#weta fx

[fandomnerd9602]

Y/N approaches Mae…

Y/N: I think some small part of me might be primative

Mae: why?

Y/N: because when I’m around you, I go feral

Mae smirks and growls right back at Y/N…

Noa: humans, I will never understand you

[chasingshadowsblog]

Review: Rise of the Planet of the Apes - Don't Talk to Me Or My Son Ever Again

Title: Rise of the Planet of the Apes Directed by: Rupert Wyatt Written by: Ryan Jaffa, Amanda Silver Starring: Andy Serkis, James Franco, John Lithgow, Freida Pinto Visual Effects Supervisors: Dan Lemmon, Daniel Barrett, Joe Letteri and R. Christopher White Visual Effects Team: Wētā FX Year: 2011

I have finally started on my journey with this new era of Planet of the Apes movies and I really enjoyed this first turn. I think a real strength of the plot is the writers keeping the root of Caesar's story very simple: that the mistreatment of him and his kind is what motivates them to leave. I'm very excited to watch the sequel because, while some of the primate characters in this film exhibited agressive behaviour, none of them wanted to go to war with the humans or take over the human world, so I'm fascinated to find out what the turning point is. With that in mind, Rise is an effective kicking-off point as it's a solid standalone sci-fi movie that leaves you wanting more.

Andy Serkis, as usual, is brilliant and I found Caesar to be a really engaging character and a compellingly written hero. After giving us a wonderful dynamic throughout the film Caesar and Will earned their emotional goodbye but it was a scene I felt could have had more heart had it stewed in the characters' emotions a moment longer as well as Will's shock at hearing Caesar speak for the first time. Hearing it for the first time as a viewer when he was in captivity was thrilling.

All in all, this is a well-written, well-made film on its own and as an installment in the franchise, with a compelling build-up in the development of Caesar's intelligence and the introduction of Caesar's character.

Other bits:

I don't know why but I find it really funny that James Franco was in this movie, what was the trajectory of James Franco's career in the early 2010s that made him a lead in the Planet of the Apes reboot?!

I thought the lack of dialogue in the animal control scenes was really well done, not once did I miss it or feel the lack of a human character

I really hated the inclusion of the "damn dirty ape" line and I don't blame Tom Felton's delivery, Lauren­­­ce Ol­­ivier couldn't have done any better with it

all of those apes and chimps and other primates were absolutely justified in what they did, I cannot wait to watch the rest of these movies to see how they develop as a species and community

I'm a really big fan of the original Planet of the Apes so it shouldn't have taken me this long to get into this series but I'm here now and I'm ready for the long haul

[watchingbehindtheeyes]

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJynu8kKavc

[vfxexpress]

Avatar: The Way of Water - Production Design - Breakdown

Avatar: The Way of Water -Avatar 2 is an epic science fiction film directed by Directed by James Cameron and produced by Cameron and Jon Landau, the Lightstorm Entertainment Production stars Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldaña, Sigourney Weaver, Stephen Lang and Kate Winslet. Screenplay by James Cameron & Rick Jaffa & Amanda Silver. Story by James Cameron & Rick Jaffa & Amanda Silver & Josh Friedman &…

[savage-kult-of-gorthaur]

STRAIGHT OUTTA SOUTHERN HARAD -- LIVING, BREATHING, RAMPAGING SIEGE ENGINES.

PIC(S) INFO: Spotlight on the War Mûmamkil and their Haradrim riders, scenes from the War of the Ring and the Battle of the Pelennor Fields as depicted in "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King" (2003), directed by Peter Jackson.

"New forces of the enemy were hastening up the road from the River; and from under the walls came the legions of Morgul; and from the southward fields came footmen of Harad with horsemen before them, and behind them rose the huge backs of the mûmakil with war-towers upon them. But northward the white crest of eomer led the great front of the Rohirrim which he had again gathered and marshalled; and out of the City came all the strength of men that was in it, and the silver swan of Dol Amroth was borne in the van, driving the enemy from the Gate."

