(comingsoon.net)
Multiple sources have told ComicBook.com that shooting for Iron Man 3 will begin prior to The Avengers hitting theaters May 4th, weeks ahead of previously published dates. The film is scheduled to be shot in Wilmington, NC at the EUE/Screen Gems Studios and is believed to be the largest production ever to be filmed in North Carolina.
Previous reports have listed late May as the official production start date, but one source close to the North Carolina operations said that Marvel “will have staff in Wilmington as early as mid-March, with shooting scheduled to begin the last week of April or the first week of May.”
Asked to verify the report, Marvel Studios said they do not officially comment on current or future development but indicated the reports were likely accurate. An e-mail update from that same Marvel Studios source told ComicBook.com, “It is not April for sure.”
"Elfquest" Movie Canceled Due to "The Hobbit"
(scifinow.co.uk) The long-mooted movie adaptation of Wendy and Richard Pini’s Elfquest – announced in 2008 with director/writer Rawson Thurber (Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story) – has been dropped.
Co-creator Wendy Pini claims the movie, based on the Seventies fantasy comic, was playing second fiddle to The Hobbit, saying, “After close to four years of suspense—and longer than four years of your much-appreciated interest and support—the word has come down from Warner Bros. And the word is ‘no.’
“Their simple explanation is that they don’t want to compete with The Hobbit. This was a possibility, among several, that we were prepared for, it is a relief, at last to know.”
Guillermo del Toro’s Animated Hopes (and his ‘Hobbit’ Reaction)
(herocomplex.latimes.com)When nominations were announced this week for the 84th Academy Awards, the most fascinating — and startling — category was animated feature film. “The Adventures of Tintin” – which won the Golden Globe in that category – wasn’t nominated at all. Instead, Gore Verbinski’s old West adventure “Rango” made the list, as did two international entries — “Chico & Rita” and “A Cat in Paris” – that present vibrant adventures with a classic hand-drawn approach. Rounding out the category were two DreamWorks Animation releases, “Puss in Boots” and “Kung Fu Panda 2,” and don’t think for a minute that went over well at the Emeryville headquarters of Pixar. “Cars 2″ didn’t win over critics but there was still hope that it would bring home the automatic Oscar nomination that has become a Pixar tradition. No one was happier about the nominations than Guillermo del Toro, who is now working closely with DreamWorks Animation on its projects. Our Geoff Boucher chatted with him in the days leading up to the nominations.
GB: It must have been satisfying for you to watch the success story of the two big DreamWorks Animation releases, “Kung Fu Panda 2″ and “Puss in Boots” – as a consultant on the first and very active executive producer on the second. Would you say the deal you have with the company represents a new career chapter for you?
GDT: In many, many ways, yes. With “Puss,” I was really feeling like part of the team creating it. With “Panda,” I was very involved but I also came in late enough in the process that a lot of the decisions had been made. On “Puss in Boots,” I felt like one of the many parents that the movie has. Every experience I’ve had at DreamWorks has been really rewarding in terms of how they connect with the audience. Following “Kung Fu Panda 2,” all of the audience test screenings and seeing it get a really strong foothold and then “Puss” also getting the CinemaScore [grade of A-] that it got and getting the critical consensus that it got — all of that is hugely satisfying. With both there was the requisite notions of a sequel — or a prequel — but we wanted in both cases to some degree to establish the personality of the movie individually.
"Puss in Boots" (DreamWorks Animation)
GB: On the surface, either movie could have been perceived as a money-grab — with “Puss in Boots,” a spin-off film from a franchise like “Shrek” could easily be pretty watered down by the time it reached the screen. I imagine the challenge was proving the cynics wrong.
GDT: From the beginning the director, Chris Miller, and his team were very clear that they wanted to create a different universe and not have it be, in any possible way, a spin-off from the “Shrek” universe. The reference of Sergio Leone and the idea of making the fantasy elements really, really earnest and beautiful set it apart. We have the ironic things – like Humpty — but, for example, traveling through the magic beans and the beanstalk and into the giant’s castle is a genuine, bona fide, hard-core fantasy sequence. It was really quite gorgeous and not ironic at all. There are elements in the movie too, that are emotionally counter-intuitive to Hollywood animated films [of this size and type], like having a villain with a real complexity and personality who ultimately finds his redemption instead of, you know, just being killed off. Those things, on the outside they may seem like small steps but to me they are huge.
