#Best Vfx Academy

[xlmultimediaandanimation]

STUDENT WORK OF XL MULTIMEDIA AND ANIMATION

[yllowpages]

not even trying to be biased but like......

why did john wick 4 not get nominations for best cinematography or best vfx

[arenaanimationin]

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[kaijutegu]

Godzilla Minus One won the Oscar for Best VFX! Right after sweeping the Japanese Academy Awards in all eight of the categories it was nominated for, including Best Picture. It's super exciting to watch a kaiju film get all these wins, especially for the incredible effects Minus One had. We've come a long way since the original foam rubber suit, but you can tell, especially from this installation, that the series hasn't forgotten its roots. As I'm sure many of my internet friends here know, kaiju movies mean a lot to me, and seeing this incredible film garner such international recognition makes me really excited. Here's to seventy more years of the Big G and his continual trail of destruction.

[astoundingbeyondbelief]

Kaiju Week in Review (January 14-20, 2024)

Ultraman Blazar's finale aired on Friday. It was a solid capper to what's easily the best entry in the Ultra Series since I was an undergrad, full of heart and pyrotechnics. There were a few major loose ends—Captain Gento is better at keeping secrets than most hosts—which I'm hoping the movie, due in late February, will address. If you're looking for a place to start with the long-running franchise, it would be one of my first recommendations. Great effects, great cast, tons of new kaiju, and a blend of novelty (lots of focus on the tensions between the defense team and the larger monster-fighting organization; a host who's in charge of said defense team) and returning to form (Blazar yowls plenty but is an Ultra of few words; the power-ups and goofy weapons are kept to a minimum). And even if you don't want to commit to a whole show, episode 22, focusing on a hapless salesman of kaiju insurance, is a must-see for any fan of the genre. There seem to be no worlds left to conquer at Tsuburaya for lead director Kiyotaka Taguchi, so as I've been saying since around 2015: Toho, are you paying attention?

Godzilla Minus One/Minus Color, the regraded black and white version of Godzilla Minus One, is coming to North American theaters for one week starting January 26. Toho's yanking both versions from theaters after February 1—puzzling considering that the film is likely going to be nominated for the Best Visual Effects Oscar tomorrow. Takashi Yamazaki led a Godzilla delegation to the Academy's visual effects "bakeoff", in which voters watch highlights from the ten shortlisted films and their VFX teams explain their work. IndieWire reports that Yamazaki's presentation drew the most applause, describing Minus One as the "potential frontrunner." The Hollywood Reporter likes its chances too. Nominations will be announced starting at 8:30 AM EST. The Creator seems to be its biggest competition.

Godzilla Minus One also recently cleared $50 million at the U.S. box office, in the process passing the first Demon Slayer as the highest-grossing Japanese-language film ever released in the U.S. Some outlets are reporting that it's the highest-grossing Japanese film ever released here, which isn't accurate; the English-dubbed Pokémon: The First Movie made almost $86 million back in 1999. (And I think it's plausible that something like Rodan or Godzilla vs. Megalon would be the champ if you figured out how much they grossed and adjusted for inflation.)

Justice League vs. Godzilla vs. Kong #4 brought Godzilla and Tiamat to Atlantis, forcing Aquaman to release the Kraken to defend his city. Incredibly, this is the third Kraken associated with the Monsterverse, after Na Kika (called Kraken when it was introduced in the King of the Monsters novelization) and the main antagonist of the Skull Island cartoon. I'm guessing it's going to have a shorter lifespan than either of them though.

In other Godzilla comic news, IDW will be putting out another intriguing one-shot in May, titled Godzilla: Mechagodzilla 50th Anniversary. Past comics from the publisher have included multiple Mechagodzilla models, but this one seems to be going above and beyond. Rich Douek is writing; Andrew Lee Griffith is illustrating. The logline:

For 50 years, the King of the Monsters, Godzilla, has gone toe to toe with its robotic doppelgänger, Mechagodzilla! As an intrepid reporter profiles the history of Mechagodzilla and its creator before the launch of the newest model, he finds himself entangled in a much deeper conspiracy. A decades-spanning adventure celebrating the mechanical monster's milestone!

One of master kaiju illustrator Shinji Nishikawa's books will receive an English translation courtesy of Titan Books. Awkwardly titled Godzilla: The Encyclopedia of Godzilla, the Japanese edition included over 100 full-bodied illustrations of various Godzilla series kaiju and analyses of their designs (alongside plenty of Nishikawa's trademark chibis). I'm sold, suffice to say.

Ryo Momota, director of the short tokusatsu film Revive! Smile Rock Giant God, has put the whole thing on YouTube with English subtitles for your amusement. It posits that a real rock formation outside of Tamano City will come to life to help its citizens in their hour of need. Very low-budget.

Kaiju Brooklyn is a one-day con that began filling a longtime void for East Coast kaiju fans last year. Here's the first major piece of news about their June 1 event: they'll be screening The Return of Godzilla outdoors at day's end. Consider me highly tempted.

Kaiju United has a new, wide-ranging interview with Barry Goldberg, webmaster of the legendary Barry's Temple of Godzilla. That fan site was my first window into the wider world of Godzilla in the early 2000s, and it's only been updated a few times since, so I was pretty interested to read how its creator was doing. Don't get your hopes up for a revival: he's still a Godzilla fan (loved Minus One, Shin not so much), but has moved on to other things. Great insights from a Big Name Fan who stayed humble.

