dan’s Neighborhood

       J.J. Abrams ("Star Trek," TV's "Lost") is in talks to produce "Micronauts", a film version of the Japanese Microman toy line reports The Wall Street Journal.

The toys, first released in 1974 and later in 1976 in the US under the 'Micronauts' name, were a mix of 3.75-inch tall action figures, vehicles, robots, play sets, and accessories. All used a universal, five millimeter inter-connective design allowing people to swap around various parts.

Palisades Toys bought the rights to reproduce Micronauts in 2002. Marvel Comics published a tie-in comic book line starting in 1979.




Pixar Settles Luxo Jr. Dispute

(worstpreviews.com)              Two decades ago, Pixar's John Lasseter created an animated short, called "Luxo Jr," based on his Luxo desk lamp. The short went on to get an Oscar nomination and the lamp has become an iconic mascot for the studio.

Then two months ago, Disney/Pixar decided to package a limited-edition "Luxo Jr" lamp with the Blu-ray version of "Up." The Norwegian lamp manufacturer Luxa AS wasn't happy that Disney got into the business of selling their lamps and filed a lawsuit against the studio for trademark infringement.

Now, THR has learned that the parties have reached an amicable settlement and the lawsuit has been withdrawn. Disney will stop selling lamps and Luxo AS will continue letting Pixar use the character.




VFX Tentpole "2012" Premieres in LA

(english.cctv.com)                  Roland Emmerich pushes the special effects envelope in his latest epic doomsday film, "2012." The German born director was joined on the red carpet by stars John Cusack and Amanda Peet at the film's premiere Tuesday night in Los Angeles.

The film's plot blends the idea of the Mayan calendar, which predicts the world ending in 2012. Natural disasters such as volcanic eruptions, typhoons and glaciers plague the planet.

A large cast of characters have to deal with the ensuing mayhem. Cusack plays a writer trying to save his family.

Actor John Cusack said, "Because, Roland Emmerich is the best in the world at this, Roland Emmerich the director. We knew going in that he was going to, you remember about 10 years ago when you saw "Terminator" or "Terminator 2," when you knew it was going to set a new standard in special effects. That's what he was going for, so we sort of knew he was going to blow people away."

While "2012" relies heavily on special effects, Emmerich credited the cast with making the film work.

Director Roland Emmerich said, "I think it is my favorite ensemble cast that I have ever had. I always say that. I am not trying to put down the other actors that I worked with, but with this everything worked and they all did and amazing job."

Emmerich's most recent disaster film, 2004's "The Day After Tomorrow," was a smash hit. It brought in more than 542 million at the world-wide box office. Hollywood is hoping for more of the same mayhem with "2012."

Premier Video:   http://english.cctv.com/20091106/101051.shtml

The Software for  "2012":                 http://www.centurycitynews.com/article/MEDIA/New_Media_internet/Victoria_Tech_Company_Destroys_the_World/23420

San Rafael VFX House 'Polygon' Makes a Big Splash

(californiachronicle.com)                When the South Korean-made mega-disaster movie Haeuhdae opened recently, the $18 million film-the country's most expensive to date- became an overnight sensation. The CJ Entertainment feature, about a tsunami that threatens to wipe out a popular beach resort, was directed by Je-Kyoun Youn of JK Rim and is loaded with complex visual effects, courtesy of Polygon Entertainment, based in San Rafael, California. Polygon may have recently cemented its status in South Korea's film industry, but its roots are distinctly Hollywood. Headquartered in the former Industrial Light & Magic building, the company was founded in 2007 by former ILM CG supervisor Hans Uhlig, who is no stranger to the disaster film genre. His credits include The Day After Tomorrow and The Perfect Storm, among others.

Boasting soundstages, construction and model shops, special and visual effects production, and camera, story, and art departments, Polygon is well equipped to take on feature film work of any magnitude-even that of a quake which, in turn, spawns a tsunami. Just before filming began on Haeundae, Polygon wrapped production on another South Korean feature shot in Northern California, Chaw, which opened across Asia on July 16 to great box-office success.

With expertise in both practical and digital water effects, Polygon Entertainment created effects for the South Korean disaster film Haeundae. At top shows the original film plate, while at bottom is the completed shot.

It was Uhlig's expertise in designing complex and beautiful water sequences for Hollywood movies using a combination of practical and digital effects that attracted director Yoon Jekyun to bring the Polygon team on board for Haeundae. Says Youn, who is also head of JK Film, "We wanted to inject the same caliber of film production within Haeundae and set a new film standard by having Hollywood- level production values and special effects in a Korean studio film release. Polygon Entertainment helped us achieve that goal."

Haeundae is about a tsunami set to strike the tranquil beaches of Haeundae, Busan, and chronicles the happenings that surround the event The bulk of the movie was shot in Busan, where Uhlig was overseeing the VFX as the film's visual effects supervisor. However, six action sequences involving heavy visual and special effects- including one in which hotel rooms are flooded with water-weren't possible to shoot in Korea

Under the supervision of producer David Dranitzke, Polygon constructed the multiple sets needed for those shots (for instance, a deluxe beachside hotel room, hotel corridor, bathroom, helicopter, heli tank rescue, boat rescue) and brought the principal actors to the US from Korea for second-unit shooting over a fourweek period.

Over the course of eight months, a team of artists at Polygon worked on the feature film, including veteran visual effects producer Jeff Olson, who joined Polygon after wrapping the hit movie Star Trek at ILM, where he has worked for 23 years. While at ILM, Olson also had the opportunity to work on another film featuring extensive water effects: Poseidon.

Utilizing their expertise in smart, economical sequence production, Uhlig and his team collaborated closely with the filmmakers and talent to produce the action sequences, including the movie's 10-minute opening scene of a large fishing boat being tossed around on violent seas during a storm. This scene was shot using two HD Sony F23 cameras on the studio's backlot in San Rafael inside a 60-foot tank that Polygon designed.

Prior to building the practical boat section that finally made it into the movie, Polygon created a digital model within Autodesk's Maya for approval as well as efficient design planning. The boat model was then brought into Autodesk's AutoCAD, and passed on to the construction team.

The crew then constructed the center part of the ship-a perfect match with the CG versionto work on an underwater gimbal. Back in the computer, the live-action shots integrated seamlessly into the CG scene. Polygon shot extensive storm sequences in the tank, as well as multiple greenscreen scenes that included combining practical and CG water.

A custom water pipeline was developed by Polygon CG supervisor Jay Shin, lead software engineer Erik Krumrey, and shader developer/ sequence supervisor Ken Wesley. The group did extensive water R&D and wrote custom scripts that were plug-ins to Maya. Pre-comping was done in the US with a team of artists using The Foundry's Nuke.

While most of the matchmoving and rotoscope work was done by a Korean vendor, Polygon did some matchmoving using The Pixel Farm's PFTrack and select roto paint work using Silhouette FX's Silhouette. Both programs are accessible off-the-shelf toots, but in the hands of experienced artists, they proved capable of achieving the desired shot outcome.

Polygon Entertainment built a custom water pipeline to handle some of the more challenging fluid effects, which helped augment practical fluid effects. The team also created custom Maya scripts for the water work.

A lot of the film's focus obviously was on water since the story involved a tsunami, although the digital artists also created a number of other effects, including explosions, as seen in this before (top) and after (bottom) shot.

"People we've spoken to are always shocked when they see the film and hear how we completed such sophisticated sequence and effects work, considering we were working with what was essentially an indie film budget compared to Hollywood standards," says Uhlig. "We accomplished this by staffing small teams of highly capable artists who possess wide-ranging skill sets spanning traditional and digital filmmaking."

According to Dranitzke, Polygon Entertainment works closely with its clients to devise the most creative and cost-effective shots possible, "because sometimes it doesn't make sense to allocate three months to R&D when the director's vision can be accomplished through a combination of practical effects [combined] with CG."




Disney Bets $180M on 'A Christmas Carol'

Zemeckis' 3D Dickens adaptation presents studio with high revenue bar at weekend B.O.

Robert Zemeckis has been both a motion capture pioneer and an apostle. "Disney's A Christmas Carol\u201d marks his third movie shot using the technology and he is such a fan that he formed a studio, ImageMovers Digital, devoted to making performance-capture pictures.

With filmmaker Robert Zemeckis spending about $180 million to produce his latest holiday-themed stop-motion animation extravaganza, according to numerous industry distribution executives, producer/distributor Disney can hardly be accused of being a Scrooge.

Of course, how well "Disney's A Christmas Carol" opens playing on a record number of digital 3D screens will determine whether the studio is screwed.

