Piasa Valley Film Blog News

Film Industry News

2010-09-01T06:34:00.000-07:00

Could Jon Hamm be the new Superman?

from Movies - Den of Geek

Casting rumours for the new Superman reboot continue to fly – and Mad Men’s Jon Hamm is currently in the crosshairs…
According to Warner Bros' schedule, its planned reboot of Superman is heading to screens in December 2012. Straight off, we'd like to be the first to bet that it get nudges back to the following summer, which seems the more natural place to release a big budget superhero blockbuster. But we digress.
The reboot is being overseen by Christopher Nolan, with David Goyer and Jonathan Nolan working on the screenplay. The latter is still strongly rumoured to be directing.
Yet, who will be playing the Man of Steel himself? That's been the subject of Internet rumour for many months now, with Chuck star Zachary Levi being one of the most mentioned. However, the current rumours are surrounding Mad Men star Jon Hamm instead. The source of said rumours can be found over at TMT, where the site is quoting sources saying that the actor is being "seriously considered" for the role.
However, we don't buy it.
The problem Hamm faces, sadly, is his age. Right now, he's 39 years old, and we can't imagine that Warner Bros would look at anyone over 30 to headline a franchise it wants to make more than one more film from. Assuming that Warner Bros would look for a three-film arc from its new reboot, that'd put Hamm closer to 50 than 40 by the time the third film came around, and sadly, that's just not how the modern movie world works.
We'd love to see him cast, though, to be fair (not least because he appears to have something of George Reeves about him). And given how well Robert Downey Jr turned out as Iron Man, it'd be a real pity if age got in the way.
Furthermore, there's another problem with this latest round of rumour-mongering: the TMT piece dates back to July, although it only recently seems to have been widely picked up upon. You can read it here anyway, if you're curious to do so.
Hamm would be a bold and welcome choice to play the Man Of Steel, and his casting would be a prime indicator that we're not - thankfully - going to go down the origin story route again. Yet, we'd still be amazed if this happens.

10 films to look out for at the Raindance Film Festival

from Movies - Den of Geek

With London’s Raindance Film Festival set to begin at the end of the month, Michael provides a run-down of ten movies worth keeping an eye on…
Coming up at the end of the month is the Raindance Film Festival, London's showcase for the world's most promising independent and low-budget cinema. Now in its 18th year, Raindance is boasting a line-up of 77 would-be breakout flicks, most of which are receiving their UK premieres.
With strands dedicated to documentaries, Japanese cinema, and homegrown British films, as well as awards given for the best debut, microbudget, UK and international features (to be judged by, amongst others, Charles Saatchi, Julian Barratt, Dave McKean and Lemmy), there's certainly a lot on offer for the discerning cinephile. Luckily for you, we've combed the programme and come up with 10 films that have impressed us with bold concepts, or baffled us with their barminess.
A Serbian Film

Already kicking up a fuss in the UK since it was pulled from the Frighfest lineup last month, A Serbian Film is being presented at Raindance as a private screening, in order to get around BBFC cuts.
If you've not heard of this gruelling exercise in boundary-pushing sex gore, where a porn star is brought out of retirement and faced with various tasks and trials by a sadistic director, we'd recommend you check out the helpfully thorough Wikipedia plot summary. Crikey.

Armless

Nominated for both Best Debut and Best Microbudget Feature, Armless looks to be a cheeky, dark comedy with a unique twist. The trailer builds with deadpan humour and mild drama, before hitting on a quite brilliant punchline, as an otherwise boring man comes to terms with his personal obsession: he wants to have his arms cut off. Hell, we're intrigued.

Cannibal

Another Best Debut nominee is the Belgian film Cannibal, a brooding horror about a young man who falls in love with a mysterious girl. She has a secret, one which, judging by the film's title, might have something to do with her peculiar taste in men.

Flooding With Love For The Kid

Now this is an odd entry. Flooding With Love For The Kid is inspired by David Morrell's novel First Blood (the book which birthed Rambo), however this isn't a straight-up reboot. In the running for the Best Microbudget prize, Flooding was filmed, acted and edited by one man (Zachary Oberzan), on a budget of $96, in a set constructed within a 220 square foot apartment.

Iron Doors

Indie features love locked door thrillers, mostly because you save on budgeting for multiple sets and locations. Iron Doors, however, looks to be a particularly twisted take on the genre, as an investment banker wakes up after a night on the lash in an underground vault. From the trailer, it seems to hinge on tension and the banker's slowly deteriorating mental state, as he chisels away at his little prison. It leaves a lot of tantalising questions, not least of which is: just what is he drinking from his shoe?

Jackboots On Whitehall

Recently shown in Edinburgh and due a wide release in October, Jackboots On Whitehall is the UK's answer to Team America, a perky what-if yarn of invading Nazis and stiff upper lip British retaliation, all in stop-motion, puppet-heavy animation. Up for the Best UK Feature award, the film also stars quite a stunning array of vocal talent, including Rosamund Pike, Ewan McGregor, Timothy Spall, Dominic West and - our favourite - Alan Cumming as Hitler.

Rebels Without A Clue

One of the other Best UK Feature hopefuls, Rebels Without A Clue sports a pretty rubbish title, but its mixture of rural English boredom and gangster high jinks looks like it should be a hoot. Check the first trailer, where two brash teens discover a pistol in an abandoned car. But what about the body in the boot?

Symbol

Up for the Best International Feature prize, Symbol is another closed room thriller, from Japanese director Hitoshi Matsumoto. Like in Iron Doors, a man wakes up to find himself in a nondescript room. However, here, he is wearing polka dot pyjamas, and before long the wall starts erupting with penises and hundreds of little babies. We're just as puzzled as he is and, frankly, we want to know more.

Vampires

Vampires is a Belgian faux documentary, looking at the lives of a family of immortal bloodsuckers. While the concept sounds a bit cynical and contrived, the trailer is quite promising, bringing a lot of mundane humour to the table. What with sleeping in dingy cellars and feeding on illegal immigrants, being a vamp doesn't seem glamorous at all.

Yellow Kid

The trailer for Yellow Kid is in Japanese, so we can't totally tell what's going on, but this debut from Tetsuya Mariko has an interesting set-up. The protagonist is a wannabe boxer, Tamura, who unwittingly was the inspiration for a high school chum Hattori's manga creation, the Yellow Kid. When their paths cross, Tamura is greatly influenced by the comic, and changes his outlook on life.
The Raindance Film Festival runs from September 29th to October 10th, at the Apollo Piccadilly in London. For more information, visit www.raindance.co.uk.

Chinese cinema chain being sued for showing too many adverts

from Movies - Den of Geek

File this one under weird: in China, a moviegoer is suing a cinema chain for wasting her time by showing too many adverts…
If you've ever sat sulkily through a barrage of adverts while waiting for a film to start at your local multiplex, you'll probably sympathise with the plight of Chinese cinemagoer Chen Xiaomei.
According to a story in the Independent, Xiaomei visited a branch of the Polybona chain of cinemas in the city of Xian to see the country's current blockbuster, Aftershock, an account of an earthquake that levelled a Chinese city in 1976. The country's equivalent of Avatar, Aftershock is currently the highest grossing movie in China's history.
But when Xiaomei settled down to watch the film, she was subjected to what she says was a time-wasting 20 minutes of commercials, and insists that Polybona and Huayi Brothers, the movie's distributors, had wasted her time and violated "her freedom of choice".
Xiaomei, a lawyer by profession, is demanding a reimbursement of her 35 yuan ticket price, a further 35 yuan in compensation, and one yuan for "emotional damages". She also wants a written apology from the accused, and has called for advertisement times to be published on the cinema chain's website, on its ticket hotline and in its foyers.
Xiaomei has further suggested that the total running time of commercials shouldn't amount to more than five minutes.
If Xiaomei's claim successful, could it set a legal precedent, encouraging other disgruntled movie lovers to follow suit? Other cinema chains will, no doubt, be watching anxiously for the case's outcome.

Revisiting Metropolis on the big screen

from Movies - Den of Geek

Fritz Lang’s 1927 classic Metropolis returns to the cinema in a newly restored, extended re-issue. Here’s our review of one of sci-fi’s key movies...
On paper, Fritz Lang's 1927 silent film Metropolis must have read like the work of a madman. Here was a movie that lasted two-and-a-half hours in an era when films typically ran for less than 90 minutes. That employed almost 40,000 extras, required the building of vast sets, an entire city replicated in miniature, and a baroque robot out of materials never before used.
It was a film that, at a time when films often cost about as much to make as a theatrical production, swallowed an estimated budget of over 5 million reichsmarks, making it the most expensive feature yet made by a considerable margin.
Fritz Lang's Metropolis was an insanely, audaciously inventive film, establishing the framework for science fiction cinema when such a genre barely even existed. Its depiction of a vast city of skyscrapers, monorails and neon set the template for filmmakers that followed, from Jean-Luc Godard's Alphaville to Ridley Scott's Blade Runner. The influence of its beautiful, almost sexy humanoid robot can be seen in the ungainly lines of Star Wars' C3PO, and the macho swagger of RoboCop.

Far from being a critical and financial success, Metropolis was hacked apart by editors after theatre owners complained about its excessive length, while some critics completely dismissed it,most notably, H.G. Wells, who described it as "foolishness". (Ironically, Wells would later write the screenplay for a futuristic epic of his own, Things To Come, whose towering cities clearly owed a debt to Lang's.)
For a film that has become an icon of sci-fi cinema, it's remarkable to note that, in the eight decades since its release, only a handful of people have seen Metropolis in its original, uncut state. Chunks of lost footage have since been rediscovered and replaced, and the movie has been reissued several times, including the infamous 1984 version, which added a distracting synth score by Giorgio Moroder. But it's only in the last two years that Metropolis has been restored to something approaching its initial form.
Thanks to a chance discovery of a severely damaged but complete 16mm print of the movie in Buenos Aires, the newly restored, 150 minute version of Metropolis now appearing in cinemas is the closest we currently have to the film Fritz Lang intended, complete with composer Gottfried Huppertz's original score, and those 80s Moroder memories can, thankfully, be put to rest.

The Film
With a spectacular orchestral boom, Metropolis opens with a vast cityscape that reaches for the clouds. Far below, dejected workers shuffle among subterranean corridors. As much a part of the brutal pistons and gears that power the city's monorails and neon signs, it's the proletariat's job to keep these monstrous machines churning.
The upper classes, meanwhile, are literally upper class, and enjoy a godlike existence in the metropolis' rooftop gardens, cavorting among the fountains and white peacocks in a recreation of Bosch's Garden Of Earthly Delights. They're blissfully ignorant of the oppressed masses kilometres beneath their feet, until one day their festivities are interrupted by Maria, an eerily serene matriarchal figure to the lower orders, who takes a huddled group of children on a guided tour of the city's utopian upper floors.

Spotting the crowd of rag-clad oiks in their midst, the garden's upper classes are frozen with horror, and Maria's tour is abruptly cut short by a couple of security guards. Freder Fredersen, meanwhile, the toff son of the city's despotic ruler Joh, is immediately besotted by Maria and sets off into the metrpolis' bowels to find her.
There, he sees first-hand the Sisyphean labours of the workers in the machine room, where men stand before clock-like workstations in continuous ten hour shifts. As one elderly worker exhaustedly loses concentration, the colossal machine before him overheats, the subsequent explosion sending bodies flying back like rag dolls.
In a bravura setpiece, Freder has a vision of the engine-like reactor transforming into a vast Hebrew god, greedily devouring a mindless procession of sacrificial victims. With this image still etched in his brain, Freder rushes back upstairs to tell his father, Joh, of the horrible treatment he's just seen. Chillingly indifferent, Joh dismissively says the workers are "where they belong".

Still determined to find Maria, and enlisting the help of disgraced civil servant Josaphat, Freder heads back underground, trading places with an exhausted worker and taking up a position in front one of the city's clock-like workstations. His shift over, Freder discovers that Maria is, in fact, a kind of priestess to the downtrodden masses, a female John the Baptist who predicts the coming of a saviour who will act as a mediator between the upper and lower classes.
Meanwhile, Freder's father, upon learning of her message of hope, orders a mad scientist called Rotwang to give his robot invention (here called a Maschinenmensch) Maria's likeness, hoping to breed discontent among the poor.
Rotwang, however, has other ideas, and instead programmes his simulacrum to stir up the masses into a rebellious frenzy, triggering a series of events that threaten to destroy the metropolis entirely.

Viewed in 2010, Lang's silent movie has taken on an eerie, other-worldly aura that sets it apart from any sci-fi dystopia made before or since. This could partly be due to its odd mixture of science and the occult. Rotwang's lab, tucked away in what, from the outside, looks like a fairy tale ginger bread house, is filled with pentagrams and esoteric literature, as well as bubbling test tubes and arcs of electricity.
Mostly, however, Metropolis' spooky aura is derived from its stunning expressionist visuals, which at times border on the breathtaking. From the extraordinary opening vistas to the colossal closing riot that takes in thousands of extras and huge sets, Metropolis' visual power remains remarkably undimmed. And in this newly restored edition, Lang's film is more coherent and beautiful to look at than ever, with only one significant scene (a struggle between Joh and the crazed Rotwang) still tragically missing.

The film's weakest area, however, is arguably the naivety of its politics. Its lowly populace is depicted as a bovine, superstitious and alarmingly gullible herd, who, at the film's rushed conclusion, forget about decades of oppression and poor treatment within the space of a few minutes.
In this respect, Metropolis is like an arthouse art deco Avatar, its downtrodden populace the film's equivalent of Unobtanium. And just as James Cameron's hugely expensive picture reduces concerns about ecology and modern war to a pulp battle between soldiers and blue tree people, Metropolis appears to suggest, in its ridiculous "heads and hands need a heart" message, that the despotic attitude of its upper classes, and their years of cruelty and oppression, were a mere cultural misunderstanding that could be resolved with a handshake.

In fairness to Lang, even he was dissatisfied with this aspect of his film, and stated in a later interview with Peter Bogdanovich that "I was not so politically minded in those days as I am now. You cannot make a social-conscious picture in which you say that the intermediary between the hand and the brain is the heart. I mean, that's a fairy tale, definitely."
Iffy politics aside, Metropolis stands as a classic of science fiction cinema. Astounding in its visual creativity, it quite rightly stands as one of the most significant films of the 20th century.

Skeletons review

from Movies - Den of Geek

Mark checks out the supernatural indie flick Skeletons, and finds a film that could be a British answer to Inception…
Earlier in the year, I reported back on Toy Story 3 from the UK premiere at the Edinburgh International Film Festival. I was too skint to fork out for more than one night's accommodation and so missed out on some of the other great films showing at the festival.
This leaves me scrambling through the rest of 2010 to catch up with The Illusionist, The People Vs George Lucas and Jackboots On Whitehall. Another film I missed, Skeletons, went on to win the Michael Powell Award for Best New British Film, so I definitely had to seek it out once its limited release in cinemas nationwide finally arrived.
I knew a little about it before going in, but found my attention diverted by two things I hadn't anticipated. Firstly, that one of its players, Andrew Buckley, could feasibly be me in twenty years' time, if appearance is anything to go by. So, that was distracting, but secondly, I saw this almost as Britain's answer to Inception.
Skeletons is all about Davis and Bennett, who are exorcists of an unusual sort. The skeletons of the title are basically ‘skeletons in the closet', and our heroes specialise in exhuming the nasty secrets and memories of their clients.
The clientele are usually betrothed couples looking to share all of their secrets with each other before embarking upon a life together, and the pair are assigned to delve into various people's minds across the English countryside by the moustachioed Colonel.
So, like Inception, we find the pair as they're assigned their biggest job, in this case, solving the mystery of a missing father who's been gone for seven years, presumed dead. Furthermore, the job is put at risk by the brains of the operation, Davis, delving into his own memories and spending quality time with his personal demons.
Yeah, I know Christopher Nolan is British anyway, but the comparison is intended to be a compliment. We're basically looking at Inception with fewer CG effects, but with more of a sense of humour about itself.
There's a hint of the same sense of emotional baggage that comes with traversing the mindscapes of others, but more notably, Skeletons has a remarkable quirkiness that just makes it very watchable.
One of the offbeat choices that interested me was in how Davis and Bennett get around the countryside. Namely, they walk. Although Jason Isaacs pops up every now and then as The Colonel to suggest that there is a wider organisation involved in skeleton clearing, there's no company car. No Mystery Machine or Torchwood SUV or ECTO-1. Just two men walking across country to carry out their strange line of work.
They catch a train to the big job, almost to attribute the sense of a huge opportunity to it, but the walking around middle England really conveys how isolated they are, whether there are other people in their occupation or not. There are also terrific performances by Ed Gaughan as Davis and Andrew Buckley as Bennett, the brains and the heart of the operation, respectively.
It's also worth mentioning Tuppence Middleton's performance, because I saw her a year ago in British teen slasher flick Tormented, liked her, and then promptly forgot about her. I blame that film, not the actress. She's more striking here in a soft spoken role as the daughter of the missing man, who might just know more than she's telling our protagonists.
Nick Whitfield's script deals more in memories than in dreams, and his direction captures the milky and sometimes hazy properties of the memory through cinematography rather than the visual spectacle of the blockbuster counterpart that's still playing in more cinemas than this. His efforts, together with the great cast, make Skeletons a marvellous supernatural drama that I'm glad I hunted down.
It's very leisurely in pace and execution, but it's not complacent. It gives us characters to latch onto, a strong story to follow, and Jason Isaacs stealing every scene he's in, as ever. It really rewards the effort you make to catch it in cinemas by maximising the entertainment value of what's an apparently modest effort.
It's funny and clever and poignant, but because it's not really multiplex fare, it's almost been buried in the closet by its scant UK cinema distribution, like so many secrets in the film itself.
But, sooner or later, Skeletons will be out on DVD for everyone to enjoy, so when that day comes, make sure you go and dig it out.

The Worst Action Hero Names

from Movies - Den of Geek

Marion ‘Cobra’ Cobretti. John Matrix. Frank Shatter. Action cinema history is littered with terrible hero names, and here’s our list of the most memorably awful...
Weird accents and bizarre amounts of muscle have become staples of the action movie genre, and the latter certainly makes sense, because no one's going to believe that some nine-stone weakling could save the world from terrorists or a bus full of innocent people from Dennis Hopper.
Why, though, do the protagonists in these films so often have utterly ridiculous names? In Die Hard, the totally ordinary sounding John McClane did just fine without having a moniker with any kind of alliteration, rhyming or jokes in it. No one sat there watching it thinking, "This film would be so much better if Bruce Willis was called 'Buck Shot'."
Still, though, Hollywood persists with the daft action hero names, and we've put a selection of the worst offenders together for you. Of course, depending on where you stand on this issue, you might actually consider the following names to be the most awesome rather than the worst. Either way, they're definitely memorable.

Played by: Sylvester Stallone in Cobra (1986)
"Crime is the disease. Meet the cure." A strong message there, about an LAPD cop with the kind of tolerance threshold for criminal activity that would make scrumping a capital offence. With his black t-shirt, sunglasses, big guns and, yes, a toothpick, he's clearly not a man to messed with. Even if he does have a girl's name.

Played by: Arnold Schwarzenegger in Commando (1985)
John, that's a good, strong name. Nothing fancy about that. He definitely sounds like a guy who could get his daughter out of a spot of trouble. John Matrix? Oh dear.

Played by: Chuck Norris in Hellbound (1994)
In spite of a movie poster mix-up on IMDb suggesting otherwise, this has nothing to do with Hellraiser II. So, no, you won't be seeing Chuck bitch-slapping Pinhead, but with a name like Frank Shatter, it seems pretty likely he could if he wanted to.

Played by: Steven Seagal in On Deadly Ground (1994)
This one's just weird. Although it's actually quite a plausible name, it just sounds made-up. Not only that, it doesn't even have a macho ring to it, but sounds like some kind of small wood-dwelling mammal, albeit one that could break your nuts with one punch.

Played by: Arnold Schwarzenegger in The Running Man (1987)
Okay, bear with us on this one. Sure, Ben Richards doesn't sound all that exotic. He sounds like the kind of guy you could have gone to school with. You might even be called Ben Richards yourself. However, we're willing to bet you aren't Austrian.

Played by: Jason Statham in Crank (2006)
Although a relative newcomer to the action movie scene, Mr Statham can nevertheless make a pretty good claim for the most ridiculous/awesome action hero name of all time. It's got everything: alliteration, assonance, a stupid Christian name and a surname that appears to be totally inappropriate to the actor's ethnicity. It's so brilliant, we wish we could lick it.

Played by: Sylvester Stallone in Paradise Alley (1978)
Another one from Sly, and this time one that uses a great bit of alliteration. We had absolutely no interest in watching this movie before, but now we know there's a character called Cosmo Carboni in it... Well, we still don't want to watch it, but fucking hell, that's an awesome name.

Played by: Vin Diesel in xXx (2002)
You can almost see the producers sitting around a table and thinking this one up. We assume Xander was chosen because it sounds a bit trendy and, most importantly, it begins with an ‘X'. As for ‘Cage', well, clearly it's in honour of Nicolas Cage, or, at least, it should be.

Played by: Tommy Morrison in Rocky V (1990)
He may not have been the hero, but he can at least take comfort in the fact that he had the most stupid name of any character in the Rocky series.

To finish off, we'll leave you with The Expendables, which is so shameless in its doling out of ridiculous names that it deserves its own section:
Jason Statham - Lee Christmas
Jet Li - Yin Yang (both stupid and ever so slightly racist)
Dolph Lundgren - Gunnar Jensen
Randy Couture - Toll Road (eh?)
Steve Austin - Paine
Terry Crews - Hale Caesar
Mickey Rourke - Tool (just sounds like an insult)

The Den Of Geek guide to making a scary movie monster

from Movies - Den of Geek

Here are ten rules for making a movie monster that will leave audiences screaming in the aisles…
For every genuinely menacing screen monster, there are at least a dozen unintentionally funny, shambling travesties. For every Giger-designed Alien, there's a legion of creatures like the rubbery octopus-type thing from Yog: Monster From Space, or the man in a bear suit from Robot Monster.
Here, then, is the Den Of Geek guide to creating a scary movie monster, and a few examples of the pitfalls you should avoid.
A lack of eyes is scary

Designed by H.R. Giger, the titular xenomorph from 1979's Alien is arguably one of the most disturbing creatures ever to grace the big screen, quite possibly due to its apparent lack of eyes. And while Giger's monster has suffered from over-exposure in recent years (not to mention its appearance in the woeful Aliens Vs Predator movies), its original incarnation is still an iconic design.
Equally worthy of note is the terrifying Pale Man from Pan's Labyrinth, a hairless monstrosity that, while not strictly speaking eyeless, was made all the more unnerving by the fact that its eyes were located on the palms of its hands. Once seen, it's a creature that's hard to cleanse from your mind.

Inanimate objects definitely aren't scary

This is the number one, absolute cardinal rule: keep your monster under the cover of darkness for as long as you possibly can.
Spielberg kept his unconvincing rubber shark submerged for much of the duration of Jaws, while Ridley Scott was shrewd enough to recognise that, if you saw a full frontal shot of his otherwise terrifying monster in Alien, you'd immediately realise it was a mere man in a suit.
Even Matt Reeves, with all the 21st century computer trickery at his disposal for Cloverfield, was wise enough to keep his weird Large Scale Aggressor under cover of darkness for much of the film.
Darkness covers a multitude of sins. And in any case, the threat of something terrible is infinitely more frightening than the sight of the terrible thing itself. Just think how scary 1957's The Giant Claw could have been had it kept its vulture-like monster in the dark instead of fully exposed...

"Journey 2: The Mysterious Island" Heads Into Production

(Heat Vision)                    Dwayne Johnson is joining Josh Hutcherson in New Line/Warner Bros.' Journey to the Center of the Earth sequel Journey 2: The Mysterious Island, reports Heat Vision.
Brad Peyton will direct the film, to be produced by Beau Flynn and Tripp Vinson of Contrafilm, as well as Charlotte Huggins. Michael Bostick and Evan Turner of Walden Media are executive producing.
Johnson will play the boyfriend of Hutcherson's mom, who Hutcherson is forced to bring on a trip to a mythical and monstrous island to find his missing grandfather. The script is loosely based on Jules Verne's "The Mysterious Island."
The trade adds that three other characters will be introduced in the movie and cast during the next few weeks. Production scheduled to star in late October in North Carolina and Hawaii.
In the first film, Brendan Fraser played scientist Trevor Anderson, who was an uncle of Hutcherson's character. Like that movie, which earned $242 million worldwide, the follow-up will be shot and released in 3D. The studio is targeting a September 23, 2011 release.

James Cameron Putting 3D Camera on Mars
(electronichouse.com)
      Director James Cameron seems to be single-handedly keeping 3D in the news.

Aside from talking up the re-release of “Avatar,” his latest 3D endeavor will capture life on Mars—no, really!

Aside from working with Guillermo del Toro, one of Cameron’s next collaborations will be with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and Malin Space Science Systems. According to Popular Mechanics, the three will develop a stereoscopic camera for Mars exploration.

“Not only a 3D camera, but a 3D motion camera,” Cameron told the magazine. “So if it all goes the way it could, we could be shooting a 3D movie on Mars. No actors, though.”

The camera, which is expected to capture 3D images of the Red Planet, will be part of the Mars Science Laboratory. That’s set to launch in fall 2011.

Classic VFX at The London Film Museum

(thisislondon.co.uk)                     Before computers and 3D there was Ray Harryhausen, the undisputed king of special effects. His stop-motion marvels inspired a generation of filmmakers, from Steven Spielberg to James Cameron. It was Harryhausen who developed the amazing creatures in films such as Jason and the Argonauts, One Million Years BC and the original Clash of the Titans. His life's work, including the models, are on display in Ray Harryhausen - Myths and Legends.

Also well worth seeing is a special Happy 75th Anniversary Twentieth Century Fox exhibit, which includes a host of amazing costumes and props from some huge movies: Aliens, Star Wars, Minority Report, Moulin Rouge and X-Men to name a few.

Alongside the exhibits there are regular installations on the history of British film and the creative processes behind the camera.

For a different slant on a day at the movies, the London Film Museum is a great choice.

Last Airbender Sequel Close To Greenlight

(comicbookmovie.com)                 There are some rumors going on wither or not The Last Airbender will get a sequel: Once The Last Airbender reaches $280 Million Worldwide Gross Paramount will green-light the sequel. Currently the world wide gross is:$252,831,242 with some contries not even open yet..

This begs the question: Will we get a sequel?

Transformers 3 Budget Hits $400M, Says Hardcore Eddie

(tformers.com)                 Lestor Speight, who stars as Hardcore Eddie alongside Tyrese Gibson (USAF Retired Master Sergeant Robert Epps) in Transformers 3, has revealed that the film has surpassed Titanic as the largest budgeted film ever.

Speaking with Movie Mikes, Mr. Speight says that Transformers 3 surpassed the $400 Million mark and is "still going north!"

In comparison, Transformers cost $150M and Revenge of the Fallen was budgeted at $300M.

Each film easily eclipsed their budgets at the box office, so it is not surprising Paramount Pictures gave Director Michael Bay more money to play with this time around.

Source:     http://tformers.com/transformers-transformers-3-budget-hits-$400m-still-going-hardcore-eddie-character-detailed/14233/news.html

Del Toro Gets 3D Mentoring For 'Mountains Of Madness'

(latinoreview.com)                 The James Cameron produced adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft's At The Mountains of Madness looks to be an epic film that may very well change the horror genre. Directed by Guillermo del Toro, the film is not only an incredible undertaking, but will be photographed in the same 3-D process Cameron used for Avatar. While discussing the re-release of his colossal hit with Wired magazine, Cameron touched upon his role as producer on the project, a role he admits he's never been passionate about.

Well, yeah, then Guillermo came along,” he says. “In this particular case, I’m working with Guillermo because I enjoy his company, and a creative collaboration is something that we’ve talked about doing for a long time. It’s going to be an epically scaled horror film and we haven’t seen anything like that in a really long time — I guess since Aliens.”

Like the novella on which it’s based, the film will take place in the Antarctic, where humans encounter a race called the Ancient Ones. “The thing about Lovecraft is that he left a lot to the imagination,” Cameron says. “He never told you what they looked like. He managed to create a sense of creeping horror without specifics.”

Cameron believes that’s what makes del Toro the perfect man for the job.

“Guillermo brings an eye for design that is so original and so quirky and so steeped in the lore of movie design and horror design, but always fresh and unexpected. Frankly, I just want to see what he comes up with and I want to enable the nuts and bolts of the production so he doesn’t have to worry about that. I want to help him how to work in 3-D.”

The Studio Supervisor for Lucasfilm in Singapore Wants You

(CGSociety)                Mohen Leo is on a mission. At this point in his career as a visual effects supervisor, he believes he has found the perfect studio in the perfect location, and he’s recruiting 100 mid- to senior-level effects artists and geeks from around the world to join him.

Five of the films Leo has worked on have received Oscar nominations for best visual effects. And Leo personally received two Visual Effects Society nominations – for best single visual effect of the year 2012 and outstanding created environment in a live action movie Poseidon.

He was a visual effects artist on Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace, and technical director for The Perfect Storm and Pearl Harbor at Industrial Light & Magic. He left ILM to become technical director at ESC for The Matrix Reloaded and then became sequence lead for The Matrix Revolutions. Back to ILM where he was associate visual effects supervisor for Poseidon, then on to Digital Domain to become visual effects supervisor for Speed Racer and 2012.

But, ask him about any of these projects and he quickly careens into his enthusiasm for his current job as studio supervisor for ILM Singapore. He believes this job embodies the best of all his previous experiences.

“I joined ESC because I was ready for a new challenge,” he says. “What I loved most about ESC is that it was a small company we were building up. It was a start-up that had great projects.” When ESC folded, he moved back to ILM and then to Digital Domain before returning to ILM for the third time. “I have a tendency to be restless,” he says.

Restless, maybe. But at the same time, focused.

“I toyed with the idea of working in Asia for the last five years,” he says. “I can’t see myself planning to be in one place forever. When I look at people I think are interesting, they tend to be episodic. They do different things in different places. So, I considered Mumbai and Korea. But, I didn’t want to sacrifice the quality of my work or the quality of the company. So I jumped at the opportunity to work in Asia for one of the best companies in the industry.”

When Leo moved to ILM Singapore, that division of Lucasfilm had 55 people. Now, ILM has 110 and the overall group in Singapore, which includes LucasArts and Lucasfilm Animation (Clone Wars and an animated feature film in progress) employs around 400 people, with more joining the force every day.

Full Press:    http://features.cgsociety.org/story_custom.php?story_id=5847

Piranha 3D Producer Bites Back At Slurs

(guardian.co.uk)                   As spats go, it could be seen as a little uneven. On one side, James Cameron, director of box-office behemoth Avatar, one of the most expensive films of all time. On the other, Mark Canton, producer of the rather less well-known Piranha 3D, which had a budget of just $24m (£16m).

Last week, in an interview with Vanity Fair magazine, Cameron singled out the 3D work in the recently released comedy-horror film, calling it: "An example of what we should not be doing in 3D."

He continued: "It just cheapens the medium and reminds you of the bad 3D horror films from the 1970s and 80s, like Friday the 13th 3D. When movies got to the bottom of the barrel of their creativity and at the last gasp of their financial lifespan, they did a 3D version to get the last few drops of blood out of the turnip."

Having cut his teeth working on Piranha 2 (from which he was subsequently fired) and developed his own motion capture camera system to create the stunning CGI work on Avatar, Cameron might have thought he had the right to have his say on Piranha 3D. Canton, however, has hit back with an extended essay in which he labels Avatar's 3D work "inconsistent" and suggests the film's storytelling "might have been more original".

In an email sent to reporters, Canton added: "Mr Cameron, who singles himself out to be a visionary of movie-making, seems to have a small vision regarding any motion pictures that are not his own. It is amazing that in the movie-making process – which is certainly a team sport – that Cameron consistently celebrates himself as though he is a team of one. His comments are ridiculous, self-serving and insulting to those of us who are not caught up in serving his ego and his rhetoric."

Finally, Canton challenged Cameron to watch Piranha 3D on the big screen, claiming that it had been a hit with the critics.

"On opening weekend, I was in a Los Angeles theatre with a number of today's great film-makers including JJ Abrams (Star Trek), who actually had nothing short of the fabulous, fun 3D experience that the movie provides," he said.

"Machete" VFX On Cutting Edge

(BUSINESS WIRE) -- AMD today unveiled its close collaboration with Troublemaker Studios to produce the striking visual effects for the action epic "Machete", a project for the studio that saw the Troublemaker team finalize more than 500 shots, a personal best made possible with AMD graphics and computing technology. From start to finish, Troublemaker Studios made use of a unique combination of AMD's graphics and computing technologies to bring the film to life, pioneering new special effects techniques while cutting down on production time and cost.

"I've had the idea for 'Machete' since meeting Danny Trejo while filming 'Desperado' in 1993, and it's only now after years of refining that idea combined with the advancements in AMD technology, that I've been able to bring my creative vision to life in the way I truly envisaged it," said Robert Rodriguez, co-owner, Troublemaker Studios. "The incredible developments in AMD platform technology continue to fuel my creativity, driving me to push it to its limits. In fact, I've made plans to incorporate AMD's Fusion Render technology into the production of my next film 'Spy Kids 4'."

Pixar Gurus Make Vanity Fair Power List

(hollywoodreporter.com)                      Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, Apple's Steve Jobs and the Google leadership took the top three positions in Vanity Fair's 16th annual New Establishment list of the 100 most influential people of the Information Age.

Among major media, entertainment and tech moguls, News Corp. chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch ranks fourth, the Twitter team came in ninth and Liberty Media boss John Malone ranks 10th, closely followed in the 12th spot by the Disney/Pixar gurus led by Disney chief creative officer John Lasseter. "Pixar's unmatched winning streak continues," Vanity Fair argued.

Indiana's Howard County Gets 3D CGI Animated Film

(kokomoperspective.com)                     A Kokomo-based developer of interactive children's toys and media announced its plans Tuesday to make a $2.4 million animated film.

Bach Morris Technologies Corp. will produce the 3-D modeled animated film "Whoever Heard of a Herd of Fird," which is based on author Othello Bach's 1984 book "Whoever Heard of a Fird."

The 78-minute movie, like the book, is about a magical creature that is part fish and part bird and takes place in a mystical place. This is the company's first film project.

The company is investing more than $2.2 million, or 91 percent, of its budget to be spent in Indiana.

"Most of the film and animation work will be completed in facility in east central Indiana," said Mark Morris, chief operations officer at Bach Morris Technologies. "(We are) looking forward to developing a production and assembly facility for BMTC interactive companions in Kokomo if feasible. We have already made contact, and had a pleasant meeting with the Mayor (Greg) Goodnight, and his economic development team. It is our estimation that this production, assembly, and fulfillment facility will hopefully create approximately 100 to150 new high technology jobs for Howard County within the next five year period."

Of the more than 20 high-skill jobs for the film including, artists, animators and programmers, most of the jobs will be full time, he said. Some of the others involved may be students or interns.

The film will be tentatively ready for release in the second quarter of 2012.

As for voicing the characters, the directors and producers have been in contact with BMTC and have suggested celebrity voices from both the United States and Europe.

The Indiana Economic Development Corp. offered BMTC up to $111,245, or about 5 percent in direct production cost tax credits under the state's Media Production Expenditure Tax Credit program.

"Bach Morris Technologies Corp. is extremely happy and excited about being approved by the IEDC for the media tax credits," he said.

BMTC will not receive the tax credits until the project is finished, he said.

"The Media Production Tax Credits apply only on dollars spent toward direct production costs spent in Indiana," he said.

Sci-Fi Fantasy ‘Endhiran’ Going the ‘Avatar’ Way

(thelatestnews.in)                   Shankar’s sci- fi fantasy flick ‘Endhiran (The Robot) is touted as the much awaited film of 2010. Everything related to this movie is larger than life, be its international special effects or the mega bucks riding on the flick. ‘Endhiran’ is backed by an impressive stable of cast including the most sought after hero Rajnikant, Ms. World Aishwarya Rai, Evergreen villain Danny Denzongpa amongst the others. This trilingual movie is tipped to have top notch high quality special effects. The unit of ‘Endhiran’ has collaborated with Hollywood’s Stan Winston of ‘Avatar’ fame for the advanced visual effects and make- up.

Shankar, the director of the movie aspires to fill every nook of his film with perfection, which is the reason why, he has aped in Hollywood experts for ‘Endhiran’ technology and special effects.

Hollywood project ‘Avatar’ made history with it’s out of the box realistic depiction of fictitious characters. The animatronics technology used in ‘Avatar’ surpassed every ones expectations. The latest we hear that the same technology has been used in the robotic version of Rajni in the sci- fi entertainer. A large chunk from the Rs. 200 crores of Endhiran’s budget is spent on the effects and animatronics. Before the movie went on floors, director Shankar along with Rajinikant spent two weeks in Los Angeles to prepare the mould for the robot’s body. “The first step was scanning Rajinikant’s entire body to create a prototype. Using this prototype, Hollywood technicians created a robot that everyone said was literally like his double,” says a source from the production house.

Multi-million Dollar "Tomb Rider 3D" Opens Across From The Alamo

(woai.com)                   Tomb Rider 3D - the newest attraction - is a multi-million dollar, special effect 3D shooting, adventure ride! Journey down into the ancient tomb of the Egyptian God, Anubis. Shoot for the high score and try to defeat the curse… if you can. After the ride, enjoy the unique, fun arcade.

San Antonio’s newest attractions are all in one location directly across from the Alamo. You get 4 tickets to any ONE of the attractions below. More than a $75 actual value for just $25.

Digital Domain Pitches Animation College

(bizjournals.com)
   Digital Domain, a visual effects production studio, is pitching West Palm Beach officials for a digital animation college at Okeechobee Boulevard and Dixie Highway.

Digital Domain rendering for West Palm Beach project.

The initial 150,000- to 350,000-square-foot building would have a branch of the Florida State University Film School, a new Digital Domain Institute and an animation studio.

John Textor, whose Jupiter-based Wyncrest Holdings LLC owns Digital Domain, is asking the city to provide the 2.4-acre site, $10 million in cash and issue $15 million in bonds that Digital Domain would be responsible for repaying.

"I feel great pressure. "You do this type of thing in your hometown, you better not louse it up," Textor said at a press conference. (A video of part of the press conference is available here.)

The proposed site is a parking lot, just east of CityPlace and the Palm Beach County Convention Center, and next to the Florida East Coast Railway track.

City commissioners would have their first vote on the project in September, and Mayor Lois Frankel was enthusiastic about the project during the press conference.

An Aug. 27 Business Journal article detailed how new transferrable tax credits are helping revive the film industry in Florida and profiled G-Star Studios and the G-Star School of the Arts for Motion Pictures and Broadcasting in Palm Springs.

GStar has just built a 12,000-square-foot soundstage and is seeking donations to accelerate construction of five more.

Digital Domain was founded in 1993 and has film credits for three features that were awarded Oscars for special effects – "Titanic," "What Dreams May Come" and "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," according to the company's website.

Digital Domain CEO Cliff Plumer previously worked at George Lucas' Industrial Light & Magic and Lucasfilm Ltd.

Textor, whose company purchased Digital Domain in May 2006, grew up in West Palm Beach, attended Twin Lakes High School and "has always had a desire to come back and do something in his old hometown," G-Star founder Greg Hauptner said.

Textor said during the press conference that his mother still lives in West Palm Beach.

Textor's biography indicates he once worked with Shearson Lehman Hutton, and was subsequently responsible for strategic planning and corporate finance for the Michael Swerdlow Cos., a major South Florida developer. Shearson was among the partners that helped developer Michael Swerdlow purchase Hollywood Inc. in a $400 million deal, according to the Swerdlow Group's corporate history.

Among Wyncrest's holdings is Baby Universe, a NASDAQ-listed company in Jupiter that was acquired and taken private.

Textor was also a founding director of Lydian Trust Co. in the town of Palm Beach, but is no longer listed as being on the board.

Digital Domain has received $51.8 million in government funds to build a 150,000-square-foot animation complex that is expected to employ 500 people at an average salary of $65,000, according to St. Lucie County and media reports.

The state granted $20 million from the quick closing fund.

Last year, state Rep. Carl Domino, R-Jupiter, filed a bill seeking an audit of the incentive package, saying Wyncrest didn't have enough experience in the video game industry or producing movies, according to an Aug. 28 article in The Palm Beach Post. The bill did not progress.

Domino could not immediately be reached for comment Tuesday. An aide said he was traveling. Digital Domain officials could not be immediately reached for comment, either.

Textor said Domino lost a $50,000 investment with him, but Domino said that wasn't his motive, according to the Post. Textor also said Digital Domain's track record contradicts his assertion about a lack of experience.

Hauptner said he thinks Digital Domain is already up to about 46 employees in St. Lucie County.

Digital Domain is helping put together a curriculum at G-Star, Hauptner said. Middle school students will be able come to G-Star, which is a charter school with open enrollment, and then transition to the FSU Film School.

"Then, once you graduate from Florida State, you will be hired into Digital Domain in a high-paying, smokeless industry," he said.

The FSU Film School was honored recently by the Directors Guild of America for distinguished contributions to American culture, according to its website.

The film school is the only one in the U.S. that pays for production of graduate and undergraduate films, according to the website.

Confirmed: Two Sequels To Blockbuster Avatar

(voxy.co.nz)                 Canadian film director James Cameron has confirmed he is planning not one but two sequels to his 3D sci-fi epic, Avatar, which earned a special effects Oscar for the Wellington-based Weta Workshop.

Following the announcement that the blockbuster will return to cinemas with an extra nine minutes of footage to the original 161 minute running time, Cameron told wired.com that he wants to film two sequels.

A DVD set comprising three cuts of the movie - the original, one with nine more minutes and a third with 16 more minutes - is scheduled for release in the US in November.

After that, Cameron will concentrate on sequels to Avatar and producing a new horror film of the HP Lovecraft novel At The Mountains Of Madness, directed by Guillermo del Toro, now at a loose end after leaving the Hobbit. Naturally, the film will also be in 3D.

“Before I go to make another Avatar movie, I don’t want to have to go back. When we close this box, it stays closed, which is why the one in November is the definitive version,” Cameron said.

The additional footage will give some background to the story, he said.

“You’ll see a little bit of background, a little bit of stuff that happened off camera in the movie that you saw,” Cameron told Wired.

“You’ll see new creatures, new set pieces, new emotional scenes. It’s anecdotes, but it’s not going to be perplexing or change the story.”

The additional scenes were edited before Weta went to work on them, according to Wired. However, there was no word as yet on whether Weta would work on the Avatar sequels.

Beijing Visual Effects Team Acclaimed

(globaltimes.cn)                      Beijing studio Base FX received a Best Visual Effects Emmy award Sunday for their outstanding work on part five of the HBO miniseries The Pacific.

The producers' high standards and the team's exceptional attention to detail was the key, said the company's chief operating officer.

Base FX is a visual effects and animation production studio with its headquarters in Los Angeles and a production team, of which over 90 percent is Chinese, in Beijing. A team of 20 people, led by visual effects director Christopher Bremble, worked for more than three months on "Peleliu Landing," part five of the 10-part World War II television miniseries produced by Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks. During that time, the team delivered over 70 modified versions of the landing scene, 30 of which were corrections of subtle details, such as the brightness of the light.

"The producers set very high standards for the visual effects for this miniseries and we delivered every bit of it," Xie Ning, chief operating officer of Base FX told the Global Times. Although it was a miniseries for TV, the producers' demands for the quality of the visual effects were no less than those for film, he said.

The most challenging part, according to Xie, was to recreate an authentic look for a scene that occurred in the mid-20th century.

Furthermore, because the series had a strong documentary feel to it, the visual effects needed to transport the audience back to that era without being over the top. The landing scene was the last to be completed, but it won the team its hard-earned Emmy.

"We have our production team here to take advantage of the human resources," said Xie. "People who are on our team really believe in this art."

Their production cost for a less-demanding project is one-sixth that of the equivalent done by a US studio, or one-third of that for a high-quality project, according to Xie.

"When it comes to competition, we still won with the quality of our work," said Xie. "I think we're the best visual effects studio in China. Our goal is to become the best in Asia."

Base FX now has a 150-strong team, and has worked on many state-of-the-art productions both domestic and international. In 2008 and 2009, it worked on Recount and Grey Gardens, two Emmy-winning HBO productions.

The studio has just finished its fourth HBO project, Boardwalk Empire.

VFX Fall Preview 2010: 10 Movies to Watch

(vfxworld.com)                 Aliens, zombies, vampires, another Hanna-Barbera cartoon icon goes CG, back to Narnia, a bigger Jack Black, a tormented ballet star, Eastwood tackles the supernatural, Harry's final journey and the return of Flynn. And, of course, lots of 3-D.

10) Skyline (Universal, Nov. 12)

9) Resident Evil: Afterlife (Sony Pictures, Sept. 10)

8) Let Me In (Overture Films, Oct. 1)

7) Yogi Bear (Warner Bros., Dec. 17)

6) Black Swan (Fox Searchlight, Dec. 1)

5) Gulliver's Travels (Fox, Dec. 22)

4) Hereafter (Warner Bros., Oct. 22)

3) The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (Fox, Dec. 10)

2) Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1 (Warner Bros., Nov. 19)

1) Tron Legacy (Disney, Dec. 17)

Full Press:    http://www.vfxworld.com/articles/article/vfx-fall-preview-2010-10-movies-watch/page/1%2C1

Big Budget “Battleship” Movie Set to Film In Hawaii

(alohaupdate.com)                   Battleship Hawaii MovieWith Pirates of the Caribbean now gone, Hawaii has already locked in its next big budget Hollywood movie. The new film “Battleship” will begin filming on Oahu August 31st.

The movie is an adaptation of the classic Hasbro board game and is being helmed by Peter Berg. Don’t know that name off the top of your head? You will very soon. Peter Berg directed the movie “Hancock” starring Will Smith. While Berg does not have much more experience in the action adventure genre, Universal apparently trusts him enough to allow him to film this big budget adventure. Starting numbers put the production cost of the movie at $200 million, but insiders say the number is closer to $250 million and counting.

"Shark Night 3D" Production Greenlights

(Heat Vision)                  Sinqua Walls, Chris Carmack, Alyssa Diaz and Joel David Moore will star in David R. Ellis' horror film Shark Night 3D, produced by Mike Fleiss and written by Jesse Studenberg and Will Hayes.

Heat Vision says "the story revolves around seven men and women who spend a weekend at a lake house in Louisiana's Gulf area. Their vacation quickly becomes a nightmare of hellish shark attacks."

Walls is playing a Tulane University linebacker with plans on marrying his college sweetheart (Diaz).

Carmack is the ex-boyfriend of the female lead, still uncast, who was scarred in a boating accident.

Moore is providing the comic relief as a socially awkward guy who fancies himself a young Brad Pitt.

Filming is scheduled to start in early September in Louisiana.

U.K. Games Studio Collapse Costs 185 Jobs

(forums.cgsociety.org)                 A total of 185 people have been laid off after the collapse of video games firm Realtime Worlds, administrators have confirmed.

It comes as a Dundee MP called on the UK government to "look again" at tax breaks for the computer games industry.

The company, founded by the creator of Lemmings and Grand Theft Auto, went into administration on Monday.

In Dundee, 157 of the company's 210 staff have lost their jobs, along with 28 of the firm's US staff in Colorado.

The SNP MP for Dundee East, Stewart Hosie, said he was saddened by the news of Realtime's demise.

A tax break for the industry was cancelled by the UK government in June. The Scotland Office said the measure had only ever been a proposal by the previous Labour government.

The Kerner Group Focuses on 3D Production

(cgw.com)               Kerner, the 30-year Marin County-based visual effects company that was once home to Industrial Light & Magic (ILM), has refocused its efforts on stereoscopic 3D production. The move comes as the company finds itself under new ownership, and has honed its already-formidable skills in 3D technology and production.

First, some history: Kerner—formerly Kerner Optical—has long been the center of compelling new technologies, with significant achievements in motion control and other specialized camera systems. When George Lucas founded ILM in 1971, he assembled a cast of the most talented and innovative visual effects artists, who created not just digital, but also practical, effects with miniatures and models. When ILM moved its CG artists to the San Francisco Presidio, it was determined that the practical visual effects division would stay put at the historic facility on Kerner Boulevard. And Kerner Optical was born.

Since then, Kerner Studios has continued to serve ILM projects as well as offer its services to producers of television, film, commercial, music video, and corporate productions. Among its many offerings, Kerner houses a state-of-the-art production space with several fully equipped indoor and outdoor stages, camera (2D and 3D) equipment, and experienced talent.

As it evolved, the Kerner Group has also launched other new service divisions, including those involved with commercial production, model and miniature design for non-entertainment clients, corporate/government research, and the production of original 3D film and television projects.

Full Press:     http://www.cgw.com/Press-Center/Online-Exclusives/2010/The-Kerner-Group-Focuses-on-3D-Production.aspx

New 'Star Tours II' Trailer

(latinoreview.com)              New Star Tours II Trailer For You Disneyland/Star Wars Nuts Our own Edgar 'El Toro' Arce tweeted this promotional video to me that is the new promo for the Star Tours II attraction opening next year at Disneyland and Disney's Hollywood Studios in Florida.

The video shows off three different vacation packages which leads me to believe there are going to be three different tours available, which really helps with wanting to go on the ride more than once.

Take a look:    http://www.latinoreview.com/news/new-star-tours-ii-trailer-for-you-disneyland-star-wars-nuts-10989

Master of All Areas of Visual Effects For $549

(forums.cgsociety.org)                In this workshop, Hollywood Technical Director & Visual Effects Specialist Allan McKay will take you through VFX from a production standpoint and then follow the process from the initial pre-production stages through to the integration of your special effect into a scene. You will be mastering all areas of FX and putting them to practice and applying it to a simulated production pipeline.

Student numbers will be strictly limited to 35 places only. For more details and enrolment information go to Hollywood VFX for Live Action Integration

Course Begins: 6th September 2010
Course Ends: 31 October 2010
Weeks: 8
Fee: USD $549.00

Katzenberg Announces 'How to Train Your Dragon' Sequel

(suite101.com)                    Yes Virginia, there is a How to Train Your Dragon sequel.

Now that How to Train Your Dragon has made $180 million at the box office, DreamWorks Animation has green-lit a sequel, scheduled for 2013.

In a move that surprised absolutely no one, DreamWorks Animation has green-lit a sequel to the Chris Sanders/Dean DeBlois flick, which has pulled down $180 million after 4 weeks in domestic theatres.

According to Coming Soon, DWA CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg made the announcement when revealing the Glendale studio's first quarter profit statement.

2010's Best CGI Animated Film You’ve Never Heard Of - Metropia

(hollywood.com)                 There’s a reason most people likely haven’t heard of Metropia: It’s a Swedish-made animated film about a dystopic future with questionable methods of mind control that only opened in NY and LA. The story gets a little strange, but the animation is unique and it's got a pretty cool roster of voice actors (Juliette Lewis, Alexander and Stellan Skarsgard, Udo Kier, Vincent Gallo) to help bring it to life. It’s not for everyone, but if that cast piqued your interest any, it’s certainly worth checking out.

Full Press:    http://www.hollywood.com/news/The_Summer_Sci_Fi_Movie_Awards/7162312

ILM Alum John Eblan Heads FX Model Co.

JOHN EBLAN, PRESIDENT: The FX Model Co. is headquartered in a two-story red barn off of Maricamp Road. We currently provide screen accurate replicas of several licensed properties for a web-based seller. Those licensees for us include "Star Trek," "Battlestar Galactica," and "Serenity." We also provide models and replicas for private collectors. Occasionally we provide a set or prop for a studio or other entertainment entity. We currently have a total of six crew members and two freelance artists that we employ.

After college, when I was interested in working in film, I simply applied at Industrial Light & Magic the leading visual effects company in the film industry. The day that I applied was the right day and the right moment. My family and I moved to northern California after I was hired; it was a great to place to live and work. However, after 9/11, the film industry slowed down, especially the types of films that had large explosions and scenes of destruction. That put a lot of visual effects people out of work.

Before being hired at ILM, I was self-employed with then what was called the FX Co.; after ILM we came back to Florida and started up the FX Co. again. Later we incorporated into the FX Model Co., LLC. I would still be called back to northern California from time time to work on films; the last one was "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull."

Is Darren Aronofsky set to direct Wolverine 2?

from Movies - Den of Geek

With weird drama/thriller Black Swan on the way, is it possible that director Darren Aronofsky’s next movie will be a sequel to X-Men Origins: Wolverine?
As we may have already said more than once here on Den Of Geek, Darren Aronofsky's films, regardless of subject matter or genre, are seldom less than fascinating.
From his stunning debut feature, Pi, to the forthcoming, creepy looking Black Swan starring Natalie Portman, every project he's involved with is individual and excellently crafted. Even his sprawling, genuinely odd misfire, The Fountain, had its moments of visual brilliance.
The action genre is one that Aronofsky has yet to tackle but, if the rumours heading in from the US have any basis in reality, that may soon change. According to First Showing and Deadline, Aranofsky is, along with David Slade, one of the names in the running to direct the follow-up to X-Men Origins: Wolverine.
Wolverine himself (Hugh Jackman, to you and me) has been in talks with both directors, though at this point it looks more likely that Slade, with his recent hit Twilight: Eclipse, will get the directorial gig.
The notion of Aronofsky directing an effects action movie like Wolverine 2 is an exciting one, though, and we'd be fascinated to see what he would do with one of X-Men's most recognisable characters. More on this as it comes in.

Warner Bros. Planning 3D Battle of Midway Film

(Deadline)                   Warner Bros. has bought Bruce C. McKenna ("The Pacific," "Band of Brothers") World War II pitch The Battle of Midway, reports Deadline.
The 3D film would be about the June 4-6, 1942, turning point of the war. The site adds that McKenna is expected to turn in a script in eight weeks for the film, which may carry a price tag of around $200 million.
Akiva Goldsman's Weed Road will produce the film.
The Battle of Midway was previously turned into a 1942 film, directed by John Ford, and a 1976 version that starred Charlton Heston, Henry Fonda, James Coburn and Hal Holbrook.

'Avatar' Re-release Fails at US Box Office
(timesofindia.indiatimes.com)
                  Acclaimed Hollywood filmmaker James Cameron's re-release of sci-fi epic movie " Avatar" has been reported a flop at the US box office at the weekend.

The horror film " The Last Exorcism" topped the box office chart, debuting with $21.3 million in earnings, followed closely by " Takers", the crime drama starring Chris Brown, Hayden Christensen and Matt Dillon opening with $21 million, reports contactmusic.

Meanwhile, Cameron's 3-D special edition of "Avatar", which included an extra nine minutes of footage, failed to draw cinemagoers in droves as it did last year. The film pulled up merely $4 million.

'Airbender' Fights For #1 Spot O'sese

(hollywoodreporter.com)                It's another too-close-to-call weekend on the foreign theatrical circuit as "The Expendables" and "The Last Airbender" appear neck and neck as of Sunday in the race to box office No. 1.

Weekend take for director M. Night Shyamalan's 3D adaptation of the Nickelodeon TV series comes to an estimated $18 million from a total of 5,843 venues in 51 markets for an overseas total of $120 million. Paramount's "Airbender" opened No. 1 in Mexico ($4 million from 812 spots) while its first China round points to $2.6 million from 1,500 locations.

All CGI "The Thing" May Be 'Die Hard' Fan

(darkhorizons.com)              20th Century Fox's plan to reboot the "Fantastic Four" franchise continues to gain momentum ahead of its planned production sometime next year for release Summer 2012.

Rumours began last week that Adrien Brody and Amber Heard were being pursued to star as Mr. Fantastic and Sue Storm respectively.

Then on Satuday came online buzz (via Latino Review) that "True Blood" star Stephen Moyer is up for Doctor Doom who will be shown as the ruler of Latveria in the property.

The report also said Alice Eve is in contention for Sue Storm, while "90210" star Kevin Pennington would be up for playing Johnny Storm.

Then today Comic Book Movie reported that Fox is pursuing Joe Carnahan ("The A-Team," "Smokin’ Aces"), David Yates ("Harry Potter 5-7," "State of Play: The Mini-Series") and James McTeigue ("Ninja Assassin," "V for Vendetta") as potential directing candidates with one of the trio to get an offer soon.

The site also claims Fox is interested in having Bruce Willis voice The Thing which will be a CG animated character for much of the film.

So far though, all of this is mere speculation with nothing even close to being locked in as yet.

"Clash of the Titans II" Seeks "Battle: LA" Treatment

(latinoreview.com)               Warner Bros and Legendary Pictures continue trying to work out a deal for Battle: Los Angeles director Jonathan Liebesman to direct a sequel to Clash of the Titans. The studio has been working on a sequel since the original grossed more than $500 million worldwide. But it was clear since last April that the film's original director, Louis Leterrier, wasn't going to return for a reprise. I'm told they are far apart on money.

New ‘Mad Max’ Shuns CGI, Favors Trying to Kill Stunt Men

(filmschoolrejects.com)                I imagine the children of the next generation will be forced to slam together green blocks and head for a computer to add in the cars afterward. CGI has grown up considerably in the past decade, but it’s also become prevalent to the point of fault. It’s great to see advancements, but it’s not great to see technology used as a crutch when practical filmmaking is so much more exciting to watch.

Cars flying down the crackling asphalt of highway is one of those occasions.

Fortunately, and unsurprisingly, it’s an Ozploitation sequel avoiding the modern and heading straight for the grease-stained methods of the past. Mad Max: Fury Road is currently planning on using 138 real-life, metal, not-at-all-computer-rendered vehicles in order to perform nearly 300 stunts that have the gruesome potential to leave stuntmen down for the count. Down with safety, and down with wearing green spandex with tennis balls taped to it.

Yes. Hell Yes. There’s few things that cause eyes to roll more than CGI-ing the hell out of a car chase. It’s better for the environment, but I’d rather see a pod of whales swimming through an oil slick than endure more amateurish, cartoon-y shots of a fake background chasing someone who has clearly never stunt-driven before. This news adds to excitement about the film (which mostly comes from seeing Tom Hardy in the lead role), which is filming now. Thanks, Max, for caring enough to slam metal to metal. Buster Keaton would be proud.

Two Disney CGI Heavy Films Earn $1 Billion in One Year

(familyvideo.com)    It goes without saying that some production companies are struggling at the moment, but such is not the case for Walt Disney Studios. Two films released by the Mouse House have now earned $1 billion worldwide.

According to Entertainment Weekly, "Toy Story 3," the third installment in the popular Pixar franchise, has now grossed $404.9 million in the U.S. and $592.9 million internationally. The film joins "Alice in Wonderland" as the second billion-dollar grossing movie this year.

"These box office triumphs prove that creative storytelling brought to life by imaginative, inspired, and talented professionals is something audiences respond to the world over," said Rich Ross, chairman of Walt Disney Studios.

Walt Disney Studios has been in the movie business for more than seven decades. Their first full-length, full-color animated film was "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs," which hit theaters in 1937. It is recognized as one of the greatest movies of all time by the American Film Institute.

Disney's next widely-anticipated project is "Tron: Legacy," which will be in theaters later this year.

Effects Impresarios 'Spectral Motion' Handles 'Knights of Badassdom'

(fearnet.com)              That's a wrap on director Joe Lynch's (Wrong Turn 2) Knights of Badassdom one month and ten days after it all began in Spokane, Washington. Summer Glau, Peter Dinklage, Ryan Kwanten, Steve Zahn, Douglas Tait, and Danny Pudi star in the flick that follows the exploits of a group of LARPers (Live Action Role Players) who accidentally release a big badass demon. More below.

Spectral Motion, who created creatures and mutants for the Hellboy and X-Men franchises, are handling the special effects, those behind the scenes tell us to 'expect a lot from the plethora of demonic minions that are set to be unleashed'.

