A tribute to one of our favorite places on the westside. Featuring music from SG Lewis and Gallant – “Holding Back” Check out the full music video here – https://youtu.be/wW1zSIlwSqo Directed by John Merizalde & Pasqual Gutierrez Cinematography by Kristian Zuñiga Produced by Dylan Harrington Gaffer: Alex Allgood Steadicam: Richard Volsky 1st AC: Daniel Guadalupe 2nd AC: Austin English Production Coordiantor: Jae Desouza Best Boy Electric: Evan Williams Makeup: Stephanie Lennox Editors: Chad Sarahina and Cami Starkman Sound: Matthew Dunaway Colorist: David Torcivia 2nd Unit Interview: Erin Murray Production Company: Bullion Productions & Whitelist Executive Producer: Drew O’Neill
Directed by Kevin Eis www.kevineis.com Director of Photography – Mike Dominic www.mikedominic.com Produced by Eric Goldrich Starring Thomas Yoon, Mallory Butcher, Jana Krumholtz, Brooks Morrison, and Melissa Choi Choreography by Kelley Larkin Filmed on location in Crown Cleaners on Sunset in Los Angeles.
Animated short Concept / Design / Animation: Helmut Breineder Michelle Martins Sound: Natascha / Peter Thomas Audiojungle Enjoy the show, and stay for the party!
Channel 4 is proud to present the 3-minute trailer for the Rio 2016 Paralympic Games. Signed & Subtitled and Audio Described
versions are available in the playlist.
Download the track at http://wearethesuperhumans.com from Sat 16th July, with all profits going to the British Paralympic Association.
Hannah Cockcroft – ParalympicsGB Wheelchair Racer 00:32
Mel Nicholls – ParalympicsGB Wheelchair Racer 00:34
Joren Teeuwen – Netherlands Paralympics High Jumper 00:37
Matt Stutzman – USParalympics Archer 00:49
ParalympicsGB Wheelchair Rugby Team 1:00 & 2:24
Iaroslav Semenenko – Ukrainian Paralympic Swimmer – 1:26
Richard Whitehead – ParalympicsGB Athlete 1:27 & 2:09
ParalympicsGB Women’s Wheelchair Basketball Team 1:32
Piers Gilliver and Dimitri Coutya – ParalympicsGB Fencers 1.35 & 2:11
Ellie Simmonds – ParalympicsGB Swimmer 1:54
Libby Clegg – ParalympicsGB Sprinter 1:55
Sam Ruddock – ParalympicsGB Shot Put 1:56
Jody Cundy – Paralympics GB Cyclist 1:57
David Weir – ParalympicsGB Wheelchair Racer 1:57
Will Bayley and Kim Daybell – ParalympicsGB Table Tennis 2:07
Jessica Jane Applegate – ParalympicsGB Swimmer 2:10
Ali Jawad – ParalympicsGB Powerlifter 2:11
Natalie Blake – ParalmypicsGB Powerlifter 2:11
Micky Yule – ParalympicsGB Powerlifter 2:12
Chris Skelley and Jack Hodgson – ParalympicsGB Judokas 2.30
“…a fun hobby project that may or may not see use in an upcoming film…”
If you were lucky enough to be at the Star Wars Celebration Europe 2016 event in London on Friday or watching the livestream, then hopefully you saw what I think was one of the most insightful panel presentations that’s ever been presented on Star Wars. The highlight, for me, involved ILM visual effects supervisor and chief creative officer John Knoll showing off his ‘personal hobby project’ in re-creating the Death Star and the trench run graphics. Well, he said they were hobby projects but they also did coincide with early production on Rogue One (the story for which was Knoll’s idea).
An image taken by Raymond Gangstad at Star Wars Celebration Europe 2016.
Just stop and think how cool that is. The visual effects supervisor from films like Pirates of the Caribbean, Pacific Rim and the Star Wars prequels basically took it upon himself to explore what it would be like to re-create or touch on some of the most famous sci-fi legacy material the world has ever seen. He showed it to the London audience in a fantastic panel called ‘ILM Presents: Star Wars Archaeology’ which also included ILM executive creative director Doug Chiang and supervising art director Kevin Jenkins. I’ve taken some screenshots from the live stream of the panel and transcribed some of what Knoll discussed in this round-up.
