DOOM IS HERE!

Our latest movie from UFO Films is being promoted on Scifi Channel's website. I am really happy with this movie and looks to be load of fun. There is a trailer on the main page for now, but I expect it will only be for this week. The page specific to this movie can be found here. We really pushed ourselves getting this one out and I think it will be among our top!

REAL SETS

There have been some great developments to read of on the DVXuser forums regarding the Panasonic HVX200 HD camera. If I were to shoot a live action movie, I might use that one and do it Sin City style. Still there's something to be said for having the budget and ability to do real sets.

I watched Solaris again recently, and this time watched the extra features on the DVD, which I apparently skipped the first time around. Did you know that those big flat screens they had, not like the one in the picture, but the huge seemingly transparent ones were real? When you see the extra features, those screens are there and the images are on them. What must that be like for the actors to play their parts.

In fact, they created a whole world for the actors there. It's not like you typical third wall missing sets. The actors walked into a complete and enclosed world they could feel like they were really in it. To a degree a certain amount of that is lost when doing an all green screen movie. More than that, like Spielberg mentions, the spontaneity that comes from walking onto a completed set for the first time and getting a rush of new ideas won't be there. You saw that in Solaris as well. When your standing on the actual space station, and that is what it seems like, you are bound to come up with many new ideas on how to shoot things.

ASKING TO GET EATEN?

It seems that the Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology has created, of all things, a robot dinosaur! Why on earth would anyone make such a thing. I mean, right now they are slow and cumbersom, but like all things technological, they will improve right? Then there will be running, and screaming and biting.

I must admit I have always loved the idea of a theme park ride with perfectly realistic robot dinosaurs in action, chasing the patrons around. Now that would be fun, right? You can see a video of the robot dino in action by clicking here.

TEXHNOLYZE?

I didn't like this show actually, but that's not what I wanted to write about. I was just thinking. The more I write on my own blog and have to correct my own typing errors, a question was raised in my mind, especially seeing how the "c" and the "x" are so close together on a typical QWERTY keyboard.

When they came up with the name for this show, were they really being fresh and innovative when they chose this particular spelling? Or did they actually make a typo when they were typing it in and then someone went, "Hey! That's kinda cool. Let's keep it spelled like this!"

MOVIES ON MARS

I was looking at this most interesting website for the indie film project Man Conquers Space, and it got me thinking. In the most recent War of the Worlds film, Stephen Spielberg says that his aliens don't come from Mars, because "We've been to Mars and we know nobody is there."

Now I thought, "Wait a minute!" As I recall, back in February I wrote a post about "An astonishing mist-shrouded "lost world" of previously unknown and rare animals and plants high in the mountain rainforests of New Guinea has been uncovered by an international team of scientists." That's right here on this planet.

So even though we have hundreds of satellites and high tech equipment, there is still such discovery to be made on our own Earth. Yet we send a couple of probes and a little robot on wheels to Mars and, "We know nobody is there."? I say this is the ideal time to make movies about life on Mars. Movies that take place today, not necessarily in the future. Movies where our probes and orbiting cameras on Mars start to find little things out of place. "Hey. That was there before." Or even better, they get shot down.

As you can see, this post has nothing to do with Man Conquers Space, BTW, but it is a cool indie project well worth checking out.

DEATH OF AN INDUSTRY

Afterdawn.com has a senior executive at Nokia Mobile phones predicting the death of an industry. Having produced 200 million camera phones last year, Nokia leads the race to get your communications dollar. Still, are they going a bit far to presumetheir ewfforts will result in the death of the mp3 player and camcorder industry? Some camera companies may not think so.

Konica Minolta Holdings Inc. said in January it will withdraw from the business. Back in 2004, Agfa-Gevaert sold its famous photographic arm. "In the next 6-12 months, there will be more of these announcements. The next to disappear will be the makers of music devices and then the manufacturers of video cameras," Vanjoki was quoted as saying. Devices such as Apple's iPod could come up against tough competition as music phones evolve.

That what it says in the article. I see that there may be a kernal of truth here, but at the same time, from the indie POV, I wouldn't hold my breath. It's not like any of the camera we would be interested will be in any way affected by this. Cheap, palm held, tape based, consumer cameras may very well have a struggle ahead, but any camera you can use to make a real movie is not going to be replaced by a phone.

I don't own a cel phone, and don't ever plan to. If I but a digital camera, it will be something small that I can always have with me to shoot textures, skies, random useful images, and maybe a car accident or two. It woul dbe nice if the PSP added a camera function, but on the whole I don't know if I need the all-in-one device.

WORLD AUDIENCE

Animated properties in the new media environment aren't just about targeting one group anymore. It's no longer about the home grown audience. There's simply not enough profit in it. Today's animation gurus realize that any property their create must have international appeal and franchise opportunities.

Japanese animation studio GDH (formerly Gonzo Digimation Holding) has linked up with the Japan office of Goldman Sachs to raise approximately $43 million to fund content creation, according to Daily Variety. The fund will cover TV, direct-to-video features, theatrical films, online games and other productions targeted at international audiences.

That's what Animation Magazine has written and it is an interesting subject. This is a very western way of working and only recently do Japanese studios, realizing their own potential to expand their properties, care about audience outside Japan. They go on to mention that one of the shows Gonzo will be doing is an American property, namely Witchblade. They will tailor it for Japanese audiences, having it take place in Tokyo with a Japanese lead character, but this still says a lot about the spread of a property, one which began as a comic, had a short lived live action series and now an upcoming anime.

