(shocktillyoudrop.com)
Two of the busiest guys in town, Patrick Melton and Marcus Dunstan, did a bit of script work on Guillermo del Toro's Pacific Rim. The duo landed on the genre scene with Feast and went on to script multiple Saw sequels and the upcoming Piranha 3DD, among other projects.
Pacific Rim is currently shooting up in Toronto with a cast that includes Sons of Anarchy's Charlie Hunnam, Idris Elba, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia's Charlie Day, Rinko Kikuchi, Max Martini, Rob Kazinsky, Clifton Collins Jr. and Diego Klattenhoff. Originally scripted by Travis Beacham, the story is an epic humans-versus-giant-monsters tale.
Inside, Melton and Dunstan - who were brought in for rewrites - tease you with what's to come.
In an interview with FEARnet, Melton said:
"It is going to kick major ass. It's giant monsters versus giant robots, and Guillermo del Toro is the only person who could bring it to you. That was an amazing experience, because we read the script, and so we went in knowing what the producers and studio wanted us to do; and we went in and met Guillermo, and he started showing us the tests by ILM. They were just mind-blowing. I think they'll probably show something at Comic-Con 2012. Because they should be done by then, or close to done by then. I'm telling you, it's gonna rule Hall H when Guillermo, the king of geeks, comes out and shows some of the stuff he's shot. People are gonna be blow away."
He went on to add:
"This is a PG movie. Most of his stuff is pretty edgy, for the most part. Nothing below PG-13 that I can think of. So this is his sort of four-quadrant movie. But it's got all the traits of a Guillermo movie, with the monsters and the younger characters and the things that go bump in the night… It's pretty great."
Pacific Rim is due in theaters July 12, 2013.
Digital Domain To Co-Produce "Ender's Game" & Do VFX
(marketwatch.com)Digital Domain Media Group, a co-production partner on Ender's Game with K/O Paper Products, OddLot Entertainment, and Summit Entertainment, noted that shooting will begin on the sci-fi, live-action feature later this month in New Orleans. Ben Kingsley and Viola Davis recently joined the cast, which also includes Asa Butterfield, Harrison Ford, Abigail Breslin and Hailee Steinfeld.
Based on the best-selling, award-winning novel by visionary author Orson Scott Card, Ender's Game is a futuristic adventure about a brilliant young strategist named Ender Wiggin, who is drafted by the International Fleet to save the human race. Ender's Game is written and directed by Gavin Hood (x-men origins:Wolverine)(x-men origins:Academy Award® winner Tsotsi).
Kingsley, an Academy Award winner and three-time nominee, will play legendary war hero Mazer Rickman. Davis, a two-time Academy Award nominee, will play a military psychologist who oversees the emotional welfare of young trainees and helps design the games that test their skills and resistance. The two join Butterfield, currently starring in director Martin Scorcese's Hugo, who will play the lead role of Ender. Ford, Oscar®-nominated for his role in Witness, is confirmed to play "Colonel Graff." Breslin and Steinfeld, both Oscar nominees for their roles in Little Miss Sunshine and True Grit respectively, have also been cast: Breslin as Valentine, Ender's sister, and Steinfeld as Petra.
In addition to being a co-production partner, Digital Domain is also creating visual effects for the feature, under the direction of Visual Effects Supervisor Matthew Butler, who is Academy Award-nominated this year for his work on Transformers: Dark of the Moon.
Panasonic Bringing Star Wars 3D to Blu-Ray
(techradar.com)Jar Jar in 3D - stop crying, no really, stop crying
Panasonic is set to cement its relationship with LucasFilm and bring Star Wars 3D to Blu-ray in the spring.
Panasonic was the only AV manufacturer in 2011 to bundle the Star Wars Blu-ray with its Blu-ray players and home cinema setups and it seems it has kept this deal and will bring the 3D versions of the movies to homes in the coming months.
3D Blu-ray
Star Wars: Episode 1 – A Phantom Menace is currently in cinemas in its 3D state and a source has revealed to TechRadar that the 3D Blu-ray will be launched as soon as the spring - though we reckon it looks more like a September launch - and Panasonic will bundle the Blu-ray with its home cinema setups – much like what it did with the recent Blu-ray releases.
Lucasfilm has decided to release the Star Wars movies once a year from 2012 in 3D, so it is thought that it will be only the first – well not the first but the first within George Lucas' expanded vision of the Star Wars universe – which will come bundled with Panasonic kit.
Panasonic has stayed true to active shutter 3D, so it is a massive move for them to have Star Wars linked with the technology.
