Hasta La Motion!

[NEWS=”http://www.cgnews.com/wp-content/uploads/aiw_alice_thumb.jpg”]21339[/NEWS]There is a place, like no place on earth. A land full of wonder, mystery and danger. Some say to survive it you need to be as mad as a hatter …..Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland is the highly anticipated fantasy adventure due for release in March 2010. The film is an adaptation of the much loved Lewis Carroll novels ‘Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland’ and ‘Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There’. This new movie adaptation begins with Alice, now a beautiful young woman, in the middle of a grand Victorian party, where she unexpectedly discovers she is about to be proposed to in front of hundreds of people.

Alice runs away from the party in pursuit of a white rabbit that suddenly disappears into a hole at the bottom of a tree trunk. Following the rabbit Alice finds herself in Wonderland, a land she visited 10 years before but of which she has no memory.

Wonderland, once a peaceful kingdom, is in turmoil since the Red Queen overthrew her sister, the White Queen. The inhabitants of Wonderland, that include Alice’s childhood friends the Cheshire Cat, Tweedledee and Tweedledum and the March Hare, are ready to revolt and await Alice to help them. Alice finds herself embarking on a fantastical journey to find her true destiny and end the Red Queen’s reign of terror.

Tim Burton brings his renowned Burton-esque ghoulishness to the films style and character creations; and has cast some of his favourite actors within the leading roles. Burton’s wife, Helena Bonham Carter, plays the Red Queen, apparently based on a combination of Lewis Carroll’s Red Queen (Looking-Glass) and Queen of Hearts (Wonderland). Carter’s character is quick to decree the death sentence for the slightest offense, and is notorious for her condemning cry “Off with his head”.

A slightly disturbing Mad Hatter is portrayed by Johnny Depp, in his seventh film collaboration with Burton. Tim Burton has stated that Depp brought a new depth to the role “I think he tried to bring something, an underlying human quality to the craziness”.

The film uses a technique combining live action and motion capture technology and is set to be released in Disney Digital 3-D and IMAX 3-D, as well as 2-D. Burton and producer Richard D. Zanuck chose to film with conventional cameras, converting footage into 3D afterwards feeling that 3D cameras were too expensive and “clumsy” to use.

Cast
Mia Wasikowska – Alice
Johnny Depp – Mad Hatter
Helena Bonham Carter – Red Queen
Anne Hathaway – White Queen
Michael Sheen – White Rabbit
Alan Rickman – Caterpillar
Stephen Fry – Cheshire Cat
Matt Lucas – Tweedledum and Tweedledee
Christopher Lee – Jabberwock
Noah Taylor – March Hare
Barbara Windsor – Dormouse
Timothy Spall – Bloodhound
Crispin Glover – Knave of Hearts
Paul Whitehouse – Dodo
Eleanor Tomlinson – Fiona Chataway
Jemma Powell – Margaret Manchester
John Hopkins – Lowell Manchester
Lindsay Duncan – Helen Kingsley
Marton Csokas – Charles Kingsley
Frances de la Tour – Aunt Imogene
Leo Bill – Hamish Ascot
Tim Piggott-Smith – Lord Ascot
Geraldine James – Lady Ascot

Credits
Directed by: Tim Burton
Production Companies: Team Todd, Tim Burton Animation Co, The Zanuck Company
Written by: Lewis Carroll
Screenplay: Linda Woolverton
Original Music by: Danny Elfman
Cinematography: Dariusz Wolski
Film Editing by: Chris Lebenzon
Casting by: Susie Figgis
Production Design by: Robert Stromberg
Set Decoration by: Karen O’Hara, Peter Young

Related Links
http://disney.go.com/disneypictures/aliceinwonderland/

[NEWS=”http://www.cgnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2012_oliver_thumb.jpg”]21089[/NEWS]The 2012 doomsday prediction has been circulating for hundreds of years and proposes that cataclysmic and apocalyptic events will occur on earth in the year 2012. Never before has a date in history been so significant to so many cultures, so many religions, scientists, and governments. The forecast is based primarily on the end-date of the Mesoamerican Long Count calendar, terminating on December 21 or 23, 2012. New Age interpretations of the prophecy are far less gloomy and rather than expecting Armageddon, envisage positive physical changes or spiritual transformations for earth and its inhabitants.