DISNEY DROPS THE AXE ON 32

Gotta love big business right? I mean, Disney sets up their own digital animation facility to create sequels to Pixar films like Toy Story and Finding Nemo, then in a strage turn of events, Disney actually merges with Pixar. So what happens to this knock off facility?

The Los Angeles Times reports that the Mouse House has officially closed the shop and dropped the axe on 32 employees. The job cuts will be effective on May 26, but Disney says it will help laid-off employees find new work.

How nice of them, right? The remaining employees will be integrated into Disney feature animation proper. Apparently, former Disney Fuhrer Michael Eisner set up Circle 7 (which got the nickname Pixaren’t) during the time when Pixar was looking elsewhere for distribution. Now that it is no longer needed, Ooops, too bad!

ATTENTION!

I was sent an article from the New York Times about how recent animated films seem to never stop talking. The characters are running their mouths a mile a minute and the idea of silence such as in old Warner Bros. Tom and Jerry or Japanese animation is lost in the past. This made me think of something I read before.

In the early days of anime being brought to America, even the master works of Miyazaki, silent moments would be dubbed over with newly scripted dialogue or plucky cartoon music would be added to cover these segments. The reason? The producers of the American version thought the silent moments would lose the viewer. Yes, they believe we have no attention span to speak of.

"CALL them cellphone films: in "Chicken Little," "Madagascar," "Hoodwinked" and other recent American animated features, the characters chatter incessantly, as if they're trying to use up their last 500 minutes from Verizon. The audience isn't subjected to this barrage of words and jokes because the characters have something to say, but because filmmakers and studio executives are afraid to let them be quiet.

That what it says in the New York Times article and it is a sad state of affairs in my book. The article does offer a ray of hope though in that Pixar clearly understands the value of silence and since John Lasseter will now be heading Disney Feature Animation as well, we me see a turn around compared to recent Disney fare. Whether or not this affects Sony or Dreamworks...

ROUJIN Z IN REALITY

It's Roujin Z, the Japanese film in which the government designs smart machines to care for the elderly, in the real world. The continuing saga of science fiction becoming saga is exploding in the news daily it seems. What will be next?

TOKYO (AFP) - A Japanese-led research team said it had made a seeing, hearing and smelling robot that can carry human beings and is aimed at helping care for the country's growing number of elderly.

That's what it says in an article in Yahoo news from Jiji Press. The article goes on to quote Toshiharu Mukai, one of the research team leaders as saying, " "In the future, we would like to develop a capacity to detect a human's health condition through his breath,". This is a problem that would never happening America. Japan has one of the longest living populations in the world, whereas Americans are lucky to make it to half the age of some of their foreign counterparts. Traditionally, Japan is very family oriented and children live with and take care of aging parents, however recently more young people are entering the workplace rather than marrying and starting families. As a result, researchers in Japan are bracing for a future where robots will take over where caring sons and daughters left off.

These movies just write themselves don't they?

SHOOTING IN SHANGRI-LA

There is a feature on the DVD of The Promise in which we see actress Chen Hong hanging from wires in front of a green screen. Apparently she is not delivering the performance demanded by director Chen Kaige. This scene makes Kaige appear as a tyrant, but also shows his passion for the work and his vision.

Chen Hong is nearly in tears and the director says to her, "I get the feeling you are not listening. I've told you ten times how to do it. You're going to stay up there until you get it right." He then looks around the room and says, "Don't feel sorry for her. She's not the boss now. She's the actress. She stays up there until she gets it right."

This comment threw me for a bit. It wasn't until later I realized that Chen Hong was also producer on the film. In her interview she talks a good bit about the experience of shooting in Shangri-La.

Shangri-La may be a paradise on Earth, but it is a paradise of about 3000 meters. She mentions that every on the cast and crew got altitude sickness at one point or another. Further more they had to haul heavy gear to such heights, requiring many men and only possible in small moves at a time.

Because you're so high, there are clouds all around. She claims that if someone were to even yell loud enough it could cause a cloud to break and the water to fall as rain. Even though there were many hardships, she also says that being able to shoot there, and just being in such a beautiful paradise was the experience of a lifetime.

This is one of the few advantages of working on a huge budget picture that many indies may never enjoy. On films like The Promise, Six Days and Seven Nights, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade or even Into the Blue, the cast and crew get to go to places that normally people would never go to own their own, or in some cases, like Castaway, would never be allowed to go to. They get to see and experience beautiful places on this Earth that were it not for some movie being made, would never be seen by modern man.

Using green screens and Vue 5 type software we may be able to create worlds and beauty hitherto unimagined, but there's something about being in places like Shangri-La and shooting the real thing that will always be lacking. One day I would like to, even if just once, shoot in such a place.

KEEP MOVING, KEEP LEARNING

You may remember in my recent post IT'S THE TREES!, I lamented that render times were somewhat prohibitive for what I had hoped to do with interiors combined with plants and global illumination.

Someone suggested in the comments to use compositing, but that was something I really want to avoid, for ease of use and speed purposes. In the end, though, compositing wins the day. It's time to let each program do what it does best, and let Mirage sort out the results.

The tress are clearly best done in Vue 5 Infinite, but any set pieces rendered elsewhere can be brought in as an alpha plane so that the Vue 5 material can match a global illumination render of the interior set. The best of both worlds. I get the GI render I want at great speed, and the plants alone render at about a minute per frame in Vue 5. Volumetrics and sky brought on by Mirage wizardry and a new day is dawning!

