Spiderman 3 VFX Crunch, Disney Anim Layoffs & Ice Age Wins 2006 $ Race...
Pirates
& Rings Makes AFI New Top 100 List
(darkhorizons.com) The American Film Institute is set to
update its 100 greatest movies of all time list in June of this year.
More than 1,500 jurors will be asked to make their choices from a list of 400 American, narrative feature films, including long-standing classics as well as 44 newly eligible films released from 1996-2006.
"Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl," "The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers" and "Brokeback Mountain" are amongst the newer films mentioned.
The results will be presented in a three-hour program, directed by Gary Smith, which will air on CBS.
The aim is to assemble a decade-by-decade portrait of changing appreciations of American film. "Citizen Kane," "Casablanca," "The Godfather," "Gone with the Wind" and "Lawrence of Arabia" topped the previous list in 1998.
Worldwide Push To Finish Spiderman 3 VFX
(comingsoon.net) ComingSoon.net's Superhero Hype! recently caught up with Spider-Man 3 producer Grant Curtis to get an update on the highly-anticipated third film. With the footage shown at the Consumer Electronics Association (CES) in Las Vegas last week and the newly-launched official website now live, the hype for the movie is really kicking off while the production is working on completing the project.
Curtis told us that director Sam Raimi and team are spending several hours a day creating the special effects currently and that there are literally hundreds of people around the world working on the film.
We couldn't resist asking if we can expect Spider-Man 4, and Curtis gave us a very honest answer. He says that all the people involved with Spider-Man 3 are working really hard towards the May 4 release date and haven't had a chance to think about a fourth film.
Layoffs At Disney Animation: Health Insurance, Pensions,
and Unions
(animationguildblog.blogspot.com) The second meeting of soon-to-be-laid off Disney staffers happened at the hat building yesterday. We had bigger attendance than the first meeting, but we didn't catch everyone. Since we handed out important info and got lots of questions, we synopsize the main points in Q and A form...
My end date at Disney's is March 30, 2007. How long until my Motion Picture Industry Health Insurance runs out?
If you've worked at Disney for a year or more, you should have a year or more of health coverage beyond your end date. For example, if your MPI health plan card has 08/01/06-12/31/06 as your coverage dates, then you will most likely be covered until 12/31/07 because you'll have 300 contributed hours to make that coverage happen.
And beyond 12/31/07, you'll likely have another six months of coverage because you (likely) have 300-plus hours in MPI Health Plan's "Bank of Hours." And that's enough for an additional six month's worth of health insurance. At the time your coverage ends, the Plan will send you a letter notifying you that unless you authorize the Plan to use hours in your Bank of Hours to extend coverage, no more health benefits. You'll need to return the enclosed form to the Plan for that extra half-year of coverage. If you don't, no health insurance.
What about pensions? I've worked here off and on for like, seven years, but I've never put together enough years in a row to qualify for the monthly pension. I think this kind of sucks.
The Motion Picture Industry Pension Plans have two parts: The Defined Benefit Plan is a monthly-annuity type pension and takes five years to vest (when you're "vested," it means you're qualified to receive the pension.) The Individual Account Plan -- essentially a balanced stock and bond account -- takes ten forty-hour work-weeks to vest (400 contribution hours). Both these pension plans are automatic when you start work at the studio.
So, let's say you labored at the Mouse House (or some other signator company) for two years, then went away for three years, then came back for three years, then left for five years. You're correct in assuming that you never reached the magic five-year threshhold to qualify for the monthly annuity (the Defined Benefit Plan.) The good news, however, is that you would have qualified for the Individual Account Plan (since you only need ten weeks to vest it), and you would probably have somewhere between five and twenty grand sitting in the account, with each one of those grands earning interest.
One other point: If it were up to the Animation Guild (or any other union under the Industry Plan), everyone would be vested in both pension plans in ten weeks. But it's not up to the Animation Guild. The Motion Picture Industry Plan operates under the federal Taft-Hartley law, so half of its trustees are from participating companies that are trying to contain plan costs. It costs the plan more money if every participant vested lickety-split, hence the five-year vesting time. It saves the companies money.