The official synopsis of Knights of Badassdom goes a little something like this:
After being dumped by his sexy girlfriend Beth, Joe (Kwanten) reluctantly decides to join Eric (Zahn) and his LARPing (Live Action Role Players) friends in the woods rather than stay behind and feel sorry for his newly single status. There he meets hot, ass-kicking, intimidating LARPer Gwen (Glau) and finds himself plunged into a surreal adventure wilder than he ever imagined when a make-believe wizard casts an all-too-real spell from an ancient book. That spell releases an actual demon Abominog (Tait) with a taste for human blood -- and souls -- that starts systematically decimating the players in this suddenly deadly "game." Will our guys become the heroes they have been pretending to be before time runs out?

Source:     http://www.fearnet.com/news/b19980_joe_lynchs_knights_of_badassdom_are.html

How Did Hollywood Ever Get by Before Computers?

(stkarnick.com)                  In an article on Pajamas Media, Ed Driscoll discusses special effects (FX) that really were special. A commonly employed camera trick he discusses is the “matte painting,” a small image superimposed over a background containing a set and the actors.

The undisputed master of the matte shot was Albert Whitlock. It was a money-saving device commonly used in Hollywood until the late 1970s, when George Lucas and his crew almost single-handedly reinvented movie FX by coupling the camera to a computer.

Unfortunately, an indefinable “something” was lost in the transition, Driscoll notes:

    . . . the aesthetics of old Hollywood also helped to sell matte paintings. From Gone with the Wind in 1939, to the great MGM musicals of the 1950s, films made during Hollywood’s golden era typically had a softer, more painterly look in general. Contrast this more aesthetically pleasing look to the harsh gritty films that became the vogue in the 1970s after Old Hollywood collapsed.

Full Press:    http://stkarnick.com/culture/2010/08/20/how-did-hollywood-ever-get-along-before-computers/

Disney Epic Mickey's Opening Cinematic is Probably Ever Your Head

(joystiq.com)                 Finally, with the release of the opening cinematic for Disney Epic Mickey, we're getting a bigger look at the story going on behind Warren Spector's ode to Disney animation. As expected, it involves some shenanigans with Mickey and a sorcerer (Yen Sid from Fantasia), a magic paintbrush, some paint and paint thinner. But even more intriguing are the many nods to old-school Disney cartoons, from all of the hats and objects placed on the walls to the dates and movie stills flying past in the quick montage near the end.

Of course, it would probably take a Disney aficionado like Spector to catch all of those references zipping by, but even if you don't get everything, you can at least see that Mickey has unintentionally created the Phantom Blot, and has caused a little bit of chaos in Yen Sid's alternate reality, turning it into the Wasteland that the big-eared hero gets tossed into. Hopefully the game will be just as fun without knowing why that calendar above says "March 25."

Take a look:      http://www.joystiq.com/2010/08/17/disney-epic-mickeys-opening-cinematic-is-probably-over-your-hea/

Resident Evil Afterlife Special Effects Featurette Packs a Punch

Sony Pictures released a brand new behind the scenes featurette from the film “Resident Evil: Afterlife” by director Paul W.S. Anderson (Castlevania, Death Race: Frankenstein Lives) and starring Milla Jovovich (The Fourth Kind), Wentworth Miller (Prison Break, BioShock), Ali Larter (Heroes), Shawn Roberts (Survival of the Dead) and Kim Coates (Sons of Anarchy).

Synopsis: Actress Milla Jovovich returns as the zombie-fighting heroine Alice. Ali Larter reprises her role as Claire Redfield from “Resident Evil: Extinction.” Spencer Locke, who played K-Mart in “Extinction,” is also set to return. New to the film franchise is leading man Wentworth Miller, who has signed on as Chris Redfield – Claire’s brother and a popular character from the game series. Shawn Roberts will take over the role of Alice’s nemesis Wesker. Boris Kodjoe and Kim Coates have also been cast.

Alice’s battle with The Umbrella Corporation isn’t finished. Last time we saw Alice, she let them know she was coming after them. It’s time to settle the score.

Take a look:    http://www.shockya.com/news/2010/08/30/resident-evil-afterlife-special-effects-featurette-packs-a-punch/

Grumman Studios making movie magic at Plant 5

(newsday.com)                 The big blue ball that has stood atop Plant 5 at what was Grumman for decades has a different look these days -- it is now red.

The change in color is not just cosmetic. The ball no longer says Grumman or Northrop Grumman, the name of the Bethpage-based aerospace company since 1994. It now says Grumman Studios.

What gives? Plant 5, where Grumman workers built the lunar landing module...

More:     http://www.newsday.com/columnists/james-bernstein/grumman-studios-making-movie-magic-at-plant-5-1.2227646

An Emmy for Rebuilding a Galaxy

(nytimes.com)                 The finished product, “Star Wars Uncut,” won an Emmy last week in a relatively new category, interactive media, heaping new attention onto a project that its producers call a “user-directed broadcast.”

The award is all the more remarkable because, in a world in which television heavyweights like HBO and NBC mount big-budget campaigns to win Emmys, “Star Wars Uncut” is just a hobby for its creator, Casey Pugh, a 26-year-old Web developer who lives in Brooklyn.

“I’m just so happy that the Internet is taking this step into the broadcast world,” he said in an interview, adding, “It’s partly because broadcast is letting it in.”

The makers of “Star Wars Uncut” were encouraged by a Television Academy member and past winner, Richard Cardran, to submit their project for an award. The annual awards recognize television production, but in the age of online video streaming they also acknowledge the ways that shows can connect with fans online.

“Fans want to be involved in shows,” said Geoff Katz, a co-governor of the Emmys’ Interactive Media Peer Group, which oversees the category, officially called “outstanding creative achievement in interactive media.”

In previous years winning Web sites have effectively been marketing vehicles for television shows like “Lost” and “Heroes.” But “Star Wars Uncut” is more — it is completely independent, a work of art by film aficionados around the world. Mr. Katz called it a “major milestone” for the Emmys.

That is something that Mr. Pugh and his fellow filmmakers also highlighted in a reel for the voters this summer. “At ‘Star Wars Uncut’ users aren’t just getting more information about their favorite characters, they are the characters,” the video’s narrator, Jamie Wilkinson, said.

The project was rooted in Mr. Pugh’s interest in crowd-sourcing, a term for divvying up tasks by way of the Web.

Last fall he sliced “A New Hope” into 15-second scenes — 473 in all — and concocted a Web site where fans could sign up to recreate each scene. All told, there were multiple submissions for each 15-second scene, a wild assortment of live-action, animation, Lego set-ups, stop-motion sequences and more.

“The reward for people is doing the work,” he said. “That’s their favorite part — actually re-enacting the scenes.”

That was one of Mr. Pugh’s motivations, too: wanting to create a scene of his own. He drew attention to the project by writing about it on his blog.

This month Mr. Pugh put online the “Uncut Movie,” which appears to be a fully finished fan version of “A New Hope” but is actually just a seamless playing of the 473 scenes in a row.

A computer program written by Mr. Pugh automatically plays the highest-rated rendition of each scene, and it compiles those scenes on the fly, so the movie can change in real time depending on the ratings of users.

“I think the reason we won the Emmy is because this is an entirely new type of broadcast,” said Annelise Pruitt, the designer of the “Uncut” Web site. She calls it “crowd-sourced and code-directed art.”

For Ms. Pruitt, too, it has been a hobby.

The producers’ final work is a fully edited fan film with the actual “Star Wars” soundtrack. They have told fans on their Web site that “we are working through the legal issues in order to bring that to everyone as soon as possible.”

Mr. Pugh said Lucasfilm, which is notoriously protective of the “Star Wars” brand, contacted him early in the creation of “Uncut” and told him that it wanted to support the project. Because Mr. Pugh has signed a nondisclosure agreement, there is little he can say about the discussions with the company, except that “Lucasfilm isn’t out to make money on this, and neither am I.”

Lucasfilm said in a statement Friday that “we are really pleased that they won an Emmy for their efforts” and that its long-time partner for fan productions, Atom Films, is in talks with the producers. Atom holds an annual Star Wars Fan Movie Challenge, which culminates in screenings of winning films on the Spike channel, and “we hope that some day ‘Star Wars Uncut’ can air on Spike,” Lucasfilm said.

Already, the fully edited film has been screened once, at a festival in Copenhagen in April, but Lucasfilm put off planned screenings in New York, Mr. Pugh said. He said he had hoped to start recutting “The Empire Strikes Back” this summer, but that too has been delayed.

Film Industry News

2010-08-27T03:59:00.001-07:00

Is the Japanese anime industry in trouble?

from Movies - Den of Geek

As the sad passing of Perfect Blue director Satoshi Kon is announced and the LA Times reports on the decline of anime, Ryan asks, what next for the Japanese animation industry?
There was a time when Japan's remarkable animation industry was almost unknown in the west. In the 70s and early 80s, quirky shows such as Marine Boy and Battle Of The Planets (a sanitised, heavily edited localisation of the considerably more violent Space Science Team Gatchaman) were the only morsels of the country's vibrant and imaginative anime scene.
As the 1980s drew to a close, however, awareness of Japanese animation steadily grew in western consciousness. As a UK resident, my fascination with anime began with the BBC's airing of The Mysterious Cities Of Gold and Ulysses 31, whose distinctive character designs were immediately distinguishable from the other children's fodder clogging up late-80s television schedules.
Then came Streamline Pictures' video release of Akira, Katsuhiro Otomo's extraordinarily detailed adaptation of his own manga. This single film did more to sell anime to western audiences than any other series or feature before or since.
In the wave of interest that followed, Manga Entertainment was formed, releasing dubbed OVAs and theatrical features on VHS, starting with the extraordinarily brutal Fist Of The Northstar in the early 90s.
The distinctive visual language and conventions of anime have now become so fully assimilated into western culture that it's almost taken for granted. Its style has informed the look of the western animated series Avatar: The Last Airbender, and its colour and energy is all over Edgar Wright's Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World.
But as anime has worked its way into our consciousness, there are worrying signs that the artform may be beginning to falter in its native Japan. According to an article in the LA Times, the number of anime series being produced in the country has halved since 2007, and the number of artists working within the industry is beginning to shrink.

The reasons for the decline are manifold. Time consuming and expensive, many animation studios are beginning to outsource the more repetitive elements of their jobs, such as the labour-intensive rendering of in-between frames, to other far eastern countries such as Vietnam and India.
At the time, Japanese anime has come under increasing competition from other forms of entertainment, including videogames and rival animated shows from China. Online piracy has also taken its toll, with studios losing revenue as their work is freely distributed on video sharing websites.
As I write this, the respected animator Satoshi Kon passed away at the tragically young age of just 46. One of the founder members of the animation studio Gainax, his output, including Paprika, Paranoia Agent and the brilliantly disturbing feature Perfect Blue, was innovative and intelligently written.

Kon's passing is a sad loss for an industry already battered by technological progress and financial uncertainty. Earlier this week, animation legend Hayao Miyazaki made the passing suggestion that Studio Ghibli may close its doors should its next two features fail to make enough money. A distant possibility rather than a certainty, perhaps, but a saddening prospect, nevertheless.
There are glimmers of hope among the gloom, however. The LA Times also reports that the Japanese government is looking to invest more capital to protect its troubled industry, with some $2.4 million being put into the creation of training programmes for the country's fledgling animators.
We can only hope that the Japanese anime industry can evolve and survive the problems it's currently facing, and that new, talented artists will arrive to fill the gap sadly left by Satoshi Kon.
Anime has done much to shape the cultural landscape in recent decades, and the world would be a poorer place without its distinctive, vital energy and colour.

Star Trek 2 Producers Compare Film To The Dark Knight

(411mania.com)
Producer Damon Lindelof and executive producer Bryan Burk (Lost) recently spoke about the Star Trek sequel, comparing it to The Dark Knight in how they are approaching it. Here are some of the highlights:

Lindelof on their approach for the sequel: "We're looking at a movie like The Dark Knight, which went one step beyond Batman Begins...We don't want to abandon all the things that made [2009's Star Trek] work and have it be fun and emotional, but we also really want the movie to thematically resonate."

Burk on the sequel: "Our aspirations are for [Star Trek 2] to be even bigger and better than the first one. I don't mean that just in scope, I mean content and characters and emotionally. We had a lot of conversations about Batman Begins and how that movie kind of re-invented that franchise, and we looked at what The Dark Knight did and how that really ramped it up...So we have strong ideas of what we want to do and we are hoping that this one is an even bigger film than the last one."

Weta Digital's New Avatar VFX - Millions Spent

(popularmechanics.com)          James Cameron will release Avatar in IMAX and digital 3D theaters with 9 minutes of additional footage. He spoke to PM about what fans will be seeing and what it took to bring that footage to the screen.

Q: How finished were those clips when you decided to take them out? So in other words, I guess, how much work did you have to do to get them ready?

James Camperon -A:   Millions of dollars. Which sounds like they weren't very finished, but we had a unique process we used on the film. We captured the performance and then we finished the scene internally, which meant that it was a frame accurate cut with finished virtual cameras that actually were the final camera moves, pixel accurate. But then we gave it to [New Zealand-based visual effects house] Weta Digital and they would replace every single asset with a high resolution asset and render it. And that could go from a 30th of a second to 30 hours per frame. That's where the photo-reality comes from. So we worked in a non-photo-real kind of video game proxy level, which we called the template. So the scenes were finished in template form‚ the final cut, right to the frame‚ and that's when they were taken out of the movie. Because if there was any doubt about a scene we tried to take it out before the scene went to Weta. So I had to go back to the studio and ask them for‚ I don't want to say specifically‚ X million dollars to finish these scenes, and then, of course, we had to work on them for several months. Normally in that process it would take Weta nine months from the time we shipped them a scene in template form to the time they delivered it back to us finished in photo-real form, but they had gotten so good at everything that we were able to collapse that down to about three and a half months.

Q:   That's still a long time.

A:    Well, long is relative. It took us years to figure out how to do this. It took us more than a year from the time they started work on the first scene to when they delivered it to us during the making of the film. Then this stuff they had gotten it down to three months, which felt like nothing to us, and the beauty of it was they were so good by that point that when they'd send us a close up of Ney'tiri or a close up of Jake, it would have all the emotion and they would be completely real-looking pretty much the first time I saw it and we'd just be talking about the lighting. You know, move the key light or something a little bit. Put a little more wind in the hair. You got down to small stuff. So that sort of accounts for the timing of the rerelease.

The Best VFX Of 2010, Thus Far

(filmmisery.com)                   Summer blockbusters get nominated for visual effects Oscars, so we can see some obvious front runners in that category.

The Visual effects category is a piece of cake with Inception, Iron Man 2, and the upcoming TRON: Legacy the seemingly obvious front runners. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part I and Alice in Wonderland should round out the top 5 now that the number of nominees has expanded.

Best Visual Effects:
Safe Bets: “Alice In Wonderland”; “Inception”
Reasonable Maybes: “Iron Man 2”
Dark Horses: “The Last Airbender”; “Prince of Persia: Sands of Time”; “Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World”

Best Animated Feature:
Safe Bets: “How To Train Your Dragon”; “Toy Story 3”
Reasonable Maybes: “Despicable Me”; “The Illusionist”
Dark Horses: “Shrek Forever After”

Best Makeup:
Safe Bets: “Alice In Wonderland”
Reasonable Maybes: “The Wolfman”
Dark Horses: “Splice”

Full Press:      http://www.indiewire.com/article/for_your_consideration_late_summer_oscar_predictions/#   &    http://www.filmmisery.com/?p=3890

Kerner Group CEO Eric Edmeades To Discuss 3D Production & Demo 3D Cameras

(shootonline.com)                 San Rafael, CA, August 26, 2010 | SHOOT Publicity Wire | --- Eric Edmeades, CEO of The Kerner Group, a Lucasfilm spin-off, and today a group of innovative companies and divisions that offer award-winning creative services to the major motion picture studios, independent filmmakers, television studios and production companies, will speak at the DICON 2010 Event and will also appear at the upcoming BCWW 2010 Event, both to be held in Seoul, Korea. He will also present to attendees the company's new Kernercam 3D Capture System during both of these events.

During DICON, Mr. Edmeades will discuss, on August 31st, 3D production and international co-production. This will include a keynote presentation, panel discussion, and one-to-one business mentoring sessions arranged by DICON.

In addition, Edmeades and Marty Brenneis, Kerner's System Engineer on the Kernercam System, and longtime employee of both The Kerner Group and its predecessor ILM, will be presenting the new Kernercam 3D System to attendees during DICON 2010.

Organized by the Ministry of Culture and Content Agency of South Korea, "International Conference content DICON 2010" (DICON) is a conference designed to connect global businesses and expertise with local Korean companies. The conference includes seminars, workshops and one-to-one mentoring sessions with international guests.

Mr. Edmeades will then appear during the BCWW 2010 Event in Seoul, Korea, Sept. 1-3, following his appearance at DICON. Edmeades and Mr. Brenneis will again be presenting the new Kernercam 3D Capture System to attendees during BCWW.

ITSCON BCWW is an convergence-themed forum that for the Korean broadcasting and new media industries. The conference attracts leading members of the Korean broadcasting and new media sectors as well as a variety of international delegates. For more info, please see: http://www.bcww.net/main_en/main.asp

"BCWW is referred to as the 'NAB of Korea,'" Edmeades said, "We have received a great deal of international interest in our Kernercam 3D Capture systems, as well as our 3D and VFX services, and we are really looking forward to this well attended Asian conference."

Source:             http://www.shootonline.com/go/index.php?name=Release&op=view&id=rs-web3-2154616-1282846594-2

Does DreamWorks Animation Play Fair?

(slashfilm.com)                      Walt Disney Pictures have announced that they are completely abandoning the Annie Awards, an yearly award show focusing on animation. The International Animated Film Association, ASIFA-Hollywood has held the ceremony since 1972, and Disney has sponsored the awards for every year since it’s creation. Why has the mouse house turned their back on the Annies?

Disney-Pixar president Ed Catmull told Variety:

    “After more than a year of discussions with the ASIFA board, we have regretfully decided to withdraw from the organization and no longer participate in the annual Annie Awards. We believe there is an issue with the way the Annies are judged, and have been seeking a mutually agreeable solution with the board. Although some initial steps have been taken, the board informed us that no further changes would be made to address our concerns.”

In other words, it is unfair. You might be wondering how that might be the case. In past years, any ASIFA member could vote on the awards. Not only that, but the rules permitting membership to the ASIFA were almost nonexistent. Disney was able to pressure the ASIFA into tightening its rules last year, limiting the voting on individual achievement categories to animation pros, but this meant that students and non-professionals were still permitted to vote in production categories, such as the coveted best animated feature film.

Add to the mix the fact that DreamWorks Animation requires every new employee become an ASIFA member upon joining the company. A couple years back, Kung Fu Panda surprised many by sweeping the awards, completely snubbing Pixar’s WALL-E. DreamWorks Animation’s Kung Fu Panda beat WALL-E in every single category, including Best Animated Feature, Animated Effects, Character Animation, Directing in an Animated Feature, Production Design, Storyboarding, and Voice Acting categories. WALL-E didn’t even receive nominations in the Writing, Music, and Character Design categories. In Fact, Kung Fu Panda ended up taking home 15 statues in all (including the short film spin-off). Many people, including Disney, called foul.

No 3D for 'Sucker Punch': Animal Logic Heads Up VFX

(encoremagazine.com.au)                 Sucker Puch 150x150 EXCLUSIVE No 3D for Sucker Punch: Zack SnyderDirector Zack Snyder has confirmed that his next project Sucker Punch will not be released in 3D, unlike his first animated film Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole.

“It’s a definitive no. Maybe it’s Guardians‘ fault a little bit, because I’ve seen what really awesome 3D looks like. We talked about it at first, but I’ve been kind of broken by Guardians to the point that i said ‘Guys, there’s no way that we can do something that’s remotely close to Guardians, let’s not every try’,” Snyder told Encore.

According to Snyder, Guardians allowed him to learn not only about shot development and action sequences, but also about 3D.

“It was something that the production wanted, and I thought ‘Awesome’. The 3D landscape has evolved interestingly around us as we were working on this film. There’a gap in the marketplace for high-end, perfectly done 3D. That’s not to say that other peoplearen’t’ amazing at doing 3D, but it’s a difficult process. You have Avatar, and then it’s hard to come with another awesome 3D movie.

“Not to compare myself to anything else, but I feel like we’ve created a really amazing 3D experience. Everyone has kind of said that 3D is the next thing, but no one has delivered that experience except for Avatar. This might be a breath of fresh air,” he said.

Both Guardians and Sucker Punch have seen Snyder collaborating with Australian design, animation and VFX company Animal Logic – a working relationship that began with 2007′s 300. Guardians was created 100 percent within Animal Logic, and the company is also working on VFX for Sucker Punch.

“With Sucker Punch, I just said ‘Animal Logic has to do a sequence, there’s no two ways about it’. That was one of the things that were not up for discussion.

“The movie is about a girl who goes on these fantastic adventures in her mind, and one of them is set in a a world of orcs and dragons and they get to fight those creatures with machine guns and fighter planes. Animal Logic did the sequence where she has to fight a dragon and steal its fire. It’s pretty huge; there’a a giant castle and they fight all these orcs,” explained Snyder.

The filmmaker also said he is familiar with the difficulties Australia faces in attracting international productions, and that because of the positive experiences he’s had working in this country, he will try to bring work to Australia whenever he can.

“I know the dollar is strong at the moment, but again, i’m a big advocate of Australia and I’ve had an amazing experience with Guardians, so whenever I can I’ll say ‘Let’s go to Australia’,” he said.

The Price Of Prestige In The VFX Industry

(vfxsoldier.wordpress.com)                  The visual effects business is one of the most bizarre professional industries to work in because some of the most prestigious and successful companies in our industry are the ones that pay the lowest.

In my last article I wrote about vfx salaries at many facilities and how I found it a bit odd that companies like Pixar Animation paid salaries sometimes 20-30% lower than other facilities.

I also wrote about how many new artists in the industry work unpaid internships and some are even willing to pay to work and get some experience. Some vfx facilities prey on that notion while others prey on the notion that they are the most prestigious place to work and therefore you should take a pay cut for the honor.

I call this the price of prestige.

Everyone Pays The Price, Even Senior Artists

This phenomenon does not apply just to new artists, it applies to many senior artists as well. One very talented senior artist I knew had three offers for his services. Two of them paid very well while the third from Pixar offered 30% less than the other two. Pixar management also mentioned that it was their final offer.

To my surprise he took the Pixar offer. It was a pay cut from his current job which he was voluntarily leaving. He said the reason why was because it was a prestigious place to work. When I mentioned this to a junior artist who was already being underpaid, he gave me a confused look and said:

    I would gladly take a 30% pay cut to work for Pixar.

This notion of taking a pay cut to work for prestige doesn’t apply upstream at Disney where CEO Robert Iger routinely makes the list of highest paid CEOs. Instead you hear quotes like these from Pixar employees:

    If Pixar let me get coffee for them, I’d be happy,

The Millennial Problem: How Taking Lower Pay Early In Your Career Hurts You In The Long Run

I was perplexed at this new generation of workers coming into the market. They are willing to essentially pay to work for companies without correctly assessing that earnings today could be used as a down payment for a future home, retirement, or college tuition for future children.

I read an article that mentioned some studies about our new workers:

    Using national survey data, she’s found that to an unprecedented degree, people who graduated from high school in the 2000s dislike the idea of work for work’s sake, and expect jobs and career to be tailored to their interests and lifestyle. Yet they also have much higher material expectations than previous generations, and believe financial success is extremely important. “There’s this idea that, ‘Yeah, I don’t want to work, but I’m still going to get all the stuff I want,’” Twenge told me. “It’s a generation in which every kid has been told, ‘You can be anything you want. You’re special.’”

I can understand the idea behind this: Young artists eager to get their big break undercut other artists to get into the industry in the hopes the will make it big. However, they are just paying for the illusion of prestige. The terrible truth is how studies show that this hurts their careers in the long run:

    what’s truly remarkable is the persistence of the earnings gap. Five, 10, 15 years after graduation, after untold promotions and career changes spanning booms and busts, the unlucky graduates never closed the gap. Seventeen years after graduation, those who had entered the workforce during inhospitable times were still earning 10 percent less on average than those who had emerged into a more bountiful climate. When you add up all the earnings losses over the years, Kahn says, it’s as if the lucky graduates had been given a gift of about $100,000, adjusted for inflation, immediately upon graduation—or, alternatively, as if the unlucky ones had been saddled with a debt of the same size.

Fake Studios’ Fake Pay

These days the price of prestige doesn’t apply to just prestigious projects. It applies to dubious projects also. Last year there was an uproar over a Montreal studio that failed to pay artists towards the end of work on Journey to the Center of the Earth.

Now almost one year later Variety’s David Cohen reports that the same thing has occurred at another Montreal studio for the film Piranha 3D. These were senior artists who continued to work without pay:

    One of the unpaid artists, Manny Wong, told Variety that with the Meteor incident in mind, he negotiated a payment-in-advance deal, but upon arrival in Montreal, he liked the atmosphere at Fake enough to forego advance payment. He says the producer was “very upfront” with him about the pic’s financial difficulties through two crises that threatened to shut down the picture.

Now the facility owner is playing hardball according to David Cohen’s twitter page:

    Marc Cote of Fake Studio is trying to intimidate his unpaid #vfx artists into silence. Artists & others: We can only help if you speak up.

Upham’s Conflict

It’s moments like these that remind me of Corporal Upham in Saving Private Ryan. Please watch the clip of the famous scene above at the 6:40 mark.

I’m not comparing our plight to WWII nor am I comparing shady vfx facility owners to Nazis. However, every generation has a moment to take a stand no matter how uncomfortable the situation is. For many, the price of prestige can be a price that you pay for the rest of your life.

Will you look back and find yourself being compared to Corporal Upham? Or will you be a VFX Soldier?

Soldier On.

Tippett Studios Uses Its Animal Magnetism

(digitalcontentproducer.com)               You can see it in the jiggling skin on a hairless cat, or the bristling fur of a menacing wolf. It's state-of-the-art animal animation, as practiced by Tippett Studio in Berkeley, Calif. Founded 25 years ago by two-time Oscar winner Phil Tippett, the studio has become a go-to place for moviemakers needing realistic digital animals, and its credits include Charlotte's Web, Enchanted, The Shaggy Dog, The Golden Compass, the Twilight films New Moon and Eclipse, and Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore. "It is a zoo," laughs Tippett, who was the senior VFX supervisor on the Twilight films. "We're in the furry animal gulag."

His studio's expertise actually became widely noticed as a result of the 2002 Clio Award-winning Blockbuster commercials starring talking guinea pigs and rabbits. "That's when we finally got the look of fur to a place where it worked," Tippett recalls. But it's movie clients that keep upping the ante. "In New Moon, there were six wolves, and Eclipse had eight. The next movie has more." (Tippett Studio is already working on the next Twilight film, Breaking Dawn.)

Since fur sucks light like a black hole, the studio has developed proprietary tools for handling millions of hairs on each animal. Tippett's fur tool Furrocious has evolved into Furator, which enabled the studio to keep up with new challenges. Tom Gibbons, the animation supervisor on both Twilight films, says, "Each wolf in the first movie had 3 million hairs on it, and in the second movie it had 18 million. We built technology to support that much hair growth per frame, per wolf, and not slow things down."

One secret to Tippett's success in the animal kingdom is the care taken while shooting the plate photography into which the animals are placed. The on-set visual effects team on the Twilight movies gathered high-dynamic-range images (HDRIs) that later enabled the studio to render wolf scenes using gobal illumination. As Gibbons reports, "With HDRI information, we could drop a wolf into a scene and it would look 70 percent there."

That's when the tweaking begins, Gibbons adds. "Actors get little bounce lights and kicks in order to make them look dramatic," he says. "We have to do the same thing for the wolves or they won't fit with the actors. We have to hand-place those things artistically."

An essential step in creating believable digital animals is making sure that eyeline information is gathered during shooting so that interaction between actors and animals appears plausible. As Tippett remarks, "You have to bust the eyeline issue immediately. We use every trick in the book. Sometimes it's just a marker on a C-stand." Tippett's matchmove team is also scrupulous about gathering camera information and laser scanning film sets, and the point cloud data they capture is crucial for reconstructing scenes efficiently in post.

A key production technique Tippett touts is previz, which his team creates using Autodesk Maya. "We use previz to speed things along. If a camera was 18in. off the ground with a 35mm lens and an 18-degree tilt, we'd work out our choreography to match. So when we'd get the plates, we'd just pop in our previz and have something the editor could use immediately."

Previz has helped avoid problems, too. When Tippett was shooting the Twilight saga on location, Gibbons' team back at the studio used Google satellite imagery to recreate camera setups. This approach would alert them if an impossible shot was being contemplated. "We proved that they couldn't do a shot where the camera had to move from 14mph to 22mph," Gibbons says. "I started testing [virtual] 8mph moves and trying a zoom out at a certain speed and seeing if that approximated the shot they wanted. I was able to give Phil camera information so we could propose an alternative."

VFX Subsidy War Grows Into Global Trade War

(vfxsoldier.wordpress.com)                    There has been some news in the VFX and game industry concerning subsidies that I would like to comment on. Basically the subsidy war is slowly transforming into an all out trade war.
So after VFX companies like Digital Domain and Imageworks went through all the work to open facilities in Vancouver, they are now upset that the Canadian government is going to take it’s time to thoroughly review foreign visa applications for VFX/Game jobs.

The real reason they should be crying is how badly studios like Disney twisted the arms of VFX facilities to open up shop in Vancouver. Studios were hungry for free government money and wanted to take advantage of the Canadian film subsidies which are arguably the most generous. However, in order for this scheme to work, they need the talent. Fellow Canadian VFX artists may not like to hear this but most of the jobs for Vancouver are posted in California. They need us up there to make it work, but once the project is over, many of us come back home to spend that money in California which is probably why the state is so hesitant to get involved in the subsidy war.

Unlike the feeble VFX facilities, the Canadian government wants to assure that the money they spend to lure that work to Canada results in some return for them. That means taking the time to make the companies check that any open positions can be filled by Canadians. After all, they have offered these subsidies for a long time and yet the big studios threaten to leave every time a better subsidy is offered elsewhere.

Puppet Animation Producer Kawamoto Dies of Pneumonia at 85

TOKYO (Kyodo) -- Japan's leading puppet animation producer Kihachiro Kawamoto, best known for the NHK series "Sangokushi" (The Romance of the Three Kingdoms), died on Monday of pneumonia, his family said Friday. He was 85.

Kawamoto released numerous stop-motion puppet animation films, including "Oni" (The Demon), "Dojoji" (Dojoji Temple), and the series "Heikemonogatari" (The Tale of Heike), which was also aired on NHK, Japan's public broadcaster.

In 1963, he traveled to Czechoslovakia to study under acclaimed puppet motion picture animator and film director Jiri Trnka.

His last film "Shishanosho" (The Book of the Dead), based on a book by Japanese folklorist Nobuo Origuchi, was premiered in 2005.

The recipient of many film awards at home and abroad, he was awarded the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Rosette in 1995. In 2007, a museum displaying his major productions was opened in Iida, Nagano Prefecture.

'The Death of Earth' In 4.5 Minutes

(mnn.com)                 If you've seen "Avatar", you might remember that the movie begins with a close-up of the main character Jake Sully opening his eyes. For the longest time, however, the film had a much different beginning.

In a new interview with Oregon Live, Director James Cameron says there were originally 4 1/2 minutes of footage showing a polluted, dystopian Earth. But even though he liked it, the movie was just taking too long to get rolling.

Says Cameron, "I walked in one day and said to my two editors, 'Guys, I want each of you to cut a new version of the start of the film, Reel 1, that doesn't have any Earth in it at all.' And they looked at me like I was out of my mind. And I said, 'No — it's gonna work.' They had to figure out the details. I said, 'Just grab a couple of things to use as flashbacks, and start it in space when Jake opens his eyes.' "

For the release of the "Avatar" box set in November, Cameron went back and added in "the Earth opening" — but for a heavy price.

"It's all a big negotiation with the studios," he says. "How much money do they want to spend on these sort of revisionist versions of the movie? Because on the whole Earth opening, the visual effects weren't done, and we had to go back and spend a million bucks or whatever to get those shots done. So there's a price tag dangling from anything that gets re-inserted."

Overall, there are 16 minutes of polished, new footage added (including the new eight minutes you can see in theaters this weekend) and an additional 45 minutes of unfinished, deleted scenes.

Cameron added, "If you just want to wallow in "Avatar" for three hours, I can get that for you."

Disney Studios Withdraws From Animation Awards

(nytimes.com)               Walt Disney Studios has withdrawn from a group that hands out trophies for animation achievement.
For years Disney has privately groused about the Annie Awards, presented by the Hollywood chapter of the International Animated Film Society. Disney has complained that the guild allows anyone to buy a membership (in contrast to most awards-bestowing organizations) and that Disney’s rival DreamWorks Animation has too much power because it gives its employees free guild membership. Variety, which reported the split, noted that Disney’s Pixar entries had won 6 of the last 10 top Annie prizes. But Disney started to agitate more aggressively for changes in 2009 after DreamWorks Animation’s “Kung Fu Panda” won a raft of Annies, and Pixar’s “Wall-E” won nothing. “Wall-E” went on to win the Oscar for animation that year. “We believe there is an issue with the way the Annies are judged, and have been seeking a mutually agreeable solution with the board,” Ed Catmull, president of Disney Animation and Pixar Animation, said in a statement. “Although some initial steps have been taken, the board informed us that no further changes would be made to address our concerns.”
Antran Manoogian, the guild’s president, told Variety, “The Annies are about honoring the best in animation, and we will continue to do so.”

'Transformers 3' Pumps Millions Into Chicago Economy
(cbs2chicago.com)                   It looks like Hollywood will be "transforming" Chicago for a bit longer than expected. Production on Transformers 3, which should have ended by now, will be stretching to the end of the month. CBS 2's Vince Gerasole reports the city's not complaining at all.
Every day this production spends here is more money spent in Illinois. It was originally estimated Transformers 3 would pump some $20 million into our economy, but on Wednesday, the city is expected to announce the dollar amount is well beyond that.
The Transformers crew has been destroying Chicago for nearly two months. In a way, they owe it all to the grips at Bam Bam Productions.
"Pretty much any job that guys don't want, we gladly take on," said Rick Harris of Bam Bam Productions.
The L.A. firm helps construct the film's sets and lighting grids. To do so, they brought out seven workers from Hollywood and hired another 22 locally.
Harris says they ended up spending more money than they thought they would. When not obliterating the city, they were pumping up the economy.
"I bought two iPhone 4's since I've been here," said Ron Miller of Bam Bam Productions.
They paid for daily expenses with a weekly company allowance and then some.
"We get about $400 a week," said Miller.
"We burn through more than that, but it's worth it," said Harris. "I brought my family out. I flew them out and we went to a lot of plays, and Navy Pier and all around. We spent a lot of money here."
Multiply that by the hundreds working on the film, the thousands paid for things like permits and police overtime, and it's estimated Transformers 3 spent at least $20 million in Illinois.
State incentives allow producers to apply 30 percent of their Illinois expenses against the state's corporate income tax.
Over the past three years, Illinois gave out $39 million in these credits, but estimates that it generated $470 million in spending.
That includes direct spending on a film that's leveling our fair city or incidental purchases wiping out the crews' wallets.
"My wife came out. We went out shopping. Of course, she had to buy some expensive purses," said Miller.
Some have complained that the tax incentives are not worth it because these productions are just passing through town. But both the state and the city simply points to the hundreds of millions these productions spend here to refute that.

Peter Jackson to Announce Hobbit Plans "Sometime Soon"
(The Dominon Post)                    Peter Jackson was quoted today as saying he'll know whether or not he'll be directing The Hobbit "sometime soon" by The Dominion Post.
Jackson reiterated that legal negotiations are still plaguing the film's impending production, but offered some assurance with his statement that Warner Bros. (who control half the rights) is, "making progress untangling the MGM situation...". MGM is currently having financial difficulties and it is undecided what course the studio will be taking with its holdings.
Jackson went on to say that, after the decision is reached, he will be able to make a five-year plan "that will keep many people very busy". Among the potential projects the director is eying is a retelling of the Battle of Gallipoli from the point of view of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC).
Another of the article's notes of interest is the suggestion that casting is still underway for The Hobbit despite the delay. Australian actor Jeremy Sims reportedly auditioned for the part of a troll, presumably either Tom, Bert or William Huggins from the original novel. One of the three characters even makes a cameo in both the book and film version of The Fellowship of the Ring.

VFX + Internet = A Punishing Process On 'Scott Pilgrim'
(variety.com)             When Universal's "Scott Pilgrim vs. the World" opened Aug. 13, some hoped the fanboy pic's earlier Comic-Con buzz would attract enough younger auds to help it hold its own against "The Expendables" and "Eat Pray Love."
But "Pilgrim," fronted by slacker superhero Michael Cera, proved no match against the Sly Stallone starrer or the Julia Roberts vehicle -- continuing the disappointing responses for bigscreen graphic novel fare that had plagued "Kick-Ass" and even "Watchmen."
Still, what it lacked in B.O. muscle, "Pilgrim" made up for in dazzling comicbook visuals never before seen in a feature. Translated from Bryan Lee O'Malley's graphic novel series to the screen by helmer Edgar Wright ("Shaun of the Dead"), the film shows viewers a world where story suddenly breaks into fight sequences with bodies hurtling across space, where graphics of, say, the word "crash" appear onscreen when a character smashes through the ceiling, and where pyrotechnics, animation and vidgame-like levels meld into an action-packed, twentysomething love story.
None of this could have been done without the team headed by vfx supervisor Frazer Churchill, who, from the outset, engaged in a constant round of brainstorming sessions with Wright, d.p. Bill Pope, production designer Marcus Rowland and concept designer Oscar Wright. Together they storyboarded the entire movie. "We had in our mind's eye every single shot of the film," Churchill said.
But that was just the start. "It's quite a jump to go from a flat panel of one man punching another to a full-bodied scene with graphics, a manga background, girls with wings, fireballs hitting the stage, music playing and a kung fu fight going on," he said.
The film's effects were created by London vfx house Double Negative, Churchill's home base. "Pilgrim" was filmed in Toronto. Churchill, who was there for the entire shoot, set up a workflow whereby material was constantly being sent to the U.K. for processing and back again for review.
"Every day I sent them plans of the sets," he said. "They would build CG elements and send back previous sequences with those elements in the set, with all the measurements. Then, say, when it came time to shoot the Demon Hipster Chicks, everyone knew how they look, and we could work out exactly where everything was going to be and how to shoot with elements that weren't really there."
The physical connection to D-Neg was via a fast Internet line installed at Toronto's Cinespace Film Studios, where vfx editor Richard Ketteridge downloaded each day's submissions. Additional material was sent by Mr. X, the Toronto vfx house that gave a comicbook feel to the film's exteriors.
At the receiving end, D-Neg CG supervisor Andrew Whitehurst and vfx producer Rupert Porter oversaw the vfx work, which they then sent back to Toronto as QuickTime files, often at full HD resolution.
"It can be a punishing process," said Churchill. "You're on the floor all day, you go back to the office at lunch or after you wrap and give (D-Neg) notes on work they supplied the previous day, and review the work they just sent through. Then you take it down to show Edgar when he's got a free moment, which isn't very often."

Where Will The 9TH Annual VES Awards Be Held?
(shootonline.com)    The Visual Effects Society (VES) announced today that they will hold the 9th Annual VES Awards at the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza Hotel in Los Angeles next January 28, 2011.
Eric Roth, VES Executive Director, states, "We're pleased to have such an early date for our show next year. As trend setters, we think that the VES Awards are poised to set the tone for the entire awards season. Considering that this year started off with the AVATAR bang and will end with HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS - PART I as well as TRON – LEGACY, among other notable work in TV, Animation, Videogames and Special Venues, visual effects fans still have much to look forward to."
This will be the third year in a row that VES will hold the event at the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza Hotel.
For more information on VES please go to www.visualeffectssociety.com.

Children of Men Producer Options Psychopomp
(Heat Vision)                Hilary Shor, one of the producers behind Children of Men, has optioned Blake Leibel's script Psychopomp, says Heat Vision.
Shor will develop and produce the script with Lawrence Longo, Leibel's partner at Fantasy Prone, a company that creates original transmedia intellectual property.
The trade says that Psychopomp "is the name of the title character, a foul-mouthed anti-hero who roams international hot spots with state-of-the art weapons and technology with the aim of destroying those who violate his code."
Fantasy Prone plans on publishing a "Psychopomp" graphic novel and will turn it into a property to run across media platforms.
VFX Magicians 'Spectral Motion' Team with Guillermo Del Toro for Captured Bird
(shocktillyoudrop.com)                   She stepped down from her position at Rue Morgue Magazine as its editor, but we all knew it wasn't going to be the last we heard of Jovanka Vuckovic.
Today, it was revealed her latest endeavor is going to be The Captured Bird, a short film executive produced by Guillermo del Toro.
"Jovanka's vision has been honed to perfection and combines true poetry with savage instinct," says del Toro in a press release. "[It's] lyrical and brutal. Just what the doctor ordered."
Vuckovic adds, "Having Guillermo [del Toro] on board as Executive Producer is like a dream come true for a first time filmmaker. His well of inspiration is as limitless as his generosity. Plus, The Captured Bird is just too ambitious to make without his guidance. I'm very grateful to have him as part of the team."
Along for the ride is Spectral Motion, the effects team behind Hellboy (naturally), Douglas Buck (Sisters) as editor and Karim Hussain as director of photography.
"The Captured Bird is inspired in part by a childhood nightmare, the writings of H. P. Lovecraft, the fables of the Brothers Grimm and the paranormal phenomenon referred to as The Shadow People," explains writer-director Vuckovic. "It's sort of a dark fable that I hope people will find haunting, poetic and beautiful."
Vuckovic elaborates on the project further in the video below. An official site has launched and I think it goes without saying that we're all eager to see what she's going to bring to the table. Good luck, Jovanka!

Japan Mourns Anime Master
(guardian.co.uk)                Director Satoshi Kon sadly passed away on Tuesday, succumbing to pancreatic cancer. He was only 46, and his legacy of work is a mere four completed feature films and one television series. So, it's likely many of you have not heard of the man – doubly likely since his films were all animated.
There has long been an argument regarding the validity of animation as a medium for adults. It's easy for many to dismiss animated film as being automatically for kids or, worse, for teenagers. But for myself and others, animation is just another way of telling a story or getting a message across to an audience. This is why I referred to Satoshi Kon as a "director" in the opening paragraph: his films are so involving and cinematic it's easy to forget that they are constructed one frame at a time. What's more, they are definitely not for kids. These days, rather than give unbelievers in the power and potential of animated features the short thrift they clearly deserve, I'll point them in the direction of Kon's slim catalogue. Perfect Blue, Millennium Actress, Tokyo Godfathers and Paprika are all extremely accomplished films.
Like many, I first encountered Kon's work upon the release of his 1998 directorial debut, Perfect Blue. The early 90s had seen a glut of anime releases over here following the success of Katsuhiro Otomo's Akira. I managed to catch most of them on video, enjoying a crash course in a culture and artform offering much that was novel to the western viewer. But precious few were anywhere near Akira's level of achievement, and plenty were simply hideous, so my interest waned. When Perfect Blue came along, I wasn't in any hurry to sit through another hard-to-follow story of ultra-violence and tentacle rape. Concerning a J-pop sensation trying to go solo, it seemed designed to keep audiences away. But the reviews and rumours kept referencing Hitchcock, Lynch and Scorsese. This was clearly not a run-of-the-mill production.
Based on a novel, Perfect Blue was allegedly intended as a live-action feature, but with money hard to raise it was downgraded to direct-to-video, then direct-to-video-animation. When Satoshi Kon took the reigns, it was no one's idea of a hit – which is probably why he was able to get the gig in the first place. But when his vision took hold it was soon headed for theatrical release. Without giving too much away, the film starts off in stylish yet straightforward fashion as pop singer Rumi leaves her successful band to pursue an acting career. Her fans are in uproar; her stalker goes over the edge. As the pressure and trauma mount, Rumi's grip on reality becomes fractured – and then things start to get really interesting. It was special enough for Darren Aronofsky to secure the rights, and though his live-action remake never got past the starter's gate he did lift two very striking shots for Requiem For A Dream, while the trailer for his forthcoming Black Swan seems to have a little flavour of it, too.
Kon's next films surpassed all expectations. It became clear with Millennium Actress and Tokyo Godfathers that he was doing something very different from his peers. The first, which tells the story of a popular film star who withdraws from public life, proved he was a director-aficionado with a deep knowledge and even deeper love of cinema. Chiyoko's narrative is interspersed with memories/clips from her films that blur together – telling not only her own history but also a potted history of Japanese cinema. The actress was based on Setsuko Hara and Hideko Takamine, muses of the great directors Yasujirō Ozu and Mikio Naruse respectively. Millennium Actress also touched on Kaiju Eiga, the Japanese monster-movie genre. There aren't any other animated films I can think of that assimilate such a range of references.
Kon's brief sojourn in the world of television also yielded spectacular results, with the bizarre Paranoia Agent. This series, again best approached with as little foreknowledge as possible, starts with a designer of cutesy characters trying to come up with a new creation to match the popularity of her iconic pink dog, Maromi, as a series of seemingly random people are brutally attacked by a kid wielding a golden baseball bat. Reality is not to be trusted and the oft-employed comparisons to the work of David Lynch are not too wide of the mark.
For me, his finest work was his last: Paprika. Again it's completely unfair to condense it into a brief synopsis, but it deals with a machine that can place an avatar into another person's dreams. I wasn't the only one to notice, when the first trailer from Christopher Nolan's Inception hit, that it looks a bit like the 2006 animation – though I wouldn't call it a rip-off, there are enough similarities to suggest he has at least seen it. For my money, Kon's is the better film – the Japanese director really wasn't afraid to "dream a little bigger" . Paprika is more spectacular, imaginative, fun and emotional than Nolan's hit. Now, there's a live action version with director Wolfgang Peterson mooted.
Satoshi Kon left us with one final film, The Dream Machine, still in production. Little is known about this project other than that it concerns robots and is aimed at younger viewers – though we know how little that really means. Beside my sympathy for his family and friends, Kon's death did shock and sadden me on a personal level because in him I had found a director who didn't disappoint, one I could trust wholeheartedly – which is incredibly rare. To speak selfishly, I feel sadness that I will never see him complete a new film. Here was a director I felt I could depend on to reaffirm my faith in cinema – a faith that gets a good battering almost daily as I sit through films that do little more than waste my time. But Kon's films are ones I foresee myself returning to many times in the future.
And as for those children, the supposed target audience for his animations? Well, they have plenty of time to grow into them.

Disney Animation's "Tangled" Crew Heads For The Unemployment Line
(animationguildblog.blogspot.com)                Where the lighting department is in its final 6-8 weeks of work for Tangled ...
and morale is lower than a dachshund's belly, since most of the artists and technicians were given their notices in July, and layoffs now loom.
As one Disney employee mentioned: "People who've been here five, ten and twenty years are getting let go. It's not a happy time."
Indeed not. But sadly, it's a recurrent theme. Disney Feature Animation's atmosphere, in fact, is a lot like it was in 2001, when hand-drawn animation was imploding and everybody working on Home on the Range knew they had four months before they got to go stand in the unemployment line: Grim.
The problem, of course, is that story development on new features has been scanty and now there is nothing to drop into the production pipeline to keep tech directors and animators going. So, tech directors and animators get laid off. Sitting in one long-time Disneyite's office, I allowed as how the studio seemed indifferent to hanging onto talented staff. I got a thin smile.
Source:               http://animationguildblog.blogspot.com/2010/08/mouse-house.html

Mattel Takes Calculated Bet on Monster High
(brandchannel.com)                It doesn't seem like 2010 will be tough for the world's largest toymaker. Mattel should hit $6 billion in sales, and profits should increase over 40%. The company's stock price is currently more than twice what it was 12 to 18 months ago.
But Mattel CEO Robert Eckert takes nothing for granted. He sees 2010 as a challenging year because of rising costs, a falling euro (Mattel sells 46% of its toys outside the U.S.), and strong competition from its chief rival, Hasbro.
One of the big challenges that will determine Mattel's success, Eckert tells SmartMoney, is whether the toy company can "create new intellectual property that goes quickly beyond toys." He says Toy Story 3 is "a movie that toys are based on. Here, we'll start with toys and turn it into entertainment if all goes well."
Mattel's next big bet, Monster High (above) is unusual — it's not based on a TV, book, movie or other entertainment property, but it's an entirely original, standalone line.
Increasingly, toy companies need to build franchise brands that extend far beyond the toys themselves. Hasbro, for example, will be introducing a cable TV channel that will be a launching pad for toys.
Eckert cites Barbie, who at 51 years old is still the world's most popular doll, as one of the company's venerable franchises. "The folks who run the brand figured out how to make Barbie cool again. As long as Barbie's cool, we're fine," he says.
To keep this year's Barbie relevant, she has a video camera in her necklace, "so a girl sees the world from Barbie's perspective," according to Eckert. "You can plug her in and download all this stuff." Of course, Barbie also has a website, which Eckert says is among the most popular with girls 2 to 11 years old.
Eckert says Mattel leverages digital media into innovative toys. For example, Eckert likens the iXL from Fisher Price, a Mattel division, to an iPhone "designed for a 3-year old."
The company's toy line is strong — "the strongest I've seen in ten years," according to toy analyst Margaret Whitfield — but it has invested heavily in Monster High, a line that encompasses toys, books, clothing, and dolls.
The brand will not be supported by a movie or TV show, so it needs to stand on its own. Analyst Gerrick Johnson of BMO Capital Markets tells SmartMoney, "A lot of [Monster High's success] depends on kids understanding the story."
For his part, Eckert admits "there's no magic formula" to predicting a big winner in the toy business. But so far, Mattel has had enough winners to retain its industry-leading position. Clearly, Bob Eckert is hoping that continues to be the case.

Digital Domain Beefing Up Ranks In Port St. Lucie
(tcpalm.com)                      PORT ST. LUCIE — PORT ST. LUCIE — As Digital Domain Holdings Corp. moves into a temporary workspace at Indian River State College, the animation company is in the midst of a hiring spree.
Digital Domain has hired about 46 people and the company expects to easily exceed 65 by the end of the year. The company plans to do digital animation for feature films and military applications.
Digital Domain and Port St. Lucie agreed in November 2009 to a $51.8 million deal helped with state contributions. The money will go in part to building a 150,000-square-foot facility. The company must create up to 500 jobs at an average salary of $64,233 by 2014.
Chairman John Textor declined to get into specifics about salaries, but said the company is exceeding the average salary requirements. Not all of those jobs will be in animation.
Although show business should be the main revenue stream for Digital Domain, company executives are looking at other ways to make the company viable in the future.
Military applications and educational opportunities are key pieces of the company’s business plans, along with making special effects and feature films.
The company could move in to a 50-person workspace at Indian River State College within a week and begin work there by October, while a 150,000-square-foot studio is being built along Interstate 95, north of Gatlin Boulevard. Digital Domain has an agreement with Florida State University to create a curriculum for what will be known as the Digital Domain Institute, a college facility at a to-be-determined location, Textor said.
Parts of the curriculum are expected to be used both at IRSC and Florida State. Textor said he is eager to have Florida students learn about the industry and plans to hire a percentage of students out of college to work in Port St. Lucie.
“The more we can do to build the skill set in the student population, not only in the Digital Domain Institute, but at all of our educational partners, then we can help the major digital animation companies in our industry come to Florida as well,” Textor said.
Digital Domain also is looking to the military as a source of revenue. Digital animation can be used for battle re-enactments, rehabilitating soldiers and training.
“The existing market is growing tremendously for us, so it’s not about, we need it to survive,” said Michael Keane, the senior vice president of strategic planning and corporate development. “We just want to continue to grow and hire new people, and we’ve got a tremendous competitive advantage. We just want to exploit that and leverage that in any market that we can.”
At least three of the company’s hires, including Keane, will help market products to the military.
The company also hired defense industry specialist Raymond DuBois, who was known as the “mayor of the Pentagon” where he directly managed 2,500 employees and a $1.3 million budget.
“If you want to have a deep relationship with the Pentagon, you should gear your organization to have a lot of people with clearance so you can have real discussions about how our technologies can help train our soldiers and help win wars and help win the hearts and minds of people around the world that our American military causes are just,” Digital Domain Holdings Chairman John Textor said.
The military work, though separate from the animation work, could help the company solve certain problems in the future.
Digital Domain helped with the special effects for the action flick “The A-Team” and built an animated V-22 Osprey Helicopter. But no one knew much about the helicopter, Textor said.
“I call Ray DuBois,” Textor said. “Ray DuBois called the former commandant of the Marine Corps. Within half a day, our visual effects supervisor in Venice (Calif.) was down at a naval base able to inspect and photograph and measure an actual V-22 Osprey.”
Still such overlap might be rare due not only to the need to keep military work secret but also the movie studios’ requirement for the same discretion.
“Clearly the military stuff will exist in a more controlled environment, and there’s different requirements for contracting within that industry in terms of clearances and in terms of controlled access and stuff like that,” Keane said. “The studios also have requirements because they don’t want their movies going out the door either.”

Harry Potter Effects Studio A New Tourist Attraction
(bsckids.com)                 Rupert Grint, costar of the box-office smash hit series Harry Potter, confirmed recently that there will be a new Potter tourist attraction in London. The special effects studio where much of the movies real life FX magic occurred will be converted into a theme park. Leavesden Studio will be open to the public and offer tours of the sets.
Rupert had a meet-and-greet last Monday, the day before his 22nd birthday, and he let a special secret slip. “We used to write on the walls and they’re actually re-creating and turning the studio in an attraction, actually recreating all the rooms so you can go in them,” he said. You might be able to see Harry’s real life scribbles if you keep an eye out!

Indiana Jones 5 - Crazy & Cool

(filmonic.com)               Despite saying publicly in May that he felt he had “dropped the ball on the legacy that people loved and cherished” with Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull Shia LaBeouf will still be involved in Indy 5.
Last June LaBeouf said Spielberg had “cracked the story”, which was followed by an update from Harrison Ford in September who said the film is in the “process of taking form” and “Steven Spielberg, George Lucas and myself are agreed on what the fifth adventure will concern”.
Now the latest update from LaBeouf suggests we are in for a crazy time.
From ShowBiz Spy:
    “They’re script writing right now,” says Shia. “I got called into Steven’s office and he pitched a little bit to me and it sounds crazy, it sounds really cool.”
Earlier this year Shia said Transformers 3 was going to be the “craziest action movie ever made”, so i’m not sure where Indian Jones 5 will rank on his crazy-o-meter, but Spielberg and Lucas must have come up with something special if the guy who has worked on Michael Bay’s biggest movies thinks it’s crazy.
"Angry Birds" Feature To Try Aardman or Pixar Look
(Variety)              An Angry Birds film is in development as part of a large cross-merchandising franchise, reports Variety.
The film (which may end up playing instead as a series of shorts) will be based on the hugely popular iPhone application from Rovio that has the player using a slingshot to shoot different types of birds at villainous pigs.
As far as adapting the property goes, plans are unclear at this stage as to the specific format. Rovio's CEO Mikael Hed mentions either shorts or, possibly, a feature film (or both) and likens the intended final product to both Aardman Animation as well as Pixar.

Transformers 3: Chicago Can't Get Rid of Them!
(seibertron.com)                  The crew working on Transformers 3 refuses to leave Chicago, AKA Seibertron.com's capital. If we look at the bus reroutes, it would imply work there in some form would continue until Friday.
With that little time, it's likely nothing big will happen, but no one can say for sure in this hobby full of surprises. It could be clean-up, or it could be the scene that ties everything together.

State of the VFX Industry: Is Working for “FREE” Worth It?
(bobbyboom.blogspot.com)            Returning home from Siggraph this year I had a major concern on my mind and I wanted to expose this concern as well as offer up some potential food for thought. I had an opportunity to talk to just about every major studio and a lot of mid-sized studios during the week of Siggraph.

My main concern is that artists are being taken advantage of!

I understand that the global economy has been in the dumps by-and-large and that job seekers are willing to jump at any opportunity due to these precarious times for fear that there may not be jobs available. Although I do not feel that the market is saturated I do feel the result from this thinking is that some studios are taking advantage of the economic hype which is resulting in artists taking less money, covering 100% of their relocation costs or worse, working for free.

One issue I want to raise here is that the entertainment industry is doing exceptionally well despite the overall state of the economy. This article shows trends from 1995 – current 2010 in movie ticket sales and things look great! We all know how well Toy Story 3, How to Train your Dragon and Despicable Me have been doing and there is a lot of buzz in Hollywood that animated films are saving the entertainment industry. This article notes a dip in video game sales in July but reports confident signs of sharp recovery.

I had one mid-sized studio tell me recently that they have more money than they know what to do with, yet have decided to have new employees pay for 100% of their own relocation costs and take lower wages than were previously offered because they can do it and people are willing to go for it.

In addition to this, I can't tell you how many emails I get from "new studios" that have ”a great idea to have our students and alumni work for free on their project in exchange for gaining valuable work experience."

I don't know about you, but I find this absolutely absurd and do not support it in any way. Students pay a lot of money to learn their craft and they should be compensated for the skills they have gained.

It is clear that some studios are taking advantage of the "state of the economy," and what is most alarming is that job seekers are unknowingly adding fuel to the fire by taking jobs that pay sub-standard or do not pay at all.

There's no doubt that the world has become smaller and more accessible through the internet. Outsourcing and remote working is common place in most every industry. With this change in global workforce it is inevitable that there will be these kinds of changes in the way people do business. However, as we navigate through the evolution of these times it is important that companies see the importance of ethics in business. Just because we can, doesn't mean we should. There is a happy medium that needs to be found.

I'm proud to see some of the big boys operating from a place of valuing their artists first. I hope they continue to lead the way as an example for up-and-coming and mid-sized studios.

As far as artists go; I urge you not to work for free. In doing so you are encouraging a downward spiral of diminished returns for yourself and future generations of artists paving the way for much lower wages.

If a lot of inexperienced entry level artists are working for free on a given project, the quality of that project is going to suffer in the end. When it comes time to shop around your demo reel, the very slight benefit of this free "experience" will be far outweighed by the low-quality work on the demo reel, or the poor reputation of the project within the industry.

If you have the skills you will get a job. You may need to be patient, but the jobs are there. The world is large and the opportunities are vast and wide. Just as the global evolution of business is happening, so too are your opportunities. Industry jobs are no longer just in California and New York. There is a whole world of opportunity out there and you will need to be flexible in where the opportunities take you; especially in the early years of your career. Perhaps they will be in New Zealand, Australia, Canada, England, Spain, India, South Africa or in the comfort of your home office.

Some may ask, "Isn’t it better to at least work for free so that I can get some experience?" I personally believe that it would better serve an entry level artist to work on their own project, or with a few friends, helping to shape their own voice and storytelling abilities. In doing so they ARE gaining experience and it will show in the quality of their work.

My advice to you is that no matter what you do or where you work, to make the best judgment for your situation and I encourage you to not be taken advantage of, ever! You're worth more than that.

Captain America Scene Filmed in Trafalgar Square

(WENN)                    Extras for director Joe Johnston's Captain America: The First Avenger filmed a scene at Trafalgar Square in London, England on Sunday that takes place on VE Day (the day when the World War II Allies formally accepted the unconditional surrender of the armed forces of Nazi Germany and the end of Adolf Hitler's Third Reich). The extras were seen hugging each other and dressed in period clothing.

Spy Kids 4 To Stop Time

(Heat Vision)                   Jessica Alba is reteaming with Robert Rodriguez a third time for Spy Kids 4: All the Time in the World. She has previously starred in Sin City, co-directed by Rodriguez, and has a role in the helmer's September 3 release Machete.

Heat Vision says the new "Spy Kids" film is a reboot of sorts. Alba will play a retired spy who has been reactivated. Her character is the mother of a baby and two preteen stepchildren.

