Gore Verbinski to Direct "Bioshock"
(Variety.com) Universal Pictures has signed "Pirates of
the Caribbean" trilogy helmer Gore Verbinski to direct and produce an
adaptation of Bioshock, last year's hit video game that sold more than
2 million units worldwide. John Logan is in talks to write the
screenplay.
Variety says "Bioshock" publisher Take-Two Interactive is getting a
multimillion-dollar advance against gross points on the film. It is
believed to be the biggest video game-to-movie deal since 2005, when
Universal and Fox signed onto the since aborted Halo movie, for which
Microsoft got $5 million against 10%.
"Bioshock" takes place in an underwater city based on the free market
principles of Ayn Rand, but things have gone disastrously wrong.
Players control a pilot who crash-lands at a secret entrance to the
city, called Rapture, and is drawn into a power struggle during which
he discovers that his will is not as free as he'd thought.
"I think the whole utopia-gone-wrong story that's cleverly unveiled to
players is just brimming with cinematic potential," said Verbinski.
"Of all the games I've played, this is one that I felt has a really
strong narrative.
Verbinski noted that Rapture's art deco design and visually arresting
characters, such as the mechanical Big Daddys who protect genetically
mutated girls called Little Sisters, particularly inspired him to see
the game as a film.
Though no release date is even being targeted, Verbinski said he plans
to start pre-production as soon as Logan's script is finished and
approved by all involved.
Take-Two is developing a "Bioshock" sequel that will be released in
2009, almost certainly before the film comes out.
LUCASFILM / GOT CAREER?
(-cntv.usc.edu) An Evening with LUCASFILM Ltd.
Please join us for a presentation about "Current & Future Innovations in Filmmaking & Entertainment"
Tuesday, May 13th, 7pm, LUC 108
Open to Students and Alumni RSVP: http://www-cntv.usc.edu/about/events/event_20080507.htm
'Iron Man' To Battle "Edgy, Dystopian Auteurs"
(LAtimes.com) For "Iron Man," the sequel is two years away.
But the encore comes this weekend.
After starting Hollywood's summer with a $98.6-million bang, the
Marvel Studios' production should return to the top of the box-office
heap with an additional $45 million or more in ticket sales this
weekend.
Until recently, Warner Bros.' family-friendly "Speed Racer" had been
seen as a potential blockbuster, but the candy-colored, effects-driven
adaptation of the 1960s Japanese cartoon show now looks more likely to
become the summer's first major misfire.
The live-action movie, a sharp departure for those edgy, dystopian
auteurs the Wachowski brothers, could open in the
$25-million-to-$30-million range. That would be enough to beat "What
Happens in Vegas," the new Cameron Diaz-Ashton Kutcher romantic
comedy, for No. 2, but disappointing in light of the movie's high
cost.
Midweek sales have been robust for "Iron Man," starring Robert Downey
Jr. as the metal-clad superhero, though they cooled a bit Tuesday and
Wednesday. The film has a chance to become one of the extended summer
season's few $300-million blockbusters at the domestic box office,
thanks to enthusiastic word-of-mouth. Reviews are 93% positive,
according to RottenTomatoes.com, and users at IMDB.com rate the movie
8.4 out of 10.
Produced for an estimated $140 million, "Iron Man" launched Marvel
Entertainment Inc.'s feature production business in style, although
the advance buzz is mixed for the mini-studio's follow-up, "The
Incredible Hulk." That's slated for a June 13 release.
"Iron Man" also began the summer on a high note for distributor
Paramount Pictures, which gets a slice of the gross after recouping
its costs for prints and advertising. Paramount's "Indiana Jones and
the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull," coming Memorial Day weekend, is
tracking for an enormous opening, based on consumer surveys, and on
June 6 the studio releases DreamWorks Animation SKG Inc.'s promising
"Kung Fu Panda."
This weekend's results could signal whether "Iron Man" will fade
quickly, like most of the "X-Men" movies, or hang tough in the
marketplace like the first "Spider-Man," "Batman Begins" and
"Transformers."
Speed Racer: The First Seven Minutes
http://movies.yahoo.com/feature/speedracer.html?showVideo=1
A Game Face For DreamWorks Animation "MasterMind"
(darkhorizons.com) THQ Inc. and DreamWorks Animation SKG,
Inc. announced today that they have entered into an exclusive
licensing agreement to develop and publish video games based on the
studio's 2010 fall animated feature film.
The film, acquired under the working title of MasterMind, is due in
theatres on November 5, 2010. The new agreement grants THQ exclusive
rights to publish interactive games based on the DreamWorks Animation
property for all console and handheld systems, wireless devices and
Windows PCs.
The project is a satirical send-up of the superhero genre, built
around the story of a super villain who must find a new motivation
after accidentally killing his archrival, Uberman, in the opening
scene of the movie.
IMAX EXPANDS TO BECOME A 3D-VFX TENTPOLE MECCA
(showbizdata.com) IMAX is engaged in a "construction boom"
that will see the number of IMAX theaters in North America increase by
nearly 80 percent by the end of next year, USA Today reported today.
Many of the new venues, it indicated, will deploy digital projectors
instead of the enormous machines that have been required in the past
to project images from gigantic reels of 70mm film stock onto the
oversized screen. Some of the movies that will be converted into the
IMAX format this year include Speed Racer, Kung Fu Panda, The Dark
Knight, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and the animated
Monsters vs. Aliens.
IMAX and AMC Entertainment plan to convert 100 IMAX theaters into
digital 3-D venues at a cost of $50 million for the projection
equipment alone, the New York Times reported today.
"Buck Rogers" is Coming to the Big Screen
(Variety, IGN) Variety reports that Nu Image/Millennium Films
has acquired film rights to "Buck Rogers," and will develop a
live-action feature about the venerable pilot who awakens in the 25th
Century and battles evil.
IGN also reported that Sin City and The Spirit director Frank Miller
was attached to helm the pic, but the company later told them "they
are still mulling over director contenders."
Buck Rogers has enjoyed incarnations in books, comic strips, movies,
radio and television, a run that began in the 1920s. That included a
feature serial from Universal in 1939 that starred Buster Crabbe, and
a short-lived NBC series that starred Gil Gerard.
Nu Image/Millennium will search for a studio partner, just the way it
did after gaining the movie rights from Paradox Entertainment to
"Conan," which is now being developed with Lionsgate.
Should "T4" Go Into Production Pre-Potential SAG Strike?
(cinematical.com) The New Zealand Herald (Reuters) pointed
out today that the T4 production is moving on despite the distinct
possibility that the movie industry could get hit with another strike
very soon.
Right now, the SAG contract expires on June 30, which could very
easily become the start of another strike. (Union leaders say they
hope to reach an agreement, and of course they do -- but that doesn't
mean they'll get one.) Nevertheless, Terminator Salvation: The Future
Begins has started filming in New Mexico this week, throwing caution
to the wind.
But this doesn't mean they'll speed through it. A source told Reuters
there is no intention to finish production by June 30, and that legal
precautions have been taken in case the strike happens. But still --
stopping for an undisclosed period of time right in the middle of
production is very far from ideal.
It seems a bit cocky to me, to go forward now rather than waiting, but
what do you think?
Should T4 be moving full steam ahead regardless of the strike? Or, is
this just a careless or cocky move?
Dennis Quaid Heads Back Into Deep Space
(ComingSoon.net) Constantin Film and Impact Pictures are
heading into space. The companies jointly announced today that actors
Dennis Quaid and Ben Foster are in final negotiations to join
Pandorum, a sci-fi thriller set aboard an abandoned pioneer space
vessel. Overture Films will release the film in North America.
Pandorum will be financed by Constantin Film under its joint venture
deal with Impact Pictures, a Constantin Film subsidiary. Summit
Entertainment is handling foreign sales for Constantin Film and will
introduce the project to buyers at the upcoming Cannes Film Festival.
Quaid comes fresh off of Smart People and the international box office
hit Vantage Point, and can next be seen in the upcoming Universal
release The Express. He has recently completed production on Paramount
Pictures' G.I. Joe, and is currently shooting Legion for Screen Gems.
Foster, currently in production in the starring role of The Messenger
for Reason Pictures, has made a name for himself as one of Hollywood's
most exciting up-and-coming stars with powerful turns in 3:10 to Yuma
and Alpha Dog. Christian Alvart, whose directorial debut Antibodies
was met with rave reviews, is set to direct.
The feature reunites the successful producing team of Impact Pictures'
Paul W. S. Anderson and Jeremy Bolt, and Constantin Film's Robert
Kulzer. The trio has collaborated on a number of projects, including
the hugely popular "Resident Evil" movie franchise. Last year's third
installment, Resident Evil: Extinction grossed nearly $150 million
worldwide.