GB: We heard your voice in the film too, the parts of Moustache Man and Comandante. Can you talk about that side of the job?
GDT: Well, I make voices in all my movies; I do creature voices in every movie I make — “Pan’s Labyrinth, ” “Hellboy,” “Hellboy 2,” ”Mimic.” In every movie I play a monster, here and there. I did some dubbing when I was young as an actor in Mexico. [In "Puss"] we used my voice as a scratch track at first but everybody got used to it and we ended up using it for good.
GB: In this digital era we’re seeing the accepted definitions of animation and live-action really blur in interesting ways. It’s also interesting to see directors like Gore Verbinski and Steven Spielberg go into animation and people like Andrew Stanton and Brad Bird cross in the other direction. Give us some of your thoughts on the churn of the scene today.
GDT: As you know I’m a big believer in transmedia and part of the things that I hold is that this sort of permeable membrane between digital and animated filmmaking and live-action filmmaking needs to become this blurry for miracles to occur in genre films – I’m talking about big, audience-oriented films [of fantasy and sci-fi] and you’ll see that frontier continue to be blurry because the digital tools are becoming more user-friendly and more necessary for the delivery of the big action sequences, creatures and effects.
GB: It’s intriguing to watch the way the technology can be used so differently in different hands. Watching “Tintin” was to see Spielberg’s sense of velocity and action construction fly off in new directions and in “Hugo” I felt as a viewer that Martin Scorsese was bringing a unique deftness to the use of 3D. As a fan of film, it feels like there’s new frontiers being mapped.
GDT: It does, and Bad Robot and J.J. Abrams released that iPhone application to put special effects in your iPhone. More and more on YouTube you’re seeing almost-professional level or professional-level special effects being done by people on their computers for nothing more than creating a viral video or things like that. The line is blurred by that and the line is blurred by the flexibility of video game engines. But I do think it will only affect big-budget genre movies, I don’t think it will affect the way rest of cinema is done.
GB: I have to ask, I know you have your hands full with “Pacific Rim,” but your history with “The Hobbit” is such an unusual one; “The Hobbit” trailer is out now and I was wondering if stirred up a strange mix of emotions for you?
GDT: You know, not really, not at this stage. I’m very happy the movie is in the right hands and I’m very to happy see — I’m actually elated to see images. I think it’s great to see the trailer. Think about it, I’m so fully immersed now in “Pacific Rim.” I’m 47 and I never in my life have had as good an experience making a movie as “Pacific Rim” has been. It’s been a joy every morning from every point of view and I cannot tell you how much I’m enjoying it because I have nothing to compare it to. Part of it is how involved and invested the guys from ILM have been. It’s been amazing.
Aronofsky's "Noah" Sets Sail In July?
(darkhorizons.com)Cinematographer Matthew Libatique recently spoke with Hollywood Elsewhere columnist Jeffrey Wells about Darren Aronofsky's ambitious epic "Noah" at Fox and New Regency.
Talking about that discussion on the latest Oscar Poker via (The Playlist, Wells says "he was telling me about 'Noah' and what the script is like. They're going to start shooting in July in New York and Iceland and he says it's really a good script."
He goes on to say "They're really doing the story of Noah, a very unlikely subject you might think for a cutting edge fellow like Darren Aronofsky, but that's what they're doing. It's going to be more likely a Fall 2013 release."
The problem they're apparently having right now is casting both the 40-something titular role and the main villain.
VES Announces the 2012 Board of Directors Officers
LOS ANGELES, January 26, 2012 | SHOOT Publicity Wire | --- The Visual Effects Society (VES), announced the 2012 Board of Director officers who were elected at the January 18, 2012 board meeting. The list of officials includes Jeffrey A. Okun, head of visual effects for Prana Studios, who was re-elected for a fourth one-year term as Board Chair.
"I could not be more excited to serve again," states Okun. "I am thrilled to be allowed to focus on our core mission: creating community, promoting visual effects and the artists who create them. And I am equally thrilled to continue to push the VES 2.0 initiative forward – the initiative to reach out and bring all parties to the table to secure rights and benefits for our industry -- across the board – in film, broadcast, special venue, commercials, games and animation!"
