(movies.about.com)
If there were any doubts as to The Artist's status as the front runner for Oscar's Best Picture race, there shouldn't be any more after the Producers Guild winners were announced. The nearly silent black and white film took home the Darryl F Zanuck Award for Outstanding Producer of Theatrical Motion Pictures (the equivalent of the Best Picture Oscar) at the 23rd Annual Producers Guild Awards ceremony held on January 21st. And Steven Spielberg's The Adventures of Tintin beat out Cars 2, Kung Fu Panda 2, Puss in Boots, and Rango to earn the Award for Outstanding Producer of Animated Theatrical Motion Pictures.
At the event, War Horse/The Adventures of Tintin director Spielberg was also given the David O. Selznick Achievement Award in Theatrical Motion Pictures while Angelina Jolie's In the Land of Blood and Honey earned the Stanley Kramer Award tribute award.
And for those of you wondering about this, the 2012 Academy Awards nominees will be revealed on Tuesday, January 24th.
Twilight: Breaking Dawn - Part 1 Passes $700 Million Worldwide
(Summit Entertainment)The fourth installment in the blockbuster TWILIGHT SAGA franchise – THE TWILIGHT SAGA: BREAKING DAWN – PART 1 has grossed an estimated $701.3 million in global box office receipts since the film’s release on November 18, 2011. THE TWILIGHT SAGA: BREAKING DAWN – PART 1 is on its way to becoming the highest grossing film in the series to date looking to surpass the worldwide box office gross of THE TWILIGHT SAGA: NEW MOON which tallied $709.8 million. The two other two films in the franchise THE TWILIGHT SAGA: ECLIPSE and TWILIGHT have each grossed $698.5 million and $390.4 respectively and the franchise continues to break records. Upcoming releases of THE TWILIGHT SAGA: BREAKING DAWN – PART 1 internationally include Japan and China.
Jackson's 'Hobbit' Doubles Film Speed to 48 Frames
(newsday.com) PARK CITY, Utah - (AP) -- Peter Jackson is making his hobbits and dwarves march double-time in his "The Lord of the Rings" prequel, which he's shooting in a faster film speed than the Hollywood standard.
Jackson hopes the 48-frames-a-second rate -- twice the 24 frames that has been the custom since the 1920s -- will help bring about a gradual transition to faster speeds that can bring more life-like images and action to the screen.
Digital cameras allow for shooting at 48 frames or faster, reducing the blurry effect known as strobing that can come with 24-frame filming.
Jackson said he hopes there will be a fair number of theaters equipped with digital projectors that can handle the faster film speeds by December, when Warner Bros. will release "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey," the first chapter in his two-part adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien's fantasy classic.
"You shoot at 48, project at 48 and you get an illusion of life that's remarkable. You don't realize just how strobing and how flickery 24 frames is," Jackson said at the Sundance Film Festival, where he presented the documentary "West of Memphis," produced by him and his wife, "Hobbit" co-writer Fran Walsh. "You look at something at 48 frames, and it looks gorgeous. It looks like real life. It's amazing."
Other digital pioneers are making the same push for higher film speeds. "Avatar" creator James Cameron has said he will shoot the sequel to his science-fiction blockbuster at 48 or 60 frames a second.
At the CinemaCon convention for theater owners in Las Vegas last March, Cameron showed footage he shot at 24, 48 and 60 frames a second. The faster speeds noticeably reduced or eliminated blurriness in action sequences or when the camera panned and dollied down the length of a crowded banquet table.
As Hollywood moved into the digital age, movie makers generally have stuck with the 24-frame speed at which celluloid film moves through cameras and projectors. "The Hobbit" will show that it's an outdated way to shoot films, Jackson said.
"I'm hoping it'll be just the first gentle step into changing film rates because we can change them, especially with all the digital technology now," Jackson said. "Twenty-four is irrelevant. It doesn't mean anything anymore. It's just a traditional thing. It's far from the best visual way to present a film."
"The Hobbit" has had a hard road to the screen after Jackson's blockbuster "Lord of the Rings" trilogy," whose 2003 finale, "The Return of the King," swept the Academy Awards with 11 trophies, including best picture and director.
