A Portrait of Rafel Delalande l A film by Valentin Petit


Directed by www.valentinpetit.fr Produced by www.ocurens.com Tatoo Artist: www.rafeldelalande.tumblr.com D.O.P: Fabio Caldironi VFX & Compositing Valentin Tuil Artwork NAIRONE Music & Sound Design: Mim Stunts: Alexandre & Kevin Cauderlier Producer: Germain Robin D.A: Arebella Jousseaume Script: Guillaume Audi All Rights Reserverd 2016

Golden Wolf // Mirinda 'Orange'


CREDITS Blacklist: Executive Producer: Andrew Linsk Producer: Alex Unick Golden Wolf: Creative director: Ingi Erlingsson Art director: Ewen Stenhouse Producers: Ant Baena, Dotti Sinnott Lead Animator: Marléne Beaube Design: Ewen Stenhouse, Pedro Vergani, Sammy Moore, Yino Huan, Berry Kim 2D Animation: Tim Whiting, Hannah Lau-Walker, Gervais Merryweather, Frankie Swan, Olly Montagu 3D Animation: Henry Purrington, David Calvet Compositing: Stefano Ottaviano, David Calvet

Golden Wolf // Mirinda 'Multi Fruit'


CREDITS Blacklist: Executive Producer: Andrew Linsk Producer: Alex Unick Golden Wolf: Creative director: Ingi Erlingsson Art director: Ewen Stenhouse Producers: Ant Baena, Dotti Sinnott Lead Animator: Marléne Beaube Design: Ewen Stenhouse, Pedro Vergani, Sammy Moore, Yino Huan, Berry Kim 2D Animation: Tim Whiting, Hannah Lau-Walker, Gervais Merryweather, Frankie Swan, Olly Montagu 3D Animation: Henry Purrington, David Calvet Compositing: Stefano Ottaviano, David Calvet

Summer films = image makers

james

Been to so many film screenings recently, mainly big, big Hollywood films. This para James Cameron wrote for Masters of FX foreword always sticks in my mind.

Meet Caiman, Illuminated Films’ animated alligator!

The development team at Illuminated Films was searching for something fresh – and, led by the head of development, decided to create it themselves.

The result is Caiman–a friendly young alligator living in a semi-tropical paradise. His world is full of colour–not just the vegetation but also the cast of characters that inhabit this lively mangrove community.

With an award from Creative Europe, Illuminated developed ‘Caiman’ into a project that has been selected for Cartoon Forum–with sponsorship from Adam Selly’s Union Media.

Caimann

The new approach has created a ‘stand out’ authentic character that is relatable to young audiences everywhere. The pilot, which has been written by talented writer Moya O’Shea and directed by Sue Tong, is now complete and will be launched with an advertising campaign that will be Illuminated’s first.

Caiman has been created in-house by head of development Rebecca Warner-Perry and received media development funding in 2015 as part of a slate award. Then, Illuminated started working with children’s script writer Moya O’Shea.

Moya has since completed two scripts, working closely with director Sue Tong, and Caiman now has a fully determined writing style, world and character voices.

Moya moved swiftly onto writing an introductory 7-minute pilot episode which Illuminated have now completed production on. This pilot will accompany a selection of pitching materials which Illuminated have also completed including a development bible.

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FireForge Games file bankruptcy just three days after the release of the ‘Ghostbusters’ game

When paranormal entities rampage the New York City, the team of four ladies, Kristen Wiig, Melissa McCarthy, Leslie Jones, and Kate McKinnon get into action to put a stop to the turmoil. This was the basic story of the new Ghostbusters movie.

While the comic-entertainment movie managed to earn quite humble reviews from critics and viewers alike, it seems the game inspired by the feature, which was developed in only eight months, did not hit the right spot with the consumers.

As reported by Kotaku, just three days after the game’s release, FireForge Games, the developers of the movie-based game filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy. Also, the company is involved in at least two lawsuits before its closing. The website of the company now leads to 403 error which means the denial of access.

Ghostbusters Game

FireForge had initiated two MOBA-like projects and halted them since the studio was established in 2011. One code-named Zeus in collaboration with the famed PC hardware company Razer and another code-named Atlas, which was funded by the Chinese digital giant Tencent, who happens to be the distributor for League of Legends in China. According to Kotaku, the company owes a hefty amount of around $11.3 million to Tencent.