Opening on 2,045 digital 3D screens, 3,683 all told, the movie is widely projected to take in anywhere from $35 million to $45 million its first weekend.  Voice-starring Jim Carrey, "A Christmas Carol" is one of four major releases entering the market.

“Christmas Carol” will undoubtedly lead the pack, with no other film predicted to eclipse the $20 million mark this weekend.

“I believe this is going to be that legitimate four-quadrant movie where adults will be as excited as the kids are,” said Disney distribution president Chuck Viane. “And we’re seeing no hot-spots – all parts of the country seem to be interested.”

Finding a comparable business model for “Christmas Carole” is easy, with Zemeckis’ 2004 stop-motion effort, “The Polar Express,” also opening in an early November period and grossing $304.9 million worldwide on a whopping $165 million production budget.

With “Christmas Carol” costing slightly more to produce – and global prints and advertising costs for projects of this profile typically eclipsing $100 million – there is plenty of speculation about the film’s profitability.

One distribution executive for a rival studio believes the movie could premiere to under $30 million, with the dark tones of the film’s Charles Dickens-penned subject matter interfering with its ability to tap into the kids market.

Also for Disney, there's the ghost of 3D movies past to contend with, with the Jerry Bruckheimer-produced "G-Force" last summer not considered profitable despite worldwide box-office revenue exceeding $200 million.

Regardless of how "Christmas Carol" opens, however, Viane believes that it's run will stay relevant throughout the holidays, since pre-sales have extended through December.

Another rival distribution official, meanwhile, noted that the wide 3D distribution should give the movie an advantage.

“Two thousand-plus 3D theaters is very impressive and bodes very well for the weekend,” he noted.

Cape Town VFX Company Builds Animatronic Orca for "Free Willy 4"

(tonight.co.za)                    Special effects can help make or break a movie, so when a Cape Town company that works in the field was asked to create an orca for Free Willy 4, the pressure was on.

The first movie and its two sequels used animatronics, but Keiko, a real orca, was also available for film shoots, which added a realistic touch.

Seventeen years after the first film, the challenge for those involved in the fourth instalment was to keep the realism without resorting to a live animal.

Cape Commercial and Cine Effects took on the difficult job, and pulled it off in September.

The company mainly works on international films being shot in Cape Town but is also involved in building puppets for live performances, and animation.

Director Rob Carlise said when creating an animatronic Willy, they worked closely with a marine biologist to get the the anatomy and movement of the animal just right.

His team also read up extensively on orcas.

"Our challenge wasn't so much the physical building of the orca, but to make it as lifelike as possible. We wanted to create a character that was real and that viewers could connect with," he said.

Creating a believable character was "all in the eyes", he said, adding that animators used "a bit of poetic licence".

Free Willy 4: Escape from Pirate's Cove, is set for release on DVD next year and was filmed in Cape Town recently.

It tells the story of an orphaned Australian girl, Kirra, who moves to live with her grandfather in South Africa.

He owns a rundown water theme park and when a baby orca, Willy, gets washed ashore, there is conflict over whether the whale should be kept as an attraction or rehabilitated and sent back to sea.

Bringing the orca to life was one of the company's most challenging projects yet, said Carlisle, who started the company nine years ago to fill a niche market when the film industry started to grow here.

Since then the company has garnered experience in special effects and animatronics from a list of major feature films shot here. These include Blood Diamond, Lord of War, Last House on the Left, 10 000 BC, The Poseidon Adventure, King Soloman's Mines and Flight of the Phoenix.

Carlisle is the company's only permanent staff member and he works with a group of 12 freelancers who are specialists in various fields, from graphic design to electronic engineering. The numbers can increase depending on the size of the projects.

They have created an animatronic gorilla, anteater, moose, hippo, elephant, hamster, two-metre Great White shark and tiger sharks - as well as prosthetics, miniatures, costumes, props and gadgets.

Carlisle studied electronic engineering before joining a film school in Pretoria. He then worked as an apprentice in various film departments across the world before ending up in fabrication.

He said he created the fabrication company because there was a need for a company to cater for the international film makers working here.

"My goal is to create a one-stop shop for the film industry and to be involved in as many movies as possible," he said.

"The industry lends itself to creativity but you must also be prepared to work hard, sometimes through the night, to meet what can sometimes be impossible deadlines.

"You need to be able to think out of the box and pay attention to detail. I enjoy pushing the limits. When we created the gorilla it had 26 server motors in its face alone."

He said the job was very satisfying when the creation was successfully used.






Digitizing Faris, Aykroyd and Timberlake For Yogi Bear

(The Hollywood Reporter)                  Anna Faris, Dan Aykroyd and Justin Timberlake are in talks to star in Yogi Bear, Warner Bros.' big screen adaptation of the classic Hanna-Barbera cartoon.

The film is being directed by Eric Brevig and produced by Donald De Line and Karen Rosenfelt as a live-action/CG hybrid.

Faris will play a nature documentarian who follows the antics of a bear in fictional Jellystone Park. Aykroyd will voice Yogi, and Timberlake may voice Yogi's companion, Boo Boo.

The studio hopes to get Yogi Bear under way in New Zealand in December. Brad Copeland penned the current script with Joshua Sternin and Jeff Ventimilia writing the original draft.




Concerned Hindus Worried About James Cameron's "Avatar"

(allheadlinenews.com)                      James Cameron's highly anticipated film "Avatar" is being questioned by concerned Hindus, who are asking the Oscar Award-winning filmmaker to attach a disclaimer in the film to tell viewers it has nothing to do with Hinduism.

The 3-D sci-fi epic film describes how humans employ Avatars to evacuate aliens from their forests. It is set for December 18 release.

Unfortunately, Avatar, a Sanskrit term meaning descent or incarnation, is also the central theme in Hinduism.

Hindus, led by The Universal Society of Hinduism president Rajan Zed, want Cameron to include a disclaimer in the beginning and end of the film to tell audience that the movie has nothing to do with Hinduism or its concepts.

Jewish leader, Rabbi Jonathan B. Freirich, is supporting the Hindus in this issue, saying Cameron should respect the feelings of the devotees. Nevada Clergy Association has also urged the "Titanic" director to put the disclaimer.

Also:    http://www.screendaily.com/news/distribution/asia-pacific/camerons-avatar-forces-chinese-blockbusters-to-shift-release-dates/5007783.article





Will Hasbro's Jem Be a Truly Outrageous Movie?
               
(latinoreview.com)                  I know I'm supposed to skeptical regarding all film adaptations of classic toy and TV properties but I can't help the fact that I was once a four-year-old girl enamored with Jem.

Airing during the 80s, the cartoon Jem was about Jerrica, a young woman who balanced her life as rock star Jem, of Jem and the Holograms, with her fight to regain control of her father's record label. Aiding her in this struggle was a supercomputer named Synergy that could not only transform Jerrica and her friends into made-up rock stars, but create duplicates to throw off their enemies, rival rock group The Misfits, as well.

Now Pajiba says that Hasbro is hard at work to resurrect the property, though they're not sure if they should jump directly into a full-length feature or warm the waters a bit with a TV series first. Either way, it looks like Peter Barsocchini, who wrote the High School Musical films, will be on board, either as writer or producer.

Say what you will about bringing back Jem, but I can't knock the idea of kitschy glam-rock making a return to my screen.




Rhythm and Hues India:  Not An Outsource Model

(pmstudio.co.uk)                      Oscar winning Visual Effects company Rhythm and Hues (founded in LA in 1987) set up in Mumbai seven years ago to create the first quality animation/VX studio that could cover the entire production process. This is not an outsourcing model, all the R&H studios have the same departments and when a project comes in staff are assigned based on available resources, irrespective of geography. Staff from across the world have collaborated on films  including The Golden Compass, Narnia, Incredible Hulk, Evan Almighty, Babe and Happy Feet.

This distributed working comes from the founders of the company: seeing the failed investments by pioneering VFX studios in main frame computing, R&H sign up to the strength of distributed computing and systems. By spreading the offices across the world it enables them to:

    * maintain stability against economic vulnerability in specific parts of the world
    * keep a competitive edge within an increasingly globalised business by moving into new markets
    * attract talent  (a global resource)

R&H also believe that companies of less than 200 people are most efficient (people know each other/less middle management), so instead of staying small they spread their studios.

When the company started global expansion their LA-based staff were concerned that cheaper foreign talent would mean job losses but global expansion has enabled them to be more competitive and increase demand, so jobs in LA have actually doubled too.