Dave Morrison is executive producing.
"We really look forward to working with Dennis Quaid and Ben Foster,"
said Robert Kulzer. "Dennis has this true movie star quality and
versatility, and Ben is such an intense and fascinating young actor."
Added Jeremy Bolt: "Christian Alvart's unique vision and passion for
this project really blew us away. He is a very gifted young
filmmaker."
Overture's Chris McGurk and Danny Rosett are committing to the project
in anticipation of an early August start date in Berlin, Germany.
Overture currently has the critically acclaimed Tom McCarthy feature
The Visitor in theatres. Next up for the studio is Mark Pellington's
Henry Poole is Here starring Luke Wilson and Radha Mitchell on August
15th.
Developed at Constantin Film and Impact Pictures and written by Travis
Milloy, Pandorum is a dark and claustrophobic tale about two crewmen
who awaken aboard their spacecraft, unaware of their mission or their
identities. As they piece things together, the men make a harrowing
discovery that threatens the survival of mankind.
Speed Racer Invents 'Faux Lensing', 'Photo Anime', & 'Super-Bling Flare'
(time.com) In The Matrix, the brothers hid allusions to the
Bible, Greek mythology and mathematics. If there's any complex
philosophy in Speed Racer, it went over my head (probably at the speed
of light). Here, the texture is the text, and it's deliriously dense,
with more than 2,000 effects shots, often layered on top of each
other. The effect, if you get into it, isn't just a store window of
technology. It is, as Mom says of Speed's mastery behind the wheel,
"inspiring, and beautiful, and everything art should be." That's what
the Wachowskis are aiming for, and, I think, what they've achieved.
In the big races no actual car was used; these magnificent set pieces
are almost totally animated. The races aren't just 200 miles of left
turns; the tracks are designed as crazy theme-park rides, with 360
loops, chasm-wide broken tracks, roads that wind around mountains and
across rivers. The autos skid sideways and fly over other cars on
stilts. In a reference to the Ben-Hur chariot race, they brandish
hubcap spear hooks to disable their opponent's vehicle. And, since the
rallies take place in Virtual World, there's no fretting about the
waste of fuel. All of Speed Racer is a holiday not only from the gas
tax, but from gas.
In devising this mach (or mock) world, the Wachowskis' desktop
dervishes invented so many new techniques they had to create a bunch
of new names for them. As effects supervisor John Gaeta itemizes them
in the forthcoming book The Art of Speed Racer: "'Faux lensing' toward
a 'Photo Anime' film format (including designer shape de-focus,
infinite depth of field, bling and super-bling flare enhancements and
candy-inspired 'Techno Color')." You can tell that everyone had
liberated fun making the film; it feels like the group effort of Mensa
kids let loose in the paint store. More than the story of the Racer
family, Speed Racer is the visual autobiography of the Wachowskis and
their pit crew of computer-nerd Einsteins, using the tools of their
trade to transform the movie medium.
Movies like Polar Express and Sin City proffered seductive experiments
in digital cinema and green screen, but Speed Racer announces the
arrival of the virtual movie. If you watch the film overwhelmed by the
assault of seductive visual information and wonder what you're seeing,
here's the happy answer: the future of movies. And the people who made
it? They're the industry's can-do-anything superheroes. Not
Spider-Men, not Hulks or X-Men. No: Speed Demons.
Can JJ Abrams Save "Star Trek: The Experience"?
(intergameonline.com) The future of the Star Trek: The
Experience at the Las Vegas Hilton, US, is in doubt and it could close
at the end of the year, according to the trekmovie.com website.
The world's foremost Star Trek attraction, complete with themed
restaurant, museum, shops and rides, opened in 1998. The current
contract between CBS, the licence holder, and its current owner, Cedar
Fair, ends on December 31 - though it will need to have been
dismantled and moved by this date if it is to close. A spokesman for
Cedar Fair reportedly told trekmovie that are currently "no plans to
renew."
Despite the addition of the Borg Invasion 4D ride in 2004, attendance
has been in decline for a number of years. However, it is hoped that
with a new movie on the horizon, new interest may yet be sparked or,
at least, a new owner can be found.
George Lucas Presents "Singin' In The Rain"
Our last post must have inspired George Lucas to remaster another classic film for the modern generation. This time, he's set his sights on Singin' In The Rain.
Sadly, our favorite Sith Lord is mysteriously absent.
Either way, enjoy your happy Friday with these dancing Jedi!
Take a look: http://dailyflog.tbs.com/2008/05/george-lucas-pr.html
"Speed Racer" Stalling Out?
(sliceofscifi.com) Early tracking results for Speed Racer are in and it appears that adaptation of the popular animated series may not be sitting at the pole when box-office tallies are released Monday according to the Hollywood Reporter.
Experts estimate that Racer is on a course to gross between $25-$35 million at the box-office this weekend. Given that Iron Man grossed close to $100 million at the box-office last weekend and has a great word of mouth from fans and critics, it is possibly and even likely that Iron Man could hold on to the top spot and send Racer to second place.
However, two hard to predict factors could play into Racer's favor–a must-see word of mouth for the film and the fact that its targeted more toward families, which can be hard to predict in whether or not they'll turn out at the box-office.
"It's too early to tell," Warners domestic distribution president Dan Fellman said. "But this is the first real family movie of the summer, and we're going to give it our best."
Warner execs are spinning the news in their favor, saying that Racer was filmed in front of a green screen and cost only $100 million to produce. A $25 million opening this weekend should put them on track to make back the production costs of the film.
We'll have to wait and see how the first big showdown of the summer box-office season goes this weekend. Slice of SciFi will have all your box-office results Monday and Tuesday of next week.
2009: The Year Of Post-Apocalyptic VFX
(io9.com) Humans are a plague, shredding across the galaxy and destroying other peace-loving creatures. At least, that seems to be the theme of a number of movies that are coming out in the next few years. I've been wondering what would replace the post-apocalyptic-Earth as the stock plot for "dark" science fiction movies, and the evil-humans-in-space plot seems increasingly likely to rule. Among others, James Cameron's Avatar and the new animated film Terra seem to be exploring this theme, which is a standard plot in written science fiction, but is fairly new to the movies.
NaviLight.jpgWe still don't know all of the plot details for James Cameron's Avatar, coming in 2009, but an early "scriptment" that's reputed to be real includes a lot of information. In a nutshell, Earth is ruined due to centuries of exploitation, and we've used up all our resources. So we decide to go and plunder the mineral wealth of the planet Pandora, whose atmosphere is poisonous to us. Humans can only walk around on Pandora by growing special alien bodies, akin to the native Na'vi aliens. The humans can control their own vat-grown Na'vi bodies, which are called avatars. (We don't know how much of this stuff survives in the final script, but Sigourney Weaver's comments about her character having "her own avatar" make it sound as though it's still there in some form.)
In addition to these surrogate aliens, the humans have also landed some bloodthirsty troops who hate the natives and want to wipe them out. So there's a conflict between the Avatar-using humans, who want to understand the natives (who are basically Native Americans) and the power-armor-using troops, who want to bulldoze all the natives' sacred lands and kill them all. This leads to a speech by our hero, Josh:
Pandora is not Hell, it's Eden. And Eden is being bulldozed and stripmined and raped. We have no right. We are the aliens here. We are the space monsters.
If that sounds too subtle for you, then there's Terra, which we covered the other day. The new full-length animated film is about humans coming to terraform a planet of peaceloving aliens, after Earth has become basically uninhabitable. We already terraformed Venus and Mars, but then the planets had a huge civil war. So now we have to come and use our transforming device to turn Terra's helium atmosphere into oxygen.
Are you seeing a trend here? The stories about humans as scourge of the cosmos are what come after the post-apocalyptic Earth stories. We ruin our own planet, so we have to go and fuck up someone else's planet. (That's also the storyline in the Winterson book, where Orbus is about to become unable to support human life.) There could also be some guilt about the Iraq war and our various other foreign adventures, which we could be excising.
There's also the remake of the original humans-are-assholes movie The Day The Earth Stood Still, coming this December, in which peaceful aliens warn us not to take our asshole ways out into space. And there's a new direct-to-DVD sequel to Starship Troopers coming out in a couple of months. In the original Troopers, director Paul Verhoeven's aim was to show that humans were the aggressors and the bugs were simply reacting to human colonies encroaching on their territory. This message flew over a lot of people's heads, so maybe Troopers scriptwriter Ed Neumeier (who's directing the new movie) will make it more blatant this time around.
