OK, you all know by now how much we like talking about certain CG heavy / animation films, and it might be quite obvious why this is. Yes, generally it's because the film features one of our favourite directors, or we love a certain genre, action hero or story line, but another reason for us to get so excited about a new release is for the array of behind the scenes footage for the making of, on how certain sequences were achieved!
Rise Of The Fairy Tale Creatures...
DreamWorks have released two trailers (second here) for their upcoming animation film Rise of the Guardians.
Happy 10th Birthday V-Ray!
Some of you may, or may not, know that V-ray is currently celebrating it’s 10 year anniversary. So, to mark the occasion, what could they be doing? Are they throwing a week long wild party? A massive shopping spree for all employees? Or maybe a month's extra holiday time to all...
11 Days And Counting
The suspense and build up to The Dark Knight Rises is literally killing us at Escape, we are so excited for the release date it's almost agony how slow time seems to be going. It also doesn’t make it any easier that new footage, trailers and behind the scene sneak peeks keep being released!
From Past To Present
It’s always interesting to see how different studios rank, whether it’s in regards to gaming, films or television. On Wednesday, Develop Online released its top 100 best studios, which, let’s be honest is always good to have a nose at. This time, however, what made it more interesting for us is the fact that two escapees have gone on to work for the number one voted UK game’s developer, Traveller’s Tales!
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.
The Alenka Abraham Success Story
We’ve been catching up with lots of the escapees from over the years, and one story in particular has been hugely inspiring to us. Having studied a ten week Maya comprehensive course at Escape Studios back in 2003, Alenka Abraham has paved a very exciting career for herself. Taking on an R&D software project at Glassworks, Alenka met her future business partner, Adam Cubitt. Together they set up Existential Ltd., a company that develops both real-time and off-line computer visualisation and animation technology. Collaborating with leading post-production companies like MPC, and many others across the UK, they’ve been involved in pioneering projects and are making quite a name for themselves.
Bad Hair Day?
If we are watching a live action film with actors, it’s very rare that one of the main character features we concentrate on is the hair. Occasionally a judgemental comment of whether it looks good or not is thrown out there but that’s the extent of it. The average viewer will fail to notice if the colour looks wrong in one of the scenes or that it doesn’t look realistic enough.
Next Generation Of Sony Entertainment
Huge news was announced this morning that SCE (or Sony Computer Entertainment to those of you not familiar with the Sony department responsible for all things Playstation and games) has purchased the online gaming streaming company GaiKai for $380 million.
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.
Studio Secrets Come Out From The Shadows
During it’s opening weekend, Dark Shadows topped just over $29million at the Box Office. This may not be up to the usual par of some of Johnny Depp’s films but the CG within the film didn’t fail to impress once again.
Pixar Top 10 Characters
I like to end a Friday with a chirpy, feel good post. So, following on from my blog yesterday of Pixar’s top 13 movies; I had to post about this second Pixar ranking order. IGN has released their thoughts on who the top 10 Pixar characters are, and I have to say that I am genuinely shocked at who, and where, they have placed certain individuals.
On The Right Track
Mark Spevick, Visual Effects extraordinaire and current Head of 3D at Escape Studios will be hosting a webinar on 25th July from 5.30pm to 6.30pm online.
Pixar Films Rank #1?
For those of us who like to indulge in a little bit of Pixar, whether it’s to appreciate the animation or just because you love a 'feel good' film, we all tend to have our favourites. My top 5 Pixar films (in no particular order) consist of Monsters Inc, Finding Nemo, Toy Story 3 (Ken is just hilarious the entire way through), Up and Wall-E.
Creative Skillset Short Course Approval
We’ve just had some exciting news from the lovely people at Creative Skillset. The creative industries’ sector skills council are currently running a pilot scheme for short courses that provide training in areas such as TV, film, radio, interactive media, animation, computer graphics, facilities, photo imaging, publishing, advertising and fashion & textiles. By making training in these areas more readily available, they hope to open up these industries and create a more diverse pool of talent right here in the UK. And we’re delighted to play a part in that ambition.
New Type Of Education
I don’t want to sound like a broken record, but, as I have said before my favourite developer is Valve. They consistently produce work which is innovative on so many levels and always has engaging narrative and characterisation.
Spider Senses Are Tingling
Last Monday night saw the premiere of the The Amazing Spiderman in Leicester square. Whilst the premieres are continuing elsewhere around the globe I thought I’d bring you a bit of information as to why we at Escape are excited for the latest installment from the Spiderman franchise.
B Movie Box Office
Last week was an interesting week for movie fans. Our prayers were answered when Michael Bay's production of Ninja Turtles was shut down (he decided that Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles should be neither mutants nor teenagers, apparently, and the world decided to hate him). The Amazing Spiderman had it's London Premiere, another 45 minutes worth of TV spots for The Dark Knight Rises were released and the world was given Abraham Lincoln; Vampire Hunter.
