(wearemoviegeeks.com)
Paramount Pictures ‘Rango‘ took top honors as the Best Animated Feature at the 39th Annual Annie Awards, Saturday, February 4, at UCLA’s Royce Hall. With the expanded list of categories from 25 to 28, and the addition of two new categories – Editing and Best Animated Special Production - this year’s show honored more nominees than in the past. Also new to the ceremony was the live streaming of the event at www.annieawards.org/watch-it- live. The complete list of winners can be viewed at www.annieawards.org. The newly created ‘Member’s Favorite’ award voted on by the entire ASIFA-Hollywood community also went to ‘Rango.’
FX Heavy 'Chronicle' Earns a Super Powerful $22 Million on Super Bowl weekend
(insidemovies.ew.com)Chronicle sacked The Woman in Black at the box office on Super Bowl weekend, but both modestly-budgeted films exceeded industry expectations and brought in strong grosses for their respective studios.
Fox’s $15 million found footage film Chronicle, a thriller directed by newcomer Josh Trank about a trio of teenage boys who acquire super powers, soared into first place with $22 million in its first three days. That gave the film a potent $7,568 per theater average — the best in the Top 20. Awareness for Chronicle appeared disconcertingly low a few weeks ago, but thanks to an aggressive TV marketing push, a viral video advertisement (“Flying People in New York City”), and, perhaps most notably, the film’s zeitgeist-y found footage appeal, the adventure managed to bring young people to the theater in droves.
The surprise hit received an average “B” CinemaScore grade, with generations divided on the found footage factor: Audiences under 18 gave the movie a “B+”, while audiences above 50 issued it a “D+”. Thankfully for Fox, older moviegoers don’t make up Chronicle‘s target demographic. Despite the average grade, with reviews so much stronger than most films aimed at teens, and an encouraging 18 percent bump on Saturday (which suggests positive word-of-mouth), Chronicle might not plummet at the box office the way “F” graded The Devil Inside did a few weeks ago. There’s no telling how high Chronicle will end up flying at the box office just yet, but with its impressive debut frame, the film is already a big hit.
'Star Wars: The Phantom Menace' In 3D Screens This Thursday
(clickthecity.com)A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away… Twenty-two years ago, these words first flashed across movie theater screens around the world, and a modern legend was born. Hundreds of millions of people would be introduced to a saga that would touch their lives in ways then unimaginable. Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, and the Special Editions of all three films, became defining events for two generations. The fast-paced action adventures, set in a new and exciting universe, featured grand design and boundless fun. The films inspired countless of viewers with themes that are universal and timeless: the conflict between good and evil and between technology and humanity, the celebration of heroism, and the limitless potential of the individual.
Now, with Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace converted into 3D, Lucas takes us back to the beginning, in which Darth Vader is a hopeful nine-year-old boy named Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi is a determined young Jedi knight. This first chapter, which is rich in art, design, costumes, architecture and technology, follows Anakin’s journey as he pursues his dreams and confronts his fears in the midst of a galaxy in turmoil.
George Lucas, the pioneering and brilliant filmmaker behind STAR WARS, has overseen the process with his renowned attention to detail. John Knoll, the visual effects supervisor for Lucasfilm's Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) was responsible for the actual conversion. He served as Visual Effects Supervisor on all three of the Star Wars prequels. The remaining five STAR WARS films will be converted to 3D over the coming years.
“I'm really excited about the new big screen release of the film. We’ve worked very hard to get the best quality 3D we could. The big screen experience is so much better than watching it on television. It was designed to put you in the environment and surround you with the sound and the picture. There is nothing like it. I'm so glad that we were able to bring this whole experience to the next generation. This will be the third generation that will be able to see it on the big screen and when you're young, it’s an overwhelming and powerful event,” Lucas shares on converting Episode 1 into 3D.
Lucas further shares on challenges faced on converting the movie to 3D - “Originally, I was not a big fan of 3D. I really thought 3D was a gimmick. Then later on I was trying to get digital projectors into the theaters. I was doing a presentation in Las Vegas. Bob Zemeckis and Jim Cameron came up to me and said: ‘We want to get 3D into the theaters. Would you join us in showing the theater owners that you can do 3D?’ And I said: ‘That’d be good because in order to do 3D you have to have digital theaters. So it would promote my idea of digital theaters.’ Then when I saw the test that we did of STAR WARS in 3D, I realized how great it was and how great it looked. I became fascinated with the idea of converting STAR WARS into 3D, which was easier said than done. It took us a long time to develop a structure in which we could actually do a really good conversion of a 2D film into a 3D film.”
“I don’t like things coming out into the audience. I like everything to be behind the proscenium. I think 3D is an art. You need artists who have a sensibility about where things fit in the frame. It's very subtle but it’s very, very important. We had an advantage because we had experts in visual effects like John Knoll. We had the skill set of ILM (Industrial Light & Magic) and people who had worked in 3D on films, including “Avatar.” So we could get a group of people together that could actually do this,” concludes Lucas.
Harrison Ford in Early Talks for New Blade Runner?
(comingsoon.net) Could Harrison Ford be returning for Ridley Scott's new Blade Runner film?
