(tgdaily.com) When Jurassic Park cemented the power of CGI, the genie was definitely out of the bottle for good. There’s been a lot of great CGI since, and a lot of terrible movies that rely on it way too much as well.
There’s also always been the worry of whether it would ever one day eliminate physical effects and special effects make-up, which would be a terrible tragedy for many film buffs.
The CGI conundrumAs make-up artist Eddie Yang once told me, "The fact that I could make a living doing make-up effects was a dream come true. It was always in the back of my mind that one day this might be around. With Jurassic Park, I think that’s when everybody started getting scared!"
Years back when George Romero was making his comeback film, Land of the Dead, some of the gore had to be done with CGI, simply because he wasn't able to create some of the insane ideas for zombie deaths with physical make-up on the set.
The CGI effects actually looked better than I expected, but clearly Romero wasn’t thrilled working with the technology, because when I told him I liked how one CG effect looked, he replied, "That’s your problem."
Yet speaking with a number of make-up artists, I was surprised to learn they weren’t as anti-CGI as many in the film geek community are . As much as it affected the make-up business, Yang continues, "I saw the transition, but I don’t blame CGI, because the freedom you have with it is incredible. If I were directing a film, I’d want that freedom too."
Although make-up master Rick Baker told me that CGI "kind of whiped out the rubber monster business to a degree, we’re definitely not building as many suits for things as we once did," he added. "I embrace the technology. Now kids can do movie quality work on a laptop for hardly any money, and I can’t wait to see what kind of filmmakers kids are now going to be."
CGIA lot of make-up FX masters like Tom Savini transitioned into consulting on films, and they often design the monsters for others to flesh out via make-up of CGI.
"My feeling is CGI makes it better," Savini says. "It used to be a challenge to try and create what was in the script. Now anything you can imagine can be created on the screen. I don’t think you’ll see make-up guys hanging out on corners with signs that say: WILL DO EFFECTS FOR FOOD."
18 Films Submitted to Oscar’s Best Animated Feature Race
(movieline.com)
There’s good news and… well, more good news about this year’s race for the Best Animated Feature Oscar. First, the number of submissions — 18 — exceeds the minimum of 16 required for a year of five nominees. (Last year only netted 15 submissions, and thus three nominees, as if anybody was going to knock off Toy Story 3 anyway.) And with a soft year for the likes of both Pixar and DreamWorks Animation, that means the field is pretty wide open for the first time in a while. What can win?
Here are your options:
· The Adventures of Tintin
· Alois Nebel
· Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked
· Arthur Christmas
· Cars 2
· A Cat in Paris
· Chico & Rita
· Gnomeo & Juliet
· Happy Feet Too
· Hoodwinked Two! Hood Vs. Evil
· Kung Fu Panda 2
· Mars Needs Moms
· Puss in Boots
· Rango
· Rio
· The Smurfs
· Winnie the Pooh
· Wrinkles
One word: Rango. It’s the best-reviewed film on the list, it’s an international hit (with less than half of Cars 2 or Kung Fu Panda 2’s global gross, but exponentially more cultural goodwill), and it’s a rare chance for George Lucas — whose Industrial Light and Magic produced the revelatory animation — to throw his weight around in the awards ring. Tintin’s motion-capture stylings remain fraught with technical ambiguities about which the Academy is notoriously prickly, The Smurfs is half-live-action, and Disney’s otherwise weak crop of competition includes a 63-minute bonbon and one of the biggest flops ever.
Rio, Puss in Boots and Happy Feet Too are probably locks for nominations as well. Chico and Rita has a solid shot to sneak in as well — not as a huge influencer by any means, but rather as the token foreign-language offering with a ’50s-era romance spanning Havana, New York, Las Vegas and beyond.
Warners Readies Third Clash with Titans
(awn.com) Despite the fact that the second installment isn't due out until next year, Warner Bros. is getting ready for a third installment of the CLASH OF THE TITANS franchise, reports Heat Vision. Dan Mazeau and David Leslie Johnson have been tapped to develop a treatment. The duo penned the second film's script with Steven Knight and devised the story with Greg Berlanti. Producers Basil Iwanyk and Polly Johnsen, WRATH OF THE TITANS director Jonathan Liebesman and star Sam Worthington are all expected to return.
