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Universal Pictures to Fight Asteroids
(The Hollywood Reporter)
In "Asteroids," initially released as an arcade game in 1979, a player controlled a triangular space ship in an asteroid field. You can play an unofficial version of the game below!
Universal is also developing movies based on Hasbro board game properties such as "Battleship," "Candyland," "Ouija," "Monopoly" and "Clue."
Digital Domain on Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
(vfxworld.com) Everyone needs a good supporting cast -- even the Decepticons and ILM. While ILM handled the lion's share of VFX, Digital Domain created new supporting characters including Wheelie, who provides comic relief; a visually intriguing character DD dubbed "Reed Man;" Soundwave, a satellite-infiltrating Bot in the big, bad Decepticon tradition; eight frenetic Kitchenbots; and Alice, AKA The Pretender, who transforms from a sexy coed to a vicious robot. They completed 127 shots overall.
Digital Domain Visual Effects Supervisor Matthew Butler said, "Supporting characters can be tricky. Since they're not leads and they aren't always involved in the most spectacular sequences or plot points they need a real reason for being on the screen. You have to bring a little something extra into their development to keep audiences engaged."
"Reed Man" is made of thousands of tiny, sentient spherical robots called 'Microcons' that form themselves into an insect-shaped collection of razor blades. Butler said, "We had to create the sharpest object in the world out of the bluntest and make it look realistic."
Reed Man's genesis combined hand-based hero animation with proceduralized group behavior based on Houdini and procedural systems. In one sequence we see both a single, full-frame hero Microcon as well as hundreds of thousands of Microcons assembling into Reed Man. "We had to deliver characters that you could go right up close to and yet see thousands of them," said Butler.
And then there's Alice.
"Alice's transformation was our most challenging shot," Butler noted. "She's a robot disguised as a hot chick who tries to seduce Sam into giving her information. She tries to drug him with a metallic tail and strangle him with her enormous mechanical tongue, then transforms to reveal her inner mech skeleton."
"The question was, how do you take a beautiful organic image and turn it into a menacing robot without making her look like she has a skin disease along the way? Michael wanted her to petal out into an infinite number of discrete pieces that were self-organized, deliberate in mechanics, and justified in their erosion."
Lining up a photographic organism and a synthetic creation accurately is a study in integration. "You have to track every little elastic nuance. We combined the inherent animation of the human with the freed-up animation of what the robot would be doing, then sewed it all together using a proceduralized deconstruction pattern."
"We created algorithms that could mechanically erode her outer surface with a clear source and target destination between those disparate animations. We started off tracking a piece of her dress and it had to end on a mechanical piece that moves at a very different rate, with different lighting."
The shot involved many artists and software packages, which created a complex lighting/compositing integration need. "If you break a composite into individual renders you're faced with how it should all come together. You have ultimate freedom but if you get one thing wrong it looks wrong and you have to figure out why. We had to think like photons, "Light should be going from here to here... it would be occluding the reflection of that... " and so on. We worked on that shot from November through May."
Harry Potter VFX Revealed For 'Behind the Magic' TV Special
(the-leaky-cauldron.org) Back in April, we first told you ITV would be airing another special on the making of a Harry Potter film. Host Ben Shepherd is back again with his popular "Behind the Magic" special on the making of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.
Tidbits include more as the host looks at Weasley Wheezes shop "which has 40,000 props, took 15 people a year to design, 50 people an entire year to build and the crew and cast spent five days filming in it." We also will see "never-seen-before footage of the moment the Millennium Bridge in London is "destroyed" for the film. The Head of Visual Effects describes how he used computer generated images to show the bridge buckling and twisting before breaking free of the steel ropes holding it in place and collapsing into the Thames. And Behind the Magic premieres exclusive footage of three brand new characters: the professor who disguises himself as an armchair, Greyback the terrifying werewolf and little Tom Riddle, the boy from the orphanage who grew up to be the most evil wizard of all "Lord Voldemort."
Star Wars TV Series in Preproduction?
(scifiwire.com) Our Australian sister site SCI FI TV reports a rumor that preproduction is gearing up for George Lucas' proposed live-action Star Wars series, which is to be shot Down Under.
The site, citing anonymous sources, adds that the show is assembling high-quality writers from the Aussie TV industry, including writers from Love My Way and Secret Life of Us, who have been approached by Lucas' longtime producer Rick McCallum.
The as-yet-untitled series is supposedly set to debut in 2010, though there has been no word of a distributor yet. The series will reportedly be set between the eras of Star Wars: Episode III "Revenge of the Sith and Star Wars: Episode IV" A New Hope and will not feature any major characters from the film series.
Source: http://scifiwire.com/2009/07/rumor-mill-live-action-st.php
Green Hornet Gets Pushed Two Weeks
(BoxOffice) Columbia Pictures has moved director Michel Gondry's comic book adaptation The Green Hornet back two weeks from June 25, 2010 to July 9, 2010. It was a move to make room for the studio's all-star comedy Grown Ups, which was moved from March 12 to June 25, 2010.
While no other film is scheduled for June 25th at this moment, Toy Story 3 is opening the week before and The Twilight Saga: Eclipse just five days later.
Resident Evil 4 Arriving in Late 2010
(ShockTillYouDrop.com) Sony's Screen Gems is eyeing a September 17, 2010 release for the fourth "Resident Evil" installment, to be titled Resident Evil: Afterlife. The ending of the third film, Resident Evil: Extinction, left the door wide open for another sequel.
Paul W.S. Anderson revealed late last year he was indeed writing the next film.
As hinted at the end of "Extinction," the story will shift to Tokyo, Japan.
"Predators" To Visit Home Planet
(comingsoon.net) Ain't it Cool News' Harry Knowles gave a ring to Robert Rodriguez to get confirmation on who's at the helm of Predators, 20th Century Fox's next film in the franchise. And it is Nimrod Antal, the man behind the upcoming action flick Armored and who last dabbled in the thriller genre with Vacancy.
Rodriguez, who is shepherding the project, says the story involves "a very intense group of people stranded on a Predator planet discovering unspeakable horrors - that are not always from outside their group. So like the original movie, the title does have a double meaning. 'Aliens' was a different take on the Alien idea, and an original movie in it's own right, and that's what we want to do with this."
Transformers Up to $448.4 Million Worldwide
(comingsoon.net) Paramount and DreamWorks' Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is close to becoming the highest-grossing film of the year at the worldwide box office in less than two weeks in release.
Through Tuesday, the film's global take was $448.4 million, says Variety. The current No. 1 title, Angels & Demons, which opened in mid-May, has grossed $469 million.
At the domestic box office, the Transformers sequel grossed $14.9 million Monday and $13.5 million Tuesday for a total of $228.4 million.
Overseas, Monday's grosses clocked in at $14 million, while Tuesday came in at $16 million for a foreign total of $220 million.
At that rate, the film should catch up with "Angels" by Friday, even with the day and date entry of 20th Century Fox's Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs.
"Transformers" is also expected to overtake Up ($255 million through Tuesday domestically) this weekend to become the biggest domestic grosser of 2009.
Student Wins Oscar Using LightWave 3D
(Newswire) Brendan Bellomo, director and recent New York University graduate, received an Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' 36th Annual Student Academy Award for his short film, "Bohemibot." Bellomo relied on NewTek award-winning LightWave 3D to create the short film that took home an Oscar in the narrative category.
"I have used LightWave since I was 12-years-old. I love that it gives animators the technical and creative flexibility in a user-friendly package to accomplish shots that usually require the infrastructure of a large visual effects house," said Bellomo. "I like the surfacing system, especially the new node-based editor, and the different volumetric rendering capabilities, like HyperVoxels, which we used a great deal in creating the film."
"NewTek congratulates Brendan Bellomo on his Student Academy Award® for 'Bohemibot.' We are honored to have him in our LightWave community," said Jay Roth, president, 3D division, NewTek Inc. "LightWave enables artists with creative vision to deliver eye-popping results, regardless of project budgets or visual effects expertise level."
The film, which combines live action and computer-generated imagery, follows the story of a cyborg harpist forced to serve as a pilot in the last war on his planet. His encounter with a young enemy captive reveals that even the din of war can never silence the voice of the heart.
(trektoday.com)
Simon Pegg spoke recently about the sequel to Star Trek XI as well as his life since the movie was released.
As reported by breakingnews.ie and moviesonline.ca, according to Pegg, fans might see Star Trek XII a year and a half from now. "I know the writers are busy thinking about it," he said. "I don't really know anything about the story, or if I'm in a bigger role, but I'd imagine we'll be back this time next year. That's not official, but I reckon it's probably about eighteen months away from being in the cinema."
"Transformers 3" To Go Beyond Earth - "More of an Intergalactic Thing"
LOS ANGELES (AP) If there's going to be a third "Transformers" movie, director Michael Bay says he'll be back to make it.
And star Shia LaBeouf promises it'll be darker than the first two.
While a third chapter has not been officially announced, Bay said he intends to return to the franchise if No. 3 moves forward. But he wants some time off first, having just finished the second one.
"I will do it, but you've got to give us time," Bay said. "I need a little rest."
LaBeouf said he expects a third "Transformers" would carry the action beyond Earth and become "more of an intergalactic thing."
"Revenge of the Fallen" takes place largely on Earth as LaBeouf, Megan Fox, Tyrese Gibson, John Turturro and other co-stars continue their alliance with the benevolent shape-shifting Autobots in their war against the evil Decepticon robots.
A third movie also "will be darker. Something crazy will happen," LaBeouf said. "Someone has to die."
The Summer Tent Pole is Clearly Here to Stay
(forbes.com) At this point last year, Iron Man had already crossed the $300 million mark, with Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull closing in. A 2009 movie of this genre--most likely Transformers--may not break the $300 million threshold until mid-July.
Studios like Warner Bros. and Paramount are outperforming expectations, jam-packing the summer movie season with anticipated blockbusters.
But 2009 may still eclipse 2008's total revenue and take the crown as the highest-grossing year at the box office. One executive at Time Warner cited a "diverse film slate" for Warner's success in particular, pointing to its investment in both large and small films.
Companies like DreamWorks Animation ( DWA - news - people ), Lionsgate Films and Marvel Entertainment ( MVL - news - people ) earn almost all of their profits from film releases and DVD sales. So if you think Shrek Forever After will be a hit in 2010, investing in DreamWorks might be the right move.
Don't count out the summer blockbuster, though. Marsh said that as the summer progresses and 3-D screens reach more theaters, distributors would be able to cash in on the resulting 20% to 30% increase in ticket prices.
"You've also got this 3-D catalyst that could jump-start cash-flow growth rates as we move into 2010, when much more 3-D content comes on and many more theaters will have 3-D screens," he said. This, he felt, especially benefits animated films like Up and could turn out well for others like Avatar, which will open in December.
"I think the summer tent pole is clearly here to stay. Year in and year out, they seem to get pooh-poohed by the film critics, but they deliver the numbers," Marsh said. "I think Transformers will be a good example of that." And Transformers has so far done well, earning more than $200 million in its first week; it has re-solidified the possibility of a blockbuster in 2009.
However, a recent Piper Jaffray report on Lionsgate concluded that poor performance at the box office negatively weighed on studios that are in pure theatrical distribution. And a number of tent-pole films this year have disappointed. Angels and Demons by Sony and Terminator: Salvation by Warner Bros. came in weaker than anticipated.
Full Press: http://www.forbes.com/2009/07/01/summer-blockbuster-stocks-intelligent-investing-movies.html(reelzchannel.com) Harry Potter and the Half-Blood PrinceIn an interview with the LA Times, visual effects supervisor Tim Alexander explains what it took to bring Lord Voldemort's undead army of Inferi to life and suggests that the result may give even grown-up fans nightmares.
First off, there are a lot more of them than you might expect:
Above water, you'd probably see about a hundred at a time. But when Harry gets dragged into the lake, there is a whole underwater environment... and it's actually covered in bodies. It's all just ... bodies crawling on top of each other, and that's how you get into the millions.
In coming up with the design, he notes that they were very determined to avoid making these dead people look like zombies. He was aiming for a more realistic but no less scary look:
The Inferi themselves are very skinny and emaciated people. Very humanoid, but way skinnier than humans could be. Waterlogged and gray. We used the old lady that comes out of the tub in The Shining as a reference. Most of the Inferi are adult, but we did also build two children, too.
All this, says Alexander, who has created a lot of terrifying creatures for earlier Harry Potter movies, is a lot "bolder and scarier" than he ever thought would be possible in a Potter movie.
From "Coraline" to SPAM
(oregonlive.com) You may have heard the recent NPR report about how Hormel's humble SPAM is getting a sales boost in these tough economic times. But did you know that LAIKA/house, as the commercial-making side of the locally based production studio is known, helped create the "Break the Monotony" campaign for the venerable protein brand?
LAIKA/house (which on the movie side, had a bang-up freshman
offering with "Coraline") worked with BBDO Minneapolis to create three
animated spots currently on TV. Since budget-minded consumers are
buying more SPAM, the campaign takes a playful approach at showing how
SPAM can help you break the monotony of ordinary meals.
The Beatles CGI: Rock Band Intro Now Online
(forums.cgsociety.org) The Beatles Rock Band game was revealed at Microsoft's E3 press conference, and represents the first time fans will be able to experience The Beatles' musical career for themselves. From the early touring days in 1963 Liverpool to the immortal, final performance on the Apple Corps rooftop, fans can follow in the band's footsteps as they traverse the globe during the height of Beatlemania.
Adding to the experience is the introduction of three-part vocal harmonies to game play, allowing gamers to revel in the unparalleled vocal stylings of the Fab Four. Beatles fans will also be thrilled to hear previously unreleased authentic voice recordings from John, Paul, George and Ringo chatting between takes during studio sessions recorded at Abbey Road more than four decades ago.
Take a look: http://www.thebeatlesrockband.com/cinematic.php
Dark Knight Receives Best VFX At Saturn Awards
(AWN.com) It was a stellar evening for "The Dark Knight" as the Christopher Nolan film garnered five Saturn Awards at the 35th Annual Saturn Awards. The film was named Best Action/Adventure/Thriller Film. The Warner Bros. release also received awards for Best Writing: Christopher Nolan & Jonathan Nolan, Best Supporting Actor: Heath Ledger, Best Music: Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard, and Best Special Effects.
Also receiving multiple Saturn Awards were "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" and "Iron Man" which won three Saturn Awards apiece.
DreamWorks Animation studio head, Jeffrey Katzenberg, was awarded the inaugural Visionary Award for his efforts in advancing 3D film presentation. Top filmmaker Jerry Bruckheimer presented this prestigious award to Mr. Katzenberg at the event.
Genre icon Leonard Nimoy was presented the Lifetime Achievement Award for his work in film and television which covers five decades. Mostly known for his portrayal of the Vulcan, Mr. Spock, Leonard's accomplishment extend to many more projects including the series, Mission Impossible, Columbo, and the recent show, Fringe. Presenting the award was
Full Press: http://news.awn.com/index.php?ltype=top&newsitem_no=28255
The Twilight Saga: Eclipse Starts Filming Aug. 17
(Production Weekly) Summit Entertainment will film The Twilight Saga: Eclipse from August 17th until October 31st at Vancouver Film Studios. David Slade (30 Days of Night) will direct from a script by Melissa Rosenberg.
In the third installment of the franchise, coming to theaters on June 30, 2010, Bella (Kristen Stewart) once again finds herself surrounded by danger as Seattle is ravaged by a string of mysterious killings and a malicious vampire continues her quest for revenge. In the midst of it all, she is forced to choose between her love for Edward (Robert Pattinson) and her friendship with Jacob (Taylor Lautner) — knowing that her decision has the potential to ignite the ageless struggle between vampire and werewolf. With her graduation quickly approaching, Bella is confronted with the most important decision of her life.
The second film, The Twilight Saga: New Moon, hits theaters on November 20 and was directed by Chris Weitz (The Golden Compass).
Blue Sky Studios Donating Animation Computers
(connecticutplus.com) Governor M. Jodi Rell today announced that students at the University of Connecticut and Wesleyan University will benefit from state-of-the-art animation computers donated by Greenwich-based Blue Sky Studios, the creator of a number of award-winning digital animation features, including the Ice Age series.
Blue Sky, a wholly owned subsidiary of Fox Filmed Entertainment, relocated to Connecticut from New York in January, bringing with it more than 300 jobs. The company, which continues to expand, said it was attracted to Connecticut because of the state’s efforts to promote the film industry.
“This is a tremendous gift for our students and for our state,” Governor Rell said. “The film industry has clearly found a home in Connecticut and we are grateful for Blue Sky’s commitment to Connecticut and partnership in helping us develop the next generation of skilled, educated industry professionals. This generous donation comes at a time when resources for so many worthwhile programs are stretched thin.”
Students at both schools will be able to learn on the same hardware that produced Blue Sky’s Ice Age the Meltdown, a $652 million worldwide box office hit and Dr. Seuss’ Horton Hears a Who, which took in nearly $300 million worldwide.
The high-speed animation computers feature 104 Centralized Processing Units (CPU) per rack. Each rack has a current market value of approximately $35,000. UConn’s drama and computer science engineering departments are each receiving two racks and Wesleyan’s computer science department is receiving four donated racks.
"Blue Sky is proud to be part of Connecticut's continued focus on the education of its workforce," said Brian Keane, Chief Operating Officer and Executive Vice President of Blue Sky Studios.
Blue Sky Studios has earned worldwide acclaim as one of the industry’s premier digital animation facilities. The more than 300 artists at Blue Sky come from a wide variety of backgrounds, including architecture, computer science, physics, fine arts, film and traditional animation.
The studio’s latest release, Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs, the third in the Ice Age series, opens in theaters Wednesday, July 1.
Piranha Reboot Goes 3D Via CGI
Shock: What 3-D process are you using for this film?
Aja: It's very bizarre because we started the process by talking about using the new system that James Cameron used [for Avatar]. I realized along the way that those cameras were forcing me, first, to shoot in HD and then there were too many technical parameters that were not good. So, we heard about a new technique they were developing that nobody really used before which is the conversion. The conversion is more expensive, much more work in post-production. You're basically shooting the movie in the traditional way thinking 3-D and then the whole movie would be converted by computer. The camera in 35mm is shooting all of us here and then the computer is going to modelize each of us in 3-D and inside the computer you're going to screen, you're going to project the image on the 3-D model and you create that space and that whole style. It's very complicated. I was kind of like, "Oh, it's impossible it's not going to feel natural," and I saw 20 minutes of King Kong being converted and it's the best thing I've ever seen. When I see 20 minutes of that, I mean, I don't understand why the studio is not finishing the movie and releasing the movie again in 3-D. It's the best, best, best, best. I've also seen stuff from The Matrix and from Star Wars, the original.
Shock: Whoa. They're just converting it for 3-D?
