Worth a mention - 10/11/11

'Jurassic Park IV' Is Alive

(latinoreview.com) Laura Dern Still On For 'Jurassic Park IV' As Far As She Knows 'Jurassic Park IV' has been on-and-off for years. Director Steven Spielberg directed the first two, then handed the reigns to Joe Johnston for the third. That may not have been a great idea as the third is widely believed to be the weakest of the series. Spinosaurus vs Tyrannosaurus Rex is a bitter dispute to get into. Everyone knows the Giganotosaurus would destroy them both, anyway. The source on that one is 'Dino Crisis 2.'

Johnston was to helm the fourth film as well, but that hasn't been the plan since about 2007. Who knows, Speilberg may take the helm. The last update he gave was at this past San Diego Comic-Con when he said:

"We have a story, I can happily announce right now. We have a writer... Hopefully, we'll be making 'Jurassic Park 4' in the near future. In the next two or three years."

Although she's not the most familiar name, Laura Dern is a recognizable lady. She's perhaps known best for her role in the original 'Jurassic Park' in which she played Dr. Ellie Sattler. She reprised the role to a lesser degree in the third film.

In an interview with Slate that focused predominantly on her television show, 'Enlightened,' she was asked about the status of 'Jurassic Park IV.' She replied:

"I hear it’s happening. I think it’s got a ways to go. Steven is about to immerse himself in Lincoln, which is really exciting and something he’s poured his heart and soul into for a long time. I’m so excited because Daniel Day-Lewis is playing Lincoln. Once that’s finished, there’s always been talk that my character is deeply involved in [Jurassic Park 4] somehow, but I haven’t heard yet."

It would be a shame and a loss for the forth film to never happen. Even the one said to be the weakest, 'Jurassic Park III' nearly doubled its cost to make at the domestic box office with $181 million on its $93 million budget. People love the right kind of nostalgia. Maybe throw about $150 million into 'Jurassic Park IV' to send the series out on a high note.



VFX Shops Beware: You Live by the Subsidy, You Die by the Subsidy

(vfxsoldier.wordpress.com) If you read my blog you know I tend to repeat this saying:

You live by the subsidy, you die by the subsidy

That theme seems to have played itself out in Michigan as former VFX artist and Variety writer Karen Idelson broke a big story over the weekend concerning unpaid VFX artists at Maxsar Studios:

The Michigan experience stands as a cautionary tale for anyone involved in incentives. States need to be aware that not every film company will be able to deliver on all its expectations. And film companies, their employees and local businesses need to be aware that politics is a volatile area, and a shift in administrations can mean a drastic shift for everyone involved.

Steve Hulett has his post on the issue at The Animation Guild Blog.

US Studios can basically bill the government of Michigan 42% of their production costs of work done in the state. For the VFX industry the real reason producers move jobs to various regions is so they can be awarded subisidy money or what others call Welfare for Hollywood.

My problem is facilities market subsidized regions as the answer to the VFX industry’s volatility. Back 2007 I remember colleagues at Sony Imageworks being pitched it’s new Albuquerque facility as a more stable and affordable environment. Fast forward today and you’ll find that the subsidy is capped and the focus by Imageworks and other facilities on Vancouver and it’s more aggressive subsidy.

Of course in order for this to work, you need VFX artists willing to move. As hot as things are in Vancouver, it’s been very difficult for studios to find workers to move there. If what I’m hearing is correct, one very large Vancouver facility may lose a huge show because of the inability to find workers.

Variety’s David Cohen tweeted what sums up the situation best:

Problems at Maxsar Digital & Kerner Optical point up a #vfx management practice that must stop: using new deals to pay past obligations.

The common #vfx practice of using new deals to pay old bills is why some refer to the entire vfx business as a Ponzi scheme.

Remember that tweet. Tattoo it to your arm if you can because if you think these Ponzi-like schemes are limited to just small facilities, wait until you get a load of what some of the bigger facilities are trying to do to get subsidy money.




