"Star Wars: The Complete Saga" Sales Reach $84 Million Worldwide

(Lucasfilm)                   Lucasfilm Ltd. and Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment have announced that "Star Wars: The Complete Saga" broke the global Blu-ray sales record with one million units sold and $84 million in consumer spend:

Lucasfilm Ltd. and Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment announced today that STAR WARS is the bestselling catalog Blu-ray Disc of all time with worldwide sales totaling one million units, including 515,000 units sold in North America in its first week alone. This represents $84 million in worldwide consumer spend including $38 million in North America - unprecedented for a nine-disc Blu-ray collection at a premium price.

The thirteen-month campaign to launch the SAGA Blu-ray and engage consumers around the globe began in August 2010. From Darth Vader at the 2011 Consumer Electronics Show (CES), a first look at San Diego Comic Con, a first-of-its-kind partnership with eBay, to creating the world�s largest lightsaber in the UK, the power of the Force continued to resonate around the world as fans came out in droves to have fun with that galaxy far, far away.

"Once again our fan�s enthusiasm to celebrate Stars Wars continues to amaze us,� said Kayleen Walters, Senior Director, Marketing, Lucasfilm. �Our goal was to deliver a premium product that they could enjoy with their family and friends and we are thrilled that they are enjoying it as much as we hoped they would.




Avatar Cameras For Rent… For $1600 Per Day

(geek.com)                If you’ve been following the video camera market for the past few years then you’ve almost certainly heard of the RED Epic camera. The Epic handles both digital video and still images and is one of the most respected cameras in the business. Unfortunately this kind of quality costs a pretty penny, or, more accurately, 5.8 million pretty pennies. Yep, the RED Epic-M package — complete with the Epic-M brain, Bomb EVF, 5-inch LCD, and more — sells for $58,000.

James Cameron has purchased 50 RED EPIC-M cameras for $2.9 million (I wonder if he got a discount because he bought in bulk). 

Presumably Cameron bought the cameras for Avatar 2 (which is set for release in 2014), but maybe he just wants to give them out as party favors.

Of course, you don’t necessarily need to buy the RED Epic to get your hands on it, you can always rent. Borrow Lenses, purveyors of all sorts of fine camera equipment, are offering up the Epic-M kit at $1600 a day. Or you can rent it out for up to a month for $17500, if you have an extended project that needs to be tackled.

Speaking of projects, check out the video below. That’s the sort of thing the Epic is capable of, which is to say “extremely impressive”. Of course you won’t be able to shoot video just because you laid out the cash to rent the kit, but you can’t exactly shoot video like that without it either.

The Epic-M shoots video at up to 5K resolution, with high speeds shooting ranging up to 200 fps at 2K or 150 fps at 5K. The rental package for this impressive rig doesn’t just include the camera body and the odd lens, you also get gear like a 1.8-inch 128GB SSD storage device and a proprietary camera remote, plus you get a case to put it all in. Ultimately it’s a lot of money, but you get some very cool toys to play with.

Borrow Lenses also has a number of compatible lenses you can rent to use with the Epic kit. Any of the PL mount Zeiss lenses they have in stock should work, such as the Zeiss Compact Prime CP.2 25mm cinema lens. And some good news: these go for only $99 a day.





Twentieth Century Fox to Adapt Isaac Asimov’s ‘The Caves of Steel’

(latinoreview.com)               Twentieth Century Fox plans to adapt the Isaac Asimov’s science fiction mystery novel “The Caves of Steel” on to the big screen.

The studio has hired director Henry Hobson to helm the project. It will be Hobson’s directorial debut. His previous work mainly involved designing main and end titles for several films including “The Help,” “Bad Teacher,” “The Hangover Part II,” and “Sherlock Holmes.”

John A. Scott III is brought to the project as the adaptive screenwriter.

Here is the overview of the novel:

In the future you will walk down the crowded streets of New York City not knowing if the bodies brushing past you are humans or androids. With tensions already mounting between humans and robots, the murder of a Spacer must be handled in a politically-correct fashion so Detective Elijah Baley is assigned a robot partner.

