YEAH… THAT’S OUR FOOTBALL MATCH WITH ZOMBIES AGAINST FIREWOLVES. It’s Nike; it’s China, It’s Wieden Kennedy, It’s football, and above all, It’s the dream project for any Zombie fan. Put your headphones on, look for a peaceful quiet place, take a good breath and watch this animation full of adrenaline and death! Client: Nike Agency: Wieden+Kennedy Shanghai Production Co.: Passion Pictures Australia http://lecube.tv
Official “Jumanji 2: Welcome to the Jungle” Movie Teaser Trailer 2017 | Subscribe ➤ http://abo.yt/kc | Dwayne Johnson Movie #Trailer | Release: 20 Dec 2017 | More https://KinoCheck.de/film/v7x/jumanji-welcome-to-the-jungle-2017
In a brand new Jumanji adventure, the tables are turned as four teenagers are sucked into Jumanji’s world – pitted against rhinos, black mambas and an endless variety of jungle traps and puzzles. To survive, they’ll play as characters from the game: meek Spencer becomes a brave explorer (Dwayne Johnson); hulky jock Fridge becomes a tiny genius (Kevin Hart); It-girl Bethany becomes a bookworm professor (Jack Black); and unathletic Martha becomes an amazonian warrior (Karen Gillan). To beat the game and return to the real world with their lives, they’ll have to start seeing things in an entirely different way.
#Jumanji2 #WelcometotheJungle is the new adventure movie by Jake Kasdan, starring Dwayne Johnson, Jack Black and Kevin Hart.
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Note | Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle trailer courtesy of Sony Pictures Releasing. | All Rights Reserved. | KinoCheck®
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Previously on vfxblog, The Mummy’s overall visual effects supervisor Erik Nash weighed on crafting the 5 stages of transformation of Princess Ahmanet. Key to bringing her to life in closer-to-human form was augmenting real photography of Sofia Boutella by taking away portions or her face or body to show the re-generation process.
MPC was behind that work, and, in fact, the studio has been pioneering augmentation and ‘digital make-up’ work lately with films such as Ghost in the Shell and Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales. MPC visual effects supervisor Greg Butler outlines how it was accomplished in The Mummy in this overview for vfxblog.
Greg Butler: Starting with a real actor did a couple things at once. It kept the movie visually grounded the entire time. There was obviously the occasional exception for a difficult stunt shot or something that was come up with too late or where we had to invent the shot in post, but most of the footage, whether it’s the Ahmanet work we did, the undead attacking in the church, even the undead attacking in the tunnels, the undead swimming after Tom in the water – they were always a physical performer. We at least kept generally their torsos and their costumes.
If you look at a shot, the first things your eyes go to subconsciously are like, “Is the cloth moving right? Is the character moving with weight?” All of those, your brain’s immediately answered that, “Yep, everything’s completely real,” because those essential aspects of the characters were.
So anything we did to them at that point, as long as we did a decent job of marrying the material and integrating it, we always had a solid foundation, we would never stray far at all. There would be no Uncanny Valley to anything, and it was such a strong platform that even when we had to insert a shot here and there where they were fully digital, you’re in the sequence so solidly that you don’t even notice because the real material is carrying you along. If we occasionally have to drop in a digital version, instead of having the fully digital thing have to carry the whole thing all the time, and all it takes is one slip up in a cloth sim that has not quite the right look and you just reject the whole thing. “Oh, that was all fake.”
I don’t know that there really is moments in the movie where that would happen to the audience because so much of it was grounded by the real stuff. And that was really a decision early on in the movie. And even we had to keep fighting against the occasional desire from whatever quarter, like, “Oh, can’t we just replace that guy and go digital?” Well, yes, but think about what that will do to this whole thing. It also kept people’s focus on the shoot on, “Is this really how you want the guy to move? Because this is it, he’s not being replaced, he’s not being painted out.” Of course, we never said, “No,” if there was a particular shot that didn’t work, and there were a few. So we did replace some people. But really the bulk of the choreography was what the director and the stunt coordinator rehearsed and did on set.