Jackson planned only to co-write and co-produce "The Hobbit," but he stepped in to direct after Guillermo del Toro dropped out because of delays caused by the bankruptcy of MGM, which owned half of the project.
"It's actually been a reasonably joyous thing to do," said Walsh, who returned as a co-writer and co-producer. "I'm surprised to say that because I thought it would be very hard. Certainly, it was a difficult birth of this film. It was protracted and fought. ... But it's surprisingly pleasant, if I can use that word. Pleasant. So far. So I hope I haven't jinxed it."
The two films are being shot simultaneously in 3-D, with the second one, "The Hobbit: There and Back Again," due in theaters in December 2013.
British actor Martin Freeman stars as Bilbo Baggins, the hobbit who acquires the evil ring that sets the action of "The Lord of the Rings" in motion. Cast members returning from that trilogy include Ian McKellen, Elijah Wood, Cate Blanchett, Orlando Bloom, Ian Holm, Christopher Lee, Hugo Weaving and Andy Serkis.
Jackson joked that the snowy mountains surrounding Sundance's home in the ski resort of Park City remind him of the heavy workload still ahead on "The Hobbit."
"We have a hundred days of shooting to go, which still feels like we're at the bottom of a mountain. I kind of don't like being in Park City because I look up the mountain, and I kind of think, well, 'The Hobbit's' at the top of that mountain. I've got to kind of climb this. It looks pretty daunting," Jackson said.
Yet Jackson said he's having a great time revisiting Tolkien's Middle-earth.
"If I show up at work every day happy to be there and excited about what we're shooting, to me, that's always a good sign," he said. "So I think we're making a couple of pretty entertaining movies."
Is George Lucas Really Done?
Anybody who's followed the life and career of George Lucas knows that as optimistic as American Grafitti and Star Wars are, he's got a fairly pessimistic world view.
THX-1138 confirmed that sentiment pretty early on in his life, actually. And of course we all know he's been a popular punching bag in the geek community for what he's done to his Star Wars trilogy, and how he's supposedly ruined many people's precious childhood memories. But has it finally gotten Lucas to where he wants to throw in the towel?
Is George Lucas really done?Reports have hit that on the eve of the release of Red Tails, his first original story in a long time, that George is indeed fed up with the fanboi nonsense, and is done with Star Wars, although the TV series is still going forward.
He told the New York Times, "I'm retiring. I'm moving away from the business, from the company, from all this kind of stuff."
And his producer Rick McCallum, also claimed "Red Tails will be the last blockbuster Lucas makes. Once this is finished, he's done everything he's ever wanted to do. He will have completed his task as a man and a film-maker."
Lucas is getting close to 70, but he's not a broken-down old man and can keep making movies for at least ten more years if he wants to. The question is, does he want to? Remember, Lucas often promised he would dedicate the rest of his career to smaller movies that wouldn't make money like THX, but perhaps once you've incredible success and fame it's hard to step down from that.
Lucas has also been incredibly stubborn his whole life, often to the point of self-sabotage, and has always revolted against authority, so it's hard to imagine him bridling to a bunch of nerds, but apparently the crap they've heaped on him has simply piled up too high. "Why would I make any more [movies] when everybody yells at you all the time and says what a terrible person you are?" he asked rhetorically.
Still, there's apparently a fifth Indiana Jones in the works, so he's not completely done yet, and according to another report on Collider, Rick McCallum said that Lucas is taking "a little bit of rest, now I think he can set up the next chapter of his life and figure out, 'Okay, do I have a new set of films, a new kind of films that I want to do? That's what we hope and wait anxiously to hear from him on.'"
Whether he makes another movie again or not, Lucas has changed filmmaking forever good, bad or indifferent, and there are very few people who actually make that kind of mark. Sure, there's a lot of losers complaining about his movies, but Star Wars changed film technology for good and advanced it by a wide mile.
