New window Print all Worth a mention - 07/15/11

Harry Potter Sets New Midnight Record with $43.5 Million

(The Hollywood Reporter) Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 2 earned a record $43.5 million at midnight showings, surpassing The Twilight Saga: Eclipse's previous record of $30 million. IMAX theaters set a new record as well with $2 million at midnight.

The epic finale has already grossed $105.1 million at the worldwide box office with the weekend still to come! Just on Wednesday, the film earned $43.6 million internationally in 26 countries.

Warner Bros. Pictures released "Part 2" in 3,800 theaters at midnight and the theater count expands to 4,375 theaters today, including 3,000 3D locations.




Models, Miniatures, and Movie Magic

(wdfmuseum.squarespace.com) On Sunday July 17 at 3:00PM, The Walt Disney Family Museum presents The Disneyland Model: Creating the Disneyland of Walt's Imagination. Hear from Carol Bauman, model supervisor at Kerner Optical, about the making of the Museum's crown jewel—the Disneyland Model. Join us as we explore the intricacies of the model, learn about the creative process—and what it represents.

The "Tavern Clock" as seen in The Reluctant Dragon. Courtesy of Kevin Kidney. © DisneyMiniatures and models held a special fascination for Walt Disney, and he used three-dimensional sculpture to help visualize his concepts and ideas as part of the creative process, from the Studio’s animated films, through the design of Disneyland, and beyond. Even today in the digital realm of three-dimensional animation and in theme park design, the tradition of using sculpted (or digital) models continues. Designer, product creator, writer, sculptor, illustrator, historian, blogger, and maker of things, Kevin Kidney, offers an overview of Walt Disney and model making.

In the late 1980s, I supervised the model shop for Disneyland’s Entertainment Art Department. We were just a little group of four young artists, all still in our twenties, making scale model stage sets and parade floats in the development of new theme park entertainment. It was an exciting time for us and we were genuinely thrilled to be following in the creative legacy set by Walt Disney and his legendary artists of the past, many of whom seemed almost godlike to us.

One evening in 1989, I attended a puppetry seminar in Orange County where I met a man named Bob Jones, who had been a model maker at the Disney Studio on the early features. He was a friendly, upbeat guy in his late 70s, with a bald head and a big smile, and we just seemed to hit it off right away. Despite the gap of years, we felt somehow connected as colleagues, both of us sculpting “behind the scenes” for the same company, but separated by decades. Until we met, I didn’t realize that I was already familiar with—and inspired by—samples of his work that I had seen before: a plaster Jiminy Cricket in the Walt Disney Archives in Burbank, a cuckoo clock depicting a little inebriated man “hiccupping” the hour in the film The Reluctant Dragon, and a model of a Pleasure Island stagecoach (pulled by a team of sorrowful donkeys) showcased at Disneyland to promote the 1983 opening of New Fantasyland.

Bob had been a professional puppeteer in the early 1930s, and landed a job in the Disney Studios’ Camera Department in 1937 as one of eight employees to photograph Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs on film. As the Studio transitioned to its second feature, Pinocchio, Walt began to look for ways to speed along the amount of time it took for his animators to switch gears from drawing one character to learning another. By this time, paper model sheets were already the standard guide to keeping Disney’s filmed ‘actors’ more consistent in appearance and personality throughout each film. Under the leadership of artist Joe Grant, the Character Model Department produced countless drawings, showing the design and appearance of practically anything that moved on the screen. Newly-designed characters were sketched in key poses and in a variety of possible moods, then carefully selected by Grant, who made each final model sheet official with his trademark seal of approval, ‘OK, J.G’. These model sheets were then photocopied and distributed to as many as 30 different artists who might be assigned to one character.

Full Article: http://wdfmuseum.squarespace.com/posts/2011/7/8/models-miniatures-and-movie-magic.html




World Of Warcraft want James Cameron

(fansshare.com) It has been suggested that those involved with turning the hit online game World Of Warcraft into a movie are eager to get Avatar director James Cameron involved with the project. However, Cameron joining the World Of Warcraft movie project does not look very likely.
James Cameron already has two Avatar sequels lined up for the coming years and there is also the possibility of him producing Terminator 5. There is no doubting that a James Cameron directed World Of Warcraft film would be a huge success but it doesn’t seem that he could find the time.

