(411mania.com) According to IGN, the fourth Road
Warrior film, titled Mad Max 4: Fury Road, will be filmed in 3D. While
that may not be a huge surprise considering the current trend toward
3D in big-budget films, Slash Film is reporting a rumor that the film
will be a combination of live-action and CGI animation.
The film project has been rumored to be possibly filmed in an entirely
animated CGI form before, but this is the first time a rumor has
spread about a combination of the two production methods. The film is
set to be directed by George Miller (Happy Feet) and star Charlize
Theron and Tom Hardy (Black Hawk Down).
Star Wars Passed By Avatar's Box Office
(filmschoolrejects.com) Happy Martin Luther King Day,
James Cameron! Not even Denzel Washington and The Book of Eli could
stop Avatar from a fifth straight weekend on top of the box office.
What's more, the $491 million domestic haul officially passed the $460
million haul of Star Wars to make this the third biggest domestic box
office in history. The next targets: the $533 million haul of The Dark
Knight and the $600 million of the current record holder Titanic.
Korea A Computer Graphics Hub
(joongangdaily.joins.com) It's not something Koreans
haven't heard before: a promise to make Korea "a hub" of something.
We've had proposals for business hubs, logistics hubs, R&D hubs and
the list goes on.
Well, this time the Korean government says it will make Korea a hub of
computer graphics, taking its cue from the explosive success of the
3-D film "Avatar," which is laden with computer graphics.
As of last week, James Cameron's Hollywood blockbuster had racked up
more than $1.6 billion in sales worldwide, according to U.S.-based Box
Office Mojo, becoming second highest grossing movie of all time after
Cameron's 1998 film "Titanic," which earned $1.8 billion worldwide.
The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism unveiled last week an
ambitious plan to inject 200 billion won ($178 million) into the
computer graphics industry through 2013 to transform Korea into the
Asian hub for computer graphics. Its strategy includes measures such
as financial and tax benefits, technical and equipment support,
training and research and development projects.
"Korea's CG technology has already reached a notable level," said
Culture Minister Yu In-chon at a recent press conference. "We believe
given the right direction and support from the government, it will
just be the matter of time before Korean CG businesses become global
market leaders."
Meanwhile, experts believe the VFX, or visual effects, including
computer-generated imagery, is becoming more important than ever.
But it does make one wonder about the relationship between Korea and
CG technology. Is Korea really ready to compete with its foreign
counterparts in U.S., Europe and New Zealand, markets with advanced
computer graphics technology?
Korean officials do have a list of recent CG films and dramas that
were made in Korea and that have been successful, including "Jeon Woo
Chi: The Taoist Wizard," "Take Off," "Haeundae," "Iris" and "The
Host."
For example, Haeundae, a natural-disaster film, spent up to 40 percent
of its budget on computer graphics. That is a significant amount,
considering that Korean-made films usually spend 5 percent of their
budgets on CG. Films made in the United States, meanwhile, allocate
somewhere between 20 and 30 percent of their production budgets for
computer graphics, according to data from the Motion Picture
Association of America.
"The positive sign is that these days the use of computer graphics is
discussed in the very early stages of a film's production," said Jeong
Seong-jin, the president of EON, which did the computer graphics for
Take Off, an action film about Korea's national ski jumping team.
Jeong showed in his presentation how the actors' faces were put on the
faces of real ski jumpers.
But the reality is that it will be a challenge for Korea to build its
CG industry to keep pace with the rest of the world.
The size of Korea's film CG market is about 25 billion won, experts
say, which is about 1 percent that of the U.S. film CG industry.
Equally surprising is that there are only about 25 major CG companies
in Korea, and each operates with an average of just 35 people.
Although not unattainable, one may argue, it certainly seems like
there is a rather long way to go before Korea can label itself a hub
in this field.
Golden Globes Fo To Pixar's 'Up'
(voices.washingtonpost.com) Pixar wins the gold early at
the 67th Golden Globes, as 6-foot-5 "Up" director Pete Docter bounds
to the Beverly Hilton stage to accept the award for a film about a man
who has his head in the clouds.
