Kommorov !

News from Belgium reached us: Kommorov kick off on june 13 in cosmopolitan Doornzele!

www.kommorov.be

Allen daar heen!

Venice Rattle

Venice Rattle
Originally uploaded by _esse

This happened yesterday night while I was playing Crysis with head phones on. Pretty unreal experience. The center of the quake is only about 5 miles from where we live. Our first thoughts were that a truck had slammed into the building.

Beijing 360

Nice 360 panorama of the Bird's Nest on Bejing Olympics.
Funny to see the press mosquitos close up!

http://www.karikuukka.com/peking2008/100m/

Vintage Posters

I recently met William Payne who introduced me to the magnificent world of vintage posters. I had no idea that there is such a big group of collectors worldwide for unique antique posters. William's gallery has a vast collection of fine art posters, mainly from Europe.

This is one of my personal favorites. Graphics that inspired generations of graphics designers.

William' s gallery is called Vintage Poster Art and can be found on:

http://www.vintage-poster-art.com

The living camera

Steven is autistic and has a very special gift...

A modern day Stone Henge

This guy is building his own Stone Henge, in his backyard... by himself. Pretty amazing job. This man can move anything!

Len10 action.

Some jawdropping Ruben Lenten action. The master of the kite loop.

Slim Cam

Superb new technology, lightning fast implemented by HP in a questionable way. The camera that makes you look slimmer.

Slimming photos with HP digital cameras:
http://www.hp.com/united-states/consumer/digital_photography/tours/slimming/index.html

And here is the original technology it was based on:

Why Sony Imageworks got an Oscar nod for 'Surf's Up'

Sony Pictures' animated surfing penguins documentary, 'Surf's Up,' was nominated for the best animated feature Oscar this year, certainly in large part because of its work on creating realistic waves...

more on:

www.news.com/8301-13772_3-9862945-52.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20

Freeze frame!

Amazing art installation...

Surf's Up nominated for Oscar.

The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences have announced the nominations for the 80th Academy Awards. For Outstanding Animated Feature, the nominees are PERSEPOLIS, RATATOUILLE and the surprise nominee SURF'S UP.

http://www.oscar.com/nominees/

The Rubens Tube

Better than CG! This rocks! Great tubes of fire.

Ads a new dimension to "singing around the campfire"!

We have been Googled

Google is diligently expanding the reach of it's Google Street initiative, which recently became part of Google Maps. When we were virtually browsing around the hood we stumbled upon... ourselves.

The link below shows the street view of Sony Pictures Imageworks, and we were not a little surprised to see our car (nick named the White Elephant by Roger) in it. Telling from the construction work going on on the Culver Studios Lot this pictures must have been captured the latest sometime around june.

Here is the link: maps.google.com

CNN: Beowulf: A beast in 3D

CNN features Beowulf.

Ancient literature meets the future of filmmaking in "Beowulf," a 3D spectacle using the latest technology.

The featurette
http://edition.cnn.com/2007/SHOWBIZ/11/22/3d.beowulf/

The video:
http://edition.cnn.com/CNNI/Programs/screening.room/

Who's Afraid of the Big, Bad Beowulf?

Michael Harrison judging Beowulf myth incarnation on their kid-friendlyness....

Errrr...?

http://blog.wired.com/geekdad/2007/12/whos-afraid-of.html

12 Animated Features Submitted for 2007 Oscar® Consideration

http://www.oscars.org/press/pressreleases/2007/07.11.08a.html

Thumbs up for Surf's Up and Beowulf!

Beverly Hills, CA — Twelve features have been submitted for consideration in the Animated Feature Film category for the 80th Academy Awards®.

The 12 submitted features are:

“Alvin and the Chipmunks”

“Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters”

“Bee Movie”

“Beowulf”

“Meet the Robinsons”

“Persepolis”

“Ratatouille”

“Shrek the Third”

“The Simpsons Movie”

“Surf’s Up”

“Tekkonkinkreet”

“TMNT”

“Alvin and the Chipmunks,” “Beowulf” and “Persepolis” have not yet had their required Los Angeles qualifying run. The submitted features must fulfill the general release requirements and meet all of the category’s other qualifying rules before they can advance in the voting process.

Under the rules for this category, a maximum of 3 films can be nominated in a year in which the field of eligible entries numbers at least 8 but fewer than 16.

Films submitted in the Animated Feature Film category also may qualify for Academy Awards in other categories, including Best Picture, provided they meet the requirements for those categories.

The 80th Academy Awards nominations will be announced on Tuesday, January 22, 2008, at 5:30 a.m. PT in the Academy’s Samuel Goldwyn Theater.

Academy Awards for outstanding film achievements of 2007 will be presented on Sunday, February 24, 2008, at the Kodak Theatre at Hollywood & Highland Center®, and televised live by the ABC Television Network beginning at 5 p.m. PT.

Planktoninvasion

Some upcomming animation work from Belgium! Always great to see! I am very curious.

Here is the synopsis:

Earth's first life forms and direct descendant's from the primal soup; want to reclaim their rightful place in the world. In order for them to re-conquer the planet, they need a global water world. They plotted a dark strategy and assigned a special task force to execute the operation; codename 'Global Warming'. No matter how microscopic in size, despite the insignificance of their actions, the fact they never conquer more than a dozen square meters beach or the mind blowing stupidity of their reasoning, they blindly believe in the success of their mission!
This is the never-ending story of Plankton Invasion.

http://www.planktoninvasion.com

Beowulf TV commercial

Pretty unique way of advertising the upcomming movie Beowulf... Beowulf vs 300 (Sparta) in a shout contest (http://www.beowulfmovie.com)

over Surfende penguins en passeieren

Na lang wachten komt deze woensdag 24 oktober Surf's Up in de Belgische cinemazalen. Voor zij die gaan kijken is het misschien leuk om te weten dat er een aantal easter eggs in de film verborgen zitten.

Zoals programmeurs easter eggs verstoppen in software (virtual easter egg: Wikipedia), zo verstopt het filmmakende volkje ook van alles in de beelden die ze maken. In het geval van Surf's Up is het een UFO geworden 4 keer heel kort in beeld verschijnt.

Next one up: Beowulf

Since I finished working on Surf's Up I started working on Beowulf. In contrast to Surf's Up, which is an animated cgi (computer generated imagery) feature film, Beowulf is full cgi but not animated. Beowulf is using a process called performance capture: real actors wear a special suit with trackers stuck on it and act every shot. In addition to the track markers on the suit a maze of smaller markers (called beads) are glued on the actors face to capture the facial expressions.

Below is an example of a motion capture session. Unfortunately not one with Angelina Jolie, that is classified information, for Imageworkers' eyes only ;).
This session is actually from The Matrix.



Beowulf's cgi looks realistic in contrast to stylized or cartoony cgi (for example Surf's Up or Ratatouille). Sometimes realistic enough to make people believe that what they see is live action.

Beowulf is directed by Robert Zemeckis, who's know for Forest Gump for which he won an Oscar for best director, Back to future, Cast Away, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, The Lift to name a few.

The actors line up includes:
Angelina Jolie, Anthony Hopkins, Ray Winstone, Robin Wright Penn, John Malkovich

Beowulf is closed to being finished and sheduled for theatrical release November 16, 2007

It will for sure spark lots of discussions about the movie making process. I would love to hear what you think of it.