Tuesday, December 14, 2010
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
Friday, October 22, 2010
Friday, March 5, 2010
Editing for 3D on Alice in Wonderland: JC Bond, Additional Editor, on Wrangling 10,000 VFX Shots for 2D, 3D and IMAX
By Bryant Frazer
February 25, 2010 Source: Film & Video
Working in the editorial department on Alice in Wonderland, JC Bond was the point of first contact for principal photography, assembling scenes as quickly as director Tim Burton could shoot them. He was also the gatekeeper for the film's extensive visual-effects content, which he received and analyzed before it was cut into the movie. Working on a team led by film editor Chris Lebenzon, ACE, Bond made sure thousands of pieces of content fell into place as expected in the editorial pipeline — in stereo 3D, no less. Film & Video asked him about the challenge of managing massive quantities of footage, and found out why Alice might look ever so slightly different depending on where you see it.FILM & VIDEO: You’re credited as an “additional editor” on Alice in Wonderland. What were your responsibilities?
JC Bond: On a project this long, my responsibilities changed during the project. During the shooting phase, my initial responsibility was to assemble the scenes as they were being shot. One of the advantages we had on this project was that the movie was shot digitally for the most part. The bookends, which take place in “the real world,” were shot on film. The stuff in Underland, or Wonderland, was all shot digitally. We were connected directly to the shooting stage through servers, and we were working about 20 minutes behind camera. Right after they wrapped a particular set-up, we would load it into our [Avid] Media Composers and start cutting. My main responsibility during that phase was to assemble the dailies as they came in and have a version of the scene for Tim Burton to look at.
So you were making a rough assembly.
Sometimes that became the assembly. It depends on what happens. Some scenes got worked quite a bit more afterward, and for other scenes, what we got on day one was it.
How did your job change during post-production?
During post, my main responsibility was to receive the VFX shots from our facilities, analyze them, see if the artists were doing what we asked them to do, and cut them into the movie and have them ready to present to Tim Burton. That’s basically the breakdown between our two phases. On a project this long – for me, the job was 17 months, but the shooting was only two and a half months. The rest was all post-production.
So it was an extended process.
In reality, on a project of this size, that was short. We would have liked another year. We would have settled for another six months. We got neither.
How did shooting the film in 3D affect your work?
The reality is that our movie is not shot in stereo 3D. It was shot in 2D and then converted during the VFX process. The majority of our movie happens in Wonderland. In Wonderland, we used computer-generated backgrounds and computer-generated environments so all we were shooting was elements. Our entire main shoot was a gigantic green-screen shoot. The stereo process happened in post-production. We converted every single shot. Because the environment was computer-generated, it was created in 3D, and the elements that were [shot in] 2D were post-converted. We did have to manage stereo media from the moment we started getting VFX back from the facilities, and that was a little over a year of handling. But not during the actual shoot.
Editing for 3D on Alice in Wonderland Read more!
Monday, October 12, 2009
Sunday, June 14, 2009
Sunday, May 31, 2009
Thursday, January 8, 2009
McG to direct Disney's "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea: Captain Nemo"
By Michael Fleming,Variety
January 6,2008
Disney has set McG to direct "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea: Captain Nemo," a family film that is being fast tracked by the studio.
McG, who most recently helmed "Terminator: Salvation," had multiple studios vying for his next slot. Sources said he will be paid $8 million against 7% of gross.
Sean Bailey ("Tron 2.0") is producing with McG's Wonderland Sound and Vision.
Scripted by Bill Marsilli, the film is an origin story of Nemo as he creates his warship, the Nautilus. The characters come from the Jules Verne novel.
The 1954 original "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea" was the first live-action film made by Walt Disney, who famously bet his studio on a movie best remembered for the giant squid scene. It became the second-highest grossing film that year and won three Oscars. The film has also been the basis for various rides at the Disney theme park over the years.
Disney hopes to make the film this year.
Warner Bros. releases "Terminator: Salvation" on May 22. Though "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea" is expected to be the next film he directs, McG is in discussions to supervise development and direct the next installment of "Terminator." He also will produce through his Wonderland Sound and Vision shingle.
Read more!
Saturday, December 27, 2008
Disney Dumps Voyage of the Dawn Treader
Feeling the economic squeeze, Disney announced Tuesday that it will not exercise its option to co-produce and co-finance The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader with Walden Media. The film was reportedly already in preproduction with a May 2010 release planned. The previous two Narnia film were costly to produce, each of them budgeted at around $200 million. But while the first film, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, took in $745 million worldwide, the second film, Prince Caspian, earned just $419 million. Walden said that it would seek another production partner. (IMDB) Read more!
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
Waiting for the "Dawn"
By Jim Hill,JimHillMedia.com
Do you recall that shindig that Walt Disney Studios held at the Kodak Theatre back in September. Where the 26 movies that the Mouse House now has in the works -- among them highly anticipated sequels like "Pirates of the Caribbean 4," "Toy Story 3," "National Treasure 3" and "Tron 2" -- were all heavily hyped.
Did you notice something significant missing from that list? Like -- say -- the third installment of the "Chronicles of Narnia" series, "The Voyage of the Dawn Treader." Back in September of 2007, Disney announced that "Narnia III" would be the Studio's big release for May of 2010. But then in August of this year, Mickey suddenly changed his mind. Now "Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time" would be Disney's big release for May of 2010. And as for "Voyage of the Dawn Treader" ... That project kind of went into stealth mode.