[confusedspaceotter]

TUA seaon 4 recap because fuck Netflix

Hi if you are reading this welcome to I hate Steve Blackman/Netflix but I still wanna know what happened in The Umbrella Academy season 4 club, couple things I should probably warn you before we begin

spoilers ahead(just in case you didn’t read the title this IS the pissing on the poor website

I will be very angry and biased because Netflix took the wife and kids i will hate this guy forever I’m really good at remembering a grudge(no hate to the cast tho they did their very best and defo deserve more

In this recap I will go over the main plots of season 4 with a brief mention of the side plots, do beware some of the plot/shit characters did makes absolutely no sense but hey I'm just the messenger please be mad at Netflop for that

Season 4 Episode 1, The Unbearable Tragedy of Getting What You Want(aka us getting season 4 but only 6 episodes)

After loosing their powers when they came back to the main timeline last season, the brellies have lived the past 6 years somewhat peacefully, Luther is a stripper now, Diego and Lila is married with 3 kids, Allison is now a B list celebrity living with Claire, Klaus is sober and a germaphobe, Five is working for the CIA(bro is too busy working to cut his hair i hate it), Ben is a crypto scammer who just got out of prison, Viktor owns a bar and keeps getting dumped by girls(sure whatever)

The new big bad this season is a pair of wacky scientists named Gene and Jean, they are the leader of this cult called The Keepers who are trying to make “The Cleanse” happen, which is just a fancy name for the apocalypse.

Okay so basically this episode Vikor got kidnapped by random guy(I’m not even gonna mention his name he’s just here for plot so I don’t care about him) on his way to Diego and Lila’s kids birthday party, the siblings go and rescue him, random guy said hey actually i'm a big fan of yall if you can rescue my daughter Jennifer from a remote location I will be forever grateful, the group was like nah we are actually powerless now but Five was like wait we are doing this your welcome because he found a bottle of marigold(the thing that gives them their powers) in the belongs of the missing daughter, after this they went to dinner and Ben drugged everyone (except Klaus coz he didn't drink it) with the Marigold so now they are gonna get their powers back.

there's also this side plot where Lila and Five went undercover to investigate The keepers, Lila didn't tell Diego so he thought Lila was cheating on him with some guy whos actually just Five(buddy you are not gonna believe this in like 4 episodes this came true I hate it here)

Season 4 Episode 2, Jean and Gene(they were a cute couple but they will NEVER be Hazel and Cha Cha)

After they got their powers back they went to find random guy but he's missing, leaving a hint about New Grumpson, Maine so the siblings went there roadtrip style(their car also blasting baby shark non stop its not relevant to the plot i just think is funny), the siblings arrived to this small town, Ben was like you know what I’m done with yall bye, when he tries to leave he met Jennier in disguise, they have a chat, fall in love immediately(talk about speed dating am i right), the towns people learned that the siblings are here for Jennier so they pull the guns out and starts shooting,turns out they are all working for deadbeat dad of the century Reginbald Flopgreeves, so the siblings fight with their new and slightly improved superpowers(that apparently drained the vfx budget because the final big bad is ugly asf??? the same show that gives us Pogo?? whatever man)

Meanwhile Klaus was chilling in the car, a fake Jennifer who's pretending to be the real Jennifer asks Klaus for help, then shoots him before the siblings can stop her, Klaus told the siblings he doesn't want to get his powers back and dies, but Allison don’t take no for an answer and water board klaus with the marigold, Klaus came back from the dead, and then Jean and Gene crash into the siblings, kidnapping Jennier.

Back to the Lila Diego Five cheating side plot (ugh), during the roadtrip, Diego tells Five he thinks Lila is cheating on him, Five is like don't worry about it buddy it won’t happen for another 3 episodes (okay the last part was me but Five did tell Diego it’s probably nothing) and Lila overheads their conversation and thank Five for not exposing her GIRL JUST TELL YOUR HUSBAND STOP BEING SHADY *sigh*

Oh and Five keeps teleporting to this subway station that have trains going to different timelines but we never found out who the fuck build this so dont ask me idk either

Season 4 Episode 3, The Squid and the Girl (The plot and the holes because nothing makes any sense anymore)

We start with a flashback to young Jennifer being rescued from giant squid but WE NEVER GOT THE EXPLINATION GIRL WHY ARE YOU INSIDE THAT FUCKING SQUID so we are just gonna move on focus people we are half way though the season shit is about to go down(unfortunately)

After Jean and Gene kidnapped Jennifer, the siblings starting doing what they do best, arguing with each other, this is when Klaus give us the greatest summary of the show,

Klaus then leaves the group, Ben also was like nah fam im out for real and then leaves. The remaining siblings decided to split into two groups, Five Diego Lila went to The Keepers HQ to investigate, Viktor Luthor Allison went to find dear old dad Reggaeton Hargriefs. So Diego finds out that The Keepers have a document about Brellie!Ben’s death aka The Jennifer Incident.

Ben who’s getting tf out, discovers he got hand mouth foot disease with rgb red lights on his hand(see kids this is why you don't touch hands with girls before you get married) random guy pops out and was like bro did you find my daughter, Ben was like yeah I did and I also fall in love with her, random guy was like good good now use your squidar to find her so Ben did just that and rescue Jennifer from Jean and Gene.

For Viktor Luther Allison, they went to a giant mansion that their father owns, expecting to have to fight their way in, but the guards there are like, ah yes master Vikor please welcome in we have been waiting for you, turns out in this timeline Abigail, Rickroll Harkonnen’s wife was still alive and is the one who runs the house + her husband, so the kids were like ma’am your husband is a dick to us in another timeline can you tell him to shut up and help us, she agreed and he obeyed.Now the kids(Luther Allison Diego and Viktor) are putting on their thinking caps to restore their memory of The Jennifer Incident(because dead old dad erased their memory of it talk about childhood erasure)

*sigh* so the Five Diego Lila subplot, when Diego was investigating in the Keepers HQ, Five and Lila blink to the subway station, they got on a train and went to the original apocalypse but five was just like meh guess this wasn’t THAT traumatic pffff I only got stuck here for 40 years no biggie anyway time to get on the train and go home I guess, this shouldn’t affect me in any shape of form given that you know I’m so calm and collected when I first got here :))))))))) yes i'm being sarcastic NO ONE should be this calm and collected here okay.

