• MPC on its digital make-up advancements in ‘The Mummy’

    Previously on vfxblog, The Mummy’s overall visual effects supervisor Erik Nash weighed on crafting the 5 stages of transformation of Princess Ahmanet. Key to bringing her to life in closer-to-human form was augmenting real photography of Sofia Boutella by taking away portions or her face or body to show the re-generation process. MPC was behind…

  • Bumblebee’s new groove, and new move

    ILM’s Scott Farrar has worked on each one of the Transformers films, and for The Last Knight, I asked him about Bumblebee’s newest kind of transformation. Check it out at Cartoon Brew.

  • Breaking down Princess Ahmanet’s 5 stages in ‘The Mummy’

    One of the key visual effects components of Alex Kurtzman’s The Mummy was the Mummy herself – Princess Ahmanet – seen in 5 various stages as she re-generates from her entombed and emaciated state into a more human-esque appearance. Some shots of the creature were fully digital creations completed by ILM, others were meticulous CG…

  • Anatomy of a scene: fleeing the undead in ‘The Mummy’

    In one incredible action scene in Alex Kurtzman’s The Mummy, Tom Cruise and Annabelle Wallis’ characters take control of an ambulance while being pursued by several undead and Princess Ahmanet (Sofia Boutella). The high-octane chase sees Nick Morton (Cruise) and Jenny Halsey (Wallis) out-run their attackers, but then dramatically crash the ambulance, before being confronted…

  • Quickshots: How that incredible animated mural in ‘Wonder Woman’ was made

    Perhaps taking inspiration from The Tale of the Three Brothers animation in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1, Wonder Woman has its own animated sequence. This is seen early in the film when the history of the Amazon women warriors, and their relationship to Zeus, the leader of the gods and Ares,…

  • The story behind Oats Studios’ ‘Rakka’

    Neill Blomkamp has started an experimental studio and their first released short film is Rakka. VFX supe Chris Harvey kindly sat down with me for an interview, at Cartoon Brew.

  • Why I think you should attend the VIEW Conference

    Take it from me, if you want to get a handle on some of the best visual effects, animation, games and VR content being produced right now, come to Turin, Italy in October for the VIEW Conference. Some big, big projects will be the subject of discussion, including War for the Planet of the Apes,…

  • This means war

    For Cartoon Brew, I found out about how the war scenes were orchestrated by the vfx teams in Wonder Woman. Check out the article here.

  • The forgotten freeze-frame moments from ‘Batman & Robin’

    The film might have a notorious place in the history of comic book adaptations, but Joel Schumacher’s Batman & Robin, released in 1997, is notable for some innovative visual effects work. In particular, the ‘frozen in time’ moments arising from Mr. Freeze (Arnold Schwarzenegger) blasting his ray gun on unsuspecting victims capitalized on photogrammetry, stereo imaging…

  • The pros behind game cinematics

    3D Artist magazine asked me to dive into the expert game cinematics approaches by Blur, Plastic Wax and Realtime UK – check out the newest issue with the resulting article here.