There's one other pension plan offered to Disney employees working under the TSL/839 agreements, and that's The Animation Guild 401(k)Plan. This one is optional, not automatic. In 2006, you could have tucked 15,000 pre-tax dollars into it (there is no match.) Unlike the Industry Plans, this one is portable to anywhere in the U.S. of A. Anyone who has been away from the industry for ninety days or more can roll her/his 401(k) money into any other qualified retirement account or 401(k) plan.
I'm getting laid off, but there are a couple of other people in my department who have been here way less time than me and have less skills than me. How can the company get rid of me and not them? Doesn't the Animation Guild have seniority in the contract?
Since the mid-eighties, the Seniority Clause in the 839 contract (the same language is in the TSL contract) has allowed signator company wide discretion in who they retain, and who they lay off:
In hiring, layoffs, and recalls, the principal of seniority shall apply as set forth below; except that, where the merit and ability of one individual is, in the sole discretion of the Producer, superior to that of another individual, Producer's judgement shall prevail unless the Union can demonstrate that the producer did not reach its decision fairly and reasonably and without discrimination of any kind...
No company operates as a strict meritocracy. Skills are important, but cronyism, politics and pay-rates also play a part.
Disney Feature Animation is no different than other companies. It reaches its decisions of retention and dismissal via lots of different routes. The collective bargaining agreement, unless there is raw discrimination that can be proven, allows them to do so. This might be crappy, but it's hard to reverse crappiness in a contract arbitration.
My end date is March 2. Is this enough time for me to earn a pension year in 2007?
It is if you don't take time off between now and March 2. This is possible because the '07 pension year "begins on the Sunday before the last Thursday of a calendar year and ends on the Saturday before the last Thursday of the subsequent calendar year."
This could be an important point if you are close to vesting the Defined Benefit Plan. If you're not sure where you stand, we suggest you check with the Motion Picture Industry Pension Plan (818-769-0007).
Addendum:There's a lot of non-signator effects houses and game companies out there. What if I go to work at one of them? What happens to my benefits? How can I start getting benefits again?
If you go to work at a non-signator studio, you can let us know, sign a rep card, help us organize it. If there's enough critical mass for unionization inside the company, it can well end up becoming a union studio that pays contribution hours into your pension and health plan. (It's happened many times before. See: IDT-Entertainment, Nickelodeon, Hyperion Studios, etc.)
You can't self-pay MPI pension and health benefits; if they don't
happen through an employer, they don't happen. But you will
have health benefits from the Motion Picture Industry Health Plan for a
year or more after leaving Disney. If your next employer is
non-signator, consider negotiating for lesser -- or no -- company
health benefits in exchange for higher wages. It doesn't always hapen,
but sometimes it does. And if you don't ask for them, you for sure
won't get them.
Source: http://animationguildblog.blogspot.com/2006/12/disney-changes-ii.html
VES Announces Board Of Directors
(vfxworld.com) The
Visual Effects Society (VES) has elected 15 new members to its board of
directors, and the new board has elected Jeffrey A. Okun to a one-year
term as chair. He replaces outgoing chair Carl Rosendahl, who held the
position for three years.
"Seeing the board pass the
leadership role to Jeff is very
appropriate," remarked exec director Erc Roth. "He's been personally
involved in so many aspects of the VES' work and cares very deeply
about our members. The VES will be in very good hands."
"I'm honored to have the support
of this extremely experienced and
dedicated group," added Okun. "The VES has accomplished a great amount
in our first 10 years but there is still so much to do. We've barely
scratched the surface. As the Society has grown in size, our goals and
our mandates have grown as well."
Okun, who has also served as the
chair of the VES Awards Committee for
the past eight years, has been on the organization's board for six
years. He is a top-tier visual effects supervisor whose credits include
FANTASTIC FOUR, ELIZABETHTOWN AND THE LAST SAMURAI. His most recent
project, BLOOD DIAMOND, is a nominee for a VES Award.