Planet51-1.jpgAnd then there's also the animated Planet 51, starring the Rock, in which the peaceful aliens think the humans are there to invade and despoil their planet. But they're wrong... or are they?
I guess there's not enough examples there to argue that this is a sweeping new trend. And of course the post-apocalyptic Earth movie has one major advantage over the alien world epic: it's cheap to film, since you can make a post-apocalyptic landscape almost anywhere you can find some rubble.
SIGGRAPH presents: The Art & Life of Syd Mead, Visual Futurist
(sneakpeektv.blogspot.com) Come join us for our Fifth Anniversary with living design legend Syd Mead followed by a screening of Blade Runner: The Final Cut!
Join us for the fun on May 14 at the Empire Theatre on Granville St. It has been years since Syd Mead has been to Vancouver. He'll be speaking about his approach to design and the visionary work with which he has made his indelible mark on pop culture and our perceptions of the future.
But wait - there's more! Our long-time supporter, Sophia Books,
will be there with Syd's latest DVD - you might even be able to get the
man
himself to sign a copy for you.
On top of that, Tangible Interaction is coming back with their Zygotes - a massive interactive hands-on display of fun meeting technology that the whole crowd can take part in.
Reserve your tickets now and don't miss out on this huge event!
Doors at 6pm, Event 7:00 PM, Movie 9:30pm
Empire Theatre, 855 Granville St. Vancouver
Regular admission: $25 // Members: $15
Grand Theft Auto IV Makes $500M in One Week (5X Iron Man)
(news.awn.com) Take-Two Interactive Software Inc announced
that in its debut week GRAND THEFT AUTO IV made more than $500 million
globally, ranking it among the top entertainment properties of all
time, reports the trades. The violent crime game sold 3.6 million
copies on its first day, and had sold 6 million units by the end of
the week. GTA4 broke the previous first week record of HALO 3 by $100
million.
Produced by Take-Two's Rockstar, the game puts gamers in the shoes of
an Eastern European immigrant drug runner for a crime syndicate who
battles cops and beats up prostitutes.
Shares of Take-Two rose to $26.35 on Tuesday, which now puts the value
of the company above the $25.75 per share offer Electronic Arts made
to acquire the company. Take-Two has been rejecting EA's bids as too
low for months.
Marvel comics adaptation Iron Man struck gold at the US box
office last
weekend to become one of only 10 films to gross $US100
million ($A107 million)
in its opening weekend, industry figures
showed.
Michael Bay Predicts Indiana Jones 4 is Gonna Suck
(slashfilm.com) At the 2008 VES Awards, Michael Bay retold the story of how he predicted the failure of Raiders of the Lost Ark while working at LucasFilm. Bay went on to tell a little story involving Indiana Jones 4. Watch the video below.
Take a look: http://www.slashfilm.com/2008/05/08/michael-bay-says-indiana-jones-4-is-gonna-suck/
McConaughey Front-Runner for Captain America
(sliceofscifi.com) Cinema Blend reports that Matthew McConaughey is the rumored front-runner for the role of Steve Rodgers/Captain American in the upcoming Captain America movie.
Citing sources close to the production, Cinema Blend reports that McConaughey is the first choice for the role.
We should warn readers to that its still early in the Captain America movie process. The film was officially announced earlier this week and without a script or director, any casting news is only a rumor at this point.
A Star For The Father of "Universal Monsters" ?
To: Universal Studios
To: Jeff Zucker, President & Chief Executive Officer, NBC Universal
and
Ron Meyer, President and Chief Operating Officer, Universal Studios
and
The executives of Universal Studios, et al.
WHEREAS Universal Studios became a top Hollywood Motion-Picture studio
during the decade of the 1930's, largely on the basis of the Horror
Films that were produced there,
and
WHEREAS an important factor in the success of those features, and
their continued popularity and place in popular culture, were the
iconic looks and trademarked designs of the "Universal Monsters" such
as Frankenstein's Monster, Dracula, the Mummy, and the Wolf-Man,
and
WHEREAS the individual largely responsible for the creation of those
monsters, Jack P. Pierce, was summarily dismissed from
Universal-International as the "Golden Age" of Hollywood Horror drew
to a close, and subsequently has never received his due and proper
recognition,
and
WHEREAS the impending re-release of the 1932 film THE MUMMY, starring
Boris Karloff, and featuring some of Mr. Pierce's finest make-up work,
on DVD has occasioned a renewed interest in this Hollywood pioneer,
WE the undersigned do hereby request and petition the above-named
officers of Universal Studios and it's parent company to fully fund a
Star on Hollywood's Walk of Fame, as recognition of Mr. Pierce's
contributions, both to the history of film-making, and to the success
and longevity of Universal Studios.
Sincerely,
The Undersigned
Source: http://www.petitiononline.com/jppierce/
Sign the petition: http://www.PetitionOnline.com/jppierce/petition-sign.html?
Wachowskis Fund Assassin in Germany
(VFXworld.com) Director James McTeigue, producer Joel Silver
and the Wachowskis have landed funding for their next project NINJA
ASSASSIN from Germany's Federal Film Fund, reports VARIETY.
Federal
Film Fund will pony up 5.8 million Euros ($9 million). Previously, it
gave the Wachowskis $14 million for SPEED RACER. NINJA has also
received $1 million from Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg, a Berlin
subsidy organization that helped fund McTeigue's last film, V FOR
VENDETTA.
SAG Strike Grows Closer: Here We Go Again?
(showbizdata.com) As expected, the Screen Actors Guild and
the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers ended their
first round of bargaining talks on Tuesday without an agreement.
However, although reports had previously described the negotiations as
cordial, the latest ones said that they had ended on a bitter note,
fueling the belief that the industry would be staggering into another
strike in July.
ILM's Aaron McBride talks Suiting Up Iron Man
Take a look:
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2008/05/01/movies/20080502_IRONMAN_FEATURE.html#section1
Star Trek Recreates War of the Worlds
(sliceofscifi.com) Join actors from the several Star Trek franchise shows as they recreate the classic radio thriller "War of the Worlds" for the L.A. Theater Works. The breathless pace and convincing details make it clear why the Orson Wells broadcast of an "eyewitness report" of an invasion from Mars caused a nationwide panic in 1938.
Originally performed by Orson Welles and his Mercury Theatre of the Air, "War of the Worlds" is truly the mother of all space invasions, offering a rare combination of chills, thrills and great literature. Adapted from the Howard Koch script.
Guest appearances include Leonard Nimoy (Spock) from the classic "Star Trek" series Brent Spiner (Data), Wil Wheaton (Wesley), Dwight Schultz (Barclay) and Gates McFadden (Dr. Crusher) of "Star Trek: The Next Generation," Armin Shimerman (Quark) of "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine," John DeLancie (Q) from "Star Trek: The Next Generation," "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" and "Star Trek: Voyager"
The radio production also stars Meagen Fay ("Evan Almighty"), Jerry Hardin ("X-Files") and Tom Virtue ("Turok: Son of Stone").
Cinefex Reprints BLADE RUNNER: THE INSIDE STORY
(cinefex.com) Blade Runner has long been considered one of the
most visually and thematically influential science fiction films of
all time. Upon its release in 1982, Cinefex devoted an entire issue
to its design and visual effects. Among the 20 artists interviewed
in-depth for the issue were director Ridley Scott, visual effects
visionary Douglas Trumbull and futurist/designer Syd Mead. That issue
– one of our most collectible – has been out of print for nearly 20
years.
In 2000, Titan Books, in England, published a hardbound facsimile
edition of this classic Cinefex issue. It, too, sold out quickly.
Now, in conjunction with the 25th anniversary of Blade Runner's
release – marked by the limited theatrical release of a new, fully
restored version of the film and its subsequent DVD release – Titan
has reprinted the book.
We have a limited supply of these books for sale. Order yours today.
Order now: http://www.cinefex.com/backissues/books/bladerunner.html
Student Lands "Residency" with Pixar Animation Studios
(newsinfo.iu.edu) INDIANAPOLIS -- Following the telephone call confirming his selection as an animator for Pixar Animation Studios, Frank Tai confessed that he couldn't sleep later that night. The 26-year-old graduate student says he was just too excited about joining one of the animation industry's leading production studios.
"I couldn't believe it at first," said Tai, who will graduate in May with a master's degree in media arts and science from the IU School of Informatics at IUPUI. "To know that a company like Pixar has such confidence in my talent as an animator is just overwhelming."
