U.K. theater chain Cineworld has closed a deal with NEC to add 74 digital projectors and the most 3-D screens in the country, according to VARIETY.
The cost of the upgrade will be $5.57 million (GBP 4 million) but will ready the U.K. for the expected 13 releases in 3-D coming in 2009, including Disney's BOLT, DreamWorks Animation's MONSTERS VS. ALIENS, Fox's ICE AGE 3: DAWN OF THE DINOSAURS and James Cameron's AVATAR.
LEGEND OF THE SEEKER has been picked up for a second season on Tribune Broadcasting stations, about one third of the stations the first-run syndicated drama runs on, per VARIETY.
Filmed in New Zealand and based on Terry Goodkind's SWORD OF TRUTH book series, SEEKER has gotten a decent 2.0 average household rating in its run so far. Disney and Sam Raimi are producing the series, filling a niche in the kitschy fantasy-action genre that peaked in the late 1990s with shows like HERCULES: THE LEGENDARY JOURNEY and XENA: WARRIOR PRINCESS.
Paramount Pictures and Sony Pictures Ent. have announced the start of principal production in Los Angeles on the 3D motion-capture film THE ADVENTURES OF TINTIN: SECRET OF THE UNICORN, directed by Steven Spielberg and starring Jamie Bell (BILLY ELLIOT, DEFIANCE) as Tintin, the intrepid young reporter whose relentless pursuit of a good story thrusts him into a world of high adventure, and Daniel Craig (QUANTUM OF SOLACE, DEFIANCE) as the nefarious Red Rackham.
Paramount Pictures has become the first studio to offer digital cinema support directly to exhibitors across the United States and Canada. The move is expected to accelerate the roll-out of digital and 3-D projection systems in theatres.
Lowry Digital collaborated with award-winning director David Fincher on Paramount Pictures' epic feature film THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON. Lowry's proprietary image processing techniques were utilized to fine tune the movie's images; balance the look of film, digital capture and visual effects work; reduce noise; and bring out subtle details in the visuals.
While it's unlikely to let it go entirely, Paramount Pictures has let the rights option to graphic novel TORSO lapse, per THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER. Director David Fincher, after securing 13 Oscar nominations for THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON, is still attached to the project.
Written by Brian Michael Bendis and Mark Andreyko, TORSO is a crime thriller that follows the true-life adventures of Treasury Department agent Eliot Ness after he helped lock up gangster Al Capone, including the pursuit of the Cleveland Torso Murderer from 1935 to 1938.
News reports say producer Charles H. Schneer, who worked with Ray Harryhausen on many of his special effects epics, has died at the age of 88 in Boca Raton, Florida. Schneer passed away on Jan. 21.
Schneer got his start at Universal, then worked with Sam Katzman's B-picture unit at Columbia, where he met Harryhausen while the special effects creator was working on his giant octopus feature IT CAME FROM BENEATH THE SEA.
Guerilla FX (GFX), a visual effects, production, post finishing, design and interactive house, in a continuation of their recent expansion, has added integratedD-P/Digital Strategist Darren Himebrook to its creative roster.
Pixel Eight has announced their involvement on the new series TREASURE QUEST, currently airing on Thursdays AT 10 p.m. ET/PT ON Discovery Channel. Pixel Eight was contracted by Percolate Digital to assist in the production of the new series by creating animated sequences that describe the history of shipwrecks that are being investigated during the course of the series.
THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON, THE DARK KNIGHT and IRON MAN were nominated for the Oscar for Achievement in Visual Effects.
Nominations for the 81st Academy Awards were announced today (Thursday, January 22) by Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences President Sid Ganis and Oscar winner Forest Whitaker.
In the first time in the company's history, Microsoft will perform broad layoffs, according to THE NEW YORK TIMES. Based in Redmond, Washington, the world's largest software company will let go 5,000 of its 94,000 workers over the next 18 months, including 1,400 people this week.
The company reported the cuts as part of its second-quarter results, an 11 percent drop in net income to $4.17 billion from $4.71 billion in the same period a year ago. A sharp drop in sales for personal computers is blamed for the cuts in personnel.
Digital-Tutors has released MOTORCYCLE MODELING TECHNIQUES IN MAYA and AUTOMOTIVE MODELING IN XSI -- the newest releases in the largest library of interactive training for emerging digital artists using Maya, the integrated 3D modeling, animation, visual effects, and rendering solution for artists in film, television, game development, and design industries, and XSI, the complete 3D package for modeling, rendering, and character animation newly acquired by Autodesk in 2008.
NewTek has released LightWave v9.6, a major update to its award-winning 3D application, LightWave 3D. LightWave v9.6's new capabilities include improvements to animation, rendering and workflow, with FiberFX cloning, Layout snapping and automatic drag-and-drop file loading. More than 625 feature requests and reported issues have been implemented and resolved between 9.5 and 9.6. LightWave v9.6 is the fifth free update in the LightWave v9 series.
