Color grading for Universal Pictures' KING KONG was realized using media and entertainment technology from Autodesk Inc. Visual effects facility Weta Digital relied upon Autodesk's Discreet Lustre system to digitally color grade the entire film.
Respected industry vet Joni Jacobson has been hired to head the new Los Angeles offices of Industrial Light & Magic (ILM). Jacobson steps into the newly created role of exec in charge of Production Marketing, and will lead marketing efforts going forward.
Jacobson will also develop the L.A. marketing beachhead for Skywalker Sound. The new Los Angeles offices will be opened in January and are located at The Lot in West Hollywood.
The Hollywood Foreign Press Assoc. announced the nominees for the 2005 Golden Globe awards. To interest for the visual effects community, Peter Jackson earned himself a Best Director nomination for KING KONG, which also received a Best Score nod for James Newton Howard.
Peter Jacksons popular online production diaries chronicling his eight-month KING KONG shoot, which first appeared on the official website (kongisking.net), have been assembled as a limited edition DVD set (Universal Studios Home Ent., $39.98) for release Dec. 13, 2005 one day before the highly anticipated remake hits the big screen.
For those who have been waiting for the recut SIN CITY on DVD, the wait is over. SIN CITY: RECUT, EXTENDED, UNRATED (Buena Vista Home Ent., $39.99) bows on DVD Dec. 13, 2005. The new set by director Frank Rodriguez contains the theatrical cut on disc one (with vfx by Troublemaker Digital Studios, CafeFX, Hybride Technologies and The Orphanage) and also reassembles the movie on disc two, reinserting a few bits of business but more crucially allowing you to view each chapter separately. Thus, the chapters have been extended to more closely resemble the experience of Frank Millers stories.
Relativity Media, IDG Films, Platinum Studios and Arclight Films have announced that they have arranged financing to bring the Top Cow Prods.' WITCHBLADE comicbook to the big screen. Production will begin in 2006 on two feature films, to be shot back-to-back, based on the best-selling action/fantasy comicbook, which also earned a loyal following as a TNT television series.
Axed ABC sci-fi series NIGHT STALKER is back from the dead thanks to SCI FI. The channel has acquired all 10 episodes of Touchstone Television's series remake. In addition to the seven episodes that aired on ABC this fall, SCI FI will have the exclusive premieres of three never-before-seen episodes. The series is slated to launch next summer.
NIGHT STALKER is exec produced by Frank Spotnitz (X-FILES) and stars Stuart Townsend, Gabrielle Union, Eric Jungmann and Cotter Smith.
Rhythm & Hues took advantage of Massive Software's autonomous agent 3D animation and digital stunts system on The CHRONICLES OF NARNIA: THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE, filling the screen with fantastical CG armies that interact via artificial life. The film breaks ground for the variety of characters and animals bought to life using Massive crowds. It also for the first time demonstrates that Massive-generated performances are realistic enough to appear in close proximity to the camera and to hero characters in the scene.
Rhythm & Hues chose BlueArc's Titan Storage System as the storage foundation for the company's visual effects work on THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA: THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE.
For the film, Rhythm & Hues provided 400 shots, using a production pipeline that included motion capture, modeling, rigging, animating, technical animation/fur, lighting, rendering and compositing.
Realscan 3D, an industry leader in the creation of digital doubles using 3D scanning technology, announced innovations in its proprietary hardware and 3D scanning pipeline that will improve the way that digital assets are created for all CGI entertainment assets.
The government of the U.K. announced a new tax credit system this week designed to support the British film industry, which was applauded by the UK Film Council. In the Pre-Budget report, the Chancellor of the Exchequer confirmed the new rate of tax relief for low budget films (films budgeted up to £20 million) would be a net 20%. For big budget films (£20 million and above), the rate will be a net 16%. Both rates apply to the U.K. spend of a films budget, capped at 80%.
NaturalMotion Ltd. announced the immediate availability of the endorphin 2.5 Student Edition. The endorphin Student Edition contains all the same powerful features found in the endorphin 2.5 commercial version, including fully enabled export functionality; however, it is only available to students and teachers and is not to be used for commercial production. A single license retails at $995 and is available for immediate purchase from NaturalMotions online store at www.naturalmotion.com.
3D software developer MAXON has launched the first completely integrated professional CINEMA 4D module for the creation of hair, fur and feathers. Known simply as HAIR," this new module lets users quickly and easily add realistic-looking hair to objects. The hair can be styled using HAIR's extensive tool palette, and a custom 3D shader gives artists complete control over the appearance of the hair. HAIR is not only easy to use, it's very fast, offers excellent rendering quality, and requires very little memory. An average configuration can easily render millions of hairs.
SCI FI Channel has struck ratings gold with THE TRIANGLE. The six-hour original miniseries event scored an average 3.6 HH rating over its three nights (Dec. 5-7 at 9-11:00 pm), making it the highest-rated miniseries on SCI FI since the Emmy Award-winning STEVEN SPIELBERG PRESENTS TAKEN in 2002.
