Wizart Animation releases the trailer and a new poster for ‘The Snow Queen: Mirrorlands’

The latest animated feature from Wizart Animation, The Snow Queen: Mirrorlands gets a trailer and a new poster.

Based on the famous fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen, The Snow Queen: Mirrorlands is set to release internationally this Christmas Eve (24 December), followed by a 1 January, 2019 release in Russia. The Snow Queen: Mirrorlands is their fourth in the series that dates back to 2012’s The Snow Queen.

A confrontation of science and magic, progress and fairytales, The Snow Queen: Mirrorlands once again follows Gerda and her friends, who along with the Snow Queen, band together to fight the mighty King Harald to save the world of magicians.

The Snow Queen: Mirrorlands marks the directing debut of animator Robert Lence (Toy Story, Shrek, The Lion King) along with Aleksei Tsitsilin. Yuri Moskvin, Vladimir Nikolaev, Boris Mashkovtsev, Pavel Stepanov and Vadim Vereshchagin serve as producers. Central Partnership (part of Gazprom Media) and Soyuzmultfilm come together for co-production.

The Snow Queen brand that has brought Wizart Animation Studio almost $100 million since its 2012 launch, is the most successful Russian project abroad. To the present day, the franchise’s movies have been sold to 150 countries and translated into 30 languages.

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EA rolls out ‘Project Atlas’ to integrate gaming engine and services

EA is exploring cloud gaming with the launch of the platform Project Atlas. EA CTO Ken Moss has emphasised that the platform integrates both game engine and services and 1000 of EA employees are taking care of it.

Earlier this year EA acquired the cloud gaming technology assets and personnel of a wholly owned subsidiary of GameFly and it is quite obvious that the strategic acquisition of the technology and team members of Gamefly has deepened EA’s capabilities and expertise in cloud gaming, which has helped them to roll out its own cloud gaming platform, Project Atlas . The platform will help explore new ways for players to access and experience games from any device.

As per EA’s official blog post, there are two major components to building a game from a technology standpoint

> The game engine — this is what controls the fundamentals of the game with things like rendering, game logic, physics, animation, audio, and a toolchain for creating the game.

> And a rich set of services like secure player identity and authentication, player matchmaking and achievements, and social communications with friends that truly bring the game to life — all supported by common data management and game and service hosting.

“When we talk about cloud gaming, we’re referring to a game that resides on an EA server rather than on the gamer’s PC or mobile device. The gamer enters the game by installing a thin client that can access EA’s servers where the games are running,” said Moss.

Beyond that, EA is investing in cloud gaming to enable deeper personalisation, and aim to create a world full of user-generated content blurring the lines between the discrete domains of game engines and game services.

Not only that, EA is expecting that they can progress gaming with artificial intelligence (AI) technology which the industry is yet to harness completely. When AI is available everywhere, developers will use it to optimise almost every element of a game from the distribution of resources in an online shooter to populating and evolving expansive virtual worlds with minimal manual intervention and to unlocking deep personalisation of in-game agents at scale.

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BRIO STUDIO

BRIO STUDIO a leading digital production studio based in Pune, specialise in delivering quality Animation content with multi-platform distribution. currently working on various animation projects for television and digital platform.

 We Are Hiring For Following Positions

For all Job Applications. Please mail us at jobs@brio-studio.com

Please mention job code in subject line.

Storyboarding Artist

Exp 6 to 12 yrs

CODE: STB-A

Candidate should have excellent story telling & composition skills. Should have knowledge of good sketching, good visualization, camera angles.

Concept/Matte Painting Artist

Exp 6 to 12 yrs

CODE: CNP-A

The Concept Artist will be responsible for creating ground breaking concepts and illustrations for pre-production.

Candidate is responsible for set extensions, either standalone or to be integrated into stylised environments. We expect applicants to also show considerable experience creating visual concepts and designs for a huge range of projects, from characters and creatures to environments and style frames. You will be expected to be client facing and experienced in working closely with Creative and Directors supplying reference and creative inspiration to support their vision.

3D Animators :

Exp: 3 to 12 yrs

CODE: ANIM-A

Candidate should be able to think creatively to produce original and aesthetically pleasing and appealing character animations according to project design requirements.

Add animation effects including emotions, mood, behaviours, movements, personalities and attitudes to character objects. Work with Lead Animator to develop look and feel of character movements. Should be able to work effectively with other design and production staff.