Serving with Okun in other board
leadership positions for one-year
terms are newly elected first vice chair Ray Feeney and second vice
chair Tim McGovern. Feeney, a leader in the visual effects world since
the mid '70s, will be awarded the Gordon E. Sawyer Award (Oscar
Statuette) at this year's Scientific and Technical Academy Awards, for
his technological contributions that have brought credit to the motion
picture industry. This marks Feeney's sixth award from the Sci-Tech
committee of the academy. He is a founding member of the VES. McGovern,
an Oscar-winner for TOTAL RECALL whose industry experience goes back to
the groundbreaking movie, TRON, has been consulting with international
visual effects and animation production companies throughout Asia and
the Middle East. He has been an active member of the VES Awards
committee for the last six years and on the VES board for the last nine
years.
Also just elected are Ray Scalice
as treasurer and Pam Hogarth as
secretary. Scalice has more than 25 years of experience in the visual
effects industry, including stints at Lucasfilm, Industrial Light &
Magic, Disney and Pacific Title Digital. Currently he is vp/gm of Pixel
Magic. As director of Industry Relations at Gnomon School of Visual
Effects, Hogarth specializes in training for careers in high-end
computer graphics for the entertainment industry. She has served two
terms on the VES board, is on its Strategic Planning committee and is
co-chair of the Education committee.
VES' directors serve on the board
for two-year terms. The 15 new
members, elected by the VES active members, will join 15 current board
members in their second year of service. Additionally, three new
alternates were elected and join three currently serving as alternates.
The VES Board of Directors:
* Peter Anderson
* Craig Barron
* Mat Beck, ASC (new member)
* Camille Celluci
* Jerome Chen (new member)
* John "DJ" DesJardin
* Richard Edlund, ASC
* Jonathan Erland (new member)
* Ray Feeney
* Warren Franklin (new
member)
* Pam Hogarth (new member)
* Ian Hunter
* Jeff Kleiser
* Gene Kozicki (new member)
* John Knoll (new member)
* Marshall Krasser (new
member)
* Bill Kroyer
* Tim Landry
* Kim Lavery
* Tim McGovern (new member)
* Jeffrey A. Okun
* Loni Peristere (new member)
* Diane Piepol
* Kevin Rafferty
* Stephen Rosenbaum
* Tim Sarnoff (new member)
* Ray Scalise (new member)
* Mark Stetson (new member)
* Richard Winn Taylor II (new
member)
* Susan Zwerman (new member)
In addition to those newly elected
to the VES board, Erland, McGovern,
Winn Taylor II and Zwerman had previously been on the board and have
each been re-elected for a second term.
Art Directors Honor Terry Gilliam
(cinematical.com) My love of cinema originally came about through my love of production design, particularly for science fiction and fantasy films. As I grew up, one of my dream careers was art director, and some my early heroes were Dante Ferretti and Bo Welch. Naturally, then, a lot of my favorite filmmakers have been those who display creative art direction in their movies. Terry Gilliam has always been at the top of my list.
Other fans of Gilliam will agree with me that no other living director is more deserving of recognition by the Art Directors Guild. In fact, I'm surprised that he wasn't the first choice to receive the guild's Outstanding Contribution to Cinematic Imagery Award when it was originally given in 1998 (to Norman Jewison instead). Other filmmakers that I expect to see honored in the future include Tim Burton, Jean-Pierre Jeunet, Peter Jackson and Guillermo del Toro.
Gilliam will receive the award at the Art Director's Guild Awards on
February 17, when the guild also names the winners of its prizes for
excellence in production design for 2006. Like other guild awards, the
ADG's honors recognize distinct categories for its field. Nominated
films are separated into three groups: period piece; contemporary; and
fantasy (you may remember these are the same categories for the Costume
Designer Guild Awards).