Plus, it's greatest legacy may be that the original trilogy probably launched and inspired more filmmakers than any modern day film you can think of. A 10 year old kid isn't going to watch an Ingmar Bergman film and want to be a filmmaker, if anything, it will probably put him to sleep. But seeing Star Wars at a young age for a lot of people, well, it made them want to figure out the magic, and try to do the same thing themselves.
Models, Sets, Props, Technicians from Star Trek Single Frame Restorations
Take a look: http://www.flickr.com/photos/birdofthegalaxy/sets/ 72157619514479789/with/ 3732116031/
UK Animators in Plea for Tax Breaks
(broadcastnow.co.uk)The makers of Wallace and Gromit, Peppa Pig and In the Night Garden have written to chancellor George Osborne urging him to create a “level playing field” for UK animators to compete on the world stage.
A letter by Animation UK describes an environment where companies face “scrambling around for crumbs, selling up and shipping off”, claiming that the status quo has created “a distorted market place that we cannot survive in”.
Over a five year period to 2008, the industry has declined from producing 83% of content domestically to 23%.
“We have moved from world leaders to an industry in crisis in just a decade,” the letter, written by Animation UK chairman Oli Hyatt on behalf of members such as Aardman, Astley Baker Davies and Ragdoll, continues.
“We are losing our talent pool, productions are being made internationally, IP is held outside the UK and as a result, all associated revenues are supporting economies outside the UK.”
The lobby group last year published a report revealing two in five animation companies were struggling to make ends meet. The report claimed that the UK was losing out to countries such as Ireland and Canada, which benefit from substantial tax breaks, as the main contributor.
The body has upped the ante by publishing an open letter addressed to the head of the Treasury, having already approached the Department of Culture, Media and Sport and various cross-party MPs.
In the letter, Hyatt claims the group has the support of Mark Field, Nick Clegg, Vince Cable, Ed Vaizey, Don Foster and David Gauke, among others.
He urged Osborne to “consider our case sensibly as we approach the next budget”.
Hyatt said: “With a little help now the downstream gains are substantial, with no help, as the government recognises, there is little hope of us being competitive and it could be the tragic end to another GB flagship industry.”
Letter in full
Dear George Osborne,
We are Animation UK, an organisation that is seeking the long term survival of the animation industry in the UK. We are not a body that is seeking handouts to get a competitive advantage for the UK industry but we are looking for the government to create a fiscal environment that allows us to compete on a level playing field with the rest of the world. The right support will ensure the industry is here to stay and can regain its reputation as the world leader in providing quality children’s programming. Animation companies around the world receive tax breaks and incentives whereas we receive no such help in the UK, the result of which is a distorted market place that we cannot survive in.
Animation is an industry that the UK has been a pioneer in and a contributor to the economy on many levels, as well as stimulating and educating our children. The big question is, why has an industry that everyone in the UK knows and loves reached a critical tipping point and why within a matter of years could it disappear from our shores? The answer is government support that is available internationally – both outside and inside the EU. We’ve seen a UK industry that produced 83% of its content in England slip to less than 23% in five years up till 2008 and now faces an industry that is scrambling around for crumbs, selling up and shipping off. We have moved from world leaders to an industry in crisis in just a decade.
Everyone has an animated TV show that they remember and cherish from their childhood, be it; Rupert the Bear, Noddy or Bagpuss, and we are all aware of the programmes our children are now watching, this animated content is one of the biggest influences on Preschool children during this important developmental stage of their lives. The ability to absorb content has never been greater and naturally the need to ensure the quality of this content remains high. Our children live in a digital age and animation is core to this and our animation industry excels at delivering quality content.
We are a nation that creates some of the best animators in the world. People come from all over the world to study animation only to ply their trade outside of the UK, as that is where the work is. As an industry we are losing our talent pool, productions are being made internationally, IP is held outside the UK and as a result, all associated revenues are supporting economies outside the UK.
The government want TV shows to be made in the UK, broadcasters want to show UK TV shows, parents want their children to watch UK TV shows, distributors want to sell UK shows and licensors want to sell toys from UK shows. It is clear that people want UK animation and we are an industry that can contribute to the UK economy.
