adaptation of Terry Pratchett’s Mort.

If you don’t know the novel, here’s the official blurb from Pratchett’s site:

Although the scythe isn’t pre-eminent among the weapons of war, anyone who has been on the wrong end of, say, a peasants’ revolt will know that in skilled hands it is fearsome.

For Mort however, it is about to become one of the tools of his trade. From henceforth, Death is no longer going to be the end, merely the means to an end. He has received an offer he can’t refuse. As Death’s apprentice he’ll have free board, use of the company horse and being dead isn’t compulsory. It’s the dream job until he discovers that it can be a killer on his love life…

Mort was the fourth of the Discworld novels and remains my favourite of Pratchett’s works.




"Pirates Of The Caribbean 4" Trailer To Come With "Tron: Legacy"

(cinemablend.com) First Pirates Of The Caribbean 4 Trailer To Come With Tron: Legacy To quote Jack Donaghy on 30 Rock, you can't stop synergy. If a company can use one of it's projects to boost another, why not? Why shouldn't Warner Bros. attach the trailer for Green Lantern to Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part I? It's just good business and we see it all the time.

Now Disney is taking advantage. Jerry Bruckheimer has taken to his Twitter account and, in response to a fan's question, has announced that they are planning to have the first Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides trailer attached to Tron: Legacy when it comes out on December 17th.





What is the State of the VFX Industry?

(cgw.com) On October 23, the Visual Effects Society is holding its Production Summit 2010, titled Navigating Tomorrow's Business Models. Prior to the Summit, freelance writer Debra Kaufman spoke to VES president Jeff Okun about the state of digital effects today in an exclusive Q&A for Computer Graphics World.


What is the state of the VFX industry? Is this a good time to be a VFX house?

It's a terrible time to be an artist and not much better being a visual effects house. The issue is that VFX has been commoditized. The value placed on what we do has been minimized. You're always hearing things from a director, such as 'My son has a Mac and could do this,' or 'Why would you pay more than $200 for this?'


Why are directors ignorant about VFX after so many years?

There are two reasons for the ignorance. We visual effects artists and companies have allowed ourselves to be marketed in a way that minimizes the artistry and maximizes interest in the buttons we push.

Then there's the fact you can get visual effects done anywhere in the world, because the software went from proprietary to off-the-shelf. The fact that the value of human labor is so widely disproportionate around the world means that people have the ability to say, 'I don't want to pay $40K for this shot; I could get it cheaper elsewhere.' Then they go to Singapore, Malaysia, Russia, Chile, Peru, Costa Rica, South Africa. The next tier up is the industrialized places, like France and New York City (in the US).


Is Hollywood still dominant in terms of VFX houses ?

Hollywood is truly a state of mind. There are people who will make a little shot for nothing because they're passionate about it, and others who will use that shot. And those people are overjoyed to be working for Hollywood, and then they go bankrupt. So the blame goes back to the VFX practitioners who haven't taken the time to learn the business. We were just so joyous to be performing our art, nobody was taking care of the business end.

The studios have two concerns: Can you deliver to me on time something that is acceptable. And, second, don't go out of business during the time you deliver to me. If you can meet those two qualities, you're qualified to work on a studio project. There are companies all around that do phenomenal work, but the studios feel insecure that they're so small and that they might go out of business. At the same time, the studios push to send the work to India, Hong Kong…wherever.

The visual effects facilities, because of the anti-trust laws, can't set minimum rates. They're in a cutthroat business where they're bidding against each other. It's become a race to the bottom. Each company is undercutting the other, but they have no choice; they want to stay in business. They are also forced to hire people with less experience or are willing to work for less money.


What is it like at the level of the VFX artist?

If you're experienced and trained, and can do great work, your salary has been cut significantly because the facilities can't afford you. And look at the number of smaller companies-the Orphanage, CORE-that have gone out of business.

Some people in postproduction say that their budgets are being raided for visual effects. Is that true or false?

I used to have a sound company, and they are the end of the financial line. But the budgets aren't being cut to put (the money) into VFX. A great misunderstanding about visual effects, propagated by studios, is that effects are wildly out of control and over-budget. What does over-budget mean? The studio green-lights something based on our agreement: Let's say we do 200 shots for $10 million. Then they look at the movie and want to do all these different things and kick in money to fix things. But I can't ever recall, personally, any story where someone says '$10 million and billed for $50 million.' The studios approve it in advance, so it's not an overage


What does 3D mean for the visual effects industry?

In one sense, we've been doing 3D in visual effects for 30 years now. It's not that big a deal for us; it's about interocular alignment and artistic choice of depth. Whether it's here to stay or not, personally, I don't care. It's about story. Does 3D help you tell a better story? In some cases it does, in some cases it's eye candy. Will it invigorate the business? I don't think so. When it works, it's awesome, but the jury is still out whether it's here to stay.

On the other hand, I think 3D in TV is huge and here to stay, and all sports will be shot in 3D. There's a whole new gold mine with 3D NASCAR races and football games, and converting Bewitched and Bonanza into 3D.


What about credits? Visual effects artists are still listed after caterers. What gives?

That has to do with the original marketing of visual effects-that it's about computers, not artists. It's 3400 geeks eating pizza and pushing buttons, and playing Nerf ball. They're not viewed as 300 cinematographers, which is, in effect, what they are. The fact that you get these amazing shots seems to be the magic of the computer.





Ghost Hunters To Become Demonologists

(24 Frames) Lliadis is pairing up with Silver Pictures for The Demonologists, written by Teddy Tenenbaum ("Ghost Whisperer").

Iliadis will tell the story of a family of ghost hunters who presume their latest case concerns a house full of ghosts. What they don't expect is a demon-infested abode which makes things much more dangerous.





How Movie Effects USED To Be Done

(fstoppers.com) Some of you may not remember this but as a very young kid with HBO in the house, I remember always being amazed watching the intro, made completely with models and miniatures. . Now I think movies on HBO just start with the parental ratings and nothing more.

So next time you are thinking of making a cool intro for your business in after effects, remember how much harder it actually could be!

VIDEO - Take a look: http://fstoppers.com/how-movie-effects-used-to-be-done-hbo-style/






Microsoft and Pixar Become RenderMan Buddies

(thenextweb.com) Pixar Studios took stage at Microsoft’s cloud focused Professional Developer Conference 2010 to talk about their animation application RenderMan being available on Windows Azure.

Pixar uses RenderMan for their CGI-animated movies, with Azure, users can scale computing resources required with a slider. As presented, if the time needed to render was a priority, more computing could be immediately used and if cost was a concern, the number of processors could be easily reduced. A few screen shots:

So whenever you see a Pixar movie, remember that there’s some Windows behind it.





Chopsocky Epic 3D 'Dragon Gate' Gets Avatar Sup

(variety.com) BEIJING -- No one can accuse Tsui Hark of being lazy.

Fresh off the success of "Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame," the Hong Kong helmer found himself with a two-month training period for the stars of his forthcoming $35 million chopsocky epic 3D "Flying Swords of Dragon Gate," which is now in production in China.

Tsui had "Avatar's" 3D VFX supervisor, Chuck Comisky on the set, and he started working in a low-key kind of way and came up with a 3D thriller called "Catching Monkey," starring Charlie Young, Yu Nan and Daniel Chan.

"Tsui started doing 3D tests at the end of last year in Taiwan, Singapore and Hong Kong, and decided what system he was going to use. He said he would shoot two scenes, but they were not real shooting conditions," producer Nansun Shi told Variety.

"Chuck came and trained the crew, so Tsui said why don't I just shoot a movie? He wasn't so ambitious in the beginning but Chuck demystified the movie for us. And we had a full script and actors. The cost wasn't high, friends rallied around," said Shi, whose Hong Kong-based Distribution Workshop will handle international sales, and is likely to show stills for "Catching Monkey" at American Film Market, and will also be pitching "Flying Swords of Dragon Gate."





3D "FranknSon" A Pixar Killer?

(sfgate.com) "FranknSon" (www.FranknSon.com) is a feature-length, 3D animation that has just entered development and will go into production next year. "FranknSon" tells the story of a young monster in search of a family. It's a tale that will appeal to both kids and adults; as it draws upon the legendary Monsters from the golden age. It is about a forgotten group of Monsters that gets a second chance and a village that needs redemption. It's a timeless story of love and family, of friendship and loyalty. Apart from great characters, it has a wonderful screenplay. There are elements of the best "buddy movies" with a touch of The Magnificent Seven/Seven Samurai meets FranknSon. In "Franknson" there are heroes we can really care for in the best traditions of Disney, Pixar, or Dreamworks.

Why would an indie group choose to make a 3-D monster animation?

Two reasons - If you look at the top-50 grossing domestic films in the United States, you will find that 40-plus of them were in the fantasy, science fiction, animation, and horror/terror genres. With evolving stereoscopic 3-D tools and a great script in hand, a compelling business case can be made for this kind of production.

The second reason is that it is hard to do, that is, the competition in these genres for high quality films is low. There are only a handful of big studios that can take on a full 3-D feature animation. Most Indie filmmakers believe they don't have the financing or expertise to pull off high-quality 3-D stereoscopic animation or VFX productions. Yet we all know that the best talent in the industry comes up the indie route, but they all assume their polished upscale project will have to wait until they make it to "Hollywood"-we think this is a false assumption. We need to step up to the Hollywood challenge and prove that Indie filmmakers can create world-class 3-D animations and VFX.

We also all know that independent film productions are still measured against Hollywood big-budget productions. As unfair as this seems, an audience does not care if a producer had only $7,000, $70,000, or millions of dollars to make a movie, it will be compared to a $70-million plus Hollywood production. The digital revolution now allows us to level the playing field, and we intend to do just that.

So who are we? We are a group of artists who have come together to make a monster of a movie. We are defying the odds and making a Pixar-style feature on an Indie budget. More at www.FranknSon.com




Sculpts From Tim Burton's "Superman Lives" Revealed

(comicbookmovie.com) The Steve Johnson FX Facebook page has recently uploaded some pictures from Tim Burton's canceled "Superman Lives" movie.
The album includes photographs taken of a number of different suit designs, sculpts and tests. Many of the photographs show some of the film's suit designs in detail that hasn't been seen before.

