Brad Bird Switching To Live Action
(cinemablend.com) Brad Bird Switching To Live Action
Genius, Oscar winning animation director Brad Bird, the mind behind
such masterpieces as The Iron Giant and The Incredibles, is about make
the jump from cartoons to live action movies. Slashfilm says he may
make his live action directorial debut with something called 1906.
1906 is based on a same named book by James Dalessandro about the
famous 1906 San Francisco earthquake. The book is supposed to be about
more than just a natural disaster though. It's described as a tale of
political intrigue, corruption, romance, rescue, revenge, and murder
based on actual historical facts.
Bird should have no problem with the effects, after anything more than
a fender bender is usually done with computer animation these days
anyway. I have a hard time imagining him tackling politics and
intrigue, but he's been so good at everything else he's done the
thought of him attempting it is nothing short of fascinating. This is
clearly a guy not afraid to step out of his element. I follow Brad
Bird anywhere, until he does something to convince me otherwise my
default position on his work is that it will be brilliant. His
commitment to story and character first should work just as well with
real actors as it does with computer generated ones.
James Cameron's Avatar Gets a Date
(comingsoon.net) Avatar, James Cameron's long-awaited
non-doc follow-up to his 1997 Oscar-winning blockbuster Titanic, has
claimed its date of release, and it's going to be hitting theatres on
Memorial Day weekend in 2009. That's in just 27 short months for those
who want to start standing in line.
With a cast that includes Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana and Sigourney
Weaver, Cameron's sci-fi epic is about a wounded ex-marine, thrust
unwillingly into an effort to settle and exploit an exotic planet rich
in bio-diversity, who eventually crosses over to lead the indigenous
race in a battle for survival.
VFX Production Supervision or Creative Baby Sitting?
(p3.com.au) In
a recent production estimate review, we noticed that the agency
producer had allowed an extraordinatry amount of supervision hours on
the project. There was a large post production, visual effects
component spanning several weeks, but we thought “surely they do not
intent to sit in a darkened effects suite day in and day out watching
the effects being developed?”
How wrong we were.
It turns out that not only was the agency producer sitting through
five long weeks of post, so was the creative team. This was 600 head
hours of time. 3 people x 5 weeks x 40 hours per week. Perversely the
creative head hours were covered in the retainer, so it was not costing
anymore to have the writer and art director sitting through the whole
process.
Not that they had to, as the best practice is to brief the visual
effetcs company and then attend daily or twice daily work in progress
meetings instead to review the work done and discuss the next step.
This is how it is done in feature films. And it reduces the time from
40 hours per person per week to around 10 hours per person per week.
But back to the agency producer, who was charged out at a relatively
high $240 per hour, this meant that having them sit through every hour
of the visual effects added $48,000 to the production cost. This is on
top of a senior copywriter and senior art director also attending. We
asked the agency producer why were they attending as well and they said
“Because the creatives cannot be trusted to nt blow the budget”. In
anyone’s terms that is a very expensive baby sitter. Luckily that does
not happen every day.
Source: http://www.p3.com.au/blog/?p=85
Area 52 Comes To the Big Screen
(hollywoodreporter.com) Benderspink has acquired rights to
"Area 52," a comic book by Brian Haberlin.
The story follows a group of misfit soldiers stationed
at a remote military base in Antarctica who learn that they are
guarding a storage facility in which top-secret, otherworldly
technologies and weapons are kept and analyzed. A murderous alien,
hatched from something believed to be an artifact, stalks the soldiers,
who must team to defeat it.
Chris Bender and JC Spink will produce with Quattro partner Jim
Strader. Haberlin will executive produce.
Oscar Screener "Flushed Away" Upoaded
(news.toonzone.net) A man who put Flushed Away online may
himself go up the river, the Associated Press reports. Salvador Nunez
Jr. has been charged with copyright infringement after uploading an
Oscar screener of the animated film to the internet.
Visual Effects, What A Producer Needs To Know
(flippant.net) Last week, I had the pleasure of going
to a event sponsored by the Producer Guild of American East.
The talk focused on getting the most of your visual effects budget.
Some of the key points where.
Once you have the script, go talk to a VFX (visual effects) house to
see what is possible and viable. They can give you a real budget on
what it would cost for the effects in your script.
Give them visual queues, what videos you like, what looks you like
so the VFX people could have a point of reference.
The earlier you get the VFX house involved, the earlier they can set
up time-lines for deliveries. Make sure the company you’re using
follows the schedule. This way you can resolve issues at the beginning
stages.
“…The only thing worst than having a deadline is not having a
deadline…”
If you’re doing a heavy effects film, make sure you have somebody
from the VFX house at the set to let you know if the set ups of the
shots are going to work in Post. Other wise, you going to be shooting
yourself in the foot and losing money. What if the great tracking shot
you got, can’t be used because the green screen wasn’t covering the
lead actors.
The five main steps to the Visual Effects Process are:
Research - understand what you’re trying to achieve.
Design - All must sign off on the look and feel of the sets, mattes,
creatures and so on.
