Written by Stu Maschwitz, co-founder of the Orphanage (the legendary guerrilla visual effects studio responsible for amazing and award-winning effects in such movies as Sin City, The Day After Tomorrow, and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire), this book is a must-have for all those budding filmmakers and students who want to produce action movies with visual effects but don't have Hollywood budgets.

The Orphanage was created by three twenty-something visual effects veterans who wanted to make their own feature films and discovered they could do this by utilizing home computers, off the shelf software, and approaching things artistically. This guide details exactly how to do this: from planning and selecting the necessary cameras, software, and equipment, to creating specific special effects (including gunfire, Kung Fu fighting, car chases, dismemberment, and more) to editing and mixing sound and music. Its mantra is that the best, low-budget action moviemakers must visualize the end product first in order to reverse-engineer the least expensive way to get there.

Readers will learn how to integrate visual effects into every aspect of filmmaking--before filming, during filming and with "in camera" shots, and with computers in postproduction. Throughout the book, the author makes specific references to and uses popular action movies (both low and big-budget) as detailed examples--including El Mariachi, La Femme Nikita, Die Hard, and Terminator 3.

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8:57:27 PM    comment []

Report from Machinima awards 2003. Hugh sez, "The Machinima Film Festival 2003 happened on Saturday in New York City, and quite a lot of what it revealed was surprising. For example, Machinima is going pro much faster than most people anticipated - the films that swept the awards were either already commercial (and in one case bound for Sundance this year) or going that way - Red vs Blue is hopefully heading onto shop shelves soon. And the attendees were mostly older film-makers or film students, many of them already established as creators in other media."

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(Thanks, Hugh!) [Boing Boing Blog]
11:31:40 AM    comment []

Good article on Shake and its use in the industry. Also nice to hear about the program at Savannah College of Art and Design.

Shape-Shifting with Shake. Compositor Ed Mendez, who can wield the tools that yield the requisite magic, discovered a new route into mainstream Hollywood. Soon after leaving Savannah College of Art and Design, Mendez was working on projects including [base "]X2[per thou] and [base "]Matrix Revolution.[per thou] [Aug 22] [Apple Hot News]
8:12:17 AM    comment []