"Up" was voted Best Animated Film by the Hollywood Foreign Press
Association, besting such other critically lauded films as "Coraline"
and "Fantastic Mr. Fox." "Up," co-directed by Bob Peterson, was
Pixar's first 3-D film.
Shortly after, "Up" -- scored by Michael Giacchino -- also won the
Globe for Best Musical Score / Motion Picture.
The Animated Film award was presented by Sir Paul McCartney, who not
coincidentally will see a newly animated version of "Yellow Submarine"
released soon. In presenting the award, the former Beatle said that
animation is "not just for kids" anymore, but also for "drug-taking
adults."
Avatar Sweeps Critics' Choice Tech Awards
(wearemoviegeeks.com) The 15th Annual Critics'
Choice Awards were handed out at the Hollywood Palladium to honor the
finest achievements in 2009 filmmaking. THE HURT LOCKER won Best
Picture and Kathryn Bigelow made history by becoming the first woman
to take home the Best Director award for her amazing work on THE HURT
LOCKER. I loved her acceptance speech! Afterwards, here's what Bigelow
had to say to Tom O'Neil over at The Gold Derby when he asked her what
it felt like to beat her ex-husband, director James Cameron, twice:
As much as they claimed on Friday night that the Critics Choice awards
are the first stop on the "road to the Oscars," the BFCA's don't carry
much weight and they really need to stop acting like they're somehow
relevant to the Academy Awards..it was never more evident than with
another Best Actress kooky tie two years in a row. However the lip
lock planted on Streep by Bullock was hilarious.
Tech honors:
* Best Make-Up: DISTRICT 9
* Best Action Movie: AVATAR
* Best Cinematography: AVATAR
* Best Visual Effects: AVATAR
* Best Art Direction: AVATAR
* Best Editing: AVATAR
* Best Sound: AVATAR
Wes Anderson Accepts Award In Stop Motion Style
(screencrave.com) Last night the National Board of Review
awarded Director Wes Anderson a special achievement award for his
latest film, the old school, stop-frame animation Fantastic Mr. Fox
starring George Clooney, Meryl Streep, Jason Schwartzman, Michael
Gambon, Bill Murray, Willem Dafoe, Owen Wilson. For those of you who
have seen the film, there's no real question as to why he's won the
award, it's charming to watch and probably one of the most genuinely
funny films of the year.
In fitting with his work on the film, Anderson decided to deliver his
acceptance speech via video, in stop-motion animation of course! The
big question is, if he beats Up and wins an Oscar for Best Animation,
how will he accept that award? Hopefully in stop-frame! And with all
the buzz currently surrounding the film, it wouldn't be that big of a
surprise to see it take the win!
Watch the video of his acceptance speech below. I'm not exactly sure
what animal he is? A dog? A gopher?
Take a look:
http://screencrave.com/2010-
style/
Push For Bigger and Badder VFX Killed "Spider-Man 4" ?
(reelzchannel.com) In Avatar, the mechanized world
steamrolls over the natural landscape of Pandora. Well, in a way,
Pandora may have exacted a kind revenge on the urban landscape of New
York City - if only in cinema; specifically, the New York of Spidey.
According to Vulture, Sam Raimi got a look at James Cameron's effects
extravaganza and was so smitten that he immediately called for bigger
and badder effects in Spider-Man 4. Considering the extra time and
money that would go into that investment, Sony apparently said no
thank you, and that may have been the beginning of the end.
An unnamed producer had this to say:
Every movie is a power struggle. But the tipping point was that
Sam wanted to do certain things that would push the envelope in terms
of [special effects] 'toys' and other visual stimulation, and Sony
didn't feel that was essential to the franchise.
In addition, the script - which Vulture outlines in some detail - was
apparently in a shambles, after going through several writers. Of
course, Sony didn't like this either, nor did they approve of a
villain approaching his senior years. (As a humorous aside, reading
the name Vulture in the Vulture article, was kind of fun.)
It seems that Spider-Man 4 was doomed to die a slow painful death, and
the recent news was just the consummation of the inevitable.
We'll leave you with this hilarious pic, included as part of the
Vulture article.
Michael Bay Talks Transformers 3
(Los Angeles Times) The Los Angeles Times reports that
Transformers 3 director Michael Bay briefly spoke about the third
installment at a discussion on sound in film:
So can we expect more thunderous sound in the third installment?
