Stargate crashes The Event
In the second episode of NBC series The Event, a plane once headed to kill the President mysteriously emerges from a wormhole only to crash-land in the desert, care of VFX from Stargate Studios. Lead compositor Diego Galtieri discusses the crash seen in the episode, which received a VES Award nom in the Outstanding Visual Effects in a Broadcast Series category.
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IATSE Informational Meetings this Sunday in Los Angeles and Vancouver
IATSE will host their first public informational meetings in Santa Monica and Vancouver on Sunday, February 13th. IATSE 891 VFX in Vancouver describes the events as an opportunity to “chat with your fellow artists, compare working conditions, and ask the questions you want answered of the union about the organizing drive, the benefits of a […]
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Glassworks goes big for MINI
‘MINI vs Monster’, a stereoscopic spot directed by Robert Jitzmark, features digital crowds and other VFX by Glassworks. Lead 2D and 3D artists Morten Vinther and Markus Lauterbach from the studio’s Amsterdam office break down the work. Included is a making of VFX clip.
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Super vfx for the Super Bowl – part 2
In part two of our Super Bowl spot coverage, we put the VFX spotlight on some of the other outstanding commercials that aired during the game.
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Super vfx for the Super Bowl – part 1
In part one of our Super Bowl XLV commercials coverage, we look at Method Studios’ ‘Carma’ spot for Bridgestone Tires and The Mill’s Cars.com ‘Reviews Are In’ ad. And check out episode #101 of fxguidetv for an in-depth look at Animal Logic’s ‘One Epic Ride’ spot.
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Building a Boardwalk Empire
We talk to Brainstorm Digital visual effects producer Richard Friedlander about his studio’s work for HBO series Boardwalk Empire. This week Richard received, along with Robert Stromberg, Dave Taritero and Paul Graff, a VES Award for Outstanding Supporting Visual Effects in a Broadcast Program for the show.
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2010 VES Award Winners
The 9th Annual VES Awards were held last night at The Beverly Hilton recognizing outstanding visual effects artistry in 24 categories. The event was hosted by Patton Oswalt. Nominees were selected January 8th by VES members in an all day screening process held in Burbank, San Francisco, London, Sydney and Vancouver. The winners were then […]
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Nexus, always unpredictable
London studio Nexus recently created ‘This Unpredictable Life’, an rousing animated piece for Honda Jazz that shows life as an unknowable journey. Watch ‘This Unpredictable Life’ The spot was directed by Smith & Foulkes for agency Wieden and Kennedy London. It begins with a giant shoal of babies, and then follows just one person through […]
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ShapeShifting with Charlex
A dark car speeding through the night bursts suddenly into a thousand pieces, forming brilliant metallic creatures on the surface of an alien planet. Such is the action in ShapeShifter, a short film entirely conceived and created by New York studio Charlex. We take a look at how the film, directed by Charlex founder Alex Weil and narrated by Gabriel Byrne, came to be.
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Podcast recommendation: A Conversation with Dave Rand
Visual Effects Artist David Rand spoke recently at an event in Vancouver sponsored by IATSE 891 VFX. This talk has just been made available as an audio podcast and we highly recommend it for anyone working in Visual Effects.
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Psyop’s toy story cleans up
A roomful of anxious toys face the dangers of domestic dust in ‘Something’s Lurking’, a Psyop spot for LG’s Kompressor Elite vacuum cleaner. We spoke to lead 2D artist Nick Tanner to get an in-depth look at how the spot came together.
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The VFX 2011 Oscar nominees reactions
fxguide would like to congratulate all of the VFX artists who worked on the 2010 Oscar-nominated films, and especially the nominees themselves. We spoke to a few of the nominees today to get their first reactions, but we will also be continuing our series of Tech behind the major facilities, so keep an eye out […]
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2010 Visual Effects Oscar Nominees announced
This morning The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced the nominees for the 83rd Academy Awards®. Getting the nod were Alice in Wonderland, Harry Potter, Hereafter, Inception and Iron Man 2. In a bit of a surprise, Tron: Legacy was not nominated.
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HP EliteBook Mobile Workstation Giveaway
To celebrate the new site we are giving away an HP EliteBook 8740w worth about US$6,000 thanks to our friends at HP and NVIDIA. This is not a laptop or a tablet PC. This is a serious mobile workhorse.
