As the sad passing of Perfect Blue director Satoshi Kon is announced and the LA Times reports on the decline of anime, Ryan asks, what next for the Japanese animation industry?
There was a time when Japan's remarkable animation industry was almost unknown in the west. In the 70s and early 80s, quirky shows such as Marine Boy and Battle Of The Planets (a sanitised, heavily edited localisation of the considerably more violent Space Science Team Gatchaman) were the only morsels of the country's vibrant and imaginative anime scene.
As the 1980s drew to a close, however, awareness of Japanese animation steadily grew in western consciousness. As a UK resident, my fascination with anime began with the BBC's airing of The Mysterious Cities Of Gold and Ulysses 31, whose distinctive character designs were immediately distinguishable from the other children's fodder clogging up late-80s television schedules.
Then came Streamline Pictures' video release of Akira, Katsuhiro Otomo's extraordinarily detailed adaptation of his own manga. This single film did more to sell anime to western audiences than any other series or feature before or since.
In the wave of interest that followed, Manga Entertainment was formed, releasing dubbed OVAs and theatrical features on VHS, starting with the extraordinarily brutal Fist Of The Northstar in the early 90s.
The distinctive visual language and conventions of anime have now become so fully assimilated into western culture that it's almost taken for granted. Its style has informed the look of the western animated series Avatar: The Last Airbender, and its colour and energy is all over Edgar Wright's Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World.
But as anime has worked its way into our consciousness, there are worrying signs that the artform may be beginning to falter in its native Japan. According to an article in the LA Times, the number of anime series being produced in the country has halved since 2007, and the number of artists working within the industry is beginning to shrink.
The reasons for the decline are manifold. Time consuming and expensive, many animation studios are beginning to outsource the more repetitive elements of their jobs, such as the labour-intensive rendering of in-between frames, to other far eastern countries such as Vietnam and India.
At the time, Japanese anime has come under increasing competition from other forms of entertainment, including videogames and rival animated shows from China. Online piracy has also taken its toll, with studios losing revenue as their work is freely distributed on video sharing websites.
As I write this, the respected animator Satoshi Kon passed away at the tragically young age of just 46. One of the founder members of the animation studio Gainax, his output, including Paprika, Paranoia Agent and the brilliantly disturbing feature Perfect Blue, was innovative and intelligently written.
Kon's passing is a sad loss for an industry already battered by technological progress and financial uncertainty. Earlier this week, animation legend Hayao Miyazaki made the passing suggestion that Studio Ghibli may close its doors should its next two features fail to make enough money. A distant possibility rather than a certainty, perhaps, but a saddening prospect, nevertheless.
There are glimmers of hope among the gloom, however. The LA Times also reports that the Japanese government is looking to invest more capital to protect its troubled industry, with some $2.4 million being put into the creation of training programmes for the country's fledgling animators.
We can only hope that the Japanese anime industry can evolve and survive the problems it's currently facing, and that new, talented artists will arrive to fill the gap sadly left by Satoshi Kon.
Anime has done much to shape the cultural landscape in recent decades, and the world would be a poorer place without its distinctive, vital energy and colour.
Star Trek 2 Producers Compare Film To The Dark Knight
(411mania.com)
Producer Damon Lindelof and executive producer Bryan Burk (Lost) recently spoke about the Star Trek sequel, comparing it to The Dark Knight in how they are approaching it. Here are some of the highlights:
Lindelof on their approach for the sequel: "We're looking at a movie like The Dark Knight, which went one step beyond Batman Begins...We don't want to abandon all the things that made [2009's Star Trek] work and have it be fun and emotional, but we also really want the movie to thematically resonate."
Burk on the sequel: "Our aspirations are for [Star Trek 2] to be even bigger and better than the first one. I don't mean that just in scope, I mean content and characters and emotionally. We had a lot of conversations about Batman Begins and how that movie kind of re-invented that franchise, and we looked at what The Dark Knight did and how that really ramped it up...So we have strong ideas of what we want to do and we are hoping that this one is an even bigger film than the last one."
Weta Digital's New Avatar VFX - Millions Spent
(popularmechanics.com) James Cameron will release Avatar in IMAX and digital 3D theaters with 9 minutes of additional footage. He spoke to PM about what fans will be seeing and what it took to bring that footage to the screen.
Q: How finished were those clips when you decided to take them out? So in other words, I guess, how much work did you have to do to get them ready?
James Camperon -A: Millions of dollars. Which sounds like they weren't very finished, but we had a unique process we used on the film. We captured the performance and then we finished the scene internally, which meant that it was a frame accurate cut with finished virtual cameras that actually were the final camera moves, pixel accurate. But then we gave it to [New Zealand-based visual effects house] Weta Digital and they would replace every single asset with a high resolution asset and render it. And that could go from a 30th of a second to 30 hours per frame. That's where the photo-reality comes from. So we worked in a non-photo-real kind of video game proxy level, which we called the template. So the scenes were finished in template form‚ the final cut, right to the frame‚ and that's when they were taken out of the movie. Because if there was any doubt about a scene we tried to take it out before the scene went to Weta. So I had to go back to the studio and ask them for‚ I don't want to say specifically‚ X million dollars to finish these scenes, and then, of course, we had to work on them for several months. Normally in that process it would take Weta nine months from the time we shipped them a scene in template form to the time they delivered it back to us finished in photo-real form, but they had gotten so good at everything that we were able to collapse that down to about three and a half months.
Q: That's still a long time.
A: Well, long is relative. It took us years to figure out how to do this. It took us more than a year from the time they started work on the first scene to when they delivered it to us during the making of the film. Then this stuff they had gotten it down to three months, which felt like nothing to us, and the beauty of it was they were so good by that point that when they'd send us a close up of Ney'tiri or a close up of Jake, it would have all the emotion and they would be completely real-looking pretty much the first time I saw it and we'd just be talking about the lighting. You know, move the key light or something a little bit. Put a little more wind in the hair. You got down to small stuff. So that sort of accounts for the timing of the rerelease.
The Best VFX Of 2010, Thus Far
(filmmisery.com) Summer blockbusters get nominated for visual effects Oscars, so we can see some obvious front runners in that category.
The Visual effects category is a piece of cake with Inception, Iron Man 2, and the upcoming TRON: Legacy the seemingly obvious front runners. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part I and Alice in Wonderland should round out the top 5 now that the number of nominees has expanded.
Best Visual Effects:
Safe Bets: “Alice In Wonderland”; “Inception”
Reasonable Maybes: “Iron Man 2”
Dark Horses: “The Last Airbender”; “Prince of Persia: Sands of Time”; “Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World”
Best Animated Feature:
Safe Bets: “How To Train Your Dragon”; “Toy Story 3”
Reasonable Maybes: “Despicable Me”; “The Illusionist”
Dark Horses: “Shrek Forever After”
Best Makeup:
Safe Bets: “Alice In Wonderland”
Reasonable Maybes: “The Wolfman”
Dark Horses: “Splice”
Full Press: http://www.indiewire.com/article/for_your_consideration_late_summer_oscar_predictions/# & http://www.filmmisery.com/?p=3890
Kerner Group CEO Eric Edmeades To Discuss 3D Production & Demo 3D Cameras
(shootonline.com) San Rafael, CA, August 26, 2010 | SHOOT Publicity Wire | --- Eric Edmeades, CEO of The Kerner Group, a Lucasfilm spin-off, and today a group of innovative companies and divisions that offer award-winning creative services to the major motion picture studios, independent filmmakers, television studios and production companies, will speak at the DICON 2010 Event and will also appear at the upcoming BCWW 2010 Event, both to be held in Seoul, Korea. He will also present to attendees the company's new Kernercam 3D Capture System during both of these events.
During DICON, Mr. Edmeades will discuss, on August 31st, 3D production and international co-production. This will include a keynote presentation, panel discussion, and one-to-one business mentoring sessions arranged by DICON.
In addition, Edmeades and Marty Brenneis, Kerner's System Engineer on the Kernercam System, and longtime employee of both The Kerner Group and its predecessor ILM, will be presenting the new Kernercam 3D System to attendees during DICON 2010.
Organized by the Ministry of Culture and Content Agency of South Korea, "International Conference content DICON 2010" (DICON) is a conference designed to connect global businesses and expertise with local Korean companies. The conference includes seminars, workshops and one-to-one mentoring sessions with international guests.
Mr. Edmeades will then appear during the BCWW 2010 Event in Seoul, Korea, Sept. 1-3, following his appearance at DICON. Edmeades and Mr. Brenneis will again be presenting the new Kernercam 3D Capture System to attendees during BCWW.
ITSCON BCWW is an convergence-themed forum that for the Korean broadcasting and new media industries. The conference attracts leading members of the Korean broadcasting and new media sectors as well as a variety of international delegates. For more info, please see: http://www.bcww.net/main_en/main.asp
"BCWW is referred to as the 'NAB of Korea,'" Edmeades said, "We have received a great deal of international interest in our Kernercam 3D Capture systems, as well as our 3D and VFX services, and we are really looking forward to this well attended Asian conference."
Source: http://www.shootonline.com/go/index.php?name=Release&op=view&id=rs-web3-2154616-1282846594-2
Does DreamWorks Animation Play Fair?
(slashfilm.com) Walt Disney Pictures have announced that they are completely abandoning the Annie Awards, an yearly award show focusing on animation. The International Animated Film Association, ASIFA-Hollywood has held the ceremony since 1972, and Disney has sponsored the awards for every year since it’s creation. Why has the mouse house turned their back on the Annies?
Disney-Pixar president Ed Catmull told Variety:
“After more than a year of discussions with the ASIFA board, we have regretfully decided to withdraw from the organization and no longer participate in the annual Annie Awards. We believe there is an issue with the way the Annies are judged, and have been seeking a mutually agreeable solution with the board. Although some initial steps have been taken, the board informed us that no further changes would be made to address our concerns.”
In other words, it is unfair. You might be wondering how that might be the case. In past years, any ASIFA member could vote on the awards. Not only that, but the rules permitting membership to the ASIFA were almost nonexistent. Disney was able to pressure the ASIFA into tightening its rules last year, limiting the voting on individual achievement categories to animation pros, but this meant that students and non-professionals were still permitted to vote in production categories, such as the coveted best animated feature film.
Add to the mix the fact that DreamWorks Animation requires every new employee become an ASIFA member upon joining the company. A couple years back, Kung Fu Panda surprised many by sweeping the awards, completely snubbing Pixar’s WALL-E. DreamWorks Animation’s Kung Fu Panda beat WALL-E in every single category, including Best Animated Feature, Animated Effects, Character Animation, Directing in an Animated Feature, Production Design, Storyboarding, and Voice Acting categories. WALL-E didn’t even receive nominations in the Writing, Music, and Character Design categories. In Fact, Kung Fu Panda ended up taking home 15 statues in all (including the short film spin-off). Many people, including Disney, called foul.
No 3D for 'Sucker Punch': Animal Logic Heads Up VFX
(encoremagazine.com.au) Sucker Puch 150x150 EXCLUSIVE No 3D for Sucker Punch: Zack SnyderDirector Zack Snyder has confirmed that his next project Sucker Punch will not be released in 3D, unlike his first animated film Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole.
“It’s a definitive no. Maybe it’s Guardians‘ fault a little bit, because I’ve seen what really awesome 3D looks like. We talked about it at first, but I’ve been kind of broken by Guardians to the point that i said ‘Guys, there’s no way that we can do something that’s remotely close to Guardians, let’s not every try’,” Snyder told Encore.
According to Snyder, Guardians allowed him to learn not only about shot development and action sequences, but also about 3D.
“It was something that the production wanted, and I thought ‘Awesome’. The 3D landscape has evolved interestingly around us as we were working on this film. There’a gap in the marketplace for high-end, perfectly done 3D. That’s not to say that other peoplearen’t’ amazing at doing 3D, but it’s a difficult process. You have Avatar, and then it’s hard to come with another awesome 3D movie.
“Not to compare myself to anything else, but I feel like we’ve created a really amazing 3D experience. Everyone has kind of said that 3D is the next thing, but no one has delivered that experience except for Avatar. This might be a breath of fresh air,” he said.
Both Guardians and Sucker Punch have seen Snyder collaborating with Australian design, animation and VFX company Animal Logic – a working relationship that began with 2007′s 300. Guardians was created 100 percent within Animal Logic, and the company is also working on VFX for Sucker Punch.
“With Sucker Punch, I just said ‘Animal Logic has to do a sequence, there’s no two ways about it’. That was one of the things that were not up for discussion.
“The movie is about a girl who goes on these fantastic adventures in her mind, and one of them is set in a a world of orcs and dragons and they get to fight those creatures with machine guns and fighter planes. Animal Logic did the sequence where she has to fight a dragon and steal its fire. It’s pretty huge; there’a a giant castle and they fight all these orcs,” explained Snyder.
The filmmaker also said he is familiar with the difficulties Australia faces in attracting international productions, and that because of the positive experiences he’s had working in this country, he will try to bring work to Australia whenever he can.
“I know the dollar is strong at the moment, but again, i’m a big advocate of Australia and I’ve had an amazing experience with Guardians, so whenever I can I’ll say ‘Let’s go to Australia’,” he said.
The Price Of Prestige In The VFX Industry
(vfxsoldier.wordpress.com) The visual effects business is one of the most bizarre professional industries to work in because some of the most prestigious and successful companies in our industry are the ones that pay the lowest.
In my last article I wrote about vfx salaries at many facilities and how I found it a bit odd that companies like Pixar Animation paid salaries sometimes 20-30% lower than other facilities.
I also wrote about how many new artists in the industry work unpaid internships and some are even willing to pay to work and get some experience. Some vfx facilities prey on that notion while others prey on the notion that they are the most prestigious place to work and therefore you should take a pay cut for the honor.
I call this the price of prestige.
Everyone Pays The Price, Even Senior Artists
This phenomenon does not apply just to new artists, it applies to many senior artists as well. One very talented senior artist I knew had three offers for his services. Two of them paid very well while the third from Pixar offered 30% less than the other two. Pixar management also mentioned that it was their final offer.
