Boy has it been a busy few weeks over at The Foundry recently! With The Foundry and Luxology merge announced this week it was also announced that HIERO V1.5 has been released in beta and is available to download.
The Foundry & Luxology Merge: A good thing for the industry and artists alike!
Regarding the merger of The Foundry and Luxology:
The Foundry & Luxology Join Forces
It was announced this morning by The Foundry CEO Bill Collis and Brad Peebler, President of Luxology, that The Foundry and Luxology have joined forces, which is exciting news, for both 2D and 3D artists.
VIEW Conference: The Creative Power of Technology
October is certainly bursting with exciting events for the digital geeks among us. One to mention is our very own VFX Festival, the other is the VIEW Conference, a premiere international event in Italy for computer graphics, interactive techniques, digital cinema, 2D/3D animation, gaming and VFX. Running from 16th to 19th October in Torino, this 4-day event is overflowing with lectures, meetings, tributes, exhibits, screenings, workshops and demo presentations. And better still, our very own Daniel Shutt is among the exciting line-up for this year’s launching event.
Wild VFX
VFX talent can be found all over the globe. We saw this lovely advertisement, the wild brainchild of New Zealand based Clemenger BBDQ, that has been brought to life by CG wizards Psyop and MPC.
Women in VFX
This blog goes out to all the ladies working in VFX. Today a few of us girls at Escape were sent an invite to join the very new LinkedIn group ‘Women in VFX’. So we wanted to take a moment to spread the word and help this network for female VFX professionals grow.
What connects Harry Potter, Thor, Hugo and Game Of Thrones Series One?
Want to know what Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Thor, Hugo and Game of Thrones Series One have in common?
The Economic Impact of the UK Film Industry
Following a lot of doom and gloom surrounding the UK economy, it’s always nice to read something positive about an industry contributing towards economic growth. The BBC posted an article this week discussing an independent report examining the impact of the film industry on the UK economy. And we feel this report is just the thing we need to restore faith in the creative talent that exists this side of the pond, so it can be nurtured allowing the industry to flourish even further.
The VFX Festival 2012 - Get your tickets now!
Step into the mind-blowing world of VFX with The VFX Festival! Escape Studios has created the first ever four-day festival exploring the breathtaking world of visual effects, held in London on 10th-13th October.
Celebrating a decade of UK visual effects, the festival will be packed with the most respected VFX talent, visionaries and companies who have helped shape the industry. Offering inspirational insight behind the clever trickery in this booming VFX industry, with an exciting four-day programme packed with insider knowledge and information, showreel demos, hands-on workshops and exclusive premieres, it's perfect for those with a creative talent or thirst to develop their VFX Career.
Escaping to IBC 2012
The 2012 IBC Conference & Exhibition is now in full swing in the buzzing city of Amsterdam. Let’s just say, you’re not going to find a hotel room very easily right now! Jason Jenner and I from the Escape Studios technology team are here to represent our partners in the world of tech. We’re here all week, so if you want to get in touch, please drop us a line.
The Mill get musical with Terry Crews
The Old Spice ads have been tickling viewers over the last year or two, and this one for me, just takes the biscuit. With some magic from our friends at the Mill LA, this musically themed two minutes is brought to life by some intrinsically timed VFX.
If that isn’t enough, the ad is interactive! Viewers can tap their keyboard, to make Expendable and general macho man Terry Crew’s muscles move, in turn making sounds from an strange array of precariously placed instruments.
According to their site, Creative Director at the Mill LA, Phil Crowe explained… "I
The Old Spice ads have been tickling viewers over the last year or two, and this one for me, just takes the biscuit. With some magic from our friends at the Mill LA, this musically themed minute or so is brought to life by some intrinsically timed VFX.
Prime Focus Effects on 'Total Recall’... Part II
Following on from Part I... Of course, the challenging work didn’t stop there. The team was faced with a range of tasks, including the China Falls sequence, creating multiple Synths for the Synth bay as well as getting the reflective metal and shiny plastic surfaces just right. To tackle this, the team customised their pipeline to help make the workload all the more manageable. Alex continued saying...
Prime Focus Effects on 'Total Recall’... Part I
If a movie is a massive studio blockbuster, then the Prime Focus World visual effects team have most likely had some involvement in its making. Prime Focus was responsible for creating the stunning effects for titles such as Men in Black 3, Dredd 3D, Mirror Mirror and Total Recall…to name just a few! And of course, every new VFX project comes with its own challenges. Len Wiseman’s remake of Total Recall was one such project that allowed the team to flex their creative and technical muscle.
V-Ray Demo Reels
Our friends over at Chaos Group have recently released their 2012 showreels for their render software V-Ray.
Fuel VFX go into administration
Bad news down under this week, as the prolific Australian firm, Fuel VFX, has made a 'backs to the wall' decision to go into voluntary administration. Having worked on such films as Prometheus, The Avengers and Iron Man over the last few years, we can safely say the world of VFX will be missing this hive of talent!
Everything is just Vine...
Over the past six months we have been working with Michael Illingworth, founder of Vine Post Production to expand his studio. Michael has worked at The Mill and Cinesite and has been involved in post-production, compositing and visual effects supervision on some of the biggest film names in the industry including the Harry Potter franchise, Gladiator and Black Hawk Down.
Autodesk Scaleform
Get LinkedIn with The Art of VFX
LinkedIn is a pretty awesome tool for lots of reasons, but one in particular is how it encourages some users to be quite industrious in their spare time. And a perfect example of this is how freelance digital compositor Vincent Frei has created a group called The Art of VFX. This is where Vincent shares interviews he’s had with a range of industry professionals working in VFX, offering us VFX geeks an inside scoop into what they’ve been working on.
The Decisive Moment Winners Announced
We announced back in May that the Chaos Group in association with CG Society, NVidia, MAXON and BOXX would be running the “Decisive Moment” competition. The challenge was to create a single image, using any application and V-Ray to render, that tells a decisive moment in time.