Animated 'The Secret World of Arrietty' Wows Japan With $8.1 Million U.S. Opening
(hollywoodreporter.com)TOKYO – The $8.1 million opening weekend in the US for The Secret World of Arrietty is by far the biggest stateside bow for a Studio Ghibli animation, and is making headlines in Japan.
Karigurashi no Arrietty, as it’s known in Japan, opened on 1,522 screens and finished the President’s Day weekend in eighth spot. The Tokyo-set reimagining of English author Mary Norton's The Borrowers was directed by Hiromasa Yonebayashi.
PHOTOS: 28 Of Berlin Film Festival's Most Outrageous Posters
Studio Ghibli’s website in Japan posted a message celebrating the opening and thanking Disney, which released the dubbed version in the U.S. and has been cooperating with Hayao Miyazaki’s animation house for years, for its support.
By way of comparison, Ghibli’s Spirited Away (Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi), which went on to win the Academy Award for best animated feature, opened on only a couple dozen screens in 2002, pulling in less than $500,000 on its opening three-day bow in the America. It finished with more than $10 million after its Oscar win, though this was dwarfed by its record-breaking $230 million takings in Japan.
The Secret World of Arrietty was released in July 2010 in Japan and took 9.2 billion yen ($115 million), the highest grossing domestic film of the year.
Warners Makes Deals For "I Am Legend" Sequel
(darkhorizons.com)Akiva Goldsman, Overbrook Entertainment and Warner Bros. Pictures have closed a deal for a follow-up to 2007 sci-fi hit "I Am Legend" reports Deadline.
Following the $584 million worldwide gross of 'Legend', talk quickly swirled of a possible prequel for a while before the buzz died down.
Now though it has picked up steam again with Arash Amel penning the script and Will Smith likely to reprise his role as scientist Robert Neville - the last man on earth doing battle with the mutated mobs left after a virus wiped out the population.
Despite the previous rumours this will apparently NOT be a prequel, and Smith won’t commit until the script is ready. There's also the little issue of his character's fate at the end of the first film to be worked out.
Oscars 2012: Making a Case For 'Rise of the Planet of the Apes'
(nypost.com) It's not enough to just make chimpanzees appear out of nowhere�at least, not anymore. They have to look really good. They have to be immaculate. They have to move like chimpanzees do, and blend perfectly with the urban and rural backdrops surrounding them. Otherwise, you've got yourself another Deep Blue Sea to deal with (just in terms of CGI�otherwise, that movie is a masterpiece). Sincerely, the realism of the imagery lends itself to every other aspect of the story. It makes the characters more easily relatable and the situations more compelling. Thus, a good deal of the fascination derived from Rise of the Planet of the Apes is owed to its stunning visual effects.
I dare any 2011 moviegoer to claim that Caesar didn't simply look, but feel like a living, breathing entity. Caesar, motion-captured via a splendid performance from Andy Serkis (who also lent such talents to The Lord of the Rings trilogy's Sm�agol/Gollum), is unique as a primarily speechless, animated protagonist in a film featuring an array of human stars�not excluding the debonair James Franco. But even among Francos and Lithgows and a Malfoy, Caesar is the most vibrant figure onscreen. And although Serkis' performance is the benefactor of our investment in Caesar, we cannot discount the character's breathtakingly lifelike appearance as significantly responsible as well.
Caesar isn't just your carbon copy of a real-life ape. There is an element of surrealism to his physical makeup that allows us even greater interest in the character's every move and thought. The artists behind the Rise of the Planet of the Apes hero blended reality with the science-fiction nature of Caesar and his story to develop the perfect physicality that would carry the tale appropriately. When Caesar needs to look ape-like, he does. When he needs to look human-like, he does�and all of it with unabashed certainty.
There is never a moment when we doubt the veracity in anything Caesar does. None of his movements or expressions seem out of place or disjointed. In fact, we cringe when he reigns blows upon the jerk neighbor of the Rodman family. We shudder when he's tortured by the even bigger jerk of a prison guard who seems to get a kick out of being mean to helpless animals. And many of us shed a tear when he shares moments of love�sweet and bittersweet alike�with his friend and family member, William Rodman (Franco). All of it seems so incredibly real, because that's just what Caesar is to us.
Rise of the Planet of the Apes accomplishes more with Caesar than many films do with actual humans. The film's visual effects may not offer us monumental explosions or massive alien worlds, but what we get from Apes's CGI is much more powerful: we get a real character with whom we become entirely connected, and a real story with which we become fully invested. In short, everything we get from Caesar, we truly believe. Every tree he climbs. Every puzzle he solves. Every Rocket he cookies. It's all real. That's where the film's wonder comes from, and it's magic worthy of awards.