We didn’t necessarily reinvent the wheel for this – we did some traditional known techniques, we refined the process, we glued some bits together including one of the new bits being the optical flow approach in NUKE, and it meant that we were able to get to a usable result much quicker. (MPC is presenting on the approach at SIGGRAPH this year, with a Talk by Curtis Andrus).
I dealt with way more tracking, like roto-animation, body tracking, skull tracking and facial deformation tracking than any project that I’ve ever dealt with. Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of shots. And if we hadn’t come up with ways to create efficiencies and get good at repeating a particular technique and process, even the quality control aspect of reviewing the work, we would have never made it through.
One of the key things that really made it possible was, early on we knew that the character of Ahmanet, when she’s in stage 3 and 4, which is when we’d replacing parts of her face – we’d replace her eyes, we’d add on digital hair – all of these things we knew that everything was dependent on getting a solid track as soon as possible so that all the other departments’ work could make it into the shot.
We continued to try to get shots ready to produce without a locked down design and therefore a locked down asset. But we had at least one hard and fast rule, which was that we would never be replacing or augmenting her, what we call the performance zone, her lips, her eyelids, small facial details that really represent the minute muscle twitches of a particular actor speaking lines and emoting.
So even though we took over in many shots, let’s say 70% of her face, that remaining 30% which is all her, it meant that we didn’t have to move into facial motion capture or post production methodologies to do a digital face. Which just increased the time and the complexity and the scrutiny to a whole other level. As long as we could stick with the broader areas of the face, then after a bunch of testing we found that we could use NUKE’s optical flow basis to work off of a plate, get the pixels all tracking, and then convert those pixels into a 3D model of the facial movement and render that just as if it had come out of motion capture or a full 3D pipeline.
I think about her eyes a lot, because we replace her eyes in almost every shot in the movie. And what made those things work so quickly for us is that I always tried to use the plate for the most intricate part of the eye, the caruncle, the meniscus, the eyelashes, I tried to use the least amount of pixels possible while still providing what’s necessary to show that she has these strange, alluring, monstrous, double pupils that represent that she’s not completely human. That was a technique that we spent a long time on up front, but by the time we were finishing the movie we could turn those shots around in so little time because we would take the plate, we knew what we needed to, you know, put CG into and we would just, kind of, just keep knocking them out.
One of the interesting things is that we’re doing so many movies at the same and although all the supervisors don’t talk on any regular basis, we and our teams are aware enough of the fact that something else is going on, so in the case it was the latest Pirates of the Caribbean movie, it was the one where they were dealing with lots of roto-animation, lots of facial tracking and they were starting to experiment with NUKE, but we were just behind them in the schedule, so what they started to experiment with we said, “Hey, I think that’s what we need.”
We took their experiment and turned it into a pipeline, and then Ghost in the Shell was just ahead of us and so all of these projects worldwide were kind of all going and all looking at each other thinking, “Am I missing something? Did they just figure out something that I could benefit from?”
It can be tough to maintain that number of films in production across the company, but there’s a huge advantage in the shared knowledge. And when somebody figures out a good way to do something, it immediately rolls into whatever project isn’t done yet.
See vfxblog’s Breaking down Princess Ahmanet’s 5 stages in ‘The Mummy’
No matter how old you are, no matter which field you work in, there is always that one animated character that has a place in your heart since very long. You probably started looking at life differently after you got to know it or you simply loved it for the way it was. It acquires a place on your bedroom wall or you sketch it and get it framed. You sport its t-shirt or are crazy for its line of toys. It inspires you to the extent that you either site its examples to the kids or go all the way to create more characters similar to it.
Here are some animation industry heads and their favourite animated characters and why they love them so much:
Toonz Media Group CEO P. Jayakumar’s favourite animated character of all time is Simba from the movie The Lion King, and believes that there is a Simba within all of us, waiting to be discovered. “Our circumstances or sometimes even our own self work against our confidence. And we all run away from ourselves like Simba. But when our will-power combines with destiny, we discover the king within us….the king who can take the pride to its greatest glory,” Jayakumar says. As everyday is a new challenge, he tries to discover a Simba in him each day. He does not watch the movie daily but each time he watches the scene where Rafiki makes Simba realise his true self, he remembers his own mentor guiding him at the beginning of his career. “For an art form to have such resounding influence on people’s lives makes me more of a believer in the profession I am; and absolutely proud of it.”
