Worth a mention - 12/15/11

Digital Domain Joint Venture to Build Visual Effects Studio in China

(tcpalm.com) Digital Domain Media Group has announced a joint venture with Beijing Galloping Horse Film Co., LTD with plans to build a visual effects studio in China.

Digital Domain will provide technology and expertise in running a visual effects operation as well as design the facility and train personnel, while Beijing Galloping Horse Film Co. will provide the land and build the facility, according to a company news release.

The new partnership will have a different focus than the original content animation studio in Port St. Lucie, though the two could work in concert on various projects and be a step closer to the idea of 24-hour filmmaking, Digital Domain Chief Executive Officer John Textor said Wednesday.

Textor said the company still is committed to North American filmmaking. The goal of this joint venture is to expand into the Chinese market, which has seen increased demand for high-end, American-driven film productions.

"Their economy is exploding," Textor said. "Their box office grew 60 percent last year, something like that."

The agreement is a culmination of several trips to China with many members of the management team, he said. Representatives with Beijing Galloping Horse Film Co. also came to Port St. Lucie.

"This was a real personal connection," Textor said.

He did not have an estimate as to when the new facility will be up and running, given items such as land acquisition still must be addressed. "It's a long time off."

Digital Domain is building a $40 million, 120,000-square-foot animation studio on 19 acres in Tradition. In 2009, the company received cash grants totaling about $70 million from Port St. Lucie and Florida in exchange for agreeing to hire up to 500 employees with an average salary of $65,000 by 2014.

According to the news release, the Chinese facility is expected to be comparable in scale to the Port St. Lucie facility.

The company's Tradition Studios' first feature animation film, "The Legend of Tembo," is slated to be released in the fall of 2014.

The company also announced it received a license from the Florida Department of Education for its West Palm Beach-based Digital Domain Institute, which is a collaboration with Florida State University.




Can Peter Jackson's Weta Studios Allow Anyone to Play a Gorilla?

(independent.co.uk) In the breezy but temperate streets of Wellington, New Zealand, between one anonymous warehouse and another, sits a piece of Hollywood. Weta Digital, the special-effects house created by Sir Peter Jackson, has its headquarters in a sumptuous but understated mansion with spacious rooms and an elegant terrace. There's also a stunningly equipped screening room with flickering starlit sky above and super-comfy seats.

Weta was set up in 1993 and is responsible for the special effects on movies from Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy and King Kong as well as the recent Adventures of Tintin and Rise of the Planet of the Apes. It's earned them five Oscars, most recently for Best Visual Effects on James Cameron's Avatar.

In one of the rooms, I'm talking to Andy Serkis, supremely relaxed and affable, leaning comfortably into a voluminous leather sofa. Serkis rose to Hollywood prominence for his digitally enhanced performance as Gollum in The Lord of the Rings, a role he's reprising now in The Hobbit movies, filming now in New Zealand.

Right now, industry gossip is turning to next year's Oscar nominees and a campaign is under way on Twitter and elsewhere to get Andy Serkis nominated for his performance in Rise of the Planet of the Apes. He played Caesar, an ape with artificially enhanced intelligence, a central character in the movie. It's an arresting, detailed, utterly convincing performance. If the nomination happens, it will be a first for a motion-captured role.

Mocap, as it's abbreviated, is that process where an actor is poured into a form-fitting suit with tiny white balls attached and has his every movement digitally captured. Usually this is filmed separately to the main action, in a special studio called the Volume. However, Rise of the Planet of the Apes broke new ground by shooting mocap action outdoors, and with Serkis on location with the other actors, instead of being added in post-production.

Before speaking to Serkis, I tried on a mocap suit myself. My body was scanned as I performed basic movements and then my actions were recorded in the Weta Digital volume. It's a big, brightly-lit room with banks of desks creaking under the weight of computers, a carefully marked floor and scores of special cameras on the walls to register the mocap balls which were Velcroed to my every joint.

The new techniques used on Rise of the Planet of the Apes mean there's much more interaction between the actors than previously, as Serkis explains. He differentiates between motion capture and the latest techniques, called performance capture.

"At first with Gollum it wasn't even performance capture, it was motion capture and then the facial performance was shot on 35mm film. Then the animators rotoscoped – basically painted frame by frame over my expressions, matchframing every facial expression I made.