We were hosted by Prasad the digital production manager who us an overview of the business and a tour of their rather beautiful offices. Whilst R&H started in Mumbai, the expense and overcrowding soon prompted them to look elsewhere and when staff were offered an opportunity to come to Hyderabad (considered a nuetral choice for launguage and food culture) about 50 people moved.

R&H India started small, producing backgrounds/painting out strings etc whilst they figured out work flow, communication, how to scale up and how to work with the time differences between LA and India.

Initially they found it difficult to get experienced people and unlearn bad habits from elsewhere so they now engage up-and-coming talent on the basis of their potential (IQ tests, passion, problem solving etc) and put them through an apprentice programme.

It is R&H's workflow systems that have enabled them to develop a global business and maintain the same quality levels to be delivered across the globe. Their office is structured to encourage openness and sharing and daily HD video conferences enable communication between teams.

Visiting R&H was great, not only did we see some great 3D animation and VFX, but experienced a company with a caring, open, networked approach to business and their own employees. A commitment to talent and knowledge exchange is to grow the overall ecology of the animation industry in India and their working conditions, salaries and working hours were by far the best we have seen.




France Toasts Tax Rebate for VFX Firms

David Martinon, consul general of France, and Olivier-Rene Veillon, director of the Ile de France Film Commission, hosted Tuesday a gala reception in Los Angeles to announce a tax rebate for international productions, showcase France's world-class visual effects companies and honor the Annecy Animation Festival.

The presenters, many of whom are long established as key production partners on top-grossing Hollywood and French feature films, were enthusiastic about the new incentive to \u201csave money\u201d with a French production partner.

The rebate, worth 20% of all eligible costs, is capped at 4 million euros or about US$6 million, they also control the US$18 million a year Ile de France Film Fund, which is open to foreign productions.

Since 2007, the Ile de France Film Commission has promoted and nurtured the booming French post-production and VFX industry. They organize the event Parisfx, where last year Jeffrey Katzenberg was the guest of honor, showing the first excerpts of Monsters vs. Aliens in 3-D.

The combined years of experience of the seven participating companies, such as ECLAIR Group (100 years), Annecy Animation Festival (50 years), Mac Guff (23 years) and Mikros Image (20 years), along with Buf Compagnie, Duran Duboi and L.E.S.T., totals more than a quarter of a millennium "longevity that is impressive for such technically progressive firms.

You can find information about the film commission and individual companies at www.iledefrance-film.com.




George Lucas Owns the Droid: the Name, Not the Phone

(geeksugar.com)                  What do George Lucas and the new Droid have in common? More than you'd think! I'm stoked to get my hands on the new device being offered up by Motorola to see if it really can top my iPhone, but when I got an invite to the San Francisco launch party I noticed something interesting at the bottom: the word "droid" is licensed to Lucasfilm LTD, which means Motorola pays a fee to the Star Wars icon to use his trademarked term.

I got the facts confirmed by a friend that works at the Lucas compound, but also found some other interesting tidbits about the name. The same device is being called the Milestone in Italy and Germany, but comes with more advanced multitouch support. Ah, the things you learn!

         Short Circuit Reboot Director Steve Carr directed Paul Blart: Mall Cop.  His other credits include Are We Done Yet?, Rebound, Daddy Day Care, Dr. Dolittle 2, and Next Friday. The script is written by "Robot Chicken" writer Dan Milano.

Variety says that "the remake is a robot reboot that brings the iconic Johnny 5 into the 21st century." Built by the military to be a highly sophisticated weapon, Johnny 5 develops a conscience and personality after being hit by lightning. He befriends a lonely boy and his fractured family.

The original was classic because it's a campy 80's kids movie that we all saw as kids.





Video Game Graphics Near Movie Quality

(lfpress.com)                   The line between movies and video games is steadily disappearing as they converge into a single medium, says a top executive for games publisher Ubisoft.

Yannis Mallat, chief executive for the company's operations in Montreal and Toronto, was the keynote speaker at the London DIG (Digital Interactive Gaming) conference yesterday.

Mallat said the company has always relied on breakthrough technology to keep ahead in the industry, such as the light and shadow graphics that made Ubisoft's Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell a runaway hit,

While video games have been spun off from movies and movies have been based on video games, Mallat said the two media are becoming more tightly meshed in the minds of consumers.

"The true convergence is the one that happens in people's minds," he said.

Ubisoft, based in France, recently announced the establishment of a new studio in Toronto that will eventually employ about 800 people.

Ubisoft recently released Assassin's Creed Lineage, a 38-minute movie in conjunction with its Assassin's Creed game franchise. The first instalment of the movie attracted millions of hits on YouTube.

Mallat said the movie is not a promotion for the game, but a stand-alone complementary production. The movie sets up storyline for the game.

"The creative director and the scriptwriter for the game were also at the core of the movie project so that everything makes sense," Mallat said in an interview.

Ubisoft also collaborated with famed Canadian director James Cameron on a game version of his new film, Avatar, which will be released next month.

"The collaboration of the two teams was so tight that some elements that didn't make the movie will be in the game and vice-versa," said Mallat.

Mallat said the graphic quality of video games doesn't quite match movies, but gap is rapidly narrowing.

"The next generation of consoles will have potential to have that quality in real time," he said.

London video game developer Digital Extremes used the DIG conference for a demonstration of its multi-player version of the new BioShock 2 game, which will be released next year.

Digital Extremes chief executive James Schmalz said his has staff spent 18 months developing the multi-player version on contract with developer 2K Games.

"The first game was so well-received it's an honour that 2K put their trust in us," said Schmalz.

The DIG conference, organized by the London Economic Development Corp. attracted about 700 gaming industry professionals, academics and students from across Ontario.

Hobbit Monster Designers Completing "Smaug"

(Total Film)                 In a  new interview with director Guillermo del Toro he talks about developing The Hobbit and it's sequel. The interview is broken up into 10 pages, but towards the middle it starts getting interesting when he begins talking about the creatures in the film.

Here's just a sample:

I think one of the designs I'm the proudest of is Smaug. Obviously he took the longest.

It's actually still active: we're finishing his colour palette and a little bit of the texture. But the bulk of the design took about a year, solid. It's because of the unique features of the dragon.

Early in production I came up with a very strong idea that would separate Smaug from every other dragon ever made. The problem was implementing that idea. But I think we've nailed it.




"A Christmas Carol" Looks To $42M Weekend

(cinematical.com)            What's It All About: Jim Carey stars in several roles in this 3D animated version of the classic Dickens Christmas tale.
Why It Might Do Well: This Robert Zemeckis guy has got some decent flicks on his resume.
Why It Might Not Do Well: Good lord, how many times has this been adapted before?
Number of Theaters: 3,500

Prediction: $42 million




Exploring the Tech Behind "Where the Wild Things Are"

We all know that technology plays a very big part in most movies we watch today. But some films blur the line between reality and the use of technology so well it's easy to forget how much work is involved after a movie has been shot and before it is ready for our viewing pleasure.

A case in point is the film you see a trailer for above called Where the Wild Things Are. Directed by Spike Jonze and based on the popular 1963 children's picture book, it is a film that uses animatronics which many of us grew up watching. But Jonze took a further step with what is a relatively old technique and updated it by taking advantage of what new technology can provide.

The London-based Framestore landed the job of enhancing the movie shot with animatronics and layering on CGI to add a whole new level of emotion to the creatures in the film. That's 1,500 character appearances across 1,100 shots Framestore had to painstakingly work through adding multiple layers of data on every shot for every character.

The guys who work behind the scenes on these movies really do earn their money every day. To think they spend days and weeks just getting the facial movements right on a single creature only to have the scene last a few seconds must be both rewarding and patience-stretching at the same time. Seeing the finished movie is the big reward, but I don't think I could do what they do day-in day-out.

I think this behind-the-scenes look shows both the good and bad points of technology. On the good side it shows we have the power and tools available to add detail to film and make it look real. It has got to the point now where you just don' realize unless you are told that most of what you are seeing in a film does not exist. The Da Vinci Code is a good example with many of the locations you see in the film not actually existing as seen in the movie, they are computer generated and placed in afterwards.

The bad side of technology is the fact it still takes weeks to get a scene looking perfect with intensive work by an artist or animator. Technology still has a long way to go before it can automate such tasks, but that's as much our fault for continuing to push the quality bar higher and higher. Technology may never catch up with what we desire, but in the process it will still help produce some fantastic movie experiences.