The actors cast in the preteen roles will be the new "Spy Kids." Alexa Vega and Daryl Sabara played the Spy Kids in the first three films, that also starred Antonio Banderas and Carla Gugino as their superspy parents.

The trade adds that other roles seeking to be filled include Alba's husband, "a slightly nerdy investigative reporter, and the villain, known as the Time Keeper, whose goal it is to stop time."

Banderas, Vega and Sabara are expected to return in supporting roles. Shooting is scheduled to start on the 3D film next month.

Disney's Animated 'Prep and Landing' Wins 4 Creative Emmy Awards

(voices.washingtonpost.com)                  Disney's "Prep and Landing" was animation's big winner at Saturday's Creative Arts Emmys.

The ABC holiday special was named Outstanding Animated Program and also won three Emmy Awards for Outstanding Individual Achievements in Animation: background key designer William M. George III; art director Andy Harkness; and storyboard artist Joe Mateo.

More than 70 trophys were awarded at the Creative Arts ceremony, which kicks off the week leading up to the Aug. 29 Prime-Time Emmy Awards broadcast.

"Super 8" Creature Gets Rubber FX

(Wired)                  Neville Page, the conceptual artist responsible for designs in Star Trek, Cloverfield, Piranha 3D and the upcoming TRON: Legacy, teased information to Wired about the creature design in his next big project, Super 8.

Though he's light on details, Page does reveal that he was tasked with designing the creature after the teaser trailer was created and that J.J. Abrams showed him the footage to help get him excited.

"When that door blows open," he says, "it's the ultimate reveal. It's Elvis or something."

What's more, Page hints that Abrams won't resort entirely to computer animation to bring the monster to life and that the writer/director will rely on some classic special effect work.

"I'll bet you anything there's going to be a rubber something or other at some point," says Page.

Chris Wedge Barks At "Monster Dogs"

(darkhorizons.com)               Animation filmmaker Chris Wedge ("Ice Age," "Robots") is looking likely to make his live-action directorial debut on a film adaptation of the Kirsten Bakis novel "Lives of the Monster Dogs" says Heat Vision.

The story is set in a remote Canadian village populated by hyper-intelligent dogs genetically engineered by mad Prussian scientists.

Revolting against their masters, these talkative and bipedal dogs turn up in modern New York where a student chronicles their glamorous lives. The story takes a kind of tragic twist as the creatures revert to their animal states for longer and longer periods.

ImageMovers Digital Artist To Part With Personal 'Fortress of Solitude' Cubicle

(buildingthefortress.blogspot.com)                  A little over a week ago, Disney announced the closing of the studio I work for, Image Movers Digital. Only after releasing 1 motion picture, the mouse is shutting us down.

December 30th is my end date. And I am hearing out options with what to do with my Fortress.

Obviously, destroying it is my last option. I don't have room for it at home, and can't see myself getting the exact same desk configuration at a new job.

So with that said, I'm just putting the word out there that I may be parting with it. Either selling it on ebay or finding a local nerd/comic book shop to take it off my hands. I think its too beautiful and I've put too much love and time into this.

Full Press & Photos:    http://buildingthefortress.blogspot.com/

Dreamworks Animation Goes Part Live-Action With "Enemies"

(darkhorizons.com)                   Having dabbled once or twice in hand-drawn but sticking mostly to computer graphics, Dreamworks Animation is now considering dipping its big toe partway into the live-action arena with "Imaginary Enemies" reports Risky Biz Blog.

Joe Syracuse and Lisa Addario are penning the script which follows a group of imaginary friends who've gotten fed up with being the scapegoats for bratty kids who blame them for their own misdeeds.

When those kids grow up, these imaginary friends come looking for some payback. Mike Mitchell ("Shrek Forever After") is developing but hasn't signed to direct the project as yet.

Right now though the discussion is about making the project part animated and part live-action (ala "Who Framed Roger Rabbit"), with the animated elements representing the imaginary world and its inhabitants.

Fantastic Four Reboot Set for Summer 2012: Out With The Old, In With The New

(examiner.com)                      Twentieth Century Fox has plans to reboot the Fantastic Four franchise despite the success of the first two movies. The studio has tossed out writer/director Tim Story along with FF cast members Jessica Alba, Michael Chiklis, Chris Evans and Ioan Gruffudd. The question is why?

Yes it's true that diehard fanboys grumbled about the movies—wanting them to reflect more of the flavor and excitement that FF creator's Stan Lee and Jack Kirby packed into the comic book series, but the films did do well at the box office— Fantastic Four took in $330, 579, 719 million worldwide and FF: Rise of the Silver Surfer took in $289, 047, 763 worldwide. So why the sudden change in direction.

The "official" word is that the studio wanted to get more gritty and serious, more in line with The X-men movies and Wolverine, but several insiders claim that the studio wanted to rein in the excessive production costs and salary demands— the first movie's budget was $100 million and the second was $130 million.

The studio has already announced that the Fantastic Four reboot, or Fantastic Four: Reborn (which is still a working title), is next film production in line, right behind the upcoming X-Men: First Class. There is buzz coming from the studio that they intend to go CGI all the way for the Thing (played by Michael Chiklis in the previous films), and that British actress Alice Eve (28), who starred in She's Out of My League, is a strong contended for the part of The Invisible Woman (previously played by Jessica Alba), as is Amber Heard (Pineapple Express).

'Star Wars' Producer Taps Weta For 'Panzer 88'

(latimesblogs.latimes.com)                Gary Kurtz, the producer of the first two "Star Wars" films and the man who walked away from the franchise in 1980, is not the excitable type. He speaks in even tones and pragmatic terms, but there was a clear tinge of eager energy in his voice when he sat down recently to discuss "Panzer 88," his first foray into effects-heavy feature films since the 1980s.

"It's a good, good project, you haven't seen anything like it for a while," Kurtz said of the spooky wartime adventure that is planned as a $20 million independent film and will begin shooting in the winter. "It's a visceral, reality-based story with horror overtones, and the idea is to have be like the best of the graphic novels these days."

The plot follows the five-man German crew of the Ilsa -- a King Tiger, the biggest tank of its day -- on a mission to the frigid and fearsome Russian border, where they tread into an ancient mystery by stirring a powerful entity. The original screenplay was written by Aaron Mason and James Cowan; they share the writing credit with Peter Briggs, who will direct. Briggs, who co-wrote the screenplay for "Hellboy," finds himself back in the paranormal territories of the Third Reich, but he said this film hopes for a different caliber of character emotion and a "Band of Brothers" sort of ensemble.

The project has the same sort of mash-up cinematic spirit as Jon Favreau's upcoming "Cowboys and Aliens" (classic western meets UFO invasion) or the 1980s John McTiernan classic "Predator" (commando adventure meets sci-fi horror). For "Panzer," the hybrid is between the supernatural and the battlefields of World War II; to fans of a certain age, the premise might stir an old comic-book memory -- "Haunted Tank" and "Weird War Tales" often marched into similar battle zones of the macabre.

The project has stirred interest already with horror fans due to the participation of Weta, the visual-effects and film prop house in New Zealand that has become an elite brand name with credits such as "The Lord of the Rings" films, "King Kong" and "Avatar." Richard Taylor, the design and effects supervisor of Weta Workshop, said via e-mail that, like the Oscar-nominated "District 9," there's a chance with "Panzer" to make a visually compelling film with a nimble production.

"It has been fantastic being involved in the early stages of a project that has already had such a significant body of preparatory production work done," Taylor said. "It seems that Gary and Peter have explored all production scenarios and analyzed all and every film-making option in an effort to produce an epic film on a respectable budget."

How Computer-Generated Images Are Ending Art

(uiargonaut.com)                  Summer was a bad time for movies this year. Between “Iron Man 2,” “Robin Hood” and, God help me, the latest installation in the “Twilight” saga, it’s not hard to see why many shunned theaters like they were the plague.

To get my movie fix, I turned to Netflix and TV, catching up on “popular” movie offerings I had missed out on. I was not impressed.

Somewhere between the flashy-but-hollow “Avatar,” the braindead-made-for-12-year-olds “Transformers 2,” and the trying-too-hard “Star Trek,” a realization hit me — I hadn’t seen a good movie in ages.

What happened to the days of real-life action, of true comedy via social commentary, to the intelligent scrip-writing and the raw, masterful directing?

Three letters: CGI.

That’s computer generated imagery for those not in tune with the lingo, and it’s the reason why cinema today will never be as great as it was.

CGI in relation to cinema got its start in the late ‘70s, when a little-known movie called “Westworld” used basic raster graphics to simulate a two-dimensional view of the protagonist robot of the movie.

Science fiction was quick in picking up the CGI torch, and by the end of the ‘80s, movies from “Star Wars” to “The Abyss” used CGI in varying forms

The ‘90s continued the trend, with James Cameron’s “Terminator 2” leading the way. By the turn of the century, CGI was considered an integral part of movie making, every bit as important as shot composition, script and acting.

Then, in 1999, a travesty happened which signaled the direction Hollywood was taking. “Star Wars: The Phantom Menace,” which sacrificed story, characters, plot and actor in favor of flashy CGI, was unleashed on the public and went on to gross nearly $1 billion, becoming the twelfth highest-grossing film of all time.

The message was sent — put in flashy CGI and the money will flow in like Niagara Falls — and everyone in Hollywood took notice.
In the decade since that abomination, Hollywood movie budgets — not to mention ticket prices — have ballooned in size to accompany the plethora of CGI shot, while principal actors and intellectual scripture became second-class, overtaken by flashy light saber battles, vibrantly-colorful animated backgrounds, and the ever-nauseating camera spirals and rapid moves.

CGI is a wonderful tool that, when used properly, allows us to visualize a world that otherwise could not exist. However, the basis of any good movie is still grounded in the realities of relatable, intellectual scripts and heartfelt, dramatic actors.

Peter Jackson’s “Lord of the Rings” trilogy is perhaps the best use of modern CGI in support of principal actors and scripture to help tell the story and all of its subtleties. Unfortunately, such films are the exception rather than the rule.

“Lord of the Rings” proved such use of CGI is viable. It became the fourth-highest grossing series, trailing only “Harry Potter,” “Star Wars,” and “James Bond,” all of which had more than three films, in addition to earning critical acclaim.

Why didn’t Hollywood take notice?

Because, as it turns out, it’s easier to throw around $100 million to create flashy CGI explosions and robots than to spend eight years developing a script, choosing the perfect shooting locations and hiring talented actors.
It is because Hollywood producers, with a few notable exceptions, will always take the easy way out. CGI has given that option, and it is killing modern American cinema.

Warner Plans to Adapt David Goyer's Sci-Fi Trilogy

(Deadline)              David Goyer's upcoming science fiction novel Heaven's Shadow has already been marked for film adaptation, according to a report at Deadline.

Goyer, best known for screenplays like Batman Begins and Blade as well as directorial efforts that include Blade: Trinity and The Unborn, plans to release his book in July of 2011 with two planned sequels, "Heaven's War" and "Heaven's Fall" to be released in 2012 and 2013, respectively. Warner Bros. has preemptively purchased the film rights and is eyeing the property as a potential franchise.

The series deals with an extraterrestrial object en route to Earth and the ensuing reaction on the part of mankind.

Goyer is next expected to complete Warner's Superman reboot.

Academy Announces Scientific & Technical Achievement Longlist

(screendaily.com)                The scientific and technical awards committee of the Academy Of Motion Picture Arts And Sciences has selected 15 scientific and technical achievements for further awards consideration.

The list is made public to allow individuals and companies with similar devices or claims of prior art the opportunity to submit their achievements for review. The deadline to submit additional entries is August 31.

The committee has selected the following methods or devices for further consideration:

OBQ/DOALL (Industrial Light & Magic);

Queue (Rhythm & Hues);

Race Render Queue System (DreamWorks Animation);

Qube (PipelineFX);

Misterd (Pixar Animation Studios);

RQS/Depgraph Render Management System (DreamWorks Animation);

Cue3 (Sony Pictures Imageworks);

Alfred – Job Queuing and Distributing Rendering System (Pixar Animation Studios);

XGen – Arbitrary Primitive Generator (Walt Disney Animation Studios);

Expression Analysis for Facial Motion Capture (Weta Digital);

Efficient Global Illumination System for Computer Graphic Films (PDI/DreamWorks Animation);

CineSync (Rising Sun Research Pty Ltd);

Timecode Slate (Entertainment Technology);

NAC Servo Winches (NAC Company); and

Cannon-Less Turnover System (Performance Picture Vehicles).

After thorough investigations are conducted on each of the entries, the committee will meet in early December to vote on recommendations to the Academy’s board of governors, which will make the final awards decisions.

The 2010 Scientific and Technical Awards will be presented at the Beverly Wilshire in Beverly Hills on February 12, 2011.

Piranha 3D Gets A Sequel

(comingsoon.net)             Dimension Films today announced that the studio will make a sequel to Piranha 3D. Here are excerpts from the press release:

After earning rave reviews from top critics, wild cheers from audiences around the country, and $10 million in its opening weekend boxoffice, Dimension Films is pleased to announce that PIRANHA 3D – THE SEQUEL is in the works.

PIRANHA 3D producer Mark Canton stated, "We are thrilled that audiences are not just loving PIRANHA 3D, but cheering for it. And it's fantastic that so many critics are really getting the movie and recommending it. We can't wait to get to work on the sequel."

Shia LaBeouf on Indiana Jones 5

from Movies - Den of Geek

It’s not a big update, but it’s still a little bit of info on the next Indiana Jones film…
It's probably best that we skip the part of this story that would inevitably look back on Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull, and Mr Shia LaBeouf's involvement in it, because we suspect by this stage that we all know each other's position on it.
Instead, we're going to concentrate on the latest round of chatter for the planned Indiana Jones 5. This has been a movie that's been an inevitability since Crystal Skull made so much money, and since George Lucas ran out of Star Wars movies to make.
And now, it seems likely - although not surprising - that Shia LaBeouf will be returning. He's given Showbiz Spy a quick update on the planned film, when he revealed that "they're script writing right now".
He then said, "I got called into Steven's office and he pitched a little bit to me and it sounds crazy, it sounds really cool."
"Crazy" and "cool"? We'll let you digest those in the comments below.
As for a start date for Indiana Jones 5, director Steven Spielberg is attached to War Horse next, which will account for much of the next year. Thus, the earliest it could shoot, we'd imagine, would be towards the end of 2011, with an eye on a summer 2012 release. That's speculation on our part, however.

New details revealed for X-Men: First Class

from Movies - Den of Geek

Setting, story and character details have emerged for Matthew Vaughn’s upcoming movie, X-Men: First Class
Now that Matthew Vaughn seems to have finished casting for his ensemble X-Men: First Class movie (although we said that this time last week, and watched as three more names were subsequently added to the call sheet), the film can get set to go before the cameras in the coming month. And, thanks to a conversation between its producer, Bryan Singer, and AICN, we've now got much more of an idea as to what the film will be about.
Singer confirmed to the site that the movie is going to be set in the 1960s, and will adopt a feel appropriate to the decade. So, we'll see John F Kennedy as president of the US and, basically, be seeing a First Class story that's set before the one that we've seen in the comic books.
As for what we can expect to see in the film, AICN reports that "We will see how Xavier and Erik Lehnsherr met - and how they dreamt of a future with Mutant and Human kind. They're going to be in their late twenties. Xavier - as played by James McAvoy will not be in his wheelchair to begin the film - but we will see how he wound up in a wheelchair.".
Also, "We'll see McAvoy and Fassbender's Magneto formulate what it is they are attempting by creating the X-Men," and it's also been confirmed that Sebastian Shaw - as played by Kevin Bacon - will be the villain of the piece.
Singer also confirmed that the film has a James Bond influence to it (not least for its European feel, and adopting of the technology of the time), and that we'll be seeing the Hellfire Club in the movie too.
X-Men: First Class is set for release on June 3rd 2011. And you can read the AICN piece right here.

"Piranha" Director Takes On Space Pirates

(darkhorizons.com)                       Director Alexander Aja ("Piranha 3D," "The Hills Have Eyes") has selected his next project, a film adaptation of Buichi Terasawa's manga and animated series franchise "Cobra: The Space Pirate" reports Deadline.
Described as a tent pole-sized live action sci-fi franchise, the story is set in a future where merchant spaceships and ruthless brigands sail across space. Cobra is a notorious rogue pirate with a large bounty on his head who teams up with a hunter and seeks a lost treasure hidden on Mars.
The animated series was hugely popular across Europe which is how Aja knows the property. Aja and Gregory Levasseur will pen the script and both will produce alongside Marc Sessego and Alexandra Milchan.

Transformers 3 Wraps Up Chicago Shoot This Weekend, Moving To Detroit
(tformers.com)             Transformers 3 filming will continue in Chicago this weekend before wrapping up and heading to Detroit.
According to On Location Vacations, shooting will take place on Friday August 20th and Saturday August 21st, several downtown locations, including 433 W Van Buren.
Helicopters will be used for aerial photography.
Filming in Detroit is reportedly going to take place Packard Plant on East Grand Boulevard, an abandoned car manufacturing plant for the Packard vehicle company.

Dracula: Year One Gets Pandora Resident
(cinemablend.com)

   Encore says Sam Worthington is set to star in Alex Proyas’s long talked about Dracula: Year One. Whether that means he’ll be a vampire or the movie’s human protagonist is unclear. He’s merely pegged as having the “lead role”. Since it’s Sam Worthington, that probably means human vampire battler.

Fighting monsters seems to be Worthington’s stock and trade, though I find his continued casting in big-budget effects movies somewhat inexplicable. On the whole he’s proven himself to be terrible. His best performance to date happened in Avatar, a movie where he’s rarely ever actually on screen. That says something about his ability as an actor. I expect this sort of casting from McG, Alex Proyas should know better.

Sony Sends Cease and Desist Letter to Skyline Producers

(reelmovienews.com)                 Ah, here we go, David vs. Goliath all over again. Recently, we posted the teaser trailer for a film called Skyline, which, in a nutshell is a new alien invasion movie. Well, Sony has an alien invasion movie of their own in the works called Battle: Los Angeles, and they've sent a cease and desist letter to the producers of Skyline.

So what's the beef? Well, hilariously enough the producers of Skyline, Colin and Greg Strause, own and run the visual effects company Hydraulx, which is also handling the effects work on Battle: Los Angeles. According to The Wrap, Sony is accusing the Strause Bros. of "ripping off equipment and ideas for their lower budget production."

"We utterly deny" using' Battle LA' equipment on Skyline," said Greg Strause. "That’s highly offensive. It’s completely untrue. We’ve been in the alien invasion business for many years before Battle LA. The first movie I directed was an alien invasion, called 'Alien Vs Predator: Requiem.' That’s one of the reasons they came to us, we do computer generated aliens well."

While I doubt mentioning AVPR is going to win them any fans, speculation is that Sony is merely trying to delay the release of Skyline, which bears a striking similarity to Battle: Los Angeles, but for less than a quarter of the price tag. Sony's epic reportedly cost $100 million while the Strause Bros. turned theirs in for only $20 million. It's amazing what you can do when you own your own VFX company. Battle is set to hit in March 2011, whereas Skyline will get a head start in November of this year.

The Strause Bros. claim that Battle producer Neal Moritz was told about their movie last fall, a claim Moritz rejects. What's more, Sony was apparently shown footage from Skyline and offered the opportunity to distribute it earlier this year. The studio turned the film down, only to pay closer attention after the film's trailer was a huge hit at this year's Comic-Con, which caused them to worry that Skyline is an imitation of their product.

We think Sony's just pissed that it got beaten to the punch by a lower-budget production, and one that looks like it will be profitable. Sure, Skyline doesn't have Aaron Eckhart, Bridget Moynahan or Michelle Rodriguez, but it's got some good buzz. Depending on how it performs at the box office, it could spell success or trouble for Sony's film.

DreamWorks Animation Starts Seeing Imaginary Enemies

(comingsoon.net)                Married screenwriters Joe Syracuse and Lisa Addario are penning Imaginary Enemies for DreamWorks Animation. Mike Mitchell (Shrek Forever After) is developing the project with the writers, but he is not on board to direct at the moment.

Risky Business explains that the project "will be told from the point of view of the imaginary friends who had long been used as scapegoats by unscrupulous children looking for someone else to blame for their misdeeds. Eventually fed up, those imaginary people come looking for some payback when the kids are grown up."

According to the trade, discussions are taking place about a possible live-action/animation hybrid that would represent the split worlds of the imaginary and the real.

Stop-Motion Animated Addams Family Feature Moves Forward

(dreadcentral.com)             It looks like things are progressing pretty nicely for the latest adaptation of the brilliant work of Mr. Charles Addams. In addition to being in old school stop-motion animation and directed by Tim Burton, the Illumination Films and Universal Pictures project has signed on Ed Wood screenwriters Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski for the project.

Per Deadline New York Alexander and Karaszewski board an Addams Family project that [was] first revealed in March, when [producer Chris] Meledandri bought the rights to the ghoulish, darkly humorous drawings that Charles Addams created for The New Yorker.

"[The] project [is] based on artwork that Tim absolutely loves," Karasewski said. "The retrospective in New York of Tim's own artwork showed how much of an influence Charles Addams was to him. We want the tone to be as darkly funny and subversive as the Addams drawings, and we've come up with an approach that nobody has ever done before."

James Cameron Hasn't Forgotten About Battle Angel

(screenrant.com)                   Before Avatar was even released, the word “trilogy” was getting tossed around and many were clamoring for details about sequels to a film they hadn’t even seen yet. Director James Cameron wasn’t just finishing up a fifteen-year-old labor of love, he was committing to a franchise and a brand that – at this point – has taken on a life of its own.

Further Avatar films were inevitable, but the prospect of two sequels potentially shooting back-to-back calls into question the future of other films Cameron’s had on the back-burner – specifically, Battle Angel.

Coming Soon recently sat down with Cameron to talk about Avatar’s upcoming theatrical re-release and he spoke briefly about Battle Angel and his desire to see it happen:

    “It’s still on my radar. It’s a story I love. We wrote the script back before we started Avatar and again, we gotta figure out where it lies. I don’t have infinite time.”

For those unfamiliar with Battle Angel, it’s based on the manga-turned-anime series Battle Angel Alita, which tells the story of an amnesic female cyborg who becomes a bounty hunter. The film would utilize the same 3D motion-capture technology as Avatar and Cameron has stated it would encompass the first three volumes of the manga.

Like Avatar, Battle Angel would mark the first chapter in a trilogy – so you can see why many Battle Angel fans aren’t holding their breath just yet. With Avatar at the apex of its popularity, launching another ambitious franchise simultaneously may seem daunting even for a filmmaker as fearless as Cameron. However, don’t count out the possibility just yet.

While Cameron remains understandably excited about further explorations of Pandora, he hasn’t definitively decided that Avatar 2 will be his next film:

    “I’m perfectly comfortable going back to that world. The question I haven’t answered for myself yet is am I comfortable going back to that world right now or do I do another movie in between?”

J.J. Abrams' Super 8 to Film in Weirton, West Virginia

(Production Weekly, The Associated Press)                  Production Weekly has learned that J.J. Abrams will start shooting Super 8 in late September on location in Weirton, West Virginia. Produced by Steven Spielberg, the Paramount Pictures film is targeting a summer 2011 release.

Meanwhile, reports by The Associated Press have turned up the news that Weirton residents have received letters on the filming. The shoot, scheduled to last two to three months, is said to take place primarily on the town's Main Street. The plot, "revolves around a 14-year-old boy and is set in a steel town in 1979."

"Wolverine 2" On The Fast Track

(Darkhorizons.com)               With the "X-Men Origins: Wolverine" sequel lining up to be shot early next year, Hugh Jackman has dropped out of the comedy "Avon Man" which was scheduled to start shooting this October reports Deadline.

No director is currently attached to the sequel which Christopher McQuarrie ("The Usual Suspects," "Valkyrie") penned. The storyline adapts one of the most acclaimed "X-Men" comic storylines which revolved around Logan visiting Japan where he falls in love and takes on some ninjas.

Sony Imageworks Director of Technical Training Passes

(animationmagazine.net)                 Sande Scoredos, who had an impact on thousands of animators and visual effects artists as the longtime director of technical training and artist development for Sony Pictures Imageworks, died Aug. 14. She was 63.

Scoredos came to Sony in 1996 to set up its training department, having previously held a similar job at visual effects house Rhythm and Hues.

At Imageworks, she lead the founding of the IPAX academic outreach program in 2004. Under her leadership, Imageworks’ training program offered more than 50 courses, from life drawing, sculpting and acting to specialized classes in animation, effects, compositing and production management.

She also worked as manager of training for Wavefront Technologies, she designed the worldwide training program and curriculum, instructing professionals in the use of 3D computer graphics and animation.

Scoredos also taught computer graphics for production at the studio and university level and as a UCLA graduate, she works with local educational programs program and also teaches a yearly production course at MIT. She served on various industry and academic advisory boards and was an active ACM SIGGRAPH committee member and chaired the SIGGRAPH 2001 Computer Animation Festival and is the Curator Chairwoman for the SIGGRAPH 2008 Computer Animation Festival.

Born in Colorado Springs, Colo., she is survived by her husband, John, and her sister Perri MacHugh Silver, who lives in Secretary, Md.

A memorial service is planned for Aug. 21 at 4 p.m. at the Conejo Mountain Memorial Park, 2052 Howard Road, Camarillo, CA 93012. The family requests donations in lieu of flowers be made to The Angeles Clinic Foundation, 2001 Santa Monica Blvd., Suite 560W, Santa Monica, CA 90404.

A tribute to Scoredos at Sony Pictures Imageworks will be announced.

'Avatar' Sequel Process: Creatures and Environments Before Script

(mtv.com)              Eight months after the record-breaking release of James Cameron's "Avatar," and with an expanded re-release just weeks away, the writer/director already has a massive trove of notes for a sequel. Eventually, he'll weave together plot strands from that hodgepodge of Pandora-based brainstorming.

When that process might begin — from notes to script — is anybody's guess, but as Cameron's longtime producing partners, Jon Landau, told MTV News, the filmmakers aren't going to wait for a draft before they begin to re-create the world of "Avatar."

The creative team will begin work on creature and environment development "as soon as Jim locks in on some of those notes," Landau explained. "We don't have to wait for a script for that. And there are also certain things we designed from the last movie that didn't make it in that I'm sure will make it in on the next movie."

For now, Landau described his producer role as a two-fold job. "I'm a sounding board for those ideas [in Cameron's notes]," he said. "And I'm looking to see how we can do what we do better — researching technologies and talking to people and pressing all those frontiers."

Filming on the first "Avatar" began in 2007, and whenever the sequel goes into production, Landau anticipates significant technological innovations when it comes to cameras and the capabilities of Weta Digital, which created the visual effects for the first flick.

"It's not like I'm thinking, 'OK, let's do it again and we'll do it exactly the same way,' " Landau said. "Let's do it better. Let's do it more cost-effectively. Let's be training our people now and getting them involved. If you look at 'Titanic' to 'Avatar,' what happened in the visual-effects world is that everything became more cost-effective, more time-efficient and at a higher visual quality. It doesn't mean when you look at 'Titanic' now, you go, 'Oh that's a bad movie.' It's the same thing now."

Just don't prod Landau to explain what he means by "now." Asked what his ideal start date for a second "Avatar" would be, he said simply, "Most definitely this century."

Sylvester Stallone Forced To Use CGI - "Looked OK, Though"

(monstersandcritics.com)                   Sylvester Stallone has joked that he had to use computer-generated images (CGI) in new movie The Expendables – because he couldn’t find any volunteers to get their heads blown off.

Stallone said on Australia’s Sunrise breakfast show that he “hates” special effects.

He told presenter Fifi Box: “I hate CGI, but when we were making the movie, I had to blow some guy’s head off.

“There was a lack of volunteers for that, strangely enough, so we had to use CGI.”

He added: “In the end it looked OK, though.”

VFX Artist Pay Fail, VES Meets NASA, & Imagineers Event...

Montreal's Fake Studio Fails to Pay VFX Aritsts

(variety.com)
Not long ago I got a call from a Time magazine reporter working on a story on the visual effects business. As we discussed the dire financial straits of many vfx companies despite their growing importance to studio movies, she asked, "Don't these people have business plans?"

I told her she was proceeding from the false premise that people start vfx companies to be business owners. Most people who go into vfx do it for the same reason people become actors: They love the work. But when they fail as businessmen, the result is too often misery.

The latest bad news from the vfx biz comes from Montreal's Fake Studio, part of the Camera e-Motion Group. A handful of artists who worked for Fake on the 3D vfx for Dimension's "Piranha 3D" have yet to receive payments due in April. Their plight has inspired a great deal of anger in vfx circles, where hearing "unpaid artists" and "Montreal" opens the old wound of Meteor Studios and the problems artists had getting paid for New Line's "Journey to the Center of the Earth."

One of the unpaid artists, Manny Wong, told Variety that with the Meteor incident in mind, he negotiated a payment-in-advance deal, but upon arrival in Montreal, he liked the atmosphere at Fake enough to forego advance payment. He says the producer was "very upfront" with him about the pic's financial difficulties through two crises that threatened to shut down the picture. Then Fake management said it hadn't been paid by the client and couldn't pay the 3D team anymore from its own pockets. Months later, payment is still due.

Last week Dave Rand, a veteran of Meteor who has become something of a watchdog for abuse of vfx artists, posted about the Fake and its unpaid artists on his Facebook page. Marc Cote, an owner of Fake, responded with a note admitting the company is in arrears and saying it is "making arrangements with all of the creditors … to reimburse them as quickly as operations permit." He continued: "Short of shutting down the company we cannot reimburse everybody's debt in one shot. … We are 100% committed to reimbursing this debt."

It's been common for vfx shops to get behind on debts and wind up paying past debts out of current receipts; that's why one analyst calls the entire vfx business "a Ponzi scheme." Fake's problems seem to fit that pattern. Earlier this week a Dimension spokesman said Fake has been paid. Cote was in production and did not respond directly to Variety's inquiries, but we did hear from Louis Turp, a consultant working with Cote on "options and strategies for the future of the company." Turp quoted Cote saying, "It won't happen again" and added. "Cote always fulfills his obligations."

It's easy to paint Cote and Fake as villains, but these problems are endemic in the vfx business, and the response has been mostly finger-pointing. Studio execs blame unprofessional management of vfx companies. California artists call for an end to runaway production. Some artists call for a union, others despise the idea, and no existing guilds are rushing to organize vfx artists.

"The show must go on" has been the showbiz mantra, and the movie biz has counted on artists taking that to heart. But the patience and goodwill of vfx artists aren't infinite. Whether the solution is market-based (i.e., artists negotiating ruthlessly and walking off immediately if a payment is missed) or a union, it's becoming clear that the status quo will not hold. Something has to give.

Film Industry News

2010-08-16T05:44:00.000-07:00

Indiana Jones 5 - Crazy & Cool

(filmonic.com)               Despite saying publicly in May that he felt he had “dropped the ball on the legacy that people loved and cherished” with Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull Shia LaBeouf will still be involved in Indy 5.
Last June LaBeouf said Spielberg had “cracked the story”, which was followed by an update from Harrison Ford in September who said the film is in the “process of taking form” and “Steven Spielberg, George Lucas and myself are agreed on what the fifth adventure will concern”.
Now the latest update from LaBeouf suggests we are in for a crazy time.
From ShowBiz Spy:
    “They’re script writing right now,” says Shia. “I got called into Steven’s office and he pitched a little bit to me and it sounds crazy, it sounds really cool.”
Earlier this year Shia said Transformers 3 was going to be the “craziest action movie ever made”, so i’m not sure where Indian Jones 5 will rank on his crazy-o-meter, but Spielberg and Lucas must have come up with something special if the guy who has worked on Michael Bay’s biggest movies thinks it’s crazy.

"Angry Birds" Feature To Try Aardman or Pixar Look
(Variety)              An Angry Birds film is in development as part of a large cross-merchandising franchise, reports Variety.
The film (which may end up playing instead as a series of shorts) will be based on the hugely popular iPhone application from Rovio that has the player using a slingshot to shoot different types of birds at villainous pigs.
As far as adapting the property goes, plans are unclear at this stage as to the specific format. Rovio's CEO Mikael Hed mentions either shorts or, possibly, a feature film (or both) and likens the intended final product to both Aardman Animation as well as Pixar.

Transformers 3: Chicago Can't Get Rid of Them!
(seibertron.com)                  The crew working on Transformers 3 refuses to leave Chicago, AKA Seibertron.com's capital. If we look at the bus reroutes, it would imply work there in some form would continue until Friday.
With that little time, it's likely nothing big will happen, but no one can say for sure in this hobby full of surprises. It could be clean-up, or it could be the scene that ties everything together.

State of the VFX Industry: Is Working for “FREE” Worth It?
(bobbyboom.blogspot.com)            Returning home from Siggraph this year I had a major concern on my mind and I wanted to expose this concern as well as offer up some potential food for thought. I had an opportunity to talk to just about every major studio and a lot of mid-sized studios during the week of Siggraph.

Shia LaBeouf on Indiana Jones 5

from Movies - Den of Geek

New details revealed for X-Men: First Class

from Movies - Den of Geek

VFX Artist Pay Fail, VES Meets NASA, & Imagineers Event...

Montreal's Fake Studio Fails to Pay VFX Aritsts

(variety.com)

Not long ago I got a call from a Time magazine reporter working on a story on the visual effects business. As we discussed the dire financial straits of many vfx companies despite their growing importance to studio movies, she asked, "Don't these people have business plans?"

I told her she was proceeding from the false premise that people start vfx companies to be business owners. Most people who go into vfx do it for the same reason people become actors: They love the work. But when they fail as businessmen, the result is too often misery.

The latest bad news from the vfx biz comes from Montreal's Fake Studio, part of the Camera e-Motion Group. A handful of artists who worked for Fake on the 3D vfx for Dimension's "Piranha 3D" have yet to receive payments due in April. Their plight has inspired a great deal of anger in vfx circles, where hearing "unpaid artists" and "Montreal" opens the old wound of Meteor Studios and the problems artists had getting paid for New Line's "Journey to the Center of the Earth."

One of the unpaid artists, Manny Wong, told Variety that with the Meteor incident in mind, he negotiated a payment-in-advance deal, but upon arrival in Montreal, he liked the atmosphere at Fake enough to forego advance payment. He says the producer was "very upfront" with him about the pic's financial difficulties through two crises that threatened to shut down the picture. Then Fake management said it hadn't been paid by the client and couldn't pay the 3D team anymore from its own pockets. Months later, payment is still due.

Last week Dave Rand, a veteran of Meteor who has become something of a watchdog for abuse of vfx artists, posted about the Fake and its unpaid artists on his Facebook page. Marc Cote, an owner of Fake, responded with a note admitting the company is in arrears and saying it is "making arrangements with all of the creditors … to reimburse them as quickly as operations permit." He continued: "Short of shutting down the company we cannot reimburse everybody's debt in one shot. … We are 100% committed to reimbursing this debt."

It's been common for vfx shops to get behind on debts and wind up paying past debts out of current receipts; that's why one analyst calls the entire vfx business "a Ponzi scheme." Fake's problems seem to fit that pattern. Earlier this week a Dimension spokesman said Fake has been paid. Cote was in production and did not respond directly to Variety's inquiries, but we did hear from Louis Turp, a consultant working with Cote on "options and strategies for the future of the company." Turp quoted Cote saying, "It won't happen again" and added. "Cote always fulfills his obligations."

It's easy to paint Cote and Fake as villains, but these problems are endemic in the vfx business, and the response has been mostly finger-pointing. Studio execs blame unprofessional management of vfx companies. California artists call for an end to runaway production. Some artists call for a union, others despise the idea, and no existing guilds are rushing to organize vfx artists.

"The show must go on" has been the showbiz mantra, and the movie biz has counted on artists taking that to heart. But the patience and goodwill of vfx artists aren't infinite. Whether the solution is market-based (i.e., artists negotiating ruthlessly and walking off immediately if a payment is missed) or a union, it's becoming clear that the status quo will not hold. Something has to give.

Visual Effects Society Meets NASA

(cgw.com)                  The Visual Effects Society has announced that NASA astronomer Dr. Rich Terrile will be the featured speaker at the VES Production Summit on Oct. 23 at the Ritz Carlton in Marina Del Rey. He will speak on how the future of evolutionary computation and artificial intelligence will impact the entertainment industry and its business models ... Gnomon School of Visual Effects in Hollywood will present a panel of artists from Look FX on the making of "Lost," on Aug. 26. The Gnomon series is sponsored by the VES ...

DreamWorks Animation's Casts for "Boo U"

(Heat Vision)                Seth Rogen has signed on for Boo U, according to Heat Vision.

The animated film (from Igor director Tony Leondis) is being developed by DreamWorks animation for release in 3D. Rogen will play a ghost who is forced to return to ghost school and improve his haunting skills.

The studio is eyeing a 2012 release for the film.

James Caan Hates Computer Tricks

(bloomberg.com)                    James Caan at the HollyShorts Film Festival in Los Angeles. Caan, 70, recently announced finalists in a short-film competition offered by his Openfilm LLC. Photographer: Todd Williamson/Directors Guild Of America via Bloomberg
David Arquette

David Arquette at the HollyShorts Film Festival in Los Angeles. Arquette made a 3-D movie "The Butler's in Love." Photographer: Todd Williamson/HollyShorts Film Festival via Bloomberg

Tough-guy actor James Caan is disturbed by Hollywood’s obsession with computerized special effects.

“It’s a little depressing,” Caan said at a press conference for the HollyShorts Film Festival in Los Angeles. “Everything is CGI (computer-generated imagery) and directors who don’t want actors to distract from their prowess.”

Caan, 70, announced finalists in a short-film competition offered by his Openfilm LLC. The winner gets $50,000 in cash and $200,000 in financing to adapt the short to feature length.

'Underworld 4' Locked In For 2012

(latinoreview.com)                   'Underworld 4' Locked In For 2012 Screen Gems apparently doesn't think we've had enough of werewolves and vampires, because there's another "Underworld" film on the way. Don't worry folks, it's not arriving in theaters until January 20th, 2012. Len Wiseman is set to direct the 3D feature that will star none other than Kate Beckinsale.

The story is said to focus on the character Seline as she let's one of her two daughters have at it in the never-ending war between werewolves and vampires. Clearly Screen Gems is trying to work out a possible new trilogy with one of the daughters, what a surprise. Well, at least they're trying to totally capitalize on the vampire and werewolf craze which more than likely will finally slow down in 2012 along with the "Twilight" series.

'Spider-Man' Reboot Is 'Risky,' Says David Fincher

(splashpage.mtv.com)            Earlier this year, director David Fincher was reportedly on Sony's shortlist to direct the "Spider-Man" reboot, alongside fellow filmmakers Wes Anderson ("Rushmore"), and Marc Webb ("500 Days of Summer"), who eventually got the job.

Even though he won't be directing the newest cinematic adventures of Peter Parker onscreen, Fincher told MTV News that while he feels that the reboot is exciting, it also carries some drawbacks as well.

"It's risky," offered Fincher. "They're taking some risks. It's not like they're [getting] a conventional director. They're going at it in a different way... They're rolling the dice. I think that's always exciting."

Back in 2009, Fincher revealed that he had been under consideration to direct the first "Spider-Man" film, but ultimately passed because he didn't connect with the material.

"I took a meeting and I easily got myself out of that one," related Fincher. "I've never been interested in [superhero movies]. I just could not imagine someone getting bit by a radioactive spider."

Despite Fincher's attempt to divorce himself from superhero movies, Andrew Garfield — the latest actor to portray Spider-Man — is also starring in Fincher's upcoming film "The Social Network."

"I can't imagine [Garfield] in spandex, I can't imagine him being comfortable," said Fincher. "He's a wonderful actor, he's incredibly skilled and empathic and a lovely guy. So it's nice to see that."

Fincher is also attached to produce Eric Powell's "The Goon" as an animated feature.

Marvelous Mechanized Magic: September 18th with Legendary Disney Imagineers - Host Neil Patrick Harriss

(laughingplace.com)                The 1313 Disney Club has begun to roll up their sleeves to again create an amazing evening of entertainment. The Club members are Celebrating 55 Years of Marvelous Mechanized Magic on September 18, 2010. The event honors Walt Disney's animatronics / MAPO. Walt Disney’s imagination has developed into a world wide industry. Garner Holt will be displaying some of his own animatronic characters. Some will be “plugged in” and functioning. Some of the greatest hands that worked on these creations will be there from Rolly Crump “Berry Tales” to “Star Wars robots” and vintage Disney animatronics.

The very famous X Atencio will be gracing us with his stories involving animation and attraction design. We will be hearing from Kathryn Beaumont who portrayed Alice (“...Wonderland”) and Wendy Darling (“Peter Pan”). That should fill the evening, right? No, there is more. To round out the evening there is the fantastic artist Floyd Norman. Alice Davis, the original “designing woman” will be wowing us with her stories of clothing Disneyland characters from Small World to Pirates. And finally, the ever entertaining, the legendary, Bob Gurr will join us by being transported by a 5/8 scale Monorail. He will continue to illuminate the darker recesses of the transportation side of the Park.

I suggest that you get on-line at http://www.the1313club.com/Events.html and purchase your tickets

"Aliens" To Get Special Edition Cleanup

(techland.com)                    James Cameron really is doing all he can to become the new George Lucas, isn't he? Not content with adopting the heavily greenscreened, CGI-created atmosphere of the Star Wars prequels with Avatar, now he's going back and "fixing" earlier movies even though no-one asked him to. Bleeding Cool caught Cameron's reference to a new Aliens special edition in a recent interview:

    I just did a complete remaster of Aliens personally with the same colorist I worked with on Avatar. It's spectacular. We went in and completely de-noised it, de-grained it, up-rezzed, color-corrected it, end-to-end, every frame, and it looks amazing. It looks better that it looked in the theaters originally. Because it was shot on a high-speed negative, that was a new negative that didn't pan out too well and got replaced the following year. So it's pretty grainy. We got rid of all the grain. It's sharper and clearer and more beautiful than it's ever looked.

'CGI Kills The Scare' Warns Horror Director

(rabiddoll.com)                 A mysterious hole unleashes a terrifying army of pint-sized demons in director Alex Winter's 3D remake of "The Gate," a film inspired by movies from his childhood.

As for the tiny minions of "The Gate," Winters says that they will be a combination of armature puppetry and CG scale models. A lot of physical effects are planned for the film too.

"The minions … in the original 'Gate' are largely designed in order to be made into suits that can be worn by human beings," he said. "But today I don’t need to put a guy in a suit anymore, so it doesn’t need to be so anthropomorphic. I can come at the minions in a completely different way, which is very liberating. … Nevertheless, it will all be done with very much the spirit of the original in mind."

With CG playing such a significant role in many of today's horror films, Winters is hoping to seamlessly incorporate it into "The Gate" without compromising the film's impact. He feels genre films are often seriously hurt by the technology's pitfalls.

"It’s not scary and there’s a reason for that," Winters said. "I mean, the thing is, when someone scares you, whether in a movie or in real life, your mind will subconsciously always be looking for a way out. And what happens with these CG horror movies is they give your mind a way out. You’re not scared by what’s happening on the screen cause your subconscious mind is going: it’s an animation. It’s not real, they’re not really there, that’s not really happening to them. Your brain just shots off, and you have no visceral reactions.

"You have to use CG sparingly and it has to look very photo-real, and it has to be organic. And when it isn’t, audiences don’t care."

"Power of the Dark Crystal" Storyboards Online

(powerofthedarkcrystal.blogspot.com)                Below are a few rough storyboards and sketches for Power of the Dark Crystal. Click on the images to enlarge them. Enjoy!

Take a look:    http://powerofthedarkcrystal.blogspot.com/2007/02/production-sketches.html

Demo: PTEX, The Primary Texture Tool for Disney Animation

(forums.cgsociety.org)                There were many drawbacks to traditional texture mapping methods that led to the development of Ptex:

UV assignment was a tedious task, and making good UVs on complex models was difficult.
Texture seams could produce visible artifacts especially with displacement maps.
Large numbers of texture files were required creating a significant I/O bottleneck.

Ptex addresses all these issues by eliminating UV assignment, providing seamless filtering, and allowing any number of textures to be stored in a single file.

Ptex was used on virtually every surface in the feature film Bolt, and is now the primary texture mapping method for all productions at Walt Disney Animation Studios.

Pixar did a special guest technology presentation at Siggraph showing off their PTEX technology working inside Autodesk Mudbox. Amazing technology that everyone is scrambling for.

Take a look: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNgy2CYEvfI

John Woo Eyeing Liam Neeson for Flying Tigers

(The Hollywood Reporter) In an article at The Hollywood Reporter talking about how director John Woo is working with the Creative Artists Agency and IMAX to super-size his $90 million, 1940s bilingual aerial battle epic movie Flying Tigers, Woo mentions who he's interested in for the lead role.

Flying Tigers is based on the volunteer fighter squadron formed to help the Chinese fight the Japanese before the U.S. entered World War II. The film will tell the story of the special team set up by Lieutenant General Claire Chennault in Yunnan Province and how it fought against the Japanese Air Force in Myanmar and South-West China.

Woo said he had a CAA client in mind when mulling who should play the lead role of U.S. Army Air Corp Lt. Gen. Claire Lee Chennault -- the contentious American officer whose volunteer Flying Tigers squadron trained the first generation of Chinese fighter pilots taking on Japan in WWII.

"It's got to be a star but it's hard to find the right one, because at that time Chennault was almost 50 years old. Ideally, I've been thinking of Liam Neeson as the title actor," Woo said. CAA confirmed it represents Neeson but declined comment on "Flying Tigers."

The trade adds that playing opposite to Chennault will be a young Chinese actor in the role of a pilot in training. For that role, Woo mentioned someone like Liu Ye (City of Life and Death).

Woo is co-writing the Flying Tigers script with Chris Chow. Shooting is scheduled to start in the spring for a planned late 2011 release.

Stan Lee Develops 'Battle of Tao’, A Las Vegas- Style Show

“Spider-Man” creator Stan Lee is developing a Las Vegas- style show, “The Yin and Yang Battle of Tao,” that will include audience participation.

Lee said the show will be performed at a casino owned by a major hotel company, though he declined to identify the venue.

“It has audience involvement, something that I believe has never been done before,” Lee, 87, said.

The story revolves around the eternal struggle between good and evil and will feature newly created characters, Lee said.

The project is among several that Lee is developing through his Los Angeles-based POW! Entertainment Inc. He’s also talking to TV networks about airing his “Heroman” anime series in the U.S. The 26-episode cartoon, which features a boy who uses a giant robot to battle bad guys, is shown in Japan by TV Tokyo Corp.

Life of a VFX Intern, Avatar 2 Cuts CGI Violence, & Piranha 3D For Best Anim Feature...

5 days ago

‘Iron Man 2′ Helps Disney Beat Estimates

(blogs.wsj.com)
After the bell Tuesday, Disney reported fiscal third quarter earnings of $1.3 billion as revenue climbed to $10 billion. The company saw a 43% improvement to earnings from its television units as ad sales and distribution fees increased.

Disney also recognized a 30% increase in its movie studio revenue as films such as Toy Story 3, Iron Man 2 and Alice in Wonderland were released in the fiscal third quarter. Overall, the company topped both top and bottom line estimates set by Wall Street and looks to trade modestly higher Wednesday morning.

Spooky new poster surfaces for Skyline

from Movies - Den of Geek

After the intriguing trailer for Greg and Colin Strause’s Skyline, comes an equally arresting first poster…
Colin and Greg Strause may be the directors of the Aliens Vs Predator - Requiem, but we're hoping that their forthcoming Skyline will cleanse our minds of that earlier, woeful movie.
The trailer, which we saw last week, hints at an alien invasion movie of the Independence Day variety, and while it doesn't have the soaring budget of that movie, there are some neatly imaginative visual effects, including the glimpse of a moment where thousands of humans are sucked up by a vast extraterrestrial vacuum cleaner.
The new poster depicts a similar scene, with thousands of people swept into the sky like so much confetti, and it's an eye-catching, arresting design.
The brothers Strause have reportedly financed the film entirely out of their own pockets, with much of the movie shot in and around Greg Strause's California apartment over the space of about a month.
At the very least, Skyline should look good, since the pair have an impressive history as visual effects designers, with their CVs filled with big names such as The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button and Avatar. They were also at least partially responsible for the numbing CG car chases in 2009's Fast & Furious, but we'll quietly gloss over that.
It's been years since we saw a really good new alien invasion movie, so we're hoping that Skyline can plug the gap when it appears on 12 November.

New poster and trailers hit for sci-fi indie movie Monsters

from Movies - Den of Geek

Northern Mexico is overrun by giant aliens in the new poster and trailers for the forthcoming independent sci-fi movie, Monsters…
In it, a North Mexican city is overrun by a murderous breed of alien creatures that have hatched from a crashed NASA probe, and Whitney Able and Scoot McNairy (both veterans from US television shows such as CSI and My Name Is Earl) play a pair of ill-starred lovers fighting for survival.
Derivative though Monsters' storyline is, the trailer is encouragingly atmospheric, and its effects are remarkable considering British director Gareth Edwards' miniscule budget, which reportedly amounted to around $15,000. The monsters themselves are barely glimpsed, but evidence of their destructive presence is everywhere, with the South American location providing a memorable post-apocalyptic backdrop.
Monsters will be screened as part of Film4's FrightFest on 28 August, and will go on general cinema release from 12 November. Until then, feast your eyes on the new poster, as well as the film's trailers. The official UK promo and its international variant can be viewed below.
While both look great, we're most intrigued by the moment in the international trailer where an unseen creature pulls a fighter jet into the depths of a swamp...

UK trailer

Click on the poster thumbnail for a full view...

Sylvester Stallone on The Expendables 2

from Movies - Den of Geek

So, Mr Stallone: given that The Expendables has made lots of money, how far have you got with writing the sequel?
It's never been much of a secret that Sylvester Stallone was planning for The Expendables to be his new franchise, especially now that he's decided to retire Rambo once and for all. And inevitably, in the build-up to the release of the film in the US last weekend (with preview screenings all weekend in the UK), a lot of chatter was concerned with fresh talk of an Expendables 2.
The chat over the past seven days had been that any potential sequel would be dependent on the film's box office performance, and that, in theory, the wheels could start moving this week if the film made enough money.
Well, given that the movie took over $35m at the box office in the US in its opening weekend, the biggest in Stallone's career (although inevitably factors such as inflation do come into play, if you want to be picky), it's fair to say that The Expendables 2 is very, very likely.
The Hollywood Reporter took no time in chatting to Stallone once the projected weekend numbers were in. And when it asked whether he'd penned the script already for the next adventure, he told the site that, "It's plotted out in my mind's eye. I believe this group has to continue to evolve. It just can't become the same people. So, how do you get new people introduced into the group, and how do you have some of the other people leaving? Those are the challenges."
Sly, might we suggest: the challenge is first and foremost to get Arnie and Bruce to spend a bit longer in the film (Stallone has already stated that he's keen to get The Governator back). And then also to check out the ten people we recommend for the sequel. If you're reading Mr Stallone, you can find that here.
The Expendables is released on Wednesday in the UK, incidentally, even if we suspect many of our fellow Brits took advantage of those preview screenings we talked about earlier. Good on ‘em too, we say...

Stuart Gordon’s Re-Animator: 25 years on

from Movies - Den of Geek

Stuart Gordon’s enduringly messy 1985 horror Re-Animator reaches its quarter-century this year. And it’s as campily thrilling as it ever was, says Ryan…
1985. The year Michael J Fox drove into the 50s in Back To The Future, Sylvester Stallone took on the might of communist Russia and won in a single boxing match, and a group of working class kids found pirate treasure in The Goonies.
But there's one, far more antisocial film that leaves its bloody footprint on that year and stands as arguably one of the greatest horror pictures of the decade: Stuart Gordon's gloriously, unapologetically bloody Re-Animator.
Where else can you see a cat with a broken spine return from the dead, or a man choked to death with a corpse's sentient intestines? What other movie of the era had the audacity to splatter the screen with so much gore, nudity and dismemberment, while at the same time providing audiences with moments of laughter as well as gross-out horror?

With the help of writer William Norris, first-time director Stuart Gordon took one of cult writer H.P. Lovecraft's lesser short stories (even the author himself regarded it as little more than a piece of work-for-hire hackwork) and brought it to the screen in spectacular fashion.
Jeffery Combs stars as the young scientist Doctor Herbert West, a pompous, hubristic genius whose self-concocted serum has the power to re-animate the dead, but with one distinct drawback: when awakened from their terminal slumber, the recipients of West's potion are violently, mindlessly deranged.

Heading to the quiet halls of Miskatonic University after an unfortunate incident in Switzerland (his prototype serum caused his last professor's head to explode), West encounters Dan Cain (Bruce Abbott), an idealistic undergraduate who enjoys a blissful relationship with the Dean's radiant daughter, Megan Halsey (Barbara Crampton).
Installing himself in Cain's basement and resuming his crackpot experiments, West's haughty air and outlandish theories soon make him the target of faculty member Dr Hill (David Gale, brilliant beneath an unfortunate, hat-like wig), and as West and his newfound friend Cain begin testing their experimental potion on first a cat, then a corpse in the university's morgue, matters soon get completely out of control.

Ostensibly Re-Animator's leads and moral centre, screen couple Abbot and Crampton are completely upstaged by Jeffery Combs' extraordinarily camp turn as West. His portrayal of a smug young genius, apparently oblivious to the death and chaos he's creating, is one of the funniest in horror cinema and recalls Vincent Price's hammy turns in Roger Corman's classic run of Edgar Allan Poe movies. David Gale is almost as good, and his bickering scenes with Combs fizz with energy and charisma.
Check out the scene where, after Combs' West petulantly snaps pencils during a lecture, Gale delivers the killer line, "Mr West, I suggest you get yourself a pen!" It's hissed with such biblical vehemence that what would otherwise be a mildly amusing moment becomes unforgettably hilarious.

Finding an actor game enough to not only spend most of a film playing the part of a severed head, but also "trysting with a co-ed" in one of the most graphically amusing visual puns in cinema history, couldn't have been easy, but Gale takes on these duties with lip-smacking relish. According to the excellent feature-length documentary on Anchor Bay's special edition re-release, Gale's wife uttered a horrified, "How could you?" when she first saw Re-Animator in the mid-80s.
Then again, Re-Animator arguably pushed the boundaries of taste and decency further than any other horror of its time. So filled with gore, sex and nudity that its makers didn't even bother submitting it to the MPAA for a rating, effects man John Naulin once said that he used 24 gallons of blood on the film where most horror movies only called for two.

Naulin deserves a special mention, in fact, for the staggering range of practical effects he managed to create on a shoestring budget. Rubbery head decapitations aside, the scale of his achievement, considering his lack of time and funds, shouldn't be overlooked. A moment when a revenant corpse is despatched with a bone saw through its chest cavity is ickily convincing.
From description alone, Re-Animator probably sounds like any other sensationalist gore flick made in the last 30 years. But while its premise is messy, the film itself isn't, and its writing, acting and direction display, not only an encyclopaedic knowledge of horror cinema, but also a genuine affection for its source material, even if Lovecraft himself would perhaps have disapproved of its anarchic treatment.

That Re-Animator was well received by mainstream critics, who normally treated the horror genre with contempt, is further proof of the quality of its production. And where other genre movies released the same year, including Tobe Hooper's weird misfire Lifeforce and turgid, derivative monster flick, Creature have been justifiably forgotten, Re-Animator retains its bloody, irreverent allure.
Like one of West's revived corpses, Re-Animator is as biting and antisocial now as it was 25 years ago, and refuses to slumber quietly in its grave.

Pirates of the Caribbean 4 Wraps Hawaii Shoot

(hawaiimagazine.com)

     It's time to bid "Aloha!" to Capt. Jack Sparrow and his crew.

Hawaii location shooting ends today on Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, the fourth installment in Walt Disney Pictures mega-blockbuster action-comedy series.

“Mahalo to everyone in Hawaii who made our PIRATES 4 shoot such a great one,” executive producer Jerry Bruckheimer wrote on his Twitter account this morning. “You taught us “aloha” isn’t just a word.”

Right back 'atcha, Mr. Bruckheimer!

The Pirates 4 production celebrated the end of Hawaii filming last night with a hush-hush wrap party … location still unknown to this uninvited writer. The Pirates 4 crew and cast—which includes Johnny Depp reprising his role as Capt. Jack Sparrow, Geoffrey Rush as Capt. Hector Barbossa and Penelope Cruz as new Capt. Jack love interest/foe Angelica—now moves on to California and London for more filming.

Hawaii location filming of Pirates 4 began June 14 on Kauai’s Napali Coast, continuing at multiple sites on the island through late July. The production then moved to Oahu, with the bulk of filming taking place at Kaneohe's Heeia Pier aboard the Queen Anne’s Revenge (upon its Hawaii arrival, mistakenly believed to be the previous films' Black Pearl). Other Oahu production locations included Halona Beach Cove—aka From Here to Eternity Beach, where Deborah Kerr and Burt Lancaster famously rolled in the surf in the 1953 movie.

VFX Helps U.K. Post-production Stay Afloat

(Variety.com)                  London-- While most entertainment business sectors in the U.K.are undergoing tumultuous budget cuts or worrying about downsizing, thefolks running post-production houses are relatively sanguine. Sure,even the post biz stumbled a bit during the economic downturn, but thefuture now holds plenty of promise, particularly for those who createvisual effects.

In fact, thanks to a concentration of talent and taxincentives, Blighty's share of the film visual effects market hasnearly doubled from 2005 to some 20% of the worldwide biz.

AnshulDoshi, global chief operating officer and group managing director U.K.of post conglom Prime Focus, allows that the economic crisis of 2008was "devastating."

"Several films that had gotten funded were puton hold, and that meant there were big gaps, and we had to work on alow-margin basis to keep going ahead," Doshi says. "But as the industryhas recovered, a lot of visual effects have come into the U.K."

GaynorDavenport, chief exec of trade body U.K. Screen Assn., says,"Post-production facilities have, of course, felt pain like everyoneelse as a result of delays in productions being greenlit; however,overall, the post-production sector held steady last year, withactivity building over 2010 and good visibility into 2011."

London-basedhouses have certainly kept busy. Double Negative created vfx forChristopher Nolan's "Inception," Paramount's "Iron Man 2" and "ScottPilgrim vs. the World." Cinesite did work on Disney's "Prince ofPersia: The Sands of Time." Framestore took on Angelina Jolie starrer"Salt" and "Avatar."

Framestore chief exec William Sargent notesthat many post houses -- along with the U.K. studios -- are operatingat full capacity, and downplays the effect that the recent abolition ofthe U.K. Film Council will have on business.

"We operate (apart)from government," he says. "We have relationships with studiosthemselves. It's simply business as usual for us."

Sargent addsthat many in the post industry work on projects that aren't U.K.-basedor funded, and that any whispers of business being turned away can onlybe the result of there being too much work.

Doshi says that whilethere had been an overall softening in post-production prices, thespike in vfx work is ending the slowdown.

"Vfx is coming back in a big way," Doshi says.

The3D business has created opportunities for vfx houses. In April, PrimeFocus introduced View-D, its proprietary process for the conversion of2D to 3D stereoscopic images, in Blighty, following its internationallaunch in October. One of the first projects the group completed wasthe conversion of Warner Bros.' "Clash of the Titans" to 3D, done ineight weeks.

While critics slammed the pic's 3D look -- a verdictother 2D to 3D conversions have suffered -- auds flocked to the pic,and Doshi predicts more post houses will tap into the 2D-to-3Dconversion market. Prime has already spent $10 million on the sector."London is the only other hub that has large visual effects that candeliver a whole big show," he says.

Dennis Weinreich, managingdirector of film and TV post-production at Pinewood Studios, says anytalk of doom and gloom in the U.K. post biz is isolated. "We have neverknown a busier time than the one we're currently in," he says.

Pinewood,which is housing "Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides," workson some 30 pics a year, including sound and excluding internationalwork.

But Weinreich says he does see a softening ofpost-production in some areas, with fewer medium- and low-budgetpictures being made.