There is a law suit against the company by Singapore-based Min Production which is owned by Razer, CEO, Min-Liang Tan, as he alleges that the funding provided to FireForge by Razer was being used in Tencent’s joint project, Atlas. However, the studio says that they only began working on Atlas after the payment for Zeus was ceased. The studio also faced a lawsuit against them in 2015 by Richard Land who accused them of breaching a $3.7 million deal regarding the licensing of 38 Studios’ social media platform, Helios.

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Discovery Kids to air the new Indian animated movie – Sheikh Chilli and Friendz

This Independence Day, get ready to enter a world of fun and entertainment with Discovery Kids’ newest character Sheikh Chilli and his gang of friends in the special movie – Sheikh Chilli and Friendz. The movie will premiere on Discovery Kids on 15 August, 2016 at 10 am.

Based on the popular comic character of Lotpot, the movie is produced by Apsons Entertainment in association with iRealities International.

Sheikh Chilli is a simpleton from the town of Jhunjhun Nagar who lives with his mother. He’s a day-dreamer with his heart in the right place, but his actions cause a lot of humour amongst his friends. He is joined in his adventures by Malika, his smart neighbour and classmate, Bulbul the talking donkey who is as silly as Sheikh Chilli himself, Khatkoo the pocket-sized dwarf friend from another planet and Noorie Djinn, a genie who is capable of fulfilling all of Sheikh Chilli’s wishes.

PowerPoint Presentation

Creating trouble for Sheikh Chilli and Friendz is the evil witch Buri, who is after the magical necklace worn by Noorie Djinn so that she can become all-powerful. The friends encounter various other characters through the course of the movie which results in hilarious situations and many laughs. Together, this unusual gang of friends is the source of humour for everyone around them.

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Q1-17: UFO Moviez ad revenue up 9.5 per cent

Indian digital cinema distribution network and in-cinema advertising platform, UFO Moviez (UFO) reported a 9.5 per cent year-over-year (y-o-y) growth in advertising revenue for the quarter ended 30 June 2016 (Q1-17, current quarter). The company reported advertising revenue of Rs 39.7 crore in Q1-17 as compared to Rs 36.4 crore in the corresponding quarter of the previous year (Q1-16). Average advertisement minutes sold per show per screen increased to 3.97 (Q1-16 – 3.81) minutes during Q1-17.

Theatrical and In-Cinema advertisement (consolidated excluding new businesses) revenues grew by 3.2 per cent y-o-y to Rs 133.2 crore (Q1-16 – Rs 129 crore). Consolidated revenues improved by 3.1 per cent y-o-y in Q1-17 to Rs 134.6 crore (Q1-16 – Rs 130.6 crore).

Let us look at the other numbers reported by UFO Moviez

Total Expense in Q1-17 increased 9.1 per cent y-o-y to Rs 98.2 crore from Rs 90.0 crore in Q1-16. Ad revenue share (expense) in Q1-17 increased 5.4 per cent y-o-y to Rs 12.08 crore from Rs 11.47 crore in the corresponding quarter of the previous year. Visual Print sharing expense in Q1-17 increased 19.8 per cent y-o-y to Rs 19.44 crore from Rs 16.23 crore in Q1-16.

The company’s expense towards purchase of digital cinema equipment and lamps in the current quarter declined 13.7 per cent y-o-y to Rs 13.77 crore as compared to Rs 15.96 crore in Q1-16.

EBIDTA in the current quarter declined 10.3 per cent y-o-y to Rs 36.4 crore from Rs 40.6 crore in Q1-16. Profit after tax (PAT) in Q1-17 declined 30.1 per cent y-o-y to Rs 9 crore from Rs 12.8 crore in the corresponding year ago quarter. PAT, profit from associates and minority interest in Q1-17 declined 25.9 per cent y-o-y to Rs 9.8 crore from Rs 13.3 crore in Q1-16.

Company speak

“In the first quarter of fiscal 2017, UFO’s consolidated revenues stood at Rs 1,346 million. Advertisement revenues grew by 9.5 per cent over the higher base of last year, and our annual guidance of 30 per cent growth remains unchanged,” said UFO Moviez, joint managing director, Kapil Agarwal. “Profitability was negatively impacted due to planned losses in Caravan Talkies. Efforts to improve Caravan revenues have further intensified, which we believe should lead to cash breakeven in H2FY17.”

“We continue to make progress towards achieving our strategic objectives,” said UFO Movies, founder and managing director, Sanjay Gaikwad. “Our hyperlocal advertising initiative – UFO Framez has been well received by direct sales associates and advertisers and has started yielding results. To sustain the current direction, we continue to appoint dynamic and self-motivated direct sales associates across our advertisement network. Recently, we also announced the merger between UFO and its wholly owned subsidiaries, which on completion would result in significant synergies, cost saving and operating efficiencies.”