Re-creating the Death Star hangar
We all know the Death Star hangar space so well from A New Hope. It’s where the Millennium Falcon is pulled in by a tractor beam and came to life on screen via miniatures, forced perspective and a live action set. Knoll re-created a virtual set of the Death Star hangar, and referenced the original ILM effects in what he said was an effort to build “a virtual re-creation of this set partly as a hobby project and partly to have a conversation with some folks about the use of digital sets.”
Knoll referenced the live action set photography, noting “the very back of it is a forced perspective. Stripes taper off into a forced perspective and you can see there’s only half a Falcon, with the wall right there. The set was meant to be a bigger space than it really was.”
Then Knoll showed a beautiful walk-through of the virtual hangar, full of incredible detail, Knoll noting that this was “not from any particular movie.” From my point of view it was like being in the movie.
A view from the walk-through.Remember, this is a digital re-creation.From the hangar walk-through.
Building the Death Star (again)
Knoll also re-created a digital model of the Death Star. Interestingly, for reference you would assume he could go back to ILM and Lucasfilm’s amazing archives for the actual miniature used in the film. But they no longer have it. “It got packed up in storage case after New Hope completed and put into warehouse as Lucasfilm and ILM moved to Northern California,” outlined Knoll. “When the lease came up, someone said get rid of what’s in there – nothing’s valuable. So ILM doesn’t have the model, so I figured we’d need to re-create a version of it for Rogue One.”
Death Star miniature reference imagery.
For that, Knoll did reference the many photographs ILM had of the miniature under construction and the model as filmed. One of the toughest parts of the re-creation were all the intricate panels on the Death Star surface. “I wanted to do an accurate reconstruction of where all the panels were,” said Knoll, “so I collected a bunch of photographs from ILM image archive and on the internet.”
“As part of re-creation I discovered something about the model that I can’t unsee,” said Knoll during the panel. “If you look at the outline it’s not round, it’s pretty oblong in the southern hemisphere. I chose not to re-create that aspect of it.”
Knoll then described the process in using the real photography of the real miniature to make textures for the digital Death Star: “You take a photograph and you match the photograph on a computer and then you project that onto the model and unwrap it. If you do that for a whole series of stills this is that photograph unwrapped.”
Unwrapping the Death Star imagery.
“If you do the same thing for a whole variety of stills from different positions at different resolutions, they become a master map and then this is the result of that,” added Knoll, pointing to specific unwraps of the northern and southern hemispheres of the Death Star.” The final result was another still that Knoll showed, but he also mentioned a rendering was used in the teaser trailer for Rogue One.
A final rendering of the re-created Death Star in CG.
The trench run – a graphic tale
The 3D graphic display of the stolen Death Star plans seen in A New Hope were vector-like animated graphics made by Larry Cuba. Knoll again mentioned that he embarked on “a fun hobby project” a few years ago to re-create the graphics in case he had to re-use it for the film. Also, ILM doesn’t actually have the original graphics. But more on that later.
Larry Cuba’s graphics for the Death Star plans under construction.
The first thing Knoll discussed was that the Cuba graphics do not match the Death Star in the film. The laser eye is at the equator (whereas the miniature Death Star has it in the northern hemisphere). What happened was Cuba was provided with a matte painting concept for the Death Star and based his work off that.
The painting Cuba based his graphics on.
Meanwhile, Knoll’s intimate knowledge of the Death Star graphics dates back to the summer of 1978 when he was living in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and actually saw Cuba present on the work at the University of Michigan. “I went and attended that talk and at the end of the talk he showed a video about the making of,” detailed Knoll. “I hadn’t seen it in years and I found it about two years ago. At the very end of that he reproduces the entire graphic.”
Knoll then showed a snippet of the video (which even explains the laborious process of using circles and arcs and a data tablet and pen to draw the Death Star and the tiles for the trench run portion). Luckily, the end of the demo video included a full version of the graphic, from which Knoll could start re-creating a new version in 3D and matching elements, frame by frame.
“I made a whole bunch of individual tiles and animated my own version of graphic, using the one from the film to get all the camera angles and proportions exactly right,” said Knoll.
At one point, Knoll showed a side by side of the original graphics and his newly built edition. “You can see jumping back and forth you can see I was pretty methodical – stupidly so – in matching which tile was where,” said Knoll.
“Ever wonder what the trench run looks like from the side, there it is,” stated Knoll. “That’s how much trench we fly through.”