What's the Future of CGI?
(worstpreviews.com)We recently asked WP users to submit articles about movies and/or the website that we would post on the site. Today is the first installment in the "WP Users Speak" series and Minkowski is the first person to put together an article. Check it out and feel free to express your opinions in the comments section below.
The Future of CGI by Minkowski: Even though there are essentially three possible futures for CGI, photo-realism, alternate-realism and stylized-realism, all three share the same goal: the rendering of artificial reality and ultimately the replacement of live actors with synthetic performers.
The recent film "Avatar" took viewers on a sensually exhilarating trip towards all three possible futures, with a heavier emphasis on photorealism, through the use of advanced motion capture techniques on principle actors Sam Washington and Zoe Saldana and by employing powerful new texture and shading methods, captured in brilliant high-definition 3D.
In 2011, "Transformers: Dark of the Moon" titillated teenage movie-goers with a variety of CGI implementations of the highly photo-realistic variety, including virtual battle-bots and exploding skyscrapers so indistinguishable from reality, you could almost taste the cold steel and smell the acrid fumes of sheetrock burning within completely synthetic flames, with much, if not all, of the robotic acting originating through physically-accurate key frame animation, and Shia LaBeouf's onscreen performances.
Other film production companies have used a far more stylized-realistic route, such as Pixar, which owns an impressive list of CG films such as "Up" and their latest as-of-yet unreleased heroine film "Brave," both of which feature convincingly and realistically lit and rendered characters in otherwise heavily stylized formats and settings.
The last variant, hyper-realism, hasn't made much headway into cinema, though it could when a new generation of filmmakers in the molds of David Cronenberg and David Lynch embrace CGI as a complete means to depict a reality that is at once realistically acceptable and believable and yet dream-like in depiction and execution. The closest examples to date that have made modest American box-impacts are Christian Volckman's "Renaissance" and Richard Linklater's "A Scanner Darkly," both of which used more 2D post-production alterations than true 3D CGI.
Culture Warrior: The Importance of Honoring Motion Capture Performances
(filmschoolrejects.com)The performance was so compelling, and the digital handiwork so real, that critics believed it would be a huge oversight if the Academy didn’t find a way to recognize this historical milestone. Audiences were compelled and engrossed with a CGI creature whose features and expressions were so detailed that he seemed to integrate seamlessly with his flesh-and-blood cohorts on the silver screen, occasionally even going so far as surpassing them in terms of the quality of his performance. The character was Gollum, the film was The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, and the performer was a talented but then little-known British actor named Andy Serkis. Almost a decade since, Serkis has since found his rightful place as the premier motion capture performer working in Hollywood, but he is still yet to be recognized by the Academy for his work. I imagine that the debates over his snub for Caesar in Rise of the Planet of the Apes will surmise yet again with another standout performance, just as this year’s debate closely resembles the one contested over Gollum nine years ago.
It’s not that The Academy is slow to adapt to significant technological changes in Hollywood. The Best Cinematography (Black and White) Award, for instance, no longer exists. But more importantly, as an occasion that (almost exclusively) celebrates Hollywood, the ceremony only benefits by advertising new adaptive technologies in full force. For instance, the academy devoted a significant portion of screen time to a documentary that depicted the making of the first Toy Story during the 1996 ceremony. If cinema is a spectacle (especially through the digital saturation that has defined biggest of Hollywood’s output since the mid-90s), then the industry only benefits from selling the mechanics of that spectacle. Just as early cinema audiences fascinated by the moving image alone watched films with the projector loudly operating within the same room, we admire special effects not only because of the potential power of the illusion they create, but also the artistry of their creation: the political economy of special effects have become as much a selling point as special effects themselves.
It’s strange, then, that the Academy is still reluctant to honor motion capture performances. Perhaps they don’t know exactly who deserves the credit in this case: the actor, or the team of technicians tasked with rendering that actor unrecognizable. But such logic assumes that a similar collaboration isn’t taking place in more “conventional” cases where the sign of the actor is perfectly and clearly visible onscreen. This year, Meryl Streep is nominated for portraying Margaret Thatcher, and with the aid of makeup she ages several decades in the film. Why is it that the presence of the post-production digital artist makes the fidelity of the motion capture actor’s performance suspect, but not the makeup artist for the “conventional” performer? Actors are accompanied by a bevy of other collaborators whose influence may not be totally visible by the film’s final product, including dialect coaches, stuntmen, stand-ins, dance or fight choreographers, etc. Film is a collaborative medium, and an individual’s contribution to a larger work is never without the influence of other contributors (this may be a larger problem with the act of categorizing necessary to give out such awards in the first place).