Take a look: http://www.comicbookmovie.com/superman_movies/news/?a=24590#int145




Ed Catmull, Pixar: Keep Your Crises Small

(yintsang.com) Ironing out the little problems can make it so companies can avoid big disasters. Recorded: January 31, 2007 Related Article: www.gsb.stanford.edu Catmull appeared at the 2007 Entrepreneurship Conference at the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

Video: http://www.yintsang.com/22505_ed-catmull-pixar-keep-your-crises-small.html




'Transformers 3' Victim's Tab -- $350k ... and Rising

(foreign.peacefmonline.com) Medical bills are rolling in for the "Transformers 3" extra who was brain-damaged on set -- and the early total is more than $350,000 ... an astronomical tab Paramount Studios says it will foot.

Gabriela Cedillo's attorney Todd Smith tells us the 350k only covers her initial month-long hospital stay -- and does not include other costs like an airlift, ambulance rides, and the rehab facility where Gabriela is now.

Gabriela was partially paralyzed when a stunt went horribly wrong back in September.

Paramount -- which is producing "Transformers 3" -- has said it will pay for Gabriela's medical expenses.





OSCAR: Animation Entries Down To Wire; But Will There Be Enough For 5 Nominees?

(deadline.com) Today the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences sent out a reminder confirming the 5 PM PT November 1st deadline for 2010 Best Animated feature entries. At this point there do not appear to be enough entries to trigger five nominations rather than the more common three but there is still time, brother. What wasn’t mentioned in the release is the number that have been received so far at the Academy. A really good clue though is a letter I have learned that was sent late last week updating members and potential members of the Animation committee (the ones doing the voting) and informing them that 14 entries had been received but that it was still possible to reach 16, the magic number needed to expand the category. Last year a flurry of last minute entries flooded the Acad offices and Oscar ‘toon watchers were hoping the same might miraculously happen this year. Academy rules state that in any year with 8 to 15 eligible entries there will be three nominations allowed but if it’s 16 or more there will be five contenders, as has happened twice (including last year) since the category was created in 2001 when Dreamworks’ Shrek became the first winner.

Dreamworks Animation has only won once since then (for releasing 2005’s Wallace & Gromit in The Curse Of The Were Rabbit) and is back in the game big time this year with its March release, How To Train Your Dragon but would also love to see its upcoming Megamind (Nov 5) in the hunt as well, not likely if just three ‘toons are invited to the party. Disney/Pixar which has won the award for 3 years running (Ratatouille, Wall-E, Up) is going for 4 in a row with Toy Story 3 but would also like their Thanksgiving release, Tangled to grab a spot, also not as likely with just 3 nominees. If Dragon and Toy Story are the 800 pound gorillas in the race, and there are no last-minute contenders to bump this thing up to five nominees, that leaves just one slot for all the rest, an impressive list that also includes Universal’s big hit and lone serious Oscar contender, Despicable Me; Sony Pictures Classic’s The Illusionist from an unproduced screenplay by Jacques Tati; Zack Snyder’s Legend Of The Guardians: The Owls Of Ga’Hoole and the live action/ani combo’d Yogi Bear, both from Warners; DreamWorks Animation's Shreak Forever After; Bill Plympton’s Idiots And Angels; the Japanese anime, Summer Wars; Lions Gate’s Alpha And Omega; Disney’s straight-to-DVD Tinker Bell & The Great Fairy Rescue which got a qualification run at the El Capitan in order to prop up the chances of Tangled getting in; and a wonderful underdog (literally) from New Yorker Films, My Dog Tulip, a refreshingly literate more-traditional looking ‘toon based on J.R. Ackerley’s touching 1956 memoir of his loving 16 year relationship with his German Shepherd rescue, Tulip. With award-worthy splendidly acidic voice-over narration by Christopher Plummer as Ackerley and the late Lynn Redgrave (in her last credited film role) this one could be the irresistible sleeper to dash the hopes of all the majors’ higher profile entries angling for that prized third slot.

An interesting aspect affecting the ‘toon race this year is that the two perceived front runners are also waging visible -- and viable -- campaigns for Best Picture too. Only two animated films have ever made that grade: Beauty And The Beast in 1991 when there was no feature ani category and Up last year when the new 10 nominee rule took effect. At their lavish DVD launch party recently, Dreamworks Animation chief Jeffrey Katzenberg pointed out to me the three best widely reviewed films of the year to date (if you go by RottenTomatoes scores) are Toy Story 3 (99% fresh), How To Train Your Dragon (98%) and The Social Network (97%). HTTYD producer Bonnie Arnold says, “it is nice to be recognized by the animation community itself, but it’s also nice to be recognized as a film. It’s just a good movie that’s in competition with other good movies no matter what the medium, whether it is live action, animation or whatever. There are 10 nominations now. I genuinely feel it is one of the best pictures of the year.”

Toy Story 3 director Lee Unkrich also makes the case for Best Picture and not just because it grossed over a billion dollars making it the most successful animated movie of all time. “We look at our films like every other film. Yes it is animated and we’re working in a specific medium but our approach is very much the same as live action – production design, costume design, casting of actors, scoring, editing -- we’re making movies,” he said.

Of course they first have to overcome perceptions by many in the Academy that the Animated Feature category is enough recognition for this art form, and that particularly includes the large and influential actors branch.

Bottom line is whether it turns out to be 3 or 5 nominees this year in the animated feature race and with 10 nominees for Best Picture, Disney/Pixar and Dreamworks are looking to take their battle of the ‘toons to an even bigger stage than ever.



Hobbit + Avatar = Weta Digital Overload ?

(tvnz.co.nz) My, how things change.

Three days ago the New Zealand film industry was teetering on the edge of disaster, waiting to see if The Hobbit would stay and anchor it back to safe ground, or move off-shore and leave it to crash into oblivion.

(Or so many people would have you believe. Others are of the rather sensible opinion there would have still been an industry without The Hobbit, albeit a less flush one).

But now it's safe. And even better, Avatar has been greenlighted for two sequels - reportedly set to be made in New Zealand.

Fantastic news!

Except - and I don't mean to be a party pooper - but I can't help but wonder how exactly Weta Digital is going to turn out four major motion features in two years.

The Hobbit is set to be the most expensive film ever made, usurping Avatar for the title.

A large part of that budget will go into the hours of intensive post-production, making those funny little creatures look real. It's a hugely labour-intensive process.

In fact, Weta Digital had to turn down work on another Peter Jackson project - District 9 - because they were too busy with Avatar last year.
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Instead, Jackson (who produced the film) had to enlist a Canadian effects company, Image Engine, to complete the work for him. It was that team that earned this year's Oscar nomination for best visual effects.

They might have missed out on the Oscar to the Weta Digital team that worked on Avatar - but they still got the sizeable pay cheque for the work.

My question is this: If Weta Digital was at full capacity working on the first Avatar film - how on earth will they cope with two more, plus two Hobbit films?

I have posed this question to both Weta Workshop and Weta Digital but have yet to receive a reply. They're probably all too busy to answer.

It could be they're planning on trebling the facilities and employing a host of new staff, which really would be great news.

Or we might yet see some of the post-production work moved off-shore. Which would be pretty damn ironic given recent events.




3D Motion Capture Feature 'Troll' Promises Jobs in Illinois

(qctimes.com) Producers of the movie “Troll” will announce today that production of the animated film will be in the Illinois Quad-Cities. (Contributed photo)

An animated, 3D motion capture feature film will be produced in the Illinois Quad-Cities, employing as many as 100 people.

Producers and local officials will announce today the production of “Troll,” a digitally animated feature with a budget of $15 million.

“This is going to be the first fully digital, animated motion capture picture ever shot in the state of Illinois,” said J. Douglas Miller of the Quad-Cities Film Coalition.

Motion capture is a digital process in which a live person’s movements are recorded by computer and converted to animation. It is most evident in movies such as “Avatar,” “The Polar Express” and “Disney’s A Christmas Carol.”

Miller said the movie had been on track to receive tax incentives from Iowa funds, but a suspension of the program moved the interest to Illinois. After nine months of talks in Illinois, producers applied and were accepted for incentives in that state. The production company is Great River Productions.

Producers of the movie include industry veteran Ralph Kamp, executive producer of “August Rush,” “Space Chimps” and “The Phantom of the Opera,” as well as a former business manager for the Monty Python’s Flying Circus comedy group and a former CEO of Mel Gibson’s Icon Entertainment production company; and Kristian Kamp, producer and principal with Ervod Productions, the largest producer of children’s programs in Norway. The director is David Dulac, who has worked on such movies as “The Matrix,” “Babe: Pig in the City” and “Moulin Rouge!”

Production is expected to take 2 1/2 years, Miller said, with Illinois residents both working in computer animation and learning from the professionals thanks to training from Western Illinois University-Quad-Cities Campus in Moline.

“We’re bringing as many folks as we can from Illinois into the deal,” Miller said.

Only Illinois residents will be eligible for the jobs.

As for the salary, “It would be well into five, low-six figure jobs,” Miller said.

The announcement will be at 10 a.m. today at the Rock Island Holiday Inn.





South Korean Animators Cry Foul at Simpsons Segment

(time.com) Sitting in his lively studio in western Seoul, veteran animator Nelson Shin is clearly proud of the fact that he's helped animate The Simpsons since the show first aired in 1989. The iconic cartoon propelled his production company Akom into becoming an overseas contracting hub for a lineup of Saturday-morning classics, including X-Men, Tiny Toon Adventures and Animaniacs.

But when a California-based production studio asked Shin to animate a dark commentary about labor practices in Asia's cartoon industry — the edgy title sequence for the The Simpsons' episode "MoneyBART" — he and his staff raised a rare protest. The sequence, created by Banksy, the pseudonym for an unidentified British graffiti artist known for his anti-Establishment pranks, ran during the opening credits — a regular slot known to Simpsons fans as the "couch gag" because it's a joke thrown in as the Simpsons family is seen gathering on the couch at the start of each episode. It depicted a dungeon-like complex where droning Asian animators worked in sweatshops, rats scurried around with human bones, kittens were spliced up into Bart Simpson dolls, and a gaunt unicorn punched holes into DVDs. (See a gallery of The Simpsons' guest voices.)