A big part of Pinewood's post business comes from outside the U.K. -- and not just work from U.S. majors.

"Rightnow we're enjoying a fabulous relationship with producers in Spain(Pinewood worked on Alejandro Amenabar's 'Agora')," Weinreich notes."We also do a lot of work on films coming from Russia."

Weinreich adds that business is supported by "good working relationships with many of the big houses in town as well."

KeithWilliams, CEO of Goldcrest Post, which focuses on sound (it has housedprojects including "Brighton Rock" and "The Imaginarium of DoctorParnassus") says that inward investment has been a key driver of bizthe past few years.

"Hollywood is going to make more films thananywhere else other than Bollywood, and while the past few months havebeen slower, business is starting to look better," he says. "The mostinteresting thing for us, like the entire U.K. film industry, is to seewhat happens in the next few months after the government announces theSpending Review in October. There was a huge fear in the election thatgovernment would change the tax credit, and thank goodness it didn't.The U.K. may not be the best in Europe in terms of tax incentives, butyou know what you're going to get year after year."

Toy Story 3 Is the Top Toon of All Time!

(Walt Disney Pictures)              It's official! Disney•Pixar's acclaimed Toy Story 3, directed by Lee Unkrich, has become the highest grossing animated film of all time with the $920 million it has grossed globally since opening in mid-June. This weekend, the computer-animated family comedy should become only the second Disney movie to cross the $400 million mark domestically, as it shoots to become the ninth highest grossing movie in North America by summer's end. It's currently Disney's fourth biggest global hit.

In a statement released earlier today, Rich Ross, Chairman of The Walt Disney Studios, said:

“In 1995, the talented team at Pixar introduced a cowboy, a space ranger and their friends who have gone on to become some of the most beloved characters in the world. The success of Toy Story is due to the tremendously creative and innovative team at Pixar, led by John Lasseter and Ed Catmull, and our incredible marketing and distribution teams around the world. In Toy Story 3, director Lee Unkrich, producer Darla Anderson and the incredible team at Pixar have given audiences a film that continued the rich storytelling and character building that have become synonymous with every Pixar release.”

Animated "Rango" Gets Some Game

(destructoid.com)                  If an animated movie is coming out you can pretty much guarantee that it's going to have a kid friendly videogame land alongside it. It appears that the Johnny Depp led Rango will be no different as employees from Canadian developer A2M, who brought us Naughty Bear, are already listing the game on their resumes.

Normally a game based on a children's movie would hardly be news as they are a dime a dozen, but Rango really looks interesting as a film and I'm hoping it tumbles over to the game. Not only is there an odd Fear and Loathing vibe going on, but we have a plethora of classic Western themes and tropes along with a giant floating fish. Plus, with the quality of the last Toy Story game I have unreasonably high hopes for all children's movie-based videogames.

It should be noted that this game could have nothing to do with the movie. The release year is the same, and A2M has worked on plenty of licensed games in the past, but that doesn't confirm that this game and the movie are the same.

Josh Hartnett Time Travels Into "Tomorrow"

Josh Hartnett and director Paul McGuigan ("Lucky Number Slevin," "Wicker Park") are re-teaming for the time travel thriller "Tomorrow" for Worldview Entertainment reports Quiet Earth.

Michael Gould penned the story of a man who travels "back and forth through time and space, trying to prevent the murder of his family."

Shooting is scheduled to begin later this year in Louisiana.

Spyglass poised to Produce "The Hobbit"

(examiner.com)              The Wall Street Journal and the Los Angeles Times are reporting that Spyglass Entertainment is near reaching an agreement with MGM and its creditors which would have Spyglass running MGM.

The deal would reportedly make Spyglass founders Gary Barber and Roger Birnbaum 4 to 5% owners of MGM, and compensate them for managing the company. MGM's creditors would become shareholders in return for forgiving the company's debt.

Barber and Birnbaum would drastically reduce MGM's overhead and produce just a few movies a year – including the James Bond series and the two planned Hobbit movies. (Spyglass would remain a separate company.)

In related news, TheOneRing.net is reporting that the excitement over a possible August 21 announcement about the Hobbit films was premature. They state that their own investigations have found much of the report by the Noldor Blog to be "incorrect and wildly speculative, at best."

So, while there might not be an August 21 announcement coming down the pike, Hobbits fans can be encouraged by the MGM news. The movies might just get made yet.

Prime Focus CEO On The Global Appetite for Visual Effects

(knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu)                 Mumbai-based visual entertainment services firm Prime Focus contributed a tenth of the special effects in James Cameron's blockbuster film Avatar. Riding on that success, it wants to spread its wings globally by leveraging its Indian base, says its founder and global CEO Namit Malhotra. He spoke with India Knowledge@Wharton during the 2010 Wharton India Economic Forum in Philadelphia.

An edited transcript of the conversation follows.

India Knowledge@Wharton: Could you please explain to us what Prime Focus does?

Namit Malhotra: Prime Focus is a global visual entertainment services company servicing the feature film, broadcast, television, commercials, and new media businesses. We provide technical creative solutions, which is basically technology and creative solutions for any audiovisual content that needs to be made and we provide it in an integrated fashion across each of these areas of the entertainment business.

India Knowledge@Wharton: You now have facilities in Vancouver, London, and most recently, Hollywood, which you made through some acquisitions in the U.S.

Malhotra: That's right.

India Knowledge@Wharton: It is interesting that your company has grown at a time when a lot of companies are shrinking. Could you explain that?

Malhotra: For the first 10 years since we started in 1995, we were an India-centric company. Up to 2005, we stayed in Indian territory. In 2006, we started to put together our international strategy on how we could leverage our learnings of the Indian market across the global marketplace. We started by taking up a position in the U.K. Then, in December 2007, we made our North American acquisitions. This is all part of our global plan to connect and integrate the service offerings across markets because the language of film and cinema and any audiovisual content remains the same. The technology remains the same. And in these times when economic conditions have become more difficult, we need to be able to present a global solution to these global markets where there are financial challenges. The opportunity and the interest in what we do have become only greater.

India Knowledge@Wharton: To some degree do you think the film industry has been buffered during the downturn?

Malhotra: I wouldn't agree with that although the box office tends to be its own indicator. You saw [some] interesting films. Two that I would like to name came in December last year. One was Avatar which is a game changer in the film business worldwide. And there was a film in India called Three Idiots, which again was a game changer. It changed the entire Bollywood numbers. No film had ever grossed anything close to the numbers they grossed.

On the one hand you still have inadequate financing and structured money. The number of projects and the number of people that could work on those projects come under pressure. But the box office is obviously a function of the quality of cinema and people's interest. If the right project comes along, revenues don't necessarily get impacted even though the production of content could be because of the lack of financing upfront. It's interesting. These two films have created interest in the revival of the industry in India and in Hollywood. As I see it, more films are back in the running and there is greater optimism amongst global financial investors in the entertainment business.

India Knowledge@Wharton: You mentioned James Cameron's Avatar and you contributed 10% of the visual effects for that movie. It was 80% of the visual effects for another big film -- The Twilight Saga: New Moon.

Malhotra: That's right.

India Knowledge@Wharton: Do you think it is necessary for Indian film companies to look westward for expansion -- to look to Hollywood? Was that a central part of your own strategy?

Malhotra: Yes. A company like ours is a technology and creative solutions company. We believe that we have to be able to service our capabilities and technology with people and systems through a global market place. That is the structure of growth for any company out there in that space. In our particular case, that it is clearly the way we need to be. We have to take advantage of our positioning in India and now in the rest of the world to provide this global solution rather than operate in these bifurcated zones the industry tends to get divided into.

If you think about it, films in India get distributed worldwide. 'Avatar' was also one of the highest grossers in India, which is very unique to Hollywood films doing business in India. So what we find is that in a globalized world -- when films are traveling everywhere -- film companies like ours are tagging behind and going where the filmmakers go.

George Lucas Attends “Last Tour To Endor” Celebration

(disneydreaming.com)                   Star Wars creator George Lucas attended the “Last Tour To Endor” celebration at Walt Disney World over the weekend to say goodbye to the famous Star Wars ride at the park until it re-arrives all spiffed up next year.

Photo:     http://www.disneydreaming.com/2010/08/16/george-lucas-last-tour-to-endor-celebration/

VFX Sup Talks 'Scott Pilgrim': Inside The Creation Of The Six Fights

(mtv.com)                "It was all pretty tricky." That's how "Scott Pilgrim vs. the World" visual-effects supervisor Frazer Churchill describes the film's inimitable look — part manga, part 16-bit video game, exploding on every frame with bright colors and pulsing graphics. That's also a crazy understatement.

Each of the film's fight scenes offers a master class in the very latest in moviemaking technology, from the use of cutting-edge CG software to on-the-ground practical effects work. "Tricky" is putting it lightly. It was damn hard work, and although "Scott Pilgrim" performed disappointingly at the box office this weekend — opening to just $10.5 million in ticket sales — what director Edgar Wright and his team managed to pull off on the screen is deserving of wide acclaim.

Last week, Churchill called up MTV News to chat about the film's six fight scenes — each one a battle as Scott (Michael Cera) attempts to defeat the evil exes of his true love, Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) — and reveal the secrets about each one's creation (Beware of spoilers below).

First Fight: Matthew Patel
Of the six fights, this one was the most challenging. It begins when Pilgrim's band is playing a concert only to be interrupted by a very angry and acrobatic Patel. From a technical standpoint, the difficulty came from merging so many elements: kung fu choreography, a CG Bollywood dance routine, women hurling fireballs and more.

"It's the most piecemeal in its construction," Churchill said. "Lots of blue-screen photography, matte painting, stunt work and CG. When Scott jumps off the stage into that manga-esque vortex, that's made up of motion picture photography done on-set, digital still photography, and graphics and speed lines drawn by hand from what Edgar's brother, Oscar Wright, who was the concept designer, gave us. I shot with the second unit DP for an entire day just to get the scrolling backgrounds."

"When you put it together, you have these very high-tech images with a very low-fi feel, which is part of the appeal of 'Scott Pilgrim' and its camp, manga, 16-bit feel," he explained.

Second Fight: Lucas Lee
Throughout the shoot, Wright placed an emphasis on stage craft, always wanting there to be a physical manifestation of an effect that would be added in post-production. Perhaps at no time did that emphasis become more intricate than during Pilgrim's battle with Lee (Chris Evans).

"That was such a complex set of challenges," Churchill said. "We were shooting with actors and a lot of stunt performers. We shot a lot of high-speed stuff in front of a blue screen. Whenever the image flashes in the finished shots — every punch, sword clash or something — those were actually flashes that we had on-set with photo flashbulbs. We got through over 7,000 bulbs — you can only use them once — and then we add our own flash with CG. When someone dies and bursts into coins, we'd empty buckets of silver Mylar so the actors had something to react to. You get that marriage of digital and physical effects."

Third Fight: Todd Ingram
Todd (Brandon Routh) is a rival musician whose superpowers emanate from his vegan diet. In the graphic novels on which the film is based, those powers are represented by just a series of rings. That sort of simplicity wouldn't work for the movie.

"We needed something more sophisticated," Churchill explained. "Our reference for it was that old logo for RKO Pictures with the radio transmitter. We made the rings feel uneven and have these optical aberrations with color bursts."

"There's also this complicated shot where Scott gets thrown through a brick wall," he continued. "One pass is shot with a camera close to Todd and then the action is shot again with a wide shot, so that when Scott is thrown and the shot snaps back from tight to wide, that's actually a morph from two different camera positions. Michael is there on a rig being thrown across the room, and then we take over with a digital version of Michael to go through the pre-made hole in the wall, and then there's a stunt person on a rig flying through the wall, and we add digital debris."

Fourth Fight: Roxy Richter
Roxy (Mae Whitman) is a ninja capable of disappearing into thin air. The trick for Wright and Churchill was to make those disappearances visually compelling.

"When she disappears, we bring in a blue screen so then we can erase her in the shot," Churchill said. "We add in black CG smoke and we also wanted something more, so there's white smoke too, which was a practical effect that we did on-set, as well as those flashbulbs. Plus we did a lot of lens flares and movement graphics. We spent a whole day just flashing different lights at the camera so we'd have a lot of stuff to work with."

For her fight scene, Whitman didn't have to mess around with any dangerous weaponry. "She's actually fighting with a pink ribbon," Churchill said. "She learned to ribbon dance. Then we replaced the ribbon with a CG razor belt."

Fifth Fight: Kyle and Ken Katayanagi
The fifth fight again takes place during a concert, as Scott's band and the Katayanagi twins battle with their music: Sound waves cause physical destruction and giant monsters eventually appear to help in the fight. To get those effects right, filmmakers actually had to create an entirely new computer program.

"Wherever the band plays, there's visualized music. We wanted that to feel like it was happening in time to the music," Churchill explained. "Our CG supervisor, Andrew Whitehurst, wrote this piece of software that we called the Wave Form Generator. Nigel Godrich, the music supervisor, would break down the tracks into their separate components, give us the rhythm, the bass, the drums, the vocals, and we would use them to drive the animation. The software would convert these sound stems into animation data, so when the band is playing, the graphics and the dragons are moving in time with the music."

"For the dragons, I had these weather balloons on-set so that people would have something to react to," he added." I'd raise them up however high they needed to be. Whenever we did the fights, we'd have music playing back on-set. It was like a music video."

Sixth Fight: Gideon Gordon Graves
This climactic fight, which takes place in a nightclub with a "Super Mario Bros."-style brick pyramid in the middle, was an exhausting affair.

"Oh my god — we were on that pyramid for weeks," Churchill said. "The heat rises. It was intense. Again we had physical manifestations of the digital effects — a lot of photo flashes, and Scott's sword had red LEDs and we added flames and the sword. All the stuff that looked like manga was shot on a blue screen. There was a ton of choreography and stunt work. There are just all these additional layers of craziness."

The fight ends with Scott triumphant and Gideon flickering as if caught in some kind of computer glitch. While Wright storyboarded each scene well in advance, this flickering effect was something he came up with in the editing room.

"That wasn't planned. That came up in post," Churchill said. "When Edgar was cutting the scene, he wanted a suitable end for Gideon. He came up with this idea of him glitching and malfunctioning. He's breaking down."

"The thing about the film is each fight is completely different," he continued. "It's not like you establish one thing and then you redo it over and over. Each fight required us to create a whole new set design, a whole new look, a whole new way of doing things."

James Cameron Advised Del Toro to "Get Out" of The Hobbit Project

(comicbookmovie.com)                Before Guillermo Del Toro's eventual departure from The Hobbit, James Cameron had been telling his long-time friend (and new production partner) to defer to Peter Jackson and "just stay in your corner."
James Cameron may have a bit of outspoken fanboy in his blood, too.

Of course, I say that in jest. Whether you are a fan of his work or not, there is no denying that James Cameron is one of the more powerful and influential directors in our era, especially within the sci-fi and fantasy genres. Backed by his track record in film-making, he seems to never be short on opinions or advice.

In an interview with Australia's Herald Sun, Cameron speaks briefly about his newly-formed partnership with Guillermo del Toro. In May, del Toro announced his departure from The Hobbit, which being produced by Peter Jackson, auteur of The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Two months later, del Toro announced that he will be taking the helm of the film adaptation of HP Lovecraft's At The Mountains Of Madness, with Cameron producing.

Cameron mentions that he had been waiting a while for Del Toro to become available. The Hobbit had been mired in messy delays due to MGM's difficulty to find financing for the LOTR prequel. Cameron reveals that he had been "telling him for a long time to get out of [The Hobbit] because there is only room for one captain on the ship" Cameron goes on to say, "Instinctively I knew that Peter was going to take over and do the movie."

Here is the excerpt from the interview:

    "I was telling him for a long time to get out of that thing because there is only room for one captain on the ship," Cameron says. "Instinctively I knew that Peter was going to take over and do the movie.

    "Guillermo, to his credit, didn't listen to me and wanted to do continue and had some great designs - and I have seen all the designs. Of course he would have done a spectacular job, but don't we want to see Peter do it? He should do it and Guillermo should do his thing.

    "That's what I told both of them - you should just stay in your corners."

Confirmed: Karl Urban to play Judge Dredd

from Movies - Den of Geek

Karl Urban will definitely be playing Judge Dredd in the new movie. And that helmet will be staying firmly on his bonce…
Hats off to the folks at Bleeding Cool, who revealed the news a month or so back that Karl Urban was the leading candidate to play Judge Dredd in the forthcoming new movie. It got it bang on the money too, for the news was confirmed over the weekend at Movie Con in London.
It's also been revealed that Dredd this time around won't be taking his helmet off. Common sense prevails there.
Empire now reports producer Andrew Macdonald as saying, "Our idea is to make a very hard, R-rated, gritty, realistic movie of Dredd in Megacity, so we've got to get the tone right. He's not going to take off his helmet. His bike is going to feel real. He's going to hit people and it's going to feel real."
Pete Travis will be directing the film, which is going to be shot in South Africa, from a script by Alex Garland that's had the involvement of John Wagner.
Here's the original Bleeding Cool story from back in July and here's what Empire had to say over the weekend.

James Cameron on Avatar sequel, Avatar Special Edition trailer

from Movies - Den of Geek

As Avatar heads back to cinemas in its Special Edition guise, James Cameron chats about his plans for the sequels. Which may be a little less violent…
James Cameron may have already made enough money out of his blockbuster Avatar to ride around in a solid gold Bentley wearing a hat fashioned out of thousand dollar bills, but the veteran director isn't even close to finishing with the world of Pandora yet.
As the first film in his franchise returns to the big screen for its extended Special Edition, he's been divulging a few more details about its sequel. Talking to MTV, Cameron revealed that he intends to set the next film under the sea, returning to his affection for all things nautical last displayed in The Abyss and Titanic.
"I think what we should do there is [...] because we'll have to have characters that are in and under the water [...] is that we should actually capture them underwater," Cameron said. "It's not the same as going diving, but I like to keep my diving, which I do for pleasure, separate from work."
In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, meanwhile - news of which comes of us via IO9 - Cameron hinted that the second Avatar could be considerably less action-packed than its predecessor.
According to the story, Cameron met an Amazonian tribe who, like the residents of Pandora, were attempting to protect their land from a corporation intent on mining their land for fuel. The director put a group of them on a bus to a special screening of Avatar, reportedly, the first film they'd ever seen.
Speaking to a tribal elder afterwards, Cameron was told, "In this movie, they solved their problems by fighting. We are not afraid to fight, but we have decided to try to solve our problems through dialogue."
The director revealed that, although he has a story arc planned for the sequel to Avatar, his trip to South America has "altered the story line somewhat."
"So, this movie needs a better message," Cameron said. "It made me think."
So, will Cameron put aside the exploding trees and robot knife fights of Avatar for its sequel? Will Avatar 2 boil down to an undersea peace conference? And most importantly, will the people of the Achuar tribe, having sat through almost three hours of Avatar, ever dare set foot in a cinema again? Only time will tell.
Meanwhile, a second trailer for the extended version of the first film, Avatar: Special Edition, has been released and you can see it here:

Paramount Takes on Sci-Fi Project Last Man Standing

LMS: Killbook of a Bounty Hunter is your first glimpse into the LMS graphic novel series. It is a character bible and prologue book that introduces you to Gabriel, the hero of our story, as he personally unravels to his audience the intricacies of his world, set in a time-transcending and parallel universe that is inhabited by a roster of colorful and deadly characters. Join Gabriel in his quest for revenge and the journey he will embark on by traveling through more than 200 pages of history, character art, bios, and other forms of pleasure and pain.

I Spit On Your Grave

Plot Summary: A remake of the controversial 1979 cult classic, "I Spit on Your Grave" retells the horrific tale of writer Jennifer Hills, who takes a retreat from the city to a charming cabin in the woods to start on her next book. But Jennifer's presence in the small town attracts the attention of a few morally deprived locals led who set out one night to teach this city girl a lesson.

They break into her cabin to scare her. However, what starts out as terrifying acts of humiliation and intimidation, quickly and uncontrollably escalates into a night of physical abuse and torturous assault. But before they can kill her, Jennifer sacrifices her broken and beaten body to a raging river that washes her away.

As time passes, the men slowly stop searching for her body and try to go back to life as usual. But that isn't about to happen. Against all odds, Jennifer Hills survived her ordeal. Now, with hell bent vengeance, Jennifer's sole purpose is to turn the tables on these animals and to inflict upon them every horrifying and torturous moment they carried out on her... only much, much worse.

3D Animated 'Terminator 3000' Begins

(comingsoon.net)

        Hannover House, the entertainment distribution division of Target Development Group, Inc., has entered into a feature film development venture with Vancouver-based Red Bear Entertainment, for Terminator 3000, envisioned as a $70-million dollar budgeted, 3D animated feature film based on the characters and situations introduced in the original Terminator feature. Hannover House C.E.O. Eric Parkinson previously served as C.E.O. of Hemdale Home Video, Inc. and Hemdale Communications, Inc., and handled the distribution of the original Terminator feature.

Story details for Terminator 3000 are being kept under close wraps, but the writers and production team have a stated goal of minimizing violence in order to obtain a PG-13 level of material.

Hemdale produced and distributed director James Cameron's original Terminator feature, but released the sequel rights in 1990 to Carolco, which later transferred the rights to ultimately end up under the control of Halcyon Media. Santa Barbara based Pacificor, LLC prevailed in the most recent auction and transfer of rights to the franchise in January, and retains approval and licensing authority over the proposed Terminator 3000 project.

Hannover House and Red Bear Entertainment will release details of the production timing, financing and principal production personnel later this year, in advance of a proposed January, 2011 start.

'Avatar' Re-Release Visual Effects: What To Expect From Nine More Minutes

(moviesblog.mtv.com)                Cameron ran through what we can expect to see when the re-cut "Avatar" hits theaters.

The Death of Tsu'tey
"There's a pretty powerful emotional scene at the end which is Tsu'tey's death... which happens off-camera in the original release. [In the original film] he kind of falls off the back of the shuttle and that's the last that you see of him, but here we follow through. We have this emotional scene with Jake [Sully] and Neytiri and some other Na'vi that gather around him in the forest," Cameron said. Incorporating that footage back in was a no-brainer.

"When I [told the 'Avatar' team] I'm taking out Tsu'tey's death, they said, 'What? You can't do that!' They had all fallen in love with it [because] it's a pretty powerful moment," he said. "It's such an amazing accomplishment on [visual effects supervisor Timothy] Webber's part because the emotionality in the CG is really quite stunning."

Hunting the Sturmbeest
"There's a big scene we called the Sturmbeest hunt," Cameron said. "The Sturmbeest is an animal that basically will be new to audiences because all of the Sturmbeest stuff got cut out. Once I took out the hunt, I took out the scene where I establish it [and] I took out the moment where it appears in the final battle. All that stuff's now been reinstated so there's gonna be a lot of Sturmbeest in your diet."

Na'vi Uprising
"We've got a scene where the Na'vi attack the bulldozers after the scene where they've mowed down the willow glade," Cameron said. "It's kind of [an] action scene plus the aftermath with the human troopers finding the bodies of their friends. It's sort of like the stepping stone of the escalation to war. We sort of jump over all of that in the [original] film. [Human leaders Colonel Miles Quaritch] and [Parker] Selfridge just say, 'OK, all right, let's go take 'em out.' But this sort of shows that there are steps in the process."

Will 'John Carter of Mars' Go 3D?

(slashfilm.com)                        While Andrew Stanton’s John Carter of Mars was never envisioned as a 3D movie, I’ve been hearing a lot of rumbling in recent months that Walt Disney Pictures is pushing to release the film in 3D. I’ve even heard they’ve ordered some 3D tests to convince director Andrew Stanton that post conversion 3D isn’t as horrible as the big baddies on the Internet say it is. Ironically, the film which launched the 3D craze, James Cameron’s Avatar, was actually very much inspired by Edgar Rice Burroughs‘ original novels. So it is interesting that Avatar is now becoming a heavy influence on the big screen adaptation of the books.

As far as I can tell, nothing is yet set in stone in terms of releasing John Carter of Mars in 3D, but it sure is looking that way. Who knows if the growing public perception of post converted 3D (ie Bad 3D) will be enough to convince Disney. But one recent development has got me thinking… if John Carter does get released in 3D, what does this mean for Pixar’s long in development, already-delayed, BraveThe Bear and the Bow (formerly titled )? Brave is set to hit theaters on June 15th 2012, while Disney just announced a June 8th 2012 release for John Carter of Mars.

Would Disney really release two films within a week of each other? Generally Disney likes to release one movie per month, but sometimes during the Summer seasons, they have released two movies with different audiences a couple weeks apart. But what about a week apart?

Also, if Carter does go 3D, would Disney release two 3D movies within a week of one another? The bottleneck of 3D screens have improved over the last year. James Cameron recently said that there are now 8000 international theaters equipped for 3D, compared to the 4,000 when Avatar was released. But I doubt that the same studio would release two big tentpole 3D movies within 7-days of each other.

(Bookshelf)    The Advanced Art of Stop-Motion Animation

(ebookxyz.com)
Take an in-depth look at the art and techniques of stop-motion animation. The Advanced Art of Stop-Motion Animation helps experienced stop-motion artists enhance their craft by exploring the professional methods and advanced technology used by top film studios today.

This book features expanded coverage of the basic principles of animation, including specific applications for character performance and visual effect compositing techniques. All the newest technology is touched on, including detailed information on camera rigs, effects, and shooting stop-motion in stereoscopic 3D. Discover new puppet building techniques, including the technology behind the rapid prototyping of computer models for stop-motion production. You’ll even find a thorough history of early feature-length stop-motion films. The practical techniques and skills presented are enhanced by interviews with many of the most celebrated stop-motion artists as well as coverage of the work of several artists working in the online stop-motion community.

Whether your focus is low-budget indie filmmaking or big studio productions, The Advanced Art of Stop-Motion Animation provides a comprehensive look at both the latest methods and the artists who are driving the revival of stop-motion animation.

Barry Levinson To Live In An "Isopod"

(darkhorizons.com)               Veteran director Barry Levinson ("You Don't Know Jack," "Wag the Dog") is apparently going to direct the indie sci-fi thriller "Isopod" reports Production Weekly.

Story details on the project are unknown, but shooting kicks off next month in the Carolinas.

At last report Levinson was attached to direct a biopic on activist Jack Healey and an adaptation of Anatoly Kuznetsov's novel "Babi Yar."

Live Action VFX vs CGI Cartoons

(lovefilm.com)                  These days - whether you look at Avatar, Beowulf, or Cats & Dogs - it’s not always easy to tell the difference between live action and an animated film. Digital effects allow directors like Zack Snyder and George Lucas to put actors in an entirely imaginary landscape, to bend the laws of physics and command the elements. Fantasy films dominate the box office and digital effects companies are booming even through the recession.

You might think that these CGI movies would threaten the popularity of animation, but not a bit. Animated film is also booming. Last year’s five nominees in the Best Animated Feature category outclassed the ten nominees for Best Picture - even though the Academy omitted the year’s best animated film (Ponyo).

This week, the two big studio releases are both live action remakes of cartoons, even if Jerry Bruckheimer’s The Sorcerer’s Apprentice would like to pretend it owes more to Goethe than Mickey Mouse. M Night Shyamalan’s The Last Airbender is a feature version of the Nickelodeon Ameri-anime series, Avatar.

Could this be a trend? Over the last decade and more we’ve seen Hollywood plundering comic books for material - will cartoons be next?

Full Press:    http://www.lovefilm.com/features/detail.html?section_name=newsletter&editorial_id=26866

Costly "Battleship" Setting Sail in Rough Waters

(Hollywood Reporter)    As "Battleship" steams towards a start date this month, the pricey adaptation of the Hasbro board game is entering deep, treacherous waters.

With a budget of $200 million (£128.3 million) or more and no major movie stars on board, the Universal project is raising eyebrows among industry insiders who question whether the expensive gamble will pay off when the film comes out in 2012.

"It's a big bet like many, many big bets from many studios," Universal chairman Adam Fogelson told The Hollywood Reporter. "We will be nowhere near the high point and nowhere near the low point of what people are spending."

But several huge questions hover over "Battleship" -- which begins filming in 15 days in Hawaii -- that simply don't apply to other big-ticket movies. In "Battleship," Universal has a director, Peter Berg, with some experience in action films, but he's not a brand name in the genre. And the concept is based on a board game that has sold more than 100 million units and raked in $1 billion-plus. This comes at a time when some studio executives wonder if the public is tiring of the presold concepts to which Hollywood has been clinging.

By far the most significant entry from the relatively new regime of Fogelson and co-chairman Donna Langley, "Battleship" is based on the Hasbro game about naval strategy that has been around since World War I. Berg has come up with a modern twist: making "Battleship" a movie about an alien invasion at sea.

But the grief and financial woe brought about over the years by oceanic epics -- think "Waterworld" -- is a part of Hollywood history.

Adding to the pressure: new bosses at Comcast waiting to finalise the acquisition of NBC Universal from General Electric Co. Aside from "Despicable Me," the studio has been on a cold streak and at the same time is developing a reputation for bloated budgets.

Universal's "Scott Pilgrim vs. the World," opening Friday, cost $80 million-$90 million (the studio puts the number at closer to $60 million) -- rather pricey for a genre movie based on a cult comic book. Last year, the studio spent $100 million on the Adam Sandler comedy "Funny People," compared with the more modest $60 million that Paramount, DreamWorks and Spyglass spent recently on a comparable film, "Dinner for Schmucks."

Executives even considered scuttling "Battleship" in June, sources said. Such a move isn't unprecedented: Universal did that with "Cartel" five weeks before the Josh Brolin crime drama was to shoot this year in Mexico City, and with "American Gangster," the Russell Crowe-Denzel Washington crime drama that came back to life with a smaller budget.

Fogelson denied the project was ever in jeopardy and said the studio was firmly committed based on Berg's vision for the film. Berg, whose previous movie was 2008's "Hancock" for Sony, is the son of a naval historian, and he wrote a high-school essay about how the Japanese could have won the Battle of Midway. He also directed the 2004 feature "Friday Night Lights" and 2007's "The Kingdom," both for Universal.

"He has a very strong passion and affinity for this material," Fogelson said. "He is a fan of the history and the current state of the military. He knows that world really, really well, and he is inspirational when he is talking about it."

Fogelson said he wasn't concerned about Berg's relative lack of experience on action films.

"He made 'Hancock,' so Will Smith thought he was a good choice for an effects-driven spectacle that cost a lot of money," he said. Hancock grossed $624 million worldwide on a $150 million budget. Unlike "Battleship," however, it featured a big movie star in Smith.

Fogelson maintains that "Battleship" doesn't need a big star and in fact is well-cast. The topliners are Taylor Kitsch ("Friday Night Lights") and R&B singer Rihanna, making her feature debut.

"Taylor is on the shortlist of actors in this range," Fogelson said. "Rihanna has no shortage of opportunities and choices."

Fogelson was not worried about audiences warming to a movie based on a board game, either.

"You're talking about a property that worldwide has more awareness than most, if not all, of Hasbro properties that preceded it," he said. "Worldwide, more people have played Battleship than played with Transformers." The first two films in the latter franchise have grossed more than $1.5 billion worldwide for the studio, and a third is shooting in Chicago.

Fogelson said Universal carefully evaluated specific aspects of the game that would work for the film. "The game has not included a battle between Earth and alien forces," he acknowledged, but he cited several aspects of it that will be reflected in the film.

"There's the fact that you can't see your opponent, the underlying emotional reasons behind who plays the game and how they play the game," Fogelson said. "There's absolutely a way within the story that's been constructed here to take advantage of the game's name and elements that will make the movie fun."

Fogelson also said the studio has planned carefully in preparing to shoot on the water, dismissing critics citing the "water issue." If water movies were invariably troubled, he said, "Disney shouldn't have made 'Pirates of the Caribbean.'"

That franchise has brought in $1.6 billion; Disney, in fact, has tightened its script for the now-shooting "Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides" to make it less water-based than the previous films.

Universal was swamped with negative press in 1995 when it produced Kevin Costner's "Waterworld," which had a budget that soared to a then-record $175 million. The troubled production had to deal with a set-destroying hurricane, and Costner seemed lost at sea as a director. James Cameron also faced much-publicized challenges while making "The Abyss," which ended up grossing $54 million in 1989.

One way Universal has kept "Battleship" from capsizing was organizing the shoot in a way that keeps it on land as much as possible. At this point, the plan calls for only five days of production on the water, with the remainder of the five-week shoot in Hawaii land-based. The rest of the sea action will be shot on soundstages in Baton Rouge, La., and the production will be CGI-heavy.

One heartening reality Universal and Berg can recall as they press forward: It wasn't until 1997, almost a decade after "Abyss," that Cameron headed back to the water with a hugely budgeted project that throughout its production was seen as teetering on the brink of disaster. That, of course, was "Titanic."

Bugs Bunny CGI/Live Action Hybrid Theatrical Film Planned

(Deadline)               Warner Bros. is planning to bring Bugs Bunny to the big screen in a live-action film, reports Deadline.

David Berenbaum, the screenwriter of Elf and The Spiderwick Chronicles has been hired to draft the film which, like the studio's upcoming Yogi Bear, will blend live action with computer animation.

Bugs Bunny, who recently celebrated his 70th birthday, has not appeared on the big screen since 2003's Looney Tunes: Back in Action. Other "Looney Tunes" characters recently made a theatrical resurgence with a CGI short before Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore. Two more shorts are planned before WB family films later this year.

Disney Unveils New Star Tours 2 Video - New Destinations?

(insidethemagic.net)                     At the tail end of the Disney Parks panel presentation during the first day of Star Wars Celebration V, Imagineer Jason Surrell, with help from C-3PO himself, actor Anthony Daniels, offered the audience a glimpse at a new video for Star Tours: The Adventures Continue, the upcoming update to Disney’s popular Star Tours attraction.

The video is a “commercial” of sorts from the Star Tours company promoting three of their exciting intergalactic destinations, Bespin, Alderaan, and Endor:

Moments after premiering for the Celebration V audience, the Disney Parks Blog revealed this video will be shown in the queue of the revamped Star Tours attraction when it reopens in 2011 after being “reimagined” into a new 3D experience. But Disney still insists they “cannot confirm that you will travel to any of the destinations shown in this video,” still leaving fans guessing where Star Tours II will take its passengers.

The only confirmed destinations thus far are across the sands of Tattooine for a little pod racing and through the city skies of Coruscant.

Prior to showing this video as the presentation’s finale, Surrell and Daniels showed off concept art from the original Star Tours and fielded a few questions from the audience. But Star Tours II information remains tight, as any questions asked about it by fans were met with the response, “Too early to say.” It was said often enough that Daniels even jokingly prompted the audience to chime in, repeating it along with Surrell.

When asked about the meaning of the new Star Tours tag line “The Adventures Continue” (note the plural on “Adventures”), Surrell would not comment any further than to reply, “You know, the reason the Bothan spies die is because they possess too much information. I possess similar information about our plans and I’d like to stick around for a while.” But the fact that the updated version of Star Tours will feature multiple different experiences is no secret.

Two months ago, Al Weiss, president of Worldwide Operations for Walt Disney Parks and Resorts, revealed on the D23 web site that the new version of the attraction will not only include many variations but also some level of audience interactivity. So Surrell needn’t worry about any bounty hunters coming after him any time soon… or at least not for what he did or did not say at the Star Wars Celebration V presentation.

Star Tours has already “powered down” at Disneyland for the update and will be closing at Disney’s Hollywood Studios in Orlando on September 8. Both versions of the attraction are expected to reopen with enhancements some time around May 2011.

VIDEO - Take a look:   http://www.insidethemagic.net/2010/08/disney-unveils-new-star-tours-2-video-hints-at-possible-new-destinations-at-star-wars-celebration-v/

A Super-Secret Hobbit Announcement May Be Coming Aug. 21

(scifiscoop.com)                 Do you remember the magic of The Lord Of The Rings? This movie is one of the best remembered films till date and Peter Jackson is finally getting The Hobbit back on track again. According to the Noldor Blog the mini museum of Weta Cave has just closed to the public and word has it that the related Lord of the Rings/Hobbit movie sets and the props that were taken out of the storage as this was done as a urgent decision. The Weta Cave was also called for a small secret private function on August 21st thus suggesting a super secret Hobbit announcement of its arrival.

Man Upset With Sci-fi "I Am Number Four" Movie Effects

(yourmurrysville.com)               A Murrysville man told Franklin Regional officials he disapproved of how a movie production used the district's campus.

David Hood told Franklin Regional officials on Monday that he was concerned about gun fire that he heard coming from the school overnight last month. He said he contacted the police and told the noise was from the filming of "I Am Number Four," a science-fiction film using the campus for production.

Hood questioned whether weapons were being used on campus for the film. He said with numerous signs advertising a weapons- and drug-free school zone, he doubts weapons would be allowed.

"I don't believe the board would even approve weapons being on the property," Hood said.

Dennis Majewski, director of district services, said crews used a movie prop to fire blanks during filming but a gun was not used.

"It was a device they manufactured specifically for the movie. It did shoot blanks," Majewski said.

He said representatives from the film crew went to nearby homes to inform them that work was being done overnight and they might hear noises. The production also received permission from the municipality to conduct work.

Hood, who lives on Stewart Court, said residents of his street were not notified by film crews of the noise even though it is relatively close to the school.

Officials said they were unaware of any issues with the production at the school. Hood thanked officials for letting him bring his concerns to their attention.

"I know you have the zero tolerance (policy)." Hood said. "I just felt it was a disgrace."

The James Clayton Column: The true horror of Toy Story 3

from Movies - Den of Geek

Spoilers lie ahead for Toy Story 3, as James considers just why it's managed to upset and scare him quite so much...

There are spoilers ahead if you haven't seen Toy Story 3 yet.
Toy Story 3 is a very upsetting film. It's even more upsetting than last year's Pixar tearjerker, the ‘boy scout, old man and a flying house' adventure story Up. Reflecting on the final instalment of the Toy Story trilogy, I'm left feeling touched, but yet deeply unnerved.
Much has been made of the movie's ability to make the most emotionally-uptight adults cry. Yes! Even big manly grown men are emerging from the cinema weeping like little girls! How shocking!
Because we live in a society that sees tears as alien abominations that threaten all reason and order, Toy Story 3 is probably the most dangerous and disturbing flick currently in cinemas. It's more frightening and potentially more lethal than Splice (sickening genetic experimentation), Piranha 3D (pop-up monster fish with pointy teeth gatecrashing the beach party), Knight And Day (Tom Cruise reaching new heights of bat guano craziness) and The Expendables (an army of geriatrics armed to the false teeth and high on testosterone).
There should be signs placed outside the multiplex to warn of Toy Story 3's likely impact and point cinemagoers to less distressing diversions, like the pick ‘n' mix stand or Cats & Dogs: The Revenge Of Kitty Galore (in 2D, of course, because 3D film might strain your eyes and make you feel like you're being attacked by a giant German Shepherd).
If you haven't seen Toy Story 3 yet, I'd suggest you don't read the rest of this article in case spoilers ruin the experience for you. In fact, I'll take this opportunity to advise you not to see the film now it's done the business. You can probably do without the trauma and the extra expense of a 3D film ticket.
If you've spent years cultivating a reputation as a heartless bastard without a soul or any sense of compassion, avoid the movie like the plague. It'd be a tragedy if your credibility and career as a bouncer, repossession agent or professional wife beater crumbled because you lost your nerve for a couple of hours and went to see the last stand of Woody, Buzz and Jessie the Cowgirl. Once again, Toy Story 3 may actually be road to ruin masquerading as an innocent motion picture about children's playtime.
Meditate on the movie and you realise that it's brightly coloured packaging for vast themes of abandonment, rejection and death. On the surface the film says, "There's a snake in my boots," and "you've got a playdate with destiny!" with a big acrylic smile. What it's really stating is "every footstep is dogged by your inevitable demise!" and "you exist in a cruel and indifferent universe that is going to chew you up, spit you out and discard you without mercy!"
The only moment that saves Toy Story 3 from sinking to Million Dollar Baby or Grave Of The Fireflies depths of despair is the deus ex machina sequence where the toys are rescued from the incinerator by the trio of Pizza Planet aliens and ‘The Claw'. In my opinion, not cutting the movie short at that point and leaving our miniature heroes to a flaming climax was a cop out and a missed opportunity to deliver the most miserable finale to a ‘family-friendly' movie ever, but that might just be me.
I feel the same about the optimism at the end of Pixar's post-apocalyptic masterpiece WALL·E as well. Aside from my sadist streak though, I appreciate the need to give audiences a reassuring happy ending to the saga rather than melting misery. With Pixar holding back, Studio Ghibli's Grave of the Fireflies retains the honour of being the most heartbreaking animated movie of all time.
Despite this, if you consider Toy Story 3 from a different perspective (maybe by putting a fishbowl on your head, going five days without sleep and drinking twenty five litres of cherry cola before you take in the movie), it might be the most frightening horror film of the new millennium.
Take the scenes where Mr Potato Head undergoes the identity crisis of extreme metamorphosis when he becomes Mr Tortilla Face and Mr Gherkin Body respectively. Likewise, look at the ultra-unsettling Kubrick-esque sequence where Andy's toys encounter the toddlers at daycare for their first ‘playtime'. See also the ultra-creepy Big Baby character and the aforementioned incinerator cliffhanger and you realise that perhaps a ‘U' rating is a huge error. This is pure horror - more than any Alien, Predator or Halloween film has ever delivered.
Toy Story 3 is even more disturbing if you think about it ideologically. The overwhelming sense of inevitable death and destruction and the premise that we are all helpless, insignificant little beings in an ambivalent and uncaring world may precipitate an existential crisis in the minds of viewers.
You could come out of the screening at the point of spiritual catastrophe. That big acrylic smile and the catchphrases it calls out ("To infinity, and beyond!") are really metaphysical affirmations that nothing really means anything, that life is a fragile, futile and pointless speck in a great indifferent cosmic schema.
Toy Story 3 could potentially kill God, though that deus ex machina ‘saved by the Claw' scene and the hope that follows it means that the final nail isn't hammered into religion's coffin. There is still possibly a force of greater good out there, depending on whether you see the fish tank as half empty or half full or believe in aliens.
Those who can't face the idea that there is no divine power behind it all don't completely get off, however. The cruelty and torment wrought on the toys suggests that if anything God's creation is - to quote Mr Pricklepants - "a place of ruin and despair, ruled by an evil bear who smells of strawberries."
If it came in black-and-white and was in Swedish it'd be an Ingmar Bergmann film. Truly, Toy Story 3 is terrifying. Pixar have delivered the effective, excellent end to the series and made another animated masterpiece. They've also simultaneously created a computer-generated black hole of pscyhe-shattering horror that could potentially split the world into small fragments and bring about the greatest spiritual crisis since the Reformation.
I feel numb and empty. I just wanted to play Sheriffs and Space Rangers in my bedroom, but now I find myself grasping around in a void with the sickening whiff of strawberries hanging in the atmosphere, a crippling sense of abandonment and isolation colouring my insignificant existence.
All we are is plastic playthings in the inferno. Gulp.

Ice Spiders: Spiders and spice and everything ice.

Courtesy Syfy

It's probably my gamer roots, but when I think of ice spiders, I think of 1) giant spiders made of ice, 2) giant spiders that shoot ice instead of webbing, or 3) a synchronized ice-skating team made of spiders. Ice Spiders contains none of these.
No, Ice Spiders is exactly what it says on the tin: spiders that happen to be in an icy climate, a ski lodge, to be precise. This is like calling Jaws "Wet Shark" and Predator "Swampy Alien." The title's technically accurate, but it seems a bit lazy. And that pretty much sums up Ice Spiders.
Once it became clear that there are no actual spiders made of ice, shoot ice from their rear ends, or are otherwise ice-like, then one can only turn to the ski lodge itself. I'm a simple man with simple tastes. If giant monsters are going to terrorize people at a ski resort, I expect the following set pieces, in no particular order: a fight on a ski lift, a guy snowboarding away from a pursuing spider, and an avalanche. Ice Spiders delivers on two of the three.
What Ice Spiders does not deliver is a coherent plot, good acting, or realistic spiders. Realistic, of course, being a figurative term since the spiders are dog-sized, survive in the frigid temperatures, and seem hell-bent on eating people. The CGI is almost uniformly bad. Vanessa A. Williams – not THAT Vanessa Williams, the other one -- is unbelievable as Dr. April Summers, but Patrick Muldoon as Dan "Dash" Dashiell is worse. Muldoon is Keanu Reeves-lite: He talks like a Valley guy and mumbles his way through his lines. There's a hilarious bit where Ice Spiders attempts to justify its genetically engineered monsters by having Dash verbally attack every silly plot point.

James Cameron: 'Live-action 'Avatar' Would Have Been Terrible'

(sfgate.com)                  James Cameron says his epic 3D movie "Avatar" could have been "terrible" if he had not spent millions on groundbreaking visual effects.
The "Titanic" movie maker labored over his pet project for a decade, and spent a staggering $260 million making the movie, which used motion-capture technology to bring the digital characters to life.
Zoe Saldana's movements and facial expressions were used to create realistic characteristics for her blue-skinned alien Neytiri, and Cameron is adamant that the movie would have lost all impact if they had relied on traditional filmmaking techniques.
He tells Empire magazine, "Here's the thing: if it had been in live action, she (Saldana) would have been in blue make-up and it would not have had the power. Her eyes would not have been those eyes.
"The blue make-up would have looked terrible. I know -- every time I go to a convention where someone decides they're going to be a Na'vi, I'm reminded why we didn't do it."

Paramount Takes on Sci-Fi Project "Last Man Standing"
(Heat Vision)              Paramount Pictures has picked up the film rights to "Last Man Standing: Killbook of a Bounty Hunter" (LMS), a coffee table book from Heavy Metal Publishing, reports Heat Vision.
Scott Aversano will produce along with the book's creator, Daniel LuVisi. Peter Levin Russell Binder and Stephan Lokotsch will executive produce. Heavy Metal describes the book as follows:
LMS: Killbook of a Bounty Hunter is your first glimpse into the LMS graphic novel series. It is a character bible and prologue book that introduces you to Gabriel, the hero of our story, as he personally unravels to his audience the intricacies of his world, set in a time-transcending and parallel universe that is inhabited by a roster of colorful and deadly characters. Join Gabriel in his quest for revenge and the journey he will embark on by traveling through more than 200 pages of history, character art, bios, and other forms of pleasure and pain.

‎WETA Gets Behind WWII Horror 'The Devil's Rock'
(bloody-disgusting.com)
              Island Bay Studios announced that short film director Paul Campion is hard at work building sets for his first feature-length project, The Devil's Rock, a film described as "WW2-German-bunker-overrun-by-occult-demon-mayhem."

Richards vision is to capture the oppressive damp concrete claustrophobia of an underground base and introduce elements of unimaginable unstoppable malignant horror which see the base’s occupants slowly picked off and terrorized.

Written by Paul Finch, Paul Campion and Brett Ihaka, The Devil's Rock is award-winning short film director Paul Campion's debut feature film. His short films "Night of the Hell Hamsters" and "Eel Girl" have screened at every major genre film festival worldwide.

"The film is set in the Channel Islands on the eve of D-Day. Two Kiwi commandos, sent to destroy German gun emplacements to distract Hitler's forces away from Normandy, discover a Nazi occult plot to unleash demonic forces to win the war."

Academy Award winning New Zealand company WETA Workshop (Avatar, District 9, Lord of the Rings, King Kong) will create the film's physical effects, whose ensemble cast includes Craig Hall (Love Birds, Boy, 30 Days of Night, The World's Fastest Indian, King Kong), Matthew Sunderland (Out of the Blue, Under the Mountain), Gina Varela (Xena, Siones Wedding, Power Rangers) and Karl Drinkwater (A Song of Good, Lord of the Rings, Spartacus: Blood & Sand).

Film Industry News

2010-08-12T05:26:00.001-07:00

Toy Story 3 Becomes the Highest Grossing Pixar Film

(slashfilm.com)                Pixar’s Toy Story 3 has grossed over $895 million worldwide, surpassing Finding Nemo’s $867.8 million to become the highest grossing film in Pixar history.

Of course, the movie got the bump in 3D price increases that wasn’t available for many of the earlier Pixar films (aside from last year’s Up). It should also be mentioned that Toy Story 3 has only been in theaters for 7 weeks. Pixar films usually remain in some theaters around 30 weeks after the opening weekend. This means there is at least $30 or $40 million more to Toy Story’s domestic tally, and who knows how much worldwide. After the jump I’ve included a chart showing all of the Pixar theatrical releases, along with worldwide box office totals and estimated budget numbers.

Film (Year)        Worldwide BO    Budget
Toy Story (1995)    $361,948,825     $30M
A Bug's Life (1998)    $363,109,485     $45M
Toy Story 2 (1999)     $484,966,906     $90M
Monsters, Inc. (2001)     $526,864,330     $115M
Finding Nemo (2003)     $867,894,287     $94M
The Incredibles (2004)    $632,882,184     $92M
Cars (2006)         $461,923,762     $70M
Ratatouille (2007)     $620,495,432     $150M
WALL-E (2008)        $532,743,103     $180M
Up (2009)         $731,304,609     $175M
Toy Story 3 (2010)     $895,087,342     $200M

'Die Hard 5' is Imminent

(cinematical.com)                      Bruce Willis was at Comic-Con Thursday, promoting his role in Sly Stallone's upcoming action flick The Expendables. When he was done with that, Mr. John McClane sauntered over to MTV where he dished on a few things -- the most impressive of which was a proposed fifth installment in the Die Hard series. Yippie ki yay.

Willis told MTV that "It's imminent. The coin is about to drop." The actor didn't offer much more than that, which is unusual since he's been pretty vocal in his demand that director Len Wiseman return to helm the next film for awhile now. The real question is, who can McClane fight this time around? No one's ever going to top Hans Gruber, but I could totally see McClane running around to thwart a terrorist attack by an Al Quaeda sleeper cell on US soil. That may seem a little cliche at this point, but it's not the story that really matters -- it's the idea of an iconic action hero like McClane stopping it that would put my butt in a theater seat on opening night.

Entertainment Layoffs Slow Down

(.indiantelevision.com)             According to data released recently, layoffs in entertainment jobs seems to have slowed down significantly.

In July, just 125 layoffs at media companies were announced compared to 708 in June. This shows that July has recorded the lowest number of layoffs so far this year, according to the data.

It may be noted that in the past six years, the media sector recorded lower number of job losses in March 2005 when 111 layoffs were announced. There was as much as 2,853 layoffs in July 2009 and 2,168 layoffs in July 2008.

* Disney, which shut down its Zemeckis Studio and laid off 450 workers, got rid of 400 jobs at ABC News and closed most of its ESPN Zone restaurants, causing another 294 layoffs.
    * Sony Pictures, which laid off 450 people in a restructuring.
    * Time Warner Cable, which laid off 350 in a restructuring.
    * Netflix, which cut 160 jobs in a consolidation.
    * Cinram, which cut 482 jobs in cust-cutting measures.

All 25 categories combined lost 41,676 jobs in July, bringing the total to 339,353 so far this year, 64% fewer jobs lost than in the same seven months last year. California is No. 1 in jobs lost, with 55,122 so far this year, and New York, at 52,481, is second worst.

Combining the categories of media, entertainment/leisure and telecommunications, 2001 was the worst year this decade, when 317,777 jobs were lost. Last year, a comparatively small 44,068 jobs were lost in those three categories combined and so far this year just 17,204 jobs were shed.

William Shatner Praises Avatar

(showbizspy.com)                  WILLIAM Shatner says Avatar is the Lawrence of Arabia of sci fi movies.

The actor, 79, admits to being stunned by James Cameron’s blockbuster epic and predicts all movies must now be compared to it.

“Avatar is a watershed movie. It think we’ll always refer to Avatar in the same way we think of Lawrence of Arabia in the same way.

“We’ll always look at Avatar and say, ‘That’s as good as, that’s not as good as’. Avatar is an enormous advance in every way, shape and form of movie making.”

The Avengers to Start Filming in February

(SuperHeroHype)                   Paramount Pictures and Marvel Studios are planning to start shooting The Avengers in February, 2011 for a May 4, 2012 release.

Directed by Joss Whedon, the anticipated film stars Robert Downey Jr. as Iron Man, Chris Evans as Captain America, Chris Hemsworth as Thor, Jeremy Renner as Hawkeye, Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury, Mark Ruffalo as Hulk, Scarlett Johansson as Black Widow and Clark Gregg as Agent Phil Coulson.

The February start is just a few months after Sony's untitled Spider-Man reboot gets underway this December. Both films are expected to shoot in Los Angeles.

Digital Modeling Firm Ciespace Corp. Lands $4 Million in Funding

(post-gazette.com)                    Carnegie Mellon University spinoff Ciespace Corp. has secured $4 million that will be used to hire workers and expand the company into more commercial sectors, the company announced Monday.

Founded by CMU engineering professor Kenji Shimada, the digital modeling firm in Oakland markets technology that helps companies build virtual prototypes. Chicago-based Arch Venture Partners and Tokyo-based University of Tokyo Edge Capital led the Series A funding round.

Ciespace plans to use the money for work on the company's 3-D digital modeling platform. It also will push the technology into additional commercial marketplaces such as computer animation, medical imaging and metrology, or the study of measurement.

Ciespace already works with the automotive, aerospace and computer-aided design sectors. Its BubbleMesh simulation technology has been used by companies such as IBM and NASA.

Kevin Kerns, a former consultant and entrepreneur-in-residence at Arch Venture Partners, replaces Dr. Shimada as Ciespace's CEO. He was CEO of communications software firm Apropos Technology Inc. of Chicago from 1996 to 2004.

Dr. Shimada will stay on with Ciespace as the chief science officer while teaching at CMU. Company research and development will remain in Pittsburgh while a finance and marketing site opens in Chicago. Mr. Kerns said a headquarters location had not been decided.

Ciespace's roster of 10 employees is expected to grow by about 25 workers per year over the next several years.

"We hope to bring our first end-user product to market within 12 months," Mr. Kerns said.

'The Other Guys': How They Pulled Off the Motion-Capture Bar Scene

(mtv.com)                  The film's most visually stunning scene is one that even James Cameron might applaud. It's a freeze-frame, continuous-shot bar scene in which Ferrell and Wahlberg are caught mid-action in a series of drunken incidents. The scene honestly defies easy explanation, which is why we waited until now to reveal how McKay captured it.

"My DP, Oliver Wood, and I had seen this Phillips short film with cops fighting clowns," he explained. "We loved it, but I think that cost $4 million to shoot. At first we were going to do digital camera stills, and I just thought that was boring and we kind of did that already on 'Talladega Nights.' Then Oliver said, 'I think we can do the Phillips thing,' and in four days we came up with the plan.

"We got this motion-capture camera that you program so the camera moves exactly the same every time," he added. "It was similar to what they did in 'The Matrix' with the flying bullets. They weren't wearing motion-capture suits. I wish I had thought of that. I would have made Will wear one for no reason. We just wrote joke scenarios of a night gone horribly wrong. We went to this bar on the Upper West Side [of Manhattan] and shot it in half a day. We cast stuntmen and women who could hold poses. Our special effects company, Evil Eye, added all these funny elements."

Pixar announces RenderMan for Maya 4.0 and RenderMan Studio 3.0

(forums.cgsociety.org)               EMERYVILLE, CA – (July 27th, 2010) Pixar Animation Studios today disclosed full details of the upcoming versions of its RenderMan Studio and RenderMan for Maya products at SIGGRAPH 2010.

Targeted for release in the fall of 2010, RenderMan for Maya 4.0 is Pixar’s RenderMan® plug-in for Autodesk’s Maya®, optimized to provide fast and easy access to the photorealistic rendering technology used to create the stunning visual effects in the majority of today’s feature films. This latest version provides accelerated performance via the addition of unlimited threading and significant acceleration and memory efficiencies from core optimizations to the internal renderer. Additionally RenderMan for Maya 4.0 brings support for Maya Fluids, Maya 2011 compatibility, and the addition of a new unified interface for RenderMan Controls.

Also targeted for release in the fall of 2010, RenderMan Studio 3.0 includes all of the above new features and adds enhanced Slim integration, a new production-quality shader library, a relighting GUI built on PRMan’s re-rendering API, enhanced co-shader support, PSets, Ptex compatibility, and more. In addition, RenderMan Studio now includes Tractor 1.0, Pixar’s recently released distributed render management solution built on an innovative new architecture designed to manage both small and large multi-core render farms.

Fox to Produce Superhero Film Chronicle

(Heat Vision)                  John Landis, the director of classics like Animal House and An American Werewolf in London, has teamed with his son, Max, for an original script called Chronicle, reports Heat Vision.

The film, to be shot in faux-documentary style with a handheld camera, tells the story of three Portland teenagers who develop superpowers. First time director Josh Trank (editor of Big Fan) is attached to direct.

John Landis' most recent directorial effort, Burke and Hare, stars Simon Pegg and Andy Serkis and, though currently unscheduled, should see release in the near future.

Stan Winston Creatures Mined For New Movies, TV, Comics and More

(bleedingcool.com)                The legacy of Stan Winston, special effects master and animatronics designer, is about to get even richer with a new wave of movies, TV shows, comics and video games going into development under the Stan Winston’s Creatures banner.

The basis for all of these properties will be plot outlines and character designs that Winston had worked on before his death. Many of them, such as Trakk the time-travelling hunter, have already been seen as action figures.

Variety line up the various potential franchises like this:

    Nine seperate properties, with their own worlds, mythologies and characters, such as Extreme Gargoyles, Mutant Earth,Realm of the Claw, Robot Revolt, Four Horsemen, Morgoolum, Alien Universe, Dark World and Blood Wolves.

And give some more details on Robot Revolt in particular:

    A group of teenagers… work as a mining team on an asteroid belt, controlling large robots with their minds. When an evil dictator takes over their universe, their minds are melded into the robot bodies and the group leads a revolt against the enemy.

There was a lot of work done on a Japanese TV show being developed from this particular idea, but it never appears to have made it to air. Indeed, even the toys derived from many of Winston’s designs and concepts went unreleased.

India's Digikore Studios Launches VFX Division

(India PRwire) Digikore Studios Limited (www.digikore.com), one of India's leading Creative Services Companies, has recently launched its Visual Effects division (www.digikore.com/vfx.html). Located in Pune, India, Digikore VFX will enable the company to extend its services to encompass Visual Effects, Design, Pre-Visualisation and Post on Theatrical Features, Short Films, Television Series, Television Commercials, Documentaries and Video Clips.

Digikore will start with services like Rotoscopy, Paint / Cleanup and Chroma Keying jobs as an overflow partner for larger Visual Effects houses. Since we are based in India, we can offer our services at a very affordable price, thus leading to a substantial saving for the companies we work for.

"At Digikore VFX, we have a unique skill set that spans the visual effects industry," said Abhishek More, founder of Digikore Studios Limited. "We understand the unique challenges of post production and are committed to delivering the best digital effects in the business. Our new roles will allow us to use our combined experience and produce some of our most dynamic visual effects work yet."

"An impressive collection of talent has been brought together to launch the VFX division. Taking into account the experienced and highly talented team we have onboard, we believe we are a new company with a lot of experience", said Abhishek.

The new division includes state of the art infrastructure including, high end machines, render farms, over 20 TB of data storage capacity, high speed internet connectivity and FTP.

Sheep Take Over The Lord of The Rings Movie Set

(digitalspy.com)                 A flock of sheep has reportedly moved into the empty Hobbit homes constructed in Matamata, New Zealand for the Lord of the Rings movie trilogy.

Images from various social networking sites reposted on Kuriositas show the creatures moving in and around the Hobbit holes, 17 of the original 37 of which have been preserved as a tourist attraction.

The homes themselves are empty, as all internal shots of Hobbiton in Peter Jackson's award-winning trilogy were filmed in studios.

