(darkhorizons.com)
Are you keenly anticipating the "Avatar" sequels? You're going to have to wait a little longer - two years longer than previously anticipated according to EntertainmentWise.
Speaking at a screening for "Titanic 3D", Producer Jon Landau confirmed it would be a good wait before we return to Pandora - "We are excitedly working on it as we speak and it will be four or so years before it will be out"
This would seem to push back the release of the second film to 2016, quite a jump from the December 2014 & 2015 dates for the two sequels that were previously being targeted.
Landau is confident however it'll be a better film than the first - “We are excited and we have a lot of the same team working with us, some great design and ideas and some great themes hopefully.”
Shorter VFX Reels Demand New Strategy
(Variety) Cutting a 15-minute vfx bakeoff reel from massive spectacles like "Avatar," "Titanic" and "King Kong" was hard enough. This year, with more entries, bakeoff reels are only 10 minutes, and that's forcing the presenters to rethink their strategy.
The tried-and-true method was to tell a condensed version of the story in 15 minutes, with enough story to keep the viewer oriented and keep the big vfx shots in context. That helped convey the emotional impact of the shots.
With five fewer minutes, though, "Hugo" vfx supervisor Rob Legato took a different approach. "I put in whole scenes, assuming people have seen it. Whole moments that show the variety of work. It reduces the filler and now it's just the meat and potatoes." Even so, the first cut of his reel was 20 minutes.
"Transformers: Dark of the Moon" has massive effects in most of the movie, so choosing 10 minutes is a very tough challenge for vfx supervisor Scott Farrar. "You want to tell a story, at least I do, something that has a little emotion and action and scope and scale. But our first sweep was 40 minutes. Geez!"
Tim Burke of "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2," called all that condensing "tricky," but said he felt they were still able to lay out the story and get down to 10 minutes. Still, he adds, "It is a shame we've had to leave out so much good work."
Harry Potter Wins Big at People’s Choice Awards
(skymovies.sky.com)The Hollywood awards season got underway last night as Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 scooped four gongs at the 38th annual People’s Choice awards in Los Angeles.
The final instalment of the boy wizard’s adventures landed the prize for both Best Movie and Favourite Ensemble Cast in the awards which are determined by the voting public.
Winners Include:
FAVORITE MOVIE: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (well, obvies)
FAVORITE BOOK ADAPTATION: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2
FAVORITE ANIMATED MOVIE VOICE: Johnny Depp, Rango
Full list of winners: http://perezhilton.com/2012-01-12-people-choice-winners- full-list
"Hovercar" Moves Forward
(The Hollywood Reporter) Walt Disney Pictures is moving forward with Hovercar, adapting Matthew Reilly's 2004 novel, "Hover Car Racer" for the screen. The Hollywood Reporter has word that the studio has brought aboard Superman Returns screenwriter Dan Harris to attempt a new draft of the property.
Planned for the screen for some time, a previous take on the property was written by Blaise Hemingway and landed on the 2010 "Black List" of unproduced screenplays. On his official site, Reilly describes the novel as follows:
In the world of the near future, the most popular sport in the world is hover car racing. Superfast and dangerous, its heroes are the racers: part fighter pilot, part race-car driver, all superstar.
But to get to the Pro Circuit, you must first pass through the International Race School, a brutal cauldron of wild races on even wilder courses, where only the best of the best will survive.
This is the story of Jason Chaser, a talented young racer selected to attend the Race School. He's younger than the other students. He's smaller. His trusty car, the Argonaut, is older. But Jason Chaser is no ordinary racer. And as he races against the best drivers in the world he will learn that at Race School winning is everything, that not everyone in this world fights fair, and that you never ever have any friends on the track.
3D Animator His VFX Team Produce Awesome IRON MAN Reel
(comicbookmovie.com)With Marvel Studios moving forward with Iron Man 3, slated for summer 2013, the action is expected to amend as much as the story's quality. And although we have descent action in The Avengers to look forward to, with our Golden Avenger taking on extraterrestrials, there's only so much that can be done to make an armor-equipped man with flying capabilities & repulsor blasts exciting; and not seem dull or tedious.