A script for World Of Warcraft the movie was initially written by Gary Whitta, the guy behind The Book of Eli, however once Sam Raimi agreed to direct World Of Warcraft he scrapped the script. Sam Raimi has since left the project to do Oz: The Great and Powerful but there have been rumours that he could return to do World Of Warcraft once he has finished with that.

The responsibility of writing the new screenplay for World Of Warcraft the movie is believed to lie at the door of Robert Rodat, who wrote Saving Private Ryan. There have even been suggestions that Mark Hildenbrandt has been lined up to play Varian Wrynn. However, without a direct a movie does not get made, so World Of Warcraft still waits on Warner Bros. slate.




Potter Producer On Deck For "Night Circus"

(darkhorizons.com) "Harry Potter" series producer David Heyman is in negotiations to produce an adaptation of Erin Morgenstern's "Night Circus" at Summit Entertainment says Heat Vision.

Set in the early 19th century, the story follows two young magicians who are pawns in an age-old rivalry between their mercurial, illusionist fathers, and the enchanted circus where their competition (and romances) play out.

The fate of everyone involved hangs in the duo’s balance. Summit picked up the film rights in January, the book itself hits in September.




"Akira" Remake Gets Director & $90M Budget

(darkhorizons.com) When both star Keanu Reeves and directed Albert Hughes departed the project in May, many thought that the live-action remake of anime cult classic "Akira" at Warner Bros. Pictures had essentially died.

Indeed, for the past two months there's been dead silence about the project aside from some comments the other week from designer Chris Weston about his work on the new incarnation of Kaneda's iconic crimson motorbike.

Today however the studio is still keenly pursuing the project and Variety reports they have hired Spanish helmer Jaume Collet-Serra ("Orphan," "Unknown") to direct the film which is now being "re-envisioned as a $90 million tentpole". Set in New Manhattan, the story follows the leader of a biker gang who saves his friend from a medical experiment.

How the studio intends to keep production costs that low for such an ambitious project is the big question this article raises. They most recently hired "Harry Potter" film adapter Steve Kloves to pen the script based on Katsuhiro Otomo's original manga.

Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Davisson Killoran and Andrew Lazar are producing.





Top 12 Academy Awards Winners for Best Visual Effects CGI Pioneers

(boogiestudio.com) A list of 12 Academy Awards Winners For Best Visual effects that have been recognized as being pioneering in their use of computer animation.

Visual effects industry is going through various difficulties and the work of Vfx Artists is not recognized enough. In the list below will be the names of the nominees at the Academy Awards for the various films. The complete list is hard to find because the industry does not always include all the names of the people who work on a movie in the credit.

12. Superman The Movie (1978)

Computer Generated Imaging (CGI)
was at is early beginning and in
the movie Superman they used
the technology to create it’s
eye-catching title sequence
which were created before
the digital age.

Nominees
Les Bowie, Colin Chilvers, Denys Coop, Roy Field, Derek Meddings and Zoran Perisic


11. Alien (1979)

Alien would use CGI to render futuristic
computer screens of navigation monitors
in the landing sequence.

Nominees
H. R. Giger, Carlo Rambaldi, Brian Johnson, Nick Allder and Denys Ayling


10.Star Wars (1977)

First use of 3D vector graphics
for the trench run briefing
sequence

.Nominees
John Stears, John Dykstra, Richard Edlund, Grant McCune and Robert Blalack

The Full List: http://www.boogiestudio.com/blog/2011/06/22/top-12-academy-awards-winners-for-best-visual-effects/




Beyond Harry Potter's VFX: House of the Rising Sun

(encoremagazine.com.au) Harry Potter boards his broomstick and flies onto our screens for the final time this month, as the second installment of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows comes to life. However, Potter’s wand-wielding is a mere parlour-trick compared to the true magic behind the films, which are in part, courtesy of Adelaide’s Rising Sun Pictures. Though a long way from Hogwarts, they’ve had a hand in all the last five Harry Potters.

Rising Sun’s relatively new CEO (as of early 2010) Michael Taylor can’t talk too much about the work they did on the final instalment of Deathly Hallows, except that it was a large body of work, of which the last of it was only shipped out of the building a couple of weeks ago.

“We breathed a big sigh of relief and we received compliments and kudos from the studio,” says Taylor. 
“I can say from our point of view it was very successful. The Potter series has taken us to a new level on our character work and our creature work and traditionally we haven’t been in that space.”