To my surprise he took the Pixar offer. It was a pay cut from his current job which he was voluntarily leaving. He said the reason why was because it was a prestigious place to work. When I mentioned this to a junior artist who was already being underpaid, he gave me a confused look and said:
I would gladly take a 30% pay cut to work for Pixar.
This notion of taking a pay cut to work for prestige doesn’t apply upstream at Disney where CEO Robert Iger routinely makes the list of highest paid CEOs. Instead you hear quotes like these from Pixar employees:
If Pixar let me get coffee for them, I’d be happy,
The Millennial Problem: How Taking Lower Pay Early In Your Career Hurts You In The Long Run
I was perplexed at this new generation of workers coming into the market. They are willing to essentially pay to work for companies without correctly assessing that earnings today could be used as a down payment for a future home, retirement, or college tuition for future children.
I read an article that mentioned some studies about our new workers:
Using national survey data, she’s found that to an unprecedented degree, people who graduated from high school in the 2000s dislike the idea of work for work’s sake, and expect jobs and career to be tailored to their interests and lifestyle. Yet they also have much higher material expectations than previous generations, and believe financial success is extremely important. “There’s this idea that, ‘Yeah, I don’t want to work, but I’m still going to get all the stuff I want,’” Twenge told me. “It’s a generation in which every kid has been told, ‘You can be anything you want. You’re special.’”
I can understand the idea behind this: Young artists eager to get their big break undercut other artists to get into the industry in the hopes the will make it big. However, they are just paying for the illusion of prestige. The terrible truth is how studies show that this hurts their careers in the long run:
what’s truly remarkable is the persistence of the earnings gap. Five, 10, 15 years after graduation, after untold promotions and career changes spanning booms and busts, the unlucky graduates never closed the gap. Seventeen years after graduation, those who had entered the workforce during inhospitable times were still earning 10 percent less on average than those who had emerged into a more bountiful climate. When you add up all the earnings losses over the years, Kahn says, it’s as if the lucky graduates had been given a gift of about $100,000, adjusted for inflation, immediately upon graduation—or, alternatively, as if the unlucky ones had been saddled with a debt of the same size.
Fake Studios’ Fake Pay
These days the price of prestige doesn’t apply to just prestigious projects. It applies to dubious projects also. Last year there was an uproar over a Montreal studio that failed to pay artists towards the end of work on Journey to the Center of the Earth.
Now almost one year later Variety’s David Cohen reports that the same thing has occurred at another Montreal studio for the film Piranha 3D. These were senior artists who continued to work without pay:
One of the unpaid artists, Manny Wong, told Variety that with the Meteor incident in mind, he negotiated a payment-in-advance deal, but upon arrival in Montreal, he liked the atmosphere at Fake enough to forego advance payment. He says the producer was “very upfront” with him about the pic’s financial difficulties through two crises that threatened to shut down the picture.
Now the facility owner is playing hardball according to David Cohen’s twitter page:
Marc Cote of Fake Studio is trying to intimidate his unpaid #vfx artists into silence. Artists & others: We can only help if you speak up.
Upham’s Conflict
It’s moments like these that remind me of Corporal Upham in Saving Private Ryan. Please watch the clip of the famous scene above at the 6:40 mark.
I’m not comparing our plight to WWII nor am I comparing shady vfx facility owners to Nazis. However, every generation has a moment to take a stand no matter how uncomfortable the situation is. For many, the price of prestige can be a price that you pay for the rest of your life.
Will you look back and find yourself being compared to Corporal Upham? Or will you be a VFX Soldier?
Soldier On.
Tippett Studios Uses Its Animal Magnetism
(digitalcontentproducer.com) You can see it in the jiggling skin on a hairless cat, or the bristling fur of a menacing wolf. It's state-of-the-art animal animation, as practiced by Tippett Studio in Berkeley, Calif. Founded 25 years ago by two-time Oscar winner Phil Tippett, the studio has become a go-to place for moviemakers needing realistic digital animals, and its credits include Charlotte's Web, Enchanted, The Shaggy Dog, The Golden Compass, the Twilight films New Moon and Eclipse, and Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore. "It is a zoo," laughs Tippett, who was the senior VFX supervisor on the Twilight films. "We're in the furry animal gulag."
His studio's expertise actually became widely noticed as a result of the 2002 Clio Award-winning Blockbuster commercials starring talking guinea pigs and rabbits. "That's when we finally got the look of fur to a place where it worked," Tippett recalls. But it's movie clients that keep upping the ante. "In New Moon, there were six wolves, and Eclipse had eight. The next movie has more." (Tippett Studio is already working on the next Twilight film, Breaking Dawn.)
Since fur sucks light like a black hole, the studio has developed proprietary tools for handling millions of hairs on each animal. Tippett's fur tool Furrocious has evolved into Furator, which enabled the studio to keep up with new challenges. Tom Gibbons, the animation supervisor on both Twilight films, says, "Each wolf in the first movie had 3 million hairs on it, and in the second movie it had 18 million. We built technology to support that much hair growth per frame, per wolf, and not slow things down."
One secret to Tippett's success in the animal kingdom is the care taken while shooting the plate photography into which the animals are placed. The on-set visual effects team on the Twilight movies gathered high-dynamic-range images (HDRIs) that later enabled the studio to render wolf scenes using gobal illumination. As Gibbons reports, "With HDRI information, we could drop a wolf into a scene and it would look 70 percent there."
That's when the tweaking begins, Gibbons adds. "Actors get little bounce lights and kicks in order to make them look dramatic," he says. "We have to do the same thing for the wolves or they won't fit with the actors. We have to hand-place those things artistically."
An essential step in creating believable digital animals is making sure that eyeline information is gathered during shooting so that interaction between actors and animals appears plausible. As Tippett remarks, "You have to bust the eyeline issue immediately. We use every trick in the book. Sometimes it's just a marker on a C-stand." Tippett's matchmove team is also scrupulous about gathering camera information and laser scanning film sets, and the point cloud data they capture is crucial for reconstructing scenes efficiently in post.
A key production technique Tippett touts is previz, which his team creates using Autodesk Maya. "We use previz to speed things along. If a camera was 18in. off the ground with a 35mm lens and an 18-degree tilt, we'd work out our choreography to match. So when we'd get the plates, we'd just pop in our previz and have something the editor could use immediately."
Previz has helped avoid problems, too. When Tippett was shooting the Twilight saga on location, Gibbons' team back at the studio used Google satellite imagery to recreate camera setups. This approach would alert them if an impossible shot was being contemplated. "We proved that they couldn't do a shot where the camera had to move from 14mph to 22mph," Gibbons says. "I started testing [virtual] 8mph moves and trying a zoom out at a certain speed and seeing if that approximated the shot they wanted. I was able to give Phil camera information so we could propose an alternative."
VFX Subsidy War Grows Into Global Trade War
(vfxsoldier.wordpress.com) There has been some news in the VFX and game industry concerning subsidies that I would like to comment on. Basically the subsidy war is slowly transforming into an all out trade war.
So after VFX companies like Digital Domain and Imageworks went through all the work to open facilities in Vancouver, they are now upset that the Canadian government is going to take it’s time to thoroughly review foreign visa applications for VFX/Game jobs.
The real reason they should be crying is how badly studios like Disney twisted the arms of VFX facilities to open up shop in Vancouver. Studios were hungry for free government money and wanted to take advantage of the Canadian film subsidies which are arguably the most generous. However, in order for this scheme to work, they need the talent. Fellow Canadian VFX artists may not like to hear this but most of the jobs for Vancouver are posted in California. They need us up there to make it work, but once the project is over, many of us come back home to spend that money in California which is probably why the state is so hesitant to get involved in the subsidy war.
Unlike the feeble VFX facilities, the Canadian government wants to assure that the money they spend to lure that work to Canada results in some return for them. That means taking the time to make the companies check that any open positions can be filled by Canadians. After all, they have offered these subsidies for a long time and yet the big studios threaten to leave every time a better subsidy is offered elsewhere.
Puppet Animation Producer Kawamoto Dies of Pneumonia at 85
TOKYO (Kyodo) -- Japan's leading puppet animation producer Kihachiro Kawamoto, best known for the NHK series "Sangokushi" (The Romance of the Three Kingdoms), died on Monday of pneumonia, his family said Friday. He was 85.
Kawamoto released numerous stop-motion puppet animation films, including "Oni" (The Demon), "Dojoji" (Dojoji Temple), and the series "Heikemonogatari" (The Tale of Heike), which was also aired on NHK, Japan's public broadcaster.
In 1963, he traveled to Czechoslovakia to study under acclaimed puppet motion picture animator and film director Jiri Trnka.
His last film "Shishanosho" (The Book of the Dead), based on a book by Japanese folklorist Nobuo Origuchi, was premiered in 2005.
The recipient of many film awards at home and abroad, he was awarded the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Rosette in 1995. In 2007, a museum displaying his major productions was opened in Iida, Nagano Prefecture.
'The Death of Earth' In 4.5 Minutes
(mnn.com) If you've seen "Avatar", you might remember that the movie begins with a close-up of the main character Jake Sully opening his eyes. For the longest time, however, the film had a much different beginning.
In a new interview with Oregon Live, Director James Cameron says there were originally 4 1/2 minutes of footage showing a polluted, dystopian Earth. But even though he liked it, the movie was just taking too long to get rolling.
Says Cameron, "I walked in one day and said to my two editors, 'Guys, I want each of you to cut a new version of the start of the film, Reel 1, that doesn't have any Earth in it at all.' And they looked at me like I was out of my mind. And I said, 'No — it's gonna work.' They had to figure out the details. I said, 'Just grab a couple of things to use as flashbacks, and start it in space when Jake opens his eyes.' "
For the release of the "Avatar" box set in November, Cameron went back and added in "the Earth opening" — but for a heavy price.
"It's all a big negotiation with the studios," he says. "How much money do they want to spend on these sort of revisionist versions of the movie? Because on the whole Earth opening, the visual effects weren't done, and we had to go back and spend a million bucks or whatever to get those shots done. So there's a price tag dangling from anything that gets re-inserted."
Overall, there are 16 minutes of polished, new footage added (including the new eight minutes you can see in theaters this weekend) and an additional 45 minutes of unfinished, deleted scenes.
Cameron added, "If you just want to wallow in "Avatar" for three hours, I can get that for you."
Disney Studios Withdraws From Animation Awards
(nytimes.com) Walt Disney Studios has withdrawn from a group that hands out trophies for animation achievement.
For years Disney has privately groused about the Annie Awards, presented by the Hollywood chapter of the International Animated Film Society. Disney has complained that the guild allows anyone to buy a membership (in contrast to most awards-bestowing organizations) and that Disney’s rival DreamWorks Animation has too much power because it gives its employees free guild membership. Variety, which reported the split, noted that Disney’s Pixar entries had won 6 of the last 10 top Annie prizes. But Disney started to agitate more aggressively for changes in 2009 after DreamWorks Animation’s “Kung Fu Panda” won a raft of Annies, and Pixar’s “Wall-E” won nothing. “Wall-E” went on to win the Oscar for animation that year. “We believe there is an issue with the way the Annies are judged, and have been seeking a mutually agreeable solution with the board,” Ed Catmull, president of Disney Animation and Pixar Animation, said in a statement. “Although some initial steps have been taken, the board informed us that no further changes would be made to address our concerns.”
Antran Manoogian, the guild’s president, told Variety, “The Annies are about honoring the best in animation, and we will continue to do so.”
'Transformers 3' Pumps Millions Into Chicago Economy
(cbs2chicago.com) It looks like Hollywood will be "transforming" Chicago for a bit longer than expected. Production on Transformers 3, which should have ended by now, will be stretching to the end of the month. CBS 2's Vince Gerasole reports the city's not complaining at all.
Every day this production spends here is more money spent in Illinois. It was originally estimated Transformers 3 would pump some $20 million into our economy, but on Wednesday, the city is expected to announce the dollar amount is well beyond that.
The Transformers crew has been destroying Chicago for nearly two months. In a way, they owe it all to the grips at Bam Bam Productions.
"Pretty much any job that guys don't want, we gladly take on," said Rick Harris of Bam Bam Productions.
The L.A. firm helps construct the film's sets and lighting grids. To do so, they brought out seven workers from Hollywood and hired another 22 locally.
Harris says they ended up spending more money than they thought they would. When not obliterating the city, they were pumping up the economy.
"I bought two iPhone 4's since I've been here," said Ron Miller of Bam Bam Productions.
They paid for daily expenses with a weekly company allowance and then some.
"We get about $400 a week," said Miller.
"We burn through more than that, but it's worth it," said Harris. "I brought my family out. I flew them out and we went to a lot of plays, and Navy Pier and all around. We spent a lot of money here."
Multiply that by the hundreds working on the film, the thousands paid for things like permits and police overtime, and it's estimated Transformers 3 spent at least $20 million in Illinois.
State incentives allow producers to apply 30 percent of their Illinois expenses against the state's corporate income tax.
Over the past three years, Illinois gave out $39 million in these credits, but estimates that it generated $470 million in spending.
That includes direct spending on a film that's leveling our fair city or incidental purchases wiping out the crews' wallets.
"My wife came out. We went out shopping. Of course, she had to buy some expensive purses," said Miller.
Some have complained that the tax incentives are not worth it because these productions are just passing through town. But both the state and the city simply points to the hundreds of millions these productions spend here to refute that.
Peter Jackson to Announce Hobbit Plans "Sometime Soon"
(The Dominon Post) Peter Jackson was quoted today as saying he'll know whether or not he'll be directing The Hobbit "sometime soon" by The Dominion Post.
Jackson reiterated that legal negotiations are still plaguing the film's impending production, but offered some assurance with his statement that Warner Bros. (who control half the rights) is, "making progress untangling the MGM situation...". MGM is currently having financial difficulties and it is undecided what course the studio will be taking with its holdings.
Jackson went on to say that, after the decision is reached, he will be able to make a five-year plan "that will keep many people very busy". Among the potential projects the director is eying is a retelling of the Battle of Gallipoli from the point of view of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC).
Another of the article's notes of interest is the suggestion that casting is still underway for The Hobbit despite the delay. Australian actor Jeremy Sims reportedly auditioned for the part of a troll, presumably either Tom, Bert or William Huggins from the original novel. One of the three characters even makes a cameo in both the book and film version of The Fellowship of the Ring.
