Category: Visual Effects

Rhino Creative Director/Visual Effects Supervisor Vico Sharabani collaborated with director Iain Mackenzie of Paydirt and Merkley+Partners to develop two spots introducing the Mercedes 2009 GLK model, a new smaller, sleeker SUV.

THE DARK KNIGHT and THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON won awards from the Motion Picture Sound Editors on Saturday in Los Angeles, including Best Sound Editing for Music and Sound Effects and Foley for THE DARK KNIGHT and Best Sound Editing: Dialogue and ADR for BENJAMIN BUTTON.

The winners are as follows:

Best Sound Editing: Sound Effects, Foley, Music, Dialogue and ADR Animation in a Feature Film

WALL-E

Best Sound Editing: Sound Effects, Foley, Dialogue and ADR in a Foreign Feature Film

SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE

Autodesk has launched Autodesk Softimage 7.5 software for visual effects and game production, renaming the SOFTIMAGE|XSI software -- acquired from Avid Technology, Inc. -- Autodesk Softimage. The 7.5 version offers timesaving new features, such as UV unfolding technology, a multithreaded Syflex cloth simulator and an integrated mental ray 3.7+ renderer. Artists have used Softimage to create numerous movies, commercials and video games, including the Oscar-winning film HAPPY FEET, Coca Cola's HEIST Super Bowl ad, and the FABLE II videogame.

The Visual Effects Society (VES) this evening announced the recipients of the 7th Annual VES Awards in a black-tie event at the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza Hotel in Los Angeles, California. The annual event recognizes outstanding visual effects in over a dozen categories of film, animation, television, commercials and video games. Filmmakers, producers and guests joined more than 1,100 professionals from the visual effects industry for the gala.

These days, with the creative process, artists need to move at maximum speed in order to tackle incredible deadlines, demanding work and high expectations. Using LightWave either exclusively or in a pipeline, makes it possible for an individual, a small team or a major facility to see their dreams and ideas come to life with award-winning quality work on time and on budget. Artists all over the world say the speed, flexibility, value and control they gain with LightWave throughout the creative process lets them get it done.

Paramount Pictures has extended its agreement with The Montecito Picture Company and Cold Spring Pictures to run through February 2012. The arrangement gives the studio an exclusive first look at Montecito's diverse productions, as well as the non-exclusive opportunity to co-finance films through Montecito's financing facility, Cold Spring Pictures.

Littleloud's latest Flash game delivery for the upcoming WATCHMEN movie has just gone live at www.minutemenarcade.com.

It’s a web-based 1980s-style arcade game to promote the movie release. The cabinet is stationed inside the Gunga Diner, in 1986, where you can play as the Minutemen and enter your high score onto a global leader board.

The game was made over a six-week period from scratch and all of the assets from the 3D build of the diner through to the character sprites were created in-house.

Design and production studio Imaginary Forces has named Anita Olan to the position of exec producer/general manager of its New York office.

The move is a homecoming for Olan. One of the company's longest-tenured employees, she spent over a decade with IF, both in its Hollywood and New York offices. During this time she worked on every aspect of the company's business, from leading its production department and developing strategy and creative for major network rebranding efforts to producing innovative entertainment content for such clients as Animal Planet and Lexus.

Paramount Home Ent., for the first time, will release all the original STAR TREK films from the '70s and '80s and the original 1960s-era TV show to Blu-ray.

The releases begin April 28 with the seven-disc, 29-episode Blu-ray set of "STAR TREK: The Original Series" from CBS Home Ent. and Paramount Home Ent.

SIN CITY and SPY KIDS director Robert Rodriguez will write and direct futuristic thriller NERVERACKERS for Dimension, according to VARIETY.

Set for release on April 16, 2010, the film is set in 2085 and follows a man who is part of an elite unit to quell a crime wave in a "perfect" future society.

Dimension and Rodriguez have released most of the director's work, dating back to FROM DUSK TILL DAWN in 1996 and including the PLANET TERROR half of GRINDHOUSE.

WATCHMEN photographer Clay Enos has enlisted his Organic Coffee Cartel (OCC) to produce a first-of-its-kind movie tie-in coffee for WATCHMEN, the upcoming film adaption of the celebrated graphic novel. OCC has introduced Veidt Enterprise's "Nite Owl Dark Roast," a limited-edition confection and collectible designed for fans and organic coffee gourmands alike. A portion of the proceeds from the special roast will be donated to charity.

Director Zack Snyder confirmed that there will be two longer versions of WATCHMEN on Blu-ray and DVD in July at today's press junket in Beverly Hills: an extended "Tales of the Black Freighter" edition, which will run around three-and-a-half hours, and a director's cut (sans the "Black Freighter" animated sequence), which will run about three hours and 10 minutes. Meanwhile, the theatrical cut, which bows in theaters March 6 from Warner Bros., has a running time of approximately 155 minutes.