Video Interview:                  http://www.geek.com/articles/chips/exploring-the-tech-behind-where-the-wild-things-are-2009115/





Mandalay Pictures to Build "Machine Man"

(Variety)                  Mandalay Pictures is developing "Machine Man," a novel whose pages are being posted online each day by author Max Barry, says Variety. The company has picked up film rights to the thriller that Vantage Books plans to publish in 2011.

The story concerns a tech engineer who's tired of going through life average and unnoticed, so he replaces parts of his body with titanium upgrades of his own design. He then discovers that he isn't the only one with plans for his new body.

As Barry writes the book, he's revealing one page of the tale each day as part of an interactive literary experiment in which suggestions from readers are integrated into the plot as the story unfolds.





Industrial Light & Magic, Pixar, Electronic Arts, and Sony Pictures Imageworks Converge On Italy

(animationmagazine.net)                         VIEW, Italy's renowned computer conference on digital convergency, will celebrate its 10th anniversary with presentations from the likes of Pixar, Electronic Arts, Industrial Light & Magic, Sony Pictures Imageworks, Rainmaker, Double Negative and Blue Sky Studios.

Set for Nov. 4-7 in Turin, Italy, the conference will feature a keynote address from composer Michael Giacchino, who received an Oscar nomination in 2008 for his score for Ratatouille.

Highlighting the conference are computer graphics pioneers Glenn Entis, who co-founded PDI, was chief visual and technology officer at Electronic Arts, and now heads a digital media business investment fund; and Ken Perlin, 2008 recipient of the computer graphics achievement award from SIGGRAPH and professor in the media research laboratory at New York University.

Other presenters include Industrial Light & Magic's Roger Guyett, who supervised effects for Star Trek; and Jeff White, associate visual effects supervisor for Transformers 2; Henry LaBounta, chief visual officer at Black Box, an Electronic Arts studio; and EA's Jonathan Knight, who will present Dante's Inferno.

Speaking on stereoscopic 3-D are Bob Whitehill, stereoscopic supervisor at Pixar; Jayme Wilkinson, stereoscropic supervisor at Blue Sky Studios; and Rob Bredow, CTO, and Danny Dimian, senior CG supervisor, at Sony Pictures Imageworks.

Details on the program and registration can be found at http://www.viewconference.it/





'Risk' to Become Next Big-Screen Board Game Adaptation

Battleship. Monopoly, Candy Land, and Ouija. A Clue re-do. If it's a board game, chances are it's going to get put into development sometime in the near future. If Hollywood wasn't such a wacky world of insane ideas, I'd be surprised that we hadn't gotten this one earlier. Nikki Finke is reporting that Sony Pictures has bought the rights to Risk, piling more cinematic coin into Hasbro's coffers. The project will be developed by Hasbro in conjunction with James Lassiter and Overbrook Entertainment.

Columbia Pictures pres. Doug Belgrad says audiences have "shown a great desire for films that bring to life everything that has made these franchise properties stand the test of time," and mentioned the likes of Transformers and G.I. Joe. Unsurprisingly then, he says the film will be an exciting movie with "an action-packed, thrilling story." It makes sense -- a game where you roll the dice to world domination is just asking for a big blow-out action flick.





Disney/Weta VFX Pro Has Big Plans For Australia's Coast

(goldcoast.com.au)                   AFTER working alongside Peter Jackson on the Lord Of The Rings trilogy and King Kong, local filmmaker David Gould has big plans for the Gold Coast.

In fact, the world-class director, animator, producer and screenwriter wants to build an empire on the Coast, similar to how Jackson has made Wellington a base for major international blockbusters.

With his new animated short film, Awaken, gaining momentum overseas and locally through the Gold Coast Film Fantastic, Gould is preparing to head to the American Film Market to pitch three film projects, all to be made at his Burleigh Heads studio.

The projects will be live-action, a combination of actors working with computer animated imagery, with sets being built in his studio and exterior's shot at various Gold Coast locations.

"The three feature film projects we will be presenting over there are different genres and different styles, but always with the main focus to make mainstream international films," said Gould.

"We don't make Australian films, we make international films for a mass audience but we want to shoot it all on the Gold Coast."

Gould and his team built a prison set at the studio for his short film Inseparable Coil which he said is an 'appetiser' for the feature film that looks at the relationship between twin brothers and the events that test their bond.

The film screened at the 29th Breckenridge Festival of Film in Colorado and featured in Digital Media World magazine for its cutting edge technology.

"The film was set in Boston, but we shot it all here on the Gold Coast and you really couldn't tell the difference," said Gould.
Your Say

"The Aussie film industry has been in the doldrums for a decade or more, ever since bureaucrats took over deciding what films we should, and could make. Any venture into the private film making industry is a good one. We can make awesome films, we certainly used to make them. Now we make unwatchable garbage destined for complete failure, on the basis that they are 'socially significant' while being totally opposite what people want to watch. David, I hope it goes well for you. "
Glen Crawford

"That's what we want to do with a lot of our films. There's a lot of potential for films in Australia and we need to attract the talent.

"It's important to have a base, whether we shoot a film in Malaysia and do all the post production here or do the whole process from here."

With more than 15 years in visual effects and computer graphics, Gould has worked for Walt Disney Feature Animation and Peter Jackson's company Weta Digital, where he was the senior technical director on King Kong and 3D lighting technical director on Lord Of The Rings: The Two Towers and Lord Of The Rings: The Return Of The King.





Prime Focus R&D Recruiting VFX Facilities As Beta Testers

(software.broadcastnewsroom.com)                  Prime Focus Software, the R&D arm of Prime Focus VFX, is actively recruiting visual effects facilities to participate in the Beta Testing program for Deadline 4.0. The soon-to-be-released version of the company's hassle-free administration and rendering toolkit for Windows, Linux and Mac OSX-based render farms features a host of new upgrades, which beta testers will have the opportunity to experience first-hand.

Deadline provides render farms of all sizes a world of flexibility and a wide-range of management options. The latest version, Deadline 4.0, is scheduled for a late November release and will feature improved scalability and stability, an improved Mac OSX experience, and new software support for Autodesk Maya 2010, Autodesk Softimage 2010, Avid MetaFuze, and ffmpeg. Deadline 4.0 will also include customizable themes for the user interface and will be compatible with Prime Focus Software's upcoming Deadline iPhone application, which will be available soon after the release of Deadline 4.0.

To learn more and to join the Deadline 4.0 Beta Program, please contact: deadline-beta@primefocusworld.com




Marvel Profit Plunges 60% - "Iron Man 2" Now A Focus

(RTTNews) - Marvel Entertainment reported Tuesday a large drop in profit for the third quarter, hurt by a decline in feature film activity and related licensing.

Earnings per share for the quarter dropped nearly 60%, but topped analysts' expectations by two cents. Quarterly net sales also dropped and missed consensus estimate.

Marvel is now trying to be more vibrant in the company of Paramount Pictures, which would now distribute five of its movies including Iron Man 2 on May 7, 2010.

On August 31, Walt Disney Co. (DIS) agreed to acquire Marvel, subject to Marvel shareholder approval and other customary closing conditions, in a stock and cash transaction valued at about $4 billion. The company continues to anticipate closure of the deal by calendar year end. Under the deal, Disney will acquire ownership of more than 5,000 Marvel comic-book characters, including Iron Man, Spider-Man, X-Men and Captain America. The boards of directors of both Disney and Marvel have each approved the transaction.

The company added that Disney is the ideal home to nurture and further develop the distinctive Marvel brands because of its ability to extend the breadth, diversity and global reach of Marvel-branded entertainment and consumer products.

In statement, chairman, Morton Handel said, "Despite the absence of any Marvel Studios feature film releases in 2009, Marvel continued to deliver solid operating performance across all our operating segments. Anticipation for the high profile Iron Man 2 feature film continues to build, and we are focusing our efforts on the film's May 2010 release and the related licensing opportunities."





"Bone" Comic Might See Three Movies from WB

(Comic Book Resources)                    More than a year ago we reported that Warner Bros had picked up rights to Jeff Smith's independent comic Bone. Not much has happened since then, but Comic Book Resources (via SlashFilm) has a report from Jeff Smith's appearance at the Alternative Press Expo (APE) in San Francisco this last weekend. Good news is that he's "very happy with the progress so far" but no release date has been set yet. Although he did also go on to say that they'll probably end up making not one, but three films based off of Bone. The only other question Smith was asked was if it was a big decision to do a CGI movie instead of a 2D hand-drawn one.

    Smith noted he was a huge fan of hand-drawn animation, and had even tried to pull together a "Bone" cartoon with some friends he has in the animation business. "It was just too big, too expensive," he said. "I ended up just spending my time trying to get everyone to get along with everyone else."