So how would the governments of our planet prepare six billion people for the end of the world? In Roland Emmerich’s 2012 the answer is that they wouldn’t, and the earth’s population is left to deal with catastrophic volcanic eruptions, typhoons, tidal waves and glaciers.

2012 is an epic adventure about a global catastrophe that brings an end to the world and tells of the heroic struggle of the survivors. Starring John Cusack, Danny Glover, Woody Harrelson and Oliver Platt; 2012 is expected to be released on 13 November 2009.

Woody Harrelson plays a crackpot radio host who prophesies the end of the world and is considered simply insane by others. Harrelson has compared his character to the mythological Greek figure Cassandra, a beautiful princess granted the gift of prophecy, but whose predictions were never believed.

Sony Pictures Image works was awarded the majority of visual-effects work on the film and have undertaken some of the most dramatic and apocalyptic scenes within the movie.

Since 1992, Sony Pictures Imageworks has been creating outstanding visual effects and digital character animation, beginning with seamless invisible effects and fashioning an expertise in emotive CG characters and creatures for live action, all CG-animated, and hybrid live-action/animation productions. Imageworks prides itself as a community of artists supporting the imagination and expression of visual storytellers.

Starting with STUART LITTLE, the first photorealistic CG animated star in a live action movie, Imageworks pioneered groundbreaking moviemaking that stressed traditional character performance with exacting production standards. These innovations set the stage for what is now widely regarded as blended-cinema, where techniques from animation, visual effects and live-action combine to produce a wide-range of including the SPIDER-MAN™ movies, THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA: THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE, SUPERMAN RETURNS, MONSTER HOUSE and BEOWULF.

In 2002, Imageworks proved its all-CG character animation and production capabilities with the animated short, THE CHUBBCHUBBS!, which won an Academy Award® and paved the way for the establishment of Sony Pictures Animation to produce animated feature films. Sony Pictures Animation’s first film, OPEN SEASON, was a box-office hit and its second film, SURF’S UP, received an Academy Award® nomination for Best Animated Feature.

Cast:
John Cusack – Jackson Curtis
Amanda Peet – Kate (Jackson’s ex-wife)
Danny Glover – President Wilson
Thandie Newton – Laurie Wilson
Oliver Platt – Carl Anheuser
Chiwetel Ejiofor – Adrian Helmsley
Woody Harrelson – Chrlie Frost
George Segal – Tony Delgado
Ng Chin Han – Lin Pang
Thomas McCarthy – Gordon
Morgan Lily – Lilly Curtis
Liam James – Noah Curtis
John Billingsley – Professor West
Jimi Mistry – Satnam Tsurutani
Beatrice Rosen – Tamara
Patrick Bauchau – Roland Picard
Blu Mankuma – Harry Helmsley

Credits:
Directed by – Roland Emmerich
Produced by – Roland Emmerich, Mark Gordon, Harald Kloser, Larry Franco, Ute Emmerich
Written by – Harald Kloser, Roland Emmerich
Music by – Harald Kloser
Cinematography – Dean Semler
Editing by – David Brenner, Peter S.Elliott
Studio – Sony Pictures
Distributed by – Columbia Pictures

RELATED LINKS
www.instituteforhumancontinuity.org
www.whowillsurvive2012.com
http://thisistheend.com
www.imageworks.com

[NEWS=”http://www.cgnews.com/wp-content/uploads/kilt_thumb.jpg”]20900[/NEWS]Managing Director/Producer Matthew McManus and Creative Director/Flame Artist Andrew MacDonald, award-winning talents and long-time collaborators, have joined forces to launch KILT. A digital studio with a focus on visual effects and postproduction, the new company is positioned well for the changing production landscape and new economy. KILT has just finished its premiere project; a commercial for 2K Sports which launched earlier this month. Featuring the collision of two trains against a desert landscape, symbolizing the power of baseball, the KILT team was called on to create the train’s collision.

According to McManus, the company philosophy is “rooted in the belief that a small, flexible highly-talented, multi-disciplined, and experienced staff can produce good work,” he says. “KILT is well suited to meet the changing needs of the production landscape as we experience it today.”

