VES Awards: ‘The Lion King’ & ‘The Irishman’ Take Top Film Honors
Summary
VES Awards: ‘The Lion King’ & ‘The Irishman’ Take Top Film Honors
Disney’s The Lion King ruled the 18th annual VES Awards, winning a pack-leading three trophies including the marquee Outstanding Visual Effects in a Photoreal Feature during Wednesday night’s ceremony at the Beverly Hilton.
The Jon Favreau-directed “live action” remake of the toon classic also took the hardware for Outstanding Created Environment in a Photoreal Feature and Virtual Cinematography in a CG Project, setting it up as a front-runner for the Best Visual Effects Academy Award on February 9. More on that below.
Accepting the top prize for The Lion King, visual effects supervisor Robert Legato said: “I do feel a little guilty because the fellow nominees were so great … but I’m pretty sure I’m going to get over it. … About 1,600 of our closest personal friends were involved.”
Netflix’s The Irishman and Laika’s Missing Link were the only other multiple winners on the film side. The time-jumping, de-aging film by Martin Scorsese, who received the VES Lifetime Achievement Award tonight, took Outstanding Supporting Visual Effects in a Photoreal Feature and a compositing award. The stop-motion Missing Link won for Visual Effects in an Animated Feature and Animated Character in an Animated Feature.
Also picking up a pair of trophies tonight were Disney+’s rookie series The Mandalorian, HBO’s recently wrapped Game of Thrones, Netflix’s creepshow Stranger Things 3 and the Ridley Scott-helmed commercial “Hennessy: The Seven Worlds.”
The Star Wars universe was well represented Wednesday night. Along with the dual Mandalorian wins, The Last Skywalker took Effects Simulations in a Photoreal Feature and Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance scored Visual Effects in a Special Venue Project.
Back to The Lion King and its Oscar chances. Since the VES Awards launched in 2002, the winner of its top film category has gone on to score the Best Visual Effects Oscar in 10 of the 17 years. (Hugo won the VES in the Feature Motion Picture category in 2011 and later won the Oscar.) But don’t shine up that mantel just yet: The Visual Effects Society and the Movie Academy have differed in each of the past two years, with 2017 VES winner War for the Planet of the Apes losing the Oscar to Blade Runner 2049 in 2017 and Avengers: Infinity War getting Thanos-ed by First Man at last year’s Academy Awards.
The Lion King and The Irishman will vie for the Visual Effects Oscar on February 9 against VES Awards nominees Avengers: Endgame, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker and 1917.
Host Patton Oswalt kicked off the ceremony with a few zingers: “Good evening. Disney permalancers!” he said. He later picked a Cats fight, noting: “The Star Wars franchise ended after 50 years, and after one screening, so did the Cats franchise. Isn’t that amazing? Were you guys on strike when they made that one? What was going on there? That movie was a screensaver designed to not give me a boner.”
J.J. Abrams later got a big laugh with this line, after Rian Johnson has presented earlier: “I’m here tonight to present three awards — unless Rian Johnson wants to come back and present the second one.”
Scorsese was unable to attend the ceremony but accepted his Lifetime Achievement Award via video. “I’m really very sorry that I can’t be there in person,” he said. “Thank you for this honor, which is very special to me because my pictures — they’re just not known for their visual effects. … I’m sort of a latecomer. I think I did my first visual effects from a wheelchair.”
The Oscar winner added: “Out of silence came the idea of the de-aging to utilize in the making of The Irishman. We all realized the risk we were taking, and we knew it was the only way we could make the picture we wanted to make.”
Roland Emmerich, who VFX-heavy films include Stargate, Independence Day, The Day After Tomorrow, 2012 and last year’s Midway, picked up the VES Visionary Award on Wednesday.
