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Category: Visual Effects

Headline News

Sony May Spinoff Web For Venom

Sony is reportedly going forward with VENOM, a SPIDER-MAN spinoff based on a villain from the comics who appeared in last year's SPIDER-MAN 3, per THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER.

Venom, played by Topher Grace in SPIDER-MAN 3, could be played by a new actor, because Venom is essentially a substance that attaches itself to a host that gives that host special powers. Sony is hoping to reenergize the aging franchise the way Fox has used Wolverine to add legs to the X-MEN oeuvre.

Headline News

3-D CG Art Contest For SIGGRAPH 2008

Stereoscopic 3-D is easily one of the most talked about technologies in the gaming market, and Meant to be Seen, CGArena, and iZ3D have teamed up to launch a special 3-D CG art contest at SIGGRAPH with the help of some exciting prizes put forward by leading industry members.

Design Headline News

Dassault CEO To Speak At NVISION 08

Bernard Charles, president and CEO of Dassault Systemes, will speak at NVISION 08. Charles is a highly-regarded pioneer in the field of industrial design and visual computing. Companies around the world use technology from Dassault Systemes to digitally design, simulate, and manage products from conception through production to maintenance. Speaking on Tuesday, August 26, in San Jose, California, Charles will discuss megatrends in 3D design.

Headline News

Alienware's Area-51m15x Notebook Features Quadro FX 3600M GPU

It's not always just about fun and games. Alienware's Area-51m15x notebook now offers the NVIDIA Quadro FX 3600M GPU, redefining graphics performance on a 15.4-inch notebook to best address the needs of on-the-go digital content professionals.

As the only 15.4-inch notebook equipped with the NVIDIA Quadro FX 3600M, the Alienware Area-51 m15x is uniquely positioned to provide industrial designers and other creative professionals unrivaled graphics capabilities on a highly portable platform.

Headline News

Artbeats Heats Up The South With New Orleans And Florida City Aerials

Take flight down south with Artbeats' newest royalty-free aerial stock footage collections, NEW ORLEANS AERIALS and FLORIDA CITY AERIALS, featuring unique aerial shots of numerous landmarks including the picturesque coastline, commanding skyscrapers and prominent skylines. Shot with the Gyron system for ultimate stabilization, these new titles include superior quality, HD content that has made Artbeats footage a favorite among industry professionals.

Effects Headline News

Entity Wants To Believe In The VFX

Santa Monica, California- and Vancouver, British Columbia-based Entity FX completed visual effects for THE X-FILES: I WANT TO BELIEVE. Entity FX's Mat Beck supervised all visual effects for the movie, continuing a 15-year collaboration with co-writer and co-producer Frank Spotnitz and X-FILES creator Chris Carter, who co-wrote and directed the film.

Design Headline News

Digital Musings From the Editor:

THE X-FILES: I WANT TO BELIEVE recently opened and Tom McLean talks to VFX Supervisor Mat Beck about the particular challenges of generating CG snowfall, of all things, using a new program called -- you guessed it -- Frosty. Meanwhile, with SIGGRAPH 2008 just around the corner, Eric Post provides a sneak peek of the redesigned art galleries devoted to Design and Computation and Slow Art.

Bill DesowitzEditor

Games Headline News

Ludlum Ent. Reacquires Works Of Robert Ludlum

Ludlum Ent. has reacquired exclusive rights to develop, publish and distribute multi-platform games based on the literary works of late-author Robert Ludlum, the world-renown novelist whose works including the BOURNE and COVERT ONE series have sold more than 290 million copies worldwide and spawned the theatrical box office hits THE BOURNE IDENTITY and THE BOURNE SUPREMACY.

Visual Headline News

VES Announces 2009 Lifetime Achievement Recipients

The Visual Effects Society has named producers Kathleen Kennedy and Frank Marshall as the recipients of the VES Lifetime Achievement Award.