VFX + Internet = A Punishing Process On 'Scott Pilgrim'
(variety.com) When Universal's "Scott Pilgrim vs. the World" opened Aug. 13, some hoped the fanboy pic's earlier Comic-Con buzz would attract enough younger auds to help it hold its own against "The Expendables" and "Eat Pray Love."
But "Pilgrim," fronted by slacker superhero Michael Cera, proved no match against the Sly Stallone starrer or the Julia Roberts vehicle -- continuing the disappointing responses for bigscreen graphic novel fare that had plagued "Kick-Ass" and even "Watchmen."
Still, what it lacked in B.O. muscle, "Pilgrim" made up for in dazzling comicbook visuals never before seen in a feature. Translated from Bryan Lee O'Malley's graphic novel series to the screen by helmer Edgar Wright ("Shaun of the Dead"), the film shows viewers a world where story suddenly breaks into fight sequences with bodies hurtling across space, where graphics of, say, the word "crash" appear onscreen when a character smashes through the ceiling, and where pyrotechnics, animation and vidgame-like levels meld into an action-packed, twentysomething love story.
None of this could have been done without the team headed by vfx supervisor Frazer Churchill, who, from the outset, engaged in a constant round of brainstorming sessions with Wright, d.p. Bill Pope, production designer Marcus Rowland and concept designer Oscar Wright. Together they storyboarded the entire movie. "We had in our mind's eye every single shot of the film," Churchill said.
But that was just the start. "It's quite a jump to go from a flat panel of one man punching another to a full-bodied scene with graphics, a manga background, girls with wings, fireballs hitting the stage, music playing and a kung fu fight going on," he said.
The film's effects were created by London vfx house Double Negative, Churchill's home base. "Pilgrim" was filmed in Toronto. Churchill, who was there for the entire shoot, set up a workflow whereby material was constantly being sent to the U.K. for processing and back again for review.
"Every day I sent them plans of the sets," he said. "They would build CG elements and send back previous sequences with those elements in the set, with all the measurements. Then, say, when it came time to shoot the Demon Hipster Chicks, everyone knew how they look, and we could work out exactly where everything was going to be and how to shoot with elements that weren't really there."
The physical connection to D-Neg was via a fast Internet line installed at Toronto's Cinespace Film Studios, where vfx editor Richard Ketteridge downloaded each day's submissions. Additional material was sent by Mr. X, the Toronto vfx house that gave a comicbook feel to the film's exteriors.
At the receiving end, D-Neg CG supervisor Andrew Whitehurst and vfx producer Rupert Porter oversaw the vfx work, which they then sent back to Toronto as QuickTime files, often at full HD resolution.
"It can be a punishing process," said Churchill. "You're on the floor all day, you go back to the office at lunch or after you wrap and give (D-Neg) notes on work they supplied the previous day, and review the work they just sent through. Then you take it down to show Edgar when he's got a free moment, which isn't very often."
Where Will The 9TH Annual VES Awards Be Held?
(shootonline.com) The Visual Effects Society (VES) announced today that they will hold the 9th Annual VES Awards at the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza Hotel in Los Angeles next January 28, 2011.
Eric Roth, VES Executive Director, states, "We're pleased to have such an early date for our show next year. As trend setters, we think that the VES Awards are poised to set the tone for the entire awards season. Considering that this year started off with the AVATAR bang and will end with HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS - PART I as well as TRON – LEGACY, among other notable work in TV, Animation, Videogames and Special Venues, visual effects fans still have much to look forward to."
This will be the third year in a row that VES will hold the event at the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza Hotel.
For more information on VES please go to www.visualeffectssociety.com.
Children of Men Producer Options Psychopomp
(Heat Vision) Hilary Shor, one of the producers behind Children of Men, has optioned Blake Leibel's script Psychopomp, says Heat Vision.
Shor will develop and produce the script with Lawrence Longo, Leibel's partner at Fantasy Prone, a company that creates original transmedia intellectual property.
The trade says that Psychopomp "is the name of the title character, a foul-mouthed anti-hero who roams international hot spots with state-of-the art weapons and technology with the aim of destroying those who violate his code."
Fantasy Prone plans on publishing a "Psychopomp" graphic novel and will turn it into a property to run across media platforms.
VFX Magicians 'Spectral Motion' Team with Guillermo Del Toro for Captured Bird
(shocktillyoudrop.com) She stepped down from her position at Rue Morgue Magazine as its editor, but we all knew it wasn't going to be the last we heard of Jovanka Vuckovic.
Today, it was revealed her latest endeavor is going to be The Captured Bird, a short film executive produced by Guillermo del Toro.
"Jovanka's vision has been honed to perfection and combines true poetry with savage instinct," says del Toro in a press release. "[It's] lyrical and brutal. Just what the doctor ordered."
Vuckovic adds, "Having Guillermo [del Toro] on board as Executive Producer is like a dream come true for a first time filmmaker. His well of inspiration is as limitless as his generosity. Plus, The Captured Bird is just too ambitious to make without his guidance. I'm very grateful to have him as part of the team."
Along for the ride is Spectral Motion, the effects team behind Hellboy (naturally), Douglas Buck (Sisters) as editor and Karim Hussain as director of photography.
"The Captured Bird is inspired in part by a childhood nightmare, the writings of H. P. Lovecraft, the fables of the Brothers Grimm and the paranormal phenomenon referred to as The Shadow People," explains writer-director Vuckovic. "It's sort of a dark fable that I hope people will find haunting, poetic and beautiful."
Vuckovic elaborates on the project further in the video below. An official site has launched and I think it goes without saying that we're all eager to see what she's going to bring to the table. Good luck, Jovanka!
Japan Mourns Anime Master
(guardian.co.uk) Director Satoshi Kon sadly passed away on Tuesday, succumbing to pancreatic cancer. He was only 46, and his legacy of work is a mere four completed feature films and one television series. So, it's likely many of you have not heard of the man – doubly likely since his films were all animated.
There has long been an argument regarding the validity of animation as a medium for adults. It's easy for many to dismiss animated film as being automatically for kids or, worse, for teenagers. But for myself and others, animation is just another way of telling a story or getting a message across to an audience. This is why I referred to Satoshi Kon as a "director" in the opening paragraph: his films are so involving and cinematic it's easy to forget that they are constructed one frame at a time. What's more, they are definitely not for kids. These days, rather than give unbelievers in the power and potential of animated features the short thrift they clearly deserve, I'll point them in the direction of Kon's slim catalogue. Perfect Blue, Millennium Actress, Tokyo Godfathers and Paprika are all extremely accomplished films.
Like many, I first encountered Kon's work upon the release of his 1998 directorial debut, Perfect Blue. The early 90s had seen a glut of anime releases over here following the success of Katsuhiro Otomo's Akira. I managed to catch most of them on video, enjoying a crash course in a culture and artform offering much that was novel to the western viewer. But precious few were anywhere near Akira's level of achievement, and plenty were simply hideous, so my interest waned. When Perfect Blue came along, I wasn't in any hurry to sit through another hard-to-follow story of ultra-violence and tentacle rape. Concerning a J-pop sensation trying to go solo, it seemed designed to keep audiences away. But the reviews and rumours kept referencing Hitchcock, Lynch and Scorsese. This was clearly not a run-of-the-mill production.
Based on a novel, Perfect Blue was allegedly intended as a live-action feature, but with money hard to raise it was downgraded to direct-to-video, then direct-to-video-animation. When Satoshi Kon took the reigns, it was no one's idea of a hit – which is probably why he was able to get the gig in the first place. But when his vision took hold it was soon headed for theatrical release. Without giving too much away, the film starts off in stylish yet straightforward fashion as pop singer Rumi leaves her successful band to pursue an acting career. Her fans are in uproar; her stalker goes over the edge. As the pressure and trauma mount, Rumi's grip on reality becomes fractured – and then things start to get really interesting. It was special enough for Darren Aronofsky to secure the rights, and though his live-action remake never got past the starter's gate he did lift two very striking shots for Requiem For A Dream, while the trailer for his forthcoming Black Swan seems to have a little flavour of it, too.
Kon's next films surpassed all expectations. It became clear with Millennium Actress and Tokyo Godfathers that he was doing something very different from his peers. The first, which tells the story of a popular film star who withdraws from public life, proved he was a director-aficionado with a deep knowledge and even deeper love of cinema. Chiyoko's narrative is interspersed with memories/clips from her films that blur together – telling not only her own history but also a potted history of Japanese cinema. The actress was based on Setsuko Hara and Hideko Takamine, muses of the great directors Yasujirō Ozu and Mikio Naruse respectively. Millennium Actress also touched on Kaiju Eiga, the Japanese monster-movie genre. There aren't any other animated films I can think of that assimilate such a range of references.
Kon's brief sojourn in the world of television also yielded spectacular results, with the bizarre Paranoia Agent. This series, again best approached with as little foreknowledge as possible, starts with a designer of cutesy characters trying to come up with a new creation to match the popularity of her iconic pink dog, Maromi, as a series of seemingly random people are brutally attacked by a kid wielding a golden baseball bat. Reality is not to be trusted and the oft-employed comparisons to the work of David Lynch are not too wide of the mark.
For me, his finest work was his last: Paprika. Again it's completely unfair to condense it into a brief synopsis, but it deals with a machine that can place an avatar into another person's dreams. I wasn't the only one to notice, when the first trailer from Christopher Nolan's Inception hit, that it looks a bit like the 2006 animation – though I wouldn't call it a rip-off, there are enough similarities to suggest he has at least seen it. For my money, Kon's is the better film – the Japanese director really wasn't afraid to "dream a little bigger" . Paprika is more spectacular, imaginative, fun and emotional than Nolan's hit. Now, there's a live action version with director Wolfgang Peterson mooted.
Satoshi Kon left us with one final film, The Dream Machine, still in production. Little is known about this project other than that it concerns robots and is aimed at younger viewers – though we know how little that really means. Beside my sympathy for his family and friends, Kon's death did shock and sadden me on a personal level because in him I had found a director who didn't disappoint, one I could trust wholeheartedly – which is incredibly rare. To speak selfishly, I feel sadness that I will never see him complete a new film. Here was a director I felt I could depend on to reaffirm my faith in cinema – a faith that gets a good battering almost daily as I sit through films that do little more than waste my time. But Kon's films are ones I foresee myself returning to many times in the future.
And as for those children, the supposed target audience for his animations? Well, they have plenty of time to grow into them.
Disney Animation's "Tangled" Crew Heads For The Unemployment Line
(animationguildblog.blogspot.com) Where the lighting department is in its final 6-8 weeks of work for Tangled ...
and morale is lower than a dachshund's belly, since most of the artists and technicians were given their notices in July, and layoffs now loom.
As one Disney employee mentioned: "People who've been here five, ten and twenty years are getting let go. It's not a happy time."
Indeed not. But sadly, it's a recurrent theme. Disney Feature Animation's atmosphere, in fact, is a lot like it was in 2001, when hand-drawn animation was imploding and everybody working on Home on the Range knew they had four months before they got to go stand in the unemployment line: Grim.
The problem, of course, is that story development on new features has been scanty and now there is nothing to drop into the production pipeline to keep tech directors and animators going. So, tech directors and animators get laid off. Sitting in one long-time Disneyite's office, I allowed as how the studio seemed indifferent to hanging onto talented staff. I got a thin smile.
Source: http://animationguildblog.blogspot.com/2010/08/mouse-house.html
Mattel Takes Calculated Bet on Monster High
(brandchannel.com) It doesn't seem like 2010 will be tough for the world's largest toymaker. Mattel should hit $6 billion in sales, and profits should increase over 40%. The company's stock price is currently more than twice what it was 12 to 18 months ago.
But Mattel CEO Robert Eckert takes nothing for granted. He sees 2010 as a challenging year because of rising costs, a falling euro (Mattel sells 46% of its toys outside the U.S.), and strong competition from its chief rival, Hasbro.
One of the big challenges that will determine Mattel's success, Eckert tells SmartMoney, is whether the toy company can "create new intellectual property that goes quickly beyond toys." He says Toy Story 3 is "a movie that toys are based on. Here, we'll start with toys and turn it into entertainment if all goes well."
Mattel's next big bet, Monster High (above) is unusual — it's not based on a TV, book, movie or other entertainment property, but it's an entirely original, standalone line.
Increasingly, toy companies need to build franchise brands that extend far beyond the toys themselves. Hasbro, for example, will be introducing a cable TV channel that will be a launching pad for toys.
Eckert cites Barbie, who at 51 years old is still the world's most popular doll, as one of the company's venerable franchises. "The folks who run the brand figured out how to make Barbie cool again. As long as Barbie's cool, we're fine," he says.
To keep this year's Barbie relevant, she has a video camera in her necklace, "so a girl sees the world from Barbie's perspective," according to Eckert. "You can plug her in and download all this stuff." Of course, Barbie also has a website, which Eckert says is among the most popular with girls 2 to 11 years old.
Eckert says Mattel leverages digital media into innovative toys. For example, Eckert likens the iXL from Fisher Price, a Mattel division, to an iPhone "designed for a 3-year old."
The company's toy line is strong — "the strongest I've seen in ten years," according to toy analyst Margaret Whitfield — but it has invested heavily in Monster High, a line that encompasses toys, books, clothing, and dolls.
The brand will not be supported by a movie or TV show, so it needs to stand on its own. Analyst Gerrick Johnson of BMO Capital Markets tells SmartMoney, "A lot of [Monster High's success] depends on kids understanding the story."
For his part, Eckert admits "there's no magic formula" to predicting a big winner in the toy business. But so far, Mattel has had enough winners to retain its industry-leading position. Clearly, Bob Eckert is hoping that continues to be the case.
Digital Domain Beefing Up Ranks In Port St. Lucie
(tcpalm.com) PORT ST. LUCIE — PORT ST. LUCIE — As Digital Domain Holdings Corp. moves into a temporary workspace at Indian River State College, the animation company is in the midst of a hiring spree.
Digital Domain has hired about 46 people and the company expects to easily exceed 65 by the end of the year. The company plans to do digital animation for feature films and military applications.