“People ask me a lot, ‘Why do you make all these huge visual effects movies?’ and I have to say the stories that fascinate me most are stories where people face extraordinary obstacles,” he said onstage. “I really enjoy to put a character in crazy possible danger and then watch them overcome these insurmountable obstacles. … Working in this business for 40 years, I know that if you want to get great visual effects, you need a lot of people — sometimes hundreds, sometimes thousands.”
Visual effects supervisor Sheena Duggal, whose dozens of credits range from Jumanji and Contact to Iron Man 3 and Venom, accepted the VES Award for Creative Excellence. “One of the things I love about my job is in this industry we truly succeed if we succeed together,” she said.
To see the list of VES Awards 2020 Winners click here.
Zoic Amps Up Neighborly Antics for ‘Keeping Up with The Joneses’
Led by VFX supervisor Everett Burrell, Zoic Studios delivers big Hollywood explosions and high impact antics to amplify the humor of the film’s chance encounters and secret missions.
VANCOUVER, B.C. — Zoic Studios blasts mellow neighborhood envy to espionage proportions in the new action-adventure comedy Keeping Up with the Joneses from 20th Century Fox. The film follows an ordinary suburban couple (Zach Galifianakis, Isla Fisher) who finds it’s not easy keeping up with the Joneses (Jon Hamm, Gal Gadot), their impossibly gorgeous and ultra-sophisticated neighbors — especially when they discover that Mr. and Mrs. “Jones” are covert operatives. The Zoic team, led by VFX Supervisor Everett Burrell, delivered big Hollywood explosions and high impact antics to amplify the humor of the film’s chance encounters and secret missions. The film was released in theaters nationwide on October 21, 2016.Burrell worked closely with Special Effects Supervisor Michael Lantieri while on set in Atlanta, GA, to properly sync all practical effects for the augmentation executed in post-production. One heavy-hitting scene called for a fiery demolition of the Joneses’ house. The Zoic team collaborated with director Greg Mottola (Superbad, Paul) to bring his vision of an ‘80s movie-style detonation to reality. They intensified the larger-than-life eruption to leave audiences with no question of complete destruction, all while maintaining a photo-real look. Since an actual location was being utilized in lieu of a soundstage, none of the mansion blaze was captured practically, requiring the entire sequence to be created in CG.
Another scene called for Fisher and Galifianakis to spark a living room fire in a fantasy setting during a romantic moment gone wrong. The living room set was built twice, enabling the crew to practically ignite certain set elements and have Zoic Studios composite the flaming pieces into the scene in post-production.
While some practical stunt work called for VFX to bolster the action, certain moments required more comedy chops, including a scene where Galifianakis attempts a Hollywood-style jump through a glass window, only to bounce off the glass upon contact. To practically capture the moment, a stunt actor handled the brunt of the impact with Galifianakis jumping through an empty window placed in a hallway. The Zoic team seamlessly transitioned between the two performances to create a laughter-inducing moment for all.
Another sequence entailed creating the look of a 24-story vantage point from what was actually a 5-story perspective at a hotel. To implement this, the team placed a green screen on the floors between the pool, adding scale to the shots in CG to make the pool look significantly lower to the ground. Additional effects work included cleaning up shots to accelerate the action scenes, from practical stunts like removing rigs to muzzle flashes and bullet hits. The team also crafted a CG snake for a comical reptilian dining sequence between Hamm and Galifianakis.
“It was great working with director Greg Mottola to take the comedy to the next level. He has such extensive expertise in the genre and it was enjoyable to collaborate on the effects that would remain real and plausible in this comedy universe,” notes Burrell. “The comedy is so dialogue-driven, so we really worked to keep the VFX subtle and let the writing and performances speak for themselves.”
Zoic Studios amps the action in an explosion sequence from ‘Keeping Up with The Joneses.’
