Getting More Immersed with Indiewire
Immersed in Blu-ray: Hitchcock and Bogart
Immersed in Books: Farber on Film
Oliver Hollis-Leick, founder of The Mocap Vaults (an educational resource with online tutorials and live workshops), is a 13-year performance capture/mocap acting vet (Godzilla, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix), who discusses the particular acting craft and how software such as the markerless iPi Motion Capture from iPi Soft is helping change the profession. Read more
DreamWorks is back doing cultural satire with Home (out in a Blu-ray/DVD/Digital HD combo from Fox Home Ent.). Jim Parsons and Rihanna team up as Oh and Tip in this alien invasion buddy comedy with Steve Martin and Jennifer Lopez co-starring. Read more
Visual futurist and conceptual artist Syd Mead will be the next Visionary Award recipient, at the 14th Annual VES Awards on Feb. 2, 2016 at the Beverly Hilton Hotel. Read more
BBC Culture offers a provocative list of the top 100 American movies selected by 62 international critics, with five entries from Hitchcock, Kubrick, Spielberg, and Wilder. Lots of surprises and many omissions. Read more
SIGGRAPH 2015 (Aug. 9-13 in LA) capitalizes on the Virtual Reality craze by introducing the 2015 VR VILLAGE, featuring real-time immersion in the latest virtual and augmented realities, including Nomadic Virtual Reality (VR), Tabletop Augmented Reality (AR), Full-Dome Cinema, and live performances and demonstrations in a 360-degree immersion dome. Read more
Judging from the explosive new SPECTRE trailer, the film not only continues the two-part Skyfall journey into James Bond’s upbringing but also links the Daniel Craig era by proclaiming that Christoph Waltz’s Franz Oberhauser represents a Machiavellian puppetmaster: “It’s me, James, the author of all your pain,” he sneers (wearing, incidentally, the signature Nehru jacket associated with Ernst Stavro Blofeld from the ’60s). So isn’t the cat pretty much out of the bag? Read more
Watch the full trailer for The Good Dinosaur (Nov. 25), Pixar’s version of a True-Life Adventure. Read more
Peyton Reed (Yes Man, The Break-Up) wanted to direct Guardians of the Galaxy, but finally got his Marvel shot with Ant-Man when Edgar Wright left because of too much micro-management and shared universe-tinkering. Yet Reed insists that the DNA remains intact: it’s still an absurd superhero/heist movie/domestic drama built around father/daughter redemption. Read more
At Comic-Con, the director of the Frankenstein re-imagining discussed his fondness for genius sociopaths and twisted friendships. Read more
One of the more interesting Comic-Con panels (“Disney Animators: The Power of 2D”) explored the current state of animation at the studio. With the success of Tangled, the Glen Keane legacy is very much alive at Disney with an organic 2D/CG aesthetic. And it’s now a regular part of the workflow to have 2D animators consulting on features to help attain traditional posing and performance, and draw-overs have become systematic. Read more
