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January 31, 2005

Keanu Reeves on a Possible Constantine Sequel?

...from The Movie Reporter

At war with the powers of Heaven, Hell, and all the realms inbetween, Constantine is out to find a way to redemption, even after he has committed an Unforgivable Sin.

Reeves, who gives a surprising and well-constructed performance despite major changes to the settings of the books, wants to come back as Constantine, as long as the audience likes what he's done so far:"My contract didn't have a second film in it. But myself and some of the producers and Francis Lawrence fell in love with the guy. I fell in love with the guy. I had one of the best times I've ever had working on this project. So we would talk about 'What could we do? What happens to Constantine?' You know, we'd think, 'He's a heroin addict in Morocco, and he's got this spell, and he's killing people, but he's trying not to kill people, so he keeps knocking himself out. Then [producer] Akiva Goldsman was like, 'No! He wants to stop Revelations'. We'd do these kinds of things. Ultimately, it's up to the audience. That would mean that the studio would have the resources to go forward with it. I would love to play Constantine again as long as I worked with the same people, definitely Francis Barnes and Akiva Goldsman, and everyone involved in this project because I could not imagine doing this without them."

Posted by dschnee at 11:00 PM

January 25, 2005

VFX Nominations Announced for 77th Academy Awards

Beverly Hills, CA - Nominations for the 77th Annual Academy Awards were
announced today (Tuesday, January 25) by Academy of Motion Picture Arts
and Sciences President Frank Pierson and Oscar®-winning actor Adrien
Brody.

Achievement in visual effects :

-Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Warner Bros.)
Roger Guyett, Tim Burke, John Richardson and Bill George

-I, Robot (20th Century Fox)
John Nelson, Andrew R. Jones, Erik Nash and Joe Letteri

-Spider-Man 2 (Sony Pictures Releasing)
John Dykstra, Scott Stokdyk, Anthony LaMolinara and John Frazier


Cut from the VFX short list:

-The Aviator
-Lemony Snicket
-Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow
-The Day After Tomorrow

See Also: the Entire Nomination List for the 77th Academy Awards

Posted by dschnee at 9:45 AM

More images from Hell L.A.


(click for larger image)
From the Hell Freeway sequence, OriginalSins.net has released a few more vfx shots... This is a very cool sequence, but they are revealing a bit too much, enjoy~

Posted by dschnee at 8:36 AM

January 19, 2005

Original Sins.net - Constantine Fan Art Exchange

If you go to OriginalSins.net you can download a Constantine Fan Art Kit to be used for creating wallpapers, posters, concept art, or any other hellish artwork you'd like. You'll be able to post your creations and have them rated, downloaded, and even show up on the official Constantine site... pretty cool, check it out.

Posted by dschnee at 12:53 PM

January 17, 2005

VFX work on Constantine is a Wrap!

Visual effects studios:
ESC Entertainment, Stan Winston Studio, Tippett Studio, New Deal Studios, Proof, Hydraulx, and CIS Hollywood contributed to this hellblazer movie, and as of this past weekend all shots from the remaining studios were delivered and the visual effects work on Constantine is complete!

Visit Cinefex - Constantine for more details...

and Check out Aruna's - Constantine VFX vfxlog for a brief summary on Tippett's work on Constantine... we completed 207 shots for the film, I completed 13 and worked on 18 of those 207 shots... hellbound, it was a great show to work on and I learned a hell of a lot!

Posted by dschnee at 11:31 PM

January 13, 2005

US Constantine Official Site - Updated!


(click for larger image)
After countless weeks revealing nothing but a mere tease... the official Constantine site has been updated! And in the photo section there are 5 Tippett shots in there! 4 from Hell, and 1 from an Exorcism... kick demon bootey!

-congrats Aruna for his hell shot up there! (the one with demons about to grab Constantine)

See for yourself here: constantinemovie.warnerbros.com

Posted by dschnee at 11:50 PM

Interview with Kent Matheson

from vfxblog+,


- 'Above the clouds' matte painting for The Matrix Revolutions. Image copyright © 2003 Warner Brothers. All rights reserved.

Kent Matheson is a matte painter and art director currently employed at Tippett Studio. He has worked on films such as Men In Black II, The Mummy Returns, Attack of the Clones, The Matrix Revolutions, The Stepford Wives and the upcoming Son of the Mask. Matheson talks to vfxblog about his craft and about some of the projects he has contributed to.

Interview by Ian Failes

Can you tell me a little about yourself and your background in matte painting and design?

