Weta Ready for More Oscar Glory

(stuff.co.nz)             Weta Digital is up for more Oscar glory.

The ground-breaking New Zealand visual effects company has been nominated for an Academy Award for best visual effect for its work on the Rise of the Planet of the Apes.

Senior visual effects supervisor, Joe Letteri, Dan Lemmon, R. Christopher White and New Zealander Daniel Barrett are all up for the award.

Barrett was the animation supervisor for The Planet of the Apes and this is his first academy award nomination.

"I know I'll have to put a tux on but beyond that I'm not sure what to expect, " said the 38-year-old.

"I'm looking forward to the whole experience and to bringing my wife."

Weta Digital will be battling some tough contenders. George Lucas' Industrial Light & Magic was honoured for its work on Transformers: Dark of the Moon, as was Warner Brothers for Tim Burke's stewardship of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2.

Also joining the field of five is Pixomondo's Rob Legato and his team for their efforts on Hugo, and Digital Domain's Erik Nash and his charges, who created the effects for Real Steel.

"I think we all stand an even chance," said Barrett.

"I've seen all the work on the other films and I think there is some stunning work. I think Apes looks good but the others also look good."

One of the big surprise omissions of the Academy Award announcement was The Adventures of Tintin was left out of all categories except for best musical score.

Steven Spielberg's rollicking adventure won both the Golden Globe and Producers Guild Award for animated feature and many expected it to be shoo-in for a nomination.

Some critics suggest the academy isn’t ready for motion capture performance, whether it be animation, as in Tintin or live-action, as in visual effects nominee Rise of the Planet of the Apes, which featured Andy Serkis as Caesar the chimp.

Barrett strongly believed Serkis' performance was a stand-out and that "animated" performances will gain more prominence in film.

"What you see with Caesar is it's Andy’s performance, I can’t see that being much different from anyone wearing prosthetic make-up.”

VIDEO - Take a look:   http://www.stuff.co.nz/entertainment/film/6313229/Weta-ready-for-more-Oscar-glory




Superhero Comic  "The Weapon" Heads Into Big Screen Development

(SuperHeroHype)              

  Platinum Studios, Inc. announced today they are now developing a big screen adaptation of comic book series "The Weapon." Scott Rosenberg, CEO of Platinum Studios and producer of Cowboys & Aliens, will act as producer on the film.

"The Weapon" is about a martial arts enthusiast, Tommy Zhou, that has discovered a means to create solid objects from light -- and invented a superhero persona to promote it, The Weapon. Not believing the legends his grandfather told him as a child, Zhou's inventions unsuspectingly make him the target of a millennia-old assassin cult that's convinced he's unlocked the ancient mystical techniques of the Order of Wu-Shi-'The Way of the Weapon.'

"We believe 'The Weapon' will be an attractive project for both international film financers and Hollywood producers," says Scott Rosenberg. "This property is one of those with enormous franchise potential."

"The Weapon" is written by New York Times bestselling author Fred Van Lente. Van Lente is also the bestselling author of "Marvel Zombies," "Incredible Hercules" (with Greg Pak), "Odd Is On Our Side" (with Dean R. Koontz), as well as the "Cowboys & Aliens" graphic novel.




DreamWorks Financing Exhausted - Execs To Decide On Sustainability of Studio

(economictimes.indiatimes.com)                 Movie fans are fretting over where to peg "War Horse" and "The Help" in the Oscar pool. But Hollywood is pondering something else: What becomes of DreamWorks Studios, the boutique studio behind those films?

The 10 nominations between the two movies, including best picture for each, have made DreamWorks a strong contender for honors on Oscar night, February 26. The two dramas already lead the best picture pack at the box office, with "War Horse" passing "Moneyball" over the weekend, according to estimates, to become the second most popular nominee, behind "The Help," which had domestic ticket sales of about $170 million.

Behind the scenes, however, executives at DreamWorks and its partners are quietly opening discussions that in the next few months will determine its future and answer a broader question about the state of Hollywood: Can a faltering film industry sustain a company that insists on making ambitious, Oscar-caliber, studio-size films - but without the deep pockets of a Viacom, which owns Paramount Pictures, or a News Corp., the parent of 20th Century Fox?

Created four years ago by Steven Spielberg and Stacey Snider in partnership with Reliance Entertainment, an Indian financier, DreamWorks was a successor to DreamWorks SKG. The earlier DreamWorks was an independent studio that was created amid much fanfare by three Hollywood heavyweights - Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen. Eventually they sold it to Paramount and briefly worked with the studio in what became a failed marriage. (The new DreamWorks is unrelated to the publicly held DreamWorks Animation.)

Over the years, small, independently financed companies - some with their own distribution mechanisms, others, like DreamWorks, without - have generated hits, only to disappear or be merged into larger corporations. Miramax Films was acquired by Disney after releasing "The Crying Game," a box-office success and best picture nominee; Disney has since sold the unit. Summit Entertainment was recently sold to Lions Gate; Summit investors saw the end of their blockbuster "Twilight" series as a prime moment to cash out. For smaller film companies, the hunger for capital is a perennial problem. Making a studio-level film can require an immediate investment of $100 million or more. But even the hits pay back their investors slowly, over a cycle that may last as long as 10 years, as movies are sold successively in theaters, on DVDs, to Internet streaming and cable television services and so on.

DreamWorks is now in the ticklish position of having nearly exhausted its first round of financing, which included $325 million in equity from Reliance, and a matching $325 million in lending from banks led by J. P. Morgan Securities. An original plan called for more from each, but the struggles of the national economy brought the investment up short. Now, DreamWorks is left to line up new financing at a time when movies are struggling. Attendance at North American movie theaters hit a 16-year low last year. DVD sales continue to drop. Although some emerging overseas markets are picking up steam, Europe and other important sales territories are uneven. And there are no indications of an immediate reversal of the trends.

So the question becomes whether, or to what extent, Reliance and allied lenders are prepared to back another round. Executives from Reliance and DreamWorks declined to discuss their plans. Over the weekend, however, they said in a joint email that they remained pleased with their partnership.

"Our relationship has always been structured to allow us to adapt to changing market conditions and to create the best chance for success for all parties involved," they said in a statement.Speaking on condition of anonymity to avoid conflict with executives of the companies, people familiar with the situation said talks about further financing will probably open in the next few weeks. The outcome will determine whether DreamWorks, which distributes its films under a long-term deal with Walt Disney Studios but has also worked with other partners, will be able to maintain its ambitious course. If not, it might have to proceed with a smaller slate of films or potentially less impressive projects, these people say. Whether DreamWorks would even be interested in making lower-risk, lower-profile movies, however, is far from clear.

DreamWorks began making movies in 2009 after raising only half of the hoped-for financing from Reliance and lenders. Despite a top-shelf pedigree - Spielberg is by far the best-selling movie director in history, and Snider oversaw hits like "Bruce Almighty" and "The Bourne Identity" while chairwoman of Universal Pictures - the company scratched for more than a year to assemble backing during a worldwide financial collapse in which the number of banks engaged in entertainment lending fell from more than 40 to fewer than a dozen. During that hunt for funds, Reliance and Anil Ambani, the chairman of its parent, stood by a commitment to invest in the venture, even as the terms of the involvement became less favorable. But Reliance put up less than a contemplated $550 million in equity, as it became impossible to raise $750 million in loans to go with it. The hoped-for $1.3 billion total would have seen DreamWorks through this Oscar season and perhaps into 2014.

Instead, the company's resources are nearly played out, even while the potential from its first round of films remains uncertain. "The Help," "War Horse," and, by a whisker, "Real Steel," appear poised to make money, once their full run is complete. But "Cowboys & Aliens" (released by Universal), "I Am Number Four," "Fright Night" and "Dinner for Schmucks" were soft at the box office, and either lost money or made too little to create a strong portfolio for investors.

Spielberg is currently finishing "Lincoln," partially financed by DreamWorks, with additional backing from Participant Media and Fox. Fox is co-financing another Spielberg film, the sci-fi thriller "Robopocalypse," which is set for release in July 2013 by Disney in the United States and by Fox abroad. (Spielberg's many television projects are financed separately from DreamWorks Studios.) Despite rumblings in Hollywood of friction between DreamWorks and Disney, their distribution partnership is solid, with roughly four years yet to run. "DreamWorks provides a diverse slate that's a key part of our release strategy, and we're pleased with the results so far," Rich Ross, Disney's movie chairman, said in an email. And DreamWorks has co-financing avenues to pursue. Fox, which has previously worked closely with Spielberg, appears ready to continue supporting individual projects. Participant, meanwhile, is eager to help pay for issues-oriented films like "The Help," which it backed in part. "We plan to continue to work together on at least one film per year," James G. Berk, Participant's chief executive, said in an email.




World War Z May Turn into a Trilogy

(tgdaily.com)                There is a lot of focus on film franchises in Hollywood lately.

Once seen as a way to make a quick buck on an inexpensive film (people will go see a sequel to a movie they loved, even if it’s terrible), this strategy has proven itself a great way to create a small branded media empire.

Lord of the Rings, Batman, and especially Harry Potter all show that if a studio retains the talent and budget for a hit movies through multiple "episodes," they can do more than just make a one-shot profit.

This is why we’re seeing so much push to adapt properties from which several films could be made. Twilight, Hunger Games, the new Star Trek: these are all an indirect result of the success of franchises.