“The Caves of Steel” is the first novel in Asimov’s Robot series that also included “The Naked Sun” and “The Robots of Dawn.”

“The Caves of Steel” was adapted for a BBC broadcast as part of an anthology strand called “Story Parade” in 1964. The television adaptation starred Peter Cushing and John Carson.




A Day In The Life at Aardman VFX
(jaa-editing.com)                   Here's a sample day to show what I presently do at Aardman as the editor in the VFX department on Pirates. My job has evolved a lot since I first started and basically loaded and exported shots, and after 6 months I gained an assistant of my own - which helped a great deal.

Of course, there's no such thing as a typical day in a job like this. Some days are packed full to bursting, others more relaxed. On some days nothing breaks, on others.... well, yes. It changes around a lot. And of course it's all much less segregated than this.

0830 - arrive at work. Switch computers on, and head to the canteen with my cafetiere mug for the first hit of the day.

0835 - load floor plates from the previous day onto the Baselight in the Black Hole. The Black Hole is our windowless room with all surfaces painted black. Some say that all sense of time and space can disappear in there. Our VFX supervisor lives there, and checks outputs from the VFX department for technical issues and flaws - and briefs the artists or supervisors on the necessary changes.

0900 - sit down at my desk, check emails for any urgent tasks and requests, flag the non-urgent ones to follow up later. I use post-its for my To Do list, as they can be easily re-organised as the day progresses and priorities change. As a non-linear editor, it's the only way that really makes sense.

0930 - my assistant arrives, as do other non-floor personnel. The working day begins. My assistant begins negotiations with the floor to make sure that VFX get our 10am time in the viewing theatre for our shot approvals. I update some spreadsheets on the network to reflect the shots which I loaded into the Baselight earlier, with any notes which came through from the floor at the time they were published about take choices (sometimes they film options to decide on at a later date, sometimes two versions are needed for international purposes, action can be split across several plates on greenscreen - there are many possibilities).

1015 - shot approval session in the Viewing Theatre. I used to run this, now my assistant takes care of it owing to the haggling required to get the time and the setup logistical requirements. Our VFX supervisor views the shots which have been submitted for approval, and gives notes on the shots which need further work or fixing. Two 2D passes are made for each stereoscopic eye, and then they are all viewed in stereo to check for issues.

1030 - receive a previz timeline from edit department from yesterday's director review session. This needs to be compared to the previous timeline which we sent to them so that we can tell what the changes are and which slates need to be re-worked to account for timing changes - or where a previous version of a slate has been used instead of the most recent. After conforming, several of the old track layers are added to a copy of the new timeline, to give us easy access to the versions during director reviews. If a slate has been reframed or retimed then it needs to be exported and published (via a linux script) for the artist to use in Maya so that they can match the new version.

1050 - enquiry from VFX coordinator about an edit change previously notified. I check it against the cutting copy timeline and verify/ expand on the note.

1100 - the previz artist is briefed by the VFX Producer on which changes need to be worked up as a result of the editorial director review session. My notes are added to these notes, and the artist who is working on that section of the sequence goes away to make their amendments.

1130 - import shots recently exported by previz/ anim, and place on the timeline. Our VFX anim timelines are for sequences which have been already approved in previz, and are kept separate. If the change is minor or technical in nature, the previous version is pasted over. If there are major changes in positioning, camera angle, or other elements then the new version is added on a higher track. Sometimes alternative (alt) versions are output - either at a director request or because it's something that the artist wanted to try out, so yet another video track (or more) is added for the alts in a sequence.

1230 - pop through to the edit department for a quick catch-up/ chat/ situation report on how they're doing with our requests and vice versa. Email the relevant people in VFX to make sure they are aware of current or forthcoming changes discussed.

1245 - lunch. We have a canteen in the building for the crew to use (at staggered intervals, since there are quite a lot of us now), there are options in the Aztec West business park where we're based, people bring food from home, and there's the option of heading out further afield to the nearby shopping centre to get some chores done at the same time.