Build - The process of making the designs.
Animation - creating the shots for your film or adding the composites
Finishing - Blending in all the effects to make it look ideal.
Warners Announces "Justice League" Feature Film Project
(toonzone.net) Warner Bros. is planning to bring the
Justice League of America to the big screen in a feature film
adaptation of the long-running DC Comics franchise, Variety reports.
The studio has tapped Kieran and Michel Mulroney, who are best known
for a rewrite of Mr. & Mrs. Smith, to pen a script.
The studio has made no decisions on which members of the League will
show up in the new film.
VFX & Makeup Oscars Shorted Two Slots
(oscarfrenzy.com) When it comes to the techs, here are
two categories that have been fairly predictable over the years. Part
of the reason for this is because usually only three films are
nominated. This, of course, makes no sense whatsover. Why should every
other category get five slots and makeup and visual effects only three?
“Dreamgirls” and “The Queen” could have easily filled up two more spots
this year in makeup. Anyway, let’s take a peek at this year’s makeup
finalists.
“Apocalypto”
“Click”
“Pan’s Labyrinth”
In a way. this is probably the easiest and dumbest category of the
year. What is the deal with “Click?” Are we talking about the same
movie here - where Adam Sandler plays a guy with a wacky remote
control? This has got to go down as one of the most idiotic nominations
in Oscar history. Of course, what would you expect from the Academy.
Last year, “Cinderella Man” made the cut instead of “Transamerica” and
“Memoirs of a Geisha.”
Obviously, “Click” has zero chance, but “Apocalypto” doesn’t have
much more. While “Braveheart” did win this award over a decade ago,
popular opinion for Mel Gibson has shifted quite a bit since and it’s
hard to imagine the Academy giving him any award this year. “Pan’s
Labyrinth” has been wowing audiences everywhere recently and with six
total nominations, it’s bound to capture a few. This will be one of
them.
Our pick: “Pan’s Labyrinth”
Over to visual effects, what happened to the days when more artistic
and ground-breaking movies got nominated, like “Forrest Gump” and
“Babe?” These days, it seems like the mantra is “the bigger the
better.” Here are your nominees.
“Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest”
“Poseidon”
“Superman Returns”
“Poseidon” is out because the Academy hardly ever rewards a box
office dud in this category. “Superman Returns” features some
interesting effects, but some it seemed fake, and the movie as a whole
underperformed. “Pirates of the Caribbean 2″ is the biggest movie of
the bunch and the only other one with nominations in sound and sound
editing. Its predecessor was nominated across the board in 2004, but
had the misfortune of tangling with “Return of the King.” If “Spiderman
2″ can win this award two years ago, there’s no reason why “Pirates”
won’t add another something to their treasure chest.
Our pick: “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest”
Clooney, Blanchett Go Stop Motion
(news.toonzone.net) George Clooney and Cate Blanchett are
negotiating to lend their voices to the stop-motion feature The
Fantastic Mr. Fox, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The film, an
adaptation of a Roald Dahl children's story, would cast Clooney in the
title role and Blanchett would play his wife.
Wes Anderson is set to direct, and Twentieth Century Fox is expected to
distribute the film.
Jobs, Gates To Take Stage Together
(macnn.com) Apple CEO Steve Jobs and Microsoft Chairman
Bill Gates will make a rare joint appearance at The Wall Street
Journal's "D: All Things Digital" conference this May. The two seminal
figures in the development of the personal computer will jointly
discuss the history and future of the digital revolution in an
unrehearsed, unscripted, onstage conversation on May 30 with D
co-producers Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher. Both executives have made
multiple individual appearances at the conference, which will celebrate
its fifth anniversary this year (and thus called 'D5'); however, this
will be their first joint session at D, and a "highly unusual event,"
according to the WSJ press release.
In addition to participating in the joint session with Microsoft's
founder Gates, Jobs will appear on his own in a separate segment at D5
to discuss the latest developments at Apple, including new ventures
such as the iPhone and Apple TV. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer will also
appear at the conference in his own segment, to discuss Windows,
Office, the Xbox, Zune, and other topics.
More: http://www.macnn.com/articles/07/02/20/jobs.gates.at.d5.in.may/
Time To Rethink The Function Of Digital Visual Effects
(mitpress.mit.edu) Computer-generated effects are often
blamed for bad Hollywood movies. Yet when a critic complains that
"technology swamps storytelling" (in a review of Van Helsing, calling
it "an example of everything that is wrong with Hollywood
computer-generated effects movies"), it says more about the weakness of
the story than the strength of the technology. In Digital Storytelling,
Shilo McClean shows how digital visual effects can be a tool of
storytelling in film, adding narrative power as do sound, color, and
"experimental" camera angles--other innovative film technologies that
were once criticized for being distractions from the story. It is time,
she says, to rethink the function of digital visual effects.