Perhaps Academy voters see performances like Serkis’s as less of a contribution by the actor because of the heavy special effects work. After all, the technical awards are often voted on by separate voters from the major awards – perhaps the only way to truly allow motion capture performances to be recognized is to have a collaborative voting block between special effects voters and acting voters (as acting voters may be prejudiced in thinking that all such performances are only products of post-production, or that Serkis’s creative role has little to do with how Ceasar ultimately portrayed in the final film). However, such an undertaking would assume that the role of the Academy voter casts their ballot based on what they think happened behind the scenes of a set they weren’t present at, when voters can only do what they’ve always done: evaluate the film based on the final product, not inferences about its production process. After all, the Academy has regularly recognized screenplays for films that were improvised – films, in other words, for which no shooting script actually existed.
As suggested in a recent Time article, the dual “snub” of Serkis and Spielberg’s Tintin may point to the Academy’s collective reluctance to accept motion capture. But this points yet again to a larger problem: the greater blurring of the supposed line between animation and live action. The Best Animated Picture category was introduced only a few years ago, and was seen as a productive move to honor the brilliant animated work being done which, with the exceptions of Beauty and the Beast and Up, goes largely unrecognized in a top category which greatly prefers “real” actors. But who is to say that the 11-times nominated Hugo isn’t, in so many ways, an animated film? Can we really say that a movie whose effect on its audience is so indebted to post-production wizardry belongs definitively to a “live action” category? It seems that we judge whether or not a movie is live action or animated almost solely by how we perceive actors and their performances/roles in the film.
Three years ago, Brad Pitt was nominated for Best Actor for a performance in …Benjamin Button that contained significant components of motion capture. Pitt’s face, however, was always visible and recognizable, even as it was placed on another performer’s body (in a case in which at least two bodies manifest the same character, when recognizing the performer, one is honoring something quite different than recognizing the performance). Pitt’s face provided an index for who this performance belonged to, even if such an index didn’t illustrate the full picture of how that character came to be onscreen. The case is quite different for Serkis, who has been recognized more for his performance capture roles than his life action ones. But this comparison perhaps points to the greatest reason why institutions like the Academy are reluctant to recognize performances such as Serkis’s: it relents to a greater change that’s been taking place in terms of who (and thus, what content) is valued in a given film.
The acting awards have been the Academy’s greatest draw for viewers for most of its broadcast history. Stars have been manufactured by the Hollywood system for mass audience appeal, and thus it is the actor (not the director or even the movie itself) which has been the most appeal for the ceremony’s audiences. The actor provides a clear frame of reference for the viewer, even as their performance is chopped up and reassembled by the filmmaking process. The exhaustive fashion critique enacted at each year’s red carpet focuses on actors, not filmmakers. If the Academy begins recognizing performances rendered invisible by technology, then the ceremony’s economy of stardom is weakened. Yes, Meryl Streep and Brad Pitt’s faces were rendered nearly unrecognizable in Iron Lady and Benjamin Button respectively, but they still provide assurance to audiences that, beneath these layers of artifice, still lies the great actor, star, and celebrity. Such a sense is not as clear or comparably indexical with the motion capture performance. While Serkis may not have played an icon like Margaret Thatcher or a silent film star, he did what I assume very few actors can in embodying a character of a different species.
But not recognizing motion capture performances based on its potential threat to our conventional understanding of the Hollywood performance only ignores the larger problem: that the centrality of stardom in Hollywood is waning, a reality made by a Hollywood that seeks to profit off the spectacle of performances like Serkis’s and gain repeat business from franchises like the Apes films. In a year in which Rise of the Planet of the Apes made more money than two Brad Pitt Best Picture nominees and one George Clooney Best Picture nominee combined suggests that Hollywood needs to recognize the relevance of its own creation and consider thinking about motion capture performances as performances. By real actors.
Creature Designer Terryl Whitlach Offers Creature Design Course
(talesofamalthea.com)These one-of-a-kind creature design courses are focused on providing you with an in-depth arts education from industry-leader Terryl Whitlach (creature design artists for Star Wars, The Katurran Odyssey, Brother Bear). Equipped with Copic markers, you’ll venture through a continuous, interactive online saga centered on the world of Amalthea – and the creatures that dwell within. Learn to draw the fantastic inhabitants of this world, from the inside out. Discover the bones and muscle frameworks – drawn from actual current and prehistoric animals- and combine them to create your own. As the story unfolds, you’ll witness the epic struggle for dominance and survival among the inhabitants of the world of Amalthea.
Sign up today for your free lesson, use your Copic markers along with the class, and gain a creature design education like no other.