What modern directors can learn from Hitchcock’s Psycho

from Movies - Den of Geek

Fifty years old this year, Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho is as suspenseful as ever. And, Ryan argues, modern directors could learn a lot from its maker’s back-to-basic approach...
Few mainstream directors have been as influential or well-regarded as Alfred Hitchcock. In a succession of suspense thrillers, including Rope, Vertigo, Rear Window and Dial M For Murder, the director forged a filmmaking language that was both distinctive and personal, which would go on to have a profound effect on the output of an entire generation of filmmakers, including Brian De Palma, William Friedkin and Steven Spielberg.
For a director whose work began in pre-war England, quietly crafting black-and-white classics such as The Man Who Knew Too Much and The 39 Steps, his later rise to colossal fame in Hollywood was unprecedented. Within the space of a few decades, he was one of America's most bankable filmmakers and, for a time, each one of his productions topped the last in spectacle and scope.

After the big budget blockbuster North By Northwest (if you haven't seen it, think Knight And Day, but far, far less rubbish), Hitchcock, to Paramount's chagrin, decided to try something completely different.
Setting himself a budget of $1 million, Hitchcock employed the TV crew from his series Alfred Hitchcock Presents and, over the comparatively brief period of just over three months, made Psycho.
Compared to many features of the era, particularly Z-grade, drive-in fare such as The Wasp Woman or The Angry Red Planet, Hitchcock's budget was hardly small, but his self-imposed creative boundaries (in a period when he had virtually none) were arguably the cardinal reason for the film's pared back, still shocking power.

And while the conventions and rules of filmmaking have changed considerably in the fifty years following Psycho's production, there are some constants in Hollywood that still remain.
For most directors, their dealings with Tinseltown's studio system is one of steadily diminishing returns. As their fame, stature and the budgets they're afforded increase, so does their creative daring. While this isn't always true (Christopher Nolan is one director who continues to thrive creatively in Hollywood), there are plenty of other big names that prove the point.

As an example, take a look at the career of James Cameron. From humble beginnings as a production designer on low budget sci-fi schlockfest Galaxy Of Terror, Cameron steadily rose through the Hollywood ranks, carving out a name for himself with The Terminator and Aliens, before going on to direct the most financially successful movies of all time with Titanic and Avatar.
But as impressive as Avatar was from a technical standpoint, the movie lacks the economical, aggressive narrative drive of The Terminator, a film that refuses to stand still for a single frame of its 108 minute running time, and whose ambition far outstripped its tiny budget.

Within the financial and technical constraints he was saddled with, Cameron created a film with an urgency that has ebbed away as his career has progressed. As the budgets for his subsequent pictures increased, so did their running time and creative verve. 2009's Avatar weighed in at a flabby 168 minutes, and even its biggest fans would surely admit that it's not in the same league as Cameron's earlier ventures into sci-fi.
If Cameron followed Hitchcock's lead, and packed away his expensive motion capture equipment, restricted his budget and shot a film in a few weeks, could he regain the same desire to tell a concise, urgent story he so clearly had while making The Terminator?

The same question could be asked of most big Hollywood directors, both young and old. If George Lucas dared to put aside the increasingly ridiculous Star Wars franchise, assembled a small crew and went back to making films along the lines of American Graffiti or, better yet, THX 1138, perhaps he could regain the creative promise he displayed early on in his career.
Hitchcock was sixty when he shot Psycho, and yet his desire to tell concise, often dark stories was as strong as it was when he began his career. After the financial success of North By Northwest, he could have continued making huge studio pictures with big name stars and watched the paycheques flow in.
Instead, he chose to make a low-key, black-and-white film in which the lead was killed within the first half-hour, a daring plot twist at the time, and one that has since been borrowed by William Friedkin in To Live And Die In LA, and Eli Roth in Hostel.

Psycho's (mostly implied) violence pushed the boundaries of mainstream filmmaking, and its moments of pitch black comedy bear all the hallmarks of Hitchcock's impish sense of humour. When Mrs. Bates turns to confront the camera at the film's conclusion, her teeth exposed in a lipless jeer, it could just as easily be Hitchcock's face, laughing heartily at his horrified audience.
Modern filmmakers continue to be fascinated by the fluent visual language of Hitchcock, by his bravura camera sweeps and editing tricks. But Psycho provides, potentially, the most important lesson: that budgets and gimmicks can only take your career as a director so far.
So, filmmakers of Hollywood - Cameron, Spielberg, Lucas, the brothers Wachowski - forget 3D, CGI and interminable, three-hour narratives. Go back to basics. Reconnect with your audience. Find an original, startling story worth telling, and tell it cheaply, quickly, and urgently.

The Avengers set for February start

from Movies - Den of Geek

Joss Whedon will be calling all the heroes early next year, as The Avengers gets set to go before the cameras…
Jobs we'd hate: the person who has to co-ordinate the shooting schedule for Marvel's upcoming superhero opus, The Avengers.
Under the directorship of Joss Whedon, the movie is bringing together a sizeable cast of actors, each of whose schedules have to fall into place for the production. Given that these actors include Robert Downey Jr, Samuel L Jackson, Scarlett Johansson and Chris Evans, amongst others, it's a cast that's full of people who are hardly overburdened with spare time, too.
Still, things are slotting into place, and Marvel is scheduling production of The Avengers to begin once the shoots of its 2011 blockbusters, Thor and Captain America, are tied up. Both will be in post-production by early next year, and thus The Avengers will be heading before the cameras in February 2011.
SuperHeroHype reports that The Avengers is set to film in Los Angeles, where it'll be in production at the same time as the new Spider-Man movie. More on that here.
The Avengers, meanwhile, will be heading to cinemas on May 4th 2012. We suspect many of you will be quite keen to see it.

Quantum Leap to jump into cinemas

from Movies - Den of Geek

Are you one of the many who still salutes late-80s TV classic Quantum Leap? Scott Bakula confirms that a cinema adaptation is on the way…
The San Diego Comic-Con may have been and gone, but the veritable landslide of information and rumour is still being processed. And one little tidbit of information to come from the convention was that a movie of Quantum Leap is now in the works.
For those too young to remember it (not us, you'll be surprised to hear), Quantum Leap was a late-80s/early-90s sci-fi series starring Scott Bakula as a scientist whose time travelling experiments saw him appear in the bodies of different characters in each episode.
Arriving in each timeframe with no clue as to whose body he'd ‘leaped' into or how he could get back out of it again, helpful advice was imparted every week by the holographic Al (Dean Stockwell), and it was the pairing's amiable chemistry that formed the show's good-natured core.
Almost two decades after the final episode aired, and following years of rumours, Bakula has revealed that a Quantum Leap movie is finally in the works, and that a script is currently produced by the original series' creator Donald P. Bellisario.
''The good news is that Don is working on the film script and has a big time Hollywood producer who wants to do it," Bakula said, before adding, "It's about time.''
And while Bakula admitted that both he and Stockwell are now too old to play the leads again, he suggested that both actors would be making appearances in the film "somehow".
At its best, Quantum Leap was one of the era's classic genre shows, with the best episodes drawing on fateful moments in history to powerful dramatic effect. If the movie version can recreate the memorable tension of episodes such as Lee Harvey Oswald, then the premise's leap to the cinema could be a highly successful one.
More news on the Quantum Leap movie as we get it.
Moviehole

Batman 3 to shoot in New Orleans, new rumours round-up

from Movies - Den of Geek

A little round-up of the latest happenings with the next Batman movie…

With Inception now firmly dominating the box office charts right across the planet, it's inevitable that we're looking firmly in the direction of Christopher Nolan now to get cracking on his third and final Batman adventure.
Nolan, who hasn't officially signed up for The Dark Knight follow-up from what we can tell, is certain to direct the film, which is set to go before the cameras in March or April of next year.
Currently, the wise money is on Joseph Gordon-Levitt to play The Riddler in the film (Jackson Rathbone has said that he'd like to play the role, but we don't see that happening), although recent rumours have suggested that Selina Kyle aka Catwoman might be making an appearance. Tilda Swinton remains our favoured choice for the role should that happen.
Elsewhere, an IMDB page for a young actor called Cody Sousa popped up last week, that had on his list of forthcoming credits that he was due to play Robin in the next Batman movie (we're indebted to Screen Rant for spotting this). It's clearly nonsense and worth nipping in the bud, and it once again highlights how easy it is to edit an IMDB listing and put together something that looks more substantive than it is. Check out our recent interview with director James Mangold for more on the problem of getting a project removed from IMDB once it's been listed!
More likely news is that the production of the next Batman film is to move away from its Chicago home for the last two films to New Orleans. According to Comic Book Movie, a deal is being done to shoot around half of the next film in New Orleans, taking advantage of the big tax breaks that have incentivised the recent production of The Green Lantern to be located there.
That said, Nolan isn't likely to be leaving Chicago altogether if this deal does come off, and given the man's talent for shooting movies of such scale, it's hardly likely to have a detrimental effect on Batman 3 anyway.
More news on the film as we get it...
Screen Rant
Comic Book Movie

Tom Cruise to do Mission Impossible 4 for scale rates

from Movies - Den of Geek

Mission Impossible 4 pushes forward, but Tom Cruise is taking a massive up-front pay cut to get it made, in the light of his apparently-waning star pulling power…

It's not been the best couple of years for Tom Cruise at the US box office, as his last couple of films, Valkyrie and Knight And Day, have both failed to crack the $100m mark in the States. In fact, Knight And Day is still languishing at $75m, an unthinkable figure once upon a time for a big budget Tom Cruise action movie.
To call the film a flop, however, would be wrong. As we noted in our piece last week, the star power of Tom Cruise is likely to turn the domestic disappointment of Knight And Day into a decent hit elsewhere in the world, and already, $127m has been brought in outside of the States, taking the film's gross above $200m.
We're still talking less than would have been expected for a Tom Cruise movie, but the man still has star pulling power.
But not, it appears, in the States. The last film of his to hit expectations in the US was War Of The Worlds back in 2005, and as such, there have been many stories surrounding Paramount Pictures' reported discomfort with Cruise as sole star of its upcoming Mission: Impossible 4. As such, it was already revealed earlier this year that Cruise would be getting a co-star in the next movie. And now it's also been suggested that his salary package is getting a big restructure in the light of Knight And Day's US performance.
The suggestion is that Paramount doesn't have the necessary confidence in Cruise headlining the film (in terms of his box office pulling power), and NYMag is now reporting that he'll be taking a scale salary for the film, with a big back-end once the movie hits profit.
The upshot of this is that he'll be taking the minimum pay allowed by the Screen Actors Guild up front for Mission: Impossible 4, and basically sharing the risk of the film.
As someone who's really enjoyed the Mission: Impossible movies - especially Brian De Palma's outstanding 1996 take on the material - I'm more than happy to see Cruise back as Ethan Hunt, and the idea of Brad Bird on board as director has long since piqued my interest.
Meanwhile, both Ving Rhames and Simon Pegg are set to return too, and this is good news.
For more on Mr Cruise's salary joys, head over to NYMag here...

Release dates for Frankenweenie and John Carter Of Mars

from Movies - Den of Geek

Two big Disney films for 2012, including the next stop-motion project from Tim Burton, get firm release dates…
A pair of new release date announcements have arrived from Disney, and they're for two films that are both very firmly on our radar.
First up, there's Frankenweenie, Tim Burton's latest full-length stop-motion project, which he's currently in the midst of putting together. It's based, in case you've not had the pleasure of seeing it, on one of his acclaimed early short films, and we've got until March 9th 2012 to wait until we can see it.
Given that physical production began just a month or two ago, that's a reasonably compact amount of time he's got to turn the finished project round, even appreciating that stop motion animation can be one of the quickest forms.
Next up is John Carter Of Mars, which was shooting earlier this year in the UK, with Mark Strong and Willem Dafoe starring. What's particularly interesting about this is that Andrew Stanton will be directing.
Stanton's background is in animation, and he helmed the hugely acclaimed Wall-E for Pixar. He's one of two Pixar alumni directing big budget projects at the moment, with Brad Bird set to call shots on Mission: Impossible IV later this year.
ERC Box Office

J.J. Abrams "Super 8" To Shoot In September

(cinemablend.com)
      Comic Con: J.J. Abrams Says Super 8 Shoots In September, Won't Be 3D Notoriously tight-lipped J.J. Abrams isn't likely to be slipping any details about his secret upcoming projects during today's Visionaries panel in Hall H, but he was convinced to talk a little bit about Super 8, the Spielberg-inspired project he's set to make next. He said it was far too early to talk details, and he doesn't have a cast in place yet, but that filming will start in September. Oh, and it won't be in 3D.

It was really more of a joke to ask if Super 8 would be in 3D-- after all, it's inspired by old-school films and home movies-- but the news still got a cheer from the audience. Abrams went on to explain a little of his aversion to 3D as a moviegoer: "Everything gets dim. It all gets a little gray and muted. You get into it, my brain adjusts to it after a while, but for the first few minutes, it seems less than the experience." Sounds like somebody saw Clash of the Titans and got burned like the rest of it.

The Visionaries panel is ongoing and fascinating, so hopefully there will be more to bring you shortly.

Spielberg's Terra Nova to Shoot in Queensland

(The Hollywood Reporter)                   Steven Spielberg's time travel TV series "Terra Nova" will shoot in Queensland, where state premier Anna Bligh on Monday said that production is expected to begin in October.

"Fox Broadcasting has today confirmed Queensland as the location of choice for 'Terra Nova'... and once again shows Queensland's ability to attract first rate productions to the state," Bligh said.

"My government provided considerable incentives through Screen Queensland to secure this production which, in turn, will generate in excess of AUS$54 million ($50 million) in economic activity and create thousands of jobs," she added.

Bligh said that around 80% of the cast and crew will be Queenslanders.

Production will be centered on locations around southeastern Queensland and at the Warner Roadshow Studios on the Gold Coast.

"We wanted this ambitious series to look like no other on television and Queensland provided the best of all possible worlds," executive vice president of production, Jim Sharp added.

"Queensland had the right look, climate and terrain, a vibrant production community and attractive economic incentives. We are very excited to be shooting our first production there."

Starring Jason O'Mara, "Terra Nova" tells a group of scientists from 2149 who travel back 85 million years to prehistoric Earth to try to save the planet that is dying from development and overcrowding.

Fox will preview the first episode of "Terra Nova" in May and then launch the 13 episode series in the fall of 2011.

Disney Sets John Carter of Mars Release Date

(Walt Disney Pictures)                 On June 8, 2012, the studio will release the Andrew Stanton-directed John Carter of Mars, starring Taylor Kitsch, Lynn Collins, Samantha Morton, Mark Strong, Ciaran Hinds, Dominic West, James Purefoy, Daryl Sabara, Polly Walker, Bryan Cranston, Thomas Hayden Church and Willem Dafoe.

Based on the first of Edgar Rice Burroughs' "Barsoom Series," the film chronicles the journey of Civil-War veteran John Carter (Kitsch), who finds himself battling a new and mysterious war amidst a host of strange Martian inhabitants, including Tars Tarkas (Dafoe) and Dejah Thoris (Collins).

Could A Labor Organization Save VFX Facilities?

(vfxsoldier.wordpress.com)                     When I was working at a facility that had a bargaining agreement with IATSE local 839, The Animation Guild, I found the benefits to be in abundance:

    * Individual Account Plan – A retirement account completely employer funded.
    * Defined Benefit Plan – A traditional pension plan that was also employer funded.
    * 401k – No vesting periods, funded by employee.
    * PPO health insurance – No deductibles , no co-pays.

As I explained in previous posts, I was able to keep my health insurance almost 2 years after voluntarily leaving for a non-guild facility. Benefits were also portable if you go to another guild facility and there are no extra costs to include family members. When I explain to my fellow co-workers that I paid about $400 a year in dues for such great benefits their response is the same:

    It must be too good to be true.

For a while my sentiments were the same and that my employer was probably paying through the roof for my guild negotiated benefits. However, after doing some research in how those benefits are funded, a strong case could be made that organization of VFX Facilities could actually save them money. If anything, it would probably be wash since the health and retirement benefits the guild provides would replace employer-provided benefits.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that the national average employers pay for benefits on top of employees’ salaries is about 30%. According to industry sources, that’s about in line with what VFX facilities pay on top of artist salaries. One commenter on my blog claims it to be 50%!

So how much would organization actually cost? Well according to sources in the IATSE, the national labor organization that The Animation Guild is a part of, a guild employer would have to pay the following for each worker:

    * about $4 per hour worked plus about a 6% contribution into the IAP (Individual Account Plan).

I estimate the IAP contribution to be about $6000 a year. If you want to see how that number is calculated go here but lets make an assumption and calculate the amount based on an artist’s salary.

    * Assume an artist works 40 hours per week for a total of 2080 hours a year.
    * Assume that artist makes $48 an hour for a nice even salary total of about $100,000 per year.

The total amount an employer would probably have to pay to the guild would calculate to be about $14,500 per year. (*Correction – this amount isn’t paid to the guild, it is paid into the health and pension benefits. The only money paid to the guild are the dues paid by workers.) That’s far less than the national average of 30% employers pay to administer benefits.

How is it possible for the guild to provide better benefits at a more competitive price? The answer is in residuals and the economics of scale.

Residuals

This is the biggest discovery that many of us fail to make. Members of the IATSE earn residuals from the big 6 studios that directly fund the health, retirement, and pension benefits they recieve. Everytime a theater ticket, DVD, or re-run of a movie or television show is sold, a percentage of that money goes to fund benefits for IATSE members.

You are probably thinking that would amount to a lot of money and it is.

In 2008, residual income for benefits amounted to $378 million dollars! For 2009 that number is projected to be $365 million. This is why the IATSE is able to provide such great benefits at a low cost to employers and members. 55-60% of the costs for those benefits are paid for by the big 6 studios with residuals earned from sales of movies and television shows worldwide.

Economics of Scale

If you were to purchase health insurance individually, you’ll find that it’s really expensive. Part of the reason why is that it’s costly to adminster a plan just for you. Also, as an individual you have very little bargaining power with large insurance companies. However, if you join a group of people that need health insurance, you would have more bargaining power and the costs can be spread across the group making it cheaper. Like many employers, some VFX houses are able to get health insurance for their workers at a less expensive price because they can employ 200-1000 workers and bargain a bit.

The same can be said for the IATSE on a much larger scale. They sign collective bargaining agreements with hundreds of employers in the US and Canada which employ almost 120,000 members. When you combine the shear scale of the number of members and the residuals that pay into those benefits, you begin to realize how such good benefits are provided at a good price.

It’s important to note that the costs of healthcare have been rising throughout the world. The same can be said of the guild benefits. However, they have the organization to keep costs down and make sure that the rise in health care costs are slower than the national and worldwide average. They are able to accomplish this by offering their own set of clinics members can choose to visit at a lower cost and they recently increased the number of qualifying hours per year from 400 to 450.

I believe as more VFX artists become educated about organization, the more likely it will happen. We need portable benefits as we move from facility to facility, project to project. The guild has already been providing that for almost the last 50 years to thousands of workers. The question is whether we will choose to organize sooner or 40-50 years later down the line.

Eventually we will look back on this time and history will ask this question: In the midst of one of our industry’s darkest hours, did we stand up to answer the call?

Animated Tarzan Planned for 3D

(Variety)                 Tarzan will be making a return to the world of animation thanks to Constantin Films, reports Variety. Robert Kulzer and Reinhard Klooss will produce the CGI film for release in 3D.

Constantin, best known for films in the Resident Evil and Fantastic Four franchises, is also developing a live-action 3D adaptation of a classic literature in the form of The Three Musketeers, to be directed by Paul W.S. Anderson.

Tarzan himself has been the focus of dozens of adaptations in both film and television since his first appearance in Edgar Rice Burrough's Tarzan of the Apes in 1912. In 1999, Disney released a theatrical animated version (later spawning a cartoon series) as is currently at work adapting another Burroughs property for live action, John Carter of Mars, set for release in 2012.

Special-Effects Legend Unleashes His 'Creature Corps'

(fearnet.com)                   File this under "Very Cool Indeed". Next week, on Friday the 13th, special-effects legend Robert Kurtzman is launching a new web reality show, titled Creature Corps, which will take viewers into the world of horror filmmaking at its finest. More after the jump, including an advance video look.

Creature Corps 2010 Digital FX Reel from Creature Corps on Vimeo.

According to the official press release, "Robert Kurtzman's Creature Corps begins airing next week on Friday the 13th (August) exclusively on Robert's official website, creaturecorps.net. This innovative new weekly series dares to let you peek behind the curtain to see just how the magic of Hollywood is made, featuring backstage access only footage following the amazing Creature Corps artists as they create fantastic creatures, special make-up F/X and visual effects for various film and music video productions."

"Upcoming episodes show you the true insanity, gore and hilarity that permeate the day to day activities at the Creature Corps effects facility, as well as provide behind the scenes footage of Midnight Syndicates debut film THE DEAD MATTER and the shooting of their first music video Dark Legacy, Mushroomhead's latest music video productions for 12 Hundred and Your Soul Is Mine, extensive coverage of the creation of the monsters and F/X for the upcoming Jennifer Lynch fright flick HISSS as well as original projects and creations from the Creature Corps elite team of artists.

"ROBERT KURTZMAN'S CREATURE CORPS will also be featuring various contests and giveaways, with prizes including props, masks, autographed items and more! Watch the web series for more info."

Frankenweenie 3D Sets Release Date

(Walt Disney Pictures)                Walt Disney Pictures is targeting a March 9, 2012 release for the Tim Burton-produced Frankenweenie, written by John August. The film is based on Burton's 1984 short about a pet dog brought back to life by his loyal owner. While the original "Frankenweenie" was a live-action project, the new one will be made using stop-motion animation and be in 3D.

A Complete Guide to Special Effects Makeup - Yours For $976.98

(babesjunction.com)                 Created by some of Japan's most talented and up-and-coming special effects make-up artists, this is the first Japanese language Special Effects Make-Up "how-to" guide! From easy "scar" make-ups to basic techniques to masks and full-scale prosthetics, each process is covered in a fully illustrated, step-by-step process.

Order today:    http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Guide-Special-Effects-Makeup/dp/4766118332%3FSubscriptionId%3DAKIAJZGS6YKFPMU5FUVA%26tag%3Dmegaebookmall-20%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3D4766118332

Disney Wraps up Mars Movie Shooting in Utah

(standard.net)                     SALT LAKE CITY - Principal photography is now completed in Utah for The Walt Disney Studios' upcoming feature film, "John Carter of Mars," being directed by Academy Award-winning filmmaker Andrew Stanton (Finding Nemo, WallâàôE), and produced by Colin Wilson (Avatar).

Filmed throughout Southern Utah in the areas of Big Water, Kanab, Hanksville, Delta and Moab, the production created 300 jobs over a 120-day period, and brought $21 million into several rural Utah economies.

"As Governor, I am particularly happy that Utah has been host to the recently completed production of 'John Carter of Mars' during the past year. The book series was a favorite of mine when I was young, and I can't wait to see the finished film," Governor Gary R. Herbert said.

"This project has stimulated the state's local economies at a critical time and provided hundreds of jobs for Utah's film professionals."

The film's producers were considering Utah when Senate Bill 14 (Financial Incentives for Motion Pictures) was passed in March 2009. SB 14, in addition to the quality filming locations and the availability of professional crews, helped Utah win the starring role as the double for Mars.

"The collaboration between the Utah Film Commission, the Motion Picture Association of Utah and the State's robust film industry has yielded tremendous results," said Spencer Eccles, executive director of the Governor's Office of Economic Development. "We are anxious to welcome the next studio production to Utah, our message to Hollywood is, welcome home."

"This was an ideal project for Utah because of the unique landscapes we have within our borders," said Marshall Moore, director of the Utah Film Commission. Lockheed Martin had also recently used Utah as a double for Mars during an industrial shoot in 2009.

Various locations of the state were used in the production, among them Kane County and Moab City which felt a large economic benefit. "The film provided employment for extras, framers, carpenters and landscapers. Many local businesses including grocery, lumber, hardware, lodging and restaurants benefitted from the film," said Kay Giles, director of the Kane County Office of Tourism and Film Commission. The City of Moab was pleased with the economic impact the film had on their community. "This was a win-win situation for the City of Moab business owners and our citizens," said Dave Sakrison, Mayor of Moab, Utah.

The production of "John Carter of Mars," represents the largest economic impact of any movie made in Utah. Based on the first of Edgar Rice Burroughs' "Barsoom Series," the film chronicles the journey of Civil-War veteran John Carter (TAYLOR KITSCH), who finds himself battling a new and mysterious war amidst a host of strange Martian inhabitants, including Tars Tarkas (WILLEM DAFOE) and Dejah Thoris (LYNN COLLINS). The film is scheduled to be released in 2012.

‘Tron: Legacy’ To Become lElecTRONica Dance Party

(travel.latimes.com)                A nighttime street party debuting this fall at Disney California Adventure will be tied to the upcoming “Tron: Legacy“ film and will feature sci-fi themed music, dancers and cocktails.

An open call by Disney Auditions looking for hip-hop dancers with martial arts experience, said rehearsals would begin in early September for the new “Tron” nighttime event in the Hollywood Pictures Backlot and the Sun Plaza entrance hub.

The nightly party, with the working title ElecTRONica, would run through the Christmas 2010 release of the much-anticipated movie, reported MiceAge columnist Al Lutz.

ElecTRONica replaces the surprise hit Glow Fest, a booze-fueled dance party scheduled to run through Aug. 22 at DCA. A Disney-fied version of a psychedelic rave, Glow Fest was designed to keep visitors entertained this summer while they waited for the Anaheim theme park’s popular new World of Color nighttime water show to begin.

As part of the ElecTRONica event, the former “Who Wants to be a Millionaire” soundstage may be converted into a neon-illuminated Flynn’s Arcade modeled on the video arcade in “Tron: Legacy” while the former Hollywood & Dine food court could receive an End of the Line Club makeover based on the futuristic nightclub in the film, according to Screamscape.

Spider-Man villain speculation: Christoph Waltz to play The Lizard?

from Movies - Den of Geek

Could Spider-Man finally be going head to head with The Lizard on the big screen? And is Christoph Waltz the man to play him?
Over the past week or two, I've sat back and re-watched Sam Raimi's trilogy of Spider-Man movies, and not for the first time, it left me thinking that the great loss of Raimi's cancelled Spider-Man 4 was the chance to see Dylan Baker's character reach fruition.
Baker, in Spider-Man 2 and 3, played Dr Curt Connors, whose long-term destiny was to turn into The Lizard. And there were rumours - although there was never confirmation - that Spider-Man 4 would have seen him do just that.
However, with Sony now rebooting the whole Spider-Man franchise, with Andrew Garfield in the title role and Marc Webb directing, Baker has left the franchise. And he's done so at a time when Sony is believed to be considering making The Lizard the principle villain of its new Spider-Man movie.
According to Production Weekly, Sony has someone in mind for the role, too. It's put the name of Inglourious Basterds' Christoph Waltz forward as a potential contender for the role, which sounds like a decent call from where we're sitting.
However, we should note that there's no word from Sony on this, and nor is there a sniff of confirmation that The Lizard is set to be the primary villain in the next Spider-Man movie. At this stage, that's just where the rumour mill happens to be.
Given that Spider-Man starts shooting at the end of this year, however, we'd expect details to be forthcoming sooner rather than later...

Total Recall: 20 years on

from Movies - Den of Geek

Get your ass to Mars. It’s twenty years since Paul Verhoeven directed Total Recall. Ryan looks back at an action sci-fi classic…
Arnold Schwarzenegger at his brawny best. Sharon Stone divorced with a bullet. Martian hookers with three breasts. Paul Verhoeven isn't a director known for his subtlety or restraint, and 1990's Total Recall saw the Dutchman at the height of his trashy, wryly intelligent powers.
Because, while his trio of truly classic science fiction movies, RoboCop, Total Recall and Starship Troopers, is risibly, gloriously violent, there beats a deliciously cynical, satirical heart beneath all the blood and mayhem.
And yet, Total Recall could have easily been a very different film.
Floating around the offices of Hollywood for years, the rights to Philip K. Dick's original short story, We Can Remember It For You Wholesale, were originally purchased by Alien screenwriter Ron Shusett in the early 80s. Renamed Total Recall, the property was developed by Dino De Laurentiis, with David Cronenberg set to direct and numerous actorsincluding Richard Dreyfuss, William Hurt and Patrick Swayze attached to the lead role over the next few years.

When Cronenberg's drafts of the script failed to impress Shusett ("No, no, we want to do Raiders Of The Lost Ark goes to Mars" was how the frustrated director Shussett reacted at the time), another director, Bruce Beresford, was hastily drafted in as a replacement. Then, just as set builders began turning a corner of Australia into a miniature version of Mars, De Laurentiis' production company went belly up.
At the behest of man-mountain Arnold Schwarzenegger (he'd wanted to star in De Laurentiis' version of the film, but was turned down in favour of Swayze) Carolco Pictures bought up the Total Recall rights for $3 million. Paul Verhoeven was hired as director (again, at Schwarzenegger's insistence), and writer Gary Goldman was brought in to help Ronald Shusett finish off the screenplay, which by now had gone through more than forty drafts.

But while the movie's pre-production had been a fraught one, those difficulties didn't carry over to the big screen. Through its successive drafts, Dick's slight, curious tale had mutated into sprawling space opera, a mutation that resulted in a brash, undeniably exciting film that nevertheless retained faint, tantalising hints of the original story's themes.
Set in 2084, Schwarzenegger plays hulking construction worker Douglas Quaid, whose visit to Rekall, a company that specialises in implanting false experiences into customers' minds, inadvertently uncovers his apparently wiped true identity. Far from the blue collar underling he initially thought himself to be, Quaid is, in fact, a secret agent with mysterious links to a colony on Mars.
In a brilliant big screen synthesis of Dickian paranoia, Quaid returns home from Rekall to find that everyone he knows is arrayed against him in some massive conspiracy. His ice maiden wife Lori (Sharon Stone) isn't really his wife, but the deadly, high-kicking girlfriend of Richter (Michael Ironside, excellent, as always), and even his once-friendly co-workers are actually gun-wielding assassins.

Escaping to Mars, Quaid discovers his real name is Hauser, a one-time pawn of the colony's evil administrator Vilos Cohaagen (Ronny Cox, cast in the same nefarious bureaucrat role he played in RoboCop), and that his mind is the repository for secret information that could alter the Martian landscape forever.
Seldom concerned with logic, Verhoeven keeps Total Recall moving at an extraordinary pace, lurching from one ludicrously violent over-the-top set piece to another.
The film's most memorable moment, however, is a quiet yet remarkably tense sequence in which Quaid/Hauser is confronted by his estranged wife and a doctor, who claim that Quaid isn't really on Mars at all, but still strapped to a chair at Rekall and in the middle of a psychotic episode. By swallowing a pill, the doctor says, Quaid can save himself, and restore his life to its former balance.

It's a rare pause in the action, and made all the more mesmerising by the gory headshots and other grizzly slayings that bookend it. For the first time, the audience is given a moment to question the strange dream-logic of everything it's seen thus far. Are the colourful inhabitants of Mars, the dim-witted goons who insist on using machine guns in a glass dome, and Quaid's new love interest Melina (Rachel Ticotin) all constructs of his slumbering mind?
No matter. With another bullet through the skull, Verhoeven's off again, embarking on another half hour or so of chases, fights and gleefully nasty deaths. It's only as the final credits are set to roll, and a vast subterranean network of alien technology transforms the Martian surface, that Quaid, and the audience, have one final chance to wonder whether everything the protagonist has experienced is simply a fantasy.
Briefly the most expensive film of all time (knocked off its perch one year later by the groundbreaking Terminator 2), Total Recall looks like the product of a bygone age. Pre-CGI model effects aside, it's hard to imagine, in 2010, a big budget, mainstream movie getting away with the R-rated level of violence displayed here. With studios now more anxious than ever to pull in big audiences, executives would probably demand the film be cut for a PG-13/12A certificate.

It's unlikely, for example, that Inception or Avatar would have been granted such enormous budgets had they been as wilfully bloody as Total Recall was.
Nevertheless, Total Recall is, in its own way, a hugely entertaining movie. As a piece of action cinema or hyperactive space opera, it's a kinetic, brash rollercoaster ride, made all the better by Rob Bottin's squishy make-up effects.
And while it's not to hard to wonder just what David Cronenberg's take on Dick's premise would have looked like (though his reality-bending 1999 movie eXistenZ gives a partial answer), there's no denying that, between them, Schwarzenegger and Verhoeven created a bloody popcorn classic that, beneath the violent divorces and tri-breasted ladies, still contains distant echoes of the original short story's infectious paranoia.

GREEN LANTERN Wraps, Sequel Work Underway

(mania.com)
    Over on Twitter, DC Entertainment Chief Creative Officer and Green Lantern guru Geoff Johns tells fans, " GREEN LANTERN IS WRAPPED!!!! Finished the last shot today!!! Celebrating in New Orleans. :)"

He goes on to tweet, "As co-producer of the film, I am very, very proud of what we've got in store. Much more to come. Martin Campbell FTW."

As an added bonus, Johns also published a photo of a Red Lantern he discovered in New Orleans.

With the release of the first movie still about 11 months away, Variety reports that Warner Bros. have already gotten started with work on Green Lantern 2.

Greg Berlanti, Michael Green and Marc Guggenheim, the writers of the current movie's screenplay were commissioned to outline their treatment for the sequel a few months back. Now Warner has hired Michael Goldenberg (Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix) to write the script from their treatment.

Presumably the story will see Sinestro (played my actor Mark Strong) rise up as a nemesis for Hal Jordan (Ryan Reynolds). In keeping with

Cloverfield Sequel Still a Priority

(MTV)                  MTV talked to Cloverfield director Matt Reeves, whose Let Me In opens October 1st, about the possibility of a sequel to the 2008 monster film.

He said that, while himself and producer J.J. Abrams are concentrating on other things right now, there's definitely still interest in returning to that universe.

"It really isn't the moment for [the sequel] to go any further than it has, but it continues to be a priority for both of us," Reeves said. "J.J. is very immersed in putting together 'Super 8.' He's... in pre-production and really, really passionately getting that together. And I'm passionately finishing 'Let Me In.'"

He also assured there's no connection between Cloverfield and Super 8.

"There literally is no connection whatsoever," he added. "It's just a really cool idea for a film. I know what [J.J. is] doing and it's amazing."

Cloverfield cost just $25 million to make and earned $170 million worldwide.

Tony Scott to Direct Nemesis for Fox

(Bleeding Cool)               20th Century Fox has acquired the film rights to writer Mark Millar ("Wanted," "Kick-Ass") and artist Steve McNiven's graphic novel "Nemesis," with Tony Scott attached to direct and Scott Free producing. Marvel describes the title as follows:

CIVIL WAR? Nothing. KICK-ASS? A warmup. What if the smartest, toughest costumed bad ass in the world was totally evil? Meet Nemesis. He's systematically been destroying the lives of every police chief in Asia, and he's now set his sights on Washington, DC. Between you and me, the police don't have a chance. Do not miss the book that EVERYONE will be talking about by the creative team that made CIVIL WAR the biggest book of the decade.

Millar commented on the announcement on his official site:

Oh, man. It's so good to finally be able to talk about this:

The man who shot Maverick in Top Gun, Bruce in the Last Boy Scout, yelled action for Will Smith in Enemy of the State, directed Denzel in Man on Fire (one of the finest revenge movies ever made), had Tarantino rework Hackman's dialogue in Crimson Tide and gave me Deneuve's naughtiest performance in The Hunger is directing our movie. Oh, AND he did True Romance, for my money the best of all the Tarantino flicks. Tony Scott: I can't even pretend to be cool about this.

Bryan Hitch and I would reference Tony on a weekly basis when we were doing The Ultimates. Our dream was an Ultimates movie with Scott directing because he can do the character work and the intensity, but also handle scale and action like practically no other. The idea of a him helming a superhero movie had us giddy and here he is directing the one Steve McNiven and I created. We found out last Friday night and managed to keep a secret from all but a few of our closest friends and family. But this is the call I had a couple of weeks back, which I described as the most exciting of my career; Tony on the blower chatting about how he wanted to shoot certain scenes if we gave him the rights. He was buzzing about it, describing Steve as the best comic book artist he's seen in over twenty years. We talked casting, we talked budget (and we're talking way more than Wanted and Kick-Ass put together here in terms of money for him to play with) and we talked with Fox about making this into a major franchise, something they're really going to invest their time and energy into.

Cameron Updates "Avatar" Sequels

(darkhorizons.com)                In a lengthy interview with MTV News, filmmaker James Cameron says he's working on the "Avatar" sequel, though something else in that universe is currently drawing most of his attention.

"'Avatar 2'... we're still working on deals. We don't start the movie until we get the deals worked out. I'm making notes. I'm not sitting idle... But really, what I'm working on primarily is the novel."

Cameron's held back on releasing an "Avatar" novel tie-in as "I didn't want to do a cheesy novelization, where some hack comes in and kind of makes s--t up. I wanted to do something that was a legitimate novel that was inside the characters' heads and didn't have the wrong culture stuff, the wrong language stuff, all that."

There's also talk of doing the next two "Avatar" films back-to-back, something that's not as strenuous as it sounds due to the style of the production - "We're actually talking about that. That's not a decision yet. That is something that makes a lot of sense, given the nature of these productions, because we can bank all the [motion] capture and then go back and do cameras over a period of time."

'Star Trek' Sequel Inspired By 'Cowboys And Aliens'

(airlockalpha.com)    Space always has been the final frontier, but the sequel to J.J. Abrams' "Star Trek" will take some cues from the old Western frontier thanks to the latest Hollywood genre mash-up, "Cowboys and Aliens."

    Details on the plot of the new movie are being carefully kept under wraps (although that hasn't stopped wild speculation swirling the web) and the script hasn't even been finished, but writers Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman insist the follow-up will remain immensely loyal to the original canon and bring the series back to the very origins of the franchise.

    "['Cowboys and Aliens'] inspires it a little bit," Orci said. "'Star Trek' was 'Wagon Train [to] the Stars.' Isn’t that how Gene Roddenberry pitched it? So right now we’re just doing 'Stars Come to the Wagon Train' and now we start turning. Once we start relaxing about what we’re doing here, I’m hoping that being out in the woods a little bit will kind of inspire the right decisions hopefully."

    How far are the duo in scripting? Right now, they are about half complete, but events are still subject to change ... and change they might once fellow scribe Damon Lindelof returns from his vacation. The "Lost" co-creator, who has been consulting via e-mail, is enjoying a break from Hollywood following his six-year odyssey on a mysterious tropical island.

    "I’d say we’re halfway through the story," Orci said. "Halfway through all of us going back over what we’ve talked about and seeing if it really sticks. We’ve built a little Jenga castle storywise, and now we’re going to go pick at it and pull at it and if it stays standing. We know what we have."

Oscar Winner to Direct Digital Production Arts at Clemson

(clemson.edu)                   CLEMSON — Jerry Tessendorf, winner of the Academy Award for Technical Achievement in 2008, has been named director of the Digital Production Arts program at Clemson University, a graduate program for professionals in the film, video and gaming industries.

"Jerry will take the lead in implementing our five-year plan to achieve recognition as the lead institution in the training of technical directors and technical artists for the film and electronic games industries," said Esin Gulari, dean of Clemson's College of Engineering and Science. "We're excited to have his knowledge, experience and enthusiasm at the forefront of this important program."

Tessendorf will be a professor of visual computing in Clemson's School of Computing. In addition to directing the Digital Production Arts program, he will teach and perform research in animation and rendering for visual effects production.

The American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences bestowed Tessendorf and three colleagues an Oscar for technical achievement in 2008 in recognition of their development of custom fluid dynamics tools. The tools allow artists to create realistic animation of liquids and gases. The system also included a unique scripting language for working with volumetric data.

Tessendorf's film credits include "Titanic," "Waterworld," the "X-Men" series, "The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe," the "Night at the Museum" series and "Superman Returns." Most recently he was principal graphics scientist at Rhythm & Hues Studios.

NSW Boosts Support for Visual Effects

(news.smh.com.au)                   Television and film post production companies specialising in digital effects will find it easier to get financial support in NSW.

The threshold for the state government's Film and Television Industry Attraction Fund has been lowered from $3 million to $500,000 for post digital visual effects, to reflect recent changes at a federal level, it said on Friday.

NSW Treasurer Eric Roozendaal said the lower threshold for projects would help attract high-technology post production to NSW.

Hobbit Delays Crushed Guillermo del Toro's Disney Animation Deal

(slashfilm.com)             In the Deadline interview, del Toro makes it sound like the delays with The Hobbit were to blame for the quick demise of his deal with Disney to set up some animated films that have a slightly darker tone than most Disney fare. So if you’ve been looking for information on animated films from Disney Double Dare You, might be time to stop.

del Toro says,

    Some of those big deals I’d made, with Disney and Universal, I had to dance really fast to be able to get a period of grace to shoot those Hobbit movies, and then be able to make those deals active again. That period came and went, and we were not shooting. That Disney Double Dare You deal is gone. I am developing a relationship with DreamWorks that’s still to be defined, but it’s not as it was going to be at Disney. Disney was a beautiful opportunity, but with the timing and the delays and everything, I couldn’t activate it.

US Image Metrics Buys Facepro to Improve Animation Efficiency

(tmcnet.com)             US facial animation software firm Image Metrics (OTC:IMGX) has acquired lip synchronisation technology company Facepro in a move to enhance animation efficiency, Image Metrics said Thursday without giving price details.

Embedding Facepro's audio-based facial animation technology in Image Metrics' software will improve the product's quality and will also make it more cost effective. As a result, the cost of facial animation will be reduced to USD12 per second, Facepro president Rod Stafford said.

Little Old Lady Talks "VFX Assault & Battery"

(theunion.com)                   Movie special effects have simply gotten out of hand. Lately, while attending two or three blockbuster movies in a row, I have felt like a victim of assault and battery. To begin with, Dolby surround sound is jolting enough to destroy brain tissue, and prolonged exposure to it must certainly result in acoustic trauma.

Secondly, putting on 3D glasses becomes the prelude to experiencing a kind of guided missile attack. The movie theater becomes a war zone. When I have dared to look around, I have expected to see dead bodies lying in the aisles. And I wonder if the next innovation will be to install explosive devices under the theater seats.

I am one of a trio of little old ladies who look forward to enjoying lunch together, and then attending an afternoon matinee. Of late, we have attended some highly rated, three or four- star movies, and have emerged from the theater feeling lucky to have survived. Then we ask each other, “Now exactly what was that whole thing about?”

As long-time movie fans, we are certainly not averse to innovation and excitement. We buy tickets because we want to be fascinated, enriched, amused or entertained, and, above all, to become involved in what we're looking at. What we do not want is “sound and fury signifying nothing.”

It used to be that film stars were the ones who carried a movie. Sometimes their sheer glamour or force of personality could make the ordinary seem wonderful, poignant, sinister or funny.

They were the main attraction. They may have been seriously flawed people in real life, but on screen they embodied the ideal. The acting of the great stars left us a legacy of splendid and memorable performances.

However, it seems to me that in present day films, the stars may become mere adjuncts to spectacular special effects which are undoubtedly impressive as purely technical achievements but do little to enrich the plot or augment our understanding of the motivations of the characters.

Of course, old-time movies were padded with some simple special effects, too. (Hours of dialog are hard to write!) Early on, the familiar car chase, which is still with us, became routine in any action movie.

However, in olden days it was merely a short diversion and although it might end in a crash, it was never grisly in the sense of having severed body parts flying through the air.

The first time I ever saw anything akin to a car chase was in a “picture show” I attended 80 years ago (the word “movie” may not yet have been invented!).

I forget the title of this opus, but I know it starred the Oklahoma humorist, Will Rogers, paired with a timid comedienne named Zazu Pitts.

Her talent lay in her sad-sack portrayals of characters who were the blameless victims of life, lost souls absolutely resigned to suffering every conceivable kind of mischance.

In the scene I remember, these two simple, lovable characters are in an open touring sedan, free-wheeling down a steep, one-way mountain road.

He is valiantly trying to steer the run-away car around hairpin turns as their speed relentlessly accelerates. She is haplessly hanging on to her hat, caught as usual, in circumstances beyond her control, with no happy ending in sight.

The sequence was scary but at the same time hilarious. Furthermore, what the actors seemed to be experiencing was something the audience could relate to.

We saw the actors as people just like us. We were riding along with them; the outcome concerned all of us. Probably that is why this scene has lingered in my memory and still makes me smile when I think about it.

As I get older, one of the matters I tend to ponder is the possibility that human beings may become redundant in an automated and technologically sophisticated world.

Scientists are now seriously discussing the matter of singularity which as I understand it is the real possibility that technology (robots?) could turn on us and eventually usurp control of our lives.

Can it be that my concern over this prospect has morphed into a neurosis? Am I crazy to worry about cinema special effects producing “reel” people who are not “real” people anymore?

Like Zazu Pitts, maybe the only thing I can do is just hang on to my hat and await developments, hair-raising though they may be.

Kevin Smith’s Red State gets going next month

The cast falls into place for Kevin Smith’s long-mooted horror film Red State, as its shooting start date is confirmed…
It's been a long time coming, but the Kevin Smith project that many of us are keenest to see - Red State - will be going before the cameras next month.
Red State is the supposedly-uncommercial horror movie that long-time Smith collaborators, the Weinstein brothers, opted not to invest in, and over the past couple of years, it's been a battle to put the funding together for the film. At one stage, Smith was considering a fan-funding mechanism, but logistical and tax problems brought that idea to a close.
However, the funding for the film has now fallen back into place, and off the back of his most commercially successful film to date, Cop Out, Smith is set to roll cameras.
As promised, he's put together a cast for the film that eschews star names. Michael Parks is in the lead role of Reverend Fred Phelps, with the likes of Stephen Root, Michael Angarano, Kyle Gallner, Melissa Leo and Dermot Mulroney all rumoured to be in the cast.
Smith is set to start shooting on 22nd September, he's confirmed via his Twitter feed, although compared to his usual openness about his productions, this one looks set to be a little quieter.
As soon as we have details of a release date, or more information on the movie, we'll gladly pass it on. This is one movie we're really, really looking forward to seeing...

The Thing 100% CGI, Dark Crystal in 2011, & Snowman Still Frozen...

(collider.com) While I’m not sure that many would argue the previous Fantastic Four films were anything but disappointing from a sheer cinematic perspective (on the bright side, I’m sure they sold tons of merch to my nephews), 20th Century Fox still has future plans for the franchise with Fantastic Four Reborn. That said, Screen Rant is reporting today that the studio has made two announcements regarding the film’s status:
- The Thing will be 100% CGI rather than using a practical effect suit like the one worn by Michael Chiklis in the previous installments.
- The reboot itself is on hold pending the completion of X-Men: First Class.

"Monsters, Inc. 2" Blinks - Moves Release Away From Twilight Sequeul
(Columbia Pictures, Walt Disney Pictures) With yesterday's announcement that Summit Entertainment will release The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 2 on November 16, 2012, both Disney•Pixar and DreamWorks Animation have moved their animated films into new spots that same month.
Disney•Pixar has announced that Monsters, Inc. 2 has been moved up from Nov. 16 to Nov. 2, 2012, while DreamWorks Animation has moved Leonardo DiCaprio-voiced The Guardians back from Nov. 2 to Nov. 21, 2012.
Disney also announced that the 3D version of Beauty and the Beast has been removed from the studio's release schedule along with Disney•Pixar's newt. It has been rumored for a while that newt was cancelled, but it looks like we got confirmation today.
In other release date news, Columbia Pictures has set a Nov. 11, 2011 release for the Adam Sandler comedy Jack and Jill. Sandler will play both characters in the film that will face Immortals on that same day.

The Henson Company to Release a "Dark Crystal" Sequel in 2011
(albertam.com)
   In 1982, The Henson Company took a chance and created an all puppet fantasy film that many claim was a flop. Except that its fan base grew and grew, turning it into a cult classic loved by many all over the world. Fans know what we’re talking about: The Dark Crystal. Now, all these years later, we have amazing technology and the ability to create very real animation. So, the Henson Company is at it again, this time using our technology to create a sequel to The Dark Crystal.

The sequel, titled The Power of the Dark Crystal, takes place hundreds of years after the first movie. The world is in darkness, and a young girl made of fire travels through the land with a Gelfing outcast. The film follows their adventure as the young girl tries to get a shard of the Dark Crystal and try to relight the dying sun that rests within the deepest part of the planet.

Plans for The Power of the Dark Crystal have been tossed around for a few years now, but finally some important news has been released and we’re getting a bigger look at what this Dark Crystal sequel will include. Here are some things to expect in The Power of the Dark Crystal:

-The Power of the Crystal will be in 3D. Most people hear this nowadays and just groan. It didn’t take long for 3D to lose its hype. Lucky for us, this is about the only thing in The Dark Crystal sequel that might fail.

-Brian Froud, creative genius behind the puppets from The Dark Crystal is returning to develop the characters in The Power of the Crystal. This is a huge win for the sequel.

-The Power of the Crystal is going to combine live action, puppetry, animatronics and CGI effects. Since the movie isn’t going to rely heavily on CGI, there is a greater chance that the sequel will do the first film justice, and in fact, make it better.

-Australia based Omnilab-affiliated Iloura will do the CGI. Haven’t heard of them? These are the guys that did Where the Wild Things Are. No matter what anyone thinks of that movie, the CGI was right on with the creatures from the beloved book, and looked extremely real. With this group in charge for The Power of the Crystal, our fantasy beings are in great hands.

-Craig Pearce wrote the screenplay. He also wrote the screenplays for Moulin Rouge and Romeo + Juliet. Was it really that hard to write a screenplay for Romeo + Juliet, though? The lines are already written, just add direction. Moulin Rouge is a beloved cult film filled with over-the-top sappiness. So, we will see where Pearce goes with The Power of the Dark Crystal.

-The Spierig Brothers are set to direct The Power of the Crystal. Michael and Peter Spierig are relative newbies to the directing business. They’ve directed only two films. The first was a low budget horror film called Undead that channeled Sam Raimi pretty well. The second, and what probably won them the job for the Dark Crystal sequel, is Daybreakers. It is a vampire film, which has nothing to do with The Dark Crystal, but it has won good reviews for its humor and action. What will make fans happy about the Spierig Brothers taking the helm for The Power of the Dark Crystal is how much they love the movie. Michael Spierig said that this sequel comes with a “tremendous amount of responsibility” and that they want to create the film with the same “meticulous care that Jim Henson and Frank Oz gave the 1982 original”.

-The Power of the Crystal will arrive in theaters at some point in 2011.

Men in Black 3 Shooting in New York

(horror-movies.ca)                  From ComingSoon comes word that Men in Black 3 will begin shooting in New York in September. We have known for awhile that SONY has been working on a Men In Black 3 and that Ethan Cowen who wrote Tropic Thunder was writing the film. Men in Black 3 will be in 3D and released into theaters May 26th 2011. Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones are both slated to return and reprise their roles.

Luc Besson In 'Outer Space Prison'

(darkhorizons.com)                 French filmmaker Luc Besson and actors Guy Pearce and Maggie Grace are set to team for the space prison hostage thriller "Lockout" which is looking likely to be set up at Sony Pictures says Deadline.

Pearce would play a man wrongly convicted of espionage who is offered his freedom if he can rescue the president's daughter (Grace) from an outer space prison which has been overrun by its violent inmates.

Besson co-wrote the script with James Mather and Stephen St. Leger who will direct. Shooting starts September 7th.

"An American Werewolf in London" Reboot Looks For Modern Spin

(slashfilm.com)                 Last year it was announced that the Weinstein brothers had acquired the rights to remake An American Werewolf in London, and my heart sank. Since then, there’s been no news of any progress on the project.

It looks like the remake is starting to kick into gear, with the studio looking to Fernley Phillips, the writer of The Number 23, to tackle the screenplay.

The Los Angeles Times, who reported the news, is saying that The Weinstein Co. is looking to give the movie “a modern spin”. Bloody Disgusting adds that they’ve been told the Weinsteins “are really looking to depart from John Landis’ [film].”

What makes the original 1981 film special is its genre-bending wit and energy, and top notch direction from John Landis (as well as Rick Baker’s special FX work, natch).

'Transformers 3' Casting Extras in Metro Detroit

(mlive.com)                If you're looking to earn some extra cash, get your start in the acting biz, or just want to be part of a blockbuster action flick, take note.

According to Michigan Acting, "Transformers 3" is currently casting extras in Metro Detroit for filming that will take place here at the end of August.

There are virtually no discriminating factors -- males and females of all ethnicities and looks can apply (unlike this film, which was looking for a very particular type of people), they just have to be over the age of 18.

To apply, submit a current picture and your name, phone number, age, height, weight, and sizes to trans3detroit@gmail.com.

"Transformers 3" has been filming Los Angeles and Chicago and will move to Detroit later this month.

There are rumors some filming will take place in the abandoned Packard Plant, and that there will possibly be some "blowing up" of parts inside the building.

According to the Warren, Ohio Tribune Chronicle, Paramount studios execs said "They fell in love with it because they can blow up parts in the movie and it won't matter."

Beauty And The Beast 3D Pushed Back Indefinitely

(cinemablend.com)                 Beauty And The Beast 3D Pushed Back Indefinitely This whole 3D craze has taken the theater-going world by storm, but what about the in-home market? While 3D TVs are available and are being heroically promoted by the biggest 3D enthusiast there is, James Cameron, it’s still going to take a long time to sell people on the idea of spending thousands of dollars on a new TV set that requires they wear glasses to watch it.

The lack of widespread acceptance for 3D TVs helped Disney decide to push back the release of Beauty and the Beast 3D until 2011 or later, according to THR. The entertainment giant already has Toy Story 3D in the hopper after converting the first two Pixar classics for last October’s theatrical re-release, which earned $30mil collectively, just enough to cover the proposed $15mil per movie conversion cost. Right now, Disney isn’t sure that a Beauty and the Beast re-release would have as much success.

To hold people over, the Mouse House has planned a 2D re-release in Blu-ray/DVD combo form of Beauty for October 5th, but with the fate of in-home 3D still in question we may be waiting a while for the added dimension.

Lucas: 'Star Wars TV Series on Hold'

(digitalspy.com)                 Star Wars creator George Lucas has revealed that a live action television series based on the franchise has been put "on hold".

The director originally announced his intention to produce a show set between the events of Revenge Of The Sith and A New Hope back in 2005.

However, at a recent digital screening of The Empire Strikes Back in Chicago, he admitted that the project's future is uncertain.

"The live action TV show is kind of on hold because we have scripts, but we don't know how to do them," he said.

Lucas explained that budget restraints had made it difficult to realize the grand scope of the stories he had planned.

"They literally are Star Wars, only we're going to have to try to do them [at] a tenth the cost," he confirmed. "And it's a huge challenge, [a] lot bigger than what we thought it was gonna be."

'Clash of the Titans' Dominates Video Charts

(hollywoodreporter.com)                "Clash of the Titans," a remake of the 1981 cult classic, was a titan on the video charts the week ending Aug. 1.

The Warner Home Video title, which earned more than $163 million at the boxoffice, easily topped the national sales, Blu-ray sales and rental charts its first week out.

It also scored the second-highest Blu-ray share of total unit sales for a No. 1 new release this year, at 44%. It was second only to blockbuster "Avatar," which scored 49% in Blu-ray sales share its first week of release. "Avatar" managed to come in No. 4 on the Blu-ray sales chart, despite being in release since April.

Tron Legacy 3D & VFX Panel Talk From Siggraph

(vfxworld.com)                  When asked why make Tron Legacy in 3-D, director Kosinski responded: "It's Tron, man! If any film needs to push boundaries and take you into a new world, this was it. Stylistically, what I found interesting about 3-D is you can sit on a master shot and let the scene play out longer like a stage play because it does have depth and there's all this other information you're getting from it. You don't have to cut around as much to keep the energy up. There's really something nice about just sitting with the 3-D image for a while, which I'm really excited about."

Preeg explained that the performance capture process was the reverse of the Oscar-winning Benjamin Button's: "… we had to utilize these mounted cameras and figure out what to do with that data, which meant writing a lot of software internally, and I think one of the big things that has helped us on this show is that our animation team is actually quite small. One of the [other] things that we wanted to do was put this volume process in the hands of the animator so they could run the iterations of the solver and choose parameters for the solve and put it all into a nice interface for them. I think that was a big change for us and they've been very responsive to that process."

Full Press:   http://www.vfxworld.com/articles/3d/siggraph-2010-tron-legacy-and-more/page/2%2C1

Film Industry News

2010-08-09T18:02:00.000-07:00

What modern directors can learn from Hitchcock’s Psycho

from Movies - Den of Geek

The Avengers set for February start

from Movies - Den of Geek

Quantum Leap to jump into cinemas

from Movies - Den of Geek

Batman 3 to shoot in New Orleans, new rumours round-up

from Movies - Den of Geek

Tom Cruise to do Mission Impossible 4 for scale rates

from Movies - Den of Geek

Release dates for Frankenweenie and John Carter Of Mars

from Movies - Den of Geek

Spider-Man villain speculation: Christoph Waltz to play The Lizard?

from Movies - Den of Geek

Total Recall: 20 years on

from Movies - Den of Geek

Kevin Smith’s Red State gets going next month

The Thing 100% CGI, Dark Crystal in 2011, & Snowman Still Frozen...

The Henson Company to Release a "Dark Crystal" Sequel in 2011
(albertam.com)

   In 1982, The Henson Company took a chance and created an all puppet fantasy film that many claim was a flop. Except that its fan base grew and grew, turning it into a cult classic loved by many all over the world. Fans know what we’re talking about: The Dark Crystal. Now, all these years later, we have amazing technology and the ability to create very real animation. So, the Henson Company is at it again, this time using our technology to create a sequel to The Dark Crystal.

The sequel, titled The Power of the Dark Crystal, takes place hundreds of years after the first movie. The world is in darkness, and a young girl made of fire travels through the land with a Gelfing outcast. The film follows their adventure as the young girl tries to get a shard of the Dark Crystal and try to relight the dying sun that rests within the deepest part of the planet.

Plans for The Power of the Dark Crystal have been tossed around for a few years now, but finally some important news has been released and we’re getting a bigger look at what this Dark Crystal sequel will include. Here are some things to expect in The Power of the Dark Crystal:

-The Power of the Crystal will be in 3D. Most people hear this nowadays and just groan. It didn’t take long for 3D to lose its hype. Lucky for us, this is about the only thing in The Dark Crystal sequel that might fail.

-Brian Froud, creative genius behind the puppets from The Dark Crystal is returning to develop the characters in The Power of the Crystal. This is a huge win for the sequel.

-The Power of the Crystal is going to combine live action, puppetry, animatronics and CGI effects. Since the movie isn’t going to rely heavily on CGI, there is a greater chance that the sequel will do the first film justice, and in fact, make it better.

-Australia based Omnilab-affiliated Iloura will do the CGI. Haven’t heard of them? These are the guys that did Where the Wild Things Are. No matter what anyone thinks of that movie, the CGI was right on with the creatures from the beloved book, and looked extremely real. With this group in charge for The Power of the Crystal, our fantasy beings are in great hands.

-Craig Pearce wrote the screenplay. He also wrote the screenplays for Moulin Rouge and Romeo + Juliet. Was it really that hard to write a screenplay for Romeo + Juliet, though? The lines are already written, just add direction. Moulin Rouge is a beloved cult film filled with over-the-top sappiness. So, we will see where Pearce goes with The Power of the Dark Crystal.

-The Spierig Brothers are set to direct The Power of the Crystal. Michael and Peter Spierig are relative newbies to the directing business. They’ve directed only two films. The first was a low budget horror film called Undead that channeled Sam Raimi pretty well. The second, and what probably won them the job for the Dark Crystal sequel, is Daybreakers. It is a vampire film, which has nothing to do with The Dark Crystal, but it has won good reviews for its humor and action. What will make fans happy about the Spierig Brothers taking the helm for The Power of the Dark Crystal is how much they love the movie. Michael Spierig said that this sequel comes with a “tremendous amount of responsibility” and that they want to create the film with the same “meticulous care that Jim Henson and Frank Oz gave the 1982 original”.

-The Power of the Crystal will arrive in theaters at some point in 2011.