Modeling / Texturing Artist

Exp: 3 to 8 yrs
(Characters & BG Prop)
CODE: MOD-A

Candidate should be able to follow design reference accurately and work in a range of styles, be able to create moderate to complex and organic models. Should be able to model characters, props and environments, working to a good level of finish, if required.

have a strong sense of scale, form, weight and volume, good understanding of modelling with either Polygons or NURBS (Non-uniform rational basis spline).should able to do UV mapping.

FX Artist

Exp: 2 to 6 yrs

CODE: FX-A

Candidate Should able to create and animate natural and fantastical effects – water, smoke, dust, and explosions.

Closely work with Designers, Programmers and other members of the team.

Knowledge of scripting languages is considered a plus.

Lighting Artist

Exp: 4 to 8 yrs

CODE: LIT-A

candidate should have a strong sense of light and shadow demonstrated by artwork or CG work, should have knowledge of colour theory, including through art history knowledge, be able to light characters and environments, interior and exterior, different times of day, etc. have an understanding of composition and the ability to enhance mood by lighting .

Rigging & Blend shapes Artist

Exp: 2 to 8 yrs

Code : RIG – A

3D Layout Artist

Exp: 2 to 6 yrs

CODE: LAY-A

Compositors

Exp: 2 to 6 yrs

CODE: COMP-A

Dynamics Artist

Exp: 2 to 6 yrs

CODE: DYN-A

Character designer

Exp 4 to 8 yrs

CODE: CHA-D

Background Artist

Exp 2 to 6 yrs

CODE: BG-A

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BrandVid 2018 broadens the horizons of branded content

With a discussion leading to another BrandVid 2018 saw industry talking about the growth of branded content in videos and how the latter acts as a glue merging consumers and brands together. Story plays an important role with platforms and distribution going hand in hand making the bond between brands and consumers stronger.

The event was hosted by Indiantelevision.com at Sahara Star, Mumbai and was powered by Colours, giving a larger perspective on how crucial is the branded content for brands to the present delegates.

BranVid is an annual event ideal for the industry to discuss and make a way ahead for brand marketing. The day-long summit gave the audience a vision to use the video as a brand marketing tool and penetrate their way in the growing ecosystem.

The event brought broadcasters, digital platforms, agencies, brands, social media outlets under one roof to exchange ideas and oversee the future of video marketing. Delegates enthusiastically attended the event which saw industry stalwarts from YouTube, Myntra, Facebook, Marico, Fastrack, VICE India, Syska Group, Times Network, Onida, TVF, Prajakta Koli, Miss Malini to name a few.

BrandVid began with a keynote session from Havas Media India and South Asia CEO Anita Nayyar who stated the fact about how the digital videos have grown significantly over the past couple of years from 60 million reach in 2015 to an incredible 200+ million reach in 2017.

The session was followed by a panel discussion moderated by S. Yesudas about how important are branded videos to publications and broadcasters. Group M business head of entertainment sports and live events Vinit Karnik said that content is the king and distribution is god, but data is the new oil which will manage the mechanism. The discussion saw other industry leaders like Lokmat MEdia senior EVP and head of digital business Hemant Jain who feels that over emphasis on data may kill the creativity.

The next session shed a light upon what role does the social media giants like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube play in the terms of branded videos. YouTube India entertainment head Satya Raghvan summed up the discussion by stating that the brand must think like a creator rather than a brand itself.

A presentation by Twitter India head entertainment partnerships Keya Madhvani showcased how Twitter is becoming popular and how the audience base for the same is receptive. An interesting fireside chat between Pocket Aces founder Ashwin Suresh and Anil Wanvari paved way to the use of brands in videos and showed how the campaigns that use video marketing work well.

The industry leaders including Byju marketing head Atit Mehta, UltraTech Cement brand building head Sanchita Ganguly, Syska Group marketing head Amit Sethiya, InMobi director brand strategy Nikhil Kumar, Group M South Asia chief strategy officer Tushar Vyas and BSH Home Appliances Group senior marketing manager Anirudh Lamba discussed the top five things to keep in mind for branded videos, both digital and television. Ganguly mentioned how conversation, insights, respecting the medium and being dynamic is important.

The YouTube sensation and beloved Prajakta Koli had a candid chat with Anil Wanvari as to how the influencers are helping in the brand marketing through videos.

