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Monday, April 26, 2010
Advanced Commercial Photoshop Classes
Thursday, April 22, 2010COMEDY CENTRAL and The Onion Join Forces on
Original Scripted Series Based on The Onion Sports Network 10 Episode Scripted Series Set To Premiere 1Q 2011
 Sports coverage is finally about to get some integrity. COMEDY CENTRAL has picked-up the Onion Sports Network pilot and placed a 10-episode series order for “The Onion Sports Network” (working title), it was announced today by Kent Alterman, head of original programming and production, COMEDY CENTRAL. The scripted series from The Onion, based on its popular Onion Sports Network online video series, is set to premiere 1Q 2011. “The Onion has such credibility in the comedy world, we feel fortunate to partner with them,” said Alterman. “They will skewer the sports world, and the media coverage of sports, with the same sharpness we’ve seen applied to the world of politics and popular culture.” “The Onion Sports Network teaming up with COMEDY CENTRAL?,” said Steve Hannah, CEO of The Onion. “If I were ESPN, I’d consider a whole new line of work.”
Executive produced by Julie Smith and Will Graham, the half-hour scripted comedy takes its cue from The Onion Sports Network video content which authentically replicates the flashy look, breathless pace and general insanity of modern sports coverage. Lisa Leingang is the executive in charge of production for COMEDY CENTRAL.
AAAGR Opening Celebration
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Tuesday, April 20, 2010The Zillo Beast Strikes Back on New Clone Wars EpisodeManaging to sustain the creature’s unbridled fury before it can completely ravage its home planet, the Jedi are ordered to transport the tenuously subdued Zillo Beast to Coruscant for scientific study. An indestructible monster of indescribable power on the galaxy’s most densely populated planet – what’s the worst that can happen? Find out when “The Zillo Beast Strikes Back” in an all-new episode of STAR WARS: THE CLONE WARS airing *at 9:00 p.m. ET/PT Friday, April 16 on Cartoon Network. One of the largest CG-models ever created for The Clone Wars, the Zillo Beast cuts an intimidating first impression by virtue of its sheer size. But daunting though it may be from a physical perspective, the Zillo’s true terror comes not from its corporeal enormity alone; its instantly iconic sound design complements the creature’s features by giving the giant beast just the right mix of power, personality and pain. “There was a lot of trial and error getting there,” says Dave Acord, sound editor on The Clone Wars and creator of the Zillo’s distinctive cry. “I tried a number of animals, musical instruments, cars – but ultimately, the Zillo roar is 75% horse. Pitched down, of course, and boomed. The other 25% is varying combinations of bobcat and lion, mostly for the growls and some of the heavier bellows. The complexity of the horse whinny seemed to have the right appeal in terms of expression and otherworldliness. At times, the roar can sound terrible and menacing. Other times, you can hear the pain in his voice. The Zillo has a lot of character, and we’ve tried to match that with our sound design.” Citing musical beginnings as an influence on his notions of cinematic sound design, Acord has worked to develop a keen ear – an essential requirement for creating the aural foundation of that “galaxy far, far away.” The process itself tends to be an iterative one, he says – but that’s all part of the fun. Monday, April 19, 2010
Egyptian Animation Won The African Oscar In Nigeria!
The only Egyptian film in AMAA competition : Honyan’s Shoe won the Animation Prize at the 6th African Movies Academy Awards in Nigeria! The animation film Honayn’s Shoe has been crowned as the best Animation for this year’s African Movie Academy Awards. It was nominated in the category ‘Best Animation’ together with films from Algeria, Nigeria and Burkina Faso. Honayn’s Shoe was directed by Mohamed Ghazala, the Egyptian animator and lecturer, in production of Cinema Palace in Cairo of Ministry of Culture 2009. The film story is about a lost nomad, Honayn, with his camel searching for his shoe in the wide desert. AMAA opened nominations for the 2010 awards and received over 500 movies. Nominations were closed on December 31, and selected committee started working on the entries in January 2010. The selection went through phases, and over 500 movies were reduced to 280. The African Movie Academy Awards (AMAA) is held annually to honor distinguished actors and actresses, directors and writers in the African movie industry. Held on Saturday, April 10, 2010 amidst blitz and glamour, the sixth edition of the prestigious awards took place in Yenogoa, the capital of Bayelsa State, Nigeria. This year’s event pulled hordes of celebrities in and around the African continent. AMAA is comparable to America’s Academy Awards in terms of its class, glamour and importance in African filmmaking. Saturday, April 17, 2010Technicolor's Paprikaas Animation Awarded Kung Fu Panda Series
