The ‘Elemental Magic –An Organic Approach to Visual Effects Animation’ workshop is not just a cute little tip of the hat to traditional animation principles.  This is vital stuff, that cannot be left behind, in the rush to embrace ‘cutting edge’ digital technology!

Elemental Magic brings the organic imaginative process back into the picture of the 'digital' revolution of visual effects.

Australian Animators Studio Joho comment on games and work in their recent short, Dan the Man. It tells the story of the eponymous Dan in his daily grind. Except things aren't that simple, since Dan is modelled as a classic videogame hero from the 16-bit videogame era.

I heard a story once about Melvin Van Peebles going to see his SWEET SWEETBACK'S BAADASSSSS SONG on opening day with only one other person in the theater, a Black Panther. He went to a later showing and the house was full. That one Black Panther had come back and brought all this friends, who loved the film. I can see the same scenario playing out with this film, only replacing the Black Panther with an illegal immigrant.

Machete (Danny Trejo, HEAT) was a Federale when his wife and daughter were killed by drug kingpin Torrez (Steven Seagal, UNDER SIEGE). Left for dead, he managed to survive and make his way to the U.S. where he finds work as a day laborer. A businessman named Booth (Jeff Fahey, TV's LOST) makes him an offer of $150,000 to assassinate Senator McLaughlin (Robert DeNiro, HEAT), who is running on an extreme anti-illegal immigrant platform in Texas. What is unknown is that the politician is linked to a border vigilante group led by murderous cop Lt. Stillman (Don Johnson, TV's MIAMI VICE). But when dealing with corrupt men like these men nothing appears as it seems.

I became a fan of comedian Bill Hicks when I caught one of his old HBO specials on late at night. I wondered why I hadn’t heard of this angry hilarious and provocative performer before, so I went to the Internet and looked him up. Turns out he has a highly influential comedian of the early ‘90s who on the cusp of breaking into the big time in the U.S. died at the age of 32. Now British filmmakers Matt Harlock and Paul Thomas have brought his story to film in this innovative documentary that combines archive footage and animation to bring Hicks’ story to life.

Bill Hicks started his career as a comedian while in high school. He and his friend Dwight Slade snuck out of their houses to audition for the new comedy club in Houston, Texas. By the time he moved to L.A. after graduating, he was already a veteran. At 19, he was playing the famed Comedy Store and was getting meetings with agents to pitch comedy scripts. But for the eager artist success wasn’t coming fast enough and the City of Angels wasn’t everything it was cracked up to be, so he returned to Houston, where he made a name for himself not only as a comedian, but as a man living on the edge.

In this post, the author further expands on the core characteristics need to transform learning in formal institutions.

Assuming that a revolution in educational institutions is not only necessary but inevitable, key practices that can be designed into new learning frameworks must be open, flexible, and customized.

Rather than simply throw new technologies into the mix, it essential to transform the methods we use today. This means a complete reevaluation of what works and what doesn't work. It's everyone's responsibility to be fully prepared for the future and that demands we acknowledging the urgent need for radical change in all our learning communities.

 

 

The most important work for me is the awards season for my two qualifying films, The Cow Who Wanted to be a Hamburger and of course Idiots and Angels. I feel very strongly that “I&A” is my best feature yet, and it has a good shot at winning some prizes this season. So I've decided to enter it in all the competitions: The Gotham Awards (it didn't get in), The Spirits, The Annies, The Golden Globes, and of course, the Oscars.

The big problem with the Oscars is that if there are more than 15 films qualifying, then the number of nominations expands from 3 films to 5. Obviously, with 5 films I have a much better shot, like Secret of the Kells last year.  But with only 3 films nominated, they usually go to the Hollywood Blockbusters.

If the NFL lock-out actually happens and we really have no pro-football next fall, don’t worry-there is a new spectator sport that is a lot cooler to watch, less dangerous, and even more instructive from an artist's standpoint: speed painting.

Okay, so maybe it isn't really a full-blown sport, but if the proliferation of these videos of digital artwork screen-captured during the creation process is any indication, it's fast becoming a popular spectator event in any case.

In a nutshell, it seems that the players, the games, the business models, the game delivery mechanisms, the platforms, the market size and the way players interact with games have all changed. And through it all, the PC -- the most open and innovative of all the gaming platforms -- is experiencing a renaissance. PCs in general are morphing into different form factors, including netbooks, tablets and media-centric designs. Developers are starting to riff on platform technologies -- like stereoscopic 3D, touchscreens, facial recognition, solid-state drives, Z-cameras and wireless display connections -- to make games more immersive and fun. Soon, it may be the norm for integrated cameras to map your face to your in-game character, mimicking your expressions in real time. Games may sense and translate not only your motions, but also your emotions.

 

I’m sitting in an aircraft 30,000 feet up reflecting on a two-week trip to India, my fourth visit to this amazing country in just the last eighteen months.  The two weeks included being a guest speaker and jury member at a pre-eminent Bollywood film event in Mumbai, FICCI Frames.

 

India - what a country - contrasts rich and poor, high and low tech, diversity at every turn, from the eighteen official national languages (there are another 347 that are also spoken – mindboggling!) to the delicious spicy foods, which are equally diverse across this vast country of over 1.2 billion people in a land mass of 3m sq km, making it one of the most densely populated countries on earth.  All tied together by a common currency - the Rupee (approximately 50 Rupees to US$1).  And they are all crazy about the sport I love to play – cricket!   There are several TV stations that broadcast the sport 24/7.  I love India! 

 

 

A nefarious spirit, locked away long ago, is back. Its one goal: to enslave the world. But hey, this ain’t your world. This one belongs to Naruto! And he, Sakura, Lee and Neji are sent to protect Shion, the one priestess capable of stopping this menace. But there’s just one problem. Shion is somewhat of a prophet, and if Naruto keeps this assignment, his death has been foretold. In Achilles’ fashion, our heroic ninja won’t back down. But will he die???