Pixar, the creator of the wildly successful Toy Story franchise and other animated blockbuster films, has hired Tai to be a technical director for the studio's newly established in-residence internship program. Tai will spend nine months at Pixar's San Francisco headquarters doing lighting, texturing, rigging and rendering work using Autodesk Maya as well as proprietary software designed by Pixar. This July, he'll undergo two weeks of orientation and will then begin assisting with production of Pixar's forthcoming feature film release Toy Story 3.
"I credit IUPUI's media arts and science program for properly preparing me for this exciting opportunity," said Tai. "I especially want to thank Clint Koch and Albert William, my professors, for their instruction and encouragement."
Tai submitted samples of his work to Pixar, including this image.
Tai was born and raised in Taipei, Taiwan, and came to IUPUI in 2003 as an undergraduate art student. A class field trip to a local theater to see The Incredibles -- another of Pixar's animated film hits -- hooked Tai on the notion of becoming a 3D animator.
"I knew right then that 3D was what I wanted to do," said Tai. "I later drew inspiration from Professor Koch, who has a passion for animation. Then Professor William turned me on to 3D stereoscopic techniques."
"Frank has been such a pleasure to work with. He has a tremendous work ethic, a great artistic sense, and is a very humble person," said William. "I am very pleased that Frank has landed such a great job at Pixar. He truly deserves it. I hope other students will be inspired by the work he has done and follow in his foot steps."
Tai, who would like to teach someday, says he feels an obligation
to share with others what he has learned, and that the School of
Informatics at IUPUI is particularly well-suited as a training ground
for fledgling animation students. His goal is to become a supervising
technical director -- hopefully with Pixar -- in the next 10 years or
so.
The Space Nazis Return in 'Iron Sky'
(twitchfilm.net) Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, I proudly present to you one of the official Best Things Ever: outer space Nazis.
We have been anxiously awaiting the arrival of some footage from upcoming Finnish sci-fi comedy Iron Sky from the day we first caught wind of it seemingly ages ago. We've hosted the very first concept art from the film, had a few chats with the director and production team and just generally been sold on the concept from the word go. And here it is: in 1945, realizing that the war was taking a turn for the worst, the Nazis sent a collection of their best and brightest to establish a secret base on the moon where they would nurse themselves back to strength and develop their powerful military technology until the were ready to return. That day will arrive in 2018.
After months of work and fine tuning to get everything just right the teaser arrived on YouTube yesterday, which seems a shameful way to treat something as visually impressive as this. Apparently the director agrees as he's just passed us a MUCH higher quality version of that same promo spot to load in to the Twitch Player. And, hot damn, the wait has been worth every second. This thing is spectacular, from the detailed CG work, to the spectacular production design, to that weirdly mournful title song - one that wouldn't be out of place in a Bond film. Everything about this thing is absolutely perfect. You'll find the teaser in the Twitch Player below the break.
Watch the VFX filled trailer: http://www.ironsky.net/
More info on this film: http://www.ironsky.net/site/?p=27
Edwin Catmull, Head Of Pixar And U Alum, To Lead U's Engineering Advisors
(webwire.com) Edwin C. Catmull, Ph.D., President Walt Disney and Pixar Animation Studios, is the new chair of the University of Utah Engineering National Advisory Council. Catmull is a founding member of the Council which was established in 2001 to support and guide the strategic direction of the college.
A member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering, Catmull earned B.S. degrees in computer science and physics and a Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Utah.
In accepting the role as chair, Catmull said, "Utah's flagship research-intensive engineering program is making fundamental contributions to the growth and strength of our economy. When I was a computer science student in 1968, two professors, David Evans and Ivan Sutherland, developed a graphics program that changed the world"
As chair of the Council, Catmull will work with the dean of engineering Richard Brown and other Council members to advance the college and achieve targets for growth as part of Utah's Engineering Initiative. Enrolled during the 2001 legislative session, the Engineering Initiative challenged the state's engineering programs to double the number of graduates. The U's College of Engineering has increased graduates more than 65%, and is committed to a goal of 100% increase.
Lucasfilm Animation Singapore presents the Jedi Master Class Tour
(highend3d.com) Artists from Academy Award-Winning Industrial Light & Magic will demonstrate how they bring robots and pirates to life in a series of presentations brought to you by Lucasfilm Animation Singapore. The presentations offer local artists and designers a rare opportunity to learn about the process used to create visual effects for Hollywood blockbusters.
Seating is limited. Register now at www.lasjedi.com/events
Dates: April 13th, 2008 - May 11th, 2008
Location: Singapore, Asia
Time: 2:00 PM - 6:00 PM
Contact: Amy Quek (amy.quek[at]lucasfilm.com), +65 6511 2409
In Section: Seminars
Seating is limited. Register now at www.lasjedi.com/events
Tour dates:
Singapore 13 April 2008 (Sunday) 2.00pm 5:30pm
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia 16 April 2008 (Wednesday) 2.00pm 5:30pm
Jakarta, Indonesia 24 April 2008 (Thursday) 3.00pm 6:30pm
Hyderabad, India 11 May 2008 (Sunday) 2.00pm 5:30p
Special Effects of Outsourcing: Hollywood Heads to India
The Oscar-winning effects for The Golden Compass were put together at
the Indian headquarters of Los Angeles studio Rhythm & Hues
Rhys Blakely
As outsourcing projects go it is rather fantastic: the Oscar-winning
special effects for The Golden Compass, the Hollywood blockbuster that
took $370 million (£187.7 million) at the box office last Christmas
were put together in a thatched village hut in India.
Well, almost.
The huts in question are replicas — stylised office cubicles made to
look like rural Indian dwellings. Situated in Mind Space, a vast, grey
commercial complex on the outskirts of Bombay, they form the Indian
headquarters of Rhythm & Hues (R&H), the leading Los Angeles-based
special effects studio.
The Times visits on a national holiday, but several of R&H's 250
India-based staff are hunched over their computers, working overtime
on the visual pyrotechnics that will feature on the next outings of
the Spider Man, Mummy and Incredible Hulk film franchises. The labour
is painstaking. Each employee will struggle to produce the equivalent
of five seconds of screen time in a month.
Fans tired of special effects, says Pullman epic director
The results are usually worth the wait. Babe, the talking pig who won
an Academy Award and earned more than $250 million at the box office
in 1995, was an R&H creation. Alvin and the Chipmunks, the recent
surprise hit for which R&H created the eponymous rodents, has now
grossed nearly $360 million — not bad for a film with a $60 million
production budget.
For the past six years, part of the work on such projects has been
completed in these Bombay offices, the design of which Prashant Babu
Buyyala, the facility's managing director, seems especially proud. "We
wanted something creative yet functional," he says of the faux village
look. "Importantly, we didn't want to spend a lot of money."
The same maxims, it could be said, are directing Hollywood's passage to India.
Post-production movie work — everything from complex digital effects
(such as the talking armoured polar bears that appeared in The Golden
Compass, one of which sported a fur coat with seven million
individually rendered hairs) to basic colour grading (making sure
shades stay consistent throughout a film) — is steadily migrating from
traditional centres such as LA to low-cost locations on the
sub-continent.
Prime Focus, another post-production house, has grown its Indian
visual effects group to 165 people, from 40, in the past year. Pixion
Studios, a rival, is aiming to increase its workforce in India
fourfold, to 1,000 people, by 2009.
Nasscom, the Indian IT industry lobby group, estimates that the global
animation market will be worth about $80 billion by 2010, and is
targeting it as a prime source of future outsourcing revenues as more
film work is shifted to India from the US and Europe.
With emotions already running high over the loss of US jobs amid an
economic downturn, Mr Buyyala is adamant that Rhythm & Hues is not
running a cost-cutting operation in India. The Bombay office handles
work as complex as that done in the US, he says. Moreover, despite
India's size, a lack of art schools has translated into a relative
dearth of talent. "I keep on having to tell people: 'this country just
isn't that cheap any more'," he adds.
But it is hard to believe cost has no bearing. Starting salaries in
R&H's Bombay offices are as low as 40,000 rupees (£410) a month. Pay
packets rise quickly and the highest earners in Bombay pull in similar
sums to their US-based counterparts, Mr Buyyala says, but still the
early discounts offered by young Indian animators are upsetting their
American peers.
"My students will now have even a lesser chance of working in the
industry," one animation teacher in the United States recently wrote
on an industry website. "I understand why Rhythm & Hues must do what
is necessary for the bottom line. It is just sad."
That comment may not be entirely correct — R&H has sharply expanded
its US workforce while growing its Indian operations — but cost
pressures are playing an ever greater role in Hollywood.
"Cost and speed" are paramount in the world of post production, says
Simon Huhtala, of Prime Focus. "Scale and rationalization are the
major driving forces."
