dan’s Neighborhood

       The Twilight Saga: New Moon has  broken the record for a single day, earning $72.7 million on Friday at 4,024 theaters. The previous single day record of $67.2 million was held by The Dark Knight.

"New Moon" grossed an estimated $140.7 million, the third-biggest opening weekend domestically of all time with a per-site average of just under $35,000 per venue, the fourth largest per-theater average for a wide release. The movie also surpassed the previous November opening record for Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by a wide margin.





SAG Probing Motion Capture Work

(variety.com)                     With motion capture becoming increasingly popular production technique, the Screen Actors Guild is investigating how thesps perform the work -- a signal the issue may emerge as a factor in next year's contract negotiations. In an announcement this week, SAG invited members and non-members who do the work to a Dec. 3 session at the guild's Hollywood headquarters to discuss the impact of performance capture. The contract department staff and members of the TV/Theatrical Standing Committee will attend. It's the first such meeting SAG has held on the issue.

"We're holding this event in order to learn as much as we can -- how the work is performed, the concerns of members and what we need to do about those concerns," said national deputy exec director contracts Ray Rodriguez, in an interview with Daily Variety. He would not comment further.

SAG has jurisdiction over actors in most major films. But thesps have expresed concerns in recent years over the dearth of specific language in the master contract over how motion capture performances are covered, such as whether the stunt, background or dance provisions apply.

SAG's raised the performance capture issue in past contract negotiations, as members have expressed the desire for language spelling out motion capture work during the "wages and working conditions" process to formulate contract proposals. But the companies have responded during negotiations by asserting that mocap -- the emerging lingo for the work -- is a "non-mandatory" subject of bargaining and not open to negotiation.

The Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers did not respond to a request for comment Thursday.

SAG's scheduled to launch seven weeks of negotiations on its feature-primetime contract with the AMPTP on Oct. 1. That means the guild's mandated "wages and working conditions" process will likely begin in the late spring or early summer.

The technique -- first popularized in "300," "The Polar Express" and "Beowulf" -- is used in Robert Zemeckis' "A Christmas Carol," James Cameon's "Avatar" and Tim Burton's "Alice in Wonderland."

Motion capture, in which movements are recorded and translated to a digital model, is also used in performances for videogames. That's an area in which SAG has little jurisdiction.





"The Howling" to be Reborn

(:Variety)                   Producers Joel Kastelberg and Moonstone Entertainment's Etchie Stroh are re-launching the "Howling" franchise as The Howling: Reborn. Variety says that former studio marketing executive Joe Nimziki will make his feature directorial debut from his own script.

The film is scheduled to start shooting in February for a Halloween release, with plot details under wraps.

Directed by Joe Dante, The Howling was released in 1981 and spawned six sequels. Dee Wallace-Stone starred as a news anchor stalked by a serial killer who turns out to be a werewolf.

Steve Lane and Bob Pringle, who served as executive producers on the original, will also executive produce The Howling: Reborn.





Animated Short Oscar Shortlist Revealed

(news.toonzone.net)               The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has announced the shortlist of ten films from which the nominees for Best Animated Short will be chosen.

The complete shortlist is as follows:

The Cat Piano - Eddie White and Ari Gibson
French Roast - Fabrice O. Joubert
Granny O\u2019Grimm\u2019s Sleeping Beauty - Nicky Phelan
The Kinematograph - Tomek Baginski
The Lady and the Reaper (La Dama y la Muerte) - Javier Recio Gracia
Logorama - Nicolas Schmerkin
A Matter of Loaf and Death - Nick Park
Partly Cloudy - Peter Sohn
Runaway - Cordell Barker
Variete - Roelof van den Bergh





"Forbidden Planet" Pushing Forward
                    
(latinoreview.com)                       Joel Silver Updates Us On Forbidden Planet.   At today's press junket for Ninja Assassin I had a chance to speak to producer Joel Silver for a couple of minutes about his upcoming projects.

Forbidden Planet. Any movement on that at all?

Silver: Well, we've got a writer writing. J. Michael Straczynski, who wrote Ninja, he's writing Forbidden Planet now. We'll see a script before the end of the year and that's exciting too.

Source:    http://www.latinoreview.com/news/joel-silver-updates-us-on-lobo-sherlock-holmes-sequel-forbidden-planet-and-what-happened-with-he-man-8611





Turkish Special Effects Makeup Experts in Hollywood's Backyard

(hurriyetdailynews.com)                   Turkish prosthetic and latex special effects makeup experts, who create interesting characters out of their knowledge of anatomy, sculpture, chemistry, color and imagination, are popular not only in Turkish cinema but around the world.

The fact that films are shot in countries such as Romania, Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Tunisia and Australia due to low production costs has become a particularly new opportunity for Turkish makeup designers. They are preferred for their high-quality work and low prices, and take part in projects abroad with effects such as broken arms, severed heads or fantastical creatures.

Souce:     http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/n.php?n=turkish-plastic-make-up-experts-in-hollywood8217s-backyard-2009-11-20

Weta Digital Wraps on Avatar

(screencrave.com)                     If you're a tech geek who's been following the production of James Cameron's Avatar, you'll be glad to hear this news. According to MarketSaw, a reliable source tells them that Weta has officially finished their portion of work on the film, which means the project is near completion.

Avatar is scheduled for release on December 18th, and with less than a month until its debut, it's still in post-production. If you think about it, the film has so many effects that need to be perfected before the general public can see it. With so much hype and pressure, can you blame them for working down to the wire? Weta is a digital visual effects company that's based in New Zealand, and they've worked on several popular CGI heavy films such as the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

It doesn't hurt that one of the key people behind the Weta logo is Peter Jackson, and with his close friendship with Cameron it's no surprise he used the company. We're not sure when the film will be 100 percent COMPLETE, but it has to be sometime soon, the release date is quickly approaching. December has come around faster than any of us anticipated.





Zemeckis Holding "Yellow Submarine" Open Auditions?

(slashfilm.com)              This weekend, the 28th and 29th of November, there’s a huge Beatles convention taking place in Stamford, Connecticut. Amongst all of the merchandise sales and other such typical expo shenanigans, there’s also set to be an open audition for Beatlemaniacs wanting to try out for casting in what they’re calling “The Fab Four.” Of course, that the film “will be shot as a motion-capture feature like the current Disney release of A Christmas Carol” tells us everything we need to know - this is Robert Zemeckis‘ remake of Yellow Submarine.

There’s already some suspicion, though, that this casting call is nothing more than a publicity stunt. Zemeckis has already talked about the possibility of Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr playing themselves in the film, there’s been a number of previous auditions, and even stories of name actors being up for the roles, perhaps even cast in them already.

Jim Hill had the details on the Stamford Event, including a link to the Showfax page where one can purchase audition sides from the film. The sides have been given interesting titles - Buckingham Palace Scene, Help - Bar Scene and John, Paul, George and Ringo. There’s no Buckingham Palace Scene per se in the original film, though the building does make a brief cameo appearance. Infamously, John Lennon claimed The Beatles smoked a joint in the Buck House bathrooms when collecting their MBEs, though I’m pretty sure Zemeckis isn’t dramatising that, unless rather obliquely.