Diego and Lila also talk things out, Lila apologizes and then says she wants to take a break from their marriage(sure lady whatever

no im NOT even gonna mention what Klaus has been up to, for me he went home to Claire bear and talk shit out with her end of story.

Season 4 Episode 4, The Cleanse (maybe why the Keepers what to make the cleanse happen so badly is because they saw ep 5 and be like nope go to hell yall)

We got a flashback to what happened with brellie!Ben, turns out he was murder by Regglodocus Hippocampus, our beloathed deadbeat dad of the century on a mission where the umbrella academy is securing a package(Jennifer in a box) but they touch hands so bro just straight up kills them both in front of the siblings(bro can we delete you from existence I hate this man with a passion)

The siblings are obviously pissed, AbiFail then explained that it's not her asshole husbands fault, years ago she created the marigold and unknowingly also created Durango, when these two particles touch hands, its gonna end the world for the billionth time(aka the cleanse), this also what happened to their homeworld, and it's gonna end earth if they don't separate Ben and Jennifer(because she got a shitton of durango in her).

Ridiculous Hepatitis then said we must go to kill one of them to stop the world from dying and Viktor is like NOT ON MY WATCH I WILL SAVE BEN and they have a little showdown, Vikor wins(duh) and they are like let's just check this crime scene Ben created last episode when he came to save Jennier okayyy.

The siblings got there + flop dad, Lila told Five hey what if we go back in time with the trains and stop the Jennifer incident from happening in the first place and five is like alright bet, but we cant tell Diego for plot reasons so Imma tell my CIA boss to take Luther and Diego to CIA HQ and babysit them( sis just tell him Diego might be a dumbass but he’s a dumbass that listens smh)

Anyway the siblings split into teams again, Viktor and Renaissance Harrypotter went to track Ben and Jennifer, Five and Lila got on the time train, Luther and Diego were at the CIA, Allison went to save Klaus from the TUA writers.

oh and Ben and Jennier fucks and it kills everyone within the radius lmao

Season 4 Episode 5, Six years, Five months, and two days ( just end my suffering rn)

We start with a montage of Five and Lila being stuck in train hell, unable to find the right train home so they are kinda just traveling from timelines to timelines, they decide to stop and stay in one of them with a strawberry farm(ew), and the most terrible thing ever fucking happend, apprently in these six years they caught feelings and they kissed fucking hell son of the bitch steve blakman I am in your fucking walls I fucking hate it here why can’t good thing last fuck off five would NEVER do this to his siblings this motherfucker spend 40 years and the entirety of season two trying to save his siblings why the fuck would he kiss his sister in law I hate it here

also #justicefordolores

BUT this isnt it

One day he went out for scraps and he found his old note book with the instructions on how to get home, he stashes it and only tell Lila about it 5 fucking months later

5 FUCKING MONTHS

I don't even know what to say let's just get over it okay

so yeah after this they call things off and just went home

Back to Vikor, he calls Ben with the help of dad and tells him hey buddy you have to stop the world and stop your feelings for Jennifer because you are gonna end the world if you stay with her, Ben refuses saying that he’s never been better(sure buddy) Ben and Jennifer plans to run away but Jennifer felt sick so they stop and went to a random mall to hide/ask for help.

Luther and Diego did absolutely nothing in CIA HQ and they realized they were being babysat so they dipped, oh and they also fought a bunch of people in the process which is cool I guess.

Season 4 Episode 6, End of the Beginning(thank fuck is over I’m freeee)

The Keepers are guarding the mall that Ben and Jennifer are in because they are stupid. Viktor and dad arrived at the scene, Viktor convinced dad to let him extract the durango out of Ben so he doesn’t have to kill him, dad said yeah sure whatever man, so Viktor sneaks in the building.

Meanwhile the rest of the siblings gathered at Lila and Diego’s house, Diego clock those cheating bitches immediately and Diego confronts Lila and she finally confesses but before he could beat the shit out of Five, they saw what's going on with Ben on the news and went to the mall.

Vikor got into the building, Ben is now a glowing clay human hybrid(ewwwww

Vikor tries to extract the durango out of Ben but he ran out of time, Dad’s sniper shoots Ben but before it hits, Jennifer and Ben touch hands for one last time and they transforms into ugly cgi clay monster big bad of the season(like wtf is this

the sibling starts fighting the Bennifer monster, Diego and Five didn’t get the memo so they fought each other instead.

So yeah we are fucked, AbiFail told Ratsass Hankercheif shes the one behind the keepers and she’s trying to right her wrongs by ending the world this way(selfish prick) and Reggie said alight that defo excuses every shitty thing you do man I got a really good wife and they both got sucked into the Bennifer monster(your redemption arc flopped btw I still hate you)

The siblings went back to the academy, thinking about what they can do to stop the Bennifer monster, Five went to the train station again, and discovers a deli run by other Fives, and one of the five told him babes, we are NEVER gonna succeed in stopping the apocalypse because the timeline is broken(it's only supposed to be one) and the existence of marigold is what shattered the timeline so we gotta gotta get sucked into the Bennifer monster and volia marigold + durango = kaboom(they will cancel each other out) BUT the siblings will cease to exist(coz their mum got exposed to marigold and birthed them so no marigold no siblings)

Lila and Allison decided to ship their children and family to the train station and send them on one of the trains to create a paradox I mean to protect them and the siblings got absorbed by the Bennifer monster, the timeline was fixed, none of us are happy, we ended up worse than we started.

The END.

hope yall are okay after reading this, no hate towards the cast whatsoever I 100% blame the writer and Netflix for this , fuck them and uh here’s a virtual hug to yall, peace out.