We have already spoken to many people including; Mark Field, Nick Clegg, Vince Cable, Ed Vaizey, Don Foster and David Gauke who all understand the issue we face. The DCMS and Ofcom have both recognised that we should have support. The House of Lords have made the suggestion that the film tax credit is extended to animation, or a new credit could be created that is broadly shaped on the film tax credit model.
At this stage we want to ensure that the Treasury has all the facts and can consider our case sensibly as we approach the next budget. To help with this thinking, we have commissioned some independent research on the state of the industry and the support we need. This includes detailed analysis of potential costs and rewards of our industry operating in a fiscal environment that puts us on a level playing field with the rest of the world.
We know there are some straight forward measures that can be put in place that will deliver longevity for our industry, producing quality animated programming for generations of children to come and be a positive contributor to the UK economy. This is an industry that we have all grown up with and unless action is taken soon it may no longer exist in the UK. Wallace and Gromit, Thomas the Tank Engine, Peppa Pig, Bob the Builder, Noddy and many more great animations could all be made outside of the UK and may never return.
Animation is a sector ripe for growth in the UK, and with the right investment in the UK we can create jobs, IP and build a sustainable industry the envy of the world. There is a huge opportunity for the government to deliver growth and encourage inward investment. With a little help now the downstream gains are substantial, with no help, as the government recognises, there is little hope of us being competitive and it could be the tragic end to another GB flagship industry.
Yours sincerely,
Oli Hyatt
Chairman, Animation UK
Underworld Awakening Tops Box Office
(Box Office Mojo) Screen Gems' Underworld Awakening topped the box office with an estimated $25.4 million from 3,078 theaters, an average of $8,252 per theater. The fourth installment beat the opening of the last film, Underworld: Rise of the Lycans, which earned $20.7 million in January of 2009. The first film, Underworld, debuted to $21.8 million and was followed with Underworld: Evolution's $26.9 million. Starring Kate Beckinsale, "Awakening" was made for about $70 million.
Performing better than expectations, Lucasfilm's Red Tails debuted in second place to $19.1 million from 2,512 theaters. Produced by George Lucas, the film stars Cuba Gooding Jr. and Terrence Howard and was produced for $58 million.
Makeup vs Digital FX: Oscar Contenders Must Use Detective Work To Tell The Difference
(Los Angeles Times) LOS ANGELES - Digital effects in the movies have become so pervasive and so sophisticated that audiences can easily accept an actor who ages decades before their eyes or even morphs into a different species.
But digital effects also have made it tougher for Motion Picture Academy members to decide which movies get nominated for the Oscar for makeup - meaning the old-fashioned kind applied with a brush or attached to a wig or false nose.
"As computer images are getting better and better, it's very difficult for us to tell" what is makeup and what is a computer effect, says special makeup effects designer Matthew W. Mungle, who used makeup and prosthetics to help make Glenn Close look like a woman who could pass for a man in this year's "Albert Nobbs."
Members of the academy's makeup and hairstyling branch spent part of Saturday at a meeting narrowing the list from seven finalists to the three nominees, who will be announced with the rest of the Oscar nominations Tuesday morning. Part of the work is making sure the makeup and prosthetics were applied by hand and not via computer.
"We ask for photographs of them doing the work - more so than years before - in order to prove that it was hand-done. There's more discussion about it now. It's made the meetings at least an hour longer," says Mungle, an Oscar winner for his work on 1992's "Dracula" and an active member of the makeup branch.
Even submission packages from Oscar hopefuls are more nuanced. "I never thought about it in 2000, but now I have to," says Lea Yardum, an awards campaign consultant for more than a decade. "You have to be more thoughtful in how you prepare the (submission) materials. You just want to be sure if you're working on a movie that's CGI that you're differentiating what's (computer-generated imagery) and what's hand-applied. You can't just leave it up to the committee."
Leonard Engelman, governor of the makeup branch, denied that the meetings are taking longer and downplayed any complications because of digital evolution, but he doesn't dispute that it's increasingly hard to discern what is traditional makeup artistry and what's been digitally rendered.