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The VFX Trade Organization Dilemma
(vfxsoldier.wordpress.com)Last week VFX Artist Joe Harkins started a petition to end VFX subsidies and lobby for a trade organization that represents the VFX facilities. He also wrote a post on why we need to support the trade organization:
Unlike other crafts in the film business, we don’t work directly for the movie studios. We work for a 3rd party that negotiates the work, agrees to a price, and then executes the task at hand. We need the facilities we work for to be healthy.
While I agree with the conclusion that we need to end subsidies and form a trade organization, I have to respectfully disagree with the premise used to make the argument. The trade organization is a helpful but unnecessary earmark to the very prudent idea: Ending subsidies.
The Nationalist Point Of View Alienates Supporters
Throughout Joe Harkins’ post he conveys a nationalist point of view by proclaiming things like “I’m an American first, VFX artist second.”
This is a big mistake. The US VFX industry is made up of a huge number of immigrants and by making this an “American first” issue he alienates a huge group of vfx professionals who built and support the industry here and also want to see an end to subsidies.
Now to be fair, some of my international readers alienate those artists based here also by expressing that their struggle is somehow retribution for US corporate and government policy.
Since when did advocating for families, labor rights, and health insurance become a strictly American idea? If anything it’s a global idea.
The irony is that many of these struggles are symptoms derived by global subsidies offered to US studio conglomerates. You don’t hurt US corporations by giving them your local taxpayer money and you definitely don’t hurt them when you cheer the demise of the middle class in the US.
Mr. Harkins post also alienates foreign VFX facilities too. Why would a VFX facility in London join a trade organization that’s about putting Americans first?
It’s Unfair To Condemn Foreign Subsidies & Condone Local Subsidies At The Same Time
Mr. Harkins argues that we need to have a VFX trade organization that will end foreign subsidies but lobby for local subsidies too.
Again I disagree. I have been strongly against subsidies in New Mexico, Florida, Michigan and even California. Subsidies are regulated by the WTO not because of “Americans first” but because its a form of protectionism that artificializes the price of VFX.
Also again, why would a VFX facility in Vancouver want to join a trade organization that wants to take their subsidies away but lobby for subsidies in the US?
Unions Don’t Need To Wait For A Trade Organization
Mr. Harkins feels unions should wait for a trade organization because that’s how Hollywood did it. Historically speaking, that’s not correct: The MPAA was formed in 1922. The IATSE was formed 30 years before that in 1893.
He also argues that unions are for employees of studios, not subcontracting companies like the ones many of us work for. However many members of TAG and other union locals work for subcontractors.
To ask the unions to wait is a cop out. If anything, the formation of a union would coerce the facilities to jointly negotiate. Boom there’s your trade organization.
Mr. Harkins argues that forming a union is too much of a monumental task.
I disagree: They have the money, the retirement & health insurance plan, infrastructure, and representation. In fact The Animation Guild already covers many VFX artists. All they have to do to unionize is to confidentially sign a rep card.
The Trade Organization Has A Monumental Task Also
On the other hand the VFX trade organization is a monumental task: No money, no policy proposals, and most importantly, no interest from the facilities.
Asking the President and having professionals sign petitions is great but none of those have the authority to require the facilities to organize. However if vfx professionals confidentially sign union rep cards the facilities and studios are required by law to recognize the labor organization and collectively bargain.
Furthermore the trade organization has yet to even make a proposal of how they intend to ensure the financial health of its members. Is this organization going to negotiate bids for the group? Are they intending to fix prices? I’ve asked for details of what they intend to propose.
Full Article: http://vfxsoldier.wordpress.com/2012/02/21/the-vfx-trade- organization-dilemma/
Taking Risks for FX
(iol.co.za) SELF-TAUGHT local film school drop-out Simon Hansen has transformed into Hollywood hot property.
Now a top visual effects producer for some of the world’s most talked-about films, Hansen’s latest work, Chronicle, is getting rave reviews. The science fiction film about teenagers who discover they have superpowers, and must choose whether to use them for good or evil, opens in SA this weekend.
Hansen, 39, who lives in Cape Town, calls it a “commercial independent film”, a film that falls somewhere between indie and Hollywood blockbuster.
As a youngster, Hansen was impressed by visual effects, but never thought he would be able to learn how to do them. “I saw Star Wars and I was astounded,” he recalls. “But I also thought that kind of stuff was too far beyond reach.”
Hansen had plans to study film at university, but dropped out and used his tuition fees to buy a camera, with which he took pictures at weddings and matric dances.
“Then I just started messing around with computers, rebuilding editing programmes and such.”
