As Peter Jackson told us earlier, his vision for Susie Salmon’s afterlife in The Lovely Bones (which Paramount Pictures opened wide last weekend) was a surreal, in-between journey to heaven predicated dreams and metaphoric symbols. A house in the dead cornfield represents her murderer, Mr. Harvey; the blooming flower suggests Susie’s life force and her ability to communicate with her father; the Gazebo in the barley field signifies unfulfilled love, with the field turning to mush as she runs toward it.

Interestingly, the vfx challenges for Weta Digital were more artistic than technical, even though the CG imagery of the In-Between world necessitated abandoning the laws of physics. More..

When the trumpets sound Tuesday morning and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announces its annual Oscar nominations, could there be any more of a sure thing than that James Cameron’s mega-hit “Avatar” will grace the list of visual effects honorees?

After all, while many people have enjoyed the film’s sprawling anti-colonialism storyline, there’s little doubt that what has made the movie the highest grossing of all time is its stunning computer-generated imagery, primarily the intricate, intensely detailed and impressively realistic world of Pandora. More..

Primmy writes: I thought you might be interested to know that Peter Jackson will be on The Culture Show on BBC2 in the UK tonight at 7PM, discussing The Lovely Bones (and hopefully other things!). bbc.co.uk

Wellington, NEW ZEALAND β€” 28 January 2010 β€” NetApp announced today it has partnered with Weta Digital, a world leader in digital effects and animation, to provide data storage for the production of the record-breaking film, Avatar. Avatar was filmed with revolutionary new motion-capture techniques, which generated more data than any other movie in history (more than the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy combined), creating a new set of challenges never before faced by the digital effects industry. More..