Zombies are incredibly popular right now thanks in large part to The Walking Dead. A zombie movie that has been in the works for a long time, based on the book World War Z will be coming to theaters this summer. The movie features Brad Pitt in the lead and the latest trailer for the film doesn’t mention zombies anywhere.
You see the hordes of zombies, which act a lot like ants swarming over the environment and people, but the trailer gives you no close ups and no indication of exactly what people are fighting. Another thing that the trailer doesn’t shed any light on is exactly why Brad Pitt’s character and his family are important to saving the world.
It appears as though he may be some sort of soldier or doctor, but that’s unclear. If you watched the first trailer for the film, you may remember the close-up of one of the zombies that many have criticized for being too computer rendered. It looks like the trailer has tried to go more mainstream by not talking about zombies and instead taking a worldwide pandemic feel.
There is good reason for this movie to not talk up zombies. Zombie genre flicks haven’t exactly made huge amounts of money at the box office. The top zombie-themed films have grossed around $100 million at the box office. World War Z reportedly cost over $170 million to make so the film need a big box office take.
Take a look at ten of the best applications available for your Android phone or tablet. Here you’ll find image editors, organizers and other excelent tools for the mobile photographer.
Remember back in October when Disney bought Lucasfilm for over $4 billion? Disney is looking to put that money to good use, and they’ve already announced that Star Wars: Episode VII will be making its way to theaters in 2015, but it seems the company is looking to expand the franchise even more by possibly creating a Star Wars-themed park at one of the company’s Disney parks.
According to screenshots taken from a survey that was given to season pass holders and other frequent goers of various Disney parks, the company is asking folks what they would think about a possible “Star Wars themed land at the Disneyland Resort.” Needless to say, Disney may be looking at adding a little bit of Star Wars to its parks, which would be pretty amazing.
Of course, Disney World has been home to the Star Tours amusement ride for some time now, which is a “3D, motion-simulated space flight that launches you into the world of Star Wars.” (Get a feel for it here.) However, it looks like Disney is wanting to expand on that to dedicate an entire section of one of its parks to Star Wars.
Another question in the survey asks people how familiar they are with the Star Wars series, including the characters, settings, and stories, in order to get a feel for how many of their loyal guests know about Star Wars. However, it seems like a pretty obvious question to us, and we bet that as long as Disney built such a park, people will come.
If you’re all about the next Star Trek movie “Into Darkness”, you’ll be more than pumped up about the newest full trailer, stacked to the brim with no fewer explosions than you’ll need to blow your eardrums out. What we’re still not sure of is who this enemy of our friendly protagonists is. What we ARE sure of is the fact that, whether or not we’ve heard of this bad guy before, we’ll be flipping out over the awesome crash of first-generation Federation ship into the sea and up against the shore of what we’re pretty sure is London, England.
If you’re a fan of the original Star Trek television series, you’ll perhaps have been guessing at the idea that the antagonist for this film was going to be Khan. The man who launched a thousand memes. But consider this: we’re in a completely alternate timeline now – an alternate dimension, if you wish – where the Enterprise crew hasn’t necessarily even found the frozen crew of ultra-beings from whens Khan came.
Does that rule out the idea that Khan will make another appearance here in this film? Not necessarily. But it’s much more likely that the team behind this installment of the Star Trek franchise will opt for another brand new enemy to our best buddies Kirk, Spock, Uhura, and the rest. Here we’ll quite likely find that Benedict Cumberbatch – the actor you’re seeing acting quite mean in this and the other trailers – ends up being a brand new character altogether.
Fun Fact: you’ll also see Peter Weller standing up about 35 seconds into the trailer. That’s Robocop, just so you’re aware. He was also in several episodes of the television show Star Trek: Enterprise as a Terran supremacist – certainly not reprising that role here.
Have a peek at our timeline of Star Trek excellence below and get ready for the big jump – May 16th Internationally and May 17th here in the USA!
Pent-up demand, content monetization and copyright stamps have been instrumental in distinguishing the new social network called Pheed from the pack. It became the No.1 free social networking app in Apple’s App Store for the month of February, out pacing competitors like Twitter and Facebook.
Political cartoons have distinguished Matt Bors from the pack of modern-day cartoonists. While comics with a message have been around since the Yellow Kid in the early 1900s, most cartooning is created for the quick chuckle versus the reflective guffaw that comes from satirical illustrations.
This week we had the opportunity to have a chat with Sony Pictures Imageworks on how they brought the next generation of L Frank Baum’s “Oz” universe to life in the prequel: Oz the Great and Powerful! Our chat began with Sony Pictures Imageworks’ Senior Visual Effects Supervisor Scott Stokdyk, who let us know first and foremost his role with the film. We then quickly launched in on how the movie creates not just a re-entry into this magical environment for fans of the classic “Wizard of Oz” picture, but also – and especially – lovers of the original book series from whens the whole universe is born.
Stokdyk’s role in the creation of this movie began 2.5 years ago, working directly with the director of the film, Sam Raimi. With Raimi, Stokdyk broke down each element in the storyline piece by piece, speaking about how they’d go about creating each visual effect that would need to exist. After knocking out the script for a period, Mr. Stokdyk headed to Detroit for 7 months of filming the movie on soundstage, working after this for over a year in post-production.
