Film: January 2005 Archives
I hope you all had a great weekend! It's Monday morning here in the Bay area and it's not raining, so that's a good sign. I went to Phoenix over the weekend, and in addition to getting some spectacular photographs of the landscape, I saw the IMAX 3D film, Aliens of the Deep.
It's an excellent film, about 50 minutes long, which shows deep sea life at its extreme, and how that could possibly aid our search for life on other worlds.
From the brochure:
James Cameron, Academy Award winning director, deep ocean adventurer, and space exploration visionary, combines his talents and his passions in the upcoming spectacular 3D film Aliens of the Deep. Cameron takes audiences to one of the Earth's most extreme environments-the depths of the ocean-to encounter the alien-like creatures that live there. He's joined in the journey by a team of young oceanographers and NASA mission scientists who share his interests and excitement as they help us consider the correlations between life under water and the life we may one day find in outer space.Aliens of the Deep presents the dramatic and visually stunning highlights of a series of expeditions to deep ocean oases-hydrothermal vents where super heated chemical and mineral charged water give life to some of the strangest animals on earth. Six foot tall worms with blood-red plumes, blind white crabs, and an astonishing biomass of white shrimp, all compete to find just the right location in the flow of the super heated water. They are as close to alien life as anything seen on Earth, a clue to what might exist elsewhere in the universe. This adventure brings the audience as close as possible to imagining what it will be like to travel far into space and meet aliens face to face.
Some of the visual effects were done by Blur, and consisted mainly of what these alien creatures would look like. The film described how it could be possible that life under the oceans of a neighbor planet's moon (Jupiter's Europa) could exist. Currently there exists a plan to launch a remotely operated satellite to Europa to study what is underneath its icy oceans.
The sterwoscopic footage shown in the film is nothing short of spectacular. Awesome underwater eruptions of superheated water, alien animals that have never seen the sun. From depths of 850 to 3500 meters, there are an astonishing array of living creatures that thrive just on the heat and water of the ocean.
My brother and I were the only twenty-something guys in the crowd, while the rest of the audience was comprised of families and the elderly. If there is an IMAX theatre near you, I would definitely recommend this film. An amazing look into a world that none of us have seen.
We conclude our coverage of The Big Reveal with some great effects in our next category, Outstanding Supporting Visual Effects in a Motion Picture. I am hoping next year that there will be more interest! The VES members will be voting from January 31st to February 12th, with the winners being announced Feb 16th.
This latest comic from Penny Arcade is sure to cause a chuckle. I love their comic style and wry wit. It does give cause to wonder exactly what the producers were thinking. I guess they are trying to capitalize on the success of the comic-movie blockbusters. I guess they haven't figured out that story rules.
A good friend is working on this film, and I have high hopes for the visual effects! Time will tell. Click here for an external link to the quicktime trailer.
Last night in my guild chat window, I referred to the Fantastic Four trailer as grotesque - which I believe puts me in the running for biggest Goddamn nerd ever. It's a post whose rigors I plan to take very seriously. One of the responsibilities I've inherited is the creation of smart-alecky comic strips, which impugn the motives of potentially noble people.Every film conversion of a beloved property - even the one most people consider a largely successful enterprise - engages in confounding deviations from canon. It doesn't really do to act startled by it anymore. Let us charitably stow away the notion that Jessica Alba could, in any coherent universe, represent the person of Sue Storm in any way. Even when one withdraws the easy targets, this trailer looks like it was made on a dare during second lunch.
A Fantastic Four movie seems like sort of a sure thing, which is why I don't understand the stingy production values. But then it's like, oh, right. It's a sure thing. And we can be reliably expected to sit in front of any moving picture. Indeed, we will pay! So, I guess that's one mystery solved.
Read more over at Penny Arcade!
Sweet. I got a chance to finally see this film and while I didn't think it was as great as Pitch Black, it had its moments.
The visual effects were fairly good, with the sunrise effects of Crematoria excellent. Even some of the set design was impressive. Almost Geiger-esque. I was a bit disappointed in the convoluted nature of the film, with various characters being of different backgrounds; necromongers, elementals, and whatever Riddick is, which sort of turned me off. Save the planet, save the human race, yadda, yadda. I guess it makes the film deeper but come on, a Vin Diesel film? Do we expect it to have any deep meaning? This is from the same writer that did Waterworld, so I'll let you decide.
Yesterday I had an enjoyable time down in Los Angeles at the Skirball Cultural Center, where the Visual Effects Society introduced artists who described their craft. Over the next several days, I'll go over what I saw and their descriptions and timeframe to complete their shots. What puzzles me is that in some of the categories the visual effects producers and supervisors were nominated, instead of the artists. I was hoping for more artist discussion than supervisors hamming it up for the audience and promoting themselves. They didn't really do the work. There's another award for them to strive for. It's the Oscar.