SketchUp Gets Googled

Boy is there anything cool left in this world that doesn't get gobbled up by a big corporation? I guess I should have seen this coming as they have been advertising for months how you can easily link your SketchUp works with Google Maps and view the realtime 3D world.

You have to be wondering what this means for SketchUp. Are we going to give up on design and all the cool new features and products we have in the pipeline? No way! In fact, the mission doesn't change at all. We're all about enabling users to express themselves in 3D and share their vision with others. Architects, builders, woodworkers, gamers, students and my Uncle Bob all want basically the same thing: the most intuitive tools to help them create and share their 3D dreams. So we'll stay the course. (Only now we have just a smidge more horsepower...) I can't stress this enough: the 3D world just got a huge boost, so please don't worry about SketchUp or our mission. Think about it this way: we haven't traded in the Honda for a Porsche; we've strapped a rocket to the Honda. SketchUp is still SketchUp, but now it will go places it couldn't possibly have gone before.

So that's what they have to say about it, and I can tell you how incredibly cool SketchUp is. You have to try it. It is not the tool you want to see become some run of the mill mainstream garbage. It stands out. It's like Vue 5 in the power it gives the user, just in a different area. In fact, much of my background test was done with it. I am taking this work to the next level too! I, of course, want SketchUp to progress along the path on which they started.

Naturally I have some bias here since EA bought up Westwood Studios where I worked in Vegas and gutted it, putting me out of a job. In Google's defense, they bought out Blogger and made it twenty times better for me as a user. But this isn't the way it usually happens. It's common in the world of big business to buy, gut and eliminate. I don't see that happening here though. When a tool gives me power like SketchUp does, I want to stick with it and become part of the team, so to speak.

BLOAT THE LINE

The Smoking Gun has a very interesting article on where some of the money goes in making a huge Hollywood feature. It's the above the line stuff that really takes the cake.

The individual budget lines are divided into two categories: "above the line" and "below the line" expenses. In the "above," or ATL, category, you'll find costs associated with a film's cast, writer, producer, director, stunts, and story rights. The remaining expenses--set design, camera rentals, special effects, film, editing, etc.--are categorized as BTL, or below the line.

Now where some of those expenses end up might surprise you. On a big film like The Village, writer/director M. Night Shayamalan gets between $10 and $13 million for his payday. I don't need to tell you that whole films, and I mean huge films like Hero, get made for that in China. Half of the $73.2 million budget for Unbreakable went to Bruce Willis, M. Night and Samuel Jackson. In the Sixth Sense, Bruce Willis's private jet tab alone was $450,000 and an unspecified "other allowance" for him was budgeted at $339,492.

But the "Unbreakable" budget is more noteworthy (or entertaining, at least) for Willis's $1.5 million perk package. While that figure covered on-set staples like a costumer and makeup artist, the actor, who portrayed morose security guard David Dunn, also got a personal assistant, masseuse, mobile gym, trainer, bodyguard, and other "personal perks," including a $500,000 allowance for private jet charters.

Now it was mentioned in one of the comments on a previous post that the cost of living in America plays a huge role in the bloated film budget. This is true. Trying to make huge films on tighter an tighter schedules means more people and people here are paid well. That is why much business in the entertainment world is running elsewhere where people are not paid so well.

In China, a film like The Promise is a huge undertaking. There were times when, according to actress Cecilia Cheung, they had 1500 people, including real soldiers on cast and crew and hundreds of bulls for a stampede. Doing a movie this size would easily cost $200 million in America. It would be bigger than Kong! This movie had four huge stars and one of the most celebrated directors in China on it. If two stars and a big time director merit $37 million in America, what would these guys cost on the same scale?

The thing is, the cost is truly in the heads. If a director from here went to Thailand to shoot a movie with local cast and crew he would suddenly see the huge savings that come with a different economy. Provided he doesn't take Bruce Willis and Samuel Jackson with him, he might make a big Hollywood movie for less than $10 million.

VENDETTA AGAINST THE GAME

An interesting piece found on Newsarama and sent to me by Mauricio Hunt shows an apparent controversy between Alan Moore, the creator of the property V for Vendetta, and the Hollywood studios behind the big budget movie adaptation coming out this week. According to this article, there is a huge piece in the New York times, but not being a registered member, I can't read it.

In Mr. Moore's account of his career, the villains are clearly defined: they are the mainstream comics industry — particularly DC Comics, the American publisher of "Watchmen" and "V for Vendetta" — which he believes has hijacked the properties he created, and the American film business, which has distorted his writing beyond recognition. To him, the movie adaptation of "V for Vendetta," which opens on Friday, is not the biggest platform yet for his ideas: it is further proof that Hollywood should be avoided at all costs. "I've read the screenplay," Mr. Moore said. "It's rubbish."

It would appear that Moore desires to have no association with the film. This story, in a general sense, is nothing new as we all have heard of great creators getting their ideas and dreams put through the studio shredder or stolen altogether. It's amazing to think, though, that it happens to artists even as big as Moore. What chance do we have if a guy so established is not safe venturing into their world?

I remember having an idea of mine, that I wrote while working at a studio, taken and handed to a "real writer" and it was rewritten and rewritten into something so bad no one wanted to make it anymore. A good friend of mine had his idea taken in a similar fashion and run into the ground, an idea I still believe to this day would be as big as Mario or Pokemon if he was allowed to go forward with it.

Alan Moore says "...Hollywood should be avoided at all costs." I wouldn't go that far. I would say, Know what you're getting into and don't give them your first born, and most importantly, if you go in, don't take your dreams with you.

DISNEY: A FUTURE IN 2D?