In response, Mr Buyyala argues that there is a compelling reason to
enter India beyond the opportunity to shave costs: the country's
potential as a market. In particular R&H is waiting for the expected
explosion in the use of special effects in Bollywood. The
possibilities, of course, are massive: the world's biggest film
industry is yet to fall for the charms of talking animals.
Lionsgate's Got Christmas "Spirit"
(Variety) Lionsgate has moved up the release of Frank Miller's The Spirit from January 16, 2009 to December 25, 2008.
Based on the Will Eisner's comic, the action-adventure romance toplines Gabriel Macht, Samuel L. Jackson, Scarlett Johansson and Eva Mendes. Miller (Sin City) wrote the adapted script.
Lionsgate president of theatrical films Tom Ortenberg said the decision to shift the film to Christmas Day came after the project was presented to fans at New York Comic-Con.
Also scheduled for release on Christmas Day are Disney's Adam Sandler starrer Bedtime Stories and 20th Century Fox's Jennifer Aniston/Owen Wilson starrer Marley & Me.
Games Vs. Movies: Wrath Of The Sequels
(cinemablend.com) If there's one thing about Hollywood you
can always count on, it's that a movie that racks in $100 million
dollars that's not based on a historical event or a novel, will always
spawn a sequel. In the world of gaming, it works pretty much the same
way. The only difference is that $100 million dollar movies are often
original and push for something exciting in a genre that has yet to be
done, or is highly anticipated (i.e., superhero films, remakes or
graphic novels.) $100 million dollar games happen to inflect a
specific trend for a very specific demography, sometimes bypassing
some things such as storylines or character depth. So why is it that
games can be more successful when it comes to a sequel, than a movie?
Well, first and foremost, games are a little less risk-taking when it
comes to a big budget project aimed at a big payoff. The reason for
this is that [games] cost a lot to make and require a very specific
demographic audience to invest in the product. Added to this, newer
games usually start at $50 on up (i.e., anything below $35 is ranked
as bargain-priced.,) so it's not like the average kid (or family) is
going to bother buying a new game, full price, every week. But it's
pretty much guaranteed that the same audience that just pushed the
motion picture of Iron Man over the $100 million mark, is the same
audience who will push Speed Racer over the $100 million mark, not but
a week later.
It's this simple: movies are more convenient for making money. Despite
having a much higher budget, most studios rely on mass marketing to
promote movies enough so that multiple demographics will be attracted
to the movie. But considering that most non-budget priced games solely
rely on males between the ages of 14 through 34 years, it really does
require a certain kind of game to hit Hollywood-equivalent sales
figures. But unlike the blockbuster-budget movie or its sequel that
comes out of a big production studio, video game developers actually
have it off easier when it comes to a sequel.
If Paramount Studios want to follow-up their recent Iron Man success
with a sequel in the coming years, then they're going to have their
work cut out for them. They'll need a script that's just as good (if
not better) than the original, they'll need more and better special
effects and even more breathtaking action sequences. Otherwise, rumors
of a sub-par film (on any level) could ruin the sequel before it even
gets off the ground. This is and is not the case with a video game
sequel. Unlike the movie industry – where re-invention and consistency
plays a big part in making a successful sequel – game developers
simply have to add more to the next game than what was in the previous
one.
With the exception of feature-overhauled sequels such as Grand Theft
Auto IV or Metal Gear Solid 4, usually the changes for most sequels
aren't quite as grandiose. Often times developers will include one
really good innovative feature; a couple of gameplay enhancements,
improved visuals and a noteworthy storyline. Believe it or not, those
(seemingly) simple additions can boost a sequel up to platinum
status...if the original game hadn't been there already.
And unlike big-budget CG-based films where the crew has to recreate a
lot of the resources for a sequel that may are may not do as well as
the first film, game developers can simply re-utilize everything they
used from the first game. Designers can sometimes retouch the old
graphics without needing to re-do all the animations for every
avatar...or implement new modes while keeping the core gameplay
intact. Game engines are the perfect platform for getting a game done
and then allowing for an even more vast experience for the sequel. As
much as this falls into the category of "re-hashed resources", often
times it works wonders for getting SKUs off store shelves. Just look
at EA's Madden or FIFA series...the amount of units sold for both
franchises speak volumes (viz., although the quality for both games
may say something entirely different.)
More: http://www.cinemablend.com/games/Games-Vs-Movies-Wrath-Of-The-Sequels-10284.html
Iron Man: Armed and Animated
The
vfx work on Iron Man had to look good for Marvel's first self-financed
feature debut, and win over a CG-skeptical director. Courtesy of ILM.
All images © 2008 MVLFFLLC. ™ & © 2008 Marvel Ent. All rights
reserved.
It's never easy creating effects for a major summer blockbuster, but
the work on Iron Man (which opened May 2 through Paramount Pictures)
faced the extra burdens of putting a good face on Marvel's first
self-financed feature and winning over a director openly skeptical of
CG effects.
Created by Stan Lee, Larry Lieber and artist Don Heck in 1963's Tales of Suspense #39, bringing Iron Man to life on the big screen was a big job that Ben Snow, vfx supervisor at lead studio Industrial Light & Magic, says creating a character true to both the comic book and to director Jon Favreau's vision of realism was more complicated that it appeared at first.
Snow wanted to address that issue head on when the company was approached in 2006 to do a test reel for Favreau and overall vfx supervisor John Nelson. "We wanted to make Jon comfortable with the idea of Iron Man as a CG approach," he adds. The resulting one-minute clip impressed Favreau by being realistic and bringing some toughness and real attitude to the CG version of Iron Man and won the ILM the job.
More: http://www.vfxworld.com/?atype=articles&id=3632
Crystal Skull Takes A Back Seat To Sex
(videsignline.com) Sorry "Iron Man." But moviegoers have
something else on their minds as spring gives way to summer -- like
Sex.
"Sex and the City," based on HBO's hit television comedy about single
women in New York, is the movie that fans are most excited about
heading into Hollywood's key summer season, which starts Thursday with
the debut of comic book adventure "Iron Man," according to a new poll
from online film site AOL Moviefone.
Not far behind was "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal
Skull," which opens on May 22 with Harrison Ford returning as the
adventure-seeking Jones.
In the poll of nearly 420,000 respondents, "Sex and the City," which
premieres on May 30, proved most exciting to 32 percent of the movie
fans, compared with 31 percent for "Indiana Jones."
"I think there were a lot of people curious about the series ("Sex and
the City") who didn't see it on HBO," said Scott Robson,
editor-in-chief at AOL Moviefone. "It's real fresh, and people who do
know the program love the characters and love the show."
Robson said respondents also seemed curious to see what Ford and
director Steven Spielberg had cooked up to rejuvenate the "Indiana
Jones" franchise, which has not been in movie theaters in nearly 20
years.
Perhaps not coincidentally, Ford and "Sex" actress Sarah Jessica
Parker were the male and female stars fans most wanted to see. The
late actor Heath Ledger, playing the villainous Joker in the Batman
movie "The Dark Knight," which opens on July 18, came in second behind
Ford. Angelina Jolie, who appears in the action flick "Wanted,"
trailed Parker.
The summer movie season runs four months from May 1 through the end of
August and can account for nearly 40 percent of annual ticket sales in
the United States and Canada, so the period's movies are hugely
important to Hollywood.
Ledger died last year at his home in New York of an accidental
overdose of prescription medication.
Robson said Ledger's death would likely draw curiosity seekers to the
new "Dark Knight."
"Iron Man" did not perform too poorly with about 7 percent excited to
see it, and 22 percent said he was the superhero they were "most
psyched" to see.
Two other big action films, "Speed Racer" (May 9) and "Hellboy 2,"
(July 11) appear to be getting a rough time from moviegoers before
even reaching movie screens.
Only 2 percent of fans said there were most excited to see "Speed
Racer," which is based on the popular cartoon of a boy race car
driver. Worse, it topped the list of films moviegoers thought would be
the biggest disappointment, with "Hellboy 2" close behind.
Among comedies, "Get Smart" (June 20) with Steve Carell proved to be
the biggest drawing card, and in the family film category the top slot
belonged to Disney/Pixar movie "Wall-E" (June 27). (Editing by Dan
Whitcomb and Eric Beech)
George Lucas honored by Scatola del Tempo
(jckindia.com) The presentation was made on behalf of
Italian watch winder company at the recent annual ShoWest convention
in Las Vegas.
Star Wars director and producer George Lucas, recently was given a
Scatola del Tempo watch holder/rotator to honor his "artistic
credits."
The presentation was made on behalf of Italian watch winder company at
the recent annual ShoWest convention in Las Vegas.