Digital Domain and Port St. Lucie agreed in November 2009 to a $51.8 million deal helped with state contributions. The money will go in part to building a 150,000-square-foot facility. The company must create up to 500 jobs at an average salary of $64,233 by 2014.
Chairman John Textor declined to get into specifics about salaries, but said the company is exceeding the average salary requirements. Not all of those jobs will be in animation.
Although show business should be the main revenue stream for Digital Domain, company executives are looking at other ways to make the company viable in the future.
Military applications and educational opportunities are key pieces of the company’s business plans, along with making special effects and feature films.
The company could move in to a 50-person workspace at Indian River State College within a week and begin work there by October, while a 150,000-square-foot studio is being built along Interstate 95, north of Gatlin Boulevard. Digital Domain has an agreement with Florida State University to create a curriculum for what will be known as the Digital Domain Institute, a college facility at a to-be-determined location, Textor said.
Parts of the curriculum are expected to be used both at IRSC and Florida State. Textor said he is eager to have Florida students learn about the industry and plans to hire a percentage of students out of college to work in Port St. Lucie.
“The more we can do to build the skill set in the student population, not only in the Digital Domain Institute, but at all of our educational partners, then we can help the major digital animation companies in our industry come to Florida as well,” Textor said.
Digital Domain also is looking to the military as a source of revenue. Digital animation can be used for battle re-enactments, rehabilitating soldiers and training.
“The existing market is growing tremendously for us, so it’s not about, we need it to survive,” said Michael Keane, the senior vice president of strategic planning and corporate development. “We just want to continue to grow and hire new people, and we’ve got a tremendous competitive advantage. We just want to exploit that and leverage that in any market that we can.”
At least three of the company’s hires, including Keane, will help market products to the military.
The company also hired defense industry specialist Raymond DuBois, who was known as the “mayor of the Pentagon” where he directly managed 2,500 employees and a $1.3 million budget.
“If you want to have a deep relationship with the Pentagon, you should gear your organization to have a lot of people with clearance so you can have real discussions about how our technologies can help train our soldiers and help win wars and help win the hearts and minds of people around the world that our American military causes are just,” Digital Domain Holdings Chairman John Textor said.
The military work, though separate from the animation work, could help the company solve certain problems in the future.
Digital Domain helped with the special effects for the action flick “The A-Team” and built an animated V-22 Osprey Helicopter. But no one knew much about the helicopter, Textor said.
“I call Ray DuBois,” Textor said. “Ray DuBois called the former commandant of the Marine Corps. Within half a day, our visual effects supervisor in Venice (Calif.) was down at a naval base able to inspect and photograph and measure an actual V-22 Osprey.”
Still such overlap might be rare due not only to the need to keep military work secret but also the movie studios’ requirement for the same discretion.
“Clearly the military stuff will exist in a more controlled environment, and there’s different requirements for contracting within that industry in terms of clearances and in terms of controlled access and stuff like that,” Keane said. “The studios also have requirements because they don’t want their movies going out the door either.”
Harry Potter Effects Studio A New Tourist Attraction
(bsckids.com) Rupert Grint, costar of the box-office smash hit series Harry Potter, confirmed recently that there will be a new Potter tourist attraction in London. The special effects studio where much of the movies real life FX magic occurred will be converted into a theme park. Leavesden Studio will be open to the public and offer tours of the sets.
Rupert had a meet-and-greet last Monday, the day before his 22nd birthday, and he let a special secret slip. “We used to write on the walls and they’re actually re-creating and turning the studio in an attraction, actually recreating all the rooms so you can go in them,” he said. You might be able to see Harry’s real life scribbles if you keep an eye out!
Indiana Jones 5 - Crazy & Cool
(filmonic.com) Despite saying publicly in May that he felt he had “dropped the ball on the legacy that people loved and cherished” with Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull Shia LaBeouf will still be involved in Indy 5.
Last June LaBeouf said Spielberg had “cracked the story”, which was followed by an update from Harrison Ford in September who said the film is in the “process of taking form” and “Steven Spielberg, George Lucas and myself are agreed on what the fifth adventure will concern”.
Now the latest update from LaBeouf suggests we are in for a crazy time.
From ShowBiz Spy:
“They’re script writing right now,” says Shia. “I got called into Steven’s office and he pitched a little bit to me and it sounds crazy, it sounds really cool.”
Earlier this year Shia said Transformers 3 was going to be the “craziest action movie ever made”, so i’m not sure where Indian Jones 5 will rank on his crazy-o-meter, but Spielberg and Lucas must have come up with something special if the guy who has worked on Michael Bay’s biggest movies thinks it’s crazy.
"Angry Birds" Feature To Try Aardman or Pixar Look
(Variety) An Angry Birds film is in development as part of a large cross-merchandising franchise, reports Variety.
The film (which may end up playing instead as a series of shorts) will be based on the hugely popular iPhone application from Rovio that has the player using a slingshot to shoot different types of birds at villainous pigs.
As far as adapting the property goes, plans are unclear at this stage as to the specific format. Rovio's CEO Mikael Hed mentions either shorts or, possibly, a feature film (or both) and likens the intended final product to both Aardman Animation as well as Pixar.
Transformers 3: Chicago Can't Get Rid of Them!
(seibertron.com) The crew working on Transformers 3 refuses to leave Chicago, AKA Seibertron.com's capital. If we look at the bus reroutes, it would imply work there in some form would continue until Friday.
With that little time, it's likely nothing big will happen, but no one can say for sure in this hobby full of surprises. It could be clean-up, or it could be the scene that ties everything together.
State of the VFX Industry: Is Working for “FREE” Worth It?
(bobbyboom.blogspot.com) Returning home from Siggraph this year I had a major concern on my mind and I wanted to expose this concern as well as offer up some potential food for thought. I had an opportunity to talk to just about every major studio and a lot of mid-sized studios during the week of Siggraph.
My main concern is that artists are being taken advantage of!
I understand that the global economy has been in the dumps by-and-large and that job seekers are willing to jump at any opportunity due to these precarious times for fear that there may not be jobs available. Although I do not feel that the market is saturated I do feel the result from this thinking is that some studios are taking advantage of the economic hype which is resulting in artists taking less money, covering 100% of their relocation costs or worse, working for free.
One issue I want to raise here is that the entertainment industry is doing exceptionally well despite the overall state of the economy. This article shows trends from 1995 – current 2010 in movie ticket sales and things look great! We all know how well Toy Story 3, How to Train your Dragon and Despicable Me have been doing and there is a lot of buzz in Hollywood that animated films are saving the entertainment industry. This article notes a dip in video game sales in July but reports confident signs of sharp recovery.
I had one mid-sized studio tell me recently that they have more money than they know what to do with, yet have decided to have new employees pay for 100% of their own relocation costs and take lower wages than were previously offered because they can do it and people are willing to go for it.
In addition to this, I can't tell you how many emails I get from "new studios" that have ”a great idea to have our students and alumni work for free on their project in exchange for gaining valuable work experience."
I don't know about you, but I find this absolutely absurd and do not support it in any way. Students pay a lot of money to learn their craft and they should be compensated for the skills they have gained.
It is clear that some studios are taking advantage of the "state of the economy," and what is most alarming is that job seekers are unknowingly adding fuel to the fire by taking jobs that pay sub-standard or do not pay at all.
There's no doubt that the world has become smaller and more accessible through the internet. Outsourcing and remote working is common place in most every industry. With this change in global workforce it is inevitable that there will be these kinds of changes in the way people do business. However, as we navigate through the evolution of these times it is important that companies see the importance of ethics in business. Just because we can, doesn't mean we should. There is a happy medium that needs to be found.
I'm proud to see some of the big boys operating from a place of valuing their artists first. I hope they continue to lead the way as an example for up-and-coming and mid-sized studios.
As far as artists go; I urge you not to work for free. In doing so you are encouraging a downward spiral of diminished returns for yourself and future generations of artists paving the way for much lower wages.
If a lot of inexperienced entry level artists are working for free on a given project, the quality of that project is going to suffer in the end. When it comes time to shop around your demo reel, the very slight benefit of this free "experience" will be far outweighed by the low-quality work on the demo reel, or the poor reputation of the project within the industry.
If you have the skills you will get a job. You may need to be patient, but the jobs are there. The world is large and the opportunities are vast and wide. Just as the global evolution of business is happening, so too are your opportunities. Industry jobs are no longer just in California and New York. There is a whole world of opportunity out there and you will need to be flexible in where the opportunities take you; especially in the early years of your career. Perhaps they will be in New Zealand, Australia, Canada, England, Spain, India, South Africa or in the comfort of your home office.
Some may ask, "Isn’t it better to at least work for free so that I can get some experience?" I personally believe that it would better serve an entry level artist to work on their own project, or with a few friends, helping to shape their own voice and storytelling abilities. In doing so they ARE gaining experience and it will show in the quality of their work.
My advice to you is that no matter what you do or where you work, to make the best judgment for your situation and I encourage you to not be taken advantage of, ever! You're worth more than that.
Captain America Scene Filmed in Trafalgar Square
(WENN) Extras for director Joe Johnston's Captain America: The First Avenger filmed a scene at Trafalgar Square in London, England on Sunday that takes place on VE Day (the day when the World War II Allies formally accepted the unconditional surrender of the armed forces of Nazi Germany and the end of Adolf Hitler's Third Reich). The extras were seen hugging each other and dressed in period clothing.
Spy Kids 4 To Stop Time
(Heat Vision) Jessica Alba is reteaming with Robert Rodriguez a third time for Spy Kids 4: All the Time in the World. She has previously starred in Sin City, co-directed by Rodriguez, and has a role in the helmer's September 3 release Machete.
Heat Vision says the new "Spy Kids" film is a reboot of sorts. Alba will play a retired spy who has been reactivated. Her character is the mother of a baby and two preteen stepchildren.
The actors cast in the preteen roles will be the new "Spy Kids." Alexa Vega and Daryl Sabara played the Spy Kids in the first three films, that also starred Antonio Banderas and Carla Gugino as their superspy parents.
The trade adds that other roles seeking to be filled include Alba's husband, "a slightly nerdy investigative reporter, and the villain, known as the Time Keeper, whose goal it is to stop time."
Banderas, Vega and Sabara are expected to return in supporting roles. Shooting is scheduled to start on the 3D film next month.
Disney's Animated 'Prep and Landing' Wins 4 Creative Emmy Awards
(voices.washingtonpost.com) Disney's "Prep and Landing" was animation's big winner at Saturday's Creative Arts Emmys.
The ABC holiday special was named Outstanding Animated Program and also won three Emmy Awards for Outstanding Individual Achievements in Animation: background key designer William M. George III; art director Andy Harkness; and storyboard artist Joe Mateo.
More than 70 trophys were awarded at the Creative Arts ceremony, which kicks off the week leading up to the Aug. 29 Prime-Time Emmy Awards broadcast.
"Super 8" Creature Gets Rubber FX
(Wired) Neville Page, the conceptual artist responsible for designs in Star Trek, Cloverfield, Piranha 3D and the upcoming TRON: Legacy, teased information to Wired about the creature design in his next big project, Super 8.
Though he's light on details, Page does reveal that he was tasked with designing the creature after the teaser trailer was created and that J.J. Abrams showed him the footage to help get him excited.
"When that door blows open," he says, "it's the ultimate reveal. It's Elvis or something."
What's more, Page hints that Abrams won't resort entirely to computer animation to bring the monster to life and that the writer/director will rely on some classic special effect work.
"I'll bet you anything there's going to be a rubber something or other at some point," says Page.
Chris Wedge Barks At "Monster Dogs"
(darkhorizons.com) Animation filmmaker Chris Wedge ("Ice Age," "Robots") is looking likely to make his live-action directorial debut on a film adaptation of the Kirsten Bakis novel "Lives of the Monster Dogs" says Heat Vision.
The story is set in a remote Canadian village populated by hyper-intelligent dogs genetically engineered by mad Prussian scientists.
Revolting against their masters, these talkative and bipedal dogs turn up in modern New York where a student chronicles their glamorous lives. The story takes a kind of tragic twist as the creatures revert to their animal states for longer and longer periods.
ImageMovers Digital Artist To Part With Personal 'Fortress of Solitude' Cubicle
(buildingthefortress.blogspot.com) A little over a week ago, Disney announced the closing of the studio I work for, Image Movers Digital. Only after releasing 1 motion picture, the mouse is shutting us down.
December 30th is my end date. And I am hearing out options with what to do with my Fortress.
Obviously, destroying it is my last option. I don't have room for it at home, and can't see myself getting the exact same desk configuration at a new job.
So with that said, I'm just putting the word out there that I may be parting with it. Either selling it on ebay or finding a local nerd/comic book shop to take it off my hands. I think its too beautiful and I've put too much love and time into this.
Full Press & Photos: http://buildingthefortress.blogspot.com/
Dreamworks Animation Goes Part Live-Action With "Enemies"
(darkhorizons.com) Having dabbled once or twice in hand-drawn but sticking mostly to computer graphics, Dreamworks Animation is now considering dipping its big toe partway into the live-action arena with "Imaginary Enemies" reports Risky Biz Blog.
Joe Syracuse and Lisa Addario are penning the script which follows a group of imaginary friends who've gotten fed up with being the scapegoats for bratty kids who blame them for their own misdeeds.
When those kids grow up, these imaginary friends come looking for some payback. Mike Mitchell ("Shrek Forever After") is developing but hasn't signed to direct the project as yet.
Right now though the discussion is about making the project part animated and part live-action (ala "Who Framed Roger Rabbit"), with the animated elements representing the imaginary world and its inhabitants.
Fantastic Four Reboot Set for Summer 2012: Out With The Old, In With The New
(examiner.com) Twentieth Century Fox has plans to reboot the Fantastic Four franchise despite the success of the first two movies. The studio has tossed out writer/director Tim Story along with FF cast members Jessica Alba, Michael Chiklis, Chris Evans and Ioan Gruffudd. The question is why?