Shin was disappointed. The satire, he and other animators have since argued, gave the impression that Asian artists slave away in subpar sweatshops when, in fact, they animate much of The Simpsons every week in high-tech workshops in downtown Seoul. "Most of the content was about degrading people from Korea, China, Mexico and Vietnam," Shin fumed. "If Banksy wants to criticize these things ... I suggest that he learn more about it first."

It's no secret that the animation work for many American and European cartoons is doled out to low-wage studios in developing nations. At its height in the 1980s and '90s, South Korea was known for its work-for-hire agreements in which artists animated the storyboards that foreign clients sent to them. But even though South Korea's wealth keeps wages high by regional standards, the country's animators still make one-third the salaries of their American counterparts — earning the South Korean industry a reputation for pumping out episodes on tight deadlines at reasonable prices.

When working on The Simpsons, Shin receives storyboards, coloring instructions and voice tracks from Film Roman, the show's California-based studio, and then churns them into an episode, typically within three months. Other Korean companies have followed his lead, especially in the 1990s: Rough Draft Korea, based in Seoul, helped with Beavis and Butt-head and SpongeBob SquarePants, Yeson Corp has worked on King of the Hill, and Sunwoo Entertainment helped animate Captain Planet. But Shin is credited with being an industry leader, having been called a "godfather" of South Korean animation since he founded Akom in 1985. Before that, he created the Star Wars lightsaber blade and worked in Hollywood on shows such as The Pink Panther and the Scooby-Doo franchise in the 1970s.

It's understandable, then, that he and other South Korean animators felt Banksy's montage wasn't fair to their cosmopolitan industry. Soon after the episode aired in the U.S. on Oct. 10 and in the U.K. on Oct. 21, YouTube videos of the sequence went viral online, prompting debate among bloggers. Marlow Riley of MTV's Clutch Blog called it a "ballsy critique," while Linda Holmes of the Monkey See blog at NPR lamented, "Nobody is advocating changing the way the show is produced."

But in Seoul, 41-year-old Lee Hee-yang, a former colorist for The Simpsons during the 1990s, when wages were even lower and cartoons were crafted monotonously by hand, says she doesn't understand the sweatshop fuss. "Sometimes it was stressful. We worked until 2 a.m. on deadline days, but on most days it was a normal job," she says. Banksy declined to comment to TIME on the intended meaning of the couch gag.



New Zealand Buys ‘Hobbit’ Shoot For $25 Million

(nytimes.com) AUCKLAND — Warner Brothers agreed to keep Peter Jackson’s production of “The Hobbit” in New Zealand after the government promised to change local labor laws and offered extra financial incentives, Prime Minister John Key said Wednesday.

The deal came after two days of talks between Mr. Key and other government officials and executives from Warner and its New Line Cinema unit.

Filming of the two “Hobbit” movies, which is expected to start in February, had been threatened by a dispute over whether a New Zealand branch of an Australian union could engage in collective bargaining on the Hollywood films, which they have not been able to do in the past.

A New Zealand actors union, backed by a larger union, the Media, Entertainment & Arts Alliance of Australia, had demanded collective bargaining for work on the films, but both Warner and government officials contended that collective bargaining with actors was barred by New Zealand law.

The unions withdrew their demand and lifted their call that international unions boycott the films, but Warner executives remained concerned about the possibility of labor disruptions.

As part of the deal to keep production of the “The Hobbit” in New Zealand, the government will introduce new legislation on Thursday to clarify the difference between an employee and a contractor, Mr. Key said during a news conference in Wellington, adding that the change would affect only the film industry.

In addition, Mr. Key said the country would offset $10 million of Warner’s marketing costs as the government agreed to a joint venture with the studio to promote New Zealand “on the world stage.”

He also announced an additional tax rebate for the films, saying Warner Brothers would be eligible for as much as $7.5 million extra per picture, depending on the success of the films. New Zealand already offers a 15 percent rebate on money spent on the production of major movies..

Mr. Jackson’s office in New Zealand declined to immediately comment.

The “Hobbit” films, which are being financed in a partnership with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, have a production budget of about $500 million, and many in New Zealand believe they are crucial to the future of that country’s film industry.

“I’m delighted we have achieved this result. Making the two movies here will not only safeguard work for thousands of New Zealanders, but will also allow us to follow the success of the Lord of the Rings trilogy in once again promoting New Zealand on the world stage,” Mr. Key said.

“The industrial issues that have arisen in the past several weeks have highlighted a significant set of concerns for the way in which the international film industry operates here in New Zealand. We will be moving to ensure that New Zealand law in this area is settled to give film producers like Warner Brothers the confidence they need to produce their movies in New Zealand.”





Is Disney Scared of the Original TRON VFX?

(my.hsj.org) TRON: Legacy is now just under two months away. With October 28 being “TRON Night” across the country, as multiple IMAX screens screen 20 minutes of the new film, it seems like a good time to ask, “Where’s the inevitable Blu-ray release of the original TRON?” There was once talk of not only a Blu-ray release but maybe even a small theatrical re-release timed with TRON: Legacy’s December 17 opening. Time is now running short, though, and it seems like even with all the money being spent on creating and marketing this new version of TRON, the original is kind of getting the shaft. And guess what? It might be our fault.

Blue Sky Disney posted a thought provoking editorial on this very subject. In their piece, they report that earlier this year the original 1982 film directed by Steven Lisberger played at a Disney theme park. Apparently, at this screening the audience was laughing hysterically at the dated special effects and costumes, some of which are currently more associated with well-known spoofs (like South Park or Tron guy) rather than their original incarnations. This, reportedly, scared the crap out of many of the executives in attendance and they decided to push back the Blu-ray release of the original film until TRON: Legacy had finished its run at the box office and, itself, was ready for the home market.

As crazy as this may sound, it makes a lot of sense. Even though TRON was incredibly groundbreaking almost 30 years ago, today, the effects look horribly dated and watching them in high definition on Blu-ray probably just makes them look even worse. Imagine a 40 year old man, who loves the original movie, popping in a crisp new Blu-ray for his 10 year old son, so used to Avatar, Toy Story and The Phantom Menace. There’s a chance that, within seconds, the kid could totally dismiss the franchise and then just blab to all of his friends about dumb it looks. And with all the events, toys, comics, theme parks, reshoots, banners, posters, trailers and more than Disney has footed the bill for in regards to TRON: Legacy, any little chink in the armor could result in a very expensive house of cards coming tumbling down.





Academy's Tech Council Adds Five

(modernghana.com) Beverly Hills, CA – Craig Barron, Lisa Zeno Churgin, Caleb Deschanel, Randal Kleiser and Alex McDowell have accepted invitations to join the Science and Technology Council of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Barron, an Oscar®-winning visual effects specialist (“The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”), is head of Matte World Digital, where he has created effects for such films as “Titanic,” “The Green Mile,” “Zodiac” and “Alice in Wonderland.” In 1992 he earned an Academy Award® nomination for “Batman Returns.” Barron is an Academy governor representing the Visual Effects Branch and has been an Academy member since 1994.

Churgin, an Academy Award-nominated editor for “The Cider House Rules,” has edited more than 20 features, including “Reality Bites,” “Gattaca,” “House of Sand and Fog” and “Pride and Glory.” She has been a member of the Academy's Film Editors Branch since 1997.

Deschanel is a five-time Oscar-nominated cinematographer recognized for his work on “The Right Stuff,” “The Natural,” “Fly Away Home,” “The Patriot” and “The Passion of the Christ.” He is an Academy governor representing the Cinematographers Branch and has been an Academy member since 1984.

Kleiser has directed such features as “Grease,” “The Blue Lagoon,” “Big Top Pee-wee,” “White Fang” and “Honey, I Blew Up the Kid.” He has been a member of the Academy's Directors Branch since 1981.

McDowell is a production designer whose credits include “Fight Club,” “Minority Report,” “The Terminal,” “Tim Burton's Corpse Bride” and “Watchmen.” He has been a member of the Academy's Art Directors Branch since 2003.

The 2010–2011 Council co-chairs are Academy governor Bill Kroyer (Short Films and Feature Animation Branch) and Ray Feeney, the recipient of the 2006 Academy's Gordon E. Sawyer Award (an Oscar statuette).

The Council's other 18 members are: Academy governors Richard Edlund and Don Hall, Peter W. Anderson, Thad Beier, Elizabeth Cohen, Jonathan Erland, David W. Gray, Douglas Greenfield, Jim Houston, Rob Hummel, Brad Hunt, David Inglish, George Joblove, Tad Marburg, Daryn Okada, Rick Sayre, Garrett Smith and Barry S. Weiss.

Established in 2003 by the Academy's Board of Governors, the Science and Technology Council provides a forum for the exchange of information, promotes cooperation among diverse technological interests within the industry, sponsors publications, fosters educational activities and preserves the history of science and technology of motion pictures.




Paramount Sets Super 8 Release Date

(ComingSoon.net) Paramount Pictures has set a June 10, 2011 release date for J.J. Abrams' secretive Super 8, starring Kyle Chandler, Elle Fanning, Ron Eldard, Noah Emmerich, Joel Courtney, Riley Griffiths, Ryan Lee, Zach Mills, Gabriel Basso and AJ Michalka.

The film is produced by Abrams and Bryan Burk, with Steven Spielberg executive producing.





'Ghost Rider' Sequel Takes A Budget Cut

(latinoreview.com) "Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance" is supposedly green lit with a director and nice cast to boot, but there's been one thing that's been preventing it from going further on. That's the budget, which apparenrly was a lot bigger than it needed to be, at least for Sony Pictures. Luckily, they teamed up with a Hyde Park Entertainment cofinancier who'll be able to help shrink down the budget.

Since Sony has their hands full with bigger budget pictures like the "Spider-Man" reboot and "Men in Black III", they must've been happy to see the budget for "Spirit of Vengeance" size down from $135 million to $75 million. Along with this decrease, even Nicolas Cage took a pay cut in order to fix up the budget (boo-hoo).

The comic book adapted feature is being directed by Brian Taylor and Mark Neveldine with a cast that includes Ciaran Hinds, Placido Violante and Idris Elba. Principal photography for the film is set to begin sometime soon.