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Ben Snow: the evolution of ILM’s lighting tools
In this written version of the fxpodcast: we continue our series of stories on the technical tools behind the big effects companies, we talk to Ben Snow of ILM about his career & the development of the energy conservation lighting, as recently used on Iron Man 2.
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Gondry-fying The Green Hornet
Michel Gondry’s signature filmmaking touches are ever-abundant in The Green Hornet, the director’s take on the masked vigilante made famous in radio serials and comics. VFX supervisor Jamie Dixon guides us through some of the the film’s key 650 effects shots.
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Bending time with The Green Hornet
Some of the stand-out shots in Michel Gondry’s The Green Hornet occur in the time bending fight sequence effects, seen as the character Kato utilizes his martial arts skills to dispatch the bad guys. We take an in-depth look at how these shots were created by CIS Hollywood.
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Life with the HP EliteBook 8740w, Part 1
We’ve got a new HP EliteBook Mobile Workstation in house at fxguide and will be posting over the next month about our experiences with the notebook. With high-end features such as a DreamColor display and Quadro 5000M Fermi graphics, it seems built for our industry. In this post, we have our first overview of the hardware.
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Re-Award me! guest columnist Liz Foster looks at awards
Recognition in any profession is something we all crave. And there’s nothing better than getting recognition from your peers. The advertising industry is no exception. Guest Columnist and Brand Manager Liz Foster looks at Advertising Awards.
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British Academy Film Awards nominees announced
The 2011 Film Awards Nominees for the Orange British Academy Film Awards were announced today. In the Special Visual Effects category three of five nominated films are the same as will appear in this week’s bake-off for the Oscars, however BAFTA adds Black Swan and Toy Story 3. We believe this is the first time […]
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Alembic update with Rob Bredow: What happened to it?
Last Siggraph (2010 LA), a news conference was called to announce a new interchange format. SPI and ILM took to the stage to launch a modeling format that wasn’t FBX, wasn’t OBJ and wasn’t yet released. Now some 6 months later we speak to Rob Bredow, CTO of SPI, to find out what happened to it.
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Atomic Fiction
Atomic Fiction is a new visual effects company formed by three former ImageMovers Digital employees.
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VFX fighting hard to look invisible: The Fighter
For The Fighter, director David O. Russell called on Comen VFX to provide major invisible effects for the boxing film, including processing video for key boxing scenes, crowd replications, other enhancements and even a shot involving a phone number and a bar napkin.
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New server report: day one
We’ve made it through 24 hours with the new server and web site here at fxguide.com and wanted to update our readers with some notes about some of the changes, what isn’t working, and how to report bugs to us.
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The new fxguide & fxinsider
Today we launch the new fxguide. Since 1999, a small group of artists has proudly covered the production, post, and vfx industry. With the support of the community we have published thousands of articles, podcasts, videos, tips and other content. Since our inception, we have grown and yet we love servicing this industry we care so much about more than ever.
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Lagoa Multiphysics
Thiago Costa’s Lagoa Multiphysics teaser simulation video caused somewhat of a sensation when it was released on the Internet last year. Costa talks to Mike Seymour about his physics simulation work.
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Art of stereo conversion: 2D to 3D
Stereo conversion, or dimensionalization as it is sometimes called, is the process of making stereo images from non-stereo traditional 2D images.
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2010 VES Award Nominees
The Visual Effects Society (VES) has announced the nominees for the 9th Annual VES Awards. Nominees were chosen by VES members who viewed submissions at the FotoKem screening facilities in Burbank and San Francisco as well as at other facilities in London, Sydney and Vancouver.
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Gulliver’s Travels’ titles ‘Rock it’ in stereo
Rok!t Studio was behind the innovative main titles for Gulliver’s Travels, giving a tilt-shift and time-lapse perspective of New York City. fxinsider takes an in-depth look at the work with Rok!t visual effects supervisor Lee Nelson.
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Gulliver’s travelling mattes, green screen & fluid sims
Jack Black travels back to Lilliput in director Rob Letterman’s modern take on Gulliver’s Travels. We take a look at some of the key vfx work by Weta Digital, Hydraulx, Scanline, Method and the main titles by Rok!t Studio.
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