Technicolor today announced that Nickelodeon, part of MTV Networks, a division of Viacom Inc. (NYSE: KDE), has awarded Technicolor’s Bangalore-based 3D animation studio, Paprikaas, the Kung Fu Panda TV series, which will be produced as an animated series for the worldwide broadcast market, initially comprising 26 episodes. Nickelodeon and Technicolor have developed a strong production relationship based on Paprikaas’ work on the CGI production of Penguins of Madagascar. According to TV by the Numbers Penguins of Madagascar was the No. 1 kids show on cable TV in the United States in 2009. “We have built an excellent relationship with the team at Technicolor during our collaboration on Penguins of Madagascar,” stated Mark Taylor, senior vice president and general manager of Nickelodeon Animation Studios. “They have developed a world-class CGI production studio and animation team with an established competence that dovetails nicely and efficiently into our production pipeline.” “We are delighted to be awarded such a prestigious franchise to work on at our studio,” stated Tim Sarnoff, president, Technicolor Digital Productions. “We believe Kung Fu Panda both strengthens and enhances our production relationship with Nickelodeon. With this show, we’re looking to continue the growth of our team and infrastructure.” Opening Celebration AAAGR
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Monday, April 12, 2010Assassin's Creed 2 Leeds MI6 Award With Seven Gold
Awards Ceremony Honoring Achievements in Video Game Marketing Topped off Successful MI6 Conference MI6, the association dedicated to supporting marketing, promotion and advertising professionals in the video game and interactive entertainment community, hosted a festive awards show to honor the best marketing work in the video game industry, wrapping up the action-packed fifth annual MI6 Conference. Comedian Ryan Stout hosted the evening and kept the crowd laughing. Assassin’s Creed 2 took home the most gold with seven MI6 Awards, including the highly competitive “Outstanding Overall Integrated Marketing Campaign” award.
 “The winning work featured at this year’s MI6 Awards showcased how game marketers are creatively leading while strategically adapting to the shifting media landscape,” said Jonathan Block-Verk, President and CEO of MI6. “This community is driving the growth of the game industry by expanding the reach and definition of gaming, while continuing to appeal to the traditional gaming audience.” In addition to Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed 2 picking up seven gold awards, Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles and NBA 2K10 were each awarded four gold Awards. Award categories include everything from “Outstanding Promotional Trailer,” to “Best Swag,” to “Most Effective Buzz Creation.” The full list of MI6 Award winners can be found here. The 2010 MI6 Conference was buzzing all day with over 400 top marketing executives from the industry. A keynote presentation from Senior Vice President of Marketing and PlayStation Network at Sony Computer Entertainment America Peter Dille kicked off the event. Dille discussed how PlayStation is ready for 3D and how the company is “Redefining the Digital Living Room,” which was the title of his presentation. Additional panels and speakers featured heavy hitters including Rich Hilleman, Chief Creative Director of Electronic Arts; David Perry, CEO of Gaikai.com; Mark Skaggs, Vice President of Product Development at Zynga; and Ed Ulbrich, President, Commercials Division and Corporate Executive Vice President at Digital Domain.
AAAGR,Opening Celebration
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AAAGR Opening Celebration OfferSaturday, April 10, 2010How to Train Your Dragon In Uk Cinemas
Dreamworks new animated feature film How To Train Your Dragon is out in UK cinemas today and will be available to watch in IMAX 3-D
Behind-the-scenes of How To Train Your Dragon on Making of.com (above) Animation Mentor graduate Mike Stern worked on the film. Wee Brian who was one of the three animators on Aardman’s The Deadline also worked as an Animator. Animation World Network interview with Directors Chris Sanders and Dean DeBlois, also includes interview with Head of Character Animation Simon Otto entitled DreamWorks Unleashes the Dragons
It has been confirmed today that Avatar will be released on Blu-ray and DVD in the UK on April 26th 2010. As yet there is no word of a release date for the 3-D version of the film which will probably be announced when 3-D technology becomes mainstream and more affordable in the home, so it could be a while yet. Senior Animator Robert Kuczera has just sent me an e-mail asking if I would post a link to an interview with CG Heute entitled Robert Kuczera – Animieren Fur District 9 detailing the work he did on District 9 while at The Embassy in Vancouver. How could I refuse! The interview was originally written in German so the Google translation is a little ropey in places although it is easy to follow. Robert’s extensive body of work, which can be seen on his website includes animation for adverts and films such as Comfort Creme and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban while working at various effects studios including The Mill and Framestore CFC. He is also known for his 9 minute short CGI film Dragon Slayer WINNER: Logorama
Nominee: French Roast
Nominee: Granny O’Grimm’s Sleeping Beauty
Nominee: La dama y la muerte (The Lady and The Reaper)
Nominee: Wallace and Gromit in A Matter of Loaf and Death
