Supple Magazine

8 Jan 2010 15:03 Africa/Lagos

Academy Award(R) Honors Developers of USC ICT’s Light Stage Technologies Used on Avatar, Benjamin Button

Award recognizes Institute for Creative Technologies’ visual effects systems that create believable digital actors and have ever-increasing entertainment applications.

LOS ANGELES, Jan. 8 /PRNewswire/ — The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced that Paul Debevec, associate director, graphics research at the USC Institute for Creative Technologies, Tim Hawkins of LightStage LLC, John Monos of Sony Pictures Imageworks, and Mark Sagar of WETA Digital, will be honored with a Scientific and Engineering Academy Award® for “the design and engineering of the Light Stage capture devices and the image-based facial rendering system developed for character relighting in motion pictures.”

According to the Academy’s citation, “the combination of these systems, with their ability to capture high fidelity reflectance data of human subjects, allows for the creation of photorealistic digital faces as they would appear in any lighting condition.” The award recognizes over ten years of research, development and application of technologies designed to help achieve the goal of photoreal digital actors.

Based on original research led by Debevec at the University of California at Berkeley and published at the 2000 SIGGRAPH conference, the Light Stage systems efficiently capture how an actor’s face appears when lit from every possible lighting direction. From this captured imagery, specialized algorithms create realistic virtual renditions of the actor in the illumination of any location or set, faithfully reproducing the color, texture, shine, shading, and translucency of the actor’s skin.

While the first Light Stage had just one spotlight which spiraled around on a wooden gantry, Light Stage 2 built at USC’s Institute for Creative Technologies featured thirty bright strobe lights on a ten foot semicircular arm which rotated to capture detailed facial reflectance in just eight seconds. In 2002, this process attracted the attention of visual effects supervisor Scott Stokdyk of Sony Pictures Imageworks, who chose it for creating photoreal computer-generated stunt doubles of actors Alfred Molina (“Doc Ock”) and Tobey Maguire (“Spider-Man(TM)”) for the movie Spider-Man(TM) 2. Mark Sagar, a collaborator on the original research, led the effort to adapt the process for film production. He was soon joined by computer graphics supervisor John Monos on Imageworks’ look development team. The technology was used in nearly 40 shots for the 2004 film which earned an Academy Award® for Best Achievement in Visual Effects.

After Spider-Man(TM) 2, Mark Sagar transitioned to Peter Jackson’s visual effects company WETA Digital in New Zealand where he oversaw the use of USC’s Light Stage 2 system to record the facial reflectance of actress Naomi Watts for her digital stunt double in Peter Jackson’s King Kong in 2005. Continuing at Sony Imageworks, John Monos led an effort which used Light Stage 2 scans of actor Brandon Routh to create a digital Superman character for the 2006 movie Superman Returns. The film achieved a new high water mark in the realism of virtual actors, with the digital Superman being successfully employed in both action sequences and extended close-up shots. The seamless digital character work helped earn Superman Returns an Academy Award® nomination for Best Visual Effects.

Sony Imageworks subsequently used Light Stage 2, as well as its full-sphere LED-based successors Light Stage 3 and Light Stage 5, to create digital versions of principal actors for Spider-Man(TM) 3 in 2007 and Hancock in 2008.

In 2008, visual effects company Digital Domain used detailed reflectance information captured with ICT’s Light Stage 5 system to help create a computer-generated version of Brad Pitt as an old man for David Fincher’s The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. The film, which featured the first extended performance of a digitally rendered actor in a feature film, won last year’s Academy Award for Best Visual Effects.

USC ICT’s Light Stage 5 system was most recently employed in the extensive visual effects in James Cameron’s worldwide hit Avatar. Working closely with the visual effects team at WETA Digital, ICT’s Graphics Laboratory digitized the faces of most of the film’s principal cast using a new high-resolution version of their geometry and appearance capture techniques. This innovative technology, housed at ICT’s Marina del Rey campus, precisely captures the shape, shine, color and texture of an actor’s face down to the level of each skin pore, crease, and wrinkle. These detailed scans were used by WETA Digital in their process of creating the film’s photorealistic digital humans and humanoid aliens, which have been lauded as a groundbreaking achievement in the evolution of digital filmmaking.