The VES Lifetime Achievement Award, awarded by the VES Board of Directors, recognizes outstanding contributions to the art and science of the visual effects industry.

Marshall and Kennedy have each earned multiple nominations for Academy Awards. Marshall is credited with more than 50 films, while Kennedy includes in her credits E.T. THE EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL, JURASSIC PARK, and THE SIXTH SENSE.

Headline News

Eureka Beats Competition With Third Season Premiere

EUREKA, Sci Fi Channel's original dramedy series about a secret U.S. town inhabited by geniuses, led the cable pack ranking #1 in the key Adults 25-54 demo with last night's season three premiere (July 29, 9-10 p.m.).

Scoring a 2.1 household rating and an audience comprised of 1.426 million Adults 25-54, 1.301 million Adults 18-49 and 2.808 million total viewers, EUREKA enjoyed its most-watched performance since the series first premiered on July 18, 2006.

Season three premiere ratings highlights include:

Headline News

Don't Be Afraid Of The Dark, Del Toro Says

Guillermo del Toro and Miramax will produce a remake of the horror-thriller movie DON'T BE AFRAID OF THE DARK, per THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER. The remake will be the first big venture into genre filmmaking under president Daniel Battsek.

Troy Nixey, a comic book writer and artist, will make his feature directorial debut on DON'T BE AFRAID, which aired on ABC in 1973 and has since become a cult classic. Del Toro is working on an adaptation of Nigel McKeand's teleplay with Matthew Robbins, his writing partner on 1997 horror flick MIMIC for Miramax's former genre label Dimension.

Headline News

NVIDIA Amps Up GeForce Lineup With Availability Of Three New GPUs

NVIDIA Corporation has released three new desktop GeForce 9 Series graphics processing units (GPUs) that bring support for NVIDIA PhysX technology and CUDA general-purpose parallel computing to mainstream PC computing markets.

The new GeForce 9800 GTX+, 9800 GT, and the 9500 GT GPUs deliver exceptional graphics quality, performance, and application compatibility, along with support for NVIDIA SLI technology, the industry's leading multi-GPU solution for gaming and enthusiast platforms across a wide variety of price points, including under $100.

Headline News

Jack White And Alicia Keys Team For Quantum Of Solace Theme Song

Multi-Grammy Award-winning and platinum selling recording artists Jack White of the rock band The White Stripes, and R&B artist Alicia Keys, have recorded the theme song for the upcoming James Bond film QUANTUM OF SOLACE, which will be released worldwide this November.

Their song, written and produced by White, and titled ANOTHER WAY TO DIE, will be the first duet in Bond soundtrack history. In addition to writing the song, White is also featured as the drummer on this track. The soundtrack to QUANTUM OF SOLACE will be released by J Records on October 28, 2008.

Headline News

GenArts to Showcase Sapphire Plug-ins At SIGGRAPH

Visual effects plug-in provider GenArts will be exhibiting at SIGGRAPH 2008, being held August 12-14 at the Los Angeles Convention Center.

GenArts will feature Sapphire Plug-ins, a collection of more than 200 image processing and synthesis effects, on a wide range of host platforms in the Plug-in Pavilion, booth 1536. Visitors to the booth will be given demonstrations of the latest Sapphire Plug-ins releases for Adobe After Effects and Apple Shake.

Headline News

POV Performs Stereoscopic Previs On Journey

In January 2006, POV Previs was contracted by Walden Media and New Line Cinema to construct previsualization for a new film being shot entirely in stereoscopic 3-D called JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH. Loosely based on the Jules Vern classic, JOURNEY would embark on exploring a rich tapestry of story ideas using Real D Cinema technology. Although several CG films have been released utilizing Real D technology (CHICKEN LITTLE, MONSTER HOUSE, BEOWULF), JOURNEY remains the first live action film to use this shooting format.