It’s not particularly surprising, therefore to learn that World War Z, the upcoming Zombie apocalypse film starring Brad Pitt is being considered for such continuance. The film is based on a single novel, but has more than enough material to make several films from, or with a slight change of the ending could be made to continue indefinitely.

This news comes from a write-up in L.A. times about Brad Pitt’s current career and plans. The article says:

For Pitt, the big sci-fi thriller also represents his strongest bid to have a big film franchise of his own, which might be viewed as the missing piece of his career jigsaw puzzle. Forster and Paramount Pictures each view World War Z as a trilogy that would have the grounded, gun-metal realism of, say, Damon's Jason Bourne series tethered to the unsettling end-times vibe of AMC's The Walking Dead.

Of course, no one will want a sequel if the first film is terrible, but that’s yet to be seen, as World War Z is still in development. Shooting is slated to kick off later this year, with a tentative release date of December 2013. Maybe by then, we’ll all be done hearing about zombies.




Takashi Murakami on His New Live-Action Monster Movie

Takashi Murakami is famous for the fantastical, Anime-inspired creatures that populate his art, from the narcotically blissed-out flowers that have sprouted on collectors' walls around the world to the twin monsters that serve as mascots for his multimillion-dollar production company, Kaikai Kiki. Now, Murakami reveals that he is venturing into uncharted territory for a fine artist, attempting to bring these painterly creations to life through the magic of CGI — in a live-action monster movie, he says, "like 'Godzilla.'"

The comparison to that clunky cult 1954 film sells Murakami's directorial debut short. Using a cast of unknown actors and putting the film's sizable budget almost entirely into special effects, the artist has managed to create big-screen incarnations of his ravenous, curious creatures that maintain astonishing fidelity to their canvas versions. But like "Godzilla," which was born from the nuclear terror of Hiroshima and Nagasaki's aftermath, Murakami's film arises from a disaster: the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami that rent his country asunder, killing thousands and displacing countless more (see Part 1 of our video interview with the artist, where he talks about his charity auction benefiting the earthquake victims).

Titled “Jellyfish Eyes,” the movie follows a young boy who after an earthquake has to move with his family to an "experimental city" where each child is paired with a small monster. The "angry feeling" of the children then gives these creatures great power, allowing them to grow from cuddly little companions to giant, omnivorous behemoths that tower over buildings and, in one especially gorgeous scene, tromp majestically through a misty forest. Havoc ensues.

"This is kind of for the kids," says Murakami, "so it looks really childish." The artist, however, has his sights set loftier than your average kids' entertainment. Looking back on the early shark-and-alien-driven films of Steven Spielberg and George Lucas, Murakami notes that, at first, "movie industry people laughed at the effect, but now this is a major thing, this kind of sci-fi computer graphic stuff. And I think in the art world the same thing will be soon."

Murakami hopes to release his film later this year.

VIDEO - take a look:    http://artinfo.com/news/story/758284/video-takashi-murakami-on-his-new-live-action-monster-movie




Oh How Far We’ve Come - Computer Graphics from the 80s

(kotaku.com)               It's only been three decades, but it might as well have been three hundred. These Japan Computer Graphics Lab demo reels show just how far computer graphics have come in such a short span of time.

The graphics look dated, sure, but not bad. Many of them have more visual style than current "realistic" generation graphics. I quite like them.

There are two clips; one dates from 1984, and the other dates from 1985. In the link before, there is another clip from 1983, which is worth checking out, too.

Magical stuff.

VIDEO - Take a look    http://kotaku.com/5877452/look-how-far-weve-come-these-are-computer-graphics-from-the-1980s/gallery/1




Ray Harryhausen Kickstarter Project To Revive Anim History

(nohonoir.blogspot.com)                The FXRH Collection - All 4 issues of the now-classic Ray Harryhausen fanzine FXRH from the 1970s are going to be compiled into one complete book, supplemented by "making of" material, layout sketches, and correspondence detailing the evolution and creation of the magazine. All the trials and tribulations of small-press publishing will be combined with a detailed account of the thrill of meeting Ray Harryhausen for the first time in his London home in 1971 (long before his retirement, and before he started appearing at sci-fi conventions and other events), issue #4 being used by Columbia Pictures as a promotional tie-in to The Golden Voyage of Sinbad, and many more sidebars and visual enhancements.

We're seeking financing through the Kickstarter program, an affiliate site of Amazon.com. Kickstarter is all or nothing: You can pledge any amount of $25.00 and up, but if we cannot secure at least $20,000 by February 14th to cover production costs, the project will not go ahead and you will not be charged. (Participation not limited to the U.S.-- friends from other countries are welcome to get involved.)
Read on for a bit more info, and then check it out on the Kickstarter page!

Sincerely,

Ernest Farino
Publisher

Kickstarter Page:   http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ernestfarino/special-edition-of-the-original-ray-harryhausen-ma




VFX & Game Pro Build App That Crosses 1 Million Users Mark

SiXiTS is a new-media production company and publisher of superior entertainment content for distribution through internet-enabled channels. The team is comprised of seasoned game, software, and media professionals who have held key positions at Disney’s ImageMovers Digital, Lucasfilm Animation, Industrial Light and Magic and Electronic Arts, and who have contributed to numerous high-profile film productions including Disney’s A Christmas Carol, the Star Wars prequels, and the Harry Potter and Jurassic Park series.

SiXiTS announces a milestone of their current Babies Everywhere franchise on mobile and Facebook platforms passing the one million user installs mark this week.

Since its release on Facebook last year as an alpha social game, SiXiTS has expanded the brand by introducing a series of mobile versions on iOS and Android platforms. This includes the Talking Babies Everywhere app, which has undergone numerous updates and improvements to allow users to interact with Maxwell the first character from Babies Everywhere.

SiXiTS has additional 3D Character apps available on iOS, including a Talking Skeleton and Happy Talking Penguin. With an increasing user install base exceeding 1 million overall which grows through cross promotion across all of the character apps, lead by the most popular Talking Babies Everywhere app.

“Babies Everywhere has been a great franchise to demonstrate SiXiTS capabilities across mobile, iOS and Facebook platforms.” commented Euan Macdonald CEO of SiXiTS, the app’s creator. “We continue to expand the Babies Everywhere experience on mobile and Facebook, including the introduction and extensive use of customizable 3D characters and environments on all platforms, that provide a persistent and continuous experience for the user. The technology used to produce these apps is then used across a broad range of other SiXiTS brands.”

Babies Everywhere and Talking Babies Everywhere are available for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch is available now on Facebook and in the iTunes App Store.



Stan Winston Studios To Provide VFX For Surya's Maatran

(supergoodmovies.com)             KV Anand is working hard to make his fourth venture Maatran a bigger one. The film is said to be science fiction with pump action thrills and actions.

Now the director has planned to make it bigger by roping in one of the legendary and Top most Visual effects from Hollywood. Stan Winston Studios are the one who worked for the epic films like Avatar, Jurassic Park series, Terminator Series, Aliens, Predator, End of Days, Iron Man, War of the Worlds and many more high budget movies of Hollywood.

But they left their mark in Tamil film industry with recent Superstar's blockbuster Enthiran the Robot. Now KV Anand has brought back the team for Surya's Maatran.

This is the first time that KV Anand has been doing a film based on Visual Effects and he wanted the best and as a former assitant of director Shankar surely he would make him proud adds sources.

But the name of Stan Winston Studios and Legacy Fx are known to be the same but they are split-ted into two banners recently.



Raleigh Michigan Studios to Default on $18 Million in Bonds By Wednesday

(hollywoodreporter.com)               The Michigan film commissioner is in L.A. this week to tout a new state-backed subsidy program to attract movie and TV productions, but it comes too late to stop the 10-month-old studio from missing its payments.

Raleigh Michigan Studios sent out a press release Monday touting a new state law passed in December that again provides some incentives to make movies and TV shows in the state as “great news” for the facility which has seven sound stages.

What it doesn’t say is that Raleigh’s state of the art studio outside Detroit, which opened only ten months ago, is almost certain to default as soon as Wednesday on $18 million in state issued bonds that were part of the financing for the $80 million complex.

That will force the Michigan state employee’s pension fund, which invested in the studio in 2009, to make a $630,000 payment immediately, and put them on the hook for potentially millions more in payments in the future.

Raleigh had made two previous payments in February and August of last year, but has not made required monthly escrow set-aside payments since October, according to an article that appeared in the Detroit News last month.

The impact of the default on the facility in Pontiac, Michigan is still unclear but it is not expected to affect other properties operated by Raleigh Studios – which bills itself as largest independent studio operator in the United States – located in Hollywood, Manhattan Beach, Playa Vista, Baton Rouge, Atlanta and  Budapest.

Michael Newport, VP, Marketing & Client Development, Raleigh Studios/Raleigh Film said in an email to The Hollywood Reporter that they can’t provide details on a potential default but remain hopeful: “This is a situation that is constantly developing and…conversations have been ongoing for some time regarding this.  Everyone wants to do what is best and something is being worked out. “

According to the press release the partners (investors) in Raleigh Michigan Studios are Raleigh Studios, the Nelson family, John Rakolta, The Taubman Group and William Morris Endeavor.

Besides the $18 million in bonds, the 360,000-sq.-foot production and office facility was also built with $3.8 million in Federal Infrastructure Recovery money, $15 million in Federal Market tax credits, $11.1 in Michigan Film Infrastructure tax credits and equity investment by the investors.