"A lot of times it's difficult, very difficult," Engelman says. "When I saw 'The Iron Lady,' I emailed (prosthetic makeup designer) Mark Coulier and asked 'Was there CGI work done on it?' because it's so flawless. And he emailed back saying there wasn't."
This sort of honor system - contacting makeup artists and hairstylists to ask what if any digital work was done on their films - is the main way the nominating committee clarifies questions. Sometimes, however, makeup artists don't know what was done to their work in postproduction; in which case, Engelman must call visual effects supervisors and others on the film directly to "detective work it a little more," he says.
Digital cleanup on makeup work is a particular concern, he says, because filmmakers sometimes ask visual effects companies to keep it secret. "We want to be recognizing outstanding makeup," Engelman says, "not makeup that maybe had bad edges and they went in and got rid of the edges through CGI."
Engelman says 2011 was a "particularly strong year" for makeup in movies. Among the seven finalists that were voted on Saturday were two re-creations of historical characters ("The Iron Lady" and "Gainsbourg: A Heroic Life"), three period pictures ("Anonymous," "Hugo" and "The Artist"), one film involving gender transformations ("Albert Nobbs"), as well as "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2." Makeup artist contenders gave detailed presentations, showed 10-minute film clips and answered questions at the Saturday session.
"There's a responsibility to go and present the work and show what we did," says Coulier, who helped transform Meryl Streep into former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher at various ages in "The Iron Lady." "It's very difficult these days to know if the makeup has been reworked - and it raises some interesting questions about what can be considered for an award."
Coulier says none of the makeup in "Iron Lady" was digitally enhanced. "It's very irritating to me when you've done really nice makeup and you take a photograph of it and people think you touched it up in Photoshop. Hopefully people will see it up there on-screen and know."
Films often mix digital cosmetics with actors in makeup. Michael Owens, visual effects supervisor to "J. Edgar," Clint Eastwood and Dustin Lance Black's dramatization of the life of J. Edgar Hoover, says Armie Hammer's and Naomi Watts' characters in the film were significantly digitally aged in postproduction. Wrinkles, bags under the eyes and jowls were added. But no such effects were used on Leonardo DiCaprio, who played Hoover.
Aging the actor over decades was hand-done by makeup designer Sian Grigg. When Hoover's receding hairline, vastly different than DiCaprio's, presented unique challenges, producer Robert Lorenz suggested aging the actor digitally, Grigg says, but she convinced him otherwise. She felt a handcrafted bald cap, which took nine days to create, would look more natural. "J. Edgar looked a bit of a bulldog, really. He had a really big face," Grigg says. "I was trying to get the essence of Hoover onto Leo's face in any way I could."
Controversy over the makeup Oscar is hardly new. Debate over what is award-worthy dates to the award's inception in 1982, according to Rick Baker, a seven-time winner in the category. Baker has a particularly broad perspective - not only did he nab last year's Academy Award in makeup for "The Wolfman," he also won that first makeup Oscar for "An American Werewolf in London."
"Even at that time, before CGI was even used, there was some debate about what really is makeup and what isn't," he says. "The stuff I did (then) crossed the line between traditional makeup and practical special effects, like mechanical effects. It was a gray area. When I won for 'American Werewolf' ... people said, 'That's not makeup, that's on a robotic head. That was a special effect.'"
Most movies today use elements, he says, of both digital and special makeup effects - to varying degrees. "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" in 2008 completely blended the line, aging the characters with a combination of sculpted prosthetics, makeup, motion capture and CGI.
"Digital is in every film now; it's hard to draw the line," says Baker, who calls himself a makeup artist but also creates his designs digitally. "I embrace the technology - any trick in our bag of tricks is a great thing."
Adds Coulier: "In the future, who knows - we may end up with a separate award for best CGI/makeup."
ILM Visual Effects Showcased In Transformers 3 Extras - Deconstructing Chicago: Multi-Angle Sequences
This supplement is divided into two elements: Previsualizations (17:05) and Visual Effects (18:36). The former allows viewers to watch either the raw previsualizations individually or side-by-side with the final shot. The latter allows viewers to choose between watching "VFX Breakdowns" either individually or alongside the final shot. Previsualizations contains the following segments: Doomsday Plan, Assault on the Humans, Evening the Score, Sam Fights Laserbeak, Brains & Wheelie Left Behind, Osprey Approach, Building Slide, Colossus vs. Building, Sam vs. Starscream, Autobot Capture, Optimus to the Rescue, and Carly Confronts Megatron.
