Ska loving escapee Leo Neelands made a career change but 7 years ago, when upon the word of a trusty friend who recognised the potential of his artistic skills, he made his way down to London with nothing but a Wacom tablet and pen in his bindle and a bucket load of raw talent in his brain.
Behind the scenes at Cinesite - See you there?
Hoth in your front room.
This rather charismatic chap called Barry has made his very own diorama model of the battle sequence on ice planet Hoth, from the Empire Strikes Back.
Game of Thrones fans, series 3 is on the horizon!
I’m a big fan of Game of Thrones and LOVE the VFX work the guys at Pixomondo have done on the series, especially the set extensions, and it gave me a real thrill to read that series 3 is on it’s way! The series 3 release date being announced at the 31st of March 2013.
2013 Oscars - VFX Nominees!
Tis but 10 days until the much anticipated Oscars! Here at Escape we have a keen eye on who will be winning the prize for best VFX, there are some pretty heavyweight contenders and nominees are as follows…
The 3D Printing Revolution!
View Conference announces cash prizes for 2013 winners!
Our friends over at View Conference Italy, last week unveiled that they will be providing cash prizes for winners of their different awards. The prizes vary from top of the range tablets to a lump sum of 2000 Euros. The categories for application are as follows (complete with direct links)
Flying Sorcery
You may remember this fake UFO clip made famous last year - naturally everyone quickly branded it a fake which it clearly was/is.
Photoshop goes (even more) 3D
Fans of 3D and users of Photoshop will be delighted this week, with the announcement that 'Photoshop CS6 Extended' is on the market, it allows you to create 3D shape text using extrusions as a 3D layer... "similar to CS4 Extended" I hear you say! But alas, according to this write up, we are told that this works far more 'natively', with 'the usability you’d expect from an integrated Adobe toolset'.
Animation Ireland
And how has this happened? Well a decade of tax breaks and investment basically. Tax breaks to aid production costs and funding for development prior to production from various sources. Very interesting given the impending tax breaks around the corner in the UK. Could this be a new dawn in film and broadcast for us here?
I was amazed by how many companies are turning out real quality work in Ireland. The tax breaks have not affected the passion for excellence. In fact I would say it has merely fuelled it - the companies are competing against eachother to produce the best work. And as the industry steadily grows there are now whispers of full length animated movies being made there.
If you are curious about what has been happening in Ireland check out the Animation Ireland showreel on their website...
Here's something you may not know. Ireland has a booming animation industry. No I didn't know that either until I went to the Cartoon Finance conference in Dublin last year. In fact the animation industry is doing so well, that in the face of the downturn, it has become one of their major exports. At the conference, it was quipped that the animators are now the ones with the proper jobs.
Truly EPIC God of War trailer
We were enticed this week when we saw this epic live action trailer for Sony’s game ‘God of War: Ascension’, It was made by creative studio and production company ‘Imaginary Forces’, a firm who have worked on a huge amount of projects, spanning from commercial work to television and film,
Google Chrome, Powerade, Transformers, Minority Report, and Boardwalk Empire, are but a few of their accolades to date. Impressive stuff!
If the game is half as epic as this evocative ad, viewers will no doubt want to get playing right away!
Blown Away by Disney short 'the Paperman'?
Walt Disney shorts are always a treat for viewers. In fact I’d go as far to say that when going to the cinema to see a new Disney Pixar film, part of the excitement is the opportunity to see the preluding short that comes with the main feature
Escape this Summer
While the days are cold, the nights are long, and we’ve seen the back of Christmas and New Year festivities, at one point or another, we all find ourselves daydreaming about the return of the summer sun. The smell of sun cream, the call of the beach, and the excuse to whack on a pair of shades, making ourselves look AT LEAST 20% cooler, is but a dream away at this, the tail end of January.
3D Printing on a HUGE Scale!
Here at Escape Studios we are naturally, fans of most things 3D, and personally I find myself intrigued by the growing phenomenon that is 3D printing.
Christoph Keller - Escape Speaker Feature!
We’ve had Senior Compositor at Double Negative Christoph Keller, speaking at Escape HQ today to a room full of keen VFX fans! Ahead of his visit I asked a few questions that are entirely unrelated to his job, because variety is the spice of life, right?
Toy Story - Remade!
Someone once told me, that life is like a marmalade sandwich; the more you put into it, the more you’ll get out of it.
Total Rigging in Total Recall: Webinar
On 7th of February 2013, Escape HQ will be welcoming Jakub Krompolc, who is head of rigging at London’s Prime Focus world.
The Stunning Effects of Life of Pi
Thanks to the kind people at Rhythm and Hues, who last month gave us some very informative industry info, Ang Lee’s Life of Pi has already made an appearance on the Escape blog. But now we've all seen it, and since it’s received 11 Oscar nominations (not bad eh?) we reckon it’s worth another mention!
Robin Squires VFX Course Diary: Week 12, Final week!
Having started a VFX course here at Escape Studios, I’m keeping a diary to share with you on how the course is going. Here's my update from my final week!
London's VFX Artists become Superheroes!
VFX fans and readers of WIRED magazine will have noticed a special feature in this month’s edition, as Soho’s VFX teams are made into super heroes by, well, themselves.