(comingsoon.net)
Vulture reports that J.J. Abrams has officially committed to direct Star Trek 2 for Paramount Pictures.
Pre-production is currently underway and the script is expected to be done by month's end. Abrams will start shooting the anticipated film this winter.
The Star Trek sequel was originally scheduled to be released on June 29, 2012, but Paramount put G.I. Joe 2 in that spot instead when it looked like Abrams wouldn't be able to make the date.
While Abrams himself couldn't start working on Star Trek 2 until he was done with Super 8, the article says that part of the delay has also been Alex Kurtzman, who has been working on the script with Roberto Orci. Kurtzman had been busy working on finishing directing Welcome to People.
A new release date for the film has not yet been set.
Film Animators in Need of Funding Hawk iPhone App
(therepublic.com)ORLANDO, Fla. — Artists at an Orlando animation studio want to produce what they hope will be an Oscar-worthy, animated short film. Before they can do that, though, they will need more than $150,000.
But Orlando-based Secret Legion Studios sees its 99-cent “DooWaru” word-game application as a way to finance its animated film project, “Combover for Dinner.”
Secret Legion Studios is made up of former Disney animators who worked in the traditional method of 2-D animation. Members of the studio worked on such Disney animated films as “Mulan,” “The Emperor’s New Groove,” “Brother Bear” and others. The studio, which has offices in Universal Studios Plaza, was formed after Disney closed its local shop of animators in 2004.
Dave Holbrook, a former Disney animator and now creative director at Secret Legion, said that, unless you’re a student filmmaker, it’s often hard to get funding for projects unless you work within the fabled “studio system” used by major filmmakers. That system, of course, doesn’t really promise favorable odds for getting your film from storyboard to the big screen.
Holbrook said that he and others at Secret Legion at first tried to raise money for their film idea by using a fairly low-tech idea: selling T-shirts online. But, once the economy began to tank, so did that fund-raising effort. That forced Holbrook and others at Secret Legion to consider other ideas for getting the money they need for “Combover for Dinner.”
Eventually came the idea of creating an app and selling it for about a buck a download. After all, Holbrook said, “Everyone has a smartphone today, and everyone wants something to play.”
That assessment seems to be spot on. Although the app was released only a few weeks ago and with little fanfare, Holbrook said they already have seen more than 7,000 downloads. An iOS app, “DooWaru” can be played on the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch. The game’s popularity even has the potential to grow further, Holbrook said, when an Android version is released, possibly in a couple of weeks.
The game is available at the iTunes store and sells for 99 cents.
So, other than an odd-sounding word, what exactly is “DooWaru”?
“Quite simply put: It’s the most unique word game out there at the moment,” Holbrook said.
Here’s how it works:
Like many other word games, users must pick out words from a collection of letters. But unlike most other games, the field of letters is ever-changing, transforming more and more quickly through each successive level of play. Pattern recognition is crucial, but so, too, is speedy dexterity in making your touch-screen selections.
And at some levels of the game, explosions even threaten to take out part of the field of letter choices, making word selection even more challenging.
“It’s a very complicated and fast-paced word game that, by level 10, you can’t blink,” Holbrook said.
The game’s name means “to find” in Arabic, and came to Holbrook courtesy of his wife, Ninette, whose parents are from Egypt. She also helped Holbrook conceive the idea of a word game because both she and Holbrook are “big word-game fans,” he says, adding that they both came up with about a dozen ideas for a game before they pared the list down to about three. Of those, “DooWaru” emerged the winning idea.
So far, the game has generated favorable feedback from users, said Holbrook, who credits game programmers Shane Reynolds and Neal Monday at Fu Manchu Media for much of its success. (Fu Manchu Media LLC is a new mobile application development company that specializes in creating games for Apple iOS devices and Android devices.)
Some user suggestions, such as Facebook integration, might be incorporated in future releases, Holbrook said. Such a revision would allow users to post their high scores as part of their Facebook status updates.
But the studio’s main labor of love is the animated short “Combover for Dinner.” The light-hearted tale is about a middle-age man who invites the “girl of his dreams” over for dinner as he tries to win her heart while hiding a not-so-hidden secret: his comb-over.