[weclassybouquetfun]

Awards season is inching to a close with the last gasp of screenings coming up the week of January 8th. My favourite movie of the year is SALTBURN and Amazon-MGM is holding three screenings of it on the same day to end its FYC run. The same night Disney finally remembers THE CREATOR exists and is having a screening/Q&A with its director Gareth Edwards.

Notable award season dates:

Jan. 6th-7th: The Creative Arts Emmys. This is the portion of the Emmys that awards the winners of the Outstanding Guest Star category. TED LASSO has four in this category: Three who have all been previously nominated for their roles on the show: Harriet Walter, Sarah Niles and Sam Richardson; and newbie Becky Ann Baker as Dottie Lasso.

If James Lance wasn't promoted to regular, surely he would have received and likely won a S3 nomination in this category.

James and his hair situation with his fellow voice-over artists for the BBC Radio 4 show "We Forced a Bot to Write This Show".

Jan. 7th: The Golden Globes

Prayer circles for Barry Keoghan and Rosamund Pike for their work in SALTBURN and TED LASSO, Jason Sudeikis and Hannah Waddingham.

Wed. Jan. 10: The SAG-AFTRA awards nominations

Sun. Jan 14th: The Critics Choice Awards . Hate that there was no love for TED LASSO and that SALTBURN actors and the script was ignored (but at least the artisans were recognized).

They were robbed!

Really pulling for Da'Vine Joy Randolph of THE HOLDOVERS, Charles Melton of MAY DECEMBER and for Young Actor/Actress, Milo Machada Graner for ANATOMY OF THE FALL.

If Milo wasn't this category, I would be rooting for THE HOLDOVERS' Dominic Sessa who is in the same category. Though, Sessa will very likely win.

Mon. Jan 15th: The Primetime Emmys. We have nods for Jason Sudeikis, Hannah Waddingham, Juno Temple, Brett Goldstein, Phil Dunster, nods for outstanding writing, directing, editing,production design, VFX, hairstyling, original music & lyrics and series. I am just hoping for some wins.

Thurs. Jan. 18th: The BAFTA Film Awards nominations.

Tues. Jan 23rd: The Academy Awards nominations

During this time Sundance Film Festival will be live (Jan 18th-28th) ,there we will likely get a couple of presumptive nominees for 2024-2025 film awards season.

Tues. Jan. 23: Academy Awards nominations. I'm a broken record. I'm all in on SALTBURN, especially hoping for nominations for Barry Keoghan and Rosamund Pike.; and one for Best Film. But as I was all in on BABYLON last year and it got goose eggs, no film should want me as a fan.

I'm hoping for JA Bayona's SOCIETY OF THE SNOW gets a nom and win for Best International.

And as France didn't submit ANATOMY OF A FALL (I assume there's too much English spoken for it to qualify), I hope it gets the same love last year's ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT received and it's put up for Best Picture.

Sun. Feb. 18: BAFTA Awards.

Sat. Feb. 24: Screen Actors Guild Awards

Sun. Feb. 25: Spirit AwardsSun. Mar. 10: Academy Awards

Then we pause until late April and Emmy season kicks right up again and we continue the dance.

[tangibletechnomancy]

The problem with AI and the entertainment industry in particular is that...okay, fine, technology marches on. Digital art made physical ink-on-cels animation into mostly a hobbyist novelty (though boy howdy did it ever make it an impressive one). Photography turned portrait painting into a luxury, rather than something everyone who could afford it saved to do at least once for every family member because it was the only way to keep their likenesses alive. Photo editing has gone through so many changes that it's almost unrecognizable compared to what it looked like as recently as the 80s and 90s, and the older methods are, again, super impressive hobbyist passion projects now. Digital painting made physical painting less viable in an economy of scale, but way more impressive as an art form. These kinds of changes always really fucking suck for some people, but you can't really prevent them without stifling human development in general.

But.

The entertainment industry wants to make it suck way more than it has to for everyone but their executives and shareholders. They want to have their cake and eat it too. They want to take advantage of the inherent marketing power of celebrity culture without ACTUALLY involving, let alone paying, the people whose names and likenesses they're using. That, I hope we can all agree, is vile.

Now, the logical endpoint of this is that we push back against that, and as an alternative we get more fictional celebrities in the near-ish future, and as a Vocaloid fan, theoretically, I dont see much of a problem with that. Theoretically, at least. In the best case scenario, I think it could be a lot of fun! But the problem is, well...

See, in the early days, Vocaloid producers tended to take a very backstage role. Very few people were fans of specific producers; they were fans of Miku or any other character. Eventually, though, producers just kind of came more into the spotlight on their own because everyone has their own style and taste. We still love the characters, but we all started to notice when half our favorite songs by Miku were produced by the same person, well, perhaps we were fans of that producer as well!

But in American-born entertainment culture...

You may notice that CGI was conspicuously absent from my Technology Marches On breakdown. That's because while, yes, it has made for an interesting highlight of practical effects, with love for the work and nostalgia for their jank the same way other new art media has shone a spotlight on its predecessors, it hasn't actually gotten to be recognized as an art form the way the others listed have. We've barely moved on from the attitude that got Tron disqualified from the Academy Awards for SFX because "the computer did those effects, not you" (in 1982). In fact, I'm strongly of the belief that if Disney were a halfway decent company, they would be bragging about how they're pioneering photorealistic animation, rather than trying to pass off 90+% CGI animated films, usually (but not always; see: The Lion King remake) with live celebrity actors' faces composited in, as "live-action". Instead, they treat the VFX department as mindless dancing monkeys, and perpetuate the idea that VFX is just "select material, press button, get polished scene" - because to brag about it as its own art form might imply that the people doing it are skilled artists who deserve to be paid fairly and treated like human beings, and oh, we can't have THAT, now can we?