This simply was a stunning thing to see. The devotion Knoll displayed in even tackling these re-creations (note: he has form – check out the moon landing visual effects he helped on) is just incredibly clear.
Interestingly, audiences nearly got to see the re-created Death Star graphics last year. Knoll says he “showed it to a bunch of the development group when we were working on the early stages of Rogue One and we were still toiling around with ideas about what we might show at Celebration last year. We were joking that this could be the trailer! I thought, if you put Inception music on it you can make anything into a trailer. And we did that – we played the Mind Heist / Inception music on this and when you see this with the Bham! it actually it’s not bad. I was forbidden from actually showing that here because of copyright, but you can imagine that.”
Side-by-side.
The rest of the Archeology was equally incredible, diving into the re-creation of costumes, sets and the use of practical and digital visual effects on previous films. One can only assume Knoll and ILM have even more incredible content up their sleeves to reveal about the production of Rogue One at this event and in the future. And, this reel released at Celebration Europe certainly makes me even more excited about the film.
While this year Nintendo’s E3 Treehouse event was more focused on the new Legend of Zelda game, fans and loyalists of the classic gaming company still await more information on their upcoming console titled ‘NX’. For the time being as everyone await for updates from Nintendo about ‘NX’ which is slated to release in March next year, it looks like the company has solid plans to keep the fans gripped to the brand as they have just announced their mini Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) coming back to stores.
Regarded as one of the most famous consoles of all time and often credited for the rise of consoles to popularity, the NES was originally launched in Japan in 1980s and became an enormous success. Now the company is re-launching the product probably for old time’s sake as they mention it to be, “near-identical, mini replica” of the original one.
The new NES will not allow users to connect to the internet and will have a set of 30 classic Nintendo games like Super Mario Bros, Donkey Kong, Legend of Zelda, Pac-Man and more. The console will come with a HDMI port which will allow users to connect it to television sets. Nintendo also confirmed that the games will have multiple suspend point which will facilitate players in resuming the game back from where they had left. Nintendo will also be selling separate consoles to players who want to play the two-player games, each costing $10.
The console will hit stores on 11 November, 2016 and will be available for $59.99.
Here’s the full list of games that would come packed in the console:
Prime Focus seems to have a healthy and substantially rewarding FY17. Economy is quite inconsistent and the economic rate differs due to various variables. However, the cards seem to work in VFX studio’s favour as it perceives the forthcoming financial year 2017.
Prime Focus COO Nishant Fadia
According to a report in the moneycontrol.com, Prime Focus stocks has been up 26 per cent in the last three sessions. Prime Focus, COO, Nishant Fadia, is very upbeat on growth in FY17 to the tune of 20 per cent plus with focus on margin expansion.
This year looks very promising from operations perspective and the orderbook too is good, says Fadia in an interview with CNBC-TV18.
In fact, Prime Focus Limited (PFL) reported 93.7 per cent growth in operating profit (EBIDTA) for the twelve month period between 1 April 2015 and 31 March 2016 (12M-16) as compared to the corresponding period of the previous year.
For bollywood blockbusters like Baaghi, Rocky Handsome, Housefull 3 or Udta Punjab, Prime Focus has ventured into the industry by providing VFX, DI and other camera services and equipments. The VFX studio has also tapped the advertising space by providing visual effects for various TV commercials too.
The company recently expanded their VFX business in Vancouver. Also, the recent merger with the VFX big house Double Negative has drastically changed the strides for Prime Focus.
Information and Broadcasting Minister M Venkaiah Naidu today said that the Ministry was in the process of setting up of National Centre of Excellence for Animation, Gaming and VFX (NCOE) in Maharashtra to harness India’s soft power in the sector.
The institute would be a world class institution to provide skilled manpower in this emerging area.
The Ministry has also included “Most Film Friendly State” as a special category award in National Film Awards this year. The Shyam Benegal Committee report for holistic interpretation of the provisions of the Cinematograph Act/ Rules was under consideration of the Ministry. All India Radio had completed the FMisation of all channels of Vividh Bharati all over the country.
Addressing the first consultative meeting of members of Parliament attached to his Ministry since he took charge, he said that a Digital Media and New Print Media Advertisement policy was framed recently to promote transparency and accountability in issuing of advertisements. He also apprised the members about the three-member committee constituted by the Ministry to address the issues related to Content Regulation in Government Advertising. (The Committee had been formed after orders by the Supreme Court in a case relating to government advertisements.)
