Sherlock Holmes
Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes recently received the Outstanding Supporting Visual Effects in a Feature Motion Picture prize at the 8th annual VES Awards. Vfx supervisor Chas Jarrett led the effort behind more than 1000 effect shots to recreate Victorian London in 1891. In this article, we focus on three visual effects sequences from the film: the shipyard fight and the wharf explosion shot, both by Framestore, and the Tower Bridge shots by DNeg.
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Bunny power
French studio Digital District completed the animation for ‘Bunny Fusion’, a Duracell Ultra spot directed by Pleix via Ogilvy Paris. In the spot, hoards of Duracell bunnies launch themselves in massive numers as a waterfall then morph into a tornado, sumo wrestler, elephant and finally a steaming train.
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ImageMovers Digital Closing
It was announced today that ImageMovers Digital in Marin County will be closing after completing Mars Needs Moms, expected to be January 2011. ImageMovers Digital was built by Robert Zemekis with Disney and is best known for producing A Christmas Carol. We first heard this news from a San Francisco friend’s Facebook posting, then a […]
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Alice in Wonderland
Tim Burton’s re-imagining of Alice in Wonderland features a cast of real and digital characters, plus some that are in-between. One such character is the Red Queen (Helena Bonham Carter) who appears on screen with an enormous and imposing head care of visual effects by Sony Pictures Imageworks. In this interview we focus on the Red Queen shots by talking to Carey Villegas, one of Imageworks’ visual effects supervisors on the film.
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Ok Syyn Labs Go…Adam Sadowsky
In the last 48 hours an amazing video has swept the net. The OK Go “This Too Shall Pass” music video – built and engineered by a creative geek group of mad scientists, art lovers, and inspired geniuses that collectively go by the name of Syyn Labs. As Adam Sadowsky, of Syyn Labs, was getting […]
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The tech behind the tools of Avatar part 1: Ocula
Ocula is at the very heart of the new post-production tools that have emerged to deal with stereo. Nuke and Ocula were used extensively on Avatar, and we explore the lessons learned with Simon Robinson, Chief Scientist of the Foundry. Ocula, in particular, is a real partnership between filmmakers on the cutting edge and the UK software developer.
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Visual Effects link roundup
The internet has been particularly active this week with visual effects news. Here is a list of links that we found interesting, if we missed any please add to comments and if we find more this week we’ll add them here. Visual Effects related links: Wall Street Journal: Working as a Visual Effects Artist Shoot: […]
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It’s Official – 5D Mk II Update Date
We know many of you are waiting for the 5D MkII update to 24 P. The date is Mid-March and the features will include: The new firmware incorporates the following updates and benefits: 1) Frame rate now to include 24fps (cinema) and 25fps (PAL broadcast). Shoots a variety of frame rates, overcomes the need for […]
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VES Award Winners
The 8th Annual VES Awards were held tonight, Sunday, February 28th at the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza Hotel in Beverly Hills, California. James Cameron was honored with the VES Lifetime Achievement Award and Ed Catmull with the George Melies Award for Pioneering. Avatar took a lot of awards with District 9 besting it in one […]
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Avatar wins BAFTA for Special Visual Effects
Congratulations to Joe Letteri, Stephen Rosenbaum, Richard Baneham, Andrew R. Jones who took home the BAFTA for Special Visual Effects for Avatar. The Orange British Academy Film Awards rewards the best work of any nationality seen on British cinema screens during the preceding year. The awards took place on February 21, 2010 at the Royal […]
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Invictus draws a crowd
Invictus tells the story of South African President Nelson Mandela’s efforts to unite his torn country under the auspices of the 1995 Rugby World Cup Championship. Director Clint Eastwood collaborated with visual effects supervisor Michael Owens and CIS Vancouver to create virtual stadiums and crowds, plus key digital make-up effects, for the pivotal rugby matches seen in the film.
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Massive 4.0 Released
The folks at Massive Software announced today that version 4.0 of Massive is now shipping. The release contains new Terrain Nodes, V-Ray rendering, new Stadium placement tools, and other improvements. We’ll have the new release available soon on the VPN over at our sister training site fxphd.com. For the full press release from Massive, click […]
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Open Letter, Animation Guild Updates and Other Resources
There has been a lot of activity since our podcast about the Open Letter to James Cameron and our interview with Steven Hulett from The Animation Guild. In the interview with Lee Stranahan about the Open Letter he proposed a VFX Town Hall meeting, a webinar style event to discuss the issue of VFX Fairness. […]
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GenArts buys Tinder plugins from The Foundry
GenArts CEO Katherine Hays received a call one day from Bill Collis of the Foundry – a call which led to GenArts buying all of the Tinder plug-ins. The move all but cements GenArts position as the dominant plugin company for high applications such as Nuke and Autodesk systems. But why did the Foundry want to drop its profitable plug-ins and how will GenArts get a return on all its recent acquisitions? Mike Seymour speaks to both companies to get the detai
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Red Centre Podcast: Red Day & Shane Hurlbut
Red Centre 56 podcast out. This is our biggest show ever, with Red and Canon news, Jeff’s Heusser reports from LA on the February Red Day. And Shane Hurlbut ASC (Terminator Salvation DOP ) kicks down the door of the Red Room. Click the more button below for a portfolio of images from Shane Hurlbut, […]
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fxpodcast: An Open Letter to James Cameron
A week ago Lee Stranahan wrote an article in the Huffington Post titled: Open Letter To James Cameron: Fairness For Visual Effects Artists. Lee has opened a wider dialogue for a topic we have been championing for years. We discuss what led him to write the article, the reaction, what should happen next and issue […]
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How am I supposed to live without sidekicks?