Vidooly unveiled a report on the rise of branded content in India forecasting the worth of the growing branded content to 7.45 billion in 2022. The event was filled with many more informative sessions and discussions for the industry about the industry, concluding on the note that this is the golden time for the marketers to create and distribute videos.

 

 

 

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The Rise of Redshift: An Interview With Trevor Kerr of MANVSMACHINE

We chat with Trevor Kerr from MANVSMACHINE about 3D workflows, third-party rendering, and the new Greyscalegorilla Guide to Redshift.

Trevor Kerr, the Technical Director at MANVSMACHINE, chats with Chad Ashley about all things rendering. They talk about the strengths and weaknesses of Arnold, Octane, and Redshift, and also dive into the many topics covered in the new Greyscalegorilla Guide to Redshift.

In this informal discussion Trevor Kerr and Chad Ashley discuss the meteoric rise of Redshift in production as well as an in-depth Redshift training product the two recently teamed up on.


The Greyscalegorilla Guide to Redshift

Are you ready to learn about all of the Redshift render features? The Greyscalegorilla Guide to Redshift is a training series with nearly 19 hours of lessons. Spend 6 hours learning all the buttons and features in Redshift, and then spend time breaking down several Redshift projects.

Greyscalegorilla Guide to Redshift Features:

  • 18+ hours of training
    • 6 hours on features and controls
    • 12 hours of Redshift projects
  • 6 index chapters
  • 4 Redshift projects
  • 120 videos
  • Scene files and assets included

Learn more about the Greyscalegorilla Guide to Redshift here.

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The Path to Motion Hatch

In this Motionographer Guest Post, we hear from Hayley Akins, the founder of Motion Hatch, about how the site began and where it’s headed!

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‘LEGO Star Wars: All-Stars’ trailer includes all generations of heroes

Disney has been churning out a lot of television content for the fans lately.

A new trailer has dropped for the upcoming animated adventure LEGO Star Wars: All-Stars. The trailer is absolutely packed with thrilling characters spanning from the new trilogy and back through the films’ timeline well into the Clone Wars era.

LEGO Star Wars: All-Stars will feature some of the biggest characters of the Star Wars franchise. It will also follow some of the smaller ones like Maz, R0-GR, Admiral Ackbar and Graballa. It’s essentially a bonafide who’s who of the Star Wars universe, combined with the kind of craziness one can expect from the LEGO franchise.



While we don’t know exactly how LEGO Star Wars: All-Stars intends on using all of these heroes, we do have some background on how it will present them.

The LEGO Star Wars: All-Stars trailer features more characters from the new films than it does the older ones. Even the representations of Lando, Han, and Leia are modern takes on the characters, rather than portrayals of how they looked in the original story.

For all the big characters the LEGO Star Wars: All-Stars trailer had, neither Luke Skywalker nor Darth Vader is present in the trailer.

As mentioned, LEGO Star Wars: All-Stars premieres with shorts released to the Disney XD YouTube channel and DisneyNOW beginning Monday, 31 November 2018.

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Exploring the broadening horizons of Manga in India

90’s kids have grown up humming tunes of the Pokemon theme song, collecting ‘tazos’ and spinning many Beyblades in the craze of our favourite cartoons.

Manga, a unique style of art that is peculiar to Japanese Comics, has had a widespread influence over Indian viewers. A majority of the millennials who grew up watching Cartoon Network can recall being fascinated by a breadth of regaling and gripping Japanese content. Few people know that even Jungle Book, the series based on the Rudyard Kipling’s book was an anime (a Japanese style animation). 

India is one of the largest consumers of Japanese anime-styled content. Today’s kids are just as enamoured by a range of anime cartoons. Crayon Shinchan, another manga-based anime is among the top five shows for kids aged two to 14, competing with the likes of Chhota Bheem.

The unique style has managed to capture imaginations across the world with a cult-like following in many countries. To gauge the magnitude of manga’s influence on Indian consumers, we spoke to India’s first award-winning manga-styled webcomic, The Beast of Legion’s creator, Jazyl Homavazir.

