Hasta La Motion!

With more people staying at home, practising social distancing, movie theatres have temporarily shut their doors. Trolls World Tour is the first major movie release to skip theaters and go straight to on demand.

Anna Kendrick and Justin Timberlake are back for Trolls World Tour, the sequel to 2016 animated hit. The prequel also features Rachael Bloom, James Corden, Caroline Hjelt, Ozzy Osbourne, Kelly Clarkson, George Clinton and more.

To celebrate, the maestros of DreamWorks Animation put together some fun tutorials that will help inspire homebound artistes of all ages. The studio shared ‘How to Draw’ character videos from head of story Tim Heitz, director Walt Dohrn, and a ‘How to Scrapbook Like Poppy’ by super-creative vis dev artist (and Animag Rising Star of 2020!) Priscilla Wong.

The family-friendly feature will be available starting 10 April via video on demand, including Amazon Prime, VUDU, Apple TV and YouTube to name a few.

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Animation studio Laika, of Coraline, Kubo and the Two Strings and Missing Link fame, has announced that its Portland, Oregon-area studio will be closed till 1 May, while “all employees are being paid in full with all benefits in place” during this crisis situation.

Travis Knight

Commented Laika president and CEO Travis Knight to The Hollywood Reporter, “When this ends, and it will end, the world will need storytellers more than ever. The world will need hope and inspiration and empathy and high-spirited joy. The world will need beauty and poetry and restorative works of art. The world will need you. Telling stories is one of the prime functions of the human mind and spirit. Good stories open us up to new possibilities, to new ways of thinking, to recognize the shared humanity in which we all participate. That has always been Laika’s reason for being. And it will remain so. And we will do it as we always have. Together.”

Laika, best known for its hybrid stop-motion and CG approach to animation, doesn’t have a 2020 release. It is owned by Nike co-founder Phil Knight, Travis Knight’s father. 

Laika had two divisions: Laika Entertainment for feature films and Laika/house for commercial content. The studio spun off the commercial division in July 2014 to focus exclusively on feature film production. The new independent commercial division is now called HouseSpecial. 

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Its always insightful to glimpse through the virtually created VFX shots that enhance the storytelling of our favourite shows. The mastery of VFX has rendered storytelling immersive and gripping for the masses and it’s not very common to get a window into how the VFX professionals deployed the software to create the fictional images that wowed us.

Step behind the scenes of one of Netflix’ most iconic shows, The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance. Listen to DNEG’s Andy Hargreaves, DFX Supervisor on the show, and find out how we helped create the mystical land of Thra in our new VFX Breakdown below

Recently DNEG shared the behind the scenes of one of Netflix’s most noted shows, The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance.  For the unversed,  Dark Crystal is a vfx-heavy story about the scary secret behind the skeksis’ power and the rebellion to save the world. Award-winning VFX firm DNEG created the VFX imagery, delivering a massive number of shots.

When three Gelfling discover the horrifying secret behind the Skeksis’ power, they set out on an epic journey to ignite the fires of rebellion and try to save their world.

Dneg shared, “Step behind the scenes of one of Netflix’ most iconic shows, ‘The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance’. Listen to DNEG’s Andy Hargreaves, DFX Supervisor on the show, and find out how we helped create the mystical land of Thra in our new VFX Breakdown below.”

Such elaborate explanation of the way the vision was crafted together is sure to help folks who wish to learn about the art of VFX. Stay tuned for more updates.

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BARC and Nielsen Media jointly rolled the third part of the report on “Crisis Consumption on TV and Smartphones” which says gaming continues to show growth with an increase of 44 per cent in game consumption hour.

COVID-19 led disruption started affecting India hard since mid-March. BARC and Nielsen have put together for the industry to enlighten how it has impacted television consumption and smartphone usage. In the third session of the insights series they have considered at January as the Pre COVID-19 period, and compared it with weeks in from mid-March where the outbreak has been prominent. During this interval gaming has surged growth and have kept engaging people in lockdown. Here are the key findings on gaming:

• During third week of the Covid19 period users have increased by 15 per cent compared to pre COVID19 period.
• Game consumption hours have also increased with 44 per cent in third week compared to pre COVID19 period.
• Users with age group between 15-24 years have increased more than 14 per cent per week and have consumed gaming hours for more than 47 per cent per person per week
• While action games continued to be enjoyed at a wide scale with high engagement rate, social gaming apps have witnessed a gain in  popularity  during the COVID times
• Average gaming apps accessed by age group 15-24 years is 2.7 in the third week of COVID19 period compared to 2.4 in pre COVID19 period.
• Users using three apps or more have increased from 33 per cent(pre COVID19 period) to 40 per cent by third week of COVID19 period. Whereas user with 1 app have dip down from 42 per cent(pre COVID19 period) to 34 per cent by third week of Covid19 period and with two apps have dip down from 26 per cent (pre COVID19 period)  to 25 per cent by third week of COVID19 period.
• Games like Ludo King, PUBG, Free Fire, Candy Crush, Carrom Pool, PUBG Lite, Gold Quiz, Subway Surfers have witnessed the highest user engagement chronologically in third week of COVID19 period. Whereas earlier in pre COVID19 period chronologically it was PUBG, Free Fire, Candy Crush,  Dream11,  Ludo King, Gold Quiz, PUBG Lite and Carrom Pool
• No drop have been seen so far in creative counts COVID times among 11 out of 19 categories gaming has witnessed 115 per cent of change in creative counts on platforms.

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Fox Entertainment’s Bento Box Entertainment and Princess Pictures have signed a first-look animation development deal, with all projects to be fully produced in Australia with local talent and crews. The announcement was jointly made by Bento Box co-founder and CEO Scott Greenberg, and Princess Pictures founder Laura Waters.

All projects will be executive produced by Greenberg, Waters, Bento Box co-founder and president of production Joel Kuwahara and creative director Ben Jones, Princess Pictures’ senior producer Mike Cowap and MD Emma Fitzsimons.  Bento Box, which earlier this year hired animation and VFX veteran Brooke Keesling as head of animation talent development, has a first-look arrangement with Fox Entertainment for the US and internationally.

Bento Box’s recent work includes programming on Adult Swim (Lazor Wulf), Apple TV+ (Central Park), Comedy Central (Brickleberry, Legends of Chamberlain Heights), FOX (multiple Emmy-winning Bob’s Burgers, Duncanville, upcoming The Great North and Housebroken), HBO Max (recently ordered series The Prince), Hulu (The Awesomes), NBC (The David S. Pumpkins Halloween Special), Netflix (Mulligan, Paradise PD, Hoops, The Who Was? Show) and Syfy (Alien News Desk). Additionally, Bento Box has produced music videos with Alicia Keys, Coldplay, LSD, Pharrell and other top artists.

Princess Pictures is known for producing the comedy series of Chris Lilley, including Summer Heights High and Angry Boys. The company also pioneered Wrong Kind of Black, Superwog, adult animation Koala Man, and several ground-breaking documentary series. Besides producing the country’s first Aboriginal sitcom (8MMM), first gay sitcom (Outland) and only comedy opera (The Divorce), Princess continues to develop cutting edge projects in every genre and is thrilled to bring that sensibility to the animation world through the partnership with Bento Box.

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