Visual Effects contains the following individual clips: Mothership, Assault on the Humans, Laserbeak, Fully Armored, Osprey Approach/Aerial Incursion, Tilted Building, Trapped, Driller Attack, Brains & Wheelie Cause Havoc, Sentinel Prime, City Under Siege, and Carly Confronts Megatron. All Previsualization selections may be played with optional commentary by Director Michael Bay and Previsualization Supervisor Steve Yamamoto. All Visual Effects selections may be played with optional commentary by Visual Effects Supervisors Scott Farrar and Matthew Butler.
Adam Savage / Neil Gaiman & Others Submit An Open Letter to Washington from Artists and Creators
Take a look: http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2012/01/open-letter-to- washington-from-artists.html
Sometimes the Best Special Effects… Go Unnoticed
From stop motion, to miniatures, and funny costumes, special effects have been intertwined into film since the early days of cinema. First in 1895 with a film produced by Thomas Edison and directed by Alfred Scott with an 18 second film reenacting the beheading of Mary, Queen of Scots. Scott guided the actors through the scene up until the executioner raised the axe, where he then had them pause while he replaced the actress playing Mary with a dummy. He then resumed the scene where the executioner finished his shocking swing of the axe, beheading Mary Stuart the dummy. You’ve probably done this type of effect before in some of your early films from grade school, but in 1895 this trick was truly inventive. Visual effects became a more and more desired part of production as it enabled visuals that were difficult or impossible to film in reality. Some of the most groundbreaking films for their time in the field of visual effects include: “The Enchanted Drawing” (1900), “The Great Train Robbery” (1903), “The Ten Commandments” (1923), “Sunrise” (1927), “King Kong” (1933), “The wizard of Oz” (1939), “The Thief of Baghdad” (1940), “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea” (1954), “Forbidden Planet” (1956), “Jason and the Argonauts” (1963), “Mary Poppins” (1964), “Star Wars” (1977)
Almost anything is possible in films today, often each big blockbuster claiming it’s more visually advanced than the previous. There are two types of visual effects: ones you see, and ones you don’t. Movies like “Avatar” ( 2009) and “Transformers: Dark of the Moon” ( 2011) thrive on Visual Effects and use them as a selling point. Even being displayed in IMAX and 3D to emphasize these visuals further. But sometimes the best special effects, go unnoticed. The ones you don’t see. How about the film “Shutter Island” (2010), did you now that there were over 6 0 0 Visual Effect shots in that movie? Take a look at some of the before and after images below from “Shutter Island”. There were a few obvious effects such as flames and ashes, but for the most part Visual Effects were used to help portray an Island that didn’t exist in reality, but quite possibly could.
Full article with before & after breakdowns: http://americandslr.com/2012/01/sometimes-the-best-special- effects-go-unnoticed/
Pixar Founder’s Utah-Made ‘Hand’ Added to National Film Registry
(sltrib.com) The University of Utah literally has a hand in movie history.
The 1972 experimental film “A Computer Animated Hand” has been added to the National Film Registry. The film, a computer rendering of his left hand, was created by Ed Catmull, then a U. graduate student, who went on to found the Pixar Animation Studios.
Catmull’s pioneering film was one of 25 the Library of Congress announced Wednesday as this year’s addition to the registry, which aims to preserve films that are “culturally, historically or aesthetically” significant.
Other new entries this year include “Forrest Gump,” “Bambi,” “The Lost Weekend,” “The Silence of the Lambs,” “Norma Rae,” “Stand and Deliver” and Charlie Chaplin’s first full-length feature, “The Kid” (1921). The oldest films among the 25 are two silents from 1912: “The Cry of the Children” and “A Cure for Pokeritis.”