Through USC’s Stevens Institute for Innovation, the Light Stage technologies have been licensed to LightStage LLC, a Burbank-based company which offers commercial scanning services to the motion picture and interactive entertainment industries. LightStage LLC’s Chief Technology Officer Tim Hawkins was involved in the development of the Light Stage technology beginning with the original research at UC Berkeley and throughout its application in motion pictures as a researcher in the Graphics Laboratory at USC ICT.

Paul Debevec, who is also a research associate professor in the computer science department of USC’s Viterbi School of Engineering, continues to lead ICT’s graphics research program, which has published over 20 peer-reviewed publications involving the Light Stage systems to date.

The Academy’s Scientific and Technical Awards honor the men, women and companies whose discoveries and innovations have contributed in significant, outstanding and lasting ways to motion pictures. The Scientific and Engineering Award will be presented to Debevec, Hawkins, Monos and Sagar at the Academy’s Scientific and Technical Awards Ceremony in Beverly Hills on February 20th, 2010.

Links:

Academy Scientific and Technical Awards Press Release
http://www.oscars.org/press/pressreleases/2010/20100107.html
The Academy Scientific and Technical Awards http://www.oscars.org/awards/
scitech/
The Scientific and Engineering Award (Academy Plaque)
http://www.oscars.org/awards/academyawards/about/awards/scientific-
engineering.html
The Light Stages at USC ICT http://gl.ict.usc.edu/LightStages/
USC Institute for Creative Technologies http://www.ict.usc.edu/
ICT Graphics Laboratory http://gl.ict.usc.edu/
LightStage LLC http://www.lightstage.com/
Sony Pictures Imageworks http://www.imageworks.com/
WETA Digital http://www.wetafx.co.nz/

Source: USC Institute for Creative Technologies

CONTACT: Orli Belman of USC Institute for Creative Technologies,
+1-310-709-4156, belman@ict.usc.edu; or Rachel Falikoff of Sony Pictures
Imageworks, +1-310-840-8789, rfalikoff@imageworks.com

Web Site: http://gl.ict.usc.edu/
http://www.lightstage.com/
http://www.wetafx.co.nz/
http://www.imageworks.com/

31 Dec 2009 14:55 Africa/Lagos

Sandra Bullock Top Money-Making Star of 2009

GROTON, Mass., Dec. 31 /PRNewswire/ — Sandra Bullock has been voted the Top Money-Making Star of 2009 in Quigley Publishing Company’s 78th Annual Poll of Exhibitors and is the first female to win since Julia Roberts in 1999. Bullock is the eighth woman chosen #1 in the Poll’s 78 year history. She appeared in three films in 2009, “The Blind Side,” “The Proposal” and “All About Steve.”

The Quigley Poll, conducted each year since 1932, is an annual survey of motion picture theatre owners and film buyers, which asks them to vote for the ten stars that they believe generated the most box-office revenue for their theatres during the year. As it is a survey it can be quite hard to guess who will make the list, you probably wouldn’t want to make a bet on it, if you are in the mood for betting visita site like partybets.com or go to your local bookies. It has been long regarded as one of the most reliable indicators of a Star’s real box-office draw because the selections are done by people whose livelihood depends on choosing the films that will bring audiences to their theatres. The Quigley Poll appears annually in Quigley Publishing Company’s International Motion Picture Almanac and at www.quigleypublishing.com .

Johnny Depp placed second this year based on “Public Enemies” and a small role in “The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus.” He was #1 in 2006 and 2007. Matt Damon made his second appearance in the survey, placing #3 with 2009 roles in “Invictus” and “The Informant!” Although George Clooney, placing #4, has never won in his seven mentions in the Poll, he had an extremely productive year with “Up in the Air,” “The Men Who Stare at Goats” and “Fantastic Mr. Fox”(voice). Robert Downey Jr.’s performances in “Sherlock Holmes” and “The Soloist” helped him place #5. He was #2 in 2008.

Tom Hanks is #6, which marks the fifteenth time in the Poll since he first appeared in 1988, including five times as #1. Meryl Streep was in “Julie and Julia,” “It’s Complicated” and a voice in “Fantastic Mr. Fox” and placed #7, her third mention in the Poll. Brad Pitt made his fifth appearance coming in at #8, due to “Inglourious Basterds.” 2007’s “Star of Tomorrow,” Shia LaBeouf scored #9 with “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” and Denzel Washington rounded out the Top Ten with “The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3.”