I took a chance and watched this film tonight. Ick.
Besides the excellent choices of weaponry, like the P90 and G36, and some amazing special pyrotechnic effects, this is missable. This is one of the few films that was shot in Vancouver, BC, that didn't try to change cities. They mention in the movie that it's actually Vancouver! The Vancouver Public Library, Canada Place, and Stanley Park are all featured locales. I was fairly disappointed in the visual effects work, they stood out blatantly. It was an action film, after all.
Some news about the upcoming Charlotte's Web film. While we are still in pre-production for this show, some interesting news has come about with the casting of the voices.
Julia Roberts will voice Charlotte, the spider. Steve Buscemi will voice Templeton, the rat. Oprah Winfrey will voice Gussy the goose and Cedric The Entertainer as Golly the goose. John Cleese will voice Samuel the Sheep. Reba McEntire and Kathy Bates will voice the two cows, Betsy and Bitsy, while Thomas Hayden Church and André Benjamin from Andre 3000 will voice the crows, Brooks and Elwyn.
You are probably guessing that most of these creatures will be at some point, created in 3D. Your guess is right. Tippett is a creature studio, so we're obviously doing several.
Today was the culmination of over a years amount of production. We screened all of Tippett's work in the film, which ran a grand total of 20 minutes. We originally started with 70 shots, and the final count was 207. Of the 207, I completed 20, and assisted in a couple more. It was pretty exciting to see all our film at once in the theatre. Shots we had finalled a year ago came back looking great! Time makes the heart grow fonder, I guess. I can't wait to see the film with sound and on a huge screen!
The Constantine website has been updated to include a bunch of pictures from the movie. They chose some really great ones that sort of give away how Hell looks, but it seems every movie these days is giving away bits. The one below is also the one that's featured on one of the international posters that I posted about earlier this week. And if you visit Meyemind you'll see the rest of them!
The VES Award nominees have been announced! Click here to download the PDF. I'm ecstatic to say that the team that animated Sammael for Hellboy got nominated!
In the category of Outstanding Performance by an Animated Character in a Live Action Motion Picture, the nominees from Tippett are: Dovi Anderson, Todd Labonte, Sven Jensen, and Paul Thuriot. Their competition includes Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban and Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events.
In the Outstanding Compositing in a Motion Picture category, the nominees are:
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban - Azkaban Guards Attack
Dorne Huebler, Jay Cooper, Patrick Brennan, Anthony Shafer
The Phantom of the Opera - Opening Shot
Claas Henke, Laurent Ben-Mimoun, Anupam Das
Spider-Man 2 - Train Sequence
Colin Drobnis, Greg Derochie, Blaine Kennison, Kenny Lam
There are some new international Constantine posters that were released this past weekend. One of them has one of my shots! Cool! I have no idea which market it's going into, so if you see it, let me know!
This is the name of a film that inspired the creation of Honda's Cog commercial. Some of you may remember this commercial, which featured the parts from Honda's Accord in a dazzling spectacle of cause and effect. While it doesn't have the same production values as the Cog commercial, it is done without the aid of CG.
The Way Things Go, created in 1987, is a 30 minute long film contain various household items, one affecting another. I've had this DVD in my collection for close to a year now, and every time someone new comes over, I put in this amazing film. It doesn't have a musical score, so I play a little ambient music to stimulate both the eyes and ears of my guests. The film starts with a close-up of a trashbag spinning. As it picks up speed, it descends upon a tire, which eventually is pushed along my the trashbag. The tire sets in motion a chain of events that lasts 30 minutes. Reactions range from fire and explosions, to the simple physics of a falling tetherball. Some of the reactions even appear to defy gravity!
I received this film over the holiday break, and finally got a chance to watch it last night.
It's a very nice Chinese film, made by Zhang Yimou, the same director that did Hero and Raise the Red Lantern. This film is just as amazing in its imagery as Hero, and the story is just as interesting. It is subtitled, which is a feature I'm glad for. You just can't get the same tonal inflection that occurs when English speaking actors dub over the film. While some of the visual effects are quite nice (the scenes in the bamboo jungle), others did need a lot of work, like almost all of the flying dagger blades that appear in the film. Ziyi Zhang plays a great role in this film as a blind brothel dancer, and is the only cast member which I have seen in more films than the other Chinese actors present.
Over the Christmas break I received a call and an email inviting me for an impromptu interview for Fantastic Four. A bunch of studios are working on it, and I was hoping that Tippett may have picked up some shots, but alas, it was not meant to be. Meteor Studios called and asked about my availability starting in January until the end of the show. Usually I would take such an opportunity to work on a film like this, and even the upcoming Sin City has tempted my fragile little mind, but personal and financial reasons have tied me down to the Bay area.