RANGO & SUPER 8 Launch First Ever Visual Effects Society "For Your Consideration" Online Screeners

(marketwatch.com) Paramount Teams with Deluxe to Debut Pilot Program Providing "For Your Consideration" Online Screeners to the Visual Effects Society

HOLLYWOOD, Calif., Oct. 11, 2011 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- Paramount Pictures announced today that it has teamed with Deluxe Entertainment Services Group to provide "For Your Consideration" online screeners for the 2011-2012 awards season, making it the first major studio to stream its awards films online. The studio will present its awards contenders, including RANGO, SUPER 8 and LIKE CRAZY, and potentially additional titles later this season, via Deluxe's proprietary platform. The Visual Effects Society (VES) will be the first recipient of the online screeners, receiving them as early as October 14th.

The Deluxe solution allows Paramount to securely stream films backed by unique watermarking of the content tied to the individual recipients with DVD quality picture and a controlled window of availability. Content can be played back on a variety of PC and Mac devices, including the iPad and iPad2, as well as home entertainment systems with compatible HDMI cable connection.

"We are excited to present these films for online streaming and are hopeful that this will be a quality experience allowing us to offer more opportunities for our filmmaker partners to reach appreciative viewers," said Paramount's President of Domestic Marketing & Distribution Megan Colligan.

"We are delighted Paramount chose Deluxe's digital screener platform. By continually expanding and customizing our services we are able to best support the rapidly changing needs of our entertainment industry clients," said Michael Alvarez, President Deluxe Media Management.

"As the leading technology artists in the entertainment industry, we at VES are pleased that Paramount thought to come to us first to inaugurate this process," said VES Executive Director Eric Roth.

Both Paramount and VES highly encourage films to be seen in the best possible environment - a theatre. Understanding this is not always possible; using Deluxe's service provides members with an additional method to screen films in a secure and timely manner.




Disney CEO Bob Iger Signs New Five-Year Contract

(Los Angeles Times) Bob Iger has signed a new five-year contract with the Walt Disney Co. that will keep him at the helm until 2015, when he will step down as chief executive and leave the entertainment giant the following year at age 65.

In March, Iger will assume the additional role of chairman with the retirement of Disney's current board chairman, John E. Pepper Jr. Iger will serve in the dual capacity as chairman and chief executive for three years, until a successor is named CEO. At that time, Iger will become executive chairman and serve until June 2016.

Under his new contract, Iger will receive an annual base salary of no less than $2.5 million — a raise of $500,000 from his previous employment agreement. For the three years in which he will hold both titles, Iger's annual incentive bonus could increase to $12 million, based on the company's performance — operating income, free cash flow, earnings per share and return on invested capital.

In that same period, he will also be eligible for $15.5 million in stock and options that vest over several years. Both his incentive bonus and stock and options package goes to $6 million when he serves in the sole capacity as executive chairman.

Last year, Iger's total compensation package, including salary, bonus and equity awards, reached $28 million, according to the company's proxy filing.

Disney has already taken steps to groom potential successors to Iger.



Brad Pitt "Furious" Over 'World War Z'

(latinoreview.com) Aside from the worrying likelihood that a zombie film is to be rated PG-13, things appeared to be going well for the film adaptation of 'World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War' from author Max Brooks. Some cool set videos came out, and Brooks himself voiced his contentment with what he had seen on set. He even seemed fine with the changes that had to be made in the novel-to-film transition.

According to US Weekly, all is not well, however. A source has told them that lead of the film, Brad Pitt is absolutely "furious" because "the film is already over budget and over schedule." To make matters worse, there has been a horrible mix-up concerning the props being used as weapons to presumably fight off the horde. If these weapons would have actually been used, the actors on the wrong end wouldn't have to try very hard to pose as the dead. The walking corpse bit may have taken some real effort, though.

Today, a SWAT team stormed a warehouse in Budapest which were holding supposed props for the film. 85 fully-functional guns were seized, most of which were automatic. The paperwork that had gone along with them had them labelled as being non-functional, but they most definitely were upon inspection. Hajdu Janos of Hungary's Anti-Terrorism Unit said:

"We are interrogating witnesses now, getting closer to solving the firearms story."

It's a strange occurrence for the biggest budget zombie film of all time with it estimated at $125 million. It must be higher than that now. Assuming that everything goes on as planned, director Marc Forster's 'World War Z' is set to hit theaters on December 21, 2012.