Ubisoft Retains Creative Control On 'Assassin's Creed' Movie
(latinoreview.com)Ubisoft Retains Creative Control On 'Assassin's Creed' Movie As both gamers and moviegoers no, no good comes of adapting a video game for the big screen. The constant failures are baffling. What can be easier to adapt to the big screen than a game? They're cinematic! Half of a game is cut scenes that could just be recreated and fleshed out!
Ubisoft knows this better than anyone. They've seen one of their games mangled -- "The Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time" -- and they're determined not to let it happen with their iconic and popular series, "Assassin's Creed," which is set to get the big screen treatment with Sony. The game developers have wrestled an incredible amount of creative control from the studio, demanding approval over every aspect of the film -- the script, casting, release date, and budget. They even have won the right to can the entire project should it not meet with their approval.
While studios are spitting over this deal -- DreamWorks was one of the first to pass, as studio head Steven Spielberg was unwilling to grant that kind of license -- it's worth nothing that Ubisoft is putting up a lot of their own money to finance the movie. They also have a very popular game franchise to protect.
While some anonymous studio executives are furious, noting only they know how to make movies and video game developers do not, you have to ask yourself whether Ubisoft could do any worse than Disney, Paramount, Fox, etc. have with the game properties they've adapted.
1000 Extras Needed for Iron Man 3
(comingsoon.net) Premiere Casting (via On Location Vacations) recently revealed on their Facebook page that about 1,000 extras will be needed for the filming of Iron Man 3 in Wilmington, North Carolina. Their post read:
Received an email this morning. Iron Man 3 will use about 1,000 extras during the film and there will be over 550 crew jobs and will be shooting from May 2012 until January 2013 with a Memorial Day weekend release in 2013.
Ridley Scott On CGI And 3D In 'Prometheus'
(latinoreview.com)Director Ridley Scott has chosen to return to the genre that made him famous, sci-fi after a number of years of absence. In the time that he's been away, the genre has changed exponentially. Because he had no choice really, Scott was the master of crafting a sci-fi with minimal use of computer-generated imagery. These days, a big budget and CGI go hand in hand. It's something that Scott has had to adapt to.
In an interview with Speak Easy, he expressed that he has "completely taken off into this cyberworld," and assured that 'Prometheus' is "the best time I’ve had in a number of years making a movie." He admits that he embraced "all the tricks, the toys" of the trade in regards to CGI use and 3D, but also said: "I’m a great believer in filming the real thing if you can and so I did a lot of building the real thing."
It's hard to predict the future of 3D, but it does seem to be here for the long haul, and as for CGI, it's not going anywhere. It has become too much of a staple of film these days. It's like saying that props will one day disappear. With Scott's notion that he won't use the technologies unless the gravity of the scene calls for it, you can tell that he has the right idea. CGI just for the sake of CGI rarely turns out well, but when it's building upon an already sound fundamental base, the outcome can be a seamless thing of beauty.
One little tidbit that Scott mentioned -- which may be construed as a spoiler -- is that the last eight minutes of the film has the much talked about "DNA of the 'Alien' one."
With a cast featuring Michael Fassbender, Charlize Theron, Guy Pearce, Noomi Rapace, Idris Elba, and Patrick Wilson, 'Prometheus' and Scott's treatment of it will be revealed to the masses next summer on June 8, 2012.
Zemeckis' Gnome Attack Film Finds Writers
(awn.com) Sony Pictures Animation and Imagemovers have tapped Chad Damiani and JP Lavin (MAX STEEL) to adapt Chuck Sambuchino's novel HOW TO SURVIVE A GARDEN GNOME ATTACK, reports Deadline.com. Robert Zemeckis is eying the live-action/animation hybrid as a directing gig. He will produce with ImageMovers' Jack Rapke and Steve Starkey and The Gotham Group’s Ellen Goldsmith-Vein and Eric Robinson. The book is a guide for home owners whose garden ornaments turn on them.
Yogi Bear 2 Finds Rio Writers
(awn.com) Warner Bros. has tapped RIO's Joshua Sternin and Jeffrey Ventimilia to write YOGI BEAR 2, reports Variety. Donald De Line and Karen Rosenfelt are back to produce alongside exec producer Andrew Haas.
Sternin and Ventimilia were credited with the original film alongside Brad Copeland. The surprise hit featured Dan Aykroyd as Yogi and Justin Timberlake as Boo-Boo.