Aja: Yeah, it's unbelievable. It's not like black and white convert in color where you see that it's stained and it's not natural. It's amazing, there is no word. It was great for us because we are shooting for real on cinemascope anamorphic on film, shooting it as a normal movie. So, it's much faster and we have a full control on the 3-D. Without being presumptuous, I think the 3-D experience on Piranha is going to be the best one that's ever made.
Princess And The Frog Animation Tour Featurette
(latinoreview.com)
When Eisner finally left and Lasseter moved in, the Mouse House's
animation department was suffering big time. A lot of desks had been
basically emptied and the cartoon division of Disney was struggling.
The Disney Channel and some dorky hosts went on a tour of he animation studio located in Burbank. (I pass by it when I get pizza.)
The clips are in five parts and include interviews, a scene from the film and more: http://www.latinoreview.com/news/princess-and-the-frog-animation-tour-featurette-7287
Gore Verbinski May Return for Next 'Pirates' Outing
(breakingnews.iol.ie) Johnny Depp is "excited" about 'Pirates of the Caribbean 4'. The actor - who plays Captain Jack Sparrow in the franchise - is also set to play Tonto in a new 'Lone Ranger' movie but Disney chiefs are first committed to making the swashbuckling adventure their biggest "priority."Producer Jerry Bruckheimer said: "It's a great franchise for them and for us, too. We love the character and Johnny was really excited about coming back to Captain Jack. He certainly is interested in Tonto, but Disney's priority is to get 'Pirates.' made first. You never know what's going to happen, but they would like it."
Jerry - who promised the next instalment will be "funny" and a "new way of going" - also revealed original director Gore Verbinski may return for the new movie.
The filmmaker had originally departed to helm 'BioShock' but after recently suggesting he may not make the video game adaptation, the door has been left open for him to direct 'Pirates of the Caribbean 4'.
Jerry added to ComingSoon.net: "He created the franchise so we'd love to have him back but it's kind of up to him."
5 Completely Pointless Uses of CGI
(techradar.com) CGI should look seamless. Here's when it's badly wrong. Fed up with the amount of abysmal CGI effects abounding in our movies, games and on TV, our colleagues over at 3D World have put together a list of the very worst.
Take a look: http://www.techradar.com/news/world-of-tech/5-completely-pointless-uses-of-cgi-612612
Has CG had its Day?
(denofgeek.com) I saw Transformers this weekend and after sitting through nearly two and a half hours of a movie that felt like watching somebody else playing a computer game I came out of the cinema feeling underwhelmed and flat.
What I mean by that is that there was no ‘wow' factor to the thing. By having so much going on and having such a movie spectacle it's like throwing everything you can do with CG on screen, with explosions, robots, more explosions, and the usual Michael Bay subtlety going on. The entire affair seemed clinical, personality free and really just quite dull, a fireworks display of pixels without the hotdog or jacket spud of entertainment or enjoyment..
In my opinion it seems that by bunging everything through a computer that cinema has shown the ‘man behind the curtain', that anything and everything has that digital tweak added to it. The spectacle has superseded the ‘magic' that is actual storytelling as the most important element to a film
There is no ‘how did they do that' factor in films doing the rounds at the cinema, Wolverine was bland, Star Trek was cursed with wobbly camera syndrome and Transformers as mentioned was just a excuse to make money back for the R&D investment they did for the Transforming sequence they did in the last film.
Seeing a Ray Harryhausen film, a Hammer horror or Toho monster movie we all know they were models but how did they do it? Camera trickery, composition, bits of rubber all blended together in a mix of magic but now as we all know it is pixels there is no sense of wonder any more.
Seeing Optimus Prime fifteen years ago on screen would have been impressive and given you that jaw dropping moment. Think back, remember when you first say a dinosaur in Jurassic Park, that's what I'm taking about - when was the last time you went into the cinema and had that feeling? To paraphrase Jeff Goldblum ‘just because you CAN do something doesn't mean you have to'
CGI in today's movies is so commonplace and overused that frankly it's lost its appeal. Again remember when you first saw ‘liquid metal' on screen, first in Flight of the Navigator and then of course Terminator 2 - this effect called ‘reflection mapping' has been around for the best part of twenty years and when it was used, it was used to effect - to quite literally show you something you had never seen before. However now it's used on adverts for cleaning products. It's the same with ‘Morphing' and even ‘Massive': how often now have we seen CG armies against each other?
CG has become cheap, easy and even throwaway. Accessible software packages such as Motion Builder, Maya, 3D Max and even motion capture software is in the reach of most people and while it still takes skill and dedication to master these pieces of software which have become commonplace tools of the trade, the imagination needed it seems is sometimes lacking.
Pixar it seems have managed to blend the two - classic stories and the use of CG - to the best advantage. Their films, no matter how short, have a special spark of magic that shows how to use computers in movies to their very best advantage. Take two 2009 films - Up and 2012. Comparing a Pixar film to a end of the world film might seem like oranges compared to lemons - but think about it; which movie will draw you in the most, which one will have you smiling and immerse you in the experience? I am certain it won't be the one that has earthquakes and aircraft carriers falling on the White House, but the one using the tools of CG correctly to have chubby scouts and grumpy old men floating around in a house covered in balloons.
CG, as it stands needs to go through another revolution. We know you can have it all on screen Michael Bay, Stephen Sommers, Peter Jackson, James Cameron and Steven Spielberg, and with legendary FX houses like ILM and WETA, we understand you have pushed to boundaries of technology to the limit.
You can make orcs fight elves in medieval battlefields, the Hulk fight the Abomination or have the army fight Decepticons in the sand dunes of Egypt; you can send us into space as an Avatar or have us far underwater where Mega Sharks fights Giant Octopus (okay, maybe not that one). We get it, now that we can do all of this to the point where we really cannot tell what is real and what is not.
Shouldn't it be time to get back to the drawing board or word processor and actually work on the scripts?
Will Paramount Convince Michael Bay to Return for Transformers 3?
(comingsoon.net) There's no doubt about it - Paramount will finish the trilogy with Transformers 3, probably in 2011. But will Michael Bay return?
Over the last six months or so, two other big Michael Bay projects have surfaced as his probable follow up to Revenge of the Fallen - most recently, the sci-fi story I Am Number Four, but also the bodybuilders comedy Pain & Gain. If you remember, Paramount preemptively announced Transformers 3 for 2011 (with Bay) back in March. But then Bay came out and said: "No way. My brain needs a break from fighting robots." A few weeks ago, there was a big internet rumor going around that Bay wouldn't return for the sequel at all. His response: "Hah, love press how they spin. Never said it - just wanted a vacation is more to the point."
We
already know that writers Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci won't be
returning to write Transformers 3, for better or worse, but as for
Michael Bay, that's still up in the air. But with a $200 million
opening weekend, I'm sure Paramount will coax him to return one more
time. But who knows if they'll shift it to 2012 or stick with the
originally announced 2011 release? Peter thinks that he'll move onto
that "small" movie Pain & Gain first before potentially returning
to Transfomers. That seems possible - a Christopher Nolan-like break -
but then it'll be pushed to 2012.
"Voyage of the Dawn Treader" Dufflepuds May Be CGI
(narniaweb.com) There is a tiny bit of interesting news about The Voyage of the Dawn Treader Dufflepuds, thanks to Lee Ravitz's resume. His resume states "Role: Dufflepud (Green Screen VFX Test Shots Only) / Production: Voyage of the Dawn Treader / Director: Angus Bickerton."
This is intriguing because it implies a few things: First, based on the fact Lee Ravitz is doing green screen tests, it seems the Dufflepuds will be CGI created rather than hiring little people to act in the roles like Trumpkin and Nikabrik. Second, Lee Ravitz, according to his profile is 5' 9" so it looks like they could be making the Dufflepuds in a similar way to Gimli in Lord of the Rings. Whether they'll film actors and shrink them down or have the Dufflepuds fully CGI remains to be seen.
And finally, just as a side note, Angus Bickerton is the Visual Effects Supervisor for the Dawn Treader.
Source: http://www.narniaweb.com/news.asp?id=2197&dl=23474945&full=1
Warner Bros. Emerges as Sole Bidder for Midway Games
(latimes.com) Warner Bros. has emerged as the only bidder for Midway Games Inc., all but assuring that it will take control of the bankrupt video game publisher previously owned by Viacom Inc. Chairman Sumner Redstone and become a major force in the video game industry.
Midway had hoped that the film studio's $33-million offer, made in late May, would spark a bidding war that would boost its price. A Chicago investment group and several game publishers kicked the publisher's tires, according to a source familiar with the discussions, but none pulled the trigger.
"No other bids came in, so there's not going to be an auction," Geoffrey Mogilner, a Midway spokesman, confirmed.
Redstone, who took control of Midway in 2004, was never able to bring the troubled company to profitability. He sold it at a huge loss to a private investor last November in exchange for a $700-million tax write-off that has since led to a lawsuit from the publisher's creditors.
Integrating Midway will significantly expand the scope of Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, the studio's small but growing video game division. Warner has acquired three game production companies in recent years and hired industry veteran Martin Tremblay as WBIE president. It also tried, unsuccessfully, to buy Eidos, the British publisher of the Tomb Raider games.
Although Midway has declined in significance in the last few years because of big losses and poor-selling games, it is still a well-known brand with a rich library of titles that Warner will be able to exploit as games or, potentially, movies and TV shows.
"We bid on Midway because we are interested in their catalog of intellectual properties," Tremblay said in May.
Assuming the deal goes through, the studio will take control of most of Midway's assets, including Mortal Kombat and well-known but dormant game series such as Joust and Spy Hunter. It will also get two production houses in Chicago and Seattle.
Full Press: http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-ct-midway27-2009jun27,0,2631772.story
"Moon" Director Changes Course
(Screen Daily) It looks like the recently announced new project for Moon writer/director Duncan Jones will not be his next, as he tells Screen Daily he is now working on a $25 million sci-fi movie titled Mute.
He says that the UK/German co-production is a "thriller-mystery" and will be set in Berlin at a variety of locations, including at Studio Babelsberg.
"'Moon' is about alienation and isolation. The next one will have a different vibe. It's not about one actor on their own, it’s an ensemble piece," he said.
Jones will team up with Moon producer Fenegan of London based Liberty Films. Fenegan said "'Mute' is about a woman whose disappearance causes a mystery for her partner, a mute bartender. When she disappears, he has to go up against the city's gangsters."
Marin Based CritterPix Screens 3D CGI "Ollie The Otter" Promo
(thebusinessoffilmdaily.com) The gearing up of product utilizing 3D, the latest technology in the film industry's objectives for augmenting new experiences to the cinema going audience, sees a number of independent companies at Cannes selling a variety of offerings. One such company is CritterPix Studios.Based in Marin County, CA CritterPix Studios is a next-generation, low-cost, high-quality animation studio focused on G and PG-rated family films. Founded in 2003 by CEO Kelly Alan Williamson, the company' core expertise is using 3D-CG (computer-generated) technology to make its movies.
One of the hurdles of 3D is the generally high cost involved in the process. Kelly Williamson of CritterPix has developed a business model based on strong content creation, for developing and producing high quality 3D-CG films more cost effectively.
The company' first feature film is Ollie the Otter, based on the children's novel. With an environmental theme like Happy Feet or Free Willy, Ollie the Otter must save his family from natural and human threats. Having been taken from his wild home environment, similar to little Nemo's plight in Finding Nemo, Ollie and a group of domesticated animals must find their way back home. Out-muscled, outsized, and outmatched, Ollie emerges a hero while learning that no true leader can do it alone.
Full Press: http://www.thebusinessoffilmdaily.com/Cannes2009/D18_S2.html
ILM Builds Bots In IMAX Resolution
(studiodaily.com) There’s a sequence in DreamWorks/Paramounts’ Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen in which the Devastator, a gigantic Decepticon robot, scales an Egyptian pyramid as easily as a gorilla climbing a tree and rips off the top. With over 52,632 parts and nearly 12 million polygons, the robot is the biggest model Industrial Light & Magic has built in its 30 years of model-making. And they built the bot for IMAX shots.
Modelers built Devastator specifically for these high-resolution shots because the megaton menace spends most of its time in IMAX res. Optimus, however, spends as much time in 35mm as in IMAX, so the key for that robot was in painting high-res textures. “We knew the damage to Optimus would be in high res, so we added that detail as we went,” Smith says.
Dave Fogler supervised the team of around 25 modelers and viewpainters (texture mapping) who worked on the film. “More often than not, we worked with 2K maps,” he says. “But we had lots and lots and lots of them for individual parts. The reason is that things start to slow down once you go to 4K. So we had a collection of parts with 2K maps and if they didn’t work in IMAX we’d go to 4K.”
“Lots and lots and lots” is an understatement. The viewpainters created 6,467 texture maps for Devastator alone — 32 GB of textures. “On an average show, we keep one viewpainter and one modeler on to the end to keep an eye on things,” Fogler says. “On this film, we had a crew of six or seven adding details and damage and every time we had an IMAX shot, we’d cross our fingers, see what we could see, then go in and add nuts and bolts.”
Cloverfield Director Talks "Let the Right One In" Remake
(Los Angeles Times) Cloverfield director Matt Reeves talked to the Los Angeles Times about his upcoming English remake of the award-winning Swedish horror film Let the Right On In, which was based on John Ajvide Lindqvist's original novel.
"I was just hooked," Reeves told the newspaper. "I was so taken with the story and I had a very personal reaction. It reminded me a lot of my childhood, with the metaphor that the hard times of your pre-adolescent, early adolescent moment, that painful experience is a horror."
Reeves has finished a second draft of the script, now titled Let Me In. The film will be set in Reagan-era Colorado. He is scouting locations, looking to maintain the original story's chilly, snow-swept environs.
The production is also looking for the two leads, which Reeves vows will not be aged-up to make the film more of a smoldering Twilight-style romance. The story centers around Oscar, an overlooked and bullied boy who finds love and revenge through Eli, a beautiful but peculiar girl who turns out to be a vampire.
Ed Catmull to Receive VES George Melies Award
(news.awn.com) Dr. Ed Catmull, President, Walt Disney and Pixar Animation Studios, has been selected by the VES Board of Directors as the recipient of the "2010 Georges Melies Award." The award will be presented at the 8th Annual VES Awards, which will be held at the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza Hotel in Los Angeles on February 28, 2010.
The Georges Melies Award honors individuals who have "pioneered a significant and lasting contribution to the art and/or science of the visual effects industry by a way of artistry, invention and groundbreaking work." Dr. Catmull is the embodiment of this award as someone who not only spearheaded the creation of the technology that is used throughout the industry, but had a significant role in creating the art form itself and the standards for how we judge successful animation and storytelling for the modern entertainment industry. Dr. Catmull is co-founder of Pixar Animation Studios and president of Walt Disney and Pixar Animation Studios. Previously, Dr. Catmull was vice president of the Computer Division of Lucasfilm Ltd., where he managed development in the areas of computer graphics, video editing, video games and digital audio.
"Ed Catmull has helped redefine the field of animation over the past three decades," said VES Executive Director Eric Roth. "Ed has become one of the giants of our industry by pioneering new ways to tell animated stories in a successful studio environment. He has been at the forefront of ensuring that while the animation should always be as eye-popping as possible, the story itself always has to be first class as well," added Roth.
Chair of the VES, Jeffrey A. Okun said, "Ed Catmull almost single-handedly created the software and hardware that is used by everyone in not only the visual effects industry, but the gaming industry and the computer animation industry as well. We all owe a great debt of thanks to his vision, dedication and creativity."
"It is truly an honor to receive the Georges Melies Award from the Visual Effects Society," said Dr. Catmull. "I've always believed that the combination of art and technology is an important part of a creative environment where we can continue to push the limits of filmmaking."
Dr. Catmull has been honored with five Academy Awards, including a Technical Achievement Award, two Scientific and Engineering Awards, and one Academy Award of Merit for his work. In 2009, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences awarded Dr. Catmull the Gordon E. Sawyer Award for his lifetime of technical contributions and leadership in the field of computer graphics for the motion picture industry. He also received the ACM SIGGRAPH Steven A. Coons Award for his lifetime contributions in the computer graphics field, and the animation industry's Ub Iwerks Award for technical advancements in the art or industry of animation.
Previous recipients of the George Melies Award were Robert Abel, Phil Tippett and Disney/Pixar colleague John Lasseter.
'Transformers 3' Gets a Date
(variety.com) Paramount and DreamWorks are forging ahead with "Transformers 3," dating the movie for release on July 1, 2011.
It's the first word of the three-quel, although Paramount insiders downplayed the importance of the move.
They said the studio wanted to claim the date before a competitor did, considering that the 2011 summer release calendar is filling up.
No deals have been inked with director Michael Bay or franchise stars Shia LaBeouf and Megan Fox. Nor has a writer been hired for the third installment.
The big-budget franchise has fast tried to claim the July Fourth holiday frame as its own. "Transformers" opened on July 3, 2007; "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" bows on June 24, 2009, one week before the holiday.
So far, "Transformers 3" has no direct competition on its July 1, 2011, date.
Paramount also moved up the release of Marvel Entertainment's "Thor" from June 16, 2011, to May 20, 2011, on behalf of Marvel Entertainment, which is producing and financing the superhero pic.
That shift comes less than one week after Marvel said it was pushing back the release of "Thor" by a year, from July 16, 2010, to June 16, 2011.
Marvel was criticized by some for scheduling "Thor" and "The First Avenger: Captain America" so close together. "Captain America" opens July 22, 2011.
Summer 2011 kicks off with the May 6 release of Sony's "Spider-Man 4." Pic was dated last week.
Late last week, Warner Bros. set "The Time Traveler's Wife" for release this Aug. 14. That meant Warners had to move "Final Destination: Death Trip 3D" off that date. That pic will now open Aug. 28.
Robot Mania: Full Size Gundam, Now Gigantor!
(justpressplay.net) Not long after Tokyo finished the life-size Gundam project, now Kobe is doing the same for their Wakamatsu Park with a full scale statue of Tetsujin 28-go, better known in the US as Gigantor.Unlike the Gundam statue, this one is meant to be a permanent tourist attraction for Kobe. It stands 60-feet tall, weighs 50 tons and is expected to finish construction in September, which, what a coincidence, is the same month I plan to buy a fallout shelter.
Created by one of Kobe's most famous native son, manga-ka Mitsuteru Yokoyama in 1956, Tetsujin 28-go (literally means Iron Man #28) is noted for being the first ever "giant robot" comic book. A popular black-and-white anime adaptation was made in 1963. It was later broadcast on NBC as Gigantor with its names changed and the violence toned down.
Back in January, Imagi Studios (TMNT, Astro Boy) released this cool teaser trailer as a test for T28, a CG-animated movie based on the manga, to gauge public interest.
Full press with pics: http://www.justpressplay.net/movies/movie-news/5561-first-gundam-now-gigantorwhat-are-you-up-to-japan.html
"American Werewolf" Remake Planned
Bloody Disgusting reports that the original film's writer/director John Landis has apparently sold off remake rights to the property to Dimension Films.