Weta Workshop Sculptor Goes Live in Auckland

(scoop.co.nz) A one point five metre high ‘Showgirl on A Dragon’ will begin to appear in the SKYCITY Atrium tomorrow as Weta Workshop sculptor Craig Campbell gets to work on the masterpiece which will take him ten days to complete.

From 12-16 October and 19-23 October NZ, the American artist with fifteen years practice in his craft will create the sculpture as the public look on. Based in the heart of SKYCITY, at the top of the stairs the lead to the Sky Tower lifts, the live demonstration will give locals and the many tourists in town the chance to chat to Craig about his creation and the work of Weta Workshop.

Tim Launder from Weta Workshop says: “This is the thrilling sequel to the opening of the Weta Cave at the end of August. We’ve had such a great response from the Auckland public to the shop; it’s special to be able to add that little bit more magic.”




Former Disney Features Exec Stainton To Run Paramount's New Ani Arm

(awn.com) Paramount Pictures, a unit of Viacom Inc. (NYSE:VIA and VIA.B), has appointed veteran animation executive David Stainton as President of its new in-house animation division.

Stainton joins Paramount after a 17-year run at Disney, where he served as President of Walt Disney Feature Animation. During his studio tenure, he oversaw several dozen releases across various platforms that brought in $3.5 billion in worldwide revenue. He spearheaded Disney’s transition from its hand-drawn roots to fully digital animation production, led the successful Disney Video Premieres division, and oversaw the studio’s 150-person animation facility in Paris. More recently, Stainton served as Chief Executive Officer of family entertainment producer Henry’s World Media, which he founded in 2007.

In his new role, which takes effect this week, Stainton will report to Adam Goodman, President of the Paramount Motion Picture Group.

Paramount Animation aims to focus on high-quality animation with budgets per picture of up to $100 million, with an initial target of one release per year. The division’s mandate will be the development of the broadest range of family CGI animated films, with a key piece being titles under the label of Viacom’s Nickelodeon, the No. 1 entertainment brand for kids worldwide. Paramount will also build on Viacom’s already thriving global consumer products business by seeking to capitalize on merchandising opportunities tied to all Paramount Animation releases.

“The success of Rango this year helped us recognize our potential and ability to create wonderfully imaginative animated pictures with global appeal,” said Brad Grey, Chairman & CEO of Paramount Pictures. “David is a proven leader with a broad portfolio of experience in animation and family entertainment. He will be a welcome addition to Adam’s highly talented team.”

“David’s accomplishments speak for themselves, and I am glad to welcome him to the lot as we start this exciting new chapter,” Adam Goodman added. “With David’s leadership, we will look to build on what has been a very strong year for our studio in animation, with Rango and the upcoming Adventures of Tintin pointing to the kind of artist-driven, broad-appeal films we intend to make at Paramount Animation.”

“Today’s marketplace affords terrific flexibility as we set out to create fresh, new and different films and seek to attract great talent to Paramount,” Stainton said. “It is a great honor to be joining a company as storied and successful as Paramount and to be able to shape its future in animation. I look forward to helping usher in this new era.”

While Paramount has released an array of successful animated films in its history, the company’s first fully owned CGI animated property was Rango, released to great acclaim in March 2011. The Western, directed by Gore Verbinski and featuring the voice of Johnny Depp in the title role, has grossed more than $240 million worldwide and is the best reviewed animated movie so far this year. Due for release in December by Paramount is The Aventures of Tintin, an animated film from director Steven Spielberg and producer Peter Jackson.




New Compositing Technique for Inserting Objects into Photographs

(motionographer.com) We propose a method to realistically insert synthetic objects into existing photographs without requiring access to the scene or any additional scene measurements. With a single image and a small amount of annotation, our method creates a physical model of the scene that is suitable for realistically rendering synthetic objects with diffuse, specular, and even glowing materials while accounting for lighting interactions between the objects and the scene. We demonstrate in a user study that synthetic images produced by our method are confusable with real scenes, even for people who believe they are good at telling the difference. Further, our study shows that our method is competitive with other insertion methods while requiring less scene information. We also collected new illumination and reflectance datasets; renderings produced by our system compare well to ground truth. Our system has applications in the movie and gaming industry, as well as home decorating and user content creation, among others.

