1

(10 replies, posted in Off Topic)

Hehe, cheers Eddie smile

2

(10 replies, posted in Off Topic)

Okay, same again but for San Francisco, as apparently we will be spending a few days there. The stuff above is exactly the kinda thing I'm after.

Also there is talk of tours of ILM & mebbie Pixar via friends of my hosts -- I'm resisting as I can't imagine them being very much more than large offices with computers in. I mean, I work at one of the (non-ILM) London VFX houses already... I'm pretty familiar with the score! Am I wrong wrong wrong? Will I regret forever not looking round ILM when the opportunity presents itself? IIRC there's an optical printer in the lobby...

Cheers in advance! I land next Wednesday!

3

(10 replies, posted in Off Topic)

These are great Eddie -- cheers.

4

(10 replies, posted in Off Topic)

Haha, yes that's the kind of tip I was after!

Thanks!

5

(10 replies, posted in Off Topic)

So it looks like I am going to be visiting LA in a couple of weeks, and I was wondering if anyone had any recommendations of things I should do or see etc.

I'm staying with a fellow VFX artist who lives Hollywood Blvd area by the looks of it.

Any must-do activities for Friensinyourheafsers?

Cheers!

M.

6

(8 replies, posted in Off Topic)

bullet3 wrote:

The reason Fast Five is great, is you can tell there was a real practical safe they were dragging, so all the action feels crazy intense and you get a real rush out of it.

Sorry but that CG safe was AWFUL! They may have had one, they may have pulled it, they may even have used a few shots of it, but it was mostly CG and it was mostly bad.

7

(70 replies, posted in Off Topic)

So true... smile

8

(32 replies, posted in Episodes)

You got the pitch meeting about shooting Joanna Cassidy wrong. it was actually "We're gonna shoot Joanna Cassidy for real, so how so we make sure the viewers don't assume it's squibs and stunts?"

I've worked for Scott and i don't disagree with many of the sweeping statements you're making during the show smile

Massive Hellblazer fan since the beginning (and  Brit to boot), and I love, love, love the Keanu movie.

They got the hair colour wrong, they got the accent wrong. Hell, they even got the coat colour wrong. But the essential character of John, John is bang on.

So far the TV series (I've seen three) is like the exact opposite - they fixated on the wrong things. They got the hair right, they got the accent right, they got the costume right. But that guy? Not John.

10

(70 replies, posted in Off Topic)

Loved. Saw it at 9am (and Nightcrawler at 9pm the same day!) and staggered out into the sunlight somewhat like that Daily Mash article :)

The only thing that has stayed with me was the Damon casting. I liked it in theory, as Mr Nice, Reliable & Dependable played the astronaut they'd set up as all those things, but he seemed too batshit crazy from scene one that I'm not sure it worked. But a small quibble.

I saw it at the Waterloo IMAX London, the sound was awesome, didn't have any dialogue issues but the projection looked like someone had wiped a cat over the lens before the showing. Awful dust & hair issues -- very distracting. Bring on 5.6k digital projection :)

11

(15 replies, posted in Episodes)

So, listening to the 'cast now, and had to jump in.

I concede all the points about Oblivion being well made & great to look at and often intriguing, but in the way that Elysium is a great looking, thinky, dystopia sci-fi movie that blows it in the 2nd (or possibly sooner) act, Oblivion is a great looking, thinky, dystopia sci-fi movie that blows it in the 3rd.

Which make it mathematically better than Elysium, obviously smile

For me, the main problem is that when Dorothy pulls back the curtain, what the Wizard was doing makes sense retrospectively with what we have seen before. However, when the same takes place in Oblivion, it's impossible to look at the film as a whole anew and map your new knowledge over it. When we find out that back story and what had been happening all along, it does not describe a legitimate modus operandi on the part of the aliens. And not in a 'they are alien and who could truly understand their motives' way either.

It describes an alien (machine) race that died out the first time it tried to mine a planet without an indigenous race with opposable thumbs.

12

(19 replies, posted in Episodes)

has this commentary died? I cna't find it any more...

13

(123 replies, posted in Episodes)

The only reasons theatres still exist (except as a specially thing) is that that have a cartel-like arrangement with content producers. If movies were invented now no-one would suggest travelling to a dark barn and watch a movie surrounded by strangers.

People texting etc (and the relatively modest investment to get a nice home presentation) is why I rarely do to the flicks anymore...

14

(19 replies, posted in Episodes)

Just listening now. Sad to say I saw this for the first time a year ago & it did nothing for me. I just found it incredibly straightforward/predictable. I even gave the DVD away to a charity shop... sad

15

(40 replies, posted in Episodes)

Eddie needs to activly host. Otherwise it just sounds like a Doco-centric Intermission. Otherwise, really good.

Also this is the first time I really understood that your podcast collective is called 'Friends in Your Head', and that the move podcast formally called [REDACTED] is now 'What are you doing, Movie?' Both of which I approve of heartilly!

16

(84 replies, posted in Episodes)

And obviously Disney and Sony do have in-studio VFX departments, so it's not like its' the halcyon when that happened its' dead & gone...

17

(84 replies, posted in Episodes)

On the topic of non-shop based VFX, Anonymous, which contains some wonderful VFX of Shakespearian London was done under exactly that model - the supes set up a shop from scratch in Germany near production, hired equipment & artists, and then they went there separate ways when production wrapped.

18

(70 replies, posted in Episodes)

Hi, where's the 'Empire is crap' review that the guys referenced?

19

(64 replies, posted in Episodes)

That what I thought. Cheers!

20

(64 replies, posted in Episodes)

Looking to get Pro on blu (mainly for the VFX) coz it's getting cheap... is it worth paying double for the Furious Gods documentary (don't need to for a 3D copy)? If it's a genuinely good, technical stuff (like the LotR extended doco material) I'd say yes. Otherwise no...

I'm also wondering if the decent (i.e writers) commentaries are on the standard blu or of I need the collectors one for that too...

Thoughts?

21

(18 replies, posted in Episodes)

Listening to the commentary now. My first though is about the Get Carter of Mars re-imagining. They had a load of Mars left over after rebooting Total Recall, might as well put it to good use on our Get Carter remake...

The Tharks were indeed not mocap - the bodies were hand animated (I think this came from Stanton specifically, due to his background). There was facial capture, which the animators had access to, but could also animate over.

22

(104 replies, posted in Episodes)

Very happy to be in the 1st 20 backers! Hoping to contribute to the VFX too.

23

(18 replies, posted in Episodes)

redxavier wrote:

As I mentioned in another thread, I don't understand why this bombed and Avatar made more than a billion. I therefore challenge someone to come up with a justification of why Avatar is "1 billion dollars better"

I'd take JCOM over Avater every time. It's a far better movie.

24

(18 replies, posted in Episodes)

JCOM was never gonna fly for one simple reason. No-one already wanted to see Space Tarzan.

A film where giant transforming robots beat the crap out of each other? There are people with cash in hand for that right now. You could even make it good if you wanted to. But Space Tarzan? Sorry no. It didn't even matter if it was good, there was no hunger for that film. And to make back that much money, people already had to be hungry for that movie, sight unseen.

That fact that they utterly borked the promotion didn't help, but frankly it was always gonna be an uphill struggle with a finite chance of success.

I think Stanton made a good movie, but that wasn't enough.

25

(32 replies, posted in Episodes)

... and now I know where College Humour film Troopers!