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Super Bowl approaches – do you have your snacks at the ready? Have you chosen your team? More importantly, have you set your DVR to record the commercials? 

This week’s mashup consists of some Super Bowl sneak peeks – we have a “Twilight”-like tailgating party for Audi courtesy of The Mill, takes 2 and 3 for VW and the “Star Wars” enterprise involving Man’s Best Friend, a couple of car spots steeped in fantasy complete with bikini-clad extras, the Coca-Cola polar bears (Giants v. Patriots) up their game and “The Avengers” trailer.

I remember when you actually had to wait for Game Day to see the spots! 

This year’s previews are kind of light on VFX  - I suspect everyone’s still rendering. 

Let us know which ones you liked – and we hope your team wins!

Sometimes called the industry's best kept secret Houdini is a 3D program that should have better recognition. That’s why I’ve decided to run this webinar: to let the secret out of the box and dispel some of the myths surrounding the software.

As part of their classroom course with us, our students (who we affectionately refer to as escapees), get a chance to visit working studios to get a taste of what they will be faced with when they start working in the VFX industry. We took our first bunch of escapees to New Deal studios last week, and rather than giving you my thoughts on how the visit went, I asked Greg Pilon - who is taking our Compositing for Production course - to give us a quick summary of his visit.

Last week was rich of stories about The Artist and speculation about how it will do at the Oscars, but there were also lots of other interesting stories including news about new 32Ten Studios, interviews with the likes of artists at ILM, and the first of many stories about the Super Bowl. Here's my pick of the most interesting pieces published...

Our first set of students just hit the mid-way mark of their courses so we decided it was high time we subjected them to a long-standing Escape Studios tradition, that consists of capturing their photos before they start pulling their hair out coming to grips with the more complicated side of the VFX pipeline.

Here is a mashup of news for this week – there’s a cry for old school technology, a list of tips for you to be better prepared for dailies, a couple of reports from CES, a fun commercial for Mini Coopers based on a fan suggestion, a great trailer from Blur, and a rendition of a Dr Seuss story as told by those who attended Burning Man last year.

What’d I miss?

Here's my take on last week's news and announcements. Among the items I picked up, there's the call for submissions for SIGGRAPH. if you are planning to submit your work, you'd better hurry, as the deadline is tomorrow.

The Academy met last night to cull the list of films in the running for a Visual Effects Oscar nomination to a mere ten. The list is below, in alphabetical order.

It's been two weeks since my last News Round Up. The holidays have gone so quickly and we are now in 2012, rested and ready to go. To get you in the mood and get you started in 2012, I have put together a summary of news published over the past couple ofweeks.

This will be my last Weekly Round-Up of News for this year..., hope you enjoy it. If you have suggestions for stories I missed, just drop me a line or post a comment. I'll be sure to look at your suggestion during the holidays.