-- "THE LORD OF THE RINGS," "The Return of the King," Book V, Chapter VI, written by J.R.R. Tolkien

Source: www.novelforfree.com/the-return-of-the-king_chapter_book-v-chapter-6_1735_199.html.

[snailwitdamail2]

if this doesn't happen what's the point of these new movies honestly

Noa is Caesar's descendant this. Mae is an astronaut that. Ya know what i really want in Kingdom? Grape juice plus.

Bonus points if this time around, an ape is the one to introduce it to a human.

[ape-apocalypse]

Director Wes Ball and Visual Effects Supervisor Erik Winquist shared some step by step images of transforming humans into apes. They said that the crew of Weta FX made vast improvements on performance capture with Avatar The Way Of Water. “From a hardware and technology standpoint, one of the improvements is now we’re using a stacked pair of stereo facial cameras instead of single cameras, which allows us to reconstruct an actual 3D depth mesh of the actors face. It allows us to get a much better sense of the nuance of what their face was doing.”

They also shared some concept art of the post-apocalyptic setting of the film. Winquist shared a book that gave him much inspiration. “One of the things that I was looking at early on was the book ‘The World Without Us’ that hypothesizes what would happen in the weeks, years, decades and centuries after mankind stopped maintaining our infrastructure. You start pulling from your imagination on what that might look like….”

More behind the scenes details were shared in the article on VFX Voice magazine.

[lackeyhenchman]

We ended up going out tonight to see the Oscar-nominated animated shorts... I was pretty skeptical, cos, y'know. Oscars. And yes, virtually every story was centered on some dire thing. But within that space, lots of beautiful and affecting human-centered storytelling. "Ninety-Five Senses" especially bowled us over!

Then this fucking John Lennon "IMAGINE THERE'S NO WAR" Weta FX mess hit the screen like a warm spitball. Oh my god. Oh my god that was so bad. Oh my god. I took off my glasses before the credits rolled. Then we just gaped at each other in gleeful offense. SOPHOMORIC GREETING CARD WITH BLOOD IN IT, OH MY GOD. MULTIPLE PEOPLE WORKED ON THIS. There are Warrior cat animations on youtube with more heart put in. NOMINATE WARRIOR CAT ANIMATIONS FOR THE OSCARS

[cadyrocks]

Everything Everywhere All At Once won 7 Oscars. I can think of at least one extra it very clearly should have won: best visual effects.

I'm serious! As much of a CGI blowout as Avatar was, it was a boring bland mess that wasn't even as visually interesting as Doctor Strange was a few years back.

Ooh, pretty world. Whatever. EEAAO had an FX team that could comfortably fit in a minivan and it still looked absolutely incredible from start to finish, with a feel for style and visual flourish that the small army of artists (1500+!) at Weta FX just couldn't match. EEAAO wasn't completely full of VFX, but when it needed them, it completely knocked it out of the park, with powerful, innovative, and deeply interesting scenes.

And they weren't even nominated?

They deserved that one. Fuck you, fight me.

[makotoscoffee]

Elizabeth Banks and the Cocaine Bear for Variety shot by Art Streiber, SFX by Weta FX

[kennak]