VFX Sup Craig Barron & Sound Editor Ben Burtt at TARZAN FINDS A MATE Screening

(altfg.com) Visual effects supervisor Craig Barron (left, Alice in Wonderland, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button) and Oscar-winning sound editor Ben Burtt (E.T., Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, WALL-E) at a screening of both Cedric Gibbons' Tarzan and His Mate (1934) and Richard Thorpe's Tarzan Finds a Son! (1939), presented by the Academy's Science and Technology Council on Sunday, October 24, at the Academy’s Linwood Dunn Theater in Hollywood.

Take a look: http://www.altfg.com/Stars/photo-actors-c/craig-barron-ben-burtt-tarzan-finds-a-son.jpg





James Cameron to Next Make Avatar 2 and 3

(20th Century Fox) Fox Filmed Entertainment Chairmen Jim Gianopulos and Tom Rothman announced today that Academy Award-winning filmmaker James Cameron has agreed to make Avatar 2 and 3 as his next films.

Cameron, who had always viewed "Avatar" as the creation of a new world and mythology, will begin work on the scripts early next year with an eye towards commencing production later in 2011. Cameron will decide if he will shoot the films back-to-back after he completes the scripts, but the release of the first, as yet untitled sequel, is targeted for December 2014, with the third film contemplated for a December 2015 release.

Avatar 2 and 3 will be produced by Cameron and Jon Landau for Cameron’s Lightstorm Entertainment.

"'Avatar' is not only the highest grossing movie of all time, it is a created universe based on the singular imagination and daring of James Cameron, who also raised the consciousness of people worldwide to some of the greatest issues facing our planet," said Rothman and Gianopulos. "We had no higher priority, and can feel no greater joy, than enabling Jim to continue and expand his vision of the world of 'Avatar.' This is a great day in the history of our company, and we thank Jim, Jon Landau, Rae Sanchini and all of their team and all of our Fox colleagues throughout the world, who have made this possible."

Commented Cameron: "It is a rare and remarkable opportunity when a filmmaker gets to build a fantasy world, and watch it grow, with the resources and partnership of a global media company. 'Avatar' was conceived as an epic work of fantasy – a world that audiences could visit, across all media platforms, and this moment marks the launch of the next phase of that world. With two new films on the drawing boards, my company and I are embarking on an epic journey with our partners at Twentieth Century Fox. Our goal is to meet and exceed the global audience's expectations for the richness of 'Avatar's' visual world and the power of the storytelling. In the second and third films, which will be self contained stories that also fulfill a greater story arc, we will not back off the throttle of 'Avatar's' visual and emotional horsepower, and will continue to explore its themes and characters, which touched the hearts of audiences in all cultures around the world. I'm looking forward to returning to Pandora, a world where our imaginations can run wild."

"It is very exciting to be teaming again with our partners at Fox to give audiences the opportunity to return to Pandora," said producer Jon Landau. "With the first movie, Jim only scratched the surface of the stories he wants to tell and the creatures and world he wants to create. Now we will continue his vision."

Avatar is the highest grossing film of all time, taking in nearly $2.8 billion in worldwide box office. It is also the top-selling Blu-ray disc of all time. Avatar won Golden Globe awards for Best Motion Picture and Best Director; and was nominated for nine Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director, and won Oscars for art direction, visual effects and cinematography.

In Avatar, Cameron takes audiences to a spectacular world beyond imagination and limitations, where a reluctant hero embarks on a journey of redemption and discovery as he leads a heroic battle to save a civilization.

Avatar was written by Cameron from an idea he nurtured for over a decade, while working on the technology necessary to realize its wholly imagined world. Working with Joe Letteri and his team at Peter Jackson's WETA Digital, Cameron created a fully immersive 3D cinematic experience of a new kind, where revolutionary technology that was invented to make the film disappeared into the emotion of the characters and the epic nature of the story.

Avatar 2 and 3 will mark Cameron's latest collaborations with Twentieth Century Fox, a relationship that spans 25 years and marks one of the most successful filmmaker-studio alliances in motion picture history. Cameron and Fox first joined forces in 1985 for Aliens, which became a sci-fi classic. Next came The Abyss, which revolutionized visual effects technology; and True Lies, a blockbuster starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. In 1996, Fox greenlighted Cameron's Titanic, which became the most successful film in history, and won a record-breaking eleven Academy Awards, including Best Picture.





VIDEO: Captain 3D (Yes, That's His Name) on the 3D Technology of 'Megamind'

(blog.moviefone.com) In the upcoming 3D animated movie 'Megamind,' Will Ferrell voices the mega-villain Megamind, who kills his main superhero nemesis -- and therefore decides to create a new, even better one. Complications, as you can well imagine, ensue.

We talked to Dreamworks' Phil McNally, an animation supervisor who's such a 3D expert, they call him "Captain 3D." (Yes -- that's his actual nickname.)

Captain 3D describes some of the new technology used for 'Megamind,' and we get several tantalizing glimpses at the movie as it's being made. As for the future of 3D technology itself, Captain 3D tells us, "It's really here to stay this time." We're starting to believe it.

Take a look: http://blog.moviefone.com/2010/10/21/megamind-captain-3d-interview-video/





CGI Movies: Making Movies Lamer or Creating Masterpieces?

(my.hsj.org) Computer generated imagery, or CGI, is a form of animation that a lot of movies have been using nowadays, but is slowly becoming a nuisance to a few. Some audiences love these movies; while others hate them. Although little brothers or sisters may go crazy over the latest DreamWorks movie, some of them are getting pretty corny for our age. A few like Avatar and Star Wars are inspirational, and take moviegoers on a journey through an indescribable fantasy. However, the majority of CGI movies are just cartoon characters and/or talking animals, just continuing to have an obnoxious pattern of getting more and more immature.

In the 1970’s and early 1980’s, CGI was a rare, magical technique that was seldom used. Today, it’s one of the biggest movie genres ever. CGI uses computers and specialized graphics to create detailed, almost cartoon-like, three dimensional characters and objects. It’s a very challenging process, and can take up to six months to make one of these types of movies. The first movie to use CGI was Westworld, a 1973 movie about an adult-themed amusement park that melts down, and how two visitors that have been trapped must escape out of this treacherous area. CGI has a very rich history.

All moviegoers have a different opinion about CGI. “Some are stupid like Toy Story, but others are extremely good, like Avatar,” said seventh grader Devon Patel. Seventh grader Spencer Hamilton said, “Avatar is my favorite CGI movie, and Toy Story never gets old,” These two peoples’ opinions are a great example of how everyone has a different outlook on CGI movies.

Like Spencer stated, some movies never get old, such as Toy Story, admittedly, along with a few others. Some people completely adore CGI movies, and review them as “classic,” but some producers and companies, like Pixar and DreamWorks need to move on to newer, more mature movies with themes that can reach a wider variety of audiences.





Kernercam 3D Rigs Get L.A. Rental Home

(blog.digitalcontentproducer.com) San Rafael, CA, October 26, 2010 – Geo Film Group, and Kerner 3D Technologies, a division of the Marin, CA-based Kerner Group, announce that Geo Film will make the Kernercam KC7000 3D camera rig available for rental to the LA production community starting in November.

Geo Film Group and Kerner 3D Technologies will be displaying the Kernercam 3D camera rig next week — November 3-4 — at the Createasphere Entertainment Technology Expo at the Marriott Hotel in Burbank. The companies will be located at Booth # 417.

Tim Partridge, President, The Kerner Group, said, “We have known George and his team for many years, and are delighted that they have chosen to offer the Kernercam for rentals in LA. Geo Film Group is well known for providing state of the art technologies to production companies, and they have already had experience with 3D production. More importantly, they provide well-trained technicians, along with their equipment, which is exactly what is needed in these early days of 3D cinematography. With Geo Film, we know that productions using the Kernercam will be well supported, and will be able to get the results they want quickly and easily, and at a price they can afford.”

Adds George Nolan, president/founder, Geo Films Group, Inc., “For the past 20 years, our company has focused on providing simple, reliable and cost effective equipment to the film and broadcast industry. While providing camera support for some recent 3D productions, we started looking for smaller, lighter and less labor intensive 3D systems. The timing could not have been better when we were approached by The Kerner Group to see if we would be interested in distributing their new 3D rig. The Kerner 3D Kernercam rig is what the industry needs today to make 3D production as easy as 2D production.”

ABOUT KERNER 3D TECHNOLOGIES AND THE KERNER 3D CAMERA RIG:

Kerner 3D Technologies develops and offers a range of camera rigs for easy and accurate capture of 3D content. The Kernercam KC7000 systems are beam-splitter rigs of varying sizes, available for broadcast or cinematic applications.

The Kernercam 3D system was recently used by Emotion Studios to shoot a 3D documentary for NVidea, and by Depth Q Media to shoot drift racing footage for the promotion of Toyota’s Scion brand. It was also used during the production of actor David Arquette’s short 3D film, “The Butler’s In Love,” which recently opened the Annual HollyShorts Film Festival at the Director’s Guild of America Theatre in Los Angeles and was also featured at the 3D Film Festival in Hollywood.





Darren Aronofsky Takes Machine Man

(Variety) Darren Aronofsky will direct the Mandalay Pictures adaptation of Max Barry's Machine Man, reports Variety.

The project, to be scripted by Mark Heyman (who co-wrote Aronofsky's Black Swan alongside John McLaughlin) will adapt Barry's story, which originally appeared on the author's website in serial form with a single page released each day as it was written.

Machine Man, not to be confused with the Marvel Comics character, concerns a tech engineer who, tired of going through life average and unnoticed, replaces parts of his body with titanium upgrades of his own design. He then discovers that he isn't the only one with plans for his new body.

The full story is available at Barry's website at www.maxbarry.com.

A start date for Machine Man is unknown at this time, though it will presumably follow Wolverine 2 on Aronofsky's directorial slate.




Robert Zemeckis Says Yellow Submarine Remake Is A Go

(411mania.com) Beatles remake will happen…

Robert Zemeckis was at a Back to the Future 25th anniversary event and was asked about his planned remake of the Beatles' Yellow Submarine. Zemeckis said that the remake is "all ahead full," indicating that the film will be going forward.