He said the Ministry had played a critical role in the communication and outreach activities for the Government Flagship schemes and Initiatives such as Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, Make in India, Beti Bachao Beti Padhao, etc. through 360 degree Multimedia campaigns. Minister of State Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore was also present in the meeting.
Referring to the Publications Division which was the subject of the meeting, Naidu said that the Division may approach stakeholders as part of corporate social responsibility to sponsor books for schools and libraries across the country. This would enhance the visibility of the rich collection of Divisions publications and at the same time making these books available to the younger generation in far off and remote villages.
A presentation was made by Joint Secretary Mihir Kumar Singh on behalf of the Ministry giving an overview of the steps and initiatives undertaken so far by the Division as well as the future roadmap for the Publications Division. Members of the committee were specially apprised of the digitisation and e-initiatives of the Publications Division including the e-version of 100 volumes of Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi.
Parliamentarians V. Sathyabama, Madhusudan Mistry and Vivek Gupta, Sanjay Jaiswal, Dev (Moon Moon Sen) Varma, and Harivansh attended the meeting.
Gatorade’s Dear Peyton TV ad is one of the nominations for Most Outstanding Commercial in the 2016 Emmy Awards. Launched in April 2016 in recognition of quarterback Manning’s retirement from the National Football League, the Gatorade Dear Peyton features handwritten letters Peyton Manning wrote during his 18-year career, read by the recipients, including former teammates, rivals, players, coaches, family and friends. Filming was shot in eight cities over 18 days without Peyton Manning’s knowledge. The campaign includes a set of six further YouTube videos featuring the different recipients. A mural featuring tweets about the Peyton, appeared at the NFL draft village in Chicago. The five-time NFL MVP and former Tennessee Volunteers quarterback announced his retirement from the NFL on March 7, 2016.
The Gatorade Dear Peyton commercial features Tony Dungy, former Indianapolis Colts head coach, Jon Scott, Indianapolis Colts equipment manager, David Cutcliffe, former University of Tennessee quarterback coach & current Duke head football coach, Pam Frenzel, mother of Tyler Frenzel who was treated at the Peyton Manning Children’s Hospital, Jeff Saturday, former Indianapolis Colts teammate, Eli Manning, brother and New York Giants quarterback, Demaryius Thomas, Denver Broncos teammate, Derek Jeter, former New York Yankees shortstop, Brandon Stokley, former Denver Broncos and Indianapolis Colts teammate, Archie Manning, father, Chris Mortensen, journalist, Brandon Washington, PeyBack Foundation scholarship recipient.
Gatorade Dear Peyton Credits
The Gatorade Dear Peyton commercial was developed at TBWAChiatDay Los Angeles by chief creative officer Stephen Butler, executive creative director Brett Anderson, worldwide creative director Renato Fernandez, creative director Mark Peters, senior art director Pierce Thiot, senior copywriters Kathleen Swanson and Scott Cleveland, director of production Brian O’Rourke, executive producer Guia Iacomin, senior producer Chris Spencer, managing director Jericho Cabaysa, brand director Robyn Morris, brand manager Dylan Henshaw, group planning director Scott MacMaster, global planning director Martin Ramos, planning director Abigail Weintraub, planner Matt Bataclan, junior planner Joe Elliott, director of business affairs Linda Daubson, senior business affairs manager Mimi Hirsch, talent payment manager Annie Boyle, traffic manager Judy Brill.
Filming was shot by director Henry-Alex Rubin via Smuggler with head of production Andrew Colon, executive producer Drew Santarsiero, producer Leah Allina, director of photography Ryley Brown, partners Patrick Milling Smith and Brian Carmody.
Editing was done at Rock Paper Scissors by editor Damion Clayton, Louis-Philippe Charente (content), assistant editor Mike Spagnoli, executive producer Helena Lee, producers Leah Carnahan, Dina Ciccotello.
Post production was done at The Mill by senior executive producer Sue Trojan, executive producer Enca Kaul, producer Kiana Bicoy, production coordinator Alana Giordano, 2D lead artists Bill Higgins, Tim Robbins, 2D artist Steve Gibbons, AE animator Greg Park, colourist Adam Scott, assistant colourists Asa Fox, Ryan Crane, Sam Ziaie, Benton Africano, colour executive producer Thatcher Peterson, colour producer Diane Valera, colour production coordinator Jackson Rogers.