The original followed two American tourists in England are attacked by a werewolf that none of the locals will admit exists.
A poorly received sequel, "An American Werewolf in Paris", opened in 1997 to poor reviews and box-office.
Bay's Giant Robot Sequel Blows Up the Box Office
(Box Office Mojo) Going into the weekend, there was no doubt Michael Bay's anticipated sequel Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, starring Shia LaBeouf and Megan Fox, would be huge, though few thought it could open as big as last summer's biggest blockbuster, Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight, at least not based on the awful reviews on Rotten Tomatoes.
After grossing just over $60 million on Wednesday (a record for the weekday opening) and another $29 million on Thursday, the sequel brought in an estimated $112 million over the weekend for a total of $201.2 million in its first five days. Besides setting a record for a June opening, surpassing 2004's Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Bay's latest grossed the second-largest amount over a five-day period after The Dark Knight's $203.8 million.
The IMAX Corporation reports that the movie had the best five-day gross, grossing $14.4 million in its first five days on 169 IMAX screens, nearly double what the 5th "Harry Potter" movie did two years ago.
"Revenge of the Fallen" became the third-largest worldwide opening weekend grosser, earning $274 million and beating out last summer's Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. The film has become Paramount's biggest international opener of all time, again besting "Indy 4" for the top honor, and ranking as the industry's fourth-biggest opening of all time abroad. The sequel has taken in $387 million worldwide to date.
Peter Jackson Working on "Tintin" Post Production at Weta Digital
Interestingly, Jackson also hinted at the approximate start date of the second film and confirmed the third. According to Jackson, his role as lead director begins next year when the second Tintin film, Red Rackham's Treasure, gets underway. And, in spite of rampant gossip that the third film was going to be scrapped, Jackson said he and Spielberg were still open to co-directing the third and final, as yet unnamed, Tintin film.
VFX Labor Costs Cut 25% in British Columbia
(realfilmcareer.com) A sweetening of the film and television tax credits in the province of Quebec has yet to cause a stir in British Columbia, as the industry here will monitor the impact the move will have on this province’s fortunes.
In fact, the changes in Quebec could actually bolster one segment in B.C. — the visual effects industry.
On June 12, the Quebec government changed the tax credit for foreign production companies shooting in the province from 25 per cent of labour costs to 25 per cent of total budget expenses in the province. This means that an American studio could write off not only one-quarter of wages paid to Quebec workers, but also one-quarter of other costs incurred in the province, including studio rental, equipment acquisitions and rentals, building materials, software and catering.
“This is significant, because it could potentially double their tax credit over there,” said Peter Leitch, president of North Shore Studios and Mammoth Studios and chair of the Motion Picture Production Industry Association of B.C. “Quebec had very litte foreign production last year, so this is a way for them to compete with states that have aggressive tax credits.”
Quebec had no major U.S. productions last year, the last big Hollywood movie shot there being a partial shoot of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, in 2007.
“It’s an aggressive measure by Quebec, and we’ll just wait and see what the impacts of it are,” said Leitch. “We just want to make sure we act responsibly and don’t have a knee-jerk reaction to this particular change.”
Both B.C. and Ontario have labour tax credits of 25 per cent for foreign-based productions, as well as a higher rate for domestic productions. The provinces also have various regional tax credits to encourage production outside the major centres. B.C.’s tax credit system is in place until 2013.
However, one change in Quebec may send work west. Quebec eliminated the additional 20-per-cent labour tax credit for visual effects work done in the province, instead extending the total budget credits by another five per cent, to 30 per cent, for productions who do their visual effects in the province.
This means that film companies could shoot their live-action footage in Quebec, but take their visual effects work to B.C., where they could receive the 25-per-cent labour tax credits spent on creating the visual effects, plus the extra 15-per-cent digital animation or visual effects (DAVE) credit in B.C.
CGI and the Half-Blood Prince
(thecelebritycafe.com) The sixth Harry Potter movie, "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince," will arrive in theaters on July 15.
Production designer Stuart Craig used CGI for most of the effects, much more than he used on the first movie nine years ago.
Craig told the Los Angeles Times: "Obviously the actors would prefer a physically real set to react to and respond to as directed. The CG effects encourage you to be bigger and more ambitious and scale things up, so what we try to do is build a physical set -- which is always limited by the soundstage it's on or the corner of the soundstage you have available -- and then the CG extension becomes hugely important."
Full Press: http://www.thecelebritycafe.com/features/29564.html
Bay Swaps Robots For Angst-Ridden Aliens In Number Four
(io9.com) With Transformers fast on its way to becoming almost as big as The Dark Knight, Michael Bay and Dreamworks have already announced their next project together... and it doesn't involve robots, in disguise or otherwise.
Bay and Dreamworks have pre-emptively picked up the movie rights to unpublished novel I Am Number Four for an undisclosed sum "somewhere in the high six figures," according to the Hollywood Reporter. The book, the first of a six part series rumored to be co-written by controversial author James Frey (the identity of the authors is being kept secret at present), deals with nine teenaged aliens hiding in human society following the destruction of their home planet, only to find that the being responsible for the destruction has followed them to Earth.
The rights were offered to studios Thursday afternoon before being quickly snapped up by Bay and the studio; as with Transformers, Dreamworks exec Steven Spielberg is expected to act as co-producer on the movie.
"Low-Balling": The VFX Business Model
(animationguildblog.blogspot.com) Here's the way the visual effects industry goes:
1) Big Fat Conglomerate puts most of the work on its new, $200 million effects-laden blockbuster out for bid.
2) Effects houses from far and wide bid on the project, busily low-balling one another.
3) BFC picks the cheapest price among the houses, gives a few high-end "money shots" to a prestigious effects studio in San Francisco, and hands off wire removal and other mundane chores to Mumbai, India (which is even cheaper!)
4) Management of Low-Ball Effx House discovers that it is seriously in the red doing the work and will have to look for suitors with money if it wants to keep its doors open. (As an interim measure, it cuts staff salaries and benefits) ...
Versions of this scenario have been happening with metronomic regularity for years. Variety had the basic storyline just yesterday:
Digital Domain, the Venice, Calif.-based visual effects shop ... is scheduled to be in court Wednesday for opening arguments in a wrongful termination suit by the company's former prexy, Christian Bradley "Brad" Call.
Call alleges the company pressured him to falsify the company's financials to attract investors ...
...[D]documents reveal that the company, founded in 1993 by Scott Ross, helmer James Cameron and creature wiz Stan Winston, has never turned a profit despite having a thriving commercials division for much of its existence to supplement its feature work ...
But weep not for Digital Domain. Per the article, current management strongly implies that everything is really good now. (And if you believe that, then call me quick, because I've got some prime real estate out in Lancaster I'm willing to sell you.)
There's a reason that the major entertainment companies got into the effects business and then (except for Sony) quickly got out again. The profit margins just weren't there.
Source: http://animationguildblog.blogspot.com/2009/06/viz-effx-business-model.html
Stan Lee Joins "Iron Man" Sequel
(darkhorizons.com) Marvel Comics icon Stan Lee is tipped to play legendary interviewer Larry King in the upcoming "Iron Man" sequel reports Nuke the Fridge.
Appearing as King, Lee will apparently interview Tony Stark on Larry King Live and will question Stark on his latest innovations. Specifically this will include Stark's new "modified 'black' Iron Man suit"
The casting is a larger than usual role for Lee who only cameos in Marvel films. Lee seemed to be playing Playboy creator Hugh Hefner in the first "Iron Man" film.
Lucasfilm's Plan is About Sustainability
(marinij.com) IN TODAY'S terrible economic times, it is rare to hear of any employer seeking to grow his business. George Lucas' readiness to complete the final phase of the master plan for Lucasfilm, Ltd. - which was approved in 1996 - is a welcome counterpoint to the news of layoffs and businesses leaving Marin.
Lucas' desire to execute this final phase of the plan is truly a vote of confidence for Marin County's sustainability.
Instead of criticizing the design of a private complex, we should be applauding the benefits it will bring to our community.
Having Lucasfilm in Marin provides many benefits to the community. Lucasfilm creates hundreds of high-paying, high-value jobs. The large amount of property taxes help fund our overall community needs.
Lucas has permanently protected 5,000 acres through Marin Agricultural Land Trust easements that would otherwise have been developed.
And Lucas continues his quiet, consistent local contributions to nonprofits and schools throughout Marin.
But none of those benefits captures the prestige of having one of the foremost creative minds and innovators living and working in Marin, and the numerous multipliers that the Lucas companies continue to bring to this county.
Lucasfilm has been a good neighbor for 30 years, respectful of both the people and the environment.
Lucas implemented 11 miles of public trails, undergrounded utilities in front of Big Rock (the second phase of the master plan), bought
Jaws of Life life-saving equipment for the Marinwood Fire Department. His ranch's fire crew continues to act as a first responder for accidents and fires in the vicinity. He has preserved more than 125 acres of Marin dwarf flax, wetlands and more.
There has been full compliance with all of the conditions of approval set by the Board of Supervisors in the master plan, with Mr. Lucas often exceeding the requirements at his own expense.
George Lucas put his faith in Marin County 30 years ago when he built Skywalker Ranch and set the course for the other two phases of the master plan.
That Lucas chooses to stay in Marin and complete the plan - which he could have put anywhere in the world - gives Marin a great magnet for attracting jobs that match skill levels and housing costs in the county.
In these hard economic times, it is a blessing that Lucas has the fortitude and vision to continue to move forward. Grady Ranch will be the final phase of the original plan - another unobtrusive, beautiful Lucasfilm building surrounded by the 800 acres of open space that Lucas donated years ago.
North Bay Leadership Council, which represents the leading employers in Marin and Sonoma counties, applauds the vote of confidence that Lucas has given to the sustainability of Marin County.
Marin's economy will be stimulated by the Grady Ranch project and the employees who work there.
Marin's economic vitality will be strengthened by welcoming George Lucas' investment in the future of the county and his commitment to making all of his companies environmentally and socially responsible contributors to the county's quality of life.
Cynthia Murray is president and CEO of the North Bay Leadership Council, an employer-sponsored coalition involved in public-policy advocacy. She is a former Marin supervisor and a former mayor of Novato.
Source: http://www.marinij.com/opinion/ci_12711785
The Smurfs Will be Coming at You in 3D
(ComingSoon.net) Columbia Pictures' CG/live-action hybrid film based on "The Smurfs" will hit theaters in 3D. Smurfs 3D is scheduled for a December 17, 2010 release.
The film will be based on the characters created in 1958 by Belgian cartoonist Pierre Culliford, known throughout the world as Peyo. "The Smurfs" were created for a Belgian series of comic books, first as minor characters. The villagers, known for their blue skin and small statures, spawned a line of statuettes, games, toys, theme parks and a hit TV series.
The Colin Brady-directed film was written by David Stem and David Weiss.
Pixar's Luxo Jr. Makes His Live-Action Debut
(cinematical.com) Disney buffs are no doubt aware of the theme park's "Living Character Initiative," where guests of Walt Disney World (and the surrounding parks, like Disney's Hollywood Studios and Epcot Center) are treated to a live-action experience with some of the more memorable Disney/Pixar animated characters. I believe the initiative began a couple years ago with the Muppet Mobile Lab, and it continues now with the character Remy from Ratatouille (who hangs around French restaurants at Epcot Center) and the newest edition -- Luxo Jr. (aka the hopping Pixar desk lamp), who visitors to Disney's Hollywood Studios can now see hanging out over at Pixar Place.
We posted videos of both Luxo Jr. and Remy after the jump, as well as the inflatable Up house stationed over at Downtown Disney. And now if you'll excuse me, Wall-E is about to start on cable and the thing looks absolutely smashing in HD. Enjoy your Sunday!]
Take a look: http://www.cinematical.com/2009/06/28/watch-this-pixars-luxo-jr-makes-his-live-action-debut/
Paramount Begins Epic Journey to Hell
(The Hollywood Reporter)
Hellified is known to be a supernatural action movie involving a journey to hell.
Bradley is a second-unit director and stunt coordinator-turned-director who is helming MGM's high-flying Red Dawn remake. Among his credits for action design are The Bourne Supremacy, The Bourne Ultimatum, Quantum of Solace and the "Spider-Man" sequels. He also was second-unit director on Spike Jonze's upcoming Where the Wild Things Are.
"Transformers 2" Adds Another $27 Million Thursday
(Variety) Early estimates for Thursday show Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen earning another $27 million, bringing its two-day domestic total to $87 million.
The film is on its way to scoring one of the top five-day openings of all-time at the worldwide box office. Overseas, the sequel's total through Wednesday was a whopping $59 million from 11,500 locations in 58 territories Wednesday, putting the worldwide tally at a massive $146.6 million.
The current record-holder for the best five-day domestic gross is The Dark Knight, which earned $203.8 million its first five days last year. That's followed by Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith with $172.8 million and Spider-Man 3 with $169.4 million.
Of the 4,234 screens on which "Transformers" is playing domestically, 169 locations are IMAX. IMAX reported a record-breaking opening day gross of $1 million for a per-screen average of $24,000.
Czechs Beef Up Visual Effects Firms
(variety.com) Foreign film shoots in Prague may be slumping from the double blow of economic doldrums and price competition from the East, but Czechs are nothing if not resourceful -- and have a decided knack for high-tech tools. As a result, post-production facilities have felt considerably less pain this year, and are continuing to give rivals in major Western cities a run for their money.
Many of these small, young and competitive firms pay the rent with commercial work, as do many local production service businesses, but as more and more films of every budget level use these services, and the big houses in Hollywood and London overflow with work, their Eastern European brethren are waiting in the wings, looking to snap up jobs.
David Minkowski of Prague production services shingle Stillking predicts that top post houses in the Czech Republic and beyond will win more and more major studio work. "Like runaway production, there is also runaway vfx work, because vfx work can be done anywhere regardless of where a movie was shot," he says. "There is a big push in Hollywood to lower vfx costs, and taking the work to places like Universal Production Partners in Prague or even further afield in India or elsewhere is one way to do it."
Even during the salad days before the crash, Prague post facilities were surprising skeptical foreign crews with their precision and professionalism, as shingles such as UPP scored vfx work for such pics including "Flight 93," "AVP: Alien vs. Predator," "Perfume: The Story of a Murderer" and Francis Ford Coppola's "Youth Without Youth."
Another local operation, Post Produkce Praha, or PPP, has a credits list that includes "Les Miserables" and "Anne Frank: The Whole Story" and has all the necessary post toys, from Telecine to nonlinear editing on Discreet Smoke systems and a digital linear editing suite worthy of "Star Trek."
Prague is not known as the conservatory of Europe for nothing; Czech engineers clearly have well-tuned ears. Sound post house Soundsquare is an insider-tip among Western producers, having done ADR work with Matt Damon, James Franco and Liev Schreiber and recorded the Czech dubbing for a localized version of "The Incredibles."
Producer Tom Karnowski, a veteran of Prague shoots who used UPP for vfx on upcoming medieval fantasy actioner "Season of the Witch," which shot in Hungary, says the firm has built a track record that's now noted abroad. "Everybody that I have introduced them to has also been happy with their work. They get so involved in the projects, do state-of-the-art work and bend over backwards to make it work for 'challenged' budgets."
While several Hollywood majors have admitted they may soon be forced to farm out pieces of heavy vfx pics to affordable but high-quality small studios outside the U.S., Karnowski posits that UPP is more about soup-to-nuts work.
"I think UPP likes to take on projects that they can completely control and do all work internally. I know they have done piecemeal work on projects in the past, but the real value is working with them as an all-in vfx producer and supervisor."
As for "Season of the Witch," he says, "Challenges were CGI wolves for a wolf attack sequence and the designing and implementing (of) the stylized, exaggerated, frightening movement of the monks."
Ed Milkovich, who recently produced "Masterwork," a Fox TV pilot, also used UPP.
UPP co-founder Petr Komrzy takes a soft-sell approach, rarely touting his 15-year-old Prague shop and preferring to let its work stand for itself. But, he admits, compared with most local post studios, UPP "offers much wider and deeper post-production services, and much bigger capacity, in both vfx and DI."
Ludmila Claussova of the Czech Film Commission, which handles inquiries from potential foreign productions, says she's often asked about the quality and availability of local post houses. She generally refers inquirers to the show reels of companies like UPP and PPP, she says.
Minkowski, who notes that such companies in the U.K. have seen a major boost in business thanks to Brit tax credits, argues that the same trick would make the post biz explode in the Czech Republic, ratcheting it up from a solid bargain to a service that would be highly in demand.
Claussova has long crusaded, along with many other industryites, for foreign-production tax incentives, but the Czech Culture Ministry has yet to get seriously behind the idea, even though incentives worked wonders for Hungary's production sector.
With the recent collapse of the Czech government and a new culture minister in place, she's optimistic that a plan may finally take shape soon, particularly after the admonishments of George Lucas, who argued the need for incentives during his shoot of "Red Tails," the story of the fearless Tuskegee airmen of World War II.
"I don't see pure post-production work coming from an incentive," Claussova says, "but it could animate or encourage the film productions already shooting to do post here."
Lucasfilm to Broadcast from Comic-Con
(news.awn.com) Lucasfilm Ltd. and G4 are joining forces for a milestone in San Diego Comic-Con's 40-year history -- the first-ever, exclusive television broadcast of a presentation from pop culture convention. The Star Wars Spectacular! will air Saturday July 25th at 2:00 pm ET/PT only on G4, and will feature never-before-seen footage, breaking news, surprise announcements, guest stars and more. In addition, G4 will present three hours of live coverage from the Comic-Con floor, beginning at 4:00 pm ET/PT.
Traditionally, details surrounding Lucasfilm's primary panel presentation are closely guarded secrets, with only 6,500 lucky on-site fans allowed access to the wealth of coveted information from a galaxy far, far away. But this year, G4 is offering TV viewers the one-of-a-kind opportunity to share the excitement with an exclusive broadcast of the panel. G4's ATTACK OF THE SHOW hosts Kevin Pereira and Olivia Munn will join Lucasfilm's Steve Sansweet and a galaxy of guests from STAR WARS: THE CLONE WARS and beyond -- including supervising director Dave Filoni, and voice talent from the show -- to provide an insider look at the STAR WARS universe, with never-before-seen footage and a live table read of an exclusive new CLONE WARS script.
In addition, fans are invited to participate in the panel itself by submitting CLONE WARS questions through a special G4 micro-site. Questions will be answered during the live presentation by Filoni and other CLONE WARS creatives.
009's Comic-Con International also marks another Lucasfilm milestone -- the launch of the all-new Star Wars Stories Project. Fans of the franchise will have the opportunity to become a part of the STAR WARS universe by contributing to Lucasfilm's own historical archive. Soliciting movie memories and nostalgia, the Star Wars Stories Project invites fans to share their own tales of fandom through video testimonials. In addition to online submissions, fans will have the opportunity to record their stories at Lucasfilm's pavilion on the Comic-Con floor.