A 3D character animator, Brett Paton, whose worked on Sin City, has produced an impressive visual effects reel with his CafeFx team, showcasing how intense and extreme Iron Man can be during battle; on the big screen.
UPDATE: Mr. Paton recently commented with the following:
"Hey guys! Thanks for checking out the video. This was actually done before the first IronMan movie went into production, and it only found its way onto Vimeo because I needed to convert my website to a better format. It was intended to try and get work on the original film, not IronMan3, but sadly the resources needed to make it photo real were never realized. I definitely agree with some of your comments that it's not as intense as what ended up on the big screen, and while I hate to give disclaimers, this was done in my spare time with a few other artists, not by a studio with millions of dollars backing it. In many ways it was abandoned. The sound effects are non-existent(save for what I put in at the time), the vfx artist dropped out so we never go the "True Lies" style machine gun raking the glass windows effect, lighting and compositing never got to the level needed, etc. The best part of it is really Phil Norwood's story board(look him up on IMDB), which was actually even longer. Anyway, thanks for having a look at something so ooooolllld. If anything, it was fun to work on, and a nice bit of nastalgia. ~Brett Paton"
"The second time I worked at CafeFx, I had much more animation experience. Around November of 2004, the company decided they wanted to do a spec piece to try and get work on the upcoming IronMan film. Unfortunately this had to be done after hours and right in the middle of Sin City production. They also wanted to try and finish it by the end of the year. For me, this was a good opportunity to work on something really cool."
"Despite all the hiccups, it was a great experience for me. I'm happy with some things about it, but dissappointed more people did not participate in their respective areas, such as lighting and compositing. I really felt it could have been a much stronger piece had it looked completely "real." The final product was finished around March 2005."
VIDEO - Take a look: http://www.comicbookmovie.com/fansites/MarvelFreshman/news/? a=51922
"Wanted" Helmer Adapting "Lunar Boy"
(darkhorizons.com)Timur Bekmambetov's Bazelevs company has scored the feature film rights to Stephen Tunney's young adult sci-fi novel "One Hundred Percent Lunar Boy" reports The Chicago Tribune.
Edward Ricourt ("Now You See Me") has been hired to adapt the take set two millennia into the future. There 16-year-old Hieronymus Rexaphin, living on a now colonised Moon, meets a girl from Earth who is inexplicably drawn to him because of his ability to see the future path of time and matter.
"Wanted" director Bekmambetov will produce this part coming-of-age story, part epic visual feast along with Michele Wolkoff.
VES Award Pits Small Museum Attraction Against Disney, Universal Rides
(PRWEB) A film by Super 78 Studios for a brand new attraction that brings its audience face to face with the forces of a Southern Pacific Typhoon scored a nomination Monday from the Visual Effects Society for a coveted VES Award. Super 78 Studio’s production of Typhoon 360, the feature attraction at the new Maritime Experiential Museum and Aquarium in Singapore, netted a nomination in the Outstanding Visual Effects in a Special Venue and will compete with Disney’s Star Tours Revamp and Universal’s Transformers for the prestigious visual effects award next month.
Filming for Typhoon 360, which features state-of-the art, real time effects including robotic, and high-resolution projections, required the meticulous integration of practical set pieces, lighting, projection mapping, and included 60 different shots for the six-minute film. And, it was produced at just a fraction of the cost of its big-budget competitors.
“We’re quite proud that a low-cost and technologically-stunning venture like Typhoon 360 measures up to the same standards and level of performance of deep-pocket projects from Disney and Universal,” said Brent Young, CCO and Creative Director for Super 78 Studios, and Co-Writer, Director and Visual Effects Supervisor for Typhoon 360.
Listed on the nomination with Young are Peter Crossman - VFX Producer, Michael "Oz" Smith - Technical Director, and Seungyong Lee - Visual Effects Supervisor.