Jon Berg will shepherd for Warners.
'Iron Man VFX are Nothing in Front of Ra.One VFX'
(BUSINESSOFCINEMA.COM)MUMBAI: Shah Rukh Khan today organized a special screening of his movie Ra.One for close friends and Team One at Yash Raj Studios in Mumbai.
Director Anubhav Sinha, Yash Chopra, Gauri Khan, members of Eros team, Karan Johar, Arjun Rampal and Bhushan Kumar were amongst the guest list.
Since evening Yash Raj Studios’ premises were full of excited technicians & crew members who had worked on Ra.One for months, and today for the first time the complete film was being showed to few selected people. They too watched the film along with the special guests. The screening theatre was packed. Many of the guests present at the screening couldn’t control their tears.
Our source says, “Before the screening everybody knew they were going in for a very good film, as they have seen the promos – the VFX, the songs, the music, and above all – Shah Rukh Khan. But we were stunned. We now have no words to say. We are absolutely speechless, and so is everybody.”
“What just happened! Ra.One is beyond a movie. It’s just outstanding. The special effects of Iron Man are nothing in front of the effects used in Ra.One,” the source adds.
All the celebrity guests were shocked to see such brilliance, and everybody rushed to the director Anubhav Sinha. One guest went on to say, “Anubhav is now going to make Hollywood copy us! Ra.One is sheer genius, the movie is not just a superhero flick where there is a good vs bad battle, and it is more than that. It makes you cry, especially the journey of a relationship between father and son is beyond words. That will make everyone cry.”
Shah Rukh Khan remained unavailable for comments, but the man of the moment after the screening was Anubhav Sinha. Not a single person was such who went home without congratulating Anubhav Sinha, even after waiting for their turn for that.
After the screening Shah Rukh Khan tweeted, "Everyone seemed to enjoy the Ra.One experience at the trial.Allah has been very kind to all of us & I hope all of u appreciate the newness."
‘Tintin’ Already Travels the World with $125m in His Pocket
(filmschoolrejects.com)The Reject ReportWhat? Tintin? I know what you’re thinking. “I know we had Daylight Saving Time this morning, Jeremy, but you’re taking this “time travel” business a little too far, aren’t you?”
You’ve probably notice we’re still at the beginning of November and haven’t been transported magically to December 21st when The Adventures of Tintin gets its US release, and you’d be both observant and right. However, Tintin, world figure that he is, got his release in several foreign markets on October 26th-28th. The ignorant American that I am didn’t bother to address this until now. Well, here you go, foreign markets. It’s your day to shine.
The Adventures of Tintin has already pulled in $125.3m in foreign territories, pretty much guaranteeing its worldwide success well before its North American release. The film is already generated income from over 5000 locations in 21 foreign markets, but most of its dollars have come from the United Kingdom and France so far. It made $21 million from France last weekend and $10.9m from the UK. Spain and Germany were also big markets for the film, pulling over $10m from the locations combined.
Foreign and worldwide box office isn’t a factor many of us consider when we’re talking box office. Part of that is how much more films make in the United States compared to foreign markets. Another part of this is how few headlines foreign box office make. However, a dollar is a dollar is a dollar, and it all spends the same way. Okay, soap box has been removed. Back to the domestic news.
Puss in Boots had an incredible second weekend drop, 3% in all, and was able to once again take the #1 spot with another “over $30m” weekend.
Can Steven Spielberg's 'Tintin' Save Motion-Capture Animation?
(reuters.com) Seven months after "Mars Needs Moms" led to questions about the future of motion-capture animation, Steven Spielberg is showing that audiences might not have totally rejected the technique, after all.
Spielberg's "The Adventures of Tintin" is off to a promising start at the interational box office, opening to $55.8 million abroad this weekend. It was No. 1 in 17 out of the 19 territories it debuted in.
In France, where "Tintin" enjoyed the biggest opening ever for an original, non-sequel Hollywood film, the movie took in $21.5 million on 935 screens.
Also read: Spielberg's 'Tintin' Opens Strong in Europe
"You couldn’t ask for a film that’s more immersive and incredible to look at than 'Tintin,'" said Rory Bruer, president of worldwide distribution at Sony, which shares international distribution rights with Paramount Pictures International. "There’s no doubt about it. It just draws you into it, and it just is quite an amazing feat visually. Spectacular actually."