The last big movie in Michigan, which kept the Raleigh studios filled much of 2011, was Disney’s new version of Oz, which wrapped its work in the state at the end of December. The studio has been mostly empty since then. Disney, grandfathered under the old rules, got about $40 million in incentives from the state, and estimated that it spent about $105 million in Michigan.



DreamWorks Animation's CGI "Me and My Shadow" Casts Voice Talent

(The Hollywood Reporter)              First announced in late 2010, DreamWorks Animation's Me and My Shadow has just announced its voice cast. The Hollywood Reporter says that the mix of CGI and hand drawn animation will star Josh Gad ("The Book of Mormon"), Bill Hader (Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, Paul) and Kate Hudson (Almost Famous, Something Borrowed).

The film tells the story of Stan (Hader), an extremely frustrated shadow who yearns for a dynamic life, but happens to be stuck with Stanley Grubb (Gad), the world's most boring human. Finally pushed to the brink, Shadow Stan breaks the singular rule of the Shadow World – "They lead, we follow" – and takes control of Stanley!

Hudson will play a non-shadow love interest to the pair.

Written by Tom Astle and Matt Ember, Me and My Shadow is directed by Mark Dindal and will arrive in theaters on November 8, 2013.




John Carter Reveals New Concept Art

(It's Art Magazine)                Quite a few brand-new pieces of concept art for Walt Disney Pictures' John Carter are now online, courtesy of It's Art Magazine. Check a few of them out below, including early looks at the characters played by Mark Strong and Dominic West.

Take a look (low warning spoiler alert):     http://www.comingsoon.net/news/movienews.php?id=86454




Visual Effects History Quiz - 21 Questions In 30 Minutes

(proprofs.com)                  This quiz is to test you knowledge on the history of visual effects. There are multiple choice, fill in the blanks, true/false, and multi select questions.  Be sure to read the question.  Most questions have a logical answer.  You cannot cheat.  This is not an open book, open browser, or open  cel phone test.  If you are caught you will get a zero.  Don't do it. 

http://www.proprofs.com/quiz-school/story.php?title=visual-effects-history

Hollywood VFX Pros Grade the CGI Effects “Excellent” in John Carter

As many who read The John Carter Files know,  I live in Burbank and occupy a minor niche in the film industry as an indie screenwriter and filmmaker who has produced and/or directed a dozen  films.  These films are not remotely on the scale of a project like Disney’s John Carter; they rarely get more than a limited theatrical release, and are most likely to be seen on cable outlets like Showtime or Encore or on DVD/Blu-ray.   So, plying my trade at that “indie” level of the industry does not make me an expert on things like the quality of VFX on a $250m film.

But … occasionally my work does provide me oppotunities to hang out with experts, and that’s what happened yesterday as I was in a Burbank VFX and post production facility finalizing deliverables for a film I’m responsible for.  We got to the end of our official work, and as the pros were outputting and rendering various delivery elements, the talk turned to the quality of the VFX in John Carter.  I mentioned that I’d been spending some time on a few of the movie message boards, and there was some lively debate on this topic.  Now, the group I was talking to included two VFX professionals who between them have credits on more than a dozen major features.  They were quite surprised to hear that there was actual debate  – saying that the “buzz” in their universe was all favorable.  ”Well, for starters, people shouldn’t try to judge VFX from compressed Youtube 360 images”……and with the rendering of our official work going on in the background, the boys downloaded  the 1080p John Carter trailer from Apple Trailers and then critiqued the VFX shot by shot on a 56″ HD Studio color timing monitor.

I took notes, and at the end of the session prevailed upon them to do PNG screenshots from the 56″ monitor, which went home with me on the hard drive that our official work was saved onto.  Those scans were too big to upload here (5mb each), but I’ve saved each of them as a very large, high resolution JPG and uploaded them below.

Take a look:   http://johncarterfiles.michaeldsellers.com/2012/01/21/hollywood-vfx-pros-grade-the-cgi-in-disneys-john-carter/




James Cameron Forms 3D R&D Group in Australia

(3dtv.com)                  James Cameron has opened up an office in Australia and started a group designed to push 3D technology forward. This group is called the “Cameron Pace Group.” It has already done work with previous 3D movies, but comes for the first time to Australia.

According to HMH, “The Cameron Pace Group, which opened an office in Melbourne this week, has supplied 3D equipment and technical expertise to such movies as Hugo and the most recent Transformers and Pirates of the Caribbean instalments, as well as the Glee, U2 and Justin Bieber concert films. It has also contributed to live TV coverage of American tennis, golf, basketball, baseball, football, boxing, wrestling and motorcycle racing."

Cameron's aim is to expand the broadcast coverage of 3D programming to the TV industry in the Australian market. This is his way of entering this market.

This year we will be able to watch the Summer Olympics in 3D

The head of CPG in Australia, Andrew Wright, was quoted saying in the report,”the next big breakthrough will be the next Olympics in 3D.” This certainly shows his enthusiasm for the medium. He was also paraphrased saying that Australian events ripe for 3D coverage include the Melbourne Cup, Australian Open tennis and Australian Grand Prix.

The report also mentions that Cameron will be shooting the next two Avatar movies in the neighboring island country, New Zealand.

You can find more information about the Cameron Pace Group on the group's website here. The site, and the group in general, seems to be very much centered around stereo 3D technology. The opening statement on the “About Us” section of the site confirms this.

“CAMERON / PACE Group (CPG) is the industry leader in 3D technologies and production services,” it reads.

The section also states that this group has “played a key role in 9 concert films, 27 features and more than 140 spots broadcasts worldwide.” That is quite an impressive resume by Cameron and his group if the statement is truthful.




Police Called To 'The Hobbit' Casting Call

(starpulse.com)                The Hobbit: An Unexpected JourneyAn open audition for Peter Jackson's new The Hobbit movie had to be shut down on Saturday after more than 3,000 hopefuls turned up.

The director is currently in New Zealand filming the two-part Lord of the Rings prequel, which stars Martin Freeman, and a casting call for a part in the film attracted thousands of applicants over the weekend.

Producers expected around 1,000 wannabes to turn out for the auditions in Lower Hutt, near the capital city of Wellington, but they were overrun when more than 3,000 arrived.

Police were called to help control the crowds and the auditions were shut down early due to safety concerns.

Local police Senior Sergeant Steve Braybrook tells the NZ Newswire, ''There was enough concern that police attended... (the organizers decided to) call it quits."




"Stretch Armstrong" Moves Forward As Live Action Tentpole

(comingsoon)              Relativity Media has announced today that the studio will adapt Hasbro's Stretch Armstrong now that Universal Pictures is no longer in the picture. We assume that they are starting from scratch and that director Rob Letterman and actor Taylor Lautner are no longer involved. They are targeting an April 11, 2014 release:

Relativity Media has partnered with global branded play company Hasbro, Inc. to develop and produce a live-action tent-pole film based on Stretch Armstrong, the iconic action hero figure launched in the 1970s, it was announced today by Relativity’s Co-President, Tucker Tooley and Hasbro’s President and CEO, Brian Goldner.

Relativity will be the domestic distributor and will release the film internationally through its network of foreign output partners. The film is targeted for an April 11, 2014 release date.

The film will be produced by Relativity’s CEO, Ryan Kavanaugh (The Fighter), Hasbro’s Goldner (Transformers) and Bennett Schneir, Senior Vice President and Managing Director, Motion Pictures (Battleship). Tooley (Immortals) will serve as executive producer.




Survey – "Star Wars 3D" To Be A Hit

(3dfocus.co.uk)              

     Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace 3D will be released in the UK on February 9th and, according to our survey, is likely to achieve box office success.

review dividing line Survey Star Wars 3D to be a hit plus 3D conversion secrets

pod racing 525 Survey Star Wars 3D to be a hit plus 3D conversion secrets

We published a poll (discoverable on Google via the term “Star Wars 3D” – this was not a poll intended exclusively for 3D Focus readers) asking people if they intended to watch Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace 3D. Out of 675 respondents, 64% said yes, 15% no and 21% were still undecided. The poll closed today.

Although George Lucas recently told The New York Times that he intends to retire from original filmmaking (with the possible exception of Indiana Jones 5) he has said that all 6 Star Wars movies will be converted to 3D and released on a yearly basis if the success of each re-release warrants the conversion of the next.

Comments submitted on 3D Focus were generally positive. Here is a sample of a few of them…

“Yep I'll watch it again.  The pod race is worth it the price of admission alone.” Cress

“Can't wait. I'm a massive fan and will watch it in 2D or 3D. Don't have a 3D TV but would well consider buying one if all SW films come out on 3D” Rancordung

“I'll be watching the first day it's released.  The pod racing scene should be fantastic in 3D. I hope it's a success and Lucas goes on to convert the other films.” Mike

“I'll be watching once they get to the original trilogy – going to pass on the lesser prequels.” Empirerules




Puss In Boots Passes $500 Million Worldwide

(DreamWorks Animation)                The animated hit "Shrek" spin-off Puss In Boot has surpassed $500 million at the global box office:

DreamWorks Animation SKG, Inc. today announced that its Academy Award® nominated movie, Puss in Boots, has earned approximately $507 million to date at the worldwide box office.

