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Category: Visual Effects

Television Headline News

SCI FI Channel Catches Firefly

FIREFLY, the critically-acclaimed space western from BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER creator Joss Whedon and Twentieth Television, is re-ignited on SCI FI. The channel will present the action adventure series 14 episodes, including three previously unaired in order, beginning July 22 at 7:00 pm. The show will lead into SCI FI's successful SCI FI Friday lineup.

Though short-lived, FIREFLY earned a devoted following which has resulted in the upcoming feature film SERENITY from Universal Pictures, slated for theatrical release on Sept. 30, 2005.

Film Headline News

VFX Artist Makes HBO Short Film Award Finals

Five films have made the cut for the 8th Annual HBO Short Film Award, with the filmmakers attending Film Life's 9th Annual American Black Film Festival (ABFF) in South Beach, Miami, July 13-17, for the final round of competition. Film Life Inc. and Time Warner, with HBO as founding sponsor, will present the festival.

Headline News

Director Mostow Joins Swiss Family Robinson

Disney has hired Jonathan Mostow to direct its remake of SWISS FAMILY ROBINSON, according to VARIETY. Mostow will also rewrite Greg Poirier first draft with Sam Montgomery, Mostow's writing partner on his directorial efforts, BREAKDOWN and U-571. Mandeville's David Hoberman and Todd Lieberman will produce the flick.

The remake will take the tale of the shipwrecked family back to the book's 19th-century period.

The film is set to go before cameras in Australia next year. Disney svp Karen Glass is overseeing.

Headline News

Cast Boards Beowulf

Columbia Pictures is hammering out deals with Ray Winstone (KING ARTHUR), Anthony Hopkins (SILENCE OF THE LAMBS), Brendan Gleeson (TROY) and Robin Wright Penn (FORREST GUMP) to star in director Robert Zemeckis' BEOWULF, reports VARIETY. Steve Bing's Shangri-La Ent. is producing the performance capture feature.

Roger Avary and Neil Gaiman have adapted the Old English epic poem about a knight who slays the monster Grendel and becomes king. Zemeckis and his ImageMovers partners Steve Starkey and Jack Rapke are producing. Martin Shafer will exec produce with the trio writers.

Headline News

Ghost House Grabs Monkey’s Paw

Genre experts Ghost House Pictures will finance and develop the frightening family spec MONKEY'S PAW, from scribes Dave Kajganich and Tom McAlister, according to VARIETY. Ghost House toppers Sam Raimi and Rob Taper will produce along with Kustom Ent. head Tom Lassally and Kustom's Robyn Meisinger.

The story follows a father and his family after a wish-granting artifact begins to wreck havoc on their lives.

Digital Headline News

Digital Dimension Helps Heat Up Mr. & Mrs. Smith

Vfx studio Digital Dimension recently contributed a series of high-powered visual effects for MR. & MRS. SMITH, creating 26 explosive shots for the smash movie starring Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie as assassins.

Headline News

modo Ready for Apple’s Move to Intel Processors

Luxology announced that modo, a leading subdivision surface and polygonal 3D modeling platform, is compatible with Apples new Intel Processor-based Macs. modos highly adaptable architecture will enable Luxologys customers to access this advanced technology as soon as its released.

Headline News

Realizm 800 Chosen for Celsius R630 Workstations

3Dlabs Inc. announced that the Wildcat Realizm 800 professional graphics accelerator has been selected by Fujitsu Siemens Computers for its Celsius R630 high-end workstations. Harnessing the power of two onboard Visual Processing Units (VPUs), the Wildcat Realizm 800 is a performance leader.

Headline News

ART Ups 3D Raytracing with 64-bit RenderDrive

ART VPS has released a new 64-bit version of its RenderDrive network system that can accommodate up to 48 of the company's AR350 dedicated raytracing processors. This comes on the heels of last weeks release of the new Pure PCI-X raytracing card, offering twice the processing power of its predecessor.

Technology Headline News

Rendercore Appoints Marty Shindler to Advisory Board

Rendercore Inc., a leader in remote rendering solutions, has appointed production expert Marty Shindler to its advisory board. Shindler is the ceo of The Shindler Perspective Inc., a management-consulting firm for award-winning entertainment and technology companies.

Film Headline News

Cameron Readies Project 880

With a December production start for James Cameron's BATTLE ANGEL, the Oscar-winning director is already readying another feature tentatively titled PROJECT 880, his Lightstorm Ent. told the HOLLYWOOD REPORTER. Cameron plans to shot the film in 3D with custom-designed high-definition cameras as well as a photo-real performance capture technology.

Lightstorm did not give details about PROJECT 880, but did say that Cameron may choose to film that project before BATTLE ANGEL, which has become a difficult film to adapt from Yukito Kishiro's 12 popular Japanese graphic novels.