He noted that the character of Tintin, based on a comic book by Belgian artist Georges Remi (known also as "Herge"), is better known in Western Europe than in the United States.
Also read: Oscar Buzz: Raves for 'Tintin,' Lights Out for 'J. Edgar'
In "Tintin," which Spielberg directed and Peter Jackson produced, young adventurer Tintin and his friend Capt. Haddock search for a sunken treasure ship that was commanded by one of Haddock's ancestors.
"I think Herge would be smiling with the work they accomplished with the character in the film," Bruer said.
The movie enjoyed strong numbers across Europe: It was No. 1 in the U.K., where it grossed $10.7 million.
This weekend alone, the movie grossed $2.1 million from 169 screens in Herge's home nation, $1.9 million from 297 screens in Sweden, $1.8 million from 174 screens in Switzerland, $1.6 million on 221 screens in Denmark and $1.3 million on 250 screens in Holland and $1.3 million in Italy.
In Spain, it grossed $6.7 million on 798 screens -- 50 percent of the country's entire market and nearly 10 times as much as what that nation's No. 2 film grossed. In Germany, "Tintin" took $4.6 million on 847 screens.
By contrast, "Mars Needs Moms" was such a flop, Disney shut down its motion-capture animation division, which was run by the movie's producer, Robert Zemeckis. And it canceled Zemeckis' plan to make a motion-capture version of The Beatles' "Yellow Submarine."
Reaction was so bad, in fact, the New York Times wrote that it "may lead to the end for the Zemeckis style of motion-capture filmmaking, which has proven increasingly unpopular with audiences."
"Tintin," however, is disproving that theory.
"When something is captured in such an incredible way that just feels so real and immersive, I don't think you could have done it any better," Bruer said.
He continued that he expects the strong international reaction will translate to big audiences when it opens in the United States Dec. 21.
"It's going to give it an extra boost for people to embrace this incredible story," he said. "The press has been very good, of course, and it's going to make it resonate in the U.S. even that much more."
Paramount is handling the film's domestic release.
"There's going to be a tremendous box office already accumulated by the time it gets here," Bruer said.
How 2012 is Shaping up to be a Golden Year for Animated Movies
(denofgeek.com) There’s a school of thinking that, right now, we’re going through something of a second golden age of animation. The difference this time, though, is that this isn’t being driven by one company. Rather, that for the first time in the history, the mainstream movie animation industry has at least eleven companies capable of producing a strong animated movie.
If you want proof of that, firstly, take a glance at this year. ILM burst into the animation industry (an area where it’s arguably existed for some time) with the superb Rango (still in my top five films of the year, and still thoroughly awesome), for starters.
We’ve also had Disney going close to its roots with Winnie The Pooh and Tangled, the joy of a new Aardman movie incoming (Arthur Christmas, which it produced in conjunction with Sony’s animation studio), and fun projects out of the blue, such as Gnomeo & Juliet. Throw in two decent-to-very good DreamWorks films, Pixar’s Cars 2, and Fox’s Rio, and it’s hard to remember quite when the schedules were so packed.
But what about next year? Well, there are some massively exciting projects on the cards, and I’m going to list them in order of my personal anticipation of them. It’s one of those lovely lists, though, where most of the films on it are really shaping up to be something quite special (I've kept it to mainstream, English language animated films, incidentally. It gets even better if you look further afield).
Let's start, then, with the film that promises to be the animated treat to beat in 2012...
The Pirates! In An Adventure With Scientists
You wait five years for an Aardman movie, and then two of them come along at once.
Considering that the firm’s first full-length feature was Chicken Run, released back in 2000, it’s staggering in the modern era that The Pirates! In An Adventure With Scientists is only its fifth (although there are far more strings to Aardman's bow than films alone).
It’s testament to how much time and craft that goes into an Aardman movie, particularly given that The Pirates! is a stop-motion project, albeit one that's going to blend in some CG background work. Heck, you try making water using stop motion techniques.
Wreck-It Ralph
Disney is releasing a trio of animated movies next year, and for the first time in a long, long time, it’s the one from Walt Disney Feature Animation itself that’s sounding the most interesting. Ladies and gentlemen, meet Wreck-It Ralph.
