Sure, first week back from the break and were off on the ironic foot of once again having to work the one day of the weekend that the recording is scheduled.
Ah well.

I'm sure I'll see you in person WELL before then, but sooo count me in for the extravaganza, It will be a blast.

Beverly Hills, CA – The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences today announced that 10 films remain in the running in the Visual Effects category for the 84th Academy Awards®.

The films are listed below in alphabetical order:

“Captain America: The First Avenger”
“Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2″
“Hugo”
“Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol”
“Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides”
“Real Steel”
“Rise of the Planet of the Apes”
“Transformers: Dark of the Moon”
“The Tree of Life”
“X-Men: First Class”

All members of the Visual Effects Branch will be invited to view 10-minute excerpts from each of the 10 shortlisted films on Thursday, January 19. Following the screenings, the members will vote to nominate five films for final Oscar consideration.

I'll admit to being one who's initial exposure to the Lord of the Rings & the Hobbit wasn't actually the books, which as an avid reader looking back is admittedly odd, but the original animated Rankin/Bass feature.

I jury-rigged my dads stereo setup to take the vcr's audio out, and made myself an audiotape of the whole thing, to enjoy the music that was made from the books songs.

As such, the moment of the songs appearance just took me back to those days, and definitely took the trailer where it needed to go for me to strike a nerve.

I will agree that they were really trying to fit a large amount of things into a relatively short trailer, the callbacks (or would it be call-forwards) to set pieces of the LOTR films in one or two spots was a little on the nose, but workable.

Overall, I am excited. I had been trying to avoid much of the hype, as it is still now a full year away, but ... damn it.

I don't disagree with the core of what Dorkman said, Frank Oz-less Fozzie was the one voice that really jarred me a bit, but overall I think my inner Muppet fan was just to happy to see a respectful revival and not another "lets to Wizard of Oz with the star of the month and Muppets" that it completely won me over.

Not to say that I don't think some of the pacing was a just bit off in a few places, not sure if it was the editing something more in the script, and some of the DI that was done (specifically noticed as it was on a few of my shots) seemed a bit hamfisted and out of place.

As to the original question ... there is an abundance of older Henson to expose a child to if you don't want to try and throw them right into the new movie, but ... I think a lot of the original show as GREAT as it is might go past some of the kids these days. The variety show format lends itself to the option to pick and choose some of the guests that might appeal, for a "best of" that could be gone back to and expanded upon if the interest was there. But when it comes down to it, I say start with "The Muppet Movie" it truly went along with the core plotline of introducing each of the core Muppets in their own vignette and you get to see them interacting at a level that most fans will agree is hard to match.

But overall I am really happy that it is out, both as a viewer and fan of the Muppets, and as someone who got to work on it.

LOL, no not working on that, but when you realize that most shows if they have any effects shots, it will end up being car driving shots.

A 30 minute sitcom will almost never do a fully involved visual effects shot, for any number of reasons. Time, budget, just doesn't make any sense for the concept. But you will invariably get a few two people in a car going somewhere shots, and someone had to sit and do the driving comps.

Most of the time they end up being good, and every now and again they just ... don't. It probably goes back to the point that is made a lot of, if you have a small sample size it's easier to get them all better, but when you expand the sample size exponentially to cover that many projects ...

We looking at Sat or Sun this week, I know there is something on the books non-DIF related on Saturday night, but thought I would see what was what.
Just got the "take saturday, but we will need you on sunday, at least for a little while" talk, so figured I would check in.
Cause you know, I've got a HD just itching to get dropped off.