Don't get me wrong. Walt Disney Pictures -- along with its production partner, Walden Media -- is still reportedly moving forward with the third installment of "The Chronicles of Narnia." Director Michael Apted has been riding herd on "Dawn Treader" 's development since June of 2007. Actors have been cast ("Son of Rambow" star Will Poulter has been hired to play Pevensie cousin Eustace Scrubb) and studio space has been lined up (The bulk of this movie will be shot at Baja Studios in Rosarito Beach) for a four-to-five month-long shoot which is allegedly slated to begin in late January.
Which is all well & good. Except that Disney hasn't actually greenlit production of "Voyage of the Dawn Treader." Not yet, anyway.
http://jimhillmedia.com/blogs/jim_hill/archive/2008/11/17/monday-mouse-watch-waiting-for-the-dawn Read more!
Friday, September 26, 2008
Disney's upcoming slate of pics:Pirates 4,Cars 2 and more
By Marc Graser,Variety
September 24,2008
Johnny Depp is the main man at the Mouse House.
Depp has agreed to reprise his role as Captain Jack Sparrow in a fourth "Pirates of the Caribbean" pic and play Tonto in a bigscreen adaptation of "The Lone Ranger," both produced by Jerry Bruckheimer. He will also star as the Mad Hatter in Tim Burton’s version of "Alice in Wonderland."
The roles come after Depp helped Disney earn a combined $2.6 billion at the box office with the three pics in the "Pirates" franchise, also produced by Bruckheimer.
"Alice in Wonderland," skedded for 2010, will be shot using 3-D and performance capture technology similar to that used for "Beowulf."
Depp’s casting deals closed a full day Wednesday at the Kodak Theater, where Walt Disney Studios chairman Dick Cook touted the Mouse’s upcoming slate of pics during a showcase event for exhibitors, media and other industry insiders.
Toons provided the company’s other big news.
Disney-Pixar’s "Cars" has proved such a major moneymaker for the Mouse House that Disney is moving the release of the sequel up a year to summer 2011.
In addition to shifting the date for "Cars 2," studio also announced that it will produce a series of animated short films starring Mater and other characters from the first feature.
Shorts will air on TV, including the Disney Channel, and in theaters in front of films.
"You’ll see them everywhere," Cook said. "We’re going to keep this ‘Cars’ thing going."
"Cars," which was released in 2006 and went on to earn $462 million worldwide, has become a runaway hit in merchandise sales for the studio. Pic will also be prominently featured at a revamped California Adventure in Anaheim; "Cars Land," a 12-acre section of the park, opens in 2011. Move of the sequel from 2012 now times it to coincide with the attraction’s launch.
Before a full screening of Disney’s upcoming toon "Bolt," Cook also touted the studio’s commitment to 3-D animation, saying the company has released more pics in the format than any other studio.
Cook even managed a playful jab at DreamWorks Animation’s Jeffrey Katzenberg, who has long championed the format and is readying to roll out a slate of 3-D toons.
"I heard that Jeffrey may finally release his first 3-D movie next year," Cook quipped.
Disney has five live-action and animated pics set to unspool in 3-D next year and a slate of 16 in development.
Although several sequences in "Bolt" weren’t yet completed, the fast-paced pic, produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios but showing off considerable Pixar touches, played extremely well with the Kodak crowd, with Rhino, a hamster going around on a wheel, generating considerable laughs.
The Walt Disney Studios Showcase has essentially turned into a splashy, ShoWest-like event in Hollywood for the company to parade out stars and screen extended clips for a couple thousand attendees in various sectors of the biz to promote its future projects. Last time it held the showcase was in 2005, also at the Kodak.
In addition to Depp, who took the stage dressed as Jack Sparrow while wearing the Lone Ranger mask, this year’s event also featured the cast of "High School Musical" plus Dwayne Johnson, Miley Cyrus, John Travolta and Robin Williams. Adam Sandler appeared in a pretaped sequence with the studio chairman. And Cook even had a conversation with the four-legged star of "Beverly Hills Chihuahua."
Bruckheimer and Nicolas Cage announced a third 'National Treasure.' Although talkshow queen Oprah Winfrey wasn’t present, it was announced that she will voice the mother of the princess in hand-drawn toon "The Princess and the Frog," set in New Orleans.
Cook called the upcoming pics for the rest of this year and 2009 "the most creative slate of films in Disney history" and showed sequences from "High School Musical 3: Senior Year," "Bedtime Stories," "Race to Witch Mountain," "Hannah Montana: The Movie," "Old Dogs," "The Princess and the Frog," Robert Zemeckis’ "A Christmas Carol" and Pixar’s next pic, "Up."
During an intro for "HSM 3," Cook teased that he would sing a song from the first bigscreen installment of the runaway Disney Channel franchise but quickly backtracked
Thursday, January 10, 2008
'National Treasure: Book of Secrets' Review
Back in late 2004, i saw National Treasure.I thought that it was an entertaining, enjoyable movie, with all these history-related clues and riddles connected in a successful way.In the 2007 sequel, the makers of the first movie try to follow the same formula.In,their effort they don't fail but they also don't succeed .
The story of the film, which centers around the effort of Ben Gates (Nicolas Cage) to clear his great-great grandfather's name, is a significant drawback .It is one of the reasons for which the film is not as entertaining as the first one.The film gears up from the scene in the Library of Congress until the scene in the cave, which is, as mentioned in some reviews,a n impressive and a well directed one.There are some funny moments,for the majority of which Riley Poole (Justin Bartha) is responsible.As for the perfomances, Ed Harris is adequate as the villain, but his character's motives, which are revealed towards the end of the film,are silly.Helen Mirren's perfomance,as Ben Gates' mother, is not noteworthy.