Reports have stated that the film will be shot in 3-D, with a rumored cast of Dean Lennox Kelly (Saving Grace) as John Lennon, Peter Serafinowicz (Shaun of the Dead) as Paul McCartney, Cary Elwes (Saw, The Princess Bride) as George Harrison and Adam Campbell (Epic Movie) as Ringo Starr. David Tennant, who had previously been rumored to play the Queen of the Blue Meanies, doesn't look to be involved anymore.





Pixar Releases RenderMan for Maya 4.0 and RenderMan Studio 3.0

(vfxworld.com) EMERYVILLE, CA – (October 22nd, 2010) Pixar Animation Studios today announced the release of RenderMan Studio 3.0 and RenderMan for Maya 4.0. Both new versions offer substantial gains in performance, enhanced workflows, and new state-of-the-art technologies for rendering visual effects and animation.

RenderMan for Maya 4.0 provides any user of Autodesk’s Maya with fast and easy access to the core rendering technology developed by Pixar and used to create the stunning visual effects seen in the majority of today’s feature films. This latest release delivers significant increases in performance from a host of core optimizations to the internal renderer, including the addition of unlimited threading. Additionally, RenderMan for Maya 4.0 includes enhanced interaction with Maya’s Render Layers, a new unified interface for RenderMan Controls, and support for Maya Fluids.

RenderMan Studio 3.0 includes all of the above while also featuring powerful new shading and lighting tools. RenderMan Studios 3.0 includes the latest version of Pixar’s shader authoring toolset Slim 9.0, providing excellent integration with RenderMan for Maya, a new production-quality shader library, co-shader support, Ptex support, and more. Also included is a new relighting tool built on RenderMan’s re-rendering API. In addition, RenderMan Studio includes Tractor 1.0, Pixar’s new distributed render management solution, featuring an innovative architecture designed with the flexibility and power to manage small or large, multi-core render farms.




MJ's "Thriller" Becomes 3D Horror Feature

(darkhorizons.com) Several minor studios are in a bidding war for a $50 million 3D horror film based on the Michael Jackson's legendary music video "Thriller" reports Deadline.

GK Films, Fox 2000, Lionsgate and Summit Entertainment are all in contention to pick up the project from Real Effects Entertainment where it is setup, with GK leading the charge.

Story details are being kept secret, though it will look into the folklore of the song and involve the hometown of classic horror actor Vincent Price whose distinctive voice narrates part of the song.

Kenny Ortega ("This Is It") directs from a screenplay by Jeremy Garelick ("The Break-Up").




MoCap / Effects Update For New Planet of the Apes

(latinoreview.com) James spoke with Screen Junkies about his role in the movie and playing opposite Andy Serkis, who can play a better chimpanzee than a chimpanzee ever could.

"And then I found out that that’s not how they’re doing it. It’s actually all of Peter Jackson’s Weta people doing CG, that I’ll be working with Andy Serkis who played Gollum, and it was the DP from The Lord of the Rings, Andrew Lesnie. I was such a big fan of those movies and I am interested in new ways of performing and new ways of filmmaking so I thought "Why not? I will have this opportunity. Try it out."

“When I got to do the scenes with Andy Serkis, it was actually really interesting because he plays a chimpanzee, a real chimpanzee. There’s no way we would ever get scenes that we did with a real chimpanzee. Because Andy’s so good at that behavior so it’s like acting opposite a real chimpanzee with great acting instincts. It was cool, it was new, new for me.”





Inside the Star Wars Machine

(guardian.co.uk) Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II – the latest Star Wars game has benefitted greatly from movie techniques and technologies developed by LucasFilm and ILM...

At the Letterman Digital Arts Center in San Francisco, legendary special effects house Industrial Light and Magic shares its office space with LucasArts, the game development arm of LucasFilm. Here, concepts of game and filmmaking are closely entwined – the two work together, drawing ideas and technologies from each other as the twin entertainment media converge.

It's a gaming event, for example, that helped kickstart a new R&D project at ILM – real-time movie-making using motion capture systems. As Mike Sanders, the digital supervisor at ILM, explains: "On the first Force Unleashed game, LucasArts called us and said they were doing a press junket and wanted to do the Clone Cam thing with everyone on the tour. So I said, that's going to take a while, why don't we do something different? Let's write some code to port the virtual reality in this room into the game engine live and then we'll put the press people right into gameplay and they can lightsaber battle against the apprentice in real-time."

Sure enough, a week later ILM had modified a system that could port motion capture footage directly into a game engine. In other words, you could have two actors in mo-cap suits performing moves, and everything they did was fed live and direct into a PC running an environment from the game. "This was the basis for us thinking, 'hey why don't we use the game engine as a real-time renderer for… anything'". As he's speaking Sanders picks up a camera plugged into his computer set-up and points it at different parts of the room. On a PC screen he's running an environment from Force Unleashed 2, and as he pans the camera, the in-game camera changes accordingly.
Davy Jones model Concept models of Davy Jones from Pirates of the Caribbean – later rendered in CGI by the team at ILM.

Of course, ILM has been converging real and CG elements like this for years (including the ground-breaking creation of Bill Nighy's Davy Jones character in Pirates of the Caribbean) – it's just that in the past, all this data would have been fed into a computer to be later lit, tweaked and placed within the environment. The thing is, not only does such a staged process take more time, it also robs the director of creative autonomy.

What Sanders and his team are doing now is evolving and condensing the practise. With the ILM system, directors will be able to 'film' CGI sequences in a real room with real actors, while looking into their cameras and seeing the virtual world. "It's kind of how Avatar was shot," says Sanders. "That's the idea: real-time animatics, real time game cinematics, whatever you want. So for VFX shots, rather than doing render passes overnight, you can do base layouts, base lighting tests and animation tests and watch in real-time – this will be a game changer in the future."

This R&D concept is now part of ILM's Director's Toolkit, an array of digital tools designed to facilitate moviemakers working on CG-heavy projects. As ILM spokesman Greg Grusby explains, "This new technology means we can give a director a view of their characters performing in the actual environment they will be seen in for a given shot or sequence with interactive lighting, shadows and a choice or render looks. It's much more robust, and the system is flexible enough to be placed in a director's home or office. Via a game controller, the filmmaker can scout virtual locations, create storyboards based on actual camera placement, test camera moves or begin choosing lenses, camera platforms or map out other technical details of a shot."

It's also a very hands-on intuitive system. "I wanted to show management how easy it was to use the tech," Sanders continues. "So by myself, I shot three pieces of motion capture, processed it, looped it back over the game engine, and with the virtual cameras, I did maybe 30 different shots and 120 camera moves. Then I cut it all together in Final Cut Pro with audio in less than two days. The motion system is just broadcasting what's going on in the room and the animation system's picking it up, retargeting it on to the character and recording it to the game engine. I was just trying to show that you don't need $10m and a team of 30 people to pump out animatics, or even game cinematics, anymore..."

Full Press - Much More: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/gamesblog/2010/oct/25/inside-star-wars-part-two




Zach Galifianakis Joins The New Muppets Movie

(slashfilm.com) The Muppets have taken Manhattan, followed that bird, been to Treasure Island, space and more. Now it seems their Christmas 2011 film might end up Between Two Ferns. A very famous source confirmed that Zach Galifianakis will be “doing a couple days” in the currently Untitled Muppets Movie co-written and staring Muppet super fan Jason Segel. Amy Adams, Rashida Jones and Chris Cooper are all also in the James Bobin (Flight of the Conchords) directed film which will be about Segel’s character, and a brand new Muppet, trying to save the Muppet Studios. The source for the Galifianakis news? None other than Iron Man himself, Robert Downey Jr. Check out the video and more after the jump.




Big Spaceship Lands Lucasfilm Digital Business

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- Star Wars production company Lucasfilm has picked a shop with a fitting name, Big Spaceship, as its new digital agency of record.

The Brooklyn-based independent agency beat out a handful of undisclosed digital shops pitching the business, according to people familiar with the matter. It will handle websites, social media and mobile for Lucas Online, which also includes work for film franchises such as Star Wars.

Lucasfilm confirmed the relationship, though declined to elaborate. Kantar Media does not have ad spending data for the movie production company. Big Spaceship also declined comment for this story.

Over the last 10 years, Big Spaceship grew up largely handling digital production work, building websites for traditional ad agencies on a contract basis. These days the agency, which is run by CEO-founder Michael Lebowitz, says it only works with clients directly, with no agency middlemen.

The agency also counts General Electric, Wrigley, Microsoft and Google as clients.

Big Spaceship had $8 million in U.S. revenue in 2009, up 33% from the year prior, according to Ad Age DataCenter. The 50-person shop was also one of Ad Age's Best Places to Work in 2010.

Source: http://adage.com/agencynews/article?article_id=146745



Warner Bros. Picks Up ‘ACME Warehouse’ Pitch


(slashfilm.com/) Warner Bros. is finally getting back to exploiting the studio’s huge stable of animated stars. But is that a good thing? There’s a live-action/CGI hybrid Bugs Bunny film in the works, and a Pepe le Pew film with Mike Myers planned as the voice of the romantically aggressive little skunk. And now the studio has bought a pitch for a film that would revolve around the ACME Warehouse, which supplied so many powerful, misused gadgets to Wile E. Coyote and other characters over the years.


THR says that Kevin and Dan Hageman sold the original pitch to WB, and that the idea was developed with producers Dan Lin and Roy Kell, with the idea of “[building] a franchise out of the Warner property.”


In other words, just like Fox has the Night at the Museum movies and Disney is mulling a similar Magic Kingdom film, Warner Bros. could have just bought a setup that would allow the studio to craft lightweight family-oriented comedies around a place, rather than a person. We don’t know if this would be live-action or animation, or a hybrid. (The latter is most likely.)




Ang Lee's 3D "Life of Pi" To Be Crammed With VFX


(20th Century Fox) Director Ang Lee is gearing up to start filming the long-anticipated adaptation of Yann Martel's bestselling novel Life Of Pi early next year with the casting of 17-year-old newcomer Suraj Sharma in the title role of a boy who is stranded in a tiny boat for 227 days with a number of zoo animals, including a Bengal tiger, saved from his family's ship before it sinks.

Lee spent months looking over 3,000 auditions to fill the role before finding Sharma, a student in Delhi, India.