The attraction, which opened last October, literally and figuratively sinks the audience into the story of ninth century merchants working on a trading vessel along the Maritime Silk Road as a massive typhoon hits. Over the course of the experience, the audience sinks a total of 40 feet as the film area expands in concert with the drop almost doubling the size of the screens and filling their field of vision.
It’s the second consecutive year a Super 78-produced film has been nominated for a VES award. The firm’s work on Flight of the Dragon, a popular Flying Experience attraction at one of China’s largest theme parks, was nominated for Outstanding Visual Effects in a Special Venue in 2011, and Super 78 also was previously nominated for its work on the Busch Gardens Curse of Darkastle, and for a VES television award for the creation of Ben 10 for the Cartoon Network.
The 10th annual VES Awards honor outstanding visual effects in 23 different categories of film, animation, television, commercials, special venues and video games. Winners will be announced Tues., Feb. 7 at a ceremony at the Beverly Hilton Hotel.
HOW TO SUCCEED IN THE VISUAL EFFECTS BUSINESS
(modusfx.com) When we founded Modus FX in 2007, we knew that to succeed as an industry leader, we would have to extend our reach beyond the local market. We believed that, if we could get a piece of the Hollywood and international markets, we could compete with the best.
Visual effects is a tough business. Audience expectations grow every time a new film sets the bar higher, but the movie studio’s budgets don’t change much. In 1999, a classic VFX film like The Matrix had just over 400 CG shots. Today, a film like Tron has almost four times as many. We are constantly challenged to find efficient ways to produce more and better effects.
We currently employ between 80 and 100 skilled artists and technicians, depending on our workload. We have created CGI for such Hollywood movies as Source Code, The Immortals, Jane Eyre, Barney’s Version, Twilight: Breaking Dawn – Part 1 and many others. Every year we move a little bit closer to our goal of becoming one of the top ten visual effect studios in the world. The secret to our success so far has been careful business planning based on five key factors.
1. Think global
While we have certainly taken on big projects here at home, such as Canada`s first 3D animated film, Sarila, most of our work has been on films from France, Great Britain, Asia, and, of course, Hollywood. We now run a full office in Los Angeles and recently won a spot on ICM, a major talent agency – the first Canadian visual effects company to be represented by them.
2. Choose your niche
The high-end studios we work with appreciate our full visual effects capabilities, including concept development, on-set support, 3D modeling, animation, and compositing. But for most VFX facilities it is wise to specialize. At Modus FX, for example, we have developed expertise in surfaces, such as the trains in Source Code and the water plane in Barney’s Version, as well as CG environments and invisible effects, such as when we changed the season from winter to summer for several scenes in Jane Eyre.
3. Find and keep talent
Visual effects artists are highly skilled and dedicated professionals. They are hard to come by. It is crucial to create an environment where they feel engaged and where their contributions are valued. To keep doing great work, we need to make sure we continue to attract, and develop, great artists.
We are now at an optimum size for a facility that serves the feature film industry. We have a stable core team of about 50 permanent staff. We typically have another 40 or 50 on a contract basis, usually hired for a specific project, and often rehired for the next one. Of course there are only so many artists to draw from in Montreal, so we also need to recruit from abroad.
Finding artists is an ongoing task. We are also becoming more involved in training new talent at home. Quebec has great training programs, such as the Centre NAD, and here at Modus we plan to extend that with in-house training for emerging artists.
4. Use tax incentives
Tax credits have been a stable part of the Canadian film production landscape for twenty years, offering local companies an advantage over their American competitors. Tax incentive programs in some states are far from stable and encourage producers to turn to dependable environments like Quebec and Canada.
In Montreal the tax credits for digital effects services can reach 35-40%. These credits are great for everyone: they support an industry that provides long-term high-tech jobs, and they infuse around $1.50 into the local economy for each dollar awarded as a tax credit.
5. Become an attractive investment
Although our business is not without risks, our size makes us attractive to local investors who want to get involved with large projects.