"On behalf of the entire studio, it is my pleasure to congratulate the Puss in Boots creative team on reaching this fantastic milestone," said Jeffrey Katzenberg, Chief Executive Officer of DreamWorks Animation. "Following the film's recognition by the Academy as nominee for Best Animated Feature Film, we could not be happier with the response to Puss in Boots both critically and commercially across the globe."

"I am so thrilled that people around the world continue to respond to Puss in Boots and I'd like to thank the incredible team of creative talent who worked tirelessly to bring the story of our swashbuckling hero to life!" added the film's Director, Chris Miller.

Both DreamWorks Animation releases from 2011, Kung Fu Panda 2 and Puss in Boots, received 2012 Academy Award® nominations for Best Animated Feature.




Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts /USC Campus Upgrades Mocap Stage

(cgw.com)                 LOS ANGELES — Motion capture system developer Vicon (www.vicon.com) recently collaborated with the Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts at the USC School of Cinematic Arts to upgrade their motion capture system.

Originally built in the fall of 2006 with 20 cameras, the first classes to use the mocap stage were taught in spring of 2007 by two USC alums, Hollywood filmmaker Robert Zemeckis and Eric Furie, USC manager of digital systems and creative computing. Reently, the facility's mocap system expanded into a 1,700-square-foot stage with 46 cameras.

"A lot has changed in the last year because of the new stage," notes Furie. "We are trying to emulate what is happening on the bleeding edge of the industry so students are exposed to what they need to know. Vicon is the standard in the mocap arena and students must understand how this technology integrates into all facets of the industry — not just simply mocap and body capture for narratives but also for previs, virtual production, virtual cinematography, game development, etc. It's a core part of how work is done and high profile companies need skilled talent."

With a curriculum initially developed to expose students to motion capture, USC has been able to broaden course offerings to include an advanced course building on the fundamentals learned in the intro course. A virtual production and interface design class are just two of many mocap-focused courses currently in development at the school, and a visit to the mocap stage has been integrated into many other areas of academia such as history and science with faculty recognizing the advantages of having such technology at their disposal.



James Cameron Facing New Avatar Lawsuit

(blog.chron.com)                Avatar director James Cameron has been hit with a new copyright lawsuit.

Elijah Schkeiban claims he created a fantasy franchise, called Bats & Butterflies, in 1988 – and it closely resembles Cameron’s 2010 blockbuster.

Schkebian’s story chronicled a hero’s travels to a faraway planet, called Altair. In the project, the lead character finds himself lost in a forest and befriends a number of indigenous creatures and partners with a community of butterflies.

On Monday Schkeiban filed suit against Cameron in California, alleging the movie star lifted plot ideas and characters from his book, insisting the similarities between the works simply couldn’t be coincidental, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

This marks the latest legal hurdle for Cameron, who has been plagued by a slew of similar allegations since the movie’s premiere in 2009 – in December he was hit with a $2.5 billion copyright lawsuit by a sci-fi screenwriter and earlier that month another plaintiff filed copyright infringement papers against Cameron, claiming he approached bosses at the director’s production company Lightstorm Entertainment with an idea for an “environmentally themed 3D epic” back in 1999.

Avatar has raked in $2.78 billion worldwide to become the highest-grossing film of all time.



With A Zero VFX Budget, Director Does His Own CGI Dog Fight

(everydaynodaysoff.com)                  €70,000 to fund the live action portion of the film.  There was no money left for visual effects so the director did them all for free over a 6 month period.

Take a look:   http://www.everydaynodaysoff.com/2012/01/30/the-german-a-short-ww2-related-film-with-zero-vfx-budget/




$147m Movie Studio Planned for S. Weymouth

Massachusetts offers a 25 percent tax credit on any spending by production companies, and ISG hopes those incentives will attract tenants to its studios.

Previously, ISG pushed for a bill that would have provided additional tax credits for the construction of movie studios. That legislation was blocked in the state Senate.

Nonetheless, ISG executives said they intend to break ground in November and will proceed with full-scale construction next spring. A spokesman said ISG’s financial partner in the deal is LNR Property Corp., the master developer of the 1,000-plus-acre SouthField project.



"X-Men: First Class" Sequel Moves Forward

(Deadline)                  Matthew Vaughn's X-Men: First Class prequel was one of the most lauded superhero movies of 2011, and Fox CEO Tom Rothman told us last year that they're doing everything possible to get the director back for a sequel. In a new Deadline story about Fox's President of Production Emma Watts renewing her own contract through 2015, there's a matter-of-fact mention that the company has closed the deal for Vaughn to return to direct the unnamed sequel, working from a script being written by Simon Kinberg (X-Men: The Last Stand, Jumper, Sherlock Holmes) and with Bryan Singer once again producing.



Lay Off The CGI and Bring Back Prosthetics

(blogs.independent.co.uk)                 Untitled 124 181x300 Modern horror: Lay off the CGI and bring back prostheticsThe doctor shouts ‘Clear’ and lowers the defibrillators onto his fallen companion’s chest. As he does this, the man’s chest opens into a gaping, jawed mouth and catches the doctor’s hands, ripping them off. The doctor falls to the floor with his arm-stumps gushing blood that’s been made from a cocktail of jam, mayonnaise, gelatin, cream corn and whatever else they used in the good old days. A monstrous head on a spine emerges from the chest, which Kurt Russell duly despatches with his flame-thrower. Meanwhile, the man’s head acquires a life of its own, detaches itself from the burning body and grows a pair of spider legs. Once again, it’s down to Kurt to burn the hell out of the creature.

This is a scene from John Carpenter’s 1982 classic, The Thing; the film that represents the pinnacle of prosthetic and animatronic-based special effects in horror films. What’s inspired me to refer back to this classic was watching its decidedly uninspiring prequel of the same name, which is due out on DVD and Blu-Ray next month. Aside from a solid lead performance from Mary Elizabeth Winstead, the film is an unengaging, CGI-enslaved shambles, and a glaring indicator of some of contemporary American horror’s worst habits.

The first of these bad habits is that much of modern US horror cinema is defined by lazy cash-ins, spin-offs and other defilements of legendary films. The second, and the point of this piece, is the tendency to eschew visceral prosthetic blood and gore for that of the digital variety. Digital Gore? Even the term itself sounds as paradoxical as a salt-loving snail. But then at a time when the country’s run by two seemingly contradictory parties who are cosily tucked up in bed together (Lib Dems are the small spoon), why should such inconsistencies surprise us?

The problem with how digital effects are used in The Thing (2011) comes down to indexicality; the sense of direct connection between the horrifying object depicted, the characters interacting with it, and us out here in the real world. The unnatural smoothness of the effects whenever anyone gets ‘Thing-ed’ (a not-so-technical term for when the titular virus takes hold of its victim and mutilates them into a shrieking monstrosity) distances us from the fact that what we’re watching is a human body come undone. Fusing a real on-screen human with digital effects never seems to do justice to the viscosity and crunchiness of the human body.

The 2011 version of the film makes the malleability of the human body far too fast and fluid for it to disturb us. In one scene, we see someone turn from man to ripped-up tentacular mess in under 15 seconds. In another, the ease with which the Thing sprouts new limbs, tentacles and spider-hands in its victims makes it seem like the digital FX whizzes behind it basically vomited their undeniable skills all over the screen, forgetting that this is essentially supposed to be a horror about the human body. The more a body becomes so obviously and fully digitised on-screen, the harder it is to convert it into a feeling of dread and horror in our own bodies.

In Carpenter’s original, seeing a Thing victim – in all his animatronic glory – be stretched and contorted, with his eyes popping out of his head or his head tearing away from the spine, is delightfully excruciating to watch. The jerky, twitchy movements do look mechanical, but then the human body essentially is mechanical. Our bodies are certainly more comparable to pistons, pulleys and a strawberry-jam-gelatin-mayonnaise mixture than they are to the endless 1’s and 0’s of binary code. By digitising a film which is essentially about the internal vulnerability of the human body, we lose a crucial point of contact with what we’re seeing onscreen.

This is not a general tirade against all digital effects in horror films. Used sparingly, they can serve horror’s purpose to shock. Thinking of the original Ringu (1998), the film contains just one major digital effects set-piece. Most of the film is slow-paced, visually bleak, and creeps us out mainly by showing us glimpses of eerie cursed video-tape footage. Just as we reach the point of near-boredom, we’re treated to one of the most iconic and terrifying scenes in horror history, when the vengeful spirit of a girl slides out of the TV screen into the victim’s lounge. The old horror film cliché of ‘less is more’ fits well with the use of visual effects here.

More recently, Sam Raimi’s semi-comical Drag Me To Hell (2009) is an example of a special-effects-heavy horror that actually works. The man who brought us the cult classic Evil Dead films pulls out all the stops, as we have eyes popping out of heads into other people’s faces, shadowy spirits, demonic digital goats, and people literally getting dragged to hell. Despite its heavy digitisation, however, some of the film’s best moments are a throwback to Raimi’s Evil Dead days, with corpses bouncing into upright positions in coffins, psychotic grannies attacking people with gummy, toothless mouths, and several scenes of projectile vomiting and bleeding. The balance here makes it one of the most entertaining, if not strictly terrifying, horrors of recent years.

The Thing, however, is very much meant to be a body horror; a term which has lost some of its value in the mainstream, with digital effects skewing it on the one hand, and pointless torture porn films (Hostel, Human Centipede, more recent SAW films) pulling it in the other direction. Body horror, for me, is distinct because it takes an interest in how major human happenings and questions – viruses, television (Videodrome, 1983), the search for God (Martyrs, 2008) – affect our understanding of the limits of our own bodies. Both the aforementioned films rely much more on make-up than digitisation to emphasise their themes.