“Interestingly we just did some work on Pirates of the Caribbean and there were two packages available to us – there was the typical package that we would have eaten up in the past; set extension, paint this out, move that, make this work. And then another body that involved a lot of animation and particle effects and all the rest of it and the studio awarded us the hard stuff.”

Part One of Deathly Hallows saw Rising Sun inherit from Industrial Light and Magic (ILM) the haunting black Dementors that re-imagines the typical old bed-sheet ghost into ghastly demon-like spectres.

Other recent work includes Green Lantern, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Terminator Salvation, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, Australia, Superman Returns and The Spirit to name a few.

These tentpole pictures, summer blockbusters and Thanksgiving releases have served the 17 year-old company well. Despite the strong Australian dollar from which they’ve faced the challenges of reduced margins, Taylor says, “It has been a good exercise in sharpening our pencils. As long as you’ve got the work you can deal with it. It’s a challenge but we’re not doomed.”

Not only are they not doomed, they’re expanding, albeit towards smaller projects. With a new business strategy, Taylor is trying to keep the work “ticking along at a better cycle then what we’ve done previously.”

To help do that, Taylor employed new Hollywood-based executive, Marc Sadeghi in May to drum up more business. Taylor says Sadeghi has a “very broad understanding of the studio system and access to other pieces of work that may release on a different cycle that we are not privy to because we have not gone after that in the past. Looking at work from the mini-majors is important in our growth to fill in those gaps of revenue.”

Their aim is to reach beyond visual effects and into production – to create their own content, to deal with the equity position, the producing position and the co-producing position. For this, they’ve created company, Rising Sun Entertainment.

However Taylor is quick to add, “I should also be modest. We aren’t going to be producing movies in the $100 million dollar range. That’s not our genre, we don’t want to be there.”

Just don’t expect a small Australian indie story coming out of Rising Sun, either. “We’re looking at a genre that will suit us from a visual effects company,” says Taylor. “So we’re not going to create a three-person drama, shot in a house. There has to be some connection with what we do. So we’re looking for expanded reality and what can be photographed.”

Rising Sun Entertainment features will fall in the $7-50 million category and take advantage of the incentives the Australian Government offers.

“We’re looking to take advantage of the 40% producer rebate and find content that can be shot in Australia that, from a script point of view, is derived from Australia but we could be shooting New York in Sydney – it doesn’t need to be an Australian genre movie, as long as it qualifies under the rebate.”

“I looked at a script the other day and thought, ‘nope that’s not what we are’. We’re being very careful because you are what you eat. We’ve had a couple of opportunities appear across our desk already and what you turn down is as important as what you 
agree to do.”

With a strong dollar and a goal set for producing smaller films with a big budget feel, Taylor says, “we need to find a Jetstar business within our QANTAS business,” so as to remain in budget and still produce the ‘expanded reality’ stories within their new venture.”

“We will take the steps to create the garage industry within the behemoth. Having a different team, 
different producers, no pipeline and recreate 20 guys in a garage knocking out visual effects creatively, yet on a budget, because that’s where we came from. There’s only X amount on a budget? Well, ten years ago we would have given our left arm to work on 
that. There are ways to do it and we can’t over-
think it. I need to be able to do 15-50 shots economically that don’t require vast tomes of 
software engineers.”

As Taylor forecasts, and looks up that 50-rung 
ladder he suggests, without losing sight of what has got the company to where they are; “In five years time I think you’ll see that RSP will be a very different company as we look to expand into other markets. If there’s an opportunity to move some of our labour offshore for cost savings I think that has to be on our radar. That doesn’t mean that jobs will be lost here, it means the jobs here will be more highly specialised and creative than in the past. We’re looking to be one of the top five visual effects companies in the world.”

Harry Potter And the Deathly Hollows Part 2 is out tomorrow, Thursday 14 July.




Scientists Think They've Figured Out the “Uncanny Valley”

Take a look: http://www.digitaltrends.com/gaming/scientists-think-theyve-figured-out-the-uncanny-valley-why-humanoid-robots-creep-us-out/





Taking VFX Jobs Away

(vfxsoldier.wordpress.com) UK VFX Artist and blogger David Stripinis and I were sharing a few tweets about some articles about VFX in the UK which he felt were some choice words by British Film Commissioner Iain Smith:

“London is now probably the world’s leading centre for visual effects houses. They’ve taken the lion’s share of major work away from Los Angeles. Ten years of Harry Potter has helped them with forward planning. With the creation of the franchise, houses like Framestore and Double Negative have been able to plough capital back into their companies and compete in the international market.”