Effects artists say--contrary to the critics--that effects always
derive from story. Digital effects are a part of production, not
post-production; they are becoming part of the story development
process. Digital Storytelling is grounded in filmmaking, the
scriptwriting process in particular. McClean considers crucial
questions about digital visual effects-- whether they undermine
classical storytelling structure, if they always call attention to
themselves, whether their use is limited to certain genres--and looks
at contemporary films (including a chapter-long analysis of Steven
Spielberg's use of computer-generated effects) and contemporary film
theory to find the answers. McClean argues that to consider digital
visual effects as simply contributing the "wow" factor underestimates
them. They are, she writes, the legitimate inheritors of film
storycraft.
Shilo T. McClean is a consultant in storybuilding and digital visual
effects. She has worked as a writer, producer, director, and script
editor.
Order today:
http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=10772
Weaver Says No More "Alien", "Ghostbusters"
(Entertainment Weekly) Talking with Entertainment Weekly,
actress Sigourney Weaver says that despite teaming up with James
Cameron again for his "Avatar" project, don't expect anymore "Alien"
films.
"I love the character, but I think the monster, once they did the other
film (Alien vs. Predator), which I never saw, but that really maxes our
monster out" says Weaver.
As for "Ghostbusters", and despite Dan Aykroyd's recently announced
plans of a CG animated flick, Weaver says "I think all of us are busy
doing so many things and it's wonderful all the films are so well loved
and they certainly were fun to do. But I think if you do it right the
first time, sometime it's better to move on to something else."
Digital Artists Close The Gap On Reality
(news.ninemsn.com.au) In 1986, a two-and-a-half-minute
animation involving desk lamps gave
the cinematic world a glimpse of just how close computer-generated (CG)
images could come to mimicking real life.
Pixar Animation's film,
Luxo Jr, was incredibly simple in story concept but took
three-dimensional animation to a level of realism previous attempts had
failed to approach.
The Oscar-nominated short showing two desk
lamps kicking a small rubber ball across a workstation broke new ground
on several fronts.
It gave vivid expression to otherwise mundane
office objects and dramatically enhanced the degree of detail through
richly textured surfaces and, for the first time in a computer
generated (CG) animation, the use of animated lighting and shadows.
Twenty-one years later, CG specialists have remarkably broadened the
scope of what they can achieve.
Such
technology is an almost ubiquitous part of the production process
today, even in movies that are not known for CG effects, such as
Bridget Jones's Diary.
Artists were once restricted to representing man-made objects such
as aircraft and cars.
But
breakthroughs in computing algorithms in the past decade have put
images of trickier items like hair, water and fire onto the 3D stage.
John Dietz worked with Australian group Rising Sun Pictures on the
2006 adaption of Charlotte's Web.
One
of the biggest challenges in that film was creating a realistic spider
web, given a lack of off-the-shelf programs that even came close to
helping the artists achieve their goal.
"We had to write our own dynamic simulation package," Dietz says.
"All the different lines interact differently together and it
becomes really complex.
"No matter how close we got, there's still a certain amount where
you just had to go in and animate some of it by hand.
"It's just something in your backyard but it's super complex and it
was basically what the movie was about."
Rising
Sun Pictures also worked on some of the CG effects in Superman Returns,
which is nominated for an Oscar for best visual effects this year.
Dietz
says another complicated part of the trade is getting real-life human
actors and CG objects to interact in a seamless manner.
Getting a human actor to battle a CG troll or ride on a digital
dragon, for example, provides considerable technical challenges.
"Any
time these things have to interact closely, there's always a super high
level of complexity that ends up getting added on top of just doing the
character themselves," Dietz says.
"Getting that live action
person to sit on a digital creature is pretty complicated and it's only
been pulled off successfully a limited number of times."
The
industry has made significant advances since early 3D animation
blockbusters such as Toy Story, with the digital artist's toolset
expanding considerably.
Everything from the way the light of dawn
bounces off a lion's mane to the physics of an 70-year-old man's
wobbling jowls, has been factored into animation.
But the holy grail in the world of digital effects remains seamless
human representation.
Guy
Griffiths, director of research at Animal Logic, which was behind
George Miller's Oscar-nominated Happy Feet, says audiences are most
critical when it comes to recreating human movement.
"As humans, we're very adept at picking up the subtleties of other
humans," Griffiths says.
"If you read all the stuff about behaviour, a lot of what we
communicate is not through speech but through body language."
Being
an effective digital artist means not just knowing how to use a
computer, but knowing the complexity of what you're trying to recreate.
Most
CG movies have shied away from being too ambitious with their human
representations with characters often styled in exaggerated cartoon
forms, as they were in The Incredibles.
Square Pictures' 2001
title Final Fantasy is considered one of the few full-length movies to
achieve almost-perfect photorealism through CG technology.
However,
with the enormous amount of time and money needed to create such
visuals yielding no return, the movie's spectacular failure at box
office sent Square Pictures bust.
Even if computers do end up
fashioning the perfect human, Griffiths is dismissive of that
persisting question: will CG animations ever make human actors
redundant?
"When I watch Helen Mirren in The Queen, am I watching
Helen Mirren or am I watching a visual representation of her?" Mr
Griffiths asks.
"I think of CG characters as being just another expression of that -
it's just another form of make up."