DreamWorks Animation and Digital Domain join hands in the field of Virtual Reality
Digital Domain and DreamWorks Animation recently entered into a pact to develop their business in the world of virtual reality. They initially plan to start working with the popular characters of Shrek and Kung Fu Panda and later expand into other franchises.
The CEO of Digital Domain feels proud to have successfully garnered the confidence of a big organization as DreamWorks Animation and it is this pride that has resulted in the development of the virtual reality experiences for the popular characters.
Digital Domain took their first steps in the business of virtual reality in the year 2015. They took the help of virtual reality camera technology, streaming, production services as well as VFX. These gave them the confidence for the recent acquisition of Immersive Media Ventures which finally will result in the development of 360-degre camera and streaming technology.
The Beijing-based company Youku has also entered into a 3-year joint venture plan with Digital Domain so that they can do profitable business at the market in Greater China. Both the companies are hopeful about developing the intellectual property rights business along with the 360-degree live streaming, pre-recorded video, virtual reality works, augmented reality, and immersive media projects which are to be based on Youku’s several events and contents.
Youku has always very careful about the content of the virtual reality projects and they are now extremely dedicated to developing the extremely comprehensive virtual reality platform via various channels as well as self-production programs.
The recent announcements about the joint venture programs also highlight the technology section where the unveiling of the 306-degree camera (named Zeus) was announced. This camera is to be used for all virtual reality projects and other related ones. Very little information was revealed about the actual outline of the projects other than the fact that Digital Domain Holdings has planned for a separate business development plan for the post-production facilities based in Hong Kong.
Inside Out – The Digital Animation Wonder in form of a Computer-animated Comedy Film
Inside Out is the 3D computer-animated comedy-drama as well as adventure film released by Walt Disney Pictures in 2015. Pixar Animation Studios was the chief producer of the film while Pete Docter took the seat of the Director. The idea of developing this particular film first struck Pete Docter when he noticed the changes in the personality of his daughter in the year 2009. The research team consulted several psychologists who helped to revise the film on the basis of neuropsychological facts. Docter was determined to reflect and unveil the neuropsychological changes that are related to emotions.
Pete Docter realized the fact that emotions of the characters can be expressed with the modern digital animation techniques. Docter specifically mentioned that the inclusion of digital animation technology is capable of pushing the level of caricature not only in the design but also in the style of movements and this technique has never been used before. The production team decided to bring in digital animators Tex Avery and Chuck Jones to do the best possible job and the supervising animators (Shawn Krause and Victor Navone) were asked to push the graphic caricature instead of just maintaining the rigid behavior of each character of the film.
It was the magic created by digital animation techniques that show us how the interior of a character’s mind will look like and for this the filmmakers took the help of the technique named ‘electrochemical’. Electrochemical actually means the digital animation technology that enables the thinking of things as energy and they can be excited when necessary. The presence of the ‘effervescent quality’ of the emotion in the film was difficult to animate (and excessively expensive) but was made possible with the help of the most updated digital animation technologies. The sparkling aura made the film very expensive but at the same time, made it unique.
Creating DreamWorks’ Amazing Animated Martial Arts Action Comedy Film Kung Fu Panda
Animated film enthusiasts and ordinary movie goers were first introduced to the cute and heavyweight martial arts hero panda Po Ping back in 2008. Now, the movie has already successfully released its latest 3rd instalment last January 29, 2016. The film has constantly been received positively by the audience and critics and has even become a great box office success. New York Times dubbed it as “visually different from most of the mainstream American animations.”
The genius behind the animated film is no other than DreamWorks Animaton Executive, Michael Lachance. This film is said to have an animation that is more complex than any other animated film DreamWorks Animation has ever created. This film used more cameras than any other animated movies before it. HP’s high end technologies greatly helped in making the film from getting the team together in video conferencing up to the computer units used by the animators. As for the animation process, from the printed storyboards, a 3-D animation and compositing software called Maya was what they used for most of the pre-visualization or draft stage. The rough elements of the film were made with this software as well as the development of each scene. Actual animations as can be seen on the screen were created and polished using DreamWorks’ very own animation editing program Emo. This is behind the amazingly detailed surfaces of bright naturally imitating colours; landscapes, hair close ups and motions of the surrounding and the characters.
