Visual Effects Oscar category to expand to 5 nominees?

May 18, 2010

David S. Cohen from Variety is reporting that the Visual Effects branch of the Motion Picture Academy has voted to expand the number of Visual Effects Oscar nominees from three to five. This change must now be voted on by the rules committee and the Board of Governors. The Visual Effects Society and several larger […]

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Robin Hood at MPC

May 17, 2010

For Robin Hood, director Ridley Scott’s take on the classic tale, MPC created hundreds of visual effects of medieval castles, an invading French armada, CG troops and many, many arrows. We talk to MPC visual effects supervisor Richard Stammers about his work for the film.

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Iron Man 2 Podcasts

May 17, 2010

We have two Iron Man 2 podcasts from 3 countries! Our new fxpodcast has an indepth (audio) podcast with Ben Snow of ILM discussing their work and in particular a detailed discussion – as only fxguide does- on the algorithms used in the lighting models by ILM. Visit the fxpodcast page for direct downloads and […]

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Going Down Under Hill 60

May 15, 2010

For Beneath Hill 60, the story of a secret group of Australian tunnelers recruited to Germany in the First World War, Cutting Edge completed 120 visual effects shots ranging from matte paintings, smoke and rain enhancements to fully digital explosions. We talk to visual effects supervisor Ron Roberts about the film.

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cineSync & Shotgun Announce Integration

May 13, 2010

cineSync is a remote review and approval tool that enables synchronized viewing and annotation of content across the web, Shotgun is a web-based project management and collaboration system. Both products have been mainstays in pipelines at leading facilities for years, but they have operated independently. With remote collaboration a staple of modern production it makes […]

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Kicking Ass with DNeg

May 9, 2010

Kick-Ass, director Matthew Vaughn’s take on the graphic novels by Mark Millar and John Romita Jr., tells the story of unlikely superhero Dave Lizewski (Aaron Johnson). Double Negative oversaw 835 visual effects for the film, ranging from city backdrops to a jet pack flight over New York. We talk to visual effects supervisor Mattias Lindahl about the work.

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RSP: Mao’s Last Dancer

May 5, 2010

Bruce Beresford’s Mao’s Last Dancer, the story of a poor Chinese boy’s journey to a top American ballet troupe, features just over 70 visual effects shots from Rising Sun Pictures, including traditional greenscreen composites, a matte painted stage backdrop and crowd replication. We talk about the seamless work with visual effects supervisor Tim Crosbie. fxg: […]

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Ashes to Ashes: Gears of War 3

May 4, 2010

For ‘Ashes to Ashes’, a trailer for Epic Games’ 2011 Xbox 360 release Gears of War 3, Digital Domain utilised Unreal Engine to give a cinematic glimpse of some of the game’s characters and plotlines. Director Vernon R. Wilbert Jr., also the trailer’s visual effects supervisor, talks to fxguide about how it was realised.

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Previsualization Society announces Previs 2010 Event

April 28, 2010

Los Angeles, CA (April 28, 2010) — The Previsualization Society today announced “Previs 2010,” the organization’s inaugural event in Los Angeles scheduled for May 8. The one-day gathering will bring together a wide spectrum of professionals who use and interact with previs for an exploration of current previs approaches, workflows and new work. The event […]

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Clash of the Titans: Cinesite, Framestore and MPC

April 26, 2010

Giant scorpiochs, a winged horse, the evil Medusa, effervescent characters, digital cities and an enormous Kraken are just some of the visual effects realised in director Louis Leterrier’s remake of Clash of the Titans. We hone in one some of the main effects work by Cinesite, Framestore and MPC.

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Nanny 2 – Nanny McPhee at Framestore

April 22, 2010

For Nanny McPhee and the Big Bang, the sequel to 2005’s Nanny McPhee, director Susanna White brought Framestore on board as the sole visual effects provider. While completing a number of magical effects, the studio also delivered extensive character animation of pigs, an elephant and a jackdaw bird. In this interview we talk to Framestore visual effects supervisor Christian Manz about his work for the film.

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fxguidetv: NAB #3 – RED Day, AE & Premiere CS5, Avid

April 20, 2010

In our third episode covering NAB 2010 (#81) we talk with Ted Shilowitz and get exclusive access to the Epic demo room at RED Day, we talk with Michael Coleman and Karl Lee Soule from Adobe to get some insight into the CS5 releases of After Effects and Premiere, and Angus MacKay brings us up […]

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Shutter Island

April 17, 2010

Practical, miniature, digital and often surreal effects helped tell the story of Martin Scorsese’s Shutter Island, in which U.S. marshal Teddy Daniels (Leonardo DiCaprio) investigates the disappearance of a criminally insane hospital patient. Overseen by vfx supervisor Rob Legato, New Deal Studios & CafeFX completed the lion’s share of work for the film. We talk to New Deal’s Matthew Gratzner & Ben Grossmann from CafeFX.