"I look forward to continuing the incredible working relationship Jeff and I have," states Eric Roth, VES Executive Director. "He is an extraordinarily talented gentleman with a bottomless passion for visual effects and the VES while being uniquely suited to be the voice of the entertainment industry's defining resource for our craft."
The 2011 Officers of the VES Board of Directors are:
Chair: Jeffrey A. Okun
Jeffrey A. Okun has contributed visual effects design and execution to a wide-range of films including the award winning sci-fi hit Stargate (1994), Deep Blue Sea (1999), The Last Starfighter (1984), Sphere (1998), The Last Samurai (2003), Blood Diamond (2006) and The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008).
Okun is known for creating 'organic' and invisible effects, as well as spectacular effects which seamlessly expand both the look and scope of a film, but also enhances the storytelling aspect of the movie. Additionally, Jeff is the creator of the revolutionary visual effects techniques dubbed the "PeriWinkle Effect" & the "Pencil Effect", which have been used in many projects to help achieve more a sense of the fantastic, wonder and more accurate budgets. Okun is the author of breakdown, budgeting and tracking software currently being used by professionals throughout the industry.
First Vice Chair: Michael Fink, Visual Effects Supervisor
Michael has earned degrees from California State University Northridge, San Francisco Art Institute, and California Institute of the Arts, in an attempt to disguise a checkered past.
Michael began working in film on China Syndrome in 1977. He "cut his eye teeth" on films such as Star Trek the Motion Picture and Bladerunner, and became a Visual Effects Supervisor on War Games (BAFTA Nomination), in 1982. He has since worked on over 50 films, including Buckaroo Banzai, Batman Returns (BAFTA and Academy Nominations), Braveheart, Mars Attacks!, X-Men, X-Men 2, Constantine, The Golden Compass (BAFTA Award, Academy Award), Tropic Thunder, Avatar, Tron: Legacy, Sucker Punch, and Tree of Life.
Michael is a founding member of the Visual Effects Society. He is on the Advisory Board of SpaceCam Systems, Inc., and is a Visiting Professor at the School of Cinematic Arts at the University of Southern California, while continuing his visual effects career.
Second Vice Chair: Pam Hogarth Director of Marketing, Look Effects
Pam Hogarth has spent over 26 years in the world of visual effects, 20 of which doing marketing and education. Before joining LOOK she spent 12 years helping to build Gnomon School of Visual Effects into the premiere educational institution for careers in high-end cg. While doing that, she found time and energy to devote to the Visual Effects Society, serving multiple terms on the Board of Directors, including four years as Executive Secretary, is currently Chair of the Benefits Committee and has been one of the abiding Chairs of the Education Committee.
Treasurer: Bob Coleman, President, Digital Artists Agency
Bob Coleman founded Digital Artists Agency in Los Angeles to represent an international and award-winning portfolio of artists for work in feature, commercial and related fields. He leverages his experience in top-level management positions at respected industry companies, with his high regard for artists, to further the development of the visual effects craft.
Secretary: Kim Lavery, VFX Producer
Kim has experience from both the Production & Post Production sides of film making and visual effects producing for a total of over two decades, having worked for Universal Studios on film production then shifting to visual effects in 1994. Since then, she has been instrumental in building out specialized visual effects boutique studios, working on films such as Frida, Minority Report, Cats and Dogs, Charlie's Angels, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Terminator 3, Last Samurai, etc.
Aligning herself with the global marketplace, she worked at Weta Digital in various producing roles on; King Kong, XMen 3, Bridge to Terabithia, 30 Days of Night, Enchanted & The Water Horse, etc. Currently, Kim is continuing to bridge the gap between New Zealand and the US film and post production markets.
She has served on the VES Awards Committee since its inception in 2002; and has also served as a VES Board Member and Secretary for several terms: 2004 – present.
Disney Plans Untitled Space Adventure
(Variety) Walt Disney Pictures has picked up an untitled sci-fi project from screenwriter Max Landis, Variety reports.
Said to be an adventure film set in space, the script focuses on a brother and sister. Further details are, at this stage, unavailable.
Landis, who scripted February 3rd's Chronicle with Josh Trank, is also responsible for the upcoming Untitled Frankenstein Film and Pied Piper, both at 20th Century Fox.
Digital Domain Institute's Enrollment Fair Sparks Overwhelming Response
(tcpalm.com) When Felix Rodriguez woke up Saturday morning, he was not planning a future in filmmaking.