Twitch says: "Twitch has learned that Harrison Ford has entered into early talks to join the new Blade Runner. While this is still very early stages and it is quite possible that things won't work out the obvious implication is that what we are looking at is not a reboot but a direct sequel to the original."
But could he be in talks to play a role different from Deckard? The follow-up to Scott's 1982 sci-fi classic is in development at Warner Bros.-based financing and production company Alcon Entertainment.
Alcon co-founders and co-Chief Executive Officers Broderick Johnson and Andrew Kosove will produce with Bud Yorkin and Cynthia Sikes Yorkin, along with Scott. Frank Giustra and Tim Gamble, CEO's of Thunderbird Films, will serve as executive producers.
Transformers Takes ‘Animated Effects in a Live Action Production’ Annie Award
(greatnewmovies.com)Winners among the Annie Awards 2012 include ‘Rio’, ‘The Rise of the Planet of the Apes’, and ‘Transformers: Dark of the Moon’. ‘Rio’ bagged the ‘Character Animation in a Feature Production’ award, while ‘Transformers 3’ won ‘Animated Effects in a Live Action Production’ and ‘Rise of the Planet of the Apes’ won ‘Character Animation in a Live Action Production’.
2 Filmmakers Working with James Cameron Die in Australia Chopper Crash
CANBERRA -- Two award-winning filmmakers working on a documentary with renowned Hollywood director James Cameron were killed in a helicopter crash in Australia on Saturday, according to National Geographic.
American cinematographer Michael deGruy, 60, and Australian TV writer-producer Andrew Wight, 52, were killed when their helicopter crashed shortly after takeoff from an airstrip south of Sydney, the media group said on its website.
Police did not release the victims' identities immediately.
However, National Geographic and Oscar-winning director Cameron confirmed their deaths in a statement released on Sunday.
" ... the deep-sea community lost two of its finest," the statement said.
DeGruy and Wight were long-time colleagues of Cameron. Wight co-produced the feature film "Sanctum 3D" with Cameron after accompanying him on six deep-ocean documentary expeditions.
DeGruy, an Emmy award winner with 30 years' experience in ocean filmmaking, was director of undersea photography for Cameron's "Last Mysteries of the Titanic".
"Mike and Andrew were like family to me," Cameron said in the statement.
"Their deaths are a tremendous loss for the world of underwater exploration, conservation, and filmmaking," he said.
Transformers 3 Dark of the Moon Visual Effects Reel for Oscar's
(seibertron.com)Love them or not, the Michael Bay Transformers trilogy has been a stunning achievement in visual effects. Creating the most complicated CG models ever made, each movie has continually stepped up the scale of its visual and audio effects. Even forcing ILM to upgrade their render farms just to handle the massive Driller scene! Well this visually driven powerhouse has been nominated for three awards in the 2012 Oscars. As is protocol; a 10 minute reel is submitted to the panel of judges for review, and today, we bring you that exact reel! Straight from Vimeo.com or just check out the hand embed below!
VIDEO - Take a look: http://www.seibertron.com/transformers/news/ transformers-3-dark-of-the- moon-visual-effects-reel-for- oscars/23908/
Classic Hollywood: A Week of Honors for Douglas Trumbull
(latimes.com) Visual effects visionary, director and producer Douglas Trumbull has a "broad" philosophy of film. He believes that everything in a movie is, in essence, a special effect.
"Movies are all about illusions, whether it is makeup or wardrobe or some location or being in a period of time or being on an alien planet," says Trumbull, 69.
Trumbull has created some of the screen's greatest illusions in such seminal sci-fi films as Stanley Kubrick's 1968 masterwork "2001: A Space Odyssey," his own 1972 cult classic "Silent Running" and Steven Spielberg's 1977 "Close Encounters of the Third Kind." His work spans more than four decades, most recently on the lengthy beginning-of-life sequence that opens Terrence Malick's Oscar-nominated "The Tree of Life."
It's a big week for Trumbull. On Tuesday at the Visual Effects Society Awards, he will receive the Georges Méliès Award for his contributions to visual effects. On Friday, the UCLA Film & Television Archive is welcoming Trumbull to the Billy Wilder Theater for a screening and conversation about "Silent Running." And on Saturday at the film academy's Scientific and Technical Awards at the Beverly Wilshire, he will be receiving the Gordon E. Sawyer Award, presented to "an individual in the motion picture industry whose technological contributions have brought credit to the industry."
"It's getting to be a pretty busy time for me," Trumbull says.
Throughout his illustrious career, Trumbull has created, developed and made improvements on numerous special-effects techniques including slit-scan photography, which he created for the famous "Star Gate" sequence in "2001"; process photography; miniature composition; and motion control photography. In 1992, he won a Scientific and Engineering Award from the academy as part of the design team of the CP-65 Showscan Camera System for 65-millimeter movie photography, which has yet to be used on a feature film.
It was "2001" that put Trumbull on the map. Kubrick hired Con Pederson of Graphic Films in Los Angeles to work on the effects for "2001." Trumbull, who was working for Graphic, got Kubrick's number from Pederson and called him for a job. Kubrick hired the plucky young man.