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fxpodcast: NAB Roundtable

April 16, 2010

Of all the coverage we bring you from NAB our annual wrap up roundtable is one of the most popular. This year Jason Wingrove (Red Centre), Dave Edgar and Mat Graham (fxphd) join John, Mike and Jeff to share what they saw and heard on the show floor. Topics include Black Magic dropping DaVinci Resolve’s […]

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fxguidetv: NAB show #2, Cineform, Mocha, Alexa

April 15, 2010

In our second episode covering NAB 2010 (#80) we look at Cineform, the latest release of Mocha and we get details on Arri’s latest offering for digital cinematography, Alexa. This new camera can record raw files and at the same time generate ProRes files for immediate use in post production so we asked to shoot […]

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Photoshop CS5 : new HDR imaging & content aware

April 12, 2010

Today Adobe unveiled CS5 – there are multiple applications in CS5, but for many Photoshop and After Effects are the most vital. In fxguidetv later this week we will profile the new AE, while in this article we take a critical look at Photoshop’s HDR and Content Aware functions. Plus we’ll explain and list the JDI fixes.

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fxguidetv: Flame/Smoke 2011 Releases

April 12, 2010

Our first fxguidetv episode from NAB covers the new Flame and Smoke 2011 releases from Autodesk. This is one of the biggest releases in years, adding stereoscopic support, an entirely new rendering engine in Action, and an improved footage import workflow that includes “import history”. We have over an hour of interviews that cover the […]

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Exclusive: Foundry Storm revealed

April 12, 2010

As The Foundry booth was being built around us, the fxguide crew managed to get the world’s first Storm demo. Storm is a workflow tool, initially aimed at working with RED files, highly focused and leveraged off a wealth of GPU R&D and years of GUI development. Storm will not be released for several months but in this exclusive look we profile the product, uncover its projected cost and discover a few surprises.

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Nuke on Episodic TV @ Fusefx

April 9, 2010

When Burbank-based visual effects studio FuseFX began working on the new season of Showtime’s “United States of Tara,” it turned to Nuke, The Foundry’s powerful compositing application, which is normally thought of as primarily a feature film compositing tool, or for CG/3D multi-pass TVC workflow. As the series requires extensive green screen effects, given the […]

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fxpodcast with Tom Walsh, President of the Art Directors Guild

April 7, 2010

As part of our continuing labor series we sit down with Tom Walsh, President of the Art Directors Guild to discuss the role of the Guild. We talk about job categories represented by the Guild, the global business, how the Guild relates to the visual effects business and much more. Tom is also a working […]

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New fxguidetv Mari @ the foundry

April 7, 2010

In the new fxguidetv episode we have an exclusive first look at the texturing and paint software Mari with The Foundry’s Bill Collis and Jack Greasley. Mari was developed at Weta as the in house tool, and is now moving to the Foundry. Mari is a remarkable paint and texturing tool able to handle very […]

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The tech behind the tools of Avatar part 2: Naiad

April 7, 2010

Avatar won Best single visual effect of the year at the VES for the Neytiri “leaf drinking shot” – central to that was the new Naiad fluid tool. Exotic Matter’s Naiad is an extremely powerful fluid tool that is about to go into Beta following extensive development from its use on Avatar.

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New Version of Silhouette Released

April 1, 2010

Silhouette has always been an incredibly strong tool, in large part due to its dedication to a specific task: roto. This week, version 4 was released which contains major enhancements and additions to the application. The first is what is called “Power Matte”, which uses inner-outer shape algorithms to determine the edges of the object. […]

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VFX Town Hall #1 Audio File

March 31, 2010

If you missed the first VFX Town Hall meeting we are helping with bandwidth by hosting the mp3 of the audio recording of the event. You can listen by using this link.

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VFX Town Hall – Community Links

March 31, 2010

One of the things we have been impressed with since the town hall was announced is the grass roots growth we have seen in the community. People have been taking full advantage of tools on the internet like wiki’s and google documents to share information and help develop guidelines. After the jump you will find […]

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Digital Domain: The Lightning Thief

March 31, 2010

For Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief, director Chris Columbus and visual effects supervisor Kevin Mack looked to Digital Domain to create some of the key creatures and effects in the film. We talk to DD’s visual effects supervisor Kelly Port and animation supervisor Erik Gamache about their work for the Hydra beast, the six-winged Fury character and the film’s final New York face-off.

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VFX Town Hall – how did it go, what did it mean?

March 30, 2010

Last night the first in a series of online town hall meetings was held – organized by Lee Stranahan, the panelists were Chris deFaria -Vice President, Warner Bros. Pictures, Jefferey A. Okun – Visual Effects Society Chair and visual effects supervisor and Scott Ross – Co-Founder of Digital Domain & former CEO of Industrial, Light […]

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Exclusive: Foundry NAB Preview

March 29, 2010

In this sneak peak we outline the new products from the foundry to be shown for the first time at NAB 2010 in Las Vegas. New products include the acquisition of Weta’s Paint and texturing program Mari, a new optical flow tool for AE and new Nuke versions.

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Reminder – VFX Online Townhall Meeting

March 29, 2010

Monday, March 29th at 7pm (Pacific) there will be “an open discussion of a visual effects industry in transition”. This free online townhall meeting has been put together by Lee Stranahan, a former visual effects artist and writer for The Huffington Post whose Open Letter To James Cameron: Fairness For VIsual Effects Artists sparked a […]

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Leap Year – Cinesite

March 28, 2010

Cinesite visual effects supervisor Matt Johnson takes us through the invisible effects of Anand Tucker’s Leap Year, a film in which Amy Adams plans to propose to her boyfriend in Dublin on leap day – Feburary 29th.

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