“A Computer Animated Hand” is a one-minute film, made by Catmull and Fred Parke at the University of Utah, in which Catmull digitized a model of his own left hand. The animation shows this digitized hand flexing, making a fist, and pointing at the viewer.
“In creating the film, Catmull worked out concepts that become the foundation for computer graphics that followed,” Library of Congress scholars wrote in a statement.
The film was a landmark, according to Craig Caldwell, USTAR senior research professor in digital media at the U., because “it showed the potential of putting three-dimensional form in the computer.” Before Catmull rendered his hand in 3-D, most computer animation centered on two-dimensional images, Caldwell said. The film was also groundbreaking, Caldwell said, because Catmull’s hand moved. Before that, “most people were focused on the rendering.”
Hollywood noticed Catmull’s experiment, and made it the first computer animation to be used in a feature film. It was shown on a TV monitor in the 1976 science-fiction thriller “Futureworld,” about a futuristic theme park where androids are programmed to grant every guest’s wish.
“Everybody [in Hollywood] sort of took a leap in there, because they could see where this could go,” Caldwell said, adding that practically every Hollywood movie made today “has a digital 3-D human form, whether we realize it or not.”
Wall Street Sours On DreamWorks Animation’s Soft Results And Unanswered Questions
(cgsociety.org)CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg will have to deliver a world class sales pitch soon if he wants to overcome investors’ growing sense that 2012 will be an ogre of a year for the producers of Shrek. The animation studio’s stock hit an all time low in late December when it fell to $16.50. Even so, 22.9% of the shares were controlled by short sellers — people who were betting that the price would continue to drop — according to SNL Kagan. That hasn’t happened yet; DreamWorks Animation closed today at $17.58, which is still -39% over the last 12 months. But analysts don’t see a buying opportunity:
This week Goldman Sachs analyst Drew Borst downgraded DreamWorks to “sell.” He’s disappointed by the estimated $150M domestic box office for last year’s Puss In Boots – which he figures attracted 30% fewer ticket buyers than the average for the previous 13 DreamWorks releases. That probably wasn’t a fluke, he says: The company faces “increased competition at the box office in the kid/family genre” as well as from home entertainment options on cable and online streaming services such as Netflix. Barclays Capital’s Anthony DiClemente also cited weakening trends for home video sales last week when he lowered his 2012 profit estimate by 24.3% to $1.03 a share. He figures Kung Fu Panda 2 sold about 43% fewer DVD and Blu-ray discs than he had forecast.
Pixar Launches RenderMan On Demand
(forums.cgsociety.org)EMERYVILLE, CA – Pixar Animation Studios launched a new cloud rendering service called “RenderMan® On Demand™.” Developed in collaboration with pioneering cloud services provider GreenButton, this service is now available on Microsoft’s Windows® Azure with Linux availability following later in 2012. “RenderMan On Demand” offers nearly instantaneous burst rendering access to hundreds and even thousands of additional cores, enabling artists and studios to deliver the highest-quality cinematic imagery with unprecedented economy and efficiency.
For two decades, Pixar’s Academy Award®-winning RenderMan has led the revolution in rendering visual effects and animation, and is the standard for creating the outstanding levels of visual photorealism that audiences expect. Today’s announcement is the result of an extensive development effort incorporating the expertise and feedback of both RenderMan users and GreenButton technical personnel with production experience. The initial phase of “RenderMan On Demand” is targeted at small to medium-sized studios based on Microsoft Windows environments. Over the next two years “RenderMan On Demand” will be expanded into a comprehensive solution for users of all levels and studios of all sizes.
“We were investigating a private cloud solution but seeing the RenderMan solution from Pixar and GreenButton was great timing and is perfect for any of our RenderMan projects.” said Darren Hyland, Head of R&D at Brown Bag Films.
“From a speed and cost perspective, the cloud service is much more appealing than those we’ve used in the past” said Simon Sangar, Senior VFX Artist at Bradley and Montgomery. “The turnaround time is much faster due to the speed of RenderMan and also the robustness of the system.”
