DreamWorks have released two trailers (second here) for their upcoming animation film Rise of the Guardians.
The Joy of Stop Motion Animation - Behind the Scenes Special
Working in the CG industry, I have always been fascinated with stop motion animation. Growing up watching films like Tim Burton's 'Nightmare Before Christmas', I have always wondered what goes on behind the scenes and how it all works. And, funnily enough, a couple of months ago, the flat where I live actually turned into an animation studio overnight.
Scene Stealers
Film4’s innovative new project ‘Scene Stealers’, is one that waters the seed of creative license, and thus, one that is screaming out to our free thinking, boundary smashing escapees. The project is an opportunity to get your work onto a global platform and represent the world of Visual Effects.
Super Trooper
Don’t you just hate it when you watch a couple get together that you’ve been rooting for throughout the movie and then a giant mutant bug stabs her in the stomach and it’s all over? Yeah we hate it too. If you’re um-ing and ah-ing where this scene-setting image is from then it was, of course, the original Starship Troopers film, released in 1997.
Can You ‘Recall’ The Original?
Yes, I really went there. A new trailer has been released for the updated version of Total Recall, and gone are the days of Arnie showing his rippling torso and basking in the limelight. This adaptation follows Doug Quaid (Colin Farrell) on his quest to find something better than his current life. After discovering ‘Rekall’, and being warned against it, he decides to rebel (against the norm, funnily enough) and visit the place regardless. This results in Doug Quaid having to question everything to try discover what is, and isn’t, real. The film boasts robots, a futuristic (yet dark) London and a whole lot of CG from MPC, Double Negative and Prime Focus. So from an industry point of view, it's definitely going to be worth a watch.
CINE-EAST Festival
If you, like my good self, are a film junkie then you will be incredibly excited to hear about the upcoming all-day film festival CINE-EAST.
Full of E.Motion
On Tuesday, a lucky few of us got to go on a trip that ventured outside of the confines of the Shepherds West building. Drinking more coffee than one body ever needs, we went to do some film and games grade motion capture at the impressive facility at E.Motion.
Cracking Job by MPC & mocha Pro
If you’ve been hiding under a rock for the last, let’s say 6 months to a year, then you may be unaware of the new Tim Burton movie, Dark Shadows, released this month.
Built by Self-Confessed Industry Nerds
With the divide between 2D and 3D becoming increasingly indistinguishable, I thought I'd share some information about an interesting alternative to Nuke’s default scanline render node and indeed much of Nuke’s current 3D shading tool set.
The Studio Workshop: Camera Scale
Happy Tuesday, loyal readers. Here's a quick one relating to a problem that popped up a few times for the students last week. This is for anyone taking who has tracked footage into Maya and finds their tracking markers don't line up, because they've forgotten one simple step.
Stop Motion Lust
I am part of a generation that has been particularly spoiled by the advances in stop motion animation. I remember watching TV shows like Noddy, Fireman Sam, Pingu and Postman Pat and films like The Nightmare before Christmas, James and the Giant Peach and Chicken Run as a kid and being in complete awe.
Quantum Hoax
When five students from the Centre NAD University in Montreal Canada were given a film project, to create a viral hoax using CG assets integrated into live action footage, they could scarcely have predicted the success their movie would be.
The CAMERATRACKER for AFTER EFFECTS 24hrs Discount Offer
Attention all Adobe After Effects users, today may be your lucky day. The Foundry are running a massive discount on CAMERATRACKER, where you can save over 40% if you purchase a nodelocked version today. This offer is for a limited time, running over the course of January 24th only. The promotion will close at midnight tonight, where ever you are in the world.
Fastest, Slowest Camera Ever
Have I got a treat in store for you today!... It has caused a real stir among us tutors at Escape Studios, and we could talk of nothing else yesterday morning.
CVMP - Last Call for Short Papers
It seems there is an abundance of technology conferences to choose from this year. For fellow technology enthusiasts out there, this is an exciting time, as we are treated to an ocean of updates, new releases and ground breaking developments. One conference we give a particular seal of approval to is the much anticipated CVMP (Conference for Visual Media Production), now in its 8th year running. This is a conference dedicated to the geeks of the visual media production industries, whether that is in film, broadcast or games.
A Triptych of Travel Films : MOVE, LEARN & EAT
Following a commission from STA Travel Australia, director Rick Mereki, DOP Tim White and actor Andrew Lees, set off on an epic journey to shoot three short films. Themed around the basic elements of travel: moving, eating and learning, they somehow cleverly capture the enormity of their subjects, all within one minute of footage per film, quite some feat by anyone's standards.
The Camera That Turns Light Into Living Pictures
I have just come across what I can only describe as an awesome bit of kit! It's made by a company called Lytro, and it is a camera that lets decide the focus and depth of field of your image, after you have taken it! And that's just the beginning...
Hot of the press: PF Track 2011 Released
The latest version of PFTrack has just been released, and it looks like The Pixel Farm dev team have been quite busy, packing in a lot of new features, Python scripting and even a new architecture in this latest release. The full list of features have yet to be released but here are just some of the things you can expect in PFTrack 2011...
The 5 Miserable VFX Jobs That Make Movies Possible
I came across this blog on the 5 miserable VFX Jobs that make movies possible and found it quite amusing... ;-)
Camera Tracking and Nuke Tutorials
There's nothing better than gaining extra skills - especially when you can do it for free. This month's free tutorials have been taken from our Camera Tracking and Nuke courses and are great for boosting your skills if you're looking to become professional. The great thing is, they're just 10 minutes long so you can easily work through them in your lunch hour, but like last month's six free Maya Tutorials they're staying in our e-learning platform permanently so you can refer to them whenever you want.