Until a horror gets made about our increasingly digitalised world’s effect on the human body (note to self), then prosthetics and mechanics should always take precedence as a means of depicting our own physical fragility.




Experimenting with the VFX Bakeoff

(billdesowitz.com)               The AMPAS experimented with 10 VFX bakeoff entries on Thursday night, which was met with mixed results. While it made better sense to expand the field from seven to 10, trimming the demos from 15 minutes to 10 was a hard adjustment for some. In addition, for the first time, there was a mix-up when the wrong file was used for the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 demo reel. Fortunately, the error was eventually rectified and the complete reel was screened at the end.

As always, it’s a lot more effective when the VFX is tied to a central character that’s animated and offers an emotional hook. And that’s usually what wins the Oscar. Thus, Weta’s senior VFX supervisor Joe Letteri gave an informative and succinct explanation of the extraordinary CG Caesar in Rise of the Planet of the Apes, the front runner: the new active LEDs for on set motion capture; a new model for the eyes; new fur system; and a new facial muscle system to handle all the dynamic simulations on top of the animation.

However, ILM’s presentation for Transformers: Dark of the Moon was also impressive, as VFX production supervisor Scott Farrar regaled the committee with facts and figures pertaining to the improved animation and the relentless demolition and the challenges of making it all work while shooting in 3-D.

Arguably, the best demo reel was for Real Steel, which involved a breakthrough virtual production system by Digital Domain and Giant Studios. VFX production supervisor Erik Nash explained how the system was instrumental in enabling the production to shoot the movie in 71 days with no second unit. Shooting with the Simulcam on set with MoCap actors resulted in a more visceral viewing experience when replaced with the animation for the boxing bots.

VIDEO for the contenders:  http://www.billdesowitz.com/?p=3868




Pacific Rim Monster Roars Scare the World in New Viral Video?

(movieweb.com)                    A new video has hit the Internet, and various sources, such as Movie Viral, are claiming that it is a viral video for the long awaited Godzilla reboot from director Gareth Edwards. The following footage is quite reminiscent of his previous film Monsters. Our own expert here at the site (yes, we have an expert on monster noises) believes that this is actually a viral video for Guillermo del Toro's currently shooting giant monster thriller Pacific Rim, which is more likely the case since its closer to release.

Either that, or its neither of the above (it should be noted that Pacific Rim and Godzilla are both coming from Legendary Pictures). Its too early for a Cloverfield 2 viral, and the creepy thing about this video is that these same noises were actually heard here in Alhambra, a suburb of Los Angeles, at the same time these noise were captures on film, last week. It certainly scared the dogs, but I didn't think too much of it, passing the roars off as loud machinery passing by outside my window.

The end of Kevin Smith's Red State should also be noted here, as the climax of that film finds the villainous church group being defeated by an old firehouse loud speaker hooked to an iPod. This could just be a video prophesizing the oncoming apocalypse. Whatever it is, you should check it out below. Then tell us what you think it might be. Godzilla? Giant Pacific Rim monsters? The rapture? Mass Effect 3 Reapers? Weather Weapons created by our Government? Did you hear these noises where you live?

Click to watch Strange Sounds' Heard Worldwide:    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZ2ZcmMxehk

"Iron Man 3" Moves Up Principle Photography

(comingsoon.net)             

    Multiple sources have told ComicBook.com that shooting for Iron Man 3 will begin prior to The Avengers hitting theaters May 4th, weeks ahead of previously published dates.  The film is scheduled to be shot in Wilmington, NC at the EUE/Screen Gems Studios and is believed to be the largest production ever to be filmed in North Carolina.

Previous reports have listed late May as the official production start date, but one source close to the North Carolina operations said that Marvel “will have staff in Wilmington as early as mid-March, with shooting scheduled to begin the last week of April or the first week of May.”

Asked to verify the report, Marvel Studios said they do not officially comment on current or future development but indicated the reports were likely accurate. An e-mail update from that same Marvel Studios source told ComicBook.com, “It is not April for sure.”




"Elfquest" Movie Canceled Due to "The Hobbit"

(scifinow.co.uk)               The long-mooted movie adaptation of Wendy and Richard Pini’s Elfquest – announced in 2008 with director/writer Rawson Thurber (Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story) – has been dropped.

Co-creator Wendy Pini claims the movie, based on the Seventies fantasy comic, was playing second fiddle to The Hobbit, saying, “After close to four years of suspense—and longer than four years of your much-appreciated interest and support—the word has come down from Warner Bros. And the word is ‘no.’

“Their simple explanation is that they don’t want to compete with The Hobbit.  This was a possibility, among several, that we were prepared for, it is a relief, at last to know.”




Guillermo del Toro’s Animated Hopes (and his ‘Hobbit’ Reaction)

(herocomplex.latimes.com)                    When nominations were announced this week for the 84th Academy Awards, the most fascinating — and startling — category was animated feature film. “The Adventures of Tintin” – which won the Golden Globe in that category – wasn’t nominated at all. Instead, Gore Verbinski’s old West adventure “Rango” made the list, as did two international entries — “Chico & Rita” and “A Cat in Paris” – that present vibrant adventures with a classic hand-drawn approach. Rounding out the category were two DreamWorks Animation releases, “Puss in Boots” and “Kung Fu Panda 2,” and don’t think for a minute that went over well at the Emeryville headquarters of Pixar. “Cars 2″ didn’t win over critics but there was still hope that it would bring home the automatic Oscar nomination that has become a Pixar tradition. No one was happier about the nominations than Guillermo del Toro, who is now working closely with DreamWorks Animation on its projects. Our Geoff Boucher chatted with him in the days leading up to the nominations.

GB: It must have been satisfying for you to watch the success story of the two big DreamWorks Animation releases, “Kung Fu Panda 2″ and “Puss in Boots” – as a consultant on the first and very active executive producer on the second. Would you say the deal you have with the company represents a new career chapter for you?

GDT: In many, many ways, yes. With “Puss,” I was really feeling like part of the team creating it. With “Panda,” I was very involved but I also came in late enough in the process that a lot of the decisions had been made. On “Puss in Boots,” I felt like one of the many parents that the movie has. Every experience I’ve had at DreamWorks has been really rewarding in terms of how they connect with the audience. Following “Kung Fu Panda 2,” all of the audience test screenings and seeing it get a really strong foothold and then “Puss” also getting the CinemaScore [grade of A-] that it got and getting the critical consensus that it got — all of that is hugely satisfying. With both there was the requisite notions of a sequel — or a prequel — but we wanted in both cases to some degree to establish the personality of the movie individually.

"Puss in Boots" (DreamWorks Animation)

GB: On the surface, either movie could have been perceived as a money-grab — with “Puss in Boots,” a spin-off film from a franchise like “Shrek” could easily be pretty watered down by the time it reached the screen. I imagine the challenge was proving the cynics wrong.

GDT: From the beginning the director, Chris Miller, and his team were very clear that they wanted to create a different universe and not have it be, in any possible way, a spin-off from the “Shrek” universe. The reference of Sergio Leone and the idea of making the fantasy elements really, really earnest and beautiful set it apart. We have the ironic things – like Humpty — but, for example, traveling through the magic beans and the beanstalk and into the  giant’s castle is a genuine, bona fide, hard-core fantasy sequence. It was really quite gorgeous and not ironic at all. There are elements in the movie too, that are emotionally counter-intuitive to Hollywood animated films [of this size and type], like having a villain with a real complexity and personality who ultimately finds his redemption instead of, you know, just being killed off. Those things, on the outside they may seem like small steps but to me they are huge.

GB: We heard your voice in the film too,  the parts of Moustache Man and Comandante. Can you talk about that side of the job?

GDT: Well, I make voices in all my movies; I do creature voices in every movie I make — “Pan’s Labyrinth, ” “Hellboy,” “Hellboy 2,” ”Mimic.” In every movie I play a monster, here and there.  I did some dubbing when I was young as an actor in Mexico. [In "Puss"] we used my voice as a scratch track at first but everybody got used to it and we ended up using it for good.

GB: In this digital era we’re seeing the accepted definitions of animation and live-action really blur in interesting ways. It’s also interesting to see directors like Gore Verbinski and Steven Spielberg go into animation and people like Andrew Stanton and Brad Bird cross in the other direction. Give us some of your thoughts on the churn of the scene today.

GDT: As you know I’m a big believer in transmedia and part of the things that I hold is that this sort of permeable membrane between digital and animated filmmaking and live-action filmmaking needs to become this blurry for miracles to occur in genre films – I’m talking about big, audience-oriented films [of fantasy and sci-fi] and you’ll see that frontier continue to be blurry because the digital tools are becoming more user-friendly and more necessary for the delivery of the big action sequences, creatures and effects.

GB: It’s intriguing to watch the way the technology can be used so differently in different hands. Watching “Tintin” was to see Spielberg’s sense of velocity and action construction fly off in new directions and in “Hugo” I felt as a viewer that Martin Scorsese was bringing a unique deftness to the use of 3D. As a fan of film, it feels like there’s new frontiers being mapped.