1345 - load some more previz/ anim shots into my timelines for the review

1400 - director review. We'll go through a sequence (or part of one) and discuss the things which aren't quite working and how to fix them. Often we'll look at previous versions to see if the suggested change has already been worked up (and possibly rejected because of the surrounding slates at the time), and if not then I'll do some quick tweaking in the Avid to reframe or retime the slate to give everyone an idea of what it may look like when worked up. In certain circumstances the floor will want to shoot a certain shot before the previz is approved, so we'll bung in that shot for the directors and/or HoDs where applicable to view and make any last minute changes in context with the surrounding shots, and then send it off for techviz to translate the Maya scene into technical information for the floor to use and programme into their MoCo rigs to shoot.

1500 - tea break. An absolutely vital part of the day. We have some rather nice cakes available in the canteen from time to time.

1515 - sorting through the emails which have accumulated during the review and responding to them/ relaying information. Most of it tends to be VFX or anim asking for information about the floor plates or current edit, or edit passing on changes which may affect VFX - every shot in the film has VFX, but certain types of shots (e.g. those containing VFX-generated fluids) will be affected more by the types of changes that edit can make than others. I add all of these requests to a list on the network, and make a note of the EDL and reference versions output.

1530 - checking through the recent VFX outputs for shots which should be sent to edit as work-in-progress. There are various stages at which edit are interested in receiving updated versions from VFX for reasons of workflow or aesthetic, and of course once a shot's approved. I cross-reference the cutting copy and a still frame of the latest output to see if the update is worth sending across, and compile a list for my assistant to deal with. There are also several shots which I'll import into my own Avid project - if I need to check that an output's corrected a change requested by edit, or if it's a rendered update of a shot which anim are still working on, which may be requested for reference during an anim review. If the correction looks good, I'll tick it off my edit request list.

1615 - a request for further information from one of the VFX houses we're outsourcing some of our work to. Often this requires cross-referencing cutting copies, notes, EDLs, and several other sources of information to be sure that the answer is as thorough as necessary. It took a while to get used to the linguistic differences between VFX and edity people, and even longer to get precise terms across the boundary - and communicating some requests or requirements without being able to point at a screen and draw squiggly lines underneath certain numbers which link to other squiggly lines... but it's something of a necessity when they're based in other cities.

1645 - a director or HoD comes in to sit with a previz artist and work up a difficult shot. This often requires reference to floor shots and other versions of previz - sometimes a shot from an entirely different sequence can be loaded to help visualise the characters on the real set rather than the previz sets. Our previz sets and characters are significantly more detailed than you may expect, but there can be some discrepancies when dealing with the beautifully intricate Aardman sets which can affect a read on distances and timing.

1730 - gather the last previz outputs for anything which is going to edit. On a duplicated timeline I then condense all of the previz tracks that we keep for options onto one track to make it easier for the editor to use. I drag the sequence into our !!FROM PREVIZ bin which will be picked up by edit across the Unity.

1800 - collect info on what's been shot over the day to load into the Baselight first thing the following morning. Check for any emails which haven't been dealt with or forwarded on to someone better placed to respond. Tidy the Avid bins up a bit.

1830 - end of day. Unless there's a nearby deadline or too many shots have come through or there's an ongoing crisis... you get the idea.

Genuinely though, we do usually leave at a reasonable hour. Part of that seems to be the Aardman way - it's out of London, and there are a lot of employees who have young families who they want to get back to. Plus, the floor stop shooting at 6 and we do like to keep things fair....

I'd love to see others in the post community do posts of this nature and help us all get an insight into the type of work everyone's currently in... but this has also been a good exercise in writing down some of my main tasks to help explain what I've been doing when I'm next looking for work.




Digital Domain IPO: A Game Changer?

(ia4thefuture.blogspot.com)                With all of the recent discussion about the flawed business model which is the basis for the "race to the bottom" and the abysmal economics of our vfx industry; it seems that DD's IPO offers all of us a real opportunity to take a big step towards fixing that model. According to documents filed with the SEC, DD intends to get into the business of creating (and retaining ownership of)content.