Men in Black 3 Shooting in New York

(horror-movies.ca)                  From ComingSoon comes word that Men in Black 3 will begin shooting in New York in September. We have known for awhile that SONY has been working on a Men In Black 3 and that Ethan Cowen who wrote Tropic Thunder was writing the film. Men in Black 3 will be in 3D and released into theaters May 26th 2011. Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones are both slated to return and reprise their roles.

Luc Besson In 'Outer Space Prison'

(darkhorizons.com)                 French filmmaker Luc Besson and actors Guy Pearce and Maggie Grace are set to team for the space prison hostage thriller "Lockout" which is looking likely to be set up at Sony Pictures says Deadline.

Pearce would play a man wrongly convicted of espionage who is offered his freedom if he can rescue the president's daughter (Grace) from an outer space prison which has been overrun by its violent inmates.

Besson co-wrote the script with James Mather and Stephen St. Leger who will direct. Shooting starts September 7th.

"An American Werewolf in London" Reboot Looks For Modern Spin

(slashfilm.com)                 Last year it was announced that the Weinstein brothers had acquired the rights to remake An American Werewolf in London, and my heart sank. Since then, there’s been no news of any progress on the project.

It looks like the remake is starting to kick into gear, with the studio looking to Fernley Phillips, the writer of The Number 23, to tackle the screenplay.

The Los Angeles Times, who reported the news, is saying that The Weinstein Co. is looking to give the movie “a modern spin”. Bloody Disgusting adds that they’ve been told the Weinsteins “are really looking to depart from John Landis’ [film].”

What makes the original 1981 film special is its genre-bending wit and energy, and top notch direction from John Landis (as well as Rick Baker’s special FX work, natch).

'Transformers 3' Casting Extras in Metro Detroit

(mlive.com)                If you're looking to earn some extra cash, get your start in the acting biz, or just want to be part of a blockbuster action flick, take note.

According to Michigan Acting, "Transformers 3" is currently casting extras in Metro Detroit for filming that will take place here at the end of August.

There are virtually no discriminating factors -- males and females of all ethnicities and looks can apply (unlike this film, which was looking for a very particular type of people), they just have to be over the age of 18.

To apply, submit a current picture and your name, phone number, age, height, weight, and sizes to trans3detroit@gmail.com.

"Transformers 3" has been filming Los Angeles and Chicago and will move to Detroit later this month.

There are rumors some filming will take place in the abandoned Packard Plant, and that there will possibly be some "blowing up" of parts inside the building.

According to the Warren, Ohio Tribune Chronicle, Paramount studios execs said "They fell in love with it because they can blow up parts in the movie and it won't matter."

Beauty And The Beast 3D Pushed Back Indefinitely

(cinemablend.com)                 Beauty And The Beast 3D Pushed Back Indefinitely This whole 3D craze has taken the theater-going world by storm, but what about the in-home market? While 3D TVs are available and are being heroically promoted by the biggest 3D enthusiast there is, James Cameron, it’s still going to take a long time to sell people on the idea of spending thousands of dollars on a new TV set that requires they wear glasses to watch it.

The lack of widespread acceptance for 3D TVs helped Disney decide to push back the release of Beauty and the Beast 3D until 2011 or later, according to THR. The entertainment giant already has Toy Story 3D in the hopper after converting the first two Pixar classics for last October’s theatrical re-release, which earned $30mil collectively, just enough to cover the proposed $15mil per movie conversion cost. Right now, Disney isn’t sure that a Beauty and the Beast re-release would have as much success.

To hold people over, the Mouse House has planned a 2D re-release in Blu-ray/DVD combo form of Beauty for October 5th, but with the fate of in-home 3D still in question we may be waiting a while for the added dimension.

Lucas: 'Star Wars TV Series on Hold'

(digitalspy.com)                 Star Wars creator George Lucas has revealed that a live action television series based on the franchise has been put "on hold".

The director originally announced his intention to produce a show set between the events of Revenge Of The Sith and A New Hope back in 2005.

However, at a recent digital screening of The Empire Strikes Back in Chicago, he admitted that the project's future is uncertain.

"The live action TV show is kind of on hold because we have scripts, but we don't know how to do them," he said.

Lucas explained that budget restraints had made it difficult to realize the grand scope of the stories he had planned.

"They literally are Star Wars, only we're going to have to try to do them [at] a tenth the cost," he confirmed. "And it's a huge challenge, [a] lot bigger than what we thought it was gonna be."

'Clash of the Titans' Dominates Video Charts

(hollywoodreporter.com)                "Clash of the Titans," a remake of the 1981 cult classic, was a titan on the video charts the week ending Aug. 1.

The Warner Home Video title, which earned more than $163 million at the boxoffice, easily topped the national sales, Blu-ray sales and rental charts its first week out.

It also scored the second-highest Blu-ray share of total unit sales for a No. 1 new release this year, at 44%. It was second only to blockbuster "Avatar," which scored 49% in Blu-ray sales share its first week of release. "Avatar" managed to come in No. 4 on the Blu-ray sales chart, despite being in release since April.

Tron Legacy 3D & VFX Panel Talk From Siggraph

(vfxworld.com)                  When asked why make Tron Legacy in 3-D, director Kosinski responded: "It's Tron, man! If any film needs to push boundaries and take you into a new world, this was it. Stylistically, what I found interesting about 3-D is you can sit on a master shot and let the scene play out longer like a stage play because it does have depth and there's all this other information you're getting from it. You don't have to cut around as much to keep the energy up. There's really something nice about just sitting with the 3-D image for a while, which I'm really excited about."

Preeg explained that the performance capture process was the reverse of the Oscar-winning Benjamin Button's: "… we had to utilize these mounted cameras and figure out what to do with that data, which meant writing a lot of software internally, and I think one of the big things that has helped us on this show is that our animation team is actually quite small. One of the [other] things that we wanted to do was put this volume process in the hands of the animator so they could run the iterations of the solver and choose parameters for the solve and put it all into a nice interface for them. I think that was a big change for us and they've been very responsive to that process."

Full Press:   http://www.vfxworld.com/articles/3d/siggraph-2010-tron-legacy-and-more/page/2%2C1

Disney Snowman Still Frozen

ORLANDO, Fla., Aug. 1 (UPI) -- Engineers at Walt Disney World say they trying to figure out how to re-activate a 25-foot tall mechanical abominable snowman that stopped working last year.

The animatronic yeti that once lunged at rollercoaster riders at the Florida theme park stalled in March 2009 and has been idle ever since with no more than a flashing strobe light giving it the illusion of motion.

"It's embarrassing that this technological marvel is left … to just sit there," Tony Crane, 35, St. Louis, told the Orlando (Fla.) Sentinel during a recent visit to the park.

Disney told the newspaper the 20,000-pound yeti has a lot of moving parts and is the most complex of Disney's animatronics. A spokeswoman said getting the yeti back in motion was equally complex and the company was considering its options.

The Sentinel said the frozen state of the snowman goes largely unnoticed by most customers on the Expedition Everest ride, but at least two Facebook groups lobbying Disney to fix the creature have been formed.

"The yeti not working to me is akin to riding the Haunted Mansion and not having any ghosts in the graveyard," Martin Smith, 38, Manchester, England, told the newspaper.

Babar Hybrids, VFX Pros Out Of This World, & Ridley Scott's Forever War...

4 days ago

Sommers Returning to Direct G.I. Joe Sequel

(TheWrap)                  Paramount Pictures has yet to confirm this, but TheWrap is reporting that G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra director Stephen Sommers will return for the sequel.
The site adds that Channing Tatum is expected to reprise his role as Captain Duke Hauser in the follow-up. Zombieland scribes Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick are writing the script.
"The Rise of Cobra," which was released a year ago, earned $302 million worldwide and cost about $175 million to make.

Quentin Tarantino to Direct The Shadow
(comingsoon.net)              Quentin Tarantino is now attached to direct and co-write a new version of The Shadow at 20th Century Fox. The site says:
The Shadow is likely one that may be passed around to a few directors before it ever gets made — as of the moment, it's not even a huge priority over at Fox. In fact, it's currently out for a rewrite... However, the person that is now attached to the project is none other than Quentin Tarantino, who is also attached as co-writer... Maybe he loved [the] original radio show and the pulps (which do seem up Tarantino's alley), and maybe he saw Siavash Farahani's script and decided that, if anyone could erase the memory of Alec Baldwin's atrocity, it'd be him. Maybe Tarantino just loves the challenge. Or maybe he’s just added this to the huge pile of future possibilities and has no intention of ever directing. All I know is that, for the moment, he is being discussed (and this is a two-way discussion) and or already attached as the future director of The Shadow.

Haden Blackman Resigns From LucasArts
(theforce.net)

   IGN reports that Haden Blackman, executive producer and writer for The Force Unleashed series, has resigned from his LucasArts position. IGN got confirmation from LucasArts on the news and a representative assured that the development of The Force Unleashed II will not be affected.

Blackman issued a statement that included the following:

"I've had a fantastic time working with the team at Lucasfilm and am really grateful for their ongoing support."

"While the decision to leave LucasArts did not happen overnight or come easily, I really feel that now is the best time for me to move on and explore new creative challenges and I look forward to the next phase of my career."

Transformers 3 Cancels Return Trip to Wisconsin

MILWAUKEE (AP) -- "Transformers 3" will not be returning to Milwaukee.

Crews used the Milwaukee Art Museum last month to film scenes with Shia LaBeouf and Patrick Dempsey.

There were thinking of using pyrotechnics at the empty Tower Automotive site. But Film Wisconsin spokesman Dave Fantle says changes to the production schedule made returning impractical.

VISIT Milwaukee has estimated the production brought $1 million to the area in salaries, hotels, food, fuel and equipment.

The movie is expected to be released next summer.

"Babar" To Become CG/Live Action Hybrid Feature

Temple Hill, the production company behind the "Twilight" films, is planning a family film franchise based on the classic "Babar" children's books reports Deadline.

The books, first created by French author Jean de Brunhoff, followed an elephant that leaves the jungle for the big city, then returns with lessons learned to become king. Temple Hill recently made the deal with rights holders Nelvana and The Clifford Ross Company to adapt the property for the big screen.

Marty Bowen and Wyck Godfrey are producing the project which is being pitched as a family comedy mixing live-action with CG.

VFX Pros Head "Out of This World" For Academy Show

(latimesblogs.latimes.com)                There's science and there's fiction and then there's science fiction. The space in between them -- or, more precisely, the outer space between them -- will be the topic this Thursday at "Out of This World: The Science of Space Movies," the latest program from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Woman in Space The presentation will be made by Adam Weiner, the author of "Don’t Try This At Home! The Physics of Hollywood Movies," who plans to cover a lot of stellar territory.

"We are starting with the original 1902 Georges Melies 'A Trip to the Moon,' which is quite fantastic," Weiner said. "We will be doing factually true-to-life movies like ‘Apollo 13’ and ‘October Sky’ and then more fictional ones like ‘Mission to Mars,' ‘Star Wars,’ ‘Star Trek.’ There are movies like ‘Armageddon,’ which is famous for sounding scientific, but really makes a lot of mistakes along the way. We will also be showing a couple of clips from the movies."

Weiner, who hosted a similar program last year on superheroes and superhero cinema, teaches physics at the Bishop’s School, a private high school in La Jolla.

"I discovered in my classes that using clips from movies was an excellent way of keeping them engaged and learning science," Weiner said. "We take scenes from movies and deconstruct them according to real principles of science. Obviously, you are showing how something can’t be true, but you are also showing how some things might be possible."

Weiner will join a panel discussion with Oscar-winning visual effects artist Richard Edlund of "Star Wars"; Philip Eisner, a screenwriter whose credits include "Event Horizon"; former NASA flight director Gerry Griffin, who was technical advisor on "Apollo 13" and "Contact"; former NASA astronaut Jeffrey A. Hoffman, who has logged more than 1,200 hours in space; and visual effects supervisor Hoyt Yeatman, whose credits include "Mission to Mars."

Also, on Friday, Weiner will host a screening of Fritz Lang’s 1929 sci-fi silent film "Frau im Mond," a.k.a. "Woman in the Moon," at the academy’s Linwood Dunn Theater.

On Saturday, the academy and Cinefamily will be screening 1968’s "Project Apollo" and the Oscar-nominated 1989 documentary "For All Mankind" at the Silent Movie Theatre.

"Out of This World: The Science of Space Movies," 7:30 p.m. Thursday , Samuel Goldwyn Theater

Event Info:    http://www.oscars.org/events-exhibitions/events/2010/outofthisworld.html

Green Lantern Villain Fitted CGI Costume

(splashpage.mtv.com)                  Even though we received our first look at Sinestro in "Green Lantern" last week via a series of promotional posters for the film, there's still a lot of unanswered questions when it comes to Hal Jordan's mustachioed mentor in the Green Lantern Corps.

During this year's Comic-Con, MTV News caught up with actor Mark Strong, who plays Sinestro in "Green Lantern," and got more info about the popular character's look for the film and how it evolved.

"People will be — and I am — really delighted at the fact that they've really made sure that he is as he is in the comics," said Strong. "Because there was a whole production run of ideas of ponytails and goatees and all this kind of stuff, [and] I couldn't really understand why they would want to change it, because it's so successful in the comic."

"It's born of the look of David Niven, that moustache and that widow's peak, and I think it would be a shame to get rid of it," he added. "I'm delighted, because he looks pretty much exactly like he is in the comic."

Asked how the "Green Lantern" team pulled off his signature look, Strong said it was "prosthetics and makeup from the neck up," but indicated that the suit would be entirely CGI — much like Ryan Reynolds' "Green Lantern" costume.

Technicolor To Set Up VFX Unit

(broadcastnow.co.uk)                      Technicolor will launch a dedicated graphics and visual effects department at its Soho facility next month as it looks to extend its reach in the broadcast market.

The company’s Design Lab will be made up of five current editors, a senior DI op and new Flame artist and senior designer Dolores McGinley, who will join in August.

The new department will use Smoke on Mac, Nuke, Cinema 4D, Quantel iQ, Avid DS and Final Cut Pro to provide title sequences and end credits, alongside vfx supervision and compositing services.

Design Lab will look to avoid any competition with sister visual effects facility MPC by side-stepping high-end work, instead targeting existing and new clients working on TV series and midrange feature films.

Ridley Scott's 'The Forever War' Gets a 'Blade Runner' Screenwriter

(cinematical.com)                   Author Joe Haldeman just announced on his Livejournal that the film adaptation of his excellent The Forever War, a science fiction novel that serves as an allegory for the Vietnam War, now has a screenwriter attached to it. Now, for the sake of context, director Ridley Scott has been threatening to make an adaptation of The Forever War for, uh, a while (Must! Resist! Obvious Pun!) and with this announcement, it looks like the film may finally be moving forward.

Though he only obliquely alludes to it, Haldeman says that the film's script will be written by someone " with good credits--like, Unforgiven." That could only mean David Webb Peoples, the sole credited screenwriter of Clint Eastwood's inimitable and much-ballyhooed western.

It's interesting, though hardly shocking, that Haldeman should isolate Webb's most prestigious solo screenwriting credit. I mean, he's not likely to name-drop Paul W.S. Anderson's Soldier, Peoples's most recent script, solo or otherwise (I like Soldier but c'mon, the script isn't what makes it fun, y'know?), though it probably has more in common with The Forever War than Unforgiven does. No what's interesting is Haldeman's emphasized a solo credit over one of the films Peoples's has collaborated on with others, like, say, 12 Monkeys or even Scott's Blade Runner. Makes me think that he's really pulling for this guy to make a good adaptation.

George Lucas Donating Half His Fortune to Charity?

(guardian.co.uk)                    The world of philanthropy got a huge financial boost today as more than 30 American billionaires pledged to give away at least half of their fortunes to charitable causes, signing up to a campaign launched by Warren Buffett and Bill Gates.

In an unprecedented mass commitment, top figures including New York's mayor Michael Bloomberg, the hotel heir Barron Hilton, CNN media mogul Ted Turner, and the Star Wars director George Lucas lent their names to the "giving pledge", an initiative founded last month to encourage America's richest families to commit money to "society's most pressing problems".

The pledge is not a legally binding contract but is described as a moral commitment. Buffett, the legendary Nebraska-based financier known as the "sage of Omaha", welcomed the influx of support: "At its core, the giving pledge is about asking wealthy families to have important conversations about their wealth and how it will be used. We're delighted that so many people are doing that."

He added that many of those involved were committing sums far greater than the 50% minimum. Buffett himself is handing the vast bulk of his $47bn fortune to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which is largely orientated towards tackling disease in developing countries.

Among those committing to give away money are the Oracle software tycoon Larry Ellison, the banker David Rockefeller, and oilman T Boone Pickens. The media entrepreneur Barry Diller is on the list along with his wife, fashion designer Diane von Furstenberg.

There are also names from Wall Street and the hedge fund industry including David Rubenstein, co-founder of the Carlyle private equity group, and the financier Julian Robertson, plus a former Citigroup boss, Sandy Weill.

The pledge does not define any specific causes that the billionaires will target with their fortunes, and it does not involve all the individuals pooling their money. Instead, it will be left up to each individual to determine which endeavours they wish to fund.

The Hollywood director George Lucas said his chosen cause would be education: "My pledge is to the process; as long as I have the resources at my disposal, I will seek to raise the bar for future generations of students of all ages."

New York's mayor, who made his fortune in Bloomberg financial information terminals, said: "By giving, we inspire others to give of themselves, whether their money or their time."

Source:     http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/aug/04/us-billionaires-half-fortune-gates

MGM's Outer Limits, Star Tours Is Closed, & SPFX Mousterpieces...

5 days ago

MGM Goes to The Outer Limits

(Variety)               Although MGM's future is in doubt, the studio has hired "Saw" franchise writers Patrick Melton and Marcus Dunstan to pen a feature take on "The Outer Limits," the sci-fi series that aired on ABC from 1963-65.
A spokesperson for MGM tells Variety that the duo was hired well before the studio's current financial troubles began.
Cale Boyter is overseeing for MGM. Jon Shestack (Ghosts of Girlfriends Past) and Jeremy Stein are producing alongside original series producer Mark Victor.

"X-Men: First Class" Cuts Physics-Bending Visual Effects
(slashfilm.com)                  This was probably bound to happen: in the wake of the release of Inception, we now know of the first film to cut out dreamlike sequences that feel too much like scenes in Christopher Nolan’s film. Matthew Vaughn and Jane Goldman have been hard at work rewriting X-Men: First Class so that the film can go into production. But after seeing Nolan’s film, Vaughn had the sinking feeling that some of their ideas for First Class would be taken to be too much like Inception. So he dumped them.
Vaughn describes the effect Inception had on First Class to the LA Times:
    I saw ‘Inception,’ which I loved…But my heart sank when I saw that a few of the ideas we had were up [on the screen]. So it’s either leave it in and look as if you’re copying or change things. We completely ripped out about 12 pages of the script and the storyboards.
Twelve pages could be big, or it could be a relatively workable setback, if Vaughn and Goldman can quickly come up with new sequences that can deliver the same story and character beats.
So what was the material that had to go? The LAT says,
    …the jettisoned sequence was a sort of dream-space combat…the filmmaker said for the film the fight involving Professor X (James McAvoy) and some other mutants was to going to be presented with spinning rooms and other physics-bending imagery — visions that he felt drifted too close to signature moments in Inception.

Star Tours Is Closed
(parktastiq.com)                     Star Tours is now closed for an upgrade. First introduced in 1987 using erstwhile state-of-the-art flight simulation technology, it makes sense that 23 years later the ride would get an upgrade. The new version of the ride will be a 3D experience, and new scenes from more recent Star Wars films will be added.
Star Tours was the first ride in an amusement park to use flight simulator technology. Mark Eads, a Disney Imagineer in the 1980s, says that Randy Bright, the VP of Concept Development, called him to his office in 1983 and asked him if it would be feasible to create a ride based on simulator technology. Eads said that he thought it was possible, although at the time he didn’t know how to start.
So, far, so good. A ride with a flight simulator, but what was the big idea behind the attraction? Eads solicited ideas, and got 78 responses. Many of these had something to do with Star Wars. He then developed a proposal for the concept, suggesting a new ride for Tomorrowland. The proposal made its way to the new management team at Disney, including Mike Eisner, who loved the idea. A deal was made with George Lucas, and a team was tasked with making the idea a reality.
There would be lots of technical and project details to work out, but just as important was the story. They came up with the idea of a space touring company that made tours to the moons of Endor. One sticky challenge was to find just the right voice for the hapless droid pilot — nobody’s voice seemed quite right. Eventually they found out about Paul Rubens, and went to see him during a shoot for the first season of “Pee-Wee’s Playhouse.”
Eventually, the work was all done and the ride was launched to popular acclaim. The best possible comment from a guest was, “Can you imagine how many miles of track Disney had to build underneath the park for this ride?”
As is the case for many Disneyland attractions, Star Tours has some devoted followers who made their way to the park on Monday to go for one last ride before the attraction was shut down. Of course, fans with this much dedication would be lax if they didn’t wear their Princess Leia outfits and Imperial Storm Trooper gear. De rigeur. Eads was able to make it for the final day. He looks forward to what the new team comes up with.
Originally the ride was slated to close in October, 2010, but the schedule was moved up so the team could get a jump on the upgrade.
Captain America Filming Locations Revealed
(BBC News)                 America's First Avenger will battle his foes on the streets of Manchester and Liverpool during filming on the big-budget superhero film.
Manchester's Northern Quarter is to be transformed into 1940s New York for a dramatic car chase in Captain America: The First Avenger.
Producers chose the Northern Quarter to recreate New York because of its towering buildings and pre-war architecture.
The location was organised through the Vision+Media film office, based at Mediacity in Salford Quays, which brought the big budget production of Sherlock Holmes to Manchester and Liverpool.
Susan Williams, drama liaison manager, said the company was approached by the studio, which is also behind the successful Spider Man and Hulk films, in February.
"We suggested the area to Marvel as its wide streets, towering buildings and pre-war architecture will make the perfect 1940s New York."
Residents, local businesses and Manchester City Council have all been consulted about the production, which will last about two weeks from mid September.

WB Hiring Game Developers for Hobbit. Good News for Movies?
(theonering.net)                    This comes to us from Fragland.com via a Gamasutra job posting. Warner Brothers is hiring a director for future gaming development and they specific mention ‘Hobbit’ games. Here’s the posting from Gamasutra:
Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Inc. seeks a Director, Marketing for the Marketing department. Position will be responsible for brand development and product marketing activities for the entire portfolio of The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit games at Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment. Position manages high-level cross-company & external partnerships relative to the assigned franchises.
This is obviously good news for the gaming community, but could it also mean that WB is a bit more confident in The Hobbit films happening soon?

Syd Mead & Mythbusters Have Judged Digital Art Competition
Los Angeles, Calif.— The CGSociety and Nvidia have announced the top five entries in their ACCELERATE Digital Art Competition. The challenge of creating futuristic vehicle designs in the style of Syd Mead produced more than 1300 images. The five winners will share over $35,000 in prizes.
Their challenge was to create vehicle designs for a future on the move ... transport in the style of Syd Mead. The Master Futurist, famous for his concept designs in Blade Runner, TRON, and 2010, led a panel of star judges: Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman (co-hosts of Mythbusters), Mark Frauenfelder (founder of boingboing.net), Kevin Kelly (the founder of Wired Magazine), Brian Gernand (creative director of Kerner), Lorne Lanning (of Oddworld fame), David Wright (creative director of Nvidia) and Mark Snoswell (president of CGSociety).
Together these luminaries vigorously deliberated over the hundreds of worthy images, finally deciding on the five winning entries:
Full Press:     http://www.cgw.com/Press-Center/News/2010/Syd-Mead-and-Mythbusters-have-judged-Digital-Art.aspx

VES Announces Release of THE VES HANDBOOK OF VISUAL EFFECTS
Los Angeles, Calif. — The Visual Effects Society (VES) is proud to announce that The VES Handbook of Visual Effects is now available to everyone who wants to learn or needs to know about the art and science of visual effects.
Written by 89 top leading visual effects practitioners and edited by VES Chair and leading VFX Supervisor Jeffrey A. Okun, as well as VFX Producer Susan Zwerman, The VES Handbook of Visual Effects: Industry Standard VFX Practices and Procedures covers everything about visual effects from pre-production, production, and post-production, making it a complete depository for visual effects techniques and best practices available today. The book outlines procedures and solutions VFX artists, producers, and supervisors need to know and it is filled with hard facts and methods learned from research, trial and error, and practical experience. Contained in its pages are the lessons, tricks, short cuts, and wisdom garnered throughout the history of visual effects and is a must-have book for anyone working in or wanting to work in the visual effects industry.
The Handbook contains in-depth sections on stereoscopic moviemaking, color management, and digital intermediates, as well as interactive games and full animation authored by working artists and experts.
Anyone interested in purchasing a copy of The VES Handbook of Visual Effects can do so at leading online bookstores.

Spider-Man and Men in Black III Start Dates
ComingSoon.net/SuperHeroHype has learned that the Marc Webb-directed Untitled Spider-Man Project will start shooting in December in Los Angeles. We've received no word yet whether Sony's Columbia Pictures will also film in New York. Andrew Garfield stars in the July 3, 2012 release, produced by Laura Ziskin and Avi Arad.
The studio's Men in Black III, however, is scheduled for filming in New York starting in September. Barry Sonnenfeld is directing the May 25, 2012 release, starring Will Smith, Tommy Lee Jones, Josh Brolin and Jemaine Clement.

Previs Society- Siggraph Documentary
(forums.cgsociety.org)                The Previsualization Society released the first of six documentaries on the previs process.
http://www.previssociety.com/documentary-part-1/

New Curious George Movie in the Works
(comingsoon.net)               24 Frames is reporting that Despicable Me creators Illumination Entertainment is developing a new Curious George movie for Universal Pictures to distribute.
The site says that "The movie is expected to feature the wry animated images of 'Despicable Me' and will spin a new story of George the monkey/chimpanzee (depending on whether you favor H.A. and Margret Rey's text or the tail-less images) who's taken out of the jungle by an eccentric explorer to live in the city, where mischief always seems to find him."

Steven Spielberg’s Terra Nova Delayed Until 2011
(slashfilm.com)                When the show was bumped from an announced panel at Comic-Con, we should have known something was up. The Steven Spielberg-produced Fox sci-fi television series Terra Nova has been delayed. Fox said today that the pilot episode won’t be ready until May 2011, back from the originally discussed Winter 2010 debut. Even worse, the actual series won’t premiere until Fall 2011. I’m assuming they’ll do a sneak preview of the pilot episode during next year’s Comic-Con, and maybe a wide sneak preview online or at a special date/time.
Brannon Braga, a former producer and writer of various Star Trek tv shows from 1990-2005 including The Next Generation, Voyager and Enterprise, in addition to Flash Forward and the last couple seasons of 24, is on board as the showrunner. The series has been given a 13-episode order. The network is skipping the traditional pilot because breaking down the pilot’s sets only to rebuild them again would add too much to the already high price tag. The pilot episode is directed by Alex Graves, who has helmed the pilots for The Whole Truth, Fringe and Journeyman, as well as directing episodes of Sports Night, The Practice, The West Wing and The Nine.
Jason O’Mara (Life on Mars) will headline the series. The series will follow a family who live 100 years from now on future Earth, who are flung back in time 150 million years to the prehistoric age, when Earth was ruled by dinosaurs.

Fourth Pirates Of The Caribbean film to Shoot at Pinewood
(screendaily.com)                The fourth instalment in the Pirates franchise will shoot in a number of UK locations.
Pinewood Studios has confirmed that it will host the latest Pirates film, Pirates Of The Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, this summer.
The fourth instalment in the Walt Disney/Jerry Bruckheimer series will also shoot in a number of other UK locations.
Production began on the film in June with shooting already taking place in Hawaii and Los Angeles.
Directed by Rob Marshall, new cast members for the latest film include Penelope Cruz and Ian McShane. Johnny Depp and Geoffrey Rush are back as Captain Jack Sparrow and Barbossa, this time on a quest to find the Fountain Of Youth.
The film is scheduled for release in 2011.
Andrew M. Smith, group director corporate affairs for The Pinewood Studios Group said: “We are thrilled that Pirates of the Caribbean has chosen to film part of the latest instalment in this fantastic series here at Pinewood. It’s great for the UK film industry and for Pinewood Studios in particular. We look forward to welcoming the entire cast and crew.”
Motion Capture A Virtual 'Fountain of Youth' For Tron Star
(mtv.com)                  In March, when the "Tron Legacy" teaser trailer dropped online and showed us our first glimpse of a reverse-aged Jeff Bridges, director Joseph Kosinski revealed to MTV News that capturing this CGI-assisted footage was his greatest challenge.
"The hardest thing to do in visual effects is pull off a realistic human face," he explained.
But that was the task filmmakers took on when they set out to make a sequel to the 1982 original, in which Bridges starred as two characters: a software designer named Kevin Flynn who's sucked into a computer-generated gaming world, and a digital villain named Clu. With Clu playing a key role in "Legacy," Kosinski had to re-create the '80s-era Bridges to step into the Clu role once again. As he revealed to us, his reference point was the Bridges of the 1984 drama, "Against All Odds."
For Bridges himself, the opportunity to play, in essence, his younger self was not one he could pass up. "It was very exciting to be a part of that," he told us recently at Comic-Con. "That was one of the reasons that got me involved in 'Tron' in the first place, was to be a part of that cutting-edge technology. This one takes it to the nth degree."
To get the visual effects right, Bridges shimmied into a motion-capture suit and set to work. "Playing the young guy, we did a lot of work in a space called the Volume — you record motion-capture work," he said. "That was a completely unique experience for me. I had never done that. It's great to be able to play a character in a story at any age you want now. I can play my character when he's 4 years old."
Of course, there's always the chance that one day actors won't be needed at all, as filmmakers fully create their characters in a computer. "I go between worry and gratefulness. Maybe I'll be ready to do something else by that time," he laughed about the possibility. "There is going to be a time — it's probably already here — when they say, 'Let's get a combination of [co-star] Garrett [Hedlund] and Bridges and let's put a little Bela Lugosi in there. What the hell — let's see what happens!' "

Pixar versus Dreamworks
(kippreport.com)                Pixar versus Dreamworks - This summer saw two animation powerhouses premiere the final installments of their biggest blockbusters. As Toy Story 3 and Shrek 4 play at the cinema, we put the businesses head to head.
Take a look:    http://www.kippreport.com/2010/08/pixar-versus-dreamworks/

SPFX Mousterpieces: Crafting More Than 100 Model Mice
(Los Angeles Times)                  The Chiodo brothers — Stephen, Edward and Charles — recently crafted more than 100 model mice for the new Steve Carell-starring comedy "Dinner for Schmucks," but it was a great ape that initially set them on a path to filmmaking: The New York natives as children made 8-millimeter stop-motion animated movies in their parents' basement, inspired by the work of special effects legends Ray Harryhausen and Willis O'Brien.
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"When we went to one of our first trips to New York City after seeing 1933's 'King Kong,' we were at the Empire State Building looking for the cracks in the sidewalk where he might have fallen," said Charles.
In college, all three pursued creative degrees: Edward in theater arts and photography, Stephen in photography and filmmaking, and Charles in illustration. Stephen and Charles explored the filmmaking scene in New York and Washington, D.C., before moving to Los Angeles in 1980 and founding a company. Edward joined them in Los Angeles in 1984 after finishing school.
Since then, they've created effects and characters for films including 1985's "Pee-wee's Big Adventure," 1986's "Critters," 2003's "Elf" and 2004's "Team America: World Police." They also wrote, produced and directed 1988's "Killer Klowns From Outer Space" and currently are developing a sequel.
"We give our characters a life that you might not get someplace else," said Charles. "That's our Frankenstein complex: We're bringing life to things."
Classics reinterpreted: For "Dinner for Schmucks," the Chiodo brothers are credited with creating the film's "mousterpieces and dioramas." "Steve Carell plays a character whose idiosyncrasy is building mice dioramas: basically great moments in history told with mice," said Stephen. "These guys like Benjamin Franklin and the Wright Brothers and Louis Pasteur — these were all mice dioramas we made. Then on top of that, we had to do the mousterpieces. So we have the 'Mona Lisa.' We have Michelangelo's 'Creation of Adam.' 'American Gothic.' We did 'Scream.' All of these classic art masterpieces are re-created by Steve Carell's character with mice. We had the references, and we had to match all the details."

Scott Ross Vs. Scott Ross

Scott Ross needs to have a debate with himself.
I want to thank Jeff Heusser for giving my blog a shout out on fxguide today. I was really excited to hear that he conducted another interview with vfx industry vet Scott Ross. He was general manager of ILM and founded Digital Domain and he has recently been involved in an effort to help create a trade union to organize the VFX facilities.
If you have a moment please take the time to listen to the podcast. While I found myself agreeing with alot of points, I almost crashed my car when I heard Jeff and Scott completely contradict themselves on a labor organization to represent the artists. According to Jeff Heusser:

Everybody I talk to, what they are interested in is not what you would normally think of for a union. What they are interested in is portable benefits, help with enforcement of labor laws because there are a lot of people who are not following the labor laws, and retirement plans. Those seem to be the three things that I hear most from the artists. Seems like an odd time for a union to be discussed.

Okay. That’s like complaining of stomach pain, headaches, and vomiting and then coming to the contradictory conclusion that going to the doctor would be a bad idea. Here is some news, while VFX facilities and Scott Ross have talked the talk about giving artists portable benefits, respecting labor laws, and creating retirement plans, The Animation Guild has walked the walk for almost the past 60 years.

They provide not one, not two, but 3 retirement plans. I was vested in over $13,000 dollars after only 450 hours of service each year without paying a dime. I even posted my IAP statement as proof.

They provide great health insurance that lasted for 17 months AFTER I left the guild to work at a non-union vfx house. In fact, Steve Hulett did a comparison of the Guild health plan to the health plan provided by Digital Domain. DD’s health insurance was a total joke. Best of all, these benefits were portable if I ended up at another guild facility.

They have cracked down on employers who violate labor laws. Recently, TAG offered access to their lawyers to help unpaid VFX interns get paid.

What makes things worse is how Scott Ross piles it on. He essentially uses every argument to validate the creation of his trade organization to invalidate artists joining a guild. It’s unbelievable.

If a union was to organize the workers, particularly here in the United States, what it would do is it would make the cost of business considerably higher to the employers which would therefore:
A) Lower the margins even greater therefore forcing those companies out of business.
B) (They would) Not being able to compete at all because, face it, there is no union in India and there is not going to be a union in India and the Indian artist is making probably 40% of what a US artists is making already.

How can someone so successful be so misinformed? A labor organization would put vfx facilities out of business? I don’t know what planet Scott Ross has been on but it’s the studios and some of his business partners that have been putting vfx facilities out of business, and they have done so with complete glee as famously mentioned in a Variety article by an unnamed producer:

If I don’t put a visual effects shop out of business (on my movie), I’m not doing my job.

Scott Ross alluded to his famous feud with Digital Domain co-founder James Cameron which is well summarized in this Forbes article of how Cameron almost put DD out of business during Titanic. The feud became so heated that at one point James Cameron said the following through his lawyer:

Ross professes to be unconcerned and vows to stick to his ambition of becoming the next Pixar. “There’s a huge growth opportunity,”he says. “Studios are making movies that ultimately don’t make money, so what’s the problem?The problem is they don’t run it like a business. They make cans of Coke for $10 a can. Can you make that can of Coke for a dollar? The answer is yes.”

Yes, that’s right James Cameron thinks VFX is the equivalent of making a can of Coke. I wonder how quickly and easily that can of Coke would be made elsewhere if the whole vfx crew at Weta Digital walked out on Avatar during crunch time? If Scott Ross agrees with that kind of statement and that VFX is already being made for 40% less in countries like India and China then why do they keep doing business here? Why is ILM Singapore recruiting artists here to go work there? Couldn’t the cheap locals create VFX instead?
I’ve pointed out that this is essentially the VFX outsourcing boogeyman argument used to scare VFX artists. The jury is coming back in on doing visual effects in developing countries and the quality has not improved and the cost advantage is quickly dwindling. VFX facilities continue to stay here because the talent resides here, not because of some charitable donation.
And then there is the costs associated with the guild. Scott Ross argues that the guild would make the costs of doing business higher for VFX facilities. At the same time he argues that VFX facilities need to write him a check to help start a trade union. Does Scott Ross realize how much its going to cost to hire lawyers and lobbyists to create a global organization that works with all VFX facilities and state, local, and federal governments? What’s to stop studios from awarding vfx work to shops who avoid Scott Ross altogether?
While a trade union will add extra overhead costs for vfx facilties, the guild would most likely replace costs that are already being administered in the forms of health insurance, and retirement benefits. Best of all the costs for these benefits are shared by the big 6 studios in the form of residuals and thousands of members in various locals that are part of the greater IATSE labor organization. In 2005, $347 million dollars in residuals funded the healthcare and retirement plans and we VFX artists are sitting around wondering why we can’t get any benefits when every other discipline in the Hollywood industry ranging from actors, directors, truck drivers, and caterers are receiving those benefits. All you have to do is sign a rep card which is pretty easy.
What got me steaming mad at Scott was when he eluded to the wage minimums as if they were maximums:

I can’t imagine having a conversation with Dennis Muren and saying okay well Dennis you know the rate now for the VFX Supervisors is X and so were going to lower (your salary).

Simply outrageous. That is completely WRONG. The wage minimums set by the guild are just that – minimums. There are no maximums, however employers love to use it as a way to smear the guild and it needs to stop. It’s wrong. In fact, many of the top talent that Scott Ross employed at Digital Domain left to go work for DreamWorks Animation which is under a TAG contract. If it were so true that TAG was lowering talent wages then why are so many going there? Maybe because it was a better deal?
It’s moments like these that remind me of an email sent to me by an owner of a small VFX shop which contained the following:

Occasionally there’s the rant “UNIONIZE!!!” ….a thought just occurred to me; unionization could be good for VFX shops. If the shops could somehow step aside, and let the angry artists directly insist on humane treatment from the studios, it’s politically easier; visibility is important. Right now, the struggling VFX shop owners have to go into a studio office and argue that a larger check should be cut to them so some peon that the decisionmaker never sees can feed his children. If that peon could argue his own case directly to the studios, there’s a way better chance of getting heard.
we are too deperate to fight. the workers should do it for themselves.

This begs the question to me and it’s a question I would like to pose to you Mr. Scott Ross:
What purpose do VFX facilities serve?

They fund vfx I think, but no, the studios do that.
They create a pipeline for vfx to get done, but no, the software engineers and TDs do that.
They create vfx, but no, the artists do that.

At the end of the day I can’t find a reason why VFX facilities should stay in business. They are unable to earn a profit. They are unable to provide job stability and benefits to their workers. We are essentially freelancers working for a poor middleman. Maybe if those really skinny cats die and get out of the way we could all join a guild and start negotiating directly with the big fat cat studios.
meow.. um I mean.. Soldier On.
Source: http://vfxsoldier.wordpress.com/2010/07/21/scott-ross-vs-scott-ross/

McG vs New York, Yogi the CGI Bear, & Spectacular VFX Breakdowns...

2 days ago
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Michael Bay Producing "Cloverfield" Meets "Paranormal Activity" Alien Movie

(Heat Vision)                Paramount has bought an alien-related pitch from new writer Bobby Glickert.
The blog says that the project has been described as Cloverfield meets Paranormal Activity and will be getting the Area 51 treatment.
Michael Bay will produce with Paranormal Activity 2 executive producer Steven Schneider.
Interestingly, Paramount is working on a similar thriller titled Area 51 by Paranormal Activity director Oren Peli.
McG To Demolish New York
(Vulture) Bronson and Inception star Tom Hardy is joining Reese Witherspoon and Chris Pine in director McG's This Means War.
It's the story of two best friends (Pine and Hardy), inseparable since childhood, who fall in love with the same woman (Witherspoon). The two men's bond disintegrates and their ensuing battle escalates to mammoth proportions, with New York City demolished in their wake.
Witherspoon is also producing the 20th Century Fox release with Will Smith's Overbrook Entertainment.
Lets Meet Yogi, The CGI Bear
(Yahoo! Movies)                        Warner Bros. Pictures has debuted this teaser poster for Yogi Bear and the trailer will come online Wednesday as 7ET/4PT, so stay tuned! Opening in theaters on December 17, the Eric Brevig-directed animated aventure features the voices of Dan Aykroyd, Justin Timberlake, Tom Cavanagh, Anna Faris and Andy Daly.
Everyone's favorite pic-a-nic basket-stealing bear comes to the big screen in "Yogi Bear." Jellystone Park has been losing business, so greedy Mayor Brown decides to shut it down and sell the land. That means families will no longer be able to experience the natural beauty of the outdoors -- and, even worse, Yogi and Boo Boo will be tossed out of the only home they've ever known. Faced with his biggest challenge ever, Yogi must prove that he really is "smarter than the average bear" as he and Boo Boo join forces with their old nemesis Ranger Smith to find a way to save Jellystone Park from closing forever.
Take a look:    http://www.comingsoon.net/news/movienews.php?id=68304
'Gears Of War' Budget Gets Downgraded
(latinoreview.com)

'Gears Of War' Budget Gets Downgraded "Gears of War" is a really fun video game filled with violence, sweet visual effects and a some-what coherent story line. When you have this modern-day-like version of Doom in your hands, of course you'll want to go all out for it, right? I guess not. New Line Cinema is cutting the costs a bit on the "Gears of War" movie. Since the likes of Len Wiseman is no longer attached to direct the project, it's easy for New Line to snip away at the budget. At this point though, it could still work despite the smaller amount of money for this production. There's been plenty of science fiction films within the past few years, including "Serenity" and "District 9", that have worked with a small budget and put out better visual effects than other blockbuster films have produced.
"Gears of War" is still sitting in the hanger, waiting to get out of development and go full on into production. Does anyone want a "Gears of War" movie? Whenever I think of an interesting 'adaptation' for "Gears of War", my mind immediately wanders to Egoraptor's flash animated version of it.

31 Absolutely Spectacular VFX Breakdowns
(ae.tutsplus.com)                I say it time and time again, these are seriously some of my favorite roundups to do. Watching these amazing making ofs, behind the scenes content, and VFX breakdowns really give you a look into how a shot was made, or what really goes into a production. You can take a lot away from just seeing a couple of shot breakdowns… so check em out!
Take a look:    http://ae.tutsplus.com/articles/roundup/31-absolutely-spectacular-vfx-breakdowns/

Framestore's Spruce Promoted to Head of Animation
(animationmagazine.net)              U.K. vfx house Framestore has upped Kevin Spruce to head of animation, vfx. Spruce, who has been with the company since 2000 has overseen many of the company’s high-profile projects including Spike Jonze's Where the Wild Things Are and The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian.
Spruce joined Framestore in 2000 to take on the challenge of senior animator in the groundbreaking Hallmark series Dinotopia. Spruce will oversee forthcoming projects including Alfonso Cuaron's Gravity, Michael Apted's The Chronicles of Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Treader and David Yates' new Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows sequel.   In 2007, Spruce received a VES (nomination for his work on Prehistoric Park. He began his film career at Steven Spielberg's London Amblimation studio.
"Kevin has been a key member of our animation team and has continuously demonstrated his talent throughout his decade with us,” notes Framestore CEO, William Sargent. “We're delighted that his enthusiasm and leadership qualities have led to this new appointment.”
Pixar's Jim Morris Defends Digital Filmmaking
(hollywoodreporter.com)                     An eloquently affable industry veteran, Jim Morris offered a blunt reply Tuesday to any suggestion that digital production is lowering the quality of moviemaking in Hollywood.
"Bullshit," the Pixar Animation GM said during a SIGGRAPH 2010 keynote address. "There always have been a lot of bad movies."
The cross-pollination of filmmaking and digital arts has had some awkward growth spurts, Morris conceded, and there have been ham-handed applications of the fledgling technology.
"But it's up to us to take advantage of all these things that have been built," he urged at the conclusion of an hourlong presentation that was equal parts career survey and digital-effects industry overview.
A producer on Pixar's 2009 animated feature "WALL-E" and its 2012 live action/animation hybrid "John Carter of Mars," Morris headed effects titan Industrial Light + Magic for 17 years before crossing the Bay Bridge to join the animation studio. Bearing the additional title of executive vp production at Pixar, Morris also supervised work on "Ratatouille," "Up" and "Toy Story 3" and is helping to shepherd "Cars 2," "Brave" and "Monsters Inc. 2."
"There are those who would believe American movies have gone to the dogs," he said in addressing a packed assembly hall of the Los Angeles Convention Center. "I would suggest there are as many great films being made today as always."
Other than those pointed observations, the tenor of Morris' talk was anything but defensive. Using clips from such landmark effects-driven movies as "Star Wars," "The Abyss" and "Jurassic Park," Morris shared experiences gleaned from his "ringside seat" to the effects industry's digital transformation.
" 'Star Wars' teed us up for the digital age," he said. But a 90-second bit of computer-generated imagery in James Cameron's "Abyss" brought the industry into the age of CG character animation.
Morris recalled an effects hands' frantic search for leased time on a corporate supercomputer to render the necessary images for the pic's underwater-alien "pseudopod" segment.
"You could probably do it on your iPad now," Morris quipped to good effect. As usual, the SIGGRAPH audience was full of spotty-faced digital wannabes as well as industry stalwarts.
Evidence that "CG was moving into puberty" came via the more elaborate digital effects of 1991's "Terminator 2: Judgment Day" and 1992's "Death Becomes Her." Stephen Spielberg's "Jurassic Park" -- whose dinosaurs were originally to be created simply through stop-motion photography and creature effects -- evolved during preproduction into a groundbreaking amalgam of those traditional processes and CGI character animation.
"In many ways, 'Jurassic Park' was the big enchilada in the evolution of live-action digital cinema," Morris said.
By 1994, Robert Zemeckis' "Forrest Gump" had industryites cooing over so-called invisible effects.
"Gary Sinise is absolutely convincing as a man who lost his legs in war," Morris said, recalling one much-discussed scene from the Oscar-winning film.
Something of an industry campfire for visual-effects geeks to gather around each year, SIGGRAPH bills itself as a computer-animation festival and features scores of academic presentations. Morris recalled that in 1984, "The Adventures of Andre and Wally B." -- an early CG-animation short by Pixar -- "took SIGGRAPH by storm."
For Morris, a onetime producer of documentaries and commercials, the move to Pixar and feature producing has been a return to a first love. "WALL-E" was "animation leaning toward live action," and "John Carter" is "kind of live action leaning toward animation," he said.
A SIGGRAPH announcement circulated just after Morris' speech drove home the ever-expanding scope of the effects business. ILM and Sony Pictures Imageworks trumpeted a computer-graphics interchange format dubbed Alembic, boasting sufficient capacity to "handle massive animation data sets often required in high-end visual effects."
If that sounds a bit daunting for filmmaking newbies, Morris stressed that digital filmmaking simply offers new means "to tell great stories and transport audiences to special places."
Recalling that the low-budget "Robinson Crusoe on Mars" was an early career impetus, Morris added that the Andrew Stanton-directed "John Carter" is sort of "the new age version" of the 1964 space adventure.
"I feel like my entire life I've been in basic training to do this film," Morris said.
Industry training will continue through Thursday at SIGGRAPH 2010. Alternating between Los Angeles and other locales annually, the confab next travels to Vancouver on Aug. 7-11, 2011.

Ryan Reynolds' MoCap Suit Made Of "The Most Aggravating Substance On Earth"
(contactmusic.com)                Ryan Reynolds had problems working in his motion-capture outfit on 'Green Lantern' because of wearing it in the summer heat.
Ryan Reynolds' suit in 'Green Lantern' is "the most aggravating" he has worked with.
The 33-year-old actor - who plays the titular superhero in the movie - confesses he had difficulty working with the motion-capture costume because of how hot it got.
He said: "This costume is a motion capture suit that I'm wearing, so because it's not seen on camera they've managed to find a material that I think most would agree is the most aggravating substance on earth. We're shooting in Louisiana which is pretty close to the sun. The suit's been difficult running around in a unitard in the New Orleans summer heat."
The Canadian actor also admits training for the film was different to other projects, but he expected to end up in hospital because he was working with 'Casino Royale' director Martin Campbell on the movie.
He said: "The training's just different. You're not training on an aesthetic level, you're training on a functional ability. You want to stay out of the hospital as long as possible, but it is a Martin Campbell movie so you're bound to be there once or twice. Martin described it as a knife fight in a phone booth. That's an apt description of how his action feels.
'Green Lantern' is set to hit cinemas in June 2011.

'Judge Dredd' Movie Revived
(torontosun.com)               SAN DIEGO, Calif. - Karl Urban could be beaming back to a much grittier future.
It looks like the New Zealand-born actor, who played Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy in last year's Star Trek reboot, will soon play the sci-fi law enforcer Judge Dredd.
"Yes, there is a lot of truth to that rumour," Urban told journalists at Comic-Con Thursday, responding to a report on the UK website Bleeding Cool.
"It's early days yet, but it is something that's definitely looking very, very good."
Alex Garland (28 Days Later, The Beach) has penned a screenplay purportedly more faithful to the original British comics. Pete Travis (Vantage Point) will direct.
In 1995, Sylvester Stallone starred in a Dredd adaptation that bombed at the box office.
Regardless of Dredd's fortunes, Urban has that other science-fiction franchise to fall back on. Cameras are expected to roll on a Star Trek sequel next year for a June 2012 premiere.

DreamWorks Signs Cloud Computing Deal
(channelregister.co.uk)                DreamWorks SKG has signed a multi-year deal with Cerelink for cloud computing access.
Instead of rendering movies like How To Train Your Dragon on thousands of its own computer cores, DreamWorks will use elastic compute resources housed in Cerelink's supercomputing-class facility at the New Mexico Applications Centre (NMCAC).
“Elastic” cloud computing allows clients like DreamWorks SKG to dynamically adjust technical capacity to meet their real-time business needs.
How To Train Your Dragon
Cerelink is a high performance cloud computing (cloud HPC) provider to the motion picture industry. It provides private clouds for rendering and other content creation and management application, based on a combination of data center space, scalable high performance computing and networking, in the form of Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) and Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS).
The Cerelink facilities include access to several thousand square feet of secure data centre space located in Rio Rancho, NM. That space is fed by redundant electrical power grids. It has access to LambdaRail (pdf), the 12,000 mile US coast-to-coast fast broadband network, and to a supercomputer at Encanto.
This offers a theoretical peak speed of 172 teraflops (peak theoretical speed) from its Altix ICE 8200 cluster, with 133 teraflops sustained operation. The ICE 8200 consists of 1,792 nodes (14,336 cores) of quad Xeon 3.0 GHz processors housed in 28 racks.
Cerelink's private cloud computing service was used by DreamWorks Animation to render parts of Shrek Forever After and How to Train Your Dragon this year. Cerelink itself was founded by a group of ex-Intel managers in 2005.
James Ellington, its CEO, said: “We forecast growing our technical capacity by 20 times by the end of 2011 – this will create one of the largest cloud computing arrays for motion picture production in the world.”
This represents a threat to suppliers of in-house HPC compute and storage facilities to the movie rendering industry, such as BlueArc, DataDirect, Dell, HP, Isilon, and NetApp. If their customers start hiring rendering and animation HPC capacity from service suppliers such as Cerelink, then there will be less demand for in-house kit.
It is some distance from the movie mecca at Hollywood to New Mexico, raising the question of why the movie moguls should look at doing their rendering and animation in New Mexico?
The State offers film production incentives, like a 25 per cent tax rebate, for projects done in the state. Also, Cerelink and the NMCAC, in collaboration with the University of New Mexico, and the New Mexico Department of Information Technology, use an ultra-high-speed network link to link New Mexico to Hollywood.
Cerelink says that, because of this link, Hollywood should hire its elastic compute cloud in New Mexico to do rendering and animation work more cheaply than in California.

Green Hornet Sequel Unlikely
(cinemablend.com)                 Green Hornet Writers Have A Sequel Planned, However Unlikely It Is To Get Made Looks like we made a mistake by not asking to interview Evan Goldberg at Comic Con last week. While my conversations with Seth Rogen (watch it here) and Michel Gondry (coming soon) were total thrills, neither gave me much by way of scoops about either The Green Hornet or their other projects. Screenwriter Goldberg, on the other hand, was totally forthcoming when The Playlist asked him if they were planning a Green Hornet 2: "You don’t make a movie like this without considering the sequel. Yeah, we have the whole plot planned out, which is kind of what we would have done in the first place."
That "in the first place" comment may be a nod to the fact that The Green Hornet is no longer the mid-summer tentpole release it started out as, and is something closer to a gamble as the studio plans to release it in January and in post-converted 3D. But what Goldberg says makes sense, even if none of the people in charge of the money actually believe they'll ever make a second film. If Goldberg and Rogen hadn't had a plan for a potential franchise way back in the beginning, they probably would never have gotten the job. Will we ever actually see this second planned Green Hornet? You're welcome to hold out hope all you want, but I'm staying skeptical for the moment.

Sony & ILM Release Alembic, an Open Source Graphics Interchange Format
(h-online.com)                     Industrial Light and Magic and Sony Pictures Imageworks have released an alpha version of Alembic, a co-developed open source project focussed on creating an interchange format for storing and sharing animation and visual effects. Alembic will allow Sony Picutures Image Works and ILM to create interchangeable and customisable pipelines for animation creation.
This involves creating a format that handles the massive data sets that represent animated scenes, distilled from the animation generation processes used by the animators, but not the computations or dependencies that would be used to create final rendered scenes. The developers say Alembic could be used, for example, to pass creature animations to a clothing or flesh simulator, or a physics simulator and save the results, ready for lighting and rendering.
The move to an open source, open format was welcomed by The Foundry, Autodesk, NVIDIA, Pixar, Luxology and others. Bill Collis, CEO of The Foundry, said that "Interchange formats need to be open and non-proprietary to achieve adoption, and innovations that fit these criteria, but also come out of genuine production experience are what the industry needs" and called Alembic "a wonderful bridging idea that will remove another unnecessary hurdle in the creative process"

"Avatar" Creature Creator To Display Work In New London Gallery
(courant.com)                   Spirit Gallery -- New London's art gallery and tattoo studio hybrid -- presents "Creatures," an exhibition of movie sculptures and artwork created by Hollywood creature sculptor, painter and character designer Jordu Schell. The collection will be displayed in Spirit's main gallery beginning August 7.
A part of the television and film industry since 1987, Schell's talent as a designer and sculptor is world-renowned with credits including lead characters designer for the 2009 blockbuster "Avatar," conceptual creature designer for "The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian," "300" and "Aliens vs. Predator -- Requiem" and sculptor for "Hellboy." Schell currently serves as owner and head designer for Schell Sculpture Studio, a full-service sculpture and design facility, located in Sherman Oaks, Calif. and specializing in creature and character design, props, prototypes for toys, special effects work and creature design classes.
The exhibit opening will mark the completion of Spirit Gallery's week-long Schell creature building workshop, scheduled for August 2-6. For the workshop, Schell will give participants an overview of the basic principles and history of creature design, in addition to an ongoing demonstration of how to create a full-head sculpture. The Schell multi-day workshop is currently at capacity.
The "Creatures" artist's reception will be held at Spirit Gallery, 207 Bank St., New London, Conn., on Saturday, August 7, from 6 to 9 p.m. and is free and open to the public. The show runs until September 7. Viewing hours are 12-8 p.m., Tuesday-Thursday, and 12-10 p.m., Friday-Saturday. For more information call (860) 443-0484 or visit www.spiritgallerytattoo.com.
About Spirit Gallery:
Located at 207 Bank St. in downtown New London, Conn., Spirit Gallery is a tattoo studio and fine art gallery focused on custom tattoos that compliment the wearer's body and style. Spirit shows and sells works of local artists in its gallery and rotates shows every two to three months. A firm believer in community involvement, the studio supports and promotes a variety of events and causes including the American Red Cross, Wolf Conservation Center, Friday Nights in the District and the Festival of Trees auction. For more information, visit www.spiritgallerytattoo.com.
About Schell Sculpture Studio:
Schell Sculpture Studio offers the finest creature and character design available anywhere. The studio has been providing concept art in the industry for over ten years, and owner and head designer Jordu Schell has been in the film and television industry since 1987. The studio specializes in creature and character design, props, prototypes for toys and model kits, general special effects work, and creature design classes. For more information, visit www.schellstudio.com.

Chicagoans Take "Transformers 3" Disruption In Stride
(articles.chicagotribune.com)
"I like this. I am lucky for this action,'' said Sameh el Gammel, 42, a tourist from Cairo, as he watched a "Transformers 3" battle scene on Wacker Drive.
**
The state's tax credit to movie makers "could end up being a positive thing. This does bring in more tourists," said Karina Devine, 16, in town from Eden Prairie, Minn.
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**
"I really don't know all that much about (the state's subsidy), but … it's got to be bringing money to the city one way or another. People rent rooms, come to see it. They got to eat, they got to park'' said Bob Baker, 61, a retired mechanic from New Lenox.
**
"I thought it was pretty sweet. … It works. It's right outside,'' said Connor Smith, 16, of Lowell, Mich., who watched the filming outside his hotel on Wacker Drive.
**
"I'm trying to pick up people on time, and I have people with disabilities. That's the problem. … I found a way to get around it, so it didn't bother me,'' said Harrison Smith, 64, a Pace Paratransit driver who picked up a rider near the filming site.
**
"I love 'Transformers,' but this is ridiculous,'' said Ashe Grilliot, 26, a visitor from Dayton, Ohio, after driving around for more than an hour trying to get to her hotel on the closed block of Wacker Drive.

Boilerplate Winds Up, Total Recall To Re-Recall, & CG Bears Get Schneidered...

2 days ago
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J.J. Abrams to Produce Boilerplate Adaptation

(Heat Vision)                J.J. Abrams has purchased the rights to the book Boilerplate: History's Mechanical Marvel and will oversee the film adaptation, reports Heat Vision.
The book, 170 pages of text with 350 illustrations and photo manipulations, was written by Paul Guinan and Anina Bennett and relates the adventures of a robot built in the Victorian age who, through its travels, meets all manner of famous historical personalities throughout it's century-spanning existence.
Originally pitched as a graphic novel, the authors spent a decade compiling Boilerplate's (the robot's) history online, evolving Boilerplate's history into a guide called The History of Robots in the Victorian Era, attempting to establish the character's presence throughout various famous historical events.

Columbia Has "Total Recall"
(Columbia Pictures)                Len Wiseman (Live Free or Die Hard, "Underworld" films) is in final negotiations to direct Columbia Pictures' Total Recall, it was announced today by Doug Belgrad and Matt Tolmach, presidents of Columbia Pictures. The film will be a new, contemporized adaptation of Total Recall, which was based on the story, "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale" by Philip K. Dick. Kurt Wimmer is writing the screenplay. Neal H. Moritz will produce through his Original Film banner.
Commenting on the announcement, Tolmach said, "Len has an incredible love of the genre and a great gift for action. He'll bring a contemporary feel to the film while taking care with everything we love about Philip K. Dick's original story."
Moritz said, "I have been trying for years to work with Len and fortunately we finally found a great project that he loves as much as we do. Len is terrifically talented and we know he is the right director to re-imagine Total Recall for a new generation of fans."
Last week, ComingSoon.net talked with Moritz, who told us a little bit about his planned revamping of the property.
Wiseman added, "I've always been fascinated with Philip K. Dick's short story, and I'm excited at that prospect of diving even deeper into the type of world it evokes and the questions it asks. I love that the most crucial mystery our character is trying to solve is the one of his own soul."
Toby Jaffe will oversee production on behalf of Original Film. Tolmach and Sam Dickerman are overseeing the project on behalf of the studio. Columbia Pictures secured the rights to "Total Recall" from Miramax.

