The Brazilian Tolkiendili Federation (FTB) claims for your participation at the HobbitCon 2006, from November 2nd. to 5th., at Vitória – Esp’rito Santo, Brazil. You may come by poney, mearas or even oliphaunt, but don’t forget to knock on the first door marcked with runes, because we will be waiting for you with a big and fat hobbit feast. [More]
Category: Original TORn
Reports that it was game over for Peter Jackson’s Halo movie are being shot down by industry insiders. Universal and Fox have pulled out of the movie deal but Microsoft and Jackson are reporting business as usual. “If you remember during King Kong Peter explained how King Kong was gonna be before Lord of the Rings and it fell over and back it came again…it’s just part of film making,” says Weta Ltd spokesperson Jamie Wilson. Rumours of a budget blow-out have been denied. Jackson and his producing partners, including Microsoft, claim Universal and Fox asked them to reduce their profit take. They declined, confidant the project is safe. Recently the game Doom was made into a feature film that barely broke even at the box office. [More]
Andy Serkis, who co-stars in Robert Zemeckis’ upcoming Beowulf film, told SCI FI Wire that the movie’s computer animation is a glimpse of things to come. “I think that more motion capture is [being] used in film, and it’s becoming part of the mainstream and used in a mainstream way,” Serkis (King Kong) said in an interview. “It is … especially [true] with video games and the convergence of video games and film. It’s actually a really interesting time for actors. Robert Zemeckis has just made Beowulf with Anthony Hopkins and John Malkovich, Ray Winstone and all kinds of high-profile and serious actors creating these characters. They are creating the movements. They are creating the personalities, and it’s the manifestation of those characters which is being handed over.” [More]
A ton of interesting new films are out on DVD this week. Take an early look on our ‘DVD Tuesday’ feature…every Monday! You can actually pick up some DVDs today in most stores, it is Mission: Monday with ‘Mission: Impossible II’ out on DVD, as well as a collector three pack. A ‘Baywatch Collection’ is also available today. Check out some other TV goodies like the ‘Benny Hill Collection’, ‘C.S.I. Miami – S4’ & ‘Ghost Whisperer – S1’. Some great animation out today as well, ‘Ghost in the Shell SAC Complete 1st Season Box Set’ & ‘Speed Racer 5’. Some Blu-Ray & HD DVD offerings include; ‘Mission Impossible 3’, ‘Excalibur’ & ‘Under Siege’. Personally I’m interested in ‘The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian and the Voyage of the Dawntreader’ & ‘The Kids in the Hall Megaset’! Check out the whole list here! [More]
Once again Bruce Hopkins aka Gamling explores new ways to marry digital film-making with the power of the Net. He’s loaning his best gravelly gunslinger voice to an animated Western designed to be distributed on the 3G phone network. [More]
Kiwi actor Bruce Hopkins aka Gamling gets involved in all kinds of experimental stuff exploring the possibilities of digital media and the Net. Here’s a word from him on his latest project:
“I have been working on a project with a guy over here called Andrew McKenzie, a lecturer in Digital Media. He got me on board to perform for an animation series he is creating to release on the mobile phone 3G platform. It is very cool to see what he has been able to do. We literally film this on a mini DV against a green screen in one corner of the space he teaches in. He films each character separately creating a library of sequences and then is able to manipulate this to create an episode such as what you see on this posting on Youtube.”
There’s some background on the project here.