Take a look: http://kevinkarsch.com/publications/sa11.html




Digital Domain. Company Demo Reel

VIDEO - Take a look: http://atlantismarketingsystems.com/advertisement-website/digital-domain-company-demo-reel/



Variety's Creative Leadership Award: John Lasseter

(variety.com) When it comes to studio heads, there are suits, and then there's John Lasseter, for whom the Hawaiian shirts say it all: Yes, his job entails juggling big-picture business tasks with his duties as a creative artist, which involves finding a seemingly impossible balance between right- and left-brain skills, but as the man himself explains, "The creative wins out every time."

It's been more than a quarter century since Lasseter ankled his post-CalArts stint at Disney and took up shop at what was then considered the Graphics Group of Lucasfilm. (Lasseter joined in 1984; the company became Pixar two years later, after Steve Jobs acquired Lucas' CG division for $10 million.) In that time, Lasseter rose through the ranks from lowly "interface designer," responsible for directing computer-animated Listerine and LifeSavers commercials, to Oscar-winning co-head of the multibillion-dollar Disney/Pixar animation empire, a responsibility he shares with Ed Catmull, the computer graphics visionary who originally brought him aboard.

"I don't really think of myself as a businessman at all. That's why I have the 'chief creative officer' role," Lasseter explains. "Pixar is a filmmaker-led studio, not an executive-led studio. It's not about the box office; it's about people so deeply loving the movie and the characters. For me, that's smart business. It means people will want to watch the movies again and again. That's what generates the desire to visit a theme-park attraction. That's where the continued sales of consumer products come from -- you don't keep selling the products for a movie no one likes years later. It's really what Walt Disney founded, and it's so vitally important for the success of a company as a whole."

Disney detractors may criticize the degree to which merchandising and other ancillary streams support the company's bottom line, but that doesn't faze Lasseter. "It all started with a mouse," quips Lasseter, who believes the animation and characters are the core of Disney's business, while the other elements are healthy extensions of that creative endeavor.

Take "Cars 2," the eighth Pixar feature to earn more than half a billion dollars worldwide. Somehow, among all his other duties, Lasseter found time to direct the film himself. When he sees a child holding a Buzz Lightyear toy or wearing a Lightning McQueen T-shirt, he knows audiences are connecting with the characters so strongly that they want to be part of their world.

"We are not a non-profit organization," says Lasseter, who understands his role in the film industry. Still, he insists, "Everybody's here because something moved them early in their life. We love going to the movies and being blown away. I want to fuel that passion inside of everybody. I tell them, 'You are the audience you're making things for.' I think of the audience every day and in every meeting."

Make it great

Nearly all of the principles that govern Lasseter's management style can be explained by one of two things. First, there is the wisdom instilled by working closely with mentors like Jobs and Catmull at Pixar. And second, there is the direct experience gained from having suffered under bad bosses, which translates to a determination not to repeat their mistakes.

"A good part of my leadership skills is crafted from learning from experiences early in my career that were not positive experiences. For me, it was learning what not to do when you are put in that position," Lasseter candidly admits.

"Back when I first started working at Disney -- this was 1979 -- only a handful of the greats were still animating, and they became our mentors," he says. "The ones who were creatively in charge, the producers and directors, were so scared of all this young talent coming in, they kept us under their thumb. We just wanted to make filmmaking better."

While the golden age of Disney animation was well on the wane, Lasseter had seen "Star Wars" during his sophomore year at CalArts, and the experience had energized him about the medium's potential.

"The way this movie entertained me, I was shaking at the end of it. We wanted to take animation to that place," he says. "We were so passionate back then that we were labeled as troublemakers. I remember once, I was just trying to give notes on the project I was working on, and I was told, 'We don't want to hear your ideas. Just do what you're told, and if you're not interested in that, there's a line of people outside the studio that would be ready to take your place.' How many words is that? But it made me not care about the movie or the studio. I walked away from that thinking, 'If ever I'm in charge, I'm never going to say that to a young, energetic, passionate person.' "

Quality control

Rather than discouraging input from underlings, Lasseter champions just the opposite approach at Pixar. From Jobs, who resisted focus testing before launching Apple products, he adopted the mantra, "Quality is the best business plan."