(EDITORS: STORY CAN END HERE)
Holbrook, a graduate of Sarasota, Fla.-based Ringling School of Art, said the idea for the film’s plot came to him about four years ago, and he’s been working on it in his spare time ever since. The animated short is just in the visual development stage now, he says, but he’s ready to move on to the actual animation aspect of the project. That is, as long as he can raise more money for a project that his studio wants to be able to submit for an Academy Award consideration.
“Animated short films are just beautiful little snippets of animation that are beautiful to watch,” Holbrook said. “But to get something to that (level), it takes lots of money. … You have to jump through a ton of hoops … (and) it gets extremely expensive.”
But it’s an expense that he and his studio are tackling, even if only in .99 cent increments. Although the app might not cost a lot, all those downloads can add up to real money over time, especially as an app gains in popularity. In fact, Holbrook said the financial incentive is attractive enough to make him consider creating other games in the future.
“If this is the new media we have to be in to (raise money for filmmaking), then we’ll do it,” he said.
Dorothy of Oz Comes to Screens in 2012
(nwitimes.com)Dorothy of Oz is an animated feature film currently in production. The film draws inspiration from the story, "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz," by L. Frank Baum and the Oz adventure book series written by his great grandson, Roger S. Baum. Produced with state-of-art computer graphics and the latest 3D stereoscopic techniques for animation, "Dorothy of Oz," the latest chapter in the Oz legacy, will be entertaining a whole new generation of fans.
"With this year being the 30th year the Wizard of Oz Festival is in Chesterton, it's fantastic to think about the history of how it all started and how we're not moving into a whole new dimension," says Machelle Blount, president of the Duneland Business Initiative Group who organizes the Chesterton Wizard of Oz Festival. "The story has gone from a book, into more books, into the movie, and now a 3D animated feature. It's pretty exciting, so the story of Oz has certainly not died," she says.
In Dorothy of Oz, Dorothy returns to Kansas to find it devastated by the tornado that had whisked her away to Oz. The home she has been so desperate to return to is severely damaged and the townspeople are packing up and moving out. But shortly after arriving in Kansas, Dorothy is magically transported back to Oz.
She finds out that Oz is in trouble and the people there need her help. Dorothy's old friends, The Tin Man, the Scarecrow, and the formerly Cowardly Lion, have disappeared and Oz is in a state of decay. As Dorothy journeys to find her friends, she encounters a number of new companions and problems including a man made of marshmallows who can't think for himself, a china doll princess whose bossiness is a cover for her fragility, and a tugboat with as many personalities as he has pieces. Dorothy must help this odd group band together against a new villain, a wicked jester who thinks all of Oz is should be under his control.
Lea Michelle of Glee fame portrays the voice of Dorothy Gale, Martin Short is the voice of the Jester, Dan Ackroyd as the Scarecrow, Kelsey Grammer as the Tin Man, Jim Belushi as the Lion (formerly cowardly), Megan Hilty as the china doll princess, Hugh Dancy as Marshal Mallow, Oliver Platt as Wiser, and Patrick Stewart as Tugg.
Writer of Dorothy of Oz, Roger S. Baum, will again join the cast of celebrities at the Chesterton Wizard of Oz Festival. "I am very lucky. Very lucky. I've been a writer for the past 21 years, but I get in trouble many different ways," joked Baum, who came from Springfield, Mo., to attend last year's festival. "There are so many millions of Oz fans worldwide, and it's just part of our heritage," he said.
Organizers will be screening a trailer from Dorothy of Oz during the festival, so watch the official schedule and website for locations and times.
Indy 5 News From Harrison Ford: "I ain’t gonna go to Mars"
(darkhorizons.com)Steven Spielberg and Harrison Ford turned up for Hero Complex’s 30th Anniversary screening of "Raiders of the Lost Ark" in Los Angeles this week and a couple of tidbits of news have come out via AICN.
Spielberg would be up for doing a fifth "Indiana Jones" film, as would Ford but the latter said "I ain’t gonna go to Mars" meaning we can likely not expect to see any more aliens coming back into the franchise.