Neither is there a bar scene in the original Yellow Submarine, nor any use of the song Help. It’s now pretty clear that Zemeckis’ remake is taking some liberties with the original material, and I’m thinking that’s a really good thing. We already have the old Yellow Submarine, now it’s time for something new.

EA Closes Pandemic Studios Unit - Lays Off 200

(news.cnet.com)               EA shut down Pandemic as a separate unit on Tuesday, laying off 200 employees, according to published reports, but moving a small core team to EA's Los Angeles headquarters. Those exiting include Pandemic's two founders, Andrew Goldman and Josh Resnick.

An Electronic Arts spokesperson confirmed the news to CNET, but called it a consolidation rather than a closing, saying that the company merged Pandemic with EA's nearby LA campus. The core team of developers integrated into EA will continue to work on Pandemic properties.

An internal memo by EA Games Label Senior Vice President Nick Earl also confirmed the closing, as reported by the Web site Kotaku.

"I want to make it clear that the Pandemic brand and franchises will live on," wrote Earl in the memo. "In the months ahead, we will announce plans for new games based on Pandemic franchises. This type of change can be difficult. But the situation calls for us to act decisively, to take control of our destiny and to run a stronger, more focused development operation. That's how we will continue to make great games in our LA studios."

The EA spokesperson also confirmed that the Pandemic brand and franchise are still alive and well, and that EA is still very committed to it.

Started in 1998, Pandemic Studios was later bought by Electronic Arts in 2007 as part of a deal for which EA paid $860 million for both Pandemic and Bioware. Pandemic is behind the design of many popular titles, including Star Wars: Battlefront, Mercenaries, and Full Spectrum Warrior. The studio's most recent game for EA, The Saboteur, will hit stores next month.

On the plus side, Bioware seems in little danger of closing. With its slew of blockbuster games, such as Mass Effect and Dragon Age: Origins (which triggered more than a million downloads of premium content in its initial week), Bioware has proved to be one of EA's more successful studio purchases.

Hit by weak game sales, EA has been hurting since last year when it warned that 2009 would be a tough one. The company said at the time that it would need to cut staff, trim product lines, and close studios. EA initially announced job cuts of 10 percent of its workforce, then later revised that to 11 percent. In January, EA also jettisoned Pandemic's studio in Brisbane, Australia.

Electronic Arts has indeed struggled this fiscal year, announcing higher losses and lower sales for its first quarter and again for the second quarter, ended September 30.

The continued downturn forced the company earlier this month to announce additional job cuts of 1,500 employees beyond the initial 11 percent. With the layoffs scheduled to occur by March of next year, the game maker hopes its actions will trim annual expenses by at least $100 million.

"Laying off employees and closing facilities is never pleasant--we have a lot of compassion for those impacted--but these cuts are essential for transforming our company," said EA CEO John Riccitiello in an earnings call following the announcement of the cuts.



CGI Sputters At The Box Office

(comingsoon.net)                      After opening with $65 million last weekend, Roland Emmerich's disaster movie 2012 (Sony Pictures), starring John Cusack and Chiwetel Ejiofor, dropped dramatically, losing 59% of its business in its second weekend to end up in third place with $26.5 million and a ten-day total of $108.2 million, still well below its reported $200 million production budget.

The weakest showing this weekend for a new movie in the Top 10 went to Sony's animated sci-fi comedy Planet 51, featuring the voice of Dwayne Johnson, which underperformed compared to other animated movies released by Sony, grossing an estimated $12.6 million in over 3,000 theaters.

Disney's A Christmas Carol dropped 45% to take fifth place with $12.2 million and a three week total of just under $80 million. It has a long way to go to make back its own $200 million production budget.




Paranormal Activity Sequel In The Works

Death and doom continue to produce box office alchemy and Hollywood continues to listen. A sequel to the sleeper hit Paranormal Activity is in the works.

"Our team will come up with the right creative and marketing approach," Viacom CEO Phillippe Dauman said about the company\u2019s Paramount Pictures horror flick. Since Paranormal Activity depended on surprise elements, the sequel will have to be handled delicately. Regardless, the company is planning to move forward with plans that will hopefully extend the film\u2019s success.




"Speed Racer 2" In The Works?

(latinoreview.com)                  Producer Joel Silver updates us on the possibilities for a sequel to Speed Racer.

Do you think we'll ever see another Speed Racer?

Silver: No

        Less than a month before the scheduled release of James Cameron's new movie, "Avatar," some scenes from the costly special-effects extravaganza remain unfinished.

Pressure to complete the project by the Dec. 18 release date has risen to the point where crews are working "24-8" that is, eight days a week, said producer Jon Landau during a break from supervising the work in Los Angeles on Wednesday.

Mr. Landau said that around 30 minutes of the movie remain incomplete, with issues ranging from sound mixing to more serious aspects like visual effects. The total running time is likely to fall between 2½ hours and two hours 40 minutes, not including credits.

The film is an ambitious science-fiction tale about a disabled soldier who leaves Earth for a planet called Pandora. There, using mind-projection technology, the soldier lives and fights vicariously through a blue, 10-foot-tall body, or avatar, that closely resembles those of an indigenous humanoid species. Lest that futuristic scenario scare off anyone but die-hard sci-fi fans, there's a love story involving the avatar and a native female.

"It's in the hectic last days of postproduction typical of any film of this size, but it's on schedule and preparing for its world-wide release," said Fox Filmed Entertainment Chairman Jim Gianopulos.

Some of the tasks still facing the filmmakers are typical postproduction work such as scoring and "color timing," or ensuring that hues are consistent through the film. But other aspects include more basic production elements, such as special effects being generated by Weta Digital in New Zealand, the effects studio of "Lord of the Rings" director Peter Jackson, plus seven other effects houses.

The eleventh-hour fixes are driving up costs on a project already on track to be one of the most expensive movies ever made. Several factors make the final price tag difficult to estimate, though people with knowledge of the movie's financing say the tally could exceed $300 million.

Since "Avatar" still isn't finished, the cost is growing daily. However, a 15% tax credit from the government of New Zealand is likely to soften the blow to Twentieth Century Fox and the film's other two financial backers, which took on about 60% of the production's cost. Fox is owned by News Corp., also the parent of The Wall Street Journal.

On a film like "Avatar," which is almost entirely computer-generated, Mr. Landau said, there is little meaningful difference between principal photography and special effects. The movie uses motion-capture technology, in which actors' images are loaded into computers, then manipulated and recreated using graphics software.

The process of creating Pandora and its denizens is laborious and largely untried, thanks to the new technology. Actors were filmed against green screens, their movements used as the basis for characters that in some cases were entirely computer generated. The imagery which includes dense, exotic flora and fauna on the fictitious planet is largely created by Weta. It is then zapped back to Mr. Cameron's Lightstorm Entertainment in California, where the director must approve (or not) every shot.