According to Animation Magazine, a future in 2D may just be the case, but not all agree. The word came down from Disney's annual shareholders meeting where some very interesting events transpired.

Roy E. Disney, who was ousted during the Eisner regime was reintroduced as a member of the board. New Disney creative head John Lasseter saying, "All I ever wanted to do was be an animator. All I ever wanted to do was work for Disney,” spoke about his career, which began as a ride operator at Disneyland, has come full circle.

Naturally, in a room full of Disney shareholders, the question of 2D was bound to come up. It was asked whether or not 2D would be employed for their upcoming Rapunzel: Unbraided, which is being directed by traditonal animation master Glen Keane.

According to Iger, the film will be made with a revolutionary process, which Kean helped develop, that will allow the animators to draw by hand and have their drawings translated to computer models. Iger also prattled off the cliché line about technology taking a back seat to good storytelling, but drew a round of applause by adding, “If we find that we have great characters and stories and believable worlds, and that it can be depicted in 2D animation, that’s also fine with us. It's an art from that's eternal in many respects and shouldn't be ignored.”

But what about where the industry is headed? Are any of these plans going to change the downturn that is inevitable? Even with Madagascar, one of the best selling home video titles of 2005, and the award winning Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, Dreamworks Animation is reporting fourth quarter income that is only a third of what it earned the same quarter last year. Yearly income was even worse.

I know many would be quick to jump in and blame piracy for this downturn but what is the real issue? Maybe a look at what the industry is actually doing could shed some light on this. Perhaps some internal workings give us a clue.

Movies go into production and fall apart all the time. This was certainly the case for Dreamworks in the past as they wrote off the abandoned productions Tortoise and the Hare and Tusker. The films were actually written off as far as the books are concerned in 2003, but since DreamWorks Animation will supposedly abandon the rights to both projects this year, they receive the tax benefit for the previous quarter. The result? A net income increase of approximately $28 million.

Then there is the new exclusive distribution deal with Paramount Pictures. Because of this, Dreamworks Animation will have to take on many functions previously handled by Dreamworks Studios. This means an increase in operation costs. They will have to compensate new members of their senior management team. This could increase the company's expenses by as much as 15% above the $76.5 million reported for last year.

The thing to note here is not the actions, it's the figures! The industry is bloated plain and simple. Movies like Wonderful Days, which was huge, are made entirely on the amount of money Dreamworks will use to pay this new senior mangement team. A team that will probably give us less creativity and more talking animal sequels.

Two or three movies could have been made for the money thrown away and now written off for tax purposes on productions that went nowhere. The industry spends too much. Everything costs too much. Don't get me wrong, I work in this industry and I am not saying I want to get paid less, but there has to be smarter ways to do things, smaller teams, maybe even less interference from suits who couldn't draw a stick figure with a gun to their head. Change is needed on a grand scale. I can tell you this, that change is coming whether Disney or Dreamworks is prepared or not.

IT'S THE TREES!

I was talking with PJ the other day about global illumination environment rendering and realized I have to take back something I said. As you may know I have been working on creating backgrounds of high quality, not only for my show but that I might do a tutorial DVD on creating backgrounds. The image above is one of those.

Anyway, I was testing global illumination rendering in a couple of different programs and usually getting render times just over a half an hour per frame. In Vue 5 Infinite, however, the render times for such a frame were in the area of 8 hours per frame with global illumination. This led me to suspect that I may not be able to use Vue 5 as I might like and so I began exporting plants to use in Lightwave 3D.

Well, aside from the fact that without Vue 5 eco system technology I would have to place every single plant by hand, it turned out that as soon as plants made their way into Lightwave, the renders began to slow down considerably. Now, the Vue 5 scene probably has over one million polygons worth of plants in it. As soon as I brought five measly plants into Lightwave 3D, the renders slowed down to a point where I was no longer willing to wait for it. It's the trees! Light bouncing around all those trees, and likely made worse by transparency, is what causes horrendous render times.

Needless to say, Vue 5 is surely the way to go. Global Illumination, however is not. They do look great and might be worth an overnighter one of these days, but I wouldn't try it on the show.

A Second View

I always knew there was something to this whole machinima thing, but now artists are really trying to take it out into the big time. Apparently, Linden Lab, the force behind the virtual online society Second Life, is premiering an all new machinima production at the Screen Burn Beta Festival at the 13th annual SXSW Interactive Festival in Austin.

The movie, based on the cowboy poem "Silver Bells and Golden Spurs", is called Bells and Spurs, and different from many works of machinimation done in Quake or Unreal engines, this one is created entirely in the virtual world of Second Life.

This is the aspect I find most interesting here. Just what is Second Life?

Second Life is a 3-D virtual world entirely built and owned by its residents. Since opening to the public in 2003, it has grown explosively and today is inhabited by nearly 100,000 people from around the globe.

This isn't like a chae room mind you.This is creating an avatar and walking around in a fully 3D world just like a massive multiplayer online game. It goes even beyond that, though.

The Marketplace currently supports millions of US dollars in monthly transactions. This commerce is handled with the in-world currency, the Linden dollar, which can be converted to US dollars at several thriving online currency exchanges.

That's right. Many users are running businesses in this virtual environment, creating and selling products for real world cash. And to think it all began with machinima.

"The world premiere of BELLS AND SPURS establishes SECOND LIFE as the foremost independent studio for machinima production," said Philip Rosedale, ceo of Linden Lab. "We allow film directors ultimate control over every aspect of production, from character creation to sets, lighting, music and editing. We are certain that our open environment and current resident base of talented machinima artists will attract the attention and interest of existing and budding machinima auteurs."--from AWN

How Many Do We Need?