SPI Logo Expresses "Core Values"
(imageworks.com) From the Sony Imageworks press
site: Sony Pictures Imageworks exemplifies the very best
in digital imagery and animation. The quality comes from the people who
have made Imageworks what it is today. As we embark on our 15th-year in
business and look ahead to our future, we see our visual identity as an
important reflection of ourselves: who we are, what we do and where we
want to go. In a year of achievement, expansion and diversification,
Imageworks, the nucleus of Sony Pictures Digital Entertainment and
broadly recognized for some of the finest and most innovative visual
effects, digital characters, CG animation and pioneering technology,
takes this opportunity to develop a graphic identity as clean and
consistent as our award-winning work. With support and feedback from a
wide cross-section of our company, we embarked on a comprehensive
design exercise to capture the spirit, vitality and, most importantly,
the quality and qualities of Imageworks. Through extensive interviews
and observation, we defined and distilled our core values into three
words that became the guiding principles that help drive the design and
emphatically bring forward the recognition of Imageworks’ infinite
creative achievement—past and future. Our goal is to provide Sony
Pictures Imageworks with a clear, consistent and luminous identity. One
that draws on a heritage of innovation from Sony, and a legacy of
entertainment from Columbia Pictures.
The Imageworks identity is a promise, a vital living declaration that behind everything we do there is an unequaled creative kinship with all those with whom we share our passion. Our passion for humanity. For character. For our colleagues and our clients and our audience. For the kind of visual storytelling that touches our souls. For the hopes and dreams and triumphs of ordinary people doing extraordinary things. Our true heroes. Then comes imagination. The way we look at things. Differently. Our vision. Our boundless creativity and ongoing delight in the anticipation of what could be. And “what could be”, becomes the result of a collaboration between imagination and technology—where we ultimately explore, discover and shape our creative vision. This is where the magic takes flight.
Humanity. Imagination. Technology. The catalyst to Imageworks’ identity.
The stylized symbol that anchors the Imageworks logo is an iris. It represents humanity and wonderment, and symbolizes the proverbial window to our imagination. It is our emotional filter. At the center, a single square depicts the sparkle in our eye. Technology makes the complex appear simple. This is why we chose to configure the iris with a minimal amount of simple squares to create our circular mark. The many varying ways we orchestrate these squares through animation and design will be a reflection of our imagination and the technology we use as our part of our expressive palette. We have created three versions of the Imageworks icon. One fully modeled version for use in four-color print and animated applications. A second for 2D flat-color and single-color print applications. And a third for Imageworks 3D. Additionally, we have a “Sony Pictures” configuration for ancillary corporate usage. A comprehensive Brand Style Guide will be forthcoming to outline specific applicable usages.Our brand identity is our face. It embodies our most endearing qualities, becoming our most enduring asset. It is a promise built upon the cornerstone of our core values. A promise that what we think, what we create, and what drives our vision is an extension of these values. The success of Imageworks depends on all of us. In fact, we are so committed to fulfilling that promise that we have staked our claim on our performance and passion as a company and seated a visual declaration prominently above our name for all to see. Our brand is the currency for our future success. Our new Made at Imageworks logo is the symbol for our collective consciousness. We have created outstanding work and continue to enjoy industry kudos and accolades for filmmaking we’re proud of. But as the proverbial saying goes: “You ain’t seen nothing yet.”
Bay Talks Transformers Trailer Download Record
(seibertron.com) Director to the Transformers Movie to premiere on July 4th 2007, has commented on his Shoot For The Edit board about the the fact that the teaser trailer to the movie was the most downloaded trailer ever. The following has been taken directly from the director's post."I had no idea Transformers would have so many fans around the world. Yahoo reported to Paramount, that the Transformers Trailer was the most downloaded trailer ever on Yahoo. It had the most the first day, and the most the first week. It beat Spider Man 3 that up till now held the record, we beat them by over 2,000,000 streams. What we found interesting was that an equal number of women viewed it as men. Go figure. Vote to keep Die Hard July 4th!!!!".