Perhaps it’s the nerd in me, but the idea of an animated film based around an 8-bit computer game character who finds himself in the modern gaming world sounds like somebody had tapped a film plot directly into the ticket-buying segment of my brain. It's worked, too.
I suppose the concern here is that the film doesn’t live up to the idea, but that’s a harsh thing to knock a movie for at this stage. From what little we’ve seen, this is a love letter to classic videogames, featuring many familiar characters for those who have been feeding coins into arcade machines for the past few years.
ParaNorman
A stop motion film that may have been off many people’s radar until the recent unveiling of the trailer for it, this one comes out a month prior to Tim Burton’s Frankenweenie (which we’re coming to shortly), but it sounds like the pair could make a perfect double bill.
Directed by Chris Butler (who worked on Coraline and Corpse Bride) and Sam Fell (who directed the brilliant Flushed Away), ParaNorman is the story of a boy who can speak with the dead. And, as a consequence, it’s up to him to save his town from zombies, ghosts and adults.
Thus far, the film looks like it might just capture some of the spirit of the woefully-underappreciated Monster House, and if it can do that, ParaNorman might be one of the geeky sleeper hits of 2012. And, as the trailer points out, it's from the makers of Coraline. And Coraline was and is utterly brilliant...
Frankenweenie
Stop motion animation fans are being spoiled in 2012, not least because Halloween will see the arrival of Tim Burton’s latest entry into the genre, Frankenweenie.
This is the project that extends Burton’s brilliant 80s short film into a feature, and he’s chosen stop motion as his medium of choice for it. Furthermore, it’s being presented in black and white, too.
In terms of visual style, it’s not a million miles away from Corpse Bride, and the attention to detail on that movie is clearly being replicated here. I only temper my sizeable excitement for Frankweenie with the thought that it worked exceptionally well at half an hour, and that I was underwhelmed by Corpse Bride itself, as wonderful as it looked.
Frankenweenie, though, has real, real promise, and I’ve been lucky enough to have a peak behind the scenes at the production. It does look, genuinely, quite staggering, and the short reel of footage I saw is clearly having a lot of fun with lots of horror motifs. Personally, I was immensely encouraged after seeing it. It feels a bit more old school Tim Burton, and that’s something I’m keen to see more of.
Brave
It’s odd to come to Pixar so far down the list, even with the aforementioned caveat of quality outlined at the start. There’s little question that Pixar has been the groundbreaker where quality animated films of the past fifteen years or so has been concerned. Sure, Cars 2 was a disappointment, but it doesn’t suddenly mean that Pixar is any the less interesting.
In fact, with Brave it’s quietly taking another sizeable gamble. Because this is Pixar working mainly where Disney itself prefers to tread, in the world of fairy stories. In this case, Brave is a fairy story set in Scotland, and from the brief teaser trailer released thus far, it looks gorgeous. With a bit of luck, we might get a fuller trailer before the year is out.
What interests me the most is that we get Brenda Chapman directing again. Chapman was one of the co-directors of DreamWorks’ maiden hand drawn animated film, The Prince Of Egypt, and this is her first full length feature since. She’s directing here with Mark Andrews, and it’s his feature film debut, having previously helmed the terrific Pixar short, One Man Band.
I’ve high hopes for Brave, and its presence here is less an indicator of how Pixar has fallen, because it hasn’t. Rather, the competition has got a lot, lot tougher. And that has to be a good thing.
Rise Of The Guardians
My suspicion is that 2013 is the year we see the very best of DreamWorks Animation again, as each of its three projects due out that year – The Croods, Turbo, Me And My Shadow – look really interesting. If I had to pick one out of that lot right now, it’d be The Croods, primarily because it’s being directed by Kirk De Micco and Chris Sanders. Sanders is the man who co-directed the brilliant Lilo & Stitch and How To Train Your Dragon, and I’m pretty much happy to buy a ticket for any film he makes right now.
Rise Of The Guardians, though, looks like it might be something special, too, and it's always folly to write a DreamWorks project off. It’s based on the books by William Joyce, and he’s co-directing with Peter de Ramsey. It’s the full length feature directorial debut for both of them, and their film unites the Easter Bunny, Tooth Fairy, Santa Claus and the Sandman in a fight against the Bogeyman. I'm up for that.
It sounds like an Avengers for childhood fictional characters. If it can resist the urge to go into territory that the Shrek franchise pretty much saturated, then it might prove to be the surprise of the year. DreamWorks has done that before, remember.