That’s a pretty peculiar admission by the film commissioner. As you know I argue, and David Stripinis agrees, that the reason so much VFX work is done in international locations is because of the film subsidies.

Film commissions that administer the subsidies usually claim that they are CREATING jobs. However in this case they admit they are TAKING jobs away.

But so what? Who cares?

Well the problem is the UK, US, and most countries have signed to join the World Trade Organization. It’s job is to encourage free trade by eliminating tariffs and subsidies. At the same time, it also has remedies to protect domestic industries where workers are being adversely affected by another countries subsidies.

It’s not just the US that is interested in this issue. The European Union is taking a look at the film subsidies with this question in mind:

Does a subsidy race to attract major US productions undermine the effectiveness of aid to support smaller European films?

Instead of encouraging creation of their own films, US studios have squeezed out UK films for their own. Even one article written today entitled “Did Harry Potter Save or Destroy the British Film Industry” asks the same question:

One reason Hollywood likes filming in Britain is that the government offers generous tax credits to foreign companies shooting there as long as they put a sufficient percentage of Britons on the payroll. So those tax incentives (as well as the films’ profits) represent money not being plowed back into the local economy.

Still making strictly British films are independent production companies like Working Title, but otherwise, there’s no counterpart to the Hollywood studio system. As a result, only a few dozen British movies are made each year.

I’m pretty sure the UK will be fine but for the VFX artists in the US, this should be one of the catalysts for organization. While we bicker about things that I feel are distactions: For example, where the union stands on piracy.

We should be organizing and working with the US Trade Representative and going after these subsidies for what they really are: Illegal.





Framestore VFX Artist Recognised at BAFTA Ceremony

(countytimes.co.uk) A MID Wales man has been rubbing shoulders with some of Hollywood’s biggest stars after being recognised as one of 42 ‘Brits to watch’ at a BAFTA ceremony in Los Angeles.

Ben Lambert, 33, formerly of Newtown and Newtown High School, said he was ‘amazed’ to have been selected as one of 42 rising stars of the British entertainment industry.

The event, which took place at the Belasco Theatre in Los Angeles, was attended by a host of A-list stars as well as the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge.

Ben, a visual effects artist for one of Europe’s largest visual effects and animation studios, Framestore, was selected for his achievements with the company. This includes working as a modelling supervisor on ‘Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part One’.

Ben and his team were responsible for digitally modelling and animating ‘Dobby’ in the film - a task which also earned him and three other Framestore employees first place in the Outstanding Animated Character in a Live Action Feature Motion Picture section at the 2011 Visual Effects Society awards.

His credits list some of the largest films of recent years including Avatar, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, The Tale of Despereaux, Superman Returns, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and Troy.

The 42 Brits selected for the ceremony were all emerging talents in film, TV and video games and were hand picked by a panel of industry experts.

A spokesman for BAFTA explained: “They were selected based on extraordinary potential displayed in their craft. From on-screen performance, to cinematography and games development, the achievements of these individuals highlights the breadth and depth of creativity emerging from today’s British talent.”




Found: Lost Wedding Ring at Pixar in Emeryville

James contacted us this week from Pixar Animation in Emeryville. He was playing volleyball on the sand court on the grounds, and felt his wedding ring fly off when he set the ball. Gold rings usually sink right into sand, and this was no exception. The good news was, unlike our recent adventure in Stinson Beach where the ring ended up eight inches down, this sand was only six inches deep, and there was no water or waves.

James searched the web for metal detector rentals in San Francisco or Oakland. Soon he found The Ring Finders. We met him at Pixar a few days later. First James gave us a cool tour around the facility. We had to sign a Non Disclosure agreement, so we can’t tell you what we saw, but it’s an exciting place where everyone works hard and has fun (I can tell you there was an RC helicopter flying around the lobby atrium!) Eventually we had to get to work, so James walked us out to the volleyball court.

The first thing we did was reenact the event. When our test ring flew off James’ finger, we could see that it didn’t go far, not nearly as far as the volleyball. So we started our search near where he was standing. Reenacting usually works, and this was no exception: the metal detector started beeping within 45 seconds. The ring was about three inches under the sand. Another successful recovery!

Photos: http://theringfinders.com/blog/Dave.Millman/2011/06/found-lost-wedding-ring-pixar-emeryville/