For the full interview go to vfxblog+

Posted by dschnee at 10:18 PM

January 11, 2005

Digital Compositor - So, what is it you do exactly?

well...I just smack pixels around all day,

Digital Compositing: The digitally manipulated combination of at least two source images to produce an integrated result.
(as defined in The Art and Science of Digital Compositing by Ron Brinkmann)

As digital artists, we work with multiple image sources. Live action plate photogrphy including, blue/green screens, miniature photography, photographic elements shot on stage, and still images. Computer Generated Images (CGI) or sequences, which can include, effects elements, digital environments, digital matte paintings, general objects, animated creatures, and characters.

Its the seamless integration of all these sources that we assemble one final whole image that you will see in the end. That end result being on film at the movies, on tv, in a videogame, or in print somewhere in a magazine, on a billboard, or poster.

In its basic form, it would be put A over B, but in it's usual more complex form its treat A a dozen times, add it to C, mix it with H, link it to M, animate it by F which was treated by G a dozen times and then over B, and B has a few dozen treatments of its own.

Below is a screenshot of my project script from a shot I composited from Starship Troopers 2: Hero of the Federation (click on image to view it big)

Each of the nodes in 'red' represent an image or sequence of images, treatements are below them, then they find there way over or under one another, until we reach the bottom of the tree for the end result. To add complexity, I have below another script that created just one of those 'red' image nodes above:

So what does all that mess of spaghetti nodes and noodles create? - below is the final shot created from those scripts above. A over B right?

[shot za12 - Starship Troopers 2: - 2004] (2.5mb Quicktime)

The shot above was created using a number of the source images talked about above, including: the live action plate of troopers running toward the base of the outpost. That was built on a sound stage. The top of the outpost is miniature photography shot on stage. The storm building and rising, was created entirley from a 3' diameter cotton roller shot on stage at different speeds and angles. The crash of the storm was created using impact dust elements and cloud tank elements. The rest is 2D photographic dust elements used many, many times, I also did some hand drawn lightning arcs and hand animated internal lightning patches in the storm.

"weeks, and weeks of work, FOR SECONDS, of on-screen entertainment."
-Eric Leven
Visual Effects Supervisor
Tippett Studio

Posted by dschnee at 8:30 AM

January 10, 2005

Outstanding Compositing in a Motion Picture - 2004

3rd Annual VES Awards Nominees...

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban - Azkaban Guards Attack
Dorne Huebler, Jay Cooper, Patrick Brennan, Anthony Shafer

The Phantom of the Opera - Opening Shot
Claas Henke, Laurent Ben-Mimoun, Anupam Das

Spider-Man 2 - Train Sequence
Colin Drobnis, Greg Derochie, Blaine Kennison, Kenny Lam

Outstanding Compositing in a Broadcast Program

The Librarian - Himalayan Pass sequence
Greg Groenekamp, Joel Merritt, Mamie McCall

Smallville, "Crisis"
John Han, Eli Jarra, Noriaki Matsumoto, Terry Shigemitsu

Space Odyssey - Voyage to the Planets

George Roper, Christain Manz, Sirio Quintavalle, Pedro Sabrosa

Congratulations to the 2004 nominees,

For a complete list you can visit Visual Effects Society - nominees or download the 3rd Annual VES Awards Nominees pdf.

http://www.vesawards.com/

Posted by dschnee at 3:18 PM

January 7, 2005

Hellbound Constantine FanSite...

dubbed "Straight To Hell" A Hellblazer Site covering the comic books now has a section devoted to the movie Constatine...

Go to Hell for the latest cnNews, reviews, media, interviews, and more.

Other notalbe websites are the foreign official Constantine sites which have a ton more goodies to look and play with, where as the official site for us in the states is void of any such goods.

United States (Last Update : Ages ago!)
Germany (Last Update : January 7th, 2004)
Spain (Last Update : December 14th, 2004)
France (Last Update : December 14th, 2004)

Posted by dschnee at 1:46 AM

January 6, 2005

meyemind.com v3.666 is born!

Welcome to version 3.666 of meyemind.com - my professional and personal website showcasing some of the work and artistry I've created.

v3.666 because its not a complete overhaul of v3, .666 for 2 reasons, one seeing as I've spent the last 6 months working in hell for Constantine, and secondly this new vfxlog was hell to get working correctly...

I hope you enjoy the new blog layout with a similar feel from v3, I shall be making numerous additions from here on out as I learn and build up more of meyemind.

I must thank my old quake clansmen James via stormerHosting.net for all his help over the years, and of course his help on this damn site!

Also thanks must go to Aruna Inversin for helping me with this as well, and not getting upset that I took the un-original path in using the same vfxlog application for my site.

Visit his inspirational site @ www.digitalgypsy.com

Posted by dschnee at 10:24 PM