The annual convention brings together the operators of today's
international cinema and took place at the Theatre Des Artes of the
hotel de Paris in Las Vegas this year. If its public enthusiastically
welcomed all the most exciting novelties of American cinema, they
reserved an ecstatic reception for George Lucas.
Fantasy Epic "Ranger's Apprentice" Scribe Sees No Reason For CGI
(smh.com.au) What began as a story for John Flanagan's son became a bestselling series of novels and is being adapted for film, writes Laura Parker.
The children's author John Flanagan was atSydney Airport, trying to stop himself buying a doughnut, when he got the call from his agent, Rick Raftos.
Raftos told Flanagan a Hollywood studio wanted to buy the rights to his fantasy series Ranger's Apprentice and was prepared to pay big money.
"He didn't have details at thatstage, so I didn't know just how glorious it was," Flanagan says. "But it looked good. I didn't get my hopes up too much - we'd had film offers before but I always felt compelled to hold out for the right one."
When he returned to his home in Manly, Flanagan discovered that the studio, United Artists, was offering him a seven-figure deal and that Paul Haggis - the Oscar-winning writer and director of Crash and writer of Million Dollar Baby - would make the first movie.
He was still in a state of mild shock when he got another phone call a week later, this time from Haggis. "I felt an instant connection," Flanagan says. "I knew he wouldn't lead my work astray and that he'd let me have as much control of the project as I wanted. The real clincher was that he wanted to get cracking on the script right away; he didn't just throw it into a drawer for later."
The United Artists deal stipulates that Flanagan will have no creative control over the movies but his relationship with Haggis means he will still be involved.
"I know my baby is in good hands," Flanagan says. "I've spoken to Paul and I'm confident he's not going to screw it up too much. Besides, I know how this whole thing works in Hollywood. I know that the director doesn't want anything to do with the author. But I didn't want to lose Paul on the deal, because I trust him. I'm scared shitless, yeah, butI'm confident he's not going toring me up one day and propose the animals start talking or something similar. He didn't have to call me to talk to me about this stuff, but he did, and it's a good sign."
But sometimes scepticism rears its head; Flanagan is wary of computer-generated imagery. "I think the most crucial elements will be the casting and use of CGI. There's no need for that stuff because there are no big battle scenes. There aren't 10,000 Orcs charging to the centre of Middle-earth. I simply want this to be character-driven, with as few special effects as possible. And I hope nobody ever, ever shoots a bow horizontally!"
John Flanagan is writing the eighth book in the Ranger's Apprentice series and planning the ninth.
Universal Assembling Vampire Army
(variety.com) Universal Pictures is developing The Knights
Templar, picking up a spec script from Adam Torchia and Justin Stanley
for Marc Platt and Wanted director Timur Bekmambetov to produce.
Variety says the film puts a horror spin on the famed organization of
fighters from the Middle Ages, with the Knights Templar, fresh from
the Crusades, forced to fend off an invading vampire army set on
destroying the Holy Grail.
Platt will produce "Knights Templar" through his Marc Platt
Productions, while Bekmambetov will shepherd the project through his
Bazelevs Productions, with Jim Lemley.
No 'Grand Theft Auto IV' Effect on Iron Man
(variety.com) Ironman50 $104.2 million later, I think we can
safely say that "GTA IV" had zero impact on "Iron Man's" opening.
Paramount's Rob Moore was right: "It's crazy to think that young males
can't carve out two hours for Iron Man. It's going to be a great week
to be a young guy.'' (Pamela McClintock reports in Variety that the
"Iron Man" aud was 62% male).
Obviously you can't prove a counter-factual, but when a movie breaks
this many records, it sure doesn't look like anything was holding it
back.
Pundits who got it wrong: Electronic Arts CEO John Riccitiello,
Wedbush Morgan analyst Edward Woo; the editors of GamePro; Janco
Partners analyst Mike Hickey; and probably others who I'm not finding
right now. (additions to this list are welcome)
For the record, I explored the idea that "GTA IV" might impact "Iron
Man's" opening b.o., but did a little research and concluded that was
unlikely (though I did leave open the possibility that there could be
a slight overall effect on movie viewership this summer amongst
gamers).
Instead, I wrote in a story on the topic, "GTA IV" was more likely to
impact homevideo sales (which is why no DVDs aimed at young males came
out last week) and TV ratings amongst the gamer demo. I'll check the
TV ratings data this week and find out if that proved true.
XSI & Maya Dating At Last
(digitalproducer.digitalmedianet.com) There is a new exporter that allows you to move all of your rigs seamlessly from XSI to Maya. It's no doubt that Maya is quickly becoming a big player in the D game design, and with its adoption into the autodesk family, and living alongside MAX - and going directly into toxik, there are several features game developers who are switching to Maya might want. Face Robot from SoftImage is on the wishlist.
There are several new features in SoftImage's Face Robot 1.9 in the form of video training, headmodels and interactivity with Crosswalk (going to Maya/MAX), MOTOR, Delta Referencing and animation layers.
Sure, Face Robot helps you to easily apply mocap data to solved head meshes, but its strength isn't about simply slapping captured animation data onto geometry. What's nice about the tool is that it allows you to get the broad brushstrokes in place, so the animators can tweak on the smaller details that make character animation truly expressive. It's not going to replace animators (or rather, it shouldn't).
One of the most impressive uses of Face Robot is its implementation within the development of game models. While a mesh and rig might be extremely dense, you can export bones to your game res mesh and extract normal maps (you can use these in secondary aps as well).
You can get Face Robot out via COLLADA and FBX when you update your Face Robot Crosswalk to version 2.5.2.
As SoftImage is a division of Avid, and Avid will not be at NAB this year, you'll have to check out their website rather than being able to talk face to face with a person at an NAB booth.
"Ice Age" Man Builds Mechanical Man
(variety.com) Ice Age helmer Chris Wedge has signed on to
direct Brian Selznick's magic-themed children's novel "The Invention
of Hugo Cabret" for Graham King's GK Films, Johnny Depp's Infinitum
Nihil and Warner Bros.
Variety says screenwriter John Logan ("Sweeney Todd," The Aviator,
Gladiator) has been hired to pen the adaptation.
King and Infinitum Nihil's Christi Dembrowski will produce the
live-action film, which centers on an orphaned boy who secretly lives
in the walls of a busy Paris train station and looks after the clocks.
He gets caught up in a mystery adventure when he attempts to repair a
mechanical man.
The studio is eyeing a fall start date.
GK Films and Warner Bros. acquired screen rights to "The Invention of
Hugo Cabret," a No. 1 New York Times best-seller, in 2007.
Has Peter Jackson Gone Mad With Power?
(martiniboys.com) Peter Jackson is a filmmaker who has always
been loyal to his collaborators. He continues employ writers, special
effects gurus, and other technicians who he met on early low-budget
genre movies like Meet The Feebles and Braindead. This sense of
loyalty has always suggested a very collaborative and respectful
relationship between the director and his crew, but these warm
relationships have been changing during recent productions. The first
incident occurred during post production on King Kong when Jackson
fired Oscar winning composer Howard Shore (the man responsible for the
wonderful Lord Of The Rings music) over "creative differences." In
Hollywood, "creative differences" is a euphemism for an ego-driven
fight and this incident came as a shock because it involved two
particularly amiable Hollywood personalities who had worked well
together previously. It was a surprising moment, but one that simply
could have meant that Shore was simply the wrong person for that
particular job. That is, until the incidents continued.
Are We Closer to a 'Matrix'-style World?
(msnbc.msn.com) Are we closer to living in a
"Matrix"-style virtual world? Some sophisticated new projects are
showing just how far we've come toward creating the visual, tactile
and conversational elements of an eye, hand and ear-fooling virtual
world.
What if a computer could make you a picture-perfect
glass of milk, let you feel the tension as it pulled an ant's leg from
another room, and chat you up with the charisma of Oprah Winfrey? No
one machine can do all three — yet. But some sophisticated new
projects are showing just how far we've come toward creating an "I
can't believe it's not real" virtual world.
Last month, Brookhaven National Laboratory computer scientist Michael
McGuigan told New Scientist magazine he believed a "Matrix"-style
virtual world, in which one cannot always distinguish between what's
real and what's not, could be up and running in just a few years. His
optimism derived in part from the impressive ramp-up in processing
speed he obtained with the lab's BlueGene/L supercomputer while
running a conventional ray-tracing software program that mimics the
effect of natural light.
Henrik Wann Jensen, an associate professor of computer science and
engineering at the University of California at San Diego, is among
those leading the charge toward more powerful algorithms that yield,
say, a convincing fog-shrouded lighthouse or a frosty glass of 2
percent milk. Best of all, the convergence of speed and power means
those virtual stand-ins don't necessarily require a room-sized
supercomputer to produce them.
