Film: August 2006 Archives

Well, it looks like the Emmys went pretty well on Saturday night! It was the creative arts section of the awards, where the Special Visual Effects award was presented. The winners were Rome: The Stolen Eagle for series, and The Triangle for miniseries. Congratulations guys!

Last week was also the final week of Flags of our Fathers.. We completed close to 450 shots, and I was on the show for the last five months. This week we start the second movie, Letters from Iwo Jima, which was changed from Red Sun, Black Sand. While the shot count is not as high as Flags, we do have a significant amount of work to complete before our two month deadline. We lost a couple compositors (of which I thought I would be one) to either other studios, fatigue, or vacation.

The trailer is now out for Flags of our Fathers and it's companion film, Letters from Iwo Jima. Check it out here! This trailer is for the Japanese audience. Unfortunately I don't have sound on this machine, but I'm sure you do! There will probably be an American trailer in the near future as well.

Another premiere today for the DD crew.. Zoom comes out in theatres, and there's a good article over at VFXWorld describing some of the effects that Digital Domain accomplished for the show.. While I did not work on the film, I had a chance to see some of the completed effects in our Monthlies. Here's the article, and a small excerpt.

Alain Bielik enrolls in superhero academy of Zoom to discover first hand how the vfx wizards behind the scenes made it all a reality.

Just like Galaxy Quest was playing the Star Trek mythology for laughs, Zoom is a comedy playing with the superhero frenzy. Both movies have Tim Allen as the reluctant down on his luck hero. In Zoom (released by Columbia Pictures on Aug. 11), he portrays an out-of-shape former superhero who has lost his powers. He must now teach a group of unwilling teen superheroes how to control their special skills... and ultimately how to save the world.

As with any superhero movie, visual effects played a key part in visualizing the special powers of the characters. To this purpose, director Peter Hewitt turned to Digital Domain and to visual effects supervisor Mark Forker. In charge of producing some 280 shots, the team also included vfx producers David James and Todd Isroelit, digital effects supervisor Serge Sretschinsky and CG supervisor Johnny Gibson.

A little VFX description over at Film & Video. Check it out! It details the VFX work on glowing meteorites and a CG shark. DD also did some great volumetric cloud work for a number of sequences. I have yet to see the film, and unfortunately there hasn't been a crew screening (that I'm aware of). Digital Domain completed about 220 shots for the film. There's just something about Uma Thurman as a chainsaw wielding ex-girlfriend.

Yeppers, the Flags of our Fathers poster has been revealed! Pretty straightfoward and very eye catching. There's more information over at USA Today and Cinematical.

The film will open stateside on October 20th, 2006, and will premiere in Japan at the 19th Tokyo Film Festival on October 21st. Stay tuned for movie trailer information! It'll be out very shortly..