IATSE Informational Meetings this Sunday in Los Angeles and Vancouver

February 9, 2011

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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2010 VES Award Winners

February 2, 2011

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

February 2, 2011

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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Podcast recommendation: A Conversation with Dave Rand

January 31, 2011

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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2010 Visual Effects Oscar Nominees announced

January 25, 2011

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

January 25, 2011

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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Life with the HP EliteBook 8740w, Part 1

January 19, 2011

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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British Academy Film Awards nominees announced

January 18, 2011

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?

January 18, 2011

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

January 16, 2011

Atomic Fiction is a new visual effects company formed by three former ImageMovers Digital employees.

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New server report: day one

January 12, 2011

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

January 11, 2011

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

January 11, 2011

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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2010 VES Award Nominees

January 10, 2011

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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2010 Scientific and Technical Academy Award Winners announced

January 7, 2011

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences today announced the winners of the Sci-Tech awards. Scientific and Engineering the awards go to: Dr. Mark Sagar for facial motion retargeting solutions, Mark Noel and John Frazier for NAC Servo Winch System, James Rodnunsky, Alex MacDonald and Mark Chapman for the development of the Cablecam 3-D […]

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Short List announced for VFX Oscar, 7 head to Bake Off

January 5, 2011

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences today announced that the “long list” of 15 films eligible for the Achievement in Visual Effects for the 83rd Academy Awards® has been whittled down to the “short list” of seven films. The members of the Academy’s Visual Effects Branch Executive Committee decided which seven films will […]

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Foundry Formally Announces KATANA Plans

January 5, 2011

The Foundry issued a press release today formally detailing their plans for KATANA. Created in house at Sony Pictures Imageworks, KATANA is a look development tool specifically targeted towards to the demands of production: non-destructive, dealing with large amounts of data, and collaboration’ At the end of last year, fxguide traveled to SIGGRAPH Asia and […]

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Emotion capture

January 3, 2011

A short ILM/Paramount video on Rango Emotion Capture. Download mov We wanted to post this as it is an interesting way of capturing a more animated acting performance. We have often wondered why this was not done before now – it seems like such a more friendly actor environment than just doing a straight to […]

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New Courses at fxphd.com

January 2, 2011

A new term has just been launched at fxphd.com for film and TV professionals. This term is focused on three main areas: – workflow from not only a variety of cameras & formats but with a special focus on stereo production (including RED Arri-RAW, HD-SR and more) – along side this is several courses focused […]

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Only EPIC camera delivered has been stolen, $100,000 reward offered

December 31, 2010

In our most recent Red Centre podcast we talked with Mark L. Pederson from OffHollywood about receiving the very first EPIC camera to be shipped to a customer by RED, serial #00006. On REDuser.net today comes word that this camera was stolen from a chalet in the alps when thieves forced entry and took the […]

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fxpodcast: Steven Poster, ASC

December 29, 2010

Steven Poster, ASC is the National President of the International Cinematographers Guild, Local 600 of I.A.T.S.E.. In this fxpodcast we discuss his background, the relationship between visual effects and cinematographers, color correction, digital cinematography and the recent efforts to organize visual effects. Visit the fxpodcast page for direct downloads and RSS feed links. To be […]

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Yet Another Facility Closes: CafeFX

December 23, 2010

We received an email today from Jeff Barnes and David Ebner, announcing that CafeFX/ComputerCafe have decided to shut down. This comes after a downsizing earlier this year. It saddens us here at fxguide to hear the news of their closing and wish everyone the best. The outstanding company has worked on a number of visual […]

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Toy Story 3 technical podcast : Siggraph Asia

December 22, 2010

fxguide attended Siggraph Asia and caught up with Brian Green of Pixar (California). Brian has the unique distinction of being the character supervisor of the “most successful animated movie of all time” twice. The Academy Award-winning feature “Finding Nemo” broke all box office records in 2003, and “Toy Story 3” broke box office records in […]

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Nuke 6.2 Ships

December 20, 2010

The Foundry has just a new major release of its powerful compositing applications NUKE and NUKEX 6.2. Now shipping, this release encompasses artist feedback to deliver continued refinements to core operations whilst also incorporating the new technology. Most significantly the new image-based modeling and projection tools will advance artists’ ability to create and use scene […]

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Dawn Treader Podcasts

December 15, 2010

We have two new podcasts, The Red Centre podcast focused on digital cinematography and a new fxpodcast – both covering different aspects of the new film The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. We speak in a frank and in-depth interview with Angus Bickerton, the VFX supervisor for the film. Part 1 […]

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Imagineer Shipping mocha pro, Improved mocha AE

December 15, 2010

We’ve been fans of Imagineer’s mocha, mokey, and monet products and the planar tracking technology that forms the foundation of the offerings. But in the past we’ve also honestly been a bit confused with the lineup and what product did what. So at IBC when we learned that they were simplifying their lineup into three […]

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Click3X Lego Fun

December 12, 2010

Stop-motion photography and visual effects by Click 3X helped bring together Build Together, a :30 spot promoting the joys of LEGO construction. We take a look at how the commercial was created. Click here for the Quicktime The brief for Build Together centred around LEGO’s new online experience to share the building experience at home. […]

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15 selected as semifinalists for VFX Oscar

December 10, 2010

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences today announced that 15 films have been selected as semifinalists for Achievement in Visual Effects for the 83rd Academy Awards®. In early January, the members of the Academy’s Visual Effects Branch Executive Committee, who selected the semifinalists, will narrow the list to seven. Those seven will go […]

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Mirada – Purveyors of Handmade Storytelling

December 9, 2010

After a string of bad industry news it is great to be able to bring news of a new venture. Mirada is a new production studio that will develop and produce television programming, video games, commercials and films. Designed for storytellers, the studio is a collaboration between director Guillermo del Toro, Motion Theory principals Mathew […]

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RV now integrates with Nuke

December 9, 2010

Tweak Software announces today that their image sequence viewer product RV is now integrated seamlessly within Nuke. This integration makes the player much more integrated to Nuke than just a flipbook, RV communicates with Nuke over a live connection. To be clear RV is still a separate product, requiring purchase from Tweak Software, there is […]

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