Star Headline News

Cryptic Studios Gets Rights To Star Trek Online

Game developer and publisher Cryptic Studios has secured the global rights to develop and publish STAR TREK ONLINE, a massively multiplayer online game based on the legendary STAR TREK franchise, from CBS Consumer Products.

Cryptic will unveil the first STAR TREK ONLINE gameplay footage as well as details about this highly anticipated MMO at the annual Star Trek Convention in Las Vegas on Sunday, August 10, 2008. TREK fans from around the globe can also view the event live via webcast at www.startrekonline.com.

Headline News

Smoke & Mirrors and Spike Lee Give Us a Reason to Stay Up Late

How do you get the word out that Burger King is staying open later? In the new spot for BK directed by Spike Lee via Crispin Porter + Bogusky you appoint chart-stomping rapper turned business mogul Diddy (aka Sean Combs) and "Tell 'em Diddy said BK is open late." This announcement, which goes out over the evening news, unleashes a wave of late night pandemonium at BK restaurants everywhere and proves, once again, that Diddy knows best.

From SMNY:

Comics Headline News

Family Guy Showrunner Gets Last Blood

David A. Goodman, showrunner and exec producer on FAMILY GUY, will write LAST BLOOD, a feature film from Benderspink from the Blatant Comics horror property, per THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER.

The comic, created by Bobby Crosby and Chris Crosby, is about a group of human survivors who escaped a zombie massacre, who are protected by a group of vampires who need their blood to survive.

Series Headline News

Wizards Seek Name Change

Syndicated epic fantasy series, previously known as WIZARD'S FIRST RULE, will officially launch as LEGEND OF THE SEEKER, it was announced Thursday at Comic-Con during a panel led by series executive producers Sam Raimi and Rob Tapert.

LEGEND OF THE SEEKER combines elements of fantasy, adventure, magic, mystery and romance, shot in New Zealand.

Film Headline News

Robocop Back To Fight Crime In 2010

MGM has signed Darren Aronofsky to direct and David Self to write a new installment for its ROBOCOP franchise. Aronofsky, the director of THE FOUNTAIN, and Self, the writer of ROAD TO PERDITION, will get ROBOCOP into theaters in 2010.

Phoenix Pictures' Mike Medavoy, Arnold Messer, Brad Fischer and David Thwaites will produce ROBOCOP. Cale Boyter, Exec VP Production at MGM will oversee the project for the studio.

Film Headline News

Sony Pictures Classics To Release Kaufman's Directorial Debut

Sony Pictures Classics have purchased the U.S. rights to Charlie Kaufman's directorial debut SYNECDOCHE, NEW YORK from Sidney Kimmel Ent. The film screened in official competition at the Cannes International Film Festival.

Technology Headline News

Yippee-Ki-Yay, Moviegoers! Die Hard Comes Back To Life At The Academy

Considered by many to be a benchmark in the action genre, DIE HARD will screen at a special 20th anniversary event on Wednesday, August 14, at 7:30 p.m. at the Linwood Dunn Theater in Hollywood. Presented by Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' Science and Technology Council, the evening also will feature an onstage panel discussion with several key members of the film's sound and visual effects teams, who will highlight the role motion picture science and technology played in shaping the movie. Film historian and author Eric Lichtenfeld will moderate the panel.

Headline News

Gnomon Workshop Releases New Sculpture DVD With John Brown

This week The Gnomon Workshop welcomes back instructor John Brown with the seventh and newest installment to his sculpture series. Exploring a specific theme as in his last DVD, SCULPTING THE FEMME FATALE, Brown delves into creating and sculpting a comic book style superhero.

Headline News

Gears Of War Shifts To Legendary, WB

GEARS OF WAR, set up at New Line since early 2007, is being financed by Legendary Pictures at Warner Bros., per VARIETY.

The videogame from Epic Games and Microsoft will be turned into a motion picture directed by Len Wiseman and written by Chris Morgan (first draft by Stuart Beattie). New Line had pegged it for a summer 2009 release, but WB has not yet dated it.

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