In terms of back catalog Blu-ray releases, Spielberg says the "Indiana Jones" films are coming "soon" and he would like them out faster but they're essentially waiting on George Lucas.
More likely to come first would be a Blu of "E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial" which would likely only be the original 1982 version, not the altered 2002 re-release version as Spielberg has twice this year expressed regret over having altered the film and has no such plans to do any other tinkering with his past features.
Virtuos Acquires Sparx* 3D Animation Studio
(prnewswire.com) SHANGHAI, -- Virtuos today announced that it has acquired the assets and core team of VFX and animation company Sparx*, reopening the company's Vietnam studio. This deal allows Virtuos to further expand and to consolidate its services offering to clients in the movie industry under the Sparx brand.
Sparx is an animation and VFX company for feature films, most famous for being the animation company behind the 2008 feature film "Igor" starring John Cusack and Steve Buscemi.
Virtuos is one of the largest providers of digital entertainment production services, and has played a role in blockbuster movies since 2008, creating high-quality 3D models for films including this year's hit film Rango.
"Virtuos is very well known in the gaming sector, and may also be the best-kept secret in Hollywood. We are very happy to partner with them, and add our specialized talents to their 800-strong team," said Sparx General Manager Didier Montarou.
"Our origins in HD game production have afforded us the talents to create extremely high-quality assets, including digital doubles, for the movie industry. Bringing together Virtuos' art production infrastructure with Sparx expertise in film-quality animation, cinematics and VFX, we will be able to offer a more fully integrated solution for all our clients," said Gilles Langourieux, CEO, Virtuos.
The teams in Shanghai and Vietnam have already begun working together on new projects. After moving into new facilities in November, Sparx Vietnam will be expanded back to its original size of over 100 staff in 2012. Sparx currently employs over 100 animation professionals in Saigon and Shanghai and aims to employ over 200 by the end of 2012.
Spectacular Exhibit: SPFX Miniature Ship from Pirates of the Caribbean
(trendingceleb.blogspot.com)Possibly the most spectacular exhibit at the Disney D23 Expo at the Anaheim Convention Center on August 19, 2011, was this scale miniature of the Black Pearl pirate galleon from Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean movies.
At 23-feet in length, the incredibly detailed and accurate ship model apparently takes six hours to properly rig all the cordage, spars and sails.
Comprised of pieces used in the original Black Pearl ship miniature from the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie installment, this version was reconstructed for the second and third movies. This model was used to help create the epic special effects in the incredibly popular film franchise starring Johnny Depp as the ship's captain.
Take a look: http://trendingceleb.blogspot.com/2011/08/black-pearl- miniature-ship-from-pirates. html
Cloud Atlas Shooting In Glasgow
(entertainment.stv.tv)Just a few weeks after Glasgow was taken over by Brad Pitt and zombies, another Hollywood production is set to film in the city this weekend.
Cloud Atlas, which has an all star cast including Tom Hanks, Jim Sturgess, Hugo Weaving and Susan Sarandon, will film in parts of the city centre between September 16 and September 18, before returning on September 26.
Glasgow City Council confirmed another star of the film, Oscar winner Halle Berry, will be in the city for the shoot. Tom Hanks, on the other hand, will not.
Cloud Atlas is based on David Mitchell’s novel of the same name. Some of the filming for the movie is taking place in Germany. In Glasgow, a few roads will be closed while a few more will be partially shut around the Blythswood Square area.
The filming is a coup for Glasgow City Council’s Film Office just weeks after the city’s George Square was taken over by car crashes, explosions, hundreds of extras dressed as zombies and hundreds more locals and tourists trying to meet Brad Pitt and his partner Angelina Jolie.
When asked about Cloud Atlas a few weeks ago, David Brown - the Scottish line producer of the film - said: "We are very pleased to be coming to Glasgow later this month. The principal reason for coming to Glasgow is the welcome that the city gives to film-makers.
Halle Berry in Glasgow this weekend to film Cloud Atlas
"We are overwhelmed by the support and encouragement we have received from everyone in the city. This can-do attitude is turning Glasgow into a highly attractive proposition for film-makers across the world.
