The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences today announced that seven films remain in contention for Achievement in Visual Effects for the 80th Academy Awards

Variety is reporting that The Motion Picture Academy’s Oscar will be decided from “Beowulf,” “The Bourne Ultimatum,” “Evan Almighty,” “The Golden Compass,” “Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix,” “I Am Legend,” “Live Free Or Die Hard,” “National Treasure: Book Of Secrets,” “Pirates Of The Caribbean: At World’s End,” “Ratatouille,” “Spider-Man 3,” “Sunshine,” “300,” […]

From the press releases on NVIDIA site and Mental Images, the chip maker based in Santa Clara, CA has bought Mental Images (Berlin, Germany), makers of Mental Ray. Cash or share details of the transaction are yet to be published. NVIDIA has seen its share price swing between $25 a share to $37 and back […]

A new episode of fxguidetv is available for your viewing pleasure. This week’s episode includes an interview with Theo Bialak, CG Supervisor for Sony Pictures Imageworks, who chats with us about the work that went into Beowulf. We caught up with Bialak at the Digital Media World conference in Sydney. The fxphd.com tip of the […]

There are two stories about visual effects by David S. Cohen in Variety today. Vfx supervisors increasingly important explores how the role has expanded as technology allows us to create lead characters and complete environments, crossing all departments. Should Oscar honor animation effects? discusses the role of visual effects in animated films and how that […]

A group has formed to encourage both sides in the writers strike to come together and reach a deal. They are staging a rally and march this weekend at Hollywood and Highland. From the organizers web site: We are not organized or sponsored by any union, guild or association. We are a spontaneous grass-roots outgrowth […]

In this week’s 100th fxpodcast we talk to Lee Wilson of Anthem FX about the companies amazing work on this weekend’s Tin Man miniseries, which premieres Sunday Dec 2nd 9/8c. As this is our 100th episode we just wanted to thank all of you for listening and supporting the podcast. We really appreciate it and […]

In our last fxguidetv episode, we visited Prime Focus in Mumbai and chatted with two of their smoke editors about their Cannes award-winning spot. The company is one of the largest in India and had been looking to acquire more companies in addition to their stake in the UK-based VTR Group. News came across the […]

Finally. A press release came across the wire announcing Combustion 2008 for Macintosh and Windows. While a full list of features wasn’t provided with the release, it did make mention of the addition of the Colour Warper from flame. Click through to read the press release…..

Mark Stasiuk, co-founder and fluid fx guru at Fusion CI Studios, has been facing tsunami-sized demands for fluid fx work these days — from commercial work, to network idents, to feature film. Fusion focuses exclusively on fluid and particle fx and as a result has become an invaluable resource for production companies and vfx houses […]

John Montgomery visits Prime Focus in Mumbai to discuss post production in India and look at an award winning commercial produced there titled “Happy Dent Palace”. Jaynat Hadke and Sabu Joseph of Prime Focus are John’s guests and discuss the market, break down the spot and show other work. The tip of the week shows […]

Sapphire Plug-ins 4.03 for Autodesk systems is now released and available for download from: http://www.genarts.com/sapphire-sparks.html This fixes a problem with certain combinations of sparks in Batch and some issues with LensFlareAutotrackMask. This is a free maintenance release for version 4 customers and will work with your existing v4 license. If you have not yet upgraded […]

Beverly Hills, CA – Making stops at King Kong’s Skull Island and Darth Vader’s Death Star, the Science and Technology Council of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will take audiences on a movie matte painting journey on Monday, December 10, at 8 p.m. at the Linwood Dunn Theater in Hollywood. “Fantastic Reality: […]

Cooke Optics Introduces RED Set of S4/i Lenses for the RED ONE Camera . Cooke Optics has announced a new Cooke RED Set, a package of four standard Cooke S4/i lenses offering a range of focal lengths from 15mm through 100 mm. The lenses incorporate /i metadata capture technology that can be read directly by […]

The new commercial for Honda Odyssey lives up to the vehicle’s name, taking viewers on an unexpected ride with the iconography of a time when people knew to “Respect the Van.” Created by design/production company Nylon, the spot uses visual wizardry (literally) to brand one of the leading minivans in the category.

Ken Cato of Cato Purnell & Partner recently completed a 3D title design sequence for the UK feature film Elizabeth: The Golden Age, at Iloura in Melbourne. Ken Cato was approached by renowned Australian editor Jill Bilcock (credits include: Romeo+Juliet, Mouline Rouge, Elizabeth) to create a stylised title sequence for the film. The title sequence […]

GenArts, Inc., a leading provider of visual effects plug-ins for the film, broadcast and video industries, today announced the immediate availability of Sapphire Plug-ins version 2 for After Effects and compatible products including Adobe Premiere Pro, Apple Final Cut Pro, Autodesk Combustion, and Eyeon Fusion. The new release features over 30 new effects, plus many […]

As part of the ongoing campaign for Mercury, The Brothers Strause directed another Mercury Sable spot : Synapse. The spot is featured in this week’s fxguidetv. The amazing campaign combines Swing and Tilt lens with complex keying, complex roto and some cool cutting edge 3D.

We’ve just released our Background Fundamentals Orientation Week special episode over at fxphd. It provides an overview of what’s going on during the term over at our sister vfx training site….I think you’ll see why were excited about the October07 Term. We’ve got a ton of great courses and professors lined up, including RED camera […]

A new episode of fxguidetv is up which has interviews with Philippe Soeiro from Autodesk who talks about the new 2008 smoke and flame releases. We also speak with Matt Plec from the Foundry about what they were showing at IBC, which is a technology preview of the upcoming Nuke — complete with a brand […]