"The main difference now is this. I still filmed Gollum on location, I was in every single location and with the actors on real sets but the performance capture then had to be created months down the line in the Volume separately. So my performance was filmed on 35mm as Gollum. Then I repeated some of it for the motion capture. But with Rise of the Planet of the Apes, there's no disconnect. You're filming the live action actors and you're filming the performance captured performances in one hit. So it's all absolutely in the moment, everything happens on location, all in one beat and then we never have to go back and reshoot. And the same with Gollum this time."

The effects are so sophisticated and realistic now – there's not a real ape in the entire movie – does he think Hollywood will one day be able to manage without actors?

"That's entirely nonsense. Who is going to provide the emotional content to those scenes, who's going to drive that digital puppet if it's not an actor? Performance capture lends itself to live-action film-making.

"You can always tell the difference if you see a computer-generated character in a live action movie because it never has the right weight, it never feels its connected to the environment, there's never any messiness about it, it's too perfect."

So should a performance capture role be nominated for an Oscar? Serkis is too modest to suggest his own candidacy, but says: "For me as an actor there isn't any difference between playing a performance capture role or a live action role. I don't approach them any differently.

"For anyone who has been through the process of doing performance capture, it's just no more than acting. If I was wearing prosthetic make-up you wouldn't even be asking this. There are different ways of approaching performance capture but it's just digital make-up, basically."

"I tried to convince myself and the actors that I was an ape. It's a complicated and intense process, involving a curious square-hipped walk, rolling shoulders and heavy leaning on crutch-like extensions to replicate ape dimensions. I did it for less than 15 minutes and was exhausted."

"When [director] Rupert Wyatt cuts the movie he's just editing for all the emotional content, for the pace of the scene, the drama. It doesn't really matter what the make-up's like, is the emotional content there?"

Dressed in a grey tight-fitting suit, Serkis's face is covered with 51 dots for the mocap camera. "Head-mounted cameras are used to capture the face. So now you can go anywhere without worrying about occluding the cameras. You can get into all sorts of positions that the previous system didn't allow. So you have a lot more freedom to move."

"Caesar is based on a chimp called Oliver from the 1970s who walked upright. His expressions were almost human. And he'd sit down in a chair, pick up a glass and drink, have a cigar. He was believed to be progeny of man and ape, and when they discovered he wasn't, he was thrown into a sanctuary. They found him 30 years later, screwed up and broken."

"You don't actually get to see the visual effects until months down the line when they all start to come in and the visual effects shots begin to replace the actual thing, well after the final edit. And the animators can calibrate the character on the computer: you can dial the curvature of the spine, so you'll notice by the end of the movie Caesar's absolutely upright. He's more human in his movements."




ILM's Mike Jutan - TED Talk: The Power of Enthusiasm

(youtube.com) At age 10, Mike Jutan envisioned his future at Industrial Light & Magic (ILM), George Lucas's groundbreaking visual effects film studio. His passion for computer graphics led him to earn his B.Math (Honours Computer Science Co-Op) degree at the University of Waterloo. He now lives his childhood dream every single day as a Research & Development Engineer at ILM in San Francisco, California. Mike is always busy planning his next adventure, to explore the globe and to make a difference to the world around him. Using his mentoring skills and extremely contagious enthusiasm, he is determined to share his joie de vivre with the world and inspire the next generation through a blend of art and science.

Take a look: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4I5J4P0XaPA




Next "Tintin" To Be "The Calculus Affair"?

(darkhorizons.com) Herge penned just twenty four Tintin stories, and Steven Spielberg's new CG animated "The Adventures of Tintin" makes use of parts of three of them.

With sequel plans already in development thanks to strong reviews and even stronger international box-office, it seems one thing we expected looks to have already changed - which books will be adapted.

Over a year ago Peter Jackson, who is helming the second film, said that the plan was to adapt "The Seven Crystal Balls"/"Prisoners of the Sun" two-parter as the basis of the film. A few months ago however he indicated his desire had changed but he hadn't made a decision yet. Even so it was thought 'Prisoners' could end up being the theoretical third film.