3D Scanning and LiDAR by SCANable
Source: Zoic Studios
Hennessy Launches “Harmony. Mastered from Chaos.” Interactive Campaign using LiDAR Scans
NEW YORK, June 30, 2016 /PRNewswire/ — Hennessy, the world’s #1 Cognac, today announced “Harmony. Mastered from Chaos.” –a dynamic new campaign that brings to life the multitude of complex variables that are artfully and expertly mastered by human touch to create the brand’s most harmonious blend, V.S.O.P Privilège. Set to launch June 30th, the campaign showcases the absolute mastery exuded at every stage of crafting this blend. This first campaign in over ten years also offers a glimpse into the inner workings of Hennessy’s mysterious Comité de Dégustation (Tasting Committee)—perhaps the ideal example of Hennessy’s mastery—that crafts the same rich, high quality liquid year over year. Narrated by Leslie Odom, Jr., the campaign features 60, 30 and 15 second digital spots and an interactive digital experience, adding another vivid chapter to the brand’s “Never stop. Never settle.” platform.
“Sharing the intriguing story of the Hennessy Tasting Committee, its exacting practices and long standing rituals, illustrates the crucial role that over 250 years of tradition and excellence play in mastering this well-structured spirit,” said Giles Woodyer, Senior Vice President, Hennessy US. “With more and more people discovering Cognac and seeking out the heritage behind brands, we knew it was the right time to launch the first significant marketing campaign for V.S.O.P Privilège.”
The “Harmony. Mastered from Chaos.” campaign showcases the numerous, complex variables that are mastered in order to create the harmony and balance of Hennessy V.S.O.P Privilège.
The “Harmony. Mastered from Chaos.” campaign showcases the numerous, complex variables that are mastered in order to create the harmony and balance of Hennessy V.S.O.P Privilège.
Hennessy’s Tasting Committee oversees the numerous, complex variables that are mastered in order to create the harmony and balance of Hennessy V.S.O.P Privilège in new “Harmony. Mastered from Chaos.” campaign.
Hennessy’s Comité de Dégustation is a group of seven masters, including seventh generation Master Blender, Yann Fillioux, unparalleled in the world of Cognac. These architects of time oversee the eaux-de-vie to ensure that every bottle of V.S.O.P Privilège is perfectly balanced despite the many intricate variables present during creation of the Cognac. From daily tastings at exactly 11am in the Grand Bureau (whose doors never open to the public) to annual tastings of the entire library of Hennessy eaux-de-vie (one of the largest and oldest in the world), this august body meticulously safeguards the future of Hennessy, its continuity and legacy.
Through a perfectly orchestrated phalanx marked by an abundance of tradition, caring and human touch, V.S.O.P Privilège is created as a complete and harmonious blend: the definitive expression of a perfectly balanced Cognac. Based on a selection of firmly structured eaux-de-vie, aged largely in partially used barrels in order to take on subtle levels of oak tannins, this highly characterful Cognac reveals balanced aromas of fresh vanilla, cinnamon and toasty notes, all coming together with a seamless perfection.
“Harmony. Mastered from Chaos.”
In partnership with Droga5, the film and interactive experience were directed by Ben Tricklebank of Tool of North America, and Active Theory, a Los Angeles-based interactive studio. From the vineyards in Cognac, France, to the distillery and Cognac cellars, viewers are taken on a powerful and modern cinematic journey to experience the scrupulous process of crafting Hennessy VSOP Privilège. The multidimensional campaign uses a combination of live-action footage and technology, including 3D lidar scanning, depth capture provided by SCANable, and binaural recording to visualize the juxtaposition of complexity versus mastery that is critical to the Hennessy V.S.O.P Privilège Cognac-making process.
“Harmony. Mastered from Chaos.” will be supported by a fully integrated marketing campaign including consumer events, retail tastings, social and PR initiatives. Consumers will be able to further engage with the brand through the first annual “Cognac Classics Week” hosted by Liquor.com, taking place July 11-18 to demonstrate the harmony that V.S.O.P Privilège adds to classic cocktails. Kicking off on Bastille Day in a nod to Hennessy’s French heritage, mixologists across New York City, Chicago, and Los Angeles will offer new twists on classics such as the French 75, Sidecar, and Sazerac, all crafted with the perfectly balanced V.S.O.P Privilège.