But after attending Digital Domain Institute's enrollment fair for it's inaugural professional certification program, Rodriguez may be changing his mind.
Rodriguez was one of about 400 who attended the fair at Digital Domain Media Group's Tradition Studios in Port St. Lucie Saturday. Digital Domain Institute is a subsidiary of Digital Domain Media Group.
The fair invited those interested in special effects and animation to apply for the institute's inaugural 10-week professional certification program beginning March 12.
Prospective students attending the fair seemed to be impressed by the new 115,000-square-foot studio and the tour itself.
"The movie theater rooms are awesome," Rodriguez said. "The technology they're using right now, that blew my mind."
At first Rodriguez did not have a strong interest in the program, but after the tour he said it could be a real possibility for him. "The employees are really down-to-earth. That's a really good working environment," he said.
Brian Tighe, a design student at Indian River State College, said the cutting-edge technology he saw during the tour was amazing.
"It's good to see how your work can be put to the screen," Tighe said.
People of all ages attended the fair, each with their own interests and reasons for being there.
Scott Applegate is thinking about a possible career change. He said he's been interested in the Digital Domain Institute since it opened.
"I've always been good with computers, and I'm really interested in animation," Applegate said. "I'm going to try to get my feet wet with as much as possible."
The fair had a great turnout, according to Digital Domain Institute and Digital Domain Media Group personnel. Although the number of attendees was limited to 400, the institute will be hosting another fair soon to accommodate prospective students who didn't get to sign up this time around.
"We didn't expect to have such an overwhelming response," said Marilyn Bauer, writer for Digital Domain Media Group. "It's really cool."
Bruce Bullock, director of education for the institute, said there are only 40 spots open in the spring program, but that could change. "If we have an enthusiastic response we'll look at increasing the number of seats available," he said.
The deadline to apply for the professional certification program, officially titled the "Digital Arts Essential Skills Program," is Jan. 27. Applicants are not required to attend an enrollment fair.
Marvel's "Doctor Strange" Seeks Director
(fanshare) It has been confirmed that the script for Doctor Strange has been completed by Thomas Donnelly and Joshua Oppenheimer (Conan The Barbarian, Sahara) and Marvel Studios are now actively seeking a director to come in and helm the project. Once the director has come on board, they will then be searching for the cast to star in Doctor Strange.
The budget for Doctor Strange is not expected to be anywhere near as much as that of the bigger Marvel movies but it is still believed that, with the right script, the right director and the right cast, a good superhero movie could definitely come out of this. Production on Doctor Strange is expected to begin this year, with a release date likely to be sometime in 2013.
No CGI: Animatronic Robot Baby Replaces Premature Infants On-Screen (WATCH)
(huffingtonpost.com)The wriggling, the squirming, the Moro reflex-induced jump... If you want proof that artificial intelligence is thriving, look no further than this robotic -- and yes, somewhat creepy -- baby.
The video below shows the animatronic infant lying on its back doing a pitch-perfect newborn impersonation. Babble.com reported that it was created for a UK soap opera by special effects designer, Chris Clarke, who also lent his talents to technically rich movie "War Horse." And, while jaw-dropping special effects are standard fare on screen, this electro-infant is especially surprising to watch.
Clarke told The Huffington Post that creating an animatronic human required a significant amount of research -- including an investigation into the psychology of babies.
"[A baby's] brain is still trying to figure out which electrical impulses control which body parts...I design the mechanics to move generically the way a baby does, [and] the rest is getting into the head of the baby when puppeteering it," Clarke wrote in an email.
Many bloggers and online commenters have called the animatronic baby "creepy" and "freaky" -- Technabob even ran a post about the clip with the headline "Skinless Robot Baby is the Stuff Nightmares Are Made Of." But, whether you are horrified or fascinated, there is no denying that Clarke's tiny robots serve an important purpose -- keeping real infants safe.
"Keep[ing] a real premature baby on set all day under hot studio lights just isn't something that's done," said Clarke. "It can be the same for [non-premature], healthy babies too."
Here at HuffPost Parents, we'll take a "freaky" fake baby instead of endangering a real infant any day.
VIDEO - Take a look: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/24/animatronic-robot- baby-chris-clarke_n_1229217. html
New Vancouver Facility Courts Contracts on Par with Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings
(vancouversun.com)Three Vancouver digital production studios, a Toronto-based technology firm and Great Northern Way Campus are collaborating to attract digital-entertainment projects on the scale of Harry Potter and The Lord of the Rings to Vancouver.