Green Gold Animation founder and Chhota Bheem creator Rajiv Chilaka can connect to the character of Donald Duck. He loves the character because it is not always rising and shining. “It has to go through a struggle,” Chilaka explains. He followed the series when it was broadcasted on Indian television and had also read its comics. “Shows such as these have inspired me to create Indian IPs,” he reveals, speaking of how these shows had always been at the back of his mind while working on IPs.
Sun TV Network head of content acquisition and kids channels Kavitha Jaubin feels that Heidi – a cute little curious girl from the Japanese animated series Heidi, Girl of the Alps – teaches the values of friendship and mutual help. “Like a ray of sunshine, Heidi lights up and soothes the hearts of people around her, inspiring them with her enthusiastic, generous and wonderful zest for life,” Jaubin exclaims. “The substance of a real heroine, Heidi goes through life in the present without ever losing her innocence and her free-spirited manners.” Jaubin still watches Heidi and enjoys the best parts. “I had been watching this from my childhood days along with my sister, and now watching with my son,” she shares, explaining how the memories it holds are garden-fresh and make her want to travel to the Alps once in her lifetime.
EightyEight Pictures founder and CEO Milind Shinde’s favourite characters are Minions from Despicable Me. According to him, they are a fantastic example of what animation can do to an unimaginable object- put characteristics in that they become a part of your life. “Who would have thought that a round object without a language or specific characteristics could become so famous,” Shinde exclaims. That’s what animation is all about, he feels. “You can have a goose as father of a panda (Kung Fu Panda), a giraffe falling in love with a hippo (Madagascar), a dog adopting a human boy (Mr. Peabody & Sherman) and a mouse becoming a chef (Ratatouille). All this can only happen in animation.” These creations inspire him to create animated content, “and needless to say, Siddhie, my business partner and wife has all of them in her showcase!”
Viacom 18 programming head & Nickelodeon programming director Anu Sikka’s favourite animated character is Shaun from the British animated series, Shaun the Sheep. “I think that the characters are adorable and the humor is brilliant,” Sikka highlights. She has watched most of the episodes but unfortunately cannot follow it daily.
These industry heads no doubt continue to feel inspired and connected by these animated characters despite their busy lives. We will bring more such articles in future. Stay in touch with us!
The post Indian animation industry heads divulge their favourite animated characters appeared first on AnimationXpress.
After the worldwide success of the Nordic and Irish mythologies in the latest years, the ancient Balkan legends are still an unexplored territory for the animation industry. Bulgaria-based Studio Zmei is bravely lifting the curtain with The Golden Apple– the first animated series based on the Balkan legends.
Studio Zmei had already released a short animation in the same universe – The Legend of the First Kuker Warrior – and are crowdfunding for a pilot episode. With the support of the Bulgarian National Television who are a co-producer for the episode and the help of the Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign which is currently active, work on the project continues. The team’s new goal is to decrease expenditure without compromising on quality.
The story follows the adventures of four teenagers – the daughter of a storm spirit (who is a human woman) accompanied by a water nymph and two human brothers trained to fight evil with their magic bells called “chans”. The children venture across a mysterious world filled with magical creatures in search of “the golden apple” – a legendary artefact which appears once in a hundred years and has the power to fulfill wishes.
“Each episode will contain a separate adventure and the main story is planned to spread across a couple of seasons but since we are creating a whole universe of fantastic creatures and we are using thousands of years worth of legends as source material – the sky is the limit when it comes to how big this project can become” says Dimitar Petrov, who initially came up with the idea for the series a few years back.