Expenditures on equipment and staff in this industry are high and it can be hard to get long-term advance agreements on projects. Cash flow is a challenge for almost everyone in this industry, but we benefit from having regular clients and a lot of repeat business. Our track record means our credit margin is good. Our bank has confidence in our stability and that’s crucial to weathering the ups and downs. That stability works all the way down the line: from the film companies who keep coming back with new work, to the freelance and permanent staff who like to work here, to our investors and creditors who know that we’re in business for the long run.
People say that the movies are a recession-proof industry. Even with the increase in the value of the Canadian dollar and the financial turmoil in the US, people want to be entertained. Digital effects are used in all films these days and increasingly for TV. This is a growing market.
Digital Domain's Australian Office Working on "Ender's Game"
(if.com.au)High-profile VFX company Digital Domain is understood to be working on three projects from its newly-launched Australian base including big-budget sci-fi feature Ender’s Game.
The projects are in addition to Alex Proyas’ sci-fi film Paradise Lost, which was set to begin filming in January but has been delayed due to budget concerns.
Ender’s Game, an adaptation of Orson Scott Card's popular sci-fi novel about a child who is sent to a military school to prepare for an alien invasion, is set to star Ben Kingsley, Asa Butterfield and Brendan Meyer.
It will be directed by Gavin Hood and filmed by cinematographer Don McAlpine ACS ASC, who last worked together on the Australian-shot X-Men Origins: Wolverine although it is not yet known where Ender's Game will be filmed.
The other films Digital Domain’s Australian office is working on are not yet known although sci-fi film Horizons, which has Tom Cruise attached, is rumoured to be one of them.
Digital Domain has been recruiting local staff since being lured to Australia by the New South Wales government in July. At the time, the NSW government said Digital Domain had committed to long term operations beyond Paradise Lost although the company has not made any public statements about its Australian plans.
IF Magazine has contacted Digital Domain but the company has been silent on its Australian plans for several months despite repeated requests for an interview.
The company, which also recently launched a joint venture in China, listed on the New York Stock Exchange this year and will host a conference call from its US headquarters on December 20 to discuss its third quarter earnings.
James Cameron Cirque du Soleil Film Gets 2012 Release
(cbc.ca) Two major Canadian cultural exports — filmmaker James Cameron and the Cirque du Soleil — have teamed up for a 3D film project slated to hit theatres in 2012.
Paramount Pictures announced on Tuesday it would bring Cirque du Soleil Worlds Away to theatres around the globe later this year, though an exact release date has yet to be set.
The project was written and directed by Andrew Adamson, whose credits include family-friendly film series Shrek and The Chronicles of Narnia. Cameron, known for his blockbusters Avatar and Titanic as well as for his undersea documentaries, served as executive producer. The partnership was first announced in late 2010.
The forthcoming film features a story written expressly for the project and performances drawn from the many elaborate Cirque productions around the world.
“This 3D event brings the spectator beyond what they could see at a show, it takes them on the stage," Jacques Méthé, Cirque's executive producer and general manager of images, events and lifestyle, said in a statement.
"This unique point of view allows the audience to discover the artistic details of our productions and reveal the human spirit that our artists bring to the audience in their performances."
The Montreal-based Cirque, which celebrated its 25th anniversary in 2009, employs about 4,000 people on five continents and has more than a dozen different shows on stages or touring the globe. More than 100 million spectators have taken in a Cirque show since its establishment in 1984.
FX Heavy "Terra Nova" Season 2 Waits For Green-light
[Wed 11/01/2012 09:56:10]
By Brendan Swift
Twentieth Century Fox Television is close to deciding whether to green-light a second series of Terra Nova.
Fox entertainment president Kevin Reilly, speaking at the Television Critics Association winter press tour over the weekend, said the series had spent much of its first season "hunting" creatively but was profitable for the company.
"We made money on it, the studio made money on it, the audience enjoyed it," he said, according to Reuters. The show was the second-highest rated drama of the fall despite declining ratings for dramas, Reilly said.
