Directed by Mexican-born Guillermo del Toro, Pan’s Labyrinth tells the story of little Ofelia who is escapes by moving into fairy tales and magic lands in an enchanted forest, set against the backdrop of Spanish fascism. We caught up with VFX suprvisor Everett Burrell of CafeFX to discuss the film.

The Visual Effects Society (VES), the entertainment industry’s only organization of visual effects professionals, today announced the nominees for the 5th Annual VES Awards recognizing outstanding visual effects in twenty-one (21) categories of film, television, commercials, music videos and games.

John Berton, who worked on Men in Black and The Mummy, was overall visual effects supervisor for Charlotte’s Web. We talk to the teams at Digital Pictures Iloura, Rising Sun, Stan Winston Studio and FUEL about their involvement in the motion picture. UPDATE: VES nomination and detailed 3D passes.

Vue 6 was introduced at Siggraph and began shipping during the last part of 2006. The software is used for creating, animating and rendering natural 3D environments and the release brought numerous enhancements. We will soon be doing a review of the new version, but in the meantime here is an overview of what the latest release offers.

Intelligent Creatures is a Canadian effects house, part of the Candian Cartel. The company was formed by artists Raymond Gieringer, Michael Hatton, Lon Molnar and Wendy Lanning. We caught up with some of the founders to talk about some of their work on films such as Babel, Stranger Than Fiction and The Fountain.

In the second part of our series blogging the film The Deaths of Ian, we go on set with the visual effects supervisor, Dennis Michelson. A veteran of countless productions both behind the camera and behind the computer, Michelson talks about how the production tackled many of the issues of combining physical and digital effects.

With the release of the first public beta of CS3 – we take a first look from the stand point of a VFX artist or matte painter. We answer the question “What’s new in it and is it any faster ?”

Visual effects artist Victor Wolansky recently finished a spot involving complex 3D tracking in HD. fxguide caught up with Victor and got a detailed breakdown of the shot. We also picked up a few tricks about how to agressively use 3D tracking in a tv commercial world.

Over the last several weeks, there have been some high-profile layoffs in Montreal at Autodesk’s Media & Entertainment Division. For most flame artists, the most recognizable departure would be the “mayor of discreet”, Martin Helie. We cover those changes and interview Autodesk’s Marc Petit about the reasons behind the reorganization.