Bone (visit boneville.com for more) is a 55-issue comic book series spanning 1991 to 2004 that follows "three cousins from the Bone family who are small, white and bald humanlike creatures with big noses. The trio are run out of their hometown and find themselves in a mysterious valley where they are separated and hunted by other creatures. They are taken in by a girl named Thorn and her grandmother, and find out that the valley is threatened by an evil force called the Lord of the Locusts." Smith drew inspiration from J.R.R. Tolkien among other fantasy and epic story tellers. Looking forward to seeing this actually get under way.




Bruckheimer Readies To Nuke Washington DC

(firstshowing.net)                           Seems like Jerry Bruckheimer is excited to adapt even more video games. Variety reports that he is set to adapt Shattered Union, published by 2K Games, and has hired screenwriter J. Michael Straczynski to write the script. In the game, states secede from the US and form their own governments that wage a civil war against each other after Washington DC is wiped out in a nuclear blast and chaos ravages the nation. Players control one of the warring group of states, like the California Commonwealth, Republic of Texas and New England Alliance, or a European peacekeeping unit sent to reunify America. Sounds like fun war action.




Nighy Wants in on Pirates 4

(moviehole.net)                        While talking to the amiable British actor about his role in "Astro Boy", Moviehole managed to ask Bill Nighy about whether or not he'd be keen to reprise his role as Davey Jones in the recently announced "Pirates of the Caribbean :On Stranger Tides".

''Yeah, I hope so. I really do. I mean, I met Geoffrey [Rush] the other day, and he and I were both saying  we had a wonderful time, not least, with him, because he's such a nice man, and such a good actor. We'd love to be in it. So I think " Geoffrey said that  he was doing a junket, and he said, I've actually resorted to making direct appeals to the camera, to Jerry Bruckheimer.  Which was quite funny. No, I'd love to be in it. I'd love to be in Pirates, because it was a great experience to be in the first lot. And you know, those movies are beloved. It's nice to make people happy.''

Though nothing has been confirmed, it's believed that the next "Pirates" flick will feature only Johnny Depp and Geoffrey Rush's characters from the original trilogy. Rob Marshall is directing the film, due for release July 2011.




 JJ Abrams Has a Secret Project Called 500 RADS?

(fusedfilm.com)                  We all know JJ Abrams is the master of the secret, shrouding mystery around his projects. If you have ever listened to his speech at TED then you know why. Mystery is appealing for sure everyone is curious and sure enough we are curious about this story that just hit rumorville on the internet.

Pajiba has the rumor out telling us that Abrams via his Bad Robot production company is working on a movie called 500 Rads, a film in the vein of both Cloverfield and 28 Days Later.

The film will have a modest budget of $25 million, and they will shoot the film in Europe, which would help keep the production under wraps and away from tons of media. The story is based on an extensive outline by Abrams, and writer Jeff Pinkner has been fleshing out the script for several months. Pinkner is one of Abrams'  frequent collaborators, as he has been a writer and producer on Alias, Lost and Fringe. Pinkner, who must return to his duties on Fringe, has yet to complete the script. So Bad Robot is in talks with a couple more of Abrams' usual suspects to finish the script.

A little less than two years ago (Feb 2008) we heard that Abrams was working on a secret project that wasn't Star Trek or Cloverfield 2. That rumor came out of the VES awards. The rumor was that JJ was working with ILM on an undisclosed project and that it was  "the most exciting thing to ever happen in the film industry ever ever!"

Not sure if both projects are even related but it is interesting to think about. Certainly the premise sounds great and JJ will make everything about the movie new, exciting and different than anything we have seen before.

Source:                 http://www.fusedfilm.com/2009/11/jj-abrams-has-a-secret-project-called-500-rads/




"Ghost Rider 2" To Pretend You Didn't See "Ghost Rider"
               
It was announced not too long ago that "Ghost Rider 2" would be based on a screenplay written a few years ago by "Batman Begins" co-writer David Goyer (the more I see his individual work, the more I'm thinking he's better off with collaborators).

Well, here's what Goyer himself had to say in a recent update:

"It's not exactly a reboot," said Goyer, who's currently hard at work on his "FlashForward" television series. "I hate to say it's more realistic, because he's got a flaming skull for a head, but it's a bit more stripped down and darker. It's definitely changing tone. What 'Casino Royale' was to the Bond movies, hopefully this will be to 'Ghost Rider.' This story picks up eight years after the first film," said Goyer. "You don't have to have seen the first film. It doesn't contradict anything that happened in the first film, but we're pretending that our audience hasn't seen the first film. It's as if you took that same character where things ended in the first film and then picked it up eight years later he's just in a much darker, existential place."

        "Transformers: The Revenge of the Fallen" was recently released on DVD and Blu-ray, and in a feature called "The All Spark Experiment," director Michael Bay talks about some of his ideas for "Transformers 3." Here is what he said:

"It can't get bigger, we have to figure out to go sideways and I'm wondering where to start. What I'm doing is having Hasbro send me tons of lore and stuff like that, things that we can draw from, and I just have to let it simmer. Definitely more has to be made of Bumblebee in the third one, that's a relationship you want to explore more. And I think we're definitely going to get more into the robot characters.

This movie got very big, very grand, we've covered a lot of ground. The third one doesn't have to be as big, we could go darker. It definitely has to be more emotional, it's not going to be just about action, action, action. And that's where I think T3 might potentially go, where things are more undercover and not as exposed."




Dreamworks Unleashes The "Robopocalypse"

(darkhorizons.com)                  DreamWorks Studios has picked up the film rights to Daniel H. Wilson's unpublished manuscript "Robopocalypse" reports Reuters.

The cautionary tale explores the fate of the human race after a robot uprising. Wilson, who has a Ph.D. in robotics, has grounded his tale in a heavy degree of authenticity derived from real robot technology.

Dreamworks is fast-tracking development of the project. Wilson also penned 2005's "How to Survive a Robot Uprising" and next year's "Bro-Jitsu" which are being developed into films at Paramount and Nickelodeon respectively.




PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN 4 Update from Producer Jerry Bruckheimer

(collider.com)                 Last week I went to Producer Jerry Bruckheimer's office in Santa Monica to get an early look at the "Prince of Persia" trailer.  Perhaps you read what I wrote.  Anyway, after the presentation ended, I walked outside the screening room and Bruckheimer along with "Prince of Persia" creator Jordan Mechner were standing nearby talking. While not wanting to interrupt their conversation, when you have an opportunity to ask one of the biggest producers in Hollywood a question or two, you sometimes have to get aggressive. I walked over to say how much I liked the trailer and how I thought this might finally be the video game based movie that kicks ass.

But once the "Prince of Persia" talk ended, I decided to ask Mr. Bruckheimer what's up with "Pirates of the Caribbean 4". As you might have heard, a management shakeup recently happened at Disney and rumors have been flying that Johnny Depp might not do the film with former Chairman Dick Cook out of the picture. Since no one has been able to confirm or deny the rumor, with my limited time I decided to ask Mr. Bruckheimer three questions: I asked what's up with the script, when are they going to shoot the film, and did the regime change cause any problems. He told me they've gotten the script, the management change will not affect the production, and he believes they'll be filming next year. Of course things change along the way, but the way he spoke to me about the project, I believe the Black Pearl is going to be looking for the Fountain of Youth quite soon.





New Generation of Visual Tech For 3D Arabian Nights

(Variety)                 Chuck Russell is set to direct a 3D reworking of Arabian Nights, reports Variety. He co-wrote the script with Barry P. Ambrose. The action adventure, with an estimated budget of $70 million, will start production in April.

In a new spin on the classic, the story follows a young commander who, after his king is killed in a palace coup, joins forces with Sinbad, Aladdin and his genie to rescue Scheherazade and her kingdom from dark powers.

"Through the use of a new generation of visual technologies, we will be able to quite literally take audiences around the world on a magic carpet ride," Russell said.




Roger Rabbit 2 to Use Performance Capture Technology?

As he continues the press tour for the imminent release of Disney's A Christmas Carol, director Robert Zemeckis has been adding more detail to his plans for a sequel to his 80s hit, Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Zemeckis, as we've already learnt, has hired the writers of the first film - Jeffrey Price and Peter Seaman - to pen the follow-up, but it also seems that he's interested in applying his performance capture work to the project.

Performance capture is the technique he's used across The Polar Express, Beowulf and now A Christmas Carol, where actors become \u2018digital puppets', with their representation coming across as a mix of real life and animation. Talking to MTV about Roger Rabbit 2, Zemeckis revealed that "All the other characters that [the cartoons] would sort of have fun with would be magnificent in performance capture technology."