Indeed, we've heard rumblings about other illustrious effects companies negotiating in the past, for a piece of the ownership pie. While rolling the dice in the hopes of recouping one's investment in this risky business is always a doubtful proposition, sharing in the upside might just make fx companies turn a profit!! And, when that happens, we all benefit. Even the compositor. :)

 IATSE is waiting patiently and hopefully, on the sidelines. We are prepared to participate in a meaningful way in ensuring that artists are protected and share in any upside of this development. It's worth a try.





Academy Award-Winning Special Effects Expert Vetts Raiders Props

(californiarumor.com)              Movie fans are being offered a whip-cracking good chance of owning a piece of cinematic history – with a new auction of Indiana Jones props. Props from the hit movie Raiders Of The Lost Ark are going under the hammer on 26 June – to coincide with the 30th anniversary of the film's release in 1981. Items set to be auctioned off include one of Indiana Jones' iconic bullwhips [pictured], which has an estimated price of $50,000-$70,000, and a prop golden idol that was also used during filming, which is expected to fetch between $20,000 and $30,000. The props – which are being sold off as part of a larger entertainment memorabilia auction being held at Bonhams & Butterfields, in LA – are accompanied by a letter of provenance from Academy Award-winning special effects expert, Kit West, who was the mechanical effects supervisor on Raiders Of The Lost Ark.




I’m Here to Judge the CGI on "Rise of the Planet of the Apes"

(ktr89.wordpress.com)               The mileage on Rise of the Planet of the Apes will vary. I’m here to judge the CGI of the monkeys/apes of the movie, which has been praised as realistic and groundbreaking. Ever since Avatar, the CGI has been set to a new standard and just so coincidentally, Weta Studios, the co-partners of the CGI behind Avatar, is behind Rise of the Planet of the Apes as well. It’s unfair to compare Rise of the Planet of the Apes’ CGI to Avatar since Avatar had a $300+ million budget, so I’m not going to. I’m here to see how well the CGI was done in the movie and how much it adds to the movie and like I Am Legend, how it takes away from the movie.

Full article:   http://ktr89.wordpress.com/2011/08/31/rise-of-the-planet-of-the-really-bad-cgi/



   
Making Realistic Dinosaurs on a TV Timetable
   
(studiodaily.com)               When executive producer Brannon Braga was hired for Fox’s new series Terra Nova, he was the second person brought onboard. The third, before any other writing or producing staff or cast, was visual-effects supervisor Kevin Blank. “That shows you how important we knew he would be to the success of this series,” says Braga. “Because if we couldn’t pull off this world, there would be no show.”

Terra Nova actually comprises two worlds. In an overcrowded, filthy Chicago of 2149 – where humans require rebreather devices just to stay alive – an accidental discovery of access to a wormhole to the past allows settlement of the Cretaceous period, to give man a second chance. That’s the 85-million-years-ago Cretaceous period, when deadly dinosaurs still roamed the Earth. “They’re two very different worlds, and they’re completely separate,” Blank says.

The issue was not so much whether these worlds could be created on a television budget, but whether they could be created on a television schedule. “The issue here wasn’t the money,” Braga explains. “It comes down to time – that’s the bigger issue.”

There was plenty of time to develop the effects for the two-hour pilot. “But we didn’t want to see a dramatic downturn in the amount of visual effects the audience would see week to week,” Braga says. “So Kevin discovered that he wasn’t going to be able to do things in any way that had been done before.”

No problem for the Emmy-winning visual effects supervisor of series/films such as Fringe (pilot), Alias, Cloverfield and Lost. Deconstructing existing pipelines and giving them a redux is one of his favorite hobbies. “‘This is how this is done here, and this is how long and how much it takes to do that.’ Okay, how do I find efficiencies to make it go faster and cost less?’ That’s kind of my specialty,” he says.

The Difference Between TV and Features

With experience in both the television and feature worlds, Blank began looking at what worked and didn’t work in both production pipelines, to see what could be applied to the Terra Nova universe. Quoting John Parenteau at Pixomondo, the visual effects vendor chosen to produce the show’s animation and effects, he notes, “In feature films, it takes three people to do one shot. And in television, one person does three shots.”