With Bullock’s win, eight women have been voted the Top Money-Makers sixteen times as follows: Marie Dressler (1932, 1933), Shirley Temple (1935, 1936, 1937, 1938), Betty Grable (1943), Elizabeth Taylor (1961), Doris Day (1960, 1962, 1963, 1964), Julie Andrews (1966, 1967) and Julia Roberts. (1999)

Tom Cruise has not placed in the Poll in the last two years but he has been in the Top Ten 20 times since 1983, and been voted number one seven times. Tom Hanks, Clint Eastwood, Burt Reynolds and Bing Crosby have all won five times. John Wayne, Doris Day and Shirley Temple each finished first four times, but John Wayne was voted one of the Top Ten Money-Making Stars an astounding 25 times from 1949 to 1974.

Exhibitors were also asked to name the Stars of Tomorrow for 2009: one actor and one actress who they feel will be Top Money-Makers in the years to come. The 2009 winners are Carey Mulligan who had a breakthrough performance in “An Education” and was also in “Brothers” and “Public Enemies” and Taylor Lautner who scored as Jacob Black in “New Moon.”

Top Ten Money-Making Stars of 2009

1. Sandra Bullock
2. Johnny Depp
3. Matt Damon
4. George Clooney
5. Robert Downey Jr.
6. Tom Hanks
7. Meryl Streep
8. Brad Pitt
9. Shia LaBeouf
10. Denzel Washington

Stars of Tomorrow:

Carey Mulligan
Taylor Lautner

Quigley Publishing Company was founded in 1915 and has published the International Motion Picture Almanac annually since 1930 and the International Television & Video Almanac since 1955. Historical data and all of the Top Ten Money-Making Star Poll dating back to 1932 are available in the 2010 edition of the International Motion Picture Almanac and on our web site: www.quigleypublishing.com

Source: Quigley Publishing Company

CONTACT: Bill Quigley of Quigley Publishing Company, +1-978-448-0272, or
Fax: +1-978-448-9325

Web Site: http://www.quigleypublishing.com/

Jolie and Pitt Support American Foster Children With Grant of $100,000 for Christmas to American SOS Children’s Villages

WASHINGTON, Dec. 24 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — SOS Children’s Villages – USA today announced a gift of $100,000 from Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt to support its two American SOS Children’s Villages for Christmas.

SOS-Florida and SOS-Illinois were founded over fifteen years ago to provide an alternative form of foster care in the U.S. that puts an end to multiple placements, separation from siblings, physical and sexual abuse or neglect and abandonment.

Ms. Jolie said of the donation, “We have seen first-hand the remarkable job SOS does to raise orphaned and abandoned children and keep families together. No one ‘ages out’ of an SOS Village: vocational training, advanced education, living assistance and moral support are there forever.”
SOS Children’s Villages – USA CEO Heather Paul stated, “The Jolie-Pitt Foundation has been a strong and loyal supporter of SOS Children’s Villages around the world. We are deeply grateful that this year this couple has included in their generosity our villages in Illinois and Florida and our 300 children who call SOS ‘home.'” Brad Pitt: “In this holiday season, many of us take for granted that we are surrounded by loving family members. The poor outcomes for foster children indicate that we must do a much better job of supporting them.”
About SOS Children’s Villages in Illinois and Florida
SOS-Florida in Coconut Creek provides a home for 75 children of all ages. Services include tutoring, therapy, life skills, and family reunification when possible.
SOS-Illinois operates two villages, one in Lockport which cares for 102 children. A second village in South Chicago takes care of 84 children and youths. A Social Center also provides day care and support services for other families at risk. Another SOS Village on the West Side of Chicago is in the planning stages.
About SOS Children’s Villages
For 60 years, SOS Children’s Villages has been dedicated to the long-term care of orphaned and abandoned children. With 500 villages in 132 countries, SOS offers a family-based village model that provides for the holistic needs of a child – family, community, education and support – essential for the successful transition from childhood into adulthood. Through Villages, schools, medical facilities, micro-lending, and family strengthening programs, SOS Children’s Villages impacts the lives of over 1 million people each year. In 2009, SOS Children’s Villages was honored with the Save the World Award. SOS is also the recipient of the Conrad N. Hilton Humanitarian Prize and the Mother Teresa Gold Medal.

About U.S. Foster Care
There are 518,000 American children in foster care. Three in four are separated from their siblings. Most will live in six or more foster homes in the U.S. foster care system. Unfortunately, their future can be bleak: 25% are homeless at some time, 45% never finish high school