Now producer Kathleen Kennedy tells The Playlist that that particular story is out altogether - "'Prisoners of the Sun' was a very, very early discussion, and it isn't under discussion anymore. We've still got Anthony Horowitz working on the second movie, and we don't know what we're doing with the third movie yet."

The stories used in the first movie were employed because they introduced Tintin, Snowy, Captain Haddock and their interpersonal relationship. So now Kennedy says "what we're thinking [for the second film] is what new characters do we want to introduce? Well, we'll probably introduce Calculus and bring him into the fold."

Professor Cuthbert Calculus was introduced in "Red Rackham's Treasure", a book unlikely to be adapted as the ending of it makes up the last few minutes of the recent film. The absent-minded inventive genius however figured in numerous other stories where he would often drive Haddock to angry outbursts.

One such story is also one of Jackson's personal favourites - "The Calculus Affair", a kidnap thriller meets East European espionage story which has Tintin and Haddock racing across Europe to rescue him. Asked if that would be the basis, Kennedy says "We haven't decided yet, but that's the direction we're headed."



Ontario Computer Animation and Special Effects Tax Credit

Most television and film companies incorporate some sort of computer animation or special effects technology within their productions. Keeping up-to-date on these software programs and hardware that can run them can be costly and take financial resources away from required wage expenses.

The Ontario Media Development Corporation (OMDC) is offering a tax incentive program to help Ontario production companies with wages related to computer animation and special effects, allowing your company to free financial resources to keep your special effects cutting edge. The program is known as the Ontario Computer Animation and Special Effects (OCASE) Tax Credit and can cover 20% of eligible Ontario labour expenses related to your special effects and animation activities. The program can also be stacked with the previously mentioned Ontario Production Services Tax Credit (OPSTC).
Eligibility Factors for this Ontario Tax Credit

Corporations eligible for the OCASE Tax Credit can be either Canadian or foreign-owned, but need to have a permanent establishment within Ontario that files Ontario corporate taxes. The company can be an animation or visual effects house, post-production house, and/or film and television production company.

Eligible activities include:

* Designing
* Modelling
* Rendering
* Lighting
* Painting
* Animating
* Compositing

Activities that are not eligible under the OCASE tax incentive are audio effects, in-camera effects, credit rolls, subtitles, animation or visual effects used in promotional materials, or activities that are scientific research and experimental development.
Ontario Tax Incentive Amount

The OCASE covers 20% of eligible labour costs with no maximum amount. Eligible labour costs carried out in Ontario are split up into the following:

* Salaries and wages (i.e., amounts paid to employees) directly attributable to eligible activities carried on by the qualifying corporation, that are paid to Ontario residents (individuals resident in Ontario at the end of the previous calendar year) who report to a permanent establishment of the qualifying corporation in Ontario at which the eligible activities are carried out;
* 50% of remuneration paid to freelancers who are individuals or partnerships for qualifying expenditures incurred before March 27, 2009; and
* 100% of remuneration paid to freelancers who are individuals, partnerships, or arm’s-length incorporated individuals (such as personal services corporations), for qualifying expenditures incurred after March 26, 2009.

Apply for the Ontario Computer Animation and Special Effects Tax Credit

Interested parties should review the downloadable OCASE Tax Credit Guidelines. If you are in compliance with all outlined eligibility requirements, feel free to continue to the OMDC Online Application Portal or contact Mentor Works




Can Pixar Continue its Golden Globes Winning Streak with 'Cars 2'?

(latimesblogs.latimes.com) "Arthur Christmas," "Cars 2," "Puss in Boots," "Rango" and "The Adventures of Tintin" are the Golden Globe nominees for best animated feature
Every year since the Golden Globes added an animated feature film category in 2007, the Hollywood Foreign Press Assn. has picked a Pixar movie for the prize. Will the streak continue in 2012 with "Cars 2?"

The sequel is going up against "Arthur Christmas," "Puss in Boots," "Rango" and "The Adventures of Tintin." The original "Cars" won the Golden Globe back in 2007.

This time, the race is more wide open, and reflects the emergence of live-action filmmakers in the genre, including Steven Spielberg ("Tintin"), Gore Verbinski ("Rango") and Guillermo del Toro (executive producer, "Puss in Boots"), as well as a diversity of studios.