I was watching a DVD last night and I started to notice a disturbing monotony to all the trailers that ran before the feature. Every trailer that popped up seemed to be "yet another CGI talking animal film". It was wierd. I mean it's easy to just say Hollywood bandwagoning I but it's a different story to see this back to back.

People blamed Lucas an Spielberg for the invention of the summer blockbuster and the starting of a trend from which Hollywood cannot escape; A trend which has brought about skyrocketing movie costs, and a wealth of films that are all style and no substance. Who, on the other hand, is to blame for this one? Has the audience spoken and said we need more CGI talking animals? Well, I can only hope that like the vast majority of Hollywood trends, this one doesn't linger too long.

SHELF LIFE OF THE INDUSTRY

AWN's Karen Raugust writes about how Hollywood has built inthe demise of creativity in the industry. What the article basically amounts to is that the shelf life of feature products is so short that retailers actually prefer franchises and sequels to new products. Can you believe this?!

“The shelf life of a film is so short,” says Juli Boylan, svp, Sony Pictures Consumer Products. “It’s literally about the opening weekend. Retailers feel there’s just not enough time to create consumer demand.”

What this translates into is that retailers are far more comfortable with a property that stems from books, games or some other medium rather than a first time film. This basically drives an axe to the independent in this sytem, correct? As a creator who had a DVD with short shelf life, I can tell you this is true.

What gets me is that the system has become so overly convoluted one must wonder why you would even want to play intheir sandbox anymore. All this goes out the window on the net and mobile devices and other forms of delivery. If you want to play their game, forget about your film. You woul dbe better off coming from another angle, making a manga or writing a book and building up your audience. Do web shorts or even try and get a game made. Let the film arrive when the audience and demand is truly there. Otherwise, your dream could come and go in the span of a DVD's shelf life.

PIXAR HEIGHTS

Pixar is apparently reporting a record year in terms of profits. According to the release of their fourth quarter financial results, they earned $152.9 million on revenues of $289.1 million, as opposed to earnings of $141.7 million on revenues of $273.5 million the previous year.

Pixar and Disney top shareholder Steve Jobs noted, "With the proposed merger of Pixar and Disney, this will likely be our last report as an independent public company, and I'd like to thank every Pixar shareholder for their support over the past decade in helping us build this amazing company."

Do I really even need to say it? Independent. And yet it is true. Just imagine. Just dream.

TRUTH STRANGER THAN SCIENCE FICTION

The developments in the incredible world of robots just don't stop. New scientist also contains this report on a University development of a robot that can climb trees and vertical surfaces.

A remarkable, if slightly creepy, tree-climbing robot is being developed by robotics experts from Carnegie Mellon and several other US Universities. And here's a video of it scrabbling up several different surfaces.

The project is, of course, funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), so you can the potential Terminator scenarios already. Combine all the puzzle pieces and you have a sci-fi movie of our robotic end coming to life.

I remember in my University days I studied robotics. I have probably mentioned this more than once, but in that day I could not forsee that in my lifetime, robotics on the level that I desired would ever happen. So I chose to make movies, many planned to involve robotics. Now look at the world today. We are poised to surpass our greatest science fiction dreams.

Science Fiction Now Just Science

The types of things which were only dreams and wishes when I was a kid are now showing up in the real world. While this doesn't mean the advent of ATAT Snow Walkers in our lifetime, New Scientist is reporting on the development of a robotic pack mule capable of maintaining its balance over a variety of terrain and against several forms of impact.

BigDog is described by its developers Boston Dynamics as “the most advanced quadruped robot on Earth”. The company have released a new video of the robot negotiating steep slopes, crossing rocky ground and dealing with the sharp kick. View the impressive clip here (28MB Windows media file).

I saw a video of this thing in action the other day and my thought was how creepy it seems. It feels alive. I guess working in a shop that makes monster movies will do that to you, but my first thought was that it was a real animal dressed as a robot for a low budget movie. Turns out it couldn't be further from the truth. This was the real deal when it comes to quadropedal motion. Of course, just because it happens to be real doesn't mean the sci-fi style trappings aren't already in place for this thing.

The project is sponsored by the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), who want the robotic pack mule to assist soldiers in terrain too tough for vehicles. Ground-based soldiers often need to carry 40 kilograms of equipment.

Seems like a movie in the makings of future plans for weaponization to me. At least inthe movie version. ;)

THE NEW RULES

IN this must read article on AWN the industry movers and shakers talk about the ever changing climate in the world of animation. Things are shifting faster than ever and doors can open and close in the space of a single project. That which was law a mere fifteen years ago is now as useful as an stone tablet. What does this mean for the indie swimming in this world?

AWM: How serious is the potential market of podcasting and webcasting?

Kenneth Locker: Very large — it is cost effective and ubiquitous with very low cost of entry barriers. Success will ultimately depend on the quality of the content and which business models emerge (i.e. subscription, pay per view, ad supported etc).

Ken Faier: That said, it certainly feels like it’s worth investing development resources to content that would be suited to podcasting and mobile. And as the larger players like Fox and CBS jump into the ring, it will create more opportunities for independents.

Sounds like nothing but good news if you ask me. I am often stuck on the idea of feature projects but more and more it is becoming apparent that thereis real value in serious consideration of chapter based entertainment for mobile platforms like the PSP. Sure there are services like iTunes, but you need not fret if you can get past the gatekeepers. You can deliver content yourself, from your own site. In fact, anybody can do it.