"In addition to a positive approach and its position as the gateway to the rest of Scotland, the city's architecture and classic grid system makes it uniquely appealing."
Glasgow City Council leader Gordon Matheson added: "It is fantastic news that another major production is coming to film in Glasgow, and another sign that we are becoming the UK's film-friendliest city.
"The recent experience of the filming of World War Z in the city was extremely positive and we look forward to welcoming Cloud Atlas later this month."
The VFX View From Vancouver: Wages Are Quite Low
(vfxsoldier.wordpress.com)I was sent a link to a site dedicated to VFX artists in Vancouver. It’s a great resource and I agree with the author’s sentiments:
As you can see there is a lot going on in Vancouver, but unfortunately with the good comes then bad. All the newly arriving studios have been going to Vancouver for the tax breaks and with the idea that it may be a cheaper place for labor.. But what the studios don’t realize is that Vancouver is not a cheap city. It is more on par with San Francisco prices for living, and with the USA dollar so weak, it makes the Canadian prices even higher when you convert the price of living, food, gas, and transit. The Canadian senior artist pool is also lacking, since most Canadians leave to work in USA, London, New Zealand and Australia in order to work on the big named films to build their experience and resume.
There’s no doubt about huge boom in VFX work for facilities in the UK, NZ, and Vancouver. US Facilities are rushing to Vancouver while facilities in the UK are either opening up shop or going through major expansions. In NZ, Weta Digital stands mostly alone with really no other major competitors for miles and miles and manages to get a huge amount of work.
Here’s what’s so odd to me. The wanna-be economist in me would conclude from the facts above that Vancouver and the UK would be going through huge wage booms for vfx talent: So many facilities competing with each other. While NZ’s Weta Digital would probably have lower wages since many VFX artists want to work on their projects and they’re the only game in town.
Anecdotally speaking, that doesn’t seem to be the case with the artists I know. Weta seems to pay rates that would make California artists jealous! On the other hand, I ran into a Canadian artist who works in Cali. We talked about the huge boom in his hometown Vancouver and if he was thinking about moving back.
His response:
Most of the boom in Vancouver has been for students graduating from VFX schools and the wages are quite low. He is paid very well in Los Angeles and has found relatively stable employment. But some have alluded that there may be some collusion going on between facilities in the UK and Canada. Of course we all know that never happens!
3D Animated "Escape from Planet Earth" Gets Release Date
(viewsbuzz.com) Protocol Pictures and Jon Shestack Productions will release an amazing animation movie named ‘Escape from Planet Earth’ in 2012. Director of this comedy/adventure film is Callan Brunker. This science-fiction movie is written by Gory Edwards and Tony Leech. Some leading Hollywood stars like Jessica Alba and Brendan Fraser are performing in this animation film through their voices.
Complete star cast of ‘Escape from Planet Earth’ include Jessica Alba Brendan Fraser, Sarah Jessica Parker, James Gandolfini, Rob Corddry, Craig Robinson, Jonathan Morgan Heit and Tim Dadabo.
James Cameron No Longer Waiting for Movie Tech to Catch Up
(techradar.com)Director James Cameron has revealed to TechRadar that current movie technology is so good that there's not much more Hollywood can do to revolutionise filmmaking.
Speaking to TechRadar at IBC, where the Cameron | Pace Group announced it would be making Walking With Dinosaurs 3D with the BBC, Cameron revealed that he was no longer waiting for technology to catch up to make his movies.
Cameron famously said that Avatar took so long to make as he was waiting for the special effects to evolve so he could tell his story.
According to Cameron, however, this isn't the case anymore.
We are done!
"We have cracked the frame rate issue and there's not more to be done," said Cameron. "I am going to have to spending my entire day on just creative issues.
"We have got colour, we have got widescreen, we've got sound, we've stereophonic sound and stereoscopic projection – we are done!"
This isn't to say that innovations within filmmaking won't happen, according to Cameron, but it will be more like refinement.
"For me now, it is getting good practises for 3D into the home, into the workplace, into our 3D image consumption."