The innovative, pay-as-you-go facility, called a "render farm," will offer the computing power necessary to rival big international centres in New Zealand and London and is expected to significantly increase Vancouver's ability to attract largescale digital-entertainment projects.
"It enables the studios here to scale up and scale down in a cost-effective manner that would enable them to take bigger projects such as a Harry Potter, rather than being given portions of these projects," Catherine Winder, president of Rainmaker Entertainment Inc., said on behalf of the three studios involved: Rainmaker, Digital Domain Productions and Image Engine. "We [will] have an infrastructure that enables us to take on the bigger projects and when those projects are finished, you're not holding the bag of all these costs you have to take on."
Toronto-based technology firm Scalar Decisions has invested more than $4 million to kick-start the data centre, named RenderCloud, with 600 servers and a technical solution they created to meet the entertainment industry's security needs, said Darren Sharpe, Scalar general manager for Western Canada.
RenderCloud will launch Feb. 15 and is expected to expand to 1,500 servers by late summer, Sharpe said. Scalar will be marketing RenderCloud's services in Montreal, Toronto, Los Angeles and Vancouver.
Great Northern Way Campus is providing 3,500 square feet at its Centre for Digital Media on "favourable" terms as part of an overall strategy to attract digital media firms to their 18-acre site.
"What this project is all about is a more collaborative approach to the rendering capability problem," said Great Northern Way Campus president Matthew Carter.
Rainmaker, Digital Domain and Image Engine are RenderCloud's first customers and have each signed threeyear agreements that together cover the dedicated use of all 600 initial servers. The studios can sublease excess capacity, or take on more servers as needed.
The expectation is that other studios will follow suit. Customers not wanting to contract for dedicated servers can simply sublet the excess capacity after paying a minimum $15,000 fee for a dedicated switch to create a secure connection.
"There's almost no studio demand that we cannot take on today," Sharpe said. "Within a matter of a couple of weeks, we can scale the solution out to thousands of servers. For many of our customers today, their render solutions are in the hundreds [of servers]."
Sharpe said the RenderCloud model can support up to 5,000 servers. The project is the first time Scalar has built its own data centre to rent out and is the company's most ambitious managed services project to date, he said.
Rainmaker's Winder said the new service will be invaluable to the studio. "We really need the flexibility that RenderCloud provides us with," she said. "Production has its ebbs and flows. Rainmaker is now delivering three different projects at the same time and we really need a lot of rendering power and when it's done, we really don't need that power .... The bottom line is [RenderCloud] makes us cost competitive."
Winder recently turned down a six-month project that would have cost Rainmaker an extra $2 million in ramp-up costs. These situations come in regularly, she said.
Rainmaker anticipates increasing its use of RenderCloud servers until, in two or three years, it expects to close its in-house farm entirely, eliminating costs for space, people, servers and air conditioning.
BC Film + Media president Richard Brownsey believes RenderCloud will help Vancouver grow into a major international content-production centre in digital media.
Most of the major international digital effects companies have either established or announced an intention to establish a studio in Vancouver in the past two years, Brownsey said.
"When you are seeing business grow that quickly, you do look at what are the infrastructure pieces that might be necessary to make sure that happens.
"We'll see how it builds out, but to me it is a very logical, creative and probably unique piece of cooperation that's going to have long-term benefits for this industry."
RenderCloud will make a "very compelling" reason for firms to locate on Great Northern Way Campus land, said Carter, whose key role as president is to orchestrate redevelopment of the site.
Great Northern Way Campus is in good financial shape with both its academic program set to break even this year and debt arising from the initial site acquisition to be fully repaid in 2012, Carter said.
The campus is owned and operated by the four academic partners behind the Centre for Digital Media: the University of B.C., Simon Fraser University, Emily Carr University of Art + Design and the B.C. Institute of Technology.
Established Animation Companies In Los Angeles.: It Can't Last Forever
(animationguildblog.blogspot.com) Screams of anguish from Brit animation companies:
The UK's animation industry is "scrabbling for crumbs, selling up and shipping off" because production companies cannot compete against tax breaks offered overseas, the companies behind Wallace & Gromit, Peppa Pig and In The Night Garden have warned.
