Hasta La Motion!

In 2014, it was announced that comiXology, a cloud-based digital comics digital distribution platform has been acquired by Amazon. comiXology offers the widest selection of digital comics in the world with over 75,000 comics, graphic novels and manga from more than 75 publishers. And now, news has come that Amazon has introduced comiXology Unlimited, a new service on the distributor’s website that lets the customer pay for an unlimited membership.

It’s been termed as the ‘Netflix of comic books’. Over here  instead of buying individual comic books or series, one just has to pay $5.99 monthly and get access to the unlimited titles available from various publishers.

The digital comic books will be available via app on devices such as Fire Tablet, Android, iOS and on the web. However, it will be available only to customers in the US for the time being. comiXology senior director of communications Chip Mosher said in an email that the company was “excited to share our love of comics worldwide and we plan to expand Comixology Unlimited in other regions in the future.”

Publishers such as Image Comics, Dark Horse, Oni Press, IDW, Fantagraphics, Archie Comics, BOOM! Studios are on board this new service, however industries leading comic publisher – DC and Marvel (Marvel has its own subscription model) are giving it a miss. The service offers a 30 day free trial and post that it will be available for a fee. Only one or two issues or volumes of each book are available through the comiXology Unlimited. These will be changed on a monthly basis and could serve, in the long run, to help drive up sales.

Mosher explained, “Customers have the ability to borrow up to 50 comics, graphic novels and manga from a selection of thousands. Once the they hit 50 all they need to do is return some to borrow more. The book’s download to your device for offline reading, too.”

While publishers were approached, certain individual creators weren’t aware of this deal as the information was not passed down to them either by the publisher or comiXology, so they didn’t really get to choose if they wanted to to participate in it or not.

With regards to comiXology, Mosher clarified, “We don’t discuss our business terms, but please know that every comic, graphic novel and manga appearing in the service was approved by the publishers to be in our subscription program. comiXology Unlimited is designed to spur sampling and the discovery of new series, which spreads the love of comics and increases revenue for all publishers and creators on comiXology. Everyone – the creators, the publishers and comiXology – all benefit when more people are reading and buying more comics.”

Seems like few publishers failed to notify the comic creators about the new development and as this news come, many independent creators have raised their concerns regarding this mode of payment.

However, this is probably the best time for a comic book fanatic to live in as comiXology Unlimited with its monthly subscription model will surely attract a lot more readers due to its cheap offering. And we hope, it soon ventures into other regions as well.

The post Amazon’s comiXology with ‘comiXology Unlimited’ offers unlimited comics at a nominal $5.99 subscription model appeared first on AnimationXpress.

Although consoles and mobiles have become immensely popular in the current gaming scenario; PC gaming still enjoys a titanic chunk of serious gamers. From casual to professional, most of the gamers around prefer PC over other mediums when it comes to gaming.

HP had delivered some fairly stable and fruitful gaming PCs in the past. Earlier, HP had successfully delivered their mid-range laptop based on Windows 8.1 and further launched gaming PCs under their Envy Phoenix and Pavilion names. However all these names clumped up together seems to have confused the consumers. But now it seems like HP is changing its marketing strategy by bringing their upcoming series of gaming laptops and desktops under one name, ‘Omen’.

HP had delivered some fairly stable and fruitful gaming PCs.  Sometime back, HP had successfully delivered their mid-range laptop based on Windows 8.1 and further launched gaming PCs under their Envy Phoenix and Pavilion names. But all these names clumped up together seems to have confused the consumers, HP seems to be changing its marketing strategy by bringing their upcoming series of gaming laptops and desktops under one name, ‘Omen’.

The company has recently unveiled some of their products for the upcoming ‘Omen’ series. For now, they have revealed laptops which will be available in two specific sizes, 15.6 and 17.3 inches. The laptops have a red LED lighting throughout with the ‘Omen’ branding on the keyboard and the lid. Each of them can be optimised in various ways, they can be upgraded up to NVIDIA GTX 965M, up to 6th Generation Quad-core Intel Core i7 processors, up to 16GB of memory, and up to 512GB PCIe SSD. There’s also a dual storage option with up to 4TB HDD and 128GB SSD on selected models.
The laptops will be available for sale on 10 June. The 15.6-inch one will have a price starting from $899.99 while the 17.3-inch one starts at $979.99.

The Omen desktop looks like a winner here for one reason. It has been revealed that the gaming rig will be equipped with enough juice to be compatible with VR systems like HTC Vibe and Oculus Rift. At max the system can be configured to Intel Core i7-6700K processor, 32GB of RAM, a 512GB SSD and a 3TB standard hard drive. It also has the option of water-cooling.  These will be ready to ship in August (it seems) although no pricing has been revealed yet.

The company also revealed a 32 inch Omen-Display which sports a Quad HD (2560 x 1440) resolution.

The logo of the Omen branding is however a bit familiar as people would remember it from a company’s symbol that HP had acquired in 2006. Yes, VoodooPC and seems like HP is trying to bring everything under one umbrella as it tries to shine into the gaming sphere, again. We hope the Omens work in their favour.

The post HP unveils the ‘Omen’ series of gaming PCs appeared first on AnimationXpress.

Prime Focus, the global media and entertainment industry service provider has delivered Digital Intermediate (DI) services for the movie ‘Sarbjit’, a biopic of an Indian farmer who was mistaken for a spy after accidentally crossing the Pakistan border, and subsequently sentenced to death. The movie is narrated from the perspective of Sarbjit Singh’s sister Dalbir Kaur, played by Aishwarya Rai.

Talking about the experience, Sarbjit, director, Omung Kumar said “The movie ‘Sarbjit’ is my second collaboration with Prime Focus after ‘Mary Kom’. The team at Prime Focus has done a wonderful job and I am extremely happy with the final results.”

“Prime Focus’ DI team delivered an impressive grade that supported the storyline while bringing out the authenticity of the visuals. It was very important for the team to understand the sensibility of the movie and design the grade accordingly. They did a great job and we are extremely happy,” said Sarbjit, producer, Sandeep Singh.

One of the key considerations in grading the movie seems to have been, subtly bring out the gritty realism of the locations. Since the movie was mainly set in Pakistan, it was very important to bring out the authenticity of the location, enhancing the colours in such a way that the DI supports the storyline of the movie without standing out or being too noticeable. Every song  from the movie was treated uniquely to correspond with the themes of the song.

Talking about the collaboration, Prime Focus, Sr. VP, Film Sales, Niraj Sanghai said, “‘Sarbjit’ marks Prime Focus’ second association with Director Omung Kumar, and we really appreciate the trust he has placed in us following our work on ‘Mary Kom’. DoP Kiran Deohans has brilliantly captured every mood and emotion of the main characters in the movie, which helps us immeasurably in the grade. A special thanks to the Producer Sandeep Singh.”

The movie was graded by Prime Focus Colourist Aashirwad Hadkar, who has previously worked on some of Bollywood’s blockbusters, including ‘Bajirao Mastani’, ‘Bajrangi Bhaijaan’, ‘Bang Bang’, ‘Kick’ and the national award-winning movie ‘Mary Kom’

The post Prime Focus delivers DI for Omung Kumar’s biopic movie ‘Sarabjit’ appeared first on AnimationXpress.

Abstract animation inspired by the paintings of American artist Gary Lang. An hypnotic trance of concentric circles. Produced & Created by Roberto Voorbij Music: Seaking’s Seaglass by Jake Allison Seaking’s Seaglass by Jake Allison is licensed under a Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 International License. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ http://www.saatchiart.com/roo SCREENED: Holland Animation Film Festival – HAFFTube, 2016