Yes it's true that diehard fanboys grumbled about the movies—wanting them to reflect more of the flavor and excitement that FF creator's Stan Lee and Jack Kirby packed into the comic book series, but the films did do well at the box office— Fantastic Four took in $330, 579, 719 million worldwide and FF: Rise of the Silver Surfer took in $289, 047, 763 worldwide. So why the sudden change in direction.
The "official" word is that the studio wanted to get more gritty and serious, more in line with The X-men movies and Wolverine, but several insiders claim that the studio wanted to rein in the excessive production costs and salary demands— the first movie's budget was $100 million and the second was $130 million.
The studio has already announced that the Fantastic Four reboot, or Fantastic Four: Reborn (which is still a working title), is next film production in line, right behind the upcoming X-Men: First Class. There is buzz coming from the studio that they intend to go CGI all the way for the Thing (played by Michael Chiklis in the previous films), and that British actress Alice Eve (28), who starred in She's Out of My League, is a strong contended for the part of The Invisible Woman (previously played by Jessica Alba), as is Amber Heard (Pineapple Express).
'Star Wars' Producer Taps Weta For 'Panzer 88'
(latimesblogs.latimes.com) Gary Kurtz, the producer of the first two "Star Wars" films and the man who walked away from the franchise in 1980, is not the excitable type. He speaks in even tones and pragmatic terms, but there was a clear tinge of eager energy in his voice when he sat down recently to discuss "Panzer 88," his first foray into effects-heavy feature films since the 1980s.
"It's a good, good project, you haven't seen anything like it for a while," Kurtz said of the spooky wartime adventure that is planned as a $20 million independent film and will begin shooting in the winter. "It's a visceral, reality-based story with horror overtones, and the idea is to have be like the best of the graphic novels these days."
The plot follows the five-man German crew of the Ilsa -- a King Tiger, the biggest tank of its day -- on a mission to the frigid and fearsome Russian border, where they tread into an ancient mystery by stirring a powerful entity. The original screenplay was written by Aaron Mason and James Cowan; they share the writing credit with Peter Briggs, who will direct. Briggs, who co-wrote the screenplay for "Hellboy," finds himself back in the paranormal territories of the Third Reich, but he said this film hopes for a different caliber of character emotion and a "Band of Brothers" sort of ensemble.
The project has the same sort of mash-up cinematic spirit as Jon Favreau's upcoming "Cowboys and Aliens" (classic western meets UFO invasion) or the 1980s John McTiernan classic "Predator" (commando adventure meets sci-fi horror). For "Panzer," the hybrid is between the supernatural and the battlefields of World War II; to fans of a certain age, the premise might stir an old comic-book memory -- "Haunted Tank" and "Weird War Tales" often marched into similar battle zones of the macabre.
The project has stirred interest already with horror fans due to the participation of Weta, the visual-effects and film prop house in New Zealand that has become an elite brand name with credits such as "The Lord of the Rings" films, "King Kong" and "Avatar." Richard Taylor, the design and effects supervisor of Weta Workshop, said via e-mail that, like the Oscar-nominated "District 9," there's a chance with "Panzer" to make a visually compelling film with a nimble production.
"It has been fantastic being involved in the early stages of a project that has already had such a significant body of preparatory production work done," Taylor said. "It seems that Gary and Peter have explored all production scenarios and analyzed all and every film-making option in an effort to produce an epic film on a respectable budget."
How Computer-Generated Images Are Ending Art
(uiargonaut.com) Summer was a bad time for movies this year. Between “Iron Man 2,” “Robin Hood” and, God help me, the latest installation in the “Twilight” saga, it’s not hard to see why many shunned theaters like they were the plague.
To get my movie fix, I turned to Netflix and TV, catching up on “popular” movie offerings I had missed out on. I was not impressed.
Somewhere between the flashy-but-hollow “Avatar,” the braindead-made-for-12-year-olds “Transformers 2,” and the trying-too-hard “Star Trek,” a realization hit me — I hadn’t seen a good movie in ages.
What happened to the days of real-life action, of true comedy via social commentary, to the intelligent scrip-writing and the raw, masterful directing?
Three letters: CGI.
That’s computer generated imagery for those not in tune with the lingo, and it’s the reason why cinema today will never be as great as it was.
CGI in relation to cinema got its start in the late ‘70s, when a little-known movie called “Westworld” used basic raster graphics to simulate a two-dimensional view of the protagonist robot of the movie.
Science fiction was quick in picking up the CGI torch, and by the end of the ‘80s, movies from “Star Wars” to “The Abyss” used CGI in varying forms
The ‘90s continued the trend, with James Cameron’s “Terminator 2” leading the way. By the turn of the century, CGI was considered an integral part of movie making, every bit as important as shot composition, script and acting.
Then, in 1999, a travesty happened which signaled the direction Hollywood was taking. “Star Wars: The Phantom Menace,” which sacrificed story, characters, plot and actor in favor of flashy CGI, was unleashed on the public and went on to gross nearly $1 billion, becoming the twelfth highest-grossing film of all time.
The message was sent — put in flashy CGI and the money will flow in like Niagara Falls — and everyone in Hollywood took notice.
In the decade since that abomination, Hollywood movie budgets — not to mention ticket prices — have ballooned in size to accompany the plethora of CGI shot, while principal actors and intellectual scripture became second-class, overtaken by flashy light saber battles, vibrantly-colorful animated backgrounds, and the ever-nauseating camera spirals and rapid moves.
CGI is a wonderful tool that, when used properly, allows us to visualize a world that otherwise could not exist. However, the basis of any good movie is still grounded in the realities of relatable, intellectual scripts and heartfelt, dramatic actors.
Peter Jackson’s “Lord of the Rings” trilogy is perhaps the best use of modern CGI in support of principal actors and scripture to help tell the story and all of its subtleties. Unfortunately, such films are the exception rather than the rule.
“Lord of the Rings” proved such use of CGI is viable. It became the fourth-highest grossing series, trailing only “Harry Potter,” “Star Wars,” and “James Bond,” all of which had more than three films, in addition to earning critical acclaim.
Why didn’t Hollywood take notice?
Because, as it turns out, it’s easier to throw around $100 million to create flashy CGI explosions and robots than to spend eight years developing a script, choosing the perfect shooting locations and hiring talented actors.
It is because Hollywood producers, with a few notable exceptions, will always take the easy way out. CGI has given that option, and it is killing modern American cinema.
Warner Plans to Adapt David Goyer's Sci-Fi Trilogy
(Deadline) David Goyer's upcoming science fiction novel Heaven's Shadow has already been marked for film adaptation, according to a report at Deadline.
Goyer, best known for screenplays like Batman Begins and Blade as well as directorial efforts that include Blade: Trinity and The Unborn, plans to release his book in July of 2011 with two planned sequels, "Heaven's War" and "Heaven's Fall" to be released in 2012 and 2013, respectively. Warner Bros. has preemptively purchased the film rights and is eyeing the property as a potential franchise.
The series deals with an extraterrestrial object en route to Earth and the ensuing reaction on the part of mankind.
Goyer is next expected to complete Warner's Superman reboot.
Academy Announces Scientific & Technical Achievement Longlist
(screendaily.com) The scientific and technical awards committee of the Academy Of Motion Picture Arts And Sciences has selected 15 scientific and technical achievements for further awards consideration.
The list is made public to allow individuals and companies with similar devices or claims of prior art the opportunity to submit their achievements for review. The deadline to submit additional entries is August 31.
The committee has selected the following methods or devices for further consideration:
OBQ/DOALL (Industrial Light & Magic);
Queue (Rhythm & Hues);
Race Render Queue System (DreamWorks Animation);
Qube (PipelineFX);
Misterd (Pixar Animation Studios);
RQS/Depgraph Render Management System (DreamWorks Animation);
Cue3 (Sony Pictures Imageworks);
Alfred – Job Queuing and Distributing Rendering System (Pixar Animation Studios);
XGen – Arbitrary Primitive Generator (Walt Disney Animation Studios);
Expression Analysis for Facial Motion Capture (Weta Digital);
Efficient Global Illumination System for Computer Graphic Films (PDI/DreamWorks Animation);
CineSync (Rising Sun Research Pty Ltd);
Timecode Slate (Entertainment Technology);
NAC Servo Winches (NAC Company); and
Cannon-Less Turnover System (Performance Picture Vehicles).
After thorough investigations are conducted on each of the entries, the committee will meet in early December to vote on recommendations to the Academy’s board of governors, which will make the final awards decisions.
The 2010 Scientific and Technical Awards will be presented at the Beverly Wilshire in Beverly Hills on February 12, 2011.
Piranha 3D Gets A Sequel
(comingsoon.net) Dimension Films today announced that the studio will make a sequel to Piranha 3D. Here are excerpts from the press release:
After earning rave reviews from top critics, wild cheers from audiences around the country, and $10 million in its opening weekend boxoffice, Dimension Films is pleased to announce that PIRANHA 3D – THE SEQUEL is in the works.
PIRANHA 3D producer Mark Canton stated, "We are thrilled that audiences are not just loving PIRANHA 3D, but cheering for it. And it's fantastic that so many critics are really getting the movie and recommending it. We can't wait to get to work on the sequel."
(filmonic.com) Despite saying publicly in May that he felt he had “dropped the ball on the legacy that people loved and cherished” with Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull Shia LaBeouf will still be involved in Indy 5.
Last June LaBeouf said Spielberg had “cracked the story”, which was followed by an update from Harrison Ford in September who said the film is in the “process of taking form” and “Steven Spielberg, George Lucas and myself are agreed on what the fifth adventure will concern”.
Now the latest update from LaBeouf suggests we are in for a crazy time.
From ShowBiz Spy:
“They’re script writing right now,” says Shia. “I got called into Steven’s office and he pitched a little bit to me and it sounds crazy, it sounds really cool.”
Earlier this year Shia said Transformers 3 was going to be the “craziest action movie ever made”, so i’m not sure where Indian Jones 5 will rank on his crazy-o-meter, but Spielberg and Lucas must have come up with something special if the guy who has worked on Michael Bay’s biggest movies thinks it’s crazy.
"Angry Birds" Feature To Try Aardman or Pixar Look
(Variety) An Angry Birds film is in development as part of a large cross-merchandising franchise, reports Variety.
The film (which may end up playing instead as a series of shorts) will be based on the hugely popular iPhone application from Rovio that has the player using a slingshot to shoot different types of birds at villainous pigs.
As far as adapting the property goes, plans are unclear at this stage as to the specific format. Rovio's CEO Mikael Hed mentions either shorts or, possibly, a feature film (or both) and likens the intended final product to both Aardman Animation as well as Pixar.
Transformers 3: Chicago Can't Get Rid of Them!
(seibertron.com) The crew working on Transformers 3 refuses to leave Chicago, AKA Seibertron.com's capital. If we look at the bus reroutes, it would imply work there in some form would continue until Friday.
With that little time, it's likely nothing big will happen, but no one can say for sure in this hobby full of surprises. It could be clean-up, or it could be the scene that ties everything together.
State of the VFX Industry: Is Working for “FREE” Worth It?
(bobbyboom.blogspot.com) Returning home from Siggraph this year I had a major concern on my mind and I wanted to expose this concern as well as offer up some potential food for thought. I had an opportunity to talk to just about every major studio and a lot of mid-sized studios during the week of Siggraph.
My main concern is that artists are being taken advantage of!
I understand that the global economy has been in the dumps by-and-large and that job seekers are willing to jump at any opportunity due to these precarious times for fear that there may not be jobs available. Although I do not feel that the market is saturated I do feel the result from this thinking is that some studios are taking advantage of the economic hype which is resulting in artists taking less money, covering 100% of their relocation costs or worse, working for free.
One issue I want to raise here is that the entertainment industry is doing exceptionally well despite the overall state of the economy. This article shows trends from 1995 – current 2010 in movie ticket sales and things look great! We all know how well Toy Story 3, How to Train your Dragon and Despicable Me have been doing and there is a lot of buzz in Hollywood that animated films are saving the entertainment industry. This article notes a dip in video game sales in July but reports confident signs of sharp recovery.
I had one mid-sized studio tell me recently that they have more money than they know what to do with, yet have decided to have new employees pay for 100% of their own relocation costs and take lower wages than were previously offered because they can do it and people are willing to go for it.
In addition to this, I can't tell you how many emails I get from "new studios" that have ”a great idea to have our students and alumni work for free on their project in exchange for gaining valuable work experience."
I don't know about you, but I find this absolutely absurd and do not support it in any way. Students pay a lot of money to learn their craft and they should be compensated for the skills they have gained.
It is clear that some studios are taking advantage of the "state of the economy," and what is most alarming is that job seekers are unknowingly adding fuel to the fire by taking jobs that pay sub-standard or do not pay at all.
There's no doubt that the world has become smaller and more accessible through the internet. Outsourcing and remote working is common place in most every industry. With this change in global workforce it is inevitable that there will be these kinds of changes in the way people do business. However, as we navigate through the evolution of these times it is important that companies see the importance of ethics in business. Just because we can, doesn't mean we should. There is a happy medium that needs to be found.
I'm proud to see some of the big boys operating from a place of valuing their artists first. I hope they continue to lead the way as an example for up-and-coming and mid-sized studios.
As far as artists go; I urge you not to work for free. In doing so you are encouraging a downward spiral of diminished returns for yourself and future generations of artists paving the way for much lower wages.
If a lot of inexperienced entry level artists are working for free on a given project, the quality of that project is going to suffer in the end. When it comes time to shop around your demo reel, the very slight benefit of this free "experience" will be far outweighed by the low-quality work on the demo reel, or the poor reputation of the project within the industry.
If you have the skills you will get a job. You may need to be patient, but the jobs are there. The world is large and the opportunities are vast and wide. Just as the global evolution of business is happening, so too are your opportunities. Industry jobs are no longer just in California and New York. There is a whole world of opportunity out there and you will need to be flexible in where the opportunities take you; especially in the early years of your career. Perhaps they will be in New Zealand, Australia, Canada, England, Spain, India, South Africa or in the comfort of your home office.
Some may ask, "Isn’t it better to at least work for free so that I can get some experience?" I personally believe that it would better serve an entry level artist to work on their own project, or with a few friends, helping to shape their own voice and storytelling abilities. In doing so they ARE gaining experience and it will show in the quality of their work.