Years later, he had developed so much experience in the field that he surprised even himself. “It suddenly dawned on me that I knew quite a bit about it. It was as if everything started to click together.”
But he’s quick to say he could never have got this far without the support of his friends, family and co-workers. Most of his colleagues attended Wednesday’s premiere of Chronicle.
“We are all so happy for him,” says Amira Quinlan, Hansen’s colleague and wife. “He is very talented, but he’ll never brag about it. So that’s why we’re here.”
Quinlan and fellow producer Hannah Slezacek are heavily involved with Hansen’s work. A self-proclaimed “geek”, Hansen says the two women help him to socialise and network at large events.
But what the team are most adept at is figuring out fresh ways to produce visual effects on a tight budget. “We can’t have the mindset that there is not enough money, so we’re just not going to do it,” Quinlan says. “We have to think of how we can create something without a big budget. It forces us to think creatively, outside the box.”
Audiences first saw Hansen’s work in District 9, directed by Neill Blomkamp, a collaborator who Hansen met in 1995. His own short science fiction film, Alive in Joburg – also directed by Blomkamp – was the basis for the 2009 hit.
Alive in Joburg, a film about a population of extraterrestrial refugees that alludes to themes and politics of apartheid, was shot in Joburg. “It is so great to see something really take off,” he says of District 9’s success, “because it just as easily could have flopped.”
Although he has written dozens of scripts, worked with many renowned directors, and developed the SI-2K digital cinema camera used to film Academy Award-winning film Slumdog Millionaire, Hansen remains humble. He is no perfectionist, he says, and believes in the fact that many great creations happen by accident.
Referring to the original Superman movie, where producers had to think of a creative way to make actor Christopher Reeve fly, Hansen comments: “The courage and passion they needed to take on the challenge is basically the underpinning of my philosophy – taking risks is what leads to innovation.”
Seeing his own work up on a big screen is not as climactic as one would think, he says, but what he does look for is audience reaction.
“I tend to look at the audience while the movie is playing. Then I can see what works and what doesn’t, what people are reacting to and what they’re not reacting to.”
Wednesday’s audience response was positive.
“The theatre was completely full,” Quinlan says. “And I think the film really captured them.”
Hansen’s achievements have helped draw attention to SA’s film industry. He has also trained more than 200 young film talents, many of whom have gone on to top film houses all over the world.
As for his next venture, Hansen says the offers are streaming in. “It’s amazing, and I’m so grateful to be in position to choose. The fact that I am even getting recognised is so cool, because there are so many who contribute to work like this.”
A reader's comment worth a mention:
I'm afraid this information is misleading and damaging to the Vfx industry in South Africa as a whole. The distinct impression is given that Mr Hansen did or managed, or even supervised the Visual effects for the film Chronicle. Mr Hansen was a Visual effects supervisor on the set, as the film was shot in Cape Town. This is a small role, often migrated to locals for 'pick up' purposes. Mr Hansen had absolutely NO role whatsoever in the actual Visual effects of the film. Printing this article poses a risk to potential clients and to the reputation of the industry as a whole. It's a glory peice that misrepresents Mr Hansens abilitites. It's more like an advertorial, and is damaging to other Vfx practitioners who don't resort to misleading the public for work. Marketing out of control with no link or regard to the truth or fair play. A concerned worker
Source: http://www.iol.co.za/saturday-star/taking-risks-for-fx-1. 1238428
Own The Light of ILM
(ebay.com) Acquired at auction when Kerner Optical (ILM Practical Division) closed its doors, this Inkie Focal Spot hails from the ILM Stage, the birthplace of the original Star Wars Series and Prequels, Indiana Jones, Starship Troopers, Jurassic Park, Men in Black, Pirates of the Caribbean and many, many more.
Equipped for 120 or 220 volt use.
* Designed to be placed in tight spaces as an accent light, or as a main light for small subjects.
* Accepts bulbs in 100, 150, 200, or 250 wattages.
* Cast aluminum construction.
* Mounts to a standard 5/8" stud.
Tested and fully functional for use. Also great as a decoration or museum piece!
View ILM's many movie credits here: IMDB
It should also be noted that all proceeds form this sale will go to fund my independent science fiction project MORAV
Bid Today: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Industrial-Light-and-Magic- ILM-Mole-Richardson-Inkie- Focal-Spot-/190640677605
"The Lone Ranger" Loses A Bad Guy
(cinemablend.com) Sooner or later, Gore Verbinski’s The Lone Ranger will be in movie theaters, and uber-producer Jerry Bruckheimer and his A-list director will be able to look back at all of the pre-production turmoil and – we hope – have a good laugh. Because trying to keep this train on its track has been a full-time job. The latest hiccup in a bumpy production schedule? Deadline says Dwight Yoakam has exited the cast due to “a scheduling conflict.”