Fred Seibert: Homestarrunner.com, Happy Tree Friends, Joe Cartoon, (dare I say Channel Frederator) are only the beginning. Talent, quality, and excitement are now the only barriers to hit making and brand building.

I think it worth noting that budgets, marketing dollars and things along these lines was not mentioned. Homestarrunner is very popular around here and they have sold a few hatsa nd DVD's in this office. That says something. Apparently those guys make a living doing only that too. The opportunity exists doing a cool chapter based show on PSP or iPod to reach your audience immediately and build something that could be huge. It doesn't get any better than this folks.

THE GOOD THE BAD AND THE INDIE

We all know that Wallace & Gromit took home the Oscar for best animated feature, but what is more interesting to me are some of the notes that came back from the creators who accepted the award, according to this AWN article.


Box said the nomination of two stop-motion and one 2D, instead of a CGI 3D animated film, was perhaps sending a message.

“What matters most of all is the films that are entertaining and well made,” he said. “you know, maybe there is a kind of a message there, you know, the hand crafted, more unique, more unusual kind of [all] films are important, you know, the original one, say I hope there's a message from the Academy there.” He noted that the three nominated films were all beautiful and very unique. “And maybe the CGI films this year just didn't hit that mark. I think any technique is fine. It's just a different tool to use. It's how well you use it, really.”

We all know I think thi sis a most important point for the lone indie artists tryign to get noticed, especially on that first movie project. Many of the CGI films of recent time shave been little more than "more of same" comedy pieces with talking animals or something trying to feel like Pixar animation. Nothing wrong with this as some were successful and maybe even good, but they certainly don't have that quality that makes a film unique, memorable or timeless.

The indie must push things even further. Uniqueness is a must just to get noticed let alone get a wide audience and have a shot at success. An indie making a middle of the road film is asking to disappear in a sea of monotony because the studios will almost always do mediocre better than we can.

I think the fact that 2 stop motion films and a 2D anime got nominated really does say saomething. It says somethign to me as an indie creator to be sure. We have all the time in the world and very little actually stands in our way except our own excuses.

Box offered, “Somebody once said if you make a bad film, you make it alone. If you make a great film, everybody made it with you. We all made it together, guys.”

I would say that for the indie, especially who really makes a film alone, a bad film could mean being forgotten.

PROMISING EMOTION

I don't want to get into becoming any kind of movie review site, but when I first wrote about Chien Kaige's epic film The Promise, its mere mention seemed to inspire some to want to write in and bash the film or tear it down. I have just finished watching it and I can only say that I don't get it.

The 35 million US dollar film is the most expensive Chinese film ever made and features an international cast drawn from Japan, Korea Hong Kong, and mainland China.

I would add that this only spells a small part of the epicness of this project. Some have said the CGI visual FX are sub par. Compared to what? Because they don't look like an American film? If you were expecting visuals in the style of American films you were in the wrong theatre. Chinese films don't look like that and never have. The FX in Chinese cinema have developed in their own right and have a style all their own, and as Chinese films go, this one blows par out of the water and leaves it long in the dust. The style of Chinese cinema, when it comes to framing, pacing etc., is more in line with anime anyway so for me that is only a plus.

Director Chien Kaige (far right) is a fifth generation graduate of the prestigious Bei Jing film academy. I learned all about him and other graduates like Zhang Yimou (hero) when I was doing a presentation there in 2002. Of course I had already seen The Emperor and the Assassin. We need only look at Q's ancient blog vault to see what I wrote on the day. This leads me to wonder how many Chinese films the bashers have actually seen. Most mention Crouching Tiger and Hero and I suspect that aside from a few Hong Kong actioners, which are not really considered Chinese, this is the extent of it.

When I was in China I was surprised to hear how much they hated Crouching Tiger, and more and more I feel I understand why. They simply do things differently when it comes to cinema and Crouching Tiger truly stands out as not being Chinese. I remember it being associated with words like "rubbish" when I was n China, and the fact that it won an award made us seem to have no taste. People would rattle off lists of "proper" Chinese swordsman movies.

Well The Promise epitomizes Chinese Operatic cinema at its finest. Never have I been so emotionally drawn into a film and its characters. This is certainly the greatest Chinese film I have ever seen and could contend for greatest film period. If I had to pick a project that says "this is what I want to do", this is it. The emotions I want to convey, the beauty I want to put to screen. This had it all. Performances even by young Gen X Cops star Nicolas Tse blew me away. Action choreography by Dion Lam, the guy you see doing the actual work training the actors to do Wu Ping's fights for The Matrix films, took wire-fu to new heights (no pun intended). The music by Klaus Badelt (Pirates of the Carribbean) was a great accompanyment to the incredible visuals.



As for the bashers, I really don't know what film they saw. Or maybe I don't know what film they wanted to see. I know you can't please everyone, no film can do that, but this film had one of the biggest openings, if not thee biggest, in Chinese cinema history and stood strong for many weeks, poised to surpass Hero, so I am guessing the Chinese audience knew what they were looking for and found it.

THE DARK SIDE OF BLOCKBUSTERS

According to Lloyd Grove's Lowdown at the New York Daily News, George Lucas, producer of the 1986 film Howard the Duck, is saying that the day of the blockbuster film is at an end.

"The market forces that exist today make it unrealistic to spend $200 million on a movie," said Lucas, a near-billionaire from his feverishly franchised outer-space epics. "Those movies can't make their money back anymore. Look at what happened with 'King Kong.'"