Still, because Lasseter views feedback as an essential part of the creative process, Pixar features are shown internally every three or four months, with employees from all corners of the studio invited to provide fresh eyes and give notes, allowing the filmmakers to evaluate how the story's developing.

"There's no hierarchy of notes," Lasseter says. "My notes aren't any more important than an animator's notes or a receptionist's notes. As a director, it's very difficult to get tons and tons of criticism on what you're working on, but what's nice is that you know everyone in the room is there to make the movie the best than it can be."

Pixar's feedback strategy works in part because of a principle baked into the studio's design. "Ed Catmull always says he tries to hire people he thinks are smarter than himself, which is so different from what I was experiencing in Hollywood," Lasseter explains. "It's simple: Hire great people, and let them shine."

As Lasseter's responsibilies have grown over the years, he's had to delegate more and more to his colleagues. By hiring talented artists and empowering them to do work of which they can take personal ownership, Lasseter has created a system in which every member of the team has reason to have pride in the result.

Another defining moment came from an encounter Lasseter had with a family who beamed as they told him their grandmother had served as a cel painter on Disney's first animated feature. "She had one of the lowliest jobs on 'Snow White,' but the pride will live with her grandkids long after she's gone," Lasseter recalls. "That's the way I want everybody to feel, not just those who worked at Pixar, but their entire families -- to be deeply, creatively satisfied."




How Tintin & CGI Could Change Comic-Book Movies Forever

(guardian.co.uk) If Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson pull it off, this animated marvel could change the face of comic-book movies for good.

I'm desperately hoping that Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson's great Tintin adventure turns out to be a success. It's not just because the movie – for which the latest trailer has just hit the web – apparently offers an opportunity for the director to make nice with those of us who hated the anodyne Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skulls. And it's not only because I'd love to see the rest of Hergé's wonderfully imaginative series of stories on the big screen. It's because if Jackson and Spielberg can truly bring the comic books to life via the use of innovative Avatar-style motion capture, and if the movie is a hit at the box office, it's going to completely transform the way fantasy films (and I use the term in the wider sense) are considered by studios from now on.

But first to the new trailer for The Adventures of Tintin: the Secret of the Unicorn. This time we get our first proper look at the Unicorn itself, as well as an extended glimpse of a north African city where Tintin and Captain Haddock travel in their search for the famous ship. Intriguingly, Spielberg has already come in for criticism for portraying gun battles in what some see as a children's film. Haddock even fires a bazooka – but we're hardly talking The Expendables levels of violence. Besides, I can't imagine not allowing a child to watch an Indiana Jones film (the heart extraction bit in Temple of Doom aside), and anyway, surely Spielberg includes a protective layer in his film to keep kids from getting too upset, or deciding to join the National Rifle Association.

So why is Tintin so important? I've written before on this blog about how comic book films' natural form really ought to be CGI-based animation. Ditto (to a lesser extent) science-fiction and swords-and-sorcery fantasy movies. All require the sort of suspension of disbelief which comes naturally for animation. It's possible to render these genres via live action, but this requires a far greater effort on the part of the film-maker to balance realism and fantasy.

With comic-book adaptations in particular, dialogue that appears charmingly brazen on the printed page can become hokey on the big screen, especially when mouthed by an actor whose face we probably know more intricately than those of most of our own friends. It's why Superman is always played by a virtual unknown. If he'd been portrayed by Nicolas Cage, as was once posited, no one would have been able to suspend disbelief. But put Nicolas Cage in a motion capture studio and the world might easily believe him as the Man of Steel in an animated take. Animation may just offer us a half-way house: we get to enjoy great actors without having to ignore the fact that they are real people. It's a brand new tool, one which dramatically obviates the requirement for us to use our imagination to mentally touch up a given moving image.

If Tintin works, then we might just see a new sub-genre of film emerge in which great comic-book movies maintain the style of the original artwork while adding cinematic verve. Imagine Watchmen, Judge Dredd or The Crow shot using the same techniques, perhaps with the original comic-book artists on board to ensure their vision translated to film. It's a tantalising prospect, and one whose future right now seems to depend on the fortunes of a young Belgian reporter and his trusty pooch.

