Opening the door to The Adjustment Bureau

April 4, 2011

In The Adjustment Bureau, two lovers played by Matt Damon and Emily Blunt find themselves kept apart by mysterious business men in hats. Visual effects supervisor Mark Russell enabled several portal door transitions and a signature ‘Escher stairs’ sequence to reveal the Bureau’s secret world.

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The tale of the wolf: Red Riding Hood

April 2, 2011

In Red Riding Hood, a terrifying werewolf haunts the inhabitants of a medieval village. Rhythm & Hues tells us how they brought the wolf to life for this modern re-telling of the classic fairytale.

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Fractal zooms and other side effects in Limitless

March 29, 2011

The best part about vfx is when someone comes up with a cool new original look or shot, we talk to Look Effects and Comen VFX about creating the amazing fractal zooms and out-of-body moments in Limitless, designed as an inside glimpse to the power of a new fictitious wonder drug.

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Rob Legato Special Edition

March 25, 2011

We had such a wonderful time interviewing Rob Legato for fxguidetv that we filmed a lot more than we could possibly use in fxguidetv alone. So here for fxinsider members only, we have an additional “part 2” of that interview (with some real treats). Rob discusses shot design on Apollo 13, use of stereo on […]

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Paul: Double Negative’s alien adventure

March 23, 2011

With Paul, Double Negative adds to its already impressive list of visual effects credits through a major character animation show. We talk to animation supervisor Anders Beer and visual effects producer Hal Couzens about the film.

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Rising Sun Pictures finds The Way Back

March 21, 2011

In The Way Back, a group of prisoners escape a Siberian Gulag camp during World War II and trek many, many miles through Mongolia, China and over the Himalayas to India. Director Peter Weir called on Rising Sun Pictures to create 200 visual effects shots to complement the harrowing journey. We talk to visual effects supervisor Dennis Jones.

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HDRx: The Impossible Shot

March 18, 2011

Every camera – film or digital – has limits of exposure latitude. With the EPIC those limits just got pushed…a lot.

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Storm & Nuke on set with Space Digital

March 17, 2011

The Foundry released STORM 1.0 recently, but it’s already been widely in use in production during the beta process. Manchester-based Space Digital utilized the app along with Nuke, some Apple TVs, and Dropbox to create a useful on-set workflow for a recent Castrol engine oil project.

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Introducing Silverdraft Mobileviz

March 17, 2011

Silverdraft invited fxguide to tour Mobileviz, a 53 foot trailer with some serious and unique tech on board. Join us as we find out what users plan to do with 30 teraflops, 1536 cores and 20TB of SSD storage in a mobile configuration.

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Cinesite runs rings around Battle: LA

March 16, 2011

The arrival of destructive beings on the west coast of the U.S. in Battle: Los Angeles is heralded by a unique take on alien spaceship technology: mysterious smoke rings. The rings, used heavily in the film’s marketing, were created by Cinesite and from their visual effects supe Ben Shepherd.

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Aiding the invasion in Battle: Los Angeles

March 16, 2011

In Battle: Los Angeles, the Californian city once again finds itself under attack from alien invaders. Visual effects supervisor Everett Burrell and an army of effects artists wrought havoc on the city as well as realizing the other-worldly warriors.

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Carlyle Group acquires stake in The Foundry

March 15, 2011

The Carlyle Group announced that it has acquired a significant majority stake in The Foundry, from Advent Venture Partners and other stakeholders. What does this mean for facilities and artists using the company’s software? In an fxguide exclusive, Mike Seymour caught up with Foundry CEO Bill Collis to get the scoop.

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Storm Launch

March 11, 2011

Last night The Foundry hosted a launch event for STORM at RED Studios in Hollywood. STORM is a software solution aimed at improving RED workflow for on set, review and finish. The event focused on people who have been using the beta version in production sharing their real world experience. No event at RED would […]

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Revv-ealing effects: Drive Angry 3D

March 10, 2011

Director Patrick Lussier’s Drive Angry 3D tells the fantastical story of a vengeful father who escapes from hell to save his granddaughter. VFX supe Glenn Neufeld takes us through the key effects shots and how he used them to help slowly reveal some of the film’s key surprises.

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Back to NBA’s future with a52

March 8, 2011

Vancouver. 1996. A young Steve Nash is visited by a fan from the future whose life was changed by the NBA superstar. But it’s all thanks to visual effects from a52. Lead Flame artist Glyn Tebbut guides us through how this ‘Nash’ future kid spot for the NBA was realised. We also have a making of clip.