It’s no surprise that Pixar’s UP won Best Animated Feature at the Oscars, but there isn’t usually a great deal of fuss around the Best Animated Shorts. Here are the 4 nominees and overall winner. Although Logorama is very clever, after the initial novelty of seeing the world made out of corporate logos, the story doesn’t grab you as much as it could have and consequently the film could have been shorter. I thought A Matter of Loaf and Death should have won and there was unfortunately no sign of Alma which is one of the best short films of the year. It must have been overlooked by the voting panel and should have at least been given a nomination. Feb 28 2010 Posted at 12:52 pm | No Comments One of the better Done In 60 Seconds competition entries for the 2010 Empire Awards. The film cleverly replaces the alien prawns with clowns. Created in Ireland, the film has yet to be nominated, with other less deserving entries getting in to the top 20 shortlist. Vote now for the existing entries, although the District 9 entry will hopefully be entered from the Irish round of the competition. Voting closes on 12 March. Feb 15 2010 Posted at 5:06 pm | No Comments
Pixar’s latest film Up is released on Blu-ray today in the UK. I was looking forward to seeing this as I missed it at the cinema. Written and directed by Monsters Inc. director and veteran Toy Story animator Pete Docter Also includes Pixar’s latest animated short Partly Cloudy An interesting section in the making of documentary, describes how the story department fleshed out Carl and Ellie’s developing relationship. One idea shows them trading ’punches’ throughout the years to gain one-upmanship over each other! The idea was unsurprisingly discarded as the ‘cross your heart’ concept was deemed more prominent. It just shows that Pixar develop their stories to the full, exploring every possible avenue, while going through many rewrites before deciding on the final draft. Feb 12 2010 Posted at 5:43 pm | No Comments Main Title Sequence For The BBC by StudioAKA The BBC are currently running the main title sequence to accompany coverage of the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver Overseeing the project was Marc Craste an animation director I have admired for a long time, whose previous work includes the Lloyds Bank ‘For The Journey’ adverts. Jon Klassen was brought in as co-designer to help Studio AKA create the overall style. The short story tells the tale of an Inuit who is faced with various Olympic challenges while having to retrieve a head stone, taken by a great bear from the inukshuk totem statue called Ilanaaq or ‘friend’, the emblem of the Winter Games. The infectious music is from Cry Me A River by Vancouver’s Michael Buble Jan 18 2010 Posted at 5:35 pm | No Comments Just got round to seeing Avatar in IMAX 3-D. Instantly, from the very first scene, you know that you are about to witness something special. The film is visually stunning and James Cameron utilises the 3-D effect brilliantly, using depth to the fullest without overly pushing the effect out of the screen. Some 3-D films try to exaggerate the effect unnecessarily, which causes image separation and is therefore hard for your eyes to adjust. The camera technology in this film is so good that your eyes don’t have to over compensate and the large polarising glasses retain the vibrant colours of the 2D version. The 3-D in Avatar is most effective and not surprisingly so, with scenes that have obvious depth, such as the sleeping pod room, the AMP suit hanger, the briefing room full of RDA soldiers or scenes high in the huge Home Tree, looking down to the distant jungle floor of Pandora below. The projected 1.78:1 image, which almost fills the huge 65ft x 48 ft IMAX screen, assists the 3-D effect so much so that it sometimes gives you the feeling of vertigo. The sheer size of the screen transports you into the lush alien world and seems to connect the audience more emotionally with the characters. One slight disappointment however was that, as IMAX is still projected from 70mm film (as opposed to being entirely digital) the orientation of the film running through the projector still produces a certain amount of blurring and strobing when there is a lot of fast motion on the screen. To help compensate for this, the 3-D separation is purposely held back by the compositors on certain action scenes, resulting in a less exaggerated effect, which seems to be more pleasing to watch. Is 3-D the future of cinema? Well for now it seems to be looking that way, especially on the IMAX screens, currently drawing audiences back with record breaking box office figures BoxOfficeMojo.com. If only the technology existed where IMAX 3-D was entirely digital and without the glasses. I think Avatars’ success though, is not only down to the new (ish) 3-D technology, but word of mouth about the breathtaking CG and quality of the performance capture, with some people even going back to see the film several times. The release of Avatar will hopefully push the technology along at a faster pace and we should start seeing quality non anaglyph 3-D in our homes sooner than expected. Although the story may have been told many times before and there are obviously influences from James Cameron’s other films, as it turns out, the film proves that this is definitely not a bad thing at all. Dec 28 2009 Posted at 5:16 pm | No Comments
Released on Blu-ray today in the UK. Believe the reviews, District 9 employs some groundbreaking film making from first time feature director Neill Blomkamp Behind the scenes info District 9: Making Of Dec 21 2009 Posted at 5:55 pm | No Comments The Gruffalo was created by Studio Soi and Magic Light Pictures for the BBC. The short 30 minute animated film combines both CGI and Stop-Motion techniques to create a stylistic look which is faithful to the original book Here’s a great interview with Axel Scheffler as he talks through his initial Gruffalo book illustrations. If you don’t manage to catch it on Christmas Day, the DVD is available now.