New Pixar Show Opens at Oakland Museum July 31
(sfgate.com)             This Saturday, July 31, after a tour around the world, the Pixar 25 year retrospective will make its hometown debut at the Oakland Museum of California.
Pixar: 25 Years of Animation, is a major exhibition of more than 500 works by artists at the Pixar Animation Studios. The animation film company will display a plethora of drawings, paintings, and sculptures that highlight the Emeryville-based companyâ€™s wildly successful computer-animated films.
Art work will encompass a range of items, from 'Ratatouille', to the smash hit 'Up', and all the way to Pixarâ€™s latest, 'Toy Story 3', will be displayed at the Oakland Museum.
For the complete story visit here.
For more news visit Oakland Local here.
Oakland Local is a news & community hub for Oakland, Calif. If you'd like to blog for us, e-mail editor@oaklandlocal.com. You can also visit us on Facebook.

CG Polar Bears Get "Schneidered" For 'Norm of the North'
THR reports Rob Schneider will be lending his voice as the title character of Norm of the North, about a polar bear and three Arctic lemmings who wind up in New York after their actual homeland starts to melt.
Ken Jeong and Loretta Devine are also lending their voices to the film, which will be directed by Anthony Bell, also responsible for this fall's Alpha and Omega, an animated movie coming from Lionsgate.   Schneider is currently doing a stand-up tour AND released a new comedy album AND wrote, directed and starred in the drama The Chosen One.

Guillermo del Toro Finally Enters the Mountains of Madness
(Deadline)        After nearly two months of anticipation and speculation about what movie Guillermo del Toro will direct next, Deadline has come forward to confirm that Universal has given the go-ahead for del Toro's adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft's At the Mountains of Madness, produced by none other than James Cameron and to be del Toro's first movie shot in 3D. Del Toro has been wanting to make this movie for years, but the inordinate cost to make what could be a difficult R-rated period horror movie held it back, but with Cameron involved and Universal giving the thumbs up, the movie might start filming as early as next summer.
Written way back in 1931, Lovecraft's serialized novella dealt with his famed "Cthulhu Mythos," as a geologist leading an Antarctic expedition finds a huge chain of mountains, and on the other side, they find the remains of ancient uncharted life forms.
Having heard through the grapevine--oh, and rumored on Entertainment Weekly last week--that the H.P. Lovecraft adaptation may finally move forward, ComingSoon.net/

ShockTillYouDrop.com decided to ask del Toro about it when we interviewed him at San Diego Comic-Con last week, and he gave us a few exclusive comments essentially on why it's been so difficult getting the movie made: "What 'Mountains of Madness' is is a throwback to something nobody does anymore, it's tentpole horror," he told us. "Everybody now understands horror as minimum investment, maximum return, and most of the time, they go at it, as production entities, with great cynicism, like 'Let's make it really gory or extreme' and for a very low budget, and recuperate our investment, make money, all that. If you make a horror movie for half a million and it makes 4, they're very happy. The studio sees horror movies as something they will not invest more than $30-40 million. 'Mountains of Madness' needs to be tentpole in the way that the tentpole movies of the past were, about $130 million."
"I remember when I saw 'Alien' and I was absolutely blown away by it," he continued. "I saw John Carpenter's 'The Thing,' I saw Kubrick's 'The Shining.' These were massive movies in a genre that normally doesn't get massive movies. (With) 'Mountains of Madness,' there are two things that I've been battling all these years: period and R-rated, and a very very tough ending, so the studio is very scared of period obviously, he's very scared of the budget and an R-rating, and the first conversation I always have is, 'Does it have to be R?' and I go, 'Yes.' 'Does it have to be period? Does it have to be Antarctica?' 'Yes.'"
"'Mountains' is my dream and we've been pursuing it for thirteen years and I hope it happens," he told us as we wrapped up the conversation.
Well, Guillermo, it looks like your dream is going to come true, and reportedly, they're starting pre-production in the next few months to gear up for shooting the film next summer.
Addendum: One source at Universal has told us that the above is not a done deal just yet, though clearly, del Toro and Cameron are ready to roll forward.

Ridley Scott Alien Prequel Hatches Rewrites
(comingsoon.net)               "Lost" co-creator Damon Lindelof has signed on to do rewrites on director Ridley Scott's Untitled Alien Prequel.
It will be his first solo writing gig since "Lost," an opportunity he jumped at (according to Mike Fleming's sources) because Scott's 1979 space thriller was such a huge influence on him, although Lindelof is also currently writing the sequel to J.J. Abrams' Star Trek with Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci, following their collaboration on Jon Favreau's Cowboys & Aliens.
The Deadline piece goes onto report that this prequel isn't necessarily going to be Scott's next movie, as he has a couple other options including Gucci, which may team Scott with Angelina Jolie as Maurizio Gucci's ex-wife Patrizia Reggiani, an adaptation of Justin Cronin's The Passage, or The Wolf of Wall Street, which would reteam Scott with Leonardo DiCaprio with Martin Scorsese producing.
THX1138 Co-Star Passes At 65
(jam.canoe.ca)                Actress and casting director Irene Cagen Forrest has died. She was 65.
Forrest passed away in Providence, Rhode Island on July 25 after a year-long battle with a brain tumour.
She began a successful casting career in the 1980s, and made her mark on television series Crash and feature length films including Light and the Sufferer, for which she was also executive producer.
As an actress, she co-starred in George Lucas' 1971 sci-fi film THX1138 and made appearances in hit series L.A. Law.
She also appeared in films including Communion, Baby Fever and Sitting Ducks, for which she earned a National Association of Film Critics Award nomination for best supporting actress.
She later taught acting in Los Angeles and Portland, Oregon.
Forrest is survived by her brother, Andrew Cagen, two nieces and a nephew.
Industrial Light & Magic Turns to Luxology modo for Creative Concept Development
(prweb.com)              From taking 2D reference art and concept sketches into 3D, to creating the “look” of some of today’s most technologically advanced feature films, the Art Department at San Francisco-based Industrial Light & Magic (ILM), a division of Lucasfilm Ltd., is pioneering the evolution of the concept development process. As more artists move toward a 3D workflow, ILM’s Art Department is utilizing the powerful visualization tools in Luxology’s 3D modeling and rendering software, modo, to increase speed, flexibility and efficiency.
"Our clients rely on the ILM art department to create world-class concept art and design for their films. To generate that type of work we utilize best-of-breed tools, and modo is turning out to be a terrific 3D tool for the team,” noted Richard Kerris, CTO at Lucasfilm Ltd. “modo is playing a key role in how certain looks and concepts are best created and it has earned its place in our toolset."
ILM has set the industry standard for visual effects and has contributed to some of the most influential and groundbreaking films of the last 35 years. Working alongside a full complement of professional tools, 3D concept art developed in modo has played a key role in a number of recent projects including Confessions of a Shopaholic and Iron Man 2.
"Using modo and producing concept art in 3D has been a huge asset to our department,” said David Nakabayashi, creative director at ILM. “Our 2D images are invaluable communication tools, but 3D visualization really takes creativity to the next level and brings a whole new dimension to our work."
The talented artists in the Art Department at ILM are responsible for the technical 3D aspects needed to create the artistic feel of an entire film ranging from small details, such as how a creature’s skin will look, to the creation of an actual character, vehicle or environment. With the scale and complexity of modern production, an efficient workflow is key to getting projects done quickly. Using modo 401’s modeling, painting and rendering tools, artists can efficiently iterate on a concept and provide a filmmaker with multiple options to best capture their vision.
In addition to leveraging modo’s speed, the ILM Art Department has also been able to add a new dimension to a process that was fundamentally rooted in 2D imagery. 3D concept art can be incorporated into the company’s production pipeline as modo geometry and renderings created for artistic reference can readily be prepped for production.

MoCap Goes Ape On The "Rise Of The Apes" Set
(cinemablend.com)          Go Ape With This New Pic From The Rise Of The Apes Set We’re all familiar with the nearly perfected art of motion capture. The technique has been used for what seems like forever in film and video games and with Avatar upping the game last year we should expect even more films that lean on actors wearing jumpsuits with silly dots on them.
That's exactly what we see in this first set photo from Rise of the Apes, the Planet of the Apes reboot directed by Rupert Wyatt. You don’t get a whole lot out of this image other than the satisfaction of knowing that the world’s foremost mo-cap actor, Andy Serkis, is at it again, returning to ape-form from the second time in recent years. Having brought King Kong and Gollum to life, we can rest assured that while the actor looks incredibly silly now, making a severely monkey
-like face and wearing an ugly grey suit, he will look great once the WETA team goes apeshit in the effects process.
Also pictured are James Franco and Frieda Pinto who are presumably studying and experimenting with Caesar
, Serkis’ ape. We have 11 months to go before the film is actually release, but for now, check out this picture and marvel at Serkis’s skill.
Take a look:    http://www.cinemablend.com/new/Go-Ape-With-This-New-Pic-From-The-Rise-Of-The-Apes-Set-19902.html
Making Model Miniatures for Special FX
(minimodelfx.blogspot.com)            'Nothing makes a model look less convincing then too much detail on distant objects.'
Take a look:      http://minimodelfx.blogspot.com/

Godzilla's Augmented Reality, Tron To Oblivion, & CGI Fashionistas...

5 days ago
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Godzilla Meets Augmented Reality

(Talking Dog Studios) Legendary Pictures unveiled a first look at the new Godzilla using Augmented Reality at the San Diego Comic-Con. Attending the convention to celebrate the beginning of production on the film, Comic-Con attendees were able to receive a T-shirt with this image of the new Godzilla. When they looked at themselves in a webcam at the Legendary Pictures booth, they saw a superimposed animation of Godzilla's "atomic breath" shooting out into the air in front of them from Godzilla's mouth, complete with black smoke rising from the flames and the ground-shaking bellow of Godzilla's instantly recognizable roar. Talking Dog Studios designed the immersive experience for the film, which Warner Bros. Pictures is targeting for a 2012 release.Take a look: http://www.comingsoon.net/news/movienews.php?id=68255

Extended Avatar Adds 8 Otherworldly Minutes - New Creatures
(popwatch.ew.com)

James Cameron, honorary dean of the More Is Better School of Blockbuster Studies, has some good news for Avatar fans: He’s releasing a special edition of the movie that boasts eight additional minutes of footage, including “new creatures and action scenes,” according to The Hollywood Reporter. The movie will roll out Aug. 27 on 3-d screens only. Pixar Artists Masterclass Coming to Vancouver

(Marketwire) - Artists from Pixar Animation Studios will be presenting a unique Masterclass in Animation & Story Development on September 24/25th in Vancouver, Canada.
This exceptional 2-day event takes place at the Simon Fraser University, with instructors Animator Andrew Gordon and Story Artist Matthew Luhn, both of Pixar. This masterclass has toured the world, this being one of only two North American stops in 2010.
Geared toward experienced and enthusiast animators and storytellers, it offers a rare opportunity to learn from the industry's top talent, providing participants with the tools to help create their own stories and feature-quality animation.
The event is being presented by the Vancouver Institute of Media Arts (aka VanArts). It has been scheduled to coincide with the running of Pixar's latest feature film "Toy Story 3", which both Andrew and Matthew helped create.
CURRICULUM:
Details available on the event info page at: http://www.vanarts.com/pixar-vancouver. Sessions run from 9:00am - 5:00pm on both September 24th & 25th, 2010.
REGISTRATION:
Tuition is C$499 for the 2-day program. Tickets are now selling, with limited seats available for purchase online at: http://www.vanarts.com/pixar-vancouver.
VENUE:
Fletcher Challenge Theatre at the Simon Fraser University (downtown campus), located at 515 West Hastings St., Vancouver, BC, Canada.
"Dead Space" Animated Feature Unveiled

(news.softpedia.com)               Electronic Arts and Visceral Games have announced two new brand extensions in the Dead Space franchise, an animated feature entitled Dead Space Aftermath and a graphic novel called Dead Space Salvage. Both of these products will be available in the Winter of this year as part of the pre-launch campaign for Dead Space 2.
“It is tremendously inspiring to see Dead Space continually expand to more media. It has always been our goal to experience the universe through multiple lenses and our vision is being realized. The Dead Space world is living, breathing, and terrifying. We couldn’t be more excited about these new offerings,” said Steve Papoutsis, executive producer of the Dead Space franchise.
Dead Space Aftermath tells the tale of a crew sent by the Government to be exposed to Marker shard in another attempt to produce a viable “Marker blueprint” carrier. Aftermath is being developed by Starz/Film Roman is set to arrive before Dead Space 2 sometime in January 2011. Film Roman is the studio between the Dead Space Downfall animated prequel that came before the original game.
Dead Space Salvage centers on a group of rogue miners called the Magpies who discover the abandoned USG Ishimura. While thinking themselves lucky at first, they soon discover what happened on the Ishimura, as the Necromorphs come back to life and begin slaughtering members of the crew. Furthermore, the Government makes it appearance and tries to violently claim back the ship. The graphic novel is being created by Christopher Shy and will be launched in December 2010.
The biggest launch in the Dead Space series is Dead Space 2 who continues Isaac Clarke's terrifying story as he battles his own dementia and the Necromorphs on a space station called The Sprawl. The game will be released on the 28th of January 2011 on the PlayStation 3, the Xbox 360 and the PC.
'Star Trek' Scribes Are 'Making Significant Progress' On Sequel

(mtv.com)                    The writers of the hit 2009 flick "Star Trek" are pretty stingy about what they can reveal about the much-anticipated sequel, but they can tell us one thing: They're working on it.
"We actually are making significant progress on the story," Alex Kurtzman told MTV News at Comic-Con in San Diego. "I will tell you nothing more. That's something we've never told anyone."
Kurtzman was quick to point out that while he and co-writer Roberto Orci are busy with other projects, they are making sure they get in plenty of time for "Star Trek 2," which star Zachary Quinto said probably wouldn't begin filming until next year.
"Our days are regimented by the hour; it's the only way to get through it," Kurtzman explained. And if they're on the set of another film, he said, "We can step into the trailer and do work on 'Star Trek.' "
The writers said they are developing storylines for "Trek" characters both new and old.
"There were new characters in the first one, so we really want to focus in on them," Orci said. "For example, Scotty (Simon Pegg), who you met at the end of the last movie, who [was] so important to the crew but had the shortest screen time, now is going to be in the movie from the very beginning. In fact, the whole crew is in it from the beginning.
"Now, the whole family is there," he continued, "and you want to focus on them first before you worry too much about new characters, and then make sure you have them taken care of."
And that means their personal favorites may make the cut for the next flick.
"I loved, and a lot of people loved, Captain Pike (Bruce Greenwood)," Orci said. "I loved Bones, who a lot of people thought, '[Karl Urban is] too good-looking to be cast as Bones.' ... He was a fan favorite and ours too."

"Robocop" Reboot Finally Dead

(cinemablend.com)                   Aronofsky's Robocop Reboot Finally Dead The writing’s been on the wall for Darren Aronofsky’s Robocop reboot for awhile now. Back in February we heard he was still attached to the project, but the Requiem for a Dream director has shown no inclination to actually, you know, make it. Worse it’s an MGM property and, well, anything at MGM is pretty much dead. So it’s no surprise that Moviehole and the Financial Times says the whole thing has been scrapped.
It sounds like the entire project has, almost literally, been flushed down the toilet. Aronofsky has lost interest in it anyway and even if he hadn’t it wasn’t going to get made. Word is that there won’t be another Robocop, at least not any time soon. It makes sense, if MGM can’t get The Hobbit or more James Bond made, what hope for Robocop? None. Maybe some day someone else
Special Effects Innovator's Work in Clarington

(newsdurhamregion.com)               CLARINGTON -- Gordon Smith is surrounded by familiar objects, but he feels out of place.
He's one of the most successful and innovative special effects creators in film history, but to see his creations on display at the Visual Arts Centre of Clarington is a new experience for him. Smith has never exhibited his work, never even thought of it until he was invited to do so by the VAC's Craig Ryan.
"I'm flabbergasted; this is just junk from my studio," he says in an interview at the July 18 opening reception of the show. "Seeing it like this, I'm flabbergasted."
Well, maybe not junk. Smith means that the pieces have had their time, perhaps no more than a second or two, on screen. They've all been used; they no longer have a practical purpose.
Most movie fans will find something recognizable in the more than 100 items on display. There's Mystique from X-Men and the giant bat, or parts of it, from Graveyard Shift. Facial casts designed for actors in films such as Truman and 4 Brothers. Models, props, drawings and photographs, all created by the talented crew Smith assembled to work with him at his company, FX Smith. Among Smith's contributions to the world of special effects is the silicon, gel-filled prosthetic that can be used for a face, an arm, any body part. Before that, actors had to routinely undergo hours of make-up work to get foam glued on to their skin. He and the fine artists he employed and toiled with worked without computers, before digital processes took over the industry.
"It's so hard to do all of this, the risk factor is really high," Smith says. "There's probably about a 98 per cent chance of failure. In the digital world, it doesn't matter if it doesn't work, you do it again."
It wasn't about egos at FX Smith, but about creating the best work possible.
"My studio has always represented for me the state of the art, both creatively and technically," Smith says.
It's amazing that he got into the business of creating often gruesome effects for the screen in the first place. He has "a very severe blood phobia" from his father's death of leukemia. And Smith never intended to get into this line of work. He has a classical education in theatre and started in the industry as an actor.
His first big effects job was to re-create open heart surgery for the 1982 film Threshold. It was said to be impossible, but in the years that followed Smith became Mr. Impossible, maybe Mr. Mission Impossible.
"Almost everything I do is deemed impossible; that's why they call me," he says. "By the time it gets to me, it has been considered impossible."
Smith's work begins from the script. And while anything goes in a writer's imagination, actually making the thing he or she conceived, making it move or appear a certain way, is Smith's practical challenge.
"I have a script and I have to interpret the words written in the script to the image," he says.
Sometimes he would call for changes to the script because, in creating a piece, he'd discover that it just couldn't do what was written there.
He left the film industry five years ago, bitterly, after what he describes as jealousy made him a target, blackballed. All the creativity in Hollywood is now at the mercy of "the bean counters," he says.
Smith's building a new company, making a jump from the film to the music industry. Typically, he's aiming for the sky.
"We've developed a whole new performance format for live music," he says.
The Clarington exhibit is intended to make the viewer consider the process behind the movie magic, the creativity involved. But heck, Smith also had a blast doing it all.
"Look around. I've had a gas. I've had such a good time," he says. "I fell into it and was lucky enough to have wonderful people help me do it."
Visit Smith's website at www.fxsmith.com.
Gordon Smith - Special Effects is at the VAC until Aug. 29. The arts centre is at 143 Simpson Ave., Bowmanville. Its summer hours (July and August) are Monday to Friday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Saturday, noon to 4 p.m. and Sunday 1 to 4 p.m. (during exhibitions).

Sony Imageworks & Industrial Light & Magic To Announce Open Source Development

(prnewswire.com)                       LOS ANGELES, July 26 /PRNewswire/ -- BOOTH 1018, SIGGRAPH 2010 -- Sony Pictures Imageworks, the Academy Award® winning visual effects and digital character animation unit of Sony Pictures Digital Productions, will feature its latest artistic and technical achievements at SIGGRAPH 2010, the 37th International Conference on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques. Presentations around the art and technology of Disney's ALICE IN WONDERLAND are on the program, including technical sessions, a Computer Animation Festival production session on Wednesday afternoon and a Siggraph Evening Theater entry. Imageworks will be recruiting for current and upcoming productions, notably Warner Bros GREEN LANTERN, the Aardman Animation production ARTHUR CHRISTMAS, Sony Pictures Animation's HOTEL TRANSYLVANIA, THE SMURFS, in association with Columbia Pictures, and several other projects soon to be announced.
Imageworks adds to its Open Source initiative, announced at Siggraph09, with the release of its sixth program, OpenColorIO, which provides a framework for sharing color transformations across computer graphics workflows. Imageworks has also scheduled a press conference with Industrial Light & Magic on Tuesday morning to announce another important Open Source development.
"SIGGRAPH gathers the leading artists, innovators and educators to the computer graphics world's most influential meeting," observes Randy Lake, executive vice president and general manager of Sony Pictures Imageworks. "The conference gives us an opportunity to share our latest technical developments, meet talent, and showcase our best work of the year."
IPAX, Imageworks and Sony Pictures Animation's innovative academic outreach program will convene an Educators Forum gathering member schools and a select group of new institutions. The IPAX program was created in 2004 to connect faculty and students from leading academic institutions with Imageworks and Sony Pictures Animation to further develop future talent and enhance academic programs.
Imageworks can be found on the exhibit floor at SIGGRAPH in booth 1018.

"Tron" Helmer Heads Into Apocalyptic "Oblivion"

(darkhorizons.com)                   "Tron Legacy" director Joseph Kosinski is currently pitching a film version of his upcoming graphic novel "Oblivion" which he created for Radical Publishing reports Deadline.
Set in an apocalyptic future where most people live high in the sky due to Earth's surface being uninhabitable, a soldier stuck on the ground goes about his job repairing hunter drones which seek out and destroy members of a savage alien race.
He soon comes upon a beautiful woman whose craft has crashed nearby and together they set out on an epic adventure. Disney is expected to have first dibs on the property.
5X Faster 3D + 8X Faster Sim = Shweet

(marketwatch.com)                 LOS ANGELES, CA, Jul 27, 2010 (MARKETWIRE via COMTEX) -- SIGRRAPH 2010 -- NVIDIA (Booth #717) today launched the era of the 'computational visualization workstation' for designers, engineers, researchers and animators by introducing its Quadro(R) graphics processing units (GPUs) based on NVIDIA(R) Fermi architecture, and by also introducing the new NVIDIA 3D Vision(TM) Pro solution. The new Quadro GPUs deliver performance that is up to five times faster for 3D applications and up to eight times faster for computational simulation(1), shattering previous benchmarks.
The NVIDIA Quadro Plex 7000 array, and Quadro 6000, Quadro 5000 and Quadro 4000 GPUs feature the new NVIDIA(R) Scalable Geometry Engines and leverage NVIDIA Application Acceleration Engines (AXE) to enable the world's fastest performance across a broad range of CAD, DCC and visualization applications(2). Rated at an unheard of 1.3 billion triangles per second in raw performance(3), the Quadro 6000 enables users to interactively work with models and scenes that are five times more complex than ever before.
"For over a decade Quadro has been the choice of professionals around the world. We've also built Engines like AXE to enable the creation of next-gen applications," said Jeff Brown, general manager, Professional Solutions Group, NVIDIA. "When you couple these technologies with our Fermi architecture, the result is a new Quadro family that's exponentially better than anything the market has ever seen."
Redesigned from the Ground Up to Accelerate Entire Workflows
Combining high performance computing capabilities with advanced visualization, the new Quadro GPU is the world's first professional graphics solution with Error Correction Codes (ECC) memory and fast, IEEE double precision floating point performance. These are intended for applications demanding the highest accuracy, such as medical imaging, finite element analysis and computational fluid dynamics.
"In high-end visual effects development, fast iteration is essential," said Olivier Maury, research and development engineer, Industrial Light & Magic (ILM). "By using NVIDIA Quadro GPUs, we are seeing up to eight iterations each day of complex fire, dust and air simulations, representing speed improvements of ten to fifteen times. NVIDIA CUDA and Quadro GPUs have entirely changed the way we solve complex visual effects challenges."
The new Quadro GPUs are built on industry standards, including OpenGL 4.1, DirectX 11, DirectCompute and OpenCL. In addition, Quadro leverages technologies that are unique to NVIDIA -- such as the company's portfolio of Application Acceleration Engines (AXE) and NVIDIA CUDA(TM) parallel processing architecture. The result is that software developers are able to create and deliver the next-generation of professional applications that incorporate compute-intensive tasks. Among these tasks are ray tracing, physics simulation, computational fluid dynamics and real-time video effects processing.
"NVIDIA isn't just working on building better graphics hardware, but the software tools needed to drive the needed advancements that are now changing the industry," said Rob Enderle, principal analyst, Enderle Group. "NVIDIA was committed to building tool after tool this past decade in order to drive the market where they needed it to go, and their efforts are paying off."
Green Lantern Fashionistas Upset About CGI Costume

(current-movie-reviews.com)                  When a sneak peek of the Green Lantern costume was shown at Comic Con, fans of the comic book were split. Half of the fans feel that the costume is not right and does not display the Green Lantern the way he should be and the other half feels that it is fitting to the character.
“There has to be a little healthy debate about it. That’s important,” Ryan Reynolds told MTV. “If it were just slanted one way or the other, I don’t think it would be that satisfying.” Ryan Reynolds is playing the Green Lantern in the new super hero movie coming out soon.
The Costume is made completely of CGI, which is Computer Generated Imagery used as special effects in films. The costume has lines on it to create the musculature required for the look of Hal Jordan. However the costume does not have the white gloves that the Green Lantern has in the comic books.
“The white gloves aren’t there, and I think that’s fine because, specifically, they’re lame,” Reynolds said. “But everything else is going to be there. I think the fanboys and the people that are new to the character are going to love it.”
Cold, Calculating IBM Servers Created Despicable Me

(informationweek.com)                     A hurriedly assembled data center, based on the IBM iDataPlex rack server, rendered 142 terabytes of data in 12 months to create a CGI movie that's currently showing in US theaters.
Many movies are made in Hollywood, but the recently released "Despicable Me" CGI movie was made in a data center that took up four parking spaces in the garage of the production facility of Illumination Entertainment.
The IBM iDataPlex rack server, touted as a unit that can optimize data centers, allowed the ad hoc facility with 6,500 cores to run without air conditioning, achieving a 40 percent power savings. The racks did, however, have water-cooled back doors, each supposedly capable of removing 50,000 BTUs, or the equivalent of a five-ton air conditioner. The doors make the racks about four inches deeper.
The server uses one or two two-socket Xeon 5500 or 5600 processors running about 3 gigahertz, supporting up to 128 gigabytes of RAM.
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Production of the 3D animated full-length film required rendering about 500,000 frames per week over a 12-month period, with the data center running 24/7.
Starring Steve Carell in voice-over, the firm is about a villain named Gru who hatches a plot to become the world's greatest super villain. Reportedly, production continues for the French-language version.

Lucasfilm - G4 Party In Pictures

(cinematical.com)                  G4 and Lucasfilm set up a party that was obviously a love letter to Empire Strikes Back (celebrating its 30th anniversary this year). The room was designed to feel like outer space -- with black walls and small white lights surrounding your every move -- while little lightsabers hung down from the ceiling and Stormtroopers, as well as Darth Vader, Boba Fett and more, paraded around the space. There were video games to play in one room, Empire Strikes Back screening in another and folks like Olivia Munn and Seth Green filling out the space alongside people way too cool for school.
Take a look:     http://www.cinematical.com/photos/g4-lucasfilm-party/

Haunted Mansion Revived, Lucasfilm Campus Plans, & 36 VFX Jobs Created...

Jul 23, 2010
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Guillermo del Toro Takes on The Haunted Mansion

(ComingSoon.net) Walt Disney Pictures has informed us that del Toro is NOT confirmed to direct yet. At this point, he is only signed to co-write and produce the project.Guillermo del Toro made a surprise announcement at Disney's panel for Tron Legacy that he will next co-write, produce and direct a 3D The Haunted Mansion reboot.
A teaser was shown with a very brief narration about the haunted house over animation that looked to be either done by Mike Mignola or Mignola-inspired. Mignola, the creator of Hellboy, also illustrated a poster for Guillermo del Toro's Pan's Labyrinth.
"We are not returning Eddie Murphy's calls," del Toro said, making a surprise appearance onstage, "...and we are not making it a comedy... We are making it scary and fun, but the scary will be scary."
The story will be built around the Hatbox Ghost and del Toro hopes that he'll be reintroduced to the ride as well. Check out what he looks like below, courtesy of ShockTillYouDrop:
Here's the official announcement from the studio:
Guillermo del Toro surprised the 6,500 fans gathered today at Comic-Con with the announcement that he is currently developing a new film for The Walt Disney Studios based on the classic Disney theme park attraction, The Haunted Mansion.
“Dark imagery is an integral part of the Walt Disney legacy. After all, Disney himself was the father of some really chilling moments and characters - think Chernabog from Fantasia or Maleficent as the Dragon or the Evil Queen in Snow White,” said del Toro. “I couldn't be more excited to be a part of my own adaptation of the original theme park attraction Walt envisioned and that remains- for me- the most desirable piece of real estate in the whole world!"
“Millions of people from around the world visit The Haunted Mansion each year, but no one has ever had a tour guide like Guillermo del Toro,” said Rich Ross, Chairman of The Walt Disney Studios. “Guillermo is one of the most gifted and innovative filmmakers working today and he is going to take audiences on a visually-thrilling journey like they’ve never experienced before.”
Lucasfilm Dusts Off Big Plan for Campus at Marin Ranch
(sanfrancisco.bizjournals.com)
Filmmaker George Lucas is pushing ahead with a major new development near Skywalker Ranch in Marin County, just five years after relocating many of his Lucasfilm Ltd. employees from the North Bay to the Presidio in San Francisco. Lucasfilm is seeking approval to build a 262,728-square-foot Mission-style building, including two 85-foot towers, at the former Grady Ranch in Lucas Valley. The building would house a digital film production studio, administration offices, a restaurant, a general store, a wine-tasting room, screening rooms, costume storage, dressing rooms, 19 guest suites and basement parking.
The project is part of a master plan Marin County Board of Supervisors approved 14 years ago. Under that plan, Lucasfilm was granted permission to build facilities totaling about 456,000 square feet at the 1,000-acre Grady Ranch and about 185,000 square feet at the nearby Big Rock Ranch. The company wrapped up construction of the Big Rock complex in 2002, but the Grady Ranch phase has been on hold as Lucasfilm focused on its new 800,000-square-foot Letterman Digital Arts Center in the Presidio.
Lucasfilm spokeswoman Emilie Nicks said Grady Ranch will fill an important need for production facilities that are different than what is available at the other campuses. She declined to state how much the complex would cost, but based on conservative construction costs of $300 to $400 a square foot, it would probably run between $80 million and $100 million. Lucasfilm has spent an estimated $100 million thus far on developing at Skywalker Ranch and adjacent Big Rock Ranch, according to media reports.
“This master plan is something we’ve always intended to complete. Once we finished construction on Big Rock Ranch and the Letterman Digital Arts Center, this was the logical next step to complete the production needs of the company,” said Nicks. Once approvals are secured, construction could take anywhere from 18 months to two years, said Nicks.
Marin County Deputy Zoning Administrator Tom Lai said the project’s precise development plan remains incomplete. He said he expects Lucasfilm to answer remaining questions within the next few months.
“We do intend to move quickly with the application and hope that we can take it before county decision-makers sometime early next year,” said Lai.
Enviro challenges
While the master plan was forged through a lengthy environmental review back in the mid-1990s, Lucasfilm still faces a challenging approval process. The film company is working on a precise development plan, and Marin conservationists are pushing for a more extensive supplemental environmental impact report.
In a July 9 memo to Lucasfilm Senior Director Angelo Garcia, Marin County Community Development Agency planners sought to clarify dozens of elements that were not included in the original environmental review. They include retaining walls, a utility tunnel, new bridges, a vineyard knoll, a “wine tunnel” and a new creek restoration plan. In addition, Lucasfilm has yet to finalize an agreement to get water from the Marin Municipal Water District. The project calls for 223,770 cubic yards of excavation.
“There are many ways in which the proposal deviates from the (environmental impact report) and we will be looking at each of those,” said Nona Dennis, the executive director of the Marin Conservation League. “The point here is that they are looking to do a huge amount of rebuilding and reshaping of the landscape in order to accommodate the structures.”
Dennis said the Marin Conservation League has not taken a position on the project, but that environmentalists don’t like the idea of allowing office and light industrial uses in an area zoned for housing and agriculture. At the same time, Lucasfilm has been a supporter of green causes. The 1996 master plan called for development on 108 acres, with 3,283 acres permanently preserved as open space.
On the Grady Ranch part of the land, 800 acres were granted to Marin County Department of Parks and Open Space, with 187 acres set aside as private open space. The project would occupy 52 acres.
“You wouldn’t believe how popular George Lucas is around here,” said Dennis. “Our concern is that it’s precedent setting. George Lucas has a position here. He has a big fan base and it seems to be the feeling that ‘it’s OK because it’s George Lucas.’ But would it be OK for George Smith who has a lot of money and wants to create a private enclave for 650 people?”
Nicks said Lucasfilm is in “full partnership and cooperation with the county to transparently accomplish all that needs to be done to meet, and in some cases exceed, requirements for approval.”
Jobs needed
Marin has suffered its share of economic blows over the past few years. In addition to Lucasfilm relocating hundreds of workers to San Francisco, Fair Isaac Corp. moved much of its operations out of the county and Autodesk scaled back operations in San Rafael. Finally, in March, the Disney Co. announced that it would shutter its 450-employee ImageMovers Digital animation studio at Hamilton Landing in Novato. That put 120,000 square feet of newly built-out space on the sublease market. None of it has been subleased so far.
Cornish & Carey broker Haden Ongaro said that Lucasfilm was a driver in the Marin office market until it moved to its Presidio facility. Not only did it occupy five buildings in San Rafael, but groups of Lucasfilm workers regularly spun off to create new animation, production or film groups. Adding more than 300 jobs at Grady Ranch could bring some of that energy back to central Marin.
“Those guys are going to be buying houses and supporting the school district and using the restaurants and services at night,” said Ongaro.
Nicks said construction would “lead to a large number of jobs for the area, but the exact number is difficult calculate.” As for post-construction staffing, the capacity for the Grady development is 340, but exact numbers would ebb and flow depending on the various projects that come and go and production schedules. Nicks said it should not result in a significant staff relocation at the Presidio.
“This is a very important project, not just for San Rafael but the entire county of Marin,” said San Rafael Chamber of Commerce Chairman Mike Kadel. “I think the Lucas family is very environmentally conscious and have always been very good about reaching out to their neighbors.”

Film Industry News

2010-08-07T03:41:00.001-07:00

Overcoming Misconceptions Faced by Animators Regarding Motion Capture

(lafilmsnorth.com)                   One of the basic reasons why animation companies baulk at motion capture is because of misconceptions rather than face when the reality is that motion capture can actually make things cheaper and easier for animation companies.
Based on Nickelodeon’s model, a half-hour motion capture animation program could cost as little as $200,000 versus a minimum of $400,000 per episode for a traditional cell animated half-hour program.
A 1997 Los Angeles Times article, Marla Matzer provides another perspective on costs: “Medialab… estimates that a ‘full body’ character can be animated for as little as $1,000 per minute; over a series of shows, the price can go even lower. Cell animation, by contrast, can cost as much as $5,000 a minute.” these prices don’t include other production elements, such as backgrounds
The costing goes up because in traditional animation the number of personnel involved is much higher than compared to motion capture or mocap for short.
Mocap is fast becoming the mainstay in many animated movies and non animation movies cause the usage of mocap can make characters like for example Davy Jones and his crew in the movie pirates of the Caribbean, and so on. And the best part was that when they came to the part where Davy Jones was to b shown as the real person Bill Nighy was used both in cgi and normal person to potraray Davy Jones.
Motion capture is reffered to as 3D rotoscoping. But the problem was that the stigma that was associates with rotoscope seems to have come into motioncapture. For example in movies where one character is completely different from the others, lets say for example in terms of physical appearience. As long as the picture is running correctly and the desired results are available there is no need for people to know that the given movie is made using rotoscope. But for most people the usage of rotoscope was making them feel that it was innadiquate or just not natural.
In motion capture the actor and the action is saved frame by frame and fed to the character to be animated. Thus in mocap it can be said that in all since the animation used is natural and the real animation. Dancers stroke a metaphorical canvas, sketching ephemeral lines that are lost in the moment of creation. The invention of film and video immortalized some of these centuryY5 greatest dancers, preserving their movement for the next generation. But the quality of such recordings betrays the vitality of the dancer, often leaving the viewer with snatches of their genius seen through a murky lens. Motion capturing, the product of body sensors that create a constellation-like skeleton reassembled with computer brushes and palettes, may change the dancers predicament de rigueur by invigorating a self they didn’t know they had. Paul Kaiser and Shelley Eshkar of Riverbed have motion captured the legendary dancer Bill T. Jones for their exhibit at Cooper Union. The artists call it “Ghost catching,” the term Native Americans gave to photography which some believed stole their souls.
The feature-length Sinbad: Beyond the Veil of Mists, produced by Pentafour in 1999, employed one performer for the body of each character and another for its facial data. Body performers were chosen because they matched the height and body shape of the characters in the film. Voice performers for the film are recognizable stars (including Brendan Fraser, Leonard Nimoy, Mark Hamill, Jennifer Hale, and John Rhys Davies), a common marketing decision for feature films. Incidentally, shooting of the film’s studio material lasted eight weeks and the films’ cost is estimated to be under US$20 million, about one-fifth that of a Disney animated feature.
A 1996 Wired article by Evantheia Schibsted suggests that motion capture taps into intangible elements of experience. In the article, the author refers to Merce Cunningham’s opinion of a specific type of software called Lifeforms, which “is not revolutionizing dance but expanding it, because you see movement in a way that was always there-but wasn’t visible to the naked eye.” Dancer and software designer Theela Shiphorst extends this idea, adding that “the nonlinguistic knowledge inherent in physical training is a richly technical world that can inform technological development.”

New South Wales Lowers VFX Funding Threshold

(hollywoodreporter.com)                   SYDNEY -- The New South Wales government Friday announced it is lowering the threshold requirements for companies wanting to access government rebates for post digital and visual effects work from AUS$3 million ($2.62 million) to AUS$500,000 ($435,000), in line with recent changes to thresholds for similar funds offered by the federal government.
“With the minimum project spend now $435,000, NSW-based companies will be able to aggressively market their services internationally providing high-value employment in a sector that drives innovation and investment,” NSW treasurer Eric Roozendaal said.
“High thresholds for assistance were a barrier for Australian companies wanting to bid on smaller but still lucrative international projects at a time when the exchange rate and higher incentives in Canada and elsewhere made it increasingly difficult to win large scale projects,’ he said.
The NSW government operates the Film and Television Industry Attraction Fund, which provides a package of incentives to approved productions, but not investment funding aimed at increasing the State's market share of production by attracting larger budget foreign productions.
Roozendaal said the move would assist NSW-based companies like Animal Logic, Cutting Edge, Deluxe Australia, Efilm, Fuel VFX, FSM and The Lab Sydney, who have worked on projects such as “Happy Feet,” “Sucker Punch,” “Iron Man 2,” “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix,” “Charlotte’s Web” and the new Peter Weir film “The Way Back” in recent years.
“The fund will now work with even greater effectiveness to help stimulate film and television production and post production in NSW; increase the State's market share of production; generate new employment opportunities; enhance the skills of the local industry; and facilitate the introduction of new film-related technologies in NSW,” he added.
Green Thrilled To Have Lucas At Wedding

(cinemablend.com)                   Green Thrilled To Have Lucas At Wedding Actor Seth Green was stunned when his filmmaking hero George Lucas agreed to come to his wedding in May (10) - and he still can't believe he can call the Star Wars creator a friend.
The Austin Powers star has cultivated a working relationship
with Lucas over the last decade and the two have become unlikely pals. But Green can only imagine what friends and family thought when the director showed up at his wedding.
He says, "It's just so funny to see him at a wedding because he's a normal dude; he's a dad and he's into history and art and sports and sci-fi, and then you see him at the wedding. Everyone was like, 'Oh my gosh, I don't know what to say to him.' And he's hanging out, like, 'I wish somebody would say hi to me.' I love just hanging out with him; anytime I get to sit and just chit-chat with him..."
Animator Plans to Put Long Island on the 3D Map

(threevillage.patch.com) There are a couple of things you find out about Robert Burden when you meet him. Right off the bat you notice that he is full of the same jazzy energy that powers many of the digital creations he works on. He talks fast and you need to pay attention because the next thing you'll learn is that he knows a great deal about his chosen profession – digital animation.Burden's major film credits include animation and digital effects for the anime film Astro Boy, a sweet story set in a futuristic world about a robot boy built by a brilliant scientist to replace his lost son. He also worked on the hit Twilight Saga installment Eclipse doing digital makeup.
"Digital makeup is doing things like changing or removing parts of an actor," he said.
Next, Burden said that he's going to be working on a film staring Johnny Depp doing set extensions, which is digitally rendering or altering the background surrounding the actors after a movie is filmed.
Burden has also lent his design and animation skills to the business community on Long Island. He says that while the industry here hasn't fully caught on to the power of 3D animation, awareness is growing.
"Movies like Toy Story make people more conscious of 3D animation," he said. It's a trend he sees continuing as local businesses start to demand the glitzy, flashy look of 3D in their advertising.
It's a long way from when Burden landed here the mid-1980s to attend Stony Brook University and then went on to New York University. There he made important contacts that led to his first major industry experience working in children's television. His first gig: Blue's Clues.
"That was my first major experience with production," Burden said. "For the short time on it I learned the most in my career."
He loves working on kids' shows because of the shared attachment we all have to childhood.
"We were all kids," he said. "Some of us still are. To be able to express some kind of emotion or lesson to a child is an amazing thing."
This may explain why Burden also decided to start teaching 3D animation. Not only is he teaching young people in his studio to become top notch animators, he spends some time teaching autistic children.
There is one dream that Burden is currently working hard to make a reality.
"I want to produce the first full feature-length 3D animation film out of Long Island," he said. And he wants it to happen right at his Inky Dinky Animation Studios.
He's already got the story all picked out and he says he's started working on it. It's a poem titled "Nicholas Cricket" written by Joyce Maxner.
The story is about a cricket named Nicholas who plays banjo in a jazz band called the Bug-a-Wug Cricket Band. Burden describes the story treatment he has in mind as Cotton Club blended with a horror movie. It's going to be edgy and a little dark but still will work as a children's movie. Think Neil Gaiman's Coraline as opposed to Disney's Up.
Burden's hope is that by the time he finishes producing "Nicolas Cricket" a large studio will become interested enough to distribute the film.
Windmill Lane Opens 'Lock Out', 36 VFX Jobs Created
(iftn.ie) Irish post house, Windmill Lane Pictures is currently creating a new film visual effects production facility in Sandyford in order to carry out post production work on 'Lock Out’ [working title], a new sci-fi feature film that is to start shooting in Belgrade towards the end of the year. Windmill Lane will produce all the visual effects its new Dublin facility.
'Lock Out' is written and directed by talented Irish filmmaking duo Stephen St Leger and James Mather, the team behind the 2004 short ‘Prey Alone’. Their first foray into feature films is made with the backing of French Studio Europacorp headed by the acclaimed Luc Besson (I Love You Philip Morris, From Paris with Love) who will also produce the film.
'Lock Out' (previously entitled 'Section 8') takes place in a prison orbiting 50 miles above the earth. The prison houses 500 of the world's most dangerous prisoners, who are kept asleep by sophisticated techniques until they suddenly awoken. The project boasts a $30 million budget.
James Morris, Chairman of Windmill Lane has expressed his gratitude to members of team, saying: "Stephen and James are the creative driving force behind this project and must take all the credit for developing it and securing the backing of Luc Besson."
Windmill Lane are thus commencing a recruitment drive for key VFX personnel. The drive is already attracting key UK industry interest and any individual interested in applying for any of the eight positions listed below should visit iftn.ie/jobs for further details and application instructions.
A range of skills is being sought where the pipeline will be based on the tried and tested International VFX model: Maya, Nuke, Photoshop all of which will make up some of the principal software tools that will be used within a Linux OS. The film is due for completion in June 2011 and the total VFX production team will be based in Dublin in Windmill's aforementioned Sandyford facility.
The positions Windmill are seeking to fill for 'Lock Out' are:
* Modellers
* Matchmover
* Texture Painter
* Lighting TDs
* TD Generalist
* CG Effects TD
* VFX Production Coordinator
* Compositors & Rotoscope Artists

World War Z Pitted, Inflatable VFX, & Muppets Meet With Pixar...

Jul 22, 2010
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Brad Pitt to Star in "World War Z"

(comingsoon.net) MTV received a surprise announcement when interviewing World War Z author Max Brooks at the San Diego Comic-Con today. Brooks confirmed that the Marc Forster-directed adaptation of his novel is moving forward at Paramount Pictures with Brad Pitt attached to star in the lead role.
Brooks also revealed that Paramount has optioned the movie rights to "The Zombie Survival Guide" and "The Zombie Survival Guide: Recorded Attacks" graphic novel.
Pitt's production company Plan B first secured the rights to World War Z back in 2007.
Brooks says that the studio is targeting a Summer 2012 release for the film, about a worldwide infestation of flesh-eating zombies. Brooks -- the son of Mel Brooks and Anne Bancroft -- wrote a detailed tale in which a researcher for the U.N. Postwar Commission interviews survivors from countries all over the world, 10 years after the crisis, to gather a first-person post-mortem on a war that obliterated every country on the map.
The original screenplay was written by J. Michael Straczynski, but was later rewritten by Matthew Michael Carnahan.
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Can Inflatable Dolls Replace CGI Effects?

(theatlanticwire.com)

Can Inflatable Dolls Replace Movie Extras? Uriel_1998/flickr They're a directors dream: they don't get paid by the hour, they have no problem working overtime, there's no need to feed them, and they specialize in standing in a single place for hours at the time.While many big budget blockbusters use CGI creations to create digital extras, some Hollywood titles are going low-fi by using painstakingly crafted inflatable dolls. Already seen in pictures such as Seabiscuit, Gridiron Gang, Changeling and the upcoming Angelina Jolie thriller S.A.L.T. (which used 500 of them) these dolls are a cheap and always reliable way to fill stadium stands for a sports movie or pack crowds into Grand Central Station.In a recent New Yorker article, writer Peter Savodnik profiles Gail Boykewich, who oversees operations for Inflatable Crowd (a company specializing in providing custom dolls).The dolls do have a drawback, it turns out: they can have interesting effects on the human extras working with them. "An extra will look at an inflatable and say, 'This is freaking me out!' Or we hear tons of 'This is my girlfriend!' Or 'Why did you take my girlfriend away?' when you deflate them."
[Boykewich] went on, "Some of the extras get bored and mess with the dolls and steal their wigs, or cut the eyes out to be funny.

'300' To Spin Off 'Xerxes' Prequel

(latinoreview.com)                 Zack Snyder May Return To The World of '300' As 'Xerxes' Gets His Own Prequel 2007's phenomenally successful action adventure film 300 not only re-introduced audiences to the work of graphic novelist Frank Miller (Sin City), but turned its lead actor Gerard Butler and director Zack Snyder into bona fide stars. The war epic, which told a fictionalized account of the historical battle of Thermopylae, was not only the highest grossing R-rated film of that year, but earned a worldwide total of $456 million. Synder, who had previously made his debut with the 2004 zombie remake Dawn of the Dead, not only proved he could produce major blockbusters, but did so by primarily using bluescreen sound-stages and over 1,500 digital visual effects, causing quite a ripple in Hollywood and influencing the way films are made.
Since 300, Snyder has successfully tackled the arduous task of bringing Dave Gibbons and Alan Moore's critically acclaimed graphic novel Watchmen to the big screen, the upcoming 3D CGI animated family film Legend of the Guardians, and is in the midst of wrapping up post production on Sucker Punch, based on his original script about the escape fantasies of a young woman in a mental hospital. But it appears Snyder has always had the world of 300 on his mind and after successfully meeting with Miller, the director has begun writing a screenplay based on the graphic novelist's upcoming 300 prequel entitled Xerxes.
xerxes-rodrigo
Portrayed by Brazilian actor Rodrigo Santoro in 300, the character of Xerxes, leader of the invading Persian army, was the subject of controversy for his androgynous appearance, incurring the wrath of the President of Iran, who not only denounced the picture but filed a formal complaint with the United Nations.
The comics will be published in the months ahead, but Miller has already shown Snyder enough to win him over to a follow-up film. It's neither prequel nor sequel, precisely, since the time setting begins years before the events of "300" and then moves up past the first film's 480 B.C. Spartan battle.
snyder
"This movie follows Themistocles and the Battle of Artemisium, which coincidentally happens on the exact same three days as the Battle of Thermopylae [which was the basis of '300']," Snyder said. "This one starts off with a quick retelling of the why of the Persian wars. It starts off at the Battle of Marathon and then it goes back to Themistocles finding out that Persians are invading again, and off we go over to learn a little bit about why Xerxes is the way he is."
"Yes, it's the same universe visually," Snyder said, suggesting that in his mind he's already directing the film even though there's only a writing deal in place.

Disney Animator Pres Romanillos Dies at Age 47

(examiner.com)                 Disney animator Priscillano "Pres" Romanillos died from complications due to leukemia at only 47 years of age.
The Los Angeles Times reported yesterday that Pres passed away in his Tujunga home on July 17, 2010 surrounded by his family, friends and pets.
Romanillos immigrated from the Philippines in 1971, grew up in Queens, New York, and eventually attended the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan.
His animation career began in 1989 as an animation trainee on "The Little Mermaid." He served as an assistant animator on "The Rescuers Down Under," "Beauty and the Beast," and "Aladdin." Romanillos' first full animator credit came during "Pocahontas," for his work on animating Pocahontas herself.
He moved to Disney's studios in Florida and it is there where he animated the leader of the Hun army, Shan-Yu, in "Mulan."
Romanillos moved to DreamWorks after "Mulan," where he worked on features such as "The Road to El Dorado" (2000), "Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron" (2002), "Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas" (2003), "Shrek 2" (2004), and "Madagascar" (2005).
In 2007, he moved to Salamanca, Spain to assist Scott Johnston with the launch of the Enne animation studio. While there, he made the animated short film "The Old Chair," which featured one of his own blog characters, Pickle.
Romanillos' blog was "Life as a Pickle," which was about cats, dogs, rabbits, and other pets he and his wife rescued from animal shelters. The main character, "Pickle," was based on their rat terrier, which offered a humorous dog's-eye view of the world. Pickle passed away in December 2006.
During the production of "The Old Chair," he was diagnosed with Leukemia and returned to the United States. He underwent a bone marrow transplant and went on to do his final animation work on Disney's "The Princess and the Frog," and DreamWorks' "Shrek Forever After."
"Pres was one of the most respected and beloved artists at our studio," Jeffrey Katzenberg, chief executive with DreamWorks Animation, told the Los Angeles Times. "All of us in the animation community deeply mourn the loss of Pres...though his memory and legacy will forever exist in the characters he brought to life through his art."
Pres Romanillos is survived by his wife of 14 years, Jeannine. Plans for a life celebration are pending.

There's So Much CGI, It's Ridiculous

(justjaredjr.buzznet.com)                 Vanessa Hudgens just can’t get the idea of Sucker Punch in 3D out of her head.
The 21-year-old actress caught up with MTV at Neutrogena’s Wave for Change with GlobalGiving over the weekend and opened up on why she’s so excited about it.
Vanessa shared, “There’s so much CGI in it, it’s ridiculous. It’s already really bad***, but having it in 3-D … having my tomahawk fly towards your face, [it would be] just too cool, you know? Shooting a .50-cal [machine gun], there’s nothing like it. I think all of us girls loved it so much. We’re all strong individuals, and when you give us a gun … you kind of unleash something.”

Disney Animation, Foundry Reach Licensing Deal

(variety.com)                     Following Walt Disney Animation Studio's groundbreaking deal to license Nuke compositing software from The Foundry, the two companies have struck a more far-reaching agreement that marks the first time the Mouse House has licensed its proprietary animation software to an outside company.
Parts of the Mouse's Paint3D software will be incorporated into Mari, the Foundry's off-the-shelf texture painting tool. Mari was originally developed by Weta Digital and has been used on "Avatar" and "District 9," among other pics.
The Walt Disney Animation Studios technology group will be part of a Mari steering committee.
Paint3D was introduced on "Chicken Little" and has been used on every Disney animated release since "Meet the Robinsons."
WDAS recently licensed the Foundry's Nuke, marking the first time the Mouse had licensed commercial software for animation production.
Nuke is emerging as a de facto standard for compositing and the incorporation of Paint3D tools may nudge Mari toward similar status.

The Kerner Group, Home for 30 Years to ILM, Launches New Service Brands

(shootonline.com)                On One Year Anniversary of New Ownership, Kerner Now Positioned to be a Leader in 3D Production Expertise
San Rafael, CA, July 22, 2010 | SHOOT Publicity Wire | --- Based in Marin, California, The Kerner Group, the 30-year home to George Lucas' original Industrial Light and Magic (ILM), and today a collection of innovative companies and divisions that offer award-winning creative services to the major motion picture studios, independent filmmakers, television studios and production companies, has restructured.
The restructuring of The Kerner Group comes one year after the
company's acquisition by entrepreneur Eric Edmeades, and is the result of a year-long analysis and R&D efforts by new senior management aimed at driving the Kerner brand forward. Concurrent with this anniversary, The Kerner Group has launched a number of new brands with services available to its diverse array of clients.
The "New Kerner" is now positioned to be a leader in the area of 3-D production and technological expertise, with facilities, camera rigs and expertise that afford unparalleled opportunities to content creators across the entire media spectrum. Today's announcements were made jointly by Eric Edmeades, CEO, Majority Owner, and Tim Partridge, President, The Kerner Group.
As a result of its restructuring, The Kerner Group now also counts among its client base corporations large and small and private section contractors. For these clients, the company provides highly realistic special effects, emerging 3D technologies and production services, model creation, and a variety of problem solving, applied research and prototyping services.
In 2009, entrepreneur Eric Edmeades became the CEO and Majority Owner of The Kerner Group. Previously the co-founder of The ITR Group, a mobile computing and wireless networking firm based in Bristol, England, Edmeades ran that company, as its Managing Director, for nine years, parlaying it into an industry leader with multiple offices around the U.K. and servicing clients located worldwide. The ITR Group was sold to private buyers in 2006.
Edmeades then hired Tim Partridge as President of The Kerner Group. Before Kerner, Partridge was a key executive at Dolby Laboratories where, for over 20 years, he stood at the forefront of the entertainment and entertainment-technology industries, and led the development of "Dolby 3D." For 10 years, Partridge worked as a Dolby surround sound consultant on over 100 films, including "Goldeneye," "Highlander," "Shadowlands," "Willow," "Absolute Beginners," and "The Fisher King," to name some. He served the company in a number of major posts, including that of Dolby's Executive Vice President of Products and Technologies.
Regarding The Kerner Group's restructuring, Mr. Edmeades said, "There are very few companies, if any, that can offer their clients the same level of creativity in the areas of production, 3D technologies, realistic visual effects, and model design that The Kerner Group can provide. Our team has a 30-year history of producing the highest quality content and technology possible for the entertainment industry. We are now leveraging that expertise and success to further expand The Kerner Group as an exciting company with a bright future."
Adds Mr. Partridge, "Some of the most famous—and most financially successful—movies in history were -- in some part -- made here. While we are physically based in Northern California, we have now positioned ourselves as a national—and international—motion picture and television resource for filmmakers, directors, producers and advertisers. Our remarkable team includes award winning, former ILM members Brian Gernand, Greg Beaumont, Geoff Heron, and Rose Duignan, each of whom has tremendous experience in the industry."
Full Press:    http://www.shootonline.com/go/index.php?name=Release&op=view&id=rs-web2-532395-1279754729-2
Disney Asks Pixar For Help On Muppet Movie

(cinemablend.com)                   Disney Asks Pixar For Help On Muppet Movie Sometimes parents need to ask the kids for some help. That’s just the way life is. It’s no secret that Pixar is doing something very right when it comes to making movies and Disney has relatively lost its way. That’s why the news about Disney’s new live-action Muppets movie is so refreshing and encouraging. THR reports the Disney brass flew to California to meet with the Pixar think tank for a table read of the upcoming live action Muppets movie. Basically Disney said, “We need your help.”
Considering the two studios’ recent output, it’s clear why Disney would ask for assistance. Disney is coming off the uber-bomb The Sorcerer’s Apprentice while Pixar has a little film you may have seen (because it seems like everyone else did) called Toy Story 3.
It seems Disney recognizes that the Muppets are just too beloved a franchise to mess with, and the Pixar folks are just gifted storytellers. The new live action production starring Jason Segel is the first Muppets movie distributed by Walt Disney Pictures since Muppet Treasure Island in 1996.
Pixar also assisted with reshoots on the upcoming Disney production of Tron Legacy.

Film executives scoff at notion of "3D fatigue"

(Hollywood Reporter) - The sky isn't falling, but ticket sales for 3D movies may be finding their natural water level.
That, in an extra-dimensional nutshell, is how studio executives feel about recent signs that the ratio of 3D-to-2D grosses for pictures has settled into a range just below that marked by early 3D releases when the format was a consumer novelty. They scoff at the notion of "3D fatigue" floated in a spate of media reports while acknowledging pricing may have outpaced demand for some family pictures.
Some reports first took note of the situation when Disney's "Toy Story 3" -- which has quickly rung up $635 million at the worldwide box office -- opened last month with a studio-estimated 60% 3D contribution. Just a few months earlier, Disney's "Alice in Wonderland" and DreamWorks Animation's "How to Train Your Dragon" had rung up a lustier two-thirds of their box office in 3D auditoriums.
"'Toy Story 3' may gross up to $400 million domestically," a top distribution executive at a rival studio noted. "To suggest anything is wrong with that makes no sense."
More Chicken Littles surfaced when Universal's July 9 opener "Despicable Me" bowed with an estimated 45% of its first-weekend sales coming from 3D venues. But few industryites expected anything else in light of the picture's modest number of 1,551 3D theaters, a result of too many 3D pics in the marketplace and too few 3D screens available in the nation's movie theaters.
"Despite any lower 3D percentage, there's still considerable incremental gross advantage to both distributors and exhibitors," Universal distribution president Nikki Rocco said. "But I do love offering moviegoers the option of seeing a picture in either format. Having audiences be able to make a choice for the family is a good thing."
Paramount's July 1 release "The Last Airbender" boasted a similarly modest number of 3D locations while marking a 3D share of 55%. It's worth noting that the family fantasy bowed among broadly derisive reviews that were hardly an encouragement for parents to shell out extra for the pic's extra-dimensional version.
The 3D-to-2D gross decline follows the phenomenal 82% average 3D share marked by "Avatar" during its record theatrical run. But the Fox blockbuster -- virtually the only 3D release in the market for much of its run -- was an unusual mix of motion-capture animation and live action, and word quickly spread following its December debut that 3D was the way to see the epic fantasy.
By contrast, pictures such as Warner Bros.' April opener "Clash of the Titans" -- which enjoyed a mere 52% 3D contribution -- drew widespread criticism for their low-budget approach to converting the pic from 2D to 3D before release.
The industry screen crunch is expected to linger as Hollywood ramps up the number of 3D pics while theater operators struggle to outfit screens for 3D capability fast enough.
As for the pricing question, exhibitors privately acknowledge they continue to assess what the market will bear, with family pictures clearly more resistant to aggressive 3D upcharges.
DreamWorks Animation chief Jeffrey Katzenberg has backed exhibitors' desire to push the premium-pricing envelope, but the marketplace does have its limits. AMC ordered managers at a few of its New York multiplexes to chop their $20 admission price on DreamWorks' "Shrek Forever After" after the unprecedented high price drew media attention.
Wall Street analysts following exhibition stocks seem to be taking the adjustment in 3D contributions in stride.
"While recent articles have painted 'declining' 3D share trends as the culprit for recent box office woes, we place the blame squarely on mediocre film content," Piper Jaffray analyst James March wrote in a research report circulated Wednesday.

Ghostbuster III DOA, Stan Winston School To Open, U.K. VFX Prod Slumps...