Although the number of robots increased significantly from the first
film for the second, the third film -- which will hit theaters in
summer 2011, won't be as robot-heavy and there will be fewer
explosions, a tight-lipped Bay said after the Q+A.
"There will be a nice crescendo ending," Bay said. "It gets much more
into the robot character. The last time you kind of met a few of the
robots; this time you're gonna get a much cooler landscape."
CGI Could Keep Tom Cruise Young Forever
(popwatch.ew.com) Sure, it's terrific for turning human actors
into big blue alien Na'vis. But the photorealistic CGI technology
James Cameron perfected for Avatar could easily be used for other,
even more mind-blowing purposes-like, say, bringing Humphrey Bogart
back to life, or making Clint Eastwood look 35 again. "How about
another Dirty Harry movie where Clint looks the way he looked in
1975?" Cameron suggests. "Or a James Bond movie where Sean Connery
looks the way he did in Doctor No? How cool would that be?"
In a way, Cameron has already pulled off this trick: Sigourney Weaver
appears to drop 20 years whenever she slips her consciousness into an
alien body in Avatar. But Cameron's facial scanning process is so
precise-zeroing in to the very pores of an actor's skin-that virtually
any manipulation is possible. You may not be able to totally replace
an actor-"There's no way to scan what's underneath the surface to what
the actor is feeling," the director notes-but it is now theoretically
possible to extend careers by digitally keeping stars young pretty
much forever. "If Tom Cruise left instructions for his estate that it
was okay to use his likeness in Mission Impossible movies for the next
500 years, I would say that would be fine," says Cameron. Less fine,
at least to Cameron, is bringing long dead stars back to life. "You
could put Marilyn Monroe and Humphrey Bogart in a movie together, but
it wouldn't be them. You'd have to have somebody play them. And that's
where I think you cross an ethical boundary."
We have few boundaries here at EW.com. So if you could use Cameron's
death-defying, age reversing technology any way you'd want, what would
you do with it, PopWatchers?
Forrest J. Ackerman & Rick Baker Interviews From the 1980's
(openmovie.org) The first part of the interview takes
place at the late Forrest J. Ackerman's former Ackermansion.(Forrest
J. Ackerman 1916-2008) Forrest (Forry) J Ackerman displays his
collection of classic horror, Sci-fi, and fantasy props and movie
memorabilia. The second part of the interview takes place at Rick
Baker's make-up effects studio in North Hollywood then named "Boris"
after the Frankenstein actor Boris Karloff. This workshop was just a
few doors down from David Millers make-up effects .
Take a look:
http://www.openmovie.org/
from-the-1980s-ktla-los-
Performance Capture Is Not Animation Because I Say So
(cartoonbrew.com) A video in which Jim explains that, "the
thing that people need to keep very strongly in mind is that this is
not an animated film." So just to recap: yes, Avatar has 100%
digitally animated characters in it; no, it's not animation; why,
because Cameron says so.
Regardless of how Cameron and Fox want to frame their marketing
campaign for the film, I have little doubt that Avatar will be viewed
by history as an animated feature, right there along with Zemeckis's
mo-cap works. Granted, none of these are particularly exemplary
examples of animated films, but they do represent the beginning of a
new animated technique. (It is a testament to how rapidly animation is
evolving as an art that we can no longer even identify what is an
animated technique.)
It's important to stress that, as photography didn't replace painting
and drawing, performance capture won't replace hand-drawn, traditional
CGI (as practiced by the likes of Pixar and DreamWorks), stop-motion,
pixilation or anything else. In fact, if we look at how the advent of
photography pushed painting in a more expressionistic and abstract
direction, perhaps the same will happen in animation. Traditional CGI
clearly can't compete with performance capture in terms of realism, so
now computer animation can begin to move away from its preoccupation
with slavish recreations of fur, hair and motion and mature in a more
abstract and impressionistic direction. In any case, performance
capture is here to stay and it is now one more tool in the animator's
ever-widening arsenal. I look forward to seeing more experimental uses
of it as the technology evolves and artists aspire to use it in more
creatively challenging ways.
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