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Autodesk 2012 releases: change is good

March 2, 2011

For the first time ever, Autodesk announced new versions of their creative applications on a single global launch day. There are new 2012 versions of Flame, Smoke, Maya, 3ds Max, Softimage, MotionBuilder, and Mudbox. We have information about the new releases as well as details about some key structural changes that have the teams working together more than ever before.

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Flame 2012 New Feature Videos

March 2, 2011

fxguidetv covers the new 2012 Flame Premium release from Autodesk. But there’s way more in the new releases than we had time to show.. We have over two hours of additional and unedited overview videos with Product Designer Philippe Soeiro from Autodesk.

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Reach for the Sky: MPC goes full circle

March 2, 2011

Scenes of Monument Valley, NYC, the English countryside, a distant space station & a vast icescape were brought to life as a continuous shot by MPC in a recent stereo spot for Sky Movies. We chat to MPC’s 3D supervisor Duncan McWilliam about shooting the 360 degree pan in stereo, creating worlds and then stitching it altogether.

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STORM 1.0 Now Shipping

March 1, 2011

After a winter of beta testing, The Foundry have released the first version of STORM, their digital workflow app for RED files. It’s now available for purchase on The Foundry’s web site for 375USD/250GBP/300EUR. Click through for the full press release.

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Highlights from the Oscars

March 1, 2011

Congratulations to all the Oscar winners from the 83rd Annual Academy Awards. Here are some of the highlights from the awards ceremony.

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Today was EPIC

March 1, 2011

Today the rollout for the new RED EPIC-M continued and fxphd was there to get one of the very few cameras now out in the wild. Jeff Heusser and Mike Seymour spent the day at RED, not only running through the new 5K EPIC and it’s advanced new features, but also looking at a few new features still in development.

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Life with the EliteBook: DreamColor Calibration

February 28, 2011

The previous “life with” article was an overview of the DreamColor display and why it’s especially suited for our field. In this installment, we examine the HP-branded software and hardware used to calibrate the monitor and ensure the colors you’re viewing are accurate.

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Capturing the Guardians

February 22, 2011

Vicon House of Moves recently helped bring to life 30 animated superheroes for an NHL and Stan Lee venture known as The Guardian Project. We find out how they used mo-cap and the Epic Games Unreal Engine to make it possible.

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Luma shows True Grit with the Coen Brothers

February 22, 2011

With over 350 visual effects shots, True Grit represents the fourth collaboration between Luma Pictures and directors Joel and Ethan Coen. We take a look at some of Luma’s key invisible effects for the film.

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Lumen-escent: the VFX of I Am Number Four

February 21, 2011

Visual effects supervisor Greg McMurry oversaw 800 shots for I Am Number Four, the story of an alien fugitive on the run from other-worldly pursuers. We take a look at some of the key effects scenes from the film.

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Union’s 350 shots for 127 Hours

February 18, 2011

Danny Boyle’s 127 Hours tells the story of mountain climber Aron Ralston (James Franco) who becomes trapped beneath a boulder in Utah. We talk to VFX supe Adam Gascoyne from Union Visual Effects about how his studio helped tell this real-life tale of survival.

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Framestore goes under seige

February 17, 2011

A stand-out commercial airing during this year’s Super Bowl was Coca-Cola’s ‘Seige’, featuring a group of evil fire-warriors invading the village of a band of furry, friendly creatures. The Wieden + Kennedy spot was directed by Nexus’ Fx&Mat, with CGI and animation work by Framestore. We talk to Framestore’s visual effects supervisor Diarmid Harrison-Murray.

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The future of Furnace on Flame

February 14, 2011

Recently on Flame-news it was reported that the Foundry would no longer fix bugs or develop for Furnace on Flame.

We spoke exclusively to the Foundry to find out if Furnace was “end of life” on Flame

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Skulley Effects freezes fire for Stone Sour

February 14, 2011

Skulley Effects was behind the frozen moment work in ‘Hesitate’, a music video for Stone Sour that caught our eye. We talk to senior visual effects artist and Skulley owner Culley Bunker.

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Life with the EliteBook: DreamColor Overview

February 10, 2011

One of the attractive aspects of the EliteBook is its DreamColor display, which provides outstanding color response and calibration capabilities which are suited towards film and video pros. In the second of our multi-part series, we take a look at DreamColor and review some of the tech details behind it.

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