That what it says in the article on their website. Lucas goes on to dare claim that "...moviemaking isn't about business. It's about art!", predicting that by the year 2025, the average movie will cost a mere $15 million.

No mention is made of technology in all this, but let's be realistic. Where is the money being spent? Even in a move like Kong, where is it being spent? Lucas' prediction is only natural because movie never needed to cost what they do today, but technology will insure the costs drop.

Well, here's my prediction. In a few years anyone will be able to get 3D models the quality of Jurassic Park off the internet for free, probably complete with motion libraries. Their computers will be able to render movie quality scenes compete with trees, rain and other events in realtime, game engine style systems. Film will have gone the way of the dinosaur and HD cameras like the best we have today will be under $1000, yet still more than good enough for pro work. The average movie made for $15 million will still be considered a bloated budget.

"You can not know the power of the dark side..." was spoken in another popular film by Howard the Duck producer George Lucas, and it is true the dark side of the Hollywood Blockbuster won't be getting any brighter anytime soon. I, for one, will never join them and will continue to rebel with the idea of making a studio quality, all digital movie for a cost that might be termed as "bantha fodder".

PROMISES PROMISES

I was chatting about Asian cinema the other night when someone who seems as into this stuff as I am sent me to this Warner Brothers Japanese site. There I saw images that would blow my mind. I would later learn that those images are from a film called The Promise by reknown director Chien Kaige.

I first learned about Chien Kaige when I came across a DVD of his epic story of China's first king, The Emperor and the Assassin. This film is bigger than the likes of Gladiator or Troy and because it's China, there's no need for CGI soldiers for the huge battle scenes. You have to see it to believe it.

I learned more about this phenomenal director when I went to China, where I did a presentation at the prestigious Beijing Film Academy, from which he is a fifth generation graduate. Zhang Yimou also graduated from this school and is now famous in America for Hero, the epic Jet Li film. Well, now it seems that Chien Kaige plans not to yield to his classmate having crafted a movie that is currently called the most expensive Chinese movie ever made. You have to see the trailer for yourself to witness visuals that will astound you. This is going far beyond Hero and taking Chinese cinema to a whole new level.
What really amazes me about this film is that this film also has a huge cast of Asian stars, including Japanese actors such as Hiroyuki (Henry) Sanada (The Last Samurai) and apparently Korean stars as well.

Unfortunately, not all is as promised with this amazing film, at least not for viewers in the west. There are rumors that its a hard sell and that only an edited down version will be seen here, similar to what I heard happened with House of Flying Daggers. Still the movie had the strongest opening ever in China, despite being pirated soon after release.

Needless to say, when I found out it was already on DVD in China, I hit the "add to cart" button at the import site. I can't wait to see it and marvel!

MY DESK CHAIR BROKE!!

The title says it all. The chair on which I have set for many moons, allowing me to creatively fulfill image based dreams has broken. Now it has become the wobbly habitation of shards of fragmented metal and splintered plastic. It is a danger to creativity if not to life itself.

Now I find myself sitting in this madness pictured below. A chair I got from PJ for the price of a couple of lunches intended for lounging in and watching movies in my non existent home theatre. I can tell you after even a few minutes it is not made for working. If I sit back, I am sure to fall asleep.I was never truly aware of how important a chair could be before I started working in this industry. When I once heard that the company would spend $200 or even $400 on a chair for an animator I could not fathom it. But it's true what they say, You get what you pay for and when it comes to chairs they expect you to sit in and work all day, the studio will spring for the good stuff. Now I may have to do the same.

EXIT THE STATUS QUO

Games have become seriously monotonous of late as the realm of franchises and sequels expands and the world of originality collapses under the pressure of middle management. In fact, just yesterday I stood with PJ and Brent, whom you may remember as posters on Q's old blog from ages ago, talking about the latest games.

One of the things we all agreed on, even though we liked very different types of games, was that too many games have this monotonous action thing going on and way too much of it. IN fact, games that shouldn't have such mindless action are being made to have it. Why is this?

Well, somewhere in this conversation someone mentioned that this game called Exit was out and they saw it at Fry's. I have been waiting for this type of game for a long time. It's a puzzle game, but not with boxes or balloons you have to get into a pattern. It's puzzle game where you are an actual guy and you have to escape from different challenging situations. Challenging meaning like burning buildings.

So now I get this email from PSP Underground with another reminder of the existence of this great idea for a game. The last game I really played was ICO, a game where you had to help this Princess escape from a dungeon. That was fun. It wasn't blowing up a bunch of stuff or killing everything in site. You had to think. There needs to be more games that really have fresh ideas.

FUNimation Stepping Up

FUNimation is taking it to the next level with their plans to see anime grow in America. With this new deal they seem to have in place, many anime fans may be seeing what they have always hoped for. At least in some form or another.

"Anime is a growing entertainment segment in the United States and we want to give anime fans a place they can go each month to see the top anime titles in the United States on the big screen," explained Gen Fukunaga, president of FUNimation Ent. "The Bigger Picture's digital distribution network provides access to theatres throughout the country and is a great fit for FUNimation Films."

That's what it says in this AWN article. FUNimation is attempting to hit theatres. Traditionally, anime has not faired at all well on the big screen in America, with most movies not even clearing a gross of $1 million. Even academy award winning films frmo Miyazaki haven't grossed an amount to be proud of. Will this move by FUNimation change all that?

Set to launch on March 17, 2006, in select Landmark theaters, moviegoers will be treated to a special showing of the DRAGON BALL Z feature, THE RETURN OF COOLER, followed by the main event — the U.S. premiere of the DRAGON BALL Z movie, FUSION REBORN.

