Clearview Opens 11th Classic Series with Mommie Dearest

Clearview Cinemas had a special kickoff to the 11th year of its popular Chelsea Classics Series with special guest star Lisa Lampanelli and an interactive screening with audience participation of the classic Mommie Dearest. The exclusive event was held last month at New York’s historic Ziegfeld Theatre. Prior to the screening Clearview Cinemas and Metro Source Magazine presented the Second Annual Pride Award to comedian Lisa Lampanelli for her outstanding work in raising funds for the Gay Men's Health Crisis. Each year this award is presented to a celebrity who is making a positive difference within the Lesbian Gay Bi-Sexual & Transgender community. The special anniversary screening of Mommie Dearest will be featured in state-of-the-art digital cinema. Guests can enjoy an entertaining pre-show with plenty of prize giveaways and audience interaction hosted by comedian Hedda Lettuce. Hedda will conduct a live interview with Rutanya Alda who stars as Carol Ann in Mommie Dearest. Clearview first introduced the weekly classic series in May 2002 with Mommie Dearest and since then Clearview has continued to showcase a traditional or cult classic film screening every Thursday night at the Chelsea Cinemas on 23rd Street. Each screening features a special hosted pre-show and giveaways. Some of the most popular films that have been featured include Valley of the Dolls Mame and All About Eve. We are thrilled to [have hosted] this special 11th year kickoff event of the popular Chelsea Classics in such a big way. Having the fabulously funny and talented Lisa Lampanelli on hand to receive this special award for such important work [was] a wonderful addition to our celebration ” said Craig O'Connor director of marketing Clearview Cinemas. ,3392
Company 3 Completes Grading for Multiple Versions of Prometheus ,2012-06-30, Company 3 in Santa Monica used DaVinci Resolve for color grading four different versions of 20th Century Fox's Prometheus. One of the most anticipated features of the summer the science fiction thriller was directed by Ridley Scott the visionary filmmaker behind Alien and Blade Runner who chose Company 3 to help enhance the visual style for Prometheus shot by renowned cinematographer Dariusz Wolski ASC.

 Prometheus a 3D movie event starring Noomi Rapace Michael Fassbender Guy Pearce Idris Elba Logan Marshall-Green and Charlize Theron is set on another planet and has a feeling of lifelessness and much of the action occurs in dark environments. Colorist Stephen Nakamura helped enhance the feeling of Wolski's imagery by further desaturating the already minimal color in the sequences. The filmmakers wanted the environment's darkness to feel somewhat oppressive but not so all encompassing that it would obscure the incredible details of this alien world and the technology employed by the characters. Nakamura combined Resolve's tracking tools and Power Windows with the aperture correction feature to emphasize specific objects in the frame with some additional sharpening. “The filmmakers' vision was of a burnt almost ashen like look. Everything had to be muted and cold looking said Nakamura who previously worked with Scott on Robin Hood but the actors still needed to maintain their human qualities and be seen in warm light without causing the darkness around them to appear muddy. To accomplish this in his films and with 'Prometheus' in particular Ridley likes to make use of the aperture correction feature to subtly enhance the sense that the images have a more limited depth of field. It helps direct the viewer's eye right to a specific person or object without looking like a special effect.”

“Interestingly aperture correction that worked well in 3D viewing situations did not work as well in 2D ” Nakamura continued. “The 3D glasses act as sort of a softening filter so that the amount of sharpness that looks subtle and natural under those conditions can look extreme when watching the film in 2D without glasses. Because of the node based setup of Resolve he added it was not that complicated for the 2D version to go through the footage and just selectively pull back on the sharpening effect without affecting the rest of the image.”

 Nakamura also made use of Resolve's Power Windows to help shape some of the virtual 'lighting' in environments that couldn't really be illuminated with traditional approaches such as creating a kind of 'lighting' inside characters' spacesuits to bring out the actors' faces amid the lifeless environment. I created Power Windows for walls and across the sides of caves said Nakamura and built soft orbs of 'light' around the characters that might not be 'motivated' in the traditional sense but made sense within the world of Prometheus.

 Company 3 also worked with the Prometheus stereography team to refine shot to shot convergence for the 3D version a very important facet of refining the 3D effect and smoothing out what could otherwise be jarring transitions.

Resolve was also used extensively to prepare the film to be exhibited in a variety of different 3D venues. Different 3D projection systems bring varying levels of light (and therefore contrast) to the displayed images. Company 3 was able to build look up tables within Resolve to partially translate the work done for the lower brightness systems and create an additional master designed to make the most of the greater contrast range offered by the higher brightness projection. “That worked fairly well ” said Nakamura “but it still required us to go through and make some shot to shot adjustments for the brighter 3D display and again for the even brighter 2D version. It definitely helps that the Resolve lets me isolate and adjust every correction individually.”
 Blackmagic Design www.blackmagic-design.com ,3394
Veteran Artists Open Creature Art and Mechanics Digital,2012-06-30, A group of artists and technologists that helped bring Davy Jones to life in Pirates of the Caribbean and made everyone’s favorite childhood robots leap into action in Transformers have launched Creature Art and Mechanics Digital a new studio based in Marin County California. The announcement was made by the new company’s founding partners Scott C. Smith Timothy Naylor Andrea Maiolo and Chad Vernon.

 In a joint statement the founding partners said “Our mission is to facilitate producers directors and visual effect supervisors into bringing their digital characters and creatures to life using radically new methods and technologies. We believe that the time has come to rethink and modernize the creation of CG Digital Characters while dramatically reducing costs and increasing efficiency. This means a lower budget for the creation of digital characters in feature films animation and even videogames while giving directors producers heads of studios etc. direct access to the design and creation process.”

 According to its partners CAMd has proprietary technologies that allow them to do some previously unattainable production pipeline tricks. CAMd will offer a creature shop that will hand-off characters and creatures to a studio or its vendors and support the production of that asset through to final compositing if necessary.
 Creature Art & Mechanics http://creatureartandmechanics.com/ ,3396
Strauns Media to Fund Dark Ride’s Next Eight Films,2012-06-30, Dark Ride Entertainment has announced that has Struans Media’s will fully fund its first slate of eight genre films to be completed by 2015.

“Dark Ride was created to fill a void in fun entertaining horror and sci-fi films with great production values that can be made at an affordable cost ” said William Butler president Dark Ride Entertainment. “The team at Dark Ride has all done this successfully before; we’re fortunate to have developed a cost effective system of production and we’re excited to go on this ride with Struans Media. It's great to embark on this journey at a time when Hollywood is realizing you don’t always need big names and big budgets to create films that are both entertaining and profitable.  

 Dark Ride’s creative team includes filmmaker William Butler who previously directed Madhouse for Lionsgate/Lakeshore Furnace for Weinstein Co. and has written for the SyFy Channel. John Vulich who has won three Emmy Awards for special effects and makeup on The X-Files and Buffy the Vampire Slayer television series is vice president and will lend his producing and extensive special and visual effects resources to the productions. 

 “Dark Ride’s creative team’s track record and vision makes them the perfect partners for Struans Media ” said George Malasek CEO Struans Media. “Our goal has always been to fully finance projects we are passionate about that will entertain a wide audience of fans and by investing in Dark Ride we are accomplishing this goal.”

 The first film will be Hell Storm a post-apocalyptic sci-fi/horror project written and directed by Butler filming in Los Angeles in late summer 2012. The films will all be executive produced by Malasek and Struans Media partner John Cole. Overseeing physical production is Emmy Award-winning writer-producer Peter Garcia.