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Big-name talent and bad CG made for the worst holiday special ever
The original “film” was created in four months in 2002 by a barebones team of animators on a budget of about $650,000, and director Colin Slater hoped it would be the first in a line of extremely popular, extremely cost-effective holiday specials. Apparently, all it took to get Luke Skywalker himself onboard was to hire a limo that would ferry him to and from recording sessions.
Watch the trailer for Studio Ghibli's first fully CG movie
Studio Ghibli has released the trailer for its first CG movie, 'Earwig and the Witch.'
The CGI ghost of James Dean will star in a Vietnam War movie
More than 60 years after his last film, James Dean will return to the screen in Finding Jack. In an exclusive, The Hollywood Reporter shares that the iconic actor, who passed away in 1955, has been posthumously cast in a major supporting role. Production house Magic City Films plans to use photos and videos to recreate Dean in CGI.
'Clone Wars' returns on Disney+ in February
While a lot of the exclusive content Disney has lined up for Disney+ will be available for launch, Clone Wars fans will have a few more months to wait. Today at the D23 Expo we learned that the next season of the animated show will be available for streaming in February 2020. Meanwhile, Disney dropped off the first trailer for its live-action Star Wars show, The Mandalorian, that will premiere with the service on November 12th. Without an updated Clone Wars trailer, we'll just point you back to the one from the announcement of its return that appeared last year. Disney: Kathleen Kennedy announced that the highly anticipated new season of "Star Wars: The Clone Wars" will stream on Disney+ in February 2020. The Emmy® award-winning animated series will be returning with twelve all-new episodes and will mark the return of classic characters Anakin Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi and fan-favorites Ahsoka Tano and Captain Rex.
‘Cats’ trailer plunges into the uncanny valley of digital fur
VFX artists had a go with the feature film Cats. Universal unveiled a full-length trailer today that gave us the first look at what the film's human actors look like as CG-transformed felines. While the Broadway version of Cats relied on elaborate costumes and makeup, the Jellicle Cats in the Tom Hooper film are heavily aided by visual effects wizardry. Earlier footage revealed the film's actors performing in leotards with markers, with the promise of "digital fur" being added later in post-production.
'Detective Pikachu' DP didn't like Sonic's look either
If anyone can appreciate the struggle of translating a beloved videogame character for the big screen, it's the team behind Detective Pikachu. Their flick is about to arrive in theaters, at the same time the first trailer dropped for Sonic the Hedgehog and immediately met with so much resistance that its director Scott Fowler promised changes are on the way. While we're still not sure what exactly went wrong when it came time to render a CG Sonic, comments from Pikachu's director and director of photography reveal their informed-by-experience takes on the situation.
Gorgeous puzzle game 'Monument Valley' is being turned into a movie
One of the most beautifully-designed mobile puzzle games of all time is going to be given the silver screen treatment. Released in 2014 and quickly snapping up the title of Apple's Game of the Year, Monument Valley will be adapted into a movie in a joint venture by Paramount Pictures and Weed Road Pictures.
Netflix's 'Next Gen' trailer features John Krasinski as your robot buddy
Netflix's movies and shows couldn't compete at Cannes this year, but the streaming titan did come home with more content -- including worldwide distribution rights (except in China) for the animated film Next Gen. The company released the first trailer for the film, which is arriving on September 7th.
Disney reduces the chances of CG hair disasters
Movie studios often want computer-generated hair to have a specific effect, whether it's a seductive toss or a careless flick that knocks something over. But there's a problem: most rough-cut simulations don't realistically simulate hair, leading to a lot of guesswork and time-consuming edits. Disney (no stranger to hair-centric movies) has a solution, though. It developed a new system that can produce more authentic-looking simulations without an impractical boost to computation power. The trick, it turns out, was to use just a few cleverly controlled sample hairs.
'Blade Runner 2049' VFX reel shows CG tricks behind bleak landscapes
There's no question that Blade Runner 2049 revolves around computer-generated effects, whether it's the retro-futuristic technology or its holographic AI personas. However, the CG is more pervasive than you might think. Rodeo FX has released a visual effects reel for Denis Villeneuve's bleak sci-fi movie, and it's evident that even the seemingly mundane shots were draped in digital artwork. Caution: there are mild spoilers ahead.
Recommended Reading: 'Wonder Woman' is a timely superhero movie
Wonder Woman, Heroine of the Post-Truth Age Megan Garber, The Atlantic Wonder Woman may be set in the time of World War I, but the movie's themes are particularly relevant right now. The Atlantic analyzes how a female superhero rescues a solider on the run before taking on a much bigger foe -- and what all of that means for in the present day. That Lasso of Truth sure would come in handy for us in 2017.
'Avatar' sequels start arriving on December 18th, 2020
James Cameron has spent years drumming up hype for his Avatar sequels with little to show for it (the first sequel was originally due this December). However, his team is finally ready to commit to specific release dates -- for all the new movies. The production team has revealed that Avatar 2 should arrive on December 18th, 2020, with the rest staggered throughout the next few years. The third movie is slated for December 17th, 2021. There will be a 3-year gap between that and the fourth movie, which debuts on December 20th, 2024. The fifth and final (?) title will appear on December 19th, 2025, 16 years after the first.