A sad salt shaker, dejected after learning that Knorr’s ‘Sidekicks’ contains 25 per cent less sodium, is the star of ‘Salty’, a David Hicks-directed commercial with visual effects by Toronto-based axyz. Lead animator Dennis Turner and Inferno artist Andres Kirejew talk to fxguide about the challenges of the spot, which included listening repeatedly to Michael Bolton’s ‘How Am I Supposed To Live Without You?’.
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fxpodcast: Another Visit with The Animation Guild
Steven Hulett is the Business Representative of The Animation Guild (TAG) Local 839 IATSE, he last joined us for a podcast in August of 2008. We wanted to talk further with him about the Guild and get more of the history of previous efforts to organize visual effects. We talk about the failed efforts a […]
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Open Letter To James Cameron: Fairness For Visual Effects Artists
Lee Stranahan is a Filmmaker, Writer, Photographer who writes for the Huffington Post. He has crafted an Open Letter To James Cameron. This is a must read: Open Letter To James Cameron: Fairness For Visual Effects Artists
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Oscar Nominations announced
Nominations for the 82nd Academy Awards® were announced early this morning by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. For the visual effects category this means the field is now narrowed from seven to these three nominated films: Avatar Joe Letteri, Stephen Rosenbaum, Richard Baneham and Andrew R. Jones District 9 Dan Kaufman, Peter […]
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The Halo Life
The Life, a live action short directed by MJZ’s Rupert Sanders to promote the launch of Halo 3: ODST for the Xbox 360, features visual effects by Asylum as we follow Tarkov, an Orbital Drop Shock Trooper, through training and a major battle sequence. Visual effects supervisor and lead compositor Rob Moggach tells fxguide how […]
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Foundry Katana Blog Post + New Tuts
Late last year, The Foundry announced a tech sharing agreement with Sony Pictures Imageworks which included access to SPI’s Katana 3D software. Since that time, there has been some discussion (even grumbling) on the net and mailing lists about The Foundry losing focus regarding the heart of Nuke: compositing. If you’ve watched some of the […]
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Happy Christmas Mr. Zemeckis
In A Christmas Carol, featuring Jim Carrey as Ebenezer Scrooge and the three ghosts that haunt him, director Robert Zemeckis relied on the newly formed ImageMovers Digital to bring this performance capture adaptation of Charles Dickens’ novel to life. fxguide speaks with visual effects supervisor George Murphy and animation supervisor Jenn Emberly about making the performances possible.
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Inside Rodriguez’s ‘Shorts’
In Shorts, director Robert Rodriguez delivers his trademark colourful imagery to tell the story of a young boy’s wish-granting rock discovery. Working alongside the director were artists at Rodriguez’s own Troublemaker Studios who, with other effects studios, delivered a bevy of fun visual treats, including an impressive booger monster. Troublemaker’s Chris Olivia talks to fxguide […]
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Nuke 6/NukeX 6 Released
The Foundry has released two new versions of their Nuke compositing software, Nuke 6.0 and NukeX 6.0. Nuke 6.0 includes a completely new shape rotoscope and paint toolset and also bundles Keylight as a standard feature. NukeX 6.0 contains a new 3D camera tracker, lens distortion tools, depth generator, and Furnace Core — 12 Furnace […]
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BAFTA Film Award Nominations
Avatar, District 9, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, The Hurt Locker and Star Trek have been nominated for British Academy Film Awards in the category Special Visual Effects. The Orange British Academy Film Awards take place on February 21st at The Royal Opera House, London. A complete list of nominees can be found at […]
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le freak
Bringing a bunch of colourful characters to life in Paul Weitz’s Cirque du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant was the job of Rhythm & Hues. Visual effects supervisor Todd Shifflett tells fxguide how his studio approached the diverse range of Freak Show performers in the film.
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THR states Avatar leads VES awards
The VES nominations have been released a tad early it seems by the Hollywood Reporter, which is claiming James Cameron’s “Avatar” led the list of nominations scoring 11 nominations. The animated “Coraline,”also released in Stereo, followed with four nominations. New Zealand-based Weta Digital, which worked on “Avatar,” led the company noms with nine. For visual […]
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Sony Releases Open Source Shading Language
At last year’s SIGGRAPH in New Orleans, Sony Pictures Imageworks (SPI) announced their open source initiative in 5 areas. At the time, we spoke with Rob Bredow in fxguidetv episode #69 about this and other happenings at Sony. Today, SPI released the alpha version of the source code for their Open Shading Language (OSL) at […]
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Goats, hamsters and the military
Grant Heslov’s The Men Who Stare At Goats tells the story of a former U.S. Army member claiming to be a psychic soldier who can, among other things, stop the hearts of animals using only his mind. CIS Hollywood, under the vfx supervision of Thomas J. Smith, realised shots of this so-called power in action, as well as a number of other sequences in the film. Digital fx supervisor Joe Henke talks to fxguide about how the shots were accomplished.
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