Animation UK, which represents producers including Aardman Animations and Astley Baker Davies, has written to George Osborne, Chancellor, warning him that Britain is losing its best animation talent, and calling for tax breaks before the industry is wiped out altogether.
The sector is "not seeking handouts to get a competitive advantage", but needs to be able to compete with animators overseas, particularly Ireland and Canada, where tax breaks and funding supply up to 50pc of budgets and create "a distorted market place we cannot survive in", it said in a letter to be delivered to the Treasury today. ...
Let us face facts. Tax breaks for motion picture production are rampant around the globe.
Yesterday, a union rep for an IA live-action local said to me that television and movie productions have galloped away from L.A. in droves, going to where tax and other cost breaks are large and plentiful:
"Lots of shoots are now happening on the east coast. Atlanta has a lot of movie work going on. The place is hopping. " ...
And so it goes. The Los Angeles animation scene has been (somewhat) shielded from poaching and job shifting because Southern California is where a concentration of animation talent resides, and critical mass results in gravitational pull.
But this happy phenomenon will not necessarily last forever. Once upon a time, cities in Canada and other parts of the United States had a tough time fielding professional, competent movie crews, so work remained in L.A. That stopped being the case a long while ago.
When the cost differences and tax breaks get big enough, even established California animation studios could start saying ...
"Heeey now!"
Animators and tech directors are not all that different from their live-action brethren. They are just as likely to pull up stakes and "go where the work is" in order to survive, if and when that work travels elsewhere.
Sci-Fi comedy Reunites Monty Python For "Absolutely Anything"
(darkhorizons.com)Former Monty Python members John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, and Michael Palin are all signed on for the sci-fi comedy "Absolutely Anything" which is based on a story by fellow alum Terry Jones reports Entertainment Weekly.
The story follows a group of aliens who use an earthling as their plaything and will combine CGI and live action. Robin Williams will lend his voice to a wry talking dog named Dennis and possibly a live-action role as well.
Jones is also expected to direct with Mike Medavoy ("Life of Brian") producing. As for the remaining Python? “Eric [Idle] knows about the project” but isn’t confirmed yet says producer Chris Cheeser.
"Rio" Sequel Readying For 2014?
(darkhorizons.com)Sergio Mendes, whose song "Real in Rio" for the CG animated feature "Rio" has scored an Oscar nomination, says that a sequel to that film looks likely.
"Fox has been talking about (it) and it looks like it's going to happen. We're going to have a meeting I think next week and Carlos [Saldanha, Director] is coming to town to tell us the story, and it looks like it's a go" he tells The Press Association.
Saldanha may also want to tie in the sequel to the 2014 World Cup which will take place in Brazil. No script or deals however are in place.
Virtual Trees Sway in Wind Just Like the Real Thing
(newscientist.com)ANIMATORS will soon be able to construct startlingly realistic sylvan beauty in movies and video games with a new system for generating 3D virtual trees.
At the moment, computer-generated images (CGI) of trees are either drawn manually on a computer and then animated, or someone has to shoot video of a tree moving in the wind. This is digitally transformed into a CGI copy of the original. Either process takes days - and you can only produce one size and shape of tree, says Chuan Li, a computer animator at the University of Bath in the UK.
To solve this problem, Li and colleagues have developed software that generates realistic-looking 3D animated trees of any size and shape based on a rough 2D sketch. The trees even blow in the wind like their woody counterparts, and can be whipped around just by piping in a soundtrack of a blustery day.
The system can start with just a 2D sketch of a tree's leafless branches, and an outline of what the tree's shape will be once it is in full leaf. The 2D sketch is then copied and rotated 90 degrees into 3D space. From there, an algorithm "grows" additional branches for the tree until a 3D skeleton is complete.
The software contains a model of how real tree branches move in both light and strong winds, based on video footage the team shot. The system applies this model to the tree skeleton to work out how the branch structure would move large clusters of leaves as they billow in the breeze. Each virtual branch in the skeleton is then broken into six segments. "By rotating each segment independently we can get the right magnitude of tree movement for the wind speed," says Li. Once they have captured a tree's 3D skeleton, they can scale it up or down for trees of different shapes and sizes, from a short wispy cherry to a dense, tall oak. The team's work was published in December in the journal ACM Transactions on Graphics (DOI: 10.1145/2070781.2024161).