A decision to proceed would be a boon for Australian cast and crew – the initial 13-part series was filmed in south-east Queensland, employing hundreds of locals. Production needs to start in February to meet the lengthy lead times the effects-heavy show requires.
Terra Nova, initially set in an over-populated and polluted Earth in 2149 before following the ordinary Shannon family as they are transported 85 million years into the past to help restart civilization, is one of the most expensive TV series ever produced.
The last Queensland-filmed screen project of similar scale was fantasy feature The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, which began production in 2007, although local production has remained relatively robust since then.
Terra Nova, backed by filmmaker Steven Spielberg, started shakily: the pilot began filming in November 2010 but was hit by floods, budget overruns (partly due to the strengthening Australian dollar) and visual effects difficulties.
New executive producer (and director) Jon Cassar oversaw the production's turnaround.
“It’s an expensive ambitious show that’s taking a massive chance in today’s world of cutback-cutback-cutback – here’s something that is doing the exact opposite,” Cassar told IF Magazine mid-last year.
3D Monkey King Makes Debut in China
(chinadaily.com.cn)SHANGHAI - The three-dimensional (3D) animation, " Uproar in Heaven", a landmark work of China's animation film history, staring Monkey King, made its debut on the big screens around the country Wednesday.
The newly-released 3D version of "Uproar in Heaven" is a collaboration by the Shanghai Film Group (SFG) and Technicolor Group, an internationally renowned moviemaking company famous for its postproduction services for films.
Based on one of the four classic Chinese novels -- "Journey to the West" written by Wu Cheng'en in the 1590s during the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), "Uproar in Heaven" was first filmed in 1964.
The movie "Uproar in Heaven" features the part of the novel when Monkey King caused trouble in heaven and defeated an army of 100,000 celestial soldiers, led by the Four Heavenly Kings. Monkey King was subdued by Buddha and later became a protector of a Buddhist monk Xuan Zang during his pilgrimage to India during the Tang dynasty (618-907).
The award-winning animation features various Chinese elements and remains one of the favorite animations of many people at home and abroad.
As a recreation of the classic animation, the 3D version of "Uproar in Heaven" aims to take advantage of high-tech to make the original story more vivid and dynamic, said Su Da, the Chinese director of the 3D film.
Yan Dingxian, the 75-year-old painter of the original animation "Uproar in Heaven," has also participated in the recreation of the 3D version.
"The 3D version has lifelike visual and sound effects," said Yan.
China's film market demands high-quality technology support so that Technicolor Group, the special effects producer of a series of international blockbusters such as "Avatar," "2012" and "Harry Potter," cherishes this chance to cooperate with China, said Frederic Rose, CEO of Technicolor.
The 3D version film will provide movie-goers with a visual feast while some may recall the beautiful memories of their childhood, said Ren Zhonglun, producer of the film.
Western classic music has been added into the film soundtrack catering to the international market, compared to the traditional version featuring the music of Chinese opera.
A group of popular actors, singers and directors including Feng Xiaogang, Yao Chen, and Chen Daoming have been invited to dub for the film.
"We are looking forward to bringing a batch of classic animations popular in the past five decades to life via recreating them in the 3D version," said Ren, "We also will consider to find some native speakers of foreign languages like English, French and German to use their voices for dubbing the movie so that Monkey King can reach more people in the world."
The Year in VFX: All Of The Work Is So Outstanding, That Nothing is Outstanding
(btlnews.com) Ah, those digits. On computers tracking finances and trading commodity futures, they weaken the Euro, send gas prices higher, and create all manner of mischief. But in computers creating century-old Parisian landscapes, World Wars, and highly sympathetic revolutionary apes, among other imaginings, they create the very stuff of box office receipts and critical plaudits. And for a handful of them on VES and Oscar nights, they manifest award statues as well.
One who manifested such statues last year was Paul Franklin, who won for the visual effects in director Christopher Nolan’s Inception. He’s busy with the director’s Batman finale this season, but observed that “one of the of the most exciting things this year has been seeing how significant VFX work has found its place in’serious’ films such as Tree of Life and Lars Von Trier‘s Melancholia.
