Seoul-based CJ Group, which operates Asia’s largest theater chain, wants to transform the multiplex experience with its new 4DX theater technology. The conglomerate has signed a deal with AEG to introduce “4-D” cinema to U.S. consumers this summer at Regal Cinemas L.A. Live Stadium 14 in downtown Los Angeles. The 4DX tech combines moving and vibrating theater seats with effects such as wind, strobes, fog, rain and scents — all synchronized to the film action taking place on screen. Continue reading CinemaCon: 4DX Theater Technology Coming to Los Angeles

In a ceremony at the Ray Stark Theater on USC’s Cinematic Arts campus last Thursday, Dean Elizabeth Daley joined George Lucas in welcoming three USC film professors to their new endowed chairs. Made possible by a generous gift from Lucas, the three new chairs — The Sergei Eisenstein Endowed Chair for Cinematic Design, the George Mélies Endowed Chair in Visual Effects, and the William Cameron Menzies Endowed Chair in Production Design — are now held by Bruce Block, Michael Funk, and Alex McDowell respectively. Continue reading USC Cinematic Arts Professors Installed in New Endowed Chairs

ETCentric member and contributor Adrian Pennington recently posted an interesting perspective on the direction of visual effects in TV production, including an interview with Adobe’s Steve Forde. “While the feature film visual effects business is in flux, the TV VFX business is thriving by delivering creativity to tight timescales on a budget,” writes Adrian. “Indeed the future of all VFX production could be modeled on the workflows built to support CGI-intensive series like ‘Game of Thrones’ and ‘Doctor Who.'” Continue reading Will the Future of Visual Effects be Modeled on TV Production?

PandoDaily and TheWrap are among those reporting that visual effects industry workers are planning a demonstration outside the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood during Sunday’s Academy Awards to protest ongoing efforts to send post-production work overseas. The group believes that offshoring has led to a slow collapse of the VFX industry in the U.S. While there was little the effects industry could do about this in the past, it may now be armed with a new weapon based on the MPAA’s attempts to combat Internet piracy. Continue reading VFX Industry Plans Oscar Demonstration to Protest Offshoring

Carolyn Giardina of The Hollywood Reporter forwarded us news that Industrial Light & Magic, the visual effects division of Lucasfilm, has major expansion plans including a new facility in central London, just outside of Soho, and a move for the Vancouver team to a larger space that will allow the group to double from 100 to 200 employees. Lucasfilm also recently opened an ILM facility in Singapore. The VFX arm is a wholly-owned subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company. Continue reading ILM Has Plans to Open New Visual Effects Facility in London

At CES, Samsung plans to demo a new wireless streaming speaker controlled by the Shape mobile app and audio system. The company also announced it will showcase two Shape-compatible soundbars, the HW-H750 (320W of sound for large TVs) and the HW-H600 (designed for 32-55 inch TVs). In addition, Samsung will unveil a new home entertainment system that features six speakers, subwoofer and amplifier, and a Blu-ray player capable of upscaling to 4K resolution. Continue reading Samsung to Unveil Wireless Streaming Speaker and More at CES

The 5D Institute and USC School of Cinematic Arts will host a special presentation this Friday with production designer and art director Andy Nicholson, who will discuss the 3D space drama “Gravity.” Nicholson will be introduced by USC professor and filmmaker Bruce Block. Following the presentation, a Q&A session will be moderated by editor and author Bill Desowitz. The event will take place 3:30-5:30 at USC’s Eileen Norris Theater. Continue reading USC Event: Andy Nicholson on Designing the World of ‘Gravity’

In the past, lyrics videos were largely just the simple creations of music fans. However, the market for lyrics videos has changed dramatically in recent years, and name brand artists are leveraging the technique as a means of greater exposure and profit. According to YouTube, the number of views for these videos, which are typically fast and cheap to produce, has increased seven times since 2011. The top 500 lyrics videos attracted 624 million views this year. Continue reading Lyrics Videos Establishing Effective New Genre on YouTube

Santa Clara, CA-based Assimilate has launched a free media player for visual effects artists, cinematographers and prosumers that supports Raw footage from digital cinematography and DSLR cameras. The new Scratch Play also supports formats such as OpenEXR and ProRes, providing digital imaging professionals and DSLR enthusiasts with the ability to review shots, pull stills, export CDLs or LUTs, and review animation at full resolution. Continue reading Scratch Play: Assimilate Launches Universal Media Player

Premium cable network Showtime has begun syncing interactive elements for its shows directly onto LG’s smart TVs using Web-based technology. This service is unique in that there are no extraneous downloads or devices. Although not all Showtime viewers own the compatible technology for interactive TV, this will likely change in the future as more TV manufacturers adopt the standard HTML5 and JavaScript technologies used by LG’s LivePlus service. Continue reading Showtime Network Syncing Interactive Content on LG Smart TVs

Animator and special effects pioneer Ray Harryhausen, 92, died on Tuesday in London, where he had been living. Harryhausen, an innovative artist whose work still inspires filmmakers, often played a principal role in the movies that featured his technical effects. “He frequently proposed the initial concept, scouted the locations and shaped the story, script, art direction and design around his ideas for fresh ways to amaze an audience,” according to The New York Times. Continue reading Media Industry Mourns the Loss of Pioneer Ray Harryhausen

First announced at last year’s NAB, cloud-based production service Adobe Anywhere is scheduled to launch in May and will be on display at next week’s NAB (booth SL3910) in Las Vegas. The toolset enables collaboration for creative professionals using Adobe Premiere, After Effects and logging tool Prelude. It uses Adobe’s Mercury streaming engine, a server that streams relevant video frames and scales quality based on available bandwidth. Continue reading NAB 2013: Cloud-Based Production with Adobe Anywhere

The visual effects community held a town meeting Thursday evening in Los Angeles to address rising concerns regarding the state of the VFX industry. “Pi Day” organizers included community members Bill Gilman and Neha Wickramasekaran. During the event, hosted by VFX artist Mariana Acuña, effects veteran Scott Ross and others proposed the formation of a VFX union and a trade association for visual effects facilities. Continue reading VFX Community Proposes Forming Union and Trade Group

Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Informatics (MPII) have developed video inpainting software that can delete people or objects from high-definition video footage. How is it done? The software analyzes every video frame and calculates which pixels should replace a moving area that’s been marked for removal, explains Gizmag. The article provides an impressive video demonstration of the technology. Continue reading New Software Can Delete People or Objects from HD Video