VFX labor is all hidden; very few people have a favorite VFX artist or director, instead we treat the artists, who put the time and effort into wrangling code and semiconductors and routines and layers into creating a professional-looking end product, as just part of the machine themselves, to save the companies some money - and culturally, I fear we're well on the way to regarding AI exactly the same way but worse.

As such, I fear that we wouldn't have the same effect with any digital idols produced by Silicon Valley.

Now, I don't fear virtual celebrities being able to fully replace human ones. Half of the draw of celebrity culture is the illusion of human connection. As much as the word "parasociality" has grown to be associated with only the negative effects of this, in reality, it's also the driving mechanism behind why representation matters. It's fun to be able to feel a connection to a fictional celebrity, but it doesn't replace the feeling of knowing that your fave is a human being with a real life - ...whether you use that knowledge for better or worse.

What I do fear is the fight against using AI to replicate real humans without their input, or with their manufactured consent, being long and drawn-out and doing a lot of harm before we can fully put a lock on it, and virtual celebrities being used to hide the work that the human directors and producers put into them for the sake of saving a parent company a buck.

[maximumwobblerbanditdonut]

Cillian Murphy Named Best Actor at Irish Academy Awards pictured at the IFTA Awards 2024 at the Dublin Royal Convention Centre. Picture: Brian McEvoy

Agnes O'Casey won Lead Actress for Lies We Tell

Cillian Murphy wins Lead Actor, Agnes O'Casey wins Lead Actress while KIN picks up five awards including Best Drama at Irish Film and Television Awards 2024.

Clare Dunne won the IFTA for Lead Actress for KIN

KIN star Clare Dunne took her third IFTA when she won the award for Lead Actress in a Drama in a category which also included Sharon Horgan for Best Interests, Niamh Algar for Malpractice and Caitriona Balfe for Outlander.

Full list of IFTA 2024 winners:

Film Categories

BEST FILM

That They May Face the Rising Sun

DIRECTOR - FILM

Lies We Tell - Lisa Mulcahy

SCRIPT - FILM

Lies We Tell - Elisabeth Gooch

LEAD ACTOR - FILM

Cillian Murphy - Oppenheimer

LEAD ACTRESS - FILM

Agnes O'Casey - Lies We Tell

SUPPORTING ACTOR - FILM

Paul Mescal - All of Us Strangers

SUPPORTING ACTRESS - FILM

Alison Oliver - Saltburn

DRAMA CATEGORIES

BEST DRAMA

KIN

DIRECTOR - DRAMA

KIN - Kate Dolan

SCRIPT - DRAMA

KIN - Peter McKenna

LEAD ACTOR - DRAMA

Éanna Hardwicke - The Sixth Commandment

LEAD ACTRESS - DRAMA

Clare Dunne - KIN

SUPPORTING ACTOR - DRAMA

Richard Dormer - Blue Lights

SUPPORTING ACTRESS - DRAMA

Maria Doyle Kennedy - KIN

BEST INTERNATIONAL FILM

Oppenheimer

BEST INTERNATIONAL ACTOR

Paul Giamatti - The Holdovers

BEST INTERNATIONAL ACTRESS

Emma Stone - Poor Things

GEORGE MORRISON FEATURE DOCUMENTARY

The Days of Trees

LIVE-ACTION SHORT FILM

Calf

ANIMATED SHORT FILM

Wind & The Shadow

CRAFT CATEGORIES

CINEMATOGRAPHY

Poor Things - Robbie Ryan

COSTUME DESIGN

LOLA - Lara Campbell

PRODUCTION DESIGN

A Haunting in Venice - John Paul Kelly

HAIR & MAKE-UP

The Pope's Exorcist - Orla Carroll, Lynn Johnston

SOUND

Barbie - Nina Rice

ORIGINAL MUSIC

LOLA - Neil Hannon

EDITING

Still: A Michael J Fox Movie - Michael Harte

VFX

Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves - Kev Cahill, Diana Giogiutti

#IFTA Awards

Posted 20th April 2024

[vidreview]

VIDREV: "NO CGI is really just INVISIBLE CGI" by The Movie Rabbit Hole

[originally posted march 19th 2024]

like a lot of folks, i've grown weary of the preponderance of CGI in Hollywood flicks these days. it's all but a cultural tradition at this point to watch John Carpenter's The Thing, sigh wistfully at the goopy silicone animatronics, and say "man, you couldn't make anything like this today." the Marvel/Disney machine has done a lot of heavy lifting to engender this perspective, particularly in the cape department where every aspect of the film is under intense and non-negotiable executive revision until quite literally days before theatrical release (as was the case with Marvel's The Marvels). it doesn't help that this shift has a lot less to do with what's best for any given movie, and a hell of a lot more to do with the lack of unionization in the visual effects industries making them a readily exploitable source of labor. in such an environment, films that nevertheless lean on practical effects are enticing (and, quite often, demonstrably better) enough that we'll sing their praises to the point of hyperbole.

enter Jonas of The Movie Rabbit Hole, here with a genuinely essential series of video essays to slap some sense into that hyperbole and bring us all back down to earth.

one of the more important directors for the development of unobtrusive CGI is David Fincher. i have my fair share of issues with his films, but credit where it's due: they're constantly pushing technology in ways that you absolutely would not expect. there's a crane shot at the start of The Social Network that couldn't be shot with a crane for safety reasons, so instead it was stitched together in post from footage taken on multiple 4K cameras at once. a shocking majority of the blood you'll see in his movies is CGI. the praise i've portioned for his recent films, even as i find him sort of a fundamentally anti-human director, is that he understands that visual effects work best as a supplement to existing footage, rather than a pure replacement.

i share all this to underline my use of the word "essential" in describing this series. i worked in film for a few years, i went to film school, i try to understand the production process as pragmatically as possible. i am under no illusions that Christopher Nolan flicks or the John Wick movies are totally practical. i'm not an anti-CGI evangelist! and yet, even then, i had NO idea just how wrongheaded i still was on the subject until i watched these videos.