"Now is a pretty exciting time in graphics," Jensen says. "We've
reached a level now where we can make very realistic images: five to
10 hours to make images more or less perfect, where people say, 'Wow,
that's a photograph!' "
Maintaining the same illusion for real-time animation isn't as far
along, largely due to its enormous appetite for computing power. But
that limitation is quickly falling by the wayside, Jensen says, with
the aid of muscular new graphics processors like Intel's Larrabee chip
and Nvidia's CUDA technology.
Pushing the envelope
Jensen is attacking the problem of limited power from the other end by
cutting the computational costs of graphics-producing algorithms known
as ray tracing and photon mapping. Ray tracing follows a beam of light
through a virtual environment, mimicking how the beam would interact
with its surroundings. Photon mapping is essentially the reverse, and
together, the two algorithms fit into what Jensen calls global
illumination, a framework for simulating how light bends a spoon in a
glass of water, cuts through the swirl of smoke around a spotlight
stage, or penetrates a thick fog in the form of a lighthouse beam.
"In many ways, we're just taking the physics of nature and trying to
simulate that," he says, but in a streamlined way that uses far less
power. Instead of counting all the photons associated with a light
source, Jensen's algorithms start with a question: If you place a set
of eyes at a specific spot in a scene, what would they see? Previous
methods sampled photons here and there across a light source, but
Jensen's technique maps the relevant photons along the light's entire
pathway, letting a graphics interface follow the light around a scene
and determine how much will be absorbed, reflected or scattered by
other objects.
For the first "Shrek" movie, filmmakers told Jensen a scene with the
Gingerbread Man and a glass of milk was one of the most difficult to
produce. "They didn't think of milk as a medium like fog," Jensen
says, and consequently used the wrong technology to simulate how light
interacted with it.
More: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24394425/
Gaeta's Poptimistic Photo-Anime
(vrmag.org) Take a movie which is made for the whole
family. Written and directed by the Wachowski Brothers ("V for
Vendetta" and "The Matrix trilogy").
Look inside the cast and find Emile Hirsch (Speed), Christina Ricci
(Trixie), Oscar winning Susan Sarandon (Mom Racer) and American Golden
Globe - and Emmy-winning actor John Goodman (Pops Racer), to name just
a few. Mingle your childhood's dreams, synthesized in a 1966 Japanese
anime with super fast, latest technology roaring cars and a young man
whose DNA is full of racing instincts and whose aims are directed to
rescue his family's business and racing sports.
Now, push the movie's technical and creative design to the edge of any
cinematic limit. Editorially collage human actors with immersive
photography and CGI together to create a new format. Add tons of
colors out of any palette of your wish. Overlay a multitude of
expressive non realistic effects throughout the background, midground
and foreground.
Forget the feeling of film texture.
Here you have the real first "poptimistic photo-anime": Speed Racer,
whose world captures the eyes with techno colors, ever bending
perspectives, car-fu and flashing lights, in what is the latest
accomplishment by the brother Wachowski, John Gaeta (Award winning
Matrix trilogy's visual effects designer), Dan Glass(VFX Supervisor
for V for Vendetta) and their team's techno-magic spells.
If, within the Matrix, he had creatively enabled several kinds of
emergent effects techniques to visualize a new type of movie, whose
innovation was awarded with the recognition of his abilities by the
Academy Award for Visual Effects, BAFTA Award for Best Achievement in
Special Effects, and a pair of VES Awards (to name but a few); in
Speed Racer John Gaeta and his long time collaborators move forward
again with the incubation of a completely new genre and film format.
More: http://www.vrmag.org/issue30/WHEN_CINEMA_MEETS_VR_-_JOHN_GAETA_TALKS_ABOUT_SPEED_RACER.html
Virtual Magazine For Virtual Reality
(vrmag.org) Dive into the crystal clear water of Hawaii
and grab a seat on the trains which cross Europe, Middle East and
Americas. Float above Germany, Scotland, Miami, New York and San
Francisco at altitudes of 500 ft AGL. Climb higher and experience zero
gravity or descent rapids to have a rush of adrenaline to your head;
participate to weddings and enter creepy abandoned hyper real houses.
John Gaeta and his team uncovers the secrets of Speed Racer. Read our
interviews with top-notch VR artists and grab their hints and secrets.
Immerse yourself into the next generation's entertainment.
Virtual Reality Magazine: http://www.vrmag.org/
Metal Exoskeleton Crew Keeps It Real
(hollywoodreporter.com) Director Jon Favreau issued a
mandate to "Iron Man" senior visual effects supervisor John Nelson:
Keep it real. So Nelson, an Oscar winner for "Gladiator," strove for
photorealism in Paramount's blockbuster comic book film, mindful that
the characters had to be kept front and center.
When Robert Downey Jr. suits up in his metal exoskeleton, the gleaming
body armor is a combination of computer-generated versions, created by
lead VFX house Industrial Light + Magic, and practical, built by Stan
Winston Studios.
"We would always try to do as much as we could practically, but we
replaced most of it with CG because it's mostly an action movie,"
Nelson said. "We had practical stuff to ground us, and that made it
that much better."
The ILM team, which included internal VFX supervisor Ben Snow ("Star
Wars: Episode II -- Attack of the Clones") and animation supervisor
Hal Hickel ("Pirates of the Caribbean"), developed several suit
variations, including different sizes and flying abilities.
In some cases, character performances were captured using iMoCap,
ILM's proprietary motion caption system first used for the CG Davy
Jones character in the "Pirates" films. For "Iron," Downey or stunt
people were used depending on the needs of the shots.
Some of the motion capture was filmed at Perris Valley Skydiving in
California, where the motion of skydivers was captured in a wind
tunnel. For Iron Man's flight, a combination of flamethrowers and CG
flames were used to create realism.
To allow Downey to act inside the exoskeleton, the team created a
virtual display with which the actor could interact. Those shots were
created at VFX house the Orphanage.
The climactic final showdown has Iron Man and villainous Iron Monger
battling in three key locations: a freeway in Long Beach, Calif.;
80,000 feet in the air; and on a rooftop. In the complex sequence, the
aerials were mostly CG environments. Some plates were shot, for
instance, from a Learjet diving with a nose camera at dusk. Miniatures
also were shot for the final sequence.
A lot of research also went into the level of reflections on the
chrome suit, particularly in the night scene.
Shrinking schedules have become an ongoing challenge in the VFX
industry, but Nelson insisted there are two sides to that coin.
"Both are good and trying," he said. "With big action movies like
this, people are always trying to shove as much into them as possible.
It makes delivery difficult. The other side is, if you are in post and
you see you can make something better, you want to do that."
"Virtual Filmmaking": The Future of Cinema?
(vfxworld.com) The dawn of a new "virtual filmmaking" age
is upon us. Sparked by the pioneering work of Bob Zemeckis on The
Polar Express and Beowulf and amped to the extreme to create a
realtime director-centric workflow by James Cameron, Rob Legato and
team for the upcoming Avatar, this new evolution of the filmmaking
process is energizing the Hollywood industry. Having worked on a
couple of these bleeding-edge film projects (Avatar, Tintin) with many
of the industry's' leading filmmakers, artists and technicians has
allowed me to witness and contribute to the development of this new
virtual filmmaking system that will likely lead the moviemaking
process over the coming decades.
The virtual filmmaking process is an amalgamation of traditional
filmmaking, CGI, visual effects pipelines, previs workflows and
realtime computer gaming technology. Virtual filmmaking combines the
best parts of all of these previous traditions in a unique way to
create something immensely useful and creatively liberating for the
director and other artistic team members. Although I can't elaborate
on the specifics of any one system, I'd like to briefly touch on the
technological progression toward the virtual filmmaking revolution in
general and point out some of the innovations of this new system.
Technical limitations imposed on filmmaking are nothing new. The art
form endured an earlier "dark-ages" period when it struggled with the
coming of sound and the introduction of the first color film stocks.
These technological advancements actually changed with way that films
were made for a short while due to the often overwhelming limitations
they imposed. The fluid moving cameras of the silent film era had
reached an almost poetic height only to be temporarily restricted when
cameras suddenly required bulky soundproof enclosures to eliminate the
noise from their mechanisms. Actors that previously had freedom of
motion now found themselves speaking into potted plants or telephones,
which concealed a hidden microphone, as in the infamous Warner Bros.
film The Lights of New York produced in 1928. In addition, there were
three different, non-compatible sound systems competing to become the
sound standard. These were the Vitaphone, Movietone and Photophone
systems and much like the current format wars of today they were all
backed and supported by different studios and groups. Sound familiar?
