“Comedy is serious business,” deadpans Michael L. Fink, visual effects supervisor on Ben Stiller’s outrageous new comedy, Tropic Thunder. And Fink should know. An Academy Award winner for his work on last year’s The Golden Compass, Fink has supervised everything from X2 to Wargames, but Tropic Thunder was the proverbial glass of cold water in his veteran’s face.

(VFX World)

Stan Winston, the Oscar-winning special effects, creature and makeup artist whose innovative creations include the full-scale animatronic dinosaurs in “Jurassic Park” and the futuristic Terminators, has died. He was 62.

Winston died Sunday at his home in Malibu after a seven-year battle with myeloma, a Stan Winston Studio spokeswoman said.

During a film and TV career that spanned four decades, Winston collaborated with such filmmakers as Steven Spielberg and James Cameron and worked on some of his generation’s most memorable films.

(Hollywood Reporter)

Joe Letteri has been behind the scenes on some of the biggest movies in the 90s and into the 21st Century. From his first job on The Abyss to The Lord Of The Rings: The Two Towers and The Lord Of The Rings: The Return of The King to King Kong, Letteri has been involved in some of the biggest pictures of all time. His latest film, Water Horse: Legend of the Deep is on DVD and Blu-Ray  and I had the chance to talk with Letteri over the phone. Here’s what he had to say.

(Movie Web)

The poster for Paramount Pictures’ Cloverfield depicts the Statue of Liberty standing headless, following a monster’s attack on New York City. The image echoes the graphic of the severed head of Miss Liberty that adorned the movie poster for 1981’s Escape From New York — an image that made a lasting impression on Cloverfield producer J. J. Abrams.

But Abrams vowed that in his movie — which follows a group of friends trying to escape Manhattan’s destruction — Lady Liberty’s head would roll.

This signature moment was one of 160 shots created by the London-based effects house Double Negative (DNeg). “Any time you see destruction, that’s our work,” says CG Supervisor David Vickery.

“We had to build a very, very high-resolution 3D model because it’s visible in full frame for several seconds during the movie,” Vickery says of the sequence where the statue’s head physically rolls down the street.

(Source: Digital Content Producer)

The rushing floodwaters in Evan Almighty, the heaving seas of the latter two Pirates of the Caribbean movies and the dragon’s flaming breath in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire all featured computer-generated fluids in spectacular action. The science behind those splashy thrills will be recognized Feb. 9 with an Academy Award for Ron Fedkiw, associate professor of computer science at Stanford, and two collaborators at the special effects firm Industrial Light and Magic (ILM).

“The primary work started a few years ago when we developed a system designed for the female liquid terminator in Terminator 3,” Fedkiw said. “Almost immediately after that it was used in the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie to simulate the wine that the pirate skeleton was drinking out of the bottle in the moonlight. Things like the sinking ship in Poseidon and the large water whirlpool in Pirates of the Caribbean 3 are good examples of the system in action.”

The system, co-developed with ILM scientists Nick Rasmussen and Frank Losasso Petterson (a former doctoral student of Fedkiw’s), uses a method of simulating low-viscosity fluids such as water and fire, as in the explosions in Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith.

(Source: Science Daily)

 

If the visual effects industry had its way, the Disney tentpole that sailed into theaters May 25 might have been named “Pirates of the Caribbean: At Wits’ End.”

Industrial Light & Magic topper Chrissie England, who’s seen many blockbusters come through her shop, calls the editing/post-production race to the pic’s delivery deadline “about the scariest thing I’ve ever seen.” The film’s vfx supervisor, John Knoll, calls it “a freakin’ miracle” that the film was done on time.

“Pirates 3,” warn England and Knoll, is just one tip of an iceberg that’s sending a chill through the visual effects industry. Visual effects houses are worried about the increasing demand for more product, at higher quality, in less time. Some effects houses have been losing key workers, and a few are threatening to shutter, because of the shifting economics.

If a movie star were to topline four summer tentpoles for four different studios, all opening within a couple of months of each other, the industry would be both amazed and aghast.

But that’s pretty much the situation in which f/x house Industrial Light & Magic finds itself this season.

ILM is lead shop or a major contributor to four of the summer’s biggest tentpoles, all opening between Memorial Day and late July: Disney’s “Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End,” Universal’s “Evan Almighty,” DreamWorks’ “Transformers” and Warner Bros.’ “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.” The effort has to be one of the most prodigious technical accomplishments in the history of the biz.

(Source: Variety)

The Visual Effects Society has announced the results of the VES 50: The Most Influential Visual Effects Films of All Time, which was determined by a vote of VES members.  Star Wars claimed the top spot as the most influential effects movie ever and with good reason. It was the turning point for most effects thatmade the blockbuster era possible, along with the pioneering efforts of Industrial Light and Magic (ILM). 

The Top 10 Movies on the list were: 

1. Star Wars (1977)

2. Blade Runner (1982)

3. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) (tie)

3. The Matrix (1999) (tie)

5. Jurassic Park (1993)

6. Tron (1982)

7. King Kong (1933)

8. Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)

9. Alien (1979)

10. The Abyss (1989) 

For the rest of the list, click here. Eric Roth (not to be confused with the writer of Forrest Gump), Executive Director of The Visual Effects Society had this to say: 

We’re thrilled to present VES 50. These films have had a significant, lasting impact on the practice and appreciation of visual effects as an integral, artistic element of cinematic expression and the storytelling process. We are equally thrilled about the programs that  follow this theme and the industry’s living legends we have participating in them.”   

The VES 50 is the lead up to the 2007 VES Festival of Visual Effects, which will take place the weekend of June 7-10 at the Writers Guild Theater inBeverly Hills. There will be a panel discussing the VES 50 that includes Academy Award-winners Richard Edlund, Dennis Muren, Doug Trumbull and John Dykstra (tent.), as well as moderator, Academy Award-winner John Knoll. Some of the other programs that will be showcased during the Festival include:

• The Art Of The Miniature: What Can You Get Me In Two Weeks?

• Vfx Manipulation: With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility

• Pre-Viz: All The Ins And Outs 

The Festival kicks off with an Opening Night Party at 7:30 pm Thursday, 6/7/2007. From 10:00am to 10:00pm on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, Visual FX pros and fans will have the opportunity to attend discussion panels with industry leaders and legends, screenings of past and present films and the presentation of the VES 50: The Most Influential Visual Effects Films of All Time.