Jonas brings 18 years of visual effects experience to bear on a series that feels very much like him trying to settle an argument he's been having for about as long. he has countless examples of films praised for their lack of CGI that relied heavily on their CGI, using the demo reels of effects houses as the smoking gun. Jonas speaks with a plain matter-of-fact-ness that's bolstered just so by an edge of smug frustration, the kind you only get after bearing a cross for years. but it's not just an "i'm right, you're wrong" affair by any stretch. Jonas does a fantastic job communicating a lot of complicated subjects in ways that are friendly to even the most casual of viewers, rarely blaming the audience for their ignorance when studios and market trends are the real culprit. and because he's a veteran of the industry, he's able to interview prominent figures that would otherwise be inaccessible for the average essayist, like Academy Award winning VFX supervisor Paul Franklin.

(and here we come up against a question countenanced more than once on this blog-- where is the line between video essay and documentary? i think this readily qualifies as the former given the first-person direct address shot-in-his-living-room style, yet somehow i feel a bit uneasy with the classification. oh well, a topic for another day)

the most eye-opening section for me is also one of the first, where Jonas confronts the public image of Top Gun: Maverick. i haven't seen this film yet, but i have seen the endless and unqualified buzz about its practical effects. and to be sure, these deserve quite a lot of praise-- they put real actors in real fighter jets for crying out loud! yet in all that crowing, a very important fact totally fell by the wayside: nary a single shot in the film is without digital manipulation. and not just in the basic touch-up sense, removing safety anachronisms and the like. the jets, the cockpits, and the actors themselves were all extensively replaced with digital doubles! i felt like an utter fool when he pointed out that quite often films praised for their lack of CGI will have more VFX artists credited than any other department in production. like, holy shit, it's all right there on the screen? what job were those hundreds of people doing if it was "all practical effects"?

which is the crux of the series' title: "NO CGI is really just INVISIBLE CGI." we have --or perhaps it'd be more honest to say i have-- a tendency to address CGI in binaristic terms. either it's there, or it's not there, right? Fincher's team can put digital blood running down Daniel Craig's face in the shower after he gets shot in The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, but it's Craig's physical presence that sells it. a film like Top Gun: Maverick makes its bones marketing the spectacle, and because there's such fatigue with CGI-heavy blockbusters any mention of intermediary visual effects carries with it a stain on the authenticity. but really, it does nothing to diminish the practical nature of the photography to also acknowledge how much of what makes it to cinemas is, essentially, an extremely realistic cartoon.

and this is what Jonas's series really exposes for me. a lot of what we're looking at here is rotoscoping, the longstanding tradition of animating over top of live footage a la Disney's Snow White in 1937, though the technique was truly mastered by Max Fleischer in the 1910s. is there some gradeschool nag whispering in the back of our head that a rotoscope is just elaborate tracing? that it's a cheat, because "real" animation is done without reference? (for anyone who has actually worked in animation, this is your cue to laugh derisively)

but the truth is that you do not get one without the other. it takes a lot of planning to film a scene with an eye towards being reanimated, just as it takes tremendous skill to make that animation look good. if Top Gun: Maverick feels viscerally real, it is because the visual effects artists had a real reference to work from. one is not inherently better than the other, more pure or authentic. this isn't the 80s anymore, man. i mean, to get real fucking technical, the instant we stopped shooting on film was the death of "true practicality" in cinema, because a digital sensor must by its nature interpret visual information as raw data and then translate it to something we'd recognize as an image. celluloid film is purely optical, but a digital sensor requires someone (or a team of someones) to write an algorithm to do that interpreting-- which is, inherently, subjective. different cameras have different image processing algorithms, different bitrates and dynamic ranges, to say nothing of custom LUTs and the extensive post-processing required to make RAW footage not look like complete ass. and even now, celluloid cannot be said to be truly pure, because any film shot on celluloid is then digitally scanned, subjected to the exact same post production processing as any other digital film, the final product re-scanned to celluloid to give it a true filmic look, and then yet again digitized for wide distribution (because most cinemas today only have digital projectors).

this is not A Bad Thing! it is simply the material reality of film production in the 21st century. it has many upstream and downstream effects, of course, many of which have negatively impacted the quality of films and television in various ways-- but these are not qualities inherent to digital technology! rather, they are the result of a profit-seeking industry eager to cut corners wherever possible. the existence of CGI is not to blame for the bad CGI in Marvel movies, it's the greedy executives exploiting non unionized labor, forcing crunch at every level with no regard for the human cost, endlessly meddling in the production with their indecisive market-analysis driven brand alterations. ah, the age of the executive auteur, when at last the soulless corporate mindset once commonly decried by artists and audiences alike has been fully naturalized and even embraced by people who call themselves fans, who would sooner throw a director under the bus than say a bad word about Kevin fucking Feige.

it's a pathetic state of affairs, and it can only be called a brilliant act of marketing that CGI burnout in the public has been leveraged to only further erase the essential labor of visual effects artists. Jonas here even points out, much to my slack-jawed amazement, that promotional behind the scenes footage today frequently removes green screens and other indicators of a digital-forward production as a way of unduly acquiring practical effects credibility. as someone who watches a lot of these BTS features, i feel lied to and manipulated, and ashamed of myself for not realizing that making-ofs are just as much marketing as they are educational, often moreso by a lot. it's all just an illusion! and it cannot be repeated often enough that this is an erasure of a historically under-unionized industry, one whose exploitation has been thoroughly documented for years. that this erasure is occurring at a moment when finally, finally, finally corners of the visual effects world have begun to shed the libertarian values inherited from the tech industry and actually unionize is pretty fucking conspicuous to say the least.