VFX Unions: Helping or Hindering?
(digitalgypsy.com) What are your thoughts on visual effects unionization? Would they help or hinder the visual effects industry? What sort of standards are required? Would the marketplace become more competitive or less?Here's the definition of a union.
Unions are mass organisations of the working class whose primary role is to achieve the common demands of their members. They are fundamentally defensive organizations. A good union can not only improve workers' lives, win more leisure time and a better standard of living, they can also change governments and make very significant changes across society.
Are vfx artists working class? Do we need a defensive organization in a field of work that we are voluntarily a part of? Personally, I think not. If I don't like a company, I leave. There are many studios out there, all wiling to pay for top talent, or even talent as it is. If a bunch of artists decide to stop working because of unfair practices (10 hours is too much! There's no sun in here!), there are a bunch of others that want to take our place. Would I love an eight hour day like before? Sure I would. And of course, I don't need to work 10 hours to get something done. It's all about the organization of the beast. Given the resources, one could work 4 days a week and still get work done. We're not doctors or nurses, we're in entertainment. We're not saving lives here, and our work is forgotten almost the moment after you see it. We live pretty swank lives compared to some, save for the hours some of us put in near the end of a show, but they are far and few between.
In case you are wondering about the VES, it's a guild. We pay annual dues, but there are no distinct advantages that automatically come with enrollment. We have an option for healthcare, and we receive screeners and opportunities to attend Academy (AMPAS) events. But there's no minimum wage, no maximum number of hours to be worked per week, no pension.
I'm interested to hear from folks within a union circle, and how it
might have affected you. I also wonder about visual effects artists
outside of North America, in the UK and Asia and the South Pacific..
Are there local visual effects unions there, and how do you think your
local vfx scene might change if one were formed?
Post a comment: http://www.digitalgypsy.com/vfxlog/archives/2007/01/vfx_unions.php
Historic
"Laugh-O-Gram Studio" Renovation Nears Completion
(mickeynews.com) Renovation of the building in which a young
Walt Disney created Mickey Mouse is nearing completion.
Dan Viets, president and secretary of Thank You Walt Disney Inc., said Wednesday that the Kansas City-based group hopes to complete renovation of the two-story building within six months.
The Walt Disney Family Foundation gave the group a $450,000 matching grant about five years ago, Viets said. Thank You Walt Disney has raised more than $350,000 since then for the building's renovation, he said. Much of the local total has come in the form of donations of labor, materials and expertise by Overland Park, Kan.-based Rau Construction Co. Time Warner Cable has donated money to the effort, Viets said, and "we've been talking with the Kauffman Foundation."
The local group wants to turn the renovated building into a museum that would commemorate Disney's original Laugh-O-Gram Studio and include an interactive animation laboratory to educate children and adults about the art and history of animation.
Viets said the group hopes to reach that goal within three years.
"We have saved a very important piece of Kansas City and national history," he said. "What our location has is a unique association with Walt at a very early stage in his life."
The Walt Disney Family Foundation recently finalized an agreement to build an $85 million museum and library in San Francisco as a permanent tribute to Walt Disney.
Viets said he sees no conflict between that project and the Kansas City renovation.
"It's like Disneyland and Disney World," he
said.
"Digital Jiggery-Pokery" At VFX Bakeoff
(vfxworld.com) We have come
to expect brilliance from the annual love fest known as
the Visual Effects Oscar Bakeoff, and the one held Wednesday at the
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences delivered an effortless
array of delights.
This year, all kinds of films were represented: from those whose
only virtue was their brilliant effects, to the film whose producers
insisted it looked free of effects. There were the requisite number of
explosions, flying men, women and dragons, a pirate ship, stormy seas,
CG animals and, in a case of history repeating itself, a doomed luxury
ocean liner. Even the film with the smallest slate of vfx contained
around 600 shots.
