VFX & Special Effects
Cinefex 142 Available for Preorder
Looks like the summer edition of Cinefex is coming up fast, with coverage of Avengers: Age of Ultron, Jurassic World, Mad Max: Fury Road, and San Andreas. Which one will have the coveted cover spot for issue 142? They’re not telling yet, but you can vote in their poll to see what the readership thinks.
Detailed Close-Ups of Star Wars Spaceships
The Slightly Warped Website gathered a collection of close-ups from ILM’s model work on the original Star Wars trilogy. You’ve seen all of these walkers, speeder bikes, and space ships before, but perhaps never at such a level of detail. The under-construction Death Star from Return of the Jedi is particularly astounding.
Meet the Crack Team That Designed the Technology in Age of Ultron
It might not be as flashy as some of the big action sequences in the new Avengers, but every bit of Tony Stark’s technology has a user interface that’s been designed by a team of artists. Gizmodo interviews David Sheldon-Hicks of London-based Territory Studio about their work on the floating, gestural interfaces in the film.
“Tomorrowland” Jet Pack Ride
Just a small taste of some of ILM’s VFX work on the upcoming Tomorrowland.
Matthew Mungle — The art of Hollywood special effects makeup
CBS Sunday Morning interviews Academy Award-winner Matthew Mungle, one of the greatest make-up special effects artists. Reporter Lee Cowan chats with Mungle about his career, and follows him as he goes through the process of creating bodies for an episode of “CSI.”
Film Technology
CONstruct — May 30–31, 2015
An intriguing new convention debuts this year, bringing hands-on sculpting, molding, and casting workshops and panels to the New York area. Veteran special effects makeup and creature creators such as Robert Kurtzman (From Dusk Till Dawn, Predator, Tusk) will be on hand for presentations. Sounds like a great time if you're looking to enhance your creature and prop skills.
History
“Black Angel” No Longer Lost
io9 broke the news on Tuesday that the long-lost Black Angel, the short fantasy film that screened before The Empire Strikes Back in 1980, has now been posted to YouTube for all to enjoy through the end of May 2015. Of course, if you’d prefer a more permanent copy, it’s also available to buy on iTunes.
Previously, Graham Edwards did a great write-up of the film’s re-discovery and restoration on the Cinefex Blog.
Around the Web
How the Cars of “Mad Max: Fury Road” Were Made
Mad Max has always had a history of crazy muscle cars, from the original Ford Falcon police car to the spike-and-fire-laden cars you’ve seen screaming across the desert in the Fury Road trailers. Production designer Colin Gibson breaks down the design and construction of the most memorable vehicles from the new film.
And Finally…
John Knoll plays Star Wars on Laser Projector
The 1983 Star Wars arcade game was a serendipitous tie-in to the film, using some of the same vector graphics technology in the game that was used to produce the visual effects in the film, for the scene where they planned the attack on the Death Star.
Shown here at the SIGGRAPH 2007 Electronic Theater Pre-Show, ILM effects supervisor John Knoll tries his hand at an updated version of the game that draws its output on a laser projector instead of a CRT. Delightful.
It's been a busy fortnight — the Avengers beat the box office twice in a row, Max Max: Fury Road is out to rave reviews (I’m looking forward to seeing it on Sunday), and the summer VFX season is kicking into high gear.
Next week on The Optical podcast, we’ll be talking with Filmumentaries creator Jamie Benning about the VFX advances of Return of the Jedi.
Mark Boszko