“Working within a tight deadline has always been difficult especially when rendering animation at the very last minute”, said Nicolas Chaverou, Golaem Crowd Project Manager. “In spite of the time difference, the process was very straightforward, asset upload and distribution on the Cloud, and 54 minutes of Cloud Rendering later it was in a wrap instead of the 20 days it would have otherwise required. Magic! In addition, GreenButton provided great support including feedback about improving our pipeline.”
Transformers 3, The Tutorial
(forums.cgsociety.org)A sample from a behind the scenes tutorial on Thinking Particles and Fume I am preparing to release soon. *Note - special thanks to one A. McKay for helping out with some elements on the final shot!
VIDEO - Take a look: http://vimeo.com/31728305
Original Godzilla Comes to DVD, Blu-Ray in His Terrible Glory
(usatoday.com)Long before its 27 sequels and endless spinoffs, the original 1954 film, called Gojira in Japan, was a fearful atomic fable from expert filmmakers, a metaphor for the bombing of Hiroshima that ended World War II just nine years earlier.
On Tuesday, the highbrow Criterion Collection, which usually traffics in the world of Hitchcock, Truffaut and Japan's Akira Kurosawa, will add digitally restored editions of Toho Studios' Gojira and the watered-down American version from 1956, Godzilla: King of the Monsters with Raymond Burr, to its prestigious DVD and Blu-ray catalog.
"For viewers who grew up on the campy, silly Godzilla movies that came later, this 1954 original is going to seem like a shock," says film scholar David Kalat, author of A Critical History and Filmography of Toho's Godzilla Series.
"It's like the difference between the Adam West Batman and The Dark Knight— the basic premise is the same, but it's so much darker and more horrific."
Gojira, which was directed by Ishiro Honda (who had worked with Kurosawa) and featured special effects by Eiji Tsuburaya (who helped film a Japanese version of the attack on Pearl Harbor), is relentless in documenting Godzilla's walk of destruction.
Their camera slowly pans through ruinous landscapes of fires and twisted steel. Meticulous miniature landmarks crumble; the injured spill into hospital hallways; rows of prim schoolgirls sing prayers for redemption.
"Stark, brutal and genuinely beautiful," says August Ragone, author of the biography Eiji Tsuburaya: Master of Monsters. "He helped create a dramatic visual impact that is still impressive today."
In scenes cut from American versions, a mother huddles in an alleyway, clutching her child in the shadow of the fire-breathing dreadnought. A fleeing woman sobs, "I barely survived the bombing of Nagasaki. And now this!"
"Japan is the only country to have experienced firsthand what it means to be in a nuclear war," says Kalat, who provides commentaries for both versions of the film. "When Gojira was made in 1954, that experience was even more recent in people's memories than 9/11 is to us today. Everyone involved knew they were making a dark and bitter allegory about real things, disguised as a monster movie."
The two-film Criterion set is full of documentaries and little-known G-facts — the name Gojira, for example, is an amalgam of the words for gorilla and whale.
Today, the man who wore the 200-pound Godzilla suit (and Rodan and other monsters), Haruo Nakijima, 83, is a popular guest at conventions such as G-Fest and fan gatherings. He says he studied the movement of large animals before filming began.
"It was a really difficult job, very impossible," Nakijima told fans at a Monsterpalooza convention in Burbank, Calif., last year. "It could get up to 122 degrees in the suit. But I never complained. Actors don't cry — you just do your job until it's finished!"
Says Ragone: "Godzilla's warnings are still relevant in 2012 — especially in light of the recent Fukushima (nuclear meltdown) incident. In the end, much like the original King Kong, Godzilla is a film that has been often imitated but never duplicated."
Are You Ready For Monsterpalooza?
(fearnet.com) Are you ready to get monster-fied? Monsterpalooza, the convention celebrating special FX makeup work, is back this April. From the 13th to the 15th, the Marriott Burbank Convention Center will be crawling with the best beasties from horror and sci-fi. In addition to autograph signings and special panels, there will be a walk-through monster museum, over 200 vendors, and more. Hit the jump for a list of guest stars scheduled to attend.
Source with guest list: http://www.fearnet.com/news/b25028_are_you_ready_ monsterpalooza.html
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