April 2008 Archives

The Mummy poster Is now viewable on IMDB! Check it out below.. Does it pique your interest? Do you want to know what it's about? Looks like we have a hard deadline of before August!

Another exciting week, another exciting viewing of the films and commercials that Digital Domain has worked on! As you know, Speed Racer is going into theatres on May 9th, a week after Iron Man, which comes out on May 2nd! Then, on May 16th, the new Narnia comes out, and on May 22nd, Indiana Jones! Looks to be an exciting May!

Last night the crew at DD got a chance to catch the new monthlies, which are now called Quarterlies. This quarter we got a chance to see WIP stuff from The Mummy and Benjamin Buttons, while also seeing a number of great commercials and all the finals from Speed Racer! Since I'm bound by NDA, I can only mention the stuff that's already out there in the public domain. Needless to say, there was also some great spec work for some films which we are bidding on, which will remain nameless at this time.

After looking at all the finals for Speed Racer, strung back to back, I can say that Digital Domain's work is going to be pretty hard to top. Ya, I'm biased, but it really looks impressive. I can't wait to see it in the theatre will full blown audio on a big screen. It's going to be readily enjoyed by the kids. Imagine playing with Hot Wheels and racetracks as a kid.. Now those kids are all grown up, and making films about those same insane racetracks and rollercoasters and blingy cars. It's an assault on the senses. And it's extremely colorful and bright. Two weeks folks, two weeks!

On the Buttons tip, we saw some amazing work in progress. It will blow your mind when this film comes out later this year. I'm not going to say any more, since I don't know what Fincher or the studio has released for the film yet, but it's damn impressive. Of course, Mummy is the show I'm currently on, and it's a Cohen film. It's my first time working with him, but so far so good. We see him often in the studio, which is a great thing. On Flags, Clint only came in at select times, but Cohen seems to have a very hands-on approach, and does make an effort to know the crew that's working on his film. On that note, it's going to get very busy in the coming weeks, so there will be sporadic entries here and there! I'll try to make them quality posts, so keep checking in, by using the RSS feed on the right or get updates via email!

Nuke has been gaining some headway in the compositing circles, and I'm seeing more and more questions on VFXTalk about some of the tools that are available to us. In this Tip, I'll be going over the use of the Shuffle, ShuffleCopy, and Copy nodes. These are a couple of the very basic channel controls that you have within Nuke.

Follow along in the extended entry below.

A couple weeks ago, the Wachowskis were at the office, showing us the fancy ShoWest trailer for Speed Racer. It's been put online, and I've been seeing more and more ads for this movie. Check out the new footage over at Slashfilm at this link!

It's been a busy time, with the wrapping up of Racer, and my seque into The Mummy. We've got a lot of shots to do before the Aug 1st US release, so that's one of the reasons why I haven't been religiously updating the blog as often as I'd like. We're having our weekly reviews with the director in house, and it looks to be a fun journey to get this massive undertaking completed! I'll keep you informed as we progress.

Big news, but I'm sure a bunch of you already know.. It looks like Digital Domain is proceeding forward with its stock offering. Read more about it on the LA Times website.

Digital Domain, one of Hollywood's top special-effects shops, is ramping up its plans to go public.

The Venice-based company, which created special effects for films including "Titanic," "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End" and "Transformers," hopes to sell six million shares at $12 to $14 Digital Domain has created special effects for movies including Titanic. each, according to the updated prospectus the firm filed today with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

A Friday update! It's been a little while since I had a chance to share what I've been doing, and for good reason. We've been finishing up Speed Racer these last couple of weeks, and it's been a hectic push to the finish line. Now that we've crossed it, I'm back onto The Mummy 3, which is set to release in theaters on August 1st! I'll let the audience do the math on that. There looks to be lots of great work in it, which I can't wait to start on.

I only completed about five shots for Speed Racer, all of which take place at the end of the movie. It looks to be an exciting visual ride! There are a couple stragglers just finishing up bits and pieces, but we're pretty much done. To keep you satiated until the release of the movie, here's an interview with Owen Paterson, Production Designer for the movie.

Owen Paterson designed the bleak cityscapes of the Matrix movies and V For Vendetta, and now he's creating the candy-colored neopolises of Speed Racer. Not to mention concept cars with wheels that can turn a full 180 degrees. We tracked him down in Sydney, Australia and asked him about the visual influences behind Cosmopolis, the city where Speed races, and the cars which Speed and his opponents drive. Along the way, he dropped a surprising amount of backstory about the alternate world of the Wachowski's Speed Racer, coming in May.