Carrie Fisher will be in 'Star Wars: Episode IX' without use of CG (update: no)
Lucasfilm swore that it wouldn't create a digital version of the late, great Carrie Fisher for future Star Wars movies, but that doesn't mean she'll be cut out entirely. Her brother Todd has revealed that Disney still wants to include Carrie in Episode IX, but that it plans to use recent footage of the actress instead of relying on a computer generated facsimile. Both Todd and Carrie's daughter, Billie Lourd, have granted permission to use the shots.
Lucasfilm says it has 'no plans' for a digital Carrie Fisher
Given the recent release of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story featuring an actor who died in 1994, and the recent passing of actress Carrie Fisher, perhaps it was inevitable there would be rumors she would get the same treatment. Lucasfilm has responded to murmurings that it is in negotiation to use her likeness, telling fans of the franchise that "Lucasfilm has no plans to digitally recreate Carrie Fisher's performance as Princess or General Leia Organa." The use of the technology introduces some new questions about whether it should be used, and if so, when, but there may not be easy answers. In this case, however, it appears that Fisher's existing performances (and scenes already shot for the upcoming Episode VIII movie) will stand alone without any posthumous additions.
Disney makes facial capture tech more practical for movies
If you don't see facial motion capture everywhere in movies and video games, there's probably a good reason for it. In order to train a capture system to match expressions, you frequently have to record the actor making all kinds of faces in different conditions... that's a lot of effort, especially for studios that don't have much time or money. Disney Research has a better way. It recently developed a face capture system that uses only a tiny number of recordings and synthetically generates the data you need to train the system. The solution is a uniformly-lit multi-camera rig (only one camera is active, the rest are for lighting) that creates an adjustable 3D model of the actor's face that you can use to create the info you need.
Lytro's first pro movie camera is designed for visual effects magic
While there are plenty of advanced digital movie cameras, most of them aren't really designed for the modern realities of movie making, where computer-generated effects are seemingly ubiquitous. You'll still have to bust out the green screen if you want to put those real actors in a digital world. Lytro might have a better way, though. It's introducing the Lytro Cinema, a movie camera built with digital effects in mind. Since Lytro's light field technology captures a massive, 3D picture of the environment (755 RAW megapixels at up to 300FPS), you might never need a green screen again -- you can accurately determine the objects you want to keep in a given scene.
Watch how 'Star Wars' turns people into CG characters
Heads-up: spoliers ahead. It's not shocking to hear that the frequently practical visual effects of Star Wars: The Force Awakens are still loaded with computer graphics, but you might be surprised to know just how much effort went into blending real people with virtual characters and worlds. Both IAMAG and FXGuide have posted clips showing the work involved, and it's clear that there's a whole lot more involved than green screens. The highlight by far is the rendition of barkeeper Maz Kanata. Lupita Nyong'o wore a special, patterned suit to let her perform on-set, and performed separate motion capture sessions (using a stereo head rig) to get her expressions down pat. The team also used software to tweak Maz's facial features after the fact.
See how VFX transforms 'Star Wars: The Force Awakens' (updated)
Alert: Spoilers ahoy. There was a lot of talk about practical effects in Star Wars: The Force Awakens, but make no mistake, digital dominates -- there are over 2,100 CG shots in the film out of 2,500 total. However, a new VFX show reel released just ahead of the Oscar nominations shows how cannily the producers married the real and the fake. JJ Abrams and the ILM effects team grokked that viewers clearly know when they're being fed CG, so the team uses practical sets, props, stunts and explosions wherever possible. Digital effects are then added to dress up the shots and add the necessary scale.
Pixar will open-source the code for a key movie-making tool
Fancy that you could create the next Inside Out if you only had the right tools? Pixar just made that dream a little more realistic. Mere months after giving away Renderman, the studio has announced plans to open the source code for its Universal Scene Description software, which gives multiple computer animation apps a common "scene graph" to work from. It should help movie makers streamline the production process (particularly if there's more than one company involved), but it'll also be a boon to animation app designers who want their various programs to play together.
Hayao Miyazaki is back -- with a 3D CG short
Here's some bittersweet news for fans of Studio Ghibli's animation genius Hayao Miyazaki: He's back in the directing chair! But, it's for a 3D CG short, not a traditional animated feature, Variety reports. Miyazaki effectively retired from feature directing with his last film, The Wind Rises, but he always left the door open for other projects. The new CG short will center on a hairy caterpillar (who's sure to break your heart somehow), and marks the first time Miyazaki has worked with 3D in a major project. It might be a while before you see it, though. The untitled film will take three years to complete, and it's being made for Ghibli's Tokyo museum. It's unclear if it'll be shown anywhere else. If you're still looking for a Miyazaki fix, and you've seen all of this films already, be sure to check out the documentary The Kingdom of Dreams and Madness (streaming on Netflix), which masterfully covers the making of The Wind Rises.