My advice to you is that no matter what you do or where you work, to make the best judgment for your situation and I encourage you to not be taken advantage of, ever! You're worth more than that.
Captain America Scene Filmed in Trafalgar Square
(WENN) Extras for director Joe Johnston's Captain America: The First Avenger filmed a scene at Trafalgar Square in London, England on Sunday that takes place on VE Day (the day when the World War II Allies formally accepted the unconditional surrender of the armed forces of Nazi Germany and the end of Adolf Hitler's Third Reich). The extras were seen hugging each other and dressed in period clothing.
Spy Kids 4 To Stop Time
(Heat Vision) Jessica Alba is reteaming with Robert Rodriguez a third time for Spy Kids 4: All the Time in the World. She has previously starred in Sin City, co-directed by Rodriguez, and has a role in the helmer's September 3 release Machete.
Heat Vision says the new "Spy Kids" film is a reboot of sorts. Alba will play a retired spy who has been reactivated. Her character is the mother of a baby and two preteen stepchildren.
The actors cast in the preteen roles will be the new "Spy Kids." Alexa Vega and Daryl Sabara played the Spy Kids in the first three films, that also starred Antonio Banderas and Carla Gugino as their superspy parents.
The trade adds that other roles seeking to be filled include Alba's husband, "a slightly nerdy investigative reporter, and the villain, known as the Time Keeper, whose goal it is to stop time."
Banderas, Vega and Sabara are expected to return in supporting roles. Shooting is scheduled to start on the 3D film next month.
Disney's Animated 'Prep and Landing' Wins 4 Creative Emmy Awards
(voices.washingtonpost.com) Disney's "Prep and Landing" was animation's big winner at Saturday's Creative Arts Emmys.
The ABC holiday special was named Outstanding Animated Program and also won three Emmy Awards for Outstanding Individual Achievements in Animation: background key designer William M. George III; art director Andy Harkness; and storyboard artist Joe Mateo.
More than 70 trophys were awarded at the Creative Arts ceremony, which kicks off the week leading up to the Aug. 29 Prime-Time Emmy Awards broadcast.
"Super 8" Creature Gets Rubber FX
(Wired) Neville Page, the conceptual artist responsible for designs in Star Trek, Cloverfield, Piranha 3D and the upcoming TRON: Legacy, teased information to Wired about the creature design in his next big project, Super 8.
Though he's light on details, Page does reveal that he was tasked with designing the creature after the teaser trailer was created and that J.J. Abrams showed him the footage to help get him excited.
"When that door blows open," he says, "it's the ultimate reveal. It's Elvis or something."
What's more, Page hints that Abrams won't resort entirely to computer animation to bring the monster to life and that the writer/director will rely on some classic special effect work.
"I'll bet you anything there's going to be a rubber something or other at some point," says Page.
Chris Wedge Barks At "Monster Dogs"
(darkhorizons.com) Animation filmmaker Chris Wedge ("Ice Age," "Robots") is looking likely to make his live-action directorial debut on a film adaptation of the Kirsten Bakis novel "Lives of the Monster Dogs" says Heat Vision.
The story is set in a remote Canadian village populated by hyper-intelligent dogs genetically engineered by mad Prussian scientists.
Revolting against their masters, these talkative and bipedal dogs turn up in modern New York where a student chronicles their glamorous lives. The story takes a kind of tragic twist as the creatures revert to their animal states for longer and longer periods.
ImageMovers Digital Artist To Part With Personal 'Fortress of Solitude' Cubicle
(buildingthefortress.blogspot.com) A little over a week ago, Disney announced the closing of the studio I work for, Image Movers Digital. Only after releasing 1 motion picture, the mouse is shutting us down.
December 30th is my end date. And I am hearing out options with what to do with my Fortress.
Obviously, destroying it is my last option. I don't have room for it at home, and can't see myself getting the exact same desk configuration at a new job.
So with that said, I'm just putting the word out there that I may be parting with it. Either selling it on ebay or finding a local nerd/comic book shop to take it off my hands. I think its too beautiful and I've put too much love and time into this.
Full Press & Photos: http://buildingthefortress.blogspot.com/
Dreamworks Animation Goes Part Live-Action With "Enemies"
(darkhorizons.com) Having dabbled once or twice in hand-drawn but sticking mostly to computer graphics, Dreamworks Animation is now considering dipping its big toe partway into the live-action arena with "Imaginary Enemies" reports Risky Biz Blog.
Joe Syracuse and Lisa Addario are penning the script which follows a group of imaginary friends who've gotten fed up with being the scapegoats for bratty kids who blame them for their own misdeeds.
When those kids grow up, these imaginary friends come looking for some payback. Mike Mitchell ("Shrek Forever After") is developing but hasn't signed to direct the project as yet.
Right now though the discussion is about making the project part animated and part live-action (ala "Who Framed Roger Rabbit"), with the animated elements representing the imaginary world and its inhabitants.
Fantastic Four Reboot Set for Summer 2012: Out With The Old, In With The New
(examiner.com) Twentieth Century Fox has plans to reboot the Fantastic Four franchise despite the success of the first two movies. The studio has tossed out writer/director Tim Story along with FF cast members Jessica Alba, Michael Chiklis, Chris Evans and Ioan Gruffudd. The question is why?
Yes it's true that diehard fanboys grumbled about the movies—wanting them to reflect more of the flavor and excitement that FF creator's Stan Lee and Jack Kirby packed into the comic book series, but the films did do well at the box office— Fantastic Four took in $330, 579, 719 million worldwide and FF: Rise of the Silver Surfer took in $289, 047, 763 worldwide. So why the sudden change in direction.
The "official" word is that the studio wanted to get more gritty and serious, more in line with The X-men movies and Wolverine, but several insiders claim that the studio wanted to rein in the excessive production costs and salary demands— the first movie's budget was $100 million and the second was $130 million.
The studio has already announced that the Fantastic Four reboot, or Fantastic Four: Reborn (which is still a working title), is next film production in line, right behind the upcoming X-Men: First Class. There is buzz coming from the studio that they intend to go CGI all the way for the Thing (played by Michael Chiklis in the previous films), and that British actress Alice Eve (28), who starred in She's Out of My League, is a strong contended for the part of The Invisible Woman (previously played by Jessica Alba), as is Amber Heard (Pineapple Express).
'Star Wars' Producer Taps Weta For 'Panzer 88'
(latimesblogs.latimes.com) Gary Kurtz, the producer of the first two "Star Wars" films and the man who walked away from the franchise in 1980, is not the excitable type. He speaks in even tones and pragmatic terms, but there was a clear tinge of eager energy in his voice when he sat down recently to discuss "Panzer 88," his first foray into effects-heavy feature films since the 1980s.
"It's a good, good project, you haven't seen anything like it for a while," Kurtz said of the spooky wartime adventure that is planned as a $20 million independent film and will begin shooting in the winter. "It's a visceral, reality-based story with horror overtones, and the idea is to have be like the best of the graphic novels these days."
The plot follows the five-man German crew of the Ilsa -- a King Tiger, the biggest tank of its day -- on a mission to the frigid and fearsome Russian border, where they tread into an ancient mystery by stirring a powerful entity. The original screenplay was written by Aaron Mason and James Cowan; they share the writing credit with Peter Briggs, who will direct. Briggs, who co-wrote the screenplay for "Hellboy," finds himself back in the paranormal territories of the Third Reich, but he said this film hopes for a different caliber of character emotion and a "Band of Brothers" sort of ensemble.
The project has the same sort of mash-up cinematic spirit as Jon Favreau's upcoming "Cowboys and Aliens" (classic western meets UFO invasion) or the 1980s John McTiernan classic "Predator" (commando adventure meets sci-fi horror). For "Panzer," the hybrid is between the supernatural and the battlefields of World War II; to fans of a certain age, the premise might stir an old comic-book memory -- "Haunted Tank" and "Weird War Tales" often marched into similar battle zones of the macabre.
The project has stirred interest already with horror fans due to the participation of Weta, the visual-effects and film prop house in New Zealand that has become an elite brand name with credits such as "The Lord of the Rings" films, "King Kong" and "Avatar." Richard Taylor, the design and effects supervisor of Weta Workshop, said via e-mail that, like the Oscar-nominated "District 9," there's a chance with "Panzer" to make a visually compelling film with a nimble production.
"It has been fantastic being involved in the early stages of a project that has already had such a significant body of preparatory production work done," Taylor said. "It seems that Gary and Peter have explored all production scenarios and analyzed all and every film-making option in an effort to produce an epic film on a respectable budget."
How Computer-Generated Images Are Ending Art
(uiargonaut.com) Summer was a bad time for movies this year. Between “Iron Man 2,” “Robin Hood” and, God help me, the latest installation in the “Twilight” saga, it’s not hard to see why many shunned theaters like they were the plague.
To get my movie fix, I turned to Netflix and TV, catching up on “popular” movie offerings I had missed out on. I was not impressed.
Somewhere between the flashy-but-hollow “Avatar,” the braindead-made-for-12-year-olds “Transformers 2,” and the trying-too-hard “Star Trek,” a realization hit me — I hadn’t seen a good movie in ages.
What happened to the days of real-life action, of true comedy via social commentary, to the intelligent scrip-writing and the raw, masterful directing?
Three letters: CGI.
That’s computer generated imagery for those not in tune with the lingo, and it’s the reason why cinema today will never be as great as it was.
CGI in relation to cinema got its start in the late ‘70s, when a little-known movie called “Westworld” used basic raster graphics to simulate a two-dimensional view of the protagonist robot of the movie.
Science fiction was quick in picking up the CGI torch, and by the end of the ‘80s, movies from “Star Wars” to “The Abyss” used CGI in varying forms
The ‘90s continued the trend, with James Cameron’s “Terminator 2” leading the way. By the turn of the century, CGI was considered an integral part of movie making, every bit as important as shot composition, script and acting.
Then, in 1999, a travesty happened which signaled the direction Hollywood was taking. “Star Wars: The Phantom Menace,” which sacrificed story, characters, plot and actor in favor of flashy CGI, was unleashed on the public and went on to gross nearly $1 billion, becoming the twelfth highest-grossing film of all time.
The message was sent — put in flashy CGI and the money will flow in like Niagara Falls — and everyone in Hollywood took notice.
In the decade since that abomination, Hollywood movie budgets — not to mention ticket prices — have ballooned in size to accompany the plethora of CGI shot, while principal actors and intellectual scripture became second-class, overtaken by flashy light saber battles, vibrantly-colorful animated backgrounds, and the ever-nauseating camera spirals and rapid moves.
CGI is a wonderful tool that, when used properly, allows us to visualize a world that otherwise could not exist. However, the basis of any good movie is still grounded in the realities of relatable, intellectual scripts and heartfelt, dramatic actors.
Peter Jackson’s “Lord of the Rings” trilogy is perhaps the best use of modern CGI in support of principal actors and scripture to help tell the story and all of its subtleties. Unfortunately, such films are the exception rather than the rule.
“Lord of the Rings” proved such use of CGI is viable. It became the fourth-highest grossing series, trailing only “Harry Potter,” “Star Wars,” and “James Bond,” all of which had more than three films, in addition to earning critical acclaim.
Why didn’t Hollywood take notice?
Because, as it turns out, it’s easier to throw around $100 million to create flashy CGI explosions and robots than to spend eight years developing a script, choosing the perfect shooting locations and hiring talented actors.
It is because Hollywood producers, with a few notable exceptions, will always take the easy way out. CGI has given that option, and it is killing modern American cinema.
Warner Plans to Adapt David Goyer's Sci-Fi Trilogy
(Deadline) David Goyer's upcoming science fiction novel Heaven's Shadow has already been marked for film adaptation, according to a report at Deadline.
Goyer, best known for screenplays like Batman Begins and Blade as well as directorial efforts that include Blade: Trinity and The Unborn, plans to release his book in July of 2011 with two planned sequels, "Heaven's War" and "Heaven's Fall" to be released in 2012 and 2013, respectively. Warner Bros. has preemptively purchased the film rights and is eyeing the property as a potential franchise.
The series deals with an extraterrestrial object en route to Earth and the ensuing reaction on the part of mankind.
Goyer is next expected to complete Warner's Superman reboot.
Academy Announces Scientific & Technical Achievement Longlist
(screendaily.com) The scientific and technical awards committee of the Academy Of Motion Picture Arts And Sciences has selected 15 scientific and technical achievements for further awards consideration.
The list is made public to allow individuals and companies with similar devices or claims of prior art the opportunity to submit their achievements for review. The deadline to submit additional entries is August 31.
The committee has selected the following methods or devices for further consideration:
OBQ/DOALL (Industrial Light & Magic);
Queue (Rhythm & Hues);
Race Render Queue System (DreamWorks Animation);
Qube (PipelineFX);
Misterd (Pixar Animation Studios);
RQS/Depgraph Render Management System (DreamWorks Animation);
Cue3 (Sony Pictures Imageworks);
Alfred – Job Queuing and Distributing Rendering System (Pixar Animation Studios);
XGen – Arbitrary Primitive Generator (Walt Disney Animation Studios);
Expression Analysis for Facial Motion Capture (Weta Digital);
Efficient Global Illumination System for Computer Graphic Films (PDI/DreamWorks Animation);
CineSync (Rising Sun Research Pty Ltd);
Timecode Slate (Entertainment Technology);
NAC Servo Winches (NAC Company); and
Cannon-Less Turnover System (Performance Picture Vehicles).
After thorough investigations are conducted on each of the entries, the committee will meet in early December to vote on recommendations to the Academy’s board of governors, which will make the final awards decisions.
The 2010 Scientific and Technical Awards will be presented at the Beverly Wilshire in Beverly Hills on February 12, 2011.
Piranha 3D Gets A Sequel
(comingsoon.net) Dimension Films today announced that the studio will make a sequel to Piranha 3D. Here are excerpts from the press release:
After earning rave reviews from top critics, wild cheers from audiences around the country, and $10 million in its opening weekend boxoffice, Dimension Films is pleased to announce that PIRANHA 3D – THE SEQUEL is in the works.