BOXX Technologies, an innovator in high-performance computing systems for vfx, design professionals, and advanced visualization, has released the 3DBOXX 4850 Extreme Workstation, the most powerful single processor workstation ever designed. The 4850 Extreme outperforms the fastest dual Intel Xeon processor workstations from Apple, Dell and HP when running professional compositing applications, and rivals their speed for professional 3D applications.
Prime Focus, India's integrated post production and visual effects services company has delivered an array of post services and more than 1,000 visual effects shots for Bollywood film CHANDNI CHOWK TO CHINA (CC2C). Co-produced by Warner Bros, CC2C is the biggest internationally exposed film in the history of Indian cinema, the first Bollywood film to be distributed by Warner Bros and the first Indian production to be shot in China.
Craft Director Tools are now available from Craft Animations for users of MAXON Cinema 4D. Craft Director Tools utilize high-end artificial intelligence and autonomous control systems to drastically condense traditional animation processes. Combining these unprecedented animation tools with Cinema 4D's ease-of-use and image quality, users receive a time-saving and cost-effective animation solution capable of saving hours, days and weeks of laborious animation time.
AJA Video Systems' FS1 converters and KONA 3 video capture and playback cards are an integral part of the HD post production workflow at Goddard Television, the media distribution arm of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. The FS1 is a universal HD and SD, audio and video frame synchronizer and converter supporting virtually any input or output format, and KONA 3 is AJA's top-of-the-line uncompressed capture card for SD, HD, and Dual Link 4:4:4 HD for Apple Mac Pro systems.
Autodesk has announced they will cut 750 jobs, or about 10 percent of their staff, according to wire reports.
A release on iStockAnalyst said Autodesk will "consolidate certain facilities as part of a plan to reduce operating expenses."
The initiatives are in addition to the ongoing actions previously announced that include a hiring freeze, business travel restrictions, and other reductions in its operating expenses.
GenAudio Inc., developer of AstoundSound 4D sound localization cue technology, has partnered with the 3-D Film and Interactive Festival (3DFF) to demonstrate its innovative AstoundStereo software at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival. Featured in the 3DFF Interactive Lounge from January 16 to 25, GenAudio's AstoundStereo technology will be integrated so that audio is perceived as coming from every direction including above and beyond the physical placement of the speakers -- surround sound at the highest level.
GenArts Inc. has signed a definitive agreement to acquire SpeedSix Software Limited. As of today, all SpeedSix employees will join the GenArts team and remain in the U.K. In addition, SpeedSix's renowned Monsters and Raptors visual effects will be sold and supported in their current form alongside GenArts Sapphire, creating a family of state-of-the-art image processing and synthesis effects software.
A new NASA Lunar vehicle, the six-wheeled Small Pressurized Rover (SPR), is making its first public appearance during the parade at the inauguration ceremonies for U.S. President Barack Obama. The prototype was visualized in Luxology's modo 302 software by NASA designers at the Johnson Space Center, enabling them to create a photoreal image of the SPR prior to physical production.
Sony is pushing 2012 back from July 10 to November 13, per VARIETY, the same weekend the studio used to launch the last two James Bond films.
Sony's president of worldwide distribution Rory Bruer said the studio has a good summer slate and it makes sense to move 2012, from director Roland Emmerich, to the eve of the crowded Thanksgiving holiday.
Summer tentpoles for Sony include ANGELS AND DEMONS (May 15) and THE TAKING OF PELHAM ONE TWO THREE (June 12) with Denzel Washington and John Travolta.
Prolific filmmaker Richard Donner, has been selected by the Board of Directors of the American Cinema Editors (ACE) to be honored with the organization's prestigious ACE Golden Eddie Filmmaker of the Year Award. Donner's wife and producing partner, Lauren Shuler Donner, will present the honor to her husband at the 59th Annual ACE Eddie Awards ceremony on Sunday, February 15, 2009 in the International Ballroom of the Beverly Hilton Hotel, it was officially announced today by the ACE Board of Directors.
Digital-Tutors, makers of award-winning video-based training for emerging digital artists, announced the continued support of their training solutions by studios and schools around the world and the largest number of training titles released by Digital-Tutors in a single year. With 67 training titles released in 2008 and a library of over 150, Digital-Tutors is now among the largest training resources for Autodesk applications including Maya, 3ds Max, Mudbox, and Softimage.
Matthew Sagar, former HR Manager and Head of Recruitment at The Moving Picture Company, has joined Satusfaction, the post-production talent agency, to head up a 3D and VFX arm. The new venture aims to supply CG and compositing artists for Film, Broadcast and Commercial projects.