A service company to advertising, content originator and production companies in commercials, features, music video and television, KILT’s approach is unique. As MacDonald points out, the duo saw the “digital tsunami” coming a few years ago, but they were unable from within an already-existing visual effects/post company to change direction due to dedicated architecture and overhead. “The move away from traditional means of advertising and content, to that of Internet and mobile technologies has created a new way of collaborating with clients,” he explains. “Companies now more than ever have to be flexible to meet the ever-evolving media environment.”

KILT launches with a core team that includes founding partners: McManus and MacDonald, as well as CG Artists Andy Lesniak and Michael Johnson. Together, they have a multi-disciplined approach and the ability to adapt their working pipeline to any project (as opposed to forcing a project into an existing, and potentially damaging workflow) regardless of the delivery format: television, mobile, internet, etc. A key aspect of the studio’s flexibility is scalability. “We can easily expand and contract as the project requires, and we are portable as well. So we can set up and work wherever our client is or wants us to be,” adds MacDonald.

This new mode of collaboration served KILT well on its premiere project, a commercial project for Director Peter Berg and 2K Sports. Featuring the collision of two trains against a desert landscape, symbolizing the power of baseball, the KILT team was called on to create the train’s collision. The athletes had already been shot on-set, so creative problem solving was needed.

The KILT team recommended to Director Berg that they create an entirely computer-generated 3D environment, and then integrate the CG elements with the live-action footage. The director agreed, so a small team from KILT led by Producer Matthew McManus traveled to the high desert and shot reference plates with the Red Camera.

They then integrated the cg trains and environments into the commercial’s live-action footage of the athletes. KILT artists were able to create fully CG trains using Maya and Mental Ray, and rendering using Lightwave. They had to custom-write some software for the integration of the three programs, but all this was accomplished on deadline and to budget.

KILT is now hard at work on a DirecTV campaign, which includes a series of 14 spots for NFL Prime Ticket, also scheduled to break in July.

KILT Studios

Managing Director/Producer/Partner:
Matthew McManus Matthew McManus is a leading executive in the postproduction community. In 2005, he was hired by Ascent Media to reinvent the RIOT VFX brand. Through a rebranding effort and increasing RIOT’s visibility, he generated over $6 million per year in revenue, a goal which had previously alluded RIOT. During his tenure at RIOT, Matthew led local and national seminars for both HD production workflows and digital acquisition workflows such as RED. Prior to joining RIOT, Matthew served as Executive Producer at Radium for three years, generating revenues of $4.5 million per year. His credits at Radium include the Pass That Dutch video by Missy Elliot, the 2004 VES Awards winner for Outstanding Achievement in Visual Effects in a Music Video. Previous to venturing into the postproduction world, he served has Head of Production at commercial production companies, Fahrenheit Films, M-80 and Bedford Falls.

Creative Director/Flame Artist/Partner:
Andrew MacDonald MacDonald served as creative director at METHOD/RIOT and previously at CreoCollective. He has built his reputation and staff around the idea of artistic excellence and innovation. His background also includes service at Digital Domain as a senior visual effects supervisor. Collaborating with the top filmmakers in advertising, MacDonald was instrumental in the creation of classic spots for Pepsi, Coca-Cola, Isuzu, MCI and many other advertisers. His work was recognized by numerous awards including four Clios, a Bronze Lion at Cannes and several AICP Awards for excellence. Born in England, MacDonald earned his Bachelor of Arts degree from Coventry Polytechnic. He began his career as a postproduction artist, working through such London postproduction companies as Rushes, The Mill and Moving Picture Company. He went on to found several companies of his own, spanning a diverse range of creative and technical services. One of them, Hughes MacDonald, was the first independent visual effects firm in London.

CG Artist: Andy Lesniak
Andy Lesniak has applied his considerable skills as a CG supervisor and artist to feature films, television, commercials, music videos and interactive games. Among his recent credits are spots for NetZero, Lincoln and Canon. Lesniak was an original staff member of CreoCollective and a co-founder of Station X Studios. At Creo, his work included the film The Core and commercials for Volvo, Nextel and New Balance, among many others. At Station X, he contributed to the film Dogma and My Favorite Martian, and to commercials for Chevy, Toyota and Sony Wega.