Do they still have Johnny Depp as Tonto? Yes. Is Armie Hammer still locked in for the Lone Ranger role? So far. So in the long run, Lone Ranger’s still ready to gallop forward with a late-February start to filming so it can maintain its May 31, 2013 release date.
Deadline does say that Yoakam was set to play one of the major bad guys, which is interesting. Right now, Tom Wilkinson’s still on tap to play Latham Cole, the film’s chief villain. We weren’t sure who Yoakam was scheduled to play.
Andrew Stanton And Producers Deny ‘John Carter’ Budget Reports
(slashfilm.com) No one ever thought Disney’s John Carter was going to be a cheap movie. To create a world worthy not only of author Edgar Rice Burroughs but director Andrew Stanton and the studio behind the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, lots and lots of money was going to have to be spent on the effects, the sets and much more. But as production rolled on over several years, reports pegged John Carter as an almost runaway train with an out-of-control budget. One article even said the film would have to make $700 million to be considered for a sequel.
According to the film’s director and producer, those rumors are false.
At the film’s press junket, Stanton and producer Jim Morris both emphatically denied these allegations and, in fact, said the film came in on time and under budget in some places. Read more after the jump.
Here’s what producer Jim Morris, who has worked in different aspects on films such as Jurassic Park, Forrest Gump, Terminator 2: Judgement Day and more, had to say to me on the subject:
One thing that is frustrating is while this is a very expensive movie, we didn’t go wildly over budget. We went a couple points over budget and all of that was… We had planned for summer shooting, but we did a little bit of additional to kind of hone stuff and tighten it up and so forth. [That wasn’t] because things needed fixing, just because we wanted to improve them. So when you’re reading this stuff it’s sort of like ‘Well, judge the movie.’ We executed the plan we came up with for this. There wasn’t anything wildly out of the box. A lot of the things, like the visual effects for example, came in under budget, which is unheard of. So that stuff is just all bullshit. I mean just to say it. I’m not saying the movie wasn’t expensive, it was very expensive. It was expensive from the day we started, but it didn’t get out of whack or out of control.
Andrew Stanton, the Oscar-winning director of Finding Nemo and Wall-E, agreed, flat out saying the film was not in anyway the out of control production it was painted by in the press:
It’s always frustrating to hear lies put out there. And it’s always frustrating to see how people are so gullible. I mean by now people should know that if you read it in print, that doesn’t mean its true. And if you read it in print on the Internet, it’s really not true. It’s easy to ignore when it’s not true.
The director expanded on that to additional outlets, such as the following over on Movieline:
I want to go completely on record that I literally was on budget and on time the entire shoot. Disney is so completely psyched that I stayed on budget and on time that they let me have a longer reshoot because I was such a good citizen, so I find it ironic that we’re getting accused of the opposite.
We’ll have much, much more on John Carter in the coming weeks before its March 9 release including one on one video interviews with Stanton, star Taylor Kitsch and more.
'How to Make a Monster, the Art & Technology of Animatronics'
(voxy.co.nz) Dramatic, exciting, imaginative, scientific and a just little bit scary - 'How to Make a Monster, the art and technology of animatronics' opens at Waikato Museum next month.
On display at Waikato Museum from 25 February until 15 July 2012, 'How to Make a Monster' gives an insight into the art and technology of animatronics.
Waikato Museum Acting Director Andy Lowe says the exhibition, on tour from Australia, is based on the various stages in the creation of monsters and creatures developed for the film industry from scripting, to creature design and mechanics.
"This world-class exhibition is exciting, imaginative and fun for all ages. It's a truly interactive exhibition and the programme of events developed for it will bring to life the world of animatronics. There are opportunities to meet animatronics experts from the film industry, experiment with stop-motion animation, competitions and an after-school programme where kids can unleash their creative side and create their own gruesome clay monster," he says.
'How to Make a Monster, the art and technology of animatronics' was created by leading Australian creature effects company, John Cox's Creature Workshop. Director John Cox has more than 35 years experience in the visual effects industry. Mr Cox received a 1995 Academy Award for Visual Effects for the movie 'Babe' and in 1999 was elected as a voting member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. He was awarded the 2006 Kinetone Award for 'significant contributions to the Queensland Film and Television Industry' and is 2007 Australian Film Industry (AFI) Awards winner for Visual Effects for the film 'Rogue'.
"This is the only New Zealand showing planned for this exhibition and we're very excited to have it here at Waikato Museum," said Mr Lowe.