ロイター通信は、ユニティ・ソフトウェア（UN）が「リセット」の一環として、世界の従業員の3.8％にあたる265人の雇用を削減し、「ロード・オブ・ザ・リング」の監督が設立したデジタルビデオエフェクト会社との契約を終了すると報じている。 クリスマス直前と同様に、これは従業員にとって厳しい打撃となる。 Unity が Weta Digital のツール、パイプライン、テクノロジー、エンジニアリング人材の買収を完了したのは、 ちょうど 2021 年 12 月のことでした。 この買収は「増え続けるゲーム開発者、アーティスト、そして潜在的には何百万人もの消費者クリエイターに高度なコンテンツ作成ツールを提供することを目的としている」と言われている。 その契約の一環として、Unity は Weta Digital のツールとコア パイプラインの設計、構築、保守で国際的に知られる 275 人のエンジニアからなる Weta Digital の世界クラスのエンジニアリング人材を「歓迎」しました。 同時に、Weta Digital のアカデミー賞を受賞した VFX チームは、ピーター ジャクソン卿が過半数を所有し、CEO の Prem Akkaraju が指揮を執る Wētā FX として知られる独立した組織に移行しました。 当時、彼らは声明を発表し、「契約条件に基づき、Unity は現金と株式を合��せて 16 億 2500 万米ドルで Weta Digital のツール、パイプライン、テクノロジー、エンジニアリング人材を買収した」と述べまし 。 た 同社のプレスリリースには続けて、「Unityはこの買収に伴い従業員を配置転換せず、今後もニュージーランドのウェリントンへの支援と取り組みを継続する」と述べられている。 今週の発表には、テクノロジーおよびエンジニアリング部門の買収後、Unity が 2021 年に Wētā FX と結んだ契約のプロフェッショナル サービス部分の終了が含まれています。 その結果、協定に関連する仕事に就いている従業員265人が解雇されると同社は発表した。 従業員は最終的にその職を終了するまで、残り約 1 週間しか残されていません。 ジョン・リッチティエッロ氏は、10月初めに社長、最高経営責任者、会長、取締役会のメンバーを退任しました。 ジェームス M. ホワイトハーストが暫定最高経営責任者、社長、および取締役に任命されました。 Unity 取締役会の筆頭独立取締役である Roelof Botha が会長に任命されました。 この契約が成立したとき、一部の人は、Epic Games が M&E 分野に多大な時間とエネルギーを投資したことへの反応であり、Unity が一度の動きでプロの M&E 市場における主要プレーヤーとしての地位を確立するだろうと見ていました。 つい最近 8 月にロサンゼルスで開催された SIGGRAPH において、Unity は、Unity が取得した技術とツールの宣伝の背後で大規模なマーケティング活動を行っていました。 カンファレンスでは、彼らは新しい「Unity Wētā Tools」部門を発足させた。この部門は、「アーティストがコラボレーションして2Dおよび3Dコンテンツを作成するために、最も広く使用され信頼されているソリューションを提供する」ために設立されたと言われており、最新の進歩、設計されたものを紹介する予定だという。ハイエンドの VFX 制作とプレミアム コンテンツ制作をクリエイターが利用できるようにするためです。」 当時、Unity Wētā Tools の SVP である Allan Poore 氏は、「Unity は研究開発に多大な投資を行い、継続的なイノベーションをサポートし、コンテンツ作成の未来を推進しています」と述べました。

「会社のリセット」を行った Unity Software は、映画 VFX と Wētā Deal から撤退します。 – FXガイド

[leahspassionproject]

Film industry and Production design

"Avatar The Way of Water" By James Cameron continues to be a show stopper, impressing people worldwide. Similar to the first Avatar movie James Cameron created immense use of cutting-edge performance capture technology. This technology allowed the actors to portray the roles of the alien species, the Na'vi which both films are based on. It shows the great detail of the technology considering the species are 10-feet-tall,blue-skinned, and have pointy ears.

When it came to making the watery scenes come to life, there would be none of the faking the water, actors dangling from wires, feigning weightlessness, making fake swimming motions in the air. According to members of Cameron’s crew, the director insisted on “wet-for-wet.” “Avatar: The Way of Water,” now released since December 2022, symbolizes a new milestone in the evolution of visual effects technology, and that milestone is underwater performance capture.

After some rough testing — the first experiments took place in the backyard pool of an “Avatar” producer names Jon Landau. A performance capture tank was assembled at Lightstorm Entertainment’s facility in Manhattan Beach, California. The tank was 32 feet deep and held around 90,000 gallons. Also created with viewing platforms on the deck and windows in the pool walls for camera operators to shoot through. This gives the tank the look and feel of a laboratory aquarium.