"It's a benefit to the consumer when studios go crazy and spend a lot of money," Mr. Cameron said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal in August. Mr. Cameron couldn't be reached Thursday.

As the release date approaches, the process is getting more intense. Once the core visual elements are set, picture and sound must be locked. Theaters that display the film in 3-D can project the movie based on a digital file, but prints must be produced for theaters that still rely on traditional film projectors.

It is common for work to go down to the wire on big-budget blockbusters. But Mr. Landau said that Mr. Cameron's already-exacting standards have continued to rise even as the film comes down to the wire.

"Every shot we get back raises the standard for what follows," Mr. Landau said.

Mr. Cameron is famous for pushing the envelope when it comes to both production schedules and costs. Sometimes that process has led to expensive disasters: 1989's "The Abyss" cost an estimated $70 million to make and grossed $54 million at the domestic box office. After a similar white-knuckle production process, however, "Titanic" became the highest-grossing film of all time.

"Avatar" relies on 3-D technology developed specifically for the film, similar to the way "Titanic" used a giant water tank in Mexico built just for that movie's scale model of the eponymous ship.

Mr. Cameron said in the August interview that, whatever the movie ends up costing, he is putting Fox's money at less risk this time than it was on "Titanic" or other big, costly productions shot using traditional filmmaking techniques, because most of the work is done inside a computer rather than with elaborate sets and exotic locations. Mr. Cameron and a business partner also covered some of those costs out of their own pockets, according to a person close to the studio. And as with "Titanic," Mr. Cameron argued that the cost of developing that technology doesn't belong on the film's own books, since it can theoretically be used for other movies in the future.

"At least that was how I pitched it to Fox," Mr. Cameron said in the August interview.




Brad Pitt To Fight Alien Army in "Dark Void"

(darkhorizons.com)                   Brad Pitt is developing a feature film adaptation of the upcoming sci-fi video game "Dark Void" for his Plan B Productions reports Variety.

Pitt will produce and possibly star in the property which follows the exploits of a pilot who crash lands in the Bermuda Triangle and finds himself in a mysterious alternate reality where aliens are planning to take over civilization.

The game itself will be released in January, but no production schedule for the film version has yet been set.




"Planet 51" Doomed At Box Office?

(insidemovies.moviefone.com)                   'Planet 51, which features the voices of John Cleese, Jessica Biel and Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson, follows the adventures of an American astronaut on a planet whose rubbery green residents are enjoying a 1950s American lifestyle. The trailers look cute, but it doesn't figure to do much more opening business than the animated 'Astro Boy' did last month. I expect 'Planet 51' to do between $7 million and $9 million.





Spielberg & King Trapped "Under the Dome"

(Variety)               Steven Spielberg and Stephen King are developing a limited series based on King's just-released supernatural thriller "Under the Dome," reports Variety. DreamWorks TV has optioned the book and is looking to set it up as an event series, likely for cable.

Spielberg, King and DreamWorks' Stacey Snider will executive produce along with DreamWorks TV chiefs Darryl Frank and Justin Falvey.

The book revolves around the drama that unfolds after an invisible force field suddenly descends on a small vacation town in Maine. As the locals fight for their survival, the town descends into warring factions led by enigmatic characters.

DreamWorks is starting to meet with writers for the project.





Visual Effects Society Recognizing New Category: S-3D

(mtbs3d.com)                 The Visual Effects Society (VES) has begun its invitation process for VES Awards entries.

For those unfamiliar, VES works with and recognizes the top special effects artists from around the world. Member fields include feature film, television, advertising, and of course, video games. MTBS is pleased to report that for the first time, VES will be accepting stereoscopic 3D entries for their eighth awards ceremony.

Reading through the application process, it is clear that the entries will likely be focused on S-3D in cinema, and since this is a new technology category, the rules of submission are a work in progress. It will be interesting to see if any video games are submitted for review, and what conditions qualify a video game for stereoscopic eligibility.





'The Twilight Saga: New Moon' Looks at $100M Open

(comingsoon.net)               'The Twilight Saga: New Moon,' enters its opening weekend with even higher expectations. Some Hollywood insiders believe that because of the heat surrounding its stars and the fact that 'New Moon' is opening in about 600 more theaters than the first film, it will sell more than $100 million worth of tickets through Sunday.





The Brave New World of the Visual Effects Industry

(4rfv.co.uk)                           Belfast is doing its bit to promote creativity and industry by welcoming a specialist workshop by one of the most highly respected professionals in the movie visual effects world.

Brian Freisinger will present 'The brave new world of the visual effects industry' next week in Queen's University, where he will 'expose' some of his professional secrets.

Considered as one of top experts in the film and digital media industry, the California-based Freisinger has worked on famous productions like the 'Matrix trilogy', 'Constantine', 'Serenity', 'The Ladykillers', 'Eragon', 'Bridge To Terabithia' and James Cameron's new blockbuster 'Avatar'.

He is also well known for his work on television with the remake of Battlestar Galactica or the hugely popular series CSI franchise as well as national commercial spots for brands like Lexus and BMW.

Recently, he was visual effects supervisor on Disney's newly released 'A Christmas Carol'.

This film, a fully animated version in stereoscopic 3D of the classic, is written and directed by Robert Zemeckis and starring Jim Carrey.

This has been his first project for Disney's ImageMovers Digitial arm, but he has also worked before for other companies such as Weta FX in New Zealand - which carried out the visual effects in the 'Lord Of The Rings' trilogy - Digital Domain, ESC FX, Zoic, and Manex VFX.

Despite have been involved for the last ten years with the visual effects industry in a variety of positions, Fresinger spend the last year and a half working as a consultant and developer for a variety of new media applications.

Some of them were IPhone applications, real-time 3D solutions, and a variety of other techniques to deliver high quality visual experiences with non-traditional approaches.

As part of a partnership initiative to support the development of the creative industries in Belfast, the seminar is being hosted by Belfast City Council in association with Queen's and takes place at the university next Tuesday 24 November at 6 pm.





Meet the Creator of The Wolves of "New Moon" Phil Tippett

(blogs.wsj.com)               Animation pioneer Phil Tippett knows a thing or two about creating movie monsters. His Berkeley, Calif.-based company, Tippett Studio, has conjured up creatures that run the gamut from the destruction-bent monsters in “Cloverfield” to the gluttonous rat Templeton in “Charlotte’s Web.” So when “New Moon” visual effects supervisor Susan MacLeod needed an fx house to step in and create the hulking werewolves in “New Moon,” the second installment of Stephenie Meyer’s “Twilight” saga, which opens in theaters tomorrow, she knew whom to turn to.

Marching orders for Tippett’s crew consisted of creating wolves that looked realistic — well, as realistic as horse-sized timberwolves can be — but also stayed true to Meyer’s book, with each wolf’s distinguishing characteristics intact. (Alpha male Sam is the largest and has black fur, while others sport different colored coats.) “We approach all of these characters from cradle to grave,” said Tippett, who said his team researched wolves’ physicality before starting, with some animators crawling around with the fanged beasts at an animal preserve.