However, he's resolute that the cartoon characters will stay as they are. "I wouldn't use it for the cartoon characters, because I think they should stay two-dimensional because that's what - I wouldn't dimensonalize Roger. And I couldn't dimensonalize Jessica even if I wanted to because she doesn't have a nose. We wouldn't want to give her a nose."

Should Zemeckis press ahead with using performance capture on Roger Rabbit - and as he revealed when he spoke to us yesterday that he's still not sure which of his projects he'll be filming next - then it'd instantly give the film a marked visual difference from the original. We like the MTV speculation, however, that this would be worked into the story somehow (and there's certainly potential for that to happen), and await further updates on the project with interest.





VFX Tentpoles Cash In On U.K.'s Favorable Exchange Rate

(variety.com)                  Foreign filming on British soil is booming thanks to a favorable dollar/sterling exchange rate, a tax credit that's particularly generous for Hollywood blockbusters and a strong post-production sector that can provide high-end vfx.

Ridley Scott's untitled Robin Hood project as well as "Clash of the Titans," "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows," "Gulliver's Travels," "Inception" and "John Carter of Mars" are among the U.S. projects in various stages of shooting, contributing to an estimated $1 billion-plus of inward investment in 2009.

Pinewood and Shepperton remain the leading studios, but a new generation of large-scale facilities is emerging to cope with the demand, offering much cheaper and more basic service; those sites include Longcross, Leavesden, Cardington and Belfast's Paint Hall.

Top facility: Longcross Studios in Surrey, just beyond the southwest fringes of London, hosted Warner's "Clash of the Titans" and is now gearing up for Disney's "John Carter of Mars." Formerly a military research establishment, it has been converted into a bare-bones, cut-rate facility consisting of vast sheds ready to be rigged out by producers.

Key contacts: British Film commissioner Colin Brown and his small team will get involved at early script stage to work on budgets, scout locations, source key services and give advice on what it takes to pass the British culture test in order to qualify for the U.K. tax credit.






Lucas Returns To Court Battle:  Are Stormtroopers Works of Art?

(telegraph.co.uk)                George Lucas, the creator of the Star Wars film franchise, has turned to the Court of Appeal to prevent one of the originators of the Stormtroopers from selling replica costumes.

Prop designer Andrew Ainsworth, who helped manufacture the helmets and suits for the first film in 1977, now sells replicas from his studio in Twickenham, south west London.   Lucas, the creator of the sci-fi series, had tried to stop him last year in a multimillion-pound battle at the High Court.    But a judge ruled that the suits were not covered by copyright law because they were not works of art and a £10 million damages award against Mr Ainsworth in the US could not be enforced in the UK.

Lucasfilm has now brought an action in the Court of Appeal to try to prove that the Stormtrooper suits are sculptures and therefore works of art covered by the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act.    Lucas's company is also claiming that an English court should allow the US court jurisdiction in cases involving internet trading even though the trader may not have a physical presence in the foreign country.

Michael Bloch QC, representing Lucasfilm, said all the characters in the Star Wars series were conceived by Mr Lucas.    Artists used conventional techniques such as drawing, painting and sculpting to give a visual representation for prop makers to construct the finished product.    Mr Ainsworth produced the first Stormtrooper helmet in plastic by making a mould using a clay model formed by another prop artist.

The Stormtrooper armour was first sculpted in clay by Brian Muir, a sculptor from the production company's art department.   Again, Mr Ainsworth used casts taken from these models to manufacture the plastic suits, said Mr Bloch.

When the first film was a worldwide success, Lucasfilm built up a licensing business for the manufacture of reproductions of the Stormtrooper helmets and armour.    Mr Bloch said Mr Ainsworth had kept the original moulds and started selling versions with the US being his largest market.   He said the English judge had found that Mr Ainsworth had a defence to breach of copyright because he held that the Stormtroopers were not works of art.

''The question arising on this appeal concerns the scope and meaning of sculpture for the purposes of the Act.''    Mr Bloch said if the High Court judge's approach was right, none of the clay sculptures, plaster shapes or fibreglass tools would qualify as sculptures under the Act.

''He erred in holding that it is an essential requirement of every sculpture that it have artistic character, in that it must have, as part of its purpose, a visual appeal in the sense that it might be enjoyed for that purpose alone.''    Mr Bloch said that this interpretation would lead to the result that statues of the Virgin Mary commissioned by churches and sold throughout the world would not be seen as sculptures because their primary purpose was non-artistic - as a focus for prayer.

''On the erroneous approach of the learned judge, arguably the most famous sculpture in the world, Michelangelo's Pieta in St Peter's Basilica in Rome, would also be disqualified for the purposes of the Act.''





DreamWorks Animation Posts $19.6M

(CGtalk.com)                     DreamWorks reported net income of $19.6 million, or 23 cents a share, on revenue of $135.4 million in the quarter ended Sept. 30. That compared with net income of $37.4 million, or 41 cents a share, on revenue of $151.5 million during the same quarter in 2008, when the studio benefited from its hit film "Kung Fu Panda.






World Premiere of Disney's 3D "A Christmas Carol"

(newsshopper.co.uk)                  DISNEY'S latest animated retelling of the Charles Dickens classic A Christmas Carol enjoyed its world premiere in Leiscester Square last night.

The famous West End landmark was given a festive makeover, with fir trees and fake snow, especially for the event which saw the 3D animated film screened for the first time in the square's three cinemas.

Stars of the film Jim Carrey, Bob Hoskins and Colin Firth began the celebrations by switching on the Christmas lights in Oxford Street, St. Pauls and Regent Street.

They then walked the red carpet along with other celebrities including pop stars Peter Andre, Little Boots and The Saturdays.

The icing on the Christmas cake was a performance by opera singer Andrea Bocelli who led 14,000 Londoners as they collectively broke the World Record for group carol singing.

Take a look:    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-Iv22h2B08





8th Annual Visual Effects Society Awards Call for Entries

(cgw.com)                        Los Angeles - VES is now accepting online submissions for the 8th Annual VES Awards Show on February 28, 2010 at the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza Hotel in Beverly Hills. The deadline to send in submissions is November 30, 2009. For the first time this year, the VES will be accepting 3D Stereoscopic submissions and has increased the number of entries that may be nominated in specific categories.

Rules and Procedures can be found at www.vesawards.com.

"The Annual VES Awards have become the gold standard in recognizing the amazing artistry of the visual Effects world. These awards not only recognize that artistry but also the nature of what we bring to the world of Feature Films, Broadcast TV, Commercials, Games, Special Venues and the 'up and comers' in the world of student artists," says Jeffrey A. Okun, chair of the VES. "This is the place to be on February 28th when we unveil the most outstanding work of the year across all categories!"

The annual VES Awards show honors the most outstanding visual effects in film, television, animation, commercials, special venue projects, and video games. The Society is also pleased to once again present the VES/Autodesk Student Award for outstanding visual effects in a student project.

The categories open for submission are:     http://www.cgw.com/Press-Center/News/2009/8th-Annual-Visual-Effects-Society-Awards-Call-fo.aspx





VFXmarketplace.com Begins Outsourcing Initiative

(awn.com)                     VFXmarketplace.com is opening up to supply the the global visual effects industry after a successful beta phase, VFXmarketplace.com makes it easy to outsource basic visual effects. VFX houses post their requirements, and accredited suppliers from around the world compete to win the work.

Tim Webber, Oscar-nominated VFX supervisor and co-founder said: "We created the business when we realised that VFX houses were always struggling to find the right artists and organisations to outsource to. We're a bit like a dating agency. We help match up the organisations who have excess work, with the artists and organisations who have the right skills and want to do the work. We've got artists all over the world, from Australia to the Ukraine, supplying great visual effects."

Suppliers can only access the work once they have passed a strict accreditation process. They are continually rated on their work by the buyers, creating a "SupplierScore" - a high SupplierScore signalling quality and reliability.

Peter Horne, Managing Director and co-founder said: \u201cOur buyers love it. They can find great quality work that is delivered reliably, and our competitive tendering means that they always get the work at a great price. We've been developing the website since January and have built tools to make it easy to outsource visual effects services such as paint, roto, tracking and modelling. VFX houses get flexible capacity on tap."

An artist commented: "I work as a freelance Compositor, but I also have a hell of a lot of experience doing roto and prep to a very high standard for major films. The service your company offers would be perfect for me so I am very eager to join up"

VFXmarketplace is more than just an auction website. It has a robust pipeline, supported by Nuke from The Foundry. This enables the Buyers and suppliers to easily transfer material in a standardised, efficient way. It has also developed web based communication and production tools to help with specifying work, commenting on work-in-progress and tracking the progress of shots.