Later, in the 1950s, the heavy lighting requirements of early color
film stocks imposed limitations on the cinematographers and production
designers and also influenced and changed the final imagery of the
films themselves. Given time and ingenuity, these limitations were
overcome and the art form once again was able to flourish.
More: http://www.vfxworld.com/?atype=articles&id=3630
No, Wait. "3D Filmmaking": The Future of Cinema?
(scifi.com) Brendan Fraser, who stars in the upcoming film Journey to the Center of the Earth 3D, told SCI FI Wire that the 3-D technology used to make the film is the true future of filmmaking.
"Do pay attention to this movie, because it's groundbreaking in the terms that this technology has not been given to the world yet in this format," Fraser said in an interview. "It's not the blue-eye/red-eye style that makes your eyes do calisthenics and makes people sick. It's high-def 3-D, live action and feature-length."
Journey is a contemporary retelling of Jules Verne's classic SF novel, with Fraser playing a scientist in search of his missing brother. Directed by former visual-effects supervisor Eric Brevig, Journey makes use of Real D Cinema technology and is the first wide release to open exclusively in the format in digital 3-D theaters.
"Usually 3-D has the perception of things just jumping out at you," Fraser said. "But the cool thing about this technology is that it's more immersive. You can have a sense of stepping through the proscenium into the environment that the actors are in. But beyond the other dimension is the depth of field, and you are in the immediate foreground, but you find yourself staring at the horizon and seeing the curvature of the Earth or wanting to know what is around a corner."
Coupled with advanced audio, the technology creates the sensation of seeing onscreen what you see in your mind, Fraser said. "Like there's a scene that delights kids, where these tiny glowing birds come swarming to the roof of a cavern, and they come down and flutter around the three heroes, and you see kids and adults reaching out to touch them," he said.
Fraser said the new 3-D technology goes beyond what viewers are used to. "In my view, CGI films have hit a glass ceiling, and Journey breaks through it," he said. "The star of the movie is the experience. Who cares who's in it? It's the experience. It's an exciting time for filmmaking, and I'm privileged to be a part of it." Journey to the Center of the Earth 3D opens July 11.
Breaking The Human Body In 400 Shots Or Less
(digitalartsonline.co.uk) The human body is
remarkable, adaptable and robust – but not unbreakable. What happens
to the body when pushed to the extremes is the subject of the new
Discovery series Human Body: Ultimate Machine, which features over 400
high-definition VFX shots by Soho-based digital-effects house Rushes.
The series comprises four one-hour episodes, which were shot and
broadcast initially in high definition. The show details what happens
to the human body in physical circumstances ranging from being tackled
in American football to falling of a cliff, with storytelling momentum
provided by a series of real-life stories that have been recreated.
Produced by Dangerous Films, the series features real-world and model
special effects created by The Model Unit, and VFX, digital matte
paintings and compositing created by Rushes.
At the show's core is immensely detailed CG, showing how bones,
muscles and the central nervous system react, bend and break under
different circumstances.
Each scene recreates an incident using actors, with the central
character replaced by a CG model at times to show how the event
affects the human body.
To create this, Rushes needed a highly detailed 3D model of the human
body, which had to include all of the constituent elements and be
detailed enough to look good in HD.
Rather than creating the model from scratch, the post house bought one
from Zygote (www.zygote.com), which specializes in creating very
accurate anatomical models.
More: http://www.digitalartsonline.co.uk/features/index.cfm?FeatureID=1713
Tony Stark's Red Carpet Blues
(goldderby.latimes.com) Robert Downey Jr. and Gywneth
Paltrow are earning some of the best reviews of their careers for a
"Iron Man." The first big budget special effects movie of the 2008
summer season scored a solid 78 at Meta Critic.
This comic-book-come-to-life would be the biggest hit of their
careers. Robert Downey Jr., a one-time Oscar nominee ("Chaplin"), and
Gwyneth Paltrow, the 1998 best actress winner ("Shakespeare in Love"),
won't be walking the red carpet at the Kodak Theater next February for
their work in this film. However, they are likely to compete for the
Saturn Awards, bestowed by the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy &
Horror Films.
Indeed, Downey won best actor at the Saturn Awards for "Heart and
Souls" in 1993 and competed with "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang" in 2005, losing
to Christian Bale for "Batman Begins." And Paltrow was a 1995
supporting actress nominee there for "Seven," though she lost to
Bonnie Hunt for "Jumanji."
And, of course, "Iron Man" will compete for lots of Golden Boys in the
tech races. On its visual effects team, for example, is Stan Winston —
who won Oscars for "Aliens, " "Terminator 2: Judgment Day" and
"Jurassic Park" — and Daniel Sudick, nominated for "War of the Worlds"
and "Master and Commander. " Among the talent on the sound team is
Mark Ulano, who an Oscar for "Titanic. " J. Michael Riva was nominated
for best art direction on "The Color Purple. "
OpenRoadTV Visits Letterman Digital Arts Center
(openroad.tv) The OpenRoad.TV crew uploaded a new video
today, San Francisco's Presidio & George Lucas, which takes you to a
place not too many people think to visit when they are in San
Francisco. Part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, the
Presidio covers 1,491 acres and was in continuous operation as a
military base from 1776 through 1994. On October 1st of 1994, the
Presidio was transferred to the National Park Service as it was no
longer needed by the United States Military.
In 1999, Star Wars creator George Lucas
won the development rights for 15 acres of the Presidio, where he
proceeded to construct approximately 900,000 square feet of offices to
house 2,500 employees. The new Letterman Digital Arts Center, named
for the Letterman Army Hospital that was previously occupying the
site, replaces the Industrial Light and Magic and LucasArts studios in
San Rafael. The video uploaded today at OpenRoad.TV gives you a very
special inside look into the creative genius of George Lucas and his
staff, which is a real treat since their offices are not open to the
public.
Take a look: http://openroad.tv/video.php?vid=310
Oh Yeah, He Can Fly! Iron Man Rockets To $201M Worldwide!
(comingsoon.net) The ComingSoon.net Box Office Report has been updated with studio estimates for the weekend.
Paramount Pictures and Marvel Studios' Iron Man exceeded all expectations, earning a massive $104.2 million during its opening weekend domestically from 4,105 theaters and $104.2 million since debuting Thursday night, averaging $24,543 per site. Internationally, the film has also earned an incredible $96.7 million in 57 countries since it began opening Wednesday, putting its worldwide total at $201 million after just five days!
The comic book adaptation, directed by Jon Favreau and starring Robert Downey Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow, Terrence Howard and Jeff Bridges, was the 10th biggest opening of all-time and the fourth biggest for a superhero movie. Among nonsequels, it came in behind only the first Spider-Man, which opened with $114.8 million. As far as May openings, Iron Man came in at #8, just behind X-Men: The Last Stand's $102.8 million when you look at the three-day figure (not counting Thursday night). Financed by Marvel Studios and distributed by Paramount, the movie cost about $150 million to make and $75 million to market.
Although Iron Man had a big opening, overall business was down 15% from the same weekend last year, when Spider-Man 3 had its record debut of $151.1 million.
Terminator Salvation Targeting PG-13 Rating
(Variety.com) With production starting today on Terminator Salvation: The Future Begins, producers at the Halcyon Co. say they aim to deliver a PG-13 movie to Warner Bros. for release on May 22, 2009.
The "Terminator" series is one of the highest-grossing R-rated franchises of all time, with the first three films having grossed more than $1.03 billion worldwide. "The ratings have changed," said Halcyon co-founder and co-CEO Victor Kubicek, a broker-turned-writer-producer. "The PG-13 has increased in intensity."
A family-friendly rating opens many doors, including a "Terminator Salvation" licensing deal for action figures with Playmates Toys.
"Our merchandising program will be the largest to date for 'The Terminator,' " said Halcyon co-founder and co-CEO Derek Anderson, ex-owner of ad agency In the Mix, who adds that he had not discussed the possibility of an R-rating with Warners. "We won't force it. We are carrying on in the tradition of the mythology, with an exciting approach to the action. If we can make a compelling film to reach the widest audience, why wouldn't we do it?"
Halcyon has already launched Halcyon Games to create a "Terminator" game for release at the same time as the movie. "The first three games were all bad," Anderson said. "The core fans are screaming for something fresh; they won't be just playing the movie."
Set
in post-apocalyptic 2029, an adult John Connor, played by Christian
Bale, leads the war to save humanity from the killing machines. Sam
Worthington, Anton Yelchin and Moon Bloodgood co-star.