GDT: It does, and Bad Robot and J.J. Abrams released that iPhone application to put special effects in your iPhone. More and more on YouTube you’re seeing almost-professional level or professional-level special effects being done by people on their computers for nothing more than creating a viral video or things like that. The line is blurred by that and the line is blurred by the flexibility of video game engines. But I do think it will only affect big-budget genre movies, I don’t think it will affect the way rest of cinema is done.

GB: I have to ask, I know you have your hands full with “Pacific Rim,” but your history with “The Hobbit” is such an unusual one; “The Hobbit” trailer is out now and I was wondering if stirred up a strange mix of emotions for you?

GDT:  You know, not really, not at this stage. I’m very happy the movie is in the right hands and I’m very to happy see — I’m actually elated to see images. I think it’s great to see the trailer. Think about it, I’m so fully immersed now in “Pacific Rim.” I’m 47 and I never in my life have had as good an experience making a movie as “Pacific Rim” has been. It’s been a joy every morning from every point of view and I cannot tell you how much I’m enjoying it because I have nothing to compare it to. Part of it is how involved and invested the guys from ILM have been. It’s been amazing.




Aronofsky's "Noah" Sets Sail In July?

(darkhorizons.com)                     Cinematographer Matthew Libatique recently spoke with Hollywood Elsewhere columnist Jeffrey Wells about Darren Aronofsky's ambitious epic "Noah" at Fox and New Regency.

Talking about that discussion on the latest Oscar Poker via (The Playlist, Wells says "he was telling me about 'Noah' and what the script is like. They're going to start shooting in July in New York and Iceland and he says it's really a good script."

He goes on to say "They're really doing the story of Noah, a very unlikely subject you might think for a cutting edge fellow like Darren Aronofsky, but that's what they're doing. It's going to be more likely a Fall 2013 release."

The problem they're apparently having right now is casting both the 40-something titular role and the main villain.




VES Announces the 2012 Board of Directors Officers

LOS ANGELES, January 26, 2012 | SHOOT Publicity Wire | --- The Visual Effects Society (VES), announced the 2012 Board of Director officers who were elected at the January 18, 2012 board meeting. The list of officials includes Jeffrey A. Okun, head of visual effects for Prana Studios, who was re-elected for a fourth one-year term as Board Chair.

"I could not be more excited to serve again," states Okun. "I am thrilled to be allowed to focus on our core mission: creating community, promoting visual effects and the artists who create them. And I am equally thrilled to continue to push the VES 2.0 initiative forward – the initiative to reach out and bring all parties to the table to secure rights and benefits for our industry -- across the board – in film, broadcast, special venue, commercials, games and animation!"

"I look forward to continuing the incredible working relationship Jeff and I have," states Eric Roth, VES Executive Director. "He is an extraordinarily talented gentleman with a bottomless passion for visual effects and the VES while being uniquely suited to be the voice of the entertainment industry's defining resource for our craft."

The 2011 Officers of the VES Board of Directors are:

Chair: Jeffrey A. Okun

Jeffrey A. Okun has contributed visual effects design and execution to a wide-range of films including the award winning sci-fi hit Stargate (1994), Deep Blue Sea (1999), The Last Starfighter (1984), Sphere (1998), The Last Samurai (2003), Blood Diamond (2006) and The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008).

Okun is known for creating 'organic' and invisible effects, as well as spectacular effects which seamlessly expand both the look and scope of a film, but also enhances the storytelling aspect of the movie. Additionally, Jeff is the creator of the revolutionary visual effects techniques dubbed the "PeriWinkle Effect" & the "Pencil Effect", which have been used in many projects to help achieve more a sense of the fantastic, wonder and more accurate budgets. Okun is the author of breakdown, budgeting and tracking software currently being used by professionals throughout the industry.

First Vice Chair: Michael Fink, Visual Effects Supervisor
Michael has earned degrees from California State University Northridge, San Francisco Art Institute, and California Institute of the Arts, in an attempt to disguise a checkered past.

Michael began working in film on China Syndrome in 1977. He "cut his eye teeth" on films such as Star Trek the Motion Picture and Bladerunner, and became a Visual Effects Supervisor on War Games (BAFTA Nomination), in 1982. He has since worked on over 50 films, including Buckaroo Banzai, Batman Returns (BAFTA and Academy Nominations), Braveheart, Mars Attacks!, X-Men, X-Men 2, Constantine, The Golden Compass (BAFTA Award, Academy Award), Tropic Thunder, Avatar, Tron: Legacy, Sucker Punch, and Tree of Life.

Michael is a founding member of the Visual Effects Society. He is on the Advisory Board of SpaceCam Systems, Inc., and is a Visiting Professor at the School of Cinematic Arts at the University of Southern California, while continuing his visual effects career.

Second Vice Chair: Pam Hogarth Director of Marketing, Look Effects

Pam Hogarth has spent over 26 years in the world of visual effects, 20 of which doing marketing and education. Before joining LOOK she spent 12 years helping to build Gnomon School of Visual Effects into the premiere educational institution for careers in high-end cg. While doing that, she found time and energy to devote to the Visual Effects Society, serving multiple terms on the Board of Directors, including four years as Executive Secretary, is currently Chair of the Benefits Committee and has been one of the abiding Chairs of the Education Committee.

Treasurer: Bob Coleman, President, Digital Artists Agency

Bob Coleman founded Digital Artists Agency in Los Angeles to represent an international and award-winning portfolio of artists for work in feature, commercial and related fields. He leverages his experience in top-level management positions at respected industry companies, with his high regard for artists, to further the development of the visual effects craft.

Secretary: Kim Lavery, VFX Producer

Kim has experience from both the Production & Post Production sides of film making and visual effects producing for a total of over two decades, having worked for Universal Studios on film production then shifting to visual effects in 1994. Since then, she has been instrumental in building out specialized visual effects boutique studios, working on films such as Frida, Minority Report, Cats and Dogs, Charlie's Angels, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Terminator 3, Last Samurai, etc.

Aligning herself with the global marketplace, she worked at Weta Digital in various producing roles on; King Kong, XMen 3, Bridge to Terabithia, 30 Days of Night, Enchanted & The Water Horse, etc. Currently, Kim is continuing to bridge the gap between New Zealand and the US film and post production markets.

She has served on the VES Awards Committee since its inception in 2002; and has also served as a VES Board Member and Secretary for several terms: 2004 – present.




Disney Plans Untitled Space Adventure

(Variety)                 Walt Disney Pictures has picked up an untitled sci-fi project from screenwriter Max Landis, Variety reports.

Said to be an adventure film set in space, the script focuses on a brother and sister. Further details are, at this stage, unavailable.

Landis, who scripted February 3rd's Chronicle with Josh Trank, is also responsible for the upcoming Untitled Frankenstein Film and Pied Piper, both at 20th Century Fox.




Digital Domain Institute's Enrollment Fair Sparks Overwhelming Response

(tcpalm.com)                When Felix Rodriguez woke up Saturday morning, he was not planning a future in filmmaking.

But after attending Digital Domain Institute's enrollment fair for it's inaugural professional certification program, Rodriguez may be changing his mind.

Rodriguez was one of about 400 who attended the fair at Digital Domain Media Group's Tradition Studios in Port St. Lucie Saturday. Digital Domain Institute is a subsidiary of Digital Domain Media Group.

The fair invited those interested in special effects and animation to apply for the institute's inaugural 10-week professional certification program beginning March 12.

Prospective students attending the fair seemed to be impressed by the new 115,000-square-foot studio and the tour itself.

"The movie theater rooms are awesome," Rodriguez said. "The technology they're using right now, that blew my mind."

At first Rodriguez did not have a strong interest in the program, but after the tour he said it could be a real possibility for him. "The employees are really down-to-earth. That's a really good working environment," he said.

Brian Tighe, a design student at Indian River State College, said the cutting-edge technology he saw during the tour was amazing.

"It's good to see how your work can be put to the screen," Tighe said.

People of all ages attended the fair, each with their own interests and reasons for being there.

Scott Applegate is thinking about a possible career change. He said he's been interested in the Digital Domain Institute since it opened.

"I've always been good with computers, and I'm really interested in animation," Applegate said. "I'm going to try to get my feet wet with as much as possible."

The fair had a great turnout, according to Digital Domain Institute and Digital Domain Media Group personnel. Although the number of attendees was limited to 400, the institute will be hosting another fair soon to accommodate prospective students who didn't get to sign up this time around.

"We didn't expect to have such an overwhelming response," said Marilyn Bauer, writer for Digital Domain Media Group. "It's really cool."

Bruce Bullock, director of education for the institute, said there are only 40 spots open in the spring program, but that could change. "If we have an enthusiastic response we'll look at increasing the number of seats available," he said.

The deadline to apply for the professional certification program, officially titled the "Digital Arts Essential Skills Program," is Jan. 27. Applicants are not required to attend an enrollment fair.



Marvel's "Doctor Strange" Seeks Director

(fanshare)                   It has been confirmed that the script for Doctor Strange has been completed by Thomas Donnelly and Joshua Oppenheimer (Conan The Barbarian, Sahara) and Marvel Studios are now actively seeking a director to come in and helm the project. Once the director has come on board, they will then be searching for the cast to star in Doctor Strange.

The budget for Doctor Strange is not expected to be anywhere near as much as that of the bigger Marvel movies but it is still believed that, with the right script, the right director and the right cast, a good superhero movie could definitely come out of this. Production on Doctor Strange is expected to begin this year, with a release date likely to be sometime in 2013.




