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Digital Artist Todd Vaziri took some time from his busy schedule to talk to ILMfan about the VFX work in J.J. Abrams' Mission: Impossible III, which was supervised by Roger Guyett. Todd, who served as Sequence Supervisor for the bridge sequence, discusses the many challenges of creating the invisible shots in the film.
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It's sadly being reported that Arthur Widmer, a pioneer in the area of optical composting and bluescreen technology, has just passed away at the age of 92. He was recognized in 2005 with a SciTech for his contributions.
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The Ledger has an extensive article on the career of Ray Harryhausen and highlights the recently published The Art of Ray Harryhausen book. Senior VFX Supervisor Dennis Muren, George Lucas and others comment on Harryhausen's influence in cinema.
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John Bruno, who worked at ILM on Poltergeist, and Warren Franklin, who was General Manager at ILM in the 80 and is now President of Rainmaker, have been interviewed for their latest projects, X-Men: The Last Stand and The Da Vinci Code, respectively.
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The official Star Wars site is reporting that Cream magazine, a Hong Kong design periodical, will have articles on ILM and Lucasfilm Animation featuring Senior VFX Supervisor Dennis Muren, Animation Director Rob Coleman, VFX Art Director Wilson Tang, VFX Supervisor Tim Alexander and producer Rick McCallum.
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ILM members will be presenting 4 sketches at SIGGRAPH 2006 covering such projects as Poseidon and Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest. Other studios presenting sketches include Pixar, Digital Domain, MPC, Blue Sky Studios, PDI/DreamWorks Animation, Weta Digital and Rhythm and Hues.
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VFXWorld has an extensive article on the inhouse fluid simulation tools developed by ILM and Stanford, and used in Poseidon and Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, and Flowline developed by Scanline and used by MPC on Poseidon. VFX Supervisor Kim Libreri, Ron Fedkiw, Cliff Plumer, Stephan Trojansky and Boyd Shermis comment on the challenges and tools.
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FXGuide has interviewed ILM Digital Supervisor Grady Cofer where he explains the work the Sabre team did on Star Wars Episode III Revenge of the Sith and War of the Worlds.
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The Visual Effects Society has released the full schedule of the VES 2006 Festival which will include a session about Poseidon. ILM Senior VFX Supervisor Dennis Muren will be a panelist covering the art of animation. Also noteworthy is that the VES schedule has been moved up one day.
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The May issue of American Cinematographer magazine has coverage of J.J. Abrams' Mission: Impossible III, which mentions some of ILM's work. Also CGW and Film and Video magazines have extensive coverage of ILM's work in Wolfgang Petersen's Poseidon.
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Cinefex issue 105 is covering the work in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Zathura, Casanova, The Shaggy Dog and two extensive articles on TV VFX work.
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The Wall Street Journal has an extensive article on the rising costs of films and the ever increasing budgets for VFX work. It includes comments from Animation Supervisor Hal Hickel on the Pirates of the Caribbean 2 work, VFX Supervisor Tim Alexander on Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, The Poseidon VFX, 911 calls and facilities like Imageworks and Hydraulx.
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VFXWorld has two articles describing the VFX work in Mission: Impossible III and Poseidon. VFX Supervisors Roger Guyett and Kim Libreri discuss the extensive work ILM did on the films.
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Mental Images has put out a press release detailing how its mental ray renderer was used by ILM for the VFX work in Poseidon.
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Digital Domain has announced that it has been acquired by Wyndcrest Holdings LLC, an investment group led by director Michael Bay and investor John Textor. Scott Ross, the former head of ILM and CEO of Digital Domain is stepping down, though he will remain as consultant.
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Don Daglow, CEO of game company Stormfront, commented that they received help from ILM for the Eragon game, which will be tied to the release of the film.
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Brian Pohl, former pre-vis artist at ILM and now supervisor at POV, will teach a course in Previsualisation & Cinematography as part of the CGWorkshops.
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FXGuide has an article and podcast detailing some of the VFX work ILM did on Wolfgang Petersen's Poseidon, including the digital ship on the opening shot and the fluid simulations of the wave crash. Stanford Assistant Professor, and consultant for ILM, Ron Fedkiw talks about some of the research involved.
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Yahoo! Movies has posted the second trailer for M. Night Shyamalan's Lady in the Water, with VFX provided by ILM.
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The Wall Street Journal has reported that SGI has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. In very sad news Richard "Doc" Baily, a pioneering CG artist that contributed to such films as Fight Club and Solaris, unexpectedly passed away April 20, 2006. And Pixar takeover by Disney has been finalized.