Fans are invited to upload their fan stories at http://g4tv.com/comiccon.
Exclusive Video: ILM's Scott Farrar at the Premiere of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
(scifiwire.com) SCI FI Wire talked with the creators of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen as they walked the red carpet at the film's world premiere, including executive producer and Hasbro C.E.O. Brian Goldner and Scott Ferrar, the visual-effects supervisor at ILM.
Take a look: http://scifiwire.com/2009/06/transformers-revenge-of-t.php
Sony To Adapt "Uncharted" Video Game to Feature Film
(darkhorizons.com) Popular and well-received PS3 video game "Uncharted: Drake's Fortune" is set to become an action-adventure feature film for Sony Pictures says The Hollywood Reporter.
The story follows a descendent of explorer Sir Francis Drake, a treasure hunter named Nate Drake who believes he has learned the whereabouts of El Dorado, the fabled South American golden city, from a cursed golden statue.
The search becomes competitive when a rival hunter joins the fray, then is racheted up several notches when creatures - actually mutated descendants of Spaniards and Nazis - begin attacking those hoping to learn the treasure's true secrets.
Kyle Ward ("Kane & Lynch," "Fiasco Heights") is set to write the adaptation which Avi Arad, Charles Roven, Ari Arad and Alex Gartner will produce.
LucasFilm: A Fast Network Key to Visual Effects
LucasFilm has produced some of the most memorable visual effects in the history of films. Rendering the special effects for Star Wars (Episodes 1, 2 and 3) and the Terminator and Indiana Jones series requires serious high-performance computing infrastructure in the company\u2019s data center in San Francisco and animation studio in Singapore. In this customer profile from Brocade Communications, LucasFilm senior network manager Peter Hricak talks about the importance of network performance in visual effects and the company\u2019s use of Brocade equipment.
This video runs about 4 minutes: http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2009/06/24/lucasfilms-network/
$110-Million Walt Disney Museum to Show His Tech-geek Side
(latimes.com) Walt Disney -- the man, not the company -- was known for his imagination, his artistry and even his business acumen. But it turns out he also had a huge appetite for technology.
He pushed the envelope at his own firm, developing new gadgets to help in the making of his movies. He had a passion for the future, promoting ideas through such places as his Epcot Center in Orlando, Fla. And he often engaged with engineers from other companies, such as Ford Motor Co. and General Electric Co., particularly as he developed exhibits for the New York World's Fair of 1964.
The geeky side of Disney is one of the elements that will be on display at the Walt Disney Family Museum in San Francisco when it opens in October.
Museum organizers -- particularly Disney's daughter Diane Disney Miller and his grandson and namesake, Walter E. Disney Miller -- gave the press a preview Thursday, showing off the state-of-the-art $110-million facility in Presidio National Park.
The museum itself makes heavy use of modern processing power, from admissions to displays. To keep control of the number of visitors, the museum will sell tickets on the Web for specific times. One could just show up and buy a ticket, "but I wouldn't recommend it," Executive Director Richard Benefield said.
Inside, the walls will feature what Benefield called "every kind of monitor known to man." And curators have taken advantage of 19 hours of recordings of Disney's voice to provide a guided tour through his life -- his childhood, his early work as a bankrupt cartoonist in Kansas City, Mo., and his most notable achievements, including the creation of Mickey Mouse, "Snow White" and "Fantasia" and his television and theme park operations.
Also on view will be a two-story multiplane camera that Disney used for such effects as rooftop shots in "Pinocchio" and an optical printer used to blend real-life characters with animation in "Mary Poppins."
Although the museum is not formally affiliated with Walt Disney Co., the company has provided many artifacts and may even provide some technical expertise. After all, its Pixar animation unit is based right across the San Francisco Bay in Emeryville, and a Disney executive told Benefield that the company was stepping up volunteer efforts by employees.
The company even offered to help the museum teach animation classes, Benefield said.
A 110-seat theater in the museum's lower reaches will open with a three-week screening of "Fantasia." Later, Disney plans to re-release "Snow White" for the film's 50th anniversary, "and we'll be showing it in Blu-Ray in our theater," Benefield said.
Robotech Feature Film Stays Alive
(scifisquad.com) When it comes to giant interplanetary robots, Transformers seem to be winning the movie franchise game. But that hasn't stopped Warner Bros. from developing their own robot franchise with a live-action Robotech. The project has been in development for two years now, and has gone through several writers (including a heavy hitter) -- proving once again that anime isn't an easy transition to big-budget popcorn flicks. Usually this kind of revolving door means that it isn't long before the project falls apart, but Robotech has been hanging on, and now there is a new screenwriter on the scene. Over at Mania.com, they have reported that Tom Rob Smith has been hired to draft yet another version of the script for WB. Smith is another unlikely choice for an anime film, since he made his name with a novel about a series of child murders in 1950's Russia. But, according to Mania's sources, even though Smith doesn't have much experience, "He had a very clear vision for the material that seemed to fit the collective group's vision for the property."
'Transformers' VFX Guru Gives Machines a Ninja-Like Fluidity
(baltimoresun.com) The wizardry of computer graphics has become so other-worldly that it's easy to imagine the army of specialists that worked on Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen hidden in some underground laboratory-bunker, scurrying like super-intelligent lab rats to create "sights no one has ever seen before" under the excruciating pressure of a hugely expensive franchise picture.
But the role of visual effects supervisor isas hands-on and real-world as jobs come. Industrial Light and Magic's Scott Farrar has performed it to perfection on both Transformers pictures. His work begins long before the shooting starts, when producer-director Michael Bay and his colleagues begin brainstorming with Farrar and his colleagues on how far, this time out, they can push the art of the impossible. It ends when the film lands in the theaters.
Farrar gets to act as what he calls "a special-effects referee" when ILM begins constructing and animating the good-guy Autobots and bad-guy Decepticons at the ILM compound in San Francisco's Presidio. The title takes on weight when you realize that animators are doing tumbling turns and karate chops to figure out their characters.
And when the movie begins shooting, Farrar is on set during all six months of principal filming, in every locale from a Bethlehem, Pa., steel plant to the Jordanian desert. (He even earned a second-unit director credit on this movie.) During post-production, he kicks into overdrive, as the hundreds of people under his leadership bring so many miracles of light and action to life that they threaten to burst their disc space.
Farrar has become such an integral part of the Transformers experience that Paramount has turned him into a focus of the film's publicity. On the phone from San Francisco opening day, just back from the Los Angeles premiere, he laughs when I ask what he's doing next. He says, "My dance card is punched. These movies take a year and half for me to do - and when I say a year and a half, I mean that's constant work. I cannot commit to another movie until I know about Transformers 3."
From Day One, Farrar's job stretches from the blue-sky of ideas and imagination to the dates of the schedule and the dollars and cents of the budget. Bay relies on Farrar's expertise for drawing the game plan and putting a price on it. Once Paramount and DreamWorks grant their approval, "we start building robots right away." An average-size robot takes three months to create. It takes an additional three months to perfect the skeleton that allows it to move within a shot without any of its pieces flying away. Farrar also helps Bay guide the "animatics" and "previsualization" - the moving storyboards that allow filmmakers to test their ideas before they go on the set.
Once Bay signs off on the animation, it's time to go out and get the shots. "We filmed in seven states, Egypt and Jordan, and with a mini-unit in Paris."
Bay may be a critic's nightmare, but he's a visual-effects supervisor's best friend. "In many ways, he works like a second visual-effects supervisor, because he's got such a strong visual sense and so much skill and experience with the camera. If there's anything nightmarish about these films, it's that they're so big, and they have to be made so quickly." Farrar warms to the challenges Bay presents of seamlessly blending digital marvels with locations "the size and grandeur of Ben-Hur - and Apocalypse Now."
When Farrar started out as a special-effects camera operator in his early days at ILM, he did his effects shots on a separate VistaVision camera that had to be "locked down." The camera couldn't "pan or tilt or boom or dolly - no movement whatsoever." Farrar loves teaming up with Bay on a dynamic style where a regular 35mm anamorphic Panavision camera rarely stops moving and the effects keep pace with it. He helps Bay figure out the blocking as Farrar's team uses pink tennis balls and light poles to mark the position of the robots. Bay's camera units shoot from multiple angles, then ILM "adjusts the animation to the wild, willy-nilly flailings we come up with."
Bay insists on employing film rather than digital recording partly because he likes the grain and color range of film, and partly because he prefers spectacular natural locations. (Farrar scans the negative to create a pristine digital copy for ILM.) A high-def digital camera requires an unwieldy electronic "umbilical chord" that makes it hard to maintain out of the studio, especially in the Jordanian desert. It's heartening to think of Bay getting a thrill out of shooting in Wadi Rum, Jordan, where David Lean directed part of Lawrence of Arabia.
Outsiders tend to think of techies as slaves to the computer. Farrar, though, says, "Computers are dumb: they can't do anything unless they have a ton of information." ILM must translate into digital language every surface and texture in each shot, and set up lights within each scene's 3-D landscape according to "how a particular location looked at a particular time of night or day." Because of the shifts in shadows and light, the images in a sequence set in a deep forest could turn brownish, yellowish or vivid green. Since the robots are reflective they would look markedly different depending on the circumstances. An ILM craftsman on set stands at camera position for most of the set-ups and swings around in a circle to photograph the environment.
It's part of animation tradition that "character animators" observe the voice actors, then become mime performers themselves, acting out movements and expressions in a mirror and applying them to furry animals or magical objects. Farrar says they don't work any differently when they're doing robots. Bay always wanted the robot warriors to boast the speed and limberness of ninjas. "Our guys got so good at it that on this film they came up with unbelievable fight moves and bloodthirsty attack movements themselves, without the help of the stuntmen," even if these feints and thrusts stemmed from an animator growing up with three brothers rather than studying martial-arts or enlisting in the military.
"I'm always asked if the transformations would look right if we slowed them down," says Farrar. "The answer is, 'Yes.' " He says he relies on a couple of transformation experts who "like figuring out puzzles or creating them."
But I really wanted to know whether he thought that the different antagonists and protagonists would be clearer and stronger if the fight scenes had a more varied rhythm and choreography. "We're always conscious that you should be able to tell them apart, but sometimes just the framing of a battle sequence makes you go at a certain cadence. All I can say is that in L.A., with a huge audience of all ages, everyone seemed to get it - it was good and evil on epic scale, and all the 'Oooohs' and 'Aaaahs' and 'Yeahs' were coming in the right places."
Six months from now, the rest of us can do what I did to appreciate the first Transformers film. Fuel up the DVD or Blu-Ray, lower the sound and put on the subtitles, fast-forward through the exposition and the comedy and put the machine on slow-mo for the robot set pieces.
The Autobots and Decepticons (and their Gremlins-like underlings) - that's where the art and entertainment is in these movies, thanks to the wizards of ILM.
"Lord of the Rings" Films Used To Quell Unrest
(cinematical.com) Time Magazin has a piece from an anonymous Iranian resident reporting that the government is using film to try and quell public unrest. "In normal times, Iranian television usually treats its viewers to one or two Hollywood or European movie nights a week. But these are not normal times, so it's been two or three such movies a day. It's part of the push to keep people at home and off the streets, to keep us busy, to get us out of the regime's hair. The message is 'Don't worry, be happy.'"
All television channels in Iran are owned by the state, so the government is choosing its films very carefully. One of their offerings has been a Lord of the Rings marathon, ostensibly picked because its length and epic content will keep people glued to their television. "We're glued to the trilogy. We are riveted. A child in the room loudly predicts that Lord of the Rings will put an end to the nightly shouts, that people will not take to the rooftops and windows because this film will keep them occupied."
Paramount Begins Epic Journey to Hell
(The Hollywood Reporter)
Hellified is known to be a supernatural action movie involving a journey to hell.
Bradley is a second-unit director and stunt coordinator-turned-director who is helming MGM's high-flying Red Dawn remake. Among his credits for action design are The Bourne Supremacy, The Bourne Ultimatum, Quantum of Solace and the "Spider-Man" sequels. He also was second-unit director on Spike Jonze's upcoming Where the Wild Things Are.
"Transformers 2" Adds Another $27 Million Thursday
(Variety) Early estimates for Thursday show Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen earning another $27 million, bringing its two-day domestic total to $87 million.
The film is on its way to scoring one of the top five-day openings of all-time at the worldwide box office. Overseas, the sequel's total through Wednesday was a whopping $59 million from 11,500 locations in 58 territories Wednesday, putting the worldwide tally at a massive $146.6 million.
The current record-holder for the best five-day domestic gross is The Dark Knight, which earned $203.8 million its first five days last year. That's followed by Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith with $172.8 million and Spider-Man 3 with $169.4 million.
Of the 4,234 screens on which "Transformers" is playing domestically, 169 locations are IMAX. IMAX reported a record-breaking opening day gross of $1 million for a per-screen average of $24,000.
Czechs Beef Up Visual Effects Firms
(variety.com) Foreign film shoots in Prague may be slumping from the double blow of economic doldrums and price competition from the East, but Czechs are nothing if not resourceful -- and have a decided knack for high-tech tools. As a result, post-production facilities have felt considerably less pain this year, and are continuing to give rivals in major Western cities a run for their money.
Many of these small, young and competitive firms pay the rent with commercial work, as do many local production service businesses, but as more and more films of every budget level use these services, and the big houses in Hollywood and London overflow with work, their Eastern European brethren are waiting in the wings, looking to snap up jobs.
David Minkowski of Prague production services shingle Stillking predicts that top post houses in the Czech Republic and beyond will win more and more major studio work. "Like runaway production, there is also runaway vfx work, because vfx work can be done anywhere regardless of where a movie was shot," he says. "There is a big push in Hollywood to lower vfx costs, and taking the work to places like Universal Production Partners in Prague or even further afield in India or elsewhere is one way to do it."
Even during the salad days before the crash, Prague post facilities were surprising skeptical foreign crews with their precision and professionalism, as shingles such as UPP scored vfx work for such pics including "Flight 93," "AVP: Alien vs. Predator," "Perfume: The Story of a Murderer" and Francis Ford Coppola's "Youth Without Youth."
Another local operation, Post Produkce Praha, or PPP, has a credits list that includes "Les Miserables" and "Anne Frank: The Whole Story" and has all the necessary post toys, from Telecine to nonlinear editing on Discreet Smoke systems and a digital linear editing suite worthy of "Star Trek."
Prague is not known as the conservatory of Europe for nothing; Czech engineers clearly have well-tuned ears. Sound post house Soundsquare is an insider-tip among Western producers, having done ADR work with Matt Damon, James Franco and Liev Schreiber and recorded the Czech dubbing for a localized version of "The Incredibles."
Producer Tom Karnowski, a veteran of Prague shoots who used UPP for vfx on upcoming medieval fantasy actioner "Season of the Witch," which shot in Hungary, says the firm has built a track record that's now noted abroad. "Everybody that I have introduced them to has also been happy with their work. They get so involved in the projects, do state-of-the-art work and bend over backwards to make it work for 'challenged' budgets."
While several Hollywood majors have admitted they may soon be forced to farm out pieces of heavy vfx pics to affordable but high-quality small studios outside the U.S., Karnowski posits that UPP is more about soup-to-nuts work.
"I think UPP likes to take on projects that they can completely control and do all work internally. I know they have done piecemeal work on projects in the past, but the real value is working with them as an all-in vfx producer and supervisor."
As for "Season of the Witch," he says, "Challenges were CGI wolves for a wolf attack sequence and the designing and implementing (of) the stylized, exaggerated, frightening movement of the monks."
Ed Milkovich, who recently produced "Masterwork," a Fox TV pilot, also used UPP.
UPP co-founder Petr Komrzy takes a soft-sell approach, rarely touting his 15-year-old Prague shop and preferring to let its work stand for itself. But, he admits, compared with most local post studios, UPP "offers much wider and deeper post-production services, and much bigger capacity, in both vfx and DI."
Ludmila Claussova of the Czech Film Commission, which handles inquiries from potential foreign productions, says she's often asked about the quality and availability of local post houses. She generally refers inquirers to the show reels of companies like UPP and PPP, she says.
Minkowski, who notes that such companies in the U.K. have seen a major boost in business thanks to Brit tax credits, argues that the same trick would make the post biz explode in the Czech Republic, ratcheting it up from a solid bargain to a service that would be highly in demand.
Claussova has long crusaded, along with many other industryites, for foreign-production tax incentives, but the Czech Culture Ministry has yet to get seriously behind the idea, even though incentives worked wonders for Hungary's production sector.
With the recent collapse of the Czech government and a new culture minister in place, she's optimistic that a plan may finally take shape soon, particularly after the admonishments of George Lucas, who argued the need for incentives during his shoot of "Red Tails," the story of the fearless Tuskegee airmen of World War II.
"I don't see pure post-production work coming from an incentive," Claussova says, "but it could animate or encourage the film productions already shooting to do post here."
Lucasfilm to Broadcast from Comic-Con
(news.awn.com) Lucasfilm Ltd. and G4 are joining forces for a milestone in San Diego Comic-Con's 40-year history -- the first-ever, exclusive television broadcast of a presentation from pop culture convention. The Star Wars Spectacular! will air Saturday July 25th at 2:00 pm ET/PT only on G4, and will feature never-before-seen footage, breaking news, surprise announcements, guest stars and more. In addition, G4 will present three hours of live coverage from the Comic-Con floor, beginning at 4:00 pm ET/PT.
Traditionally, details surrounding Lucasfilm's primary panel presentation are closely guarded secrets, with only 6,500 lucky on-site fans allowed access to the wealth of coveted information from a galaxy far, far away. But this year, G4 is offering TV viewers the one-of-a-kind opportunity to share the excitement with an exclusive broadcast of the panel. G4's ATTACK OF THE SHOW hosts Kevin Pereira and Olivia Munn will join Lucasfilm's Steve Sansweet and a galaxy of guests from STAR WARS: THE CLONE WARS and beyond -- including supervising director Dave Filoni, and voice talent from the show -- to provide an insider look at the STAR WARS universe, with never-before-seen footage and a live table read of an exclusive new CLONE WARS script.
In addition, fans are invited to participate in the panel itself by submitting CLONE WARS questions through a special G4 micro-site. Questions will be answered during the live presentation by Filoni and other CLONE WARS creatives.
009's Comic-Con International also marks another Lucasfilm milestone -- the launch of the all-new Star Wars Stories Project. Fans of the franchise will have the opportunity to become a part of the STAR WARS universe by contributing to Lucasfilm's own historical archive. Soliciting movie memories and nostalgia, the Star Wars Stories Project invites fans to share their own tales of fandom through video testimonials. In addition to online submissions, fans will have the opportunity to record their stories at Lucasfilm's pavilion on the Comic-Con floor.
Fans are invited to upload their fan stories at http://g4tv.com/comiccon.