For more information on Cognac Classics Week, including a list of participating bars and upcoming events, visitwww.Liquor.com/TBD and follow the hashtag #CognacClassicsWeek.
To learn more about “Harmony. Mastered from Chaos.” visit Hennessy.com or Facebook.com/Hennessy.
ABOUT HENNESSY
In 2015, the Maison Hennessy celebrated 250 years of an exceptional adventure that has lasted for seven generations and spanned five continents.
It began in the French region of Cognac, the seat from which the Maison has constantly passed down the best the land has to give, from one generation to the next. In particular, such longevity is thanks to those people, past and present, who have ensured Hennessy’s success both locally and around the world. Hennessy’s success and longevity are also the result of the values the Maison has upheld since its creation: unique savoir-faire, a constant quest for innovation, and an unwavering commitment to Creation, Excellence, Legacy, and Sustainable Development. Today, these qualities are the hallmark of a House – a crown jewel in the LVMH Group – that crafts the most iconic, prestigious Cognacs in the world.
Hennessy is imported and distributed in the U.S. by Moët Hennessy USA. Hennessy distills, ages and blends spanning a full range: Hennessy V.S, Hennessy Black, V.S.O.P Privilège, X.O, Paradis, Paradis Impérial and Richard Hennessy. For more information and where to purchase/ engrave, please visit Hennessy.com.
Video – https://youtu.be/vp5e8YV0pjc
Photo – http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160629/385105
Photo – http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160629/385106
SOURCE Hennessy
Shade VFX Nominated for an Emmy Award for Daredevil
Daredevil, The Netflix Original Series, has been nominated for three Emmy awards in 2015, including one for Shade VFX in the category of Best Supporting Visual Effects. SCANable partnered with Shade VFX on this project by providing 3D scans of sets and actors used for camera tracking and matchmoving.
Source: Shade VFX
At the 67th Primetime Emmy Awards the Best Supporting Visual Effects category will award seamless, invisible effects in a television series and we’re utterly thrilled to be in the running alongside American Horror Story: Freak Show, Boardwalk Empire, Gotham, and The Walking Dead.
Daredevil, as we’ve discussed previously, was a unique opportunity for Shade VFX to expand both into New York and into the world of exceptional television working alongside Netflix and Marvel.
We created invisible effects that were a showpiece of the series, propelling the gritty and dark crime story forward and making your palms sweaty with action along the way.
Congratulations to the whole team that worked on Daredevil; Visual Effects Producer, David Van Dyke, Visual Effects Supervisors, Bryan Godwin and Karl Coyner, as well as Senior Compositing Lead, Steve J. Sanchez, Visual Effects Coordinator, Julie Long, Visual Effects Editor, Pedro Tarrago, Associate Compositing Lead, Neiko Nagy, CG Artist, Moshe Swed, and FX Technical Director, Kjell Strode.
Best of luck also to the Shade VFX team and all the other vendors for their nomination for Best Visual Effects for Black Sails! Particular congratulations of course to Chip Baden, who will be representing the Team Shade in this category.
Sincere thanks to Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, Marvel and Netflix.
Andersson Technologies releases SynthEyes 1502 3D Tracking Software
Andersson Technologies has released SynthEyes 1502, the latest version of its 3D tracking software, improving compatibility with Blackmagic Design’s Fusion compositing software.
Reflecting the renewed interest in Fusion
According to the official announcement: “Blackmagic Design’s recent decision to make Fusion 7 free of charge has led to increased interest in that package. While SynthEyes has exported to Fusion for many years now — for projects such as Battlestar Galactica — Andersson Technologies LLC upgraded SynthEyes’s Fusion export.”