Directing from a script by Finding Neverland's David Magee, Lee will start principal photography in January, shooting the entire film in 3D in Taiwan and India.

* The budget is about $70 Million but Fox hasn’t greenlit the project yet.

* They hope to start shooting in August for a 2012 release.

* Scribe David Magee (Finding Neverland) has finished the screenplay

* Lee wants this to be a 3D magical fantasy adventure crammed with visual effect because there will be a lot of CG animals (whales, fish, meercats) plus ocean and atmosphere. Obviously.. because a live tiger and a child together in a boat would probably be a bad idea.





New Zealand, Hollywood Execs in Hobbit Deadlock

(news.malaysia.msn.com) New Zealand Prime Minister John Key on Tuesday failed to secure a guarantee from Hollywood executives that Peter Jackson's troubled "Hobbit" movies would be filmed in the country.

After crisis talks with senior Warner Bros. executives lasting more than two hours, Key said the fate of Jackson's 500 million US dollar epic remained in limbo.

He said the meeting was "constructive" but the studio chiefs remained unsettled by an industrial dispute between Jackson and actors' unions over the project, a two-film prequel to "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy.

"It's fair to say there was a lot of goodwill towards New Zealand... but there's no question the industrial action has caused real concern on their side and they'll need resolution to some of those issues," Key told reporters.

Hollywood's heavy hitters, including the head of Warner's New Line production house Toby Emmerich, flew to Wellington to examine whether New Zealand's bid to reprise its role as Middle Earth was economically viable.

They offered no comment as they left Key's official residence Premier House.

New Zealand's rugged scenery was a key element in "The Lord of the Rings", helping boost tourism and build the local film industry into a three billion dollar (2.3 billion US) a year success story.

But the location for "The Hobbit" has been in doubt since the actors' union NZ Equity last month called for a global boycott after Jackson rejected demands to negotiate with it on minimum conditions for its members.

While the ban was called off last week, Key said it had forced the studio to look at whether other locations were more economically attractive.

Key rated New Zealand's chances of keeping the project, which is due to begin shooting in February, as "50-50" and said he expected a final decision in the next two days as talks continued.

He said government legal advisers would work overnight on possible changes to industrial laws to reassure the studio that "The Hobbit" could meet production deadlines without the threat of union action.

But he reiterated his stance that New Zealand would not be drawn into a bidding war for the movies, reportedly the most expensive film project ever undertaken.

"We can't bridge the gap with what's potentially on offer from other locations, we're not prepared to do that and I don't think the New Zealand taxpayers would want us to do that," he said.

Key earlier said the government's existing 15 percent tax rebate on major films was worth 60-80 million New Zealand dollars (45-60 million US) to "The Hobbit". However, some competitors are offering almost double the incentive.

Producers have mentioned Scotland, Canada, Ireland, Australia and eastern Europe as possible alternative locations, along with the Leavesden Studios near London, where the "Harry Potter" movies were filmed.

Thousands of people, including film technicians and actors, staged rallies in New Zealand's main cities on Monday calling for the movies to stay.

In a letter read to the Wellington rally, Jackson made it clear he wanted "The Hobbit" filmed in New Zealand, although the industrial unrest meant the final decision was now out of his hands.

"This is where Middle Earth was born and this is where it should stay," he said.





A $65M Live-Action/CGI Hybrid Teddy Bear Movie?


(newsinfilm.com) Mark WahlbergMark Wahlberg has been confirmed as the lead in “Family Guy” creator Seth MacFarlane’s directorial debut, Ted, an R-rated, live-action/CGI hybrid about a man who talks to a life-sized teddy bear (voiced by MacFarlane).


Wahlberg will once again play a Bostonian, but this time his teddy bear comes to life and gets in the way of his relationships. According to Pajiba, who initially broke the news last week, the bear likes to party, smoke pot, pick up women, and play video games.


Deadline reports Media Rights Capital is sinking $65 million into this comedy and Universal will distribute.





"Sci-Fi Thriller "Solo" For Banderas

(darkhorizons.com) Antonio Banderas is set to direct the psychological sci-fi thriller "Solo" for Green Moon according to Variety.

The story centers on a Spanish colonel suffering post-conflict trauma. Though shot in English, the production will use entirely Spanish actors.

This is Banderas' third film as helmer, Erik Jendresen penned the original screenplay. Production kicks off next year.






"Top Gun 2" Targets Computer Geek Done Pilots


(avclub.com) The recent announcement of a Top Gun 2 fueled almost entirely by corporate vanity certainly doesn’t scream “innovation,” but that’s exactly what director Tony Scott intends to do with it. In an interview with HitFix, Scott vowed that his return to what we can now call a franchise would be neither “remake” nor “reinvention,” but rather an all new movie examining the “the end of the era of fighter pilots”—specifically, the fact that RayBan-sporting flyboys doing mid-air acrobatics to a Kenny Loggins soundtrack have more or less been replaced by “computer geeks—these kids play war games in a trailer in Fallon, Nevada and if we ever went to war or were in the Middle East or the Far East or wherever it is, these guys can actually fly drones. They are unmanned aircraft. They operate them and then they party all night."


Scott seems to be basing all of those assumptions about what the modern-day Navy is like on a random encounter he had with a hungover pilot he met coming back from Vegas one time, but at least he says he plans to head down to Fallon soon to research said computer geeks in person.





Harry Potter Effects Gurus Turn to Cloud


(zdnet.com.au) Having only been open for business three months, cloud-based, high performance computing (HPC) provider Steam Engine has been "flat stick", according to its commercial director, Stefan Gillard. Steam Engine is so popular in fact, it's become the IT horsepower provider of choice to one of Australia's top visual effects studios: Rising Sun Pictures, of Harry Potter fame.


Rising Sun Pictures' owner and visual effects supervisor Tony Clark spoke to ZDNet Australia about the studio's use of Steam Engine's HPC grunt to get big, feature-length projects over the line.


Of paramount concern to Clark is the security of Rising Sun Pictures' precious film and render data; he said that an offshore cloud environment would be totally unsuitable for the company's needs, primarily due to proximity concerns.


"We obviously have concerns about security and we need to be satisfied by what's offered. We wouldn't use computers from this random place that we couldn't see or inspect. Our clients are incredibly security concerned, given the sensitive nature of films in production and the sizable investment at stake," Clark said.


Stefan Gillard, Steam Engine's commercial director, said that its HPC model is ideal for film development given that the data is stored in the tier-three-rated Global Switch facility, secured deep within the Harbour MSP datacentre in Sydney.


"Our HPC environment is a whole bunch of servers that can be imaged with any sort of application state. It's available to any industry vertical. There's a storage stack sitting behind that which can be partitioned as an individual storage stack for one client, or we have a wider stack of storage which is provisioned for a business. We don't have the same clients residing on the same physical drives as one another ... or they can share common hybrid storage with other customers," said Gillard.


In the instance of Rising Sun Pictures, Clark told ZDNet Australia that the company controlled the physical machines within Steam Engine rather than virtual ones and therefore sees the deal as less of a pure cloud arrangement, and more as a "horsepower" deal.


"We have direct access to the bare metal. We're renting grunt. The pure cloud models are more virtualised that instance," Clark said.


"All of these computers are running 100 per cent, so there's very little to be gained [from virtualisation at the moment]," he added.


In orchestrating the deal, the two companies first had to overcome a location divide of over 1000 kilometres between Adelaide and Sydney. The two cities are connected by an intercapital link of 100Mbps.


"We had to get over some fairly prominent networking and communications problems, given the fact that it was 1800 kilometres away. As our first pilot foundation client, we got to knock over some of the biggest challenges we'd face going to market anyway," Gillard said.


Gillard added that Steam Engine's primary benefit was cost-to-data-burst ratio.


"Why own your own kit when you can rent it as infrastructure as a service? We can provide them with a million dollars worth of kit for a month for substantially under what even a lease repayment on that kit would be, and it's introducing a new paradigm into how people look at that kit," he said.


Clark said that the model wasn't too dissimilar from renting other physical equipment.


"We rent horsepower through a datacentre. We go out readily and rent bits and pieces of equipment and put it in our own datacentres and things. But you can go to people like [Steam Engine] to get equipment for a date and time," said Clark.


Rising Sun Pictures can use anywhere between five and 500 gigabytes of storage on one particular rendering task, Clark explained.


"That hundred gigabytes may represent 10 or so different jobs. There could be around 1700 tasks on a queue. Some of them reference the same data, like object movement for example. A frame can take somewhere from 15 minutes to three hours and there's 24 frames per second."


Rising Sun Pictures runs 300 nodes in its render farm during the day, with an extra 150 available to it at night, as well as the extra grunt provided by Steam Engine, meaning that render jobs go quicker with fewer errors.


"We have a batch computer management system. You give it jobs and finds the best place to run them on our own computers and we then bolt nodes onto our existing render farm. Our program will push data onto the rented nodes as required," Clark said.


"We intend to use this model in the future though because it's difficult to dimension your computing requirements for your needs. If you consider that each machine costs several thousand dollars to buy and need each machine for a short period of time that's just economics," Clark added.


Rising Sun Pictures is currently working on visual effects for films including Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, The Green Lantern, The Sorcerer's Apprentice and in the past has supplied effects for X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Terminator: Salvation and Baz Luhrmann's Australia.





Weta's Digital's Potential Solution


(nzherald.co.nz) Besides The Hobbit, a number of other movies slated to be shot in New Zealand have been put on hold, including a two-part trilogy about Bigfoot.

My sources tell me that Bigfoot Fully Loaded and Bigfoot Re-born will be shot in Bulgaria.

Closer to home, an upcoming movie on the life of Sir Edmund Hillary has taken on a strange twist. The Himalayan summit scenes not involving actors will be shot on Mt Cook, but key scenes about Sir Edmund living in New Zealand will be shot in Nepal, because it is cheaper.

An insider at Weta studios told me that they have a potential solution to the actor problem and this involves digitally re-editing footage from the Lord of the Rings trilogy to make new scenes for The Hobbit.

He says nowadays they can pretty much copy somebody's Facebook profile photo and turn it into a walking, talking actor capable of delivering Qantas award-winning performances.