Exclusive Video: ILM's Scott Farrar at the Premiere of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
(scifiwire.com) SCI FI Wire talked with the creators of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen as they walked the red carpet at the film's world premiere, including executive producer and Hasbro C.E.O. Brian Goldner and Scott Ferrar, the visual-effects supervisor at ILM.
Take a look: http://scifiwire.com/2009/06/transformers-revenge-of-t.php
Sony To Adapt "Uncharted" Video Game to Feature Film
(darkhorizons.com) Popular and well-received PS3 video game "Uncharted: Drake's Fortune" is set to become an action-adventure feature film for Sony Pictures says The Hollywood Reporter.
The story follows a descendent of explorer Sir Francis Drake, a treasure hunter named Nate Drake who believes he has learned the whereabouts of El Dorado, the fabled South American golden city, from a cursed golden statue.
The search becomes competitive when a rival hunter joins the fray, then is racheted up several notches when creatures - actually mutated descendants of Spaniards and Nazis - begin attacking those hoping to learn the treasure's true secrets.
Kyle Ward ("Kane & Lynch," "Fiasco Heights") is set to write the adaptation which Avi Arad, Charles Roven, Ari Arad and Alex Gartner will produce.
LucasFilm: A Fast Network Key to Visual Effects
LucasFilm has produced some of the most memorable visual effects in the history of films. Rendering the special effects for Star Wars (Episodes 1, 2 and 3) and the Terminator and Indiana Jones series requires serious high-performance computing infrastructure in the company\u2019s data center in San Francisco and animation studio in Singapore. In this customer profile from Brocade Communications, LucasFilm senior network manager Peter Hricak talks about the importance of network performance in visual effects and the company\u2019s use of Brocade equipment.
This video runs about 4 minutes: http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2009/06/24/lucasfilms-network/
$110-Million Walt Disney Museum to Show His Tech-geek Side
(latimes.com) Walt Disney -- the man, not the company -- was known for his imagination, his artistry and even his business acumen. But it turns out he also had a huge appetite for technology.
He pushed the envelope at his own firm, developing new gadgets to help in the making of his movies. He had a passion for the future, promoting ideas through such places as his Epcot Center in Orlando, Fla. And he often engaged with engineers from other companies, such as Ford Motor Co. and General Electric Co., particularly as he developed exhibits for the New York World's Fair of 1964.
The geeky side of Disney is one of the elements that will be on display at the Walt Disney Family Museum in San Francisco when it opens in October.
Museum organizers -- particularly Disney's daughter Diane Disney Miller and his grandson and namesake, Walter E. Disney Miller -- gave the press a preview Thursday, showing off the state-of-the-art $110-million facility in Presidio National Park.
The museum itself makes heavy use of modern processing power, from admissions to displays. To keep control of the number of visitors, the museum will sell tickets on the Web for specific times. One could just show up and buy a ticket, "but I wouldn't recommend it," Executive Director Richard Benefield said.
Inside, the walls will feature what Benefield called "every kind of monitor known to man." And curators have taken advantage of 19 hours of recordings of Disney's voice to provide a guided tour through his life -- his childhood, his early work as a bankrupt cartoonist in Kansas City, Mo., and his most notable achievements, including the creation of Mickey Mouse, "Snow White" and "Fantasia" and his television and theme park operations.
Also on view will be a two-story multiplane camera that Disney used for such effects as rooftop shots in "Pinocchio" and an optical printer used to blend real-life characters with animation in "Mary Poppins."
Although the museum is not formally affiliated with Walt Disney Co., the company has provided many artifacts and may even provide some technical expertise. After all, its Pixar animation unit is based right across the San Francisco Bay in Emeryville, and a Disney executive told Benefield that the company was stepping up volunteer efforts by employees.
The company even offered to help the museum teach animation classes, Benefield said.
A 110-seat theater in the museum's lower reaches will open with a three-week screening of "Fantasia." Later, Disney plans to re-release "Snow White" for the film's 50th anniversary, "and we'll be showing it in Blu-Ray in our theater," Benefield said.
Robotech Feature Film Stays Alive
(scifisquad.com) When it comes to giant interplanetary robots, Transformers seem to be winning the movie franchise game. But that hasn't stopped Warner Bros. from developing their own robot franchise with a live-action Robotech. The project has been in development for two years now, and has gone through several writers (including a heavy hitter) -- proving once again that anime isn't an easy transition to big-budget popcorn flicks. Usually this kind of revolving door means that it isn't long before the project falls apart, but Robotech has been hanging on, and now there is a new screenwriter on the scene. Over at Mania.com, they have reported that Tom Rob Smith has been hired to draft yet another version of the script for WB. Smith is another unlikely choice for an anime film, since he made his name with a novel about a series of child murders in 1950's Russia. But, according to Mania's sources, even though Smith doesn't have much experience, "He had a very clear vision for the material that seemed to fit the collective group's vision for the property."
'Transformers' VFX Guru Gives Machines a Ninja-Like Fluidity
(baltimoresun.com) The wizardry of computer graphics has become so other-worldly that it's easy to imagine the army of specialists that worked on Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen hidden in some underground laboratory-bunker, scurrying like super-intelligent lab rats to create "sights no one has ever seen before" under the excruciating pressure of a hugely expensive franchise picture.
But the role of visual effects supervisor isas hands-on and real-world as jobs come. Industrial Light and Magic's Scott Farrar has performed it to perfection on both Transformers pictures. His work begins long before the shooting starts, when producer-director Michael Bay and his colleagues begin brainstorming with Farrar and his colleagues on how far, this time out, they can push the art of the impossible. It ends when the film lands in the theaters.
Farrar gets to act as what he calls "a special-effects referee" when ILM begins constructing and animating the good-guy Autobots and bad-guy Decepticons at the ILM compound in San Francisco's Presidio. The title takes on weight when you realize that animators are doing tumbling turns and karate chops to figure out their characters.
And when the movie begins shooting, Farrar is on set during all six months of principal filming, in every locale from a Bethlehem, Pa., steel plant to the Jordanian desert. (He even earned a second-unit director credit on this movie.) During post-production, he kicks into overdrive, as the hundreds of people under his leadership bring so many miracles of light and action to life that they threaten to burst their disc space.
Farrar has become such an integral part of the Transformers experience that Paramount has turned him into a focus of the film's publicity. On the phone from San Francisco opening day, just back from the Los Angeles premiere, he laughs when I ask what he's doing next. He says, "My dance card is punched. These movies take a year and half for me to do - and when I say a year and a half, I mean that's constant work. I cannot commit to another movie until I know about Transformers 3."
From Day One, Farrar's job stretches from the blue-sky of ideas and imagination to the dates of the schedule and the dollars and cents of the budget. Bay relies on Farrar's expertise for drawing the game plan and putting a price on it. Once Paramount and DreamWorks grant their approval, "we start building robots right away." An average-size robot takes three months to create. It takes an additional three months to perfect the skeleton that allows it to move within a shot without any of its pieces flying away. Farrar also helps Bay guide the "animatics" and "previsualization" - the moving storyboards that allow filmmakers to test their ideas before they go on the set.
Once Bay signs off on the animation, it's time to go out and get the shots. "We filmed in seven states, Egypt and Jordan, and with a mini-unit in Paris."
Bay may be a critic's nightmare, but he's a visual-effects supervisor's best friend. "In many ways, he works like a second visual-effects supervisor, because he's got such a strong visual sense and so much skill and experience with the camera. If there's anything nightmarish about these films, it's that they're so big, and they have to be made so quickly." Farrar warms to the challenges Bay presents of seamlessly blending digital marvels with locations "the size and grandeur of Ben-Hur - and Apocalypse Now."
When Farrar started out as a special-effects camera operator in his early days at ILM, he did his effects shots on a separate VistaVision camera that had to be "locked down." The camera couldn't "pan or tilt or boom or dolly - no movement whatsoever." Farrar loves teaming up with Bay on a dynamic style where a regular 35mm anamorphic Panavision camera rarely stops moving and the effects keep pace with it. He helps Bay figure out the blocking as Farrar's team uses pink tennis balls and light poles to mark the position of the robots. Bay's camera units shoot from multiple angles, then ILM "adjusts the animation to the wild, willy-nilly flailings we come up with."
Bay insists on employing film rather than digital recording partly because he likes the grain and color range of film, and partly because he prefers spectacular natural locations. (Farrar scans the negative to create a pristine digital copy for ILM.) A high-def digital camera requires an unwieldy electronic "umbilical chord" that makes it hard to maintain out of the studio, especially in the Jordanian desert. It's heartening to think of Bay getting a thrill out of shooting in Wadi Rum, Jordan, where David Lean directed part of Lawrence of Arabia.
Outsiders tend to think of techies as slaves to the computer. Farrar, though, says, "Computers are dumb: they can't do anything unless they have a ton of information." ILM must translate into digital language every surface and texture in each shot, and set up lights within each scene's 3-D landscape according to "how a particular location looked at a particular time of night or day." Because of the shifts in shadows and light, the images in a sequence set in a deep forest could turn brownish, yellowish or vivid green. Since the robots are reflective they would look markedly different depending on the circumstances. An ILM craftsman on set stands at camera position for most of the set-ups and swings around in a circle to photograph the environment.
It's part of animation tradition that "character animators" observe the voice actors, then become mime performers themselves, acting out movements and expressions in a mirror and applying them to furry animals or magical objects. Farrar says they don't work any differently when they're doing robots. Bay always wanted the robot warriors to boast the speed and limberness of ninjas. "Our guys got so good at it that on this film they came up with unbelievable fight moves and bloodthirsty attack movements themselves, without the help of the stuntmen," even if these feints and thrusts stemmed from an animator growing up with three brothers rather than studying martial-arts or enlisting in the military.
"I'm always asked if the transformations would look right if we slowed them down," says Farrar. "The answer is, 'Yes.' " He says he relies on a couple of transformation experts who "like figuring out puzzles or creating them."
But I really wanted to know whether he thought that the different antagonists and protagonists would be clearer and stronger if the fight scenes had a more varied rhythm and choreography. "We're always conscious that you should be able to tell them apart, but sometimes just the framing of a battle sequence makes you go at a certain cadence. All I can say is that in L.A., with a huge audience of all ages, everyone seemed to get it - it was good and evil on epic scale, and all the 'Oooohs' and 'Aaaahs' and 'Yeahs' were coming in the right places."
Six months from now, the rest of us can do what I did to appreciate the first Transformers film. Fuel up the DVD or Blu-Ray, lower the sound and put on the subtitles, fast-forward through the exposition and the comedy and put the machine on slow-mo for the robot set pieces.
The Autobots and Decepticons (and their Gremlins-like underlings) - that's where the art and entertainment is in these movies, thanks to the wizards of ILM.
"Lord of the Rings" Films Used To Quell Unrest
(cinematical.com) Time Magazin has a piece from an anonymous Iranian resident reporting that the government is using film to try and quell public unrest. "In normal times, Iranian television usually treats its viewers to one or two Hollywood or European movie nights a week. But these are not normal times, so it's been two or three such movies a day. It's part of the push to keep people at home and off the streets, to keep us busy, to get us out of the regime's hair. The message is 'Don't worry, be happy.'"
All television channels in Iran are owned by the state, so the government is choosing its films very carefully. One of their offerings has been a Lord of the Rings marathon, ostensibly picked because its length and epic content will keep people glued to their television. "We're glued to the trilogy. We are riveted. A child in the room loudly predicts that Lord of the Rings will put an end to the nightly shouts, that people will not take to the rooftops and windows because this film will keep them occupied."
Paramount Begins Epic Journey to Hell
(The Hollywood Reporter)
Hellified is known to be a supernatural action movie involving a journey to hell.
Bradley is a second-unit director and stunt coordinator-turned-director who is helming MGM's high-flying Red Dawn remake. Among his credits for action design are The Bourne Supremacy, The Bourne Ultimatum, Quantum of Solace and the "Spider-Man" sequels. He also was second-unit director on Spike Jonze's upcoming Where the Wild Things Are.
"Transformers 2" Adds Another $27 Million Thursday
(Variety) Early estimates for Thursday show Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen earning another $27 million, bringing its two-day domestic total to $87 million.
The film is on its way to scoring one of the top five-day openings of all-time at the worldwide box office. Overseas, the sequel's total through Wednesday was a whopping $59 million from 11,500 locations in 58 territories Wednesday, putting the worldwide tally at a massive $146.6 million.
The current record-holder for the best five-day domestic gross is The Dark Knight, which earned $203.8 million its first five days last year. That's followed by Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith with $172.8 million and Spider-Man 3 with $169.4 million.
Of the 4,234 screens on which "Transformers" is playing domestically, 169 locations are IMAX. IMAX reported a record-breaking opening day gross of $1 million for a per-screen average of $24,000.
Czechs Beef Up Visual Effects Firms
(variety.com) Foreign film shoots in Prague may be slumping from the double blow of economic doldrums and price competition from the East, but Czechs are nothing if not resourceful -- and have a decided knack for high-tech tools. As a result, post-production facilities have felt considerably less pain this year, and are continuing to give rivals in major Western cities a run for their money.
Many of these small, young and competitive firms pay the rent with commercial work, as do many local production service businesses, but as more and more films of every budget level use these services, and the big houses in Hollywood and London overflow with work, their Eastern European brethren are waiting in the wings, looking to snap up jobs.
David Minkowski of Prague production services shingle Stillking predicts that top post houses in the Czech Republic and beyond will win more and more major studio work. "Like runaway production, there is also runaway vfx work, because vfx work can be done anywhere regardless of where a movie was shot," he says. "There is a big push in Hollywood to lower vfx costs, and taking the work to places like Universal Production Partners in Prague or even further afield in India or elsewhere is one way to do it."
Even during the salad days before the crash, Prague post facilities were surprising skeptical foreign crews with their precision and professionalism, as shingles such as UPP scored vfx work for such pics including "Flight 93," "AVP: Alien vs. Predator," "Perfume: The Story of a Murderer" and Francis Ford Coppola's "Youth Without Youth."
Another local operation, Post Produkce Praha, or PPP, has a credits list that includes "Les Miserables" and "Anne Frank: The Whole Story" and has all the necessary post toys, from Telecine to nonlinear editing on Discreet Smoke systems and a digital linear editing suite worthy of "Star Trek."
Prague is not known as the conservatory of Europe for nothing; Czech engineers clearly have well-tuned ears. Sound post house Soundsquare is an insider-tip among Western producers, having done ADR work with Matt Damon, James Franco and Liev Schreiber and recorded the Czech dubbing for a localized version of "The Incredibles."
Producer Tom Karnowski, a veteran of Prague shoots who used UPP for vfx on upcoming medieval fantasy actioner "Season of the Witch," which shot in Hungary, says the firm has built a track record that's now noted abroad. "Everybody that I have introduced them to has also been happy with their work. They get so involved in the projects, do state-of-the-art work and bend over backwards to make it work for 'challenged' budgets."
While several Hollywood majors have admitted they may soon be forced to farm out pieces of heavy vfx pics to affordable but high-quality small studios outside the U.S., Karnowski posits that UPP is more about soup-to-nuts work.
"I think UPP likes to take on projects that they can completely control and do all work internally. I know they have done piecemeal work on projects in the past, but the real value is working with them as an all-in vfx producer and supervisor."
As for "Season of the Witch," he says, "Challenges were CGI wolves for a wolf attack sequence and the designing and implementing (of) the stylized, exaggerated, frightening movement of the monks."
Ed Milkovich, who recently produced "Masterwork," a Fox TV pilot, also used UPP.
UPP co-founder Petr Komrzy takes a soft-sell approach, rarely touting his 15-year-old Prague shop and preferring to let its work stand for itself. But, he admits, compared with most local post studios, UPP "offers much wider and deeper post-production services, and much bigger capacity, in both vfx and DI."
Ludmila Claussova of the Czech Film Commission, which handles inquiries from potential foreign productions, says she's often asked about the quality and availability of local post houses. She generally refers inquirers to the show reels of companies like UPP and PPP, she says.
Minkowski, who notes that such companies in the U.K. have seen a major boost in business thanks to Brit tax credits, argues that the same trick would make the post biz explode in the Czech Republic, ratcheting it up from a solid bargain to a service that would be highly in demand.
Claussova has long crusaded, along with many other industryites, for foreign-production tax incentives, but the Czech Culture Ministry has yet to get seriously behind the idea, even though incentives worked wonders for Hungary's production sector.
With the recent collapse of the Czech government and a new culture minister in place, she's optimistic that a plan may finally take shape soon, particularly after the admonishments of George Lucas, who argued the need for incentives during his shoot of "Red Tails," the story of the fearless Tuskegee airmen of World War II.
"I don't see pure post-production work coming from an incentive," Claussova says, "but it could animate or encourage the film productions already shooting to do post here."
Lucasfilm to Broadcast from Comic-Con
(news.awn.com) Lucasfilm Ltd. and G4 are joining forces for a milestone in San Diego Comic-Con's 40-year history -- the first-ever, exclusive television broadcast of a presentation from pop culture convention. The Star Wars Spectacular! will air Saturday July 25th at 2:00 pm ET/PT only on G4, and will feature never-before-seen footage, breaking news, surprise announcements, guest stars and more. In addition, G4 will present three hours of live coverage from the Comic-Con floor, beginning at 4:00 pm ET/PT.
Traditionally, details surrounding Lucasfilm's primary panel presentation are closely guarded secrets, with only 6,500 lucky on-site fans allowed access to the wealth of coveted information from a galaxy far, far away. But this year, G4 is offering TV viewers the one-of-a-kind opportunity to share the excitement with an exclusive broadcast of the panel. G4's ATTACK OF THE SHOW hosts Kevin Pereira and Olivia Munn will join Lucasfilm's Steve Sansweet and a galaxy of guests from STAR WARS: THE CLONE WARS and beyond -- including supervising director Dave Filoni, and voice talent from the show -- to provide an insider look at the STAR WARS universe, with never-before-seen footage and a live table read of an exclusive new CLONE WARS script.
In addition, fans are invited to participate in the panel itself by submitting CLONE WARS questions through a special G4 micro-site. Questions will be answered during the live presentation by Filoni and other CLONE WARS creatives.
009's Comic-Con International also marks another Lucasfilm milestone -- the launch of the all-new Star Wars Stories Project. Fans of the franchise will have the opportunity to become a part of the STAR WARS universe by contributing to Lucasfilm's own historical archive. Soliciting movie memories and nostalgia, the Star Wars Stories Project invites fans to share their own tales of fandom through video testimonials. In addition to online submissions, fans will have the opportunity to record their stories at Lucasfilm's pavilion on the Comic-Con floor.
Fans are invited to upload their fan stories at http://g4tv.com/comiccon.
Exclusive Video: ILM's Scott Farrar at the Premiere of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
(scifiwire.com) SCI FI Wire talked with the creators of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen as they walked the red carpet at the film's world premiere, including executive producer and Hasbro C.E.O. Brian Goldner and Scott Ferrar, the visual-effects supervisor at ILM.