This means that any sketch of a tree skeleton can be used to generate a 3D model that moves like a real tree. Better still, the trees automatically respond to the sound level of the wind in a soundtrack, measured in decibels, without adding physical parameters like wind speed. So as noise increases from a light breeze to a howling gale, tree branches go from swaying peacefully to flailing wildly.
"When I saw this my jaw was on the floor," says Jordi Bares, 3D creative director at London animation studio The Mill, who marvelled at the package's simplicity and speed, and adds he hopes it will be commercialised soon. "It's a game changer that could save us the huge chunk of our time we currently spend creating natural 3D assets like trees."
VIDEO - Take a look: http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21328495.600- virtual-trees-sway-in-wind- just-like-the-real-thing.html
There's Hope For ‘Shazam’ Movie
(latino-review.com)DC has been teasing us with a Shazam movie for a long time. A while ago The Rock was attached, but that never came to fruition. Now writer Geoff Johns has decided to focus on rebooting the super hero “formally known as Captain Marvel”. DC has been rebooting all of its characters lately, including Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman.
In the 1940s Shazam was one of the best selling comic books in the world. In fact, his issue of Captain Marvel Adventures still holds the record at over two million copies sold.
Newsarama talked to Johns about his new Shazam story. Here’s what he had to say about the characters popularity waning over the years:
“There’s so many factors, and it’s debatable on a lot of those. I think a lot of disadvantages Shazam had was that it was off the shelf for so long, so it never really got consistent stories told about it again and again and again. There were big periods where it just wasn’t published and the character wasn’t around. It’s kind of like Dick Tracy. You know? When you think of Dick Tracy, it just feels old. It’s the same with a lot of those pulp characters, because they stopped telling stories about those characters, and so those characters stopped evolving.”
When asked if a Shazam movie was in the works Johns responded:
“Shazam’s always — there’s always a possibility for Shazam. There’s always talk about Shazam. And I can’t get into the specifics on that, but yeah, there’s hope for Shazam.”
Johns has worked on the Shazam film and said the new comic will keep the same tone as the scripts he’s co-written.
What does this all mean for the feature film? As of now, not too much. My guess is DC will see how well the reboot does with the core fans and then focus on a feature film. I’m sure it will happen, it just may take some time.
Industrial Light & Magic’s John Knoll Talks 3D For "Phantom Menace"
(moviesblog.mtv.com)As the "Star Wars" saga joins the 3D revolution with the coming theatrical release of "Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace" on February 10th, our good friends at Star Wars Insider magazine are marking the occasion with a special celebratory issue. And we're marking that occasion with our very own preview of that upcoming issue, right here on MTV Movies Blog!
We have an exclusive preview from the upcoming "Phantom Menace" themed issue, featuring an interview with Industrial Light & Magic’s John Knoll. The interview gives the lowdown on the creative process behind the new 3D format that "Star Wars" fans are about to enjoy. Take a look beyond the break.
Star Wars Insider: How far back does the idea of Star Wars in 3D go?
John Knoll: Toward the end of working on Episode III, Rick McCallum, George Lucas, and I started seeing 3D samples. I remember seeing a reel where a bunch of scenes had been ripped from DVD from various films, including Star Wars. I remember feeling that a lot of the space and the dimensions weren’t quite right on it, but I thought it was pretty neat and so cool to see it in 3D. I remember George saying at the time, “Yeah, I think I want to do this.”
So when you start a conversion, do you start from the beginning or the middle or the end?
We worked in an odd order, because with Episode I, we were also doing a restoration. One of the first questions that my Associate VFX Supervisor, Dorne Huebler, and I started asking, was that if we were going to take this movie and cut it up into 2,000 separate pieces, we had an opportunity to upgrade what those 2,000 separate pieces are. It seemed like we had a perfect opportunity to go back and create a cleaner, sharper and purer version of the movie.
In fact, the window was closing on that; these archive tapes don’t last forever and they haven’t been meticulously catalogued and archived because no one thought that was really the master of the film, so it wasn’t clear that we were going to be able to find all of them.
John ClaydonWhere did you find them?
They were in a variety of places. It was some work to find them and we found about 98 percent of them. So we went back to the original material, and if you look, you’re actually seeing about eight percent more movie than in the original release. In the original, there was a little bit of cropping, so you lost a little bit of information. We have slightly more of an image now.
So did George see the whole movie as it was improved?