THE TRIANGLE made SCI FI Channel the #1 primetime (8-11:00 pm) destination in cable among P25-54 for all three nights that it aired. And 45% of those P25-54 were women SCI FI's best delivery of F25-54 since TAKEN. The miniseries averaged 4.2 million viewers a night (P2+).
MTV Films has acquired the feature film rights to MARC ECKO'S GETTING UP: CONTENTS UNDER PRESSURE, the highly anticipated videogame from Atari and Marc Ecko Enterprises. The videogame is scheduled for a February 2006 release for the PlayStation2 computer entertainment system, for the Xbox videogame and entertainment system from Microsoft and for Windows.
Production on James Camerons live-action adaptation of the 12-part, futuristic manga series, BATTLE ANGEL, is scheduled to commence in February for Twentieth Century Fox, with casting underway for the young lead to play the teenage cyborg, Alita, reports HOLLYWOOD REPORTER.
Mali Finn Casting has placed an online ad seeking women aged 16 to mid-20s who are athletic and agile with graceful movement and have an ear for languages and dialects. Submissions are reportedly due Dec. 19.
Immersion Corp., a leading developer and licensor of touch feedback technology, has started shipping its new CyberGlove II hand motion capture glove. The wireless CyberGlove II system was designed to help animators, product designers and virtual-reality researchers increase efficiency and realism for animated productions, design prototypes and virtual reality systems.
Massive Software, developer of the Academy Award-winning 3D animation software for AI-driven characters and digital stunts, announced a company expansion in tandem with the rapid growth of its reach into the film and television production space. Massive has tapped Nick Divehall, former Alias senior manager, for the role of vp of Business Development. Concurrently, Massive announced an initial suite of channel partners to handle product sales in Japan, Australia, Hong Kong, London and Montreal.
Night Two of SCI FI Channel's original miniseries THE TRIANGLE averaged a 3.7HH rating and 4.3 million viewers (P2+) in its 9-11:00 pm block, growing +8% in P25-54s and +2% in HH ratings from Monday's premiere. Night Two of THE TRIANGLE surpassed Night One's record-setting ratings win, and is the highest-rated program to air on SCI FI since the December 2003 finale of the BATTLESTAR GALACTICA miniseries. The final installment of THE TRIANGLE airs tonight (Dec. 7) at 9:00 pm.
MUMMY director Stephen Sommers has returned to Paramount Pictures and Steven Spielbergs remake of WHEN WORLDS COLLIDE, according to VARIETY. Sommers will write and direct the film with Spielberg producing. Sommers was first attached to the project in April then dropped out to helm Fox's A NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM. But he left MUSEUM in September. Alli Shearmur is overseeing for Paramount.
Gregg Hoffman, Twisted Pictures partner and producer, died of natural causes on Dec. 4, 2005, in Los Angeles. He was 42 years old.
Hoffman, Twisted Pictures president of production, most recently produced SAW, SAW II, CATACOMBS and SILENCE. He was working on CRAWLSPACE and SAW III.
The premiere of night one of SCI FI Channel's original miniseries THE TRIANGLE averaged a 3.7HH rating and more than 4.3 million viewers (P2+) in its 9-11:00 pm block. Night one of THE TRIANGLE is the highest-rated program to air on SCI FI since 2003 and is the channel's highest-rated and most watched miniseries premiere night since the Emmy Award-winning STEVEN SPIELBERG PRESENTS TAKEN (12/2/2002, 4.9 HH/6.1 million P2+).
20th Century Fox has announced that director Tim Story and writer Mark Frost will return for the FANTASTIC FOUR sequel, VARIETY reports. The studio has set July 4, 2007, as the release date. Avi Arad, Bernd Eichinger and Ralph Winter will produce.
Stars Ioan Gruffudd, Jessica Alba, Chris Evans and Michael Chiklis are expected to return, having signed options for a potential trilogy. However, Julian McMahon, who played villain Dr. Doom, will not return.
The original film grossed $154 million in the U.S.
At the Digital Media Festival in Sydney, Australia, Autodesk Inc. launched its Toxik visual effects software running on the Linux operating system. Toxik software enables teams of digital artists to collaboratively realize feature film visual effects ideas, and is already available on the Windows operating system. With the introduction of Toxik software running on Linux, film studios and post-production facilities have more options for the back-end infrastructure and administration of their digital film pipelines.
At last week's press junket in New York City, director Peter Jackson admitted that he changed the animation credit for Christian Rivers and Eric Leighton on KING KONG. Originally, the duo responsible for overseeing the masterful creation of the CG gorilla (with Rivers handling previs and MoCap) was given the credit: "Animation Designed & Supervised by," which appears in the production notes. However, Jackson requested that they be acknowledged as the animation directors in the end credits.
