Spotlight

Published August 26, 2017

Avatar sequels to feature same main villains

Avatar director, James Cameron said that Stephen Lang ‘just gets better’ as Colonel Miles Quaritch in Avatar 2 and its sequels.

“The interesting conceit of the Avatar sequels is it’s pretty much the same characters,” Cameron told. “There are new characters and a lot of new settings and creatures..., but it’s not a whole bunch of new characters every time.

“There’s not a new villain every time, which is interesting,” he added. “Same guy. I know Stephen Lang is gonna knock this out of the park.” Lang’s character appeared to die at the end of Avatar in 2009.


The biggest motion capture studio in Canada opens

A visual effects, animation, and games industry is set to benefit from a new motion capture studio — the largest commercial facility in Canada.

Behind the studio is a partnership between Vancouver Film School (VFS) and start-up Mimic Performance Capture. The location will be available for students from VFS to use, while also operating as a commercial motion capture facility.

The set-up involves 40 Vicon Vantage cameras, four head-mounted cameras from Standard Deviation, four HD reference cameras, and audio recording services. There are also three 40-foot stunt beams available, since many motion capture sessions often involve stunt work. Other facilities include a foley stage, green screen room, green room for actors, an on-site workshop, prop storage, and office space. The capture stage is located three stories underground and is therefore away from traffic or weather noise.


Star Wars-themed parks models unveiled

Disney is building the parks at Disneyland in California and Walt Disney World Resorts in Florida, and has released a model showing how its new Star Wars-themed amusement parks will look upon completion the company wrote in a blog post. The main attractions include a ‘secret mission,’ where visitors can control the famed Millennium Falcon and another sequence, where guests take part in a battle between the First Order and the Resistance — the two entities at odds in the latest trilogy of Star Wars films.

“Both Star Wars-inspired lands will transport guests to a never-before-seen planet, a remote trading port and one of the last stops before Wild Space, where Star Wars characters and their stories come to life,” a Disney spokesperson wrote on the company blog.

The parks will likely open in 2019. The next Star Wars movie, The Last Jedi, comes to theatres on December 15.

Published in Dawn, Young World August 26th, 2017

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