Somehow, appropriately, each year both the work and the process of deciding the evening's seven films become increasingly complex. This year's challenge featured 306 eligible films, a dramatically and frustratingly shortened awards schedule and huge visual effects-heavy films that were released perilously close to the end of the year. Talking with the incomparable Jonathan Erland, the new chairman of the visual effects branch of the academy, is both illuminating and inspiring. (Erland, who began 30 years ago as a model maker on Star Wars, is responsible for establishing visual effects as a branch of the academy.) In describing this complex process, he notes: "Each time we do this, it's really agonizing. Somehow we winnow 300+ films to seven… Each year, the committee revisits the whole process and tries to ensure it's as level a playing field as it's possible to get… And the basic premises still apply. You're looking for the way in which all those disciplines advance the core of the storytelling. You're looking for not only dazzling effects -- though they're all dazzling these days -- you're looking for the way the tools are used, how they enhance the story, how essential they are to the story. Then you can start looking at all the effects."
Erland kicked off the evening with some
notable announcements, among
them were that past chair Richard Edlund (who served for a remarkable
decade) received the John A. Bonner Medal of Commendation, and that Ray
Feeney is the recipient of the Gordon E. Sawyer Award. The program
began after Erland shared a couple of jokes -- one about screening all
the photochemical composites first (there were none, of course), and
the second about the red timing-light, epoxied into its base after
James Cameron unscrewed it when presenting for Titanic almost a
decade ago.
This year's presentations began with another ill-fated ship,
Poseidon, introduced by visual effects supervisor Boyd Shermis, who
brought a refreshing irreverence not usually seen within the academy's
hallowed walls. Shermis noted that director Wolfgang Petersen asked him
to "out-Titanic Titanic, and out-storm his own Perfect Storm.”
But little did Shermis know that “we'd have to do all that without
credible story or character” on Poseidon.
His 4,330-frame opening shot took us from the depths of the ocean to
its surface where a huge Poseidon sailed on an open sea, a live-action
protagonist (Josh Lucas) and his motion captured co-actors on the
ship's fully digital deck. What followed were 15 minutes of astonishing
and disturbing shots of fire and lots and lots of water: John Frazier's
special effects team flooded the model with 100,000 gallons of water,
but amazingly, Industrial Light & Magic led the way in providing a
tremendous leap forward in full volumetric 3D water simulation (in
association with Stanford's computer science department) and
complemented by innovative work in their own right by Moving Picture
Co. and Scanline. The tone continued with the second
film, X-Men: The Last Stand,
presented by vfx supervisor John Bruno. This film was a feast of
impossibilities. In Dorian Gray-like creepiness, Ian McKellen and
Patrick Stewart were both age-regressed about a quarter century.
Houses, rocks, sunglasses and people levitated, pirouetted skyward and
flew over San Francisco. In a disturbing sequence, The Golden Gate
Bridge unmoored and landed on the shores of Alcatraz. And, in a moment
that reminded me of the film industry's occasional absurdity, Bruno
explained how his team had to paint on Hugh Jackman's trousers (after
convincing the actor to shoot the scene in his skivvies) so the film
could receive a PG-13 rating. (Now, that's all well and good, but I
just don't understand how trousers can somehow make up for skin peeling
away to bone, shattering bodies and all manner of death and
destruction. OK, I know, this isn't a ratings article.) Contributing probably the sweetest
presentation was Steve Begg for Casino Royale.
He almost seemed apologetic for the Bond reboot with Daniel Craig (the
most successful at the box office in franchise history, incidentally),
which he said started as a film with only 50-60 shots and ended up with
closer to 600 in a film that producers insisted "would all have to be
done for real." In a way, Casino Royale, which Begg hoped
fulfilled the "Bond people's goal of having no visual effects," brought
us back to a time when vfx was still an industry of problems and
problem solvers. He mentioned the wire, rig removals, miniatures, CG,
models and a lot of "digital jiggery-pokery" (my new favorite technical
term), as well as the discovery that swatches of two boxes of purloined
safety jackets made the best tracking markers. Night at the Museum,
meanwhile, provided a seemingly frightening moment that turns into a
humorous one when a ferocious tyrannosaurus rex skeleton known as Rexy
turns out to be as harmless as a puppy dog that wants to play fetch.