PIRANHA 3D producer Mark Canton stated, "We are thrilled that audiences are not just loving PIRANHA 3D, but cheering for it. And it's fantastic that so many critics are really getting the movie and recommending it. We can't wait to get to work on the sequel."
Shia LaBeouf on Indiana Jones 5
It’s not a big update, but it’s still a little bit of info on the next Indiana Jones film…
It's probably best that we skip the part of this story that would inevitably look back on Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull, and Mr Shia LaBeouf's involvement in it, because we suspect by this stage that we all know each other's position on it.
Instead, we're going to concentrate on the latest round of chatter for the planned Indiana Jones 5. This has been a movie that's been an inevitability since Crystal Skull made so much money, and since George Lucas ran out of Star Wars movies to make.
And now, it seems likely - although not surprising - that Shia LaBeouf will be returning. He's given Showbiz Spy a quick update on the planned film, when he revealed that "they're script writing right now".
He then said, "I got called into Steven's office and he pitched a little bit to me and it sounds crazy, it sounds really cool."
"Crazy" and "cool"? We'll let you digest those in the comments below.
As for a start date for Indiana Jones 5, director Steven Spielberg is attached to War Horse next, which will account for much of the next year. Thus, the earliest it could shoot, we'd imagine, would be towards the end of 2011, with an eye on a summer 2012 release. That's speculation on our part, however.
New details revealed for X-Men: First Class
Setting, story and character details have emerged for Matthew Vaughn’s upcoming movie, X-Men: First Class
Now that Matthew Vaughn seems to have finished casting for his ensemble X-Men: First Class movie (although we said that this time last week, and watched as three more names were subsequently added to the call sheet), the film can get set to go before the cameras in the coming month. And, thanks to a conversation between its producer, Bryan Singer, and AICN, we've now got much more of an idea as to what the film will be about.
Singer confirmed to the site that the movie is going to be set in the 1960s, and will adopt a feel appropriate to the decade. So, we'll see John F Kennedy as president of the US and, basically, be seeing a First Class story that's set before the one that we've seen in the comic books.
As for what we can expect to see in the film, AICN reports that "We will see how Xavier and Erik Lehnsherr met - and how they dreamt of a future with Mutant and Human kind. They're going to be in their late twenties. Xavier - as played by James McAvoy will not be in his wheelchair to begin the film - but we will see how he wound up in a wheelchair.".
Also, "We'll see McAvoy and Fassbender's Magneto formulate what it is they are attempting by creating the X-Men," and it's also been confirmed that Sebastian Shaw - as played by Kevin Bacon - will be the villain of the piece.
Singer also confirmed that the film has a James Bond influence to it (not least for its European feel, and adopting of the technology of the time), and that we'll be seeing the Hellfire Club in the movie too.
X-Men: First Class is set for release on June 3rd 2011. And you can read the AICN piece right here.
"Piranha" Director Takes On Space Pirates
(darkhorizons.com) Director Alexander Aja ("Piranha 3D," "The Hills Have Eyes") has selected his next project, a film adaptation of Buichi Terasawa's manga and animated series franchise "Cobra: The Space Pirate" reports Deadline.
Described as a tent pole-sized live action sci-fi franchise, the story is set in a future where merchant spaceships and ruthless brigands sail across space. Cobra is a notorious rogue pirate with a large bounty on his head who teams up with a hunter and seeks a lost treasure hidden on Mars.
The animated series was hugely popular across Europe which is how Aja knows the property. Aja and Gregory Levasseur will pen the script and both will produce alongside Marc Sessego and Alexandra Milchan.
Transformers 3 Wraps Up Chicago Shoot This Weekend, Moving To Detroit
(tformers.com) Transformers 3 filming will continue in Chicago this weekend before wrapping up and heading to Detroit.
According to On Location Vacations, shooting will take place on Friday August 20th and Saturday August 21st, several downtown locations, including 433 W Van Buren.
Helicopters will be used for aerial photography.
Filming in Detroit is reportedly going to take place Packard Plant on East Grand Boulevard, an abandoned car manufacturing plant for the Packard vehicle company.
Dracula: Year One Gets Pandora Resident
(cinemablend.com)
Encore says Sam Worthington is set to star in Alex Proyas’s long talked about Dracula: Year One. Whether that means he’ll be a vampire or the movie’s human protagonist is unclear. He’s merely pegged as having the “lead role”. Since it’s Sam Worthington, that probably means human vampire battler.
Fighting monsters seems to be Worthington’s stock and trade, though I find his continued casting in big-budget effects movies somewhat inexplicable. On the whole he’s proven himself to be terrible. His best performance to date happened in Avatar, a movie where he’s rarely ever actually on screen. That says something about his ability as an actor. I expect this sort of casting from McG, Alex Proyas should know better.
Sony Sends Cease and Desist Letter to Skyline Producers
(reelmovienews.com) Ah, here we go, David vs. Goliath all over again. Recently, we posted the teaser trailer for a film called Skyline, which, in a nutshell is a new alien invasion movie. Well, Sony has an alien invasion movie of their own in the works called Battle: Los Angeles, and they've sent a cease and desist letter to the producers of Skyline.
So what's the beef? Well, hilariously enough the producers of Skyline, Colin and Greg Strause, own and run the visual effects company Hydraulx, which is also handling the effects work on Battle: Los Angeles. According to The Wrap, Sony is accusing the Strause Bros. of "ripping off equipment and ideas for their lower budget production."
"We utterly deny" using' Battle LA' equipment on Skyline," said Greg Strause. "That’s highly offensive. It’s completely untrue. We’ve been in the alien invasion business for many years before Battle LA. The first movie I directed was an alien invasion, called 'Alien Vs Predator: Requiem.' That’s one of the reasons they came to us, we do computer generated aliens well."
While I doubt mentioning AVPR is going to win them any fans, speculation is that Sony is merely trying to delay the release of Skyline, which bears a striking similarity to Battle: Los Angeles, but for less than a quarter of the price tag. Sony's epic reportedly cost $100 million while the Strause Bros. turned theirs in for only $20 million. It's amazing what you can do when you own your own VFX company. Battle is set to hit in March 2011, whereas Skyline will get a head start in November of this year.
The Strause Bros. claim that Battle producer Neal Moritz was told about their movie last fall, a claim Moritz rejects. What's more, Sony was apparently shown footage from Skyline and offered the opportunity to distribute it earlier this year. The studio turned the film down, only to pay closer attention after the film's trailer was a huge hit at this year's Comic-Con, which caused them to worry that Skyline is an imitation of their product.
We think Sony's just pissed that it got beaten to the punch by a lower-budget production, and one that looks like it will be profitable. Sure, Skyline doesn't have Aaron Eckhart, Bridget Moynahan or Michelle Rodriguez, but it's got some good buzz. Depending on how it performs at the box office, it could spell success or trouble for Sony's film.
DreamWorks Animation Starts Seeing Imaginary Enemies
(comingsoon.net) Married screenwriters Joe Syracuse and Lisa Addario are penning Imaginary Enemies for DreamWorks Animation. Mike Mitchell (Shrek Forever After) is developing the project with the writers, but he is not on board to direct at the moment.
Risky Business explains that the project "will be told from the point of view of the imaginary friends who had long been used as scapegoats by unscrupulous children looking for someone else to blame for their misdeeds. Eventually fed up, those imaginary people come looking for some payback when the kids are grown up."
According to the trade, discussions are taking place about a possible live-action/animation hybrid that would represent the split worlds of the imaginary and the real.
Stop-Motion Animated Addams Family Feature Moves Forward
(dreadcentral.com) It looks like things are progressing pretty nicely for the latest adaptation of the brilliant work of Mr. Charles Addams. In addition to being in old school stop-motion animation and directed by Tim Burton, the Illumination Films and Universal Pictures project has signed on Ed Wood screenwriters Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski for the project.
Per Deadline New York Alexander and Karaszewski board an Addams Family project that [was] first revealed in March, when [producer Chris] Meledandri bought the rights to the ghoulish, darkly humorous drawings that Charles Addams created for The New Yorker.
"[The] project [is] based on artwork that Tim absolutely loves," Karasewski said. "The retrospective in New York of Tim's own artwork showed how much of an influence Charles Addams was to him. We want the tone to be as darkly funny and subversive as the Addams drawings, and we've come up with an approach that nobody has ever done before."
James Cameron Hasn't Forgotten About Battle Angel
(screenrant.com) Before Avatar was even released, the word “trilogy” was getting tossed around and many were clamoring for details about sequels to a film they hadn’t even seen yet. Director James Cameron wasn’t just finishing up a fifteen-year-old labor of love, he was committing to a franchise and a brand that – at this point – has taken on a life of its own.
Further Avatar films were inevitable, but the prospect of two sequels potentially shooting back-to-back calls into question the future of other films Cameron’s had on the back-burner – specifically, Battle Angel.
Coming Soon recently sat down with Cameron to talk about Avatar’s upcoming theatrical re-release and he spoke briefly about Battle Angel and his desire to see it happen:
“It’s still on my radar. It’s a story I love. We wrote the script back before we started Avatar and again, we gotta figure out where it lies. I don’t have infinite time.”
For those unfamiliar with Battle Angel, it’s based on the manga-turned-anime series Battle Angel Alita, which tells the story of an amnesic female cyborg who becomes a bounty hunter. The film would utilize the same 3D motion-capture technology as Avatar and Cameron has stated it would encompass the first three volumes of the manga.
Like Avatar, Battle Angel would mark the first chapter in a trilogy – so you can see why many Battle Angel fans aren’t holding their breath just yet. With Avatar at the apex of its popularity, launching another ambitious franchise simultaneously may seem daunting even for a filmmaker as fearless as Cameron. However, don’t count out the possibility just yet.
While Cameron remains understandably excited about further explorations of Pandora, he hasn’t definitively decided that Avatar 2 will be his next film:
“I’m perfectly comfortable going back to that world. The question I haven’t answered for myself yet is am I comfortable going back to that world right now or do I do another movie in between?”
J.J. Abrams' Super 8 to Film in Weirton, West Virginia
(Production Weekly, The Associated Press) Production Weekly has learned that J.J. Abrams will start shooting Super 8 in late September on location in Weirton, West Virginia. Produced by Steven Spielberg, the Paramount Pictures film is targeting a summer 2011 release.
Meanwhile, reports by The Associated Press have turned up the news that Weirton residents have received letters on the filming. The shoot, scheduled to last two to three months, is said to take place primarily on the town's Main Street. The plot, "revolves around a 14-year-old boy and is set in a steel town in 1979."
"Wolverine 2" On The Fast Track
(Darkhorizons.com) With the "X-Men Origins: Wolverine" sequel lining up to be shot early next year, Hugh Jackman has dropped out of the comedy "Avon Man" which was scheduled to start shooting this October reports Deadline.
No director is currently attached to the sequel which Christopher McQuarrie ("The Usual Suspects," "Valkyrie") penned. The storyline adapts one of the most acclaimed "X-Men" comic storylines which revolved around Logan visiting Japan where he falls in love and takes on some ninjas.
Sony Imageworks Director of Technical Training Passes
(animationmagazine.net) Sande Scoredos, who had an impact on thousands of animators and visual effects artists as the longtime director of technical training and artist development for Sony Pictures Imageworks, died Aug. 14. She was 63.
Scoredos came to Sony in 1996 to set up its training department, having previously held a similar job at visual effects house Rhythm and Hues.
At Imageworks, she lead the founding of the IPAX academic outreach program in 2004. Under her leadership, Imageworks’ training program offered more than 50 courses, from life drawing, sculpting and acting to specialized classes in animation, effects, compositing and production management.
She also worked as manager of training for Wavefront Technologies, she designed the worldwide training program and curriculum, instructing professionals in the use of 3D computer graphics and animation.
Scoredos also taught computer graphics for production at the studio and university level and as a UCLA graduate, she works with local educational programs program and also teaches a yearly production course at MIT. She served on various industry and academic advisory boards and was an active ACM SIGGRAPH committee member and chaired the SIGGRAPH 2001 Computer Animation Festival and is the Curator Chairwoman for the SIGGRAPH 2008 Computer Animation Festival.
Born in Colorado Springs, Colo., she is survived by her husband, John, and her sister Perri MacHugh Silver, who lives in Secretary, Md.
A memorial service is planned for Aug. 21 at 4 p.m. at the Conejo Mountain Memorial Park, 2052 Howard Road, Camarillo, CA 93012. The family requests donations in lieu of flowers be made to The Angeles Clinic Foundation, 2001 Santa Monica Blvd., Suite 560W, Santa Monica, CA 90404.
A tribute to Scoredos at Sony Pictures Imageworks will be announced.
'Avatar' Sequel Process: Creatures and Environments Before Script
(mtv.com) Eight months after the record-breaking release of James Cameron's "Avatar," and with an expanded re-release just weeks away, the writer/director already has a massive trove of notes for a sequel. Eventually, he'll weave together plot strands from that hodgepodge of Pandora-based brainstorming.
When that process might begin — from notes to script — is anybody's guess, but as Cameron's longtime producing partners, Jon Landau, told MTV News, the filmmakers aren't going to wait for a draft before they begin to re-create the world of "Avatar."
The creative team will begin work on creature and environment development "as soon as Jim locks in on some of those notes," Landau explained. "We don't have to wait for a script for that. And there are also certain things we designed from the last movie that didn't make it in that I'm sure will make it in on the next movie."
For now, Landau described his producer role as a two-fold job. "I'm a sounding board for those ideas [in Cameron's notes]," he said. "And I'm looking to see how we can do what we do better — researching technologies and talking to people and pressing all those frontiers."
Filming on the first "Avatar" began in 2007, and whenever the sequel goes into production, Landau anticipates significant technological innovations when it comes to cameras and the capabilities of Weta Digital, which created the visual effects for the first flick.
"It's not like I'm thinking, 'OK, let's do it again and we'll do it exactly the same way,' " Landau said. "Let's do it better. Let's do it more cost-effectively. Let's be training our people now and getting them involved. If you look at 'Titanic' to 'Avatar,' what happened in the visual-effects world is that everything became more cost-effective, more time-efficient and at a higher visual quality. It doesn't mean when you look at 'Titanic' now, you go, 'Oh that's a bad movie.' It's the same thing now."