The company is responsible for making suggestions during the storyboarding process, being on set to monitor production and making sure everything’s shot properly — and then overseeing post-production, to make sure the color is being corrected. Given the frenzy surrounding the “Twilight” franchise, has Tippett heard from any extreme fans, either to praise to lash out?

“To be honest, the fans haven’t been on my radar,” he said. “We went directly from shooting “New Moon” to [third installment] ‘Eclipse.’ The studio is making these thing so fast, with such a quick turnaround.” In fact, Tippett said “New Moon” is the first film he’s ever worked on that was done start to finish in one year. “When we were halfway through the visual effects on “New Moon,” we started pre-production on “Eclipse.” Our heads are still spinning.”

And speaking of “Eclipse,” does new director David Slade differ in his approach to wolves than “New Moon” director Chris Weitz?

“Having a new director makes a huge difference,” said Tippett. “Chris was a more classically-oriented flimmaker. David comes from rock videos, so his temperament is more visceral and fast-paced.”

Source:               http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2009/11/19/the-wolves-of-new-moon-meet-the-creator-of-taylor-lauters-hirsuite-alter-ego/

Middle Earth Set Readies For Return To Film

(stuff.co.nz)                   Tourists at Matamata's Hobbiton will soon see Middle Earth come to life before their eyes as the movie set is restored for the filming of The Hobbit.

Hobbiton Movie Set and Farm Tours managing director Russell Alexander has negotiated the right to continue taking tour groups as the set is recreated  possibly right up until filming.

Sales and operations manager Henry Horne said people would see a live set as it was created. "Even for someone like me  a tour guide  I've only ever seen it as it is. Seeing the hobbit holes starting to be recreated \u2013 that will be very exciting."He was unsure what restrictions might be placed on visitors but was confident they would get a good view of the site.

It's not known when filming may start on New Zealand locations but Mr Horne said he understood it would take most of next year to create the set for the movie directed by Guillermo del Toro and produced by Peter Jackson.

Already gardeners contracted by the film company New Line Cinema have begun work, which includes planting orchard trees and hedgelines. More hobbit holes appear to be planned as several boards have been placed on a hillside next to the present hobbit holes with painted red circles.

The Waikato Times couldn't have chosen a worse day to visit Hobbiton on Wednesday as driving rain had sheep huddling in hobbit holes and strong winds turned umbrellas inside out. The site on Buckland Rd, 10 minutes outside Matamata, usually hosts six tours a day. The hardy tour group included an American, two Chinese and a German couple.

A bus took the party on a 2.5km drive to the back of the Alexander farm where New Line Cinema owns a 3ha film set. Guide Benji Olesen said the site on the Alexanders' 500ha sheep farm was spotted by Jackson on an aerial search for locations for Lord of the Rings in 1998. He loved it because of its rolling hills, fantastic views and a nearly symmetrical 175-year-old pine tree in front of a lake which was to feature in the trilogy as "the party tree".

Mr Olesen said the only sign of human activity in all directions was a distant haybarn which was painted brown and dressed up as a tree for the movies.

He described the extraordinary lengths Jackson went to keep authenticity such as covering native trees with branches from beech trees and buying an oak tree to overlook Bag End. It was cut into pieces, numbered and bolted together then covered with 250,000 artificial leaves from Taiwan. Trees and hedges were constantly transplanted throughout filming and injected with hormones to keep them looking healthy.

Mr Olesen showed the group the 17 remaining hobbit holes including Bilbo and Frodo Baggins' home Bag End \u2013 the only hobbit hole created in full so a crew could occupy it and film outwards over the village.

It is just a bare wooden room \u2013 the filming of scenes inside Bilbo Baggins' home was done in a studio in Wellington. German tourists Christopher Tragbar and Susanne Egyed from Stuttgart had travelled from Rotorua to see Hobbiton as they neared the end of a four-week visit to New Zealand.

Mr Tragbar said having seen the movies they wanted to see the film set and were impressed.





Making Ultra Cheap VFX For "Turbo"

(kotaku.com)                 Turbo follows 4D fighting game player Hugo (Justin Chon of Twilight fame), who hopes to join a pro-team by winning a Super Turbo Arena tournament.

"People," Conaway recalls, "looked at me like I was crazy."

It wasn't the story that was causing the looks of bewilderment, but Conaway's vision for how the film should be made: An effect-heavy film with a budget of $100,000 USD.

This was Conaway's University of Southern California student film short. "It costs about $400,000 to make an episode of Power Rangers," says Conaway. "So if you think about it that way, it's really not that expensive."

An effect-heavy film like Turbo needs effects. Lutsky introduced Conaway to the folks at Ember Lab, a start-up digital effects house in Southern California. "With the large amount of VFX work that had to be done, Jarrett could have easily spent his entire budget on post production alone if he had used an established Hollywood studio," says Ember Lab's Josh Grier. "We wanted to propose a bid that fit within his budget and would allow us to sustain our selves for the duration of the project." For the team at Ember, Turbo was their first complete project and the experience of working on this type of film was by far their biggest drive to get involved. That, and the arcade gaming.

Full Press:     http://kotaku.com/5408258/turbo-the-struggle-to-make-a-better-video-game-movie




3D GGI Christmas Carol To Show Legs In 3rd Weekend

(insidemovies.moviefone.com)                 'A Christmas Carol' should do around $16 million to $18 million over its third weekend and go up from there over Thanksgiving and through December.




Production Complete on Third 'Twilight' Flick

(zimbio.com)                 The second movie in the series may not have even come out yet, but shooting has already wrapped on the third movie in the four-part series. Director David Slade took to his Twitter page early yesterday morning to announce that Eclipse has officially finished up shooting, writing, "Twilight Eclipse officially wrapped shooting, at 4.30 am October 29th. Physically and emotionally exhausted."

Robert Pattison with some VFX makeup during shooting in early August. (Photo Agency)
Serious Twilight fans should probably keep their hopes in check though. As Slade points out in a separate post to Twitter, there's still plenty of work to be done. "Its not over until the film is in cinemas ...and then there's post production to start, 8 months of it...."

It's part of the breakneck filming of the entire Twilight series, as producers attempt to strike while the iron is still hot from last fall's surprise teen breakout hit. Series stars Robert Pattinson and Ashley Greene have both confirmed that shooting on the final film in the series, Breaking Dawn, is scheduled to begin shortly after Eclipse has wrapped shooting. No official production timeline has been released as of yet, but we're guessing nobody involved is planing on taking too much time off.





Pixar Studios Expansion Enters Phase II

(pixarblog.blogspot.com)                 It's been nearly five months since we got our first pictures of the contruction work going on at Pixar on the Phase II expansion of the Emeryville, California campus. The building appears to be progressing well, as can be seen in this new set of photos taken on Thursday.

Take a look:    http://pixarblog.blogspot.com/2009/10/pixar-expansion-construction-photos-oct.html




"2012" VFX Help China Save The World

BEIJING — When the apocalypse comes, China will save the world.

Or at least that's how Chinese audiences are interpreting "2012," Hollywood's latest blockbuster disaster movie.