Another one of the main difficulties that the crew had faced was the prevention of overhead studio lights from interfering with performance-capture data. To solve this, James Cameron suggested that spreading a layer of small polymer balls across the water line would diffuse the light in the tank, allowing actors to surface safely from the water.

The artists at Weta who transformed the wetsuited actors into the famous Na’vi. They also created the highly detailed digital environments, taking the action from once a chlorinated tank to an enchanting underwater realm, with major fictional detail. According to the Artists at Weta, about 57 new species of sea creatures were created just for the film. Weta artists also conversed with researchers at Victoria University of Wellington about coral reef biology to get more perspective.

“Avatar: The Way of Water” by far the biggest visual effects project the company has ever taken on. Only two shots in the entire film contain no visual effects.As part of the teams research, the team shot hundreds of hours of reference footage such wind ripples on the surface of water, waves hitting rocks, the movement of seaweed.

James Cameron's "Avatar The Way of Water" continues to make a massive impact in the film industry even after hitting theaters. It was the first of Cameron's Pandora-centered sequels has now grossed $2.074 billion, 

sources: https://collider.com/avatar-2-way-of-water-4th-highest-grossing-movie/ https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/16/movies/avatar-2-fx-cgi.html

[boykingofhellsam]

Yeah i remember that. They had it at Wellington because that is where Weta Studios - the FX team that made LOTR - is based.

hey did you know that the wellington airport in new zealand used to have a gigantic statue of gollum catching a fish and it’s one of the scariest things i’ve ever seen? if i saw this thing while i was delirious from a 14 hour flight with no sleep i would die on the spot

[savage-kult-of-gorthaur]

"...AND BY SLOW ARTS OF CRUELTY WERE CORRUPTED AND ENSLAVED; AND THUS DID MELKOR BREED THE HIDEOUS RACE OF THE ORCS..."

PIC(S) INFO: Spotlight on the many different types of orcs and orc makeup effects by Weta Workshop, all orc makeup iterations featured here can be found in Peter Jackson's first installment of the "The Lord of the Rings" film trilogy, "The Fellowship of the Ring" (2001). New Line Cinema.

"But of those unhappy ones who were ensnared by Melkor little is known of a certainty... Yet this is held true by the wise of Eressëa, that all those of the Quendi who came into the hands of Melkor, ere Utumno was broken, were put there in prison, and by slow arts of cruelty were corrupted and enslaved; and thus did Melkor breed the hideous race of the Orcs in eny and mockery of the Elves, of whom they were afterwards the bitterest foes. For the Orcs had life and multiplied after the manner of the Children of Ilúvatar... And deep in their dark hearts the Orcs loathed the Master whom they served in fear, the maker only of their misery..."

-- "The Silmarillion," "Quenta Silmarillion, III -- Of the Coming of the Elves and the Captivity of Melkor," written by J.R.R. Tolkien

Sources: www.henneth-annun.net/bios_view.cfm?scid=126, Pinterest, Twitter, IMDb, Reddit, various, etc...

[say-cyke-rn]

unfortunately Weta Fx (where the major part of the Avatar team actually works .. more than 1000 artists) is not unionized , so the battle is far from over. But this is still good news for VFX in general , I hope more studios work towards unionizing , especially the international ones.

[ape-apocalypse]

I've already joked that Better Man is an alternate universe where Caesar became of music legend but it turns out, the same WETA FX that works on the reboot movies made the ape graphics for this Robbie Williams biopic. And they will feature the same motion capture technology that the POTA films used, with actor Jonno Davies as the starring ape.

"You will see a monkey bleach its hair. You will see a monkey party with Oasis. You will see a monkey do unreasonable amounts of cocaine, stick a heroin needle in between the fur of its arm, and drive headlong into opposing traffic while shouting a pop song at the top of its monkey lungs."

This will be a far different ape than we've seen from POTA or even King Kong. The film seems to be a very straight-forward telling of this musician's life - just that he's a chimp. So no ape mannerisms - no knuckle walking, no hooting, no swinging through the trees - just an super star ape singing and doing drugs.