Take a look: http://scifiwire.com/2009/06/transformers-revenge-of-t.php
Sony To Adapt "Uncharted" Video Game to Feature Film
(darkhorizons.com) Popular and well-received PS3 video game "Uncharted: Drake's Fortune" is set to become an action-adventure feature film for Sony Pictures says The Hollywood Reporter.
The story follows a descendent of explorer Sir Francis Drake, a treasure hunter named Nate Drake who believes he has learned the whereabouts of El Dorado, the fabled South American golden city, from a cursed golden statue.
The search becomes competitive when a rival hunter joins the fray, then is racheted up several notches when creatures - actually mutated descendants of Spaniards and Nazis - begin attacking those hoping to learn the treasure's true secrets.
Kyle Ward ("Kane & Lynch," "Fiasco Heights") is set to write the adaptation which Avi Arad, Charles Roven, Ari Arad and Alex Gartner will produce.
LucasFilm: A Fast Network Key to Visual Effects
LucasFilm has produced some of the most memorable visual effects in the history of films. Rendering the special effects for Star Wars (Episodes 1, 2 and 3) and the Terminator and Indiana Jones series requires serious high-performance computing infrastructure in the company\u2019s data center in San Francisco and animation studio in Singapore. In this customer profile from Brocade Communications, LucasFilm senior network manager Peter Hricak talks about the importance of network performance in visual effects and the company\u2019s use of Brocade equipment.
This video runs about 4 minutes: http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2009/06/24/lucasfilms-network/
$110-Million Walt Disney Museum to Show His Tech-geek Side
(latimes.com) Walt Disney -- the man, not the company -- was known for his imagination, his artistry and even his business acumen. But it turns out he also had a huge appetite for technology.
He pushed the envelope at his own firm, developing new gadgets to help in the making of his movies. He had a passion for the future, promoting ideas through such places as his Epcot Center in Orlando, Fla. And he often engaged with engineers from other companies, such as Ford Motor Co. and General Electric Co., particularly as he developed exhibits for the New York World's Fair of 1964.
The geeky side of Disney is one of the elements that will be on display at the Walt Disney Family Museum in San Francisco when it opens in October.
Museum organizers -- particularly Disney's daughter Diane Disney Miller and his grandson and namesake, Walter E. Disney Miller -- gave the press a preview Thursday, showing off the state-of-the-art $110-million facility in Presidio National Park.
The museum itself makes heavy use of modern processing power, from admissions to displays. To keep control of the number of visitors, the museum will sell tickets on the Web for specific times. One could just show up and buy a ticket, "but I wouldn't recommend it," Executive Director Richard Benefield said.
Inside, the walls will feature what Benefield called "every kind of monitor known to man." And curators have taken advantage of 19 hours of recordings of Disney's voice to provide a guided tour through his life -- his childhood, his early work as a bankrupt cartoonist in Kansas City, Mo., and his most notable achievements, including the creation of Mickey Mouse, "Snow White" and "Fantasia" and his television and theme park operations.
Also on view will be a two-story multiplane camera that Disney used for such effects as rooftop shots in "Pinocchio" and an optical printer used to blend real-life characters with animation in "Mary Poppins."
Although the museum is not formally affiliated with Walt Disney Co., the company has provided many artifacts and may even provide some technical expertise. After all, its Pixar animation unit is based right across the San Francisco Bay in Emeryville, and a Disney executive told Benefield that the company was stepping up volunteer efforts by employees.
The company even offered to help the museum teach animation classes, Benefield said.
A 110-seat theater in the museum's lower reaches will open with a three-week screening of "Fantasia." Later, Disney plans to re-release "Snow White" for the film's 50th anniversary, "and we'll be showing it in Blu-Ray in our theater," Benefield said.
Robotech Feature Film Stays Alive
(scifisquad.com) When it comes to giant interplanetary robots, Transformers seem to be winning the movie franchise game. But that hasn't stopped Warner Bros. from developing their own robot franchise with a live-action Robotech. The project has been in development for two years now, and has gone through several writers (including a heavy hitter) -- proving once again that anime isn't an easy transition to big-budget popcorn flicks. Usually this kind of revolving door means that it isn't long before the project falls apart, but Robotech has been hanging on, and now there is a new screenwriter on the scene. Over at Mania.com, they have reported that Tom Rob Smith has been hired to draft yet another version of the script for WB. Smith is another unlikely choice for an anime film, since he made his name with a novel about a series of child murders in 1950's Russia. But, according to Mania's sources, even though Smith doesn't have much experience, "He had a very clear vision for the material that seemed to fit the collective group's vision for the property."
'Transformers' VFX Guru Gives Machines a Ninja-Like Fluidity
(baltimoresun.com) The wizardry of computer graphics has become so other-worldly that it's easy to imagine the army of specialists that worked on Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen hidden in some underground laboratory-bunker, scurrying like super-intelligent lab rats to create "sights no one has ever seen before" under the excruciating pressure of a hugely expensive franchise picture.
But the role of visual effects supervisor isas hands-on and real-world as jobs come. Industrial Light and Magic's Scott Farrar has performed it to perfection on both Transformers pictures. His work begins long before the shooting starts, when producer-director Michael Bay and his colleagues begin brainstorming with Farrar and his colleagues on how far, this time out, they can push the art of the impossible. It ends when the film lands in the theaters.
Farrar gets to act as what he calls "a special-effects referee" when ILM begins constructing and animating the good-guy Autobots and bad-guy Decepticons at the ILM compound in San Francisco's Presidio. The title takes on weight when you realize that animators are doing tumbling turns and karate chops to figure out their characters.
And when the movie begins shooting, Farrar is on set during all six months of principal filming, in every locale from a Bethlehem, Pa., steel plant to the Jordanian desert. (He even earned a second-unit director credit on this movie.) During post-production, he kicks into overdrive, as the hundreds of people under his leadership bring so many miracles of light and action to life that they threaten to burst their disc space.
Farrar has become such an integral part of the Transformers experience that Paramount has turned him into a focus of the film's publicity. On the phone from San Francisco opening day, just back from the Los Angeles premiere, he laughs when I ask what he's doing next. He says, "My dance card is punched. These movies take a year and half for me to do - and when I say a year and a half, I mean that's constant work. I cannot commit to another movie until I know about Transformers 3."
From Day One, Farrar's job stretches from the blue-sky of ideas and imagination to the dates of the schedule and the dollars and cents of the budget. Bay relies on Farrar's expertise for drawing the game plan and putting a price on it. Once Paramount and DreamWorks grant their approval, "we start building robots right away." An average-size robot takes three months to create. It takes an additional three months to perfect the skeleton that allows it to move within a shot without any of its pieces flying away. Farrar also helps Bay guide the "animatics" and "previsualization" - the moving storyboards that allow filmmakers to test their ideas before they go on the set.
Once Bay signs off on the animation, it's time to go out and get the shots. "We filmed in seven states, Egypt and Jordan, and with a mini-unit in Paris."
Bay may be a critic's nightmare, but he's a visual-effects supervisor's best friend. "In many ways, he works like a second visual-effects supervisor, because he's got such a strong visual sense and so much skill and experience with the camera. If there's anything nightmarish about these films, it's that they're so big, and they have to be made so quickly." Farrar warms to the challenges Bay presents of seamlessly blending digital marvels with locations "the size and grandeur of Ben-Hur - and Apocalypse Now."
When Farrar started out as a special-effects camera operator in his early days at ILM, he did his effects shots on a separate VistaVision camera that had to be "locked down." The camera couldn't "pan or tilt or boom or dolly - no movement whatsoever." Farrar loves teaming up with Bay on a dynamic style where a regular 35mm anamorphic Panavision camera rarely stops moving and the effects keep pace with it. He helps Bay figure out the blocking as Farrar's team uses pink tennis balls and light poles to mark the position of the robots. Bay's camera units shoot from multiple angles, then ILM "adjusts the animation to the wild, willy-nilly flailings we come up with."
Bay insists on employing film rather than digital recording partly because he likes the grain and color range of film, and partly because he prefers spectacular natural locations. (Farrar scans the negative to create a pristine digital copy for ILM.) A high-def digital camera requires an unwieldy electronic "umbilical chord" that makes it hard to maintain out of the studio, especially in the Jordanian desert. It's heartening to think of Bay getting a thrill out of shooting in Wadi Rum, Jordan, where David Lean directed part of Lawrence of Arabia.
Outsiders tend to think of techies as slaves to the computer. Farrar, though, says, "Computers are dumb: they can't do anything unless they have a ton of information." ILM must translate into digital language every surface and texture in each shot, and set up lights within each scene's 3-D landscape according to "how a particular location looked at a particular time of night or day." Because of the shifts in shadows and light, the images in a sequence set in a deep forest could turn brownish, yellowish or vivid green. Since the robots are reflective they would look markedly different depending on the circumstances. An ILM craftsman on set stands at camera position for most of the set-ups and swings around in a circle to photograph the environment.
It's part of animation tradition that "character animators" observe the voice actors, then become mime performers themselves, acting out movements and expressions in a mirror and applying them to furry animals or magical objects. Farrar says they don't work any differently when they're doing robots. Bay always wanted the robot warriors to boast the speed and limberness of ninjas. "Our guys got so good at it that on this film they came up with unbelievable fight moves and bloodthirsty attack movements themselves, without the help of the stuntmen," even if these feints and thrusts stemmed from an animator growing up with three brothers rather than studying martial-arts or enlisting in the military.
"I'm always asked if the transformations would look right if we slowed them down," says Farrar. "The answer is, 'Yes.' " He says he relies on a couple of transformation experts who "like figuring out puzzles or creating them."
But I really wanted to know whether he thought that the different antagonists and protagonists would be clearer and stronger if the fight scenes had a more varied rhythm and choreography. "We're always conscious that you should be able to tell them apart, but sometimes just the framing of a battle sequence makes you go at a certain cadence. All I can say is that in L.A., with a huge audience of all ages, everyone seemed to get it - it was good and evil on epic scale, and all the 'Oooohs' and 'Aaaahs' and 'Yeahs' were coming in the right places."
Six months from now, the rest of us can do what I did to appreciate the first Transformers film. Fuel up the DVD or Blu-Ray, lower the sound and put on the subtitles, fast-forward through the exposition and the comedy and put the machine on slow-mo for the robot set pieces.
The Autobots and Decepticons (and their Gremlins-like underlings) - that's where the art and entertainment is in these movies, thanks to the wizards of ILM.
"Lord of the Rings" Films Used To Quell Unrest
(cinematical.com) Time Magazin has a piece from an anonymous Iranian resident reporting that the government is using film to try and quell public unrest. "In normal times, Iranian television usually treats its viewers to one or two Hollywood or European movie nights a week. But these are not normal times, so it's been two or three such movies a day. It's part of the push to keep people at home and off the streets, to keep us busy, to get us out of the regime's hair. The message is 'Don't worry, be happy.'"
All television channels in Iran are owned by the state, so the government is choosing its films very carefully. One of their offerings has been a Lord of the Rings marathon, ostensibly picked because its length and epic content will keep people glued to their television. "We're glued to the trilogy. We are riveted. A child in the room loudly predicts that Lord of the Rings will put an end to the nightly shouts, that people will not take to the rooftops and windows because this film will keep them occupied."
Paramount Begins Epic Journey to Hell
(The Hollywood Reporter)
Hellified is known to be a supernatural action movie involving a journey to hell.
Bradley is a second-unit director and stunt coordinator-turned-director who is helming MGM's high-flying Red Dawn remake. Among his credits for action design are The Bourne Supremacy, The Bourne Ultimatum, Quantum of Solace and the "Spider-Man" sequels. He also was second-unit director on Spike Jonze's upcoming Where the Wild Things Are.
"Transformers 2" Adds Another $27 Million Thursday
(Variety) Early estimates for Thursday show Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen earning another $27 million, bringing its two-day domestic total to $87 million.
The film is on its way to scoring one of the top five-day openings of all-time at the worldwide box office. Overseas, the sequel's total through Wednesday was a whopping $59 million from 11,500 locations in 58 territories Wednesday, putting the worldwide tally at a massive $146.6 million.
The current record-holder for the best five-day domestic gross is The Dark Knight, which earned $203.8 million its first five days last year. That's followed by Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith with $172.8 million and Spider-Man 3 with $169.4 million.
Of the 4,234 screens on which "Transformers" is playing domestically, 169 locations are IMAX. IMAX reported a record-breaking opening day gross of $1 million for a per-screen average of $24,000.
Czechs Beef Up Visual Effects Firms
(variety.com) Foreign film shoots in Prague may be slumping from the double blow of economic doldrums and price competition from the East, but Czechs are nothing if not resourceful -- and have a decided knack for high-tech tools. As a result, post-production facilities have felt considerably less pain this year, and are continuing to give rivals in major Western cities a run for their money.
Many of these small, young and competitive firms pay the rent with commercial work, as do many local production service businesses, but as more and more films of every budget level use these services, and the big houses in Hollywood and London overflow with work, their Eastern European brethren are waiting in the wings, looking to snap up jobs.
David Minkowski of Prague production services shingle Stillking predicts that top post houses in the Czech Republic and beyond will win more and more major studio work. "Like runaway production, there is also runaway vfx work, because vfx work can be done anywhere regardless of where a movie was shot," he says. "There is a big push in Hollywood to lower vfx costs, and taking the work to places like Universal Production Partners in Prague or even further afield in India or elsewhere is one way to do it."
Even during the salad days before the crash, Prague post facilities were surprising skeptical foreign crews with their precision and professionalism, as shingles such as UPP scored vfx work for such pics including "Flight 93," "AVP: Alien vs. Predator," "Perfume: The Story of a Murderer" and Francis Ford Coppola's "Youth Without Youth."
Another local operation, Post Produkce Praha, or PPP, has a credits list that includes "Les Miserables" and "Anne Frank: The Whole Story" and has all the necessary post toys, from Telecine to nonlinear editing on Discreet Smoke systems and a digital linear editing suite worthy of "Star Trek."
Prague is not known as the conservatory of Europe for nothing; Czech engineers clearly have well-tuned ears. Sound post house Soundsquare is an insider-tip among Western producers, having done ADR work with Matt Damon, James Franco and Liev Schreiber and recorded the Czech dubbing for a localized version of "The Incredibles."
Producer Tom Karnowski, a veteran of Prague shoots who used UPP for vfx on upcoming medieval fantasy actioner "Season of the Witch," which shot in Hungary, says the firm has built a track record that's now noted abroad. "Everybody that I have introduced them to has also been happy with their work. They get so involved in the projects, do state-of-the-art work and bend over backwards to make it work for 'challenged' budgets."
While several Hollywood majors have admitted they may soon be forced to farm out pieces of heavy vfx pics to affordable but high-quality small studios outside the U.S., Karnowski posits that UPP is more about soup-to-nuts work.
"I think UPP likes to take on projects that they can completely control and do all work internally. I know they have done piecemeal work on projects in the past, but the real value is working with them as an all-in vfx producer and supervisor."
As for "Season of the Witch," he says, "Challenges were CGI wolves for a wolf attack sequence and the designing and implementing (of) the stylized, exaggerated, frightening movement of the monks."
Ed Milkovich, who recently produced "Masterwork," a Fox TV pilot, also used UPP.
UPP co-founder Petr Komrzy takes a soft-sell approach, rarely touting his 15-year-old Prague shop and preferring to let its work stand for itself. But, he admits, compared with most local post studios, UPP "offers much wider and deeper post-production services, and much bigger capacity, in both vfx and DI."
Ludmila Claussova of the Czech Film Commission, which handles inquiries from potential foreign productions, says she's often asked about the quality and availability of local post houses. She generally refers inquirers to the show reels of companies like UPP and PPP, she says.
Minkowski, who notes that such companies in the U.K. have seen a major boost in business thanks to Brit tax credits, argues that the same trick would make the post biz explode in the Czech Republic, ratcheting it up from a solid bargain to a service that would be highly in demand.
Claussova has long crusaded, along with many other industryites, for foreign-production tax incentives, but the Czech Culture Ministry has yet to get seriously behind the idea, even though incentives worked wonders for Hungary's production sector.
With the recent collapse of the Czech government and a new culture minister in place, she's optimistic that a plan may finally take shape soon, particularly after the admonishments of George Lucas, who argued the need for incentives during his shoot of "Red Tails," the story of the fearless Tuskegee airmen of World War II.
"I don't see pure post-production work coming from an incentive," Claussova says, "but it could animate or encourage the film productions already shooting to do post here."
Lucasfilm to Broadcast from Comic-Con
(news.awn.com) Lucasfilm Ltd. and G4 are joining forces for a milestone in San Diego Comic-Con's 40-year history -- the first-ever, exclusive television broadcast of a presentation from pop culture convention. The Star Wars Spectacular! will air Saturday July 25th at 2:00 pm ET/PT only on G4, and will feature never-before-seen footage, breaking news, surprise announcements, guest stars and more. In addition, G4 will present three hours of live coverage from the Comic-Con floor, beginning at 4:00 pm ET/PT.
Traditionally, details surrounding Lucasfilm's primary panel presentation are closely guarded secrets, with only 6,500 lucky on-site fans allowed access to the wealth of coveted information from a galaxy far, far away. But this year, G4 is offering TV viewers the one-of-a-kind opportunity to share the excitement with an exclusive broadcast of the panel. G4's ATTACK OF THE SHOW hosts Kevin Pereira and Olivia Munn will join Lucasfilm's Steve Sansweet and a galaxy of guests from STAR WARS: THE CLONE WARS and beyond -- including supervising director Dave Filoni, and voice talent from the show -- to provide an insider look at the STAR WARS universe, with never-before-seen footage and a live table read of an exclusive new CLONE WARS script.
In addition, fans are invited to participate in the panel itself by submitting CLONE WARS questions through a special G4 micro-site. Questions will be answered during the live presentation by Filoni and other CLONE WARS creatives.
009's Comic-Con International also marks another Lucasfilm milestone -- the launch of the all-new Star Wars Stories Project. Fans of the franchise will have the opportunity to become a part of the STAR WARS universe by contributing to Lucasfilm's own historical archive. Soliciting movie memories and nostalgia, the Star Wars Stories Project invites fans to share their own tales of fandom through video testimonials. In addition to online submissions, fans will have the opportunity to record their stories at Lucasfilm's pavilion on the Comic-Con floor.
Fans are invited to upload their fan stories at http://g4tv.com/comiccon.
Exclusive Video: ILM's Scott Farrar at the Premiere of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
(scifiwire.com) SCI FI Wire talked with the creators of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen as they walked the red carpet at the film's world premiere, including executive producer and Hasbro C.E.O. Brian Goldner and Scott Ferrar, the visual-effects supervisor at ILM.
Take a look: http://scifiwire.com/2009/06/transformers-revenge-of-t.php
Sony To Adapt "Uncharted" Video Game to Feature Film
(darkhorizons.com) Popular and well-received PS3 video game "Uncharted: Drake's Fortune" is set to become an action-adventure feature film for Sony Pictures says The Hollywood Reporter.