'How to Make a Monster, the art and technology of animatronics' is supported with a T Shirt design competition, monster storytelling , after-school pottery classes , clay animation workshops, and live sessions with John Cox the exhibition creator and Sam Doyle from Weta Digital.
Admission applies and there are costs associated with the after-school programme and some workshops.
The full programme of events can be viewed on the Museum's website, waikatomuseum.co.nz or by contacting the Museum on 07 838 6606.
So You Want to Build Monsters For A Living?
(cubepuzzle.mblogi.com)Like any preteen boy with an overactive imagination, Chris Clark loved monsters. He preferred the blood-sucking murderous variety, but truly anything with claws or scales was acceptable.
Twenty-ish years later, Clark builds monsters for a living. As a Vancouver-based special effects artist (okay, his official title is prosthetic FX tech), he’s punched fur into monkey suits worn in the recent Planet of the Apes prequel, and splattered brains on set of the Final Destination horror franchise.Our guides provide customers with information about porcelain tiles vs.
Clark is one of roughly 2,000 Vancouverites working in the special effects trade for big Hollywood-funded productions. It’s a growing sector that’s turned many childhood fantasies into another day at the shop. Just Choose PTMS Injection Mold Is Your Best Choice!
But what sets Clark apart from other young makeup artists and prop designers vying for the next break, is that he never bothered with post-secondary. With film programs in B.C. ranging anywhere from $10,000 to $40,000 in tuition,Specializes in rapid Injection mold and molding of parts for prototypes and production. Clark says it’s too a steep price for skills that are better learned on the job.
He says this just as Capilano University has opened a $40-million facility for training the next generation of film industry workers, joining a number of other programs in the region that charge tuition with similar promises. Which raises the question: what does a young person really need to do to make a career in the movie biz?
Clark first got his taste of the makeup industry at age 12, when a family friend who worked for St. John’s Ambulance cracked open a kit used to simulate medical accidents.
“He added a little wax to my thumb to make it look like it was cut off,” recalls Clark. “It flipped me right out.”
Captivated, young Chris turned gore-making into a personal quest. “I went home and took out all of the library books I could find on makeup, props, dentistry, prosthetics of the medical industry — I just read everything I could find.”
Clark transformed his parents’ basement into a laboratory, where he crafted paper maché limbs and other corpse-like oddities. “I always had art supplies kicking around,” he says. “I saved up allowance for products — latex, a bottle of blood, or scar wax — stuff like that.”
Working as a barista in his teens, Clark caught his break from a perfect stranger. “I was working at Starbucks and saw a guy with an XFX hat. XFX was this company in the States that I knew about,” he says. Clark struck up a conversation by name-dropping the effects company’s founder, Steve Johnson.
“He was like, ‘Yeah, how’d you know?’ And I explained that I do effects too. I had this little portfolio of the things I had done in my basement.” The coffee customer seemed impressed, according to Clark, and tipped him off to higher-ups working on the X-Files series.
“He said, ‘Well, why don’t you bring your portfolio in?’”
Once he started breathing again,Dimensional Mailing magic cube for Promotional Advertising, Clark soon found himself working under Tony Lindala, a household name in the sci-fi special effects biz.
“I showed up as the bucket washer guy,” Clark recalls.
But his days as a rookie were short-lived for one simple reason: extra hands never go unused on a movie set. It wasn’t long before Clark was casting molds, aging faces and ostensibly killing people all on his own.
“Like any job, as long as you’re willing to help out and you fix problems instead of causing them, people are pretty willing to take you under their wing,” he says,Sharps include syringe needle, adding that each new coworker would show him a different set of trade skills.
“They’ll teach you everything,” Clark says of the close-knit mentoring mentality. “They’ll just take you aside and say ‘Here, I’ll show you some stuff.’”
By 21, Clark was a foreman of an independent Vancouver prop shop. “I had always wanted to make effects, but I didn’t think it was actually going to happen,” he muses. “I think my parents were just stoked that I wasn’t a serial killer.”
Andy Serkis ‘Gollum’ Up for Directing a Film of his Own
(the-hobbitmovie.com)After many outstanding performances on the screen, Andy Serkis will be taking a shot behind the scenes as a director for his own movie. His roles in motion-capture have given him a potential advantage as a director while working alongside legends like Peter Jackson and Steven Speilberg, to name a few. British producer, Sam Tromans of STS productions, says the drama that Serkis will be directing is, “…a fantastic script with a great female role.” He compares it to “The English Patient up a mountain.”
Since Andy Serkis is somewhat of an apprentice to Peter Jackson these days, expectations are high for his directorial debut. Let us know what you feel about a passion/drama film brought to you by Gollum!
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