The Lorax
Out of seemingly nowhere, Illumination Entertainment produced Despicable Me in 2010, to strong reviews and even better box office. The sequel is in production now, for a 2013 release. And while I was less keen on Hop, the firm’s second movie (I’m growing increasingly tired of animation/live action hybrids in general, truth be told, and I've left them all out of this list), I’m far, far more interested in the big screen adaptation of Dr Seuss’ The Lorax.
It’s one of Seuss’ lesser known tales, certainly, but producer Chris Meladandri has form in this area, having produced the film of Dr Seuss’ Horton Hears A Who! whilst at Fox. Horton was and is a terrific movie.
Furthermore, The Lorax is being directed by Chris Renaud, one of the directing team on Despicable Me, and Pixar alumnus Kyle Balda (he was directing animator on Toy Story 2, amongst other movies).
It’s a CG animated film, and the first trailer for it has now been released, showing real promise. Illumination pulled a real surprise with Despicable Me, and there’s every chance if may repeat the trick here. It's almost guaranteed to have the best facial hair in animation in 2012, too.
Hotel Transylvania
There's something about animated fare with a bit of a macabre twist next year, and the new release from Sony Pictures Animation is keen to jump aboard this particular trend.
It's releasing, next September, Hotel Transylvania, a film directed by Genndy Tartakovsky. Tartakovsky has worked on the likes of Dexter's Laboratory, Samurai Jack and Star Wars: The Clone Wars thus far, and the small screen is proving to be a fertile ground for animation movie diretors. Lest we forget, after all, the mighty Brad Bird cut his teeth on The Simpsons.
It's a film that's flying under the radar a little at the moment, as it sort of is on this list, too. It's a 3D computer animated movie, set around a hotel for monsters. It's owned by Dracula, and the focus is on his daughter, who has eyes for a man called Jonathan who happens to come visiting.
It looks like the movie is going to have a lot of fun with the world that Bram Stoker set out in his Dracula novel. We hope so, certainly. The movie has, incidentally, attracted the voice talent of Adam Sandler, Kevin James and David Spade, but rest assured, all three of them have been kept away from the script.
The movie is currently set for release in September, which may end up pitting it against Paranorman. A pity, if true. There might just be room for both of them, but I'd hate to see one knock the other out.
Madagascar 3
I can’t really raise a lot of enthusiasm for Madagascar 3, sadly. And I do accept, as I said before, that DreamWorks is capable of pulling many surprises with its movies. I find there's something to enjoy in pretty much all of them.
With Madagascar, I love the penguins, as is the law, but these feel more production line sequels to keep the anklebiters happy, than anything likely to trouble older viewers. That’s absolutely fine, too, as animated movies do need to appeal to a real spectrum of people. A film for youngsters, with a U or G certificate, is becoming something of a rarity.
The problem is that the Madagascar films, while occasionally funny and dripping in detail, are the favourites of nobody over the age of twelve, from what I can measure. Were this a website with a different demographic, Madagascar 3 may be further up the list, therefore. And the same can be said for...
Ice Age: Continental Drift
They’ve done themselves few favours with the Ice Age franchise over the years (well, apart from financially). Scrat used to be a fun supporting character, and, aware that he was the best thing in the original film, he’s got more and more important to the movies. But that’s a problem, because he’s, as a result, not quite the comic relief he once was.
I sat through the last Ice Age film and can barely remember a thing about it, short of the fact that it was reasonably entertaining, and on its way out of my brain even before the end credits were done. It's a nice indictment of the industry, to be fair, that even the less interesting movies are still solid. And I'm confidenct that Ice Age: Continental Drift will be entirely competent and perfectly entertaining, But it’s going to have to take a few gambles to keep all but the youngest viewers interested. It may yet do.
And then there’s...
I couldn't tell you too much about the planned Dorothy Of Oz, which is also on the release roster for 2012. Its voice talent is certainly not to be sniffed at (Patrick Stewart and Kelsey Grammer, for starters). When I find out more, apart from the obvious link to The Wizard Of Oz, I'll pass the details on.