i call these videos essential because they reveal a tremendous blind spot in our media literacy, even among those like myself who've studied media extensively. we are, generally, pretty good at identifying the weaknesses in a finished film, but our lack of experience and our credulity towards marketing that doesn't feel like marketing leads us to utterly fail when we attempt to diagnose their cause. when our analysis lacks an understanding of the material conditions of production, as informed by firsthand accounts of those who actually do the work, we cannot help but embarrass ourselves and in so doing blatantly misinform our audiences.

it didn't used to be like this. i remember the late 90s and early aughts, when joints like ILM were praised for their innovations. how often do you hear about VFX houses today? probably only when they go bankrupt. it's such a shame, because what Jonas does in these videos most of all is reveal just how astonishing the work of visual effects artists actually is. these are the perils of an industry whose job is to be invisible, which is why it's so important that their labor be made visible after the fact, celebrated rather than papered over, analyzed extensively rather than mentioned offhand. the truth is that quite a lot of us have been boldly, profoundly wrong about CGI in movies for a long time, and we're well past due for a correction of the record.

all of which is to say that these are some really great videos and you should absolutely go watch them right now

NOTE FROM THE FUTURE: episode 4 came out and it's also great.

[captain-mako]

Godzilla Minus One won Best VFX at The Academy Awards!

I'm so freaking happy about this! The King of the Monsters is almost 70 years old and this is his first Hollywood Oscar win!

I wonder what those who have worked on the Godzilla films but have since passed away think of the win. What does Ishiro Honda think? Ifukube? Tanaka? Nakajima?

I hope that, wherever they are, they are happy about the win and getting recognized by the west, not as monster movies, but for the cinema they are.

[xlmultimediaandanimation]

STUDENT WORK OF XL MULTIMEDIA AND ANIMATION

[deanpinterester]

a while back i said i wanted to do some kind of essay / video on why something like james cameron's Avatar doesn't "count" as an animated movie despite it being 90% computer-generated imagery. this, especially as it pertains to award shows like the oscars.

i don't think i have enough concrete material for some kind of long informative video, but the gist of the matter is this: not only does motion capture not count as animation according to the academy awards' rule book, you also have to opt IN to the animation category, not opt OUT.

this meaning that if you want your movie to be nominated in the animation category, you have to prove that the movie is, in fact, at least 75% animated in a frame-by-frame manner. so as long as cameron doesn't even try to opt into the animation category (which he wouldn't want to, seeing as he considers Avatar live action), then his movie just simply wouldn't "count" as an animated movie in the awards. if he really, really, really wanted to defend why his performance capture movie counted as animation, and he did have a really, really, really good argument, i think he could have done it. he could have gotten Avatar into the best animated feature category. but he didn't want to, and thus, it wasn't.

the question though now comes to: why ISN'T mocap considered animation? and how COULD you defend its inclusion in the animation category?

a lot of this will come down to personal opinion. i think it's in a very grey area, and a lot of it will be on a case-by-case basis.

you could point out that mocap isn't 100% dependent on just information gathered from the actors on the capture stage. animators will have to go in afterwards and tweak the performance. in this clip on the behind-the-scenes on the video game The Last of Us, an animator explains an instance where the actor couldn't put his full weight onto the set (given that it is, in fact, made of pipes), and so the animator had to go in and add more weight to the motion. this is not the only instance of animators having to change the performance; as they explain, real-life motions don't always translate well into the game, and all the captured date is sent off the animators to be cleaned up.

(i do want to point out that this game is a decade old, and performance capture has for sure improved over the years, but i don't doubt that the captured date still has to be cleaned up by animators in new productions.)

does this "cleaning up" count as "real" animation? how do you quantify this within the "75% animated" rule that the academy has? it's a lot of wonky math, but i'm sure if you really wanted to do it and argue that 75% of the final product HAS been touched by animation, you could. would the academy listen? that's questionable.

but we've only discussed performances so far. what about everything else? in a movie like Avatar, it's not just the actors that are computer-generated. it's everything else, too. the environment. the creatures. the props. most of these things can't be motion-captured. they have to be animated and/or simulated.

a big-budget action movie being comprised of mostly VFX is very normal. we all know that superhero movies basically rely on VFX nowadays for their bombastic showdowns and fantastical landscapes. but at least those are in the context of live-action actors. when they're in the context of characters who are also VFX, then that feels a little like. okay. so this whole movie is just computer-generated. it feels like less than 25% of it is properly live action. what exactly separates this from an animated movie like Marcel The Shell, nominated for best animated feature the same year as Avatar 2, which has stop-motion characters existing in the real world alongside live-action actors? does it really just come down to the fact one is performance-captured and therefore not "real" animation, and one is stop-motion, which IS an accepted form of animation?

(the answer is yes, if we go by academy rules.)

[vfxexpress]

Godzilla Minus One -Takes the Crown: Best VFX Oscar Winner!

In a stunning display of visual effects prowess, “Godzilla Minus One” emerged triumphant at the 96th Academy Awards, securing the prestigious Best Visual Effects Oscar. The film’s groundbreaking achievements in visual storytelling propelled it to the forefront of cinematic excellence, overshadowing formidable contenders including “The Creator,” “Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One,”…

[mylifeincinema]

My Week(s) in Reviews: March 9, 2024

My brain is already on the Oscars, so these may be even quicker than usual...