Lead characters of ‘The Golden Apple’
In order to fit within a smaller budget, the screenplay for the first episode of the animated series will be rewritten. This will shorten the length of the pilot from 24 to 12 minutes. Over $32000 have already been raised through Indiegogo where the campaign has been extended until 6 July. The resulting pilot episode will be fully animated and a full soundtrack for it will be produced. It will show viewers the beginning of the epic adventure that awaits the characters and will open the door for negotiations with investors for the funding of an entire season.
The post Balkan legend based ‘The Golden Apple’ crowdfund for first pilot episode appeared first on AnimationXpress.
It was a memorable journey for FutureWorks’ senior colourist Andreas Brueckl who graded his first Bollywood feature film after joining the post-production studio early this year. Andreas graded Y-Films’ Bank Chor which released on 16 June 2017.
The movie was released nationwide on 16 June on about 800 screens. The comic thriller directed by Bumpy and was produced by Y-Films head Ashish Patil. Y-films is the youth wing of Aditya Chopra’s production and distribution powerhouse Yash Raj Films The film was shot by cinematographer Adil Afsar who was very satisfied with the final outcome.
Talking about working with FutureWorks, Adil said, ““When I moved here, one good thing I like about this particular studio is the attention for detail. Since ‘Bank Chor’ is not a mega budget movie; when I say mega budget it doesn’t have Shah Rukh Khan, Salman Khan or Aamir Khan; inspite of that the attention for detail for my film was commendable.
FutureWorks pays equal attention to every single film, irrespective of the budget and stars, in fact every single shot is considered important. Kailash Jadhav (Head of Production) is a fantastic person, he always tries to solve your problems and he will never say ‘no’. I understand that in a lab there are multiple projects going on at the same time, so you need somebody to figure things out and I think he is doing a fantastic job of it.”
He further added, “There was a break in my film for about eight months, right after that I met this wonderful person called Andreas Brueckl. He is great colourist, very strong in terms of the art of grading as well as the technique of grading. By technique, I mean the technology of grading- what should the pipeline be, etc. Andy has reinforced my faith in FutureWorks. I do a lot of commercials and I am glad that with Andy’s arrival they have commenced their commercial division in full swing.”
Talking about introducing new workflows for his first Hindi feature, colourist Andreas said, “For Bank Chor, we really went in a new and fresh style of grading compared to other films. The color palettes have a lot of green and blue shades and it gives a very interesting look with lots of depth.
Adil was concerned about the P3 movie to HD REC709 conversion, which happens usually by a 3D LUT or overall offset. So I introduced him to my workflow which means grading a separate REC.709 version from the RAW timeline with shot by shot adjustment if needed. In the future probably more people are watching movies on TV and streaming platforms than on the cinema screens, so it just made sense for us to pay the same attention to the HD rec.709 grade as to the Projector grade.”
Andreas has graded hundreds of commercials and stands as one of Europe’s most experienced DI and commercial colourist artists. He is also Asia’s premiere DI and commercial artist as he swept away all the awards in the color grading category pan Asia at the Apollo Awards this year.
With Bank Chor, FutureWorks had further strengthened their relationship with Yash Raj Films as their preferred post production partner and have been consistently investing in talent and technology to provide their customer’s cutting edge services.
The post Flashback: FutureWorks’ senior colourist Andreas Brueckl grades his ‘Bank Chor’ journey appeared first on AnimationXpress.
Studio 100 Media and National Geographic closed an agreement for the exclusive pay-TV rights of CGI animated series The Wild Adventures of Blinky Bill (52 x 12’) for the Latam (Latin America) territories, arranged by Studio 100’s exclusive distribution partner for Latin America, Comarex.
The Wild Adventures of Blinky Bill will air on National Geographic’s brand-new children’s multiplatform Nat Geo Kids. It is targeted at kids from four to seven years and will be aired on 1 July 2017 in Latin America, followed by Brazil this September.
Studio 100 Media head of global distribution Martin Krieger said, “We are delighted about this first agreement with National Geographic in Latam. Blinky Bill will be one of the first shows airing on this newly created kids’ brand. We are confident that our cheeky koala bear will entertain kids in Latin America with his hilariously funny adventures. With Comarex we have established a successful collaboration and fruitful partnership over the years and we highly value their experience and expertise in distributing in Latin America.”