Well, whatever one may think of DBZ, it has a large installed fan base which coul dbe good for getting folks into theatres. What intrigues me more about this though is the theatre chain they happen to be pairing with. Landmark Theatres, which is owned by Mark Cuban, who I may have written about before, is the same that is pioneering the dual launch of a theatrical feature and a DVD on the same day, allowing viewers to buy the DVD at the theatre! I am not surprised that it would be this theatre chain joinging FUNimation in this venture.

What intrigues me even more, though, is the question of what doors might this open for independent productions and theatrical release possibilities. Mark Cuban is known for doing some very independent projects and who knows what this might lead to.

I MISSED IT!

Thanks to Alex S. who notified of the comment posted on the Sony HDV post, I realized that there were many comments which remained unpublished on these pages. Apparently I have to look them over and click a publish button before they show up. At first glance I was thinking this was a needless measure that I could do away with, but then I noticed there were a coup-le of comments from obvious SPAM bots!

Anyway, I am sorry if I seem to have neglected your comments. I am going through them all now, and will keep with comments form this point.

WHO, WHAT, WHEN?!

I don't know what this is, but i had to post about this! Seems a pretty amazing mix of 2D characters and 3D CGI and this is no small movie. Yet I never even heard of this. I see GONZO in the opening credits of the trailer. Is there anything these guys can't do?!

Naturally I will have t keep an eye open for this one. Since its on Apple, I am guessing it is either coming to theatres real soon or is in them now. That means the DVD won't be too far off. I'll be in line!

BLUETOOTH BLUES

So we were sitting at work testing Skype, my favorite communications program, and I decided to try it on my Motion Computing LE 1600 Tablet PC, the Mirage Nomad. I got this tiny little headset from the boss which is just wraps around my ear. It's so small that it's almost too bad its analog and corded.

This led me on the quest to find something better. At first me and PJ were talking about USB headsets. He had one and we tested a Skype call using it. It sounded great. Then somewhere in the conversation the idea came up for using a Bluetooth wireless headset. This really got my interest. Imagine, I could be anywhere with my Tablet PC and a little cordless Bluetooth headset and use Skype... Anywhere.

Now I had to actually find a headset. The one pictured is the Sony Ericsson HBH-610 Bluetooth Headset which tops my list at the moment. No real reason for that, except its Sony, and when there's 400 products to choose from on Amazon, sticking with Sony makes life easy. 400 products! It's like there's a Bluetooth headset for everyday of the year and then some! Most people don't care. They are buying it for their phone and have no choice but to select between the few that work on their phone. I am buying for my Motion Computing LE 1600 Tablet PC. So which one is the best? Well I have no way of knowing, so I guess I just try one.

BLOG MADE EASY

Ya know, blogging should be as easy as humanly possible. Actually Google has for a long time offered the tools to make it so, but I have been blogging the same way since 2002 or so. Google actually provides a complete GUI for doing this stuff, even for inserting and formatting images, coloring quoted text and even doing semi complex layouts, but I have continued to do these things by hand using HTML coding.

Well, no more. Today I begin to take advantage of the great tools they offer and use a word processing like GUI to blog from. Part of the reason for this is that more and more I am bloggin from places other than my computer. One of the disadvantages of this is that all my images are no longer stored locally on my computer and kept track of, so if a site I reference should vanish, the image will become a broken link. Still the advantages far outweigh this.

From this point on, I blog in freedom! I think the main result of this should be blogging more. After all, without all the constraints I placed on myself, I can feel free to just get in and type, right?

FUNimation Taking The Nation

FUNimation Entertainment, which brought the big hit DragonBall Z to America is set to take on more television action with the release of Akira Kurosawa's Samurai 7 animated series. I saw the series and it is very good, but what is news to me is that FUNimation is actually a Japanese run company!

"Akira Kurosawa's SAMURAI 7 is a great series. It is a perfect match for FUNimation's philosophy of hand-picking the best titles from Japan and bringing them to the United States," said Gen Fukunaga, president/ceo of FUNimation Ent. "It is that quality that also makes it a perfect match for ANIMANIA HD and IFC."

In the past they have taken some heat for how they handled the translations of some of the not so kid centric features of the programs they offer, so it surprises me that they aren't a bunch of Western fan boys who don't know what they are doing.

SKETCHY FUTURE

It is done. A new tool has been officially purchased and added to the Studio ArtFX arsenal. I am not one for having too many tools, which can get in the way of productivity, but this time it was a must have application.

SketchUp is a deceptively simple, amazingly powerful tool for creating, viewing, and modifying 3D ideas quickly and easily. SketchUp was developed to combine the elegance and spontaneity of pencil sketching with the speed and flexibility of today's digital media.

Sound too good to be true? Well it isn't. The program really delivers what it says. Sketchup is like no 3D model building tool I have ever encountered. Take from me. I hate model creation. This tool makes it possible!

The demo available for download is fully featured, simply based on a timeout. Not even an inconvenient month or 14 days like many companies give. They give you a timeout based on actual minutes of using the demo. I had been playing with it over a month using the 800 actual working minutes given. I started with the tutorials and then finally took the plunge and decided to build something real. I was just finishing up the basic model for my first complete set when the minutes ran out. For me there was no question. I was going to buy it.

For the results of that, keep checking here. I will post the progress of that set and its texturing and rendering as I continue on a journey into creating phenomenal backgrounds. Sounds like the title of a training DVD doesn't it?