Accordingly, the legacy Fusion exporter now supports 3D planar trackers; primitive, imported, or tracker-built meshes; imported or extracted textures; multiple cameras; and lens distortion via image maps.
The new lens distortion feature should make it possible to reproduce the distortion patterns of any real-world lens without its properties having been coded explicitly in the software or a custom plugin.
A new second exporter creates corner pin nodes in Fusion from 2D or 3D planar trackers in SynthEyes.
Other new features in SynthEyes 1502 include an error curve mini-view, a DNG/CinemaDNG file reader, and a refresh of the user interface, including the option to turn toolbar icons on or off.
Pricing and availability
SynthEyes 1502 is available now for Windows, Linux and Mac OS X. New licences cost from $249 to $999, depending on which edition you buy. The new version is free to registered users.
New features in SynthEyes 1502 include:
- Toolbar icons are back! Some love ’em, some hate ’em. Have it your way: set the preference. Shows both text and icon by default to make it easiest, especially for new users with older tutorials. Some new and improved icons.
- Refresh of user interface color preferences to a somewhat darker and trendier look. Other minor appearance tweaks.
- New error curve mini-view.
- Updated Fusion 3D exporter now exports all cameras, 3D planars, all meshes (including imported), lens distortion via image maps, etc.
- New Fusion 2D corner pinning exporter.
- Lens distortion export via color maps, currently for Fusion (Nuke for testing).
- During offset tracking, a tracker can be (repeatedly) shift-dragged to different reference patterns on any frame, and SynthEyes will automatically adjust the offset channel keying.
- Rotopanel’s Import tracker to CP (control point) now asks whether you want to import the relative motion or absolute position.
- DNG/CinemaDNG reading. Marginal utility: DNG requires much proprietary postprocessing to get usable images, despite new luma and chroma blur settings in the image preprocessor.
- New script to “Reparent meshes to active host” (without moving them)
- New section in the user manual on “Realistic Compositing for 3-D”
- New tutorials on offset tracking and Fusion.
- Upgraded to RED 5.3 SDK (includes REDcolor4, DRAGONcolor2).
- Faster camera and perspective drawing with large meshes and lidar scan data.
- Windows: Installing license data no longer requires “right click/Start as Administrator”—the UAC dialog will appear instead.
- Windows: Automatically keeps the last 3 crash dumps. Even one crash is one too many.
- Windows: Installers, SynthEyes, and Synthia are now code-signed for “Andersson Technologies LLC” instead of showing “Unknown publisher”.
- Mac OS X: Yosemite required that we change to the latest XCode 6—this eliminated support for OS X 10.7. Apple made 10.8 more difficult as well.
About SynthEyes
SynthEyes is a program for 3-D camera-tracking, also known as match-moving. SynthEyes can look at the image sequence from your live-action shoot and determine how the real camera moved during the shoot, what the camera’s field of view (~focal length) was, and where various locations were in 3-D, so that you can create computer-generated imagery that exactly fits into the shot. SynthEyes is widely used in film, television, commercial, and music video post-production.
What can SynthEyes do for me? You can use SynthEyes to help insert animated creatures or vehicles; fix shaky shots; extend or fix a set; add virtual sets to green-screen shoots; replace signs or insert monitor images; produce 3D stereoscopic films; create architectural previews; reconstruct accidents; do product placements after the shoot; add 3D cybernetic implants, cosmetic effects, or injuries to actors; produce panoramic backdrops or clean plates; build textured 3-D meshes from images; add 3-D particle effects; or capture body motion to drive computer-generated characters. And those are just the more common uses; we’re sure you can think of more.