CG Artist: Michael Johnson
Michael Johnson joined RIOT in 2005 and has applied his broad-based animation skills to projects for Subaru, Honda and Scion. Johnson previously spent three years at CreoCollective where his work included the films Hostage and The Core, and commercials for Ford, Microsoft, Nintendo, Olympus and Sprint. He also held a staff post at Tippett Studio in Berkeley where he was part of a team that created a series of thrilling action sequences for the film “The Matrix: Revolutions.” His background also includes freelance work for Rhythm & Hues, Eden FX and Gray Matter on projects ranging from commercials for Burger King, Ford and Nintendo to the television series “Star Trek: Voyager.” Johnson began his work with Digital Domain. He contributed to numerous commercial projects, as well as the ride film “StormRider” for Disneyland Tokyo and the film “X-Men.”

www.kiltstudios.com

[NEWS=”http://www.cgnews.com/wp-content/uploads/evian_babies_thumb.jpg”]20673[/NEWS]Michael Gracey has directed Evian’s latest commercial ‘Skating Babies,’ a multi-national campaign bringing together choreographed roller-skating babies and the re-mixed street sound of The Sugar Hill Gang’s Rapper’s Delight. Created by the agency BETC Euro RSCG, the spot was produced by Fabrice Brovelli, Head of TV at BETC and Jaques Etienne Stein at Partizan. MPC created fully CG baby bodies and carried out extensive live action head replacement and compositing as well as large scale digital matte paintings to extend the park environment for the TV and online campaigns.

The MPC crew was involved from pre-production, creating pre-vis based on Michael’s supplied story board to aid the development of the scenes. Early testing researched the best way to integrate 2D and 3D techniques to create the young skaters, who needed to act like adults, yet keep the babies’ personalities. To do this, the VFX team opted to combine live action heads with the CG bodies. To make this happen, a total of 134 babies were filmed, and their heads were matched to 3D animatics displaying the baby like body behaviour.

VFX supervisor Dean Robinson and Drew Downes attended the shoot in Melbourne; shooting back plates and lighting reference. They also took reference for the digital matte paintings which enhance the background and re-create the city environment. A mo-cap shoot also took place to capture moves for the background dancers.

MPC’s team of animators used Autodesk Maya to create the baby skaters’ bodies. To ensure the babies appear fully realistic, it was important to carefully match movements, paying special attention to interaction between the shoulders, neck and head. To help achieve this, full CG babies were created and their heads were replaced later by the live action versions from the shoot by MPC’s compositing team led by Ludo Fealy.

Creating the babies in full made sure the newly positioned heads would follow the shoulder movement naturally. This also helped during the lighting stage, as shadows of the heads could be easily projected. Another challenge was to create realistic skin texture and match the different skin colours. To achieve this, the 2D team composited together multiple layers and carried out general clean-up of the plates.

Many elements were shot on RED with the MPC Data Lab handling digital development and processing of the media. For dailies, the lab trans-coded the footage directly to native AVID media files and project bins so editor Ben Harrex at Final Cut could start cutting immediately with no additional transcoding or importing.

For the high quality media, the lab was able to process large amounts of 2K data on the render farm very quickly. The lab’s client area meant that during the heat of the final delivery stages Michael Gracey was able to make additional footage selections which could then be rendered out and delivered straight to the VFX suites within minutes.

About MPC
The Moving Picture Company (MPC) is a world leading post production facility creating high-end digital visual effects and computer animation for the feature film, advertising, music and television industries. A wholly owned subsidiary of Technicolor, MPC is based in Soho – London, Santa Monica – CA and Yale town – Vancouver. The facilities are centrally located, networked and have a dedicated digital infrastructure designed and built for our future.

MPC works on some of the most exciting commercials in the world today.Recent creative work has included spots such as Vernie Yeung’s ‘Sony BraviaDrome’ Traktor’s ‘Love at First Flight’ and Pleix’s fluid simulation driven Bacardi campaign. The MPC team were also instrumental in contemporary classics such as Juan Cabral’s Cadbury’s ‘Gorilla’s Moment’, Jonathan Glazer’s, Sony Bravia ‘Paint’ and the Volkswagen Golf GTi, ‘Singin’ in the Rain’ (N-eo).