“It’s not that these filmmakers haven’t used VFX in the past for fixes and other invisible things, but now we’re seeing it at the heart of the story telling process in films that don’t revolve around action and huge spectacle. Of course there has also been plenty of stunning VFX in mainstream filmmaking, with ‘Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2’and ‘Transformers: Dark of the Moon’ being prime examples. The VFX film that had the biggest impact on me this year was ‘Rise of the Planet of the Apes’- Joe Letteri’s team consolidated their ground-breaking ‘Avatar’ work and delivered an extraordinary result with real emotional depth.”
And in that statement, Franklin neatly provides an overview of this year’s FX contenders, though other heavyweights, particularly Rob Legato and team’s work for Martin Scorcese in Hugo – along with the latest Pirates of the Caribbean installment, the skyscraper-y action thrills of director Brad Bird’s Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, and, among superhero fare (if Potter himself isn’t technically one, by now), Christopher Townsend’s work in Captain America, the First Avenger, help round out the category as well.
Stephane Ceretti, who did second unit supervising on Captain America, and was VFX supervisor for Fox on X-Men: First Class has a different kind of overview: “Just for the sheer amount of enormous VFX movies seen this year, the entire profession deserves an award. The work is getting more complex and the postproduction time is getting squashed, but yet, we always pull it off! Not only has the bar been raised again this year but it was rising as we were all running towards it!”
And that bar was not only being raised, but its definition was being changed at the same time. Visual Effects Society chairman and visual FX supervisor Jeffrey Okun also mentioned Steven Spielberg’s The Adventures of TinTin, which is challenging a few categories of its own. It wasn’t shortlisted for the VFX Oscar, even though there are animated categories at the VES Awards, but its motion capture techniques may alienate voters in the “Animation” category, where it appears likelier to be nominated. Okun says one problem – manifested by TinTin, but making visual effects a victim, in a sense, of their own success – is that a “consistent level of knock-your-socks-off has made us numb.”
Which is perhaps why it will be the story that the FX are embedded in – rather than the now-given “wow” factor of the effects themselves – that perhaps determine where the Oscar and VES statuettes go.
Townsend, who likened his own work on Captain America as more geared toward a historical drama rather than a superhero flick, concurs, talking about films that “concentrate on good storytelling over mere eye candy.”
Among those, he liked “Tree of Life because I love the work for the poetry and the symbiosis between the visuals and the story. It’s quite a unique project. It’s about sheer beauty.” He also liked the Apes reboot “because it’s the first time I’ve seen such precise performance capture done on set with the actors, and it works great.”
He also gave a nod to X-Men: First Class (and “not because I worked on it!”) but “because it’s John Dykstra. And because it was a crazy bet and we pulled it off. Some of the work done by Weta, Digital Domain, Rhythm & Hues, MPC and Cinesite, plus all the others, is quite simply amazing.”
Interestingly, that sentence contains both the old and the new of visual FX: the work of an acknowledged pioneer (Dykstra, who designed FX for the film) and the importance of numerous post-houses in pulling off today’s VFX-heavy filmmaking.
Douglas Trumbull (who worked on Silent Running with Dykstra) held that same title on 2001: A Space Odyssey, and holds it again, this year, on Tree of Life.
Dan Glass, the VFX supervisor on Tree of Life, calls Trumbull’s work on the film “fantastic.” Set up in an Austin-based “skunk works” (directer Terence Malick is himself Texas-based, and a pal of Trumbull’s) various literally-hands-on techniques could be explored and the director could be kept apprised of the more “mechanical” effects he gravitated toward.
In comments made to Cinematography.com, Trumbull said, “We worked with chemicals, paint, fluorescent dyes, smoke, liquids, CO2, flares, spin dishes, fluid dynamics, lighting and high speed photography to see how effective they might be. It was a free-wheeling opportunity to explore, something that I have found extraordinarily hard to get in the movie business.”