Buyers and suppliers should register now at http://www.vfxmarketplace.com/register.action

Rodriguez Jets Away From the Jetsons
               
(latinoreview.com)                       While director Robert Rodriguez busy himselfs with post-production on Machete and getting things geared up for the Predator remake, there's one film he won't have to be concerned with anymore: The Jetsons movie. If Warner Bros. has their way, Peter Segal (Get Smart) will have that honor.

The live-action film -- think The Flintstones movie only with less hot Halle Berry -- has been floundering in development, with Rodriguez's name attached to direct, for quite some time despite having a script.

According to the folks over at Pajiba, "That\u2019s partly because no talent wanted to sign on, including Jim Carrey, who passed on the role of George Jetson."

Wait, they couldn't get Jim Carrey to sign on? Jim Carrey, who doesn't exactly exercise sound discretion when choosing his projects? Mr. Jim "The Grinch Who Stole Christmas" Carrey? If that's the case, then this script is likely worse than the usual remake/haphazard adaptation that we see pushed out by studios. Luckily, word is that Warner Bros. will hire writers to work on new script once they have secured a director to replace Rodriguez. But there's no word yet on whether or not Segal is indeed interested in being that director.





SKYWALKING TO SAN FRANCISCO

(moviesblog.mtv.com)              Richard Kelly is the man. Not just because he'll be here all this week, posting as a guest editor for MTV Movies Blog. It helps, sure, but we're talking about the guy who made "Donnie Darko" here. And "Southland Tales." Isn't that enough? Not for Kelly it isn't. His latest brain-twisting tale, "The Box," hits theaters on November 6. And he has a dynamite week of content planned for y'all, so sit back and enjoy!

On Tuesday, I headed north . . . the good people of Skywalker Sound and Industrial Light & Magic hosted a screening of "The Box" an invited me to stay at the legendary Lucas ranch for the night and tour the facilities.

The property itself is everything a fanboy could dream and more - as an alumni of USC and an acolyte in the church of Lucas - I was speechless when I was granted access to the Sergei Eisenstein apartment, a spacious lodge with a vaulted ceiling and fireplace.

I devoured my dinner of chicken, potatoes and vegetables (grown on the ranch) - and before sunset I hopped on one of the many bikes and pedaled my through the winding roads and covered bridge.

The place has a serenity that I didn't expect.

On Wednesday morning, I visited Skywalker Sound, where I met the guys mixing "Prince of Persia," starring my friend and "Donnie Darko" star Jake Gyllenhaal.

In the main house we visited the library (which has a structural resemblance to the Venice library featured in "Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade") - and I got butterflies in my stomach while gazing through Tiffany glass at each artifact from the "Indiana Jones" quadrilogy - not to mention the legendary whip itself.

It was then on to visit the wonderful folks at ILM in San Francisco. We did a post-screening discussion on "The Box" (opening November 6th!) which was moderated by Kate Shaw - Director of Training and Education - who asked a series of insightful and thoughtful questions about the film.

It was an honor to be among fellow artists and technicians who appreciate the art of science-fiction and open to exploring the themes of the film. I have to say it was probably my favorite Q+A that I have ever done.

We had time for a quick lunch and a tour of the ILM facility - a place where I would certainly love to be able to return one day soon and recommend to other filmmakers.

This trip was incredibly inspiring to me as I continue to revise my new script.

Full Press:      http://moviesblog.mtv.com/2009/10/29/exclusive-richard-kellys-latest-guest-blog-takes-us-to-skywalker-ranch/

            As more films have been unleashed, the race for the visual effects Oscar now appears clearer than it did three months ago.  I’m starting to feel the race for the final three will really be down to a handful of films.

As I explained in August, a shortlist of seven films will be announced in December or January.  After the branch screens the films, the three nominees will be announced on the same day as all the other categories.  We can expect the nominees to be big budget films – and also big hits, which is why how they perform on release is so important.

Summer titles such as “Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian” and “G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra” strike me as highly unlikely to survive to the year’s end.  Nor do I believe “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” will able to distinguish itself enough from its predecessors, only one of which was nominated here.

Spike Jonze’s “Where the Wild Things Are” did not have the reliance on visual effects that I thought would be necessary for a nomination and I frankly doubt its chances. “Watchmen,” on the other hand, has slightly more potential in my opinion but still remains almost too innovative for a berth here.

The two summer films which I do fully expect to be in the running had very different critical reception – though I’m not sure if that will determine their fate in this category.  I felt significantly dumber after watching “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.” That said, the box office was nothing short of massive, as were the effects.  It’s certainly still among the top contenders.

J. J. Abrams’s “Star Trek,” on the other hand, managed to successfully reboot a franchise that has previously seen success in this category.  Its effects were not as showy as “Transformers” but they were still integral to the film, and very much at the forefront.

The film that came from off my radar to the top tier of contenders, however, is Neil Blomkamp’s “District 9.” Every moment of this South African tale was gripping, due in no short part to the exceptional effects.  Blending explosions, the mother ship and convincing aliens at the heart of the film will likely earn it a nomination here in my opinion.

So what still has to show itself?  I’d primarily look to three films.

Roland Emerich’s “2012” will be arriving shortly.  I remain doubtful of the film’s quality (as I’m sure most do).  However, there is no doubt that top-notch visual wizardy will be required to create the disasters on display.  So if it strikes a chord with the public and the Academy, a nomination is possible.

Fundamentally, however, it is James Cameron’s “Avatar” that, despite remaining unseen, seems almost certain to play a prominent role.  From what has been shown, it’s clear visual effects will be at the forefront of the movie and the history of Cameron’s films in this category is impressive, to put it mildly.

Lastly, I’ll speak about “The Lovely Bones.” Like Cameron, Peter Jackson is a master of visual effects.  While this latest effort will likely be more akin to “Heavenly Creatures” than “King Kong” in the effects department, if it becomes a major player, I could see Jackson’s crowd in the race once more.

It’s hard to believe we’re two-thirds of the way through October.  In a few weeks, we’ll be in the midst of awards season.  What are your thoughts on the visual effects race?

    Anthony Hopkins has been cast as Norse god Odin in Marvel Studios' Thor, to be directed by Kenneth Branagh starting January.

Odin is the father of Thor and Loki, to be played by Chris Hemsworth and Tom Hiddleston, respectively. Natalie Portman is playing Thor's love interest, Jane Foster.

In the movie, written by Mark Protosevich and Zack Stentz, the powerful but arrogant warrior Thor's reckless actions re-ignite an ancient war. As punishment, Thor is cast down to Earth and forced to live among humans. Once here, he learns what it takes to be a true hero when the most dangerous villain of his world sends dark forces of Asgard to invade Earth.

Paramount Pictures will release the film on May 20, 2011.





How Does Hiring Less Experienced Workers Effect CG Supervisors?

(cgsupervisor.blogspot.com)                   I believe that the worldwide economic condition is effecting CG workers globally, with large effect on U.S. visual effects CG workers, due to the outsourcing of jobs worldwide.  Outsourcing has been on the rise for over 15 years now, and today the effect can be seen looking at job boards like CreativeHeads, where the majority of ads placed are for jobs in England, Canada, and Australia. The U.S. market is still strong in games production, judging by CreativeHeads ads, but ads for non-U.S. jobs now dominate by 2:1 or greater. And that's a job site with HQ in Los Angeles, the historical heart of film making. The job board Smoothdevil caters almost exclusively to the European market and is quite full of offerings.

For single workers with Bachelors degrees under age 30, opportunities abound to work abroad on what are called work-vacation visas. To get one in many countries, you need to declare an intent to vacation in the country where you will work, and the visa you apply for allows you to work to pay for your vacation. Neat legal opportunity to see the world and work abroad, if you are single and 18-30.

After age 30 through 49, you can still get a work visa in many countries. For example, to work in Canada, you need to score 67 points on their qualification test. A Bachelor's degree is worth 20 point, and so on. After age 50, points are subtracted for your age.

Age discrimination is packaged subtly in the U.S. market as well. When an ad suggests "3-5 years experience", you need to understand that 5 years is considered a maximum. Showing more experience will most likely result in your resume being tossed. Employers in this way are limiting the job pool to workers more or less fresh out of college and those with less than five years experience: effectively cutting out most workers over 30.

How does hiring  less experienced workers effect the CG supervisor?