Dune: Part Two (Denis Villeneuve, 2024)

I too would immediately forget Zendaya exists the second Florence Pugh walked in the room. Aside from some issues with the pacing that are probably rather nit-picky (some scenes felt rushed while others seemed to draaaaaag), this was a technical beast. Once again, the casting is just stellar, and the cinematography and VFX are straight-up stunning. Crazy cult-leader-villain Rebecca Ferguson is always the best Rebecca Ferguson. (I'd follow Rose the Hat to the depths of hell.) This is a much more action-heavy piece compared to the first, and it's significantly better for it. The chosen-one stuff is interesting, but not as interesting as the struggle for control over Arrakis. Really, the only things I really didn't love were those pacing issues and the fact that Florence Pugh & Christopher Walken didn't have more screen-time. Yeah, not much else to say, specifically. - 9/10

Nimona (Nick Bruno & Troy Quane, 2023)

Had a bunch of fun with it, but the changes made from the graphic novel really weren't for the better, and the movie Nimona is significantly more annoying. - 7/10

Hypnotic (Robert Rodriguez, 2023)

Awful. Terrible. Truly embarrassing on every single level. What's even worse, is that the entire cast seems to know this, and watching them try to make sense of their garbage decisions and dialogue is so, so painful. - 1/10

Wonka (Paul King, 2023)

I had a few minor issues with some of the songs and several decisions Chalamet made, but overall this was pretty damn delightful. In general, the cast is having a blast in the most entertaining and interesting way possible, and King knows how to deliver a visually exciting family film. I really wish we didn't lose him for Paddington 3. - 8/10

I also revisited some other Villeneuve films. Dune: Part One in prep for the second one... which I enjoyed significantly more this time around. Then the night after seeing Part Two, I did a double feature of Sicario and Blade Runner 2049. Sicario is every bit as good as it was the several previous times I'd seen it. It's truly a masterful piece of cinema. Blade Runny 2049 wasn't quite as good. It's still pretty damn amazing, but there were some pacing issues that were significantly more apparent this time around. I also revisited David Fincher's Se7en as a palate cleanser after Hypnotic. So damn good, every single time. Then I followed Wonka with the masterpiece that is Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory. Thankfully, this decision didn't make me enjoy Wonka less like I'd worried it might.

Also, I'll be posting my Official Academy Award Predictions either sometime later tonight or tomorrow afternoon. Stay Tuned!

Enjoy!

-Timothy Patrick Boyer.

[astoundingbeyondbelief]

Kaiju Week in Review (March 10-16, 2024)

"It looks as though its Japanese producers, assisted by a stray American—fellow named Terry Morse, who is an alumnus of Hollywood's Poverty Row—made a close study of the old film, "King Kong," then tried to do substantially the same thing with a miniature of a dinosaur made of gum-shoes and about $20 worth of toy buildings and electric trains." —Bosley Crowther, reviewing Godzilla, King of the Monsters! for The New York Times

"The special effects are hardly special, but hey, what do you expect in a Japanese monster movie?" —Tony Kiss, reviewing Godzilla 1985 for the Asheville Citizen-Times

"Sure it's bad filmmaking. Sure it's a guy—actor Tsutomu Kitagawa—clad in a nearly vintage latex Godzilla getup and stomping through Tokyo, knocking down cardboard mini-buildings and upending toy-sized cars with his gnarly feet. But that's the point." —Bob Longino, reviewing Godzilla 2000 for The Palm Beach Post

Godzilla Minus One won the Oscar for Best Visual Effects at the 96th Academy Awards, sending a stunned Takashi Yamazaki (VFX supervisor), Kiyoko Shibuya (VFX director), Masaki Takahashi (3D CG director), and Tatsuji Nojima (VFX artist/compositor) to the Dolby Theatre stage. Said Yamazaki, reading from prepared comments in English, "To someone so far from Hollywood, the possibility of standing on this stage seemed out of reach." I could scarcely believe what I was watching myself, despite having given a presentation for a Wikizilla stream mere hours before on Minus One's very real chances of beating more expensive American contenders. Everything I said about its nomination goes triple for its victory; we'll be talking about this one forever. To those of us who remember when Godzilla was basically a joke in the American consciousness (including my Wikizilla colleague Darthlord1997, who had a speech of his own prepared), it's the ultimate vindication.

Never one to rest on his laurels, Takashi Yamazaki directed an ad for Ajinomoto about food waste which released this week. It features the unsubtly-named Foodlosslla attacking Tokyo and facing an Ultraman-esque defense team. As with Minus One, the ad's visuals are a clever combination of high-end (a detailed CG monster) and low-end (dropping plastic fruit on top of fleeing extras).

Last year, the 4Kids Flashback podcast interviewed Mike Pecoriello, producer and writer for the company's renditions of Yu-Gi-Oh! and Ultraman Tiga, and he delivered some major news about the latter. Although only 23 episodes of Tiga aired in the U.S., 4Kids dubbed the whole thing. At the time of the podcast's recording, he thought he made copies of all the episodes, but while that doesn't seem to be the case, he did provide 4Kids Flashback with the series finale. It's a good deal more serious than the episodes which aired, with the quips kept to a minimum. Let the hunt for the rest commence!

SciFi Japan has details on Kaiju Yarrow, a Japanese comedy doubling as a tourism ad for the city of Seki. The premise is very self-aware:

KAIJU YARROW! is set in Seki City, Gifu Prefecture. One day, 30 year old Ichiro Yamada, who works in the tourism department of a government office, is ordered by the mayor to produce a "local film.'' However, Yamada, didn't want to produce the typical "mediocre local movies'' that are everywhere nowadays, so he comes up with the idea of making a "monster movie'', which has been his life-long dream. However, his dreams develops into a major incident involving the city government...! Will Yamada be able to complete his life goal of making a monster movie??

Junichiro Yagi will direct; YouTuber Gunpee will star. Unknown quantities both when it comes to kaiju, so how this will turn out is anyone's guess.

Tickets for Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire have gone on sale in the U.S.—and as a reminder, the brief GKIDS theatrical release of The End of Evangelion wraps tomorrow.