Yes. We weren’t doing the reels in order, so he saw individual reels–but not in story order–until we had gotten an approval from him on all those reels. Then he saw a later iteration where we’d done a final polish on all of those, and then we saw it all the way through, in order, so we could see how it ran as a full two-and-a-half-hour movie.
Were there some scenes that worked really well or that you were particularly happy with?
It’s interesting that what makes good stereo opportunities is often very counter-intuitive. A lot of people think that the big stereo moments are going to be big space battle shots and, for instance, the Podrace. But much of the time you’re looking at wide shots, which are where all the spectacle happens--but with nothing particularly close to camera, there aren’t a lot of great stereo opportunities. There definitely is depth, but it’s not eye-popping depth. The best stereo comes in the more quiet character moments, because you’re in close with your characters and there are lots of depth opportunities there.
What are your hopes for the movie?
It was definitely not an objective to have an in-your-face, “Wow, look at how stereo this is” experience. The idea was to try and make it was as naturalistic as possible, as though we hadn’t really shot it with stereo cameras. So, there’s really no gimmicky stuff poking out into the camera; it’s really more of an immersive thing.
Source: http://moviesblog.mtv.com/2012/01/27/star-wars-phantom- menace-3d-preview/
Games Publisher THQ Shelves All Titles Slated for 2014?
(gamesindustry.biz -edge-online.com)Rumor - Saints Row publisher THQ has shelved all projects scheduled for release in 2014 and has cancelled Vigil-developed MMO Warhammer 40,000: Dark Millennium Online.
Other sources confrim: THQ has laid off an unspecified number of staff as its recently revised business strategy starts coming into effect.
While the company wouldn’t comment on the number of staff cut, it did confirm that internal development studios THQ San Diego, Relic, Volition, Vigil and THQ Montreal were unaffected.
“THQ confirms a reduction in force to the company’s administration and publishing organization," the publisher said in a statement issued to Game Informer. "As recently announced, the company is exiting the kids’ licensed games category, and is focusing on its core game franchises and developing its digital initiatives.”
Last month, THQ laid off 30 staff including an executive vice president from its uDraw team after disappointing sales of the tablet peripheral.
And earlier this week, a group of former THQ staff called for four "underqualified" senior executives, including CEO Brian Farrell, to be fired, blaming them for "chronic and constant mismanagement" resulting in a slew of layoffs and studio closures.
The publisher intends to discuss its new business model in more detail during its third quarter conference call next Thursday, February 2.
David Fincher's Animated Pic 'The Goon' Still Possible to Happen
(aceshowbiz.com)Shortly after producer Paul Giamatti claimed that David Fincher's comic-adapted film "The Goon" is no longer happening, the comic's creator Eric Powell corrected the statement by revealing that there is still a hope for the movie to hit the theaters. He said that Fincher and Blur Studio are still finding a way to resolve the film's financial problem.
Taking to his Twitter account on Thursday, January 26, Powell wrote, "Last I spoke with Fincher and Blur, they were gearing up for more meetings to try and find financing for the film." He went on stating, "It's not dead until Fincher and Blur come to me and say they are done."
On Wednesday, January 25, Giamatti told IFC while promoting "John Dies at the End" at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival that the long-gestating animated film has been dead due to financial issue. "I have no idea what the hell happened. I asked and no one knows," he said. "I guess they just ran out of money."
"The Goon" was first announced after Fincher obtained the rights to the Eric Powell comic book in 2008. He then teamed up with Blur Studio to develop the CG movie. Back in December 2011, the helmer of "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011)" stated that the budgetary problem was still being resolved.
Fincher was hopeful that a studio would develop the movie and give the financial back-up. He once said, "Hopefully this is the year that people go 'Wait a minute! We don't all have to be trying to imitate Pixar!' "
The Powell comic itself follows the adventures of a muscle-bound brawler, who claims to be the primary enforcer for a feared mobster. The stories have a paranormal and comedic edge to them and concern ghosts, zombies, mad scientists and "skunk apes."
Effects Time Capsule: Roddy McDowall's Home Movies from "Planet Of The Apes" (1968)
Roddy McDowall's home movies showing Don Cash applying his Cornelius make-up for original "Planet Of The Apes" (1968)
VIDEO - Take a look: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lCm74dnwujk&feature=youtube_ gdata_player
No comments:
Post a Comment