Dennis Muren interview: How Willow changed the movies - Telegraph →

By Daisy Bowie-Sell

Dennis Muren:​

“We shot five different pieces of film, of a goat, an ostrich, a tiger, a tortoise and a woman and had one actually change into the shape of the other one without having to cut away. The technique is much more realistic because the cuts are done for dramatic reasons, rather than to stop it from looking bad.”

 

A good read. Makes you think about the time when to do effects you had to be able to physically build it. That made it much easier to understand what we did as effects artists.

Roland Emmerich, visual effects artists on the troubled VFX industry | Inside Movies | EW.com →

insidemovies.ew.com:​

Rand argues that if studios and visual effects companies were to do away with the fixed-bid business model and use a cost-plus model instead, directors would be more inclined to check in with VFX artists more frequently to prevent situations where “rebuilding that skyscraper” occurs. He hopes that directors can learn to look at an incomplete visual effects shot and provide feedback before the shot is done.

 

The imporatnt part is learn to look at incomplete shots. So much time is wasted by folks who can't see. This is a trait that makes a good artist. It should also apply to producers and directors as well. If you take a shot to final everytime you show it, you have just wasted a ton of time and more importantly money. Final is for the end when color and camera move have been locked down. Kinda like a locked cut.

Rhythm & Hues Bidder Vows to Avoid Liquidation | AWN | Animation World Network

By Jennifer Wolfe:​

Shim said R&H’s problems were “the fault of the industry as a whole” but added that the company’s financial management had been “a little lacking.” He has been on-site regularly at R&H’s offices and JSC appears to be the company’s preferred buyer in the upcoming bankruptcy auction.

 

Should the artist be worried about the health plan and all the other perks. Maybe? Those things are really expensive and first to go. Not closing R&H is one thing, keeping it running as it was is something completely different.

Source: http://www.awn.com/news/visual-effects/rhy...

4 TB original 4k footage available as CC-by | Tears of Steel →

By Ton:​

You’ll find something like 80,000 frames, each in OpenEXR half float files, in 4096 x 2160 pixels. This is 5 times more footage than used in the film, including unused shots, but mainly it’s because of long lead-in and lead-outs, and of course we’ve been cutting shots sharp.

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After Rhythm & Hues, Visual-Effects Community Asks: What Now? | The Wrap Movies →

Brent Lang:​

In the month since Rhythm & Hues imploded and filed for bankruptcy, many members of the battered visual-effects community have been agitating for change. But in a fragmented industry hit hard by the cost of doing business in a world of subsidies, cutthroat bidding and cheap foreign labor, the question on many lips is: what now?

 

Effects Corner: Pi Day →

Scott Squires:​

In case you haven't heard the VFX Town Hall on Pi Day is being held 3.14 (Tomorrow as I write this) It's in Los Angles but there will groups in San Francisco area, Vancouver, New Zealand and elsewhere. There will also be a live stream over youtube.