Five New Tintin clips: http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplaylist/archives/2011/10/11/watch_5_fantastic_clips_from_the_adventures_of_tintin/#




Pixar's Goodbye

Take a look http://www.macsparky.com/blog/2011/10/8/pixars-goodbye.html




Puppetry Keeps Plling Her Strings: Bringing Bits of Fabric, Clay & Latex to Life

(theprovince.com) Jeny Cassady could tell you that puppets aren't just for kids. The Vancouver actor has spent nearly two decades giving life to sundry bits of fabric, clay or latex, and while her work includes a kids' TV series and a Muppet movie, she has also given animatronic life to the creatures in horror and sci-fi movies - including the classic alien that bursts out of a human chest.

"It was an accident," says Cassady of a career that started at the suggestion of her Calgary high school drama teacher, who told the teenage aspiring actor that she should audition for a puppet company that was touring schools in Canada and the U.S. She did, and got the job that had her performing for kids for the next two years.

"I thought I could save money and go to university," says Cassady. She was right, but once she got to the University of Victoria's theatre program, she quickly built a reputation among students and faculty as the go-to person for anything puppet-related - building them, using them, creating shows around them.

At UVic she created a pint-sized articulated puppet in the Japanese Bunraku style - with movable legs and arms - to play the little boy Max in a stage adaptation of Where the Wild Things Are.

She looked for regular acting work when she moved to Vancouver after graduating, but puppetry kept pulling her strings.

"I was working part-time at some joe-job waiting for the acting jobs to come in, and there was an audition for a children's TV series called Don't Eat the Neighbours, a sixmonth gig."

She had no experience working with puppets on TV, but she was cast on the show anyway, alongside some of Canada's best puppeteers, including veterans of Fraggle Rock and Sesame Street. Cassady went on to join the Muppets for one movie, 2005's Muppets Wizard of Oz.

The aliens came as well, including a years-long stint as one of the operators of a recurring character on the long-running TV series Stargate SG-1 and its spinoffs. The character was the classic big-headed, cat-eyed alien of supermarket tabloid stories. "He took four puppeteers to operate, he was a lot of fun."

It seems puppets show up in the oddest places. Cassady worked talking animals in the 2010 children's feature Marmaduke, and she has animated an unborn baby under a prosthetic belly for TV's Fringe.

"A woman was giving birth. From the chest up, it's the actor, from the chest down we had her stomach bubbling. There were two of us underneath."

Aliens come in various sizes and dispositions. The 2008 Keanu Reeves feature The Day the Earth Stood Still had nice ones, while the horror comedy Slither had nasty ones.

Few are as nasty as the recurring characters in the 2007 sequel AVP: Aliens Vs. Predator - Requiem.

"We did a pregnant one, where two little guys were popping through her belly, which was very fun," she says. "Animatronics too, lots of mouths of aliens."

Cassady works regularly now with the model makers at Vancouver effects shop Masters FX, the Emmywinning crew who help craft the looks for TV's Fringe, The Haunting Hour and Falling Skies.

"I consult with them because they will build a lot of this stuff as well," she says. "I talk with them about how can we most effectively make this work from the puppet end of things."

But live puppet work still has an appeal. Cassady worked with Vancouver's creative non-profit group Public Dreams to build a six-metrehigh blue heron, allowing members of the public to take part as one of 12 operators in an interactive public art experience.

The Vancouver International Film Festival this year has the low-budget mock documentary Sunflower Hours, about misfit puppeteers angling for a spot on a dodgy kids show. Cassady taught the cast how to look credible as puppeteers, and helped put together the look of the fictional show for director Aaron Houston.

Source with pic: http://www.theprovince.com/entertainment/Puppetry+keeps+pulling+strings/5490483/story.html



'The Host' Makes Monster Comeback

(hollywoodreporter.com) Filmmakers promise 3D conversion will enhance chills without being a distraction.

BUSAN, South Korea -- The Host has returned with an extra dimension, but the makers of the new 3D version say it remains true to the 2006 South Korean monster thriller.
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The Host 3D is the country’s first conversion project that adds 3D effects to the original 2D film. The original Bong Joon-ho film remains the top-grossing local film of all-time, having drawn over 13 million viewers in a country of 48 million people.