Source: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/entertainment/news/article.cfm?c_id=1501119&objectid=10682594





ILM Model Sup Talks The Visual Effects of Avatar


(viewconference.it) The Digital Modeling Supervisor at Industrial Light & Magic, Bruce Holcomb (whose film credits include the Academy Award-winning Pirates of the Caribbean “Dead Man’s Chest” “Star Trek”, “Avatar” and both “Iron Man” films) will talk at VIEW of the Visual Effects of Avatar.


Bruce Holcomb joined Industrial Light & Magic in 1999 as a Hard Surface Modeler. In his tenure at ILM Bruce has consistently grown in to larger positions in responsibility & scope. He currently works as a Digital Modeling Supervisor, making him responsible for monitoring the work of the employees in Asset Development ranging from initial 3-D concept work through to shot ready animated mechanics of hard surface characters, vehicles, props and environments. Holcomb’s passion for Visual Effects developed at an early age. He began watching the films of Ray Harryhausen as a child, and by the time Star Wars was released, there was no looking back. Bruce holds a Bachelor of Science Degree in Industrial Design from San Jose State University. Before joining ILM, Holcomb worked as an Industrial Designer under renowned designer Thomas Meyerhoffer, in his time as an Industrial Designer, Bruce contributed to product launches for such clients as: Nike, BMW, Switch & DRI. His film credits include the Academy Award –winning Pirates of the Caribbean “Dead Man’s Chest” Star Trek , Avatar and both Iron Man films.


Source: http://www.viewconference.it/bruce-holcomb-ilm-the-visual-effects-of-avatar





CGI Instead of 'Cuddles'? Animal Cruelty & "Harry Potter" Owl Trainers


(opposingviews.com) If you think that animals who are used in movies are trained with a magic wand, consider the latest charges lodged against two British animal trainers who supplied a tawny owl named Cuddles for the production of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. The RSPCA is taking the pair to court for alleged cruelty to animals.


Just last year, another U.K. trainer who provided some of the owls for the popular movie series pleaded guilty to 17 cruelty-to-animals offenses after humane authorities found dozens of emaciated and dehydrated birds with severe injuries, overgrown beaks, and swollen and clubbed feet at the trainer's facility. The birds were confiscated.


Always speak up for animals who are used as acting props and remind companies that there is no reason to use wild animals in ads when animation, animatronics, computer-generated images, and other highly advanced technologies can produce realistic substitutes without supporting cruelty.







Steven Spielberg to Direct Robopocalypse

(DreamWorks Studios) Steven Spielberg is set to direct Robopocalypse, it was announced today by Mark Sourian and Holly Bario, Co-Presidents of Production for DreamWorks Studios. Based on the novel of the same name by Daniel H. Wilson, Spielberg will begin principal photography on the futuristic tale in January 2012. Disney's Touchstone will distribute the film in 2013.

Exploring the fate of the human race following a robot uprising, Robopocalypse has been adapted for the screen by Drew Goddard.

DreamWorks acquired the rights to Wilson's unpublished manuscript back in November 2009. Publishing rights were acquired by Doubleday and they plan to release the book in June 2011.

"'Robopocalypse' embodies an imaginative story of a robot rebellion unleashed against the human race," said Mark Sourian. "This is a project we immediately sparked to and with Steven directing it we knew it was in the best possible hands to bring it to worldwide audiences."

Before he starts on Robopocalypse, Spielberg will be finishing up The Adventures of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn and War Horse. The former will be released on December 23, 2011 followed by the latter just five days later.




Hobbit Visual Effects May Head To UK

(stuff.co.nz) Special effects company Weta Digital risks losing lucrative post-production work if The Hobbit goes overseas – with no guarantee it will be involved at all.

United States film company executives arrived in Wellington yesterday for talks with director Sir Peter Jackson to decide the $630 million films' future.

Prime Minister John Key will also meet the executives today to canvass options for keeping the two movies in New Zealand.

More than 2000 people staged a rally in Wellington's Civic Square to coincide with their arrival as thousands of others gathered in centres elsewhere in the country.

Speaking to the applauding crowd, Weta Workshop and Digital co-founder Sir Richard Taylor said the nation's film industry was a vital creative outlet for Kiwis that "indelibly stamped the culture of New Zealand ... on the world stage".

He hoped The Hobbit would stay in New Zealand but said there was no confirmation that Weta would be hired to do post-production work if the films were lost overseas – or that the special effects wizards would be involved.

"It wouldn't be [Jackson's] choice, ultimately. How this can reverberate through our industry is something we have been concerned about, but today is about the positive, about moving forward."

In 2002, about a third of the $350m spent on the first Lord of the Rings film went on digital effects.

Several countries, including Australia and Britain, offer incentives for films to be shot domestically, with additional incentives if post-production is also done there.

Jackson spokesman Matt Dravitzki confirmed post-production work was at risk. Weta was unfortunately "like any other supplier on a film", despite the director being a co-owner.

"If a movie is shot overseas, you are encouraged to spend as much money in that country [to get incentives].

"We don't know the answer to any of this yet but anything can happen. These are all things we'll know more about this week, but we're hoping for the best."

Mr Key said today's meeting with "a team of heavy hitters from the west coast and also a senior executive from the east coast" would include New Line Cinema president Toby Emmerich and the company's chief legal counsel.

It would canvass possible "clarification"of employment law; giving film studio Warner Bros confidence that the Government was fully supportive of the project; and "maybe economic issues" – an apparent reference to suggestions the studio may seek further sweeteners to film in New Zealand, on top of an estimated $60m to $75m subsidy.

Mr Key said union threats had done "real damage" to the way Warner Bros viewed New Zealand.

"It's a 50-50 call. I'd love to tell you it's a done deal but there's a number of issues we have to get resolved. They've got to be sure they can hit deadlines, and it's got to be cost-competitive."

Uncertainty over The Hobbit's future came after the Australian actors' union Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance led a call for a boycott of the movies over union contracts. The boycott threat was lifted last week but the producers announced that the disruption had forced them to look at making the films elsewhere.
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However, the mood was buoyant at the Wellington rally yesterday. Taylor said Jackson had wanted to be present but was "in a very important place right now and couldn't have his focus broken from that".

A slightly discordant note came from a letter written by Jackson. He thanked those who put so much love into the film industry, showing a passion and commitment that could not be bought, but had one last dig at the MEAA.

"I believe the Kiwi way of doing things should be protected and celebrated," he wrote. "Turning us into another state of Australia under the sway of a destructive organisation carries the very real risk of destroying the great big heart that beats inside our films."




Hollywood VFX Wiz Douglas Trumbull Wants to Create Virtual Studio in Denver

(denverpost.com) Douglas Trumbull was in Denver earlier this month to solicit investors and scope out locations for his project. (Andy Cross, The Denver Post )

The Hollywood veteran who oversaw special effects for science fiction classics such as "Blade Runner" and "2001: A Space Odyssey" wants to build a next-generation movie studio in Denver, a project that could change the way films are made and put Colorado on the map for big-budget productions.

At Douglas Trumbull's proposed digital virtual studio, 3D and effects-driven films could be shot entirely on stage in front of a "green screen," using patented technology such as a "zero-gravity" camera.

Virtual worlds of infinite forests and alien planets would be incorporated into the production in real-time via computer graphics.

Trumbull, a recipient of a lifetime achievement Oscar for his technical wizardry, calls filming on location with physical sets a "dying art." He said the virtual process — with the ability to test and perfect shots using inexpensive stand-in actors — could cut production costs by more than 50 percent.

"I'm proposing a whole series of iterative live-action performance rehearsals of your entire screenplay, which could be shot in a couple of days because you have no sets, no props and almost no crew," Trumbull said during a recent presentation at the Colorado Film School in Denver.

Trumbull, 68, visited Denver to solicit investments and scope metro-area locations for a multimillion-dollar project that was dreamed up a decade ago but is still in the early stages of development. Though private investors and venture capital officials attended the presentation, none have publicly expressed interest.

The studio could be a boon for a state that has long struggled to attract major motion film productions, which officials attribute to the lack of financial incentives.

"It could be a real game changer for Colorado," said Kevin Shand, director of the Colorado Office of Film, Television & Media. "Right now, we're just not competitive because of the incentives out there. We have everything else production companies need. We have the crew, we have the talent, we have the infrastructure, but we don't have the money component."

Trumbull presented the virtual studio idea 10 years ago to major film companies such as Warner Bros. and Columbia.

"Nobody called me back," he said. "It was seen pretty unanimously as a twisted paradigm shifter that threatened their entire business model."

He has since tweaked the pitch, proposing to couple the studio with a film production business unit to be backed by a hedge fund or venture capital to the tune of $100 million or more.

"Pixar makes their own animated films from ideas generated within their company," Trumbull said. "I think we can adapt the Pixar business model very effectively and apply it to live-action production."

He said there is no shortage of science fiction and fantasy material to fill the pipeline of content.

"There are a lot of pent-up movies out there in Hollywood that got budgeted by the major studios and rejected because they were $150 million," Trumbull said. "They would've been happy to spend $65 million."

Trumbull, who lives on a 55-acre farm in Massachusetts, said he's interested in building the studio in Denver because of the quality of life and high-tech workforce, pointing to the presence of companies such as Ball Aerospace and RealD. The latter develops 3D technology for theaters and has a research hub in Boulder.

"This is the first time I've made this pitch to anybody since I made this pitch in Hollywood 10 years ago," said Trumbull, creator of the "Back to the Future" simulator ride, which had a long run at three Universal Studios theme parks.

For the virtual studio, Trumbull envisions a circular stage housed in a two-story, 15,000-square-foot building, with a state-of-the-art camera as the centerpiece.

"That camera is weightless and almost mass-less and can be grabbed and moved anywhere around the stage," he said of the camera, which he has used to film short features.

The studio would feature an automated lighting grid that could be preset and programmed in advance. To limit financial risk, Trumbull wants the studio constructed in a way where it could be turned into an office building overnight. "If we fail, this is not a dog," he said. "This is not a white-elephant building."

Ed Kramer, a professor of visual effects and computer graphics at Regis University's film school, said the concept won't replace the traditional method of filmmaking

"But if successful, it's going to vastly reduce the cost and much of the need for location work," said Kramer, who worked on special effects for movies such as "The Mummy" and "Twister."