Blinky Bill is a true Australian icon and comes back with new stories and adventures in a witty, modern CGI version of the classic series. The brand-new series is produced by Flying Bark Productions in association with Telegael Teoranta (Ireland) and Giant Wheel (India).
“At National Geographic we are always looking for the best content to develop the potential of our viewers. The launch of Nat Geo Kids is one of our biggest challenges, with the most demanding public, and we are very excited to share this opportunity with Studio 100. The Wild Adventures of Blinky Bill will contribute to develop the curiosity of the children through both exploration and entertainment”, said National Geographic Partners (Latin America) executive vice president Diego Reck.
The post Studio 100’s ‘Blinky Bill’ starts on newly launched Nat Geo Kids in Latam appeared first on AnimationXpress.
An unflinching bond: Okja and Mija
In one of the most intriguing tale of friendship yet, Bong Joon-Ho’s Okja tells the story about a 13-year old Korean girl who befriends a crossbreed of pig and a hippo of the same name and takes great pains to rescue him from getting slaughtered.
Starring Tilda Swinton, Jake Gyllenhaal alongside many Korean stars, Okja is a Korean-American film which has already flattered its audience in Cannes and is now ready to win hearts in US and South Korea.
A Netflix original, the movie orbits around the super-pig Okja which is one of the many genetically created creatures by Mirando Corporation, led by Lucy Mirando (Swinton), in an attempt to resolve the world hunger issue. However, one of them escapes and a young farmgirl called Mija adopts him and they develop a deep-rooted bond.
When Mirando and her associates try to take him back to the slaughterhouse, Mija allies with several animal rights activists group and walks on eggshells to save her beaconer friend’s life.
Now that we know the plot, let’s delve into the creation of Okja.
Filming such a humongous animal involves a lot of CGI, VFX and other special effects. To make Okja look unique, Joon-Ho roped in Oscar winning VFX supervisor Eric De Boer whose visual effects for The Life of Pie won him a Golden Globe.
Starting off with a few concept drawings, De Boer took a dekko over hundreds of pigs, hippos and manatees before altering a bit of the structure of the feet, ears and the overall appearance.
Once Okja was pictured, the makers decided to make a stuff toy out of a laser-cut foam for the actors to enact with and later use CGI to bring it alive on the screen.
A puppeteer brought Okja to life on the set. The production people had a ‘stuffie’ for every part of her body.That was the only way for the post-production (special effects) work to be accurate. Mija is always hugging and grazing Okja’s face. The puppet doesn’t smells too pleasant but it looks lovely.
A cardboard cut-out of Okja
De Boer, who lead a team of 140 digital artists, talks about the challenges in the making of Okja. He recalls, “Nobody is going to believe a CGI creature if the gravity and collisions with the ground are not properly taken care of. That’s always out first worry.”
On the sets of Okja
To create a crossbreed of a pig, a hippo and a manatee not only requires imagination, but also involves several intricate details of each animal to be studies so as to incorporate them in the cross breed.It really began with a few initial sketches drawn by Director Bong; the size comparison between Mija and Okja, and sort of what Okja looked like fresh from his imagination, before any other artist was involved.
Their team actually went to the zoo and stroked a few hippos because they needed to understand how much tension is there on its skin.A pig has a lot of hair and can be quite furry, whereas a hippo is waxier and smoother.
For all the efforts in making the film, Okja has garnered largely positive reviews from the critics, who are in the awe of the animal. The film has generated an 83% rating so far on Rotten Tomatoes, whereas the IMDB ratings stand at a considerable 7.7, all of this within a week of its release.The movie is streaming on Netflix from 28 July 2017.
The post Come and meet Netflix’s Okja and Mija appeared first on AnimationXpress.
In a fun interaction with media on 27 June 2017, Indian actor Tiger Shroff shares his experience of dubbing for Peter Parker and Spider-Man in the Hindi version of ‘Spider-Man: Homecoming’.
The post Tiger Shroff on dubbing ‘Spider-Man: Homecoming’ Hindi version appeared first on AnimationXpress.
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