Jul 21, 2010
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"Ghostbusters 3" Is Dead

(comingsoon.net)

Talking with GQ Magazine during promotion for "Get Low", a forthright Bill Murray gave refreshingly blunt honest answers to questions about his past work and upcoming projects.Asked if a third "Ghostbusters" film was still in the works, Murray says "It's all a bunch of crock" and went on to explain:"Harold Ramis said, Oh, I've got these guys, they write on The Office, and they're really funny. They're going to write the next Ghostbusters. And they had just written this movie that he had directed. "Year One". Well, I never went to see "Year One", but people who did, including other Ghostbusters, said it was one of the worst things they had ever seen in their lives. So that dream just vaporized. That was gone. But it's the studio that really wants this thing. It's a franchise."Avatar VFX Producer Joins Legend 3D Team

(BUSINESSOFCINEMA.COM)                       Mumbai: Legend3D, the innovator in 2D-to-3D motion picture conversion technology, today announced the addition of Senior Visual Effects (VFX) Producer Toni Pace Carstensen . In this role, Pace will be responsible for creating synergistic relationships between Legend3D and its clients. According to Pace, “The goal is to collaborate with our clients to create seamless and immersive entertainment experiences for consumers across all platforms.” Prior to joining Legend3D, Pace worked on numerous projects, most recently James Cameron’s Avatar, during which she managed the turnover of production shots to WETA Digital for final animation and developed procedures for show management. Additionally, she has worked on 3D stereo projects such as Star Trek Voyager: Borg Encounter, and Panasonic’s Blue Man Group TV promo. Other recent projects include Mission: SPACE at Disney World’s EPCOT and re-mastering of the visual effects for the original Star Trek series.
Stan Winston Family To Establish Stan Winston School of Character Arts

(BUSINESS WIRE) Gnomon School of Visual Effects, the industry leader in professional training for artists in the entertainment and design field, today revealed that it is partnering with the family of the late character creator and effects visionary, Stan Winston, to establish the Stan Winston School of Character Arts.
“We’re honored to partner with the Winston family to ensure his legacy can inspire another generation of artists to realize the incredible accomplishment of seeing the creatures born in your imagination take shape and become characters in a feature film.”
A true pioneer, Winston helped build the foundation for many of the creature effects techniques that fill today's blockbuster films. As a character development lead on films including “Terminator,” “Aliens,” “Predator,” “Jurassic Park,” “Iron Man,” and “Avatar,” Winston created cinematic icons that terrify, entertain and inspire, earning him four Academy Awards in a career spanning four decades.
Determined to realize Winston’s vision for future generations of artists, his many protégés – themselves film industry leaders – will instruct students in the magic behind their legendary work. The first Stan Winston School lessons will be available January 2011, in both DVD and online streaming formats, in association with Gnomon School of Visual Effects. The Stan Winston School also plans to offer hands-on workshops with world-renowned character effects studios in conjunction with the training DVDs and online content.
“Thanks to the expertise of our partners at Gnomon School of Visual Effects, the Stan Winston School will be at the vanguard of visual arts education. Our lessons will cover the entire spectrum of character creation techniques, from practical to digital," said Matt Winston, son of the late Stan Winston. “Never before have my father’s incredibly talented peers allowed such comprehensive access to the creative process, insights and methods they developed together. From day one, students will be transported to the alien, dinosaur, robot, and monster-filled worlds these master artists create.”
At San Diego Comic Con 2010, creature and VFX luminaries will discuss Stan Winston's impact on the art of character creation on Saturday, July 24 from 5:30 - 6:30 p.m. in room 7AB. Featuring many of the film industry’s leading character and creature artists, including Gnomon founder Alex Alvarez, The Winston Effect panel will also include messages about the Stan Winston School of Character Arts from James Cameron and Tim Burton.
“From ‘Aliens’ to ‘Avatar,’ few artists have shaped the film industry as Stan Winston has,” noted Alvarez. “We’re honored to partner with the Winston family to ensure his legacy can inspire another generation of artists to realize the incredible accomplishment of seeing the creatures born in your imagination take shape and become characters in a feature film.”
The first set of training DVDs to launch January 2011 will include the following titles from leaders in the character creation industry:
* Practical/Digital Hybrid Characters with Stan Winston life-long collaborator and co-owner of Legacy Effects, John Rosengrant
* Script Breakdown for Character Creators with Academy Award Nominee and co-owner of Legacy Effects, Shane Mahan
* Directing Creature Characters with Academy Award Nominee and co-owner of Amalgamated Dynamics, Inc., Alec Gillis
* Creature Performance with Academy Award Winner and co-owner of Amalgamated Dynamics, Inc., Tom Woodruff, Jr.
* Prosthetic Makeup with Academy Award Winner and co-owner of KNB EFX, Howard Berger
Those interested in learning more about the Stan Winston School of Character Arts can sign up on the registration page or on Facebook to receive weekly e-mail updates, sneak peeks of lessons, new plans for master artist classes, rotating Winston archival footage and interview clips.
About the Stan Winston School of Character Arts
Founded by the Winston Family, the Stan Winston School of Character Arts offers a training curriculum that covers the entire spectrum of character arts, from practical to digital. Each student can customize their own curriculum through a range of online videos, DVD lessons and hands-on workshops held in association with world-renowned Winston partners. From the first day of training, the Stan Winston School transports students to the realms of robots, aliens, dinosaurs and monsters as they learn to bring their imaginations to life on the silver screen. For more information, please visit www.stanwinstonschool.com.

VFX Tech Vet MacPherson To Helm At Framestore

(4rfv.co.uk)                  An Oscar-winning visual effects company and the UK's leading authority on stereoscopic 3D have appointed Steve MacPherson as Chief Technical Officer, VFX.
This new role has been developed to ensure Framestore continues to maintain and grow its position ahead of the film technology curve.   MacPherson brings an unrivalled wealth of VFX technology experience, having worked for both VFX houses and technology innovators. His formative years were spent at NASA with supercomputer company, Cray Research. His most recent role was as Senior Manager and Production Specialist at leading software developer, Autodesk. In between, MacPherson helped found Polygram's film VFX facility, Double Negative. He has also held production and infrastructure development roles at Jim Henson's Creature Shop and MPC.
Framestore's Chief Executive Officer, William Sargent, commented: "This combination of high performance computing, post-production and software development expertise will take our film VFX to the next level. Steve's addition to Framestore will keep us one step ahead of the competition at a time when our film department is working on features for the likes of Scorsese and Spielberg."

Wanted: Visual Effects Artists for Lucasfilm Singapore

(todayonline.com)                   SINGAPORE - Whether it is Jedis with light sabres, machines transforming into giant robots or the heroics of a man in an iron suit, there is one common thread.
Some of these Hollywood scenes were made in Singapore - scenes that may be only five seconds long but which can take a team of four visual effects artists four weeks to complete.
Such talent drives Lucasfilm Singapore - talent which the leading production studio says it is having a shortage of as it grows its operations here.
Half of the company's staff are foreigners, underlying the point that Singapore needs to grow a pool of media professionals who have a flair for creating visual effects.
Lucasfilm Singapore general manager Xavier Nicolas said: "Our business is all about talent. Today, out of 400, half of them are from Singapore. If we include people from the region, like Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, it's more than 75 per cent.
"So now our plan is to continue to expand as much as we can source and train the appropriate talent to meet our business objectives."
While the company can hire and train junior artists, when it comes to mentoring them further, the company hires senior supervisors from the United States and Europe.
While most projects still come from the US, LucasFilm Singapore is aiming to jumpstart its own works, focusing on the South-east Asian market.
But the company says it is not quite there yet - a goal hard to reach without the fundamental talent pool.
Source:    http://www.todayonline.com/Singapore/EDC100717-0000056/Wanted--Visual-effects-artists-for-Lucasfilm-Singapore
Animal Goes Bicoastal, Launches New Venice Studio

(shootonline.com)                Venice, CA, July 20, 2010 | SHOOT Publicity Wire | --- East Coast commercial visual effects studio Animal has gone bicoastal with the launch of a West Coast studio to serve its growing roster of national and international agency clientele. Best known for its signature talking animal work, notably the beloved Taco Bell Chihuahua, Animal's Pittsburgh studio will continue to partner with its East Coast clients while extending its reach and technical services to Los Angeles. The new studio occupies an airy and spacious three-story loft strategically located on Venice's Abbot Kinney Boulevard in the heart of L.A.'s advertising and creative communities.
In the new venture, Animal partner and co-founder Michael Killen reunites with veteran executive producer Leslie Sorrentino, formerly of The Syndicate, to deliver custom-tailored services across the range of offerings from both studios, including motion graphics and CGI, color grading, finishing and compositing.

U.K. Effects Heavy Film Production Slumps

(hollywoodreporter.com)                LONDON -- By the end of 2010 movie production inward investment levels -- cash flowing into production from overseas -- may end up being slightly down on the previous year's record breaking tally of £753 million ($1.1 billion), according to the U.K. Film Council.
But while this year's totals may end up falling slightly short, the U.K. Film Council declared the sector in rude health with most indicators painting a rosy picture rather than a recession-hit gloomy one for filmmakers and those working in movie production.
The latest figures, published by the U.K. Film Council Wednesday, point to healthy levels of movie production across the board in the first half of 2010, with 51 projects starting in that time with a total U.K. spend of £643 million ($981.7 million).
During the same period of 2009, the sector posted 60 movie starts with a combined spend of £726.4 million ($1.1 billion).
With movies such as "Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows Part 2," "John Carter of Mars," "Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides" and "Hugo Cabret" all shooting here, the 14 inward investment titles account for a U.K. spend of £557.1 million ($850.6 million) in the first half of 2010.
That compares to 19 films and a £616.9 million ($942 million) spend in the same six-month period last year.
But with an end to the "Harry Potter" franchise in sight and no sign of the next James Bond installment on the horizon, British Film Commission Colin Brown's efforts to woo the studios to these shores to shoot will continue apace.
U.K. Film Council chief executive John Woodward said he is sure efforts to bring big Hollywood productions here continue to pay off and help bolster the creative economy here.
Woodward hinted that the levels of U.S. studio activity on British shores is likely to ramp up in the remaining summer months as a favorable dollar exchange rate continues and British producers finally come to terms with taking advantage of the U.K. tax relief system that has taken a couple of years to bed in.
And the Council was also quick to point out that 2009 hit levels not seen since 2004 so this year's slight first half downturn should be looked at in terms of last year being a bumper year rather than the norm.
The figures came as part of the U.K. Film Council's publication of its annual statistical yearbook online.
The hefty undertaking, jam-packed with facts and figures on the film industry is now only available in digital form as the Council phases out the days of the hefty paper tome and embraces the modern age with an all-singing all-dancing digital Internet micro site complete with charts, figures and comment.
The Council is holding its breath now until the coalition Government's budget measures in October hoping that the tax credit system remains in place and is not cut as part of deficit reduction measures being introduced across the board.
"It's been proven that the tax credit system works and is abuse-proof, so we are hopeful it will be maintained," Woodward said.
UK Film Board Statistical Yearbook:     http://sy10.ukfilmcouncil.ry.com/

Will Inception Strike VFX Oscar Gold?

(flicksided.com)               Even if Inception follows in the footsteps of Nolan’s last film, The Dark Knight, which was shut out of most major categories, it’s sure to get some recognition for its technical achievements (many forget: TDK did earn a total of eight nominations two years ago, with seven being in technical categories).
With that in mind, we must recognize the film’s absolutely breathtaking visuals. The worlds created during the various dream-sequences will surely catch the Academy’s attention and net nominations for both Visual Effects and Art Direction. The only way Inception will miss out on either of these two categories is if the movie is shut out completely. Also, the visuals are captured through the lens of Nolan’s incredible DP, Wally Pfister; a Best Cinematography nod is very likely as well (he was nominated for his work in Nolan’s last three films, don’t expect that trend to end here).

Trek In January, Doug Trumble's Jumpstart, & CG Market Grows...

Jul 20, 2010
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Star Trek Sequel Starts Filming in January

(Hollywood.com)

Bruce Greenwood, who played Christopher Pike in J.J. Abrams' Star Trek, revealed to Hollywood.com that filming on the sequel will start in January."I just know that the plan is to film it in January, more than that, I don't know," Greenwood said, adding that he hoped to have a role in the movie.John Cho, Simon Pegg, Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldana, Karl Urban and Anton Yelchin are expected to return in the June 29, 2012 release. Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman again wrote the script.UPDATE: TrekMovie.com tells us they talked to producer Bryan Burk earlier this month who said that filming would actually start late spring or early summer instead.
Michael Bay's The Institute to Produce Hansel and Gretel in 3D

(ComingSoon.net)                    Michael Bay's The Institue will produce Hansel and Gretel in 3D, an action-packed visual FX-filled version of the classic Grimm Brothers fairytale.
In addition to the infamous witch in the gingerbread house, the film showcases the legendary creatures of German mythology. These Teutonic beings will be designed by Joseph C. Pepe, the lead character designer from Avatar. The film is live action.
The movie is being produced by The Institute and Kalliope Films. The Institute was co-founded by Michael Bay and Scott Gardenhour. Kalliope Films was founded by Kira Madallo Sesay. Scott Gardenhour and Kira Madallo Sesay are the producers on the film.
The movie is scheduled for a spring 2011 shoot on location in Germany.

Get a Glimpse of The Goon in Full CG Motion

(joblo.com)                  It's been a long couple of years now since we first heard that Eric Powell's great monster/mobster comic THE GOON was becoming a feature film, courtesy of producer David Fincher (FIGHT CLUB, etc.) and FX company Blur Studios. So it's nice to see the project is still slowly coming to computer-rendered life.
MTV got a quick peek at some of the footage from the movie, which features Paul Giamatti voicing Goon's sidekick Frankie. More footage will be unveiled at the Friday panel at Comic Con -- where Giamatti and Fincher will be in attendance with Powell -- after which the full clip(s) will be online for those would can't make it to San Diego.
For now, groove to the undead slapstick and mayhem:       http://www.joblo.com/index.php?id=33063
How Inception’s Astonishing Visuals Came to Life

(wired.com)                  Paul Franklin specializes in turning the imaginary into reality. As the visual effects supervisor for Batman Begins, The Dark Knight and now Inception, Franklin is well-versed in helping directors like Christopher Nolan populate their cinematic worlds with larger-than-life computer-generated images.
However, in spite of Inception’s lush, physics-bending effects, Franklin’s work on Nolan’s cerebral sci-fi film was surprisingly measured.
“Some of the more spectacular imagery of the film — the street folding over in Paris, characters creating architecture out of thin air — are VFX shots that we created from a combination of live action and copious amounts of digital animation,” Franklin told Wired.com in a phone interview.
Wired.com spoke with Franklin about his experiences planning, crafting and polishing Inception’s dreamy visuals to work with Nolan’s fastidious brand of filmmaking.
Wired.com: At what point in the production did the VFX work start for you?
Franklin: I was brought in right at the beginning. Christopher [Nolan] called me up and asked if I wanted to read the film. Of course, I had trek out to L.A. and read it under close guard — they put me in a room on the Warner Bros. lot, locked the door behind me, and had someone posted outside over the two-hour time limit I was allotted to read the script.
From there, Chris and I had ongoing back-and-forth conversations about the scope and the VFX shots needed as we started the search for shooting locations.
Wired.com: With all this amazing imagery in Inception, did you spend a lot of time waiting for things to render?
Franklin: Actually, the visual effects shot count on Inception was about par with what we had on Batman Begins. We came in at about 500 shots, whereas Batman was about 620. That’s actually fairly minor when compared to some of today’s visual effects epics, which can have something like 1,500 or 2,000 VFX shots. Our goal was to build on the existing reality that’d already been filmed.
Full Press:    http://www.wired.com/underwire/2010/07/inception-visual-effects/
VFX Pioneer Douglas Trumbull Plans Sci-fi Film to Jumpstart Western Mass. Cluster

(Journal of New England Technology)                   While taking a breather from Hollywood, visual effects pioneer Douglas Trumbull re-located to the Berkshires in 1987 — ultimately begetting a cluster of visual effects companies in the area.  The cluster has seen several core companies depart since the mid-1990s. Now, Trumbull, who remains in the Berkshires, hopes to inspire a new wave of visual effects firms to migrate to the area. His plan to accomplish this? Produce a sci-fi film entirely in Western Massachusetts.
“I’m hearing from a lot of friends that are eager to come back and get going again,” said Trumbull, whose visual effects credits include “2001: A Space Odyssey” and “Close Encounters of the Third Kind.”
“I would expect there could be some real growth over the next couple of years,” Trumbull said.  Along with Trumbull’s operation in Southfield, several top-tier visual effects companies still work in the Berkshires, including Sandbox F/X in Pittsfield (“Lord of the Rings,” “Chronicles of Narnia”) and Synthespian Studios in Williamstown (“X-Men,” “Fantastic Four”).
The Berkshires have long boasted a culture of creativity and arts, and visual effects professionals say they’ve found the area to be an ideal location for their work. High quality of life and proximity to cultural attractions and to nature are among the major advantages. “A lot of these big visual effects entities are in large cities with all kinds of traffic issues and big, urban environments.
That’s not the case here,” said John Nugent, who founded Sandbox F/X and whose credits include the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy.   “You can go hike on a mountain anytime and think about how to solve a technical problem,” said Diane Pearlman, executive director of the Berkshire Film and Media Commission.   Technological advances also now make the distance from Hollywood or New York less of an issue for visual-effects companies, Trumbull said. “It’s becoming more credible to be here,” he said.
Trumbull said he had needed to get away from Hollywood after directing his second film, “Brainstorm,” whose star, Natalie Wood, drowned during a break in the production. The resulting tensions drove Trumbull to look at re-locating to New England. Trumbull settled on the Berkshires, and opened a studio in Lenox for non-film visual effects projects, including Universal Studios’ Back to the Future ride and visual effects attractions for the Luxor Hotel in Las Vegas.
Many of those who came to the Berkshires to work on the projects would stay. Pearlman and visual effects supervisor Joel Hynek, who worked on the Luxor project, started a new effects company for Cinergi Pictures Entertainment and took over Trumbull’s studio to house it.  The company, Mass.Illusion, would become the largest visual effects company in the Berkshires in the 1990s, with as many as 200 people working there at times, said Pearlman, who served as general manager.
The location helped to foster innovation in effects, she said, in part “because you didn’t have other people looking over your shoulder like you would in Hollywood or New York.”  The film “What Dreams May Come” — which earned Hynek an Oscar — and the breakthrough visual effects for “The Matrix” were among the credits for Mass.Illusion.  The firm was sold by Cinergi and moved to California in the middle of the making of “The Matrix” in 1998. But some of the movie’s most famous effects were invented in the Berkshires, Pearlman said.
“The ‘bullet-time effect’ was actually developed behind a quonset hut here in Lenox,” she said.  Nugent had worked for Mass.Illusion and went with the company when it moved, but said he yearned to come back to Western Massachusetts. After working on the first two “Lord of the Rings” films in New Zealand, he decided he wanted to raise his children in one place.
Nugent says he struck a deal with director Peter Jackson to do work on the third film from a studio in Pittsfield, leading to the creation of Sandbox F/X.  The Sandbox team ranges from three people up to 13, depending on the project, he said. “Not very many people know we’re here,” Nugent said.   Trumbull, meanwhile, has been developing new visual effects techniques that he plans to use in his new film — including techniques for shortening the production schedule and reducing the size of the crew.
Trumbull didn’t elaborate on the nature of the film, other than to say it would be a “sci-fi space epic.” Trumbull said he’s written several drafts of the screenplay and may end up directing the film as well.  With luck, the project will inspire new interest in the visual effects cluster in the Berkshires, and perhaps lead a broader film and media industry to take shape in the area, Trumbull said. “People find it so stunningly better than living in New York or LA,” he said. “Once you get someone to come and work, they tend to bring their wives and kids. And they all fall in love with the community and don’t want to leave.”
Tim Burton Confirmed For "Monsterpocalypse"

(darkhorizons.com)                Film producer Roy Lee has confirmed that Tim Burton is set to direct the board game to film adaptation "Monsterpocalypse" for Dreamworks Pictures reports Slashfilm.
I can confirm that Tim Burton is developing it to direct. He's working closely with John August on story" Lee told the site. Lee also confirmed they plan to shoot the movie in full 3D and are fast tracking the project for a 2012 release.
The story involves giant skyscraper sized monsters who attack earth. When the humans fight back, the monsters burrow underground to wait for their kind whom they have sent a signal to.
Humanity knows more are coming, and so build giant robots that will fight the monsters if and when they return.
Game creator Matt Wilson will serve as co-producer on the film.

Sam Raimi To Wander The Post-apocalyptic Wasteland

(cinematical.com)                   He may not be swinging with Spider-Man any longer, but Sam Raimi is hardly lacking for work. He's hardly snubbing the geek genre world either, as Variety announced that he's signed on to direct Earp: Saints for Sinners for DreamWorks and Radical Studios.
Saints for Sinners is based on the upcoming graphic novel Earp: Saints for Sinners that's being published by Radical Comics. More details of the graphic novel are going to be unveiled this week at ComicCon, but Variety describes it as a sci-fi western. And yes, it does star Wyatt Earp, or at least a modern day incarnation of him. This Earp battles outlaws in a post-apocalyptic wasteland where the only bit of civilization left is in Las Vegas. It sounds like it could be The Stand meets Tombstone, crossed with Raimi's The Quick and the Dead and beloved Evil Dead series.

Small Anim Crew = High Profits For Universal

(latimes.com)                    With "Despicable Me's" better-than-expected results standing out in a crowded animation field, Universal Co-Chairman Donna Langley said, "We saw there was room for another player."
That player is Meledandri's own animation company, Illumination Entertainment, whose movies Universal finances and distributes. The studio recently extended Meledandri's exclusive, multiyear contract, which entitles the producer to a percentage of his movies' profits.
Given that Illumination's first time at bat with "Despicable Me" was a home run, Fogelson and Langley acknowledge that it validates the decision made three years ago by their predecessors, Marc Shmuger and David Linde, to draft Meledandri as the studio's go-to family guy.
Meledandri's business plan, however, differs from other studios'. He keeps overhead low by employing only 35 people at an office on an industrial block in Santa Monica. By contrast, DreamWorks and Pixar employ staffs of more than 2,000 and 1,200, respectively, who work at lavish, sprawling campuses.
"We believe that small is more efficient," said Meledandri, who contracted with an animation house in Paris to produce "Despicable Me" and other projects. Hands-on, Meledandri embedded his producing associates and key executives to manage the productions — and pays the salaries of some 200 people working on his movies — to maintain control.
With a production budget of $69 million, "Despicable Me" cost less than half of other major digitally animated films, in part because Illumination saves money by working with first-time directors and teaming experienced artists with younger, less costly talent.
Meledandri has taken much of what he learned at Fox — including the binding rule to get "a unified, clear view of what the story is" before starting production — and applied it at Universal. He learned that the hard way when the budget of Fox's animated film "Titan A.E." ballooned during production — and whose box office failure in 2000 nearly cost him his job after the studio "wrote down $100 million of Rupert Murdoch's money," Meledandri said.
Full Press:    http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-ct-universal-20100720,0,877209.story
Green Lantern CG Suit Revealed!

(scifiblock.com)             ... And there it is, on the cover of Entertainment Weekly, the first look at the CG Green Lantern suit Ryan Reynolds will "wear" as Hal Jordan in the upcoming Green Lantern film. I think it's safe to say this is not what anyone expected. As opposed to the traditional superhero spandex, this suit looks more like ... someone ripped off a Green Lantern's skin and found green muscle underneath.
I'm not sure why the designers opted to totally shun the traditional GL costume, but I'm not sure it's all that bad, really. In a certain way, I actually kinda dig it. I think we'll need to see the pants before we can really come to a final verdict here, but it's at least not ridiculous, even if it is perhaps overly sinewy.
Take a look:    http://scifiblock.com/sites/all/files/cg-costume.png

“ECLIPSE” FX: Wolfing Out

(fangoria.com)                 By now, you no doubt have an opinion of THE TWILIGHT SAGA, the inescapable movie adaptations of Stephenie Meyer’s novels. The latest entry, ECLIPSE, has been declared the best in the series, likely due to the more straightforward conflict and clearer stakes of its plot. While ECLIPSE is unlikely to convert non-fans, the FX are inarguably better than in the previous entries, especially the computer-generated wolves created by Tippett Studio.
When introduced in NEW MOON, these canines stayed on the leash outside of a few scuffles and bared fangs. ECLIPSE features a wilder wolf pack whose increased feral tendencies emphasize the differences between Bella’s suitors—and did we mention that the movie climaxes with snarling werewolves savagely attacking bloodthirsty newborn vampires?
The company responsible for the CG lycanthropes is Tippett Studio, founded by FX pioneer Phil Tippett, famous for stop-motion classics like the AT-AT walkers in THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK and the lumbering ED-209 in ROBOCOP. In the CGI age, Tippett Studio has created everything from the giant bugs in Paul Verhoeven’s STARSHIP TROOPERS to the talking pets in this summer’s CATS AND DOGS: THE REVENGE OF KITTY GALORE. For ECLIPSE, Eric Leven served as the company’s visual FX supervisor, bringing the wolves to ferocious life.
Unlike some cinematic wolfmen, TWILIGHT’s pack are quadrupeds very similar to real wolves, albeit enormous by comparison. After arriving late to NEW MOON’s FX, Leven observed director Chris Weitz putting an emphasis on anthropomorphizing the otherwise physically accurate animals. “Chris wanted the audience to understand everything the wolves were feeling,” Leven notes.
Before NEW MOON, the Tippett Studio team logged time at a nature preserve in Los Angeles, observing real, fully grown wolves first-hand. That homework proved handy when ECLIPSE director David Slade requested a more menacing brood. “The work on NEW MOON dovetailed into ECLIPSE, and David came in and made it clear we were going to get away from humanizing the wolves,” Leven recalls. “We were going to make them animals again.” Such choices were informed by ECLIPSE’s story (scripted by Melissa Rosenberg), in which the tension between lycanthropes and vampires is more overt and expanded from NEW MOON. “In the second movie, they were played more like sentries,” Leven notes. “In this one, they’re wilder. You don’t know whether they’re going to jump on you or not.” Despite that, the creatures of ECLIPSE are capable of acting nuances; witness the moment in which the alpha wolf watches the Cullen vampire clan sparring with each other. While the wolf attempts to keep his threatening posture, his body language will be familiar to anybody who has ordered their dog to sit out on a fun activity.
The freedom to add character touches like this led to Leven’s personal favorite effect in ECLIPSE, when Bella (Kristen Stewart) runs her hand over Jacob-wolf in full view of Edward (Robert Pattinson). It’s a challenging effect, requiring Stewart to physically interact with the CG animal, as well as an emotionally loaded story moment, as Edward observes the connection between Bella and Jacob for himself. The end result is as striking a visual as the series has to offer, with uncanny texture on the digital fur. “That was another mandate from the director,” Leven says. “He saw the first pass and said, ‘I need more fur!’ Fur is notoriously difficult in CGI. We added to the total number of hairs, and it turned out that wasn’t the issue. It was really the style of the fur, the sheen of the fur, what happened when the light hit it.
“Sometimes it’s difficult for a director to communicate what they want,” Leven points out, “because they’re not speaking in the kinds of technical terms we use. The effects team has to establish a language with every new filmmaker. It can be pretty rough at first.”
Full Press:    http://www.fangoria.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1401:eclipse-fx-wolfing-out&catid=36:demo-articles&Itemid=56

CG market Will Exceed $150 Billion in 2013

TIBURON, Calif., July 20 /PRNewswire/ -- The computer graphics industry has been a growth industry since it was established in the late 1970s. Weathering the storms of the recession of 2009, the CG industry is back on track and showing new, invigorated vitality and potential.
The computer graphics hardware market was worth $59 billion in 2009 and should exceed $63 billion in 2010.
In 2009 the CG software market was worth $11 billion (not counting services, maintenance and other aspects) and should grow to $11.6 billion in 2010 as the industry shakes off the remaining effects of the recession and starts replacing software tools.
Figure 1: Computer Graphics Hardware Market: http://www.ereleases.com/pic/2010-Hardware-Market-Chart.jpg
As a result of the pullback due to the recession, more people will be buying computer graphics software programs and we will see the development of traditional segments like CAD/CAM expand as new design approaches in automotive, aerospace, and architecture are brought forth. Visualization, a market that has been almost dormant for the past few years, is poised now for great expansion due to exciting and lower-cost technologies.
Figure 2: Computer Graphics Software Market: http://www.ereleases.com/pic/2010-Software-Market-Chart.jpg
Today, software programs for making movies and computer games, designing products, and creating simulations are exploiting the features of today's CG hardware. Jon Peddie Research (JPR) is seeing the results in amazing realism and real-time capabilities for the next generation of films and designs, and the trend is accelerating.
The demand for programmers, artists, scientists, and designers has picked up again and firms are actively looking for people who can use and exploit these new programs and their associated hardware accelerators. The economic recession has caused a slowdown, but it's going to look like a small bump in the road by 2013.
JPR is seeing new opportunities growing out of more mainstream applications for the web and consumer applications. The web is growing as a distribution medium for graphics content, which in turn encourages people to pick up the tools, learn them, create content for pleasure, and even look for jobs in the field. What used to be a very closed society of experts is opening up.
Bay Thanks Chicago For Transformer Shoot

(contactmusic.com)                TRANSFORMERS director MICHAEL BAY has thanked officials in Chicago, Illinois for allowing his crew to take over swathes of the city last weekend (10-11Jul10) to film a massive action shoot for the upcoming sequel.
Production on the third robot movie transferred from California to Chicago for a series of daredevil stunts and local authorities gave Bay and his crew permission to fly helicopters low over the city as skydivers parachuted from the top of Trump Tower into the streets below. Many roads had to be closed off, while extra police officers were deployed to maintain order.
The shoot, which saw hordes of actors in camouflage gear charging around town in epic battle scenes, caused traffic chaos in many areas, and Bay has thanked local residents for their understanding, as well as officials for giving them the go-ahead to bring Transformers to Chicago.
The director tells the Chicago Sun-Times, "The city's been unbelievably amazing - from Mayor Daley all the way down to each and every police officer helping us out. We don't want to inconvenience people too much, so we've been working hard to play ball with the fire department and the police."

Steven Spielberg - Spielberg Had 'Guest Shot' In Beowulf

(contactmusic.com)               STEVEN SPIELBERG embraced modern "motion capture" technology for movies after he tried it out for fun in pal ROBERT ZEMECKIS' film BEOWULF - and his "guest shot" made it to the final cut.
The Jaws director admits he felt "depressed" when he saw Zemeckis' 2004 movie The Polar Express, because he was convinced the latest technology was leaving him behind.
He later paid a visit to his fellow director while he was editing Beowulf, and Zemeckis urged Spielberg to experiment with the new techniques.
So the Oscar-winning film-maker played around with the motion capture equipment - and his work was so good, Zemeckis left it in the final cut of the movie.
Spielberg tells Empire magazine, "When I first went on the stage to watch Polar Express, I was terrified. I thought, 'Oh my God, I'm an old man and life is passing me by. Bob's (Zemeckis) got this whole new way of making movies. I'll never be able to fathom it. I'm not going to be able to get into it.' I only stayed about half an hour and I went home very depressed.
"I got inspired to maybe want to dabble in this medium when I went back to Bob's cutting room and Bob gave me this old, plastic, chunky Panasonic camera and he said, 'Come on Steve, make a shot! Make a shot!' And he had this whole world on the screen and I moved around and the world changed. It was like a video-game. I saw Beowulf on a dragon so I brought the camera up and started on his face. Bob hit 'Play'... And suddenly I was liberated.
"I took my kids to the IMAX theatre on Broadway in New York to see Beowulf the day it opened and I went like this to (my son) Theo, 'That's my shot!'"
-H

Flash Gordon Reboots, VFX Flashback Video, & Short History of SPFX Films...

Jul 19, 2010
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Flash Gordon Reboot To Launch Franchise

(comingsoon.net)

Airlock Alpha got a chance to talk to The Crazies director Breck Eisner about bringing Flash Gordon to the big screen. Flash Gordon originally appeared as a sci-fi newspaper comic strip created and drawn by Alex Raymond in the 1930s. The strip was first adapted to the screen via Buster Crabbe serials and made into a lavish 1980 film starring Sam Jones but remembered more for its Queen score."Our version goes back to strips from '30s and we will update those and shoot the movie as if the strips were drawn today. It will be an action and adventure sci-fi," Eisner told the site.The helmer added that they are eyeing the property as a franchise. "It will be a standalone story, it definitely won't [be] left open for more, but the ultimate goal is to turn it into a franchise. It will be an origins story for Flash. He's going to Mongo, he's gonna save the planet and it will have a superhero buy in and will be unique. It is very much a superhero origins story."
Box Office Dreams Do Come True for Inception

(BoxOffice)                   After having enormous success with his Batman sequel The Dark Knight in 2008, filmmaker Christopher Nolan took a bit of a chance with his sci-fi action thriller Inception (Warner Bros.) starring Leonardo DiCaprio with support from Ellen Page, Marion Cotillard, Ken Watanabe, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Tom Hardy and Michael Caine. His first movie based on an original idea since Memento with a premise involving dream thieves which mixed high-paced action with cerebral ideas, there were numerous questions last week whether Nolan's critically-praised film could do well among mainstream audiences, since some thought of it as difficult material. In fact, the originality of the ideas and the overwhelming desire for originality added to the advance buzz to help Inception do better than some expected. After opening on Friday with $21.7 million, Inception held well over the weekend to bring in an estimated $60.4 million in its first weekend, which is in the general range of M. Night Shyamalan's Signs and Warner Bros.' earlier 2010 hit Clash of the Titans.
We can probably expect it to continue to do well due to word-of-mouth and repeat viewings to surpass the $200 million mark by sometime in mid-August.
Nicolas Cage Loves Acting With Green Screen

(foreign.peacefmonline.com)                Nicolas Cage has no problems working with the latest special effects technology because acting is all about "imagination".
The star filmed several scenes in his new adventure movie "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" in front of a green screen, with many of the project's special effects added in post-production.
And while many actors bemoan the fact they have nothing realistic to work with while shooting the scenes - Cage insists he enjoys the work after the challenges he faced playing twin brothers in 2002's "Adaptation". He tells Screen Crave, "Acting is imagination.
It's acting, that's what it's all about. I actually enjoy working with green screen because I can imagine all that stuff happening." "I really cut my teeth on a movie I made called 'Adaptation' where I had to imagine four page dialog scenes with my twin brother who's nothing more than a tennis ball and a gas can.
So, I was really up for it." He goes on sharing, "I do understand sometimes when actors say, 'There's no one to talk to' or 'You can't react to'. There's truth in that but for me, I've always enjoyed green screen and blue screen."

Vampires + Bible = Will Smith

(Darkhorizons.com)               Will Smith has attached himself to star in and produce "The Legend Of Cain", a film adaptation of the classic Biblical story, for his Overbrook Entertainment reports Deadline.
Smith will play crop farmer Cain, no word on who'll be his younger shepherd brother Abel but the story is said to take a vampiric twist on the tale.
Caleeb Pinkett and Dan Knauf penned the script which Andrea Berloff revised. Jada Pinkett Smith, James Lassiter and Ken Stovitz also produce.
MGM Receives Sixth Debt Extension

(awn.com)                   MGM has received a two-month extension on its debt payment, reports VARIETY. The company's 140 creditors approved the sixth extension on Wednesday, the day their fifth extension was set to expire.
The creditors decided to give the extension after meeting with Lionsgate execs on their plans to acquire the company. Insiders say that Lionsgate wants to keep the MGM name with company heads Jon Feltheimer and Michael Burns running both studios. The lenders would still need to approve of a debt-for-equity deal.
Lionsgate would gain a 7,000-title library, the rights to James Bond and half of THE HOBBIT, and a distribution division.
MGM currently hold $3.7 billion in debt.
MGM has other interested buyers such as Spyglass, Summit and Time Warner, which made $1.5 billion bid in March.
Profiles in History Brings Stan Winston Memorabilia & Top FX Artists to the Con

(monstersandcritics.com)                     The Mark I, Mark II and Mark III armor suits—Iron Man armor from Iron Man and Iron Man 2, worn by Robert Downey, Jr. as Tony Stark, and the 14 foot Iron Monger armor suit worn by Jeff Bridges as Obadiah Stane in Iron Man and the 14 foot AMP (Amplified Mobility Platform) Suit worn by Stephen Lang in Avatar will be on display in Booth #1605 as Profiles in History, the world’s largest auctioneer of Hollywood memorabilia and Stan Winston Studio pays tribute to the late visual effects legend Stan Winston at San Diego Comic-Con.
Fans will be free to take pictures with these enormous iconic creations, meet Matt Winston, actor and son of Stan Winston and be treated to a special multimedia display.
“We are thrilled about hosting this tribute to the genius of Stan Winston, allowing the fans a once in a lifetime opportunity to see some of his awe-inspiring creations up close. This celebration of Stan’s visionary spirit will continue through the creation of the Stan Winston School of Character Arts, which, in conjunction with the Gnomon School of Visual Effects, will provide specialized training on techniques learned by the legendary creature effects pioneer,” said Joe Maddalena, President of Profiles in History.
Profiles in History will host this tribute in Booth #1605 during regular Comic-Con hours as follows:
Wednesday, July 21: 6:00PM - 9:00PM (Preview Night)
Thursday, July 22 through Saturday, July 24: 9:30AM - 7:00PM
Sunday, July 25: 9:30AM - 5:00PM

VFX Flashback: Peter Jackson's Childhood Harryhausen Remakes

(cinematical.com)               On June 26, The British Academy of Film and Television Arts, otherwise known as BAFTA, held a special tribute to celebrate special effects legend Ray Harryhausen's 90th birthday. John Landis introduced the tributes, which boasted a selection of leading names including Ray Bradbury, Tim Burton, and one Peter Jackson.
Jackson's tribute was more than mere words -- even as a young child, he was creating cinematic fantasy worlds, including his own take on the Cyclops scene from The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad, which was one of a few clips he showed to the lucky folks at the tribute. As he recounted: "I was growing up wanting to do stop motion so badly, but at the end of the day, I wasn't very good at it, so directing was a far easier thing to do." The clips might not be Hollywood-caliber, but they're still darned good for a kid, and wildly funny to see Jackson fighting invisible skeletons and running around in a world that had not yet seen The Lord of the Rings.
Deadline shared an angled fan video, but if you zip right over to the BAFTA website, you can see Jackson's tribute straight-on, as well as the rest of the Harryhausen fans who came together to celebrate his work.

'Inception' Paris Cafe VFX: Cinematographer Reveals All

(mtv.com)                 What's your favorite mind-bending "Inception" moment? Joseph Gordon-Levitt's zero-gravity fight scene, which has him twisting and punching while the world spins about him in every direction? The white van that falls achingly slow as Leonardo DiCaprio and his fellow dream bandits hang in near-suspended animation? The Paris café scene where Leo and Ellen Page stroll the streets as the city folds in on them?
Can we just choose them all? Yes, yes we can. But what makes the Paris sequence different from the other two is that it was created by employing a serious combination of visual and practical effects, whereas the hallway and van scenes are largely free of heady CG work. So how did director Christopher Nolan and his team craft the Paris scene? Cinematographer Wally Pfister, a longtime Nolan collaborator on films like "Memento" and "The Dark Knight," walked MTV News through the process.
"That particular material is where we really dive into the surreal and things go a little wacko," Pfister explained. "In this case, Chris really wanted to ramp up the visual effects and do something that would have people sit back and go, 'Wow, what the f--- is going on?' "
Mission accomplished. DiCaprio and Page sit at a café, which is actually a figment of Page's dream. As they talk, huge, fireless explosions pop all around them in slow motion. Then, as the pair begins to walk, Page starts to experiment with the elastic physical world of her dream. She raises up entire streets — buildings, people, cars and all — until everything folds up into a fantastical cube of Parisian life. It is nothing short of staggering.
To generate those explosions, the film's special-effects supervisor, Chris Corbould, rigged up a series of air cannons that launched debris into the air. To achieve the right slow-motion effect, Pfister made use of a specialized camera.
"We shot it with super-high-speed Photo-Sonics cameras to get that material floating in the air," Pfister said of equipment that can capture 1,500 frames a second, in contrast to regular film's 24 frames a second. The extra frames allowed the filmmakers to slow the frame rate to a virtual crawl.
Then in came Paul Franklin, the film's visual-effects supervisor, who employed computer graphics to extend the debris and create more of a floating effect. Franklin and his team also hit the city streets with still cameras to record what would become the basis for the folding effects' photo-realistic feel. The folding streets were built entirely through CGI, a process so complex that the effort was begun a full eight months before the movie's release.
"The whole thing had a very naturalistic style to the photography, to the lighting, to the camera movement, so that it would feel very real and very grounded," Pfister said. "And on top of all that, we pulled off a very intricate bit of effects trickery."
DreamWorks Animation Watches Its Back

(nytimes.com)                LOS ANGELES — In April, Jeffrey Katzenberg, the chief executive of DreamWorks Animation, voiced public fury at Warner Brothers for having abruptly converted its “Clash of the Titans” into 3-D and releasing it a week after his company’s 3-D film, “How to Train Your Dragon.”
Mr. Katzenberg may have had more on his mind than just the perception of 3-D among moviegoers. As the chief of an independent film studio, he surely had an eye on his own company’s stock price, which peaked on March 25, the day before an unexpectedly soft opening for “Dragon” — then dropped sharply. And about $18 million of his own compensation was tied to the stock’s performance.
Such is the thrill ride of corporate independence in Hollywood.
Mr. Katzenberg achieved his payout, though he must stay with the company for three years to collect. But he faces an array of other challenges as he runs a solo operation.
Unlike bigger studios, which hedge bets by releasing a dozen or more films a year, one DreamWorks Animation flop could send the company’s stock into a tailspin. The company’s most successful franchise, Shrek, is finally fading into the sunset, at least at the multiplex. At the same time, rivals are racing to move deeper into animation.
All of those issues point to the bigger question of whether DreamWorks Animation can and should stay independent. So does the question of Mr. Katzenberg’s greater ambitions, a topic of near-constant chatter in Hollywood.
“Jeffrey Katzenberg is the rare instance of someone who actually should be running a bigger company,” said Roger Smith, a former film executive and the New York editor for Global Media Intelligence.
That’s not the way Mr. Katzenberg sees it. “I can see why we would be valuable to other people,” he said. “The challenge for me is to see why we need them. I’m not convinced at all that we need to be part of a larger company to be successful.”
Currently, most stand-alone movie outfits are openly for sale (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer), looking for new money (Creative Artists Agency) or angling for an alliance (Lions Gate Entertainment). But Mr. Katzenberg insists that his company, with no debt and a powerful track record, has all it needs to thrive.
In recent months, several of Hollywood’s movers and shakers have privately described Comcast’s flirtations with making a run at DreamWorks Animation. Comcast is awaiting regulatory approval of its plan to take control of NBC Universal and could conceivably bolster Universal’s film operation by combining it with an animation powerhouse.
Asked about the talk, a Comcast spokeswoman, Jennifer Khoury, strongly denied that any such deal had been considered.
“We’re completely focused on closing the NBC Universal transaction,” Ms. Khoury said by e-mail last month. “This speculation is a baseless rumor. We have not engaged in any discussions with DreamWorks Animation about a possible combination.”
Mr. Katzenberg declined to comment on that possibility; a spokeswoman for DreamWorks Animation said the company did not respond to “rumor and speculation.”
To snag Mr. Katzenberg’s studio — together with one of the other founders, David Geffen, he controls about 70 percent of the voting power — any suitor would need to pay a hefty price. Mr. Katzenberg has said in the past that he believes DreamWorks Animation is worth as much as its rival, Pixar Animation Studios, or more. Disney paid $7.4 billion for Pixar in 2006.
Unlike Pixar, DreamWorks Animation has suffered disappointments like “Flushed Away,” but its films in aggregate have outperformed those of Pixar at the global box office. DreamWorks Animation also has a growing TV cartoon business and has expanded into virtual worlds for children on the Web.
Speaking by telephone from Munich, where he was meeting with European distributors, Mr. Katzenberg did seek to quash the widely held belief in Hollywood that he is tired of being a minnow among whales.
“I’ve been there, and I’ve done that,” he said, referring to his days as studio chairman at the Walt Disney Company. “I don’t envy the very difficult decisions live-action studios are going to have to make in the very near term to make those businesses successful again.”
“I literally believe I have the best job in Hollywood,” he added.
Still, with only two or three releases a year, DreamWorks Animation is under severe pressure for every picture to be a smash hit.
And even hits can cause turbulence. “How to Train Your Dragon” won some of the best reviews in the company’s history and opened at No. 1 at the North American box office with a solid $43.7 million in ticket sales. But Wall Street had been expecting an opening nearer to $60 million, and shares dropped 11 percent over the next week. In the end, “How to Train Your Dragon” sold a huge $479 million at the global box office; the company is already working on a sequel.
Paramount Pictures distributes the DreamWorks Animation films under an agreement that expires in late 2012. There has been no indication that DreamWorks Animation is pointed toward an early break with Paramount, as its contract allows.
But the animation genre is becoming more competitive. Paramount has been getting aggressive with its own animation and will be rolling out “Rango,” about a swashbuckling chameleon, next March. At Universal, “Despicable Me,” the first offering from the studio’s Illumination Entertainment animation venture, arrived on July 9 and became an immediate hit. And Pixar, which has long delivered a single picture annually, is moving to two a year.
Of course, DreamWorks Animation has dealt with challengers before. Upstarts have repeatedly found that matching the consistency of DreamWorks Animation is extremely difficult. Moreover, Mr. Katzenberg and his crew have a lot of promising content on the way. A “Kung Fu Panda” sequel is planned for next year, and a third “Madagascar” movie arrives in 2012.
DreamWorks Animation is gearing up for the fall release of “Megamind,” a satirical take on superhero movies. To promote “Megamind,” which the company hopes will begin a franchise, DreamWorks Animation on Thursday will make its first major appearance at Comic-Con, the annual pop culture convention in San Diego.
Mr. Katzenberg clearly has been anything but bored by his own professional roller-coaster ride. Some of the peaks, moreover, are about to get steeper.
To qualify for his next big stock payout, for instance — he takes only $1 a year in conventional salary — Mr. Katzenberg will have to get his stock to average $36.53 for a year, about 13 percent higher than his mark for the last compensation package. And the questions about grander ambitions persist, despite Mr. Katzenberg’s assurances.
“Jeffrey is not someone who is looking for more free time, or planning his retirement in Malibu,” said Nicole LaPorte, the author of “The Men Who Would Be King,” about Mr. Katzenberg, Mr. Geffen and their original DreamWorks partner, Steven Spielberg. “I have to imagine he’s hungering for more.”
WETA’s Wind in the Willows: First Concept Images and Promo Teaser Trailer

(slashfilm.com)                     Back in June, it was announced that Peter Jackson’s WETA (Lord of the Rings, District 9) was developing a live-action and animatronics adaptation of Kenneth Grahame’s classic book The Wind in the Willows. The story follows four anthropomorphized characters in a classic pastoral English countryside, an yes, it has been adapted to the screen many times before. But this time around they are using WETA to provide a suite of animatronic effects to bring the animal characters to life.
WETA’s Richard Taylor is overseeing the effects. Taylor should be familiar to many as the man behind a lot of the effects in The Lord of the Rings, as well as many other films. Directed by Ray Griggs and written by Bill Marsili (Lightspeed), the $30m production is scheduled to shoot this fall. But there is already some concept art and a promo teaser trailer online.
Take a look:     http://www.slashfilm.com/2010/07/15/wetas-wind-in-the-willows-first-concept-images-and-promo-teaser-trailer/

A Short History of Special Effects-Based Films

(thecelebritycafe.com)                 Entertainment Weekly put together a short history of special effects. Here are some top picks.
The list kicks off with Le Voyage Dans La Luna. The twelve minute silent film is considered the first movie to use visual effects
. Directed by Georges Melies, the film is about astronomers who land on the moon and find aliens.
Number five is a double whammy. King Kong circa 1933 and Mighty Joe Young circa 1944. Willis O’Brien brought these larger than life monkeys to life with stop motion effects. For Kong, there was no Academy award for special effects but by the time Mighty Joe Young came around, O’Brien won his Oscar. Both films were remade and King Kong even made the list.
Only three non-adventure movies made the list; The Ten Commandments, Forrest Gump, and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. The splitting of the Red Sea was first done by director Cecil B. DeMille using Jell-O but for her 1956 version of the story, she used every visual effect available in Hollywood. And Forrest Gump is considered the first movie to use visual effects to help further its dramatic story. Button won three Oscars in 2008 while Gump won six, including Best Picture and Commandments won Best Effects.
Michael Criton’s The Andromeda Strain and Jurassic Park both made the list. Strain used the first 3-D computerized image and Park made CGI images a must for any movie.
Two of the biggest sci-fi franchises also made the list; Star Wars and Star Trek II: The Wrath of Kahn. Both were considered major advances in creating space like images. Kahn had the first entirely computer generated scene in the movies.
Another major push into a new era of special effects was motion capture. Andy Serkis was used to model the motion of both Kong and Gollum in King Kong and Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, both directed by Peter Jackson. James Cameron took it to the next level in Avatar in which all the main character Na’vi (the blue people) were created using motion capture technology that could capture minute facial ticks. Because people are used in this type of special effect, there is debate on whether or not there should be an Oscar category for best motion capture actor.
And finally, the original Tron is actually not considered so technologically advanced. It didn’t use special effects as much as other movies, in fact it was colored by hand. But the movie is due for a makeover, out in December. Who knows what type of special effects it will use?
Take a look:    http://www.ew.com/ew/gallery/0,,20399642_20402313,00.html

The "Inception" of VFX, Robots Kill Mich Ave, & iPhone Anim Software...

Jul 16, 2010
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'Inception' Gets Special Effects Right

(democratandchronicle.com)

I'm not a big fan of the way computer-generated graphics dominate so much of our current cinema. I'm tired of seeing ancient marauding armies of 100,000 people at a time when there probably weren't that many people on the planet, or tidal waves so gigantic they can wipe out Manhattan. Just because filmmakers today can blow up the world doesn't mean they should, at least not on a regular basis.By the second half of the film, viewers are following characters at work on four different levels of consciousness. Except for the single level of reality, the other three levels lean heavily on dream-logic visualization, which is where the effects are used so brilliantly. They can shine up the special effects Oscar right now for this film. Perhaps they should also prepare a screenwriting nomination.
Dark Shadows Set to Shoot in January

(Deadline)                 Tim Burton's Dark Shadows is set to roll in January 2011, reports Deadline.The film has also received a new writer in the form of Seth Grahame-Smith (author of "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter"), who will rewrite the John August screenplay. Based on the cult soap opera from the 1960's, the film stars Johnny Depp as Barnabas Collins, a popular vampire character who took over the show's focus after he first appeared one year into the series' original five year run.

'Last Airbender 2' Will Be 'Darker,' M. Night Shyamalan Says

(mtv.com)                If a $53.3 million holiday weekend proves successful enough to keep M. Night Shyamalan around for a "Last Airbender" sequel, he knows what he wants to do — and he wants to do it darkly. Asked about his intentions going forward, the "Sixth Sense" and "Signs" director confirmed that he has much of "The Last Airbender 2" already mapped out.
"I do," Shyamalan told MTV News. "The third is more ambiguous, but the second one, I've written a draft that I'm really happy with and is darker and richer, and it has a wonderful antagonist in it in Azula, who's kind of like our only real, pure antagonist in the series, so I'm excited about that."
His description of the story implies that Summer Bishil's character from the film currently in theaters has plenty left to do onscreen as Aang (Noah Ringer) continues his fight against the Fire Nation.
As far as what the story will be about and which characters could enter or exit the cast, those decisions may have to wait for Paramount's decision on the franchise's fate. If things proceed, Shyamalan has already shared a few details that could play into his intentions. The elite female Kyoshi Warriors, for instance, will likely play a larger role.
"I probably won't show the Kyoshi Warriors because I want to save them for the second movie, because I'm going to have to introduce them all over again," he said while explaining what would and would not show up in the "Last Airbender" DVD and Blu-ray's deleted scenes.
The characters were initially included in the first film, but circumstances and editing decisions eventually moved them out of the spotlight.
"We shot [the scene] and [the Kyoshi Warriors] were amazing, and we spent an unbelievable amount of time choreographing them," he said. "And they just distracted from the movie, because the movie wasn't about them."
Given that he became much more comfortable with filming in 3-D during his first "Airbender," another round of 3-D filming with the same crew would make sense unless Hollywood's affection for the evolving medium changes overnight.
In the meantime, Shyamalan sounds like he's ready to go if and when an "Airbender" sequel gets the go-ahead.

Japan Opens its Doors to Young Animation Artists

(vietnamnews.vnagency.com.vn)                   Young animation artists from around the world have the opportunity to travel to Tokyo to create new films while working directly with Japan's animation culture.
Organised by the Japanese Agency for Cultural Affairs and the Japan Image Council, the project is an artist-in-residence progr-amme that aims to give three outstanding young animation artists the opportunity to gain a better understanding of Japanese culture.
Participants will engage in a variety of activities including visits to animation studios and seminars at visual arts schools.
From January to March, 2011, the selected participants will work on new projects with periodic assistance and instruction from experienced Japanese animators. They will present their finished work or piece-in-progress at the end of their stay.
Participants who do not finish their piece by the time they leave Tokyo must submit a DVD of their finished product by August 2011.
Artists between the age of 20-35 who are not Japanese may apply. They must have shown at least one animated work at an international film festival that included films from outside their own country.
They must also be conversant in English or Japanese.
Travel expenses and insurance, a living allowance, housing, and a material stipend will be provided.
Computers and cameras needed to create the works for the programme as a general rule will need to be brought by the participants.
Documents describing the work to be created should be included in the application. Applicants should submit detailed documents (storyboard and script) of their project idea.
Applications forms and all required elements should be submitted by September 10 to the Japan Image Council. The address and more details can be found at jpf.org.vn. — VNS

'Transformers 3' Shuts Down Mich. Ave.

(abclocal.go.com)                   Earlier this week, skydivers were seen parachuting over Millennium Park in preparation for the shoot.
Until Monday morning, the Magnificent Mile is closed from Randolph to Ontario. Movie crews have turned it into a battle scene. Crushed cars, concrete, metal, skydivers and explosions can all be seen along Michigan Avenue this weekend.
"I think it's awesome. I don't know how they will clean it all up, but it looks great," said Brad Meister.
On Thursday night, crowds gathered by the barricades on the Michigan Avenue Bridge to catch a glimpse of the stars of the movie.
This is just the latest location for the sci-fi action flick. Last weekend, several streets in the Loop were closed, and LaSalle Street was turned into a virtual war zone for the movie. Then crews headed north to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where shooting took place near the Milwaukee Art Museum.
City officials estimate that having "Transformers 3" shoot in Chicago will bring about $20 million into the local economy. The director of the Chicago Film Office says precautions have been taken at all the shoot locations around the city to prevent permanent damage.
"All the special effects, all the pyrotechnics, all of the stunts, in fact, were rehearsed and performed prior to them going on location for the benefit of the Chicago Fire Department and the Chicago Bureau of Fire Prevention, just to do tests to make sure whatever materials they were using, that there wouldn't be any permanent damage because of it," said Rich Moskal, Chicago Film Office director.
Crews will be shooting on the Michigan Avenue Bridge above the Chicago River, as well as performing aerial stunts near Trump Tower.
Lower Michigan Avenue will be closed between Hubbard and Wacker from 8 p.m. Friday to 5 a.m. Monday. Filming will also affect some downtown bus routes.
The Transformers movies are known for their special effects. The specifics are being kept under wraps, but fans in Milwaukee said they saw posters of automobiles and a classic car on site.
Among the many locations around Chicago, Transformers scenes have also been shot at the historic Rosenwald building at 46th and Michigan.
"We found out from the children they've been doing it for three or four days, up and down the streets doing explosions," said Mark Allen of the Save The Rosenwald Coalition.
On Thursday, a group voiced concerns about shooting in the Rosenwald.
The shoot comes after a campaign to preserve the building that was developed in the 1920s by Julius Rosenwald, the president of Sears, Roebuck and Co. It was then called the Michigan Boulevard Garden Apartments and was home to famous African-American Chicagoans.
The complex is now vacant and needs renovation.
"Ghost Rider 2" Forms Skeleton Crew

(The Late, Late Show)                    Nicolas Cage will return for a Ghost Rider sequel to be helmed by Neveldine/Taylor, the actor confirmed tonight on "The Late, Late Show with Craig Ferguson."
"There's gonna be a new one," Cage told Ferguson after the host presented him with a model of a flaming skull, "I just made the deal today."
He also confirmed the recent rumor that Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor (Crank, Gamer) will direct the film, still rumored to be called Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance.
Warner Bros. Developing World War X

(Variety)                Warner Bros. Pictures has bought Colin Trevorrow's script World War X and has set it up with Silver Pictures, reports Variety.
The trade says the story is "centered on a man recruited by a team of government agents to stop a terrorist from the future who is using time travel to reshape history."
Joel Silver and Andrew Rona are producing. Chris Bender, JC Spink, Alex Heineman and Jake Weiner are executive producing.

‘Inception’: How They Dreamed Up Those Special Effects

(blogs.wsj.com)                    Among the many dreamscapes in Christopher Nolan’s new sci-fi flick “Inception,” one of the most memorable is the image of a chic modern hotel that defies the rules of gravity. At one point, Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s Arthur careens down hallways that shift and turn upside down; at another, he fights an array of armed men in zero-gravity rooms, bouncing off walls and ceilings like a martial-artist-cum-astronaut. Comparisons to “The Matrix” are inevitable, but what makes these sequences unique is that few computer effects were used.
“There’s always a way to do things with computer imagery, but I don’t think it would create the same effect,” says special effects supervisor Chris Corbould, who also collaborated with Nolan on “Batman Begins” and “The Dark Knight.” “This way, you get the impact of it, as they’re colliding with the bed, hitting the light fittings, going across to hit the walls. You really gain the energy of it, with [the actors] struggling to keep their wits about them.”
To pull off the scenes, multiple hotel sets were constructed in a converted airship hanger north of London, most notably, a more than 100-foot hotel corridor that was able to rotate 360 degrees with the help of eight concentric rings, 30-feet in diameter, which surrounded the set. Capable of spinning up to eight revolutions per minute, the centripetal hallway was powered by two giant 225-kilowatt electric motors (the equivalent of two new Mercedes S350 V-6 engines). Working with stunt coordinator Tom Struthers, another “Dark Knight” veteran, Gordon-Levitt and the other stuntmen rehearsed within the rotating sets for over two weeks.
To create the effect of zero gravity, several other sets were constructed: vertical sets; horizontal sets; upside down sets; at the same time, the “weightless” actors were hung on wires, or supported by rigid polls like big Popsicle sticks, or even laid down in fiberglass molds built to fit their bodies.
“All these combinations were used,” explains Corbould. “So just as the audience feels like it’s getting to know how it’s done, all of a sudden the technique changes, which then blows that theory out the window.”
According to Corbould, the hotel scenes alone took about a month to complete, not to mention the many weeks of tests they undertook to get the effects right. “At the time, it was a real slog,” he admits. “Working with Chris is always so difficult,” he adds. “He extracts every creative juice out of you and throws it in the film.”
One particular challenge for the sequence was a scene in which Arthur takes five weightless sleeping bodies, wraps a chord around them, and floats them down the hall into an elevator. “How did we do it?” Corbould asks. “Chris has sworn ourselves to secrecy on that one.”

StopMotion Recorder Makes Animators Off Us All

By Kate Solomon on Friday, 16th July 2010
Download - $0.99
Ladies and gentlemen, get ready to download your new favourite app. StopMotion Recorder is a simple little iPhone application which allows you to make stop-motion animations quickly and easily.
Using a regular camera or camcorder to create a stop-motion film is do-able, but it’s a huge hassle and very time consuming. StopMotion Recorder makes it as easy as pie; there’s an onscreen grid you can use to position your subjects, and as you tap the screen or clap to record each frame it provides you with a transparent guide to show you the positioning of the last shot. It’s quick, easy and fun.
We had just two gripes; one was that we couldn’t seem to watch our animation in progress and then add more to it, and the other was that the autofocus was sometimes a bit slow; hence why some of the shots in our animation are a bit fuzzy. We'll admit we did add the titles and music in iMovie afterwards, though.
Still, with various film effects available and a super easy one-touch sharing system for uploading to YouTube or emailing your video, StopMotion Recorder is actually brilliant. If the video above doesn't satisfy your stop-mo lust, there’s a rather professional how-to video here.