Shand of the Colorado Office of Film said the virtual studio could help Colorado land major movie productions.

"This facility, because of the way it's going to be structured, overcomes the financial incentives that other states offer," Shand said. "It can be as beneficial or more beneficial to film in Colorado than it would be in some other states."





Vin Diesel Confirmed for Third Riddick

(Variety) Vin Diesel is confirmed to star in and produce a third installment installment in the "Chronicles of Riddick" franchise, reports Variety.

Universal Pictures will handle domestic distribution and Lionsgate is currently selling international rights.

David Twohy, who wrote and directed both Pitch Black and The Chronicles of Riddick, will direct again from a screenplay he wrote.

According to the trade, the third film will hew closer in tone to the cult hit Pitch Black and will focus on the character of Riddick as opposed to the universe he inhabits.

Diesel is first expected to star in Universal's Fast Five, the fifth installment in the "Fast and Furious" franchise.





Disney Reseach Labs to relocate into Collaborative Innovation Center

(thetartan.org) A part of the Carnegie Mellon research community since 2008, Disney Research Labs will soon move into the Collaborative Innovation Center (CIC). The Disney lab will occupy 17,000 square feet of the space that Google vacated in the basement of the building, sharing space with the Apple Pittsburgh Office and an Intel Research Lab.

“We will have more space ... for our research in human-computer interaction, human-robot interaction, humanoid robotics, and computer vision,” said Jessica Hodgins, the director of Disney Research and a professor of computer science and robotics at Carnegie Mellon. The increased space available will also give Disney researchers a larger environment in which to collaborate on projects, such as the intersection of computer animation and robotics, with Carnegie Mellon faculty. One of the first companies to make a significant foray into entertainment research, Disney has research facilities in Pennsylvania, California, and Utah, as well as Zurich, Switzerland.

Disney’s presence has created opportunities for Carnegie Mellon faculty as well as student interns from departments such as the Entertainment Technology Center (ETC), computer science, and art to interact with and learn from Disney researchers. Over the past two years, the Disney Research Lab has participated in projects in both art and computer science for ESPN and Pixar Animation Studios, both affiliates of Disney, as well as the Walt Disney Parks and Resorts. Within the university, discussion groups also provide an outlet for ideas and advice to flow among disciplines. For example, the Graphics Group within the Robotics Institute meets once a week with participants from both Carnegie Mellon and the Disney Research Lab. The group also allows students to present and discuss research papers and their current work.




Jack Black Survives "Robot Uprising"

(darkhorizons.com) Jack Black and "Hot Tub Time Machine" director Steve Pink have optioned Daniel H. Wilson's novel "How to Survive a Robot Uprising" reports io9.

Pink is writing a new draft of the screenplay, but it isn't sure if he will direct or if Black will star. 'Survive' is described as a comedic look at what would happen if there were a robotic uprising against mankind.

Mike Myers previously signed to star in an earlier attempt to adapt 'Rising' back in 2006 from a script by "Reno 911!" creators Thomas Lennon and Robert Ben Garant.

The news comes on the same day that it has been confirmed that Steven Spielberg would direct a film based Wilson's other robot-themed novel "Robopocalypse".




The Host 2 is Going 3D

(horror-movies.ca) The Host 2 is Going 3D!Boon Joon Ho's epic monster film The Host was Korea's highest grossing film of all time so a sequel was always going to come along and I can't wait. The sequel is being prepped as a 3D project, but by going 3D it will delay the film's release date and bring changes to the film's logistics.

The Host 2 is expected to cost more than 20 million won ($17.6 million) and the film will involve intricate CG scenes which will be handled by the Korean VFX firm Macrograph.

The script for The Host 2 is currently going under last minute revision and is expected to be released in the summer of 2012 in Korea.

I loved The Host I thought it was a great little monster movie and I say 3D will be awesome for this, I usually spit on anything with CG or 3D but I have a feeling this will be killer.





ImageMovers Digital Sublease Offsets Gains

(northbaybusinessjournal.com) The Marin County office vacancy rate increased to a new high of 27.8 percent of 7.1 million square feet, with nearly 67,000 more square feet made available than leased in the past 12 months, according to Keegan & Coppin.

Cassidy Turley BT figured the third-quarter office vacancy in the county to be nearly 22 percent, up from 20.3 percent in the second quarter.

“Slow, steady growth with serious issues remaining” seems to be an appropriate description on Marin’s office market and the economy in general,” said Brian Foster of Cassidy Turley BT.

For instance, 85,000 square feet of third-quarter leases in Marin to Kaiser Foundation Health Plan, BioMarin, Cardiology Associates, Radiant Logic and Solar Power Partners were offset by Disney’s ImageMovers Digital putting its 119,000 square feet of office space at Hamilton Landing on the market for sublease, according to Cassidy Turley BT.




VFX Pros Laud Cohesion in Production

(variety.com) About 200 vfx pros gathered at the Visual Effects Society's Production Summit at the Ritz-Carlton Marina del Rey on Saturday to peer into their future. The outlook: guarded optimism.

The main theme at the VES confab was the blurring of lines between production and post as the growing use of digital cameras has pushed some work formerly done in post, such as color timing, onto shooting sets to ensure consistency of images throughout the chain.

With post creeping closer to the director and the d.p., on-set technicians now control and calibrate the captured digital images at the source rather than down the line -- reducing the risk that incompatible versions will be sent out.

"If pieces of the work go to various vfx houses and they all come back different, then I have to fix everything, so it's critical that color timing be done on set as much as possible," said d.p. Steve Poster, head of the Cinematographers Guild.

"We're working on eight features right now, and seven of them use on-set technology," said Vince Pace, founder of Pace, a maker of stereoscopic 3D camera systems used by James Cameron, among others. "A lot of the answers have to be closer to the capture process. If they say, 'Let's fix it down the pipeline,' nobody knows whether that means a simple keystroke or 30 days of work."

Another confab theme was the survival of vfx houses amid tech turmoil and financial squeezes. "Big companies are taking work that used to go to smaller companies, putting some of them out of business," said John Kilkenny, exec veep and head of vfx at Fox.

Full Press: http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118026241.html?categoryid=13&cs=1




Betting Odds for Offshore Hobbit Move Shrink

(The Dominion Post) Impending oil shocks may hit NZ hard Betting odds for offshore Hobbit move shrink Stocks subdued as holiday looms Kiwi lower as holiday weekend nears Aust shares edge higher after mixed leads Local stocks creep up Stocks get early trading lift US shares edge up Stocks to watch: October 22 Kiwi continues to take knocks

Betting on whether The Hobbit will be filmed in New Zealand flip-flopped as an online predictions market moved into the fray.

Eighty-nine per cent of people using the iPredict service believed filming would substantially go offshore when trading opened at midday yesterday. But, by late afternoon, those odds had shrunk to just 33 per cent.

IPredict, an offshoot of Victoria University's commercial arm, lets people buy stock or "contracts" based on various predictions. The stock's price reflects market belief about the outcome. If the prediction comes true, the "contract" pays $1 a stock.

IPredict chief executive Matt Burgess really hoped "this contract sinks to nearly zero because we'd love it to stay in New Zealand but it will be interesting to see where people put their money".

The service is also trading on whether Council of Trade Unions president Helen Kelly, a key player in the stoush between actors and Hobbit film-makers, would still be in her job by year's end. Opening bids suggested 79 per cent of the market believed she would, before it climbed to 88 per cent.

Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal reported that The Hobbit was a factor in a weaker New Zealand dollar yesterday, although dealers said it was more to do with international "currency wars".

The financial journal said the kiwi took a hit after The Hobbit news, falling to US74.64c on Friday from US74.99c the night before. Trading was light and the dollar failed to peak above US74.85c.

A BNZ dealer rejected the "Hobbit factor," saying the dollar had followed other currency falls ahead of this weekend's G20 summit in Korea.





'Fantastic Voyage' Finds A Director

(latinoreview.com) Leterrier Might Swim Into A 'Fantastic Voyage' Every other big directing gig for the upcoming year has been gobbled up recently, all except for one particular piece. James Cameron is producing a remake of the film "Fantastic Voyage" from Twentieth Century Fox, and the picture is without a director. Well, since Cameron won't bother to direct it, who will?

Apparently the box office king of the world (had to do that) is keeping his eye on "Clash of the Titans" director Louis Leterrier to tackle the production. That doesn't mean he'll get his wish. There's been several directors that had slid out from the film's grasp which include Paul Greengrass, Darren Aronofsky, Jonathan Mostow and Timur Bekmambetov. Hopefully Cameron will be able to weave some powerful magic on Leterrier in order to make him stay to direct the 3-D flick.

The Shane Salerno script is currently being re-written by "Shutter Island" scribe Laeta Kalogridis. Filming is expected to start early next year, all depending on whether or not they can keep Leterrier in their grasp.





Michael Bay Playing Nice with 'Transformers 3' Cameraman

(screenjunkies.com) Michael Bay and James Cameron: Two directors who don’t take any sh*t, with comparatively different results. Bay’s actually kind of bowing to Cameron by shooting Transformers 3 in 3D. He’d always said he thought it was just a gimmick. So now he’s got to be nice to 3D camera inventor Vincent Pace.

“We’re doing Transformers with Michael Bay, and that’s a big challenge because he’s not the kind of director that’s going to give you a break,” Pace said as he demonstrated his cameras from Avatar. “But he met it halfway and he said, ‘Look, it complements my product, and I want to incorporate this into my shooting style.’”

Pace considers that winning a battle for the acceptance of 3D. “Once we win that, once they know you’re putting a better product on the screen, then you’re working as a team.”

Transformers is a little different from Avatar though. The Autobots and Decepticons are created in CGI, but placed in live-action environments. It’s not all performance capture in virtual elements. Pace said his designs will still work on CGI films.

“It’s something you do in 2D with your relationship positioning and things like that,” Pace explained. “For example, if you’re going to have a monster come over your shoulder, create some targets that do the same thing, so that it relates to being the same thing. It’s kind of the same parallel process, but you just have to get those cues in play to make it work for you.”

Learn more about Pace’s Avatar cameras on the special edition DVD coming Nov. 16.