As Visual Effects Supervisor, Stokdyk worked with the fabulous Sony Pictures Imageworks, a group we’ve had some rather fruitful conversations with in the past, to be sure! For those of you who have that tingling feeling you’ve heard Stokdyk’s name before, you’ll be glad to know you’re right: he’s previously worked with Sam Raimi on each of the Spider-Man movies (1, 2, and 3) as Visual Effects Supervisor as he does on the one we’re discussing today and has worked in different effects roles on such classic films as Titanic, Contact, and The Fifth Element.
According to Stokdyk, in both Oz the Great and Powerful and in the film industry in general, the way an effects-inclusive movie can distinguish itself is simple (so to speak). As Stokdyk says, “In Visual Effects nowadays, there’s basically effects work, there’s character work, there’s environmental work – and what distinguishes one show from another nowadays is it’s own unique combination of how those pieces work together and how they’re Art Directed together.”
Seems simple enough to say, right? Stokdyk continued, “[This film] has a nice blend of character animation that’s stunt and action oriented – and performance based – interacting with the real actors. We’ve also got really fantastical environmental extensions of sets. They bring into this fantastical world of Oz what we’ve shot on set.”
You’ll be seeing your fair share of fantastic effects-dependent shots and characters throughout this film which – if you did not know – is out in theaters now! Featured computer-generated characters you’ll be seeing throughout the film include:
The China Girl – this little lady is a porcelain doll that our hero Oz finds after her town is destroyed in the film. She’s voiced by Joey King and trots along with fully realistic features from top to bottom.
Finley the Flying Monkey – a cute little beast voiced by none other than your best buddy Zach Braff. This lovely beast also accompanies Oz throughout the movie and has one whole heck of a lot of fur that needed digital brushing – not to mention the rest of his fully-animated monkey body.
“The most technically challenging production Imageworks’ has completed to date.”
Both Braff and King took part in filming their parts as the monkey and he doll throughout principal photography, allowing the rest of the actors to act and respond in a much more organic way than traditional CG replacements would have allowed. Once filming was complete though, it was all up to the effects teams to bust forth with what Sony Pictures Imageworks describes as “the most technically challenging production Imageworks’ has completed to date.”
The group notes that they completed over 1,100 shots that appear in the final product, these including every single one of the GC environments and character shots. You’ll see digital doubles of each of the main characters: Oz, Glinda, Theodora, Evanora, and Knuck. You’ll see “thousands of flying baboons including three unique hero baboons.” You’ll see massive amounts of CG creatures including “attacking snapdragons, horses, various insects, butterflies, birds, flying fish, wooden horses, lion, squirrel, and river fairies”. You’ll see giant digital crowds of characters across the countryside and inside the city.
Some of the most awesome bits and pieces you should look out for while you’re experiencing this magical mix of fanaticism are:
• Glinda’s Magic Bubbles • A shimmering wall around Glinda’s countryside and village • Theodora’s Fire Tornado • The Oz hologram • Water effects galore • Massive poppy fields • China Town • Emerald City – including “the main gates, boulevard, central square, back gate, back alley, bell tower, palace, dais, vaulted corridor, Throne Room, Room of Resplendence, balcony and bridge digital sets and huge aerials of the city” • Fog!
And for those of you that are worried that this is another one of those films that destroys the experience of moviegoing with a heavy overdose of effects-driven shots, don’t fret! According to Stokdyk, they were certainly conscious of how easy it could have been to OD.
Stokdyk: You have a certain number of shots in any movie that are all computer generated, right? You just can’t shoot them, or there’s a prop that’s too expensive to shoot, or you shoot them in post after you’ve shot them in principal photography. We certainly had a decent chunk of those kind of shots, but after you’ve gone all CG, and done everything in the world CG, where’s the boundary? Where’s the next frontier after that?”
As Stokdyk tells us, so too must it be true! Expect the most awesome combination of art direction, live action, and CG you’ve ever seen on a film of this kind – start to finish!
“Anybody have any idea what invention has saved more lives than any other in the history of humankind?” Matt Damon asked a room filled with reporters. The answer? “The toilet.” But how serious is this actor in requesting the world to relinquish use of the most important innovation known to modern man?
Today, I’d like to talk to all of you fine folks out there who are trying to keep old-school gaming and nostalgia alive on the PC through the magic of emulation – I’ve a too you’ll find very interesting. Old gaming hardware is becoming scarcer and scarcer and the games that we all once knew and loved are becoming more and more difficult to find. There may eventually come a day when ROMs and Emulators are the only way to keep the passion – and the memory – alive.
The "Fourth Wall’ is a theatrical term for the imaginary wall that exists between actors and their audiences. Originating from Ancient Greek theater, while the open-box arena of a theater stage makes up three walls, theater-goers are seen as the fourth wall. "Breaking the fourth wall" is considered a technique of metafiction, as it penetrates the boundaries normally set up by works of fiction by reaching out to the audience.
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