"It's about time the world sees us as a dominant ally," said Liu Xinliang, 27, a Beijing-based computer programmer who watched the movie twice.

The movie, currently No. 1 in the U.S., is also No. 1 in China, grossing $17.2 million here since it opened Nov. 13.

In the nearly 3-hour movie, the Earth's core overheats, threatening humanity. Leaders of the world embark on a mission to build an ark in the mountains of central China to house people and animals that can repopulate the planet — a story line many Chinese have praised.

Like others in a Beijing theater this week, Liu grinned with pride as he watched Chinese troops escort wealthy and important citizens onto the ark.

Chinese netizens on popular blogs have also been quick to note other scenes perceived as having pro-China messages — Chinese military officers saluting American refugees entering China, China being one of the first nations to agree to open the ark's gates to admit more refugees, and a U.S. military officer saying that only the Chinese could build an ark of such a scale so quickly.

"I felt really proud to be Chinese as I was watching our (military) officers rescue civilians in need," said Zhang Ying, 26, an advertising executive in Beijing. "The movie along with (President Barack) Obama's visit this week made me realize that China has become a respected country on the world stage."

At a theater in central Beijing, hoards of people lined up to buy tickets.

"It's been sold out every night. They all want to watch China save the world," a ticket attendant said with a laugh.

It has also pulled in the crowds in Indonesia but has garnered a less positive response in some quarters in what is the world's most populous Muslim nation — because it predicts doomsday.

Conservative Muslim clerics on the islands of Java, Kalimantan and Sumatra have urged or banned their followers from watching the movie, saying it contradicts Islamic teachings. They say only God, not man, knows when the world will end.

"We are worried that the film will make Muslims believe that the end of the world will really happen by 2012. That is not true. The end will surely come but no one can tell when," said Mahmud Zubaida, an imam in the eastern Javanese city of Malang.

Still, Indonesia's most influential Muslim body, the Ulema Council, say there is no need for believers to worry as "2012" is only a work of fiction.

In China, the movie is seen as a refreshing change for audiences after decades of unflattering portrayals of the communist nation in Hollywood movies such as "Red Corner" starring Richard Gere, in which an innocent foreigner faces a corrupt Chinese legal system, and Martin Scorsese's "Kundun," which highlights China's rule of Tibet.

Scenes with Chinese bad guys were cut from "Mission Impossible III" and Warner Bros. decided not to release its hit blockbuster last year, "The Dark Knight," in China due to "cultural sensitivities." The latest Batman movie sees the masked hero nab a Chinese criminal in Hong Kong.

As China's economy continues to burgeon, Hollywood has set it sights on the nation of 1.3 billion where they can share profits on only up to 20 of their releases every year — making it crucial for studios to reap as much as they can with each movie.

"China has a legitimate movie market that's growing, but Hollywood is learning that movies portraying us as poor or the enemy will not make money in China," said Shen Dingli, director of the Center for American Studies at Fudan University in Shanghai.

"Chinese love action and disaster movies with special effects, so "2012" would have been released regardless if China played a role in the story line," Li Chow, Sony Pictures Releasing International's general manager for China, said in a phone interview.

It is unclear whether director Roland Emmerich, who also directed "The Day After Tomorrow," "Independence Day" and "Godzilla," intentionally inserted the China element to gain wider viewership on the mainland.

Steve Elzer, a spokesman for Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group, declined to comment on the China element or whether any scenes were cut from the movie.

China's box office is growing but is still small compared to the U.S. market. Government statistics show that revenues surged from 920 million yuan in 2003 to 4.3 billion yuan ($630 million) in 2008 — compared to $9.8 billion in the U.S. last year.

The "Transformers" sequel earlier this year brought in $63 million in China, which broke the 11-year record of $53 million set by "Titanic" in 1998.

    I was obsessed with Jurassic Park when I was a kid. I can pinpoint it as the sole film that was responsible for not only my love of film, but my love of how films were made. Obviously seeing realistic dinosaurs on the big screen was the reason for the former, but the reason for the latter was a book my parents bought me called The Making of Jurassic Park, which included pages and pages of behind-the-scenes photos and sketches detailing how many of the film's major sequences were done, as well as showcasing ideas that never made it into the final film. I'm sure at that young age (I was eight when the film came out), I didn't understand what was actually being explained in the book, but even then I knew it was showing me a side of movie magic I'd never seen before.

Despite that book being my bible for a summer or two, I haven't thought of it in years; not until I picked up Star Trek: The Art of the Film by Mark Cotta Vaz. I have no doubt that this book is going to do for some kid today what The Making of Jurassic Park did for me. It's an absolutely gorgeous coffee table centerpiece that, as the name implies, chronicles the making of JJ Abrams' Star Trek from the perspective of its legion of artists, featuring everything one could wish to see from behind the scenes: candid conversations with everyone from the director to the producer to the prop master to the CGI artists to the costume designers, all of which are thoroughly supported by a treasure trove of unseen concept art, pre-renders, and test photographs.


With Star Trek: The Art of the Film, Vaz and Titan books have delivered to fans much of the pre-production documents the actors got to see before signing onto the project, save for the actual script, as well as an exhaustive chronicle of how much of the design process changed between pre, principal, and post production. One of my favorite examples of this is within the section on Future Iowa, which shows the original, distinctively human sketch of what the hoverbike cop who pulls over young Kirk should look like. ILM visual effects art director Alex Jaeger recalled to Vaz, "It didn't feel future-cool. J.J. Said 'This needs to be kick-ass. Cover up his face so people will wonder if he's a man or a robot.'"

It's not a groundbreaking revelation by any means, but it's just a sample of the thought process behind even the smallest details that went into fleshing out Abrams' vision of the future. I'm still wondering if the hoverbike cop was a man or a robot, so it is a relief to know that was an intentional puzzle and not just a 'who cares, just make him look cool' moment.

If you're a Trekker, this is without reservation a must-own book. Even if you weren't on-board with what Abrams did to the canon of Star Trek, you'll love reading about the logic behind the changes and seeing how they evolved from a sketch on someone's notepad to a CGI pre-visualization, to an actual prop. But even if you don't care about why the phasers in Abrams' Trek utilize a spring-loaded mechanism or what kind of wardrobe the Klingons would wear, this collection is packed with so many stunning visuals that it's worth plopping down on your living room table just for the eye candy alone.




Disney's Dream of 'Christmas Carol' As The New 'Polar Express' Coming True

(latimesblogs.latimes.com)                    ChristmasCarolHappy When "A Christmas Carol" opened to $30 million domestically on its opening weekend -- well below what prerelease research had suggested and historically very weak for a movie that cost nearly $200 million to produce -- Walt Disney Studios' president of domestic distribution, Chuck Viane, counseled patience.

"Christmas-themed movies opening in early November tend to have a much greater multiple than others and we know [director] Bob Zemeckis always tends to over-deliver on his multiple," Viane said, pointing to Zemeckis' last 3-D, motion-capture animated Christmas movie, "The Polar Express," which ultimately collected more than seven times its opening weekend take.