Meanwhile, there's a further treat for animation fans. The success of The Lion King has meant that Disney is rolling out re-releases of some of its other older films, with a 3D retrofit bolted on. First up, in January, will be the immortal Beauty And The Beast, and Pixar’s Finding Nemo will follow in autumn 2012. I’d like to see more of these, and I’d like DreamWorks to have a go at re-releasing both Antz and The Prince Of Egypt on the big screen, too. Here’s hoping.
Finally, just to note that 2013 is looking far from shabby, too. Not least because Henry Selick, one of the finest animation directors on the planet, is reported to have a new film out. Given that he's helmed The Nightmare Before Christmas and Coraline to date, that's something worth marking in your diary right now...
Effects Master Returns to Roots, Creature-Feature Style
(nctimes.com)A few years ago, Jim Davidson went old school. In essence, he went to the place he was before, and hasn't looked back since.
The special-effects master had completed 20 years working on Hollywood movies, but things were changing. The craftsmanship of making creatures and designing effects had been replaced by the easier means to an end ---- computer-generated animation.
Davidson, who had loved handmade special effects and creatures since childhood, realized he wanted no part of this particular future. He moved from the San Fernando Valley back to his Vista hometown.
"Computer generation sucked all of the fun out of the business," Davidson said. "It turned effects into a cubicle job. It wasn't necessarily an easy decision to make, but it was really my only choice."
No worries for Davidson, though. Five years ago, he created Fantamation Studios, a workshop in his Vista home, and has since made a living creating sci-fi/fantasy models of original and famous movie-creature characters and scenes, along with stop-motion replica puppets. Davidson, 46, doesn't mass-produce the items, though; he takes on very specific jobs for avid collectors who pay for his talent. The retro move allowed Davidson to go back to his childhood interests.
"I started out with dinosaurs when I was 3 or 4," he said. "Then I saw 'One Million Years B.C.' and got to know the work of my hero, effects master Ray Harryhausen. When 'Star Wars' came out when I was in junior high school, I knew where I was headed. I started doing art work and sculptures when I was a teenager. I couldn't get enough of it. I read every book I could find. I would do anything to learn how effects were done."
Davidson was a huge fan of the creatures of film's early years, but he was also coming of age at a time when handmade effects were reaching a zenith ---- those 'Star Wars' years that inspired him so much. Davidson went on to Palomar College in the mid-'80s, met people with similar interests, and through the connections of one college friend, soon began working in Hollywood.
Davidson worked effects on "Terminator 2," "Batman Returns," "Titanic," "The Cat in the Hat" and dozens of other films. Progress arrived, though, and Davidson split.
"I loved my time working on big-budget movies, but the new movie industry was so boring, and it wasn't something I could enjoy," Davidson said. "Of course, I had to figure out what I was going to do next. I started out doing sculptures of famous monsters, then I started getting commission work, these sculptures, from memorabilia collectors."
Two years ago, Davidson was commissioned to do a "Star Wars"-themed Tauntaun replica puppet (the white-furred creatures from the ice planet Hoth that look like kangaroo/bighorn sheep hybrids). From there his work took off, with attention from collectors worldwide.
This summer, his replica puppets were the subject of a cover story in U.K.-based "Sci-fi & Fantasy Modeller," an international trade magazine for modeling hobbyists.
"I'm using my old skills, but there's a difference," he said. "For Hollywood films, whatever we were working on only had to last the duration of the film. With what I'm doing now, the replicas need to last forever. I had to learn about the latest materials, so that the replicas won't decay."
A visit to Davidson's website at www.fantamationstudio.com shows his beloved King Kong creations, along with numerous other commissioned pieces. He now plans to start making experimental animation and short films showcasing his work, while reintroducing to audiences the art of hand-crafted effects and creatures.
"I enjoy making a static piece of art with my own hands," Davidson said. "I go a step further and bring that static piece of art to life. That's my passion."
3 Success Tips from George Lucas
(community.telustalksbusiness.com) Today we're going to look at how a young man who wanted to become a professional race car driver changed his career choice after connecting with the right mentor and rose to the top of his industry. This is the story of Star Wars creator George Lucas and the top 3 lessons that you can learn from his success.
"The secret is not to give up hope. It’s very hard not to because if you’re really doing something worthwhile I think you will be pushed to the brink of hopelessness before you come through the other side. You just have to hang in through that." - George Lucas
Full article with tips: http://community.telustalksbusiness.com/blogs/ talk_business/2011/11/08/3- success-tips-from-george-lucas
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