Just don't prod Landau to explain what he means by "now." Asked what his ideal start date for a second "Avatar" would be, he said simply, "Most definitely this century."
Sylvester Stallone Forced To Use CGI - "Looked OK, Though"
(monstersandcritics.com) Sylvester Stallone has joked that he had to use computer-generated images (CGI) in new movie The Expendables – because he couldn’t find any volunteers to get their heads blown off.
Stallone said on Australia’s Sunrise breakfast show that he “hates” special effects.
He told presenter Fifi Box: “I hate CGI, but when we were making the movie, I had to blow some guy’s head off.
“There was a lack of volunteers for that, strangely enough, so we had to use CGI.”
He added: “In the end it looked OK, though.”
Fighting monsters seems to be Worthington’s stock and trade, though I find his continued casting in big-budget effects movies somewhat inexplicable. On the whole he’s proven himself to be terrible. His best performance to date happened in Avatar, a movie where he’s rarely ever actually on screen. That says something about his ability as an actor. I expect this sort of casting from McG, Alex Proyas should know better.
Sony Sends Cease and Desist Letter to Skyline Producers
(reelmovienews.com) Ah, here we go, David vs. Goliath all over again. Recently, we posted the teaser trailer for a film called Skyline, which, in a nutshell is a new alien invasion movie. Well, Sony has an alien invasion movie of their own in the works called Battle: Los Angeles, and they've sent a cease and desist letter to the producers of Skyline.
So what's the beef? Well, hilariously enough the producers of Skyline, Colin and Greg Strause, own and run the visual effects company Hydraulx, which is also handling the effects work on Battle: Los Angeles. According to The Wrap, Sony is accusing the Strause Bros. of "ripping off equipment and ideas for their lower budget production."
"We utterly deny" using' Battle LA' equipment on Skyline," said Greg Strause. "That’s highly offensive. It’s completely untrue. We’ve been in the alien invasion business for many years before Battle LA. The first movie I directed was an alien invasion, called 'Alien Vs Predator: Requiem.' That’s one of the reasons they came to us, we do computer generated aliens well."
While I doubt mentioning AVPR is going to win them any fans, speculation is that Sony is merely trying to delay the release of Skyline, which bears a striking similarity to Battle: Los Angeles, but for less than a quarter of the price tag. Sony's epic reportedly cost $100 million while the Strause Bros. turned theirs in for only $20 million. It's amazing what you can do when you own your own VFX company. Battle is set to hit in March 2011, whereas Skyline will get a head start in November of this year.
The Strause Bros. claim that Battle producer Neal Moritz was told about their movie last fall, a claim Moritz rejects. What's more, Sony was apparently shown footage from Skyline and offered the opportunity to distribute it earlier this year. The studio turned the film down, only to pay closer attention after the film's trailer was a huge hit at this year's Comic-Con, which caused them to worry that Skyline is an imitation of their product.
We think Sony's just pissed that it got beaten to the punch by a lower-budget production, and one that looks like it will be profitable. Sure, Skyline doesn't have Aaron Eckhart, Bridget Moynahan or Michelle Rodriguez, but it's got some good buzz. Depending on how it performs at the box office, it could spell success or trouble for Sony's film.
DreamWorks Animation Starts Seeing Imaginary Enemies
(comingsoon.net) Married screenwriters Joe Syracuse and Lisa Addario are penning Imaginary Enemies for DreamWorks Animation. Mike Mitchell (Shrek Forever After) is developing the project with the writers, but he is not on board to direct at the moment.
Risky Business explains that the project "will be told from the point of view of the imaginary friends who had long been used as scapegoats by unscrupulous children looking for someone else to blame for their misdeeds. Eventually fed up, those imaginary people come looking for some payback when the kids are grown up."
According to the trade, discussions are taking place about a possible live-action/animation hybrid that would represent the split worlds of the imaginary and the real.
Stop-Motion Animated Addams Family Feature Moves Forward
(dreadcentral.com) It looks like things are progressing pretty nicely for the latest adaptation of the brilliant work of Mr. Charles Addams. In addition to being in old school stop-motion animation and directed by Tim Burton, the Illumination Films and Universal Pictures project has signed on Ed Wood screenwriters Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski for the project.
Per Deadline New York Alexander and Karaszewski board an Addams Family project that [was] first revealed in March, when [producer Chris] Meledandri bought the rights to the ghoulish, darkly humorous drawings that Charles Addams created for The New Yorker.
"[The] project [is] based on artwork that Tim absolutely loves," Karasewski said. "The retrospective in New York of Tim's own artwork showed how much of an influence Charles Addams was to him. We want the tone to be as darkly funny and subversive as the Addams drawings, and we've come up with an approach that nobody has ever done before."
James Cameron Hasn't Forgotten About Battle Angel
(screenrant.com) Before Avatar was even released, the word “trilogy” was getting tossed around and many were clamoring for details about sequels to a film they hadn’t even seen yet. Director James Cameron wasn’t just finishing up a fifteen-year-old labor of love, he was committing to a franchise and a brand that – at this point – has taken on a life of its own.
Further Avatar films were inevitable, but the prospect of two sequels potentially shooting back-to-back calls into question the future of other films Cameron’s had on the back-burner – specifically, Battle Angel.
Coming Soon recently sat down with Cameron to talk about Avatar’s upcoming theatrical re-release and he spoke briefly about Battle Angel and his desire to see it happen:
“It’s still on my radar. It’s a story I love. We wrote the script back before we started Avatar and again, we gotta figure out where it lies. I don’t have infinite time.”
For those unfamiliar with Battle Angel, it’s based on the manga-turned-anime series Battle Angel Alita, which tells the story of an amnesic female cyborg who becomes a bounty hunter. The film would utilize the same 3D motion-capture technology as Avatar and Cameron has stated it would encompass the first three volumes of the manga.
Like Avatar, Battle Angel would mark the first chapter in a trilogy – so you can see why many Battle Angel fans aren’t holding their breath just yet. With Avatar at the apex of its popularity, launching another ambitious franchise simultaneously may seem daunting even for a filmmaker as fearless as Cameron. However, don’t count out the possibility just yet.
While Cameron remains understandably excited about further explorations of Pandora, he hasn’t definitively decided that Avatar 2 will be his next film:
“I’m perfectly comfortable going back to that world. The question I haven’t answered for myself yet is am I comfortable going back to that world right now or do I do another movie in between?”
J.J. Abrams' Super 8 to Film in Weirton, West Virginia
(Production Weekly, The Associated Press) Production Weekly has learned that J.J. Abrams will start shooting Super 8 in late September on location in Weirton, West Virginia. Produced by Steven Spielberg, the Paramount Pictures film is targeting a summer 2011 release.
Meanwhile, reports by The Associated Press have turned up the news that Weirton residents have received letters on the filming. The shoot, scheduled to last two to three months, is said to take place primarily on the town's Main Street. The plot, "revolves around a 14-year-old boy and is set in a steel town in 1979."
"Wolverine 2" On The Fast Track
(Darkhorizons.com) With the "X-Men Origins: Wolverine" sequel lining up to be shot early next year, Hugh Jackman has dropped out of the comedy "Avon Man" which was scheduled to start shooting this October reports Deadline.
No director is currently attached to the sequel which Christopher McQuarrie ("The Usual Suspects," "Valkyrie") penned. The storyline adapts one of the most acclaimed "X-Men" comic storylines which revolved around Logan visiting Japan where he falls in love and takes on some ninjas.
Sony Imageworks Director of Technical Training Passes
(animationmagazine.net) Sande Scoredos, who had an impact on thousands of animators and visual effects artists as the longtime director of technical training and artist development for Sony Pictures Imageworks, died Aug. 14. She was 63.
Scoredos came to Sony in 1996 to set up its training department, having previously held a similar job at visual effects house Rhythm and Hues.
At Imageworks, she lead the founding of the IPAX academic outreach program in 2004. Under her leadership, Imageworks’ training program offered more than 50 courses, from life drawing, sculpting and acting to specialized classes in animation, effects, compositing and production management.
She also worked as manager of training for Wavefront Technologies, she designed the worldwide training program and curriculum, instructing professionals in the use of 3D computer graphics and animation.
Scoredos also taught computer graphics for production at the studio and university level and as a UCLA graduate, she works with local educational programs program and also teaches a yearly production course at MIT. She served on various industry and academic advisory boards and was an active ACM SIGGRAPH committee member and chaired the SIGGRAPH 2001 Computer Animation Festival and is the Curator Chairwoman for the SIGGRAPH 2008 Computer Animation Festival.
Born in Colorado Springs, Colo., she is survived by her husband, John, and her sister Perri MacHugh Silver, who lives in Secretary, Md.
A memorial service is planned for Aug. 21 at 4 p.m. at the Conejo Mountain Memorial Park, 2052 Howard Road, Camarillo, CA 93012. The family requests donations in lieu of flowers be made to The Angeles Clinic Foundation, 2001 Santa Monica Blvd., Suite 560W, Santa Monica, CA 90404.
A tribute to Scoredos at Sony Pictures Imageworks will be announced.
'Avatar' Sequel Process: Creatures and Environments Before Script
(mtv.com) Eight months after the record-breaking release of James Cameron's "Avatar," and with an expanded re-release just weeks away, the writer/director already has a massive trove of notes for a sequel. Eventually, he'll weave together plot strands from that hodgepodge of Pandora-based brainstorming.
When that process might begin — from notes to script — is anybody's guess, but as Cameron's longtime producing partners, Jon Landau, told MTV News, the filmmakers aren't going to wait for a draft before they begin to re-create the world of "Avatar."
The creative team will begin work on creature and environment development "as soon as Jim locks in on some of those notes," Landau explained. "We don't have to wait for a script for that. And there are also certain things we designed from the last movie that didn't make it in that I'm sure will make it in on the next movie."
For now, Landau described his producer role as a two-fold job. "I'm a sounding board for those ideas [in Cameron's notes]," he said. "And I'm looking to see how we can do what we do better — researching technologies and talking to people and pressing all those frontiers."
Filming on the first "Avatar" began in 2007, and whenever the sequel goes into production, Landau anticipates significant technological innovations when it comes to cameras and the capabilities of Weta Digital, which created the visual effects for the first flick.
"It's not like I'm thinking, 'OK, let's do it again and we'll do it exactly the same way,' " Landau said. "Let's do it better. Let's do it more cost-effectively. Let's be training our people now and getting them involved. If you look at 'Titanic' to 'Avatar,' what happened in the visual-effects world is that everything became more cost-effective, more time-efficient and at a higher visual quality. It doesn't mean when you look at 'Titanic' now, you go, 'Oh that's a bad movie.' It's the same thing now."
Just don't prod Landau to explain what he means by "now." Asked what his ideal start date for a second "Avatar" would be, he said simply, "Most definitely this century."
Sylvester Stallone Forced To Use CGI - "Looked OK, Though"
(monstersandcritics.com) Sylvester Stallone has joked that he had to use computer-generated images (CGI) in new movie The Expendables – because he couldn’t find any volunteers to get their heads blown off.
Stallone said on Australia’s Sunrise breakfast show that he “hates” special effects.
He told presenter Fifi Box: “I hate CGI, but when we were making the movie, I had to blow some guy’s head off.
“There was a lack of volunteers for that, strangely enough, so we had to use CGI.”
He added: “In the end it looked OK, though.”
VFX Artist Pay Fail, VES Meets NASA, & Imagineers Event...
(variety.com)
Not long ago I got a call from a Time magazine reporter working on a story on the visual effects business. As we discussed the dire financial straits of many vfx companies despite their growing importance to studio movies, she asked, "Don't these people have business plans?"
I told her she was proceeding from the false premise that people start vfx companies to be business owners. Most people who go into vfx do it for the same reason people become actors: They love the work. But when they fail as businessmen, the result is too often misery.
The latest bad news from the vfx biz comes from Montreal's Fake Studio, part of the Camera e-Motion Group. A handful of artists who worked for Fake on the 3D vfx for Dimension's "Piranha 3D" have yet to receive payments due in April. Their plight has inspired a great deal of anger in vfx circles, where hearing "unpaid artists" and "Montreal" opens the old wound of Meteor Studios and the problems artists had getting paid for New Line's "Journey to the Center of the Earth."
One of the unpaid artists, Manny Wong, told Variety that with the Meteor incident in mind, he negotiated a payment-in-advance deal, but upon arrival in Montreal, he liked the atmosphere at Fake enough to forego advance payment. He says the producer was "very upfront" with him about the pic's financial difficulties through two crises that threatened to shut down the picture. Then Fake management said it hadn't been paid by the client and couldn't pay the 3D team anymore from its own pockets. Months later, payment is still due.
Last week Dave Rand, a veteran of Meteor who has become something of a watchdog for abuse of vfx artists, posted about the Fake and its unpaid artists on his Facebook page. Marc Cote, an owner of Fake, responded with a note admitting the company is in arrears and saying it is "making arrangements with all of the creditors … to reimburse them as quickly as operations permit." He continued: "Short of shutting down the company we cannot reimburse everybody's debt in one shot. … We are 100% committed to reimbursing this debt."
It's been common for vfx shops to get behind on debts and wind up paying past debts out of current receipts; that's why one analyst calls the entire vfx business "a Ponzi scheme." Fake's problems seem to fit that pattern. Earlier this week a Dimension spokesman said Fake has been paid. Cote was in production and did not respond directly to Variety's inquiries, but we did hear from Louis Turp, a consultant working with Cote on "options and strategies for the future of the company." Turp quoted Cote saying, "It won't happen again" and added. "Cote always fulfills his obligations."
It's easy to paint Cote and Fake as villains, but these problems are endemic in the vfx business, and the response has been mostly finger-pointing. Studio execs blame unprofessional management of vfx companies. California artists call for an end to runaway production. Some artists call for a union, others despise the idea, and no existing guilds are rushing to organize vfx artists.
"The show must go on" has been the showbiz mantra, and the movie biz has counted on artists taking that to heart. But the patience and goodwill of vfx artists aren't infinite. Whether the solution is market-based (i.e., artists negotiating ruthlessly and walking off immediately if a payment is missed) or a union, it's becoming clear that the status quo will not hold. Something has to give.