As it turns out, Viane was wrong. "A Christmas Carol" isn't holding as well as "The Polar Express." It's holding even better.

U.S. and Canadian ticket sales for "A Christmas Carol" fell just 25.8% this weekend, the third smallest drop for any movie in wide release so far this year. That's substantially less than the second weekend drop for "The Polar Express" in 2004, which was 32.8%.

With its extremely strong second weekend and its healthy weekday performances, particularly last Wednesday, which was Veterans Day, "A Christmas Carol" has grossed $63.3 million. That's $11.8 million more than "The Polar Express" at the end of its second weekend, even though the 2004 movie opened on a Wednesday, giving it two extra days in theaters.

If the current trend continues, "A Christmas Carol" should be at more than $80 million by next Sunday. Thanksgiving weekend should be particularly strong for the movie, given its holiday theme and family appeal. "The Polar Express" saw its grosses rise 23.8% on Thanksgiving weekend and "A Christmas Carol" could easily do even better.

The next major release that will compete directly for the family audience of "A Christmas Carol" is Disney's "The Princess and the Frog," which starts playing nationwide Dec. 11. The following Friday, "Avatar" opens and will take virtually all of the digital 3-D screens currently playing "Christmas Carol," on which it is doing the majority of its business. That should essentially end the movie's domestic run.

Disney opened "A Christmas Carol" in early November, well before the holiday, in order to play on 3-D screens for as long as possible before "Avatar."

By the time James Cameron's hugely anticipated and costly picture debuts, "A Christmas Carol" could end up with a domestic gross of around $200 million. That would make it something of a financial success, particularly if the movie ends up doing well overseas. So far, after launching in 21 international territories, it has grossed $34.6 million overseas.

Disney probably will also be well-positioned to reopen "A Christmas Carol" in 3-D theaters for several Christmases to come, as Warner Bros. did with "The Polar Express."

In more good box-office news today, Sony reported that "2012" collected $5 million more overseas than it estimated yesterday, giving the disaster flick a final worldwide weekend gross of $230.4 million.




Visual Effects, Stan Winston and the Tricky Business of Legacy

(latimesblogs.latimes.com)                       The creature creators at Stan Winston Studio specialize in Hollywood miracles -- they brought dinosaurs to life for "Jurassic Park" and turned metal men into movie history with "Iron Man" and "The Terminator" -- but their next trick will be their toughest. The illustrious special-effects shop will try to hold on to its history even as it sheds its late founder's name and abandons his storied workshop.

Stan Winston, (at right) a four-time Oscar winner, died in June in Malibu at age 62 after a seven-year battle with multiple myeloma, a cancer of the plasma cells in bone marrow. He was universally eulogized as one of the true wizards of Hollywood. "The entertainment industry has lost a genius," Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said at the time, "and I lost one of my best friends." Steven Spielberg and James Cameron spoke at the funeral, and across Hollywood there was reflection on what made Winston and his shop so special. "He came to special effects from a background of acting, which informed everything," director Jon Favreau said. "It was always about performance, not just puppetry."

Winston became a brand name in Hollywood decades ago (he won his first Emmy in 1973) and his namesake studio in Van Nuys became an industry landmark with its collection of aliens, robots and magical beasties. But now, just months after his death, neither Winston's name nor his workshop will be part of the day-to-day life of the company he left behind. All the latex masks and robotic critters have been crated up or already moved to a new facility in San Fernando that is much more modern but also far less charming.

Stanwinston_2Stan Winston Studio will also give up the ghost by changing its name to Legacy Effects, a somewhat ironic moniker for a company that seems to be pushing away so much of its history. I recently dropped by Winston's maze-like old workshop, which sits on a gritty industrial stretch of Valjean Avenue in Van Nuys, and got a tour before most of its treasures were boxed up. Everywhere you looked there was movie history, both famous (there's a mottled, undead version of Tom Cruise from "Interview With the Vampire" standing in one corner) and nearly forgotten (it took me a long minute to recognize one of the robots from the 1981 Andy Kaufman movie "Heartbeeps" -- but that film did earn Winston his first Oscar nomination).

The real treasure of the company, though, is its talent, not its heirlooms. That's the main reason behind the name change. John Rosengrant, who started working with Winston on the set of "The Terminator" (1984), said that he and the three other partners who will lead the company forward all value the studio's towering tradition, but have decided it would be best to take a step out of its considerable shadow.

"This was not an easy decision," Rosengrant told me. "When Stan died we lost a friend, a mentor, a teacher, an inspiration -- the whole gamut. Everything he did and everything he represented, it's ingrained in us. It would be hard to do anything but 'the Stan way.' "

That's why no one was surprised when, in the days after the company's founder's death, one of Rosengrant's partners told Ain't it Cool News, the popular fanboy website, that the business would be renamed the Winston Effects Group. It seemed fitting and natural. But that name didn't stick for long. Instead, the partners informed the Winston family that they would rename the company. "We did receive the blessing of Stan's widow, Karen, but I'm sure there was mixed emotions for the family. I know there was mixed emotions for us."  

Galaxy_quest_stan_winstonlarge_2It's a delicate dance when a Hollywood company lives on after its namesake founder dies, especially if that founder happened to be an icon (and make no mistake, Winston was an icon in the specialized art-science of special effects). It's common for companies to keep the leader's prestigious name as an ongoing brand, hence the Walt Disney Co., Warner Bros. Entertainment and (in an especially good parallel to the Winston case) the Jim Henson Co., which was founded by a master artisan of singular imagination.

All these things went through the minds of Rosengrant and the other three Legacy partners: Shane Mahan (who also began working with Winston on the first "Terminator" set), Lindsay MacGowan (the British-born partner who was hired while Winston's team was working at Pinewood Studios on the 1986 film "Aliens") and Alan Scott (who came into the fold during the "Terminator 2" production and now leads the shop's escalating pursuits in television commercials, of which there were more than 100 last year).

But they also considered the fact that they themselves contributed a great deal to the success of Winston Studio, especially since 2001, when the founder's role in effects projects began to recede. Not only was Winston dealing with his health issues, he was also pursuing an ambition to produce movies.

Stanwinstonmodel"He was turning over the reins to us during 'A.I.' and 'Jurassic Park III,' " Rosengrant said, referring to two 2001 films involving Winston's close friend Spielberg. "Stan was on the set for 'A.I.' but he really turned over a lot of the duties at that point to the people here. He was passing the torch to us. He was very supportive of people finding their own successes here and, really, he will always be part of anything we do. When we get a new project, a new challenge, we all look at it through Stan's eyes."

That led to great success on "Iron Man," by all accounts a triumphant meshing of practical and CGI effects, which is an approach that is gaining great traction in Hollywood as the best way to realize fantastic visions on screen but deliver them with a real-world weight and solidity that keeps their movies from slipping into complete cartoon physics. Winston was "in the room during key moments and for key decisions," according to director Favreau, but his team did most of the heavy lifting. Favreau has worked repeatedly with Winston, both the man and the namesake studio, and he said that the crew that is now moving forward as Legacy will absolutely continue to have his business. "I have no reservations at all. We know them and they know us and their work is top-notch."