If "Cars 2" director John Lasseter is sweating it, he wasn't showing it Thursday morning. "I'm really excited that the animation industry is so healthy," said Lasseter, chief creative officer of Pixar and Disney Animation Studios, in a phone call from his home in Glen Ellen, Calif. "People ask me about competition. I'm so glad that so many great films are being made by lots of different studios."

Notable animated films excluded from the list include the critical and commercial successes "Kung Fu Panda 2" and "Rio."

Sarah Smith, director of "Arthur Christmas," reacted to news of her film's nomination while pushing a baby carriage down a London street.

"I'm absolutely delighted on behalf of all the people who made it," said Smith, whose movie was a joint production of the Britain-based Aardman Animations and Culver City-based Sony Pictures Animation. "We had Europeans and Russians, as well as the team from Sony in the States. When they came to Bristol, we made everybody drink tea and warm beer. ... When we came to the States, they introduced us to more civilized forms of entertainment."



A Great Look at Practical Effects Created For ‘The Thing’

(slashfilm.com) When The Thing was released earlier this year, there were some viewers who weren’t thrilled with the degree to which CGI was used to bring the movie’s alien creature to life. John Carpenter’s 1982 movie of the same name, for which this year’s film is a prequel, is a landmark in the use of practical effects. Early in the development of the ’11 movie, we’d heard that it would feature a good mix of practical and CGI effects work. The final release edit countered that assertion; at the very least, it seemed to have a lot of CGI painted over the practical effects.

Now a video posted by Amalgamated Dynamics, Inc., the company that did the film’s practical effects, shows a lot of the unvarnished work done for the movie. It looks great, and features a good look at what may be the alien’s ‘original’ form — or at least the form that landed on Earth. Check it out below.

Slight spoilers for The Thing follow, but this video has such great stuff that I’d say check it out anyway. Not like there’s any doubt that almost everyone in The Thing dies, anyway.

VIDEO - Take a look: http://www.slashfilm.com/votd-great-practical-effects-created-the-thing/



Oscar Hopefuls’ Campaign Strategies

(nytimes.com) Q. What’s the difference between the regular movie-promotion circuit and the awards circuit?

GORE VERBINSKI The likely front-runner in the Oscar animation race, “Rango,” the story of a chameleon (voiced by Johnny Depp) is full of film references and adult jokes. It was a joint first venture into feature-length animation, for Mr. Verbinski and the effects wizards at Industrial Light & Magic. They began the process by holing up in a house in Pasadena, Calif., drafting the characters and the story line. Mr. Verbinski said a nomination for “Rango” would be equal to one for a live-action movie; he doesn’t judge animation differently. “It’s just a technique for telling a story,” he said.

Full Article: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/15/movies/awardsseason/possible-nominees-look-toward-oscars.html



New 3D Technology Projects Images Onto Thin Air

(wireframe.com) Remember watching the holographic Princess Leia in Star Wars with wonder struck eyes. 3D holograms were something that sparked popular curiosity back in the 1970s. And ever since then, researchers and scientists have been trying to create similar 3D holograms in their labs all over the planet. However, Japanese company Burton has cracked the mystery code to project real 3D images in mid-air without using any kind of screen.

Burton has been working hard on its Aerial 3D technology for the past five years and uses a unique technology that excites the air where the holographic images are projected. The 3D images are created by high-powered lasers, which ionize the atoms of oyxgen and nitrogen in the air, creating plasma and a colored light emission. When these lasers move rapidly, they create a 3D image in mid-air. Currently it can create 50,000 points of light per second, which gives it a frame rate of 10-15 fps. Efforts are on at Burton to improve that to 24-30 fps, which will make it comparable to basic video. And the next thing you know is a 3D image that is almost as good as the Princess Leia hologram from your favorite Star Wars episode.

And who knows, it just might become a reality that you can watch whole movies with 3D holographic images in the luxury of your living room. What’s more, it can pave the way for future holographic teleconferences, entertainment, 3D advertisements, and telemedicine. May the Force be with you.