Thursday, April 8, 2010The 3D Motion Traning Approche Explained
Most of you are probably wondering, just what is this 3D and motion training thing? The short answer is 3DMT is an approach to health and performance. It includes two parts, evaluation and training. First, the 3D in 3DMT represents the 3-dimensional nature of our evaluations. We use a high tech 3D motion analysis system to evaluate how your body moves. We use the Ariel Performance Analysis System (APAS) which until now has been limited to specific applications in academic research and University Hospitals focusing on extreme musculo-skeletal conditions. APAS type 3D analysis systems are the best way to capture and analyze human movement, and what we call functional ability. 3DMT allows you access to this same cutting edge technology at very affordable prices. The second component of the 3DMT approach is training. Once we evaluate the way you move and identify strength, flexibility, or coordination deficits it is then necessary to train your body to move more efficiently. This is done by re-educating the neuromuscular system to operate more efficiently. There is no pill or quick fix, your neuromuscular system learns by doing and therefore requires your active participation in a consistent manner. 3D Motion Training has been very successful and includes indirect benefits like the confidence, understanding and ability to put you back in control of your own health or performance. Since you do all the work you get all the credit and satisfaction for your improvement! The 3D Mt Traning Program
The training aspect of the 3DMT approach is different from most other forms of training popular today. The biggest differences are in the implementation of the exercises and the scheme by which exercise sessions are conducted. In most training and rehabilitation facilities medical and training professionals typically match various exercises to patients and athletes based upon a stated goal. As some of you know this doesn’t always work. The 3DMT approach goes one level higher considering the functional ability of the client or athlete when prescribing exercise programs. Because we do this, our outcome success rate is very high. 3DMT also takes a different approach in it’s exercise sessions. It is very difficult to know exactly how long or how many days, weeks, months will be necessary so instead of offering one on one training or appointments, we offer training on a monthly basis without limitations. Ever have trouble getting an appointment with a therapist or trainer? Ever run out of time right in the middle of your program? We accommodate you whenever you want to come for as long as your program takes. 3D Motion Tranning Approche Explained Most of you are probably wondering, just what is this 3D and motion training thing? The short answer is 3DMT is an approach to health and performance. It includes two parts, evaluation and training. First, the 3D in 3DMT represents the 3-dimensional nature of our evaluations. We use a high tech 3D motion analysis system to evaluate how your body moves. We use the Ariel Performance Analysis System (APAS) which until now has been limited to specific applications in academic research and University Hospitals focusing on extreme musculo-skeletal conditions. APAS type 3D analysis systems are the best way to capture and analyze human movement, and what we call functional ability. 3DMT allows you access to this same cutting edge technology at very affordable prices. The second component of the 3DMT approach is training. Once we evaluate the way you move and identify strength, flexibility, or coordination deficits it is then necessary to train your body to move more efficiently. This is done by re-educating the neuromuscular system to operate more efficiently. There is no pill or quick fix, your neuromuscular system learns by doing and therefore requires your active participation in a consistent manner. 3D Motion Training has been very successful and includes indirect benefits like the confidence, understanding and ability to put you back in control of your own health or performance. Since you do all the work you get all the credit and satisfaction for your improvement! Monday, April 5, 2010Advanced Motion Measurement
AMM, Inc. develops 3D motion capture hardware, software and systems for the motion analysis industry. AMM has a comprehensive product line including AMM 3D-GOLF with TPI 3D golf swing biomechanics analysis, and sports motion analysis in general. High-end, high-speed optical, electromagnetic and inertial systems are available. AmmSensor™ is a real-time wireless 3D sensor that is Bluetooth compatible. Together with AmmTrainer3D™ and AmmGraph3D™ a graphics display package, they address a myriad of motion capture applications in many different industries. AmmSensor™ may be used in the life sciences, industrial, entertainment, military, training, simulation, animation and the movement science fields. AMM has developed the AmmTrainer3D™ biofeedback training system that can be used in biomechanics research, rehabilitation, sports science and for sports training.
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