Comic-Con Feature Film Highlights
As every year at Comic-Con, the event hosts a bevy of big animation and visual effects feature related panels. Below is a list of this years highlights.
Thursday, July 14:
As every year at Comic-Con, the event hosts a bevy of big animation and visual effects feature related panels. Below is a list of this years highlights.
Thursday, July 14:
Robert G. Friedman will step down as coo/vice chairman of the Motion Picture Group of Paramount Pictures to pursue other interests, it was announced today (July 12, 2005) by Paramount Chairman and CEO Brad Grey.
Friedman, vice chairman of the Paramount Motion Picture Group since he joined the studio in 1997 when, and later coo in 2002 to oversee all domestic and international marketing, publicity and distribution operations at Paramount, as well as Paramount Home Ent. and specialty division Paramount Classics.
Entertainment Rights (ER) has signed a deal to make HE-MAN AND THE MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE the first-ever classic animated series to be released in Universal Media Disc (UMD) format in the U.S. This follows ERs agreement with U.S. HE-MAN DVD partner, BCI Eclipse (a Navarre Corp. Co.) for the U.S. PlayStation Portable (PSP) rights to HE-MAN. The first two HE-MAN titles will be released on UMD video in August 2005.
Five European short films have been selected to compete for the 15th Cartoon d'Or award to be handed out at the awards ceremony September 24, 2005, at Cartoon Forum, which takes place Sept. 21-24 in Kolding, Denmark.
The films were chosen by a jury from a field of 26 projects that won prizes at Cartoon's partner European festivals: Annecy, Bratislava, Bristol, Brussels, Espinho, Genzano di Roma, Fredrikstad, Stuttgart and Utrecht.
With this prize, the filmmakers will obtain 15,000 euros to put toward production of a series or a feature.
The idea had been swimming in the back of David Finchers mind for a number of years. On many occasions the cutting edge director discussed it with his longtime collaborators at Digital Domain.
David and I talked about a scene that takes place entirely in the confines of an executives workspace, explained Ed Ulbrich, Digital Domains svp/gm. He envisioned the objects in the office coming to life under the right circumstances. The difficulty was finding the right project.
RE:Vision Effects now offers FieldsKit version 1.5 for After Effects-compatible applications (Adobe After Effects, Autodesk Combustion, Adobe Premiere Pro, Digital Fusion and Apple Final Cut Pro, among others).
At the heart of FieldsKit is FieldsKit Deinterlacer, which deinterlaces video imagery with superior results. Using proprietary field reconstruction and adaptive motion techniques, FieldsKit Deinterlacer can build full frames from fields that are of much higher quality than the standard approaches available in most effects and video editing applications.
Pixel Corps, the global learning guild for aspiring and professional digital craftsman, has launched a new open enrollment policy. For a nominal monthly fee, Pixel Corps now offers its members unrestricted access to advanced digital media software (valued at more than $20,000), a comprehensive global learning community and extensive online training on a variety of products ranging from Adobe Photoshop and Apple Shake to Luxology modo and SOFTIMAGE|XSI.
In case you dont already own all of the black-and-white Mickey Mouse shorts on the two Walt Disney Treasures DVD sets, you can get a glimpse of the early mouse on the new VINTAGE MICKEY compilation disc (Walt Disney Home Ent., $19.99), which streets July 12, 2005.
The mischievous Mickey appears in the following nine seminal shorts directed by Ub Iwerks, Wilfred Jackson, Burt Gillett and David Hand:
* STEAMBOAT WILLIE (1928)* PLANE CRAZY (1928)* THE KARNIVAL KID (1929)* THE BIRTHDAY PARTY (1931)
Bitfilm Festival 2005Hamburg, GermanyNovember 2-6, 2005Deadline: July 15, 2005
The Bitfilm Festival for digital film and new media shows films that use digital technology in a creative and innovative way. There are six categories:
* 3D SPACE Computer-generated 3D animations * FX MIX - Digitally composed hybrids, mixing for example live action and animation * FLASH ATTACK - Films produced in Macromedia Flash * MACHINIMA - Movies made in real time with game engines
Glitch Fest 2005Montreal, Quebec, CanadaNovember 2005Deadline: August 1, 2005
The Glitch Fest, is comprised of short films of three to 10 minutes in length and in all categories: French or English, from Quebec or elsewhere, be they parodies, fake publicities, dramas, horror films, press reports, animations, trash, etc., so long as the short films are interesting and innovative.