(In another Winston-related note, Favreau also said that he will be directing "Me and My Monster" for Sony. The movie, about a boy's life-changing friendship with a strange creature, was one that was near and dear to the heart of Winston. It was circled the flagship project for Winston Productions, another venture by the late special-effects guru. "It was something he reached out to me about and wanted me to do and I'm excited to be doing it.")

The last two major American movies that will have Winston Studio listed in the credits will be "Terminator Salvation" and then the Cameron-directed 3-D film "Avatar," which is fitting considering the importance of the killer-robot franchise and its original director in the career of the late wizard. "That," Rosengrant said, "will be a bittersweet thing for a lot of people."

"Terminator Salvation," in theaters next summer, is being directed by McG who, earlier this year, told me that he considered it essential to have the Winston name on his film. "It comes down to credibility," the filmmaker said. "I wanted to carry on this tradition and show people that we were going to make this movie the right way. That meant bringing in Stan and his people. You have to do things the right way."

The Winston name will also appear on a German film called "Pandorum." After that, the Legacy era officially begins (as far as movies) with the Bollywood production called "Robot" and then, if things go as all parties expect, with "Iron Man 2" in 2010.

Legacy also has been talking with the production team behind a film adaptation of Green Lantern, the DC Comics character that dates back to 1940. "We've done some early design work, so that's just preliminary, it's not green-lit yet," Rosengrant said. "And green-lit has a whole different meaning with that project, doesn't it?"

The shop is also making a new foray into television. While Winston labored on major television events as far back as the 1970s (he worked on "Roots," for instance, and won an Emmy for the creepy 1972 tele-film "Gargoyles"), now his team is looking for weekly work.  "We've done some work with 'Grey's Anatomy,' that's a new thing for us, working on a television series. We'd love to see where that leads."

Depending on the workload, the Winston/Legacy group has upward of 120 employees and, no matter what the name is on its shingle, the top talent on that roster will bring in plenty of business in the seasons to come. And, to be frank, they want their names to be attached to future glories, not the name of their beloved but departed mentor. That's not unreasonable, but Hollywood is a tightly wired community with an emphasis on "reputation and relationships," as Rosengrant put it, and doing things "the right way," as McG phrased it. That's why the Legacy leaders are still fretting.

"Shane Mahan, one of the partners here, was talking to James Cameron and he told him about the name change. Jim thought about it and then he said that it was the right thing to do, you know, that it was fine. You got to understand, he and Stan were very, very good friends, so that meant a lot to us. Really, we were all breathing a sigh of relief..."




Animation's Highest Honor: Winsor McCay Award Recipients Announced

(PRNewswire)                     The International Animated Film Society, ASIFA-Hollywood has announced the Winsor McCay Award recipients for 2009: Tim Burton, Bruce Timm and Jeffrey Katzenberg (see bios below). Named in honor of animator Winsor McCay, best known as a prolific artist and pioneer in the art of comic strips and animation, the Winsor McCay Award stands as one of the highest honors given to an individual in the animation industry in recognition for career contributions to the art of animation.

The 2009 Winsor McCay Award Recipients are:

Tim Burton, though mainly known for his innovative live action features, has had a strong influence on the world of animation. Burton began his career as an animator (Tron, Fox And the Hound) at the Walt Disney Studios where made his first independent shorts, Vincent (in stop motion animation) and Frankenweenie (live action). He went on to co-produce Family Dog (1987), an animated pilot for Steven Spielberg, which became a prime time series for CBS in 1993. His stop-motion Halloween feature, Nightmare Before Christmas (1993, directed by Henry Selick) has become a worldwide cult classic. His interest in animation led him to co-produced the stop-mo feature James and The Giant Peach (1996) and this year's CG production, "9". Most recently Burton co-directed the stop-motion Corpse Bride (2005) and his internet animation series, The World of Stainboy (2000). Burton is currently remaking Frankenweenie as a full length animated feature.

Bruce Timm forever changed the world of TV adventure cartoons with his visual take on DC Comics super heroes, beginning with his co-producing Batman: the Animated Series in 1992. Timm began his career in animation at Filmation, doing layouts on He-Man and Flash Gordon. He did storyboards for Ralph Bakshi (on Mighty Mouse: the New Adventures) and John Kricfalusi (Beany & Cecil). While working on Tiny Toon Adventures, he teamed with Eric Rodamski to pitch a new take on Batman. The success of that series has led Timm to redesign the entire DC Comics universe in various Warner Bros. Animation series as Superman, Batman Beyond and Justice League Unlimited. He has drawn several graphic novels and comics stories for DC Comics and is currently producing a series of direct-to video animated features for Warner Home Video.

Jeffrey Katzenberg is the CEO of Dreamworks Animation. Katzenberg was responsible for reviving the fortunes of Walt Disney Feature Animation with his supervision of The Little Mermaid, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Beauty and The Beast and The Lion King. Katzenberg left Disney in 1994 to team with Steven Spielberg and David Geffen to create Dreamworks SKG, where, as head of the animation studio, he oversaw the production of hand drawn animated features The Prince of Egypt, The Road to el Diablo and Spirit. Switching to CG production, the studio produced a string of hits including Shrek (and its sequels), Madagascar (and its spin-offs), Kung Fu Panda, Antz, Bee Movie and Shark Tale.

The 37th Annual Annie Awards will be held on Saturday, February 6, 2010 at UCLA's Royce Hall in Los Angeles, CA. For more information, please visit www.annieawards.org or call: 562.209.9900. Media inquiries, please contact Gretchen Houser, Houser PR, at 562.235.0991 or email: Gretchen@houserpr.com.




Star Trek 2: No Script in Existence

(comingsoon.net)                     While it's widely assumed that J.J. Abrams will be directing the next "Star Trek" film, that's not necessarily the case.

Abrams is one of the busiest people in Hollywood, yet he always takes time to graciously talk to press. Tonight, we asked him about Star Trek and a few other projects he's involved in at the DVD/Blu-ray release party.


Q: What are the elements that would have to line up to make you direct the next "Star Trek" film?

Abrams: The truth is, the idea of anyone else directing the next "Star Trek" film breaks my heart. I had the most fun ever with these people. But, it's impossible to know when the script is done. That's the time to look at it and ask, "is this the right thing for the movie? Is it the right thing for me? My family?" and all that stuff. It's so hard to know a year out with no script in existence if I should direct the movie. I look forward to making that decision when the time comes.

We tried to get him to talk about the Micronauts film he's been rumored to be signing onto, but he politely declined to comment.




Oscar Awards Watch: Visual Effects

(hollywoodreporter.com)               Hell hath no fury like a geek scorned, and there is no species of geek more dedicated or passionate than the Trekkie (or Trekker, as they prefer to be called). Roger Guyett, the visual effects supervisor for Paramount's "Star Trek" prequel, knows this all too well.