What are its features? Take a deep breath! SynthEyes offers 3-D tracking, set reconstruction, stabilization, and motion capture. It handles camera tracking, 2- and 3-D planar tracking, object tracking, object tracking from reference meshes, camera+object tracking, survey shots, multiple-shot tracking, tripod (nodal, 2.5-D) tracking, mixed tripod and translating shots, stereoscopic shots, nodal stereoscopic shots, zooming shots, lens distortion, light solving. It can handle shots of any resolution (Intro version limited to 1920×1080)—HD, film, IMAX, with 8-bit, 16-bit, or 32-bit float data, and can be used on shots with thousands of frames. A keyer simplifies and speeds tracking for green-screen shots. The image preprocessor helps remove grain, compression artifacts, off-centering, or varying lighting and improve low-contrast shots. Textures can be extracted for a mesh from the image sequence, producing higher resolution and lower noise than any individual image. A revolutionary Instructible Assistant, Synthia™, helps you work faster and better, from spoken or typed natural language directions.
SynthEyes offers complete control over the tracking process for challenging shots, including an efficient workflow for supervised trackers, combined automated/supervised tracking, offset tracking, incremental solving, rolling-shutter compensation, a hard and soft path locking system, distance constraints for low-perspective shots, and cross-camera constraints for stereo. A solver phase system lets you set up complex solving strategies with a visual node-based approach (not in Intro version). You can set up a coordinate system with tracker constraints, camera constraints, an automated ground-plane-finding tool, by aligning to a mesh, a line-based single-frame alignment system, manually, or with some cool phase techniques.
Eyes starting to glaze over at all the features? Don’t worry, there’s a big green AUTO button too. Download the free demo and see for yourself.
What can SynthEyes talk to? SynthEyes is a tracking app; you’ll use the other apps you already know to generate the pretty pictures. SynthEyes exports to about 25 different 2-D and 3-D programs. The Sizzle scripting language lets you customize the standard exports, or add your own imports, exports, or tools. You can customize toolbars, color scheme, keyboard mapping, and viewport configurations too. Advanced customers can use the SyPy Python API/SDK.
[TC]2 Announces Availability of Its Most Advanced 3D/4D Body Scanner
New TC2-19 Offers Fastest and Most Accurate Measurements on the Market [source]
Cary, NC – April 30, 2015 – [TC]², the innovation leader for the fashion industry and 3D body scanning technology, announces general availability of the TC2-19, the most advanced 3D/4D body scanning and measurement technology available on the market.
The TC2-19 provides the option of using a touch screen inside the scanner booth which allows users to “self-scan” by following on-screen instructions. The “self-scan mode” is ideal for use with the iStyling™ Full Retail Solution that provides for greater fit accuracy, styling advice, and garment customization. The body scanner interfaces with multiple CAD technologies and avatar engines.
While capturing the accurate body measurements that [TC]² 3D body scanners are well-known for today, the TC2-19 offers a “quick scan” option (2 seconds), 360° 3D body scanning and rapid processing speeds (17 seconds). The newly developed 4D mode enables 3D movement visualization inside the scanner.
“The combination of speed, accuracy, and stability enabled by software and hardware advancements make this the most advanced 3D/4D body scanner ever built”, said Dr. Mike Fralix, CEO of [TC]². “We are excited that our existing retail customers and major brands now have a scalable solution that can easily and cost effectively roll out to multiple locations.”
The [TC]² body scanner captures thousands of body measurements used by the fashion, medical, and fitness industries to make custom garments, predict customer sizing, benchmark fitness goals, and augment surgical processes. The scanner fits in a space the size of the average retail dressing room and features a booth for privacy. The TC2-19 comes with a lifetime scanner software license and PC.
The TC2-19 can be viewed at the [TC]² National Apparel Technology Center in Cary, N.C.
About [TC]²:
[TC]², Textile / Clothing and Technology Corporation, is a leader in innovation and dedicated to the advancement of the fashion and sewn products industry. Its research, consulting services, and products help brands, retailers, and manufacturers provide increased value for their customers while improving their bottom line. [TC]²’s mission focuses on the development, promotion and implementation of new technologies and ideas that significantly impact the industry.
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