VIDEO - Take a look: http://www.wwwireframe.com/drool/tech-toys/new-3d-technology-projects-images-onto-thin-air.html




Digital Domain Media Group Announces 3D Conversion Technology Licensing Program

(reuters.com) Digital Domain Media Group (NYSE: DDMG), a leading digital production company focused on visual effects, original content animation and major studio co-productions, today announced its 3D conversion technology licensing program. Digital Domain Media Group's wholly owned subsidiary, Digital Domain Stereo Group ("DDSG"), formerly In-Three, owns the six U.S. patents that represent the original commercially feasible computerized process for converting 2-dimensional filmed imagery into 3-dimensional stereoscopic imagery. These patents, developed by In Three, relate to methods for employing basic visual effects tools and processes in the performance of 3D conversions and the subsequent distribution of the converted images. The DDSG patents provide fundamental coverage of any modern conversion process that involves rotoscoping (i.e., computerized, semi-automatic and semi-automatic conversion with roto), and relate to any conversion process that includes horizontal image displacement / transform.

DDMG is now embarking on a program to license these patents to the various media and entertainment industry companies that may benefit from access to the technology embodied in DDMG's patents. The company has not previously offered access to these patents to the media and entertainment industry through a comprehensive licensing program. However, given the growth of the 3D market in theaters, home entertainment and other platforms, DDMG has elected to make its patent portfolio available now to select companies the broader industry through a studio-friendly program.

The first such agreement was recently signed with the South Korean consumer electronics company Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. This agreement provides a non-exclusive, non-transferable license for Samsung to use DDMG's patented technology for 3D conversion for a term that ends with the expiration of the last licensed patent. The agreement allows Samsung to use the licensed technology in any kind of consumer electronics, components, services and software of Samsung and its affiliates. However, Samsung has no right to sublicense the technology and cannot transfer its rights to a third party without the approval of DDMG. In addition, Samsung agrees to notify DDMG of any suspected infringement of these patents and to cooperate with DDMG in prosecuting such infringement.

DDMG will continue to offer 3D stereoscopic conversion services to film studios through its DDSG subsidiary, and will include select competing 3D conversion companies in this licensing program. DDMG's focus will be to actively negotiate licenses with its competitors while allowing them to continue to provide 3D conversion services to their studio customers so as not to disrupt current 3D conversion projects. Where negotiations are unsuccessful, DDMG will seek to enforce its patent rights, as is the case with DDMG's patent infringement lawsuit against Prime Focus North America, Inc. and Prime Focus VFX USA, Inc.



Irish Animation Company Kavaleer to Create 30 New Jobs

(siliconrepublic.com) Irish animation company Kavaleer will create 30 new animation jobs over the course of 2012 and it celebrated its tenth anniversary.

“It’s amazing to think that what started out in 1998 as a hobby has developed into something this big over the past decade,” said Kavaleer’s CEO and founder Andrew Kavanagh.

“Ten years ago, we got our first commission and took a risk by starting a business in the midst of a recession. I’m so glad we did because now this gets to be my day job.

“We’re delighted to announce that we will be taking on additional staff in 2012 as we work on exciting international projects,” he said.

The animation production company has been twice nominated for an IFTA, a British Animation Award and has won four Digital Media Awards. It has worked with Sesame Street, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and Disney and its productions have been selected by over 100 international festivals over the past ten years.

It first co-produced a pre-school series called Lifeboat Luke with Straandlooper Productions set in the fictional seaside community of Donaghadoo. It then launched its own series called Garth and Bev on RTE Junior, which has since been sold to the UK, China, Portugal, America and Australia. Its most recent collaboration was with Dinamo Productions on a new series called Abadas.

Along with a co-production of a pre-school series, the company intends to extend its interactive games and e-learning production to a €1m turnover by April 2012.



11 Actors Who’ve Debased Themselves Alongside CGI Co-Stars

(pajiba.com) A list like this needs very little introduction, particularly in this venue where kiddie flicks are generally viewed as, well, total dog crap. Yes, there are a few exceptions to that rule, but we’re not here to talk about those lofty examples. Instead, I’m referring to those children’s CGI-action movies that feature sellout actors, who usually try to justify their behavior by saying they only wanted to be in a movie that their kids could watch. Even though they really did it for the money.

Take a look: http://www.pajiba.com/seriously_random_lists/11-actors-whove-debased-themselves-alongside-cgi-costars.php