The tribute film is set to Bob Dylan’s 1964 classic tune “The Times They Are A Changin.”
Blu-Ray discs available here: http://www.mikeolbinski.com/shop/ Song by Kerry Muzzy: “Found” (Available on iTunes (http://bit.ly/MO_TM3) and Amazon (http://bit.ly/Found_KM) – please support him!) Follow me: mikeolbinski.com / twitter.com/mikeolbinski / facebook.com/mikeolbinskiphotography / instagram.com/mikeolbinski ————————— Blood. Sweat. Tears. Joy. That’s what this spring was for me. The miles, the grind, the failing, the epic days missed, the lack of sleep, the jubilation, the friendships strengthened, and the time away from my family. And when the chasing was all done…wondering, was worth it all? Heck yeah it was. I had three goals this spring: Get a tornado on time-lapse, capture the best footage I possibly could, and chase as much as my schedule would allow. That ended up totalling 18 chase days. 20,000 miles driven. Almost 60,000 time-lapse frames shot. Nine total states. Hours and hours and hours of editing. All between April 15th and June 15th. And the tornado? Not only did I get one, but I got six more. On April 15th, the very first day out, I saw two tornadoes in the Texas Panhandle. May 9th was Wynnewood and Sulphur in Oklahoma (both in this film), as well as Trinidad on June 13th in Colorado. And while most tornadoes will be obvious in the film, you’ll have to use a keen eye to spot the first two, which appear at 2:08 and 2:13. The Wynnewood tornado, which you will see at the very end of the film, was one of the most surreal moments of my life. I was so focused on keeping up with the storm that day, that I barely realized that I had captured what I’d been working so hard to get. I texted my wife a few photos and simply said “Baby I did it”. It wasn’t until she responded “Babe, it’s beautiful. I’m so happy for you” that I completely lost it – live stream going on in the truck, people watching, and tears streaming down my face. But that’s how much this spring meant to me, and how hard I was going. Most of the time exhausted. My typical routine would be to leave Phoenix sometime in late afternoon, drive all night, sleep an hour or two in the truck and then chase the next few days. And then drive home all night again. I did whatever I could to to minimize the time away from my family. Heck, I once even shot a wedding all day, left the venue, and drove all night to chase. I didn’t want to miss anything this spring. What’s awesome to me is that some of my best stuff came from marginal days, where it took some effort and crazy luck to get sick storm structures. Those were the surprises – amazing clips worthy of the final product despite the chase day starting out subpar. Combined together with everything else, I think it’s some of my best footage to date! Technical note…this film marks the first time I used my Canon 5DSR and 11-24 for time-lapse, which I bought right before the spring started (Thank you Martin Heck for the help!). I’m not 100% sure of course, but I believe the tornadoes in the film may be some of the first ever captured in 8K resolution. The 50 megapixels that camera offers was huge for being able to zoom into certain shots and still maintain fantastic quality and sharpness. Couldn’t be happier with that beast. I also used my trusty 5D3 for the tighter shots, with the 35mm, 50mm or 135mm. I have to mention Kerry Muzzey here…he has surpassed being kind to me. This is the 3rd or 4th time he’s donated a song to one of my projects and I’m forever grateful. His music is powerful, haunting at times, and always, always perfect for the story I want to tell. This year I knew right away that “Found” was the song I would use. Please visit the links above to support his work! There are a lot of names to thank which are listed at the end of the film. I owe them all so much for helping me this spring. Nowcasting, making me turn around when I was headed to Montana, teaching me about forecasting, helping me choose the right new camera, editing input, and just being good friends. I am very blessed to have some amazing people around me! Most of all to my wife, Jina. She knows…every year I’m gone longer. I’m sure next year could be worse. But through it all, even when it’s really tough, she’s always right behind me. Making things work when I’m away. There are never enough words to cover how amazing she is. But she knows and I know – this film wouldn’t happen without her. I think that’s about it! Thanks to everyone for the kind words of support all year. I truly hope you enjoy this one! On to Monsoon 3! ————————— Technical Details: Captured with A CANON 5DSR, CANON 5D3, Canon 11-24mm f/4, 16-35mm, 35mm, 50mm, 135mm Processed using Lightroom, LR Timelapse, After Effects and Premiere Pro Most clips available in 8K resolution, as well as 4K.
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A. during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