Jazyl Homavazir

In answer to the question of what role manga plays in India, he said, “Manga/Anime awareness and love have grown exponentially in India since 2012. Whether advertently or inadvertently, the anime culture was always there from the 90’s including several shows like Ninku, DragonBall Z, Ninja Robots and more first hit screens. I remember in 2011 at comic con when I first launched my web manga, The Beast Legion, I could barely spot three-four people dawning anime character cosplays. Today more than half the cosplayers dress up as their favourite characters at almost every Comic Con. That being said, Comic-Con has played a huge role in increasing the awareness and has brought a huge company like viz media to officially release their titles here in India”

Appending the notion that manga has caught on with the fount of Indian consumer demands for quality content, he opined that Manga is a perfect medium to bring long-form character-driven storytelling through amazing art.

Speaking of his own journey, he continued, “Although back in the day, we never had access to any manga content due to the lack of the internet & hence we were mostly introduced to various series purely through TV in the form of anime. As a huge fan of cartoons and animation, I loved watching any shows which had varied art styles. Anime as far as I can remember started in India through AXN which started with shows such as Ninku, Yamato Takeru, Grander Musashi, Ghost sweeper and quite a few, back in the 90s although at that time my differentiation of the genres was very vague. However Anime truly made an impact when Cartoon Network first aired DragonBall Z (in 1996 I think), everyone in school was buzzing with this new action-packed show that didn’t shy away from the brutal action. I remember friends using their 512 Mbps connections to start downloading episodes online after CN stopped the series midway during the Goku/Frieza battle. It was unprecedented. That was the time, I actually felt Anime had landed. After DragonBall Z, Pokemon and Digimon took the centre stage. Even today, I believe India is one of the largest fan bases in the world when it comes to DragonBall Z and I’m hoping the new Broly Movie somehow makes it to theatres here.”

Comic Con has indeed been a harbinger of hope and promise as far as the spreading the awareness of this art-form goes. It has promoted creators of various art-forms and storytelling platforms. A confluence of forces has emerged in bringing consumers closer to the content of their preference.

Homowazir said, “I remember in 2011 when I attended my first Comic-Con, there were hardly 10 cosplayers who were dressed up as anime characters (mostly Naruto/Bleach) I instantly connected with them and most have been Facebook friends ever since. However within two years, there was so much awareness for the genre, we had anime clubs popping up all over social media, friends discussing the latest chapters so that meant new people joining the revolution. Before you knew it at comic con 2014, more than 50 percent of the cosplayers were Anime based and I had a 10-year-old coming up to my stall & sharing all the details of Naruto and how much he loved the show & it really put a smile on my face. It’s a time when I was convinced that as long as you present an amazing story in the best possible way kids of any age will love it. After that, I was associated with working on character designs for an Indian anime style show but sadly it never saw the light of day due to last moment funding issues. However, after that, I’ve been working on so many assignments related o anime art both locally and outsourced.”

Vegeta vs Toppo

Plenty of animes are based on Manga comics which were not previously available in India until online shopping companies began the sales of anime DVDs and Manga comics from other parts of the world.

However, It would be wrong to say that the anime culture isn’t developing in India. Growing fan clubs; online social media groups are providing great platforms to share and gather information; stores have come up with merchandise like clothes, cups, gift and other manga-related products. Awareness does seem to be spreading albeit at a slow pace.

Commenting on how Manga stands out from the rest and how he sees its future in India, Homowazir who’s the illustrator and creator of India’s first award winning Manga webcomic, The Beast of Legion added, “I personally love manga over any other comic style not just for the art but because of the long form storytelling that it brings for the readers. everything from character development to interactions is woven so intricately in the story so it doesn’t actually matter if the art is coloured or black and white.” Homowazir has won Comic Con India Award for Best webcomic Series in 2012.

The only way of finding out how successful it is if we start releasing anime movies is limited editions in local theatres when they are out in Japan as movies are only released online 6 months after they air in Japan. Being an anime style artist from India, I’m very hopeful of the prospect of anime once again becoming mainstream & giving animators & artists like me inspiration to create our own content in similar fashion & making an impact.”

If you are planning to start watching some of it, here are some of our picks:- Death Note, Naruto, Hunter X Hunter, Dragonball Z, Fullmetal Alchemist, Fairy Tail, Pokémon, One Piece, Bleach, Attack on Titan, Cowboy Bebop,Code Geass, Clannad and One Punch Man.

The future of Manga looks bright as more and more people are beginning to respond to its charm. We hope that it continues to get all the love that it deserves. 

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