Film Headline News

Resident Evil 4 Gets Greenlight

Germany's Constantin Film and Impact Pictures have already begun pre-production on RESIDENT EVIL 4 before even filming the third film in the series, according to THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER. The fourth film will take place in Tokyo.

The third film, RESIDENT EVIL: AFTERLIFE, will begins shooting in Australia in either Nov. or Dec. AFTERLIFE will be set in the Nevada desert and then shift to Japan in the third act, setting up the fourth installment.

Universal Headline News

Fox & Universal Hang Hat on Halo

20th Century Fox and Universal Pictures have taken the bid from Microsoft to produce a feature film adaptation of videogame HALO, reports VARIETY. The final details are still being hammered out, but for certain Universal will handle domestic rights with Fox taking international.

Headline News

CaféFX Escapes with Angelina Jolie in Mr. and Mrs. Smith

Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie get vfx help from CaféFX in two exciting escape sequences for Twentieth Century Foxs MR. AND MRS. SMITH, which opens June 10.

They play a married couple who appear bored with their quiet life but, unknown to each other, are actually international assassins whose career paths are about to fatally collide.

Software Headline News

Pipelinefx Becomes IBM ServerProven

Pipelinefx, a leading provider of enterprise server farm management software for 3D animation and interactive entertainment companies, has achieved optimized status in IBMs PartnerWorld Industry Networks program. As a result, Pipelinefx can help customers achieve higher productivity in the production of 3D content and game development for next generation platforms.

Work Headline News

25,000 3D Artists Download SOFTIMAGE|XSI Foundation

Avid Technology Inc. announced the 25,000th download of the trial version of SOFTIMAGE|XSI Foundation, the $495 version of the companys high-end XSI modeling and animation package. At SIGGRAPH 2004, XSI Foundation was a key element of the company's 3-Democracy strategy, making the industrys advanced 3D content creation software accessible to all levels of CG professionals.

Headline News

Justin Lin Signed for Fast and the Furious 3

Justin Lin, director of the Sundance hit BETTER LUCK TOMORROW, has been signed to direct THE FAST AND THE FURIOUS 3. The Universal Pictures release will be produced by Neal H. Moritz, who served in the same capacity on the other films in the series. The third film was written by Chris Morgan (CELLULAR), who places the third entry in Tokyo: in the underground world of Japanese drift racing. Plans call for the film to begin production in the fall 2005.

Headline News

Mission: Impossible 3 to Start July 18

MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE 3, starring Tom Cruise, will commence principal photography on July 18 in Italy. The film, to be directed by J. J. Abrams and filmed on locations across Europe, the U.S. and Asia, is scheduled to be released May 5, 2006. Cruise and his partner, Paula Wagner, will produce for Cruise/Wagner Prods.

Headline News

Digital Musings From the Editor:

Its the proverbial calm before the storm this week as we await the highly anticipated June 15 release of BATMAN BEGINS. Although its vfx are not intended to be as flashy as REVENGE OF THE SITHs, youll soon see how it raises the bar in crafting invisible effects. You can read all about it and much more next Wednesday, when Danny Fingeroth explores the significance of director Chris Nolans back to basics approach to the Dark Knight.

Animation Headline News

Indie TV Fest Wants Your Pilots!

By Guest (not verified) | Wednesday, June 8, 2005 at 12:00am

The FIRST EVER INDEPENDENT TELEVISION FESTIVAL is seeking submissions for its Independent Pilot Competition and is currently accepting entries in its ANIMATION category.

Launching in fall of 2005, the NYTVF will pioneer the movement of "Independent Television." Writers, directors and producers will be given the unprecedented opportunity to screen Pilot Programs directly for network and cable executives in a festival competition. What festivals such as Sundance did for film, the NYTVF will do for television.

Headline News

Time To Send In SIGGRAPH News for Special Flash Newsletters!

Continuing our special event specific Flash Newsletters, AWN will again be publishing newsletters for SIGGRAPH. This important event is fast approaching and our editorial and advertising staff is gearing up for the Flash Newsletter series. The news deadline for the first edition is July 13 and for the second edition the deadline is July 20. Please send releases and images to editor@awn.com. Here are the dates for the publications.

SIGGRAPH 2005July 19, 2005July 26, 2005

Headline News

Wildcat Realizm 800 Certified for HP Workstations

3Dlabs announced that the Wildcat Realizm 800 professional graphics accelerator has been selected for the HP Tested & Certified graphics program. With the Wildcat Realizm 800 utilizing the PCI Express professional graphics solution, the HP xw4200 and xw8200 workstations can provide considerable power and system throughput that design professionals require.

Technology Headline News

BOXX Ships 7400 Series Workstations With Dual-Core AMD 64 Technology

BOXX Technologies is now shipping its 7400 Series of high-performance workstations featuring Dual-Core AMD Opteron processors. Dual-Core AMD64 technology is a natural extension of AMDs Direct Connect Architecture, directly connecting CPU, memory and I/O resources as opposed to having these resources accessed via a front-side bus.

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