From Warner Bros. Animations animated television series, the Teen Titans are swooping into Comic-Con to join Bandai America Inc. for an exclusive autograph signing event.
Chronicle Books will host signings with the creators of MUTTS and OPTIC NERVE at Comic-Con, July 14-17, 2005. Chronicles booth is #1135. Patrick McDonnell, author/illustrator and creator of MUTTS will be signing his Chronicle Books gift items (blank journal, postcard box, 2006 wall calendar) from 2:00-3:00 pm on Thursday, July 14. Adrian Tomine, author/illustrator and creator of OPTIC NERVE will be signing his Chronicle Books gift items (blank journal, postcard box) from 11:00 am - noon, on Saturday, July 16.
Four-time Emmy award-winning musical composer Laura Karpman has joined Sony Online Entertainment Inc. (SOE), as a full time composer.
Technology and interactivity has always been central to the ways that I think and work in music, Karpman said. It is an enormous opportunity for me to join forces with Sony Online. I believe that together, we can push the envelope of interactive orchestral and electronic music in the world of online gaming.
TiVo appointed veteran media executive Tom Rogers as president/ceo, to replace Mike Ramsay, co-founder of TiVo, who announced his intention to step down as ceo in January after seven years in the position.
Rogers served as vice chairman of TiVos board, on which he has served since September 2003.
Vivendi Universal Games (VU Games) signed a deal to market and distribute in, Empire Interactives multi-platform destructive racing game FLATOUT 2 in North America.
FLATOUT 2, one of Empires key frontline titles, builds on the success of also distributed in North America by VU Games.
Warner Bros. Animation is headed to Comic-Con will a superpowered lineup of panels on its superhero series, including JUSTICE LEAGUE UNLIMITED, THE BATMAN and TEEN TITANS.
Friday, July 15
Mumbai-based music company, Sagarika Music Pvt. Ltd., has launched its children's entertainment brand, The Culture Company, and an animation VCD series targeting children, reports THE HINDU.
"The Culture Company is a brand under which Sagarika will produce and market educational and entertainment products for children of the target age group, 2-12," Sagarika Bam, president, Sagarika Music.
Byron C. Preiss, an author and a publisher who specialized in illustrated books by celebrities, graphic novels and science fiction, died in a car accident on July 9, 2005, in East Hampton, New York, reports THE NEW YORK TIMES. He was 52 and lived in Manhattan.
Preiss, the president of Byron Preiss Visual Publications and Ibooks, was one of the first publishers to release CD-ROM's and electronic books.
Four-time Academy Award winner Ben Burtt will direct the live-action feature film adaptation of Hurricane Ent.s flagship comic book property CHASSIS. It is being produced by Hurricane Ent. along with Josh Morris and Kevin Cleary of Content House.
Twentieth Century Foxs FANTASTIC FOUR exceeded all expectations with a fantastic $56M debut for the weekend ended July 10, 2005, signifying the fifth best opening for a comicbook movie. Coupled with solid holdover business from WAR OF THE WORLDS and BATMAN BEGINS, FANTASTIC FOUR (with vfx principally from Giant Killer Robots, Stan Winston Digital and Soho VFX) helped snap the 19-week year-to-year box office skid.
Bauhaus Software Inc. unveiled Mirage Nomad, a new tablet PC-based animation and storyboarding system for 2D artists. Mirage Nomad frees artists to draw, paint and animate anywhere. From storyboards and pencil tests, to fully-colored final animation and vfx, Mirage Nomad is a powerful, portable 2D animation studio that easily fits in a backpack.
DreamWorks Animation SKG Inc. confirmed that it has been informed by its principal shareholders that they will not proceed at this time with the secondary offering of $500 million of Class A common stock which was filed in a preliminary registration statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission on March 28, 2005.