Mix stunning aerial pageantry from the best Cirque du Soleil shows with up close stereoscopic 3D camera work produced by legendary filmmaker James Cameron (Avatar, Titanic) and directed by Andew Adamson (Shrek), throw in a love story and wrap it all together with CG transitions and you have Cirque du Soleil: Worlds Away, which is now available on Blu-ray and Blu-ray 3D. 

When it comes to finding and ACCEPTING a job offer we all have our lists.  It may be that your list contains what you would and would not want from your next job much like a list you’d create if you were picking the perfect mate.  But we all have our limits of what we would accept from a job regardless of how great it all sounds.  Even if you’ve been at this for a while, you still have standards, whether you choose to lower them or not is entirely a different matter. I’m not judging you by any means.  Let’s face it as we get older we seem less inclined to be as picky about certain things as when we were eager beavers graduating school wanting to take the world by it’s job-balls!

The filmmakers pose for a pic at the final screening location on the tour. © 2008 AWN inc.

With a late 5 o’clock screening at ICM, many of the nominees couldn’t make it to the Q&A. Peter and the Wolf producer Hugh Welchman, Madame Tutli-Putli producer Marcy Page and her exec producer David Verrall were able to meet the agents. I Met the Walrus director Josh Raskin and his producer Jerry Levitan arrived right after the agents left because they went to the old ICM address by mistake.

2009 TV Series (episodes 1-26). Director: Toshiyuki Tsuru. 650 minutes. DVD, bilingual, $49.98. Distributor: Funimation.

Being dead isn’t such a drag for Brandon Heat – and yes, with a name like that you’re either on the street kicking ass or in porn. After all, he has a second chance at one thing: revenge.

Being an outspoken individual I am often asked to project a vision of what I foresee in the near future, what lies ahead for media arts, or new media, or a creative palette of artistic expression? How do we anticipate the future and what will be the role for artistic individuals in its shaping? What kind of creative canvases will the future offer us? How will technology, sciences and their fusion with arts impact our creative powers? How will imagination fit into this brave new world?

I guaranty that there are as many answers to these questions as there are those individuals who are willing to risk sharing their answers to them. Hence I shall speak for myself and no one else. In recent years entertainment has become progressively more immersive and also, what is often referred to as 4D, aimed to impact us through all of our senses, make us experience it with our whole bodies. This is exciting! As interactivity is being injected into these experiences, the visitor, or the user, will progressively be empowered to play an active, creative role in own experience.

Once upon a time, a long, long time ago, it was 1985 in fact, the SIGGRAPH Electronic Theater thrilled me by selecting “Nick Brew”, my first ever CGI animated project, for its eminent annual screening of the best of computer animation from around the world. For me it was a foreword to the world of 3d computer animation.

I do admit, technologies utilized today by computer animation are simply breathtaking. Prospect such powers unveil are truly arousing. They made me itch for the chance to harness them, to will them to accomplish my imaginative feats, make my dreams come true. The insanely realistic modeling, texturing, shading, lighting and rendering are truly astonishing. Synthetic actors, their dynamics, the gestures and facial expressions are almost life like. Today it takes an experienced eye to differentiate a synthetic actor from a real live one. It is amazing. It's a genuine achievement. So what is wrong with this?

Spring is the time to get rid of the old to make way for the new.  Flowers do it.  Birds do it.  So why don’t you do it?  It’s okay to take stock of what’s not working in your life.  But do you ever focus on what is working in your life and do you take it for granted?  Purging the past to make way for the new doesn’t mean just going through your closet to see what does or does not fit.  Accepting what does not work and heralding what does work makes your career cleanse an easy process.

Take a look at the astonishing developments, architectural, cultural, entertainment or city planning initiatives arising in China, under the very political and ideological system our “New World” had branded as the red peril (or whatever the lexis was), the foe of the “free” world (just in case you are confused, or do not know, that’s us), the Communism we had fought against for decades. And look now? Where would our “New World” be without their newly found affluence? Watch their booming economy, ambitious expansionism and clear aspirations for the very role we have played until now, the leadership and dominance of the world, the “Old” and the “New”.

However tempting, I shall refrain from spiraling into politics. This is not the topic of this blog. Nor am I endorsing communism. I have tasted its grip while growing up back in Eastern Europe, the “Old World”. I had my share, thank you. This reflection is devoted to the spirit of imagination, innovation, ideation and invention, and for the focus of this particular blog: how these precious values are reflected through the architectural realizations of the country called the “New World”. In my humble perception, something has gotten lost in translation. Are we slipping, losing it?

The nominees and their ILM guests grab a late dinner across the street from the studio. © 2008 AWN Inc.

After the ILM Q&A, the studio hosted a dinner for the nominees, where we sat with animation supervisor Hal Hickel, who is nominated for Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End. Chris was impressed with the seamless work that Hal was involved with on Iron Man combining practical effects with CG. As for CG, Maciek feels he couldn’t work in CG, because he needs more hands on, tactile interaction with his art. He likes work environments were artists are talking and working out issues, not hidden behind iPods for five hours of straight work. In turn, Sam feels freed by the ability to create elaborate worlds with more control inside the computer. It just goes to show how the artistic experience differs from one person to the next.