It is also interesting how people behind any film will go far to achieve a satisfying result. Animators had to take six hours of kung fu class to have an up close experience with the martial art. The film is said to be inspired by Kung Fu Hustle, a martial arts action comedy movie by Stephen Chow in 2004. Director John Stevenson wanted to create an authentically Chinese and Kung Fu feel to the film and had the production designers study Chinese culture to achieve this.
Frozen: The American 3d Computer Animated Comedy Film (2013)
Frozen, produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios is the American 3D computer animated musical fantasy-comedy that had its premiere at Hollywood (El Captain Theatre) and was released worldwide in November 2013. This one is the fifty-third animated feature film from the series of Walt Disney animated classics. Having the massive commercial success was not the only aspect of the ‘success story’; the film bagged several highest ranks as including the highest-grossing animated film of all times. To consider the sales only in the United States, the film earned more than 18 million dollars in the year 2014 and by January 2015 it became all time best seller in Blu-ray Disc in the United States. The two prestigious Academy awards for being the Best Animated Feature and Best Original Song (for the number ‘Let It Go’) clearly state the creative success of the film which is now being considered as the best production since the renaissance period of Walt Disney Animation Studios.
The story of Frozen is inspired by the fairy tale of Hans Christian named The Snow Queen. The story features the adventures of a beautiful but fearless princess who goes out on an epic journey to find her estranges sister. This sister had the icy powers and had trapped the entire kingdom in eternal winter. The brave princess is accompanied by a rugged iceman, his pet reindeer, and a naive snowman. The screenplay was written by Jennifer Lee and she shared the post of director with Chris Buck. Christophe Beck (the award-winning music composer) created the score for frozen and the songs were written by Robert Lopez and his wife Kristen Anderson-Lopez. Voices in animated films matter the most and Frozen successfully features the voices of Kristen Bell, Jonathan Groff, Josh Gad, Idina Menzel, and Santino Fontana.
The commercial success of the film was not confined to the United States only and the success stories in Canada and Japan states in favor of this fact.
Finding Dory – Highest Grossing Animated Debut of All Time
At last, eagerly awaited “Finding Dory” has now been released, the long awaited sequel to the beloved 2003 pixel animation of “Finding Nemo”.
“Finding Dory” touches the heart as Dory, the forgetful fish with short term memory loss has a memory recall in the sequel realizing she has parents and misses them. Both Dory (Ellen DeGeneres) and Nemo (Hayden Rolence) set off on a journey to find Dora’s parents evading the perils and predators of the ocean.
Disney, the parent company to Pixel, released their estimated figures on Sunday on the new film “Finding Dory” bringing in a staggering $136.2 Million domestically and a further estimated $186.2 million globally. These figures make “Finding Dory” the ‘highest grossing animated debut’ of all time, as determined by comScore. The previous record holder was the 2007 film “Shrek the Third” with a $121.6 million debut.
The biggest box office hit from Pixel was “Toy Story 3” whose opening raised a staggering $110.3 million. Let us not forget that the formidable team at ‘Pixel’ has won eight Academy Awards since the best animation category was established in 2001. It has given us offerings such as “WALL-E”, “Toy Story 3”, “Finding Nemo”, Ratatouille”, “The Incredibles”, “Up”, “Inside Out” and “Brave”.
“Finding Dory” doesn’t seem to be competing in theatres with any other animation until ‘The Secret Life of Pets’ debuts on July 8th. It doesn’t stop there as indications reveal box office smashes at late night viewings on both Friday and Saturday evenings! You don’t have to be a family to love it!
Still, even though the debut figures look great it still doesn’t constitute bill board projection in the coming weeks or the longevity of the film in theaters. Audience members are rating the film in their droves. “Finding Dory’’ has a rating of 95% fresh in rotten tomatoes and in from 23,914 reviews 8/10 given on IMDB.
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