And this may also be the last time that the movie business – or at least its Oscar component – even nominates a film using mechanical, as opposed to CG effects.
Rob Legato’s work on Hugo takes in the history of effects, as per Scorcese’s edict, using quick edits, stop-motion animation, and miniatures along the way, en route to its full green-screened, digital, 3D glory.
One film whose effects he liked this past year was Transformers: Dark of the Moon, which showed “work that is really remarkable,” which one might expect from such a close VFX collaboration between ILM and Digital Domain. He also liked the similarly robotic-themed work in Real Steel, giving it high marks.
But on the other end of the FX spectrum, there’s the new Planet of the Apes installment, where Andy Sirkis’ motion-captured performance is also forcing discussion of what it means to be an “actor” (and what sorts of performances should be deemed nomination-worthy) in a digitally saturated age.
Franklin, speaking of Joe Letteri’s work with the Weta Digital team, says “my money is on them this year.” Letteri himself thought the “Final Harry Potter was fantastic,” and also liked two animated films for the visual palettes: ILM’s Rango, and the aforementioned, category-bridging TinTin.
And as the line between animation and live action becomes less and less clear, Okun underscores that “all of the work is so outstanding, that nothing is outstanding.”
But on both VES and Oscar nights, some will be voted slightly more outstanding than others. The analog, tactile, and mechanically-opened envelope awaits.
Secrecy Bid Over Hobbit Studio Mishap
(stuff.co.nz) Hobbit workers tried to gag Labour Department inspectors looking into a fire that engulfed a crew member's head.
The department has given a copy of its report into the fire at Miramar's Stone Street Studios to The Dominion Post under the Official Information Act.
The fire, which left two crew members with minor burns, started when flammable fumes ignited inside a hollow statue prop, the report revealed.
A veil of secrecy descended after the May fire. An investigator who attended it reported: "I've been asked to fill out a confidentiality agreement. I advised I will take this away for advice."
It was not signed, a Labour Department spokeswoman said. "Department of Labour health and safety inspectors have a legal right to enter a workplace."
Firefighters were prevented from discussing the callout with media, after signing confidentiality agreements with the studio and Weta Workshop. The Fire Service's operations and training director, Paul McGill, said at the time the organisation did not usually sign confidentiality agreements.
"However, personnel at the Kilbirnie fire station, like most Wellingtonians, are very conscious of the importance of the ground- breaking digital film industry to the city. It does not set any precedent for our work with other companies or organisations."
The agreements were signed months before the fire, before The Hobbit filming began.
The fire was caused when a sculptor from the production crew was working on a prop pillar coated with expanding polyurethane foam. He had half his body inside the prop and was using a battery screwdriver. Sparks caused by his work ignited fumes from the foam, engulfing the man's head in flames. He suffered superficial burns to his nose and face. Another worker burned his hand beating the flames out.
The Labour Department decided not to launch a full investigation as no serious harm was done. It discussed ways of preventing a similar accident, such as using tools less likely to cause sparks, and ways to prevent fumes building up in enclosed spaces.
A spokeswoman for Three Foot Seven, the company making The Hobbit, said it was unable to comment as key staff were away.
Computer Error: The Worst Of CGI
(bleedingcool.com)I just saw a reference to a trailer for the compilation Computer Error: The Worst of CGI in the subheadline of an article named How Computers Killed the Movies and, despite not agreeing with that proposition on at least two counts, thought I’d check it out for myself.
And, boy, there really has been some awful CG, hasn’t there?
I’d have gone with How Some People With Bad Taste, Limited Budgets Or Insufficient Skills Made Some Awful Shots, myself. Looks like it’s not only bad workmen who will lay the blame on tools.
Now, Computer Error isn’t a film but a special event taking place at the Alamo Drafthouse Ritz on January 31st, where the amassed can join together in hoots of derision. I’m sure a great time will be had by all.
Here’s the trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6dzbnRArTc&feature=player_ embedded#!
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