No CGI: Animatronic Robot Baby Replaces Premature Infants On-Screen (WATCH)

(huffingtonpost.com)               The wriggling, the squirming, the Moro reflex-induced jump... If you want proof that artificial intelligence is thriving, look no further than this robotic -- and yes, somewhat creepy -- baby.

The video below shows the animatronic infant lying on its back doing a pitch-perfect newborn impersonation. Babble.com reported that it was created for a UK soap opera by special effects designer, Chris Clarke, who also lent his talents to technically rich movie "War Horse." And, while jaw-dropping special effects are standard fare on screen, this electro-infant is especially surprising to watch.

Clarke told The Huffington Post that creating an animatronic human required a significant amount of research -- including an investigation into the psychology of babies.

"[A baby's] brain is still trying to figure out which electrical impulses control which body parts...I design the mechanics to move generically the way a baby does, [and] the rest is getting into the head of the baby when puppeteering it," Clarke wrote in an email.

Many bloggers and online commenters have called the animatronic baby "creepy" and "freaky" -- Technabob even ran a post about the clip with the headline "Skinless Robot Baby is the Stuff Nightmares Are Made Of." But, whether you are horrified or fascinated, there is no denying that Clarke's tiny robots serve an important purpose -- keeping real infants safe.

"Keep[ing] a real premature baby on set all day under hot studio lights just isn't something that's done," said Clarke. "It can be the same for [non-premature], healthy babies too."

Here at HuffPost Parents, we'll take a "freaky" fake baby instead of endangering a real infant any day.

VIDEO - Take a look:   http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/24/animatronic-robot-baby-chris-clarke_n_1229217.html



New Vancouver Facility Courts Contracts on Par with Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings

(vancouversun.com)                 Three Vancouver digital production studios, a Toronto-based technology firm and Great Northern Way Campus are collaborating to attract digital-entertainment projects on the scale of Harry Potter and The Lord of the Rings to Vancouver.

The innovative, pay-as-you-go facility, called a "render farm," will offer the computing power necessary to rival big international centres in New Zealand and London and is expected to significantly increase Vancouver's ability to attract largescale digital-entertainment projects.

"It enables the studios here to scale up and scale down in a cost-effective manner that would enable them to take bigger projects such as a Harry Potter, rather than being given portions of these projects," Catherine Winder, president of Rainmaker Entertainment Inc., said on behalf of the three studios involved: Rainmaker, Digital Domain Productions and Image Engine. "We [will] have an infrastructure that enables us to take on the bigger projects and when those projects are finished, you're not holding the bag of all these costs you have to take on."

Toronto-based technology firm Scalar Decisions has invested more than $4 million to kick-start the data centre, named RenderCloud, with 600 servers and a technical solution they created to meet the entertainment industry's security needs, said Darren Sharpe, Scalar general manager for Western Canada.

RenderCloud will launch Feb. 15 and is expected to expand to 1,500 servers by late summer, Sharpe said. Scalar will be marketing RenderCloud's services in Montreal, Toronto, Los Angeles and Vancouver.

Great Northern Way Campus is providing 3,500 square feet at its Centre for Digital Media on "favourable" terms as part of an overall strategy to attract digital media firms to their 18-acre site.

"What this project is all about is a more collaborative approach to the rendering capability problem," said Great Northern Way Campus president Matthew Carter.

Rainmaker, Digital Domain and Image Engine are RenderCloud's first customers and have each signed threeyear agreements that together cover the dedicated use of all 600 initial servers. The studios can sublease excess capacity, or take on more servers as needed.

The expectation is that other studios will follow suit. Customers not wanting to contract for dedicated servers can simply sublet the excess capacity after paying a minimum $15,000 fee for a dedicated switch to create a secure connection.

"There's almost no studio demand that we cannot take on today," Sharpe said. "Within a matter of a couple of weeks, we can scale the solution out to thousands of servers. For many of our customers today, their render solutions are in the hundreds [of servers]."

Sharpe said the RenderCloud model can support up to 5,000 servers. The project is the first time Scalar has built its own data centre to rent out and is the company's most ambitious managed services project to date, he said.

Rainmaker's Winder said the new service will be invaluable to the studio. "We really need the flexibility that RenderCloud provides us with," she said. "Production has its ebbs and flows. Rainmaker is now delivering three different projects at the same time and we really need a lot of rendering power and when it's done, we really don't need that power .... The bottom line is [RenderCloud] makes us cost competitive."

Winder recently turned down a six-month project that would have cost Rainmaker an extra $2 million in ramp-up costs. These situations come in regularly, she said.

Rainmaker anticipates increasing its use of RenderCloud servers until, in two or three years, it expects to close its in-house farm entirely, eliminating costs for space, people, servers and air conditioning.

BC Film + Media president Richard Brownsey believes RenderCloud will help Vancouver grow into a major international content-production centre in digital media.

Most of the major international digital effects companies have either established or announced an intention to establish a studio in Vancouver in the past two years, Brownsey said.

"When you are seeing business grow that quickly, you do look at what are the infrastructure pieces that might be necessary to make sure that happens.

"We'll see how it builds out, but to me it is a very logical, creative and probably unique piece of cooperation that's going to have long-term benefits for this industry."

RenderCloud will make a "very compelling" reason for firms to locate on Great Northern Way Campus land, said Carter, whose key role as president is to orchestrate redevelopment of the site.

Great Northern Way Campus is in good financial shape with both its academic program set to break even this year and debt arising from the initial site acquisition to be fully repaid in 2012, Carter said.

The campus is owned and operated by the four academic partners behind the Centre for Digital Media: the University of B.C., Simon Fraser University, Emily Carr University of Art + Design and the B.C. Institute of Technology.




Established Animation Companies In Los Angeles.:  It Can't Last Forever

(animationguildblog.blogspot.com)              Screams of anguish from Brit animation companies:

    The UK's animation industry is "scrabbling for crumbs, selling up and shipping off" because production companies cannot compete against tax breaks offered overseas, the companies behind Wallace & Gromit, Peppa Pig and In The Night Garden have warned.

    Animation UK, which represents producers including Aardman Animations and Astley Baker Davies, has written to George Osborne, Chancellor, warning him that Britain is losing its best animation talent, and calling for tax breaks before the industry is wiped out altogether.

    The sector is "not seeking handouts to get a competitive advantage", but needs to be able to compete with animators overseas, particularly Ireland and Canada, where tax breaks and funding supply up to 50pc of budgets and create "a distorted market place we cannot survive in", it said in a letter to be delivered to the Treasury today. ...

Let us face facts. Tax breaks for motion picture production are rampant around the globe.

Yesterday, a union rep for an IA live-action local said to me that television and movie productions have galloped away from L.A. in droves, going to where tax and other cost breaks are large and plentiful:

    "Lots of shoots are now happening on the east coast. Atlanta has a lot of movie work going on. The place is hopping. " ...

And so it goes. The Los Angeles animation scene has been (somewhat) shielded from poaching and job shifting because Southern California is where a concentration of animation talent resides, and critical mass results in gravitational pull.

But this happy phenomenon will not necessarily last forever. Once upon a time, cities in Canada and other parts of the United States had a tough time fielding professional, competent movie crews, so work remained in L.A. That stopped being the case a long while ago.

When the cost differences and tax breaks get big enough, even established California animation studios could start saying ...

    "Heeey now!"

Animators and tech directors are not all that different from their live-action brethren. They are just as likely to pull up stakes and "go where the work is" in order to survive, if and when that work travels elsewhere.




Sci-Fi comedy Reunites Monty Python  For "Absolutely Anything"

(darkhorizons.com)                  Former Monty Python members John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, and Michael Palin are all signed on for the sci-fi comedy "Absolutely Anything" which is based on a story by fellow alum Terry Jones reports Entertainment Weekly.

The story follows a group of aliens who use an earthling as their plaything and will combine CGI and live action. Robin Williams will lend his voice to a wry talking dog named Dennis and possibly a live-action role as well.

Jones is also expected to direct with Mike Medavoy ("Life of Brian") producing. As for the remaining Python? “Eric [Idle] knows about the project” but isn’t confirmed yet says producer Chris Cheeser.




"Rio" Sequel Readying For 2014?

(darkhorizons.com)                    Sergio Mendes, whose song "Real in Rio" for the CG animated feature "Rio" has scored an Oscar nomination, says that a sequel to that film looks likely.

"Fox has been talking about (it) and it looks like it's going to happen. We're going to have a meeting I think next week and Carlos [Saldanha, Director] is coming to town to tell us the story, and it looks like it's a go" he tells The Press Association.

Saldanha may also want to tie in the sequel to the 2014 World Cup which will take place in Brazil. No script or deals however are in place.




Virtual Trees Sway in Wind Just Like the Real Thing

(newscientist.com)                ANIMATORS will soon be able to construct startlingly realistic sylvan beauty in movies and video games with a new system for generating 3D virtual trees.

At the moment, computer-generated images (CGI) of trees are either drawn manually on a computer and then animated, or someone has to shoot video of a tree moving in the wind. This is digitally transformed into a CGI copy of the original. Either process takes days - and you can only produce one size and shape of tree, says Chuan Li, a computer animator at the University of Bath in the UK.

To solve this problem, Li and colleagues have developed software that generates realistic-looking 3D animated trees of any size and shape based on a rough 2D sketch. The trees even blow in the wind like their woody counterparts, and can be whipped around just by piping in a soundtrack of a blustery day.