I'm Not Against CG and 3D, But Enough is Enough!
(gamrconnect.vgchartz.com)Just watched an ad for a "3D white" toothpaste! Seriously? I'm almost surprised that when the buzzwords were "compatible" or "multimedia" they didn't make, say, "compatible spaghetti" or "multimedial hamburger". What has this to do with movies? Watching that ad I got angrier against the latest abomination: T
he Smurfs 3D. I'm not against computer graphics, I love original one, and in many sci-fi and fantasy movies it just rocks, but what was born as comics and cartoons must stay that way, computer graphics versions are always, at best just more or less worse than the originals, at worst pure unadulterated shit, like that computer graphics Garfield crap!!! And like this new Smurfs crap, I never was a big Smurfs fan, but compared to what I saw in the trailers, the original cartoons look to me like masterpieces.
The worst offenders in cartoons turned into CG are the eyes, CG is good to make evil and/or not antropomorphic eyes (Sauron, just to make an example), just not good enough yet, but not terrible, for realistic human eyes (Final Fantasy movie) and utter crap for "cartoony" eyes, they look like dull, bloated and uncannily bulging billiard balls, and the attempt made for Papa Smurf and Smurfette to make their eyes look less spherical, working on eyelids and irides, produced an awful result, not smurf-like, languid and even duller than the old dreaded "billiard balls".
Visual Effects Expert: Korean Film Content Needs Global Perspective
(koreaherald.com)The Korean film industry’s production capabilities are extraordinary, but it is unfortunate that the content is still being made for Korean people, an American visual effects expert said at a forum Tuesday.
Ross is former chairman of Digital Domain, a special effects company founded by filmmaker James Cameron, and has worked for more than 100 large special effects projects worldwide. He was the technical director of special effects in “Titanic,” “Terminator 2,” “I, Robot” and “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.”
“I’m a big fan of movies by Chan-wook Park and Joon-ho Bong. Unfortunately, no one sees them because Korean movies are made for Korea,” Ross said in a keynote speech during the 2011 International Digital Content Conference at COEX in southern Seoul.
“(The) Korean film community and content community clearly create great art. But in the stream of global content, they’ve not been a global player.”
Later in a Q&A session with the press, Ross elaborated why Korean films are not very successful in Hollywood.
He said that many Korean films fall into a few categories, including comedies, which do not translate well in other cultures.
They are good at making big special effects and action or adventure films but the content is still “very specific to Korean culture, and they’re shot in Korean language with Korean scriptwriters,” Ross said.
He took an example of director Bong Joon-ho’s “The Host.” The movie’s production budget was about $11 million, which was a relatively inexpensive movie from the Hollywood film industry’s perspective. The total box office revenue of the film reached $89 million.
However, only $2 million in revenue came from the U.S. and the rest, $87 million, mostly from Korea and Japan, he said.
“Everyone thinks their stories, cultures and movies are global content. But that’s not the case. Hollywood movies are global content. I’m not saying I like them but that is the case,” Ross said.
“From a Korean perspective, Korea has to decide whether they want to be in ‘the show’ or ‘the business’ as in art vs. money. Produce the content in English. And it should have global content sensibility,” he said.
Industrial Light & Magic Rep Goes Planet-Hunting
(bigthink.com) NASA will tomorrow announce a new discovery by its Kepler planet-hunting telescope in a press conference featuring astronomers and—oddly—a representative of visual effects company Industrial Light & Magic, a division of Lucasfilm Ltd. Kepler, an Earth-orbiting space observatory was launched in March 2009 to seek an Earth-sized planet orbiting within the "habitable zone" of its star that would enable it to support liquid water, and possibly life.
What's the Big Idea?
The number of confirmed alien planets now stands at more than 600, bolstered by the announcement on Sunday of 50 newfound alien worlds by the European Southern Observatory (ESO). More than 50 new exoplanets — including one "super-Earth" that could potentially support life — have been discovered using data from the HARPS spectrograph in Chile.
List of speakers: http://www.space.com/12938-nasa-kepler-planet-discovery- scifi-ilm-thursday.html
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