The story follows a descendent of explorer Sir Francis Drake, a treasure hunter named Nate Drake who believes he has learned the whereabouts of El Dorado, the fabled South American golden city, from a cursed golden statue.
The search becomes competitive when a rival hunter joins the fray, then is racheted up several notches when creatures - actually mutated descendants of Spaniards and Nazis - begin attacking those hoping to learn the treasure's true secrets.
Kyle Ward ("Kane & Lynch," "Fiasco Heights") is set to write the adaptation which Avi Arad, Charles Roven, Ari Arad and Alex Gartner will produce.
LucasFilm: A Fast Network Key to Visual Effects
LucasFilm has produced some of the most memorable visual effects in the history of films. Rendering the special effects for Star Wars (Episodes 1, 2 and 3) and the Terminator and Indiana Jones series requires serious high-performance computing infrastructure in the company\u2019s data center in San Francisco and animation studio in Singapore. In this customer profile from Brocade Communications, LucasFilm senior network manager Peter Hricak talks about the importance of network performance in visual effects and the company\u2019s use of Brocade equipment.
This video runs about 4 minutes: http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2009/06/24/lucasfilms-network/
$110-Million Walt Disney Museum to Show His Tech-geek Side
(latimes.com) Walt Disney -- the man, not the company -- was known for his imagination, his artistry and even his business acumen. But it turns out he also had a huge appetite for technology.
He pushed the envelope at his own firm, developing new gadgets to help in the making of his movies. He had a passion for the future, promoting ideas through such places as his Epcot Center in Orlando, Fla. And he often engaged with engineers from other companies, such as Ford Motor Co. and General Electric Co., particularly as he developed exhibits for the New York World's Fair of 1964.
The geeky side of Disney is one of the elements that will be on display at the Walt Disney Family Museum in San Francisco when it opens in October.
Museum organizers -- particularly Disney's daughter Diane Disney Miller and his grandson and namesake, Walter E. Disney Miller -- gave the press a preview Thursday, showing off the state-of-the-art $110-million facility in Presidio National Park.
The museum itself makes heavy use of modern processing power, from admissions to displays. To keep control of the number of visitors, the museum will sell tickets on the Web for specific times. One could just show up and buy a ticket, "but I wouldn't recommend it," Executive Director Richard Benefield said.
Inside, the walls will feature what Benefield called "every kind of monitor known to man." And curators have taken advantage of 19 hours of recordings of Disney's voice to provide a guided tour through his life -- his childhood, his early work as a bankrupt cartoonist in Kansas City, Mo., and his most notable achievements, including the creation of Mickey Mouse, "Snow White" and "Fantasia" and his television and theme park operations.
Also on view will be a two-story multiplane camera that Disney used for such effects as rooftop shots in "Pinocchio" and an optical printer used to blend real-life characters with animation in "Mary Poppins."
Although the museum is not formally affiliated with Walt Disney Co., the company has provided many artifacts and may even provide some technical expertise. After all, its Pixar animation unit is based right across the San Francisco Bay in Emeryville, and a Disney executive told Benefield that the company was stepping up volunteer efforts by employees.
The company even offered to help the museum teach animation classes, Benefield said.
A 110-seat theater in the museum's lower reaches will open with a three-week screening of "Fantasia." Later, Disney plans to re-release "Snow White" for the film's 50th anniversary, "and we'll be showing it in Blu-Ray in our theater," Benefield said.
Robotech Feature Film Stays Alive
(scifisquad.com) When it comes to giant interplanetary robots, Transformers seem to be winning the movie franchise game. But that hasn't stopped Warner Bros. from developing their own robot franchise with a live-action Robotech. The project has been in development for two years now, and has gone through several writers (including a heavy hitter) -- proving once again that anime isn't an easy transition to big-budget popcorn flicks. Usually this kind of revolving door means that it isn't long before the project falls apart, but Robotech has been hanging on, and now there is a new screenwriter on the scene. Over at Mania.com, they have reported that Tom Rob Smith has been hired to draft yet another version of the script for WB. Smith is another unlikely choice for an anime film, since he made his name with a novel about a series of child murders in 1950's Russia. But, according to Mania's sources, even though Smith doesn't have much experience, "He had a very clear vision for the material that seemed to fit the collective group's vision for the property."
'Transformers' VFX Guru Gives Machines a Ninja-Like Fluidity
(baltimoresun.com) The wizardry of computer graphics has become so other-worldly that it's easy to imagine the army of specialists that worked on Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen hidden in some underground laboratory-bunker, scurrying like super-intelligent lab rats to create "sights no one has ever seen before" under the excruciating pressure of a hugely expensive franchise picture.
But the role of visual effects supervisor isas hands-on and real-world as jobs come. Industrial Light and Magic's Scott Farrar has performed it to perfection on both Transformers pictures. His work begins long before the shooting starts, when producer-director Michael Bay and his colleagues begin brainstorming with Farrar and his colleagues on how far, this time out, they can push the art of the impossible. It ends when the film lands in the theaters.
Farrar gets to act as what he calls "a special-effects referee" when ILM begins constructing and animating the good-guy Autobots and bad-guy Decepticons at the ILM compound in San Francisco's Presidio. The title takes on weight when you realize that animators are doing tumbling turns and karate chops to figure out their characters.
And when the movie begins shooting, Farrar is on set during all six months of principal filming, in every locale from a Bethlehem, Pa., steel plant to the Jordanian desert. (He even earned a second-unit director credit on this movie.) During post-production, he kicks into overdrive, as the hundreds of people under his leadership bring so many miracles of light and action to life that they threaten to burst their disc space.
Farrar has become such an integral part of the Transformers experience that Paramount has turned him into a focus of the film's publicity. On the phone from San Francisco opening day, just back from the Los Angeles premiere, he laughs when I ask what he's doing next. He says, "My dance card is punched. These movies take a year and half for me to do - and when I say a year and a half, I mean that's constant work. I cannot commit to another movie until I know about Transformers 3."
From Day One, Farrar's job stretches from the blue-sky of ideas and imagination to the dates of the schedule and the dollars and cents of the budget. Bay relies on Farrar's expertise for drawing the game plan and putting a price on it. Once Paramount and DreamWorks grant their approval, "we start building robots right away." An average-size robot takes three months to create. It takes an additional three months to perfect the skeleton that allows it to move within a shot without any of its pieces flying away. Farrar also helps Bay guide the "animatics" and "previsualization" - the moving storyboards that allow filmmakers to test their ideas before they go on the set.
Once Bay signs off on the animation, it's time to go out and get the shots. "We filmed in seven states, Egypt and Jordan, and with a mini-unit in Paris."
Bay may be a critic's nightmare, but he's a visual-effects supervisor's best friend. "In many ways, he works like a second visual-effects supervisor, because he's got such a strong visual sense and so much skill and experience with the camera. If there's anything nightmarish about these films, it's that they're so big, and they have to be made so quickly." Farrar warms to the challenges Bay presents of seamlessly blending digital marvels with locations "the size and grandeur of Ben-Hur - and Apocalypse Now."
When Farrar started out as a special-effects camera operator in his early days at ILM, he did his effects shots on a separate VistaVision camera that had to be "locked down." The camera couldn't "pan or tilt or boom or dolly - no movement whatsoever." Farrar loves teaming up with Bay on a dynamic style where a regular 35mm anamorphic Panavision camera rarely stops moving and the effects keep pace with it. He helps Bay figure out the blocking as Farrar's team uses pink tennis balls and light poles to mark the position of the robots. Bay's camera units shoot from multiple angles, then ILM "adjusts the animation to the wild, willy-nilly flailings we come up with."
Bay insists on employing film rather than digital recording partly because he likes the grain and color range of film, and partly because he prefers spectacular natural locations. (Farrar scans the negative to create a pristine digital copy for ILM.) A high-def digital camera requires an unwieldy electronic "umbilical chord" that makes it hard to maintain out of the studio, especially in the Jordanian desert. It's heartening to think of Bay getting a thrill out of shooting in Wadi Rum, Jordan, where David Lean directed part of Lawrence of Arabia.
Outsiders tend to think of techies as slaves to the computer. Farrar, though, says, "Computers are dumb: they can't do anything unless they have a ton of information." ILM must translate into digital language every surface and texture in each shot, and set up lights within each scene's 3-D landscape according to "how a particular location looked at a particular time of night or day." Because of the shifts in shadows and light, the images in a sequence set in a deep forest could turn brownish, yellowish or vivid green. Since the robots are reflective they would look markedly different depending on the circumstances. An ILM craftsman on set stands at camera position for most of the set-ups and swings around in a circle to photograph the environment.
It's part of animation tradition that "character animators" observe the voice actors, then become mime performers themselves, acting out movements and expressions in a mirror and applying them to furry animals or magical objects. Farrar says they don't work any differently when they're doing robots. Bay always wanted the robot warriors to boast the speed and limberness of ninjas. "Our guys got so good at it that on this film they came up with unbelievable fight moves and bloodthirsty attack movements themselves, without the help of the stuntmen," even if these feints and thrusts stemmed from an animator growing up with three brothers rather than studying martial-arts or enlisting in the military.
"I'm always asked if the transformations would look right if we slowed them down," says Farrar. "The answer is, 'Yes.' " He says he relies on a couple of transformation experts who "like figuring out puzzles or creating them."
But I really wanted to know whether he thought that the different antagonists and protagonists would be clearer and stronger if the fight scenes had a more varied rhythm and choreography. "We're always conscious that you should be able to tell them apart, but sometimes just the framing of a battle sequence makes you go at a certain cadence. All I can say is that in L.A., with a huge audience of all ages, everyone seemed to get it - it was good and evil on epic scale, and all the 'Oooohs' and 'Aaaahs' and 'Yeahs' were coming in the right places."
Six months from now, the rest of us can do what I did to appreciate the first Transformers film. Fuel up the DVD or Blu-Ray, lower the sound and put on the subtitles, fast-forward through the exposition and the comedy and put the machine on slow-mo for the robot set pieces.
The Autobots and Decepticons (and their Gremlins-like underlings) - that's where the art and entertainment is in these movies, thanks to the wizards of ILM.
"Lord of the Rings" Films Used To Quell Unrest
(cinematical.com) Time Magazin has a piece from an anonymous Iranian resident reporting that the government is using film to try and quell public unrest. "In normal times, Iranian television usually treats its viewers to one or two Hollywood or European movie nights a week. But these are not normal times, so it's been two or three such movies a day. It's part of the push to keep people at home and off the streets, to keep us busy, to get us out of the regime's hair. The message is 'Don't worry, be happy.'"
All television channels in Iran are owned by the state, so the government is choosing its films very carefully. One of their offerings has been a Lord of the Rings marathon, ostensibly picked because its length and epic content will keep people glued to their television. "We're glued to the trilogy. We are riveted. A child in the room loudly predicts that Lord of the Rings will put an end to the nightly shouts, that people will not take to the rooftops and windows because this film will keep them occupied."
Transformers Breaks Wednesday Record with $55M
(Variety) Michael Bay's Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen earned more than $55 million its first day, easily breaking the opening day record for a Wednesday release at the domestic box office.
The previous record-holder was Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, which grossed $44.2 million in its first day.
"Revenge of the Fallen," playing in more than 4,200 theaters in the U.S., has a strong shot at surpassing the $152.4 million earned by Spider-Man 2 in its first five days. That film opened on the same Wednesday in 2004. The 5-day record is held by The Dark Knight, which made $203.8 million its first five days last July.
The opening day haul in the U.S. included $16 million in midnight runs, the best run ever for a film released on a Wednesday. And it's the third-best of all time after The Dark Knight ($18.5 million) and Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith ($16.9 million).
300 Sequel CGI Won't Look Star Wars-ian
"I know for a fact that Frank [Miller] is writing right now," says Snyder, who explains that the plan is for Miller to create the story as a comic book first, "[He's] drawing away and seems to be knee-deep in it. I think he's going to head back to Greece again and do another reconnaissance."
With the first 300 having been created on a decidedly smaller budget than Watchmen, Snyder says that he probably wants the look and feel of a sequel to maintain that of 300, even though Miller's notes promise a grander scale.
"I think we would use the same technology... I don't want it to look too Star Wars-ian... Just from what [Miller] told me, it would be bigger as far as landscape and terrain. We're going to see Athens and the Aegean and other places. There would be an opportunity for bigger visions, though I'd hope for the same aesthetic. The tech we used for '300' was not a revolution. It's basically what the weatherman has. Look, instead of Accuweather it's Sparta... It's going to be the same way, but on crazier steroids."
Could the Academy's Doubled Best Picture Category Help Sci-Fi Nab an Oscar?
(scifiwire.com) The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced today that for the first time in more than 65 years, the field of Best Picture nominees will be expanded from five to 10 contenders for the 82nd annual Academy Awards, Variety reported.
"Having 10 best picture nominees is going allow Academy voters to recognize and include some of the fantastic movies that often show up in the other Oscar categories but have been squeezed out of the race for the top prize," said Academy president Sid Ganis as he announced the shift. "I can't wait to see what that list of 10 looks like when the nominees are announced in February."
The move comes on the heels of complaints that the Academy's rule of limiting the Best Picture nominees to the top five vote-getters elbows out some of the more popular titles, such as last year's blockbuster, The Dark Knight.
The rules change could help some of this year's contenders, such as Star Trek, which otherwise could be overlooked for consideration.
Working Free Overtime: The Animation Industry Squeeze
(animationguildblog.blogspot.com) It's no secret that the movie business is on an economizing kick, and the cartoon sector isn't exception to that trend. Many studios are putting the screws to employees just like its live-action cousins.
A couple of days ago, TAG held a meeting with artists from various studios to strategize how employees should push back ...
Contract proposals to counteract perceived abuses were discussed, but it was pointed out that given the problems Hollywood labor organizations have had forging new collective bargaining agreement, 2009 wasn't the most opportune year to ride into town with a saddlebag full of fresh demands to rectivy abuses.
I pointed out that there were already numerous contract rules, along with state and federal regulations, that could relieve workplace stress. Some of the resulting suggestions:
* Holding crew meetings to build consensus about not working uncompensated overtime.
* Filling out time cards accurately. (Giving friendly reminders to fellow artists to fill time cards out accurately.)
* Reporting overlong storyboard and design tests to TAG so the guild can take the issue up with studio reps.
* Building an industry culture that will move toward self-policing abuses.
What I've observed over the last several years is: artists agree among themselves they won't work extra hours for free, then two people on a crew break ranks and start taking work home gratis, then other crew members see what's happening, get paranoid and take work home too. And the whole "we're not working free o.t. anymore falls apart.
I told the group that we need to find new ways to deal with the hours of free work that artists perform week in and week out. Companies get a false impression of how much work can be created in a 40-hour week, and keep raising the bar higher.
I said that the best way to deal with unreasonable schedules is to account for work time honestly. If somebody wanders around driking coffee for an hour, then takes a two-hour lunch, then that somebody should stay late and make up the three hours. But when an honest eight hours of work has been done, make sure that time cards -- which are legal documents -- show any and all extra hours worked.
I said that tighter schedules and pressure from production managers to "help out" with free o.t. have been going on since I started as biz rep nineteen years ago. There were abuses on "Tiny Tunes" in 1990, and there are abuses now. (The industry, if nothing else, is consistent.)
One strategy to combat the latest squeeze? Transparency and information sharing, both up to management and sideways to other employees. When artists work together to show how much work can actually be done in a 40-hour week, then studios will start building production schedules which reflect that.
But if companies can build schedules around a 60-hour week while paying for 40? Then hey, they will cheerfully do it that way.
DreamWorks, 3D CGI Drive Plan for Disney
(hollywoodreporter.com) AMSTERDAM -- Disney may be the most bullish Hollywood major when it comes to 3D, and the Burbank studio put several three-dimensional entries on its film slate front-and-center Wednesday in a Cinema Expo presentation.
Trailers were shown from Robert Zemeckis' motion-capture animated feature "A Christmas Carol," set for November release, and next summer's Pixar sequel "Toy Story 3." But glimpses of Tim Burton's live action-and-motion capture fantasy "Alice in Wonderland" were limited to production stills, while May opener "Prince of Persia" from Jerry Bruckheimer was teased in a sizzle reel, and a early visual-effects shot was used to whet exhibs' appetite for Disney's as-yet-unslotted remake of "Tron."
Disney international distribution president Anthony Marcoly noted that Disney has agreed to distribute pics for Steven Spielberg's newly private DreamWorks, aiming to add to Disney's own recently downsized release slate.
"There will be fewer films, but you can count on them being bigger and better than ever," Marcoly said. "And you can expect four to six DreamWorks films per year, starting in 2010-2011."
After its 75-minute slate promo, Disney screened in its entirety the 3D family feature "Up." The Pixar-animated pic already has produced $255 million in worldwide boxoffice, including $23 million from its fledgling international campaign.
Execs noted the "Up" tallies feature an estimated $36 million in extra coin from exhibs' marking up ticket prices in 3D venues. "Up" is playing in a mix of 2D and 3D venues, due to an insufficient installed base of 3D auditoriums.
Those attending the "Up" screening were asked to wear both 3D glasses and audio headsets, lending an especially high-tech appearance to the audience. Disney used the headsets to offer the film in several language versions, with the special gear needed even for the English track.
Most films screened here are offered only in English.
Meanwhile, various 3D vendors have been seeking a bit of the promo spotlight at Cinema Expo, where the fledgling technology has been a hot topic of discussion.
Masterimage touted its participation in the Disney presentation. On Tuesday, RealD helped Fox screen 3D clips from James Cameron's upcoming "Avatar."
RealD on Wednesday announced a new product for use by theater owners in programming live events as alternative programming for their cinemas. When added onto RealD's 3D projector systems, ReadD Live can receive and convert broadcast signals for theatrical 3D presentation.
Manifesto Games Shuts Down
(escapistmagazine.com) Eons ago, in the dark wastelands of 2005, Greg Costikyan wrote an article for the eighth issue of The Escapist called Death to the Games Industry, in which he stressed the need for the industry to evolve in the face of stagnation.
Costikyan's vision, as expressed in the article (and its sequel) led to the founding of Manifesto Games, essentially a digital distribution portal for indie games. Rather than competing for space on the Wal-Mart or Gamestop shelf, indie titles would have a chance to strut their stuff, offering innovative experiences at development (and retail) prices well below that of the mainstream market.
In many ways, Manifesto was the precursor to the current form of Steam, XBLA, PSN, or Apple's App Store. Unfortunately, it may have been before its time - last night, Costikyan posted an update that announced that Manifesto would be shutting down, effective immediately. Costikyan said that there were several factors that contributed to the decision: difficulty marketing the concept and getting their concept across to the indie developers they were trying to cater to (and the current economic recession, of course).
We at The Escapist offer a salute to Greg Costikyan and the Manifesto team: Though their market timing may not have been the best, their ideas were visionary and their hearts and ideals in the right place. They deserve our thanks for their tireless work in supporting the growing indie game development scene, and we wish them well in the future.
