Category: Visual Effects

At NAB 2008, PNY Technologies will showcase its latest HD-SDI graphics solutions: the NVIDIA Quadro FX 5600 SDI and Quadro FX 4600 SDI.

Visitors to NVIDIA's booth (SL13913) and numerous PNY partner booths, will see how these new HD-SDI solutions, based on NVIDIA's unified GPU architecture, offering exceptional performance, up to a massive 1.5 GB frame buffer, and SD and HD-SDI output, have improved the performance and functionality of industry leading HD broadcast and film applications.

Spike TV's telecast of the ad-supported cable television premiere of STAR WARS: EPISODE III REVENGE OF THE SITH on Sunday, April 6, was the highest rated movie in network history and the highest-rated movie of the year on ad-supported cable in the key demographics of Men 18-49 and Persons 18-49.

The final installment in the epic adventure saga from director and creator George Lucas drew 4.2 million viewers with a 3.0 household rating (2,859,000 homes), 2.7 in Men 18-49 (1,493,000), 2.4 in Men 18-34 (671,000), and a 2.1 in Persons 18-49 (2,388,000).

Jet Li-led THE WARLORDS has been picked up for U.K. distribution by indie Metrodome Distribution, per THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER.

The vfx-heavy Chinese adventure film, with Takeshi Kaneshiro and Andy Lau cost $40 million-plus to make, but has already reaped that much just in China.

Tom Stewart, general manager for home entertainment for Metrodome handled the deal, along with acquisitions and business affairs manager Kate Edwards, CEO Peter Urie and by Wayne Duband Consulting for Applause Pictures and Media Asia out of Hong Kong.

Marketing agency Pimento re-launches the Holiday Inn brand this week to an audience of more than 2,500 delegates at IHG's (InterContinental Hotel Group) Pan European conference at Farnborough 5, the new purpose build exhibition and conference venue at Farnborough International Airport in Hampshire.

The week-long series of conferences every April brings together owners and investors, general managers, sales and marketing executives and senior staff from IHG, its hotels and franchises at this IHG EMEA world event.

3D cinematography has always held the potential for delivering to audiences a more realistic storytelling experience. This promise has been largely unfulfilled due to the physical constraints of traditional dual-camera cinema rigs, which limit the creative direction of any given shot.

Director Thomas Jane and Cinematographer Geoff Boyle, of the 3D film noir thriller DARK COUNTRY, were able to overcome these obstacles through a new highly mobile 3D Steadicam-based rig made possible by the Silicon Imaging SI-2K stereo camera system.

Leading stock footage house Ribbit Films has re-launched their websiteand introduced new product -- 12 thematic volumes of pre-keyed HD clips now available for purchase online.

Ribbit Films knows that having the most innovative tools and resources is the key to success in the creative industry. They're making it even easier for creative directors, film editors, directors, producers, designers and hobbyists to finish projects as quickly as possible.

eyeon Software announced they have partnered with Digital-Tutors to complete a brand new Fusion training series.

Digital-Tutors is developing a library of training materials for new and experienced artists learning and using Fusion, eyeon's leading flagship compositing toolset for film, commercial broadcast, motion graphics and games development markets.

Universal won a four-studio bidding war this week for a sci-fi epic pitch from writers Paul Wernick and Rhett Reese, per THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER.

EARTH VS. MOON was picked up for a mid- to high-six figure deal, with Scott Stuber to produce. No other plot details were revealed.

Reese was a writer on Pixar's MONSTERS, INC, and Wernick has earned three Emmys for TV news work.

The writing duo will executive produce EARTH VS. MOON, with Stuber Productions' Jon Mone to oversee; Lawrence Grey will oversee for Universal.

Writer Justin Marks has been hired to adapt HACK/SLASH for Rogue Pictures, per VARIETY. Todd Lincoln is on board to direct the film version of the comic from Devil's Due Publishing.

Tim Seeley and Stefano Caselli's comic surrounds Cassie Hack, a young woman who kills homicidal maniacs and serial killers on a nationwide road trip of vengeance.

The action flick is said to be both comedy- and horror-heavy.

Producers are Adrian Askarieh and Daniel Alter, who most recently oversaw HITMAN for Fox.

Digieffects announced it will introduce the NATURAL FORCES and SIMULATE series of products at NAB 2008.

The NATURAL FORCES series debuts with NATURAL FORCES: VAPOR and NATURAL FORCES: AQUA. VAPOR is a collection of effects designed around the creation of clouds, fog, haze and smoke. NATURAL FORCES: AQUA is a collection of effects focused on various forms of weather and water effects.

HDRI WORKFLOW WITH MAYA AND PHOTOSHOP is the latest release in a growing library of interactive training for emerging digital artists from Digital-Tutors.

HDRI WORKFLOW WITH MAYA AND PHOTOSHOP contains over two hours of project-based training for artists learning the fundamentals of HDRI and image base lighting and includes a practical workflow to creating HDR Images for use in a multitude of scenarios and projects.