"He gave me incredible freedom," recalls Trumbull, talking by phone from his home in the Berkshires in Massachusetts. "Stanley Kubrick was a very interesting intellect. I think he put a lot of people off, but he didn't me at all. I had an incredibly good, supportive and positive relationship with Stanley because I really admired that he was trying to break new ground and do something new.
"Even though I was kind of young, I was the right guy for the job. I was willing to think outside the box. I didn't have any old habits. We did a lot of unusual photographic things in support of that movie."
Among the innovations was the slit-screen machine. "The shutter of the camera remains open for about a minute," he explains. "We moved various mechanically controlled lights in front of the camera to create what I call a controlled blur. I built this big machine to control very complicated patterns of light in front of the camera."
For Trumbull, the experience was so inspiring, "I thought, 'Count me in if this is the movie business.' Then I became kind of disappointed that the giant palette of the giant screen of Cinerama went away. I was destined to make regular movies for a long time but still trying to break new ground."
Though "Silent Running" wasn't a box-office hit, Trumbull received good reviews for the 1972 film, an environmentally themed sci-fi drama set in the future when all plant life has been destroyed on Earth. "I ended up directing it by default," he says. "I was developing the story and the project. It was obviously very unusual to make a movie that involved a lot of what we call front projection, which is what we used on '2001,' and a lot of visual effects and animation techniques. They said, 'Who can make this movie?' and I said, 'I'll do it.'
He's not a fan of computerized special effects — he still likes to use miniatures and photographic effects because they produce surprising results as they did in "Tree of Life." "You create the opportunity for the unexpected to occur, which was what Terry was after."
Astounding Effects Sequence From Eddie Alcazar's 0000
(twitchfilm.com)Ever since the first scraps of information about Alcazar's philosophical science fiction picture 0000 arrived online it has been eagerly anticipated by scifi fans around the globe, even making several critics' wish lists for the just concluded Sundance Film Festival. The only problem being that the film's not done yet. But Alcazar wants people to know he appreciates the attention:
We are very thankful for all the attention this project has been receiving. Although Sundance 2012 was our main goal we have yet to submit the film to any film festivals. We have been endlessly working to still complete 0000, our goal is to create something special but also extremely unique and this requires a bit of experimenting to get right. Ideas can be so powerful if treated correctly and cared for and this project is one that is led by our hearts in which we are closely paying attention to refining each and every detail. We are striving in every aspect to create a film that will really make an impact in the world and I'm looking forward to sharing it with you all as soon as possible.
Now, you may be asking yourself what could be taking so long. And rather than telling you Alcazar wants to show you. The effects in this film are being created entirely practically. If it exists in the film, it exists in real life. And down below you can see a first sample of what Alcazar has been creating along with the very talented Dominic Hailstone. But, first, here's the synopsis again for those who are unfamiliar:
VIDEO - Take a look: http://twitchfilm.com/news/2012/02/astounding-effects- sequence-from-eddie-alcazars- 0000.php
WETA Digital: The Making Of Tintin
(awesome-robo.com)This raw behind the scenes footage showcases an intimate look at the mocap heavy making of Tintin and the current technology being used for directorial purposes. I found it pretty interesting to see how Steven Spielberg used his handheld system to direct the scenes, and the usage of crude props and sets to give the actors a better sense of immersion to deliver better performances. Following Zemeckis' underwhelming series of mocap movie disasters (Lets not forget Mars Needs Moms), Tintin was a great example of motion capture done correctly for those of you who haven't seen it.
VIDEO - Take a look: http://www.awesome-robo.com/2012/01/weta-digital-making- of-tintin.html
Movie FX App Blasted by Psychologist
(heraldsun.com.au)AN iPhone app that lets users simulate blowing up buildings, dropping cars on crowds and even launching carpet bombs on their neighbourhood has been branded insensitive by an Australian psychologist.
The Action Movie FX app allows users to take video footage and add action movie effects from a missile strike to tornadoes.
Launched on the Australian App Store just before Christmas the app also allows users to buy extra effects, including chopper crashes and armed assailants opening fire on the video subject.
But the free inclusion of a car flipping and rolling at the camera touted as "Look like an action star as you evade a massive CAR CRASH!" was yesterday panned as insensitive to victims of road trauma.
Glenn Cupit, senior lecturer in child development at the University of South Australia, warned the app could go beyond a bit of fun when it dabbled with the very real emotions of road trauma survivors.
"My immediate reaction to that is that it's incredibly insensitive," he said.
The app is touted as light hearted and its creators encourage users to post videos on Facebook for a bit of fun.
But the Herald Sun has learned at least one man had to remove a video post from Facebook after his employer saw it.
Others have taken the chance to blow up their children, something Dr Cupit sees as an improvement over physical action taken against a child.
"I'd prefer that than them actually throwing things at the kid," he said.
"I think it would normally be done in a comedic context, and it doesn't concern me greatly.
"If you had a particular situation where a father was spending hours each day blowing his kids up on screen, then I'd raise an eyebrow."
The app carries a 9+ warning for infrequent and mild cartoon or fantasy violence.
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