Vfx supervisor Jim Rygiel listed the litany of animals Rhythm &
Hues created for the film, including tigers, elephants and orcs. The
film, which overflows with CG animals, tons of practical snow and a
couple sequences that take us back to Darby O'Gill and the Little
People, filled the evening's only comedy in which the supervisors
concluded by saying, "we just had fun… " Vfx supervisor Michael McAlister's
explanation of Eragon
focused on CG dragon Saphira’s acting abilities, illuminating what
Erland observed as the industry's newest trend: "The animation field is
the most identifiable as a new art form in film. The procedures and
toolkits available to create animation have taken us to a more
sophisticated level. When you think of incorporating animation in
feature films historically, there's a huge difference between the kind
of animation we had, to the animation we see now." The dragon, animated
with traditional keyframing, acted, flew and interacted with her
co-stars, and got more screen time than probably any actor -- digital
or analog -- in this year's line up.
Superman Returns
heralded the return of a much beloved superhero. Vfx supervisor Mark
Stetson's description of the film's 1,400 shots, accomplished by 15
facilities, featured a re-animated Marlon Brando as Jor-El, a dazzling
digital double of Brandon Routh flying and rescuing a shuttle,
remarkable crystal work, a CG yacht and (in another example of special
effects sharing screen time with computer-generated effects) a "60-foot
triple seven gimbal, 20-feet high that could push 75 tons in three
seconds." A scaled yacht atop a computer-generated island epitomized
the integration of these techniques, underscored the industry's
continuing complexity and the necessity for up and coming supervisors
to understand and experience the process beyond their desktops.
Erland remarks that this integration is nothing new. "Shows
still have models, miniatures, matte paintings -- a multitude of
techniques to make the total effects part of the show. Now we have the
added complication of digital, but most of it is just an advanced form
of the craft." The evening concluded, fittingly
enough, with more dizzying feats as John Knoll presented Pirates of
the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest,
whose 1,300 shots were completed in a frightening five months, which
necessitated that the crew final 15 shots a day. In addition to ILM’s
revolutionary techniques, such as the pirates' much documented on-set
performance capture, Knoll illuminated that they also deal with
seemingly simple decisions, including "what to roto; what not to roto.
We're using less and less bluescreen, if it's practical to roto." Of
course, this production was replete with complicated and plentiful
animation of the "fishy, barnacly guys," miniatures of all scales and
shoots on the open seas that went for days. Allen Hall noted that they
used a dozen 55-gallon drums of fog oil every day at one point,
apparently depleting the world's supply. With
the ballots carried to the accountants downstairs, so ended an evening
summed up best by the reliably articulate Erland: "It's interesting and
exciting, and all that... it's white-knuckle fascinating is what it is." Stay tuned until Tuesday (Jan. 23),
when we find out which three films are nominated.
Aussie & NZ VFX Houses Back Autodesk Migration To
Linux
Ice Age Tops Pirates 2 In Profitability Formula
In a report released Thursday, Kagan Research called "Ice Age: The Meltdown" the most profitable widely released movie of 2006, estimating its cost at $256.4 million and revenue for all release windows at $1.1 billion. When the latter is divided by the former, the result is 4.11, which Kagan calls its Kagan Profitability Index.
Fox's "Ice Age" bests Kagan's No. 2 pick "Pirates," which sports a 3.93 KPI. Kagan puts costs at $423.8 million and revenue at $1.7 billion for Disney's "Pirates."
In fact, four of the top 10 on Kagan's list of more than 160 wide releases last year were computer-animated films; the other three were Disney/Pixar's "Cars" (No. 8), DreamWorks/Paramount's "Over the Hedge" (No. 9) and Warner Bros.' "Happy Feet" (No. 10).