"Greg Costikyan has never been afraid to navigate into uncharted waters, and every journey he takes always reveals a new trend that will shape the game industry," said Alexander Macris, publisher of The Escapist. "We'll look forward to where he sails next."
A Brief Look At Disney's 3D Animated "A Christmas Carol"
(moviesblog.mtv.com) New York press and movie critics got their first glimpse at an animated Jim Carrey as Ebenezer Scrooge in a presentation of 3-D footage from Disney's "A Christmas Carol" at the Regal E-Walk Theatre this week.
Two scenes were shown from the performance capture-driven film, directed by Robert Zemeckis ( Polar Express ), along with a montage of clips and a teaser trailer. Publicists were showing the footage every half hour from 11 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., with Christmas cookies and pastries on offer outside the theatre after each showing.
In the first scene, Carrey as Scrooge argues with Bob Cratchit (Gary Oldman) over the meaning of Christmas. It is immediately clear that the animated characters are made to look like the actors voicing them, as was the case in "Polar Express." Carrey as Scrooge looked like a wrinkly, crusty version of himself, though the actor doesn't sound like himself. There are no echoes of Ace Ventura, The Riddler or any of the other iconic characters he's played in Scrooge's voice. If Carrey's name wasn't headlined on the poster, you wouldn't know he was in the film.
The second scene shown sees Jacob Marley's ghost crashing in on Scrooge during the night. It is here that the film shows off its high tech special wizardry. Thanks to the 3D effects work, Marley's ghost hovers off the screen and glows with incandescent color. There's a gross moment as well, when Marley's jaw falls off and he has to re-attach it with a white cloth.
The publicist in charge of the event said the scenes were still unfinished and that Zemeckis & Co. are still fixing the lighting and color. You get to see Jim Carrey as crusty Scrooge in Disney's " A Christmas Carol" on November 6th of this year.
Post Logic Studios Undertakes Restoration of Scientific Films for the National Archive
(blog.digitalcontentproducer.com) Leading post-production facility Post Logic Studios, a division of Prime Focus Group, is completing restoration of over 80 scientific microcinematography short films developed by world-renowned academics and funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF).
These films were commissioned beginning in 1967 through the mid-1970s using a $20 million grant from the NSF as part of a push to close a perceived scientific gap between the US and the former Soviet Union. They were originally intended to be archived at the Library of Congress, and are even listed in the catalog, but were never delivered after the NSF funds became depleted.
The films were shot in the late sixties by a team led by British natural history filmmaker Joseph V. Durden, and produced under the direction of some of the world's leading scientific experts, many of whom are now deceased. Ranging from between three and 20 minutes, the irreplaceable films explore developmental biology and other living phenomena with time-lapse 16mm color microcinematography. One film provides view of Nobel Laureate Rita Levi-Montalcini, who turned 100 this year, and her pioneering work with nerve growth factor (NGF), a protein substance that attracts regenerating nerve cells. Another depicts the live meeting of sperm and egg in ferns, exemplifying plant sexuality. One 14-minute film narrated by Durden displays all six developmental stages of the population explosion potential of a flatworm, Cryptocotyle lingua, which is similar to a parasite that causes liver fluke disease in humans, and is invaluable to researchers and students of parasitology.
Evolutionist and distinguished University of Massachusetts professor Lynn Margulis has been using a selection of the EDC films each semester since she first began her Environmental Evolution course at Boston University in 1972. The prints eventually became faded and discolored, and were retired to the non-book section at the Smith College library, while the film masters, thought to be lost, languished in a Massachusetts warehouse.
These films are timeless national treasures, and even with funding equivalent to 100 times the original National Science Foundation grant they could not be recreated, Margulis commented. Evolution is a slow process, and the cells and tissue interactions of organisms do not change, even over millennia. I consider the restoration of these films for delivery to the Library of Congress to be my most important contribution to the world of science.
Working on a Spirit DataCine film scanner, Post Logic colorist Alex Berman cleaned and digitized the 16mm films, painstakingly balancing the black, white and mid-range tones to achieve the final look of the source material. The important thing was to maintain the integrity of the original prints, Berman commented. We wanted to make these films a pleasure to view without changing any of the natural coloration. The goal was to push a little more light through so everything looks vibrant and sharp. The Spirit captures so much detail, which is great because it really highlights the features of the cells\u2014the particles inside are nice and clear.
The biggest challenge working with these microscopic images was the lack of any external references, Berman continued. If you see a car, you know that the tire should be black, but there are no visual references like that for a cell. This makes it much more difficult to know for certain that the colors have been balanced correctly.\u201d
About Post Logic Studios
A leader in digital intermediate and feature film restoration, Post Logic Studios is a part of the Prime Focus Group family, an integrated global network of visual effects and post-production companies servicing clientele around the world with technologically advanced facilities in Hollywood, New York, London and India.
'Transformers' Gets Panned but May Still Find Oscar Gold
(goldderby.latimes.com) "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" impressed far fewer critics than did "Transformers" in 2007. The original film rated 61 at Meta Critic but the sequel managed only a score of 42. And over at Rotten Tomatoes, "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" merited a mere 22 among the top tier of critics while the original "Transformers" earned a respectable 67.
Transformers Shia LaBeouf Megan Fox movie news 1357986However, the sequel should still equal the original at the box office. Advance ticket sales for "Transfomers: Revenge of the Fallen" have it on track to be one of the top-grossing movies of the summer. Last night's midnight showings sold out across the country. And fervent fans of the franchise and stars Megan Fox and Shia LaBeouf are packing today's screenings.
Among those sure to see the movie on the big screen in the days ahead will be members of the various technical branches of the academy. Two years ago "Transformers" earned Oscar bids in three technical categories -- sound, sound editing and visual effects.
"Transformers" lost both sound races to "The Bourne Ultimatum," and "The Golden Compass" won for visual effects. However, the special effects wizards did win four awards from the Visual Effects Society. As with most sequels, the studio has spent even more money this time round on all of those slam-bang special effects.
Director Michael Bay has rehired many of the same tech experts who figured in the success of the first film. One name missing from the credits of "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" is sound mixerKevin O'Connell who was part of the losing team two years ago. That defeat marked the 20th in a row for O'Connell, who has held up surprisingly well under the weight of the title of Oscar's biggest loser. As O'Connell worked on the next big summer movie -- "Public Enemies" -- he may well land his 21st Oscar nod this year.
Stu Maschwitz Joins Red Giant Software as Creative Director
(vfxworld.com) San Francisco, CA, June 23, 2009 -- Red Giant Software (http://www.redgiantsoftware.com/)
is proud to announce that Stu Maschwitz is now the new Creative
Director for Magic Bullet products. Stu Maschwitz is the original
creator of the Magic Bullet Suite of plug-ins.
"In my directing work, on projects big and small, I'm always finding ways that the filmmaking process can be made more efficient, more fun, and more accessible to all budget levels. Over the years I've enjoyed a great relationship with Red Giant Software, who have taken these ideas and turned them into tools that the world can enjoy. It's great to make that relationship official," said Stu Maschwitz.
"The Magic Bullet vision is to create software that gives any production, regardless of budget, the look of a high-end feature film. We are immensely pleased that Stu is dedicating his time and vision to enhance and grow the Magic Bullet tools in 2009 and beyond. He has already begun to work on new Magic Bullet products, and you will see many new and updated tools coming later this year," said Sean Safreed, Co-Founder and Director of Products at Red Giant Software.
Lights, Cameras, Action: Cue the Robots
(chron.com) "The computer is the devil incarnate,” says visual-effects guru Scott Farrar. “It wants to be perfect, and we’re doing everything we can to blend this natural world back into the mix.”
For the Oscar-winning Industrial Light and Magic veteran, working on Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen was largely about getting it wrong.
“You wouldn’t believe how mired we get into what aberrations of the lens should be seen,” he says of using digital trickery on computer-generated characters to emulate the distortion of analog lenses that capture human performers and physical environments. Or in English, messing stuff up.
“The average film goer probably doesn’t realize all the imperfections we have to create to make it look real — imperfect lighting, imperfect textures with lots of dirt, char and scorch; they’re messed up.”
Still, he insists, “Our work succeeds only because of the actors. The way Shia sells the shots is incredible acting. He’s got nothing (to relate to); I’m over there with a pole, and I’m being Jetfire in the desert or Optimus. … These pictures fail if the acting isn’t at a certain level.”
Perhaps, but if Shia LaBeouf doesn’t deliver an Oscar-worthy performance, it’s not likely to cost the reportedly $200 million film’s box office take the price of an Optimus Prime action figure. If Farrar and company don’t deliver the awards-buzz goods, with about 40 new robots and spectacular fight scenes, the budget might as well have been $500 for a camcorder and some plastic toys. The very presence of a visual-effects supervisor at a promotional junket for a summer tent-pole movie shows the studio knows which side its virtual giant robots are buttered on.
“We were challenged with higher degrees of acting (for the robots), much more intricate facial expressions. We even added pieces to the faces to give evidence of emotion. If something wasn’t working, like an eyebrow was in the wrong position and you couldn’t get a sneer or a puzzled look, we refabricated where the things were on the face,” says Farrar.
There were also much more complicated, mechanized moves to slake the fans’ thirst for robot-on-robot violence.
“This one guy, (lead animator) Greg Towner, the most mild-mannered guy you could think of, he was one of the fight coordinators, and he came up with the most barbaric maneuvers,” Farrar recalls, smiling. “I said, ‘Greg, where did you think of this?’ He said, ‘I grew up with three brothers; this is what they did to me.’ ”
ROTF is as big as big movies get, with massive battles and gargantuan characters such as Devastator, a combination of several different giant robots. All that digital rendering (generating computer images from models) blew by previous standards of how much data goes into making a film.
“The first movie, we used about 20 TB (terabytes; 1 TB equals 1,000 gigabytes); this one vaulted to over 150 TB,” says Farrar with a mischievous grin .
“You can’t simply blow the picture up if you want the same resolution; it’s eight times more information. The toughest shots are when a computer-graphics image is close to camera, and we’ve got close-ups. Some of those frames with Devastator took 72 hours to render apiece. If you rendered this movie, all 555 effects shots, on one high-end PC, it would take 16,000 years, which goes back to cave-drawing time.”
Complicating matters, Farrar found even CG characters can be divas.
“It’s so frustrating. Everybody complained about Devastator — as high-end as our computer system is, it would take like 45 minutes to upload the character,” he says. “You wait and wait, go have some meetings … it’s a problem. We’re still in the Stone Age regarding computer-graphics effects because some things are so desperately slow.”
But he believes the
result was worth the wait, especially when he sees Devastator in IMAX
“scooping up the sand and attacking the Pyramids; those are Goliath,
big-movie ideas that not many people do anymore. That’s fun stuff,
let’s be honest. But what surprised me was the scene in the spaceship
between (villains) Megatron and the Fallen. The Fallen was a tough guy
to light and come up with what kinds of materials he’d be made of. Then
we got in this lighting that was kind of creepy and kept adding layer
after layer of atmospherics. Man, that came to life for me. It’s really
textural; it’s really ‘movie.’ That was nice.”
Next-Gen CGI Games Will Cost Triple to Make
(escapistmagazine.com) In Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot's vision of the future, games will be just like playing modern CGI movies. Unfortunately that means they'll cost as much to make, too.
Though nobody knows when (or if) we'll see the "next generation" of games and if we'll be using our hands, arms, feet, eyes or minds to control them, but Ubisoft's Yves Guillemot is sure that they'll offer quite the experience. "The next generation is going to be so powerful that playing a game is going to be the equivalent of playing a CGI movie today," Guillemot told CNBC.
Unfortunately CGI movies take a lot of money to make, and if you're making a game that's on par with a CGI movie, well, you can presume that's going to be just as, and maybe even more, expensive. Guillemot estimates that development costs will triple for the next generation of games, with big-budget titles costing an average of $60 million. For the record, that's how much the first Ice Age movie cost to make.
Though he's psyched for games to take that next big leap, he's not quite ready for his company to completely plunge in, though he knows it's inevitable. "For us, the current machines are very powerful and we can do high quality work," Guillemot said. "I'd like to stay with this generation as long as possible, but my customers will want the best machine possible."
In the meantime, Ubisoft is pursuing strategies for a future where the kind of big-budget games they produce will cost more than a pretty penny. For its upcoming Avatar game, Ubisoft is cutting costs by reusing resources used in the James Cameron film that provides the game with its source material.
Free 'Christmas Carol' Train Rolls into Oakland this Weekend
(mercurynews.com) Hear that whistle blow? Christmas is coming to town early this year, folks.
High tech meets the 19th century when Disney's "A Christmas Carol" Train Tour pulls into Oakland's Middle Harbor Shoreline Park this weekend replete with faux snow flurries, Victorian-era carolers and a cavalcade of high-tech spectacles from the wizards at Hewlett Packard.
In Los Angeles, where the
barnstorming tour kicked off in May, almost 50,000 people showed up,
causing huge lines and a five-hour wait. Disney estimates that 1.5
million people will come onboard nationwide.
Full Press: http://www.mercurynews.com/news/ci_12665667
Alien Makers Documentary
(joblo.com) Ridley Scott's ALIEN is of my all-time faves (Cameron's sequel even more so), but the Giger-designed killing machine's treatment since then has been even more terrifying than the creature itself.
Fortunately, people out there still love the lethal xenomorph's first appearance, including some who actually worked with it. Special effects master Dennis Lowe recently gathered some of the non-Nostromo crew from the movie for a retrospective documentary called ALIEN MAKERS.
We've got the entire full-length film below -- fans of practical FX and deadly extraterrestrials should check it out! Thanks to The Alien Experience for the heads up!
Take a look: http://www.joblo.com/index.php?id=27171
'Virtuality' Provides Unique Canvas For Visual Effects
(airlockalpha.com) One of the things holding back many science-fiction television projects is the cost of visual effects. While computer-generated images have redesigned how such visualizations are created, the manpower and cost to put together even a few shots of simply effects could quickly start eating into a show's budget.
When Gary Hutzel came on board SciFi Channel's "Battlestar Galactica," he recognized that right away and created an in-house visual effects team for NBC Universal as a way to cut costs and change the motivation to create.
That same Emmy-winning team is now involved in "Virtuality," a back-door pilot from BSG showrunner Ronald D. Moore that airs Friday on Fox.
And "Virtuality" created a unique situation for the VFX crew. Where visual effects creators typically are trying to produce realistic shots. This time around, they were working to make it clear when visual effects were being used, especially in the virtual reality environment that we find the cast traversing in regularly.
"The idea was to create a heightened colored environment, but still have it real enough to work for what we were trying to accomplish," Hutzel told Airlock Alpha. "Our fundamental idea was to create this vivid environment. And when we would settle into a scene, let the audience know they were in a virtual environment."
That meant a heavy use of green screen, especially for backdrops -- a technique used heavily by amateur and even professional Web productions, including the Web version of "Sanctuary."
The VFX budget ended up tens of thousands of dollars under-budget -- a rare thing to happen on productions, especially pilots. That's despite Hutzel's crew being a part of 425 shots, or about 20 minutes of total screentime.
"That's what happens when you have a crew that is not trying to make as much money as possible from a production," Hutzel said. "Because of that, we could do the visual effects at cost because we are all employees of NBC. It also gives us complete creative freedom because we're not driven by a profit motive or have to answer to investors."
Many of "Virtuality's" green screen shots take place in serious character-building moments through the pilot. That allows such backdrops to be better integrated into the scenes, but at the same time, allow some key plot moments to pop.
"Everything that was shot against green screen were dynamic interpersonal scenes where there is a lot of dramatic dialogue," Hutzel said. "That stuff shoots very well and quickly because [cinematographer] Steve McNutt doesn't have to worry about lighting the set. He lights the characters, and we do the rest."
Probably one of the most interesting tidbits from the "Virtuality" production is that the shooting sets were actually on wheels. That meant the production crew didn't have to stop between scenes to move equipment and set themselves back up.
"The set was usually the floor or bed or whatever the couple of items the characters would interact with," Hutzel said. "We would roll one set in, shoot, then roll it out so we could roll the next one in and keep shooting."
Avatar's Effects "Took My Breath Away."
(comingsoon.net - reuters.com) "The future's so bright I gotta wear shades!" James Cameron cried
Tuesday as he strode onto a stage -- with his 3-D glasses on -- to
unveil the first publicly shown clips from his $300 million 3-D sci-fi
actioner "Avatar."
The fittingly epic film promo literally added an extra dimension to Fox's presentation at the Cinema Expo industry confab. "Avatar" actors Sam Worthington, Sigourney Weaver, Zoe Saldana and Stephen Lang, and producer Jon Landau were also on hand for the preview.
"Three years ago, I stood up here and said the 3-D renaissance is coming," the "Titanic" director said. "And from what we've seen in the business, we can now say it has arrived."
In introducing the 24-minute assemblage, Cameron said much of it came from the first third of the film but that there were also glimpses from unfinished portions of later battle scenes involving warring sides clashing over control of the fantasy world Pandora.
The filmmaker also said the action gets nonstop in the latter portions of the film, which throughout is populated by strange life-forms in a world of unprecedentedly rich fantasy elements. Worthington ("Terminator Salvation") plays an avatar -- a remote-controlled character created by melding his crippled human form into a super-human being -- whose fate lies ultimately in doing battle with his own former race.
Fox made media covering the event agree not to report details of the "Avatar" images or to interview audience members for reactions. But from the sustained applause at the conclusion of the presentation, suffice to say Fox didn't hurt itself at the event.
A cinematic hybrid of CGI, motion-capture animation and live action, "Avatar" is Cameron's first dramatic feature since 1997's "Titanic." At that year's Cinema Expo, Cameron showed eight minutes of the effects-laden disaster drama before it rang up a still-record $1.84 billion worldwide boxoffice and copped Oscar's best pic statuette.
Cameron encouraged theater owners to add 3-D capability as quickly as possible. But acknowledging "Avatar" will have to play in a mix of conventional and extra-dimensional venues due to an insufficient number of 3-D auditoriums, he added, "I just want to say that I think 'Avatar' is going to play great in 3-D, 2-D, any 'D.' "
Full Press: http://www.reuters.com/article/filmNews/idUSTRE55N0L220090624
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-"It took my breath away. I thought--just like you guys--that I've seen it all with Gollum, or The Hulk, but Cameron has done it again. These creatures seem so real, that within minutes you forget you're watching an enormous and very blue CGI character. Even the eyes are totally convincing. The characters have real personalities and a soul."
-"How the hell is it possible that I never once felt like I've been watching a movie where almost everything comes out of a computer? "
-"The effects are in a league of their own. After some disappointing or even pointless 3-D movies, "Avatar" may be the first movie where 3-D is properly utilized."
Full Press: http://www.comingsoon.net/news/avatarnews.php?id=56535