First, it means that increasingly, you are working with people who barely will know how to get a shot made. Your crew will comprise relatively green workers with relatively narrow work skills --specialists. Oddly, a specialist used to mean someone who spent years in a craft as a generalist who gradually developed a specialty, for example, in Lighting. Today, it's the opposite: a specialist is someone who after graduation, fell into an entry level job, did mainly lighting, and now does that fairly well, but cannot animate a camera to save his life.

Your CG crew will include a few people who have been around a while, providing some depth of experience, but after a few years these people may be cycled out of the company for younger, lower-paid workers, easy to do as each film wraps. A percentage of experienced workers are retained and paid very well, but in most cases the staff comprises specialists who repetitively do the same sort of shots for months at a time. Some will graduate into "supervision", which means a technical leader to most companies, and the rest will be let go.

The upshot for the CG supervisor is that your pipeline can become less and less flexible if your staff is less and less versatile.

Now a large VFX production company can handle that, but smaller companies need versatile pipelines. Hence the long-term prospects for employment in the VFX business for workers who fall out of the large production houses, is going to be smaller companies and starting their own small companies. Some will freelance for a few years, but if you leave VFX film making for a few years to pursue other interests or opportunities, your reel becomes stale and your skills are questioned. You may be better than before: faster, nimble, experienced, but the VFX world is looking for cheap.

This is odd, because often VFX large houses pay more than the small houses for less qualified workers. When I was hiring for a small CG production department, I was able to find workers with broader skill sets and hire them for less than workers who were specialists. I was able to hire good people at rates below those commonly paid by large studios because I was working with mostly generalists.  I hired roughly a third senior people and a third juniors, with a solid core of experienced generalists in the center.  A few of our exceptional people had both general and specialized skills, which helped us meet occasional special needs.

    Sure, human brains slow down as we age, but they also amass experience and wisdom. Older workers have a lot to offer. It may be true that they can't work through the night as frequently as youngsters or go on so many of those macho programming "death marches". On the other hand, older workers tend to be more reliable and stable.

    Perhaps the silliest aspect of age discrimination is that while the skills shortage may not be pressing right now, it hasn't gone away. Many knowledge based industries are finding it hard to recruit enough youngsters, as older people drift away many won't be capable of making a return if industry wakes up and decides it needs them any way.

The loss of efficiency in pipelines due to replacing experienced workers with specialized novices will put more pressure on producers and supervisors to use cheap (inexperienced) labor. Further, the loss of an experienced labor pool will eventually become an issue if not enough generalists and experienced older workers are retained.  The abandonment and loss of experience in local markets will drive more and more outsourcing.  Good for my non-U.S. readers, bad for the rest.

Or is it good for the non-U.S. vfx workers? Several years ago, the Los Angeles Times published a feature article about visual effects outsourcing to international vendors. The article reported that once vfx was established in a country for a few years, wage and efficiency pressures made outsourcing there less attractive, and the outsourcing was shifted to a country with a lower standard of living. Eventually, your company's new facility in India will exhibit the same inefficiencies as the one in Los Angeles, and management will start looking at China or Nigeria or Kamchatka.

Eventually we will run out of poorer nations, but that will not happen for a long, long time. The message to everyone working in this industry, whether you are in Los Angeles, Melbourne, London, Vancouver, Casablanca, Tel Aviv, Toronto, Singapore, Mumbai, Dubai.... your company can outsource your job, and will, unless it sees working with you is worth their money.

I believe the problem of VFX production costs cannot be solved by continually shopping for an outsource vendor in a cheaper nation. The problem is that we need to embrace experienced workers for the efficiencies they can bring to an operation. Not all older workers will meet the criteria of efficiency I'm talking about, because age does not guarantee experience and skill. But as I have long observed, the challenges in CG-VFX are often how well and how quickly we can solve technical and artistic problems.

An assembly-line mentality is not geared to solving problems- it works by avoiding problems. There are two groups of people who are good at solving problems: young, energized artists with new ideas AND enthusiastic, experienced artists who know how things work. The best is the skillful worker, with youthful energy and years of experience, who keeps his mind and ideas fresh and knows his tools well enough to animate with his eyes shut. I'm saying that to build better pipelines, stop looking for the cheap laborer who can follow a template tutorial: hire the generalist who is specialized. Build better pipelines with pros.

Finding and recruiting experienced workers is one of our key responsibilities as CG Supervisors. Looking for better people and putting them to work is what we need to do to make our pipelines more efficient. It's not easy, and it begins with ourselves. As the saying goes, "wake up and smell the coffee!"

Are we technologists who happen to supervise, or are we supervisors who love the technology and the art? A CG supervisor is one who works with people to get the job done, gives them training and tools, and provides and promotes effective policies and work procedures.





Dinosaurs Resurrected By Cutting-Edge 3D CGI

(Variety)                 Variety reports that Mike Medavoy and FremantleMedia Enterprises are collaborating on a multiplatform franchise with the working title "Dinosaurs Resurrected."

The project, which melds the latest discoveries by paleontologists with cutting-edge CGI animation, will include a primetime HD series, to be delivered in 2011, and a narrative 3D feature.

FME will handle the sale of the series' international rights and will oversee the exploitation of the franchise in all media, including books, DVDs, merchandising, video games and live events.

Visual effects will be handled by British post-house Zoo, which worked on "Egypt Unwrapped" and "Predator X."




Original Ray Harryhausen Stop Motion Animation Model On Ebay

(blog.mondotees.com)                  With a little over 3 days left as I write this, this original Ray Harryhausen model from GOLDEN VOYAGE OF SINBAD is going for a cool $20,000.

Here are some other pictures. Click on them to take you to the auction link. 

Take a look:     http://blog.mondotees.com/2009/10/26/original-ray-harryhausen-model-on-ebay/




"Sin City 2" Set To Film in 2010

(darkhorizons)                    Producer Stephen L'Heureux tells Mania.com that a "Sin City" sequel aims to go into production in the second half of next year.

The sequel will be based on an original script by Miller who co-directs with Robert Rodriguez.





Stan Winston Props And Special Effects Video Excerpt Features Terminator Models Circa 1986

(originalprop.com)                    William Forsche of Forsche Design has published an excellent video excerpt on YouTube from a long out of print Japanese laserdisc which feature Stan Winston\u2019s special effects work circa 1986.  Props/models from the first Terminator film are prominently featured.

Below is the recently published Stan Winston video, described as follows:

This is an excerpt from the very rare 1986 SFX Museum Volume 4: Special Make Up Effects Laserdisc. The disc features master special effects make up artists such as Rick Baker, Stan Winston, and Dick Smith sharing their skill and technique. Narration is in dubbed Japanese over English dialog.

Take a look:     http://www.originalprop.com/blog/2009/10/20/stan-winston-props-and-special-effects-video-excerpt-features-terminator-models-circa-1986/




J.J. Abrams Abandons MI4 for Star Trek 2

(darkhorizons.com)                     For a while its been rumored that J.J. Abrams has been tossing up between directing a "Star Trek" sequel, and a fourth "Mission: Impossible".

Now, the director tells MTV News that the latter isn't likely - "I'm producing with Tom [Cruise]. My guess is, given other things, that I will not be directing the movie."

As for the rumors that Cruise wouldn't star in the film, he's more evasive - "I will say that it's a story that will feel consistent with the world that has been created. It's not a reboot kind of thing."




Analyst States Five Percent Loss For 2009 Games Industry

Wedbush Morgan Analyst Michael Pachter dropped a note stating that they are lowering their 2009 video game sales forecast to reflect weaker than expected video game sales in the U.S. and Europe in the middle part of the year.

* Now forecast combined U.S. and European software sales to be -4% in 2009, +11% in 2010, and +8% in 2011, reflecting slightly stronger sales in Europe than in the U.S.

 * Originally forecast sales growth in 2009 and are disappointed by the likelihood that the year will end up showing a decline in sales, they continue to believe that the video game industry will return to sustainable growth in 2010. The decline in 2009 occurred as consumers experienced "console fatigue" in the middle part of the year, and think that the recent hardware price cuts and better release slate will drive double-digit growth in 2010.

 * The release schedule over the next eight months gives great confidence in the forward forecast.

 * Covered publishers face near-term headline risk from continued uncertainty.

 * The big winner from a sales rebound should be GameStop.

So what that comes down to is they think that the industry isn't performing as well as last year. Of course with the "crisis" it's no surprise is it? But a 5% loss for the year isn't horrible even though many lost jobs and some great studios disappeared. But it is my firm belief that the giants must die so that the new studios may be born and create new,