Credits
Director: Michael Gracey
Agency: BETC
Agency Producer: Fabrice Brovelli
Creative: Agnes Cavard & Valerie Chidlovsky
DoP: Alex Barber and Greg Fraser
Production Company: Partizan Midi Minuit
Executive Producer: Jaques Etienne Stein
Post Supervisor: Rahel Makonnen
UK Producer: Isabella Parish
Editor: Ben Harrex@ Final Cut

Post Production Company: MPC
Post Production Producer: Paul Branch, Vittorio Giannini, Jonathan Davies
VFX Supervisors: Dean Robinson and Ludo Fealy
3D VFX Team: James Bailey, Anthony Bloor, Ross Denner, Ali Dixon, Daniel Elliott, Ahmed Gharraph, Andreas Graichen, Lewis Guarniere, Mark Harrison, Robert Hesketh, Jake Mengers, Alexandre Millet, Jorge Montiel, Jordi Onate, Vicky Osborn, Emanuele Pavarotti, Simon Payne, Dean Robinson, Wayne Simmons, Charlotte Tyson, Grant Walker
2D VFX Team: Dan Adams, Chrys Aldred, Mark Beardall, Mike Brazelton, Kelly Bruce, Stuart Bullen, Hayley Collins, Miodrag Colombo, Ludo Fealy, Olivier Jezequel, Vaibhav Marathe, Alasdair McNeill, Mikael Pettersson, Yourick Van Impe
Telecine: Paul Harrison and Jean-Clement Soret

Related Link
www.moving-picture.com

[NEWS=”http://www.cgnews.com/wp-content/uploads/swiss_air_thumb.jpg”]20652[/NEWS]Flying evokes a variety of images but certainly rarely as beautiful or sublime as what unfolds in the new Swiss Air film directed by Marc Forster. Forster is the respected film director renowned for award-winning work that includes “Quantum of Solace,” “Finding Neverland,” “Monster’s Ball”. To help orchestrate and unite the myriad of elements involved, Forster turned to Cut + Run Editor Jay Nelson who worked hand-in-hand with the director and the effects production company MK12 on the project. Nelson was charged with cutting the project and recording Marc’s voice over for the script penned by the director.

“We worked in a very organic way to get a very natural sounding voice over,” elaborates Nelson. “It was a thrill to be able to guide the voice performance of such a master at directing.” Nelson was also instrumental in developing the cadence and timing for the voice over which would “allow room for the action of MK12’s amazing motion graphics and design to unfold and build.”

The final project has a 2.5 minute and a :30 second version, and was completed in a variety of languages including English, French, German, and Italian. The :30 spot will air on various European television networks and the film length will screen in select theaters and online.

“Marc found a artistic and purely non-commercial way to highlight what the flying experience is with Swiss Air,” concludes editor Nelson. “As abstract as the script initially appeared, when united with the striking images it all came together to form something evocative and beautiful. Not surprising, considering the source.”

Cut+Run is a boutique editorial company with locations in Los Angeles, New York, and London. The award-winning shop features a diverse roster of talented editors who contribute their vision and skill to commercials, film and music videos. With an emphasis on client service, Cut+Run operates under a “borderless” philosophy making its editors available to work anywhere. Editors can also cut on set wherever projects are shot.

Credits
Written & Directed by Marc Forster
Creative Direction: MK12
Director of Photography: Roberto Schaefer, A.S.C.
Editor: Jay Nelson/Cut + Run
Music: Brian Reitzell

Agency: Publicis, Zurich
Creative Directors: Martin Denecke, Sacha Moser, Tim Hoppin
Producer: Tufan Tuna

Production Company: Ping Pong, Zurich
Director: Marc Forster
Producer: Peter Lehner
Associate Producer: Yves Bollag

Design/Animation: MK12
Design/Animation Production: The Ebling Group
Producers: Sue Lee, Neil Van Harte

Editorial Company: Cut + Run
Editor: James Nelson
US Managing Director: Michelle Burke
Producer: Chris Girard

Related Links
www.cutandrun.tv