He explains. “In feature film, the visual effects disciplines get compartmentalized. One team does rotoscoping, one team does tracking, another does modeling, another animation. It’s just an assembly line. And moving those things in and out of those departments is something that can take time.”

Full article:   http://www.studiodaily.com/main/news/headlines/Making-Realistic-Dinosaurs-on-a-TV-Timetable_13470.html




Framestore Adopts New MoCap Tech

(PRWEB)              Bringing a new age of motion capture processing to the industry, IKinema™ LTD announced today that the leading VFX house in London, Framestore, has incorporated IKinema technology into its motion capture production pipeline. Chosen for its powerful, fast and remarkably controllable design, IKinema's inverse kinematics (IK) solver is now the key motion capture solving and retargeting tool that Framestore uses to create special effects and animation for both its broadcast and VFX projects.

"The IKinema solver is a fantastic solution for a wide range of skeleton control issues," said Nicolas Scapel, head of rigging at Framestore. "By using IKinema's advanced solver settings and its extremely flexible constraint system, we have been able to iteratively improve our solving solution and accuracy. With the ability to easily reproduce this same setup script on many shots, we will be shaving days and weeks off our production time."

Once Framestore integrated IKinema into its core motion capture pipeline, the results they had been hoping for began to appear. It is now possible to take tracked and filtered point cloud data from mocap software and easily animate a high-resolution skeleton by assigning their data to a linked set of joints. This process can be scripted via IKinema SDK and reused on every future take, which saves time by producing high-quality results.

Current Film projects include: "War Horse," "Gravity," "Johnny English Reborn," "Captain America: The First Avenger," "Clash of the Titans 2," "Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows" and "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy."




Romancing the Oscar - Academy Issues New Screening Rules

(bts.backstage.com)                 The Board of Governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences set some new rules concerning campaigning today.

The New Rules:   http://bts.backstage.com/2011/09/new-rules-oscar-version.html




Pirates of the Caribbean Upgrade Cancelled: No Jack Sparrow Animatronic for Paris?

(dlrptoday.com)              Never trust a pirate, eh. For months it has seemed a sure-fire certainty: Jack Sparrow audio animatronics to finally join Pirates of the Caribbean for 20th Anniversary! But now it looks like the big Pirates of the Caribbean refurbishment planned for early next year has been curtailed and the addition of Jack Sparrow animatronics cancelled — at least for 2012. According to several sources on the French Disney Central Plaza forum, including La Rouquine,  the originally planned closure of 3 months early next year to account for the changes has now been cut back to just 2 weeks. Moderator Dash adds that he learnt last week the new additions were cancelled again due to budgetary reasons.

The movie overlay, which was given to the US versions as long ago as 2006, was never publicly announced by Disneyland Paris, only confirmed internally, so we should note that for us the resort is not technically “cancelling” anything. It was first strongly rumoured for the Paris version of the attraction during the 15th Anniversary, before again appearing to be on the cards for the New Generation Festival in 2010, and then again for the current Magical Moments Festival to tie in with the fourth film, “On Stranger Tides”. This year’s 20th Anniversary plans were the closest the make-over — which could include up to three Jack Sparrow audio-animatronics, Barbossa as captain of the marauding ship, a Davy Jones mist-screen projection and other technical upgrades — ever got to reality.

While Pirates purists might raise a bottle of rum to the news that the Disneyland Paris version of the attraction will remain (for at least a little while longer) in its own world, untouched by the movies’ characters, consider what you’re drinking up to, me ‘hearties. Is the cancellation of a three-month spruce-up for this 20-year old masterpiece really a good thing? Couldn’t it stand to benefit from new technology, from improved lighting, effects and music? A robotic Johnny Depp might be a price to pay for that, but it’s probably the only (marketable) way such an upgrade would happen right now.

However, continuing the annual almost-but-not-quite game, DynastyGo reports the refurbishment is not cancelled but simply postponed, to the next financial year. But what do you think — has Disneyland Paris already missed its “opportune moment” to capitalise on the success of Captain Jack?