"Sometimes I wonder if I'll meet someone on a dark and stormy night and he'll come at me with a machete because I didn't do something the way some hardcore fan would've done it," says Guyett, in a deadpan tone that suggests he's not quite kidding.

Guyett is not the only one facing this fear. From franchise reboots ("Terminator Salvation") and sequels ("Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen," "X-Men Origins: Wolverine") to adaptations of time-honored classics ("Where the Wild Things Are," "Watchmen"), many of this year's visual effects spectaculars have mined preexisting works for inspiration, and each one has its own legion of persnickety hardcore fans.

"Actually, it's harder to deal with than just starting with a blank slate," Guyett says. "You have to understand the context of everything you're doing and everything has to make sense within that world, and that doesn't mean that you can't change some things."

For "Watchmen" director Zack Snyder, there was no question: Dr. Manhattan had displayed full-frontal nudity in the original 1986 DC comic, so the luminescent blue super hero would also bare all in his big-screen adaptation. Warner Bros. reluctantly agreed.
 
Since actor Billy Crudup's on-set performance as Dr. Manhattan (carried out clothed in a mocap suit) would be replaced by a CGI figure in post, the job fell to the artists at Sony Imageworks to create an appropriate set of male super hero genitalia. Visual effects supervisor Peter G. Travers submitted 44 candidates, numerically arranged from biggest to smallest. Snyder picked number 22, right in the middle of the size spectrum, and it was thereafter referred to as "the 22."

"I know there might've been some people who were turned off by the fact that it was there," says John "D.J." Des Jardin, another of the film's VFX supervisors, "but my hat is off to Zack for being so pure to the graphic novel that way, because it's a major development point in the Dr. Manhattan character. He's starting to lose touch with humanity, so he doesn't care if he walks around naked all the time."

It's a testament to the passion of Trekkers that one of the most delicate issues Guyett faced on "Trek" was alterations to the iconic USS Enterprise. As a child, Guyett liked his toys and models to have moving parts, something the exterior of the original Enterprise lacked. So his team at ILM altered the design of the ship's navigational deflector (the glowing blue tip on the lower cylinder of the ship) so it could expand and contract, and put doors on the engines that open when it goes into warp speed. At the same time, they mimicked the paneled construction of the original Enterprise and the way that the light reacted to the surface of its dish.

"It's sort of a combination of trying to pay homage to and take the best of that old world and the best of those concepts and trying to contemporize," Guyett says. "Generally, if you do something cooler, smarter or more contemporary, I think people will embrace it."

In "Terminator Salvation," the really cool piece of machinery visual effects supervisor Charles Gibson was tasked with re-creating had largely been portrayed in previous installments by a human -- Arnold Schwarzenegger. In the new film, the cyborg (model number

T-800) would be seen primarily in its endoskeleton form -- which had previously been brought to life in just a few scenes through a combination of stop-motion animation and puppetry -- but Gibson felt it should move like Schwarzenegger nonetheless.

"We saw (the T-800) as a classic movie character, like Spider-Man or the Hulk," Gibson says. "He's got a very specific way of moving, and that's basically Arnold Schwarzenegger playing the part of a cyborg."

Gibson's task was made easier by the presence of special makeup effects supervisor John Rosengrant and his crew at Liberty Effects, staffed by veterans of Stan Winston Studios, which helped bring the T-800 to life in previous films. (Winston died in June 2008. The film is dedicated to him.)

"They knew all of the tricks that (James) Cameron (director of the first two installments), Arnold and Stan had gone through to get that performance," Gibson says, "(such as) the way that Arnold held his body, his chin, this particular kind of walk. And if you look at the film, even though it doesn't look like Arnold, we feel he kind of plays it like Arnold does."

Schwarzenegger does make a brief cameo as a CG animation. To re-create his body, Gibson referenced old bodybuilding photos. For his head, he digitally scanned a life cast Winston had made of Schwarzenegger in 1983 for the original "Terminator."

"That was a great help, but it was only a starting point," Gibson says. "We spent a lot of time agonizing over why doesn't this look right. It ended up needing some surprisingly simple adjustments to the face -- the way the ears were tilted or making a 16th of an inch move to the eyes and things like that."

The techniques used to bring the monsters to life in director Spike Jonze's big-screen adaptation of Maurice Sendak's 1963 children's classic "Where the Wild Things Are" are primitive by comparison.

"It was very important to Spike that they were creatures that existed in the aesthetic of the film and not come across as achievements in visual effects, per se," says Daniel Jeannette, the film's visual effects supervisor and animation director.

The creatures were portrayed on-set by actors wearing costumes created by the Jim Henson Creature Shop, then, instead of replacing the faces with CGI animation, the VFX team virtually inserted 3D wire frame models under them in post.

"The actual (3D) mesh was used to animate the face, like you would do for any other creature movie," Jeannette explains. "The big difference here is that nobody created the fur and or lit the faces in a complex kind of way. All that was already photographed. I guess we must've done something right with those characters because people talk of them as beings and not as visual effects or animation."

On rare occasions, the visual effects department can slip something by without notice, even if it involves large-scale changes to a beloved franchise. A case in point: In "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince," the Quidditch stadium is radically different than it was in previous installments.

"It had always been isolated against the sky and you got no sense of speed," says visual effects supervisor Tim Burke. "So we introduced this huge waterfall and changed the stadium so that there were more stands, and we raised them up so the players were always flying against a background, so you got speed."

With the "Potter" franchise, however, it may be a case of the more things change, the more they stay the same.

"We move everything all the time," Burke admits. "Hogwarts has changed so many times, there are only a few buildings from the original film that still exist."




How To Raise The Titanic, Before CGI

If you are interested in the behind the scenes of the model work and filming done for 1980's "Raise the Titanic",  there is no more valuable place to go on the internet than this Raise the Titanic YouTube page where you can see great stills of the model in production here as well as a host of other interesting morsels for your consumption.

The Titanic raising sequence is pretty damn amazing for those of us who still appreciate great model work done in the most difficult setting imaginable for a miniatures/model artist to work: water. Water cannot be scaled down. It is the size it is, period, so when a big drop passes by the model it becomes clear that it's a model. High powered fans are often used to blow small thin ripples briskly across the surface while high-speed cameras shoot the action to be played back at a slower speed, hopefully simulating an ocean rather than a pool. Sometimes the effect works, sometimes it doesn't. Here, for the most part, it works. The model for the Titanic is fairly big as these things go, approximately 55 feet in length, so much of the miniature effects look good even in the water. Only a couple of shots, particularly an early one of the anchor, betray the model for what it is. The sequence was filmed in Malta and directed by Ricou Browning with superb sound editing by William Wistrom.

Take a look:      http://www.youtube.com/user/RaiseTheTitanic1980




WB To Announce  'Batman 3'  Plans In January
               

(latinoreview.com)                   In early 2010, Warner Bros. and Chris Nolan will finalize the plan for BATMAN 3, according to a solid source. He's busy finishing up "Inception." Then, his focus will shift.

Regardless,  there's going to be a BATMAN 3 with or without Nolan. And although they're operating under the assumption that he will return, they do have their ducks in a row -- just in case.