Note: The unit of currency in this report is the Indian rupee – Rs (also conventionally represented by INR). The Indian numbering system or the Vedic numbering system has been used to denote money values. The basic conversion to the international norm would be:

(a) 100,00,000 = 100 lakh = 10,000,000 = 10 million = 1 crore.

(b) 10,000 lakh = 100 crore = 1 arab = 1 billion.

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Turner’s TBS gives a go ahead to its first animated series

Turner’s TBS recently announced that they have greenlit two new series and ordered another to pilot. Out of these three series, two are live action and for the first time the channel will be airing its original animated programme.

The live-action far include a series order for Greg Garcia’s The Guest Book, a pilot for World’s End starring Wanda Sykes and Hamish Linklater, and premiere dates for ensemble comedy People of Earth and Search Party.

“Our new projects, from some of the best creators and producers in the industry, will fit perfectly with the new direction we’ve been taking the TBS brand,” said TBS, EVP of programming, Brett Weitz . “Each show brings something fresh and unique to the comedy genre, from the unforgettable characters that Greg has created in The Guest Book to the wild, animated absurdities of Carson’s Tarantula. We also can’t wait to see how the envelope-pushing audacity of our World’s End pilot plays out on screen.”

Weitz describes TBS channel’s first original, animated primetime comedy, Tarantula as “animated absurdities.” It comes from the mind of creator and writer Carson Mell (Silicon Valley), and TBS has ordered an open-ended run, with a premiere planned for 2017.

Tarantula is a half-hour comedy about the residents of the Tierra Chula Resident Hotel (a.k.a. “The Tarantula”). The series centers on Echo Johnson, a respected by uncertified tattoo artist who delivers absurd yet introspective monologues. Echo’s poetic ramblings spin tales of misadventures with the other residents, as they partake in party crashing, dumpster diving, and other acts of mischief.

Tarantula is a co-production of Rough House Pictures and Turner’s Studio T, with Danny McBride, Jody Hill, David Gordon Green and Brandon James (all of Vice Principals) serving as executive producers.

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300 remotely based artists work seamlessly on the short film ‘The Squonk’ using Shotgun

A student project short film ‘The Squonk’ which is the brainchild of Jannis Funk (co-writer and producer) and Mike Bothe (co-writer and director), is based on a 19th century American folktale about the eponymous woodland monster. The project has turned into a passion for Berlin-based Funk who has gone out to recruit over 300 remote visual effects artists since principal photography in 2012 to donate their time and expertise to the film. And throughout the whole process, from initial planning through production tracking and review, Shotgun has played a key role.

‘The Squonk’ began in 2011 as Funk’s thesis project at Film University Babelsberg. Funk adopted Shotgun during the early planning stages, using it as a database to plan each shot and associated tasks. The entire film was storyboarded, previsualised, and loaded into Shotgun before principal photography even began. VFX supervisor Timor Kardum of OMSTUDIOS also used Shotgun to note how long each task would take and how difficult it would be, which helped Funk during the artist recruiting process as he was able to give potential artists an accurate idea of the tasks, and assign tasks that they would realistically be able to fulfill.

Funk shared, “We’ve been lucky enough to get volunteers from Framestore, Double Negative, Digital Domain, Scanline, Weta; lots of people who already work in these top facilities pulling long days and then they’re nice enough to go home and work on ‘The Squonk.’ Shotgun has been the backbone for our project – it has made it possible to realise a production at this scale and with this environment of international artists working remotely.”

The Squonk Shotgun

Principal photography began in 2012 and included a 150 square foot life size set against a blue screen. Following the shoot, the crew constructed various miniature sets, and 900 individual elements – mostly miniature trees – to use as the basis for background replacements. Each tree was photographed at different angles and in different lighting situations, then added to a “tree library” in Shotgun. Artists could then easily sort by lighting situation and choose which element would work best on a shot-by-shot basis.

“When you work remotely and you can’t get together with your team and look at the same screen and point at what’s in front of you, the Shotgun Review system is really helpful to immediately make notes right in the browser,” explained Funk. “Our director of photography lives in Switzerland now, our director is in Hawaii, Timor and I are in Berlin, and we can all comment on the same version as soon as it’s uploaded. I don’t know how that would be possible without Shotgun.”

Shotgun is also the center of Funk’s review process. The project’s VFX phase is now 89 per cent complete, and the film is on track to be completed this year. With 220 total shots, 153 of those VFX shots, an efficient review process for the dispersed team is the key to success.

The Squonk

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