from Mirror Staff.

Filmmaker Junction and Hype join forces to host an evening of Visual Effects for indie filmmakers in Santa Monica on Wednesday, Sept. 28.

The panel will feature VFX Supervisors, Mark Youngren (Star Trek, The Last Airbender, Transformers), Dan Schmit (Soul Surfer, A Single Man, The Runaways) and Matt Merkovich (Date Night, The Day The Earth Stood Still, Minority Report) discussing the emerging trend of visual effects software in indie film.

The first hour will be in the format of a moderated panel hosted by Andrew Zinnes, and the second hour will be individual roundtables with one of the experts on each table where attendees can sit down and ask their own questions.

The event will take place at The Working Village (www.workingvillage.com) from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m.

Read the rest of this article from SMMirror.

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by Phelim O’Neill.

He blew minds with Special Visual Effects work in Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, and he’s doing it again in Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life. In a rare interview, we catch up with a true visionary.

Even for a director as accomplished as Terrence Malick, creating the universe can present a few problems. Hardly known for his special effects extravaganzas, Malick’s approach to film-making – capturing spontaneous events – doesn’t jibe with the pre-planned discipline of CGI processes; they’re just too synthetic for his more organic methodology.

Instead, Malick had to go with methods and skill sets that have virtually vanished. For the spectacular, epic, 22-minute birth of creation sequence in his new film The Tree of Life, Malick contacted one of the few people with the necessary experience, ability and creative drive to get the results he needed. In short, he needed Douglas Trumbull, a man who hadn’t worked in feature films for almost 30 years, a man who may just be the saviour of cinema.

Read the rest of this article from Guardian.

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This article was written by Barry Steele.

For years, we have been screaming out at Hollywood that big budget effects do not a great movie make. CGI heavy movies though do tend to make a big noise at the box office, so can be considered very effective. The likes of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen have championed big computer animated set pieces at the expense of competent acting and coherent plot, and continue to get away with it.

The sizable budget usually extends to a big marketing push, which seems to be half the battle for box office success these days. We now seem to have reached a new level however. Skyline had the expensive looking effects, but didn’t even have the marketing push behind it. Consequently, it failed.

Read the rest of this article from HeyUGuys.

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This article was written by Rossiter Drake.

Gareth Edwards won’t reveal the budget for “Monsters,” his thriftily constructed feature debut about two young Americans trying to buy their way back from Mexico following an alien occupation.

Yet he’s quick to acknowledge that his acclaimed sci-fi fantasy might never have been possible without advances in filmmaking technology usually associated with big-budget blockbusters such as last year’s “Avatar.”

Read the rest of this article from San Francisco Examiner.

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Most film and TV programs today utilize some form of special visual FX (Green screen, motion control, computer screens etc.) Because of the complexity of these shots, make sure you work very closely with the Visual FX Supervisor to properly schedule all of the plate shots, reference shots and green screen shots.

Peter D. Marshall
pdm@actioncutprint.com

“On the day that brought us the first trailer for James Cameron’s Avatar, it’s only fitting that we throw up a video tribute to the films that have dazzled us with groundbreaking visual effects over the years.

This video (featured after the jump), titled Visual Effects: 100 Years of Inspiration, was originally intended to be used in a classroom as part of a lecture, and while it leaves off films like The Matrix, as well as anything from 2009, it does do a pretty good job of doling out some nostalgic flavor as we take a trip through time.”

Watch this video from Cinematical.

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In this video from TED, Digital Domain effects guru Ed Ulbrich presents on the Oscar-winning technology they built for “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.”

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Most film and TV programs today utilize some form of special visual FX (Green screen, motion control, computer screens etc.) Because of the complexity of these shots, make sure you work very closely with the Visual FX Supervisor to help properly schedule all of the plate shots, reference shots and green screen shots.

Peter D. Marshall
pdm@actioncutprint.com