The system can start with just a 2D sketch of a tree's leafless branches, and an outline of what the tree's shape will be once it is in full leaf. The 2D sketch is then copied and rotated 90 degrees into 3D space. From there, an algorithm "grows" additional branches for the tree until a 3D skeleton is complete.

The software contains a model of how real tree branches move in both light and strong winds, based on video footage the team shot. The system applies this model to the tree skeleton to work out how the branch structure would move large clusters of leaves as they billow in the breeze. Each virtual branch in the skeleton is then broken into six segments. "By rotating each segment independently we can get the right magnitude of tree movement for the wind speed," says Li. Once they have captured a tree's 3D skeleton, they can scale it up or down for trees of different shapes and sizes, from a short wispy cherry to a dense, tall oak. The team's work was published in December in the journal ACM Transactions on Graphics (DOI: 10.1145/2070781.2024161).

This means that any sketch of a tree skeleton can be used to generate a 3D model that moves like a real tree. Better still, the trees automatically respond to the sound level of the wind in a soundtrack, measured in decibels, without adding physical parameters like wind speed. So as noise increases from a light breeze to a howling gale, tree branches go from swaying peacefully to flailing wildly.

"When I saw this my jaw was on the floor," says Jordi Bares, 3D creative director at London animation studio The Mill, who marvelled at the package's simplicity and speed, and adds he hopes it will be commercialised soon. "It's a game changer that could save us the huge chunk of our time we currently spend creating natural 3D assets like trees."

VIDEO - Take a look:            http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21328495.600-virtual-trees-sway-in-wind-just-like-the-real-thing.html




There's Hope For ‘Shazam’ Movie

(latino-review.com)                    DC has been teasing us with a Shazam movie for a long time. A while ago The Rock was attached, but that never came to fruition. Now writer Geoff Johns has decided to focus on rebooting the super hero “formally known as Captain Marvel”. DC has been rebooting all of its characters lately, including Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman.

In the 1940s Shazam was one of the best selling comic books in the world. In fact, his issue of Captain Marvel Adventures still holds the record at over two million copies sold.

Newsarama talked to Johns about his new Shazam story. Here’s what he had to say about the characters popularity waning over the years:

    “There’s so many factors, and it’s debatable on a lot of those. I think a lot of disadvantages Shazam had was that it was off the shelf for so long, so it never really got consistent stories told about it again and again and again. There were big periods where it just wasn’t published and the character wasn’t around. It’s kind of like Dick Tracy. You know? When you think of Dick Tracy, it just feels old. It’s the same with a lot of those pulp characters, because they stopped telling stories about those characters, and so those characters stopped evolving.”

When asked if a Shazam movie was in the works Johns responded:

    “Shazam’s always — there’s always a possibility for Shazam. There’s always talk about Shazam. And I can’t get into the specifics on that, but yeah, there’s hope for Shazam.”

Johns has worked on the Shazam film and said the new comic will keep the same tone as the scripts he’s co-written.

What does this all mean for the feature film? As of now, not too much. My guess is DC will see how well the reboot does with the core fans and then focus on a feature film. I’m sure it will happen, it just may take some time.




Industrial Light & Magic’s John Knoll Talks 3D For "Phantom Menace"

(moviesblog.mtv.com)             As the "Star Wars" saga joins the 3D revolution with the coming theatrical release of "Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace" on February 10th, our good friends at Star Wars Insider magazine are marking the occasion with a special celebratory issue. And we're marking that occasion with our very own preview of that upcoming issue, right here on MTV Movies Blog!

We have an exclusive preview from the upcoming "Phantom Menace" themed issue, featuring an interview with Industrial Light & Magic’s John Knoll. The interview gives the lowdown on the creative process behind the new 3D format that "Star Wars" fans are about to enjoy. Take a look beyond the break.

Star Wars Insider: How far back does the idea of Star Wars in 3D go?
John Knoll: Toward the end of working on Episode III, Rick McCallum, George Lucas, and I started seeing 3D samples. I remember seeing a reel where a bunch of scenes had been ripped from DVD from various films, including Star Wars. I remember feeling that a lot of the space and the dimensions weren’t quite right on it, but I thought it was pretty neat and so cool to see it in 3D. I remember George saying at the time, “Yeah, I think I want to do this.” 

So when you start a conversion, do you start from the beginning or the middle or the end?
We worked in an odd order, because with Episode I, we were also doing a restoration. One of the first questions that my Associate VFX Supervisor, Dorne Huebler, and I started asking, was that if we were going to take this movie and cut it up into 2,000 separate pieces, we had an opportunity to upgrade what those 2,000 separate pieces are. It seemed like we had a perfect opportunity to go back and create a cleaner, sharper and purer version of the movie.

In fact, the window was closing on that; these archive tapes don’t last forever and they haven’t been meticulously catalogued and archived because no one thought that was really the master of the film, so it wasn’t clear that we were going to be able to find all of them.

John ClaydonWhere did you find them?
They were in a variety of places. It was some work to find them and we found about 98 percent of them. So we went back to the original material, and if you look, you’re actually seeing about eight percent more movie than in the original release. In the original, there was a little bit of cropping, so you lost a little bit of information. We have slightly more of an image now.

So did George see the whole movie as it was improved?
Yes. We weren’t doing the reels in order, so he saw individual reels–but not in story order–until we had gotten an approval from him on all those reels. Then he saw a later iteration where we’d done a final polish on all of those, and then we saw it all the way through, in order, so we could see how it ran as a full two-and-a-half-hour movie.

Were there some scenes that worked really well or that you were particularly happy with?
It’s interesting that what makes good stereo opportunities is often very counter-intuitive. A lot of people think that the big stereo moments are going to be big space battle shots and, for instance, the Podrace. But much of the time you’re looking at wide shots, which are where all the spectacle happens--but with nothing particularly close to camera, there aren’t a lot of great stereo opportunities. There definitely is depth, but it’s not eye-popping depth. The best stereo comes in the more quiet character moments, because you’re in close with your characters and there are lots of depth opportunities there.

What are your hopes for the movie?
It was definitely not an objective to have an in-your-face, “Wow, look at how stereo this is” experience. The idea was to try and make it was as naturalistic as possible, as though we hadn’t really shot it with stereo cameras. So, there’s really no gimmicky stuff poking out into the camera; it’s really more of an immersive thing.

Source:              http://moviesblog.mtv.com/2012/01/27/star-wars-phantom-menace-3d-preview/




Games Publisher THQ Shelves All Titles Slated for 2014?

(gamesindustry.biz -edge-online.com)                Rumor - Saints Row publisher THQ has shelved all projects scheduled for release in 2014 and has cancelled Vigil-developed MMO Warhammer 40,000: Dark Millennium Online.

Other sources confrim:  THQ has laid off an unspecified number of staff as its recently revised business strategy starts coming into effect.

While the company wouldn’t comment on the number of staff cut, it did confirm that internal development studios THQ San Diego, Relic, Volition, Vigil and THQ Montreal were unaffected.

“THQ confirms a reduction in force to the company’s administration and publishing organization," the publisher said in a statement issued to Game Informer. "As recently announced, the company is exiting the kids’ licensed games category, and is focusing on its core game franchises and developing its digital initiatives.”

Last month, THQ laid off 30 staff including an executive vice president from its uDraw team after disappointing sales of the tablet peripheral.

And earlier this week, a group of former THQ staff called for four "underqualified" senior executives, including CEO Brian Farrell, to be fired, blaming them for "chronic and constant mismanagement" resulting in a slew of layoffs and studio closures.

The publisher intends to discuss its new business model in more detail during its third quarter conference call next Thursday, February 2.



David Fincher's Animated Pic 'The Goon' Still Possible to Happen

(aceshowbiz.com)                 Shortly after producer Paul Giamatti claimed that David Fincher's comic-adapted film "The Goon" is no longer happening, the comic's creator Eric Powell corrected the statement by revealing that there is still a hope for the movie to hit the theaters. He said that Fincher and Blur Studio are still finding a way to resolve the film's financial problem.

Taking to his Twitter account on Thursday, January 26, Powell wrote, "Last I spoke with Fincher and Blur, they were gearing up for more meetings to try and find financing for the film." He went on stating, "It's not dead until Fincher and Blur come to me and say they are done."

On Wednesday, January 25, Giamatti told IFC while promoting "John Dies at the End" at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival that the long-gestating animated film has been dead due to financial issue. "I have no idea what the hell happened. I asked and no one knows," he said. "I guess they just ran out of money."

"The Goon" was first announced after Fincher obtained the rights to the Eric Powell comic book in 2008. He then teamed up with Blur Studio to develop the CG movie. Back in December 2011, the helmer of "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011)" stated that the budgetary problem was still being resolved.

Fincher was hopeful that a studio would develop the movie and give the financial back-up. He once said, "Hopefully this is the year that people go 'Wait a minute! We don't all have to be trying to imitate Pixar!' "

The Powell comic itself follows the adventures of a muscle-bound brawler, who claims to be the primary enforcer for a feared mobster. The stories have a paranormal and comedic edge to them and concern ghosts, zombies, mad scientists and "skunk apes."



Effects Time Capsule: Roddy McDowall's Home Movies from "Planet Of The Apes" (1968)

Roddy McDowall's home movies showing Don Cash applying his Cornelius make-up for original "Planet Of The Apes" (1968)

VIDEO - Take a look:    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lCm74dnwujk&feature=youtube_gdata_player