Bong, who had a preview of the 3D version, called it “an amazing experience” despite his fears as an old-fashioned filmmaker who shies away from new technology.

“It was interesting to watch something that I directed in a different format. I had wanted to reinterpret the Han River, a familiar space for Koreans, in an exotic way, and the 3D effects do highlight the sense of space that I had wanted

to capture. The visuals also brought back memories of what I felt myself while shoot- ing by the river,” the director said Monday ahead of BIFF’s gala presentation of the film later that night.

“The 3D conversion doesn’t alter scenes or the storyline in any way,” added Choi Yong-bae, CEO of Chungeorahm Film, the production-distribution com- pany that handles both versions of the film. He said he decided to execute the 150 million won ($129,000) endeavor — as conversion costs 10 million won per minute — because he thought The Host would look great in 3D and it would be meaningful to spearhead the domestic 3D conversion market.

Kim Moon-ki, CEO of Studio Raon, which is overseeing the project, considers The Host 3D a “realizing,” rather than “3D conversion” initiative.

“I focused on transferring the 2D experience to 3D, to stay faithful to director Bong’s intentions and not let the effects distract the viewer. I approached it from a visual rather than technical perspec- tive,” he said.

Meanwhile, The Host 2, the sequel that is also being pro- duced and distributed by Chungeorahm, will open in theaters in 2013, according to Choi. Bong is currently working on his first English-language film, and an adaptation of the French sci-fi graphic comic Le Transperceneige.



VFX Fight Sequences Studio Showcase

(blogs.aftrs.edu.au) An event highlighting the collaborative and practical nature of the creation of VFX will be held at AFTRS on Saturday 15th October, 2011 from 10am – 1pm. It will be moderated by AFTRS Visual Effects lecturer Ian Brown.

The rundown of speakers for the day include: Kyle Rowling and Blake Wells who will perform a pirate duel. Kyle is a seasoned fight coordinator and worked on Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith and Attack of the Clones as well as Troy, Spartacus and many otherhigh profile projects. Kyle willtalk about staging techniques for fight sequences with particular emphasis on working with VFX. Stunt legend Grant Page is also set to make an appearance.

Production Designer Igor Nay will give a presentation on his craft and prop maker extraordinaire Lewis Morley will give a presentation on creating miniatures for VFX.




16 Zombie Actors Injured on 'Resident Evil' Set

TORONTO (AP) — Sixteen actors dressed as zombies were injured Tuesday when they fell from a platform during filming of a new movie in the "Resident Evil" series, officials said.

Toronto emergency medical spokesman Peter Macintyre said the victims' costumes made it more difficult for crews to assess the severity of their injuries.

Paramedics responded to the call from Cinespace Film Studios around 8 a.m. to find what appeared — thanks to Hollywood special effects makeup — to be people who had suffered some untold catastrophe.

"I could see the look on the first paramedic, saying 'Oh my God,'" Toronto emergency medical services Commander David Ralph said with a laugh.

As it turned out, the victims had suffered leg, back and arm injuries. Twelve were taken to a hospital. Officials said none of the injuries are considered life-threatening.

Police Constable Tony Vella said the actors had been filming a scene on a high wheeled platform. The platform moved as they were going to another platform, leaving a gap into which the zombies fell.

Cinespace Film Studios did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

"Resident Evil: Retribution" is the fifth installment of a franchise based on the popular video game series and will be distributed by Screen Gems and Sony Pictures.

Lead actress Milla Jovovich was not on set at the time of the accident, according to her representative Christine Tripicchio.

Vella said the incident is classified as an industrial accident. Canada's Ministry of Labor is investigating.




Late 1970's Super 8 Special Effects

(io9.com) Back in the time of Star Wars and Close Encounters, Space 1999 and BattleStar Galactica, and Mr. Bill, my buddy Rick Pool and I made movies and used brother Jeff as an extra and stunt-man. There was stop-motion, models on wires, and lasers that were hand-scratched into the Super 8 film-stock. Summer fun...

VIDEO - Take a look: http://vimeo.com/30109874