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Digital
Media FX News Archives
Wednesday
- June 20, 2001
- Final Fantasy Movie Emerges
Right After Actors Deadline
- Congratulations
PDI/DreamWorks - Shrek Over $200 Million
- Star Wars: The Phantom Menace
DVD Details
- News Link of the Day
- Lara Croft Buries Criticism
Final Fantasy
Movie Emerges Right After Actors Deadline
(by digitalmediafx.com) In a rather unique timing situation,
Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within will hit theaters only
13 days after the end of the actors contract and a potential strike
by actors if a new contract isn't agreed upon. The irony is that
Final Fantasy, coming to theaters on July 13, shows that
actors can be replaced, at least in looks. There still seems to
be some kinks to work out in movement.
While visionaries
George Lucas and Steven Spielberg claim actors have nothing to
worry about, studios continue to show advancements in the realm
of animation (through films like Final Fantasy and Shrek)
that bring the mediums of live action and animation one step closer.
Plus, realistic looking animated characters don't talk back, don't
sue, don't demand outrageous residuals, and they can learn new
techniques fairly fast.
In a recent
Digital Media FX interview
about the character Princess Fiona in Shrek, the Supervising
Animator, Raman Hui, made following comment about Princess Fiona's
Kung Fu segment:
"We do
have animators in our group who know Kung Fu. With that, we could
talk about different moves and how we could apply that to the
animation," he says. "It was really fun to do and actually
it might take less time to make a computer generated character
to do really good Kung Fu than training a real person to do the
same moves."
Even with
continuous advances, actors need not fear for their jobs... that
is unless their demands are outrageous. Technology can move like
lightning at that point.
In tacking
the subject of the actors negotiations with studios, the LA Times
stated on Monday, "Although the two sides remain at odds
over money issues, there still are no signs the talks are in danger
of breaking off as they did during the earlier, often testy negotiations
between studios and the Writers Guild of America."
The current
contract with actor unions expires June 30, 2001.
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Congratulations
PDI/DreamWorks - Shrek Surpasses $200 Million
(by digitalmediafx.com)
Digital Media FX magazine congratulates PDI/DreamWorks for Shrek
achieving multi-blockbuster status. Few films ever surpass $200
million at the domestic box office. Yet Shrek did so in
just five weeks. Congratulations to all the artists, crew, cast,
and technicians involved in bringing Shrek to life.
Click
here to visit the dFX Shrek Movie Site
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Star Wars:
The Phantom Menace DVD Details
(by digitalmediafx.com) LucasFilm has announced that Star
Wars: The Phantom Menace will be available October 16, 2001 on
DVD. It is the first time that any Star Wars film has been made
available in DVD format.
Special features
on the disc include:
- a running
commentary by George Lucas
- exclusive
deleted scenes documentary featuring seven new sequences completed
just for this DVD
- an hour-long
documentary film culled from over 600 hours of behind-the-scenes
footage.
- an interactive
featurette with a glimpse into the process of creating scenes
from storyboards to animatics to final film composites.
- original
theatrical trailers, TV spots, cast and crew photos
- five featurettes
that provide an insider's look at The Phantom Menace's storyline,
design, costumes, visual effects and fight scenes.
Unfortunately
there is not a feature to delete (or mute) Jar-Jar, the highly
annoying digital character that received a major backlash from
critics and Star Wars fans alike. Despite the backlash,
Lucas announced he would bring back Jar-Jar in Episode 2.
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News Link
of the Day - Lara Croft Buries Criticism
According
to The Times:
"The
British video game heroine Lara Croft has triumphed in her first
Hollywood film, surviving attempts by American critics to bury
her alive…"
Click
here for the full story.
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