The Dream Factory and 3DFF Bring Leading 3-D Purveyors Together for the Las Vegas Edition of the 3-D Film & Interactive Festival
Excerpt: prnewswire.com

Cinema, NVIDIA, Mitsubishi, Real D, VIU, Alienware, DDD, In Three, XpanD, and 3ality Digital join forces to present the 3D Film & Interactive Festival Las Vegas.

The Dream Factory Studio, the visionary force behind the world's first touring 3-D Film & Interactive Festival initiative (3DFF), continued to evangelize on behalf of leading 3-D digital display, technology and interactive content companies with the debut of "3DFF Las Vegas," which will run March 27th through April 4th, 2009 in Sin City.

Hosted by Rave Motion Pictures' 18 Town Square and Planet Hollywood's "The Living Room," the program will be presented by DLP/Texas Instruments, Real D, NVIDIA, and 3ality Digital.

Also with technology and content support from Mitsubishi Digital Electronics America, Deluxe, Efilm, UVPH, CGI Studios, DDD, Brain Paint, In Three, APCO, PassmoreLabs, Vortex Immersion, Alienware, XpanD, 3opolis Pictures, and The Kerner Company.

3-D Emergence at CES 2009
By Doug Twyman
Excerpt: lasvegassun.com

Hollywood has already started to embrace 3-D in movies, like Disney's "Bolt" in 3-D, Walden Media's "Journey to the Center of the Earth," or next year's "Avatar" from James Cameron.

The electronics and gaming companies have been releasing technology that lets home media systems and PCs deliver 3-D.

At their booth at this year's CES, Nvidia has revealed fully immersive stereoscopic 3-D gaming with NVIDIA GeForce 3-D Vision.

Pair these 3-D Stereo glasses, add on GeForce GPU and a "GeForce 3-D Vision-Ready" display and you will view the game in a fully immersive stereoscopic.

It will be compatible with all the major upcoming games, such as "Call of Duty: World at War" and "Rise of the Lich King."

On the show floor, games like "Call of Duty: World at War" and recent releases like "Race Driver Grid," "Devil May Cry 4," "Guitar Hero" and "Unreal Tournament 3" were playable on 1080p DLP TVs and Viewsonic 3-D Ready 120Hz LCD displays. I've seen a lot of 3-D in my day and I was really impressed.

Nvidia is not the only one embracing the 3-D revolution. CES 2009 has booths highlighting 3-D, including 3-D Webcams, stereoscopic 3-D Monitors, adventure-based 3-D gaming, 3-D scanners and GPS 3-D navigation.

Academy Award Winning Producer
Jon Landau To Deliver Keynote
Address At Virtual Worlds Expo
Excerpt: MarketWatch.com

Virtual Worlds Management announced Jon Landau, Academy Award(R)-winning producer of Lightstorm Entertainment Inc. and advisor to The Multiverse Network, Inc., will deliver a keynote address at the Virtual Worlds Expo at 9 a.m., Wednesday, September 3, 2008 in the Los Angeles Convention Center.

Currently in production on the widely anticipated James Cameron film, AVATAR, Landau will address how virtual worlds are affecting the traditional entertainment industry.

"Jon has the unique ability to combine media-related technologies with the highest caliber of creative talent. We are extremely pleased to have him join us at Virtual Worlds Hollywood and Virtual Worlds Expo," said Christopher Sherman, Executive Director of Virtual Worlds Management.

"James Cameron and Jon Landau are developing digital production tools to enable filming and mass digital distribution of 3D movies. Virtual world technologies are a high priority in their film making process."

James Cameron toplines 3DX panel
Director, Katzenberg to discuss
3-D technology
By DAVID S. COHEN | Excerpt: Variety.com

Twentieth Century Fox filmed entertainment chair Jim Gianopulos, DreamWorks Animation topper Jeffrey Katzenberg and director James Cameron will give a joint keynote at the kickoff event for 3DX, the 3-D film and technology festival slated for November in Singapore.

Plans for the joint presentation are still uncertain, but Gianopulos and Katzenberg are expected to begin the keynote, then bring Cameron in to join them. The joint appearance is scheduled for the 3DX business forum on Nov. 19.

Fox and DreamWorks have major bets on digital 3-D. Katzenberg has announced that all DreamWorks Animation releases going forward will be in 3-D, beginning with "Monsters vs. Aliens" in 2009.

Fox has two major 3-D releases for 2009: "Ice Age 3" and Cameron's "Avatar." It is also expected to be the distributor on the long-planned digital 3-D re-release of the "Star Wars" saga.

Gianopulos told Daily Variety that he expects to bring screen footage from the Fox films, depending on what is ready to show. Gianopulos said he is going to 3DX to encourage adoption of digital 3-D in Asian markets.

"The international transition (to digital) has been slower than we'd like, but that reflects the diversity of players and individual markets," he said. "Within each market progress is being made."

HD EXPO Delivers Powerful Message To Capacity Audience Of Key Content Creators High Octane Information, Community Connection and Creativity Are Critical Factors to Success for Creative and Tech Communities
Excerpt: toolfarm.com

HD EXPO ended on a high note today after the two day conference and exhibition attracted a capacity crowd to its trade show floor, panels and educational offerings.

During the event, Oscar winners, technology visionaries, and technical experts presented real-world knowledge through intimate conversations, 3D screenings, cutting edge panels and intensives to standing-room only audiences.

Wednesday's panels featured an acquisition to post workflow with RED, featuring Ted Schilowitz and a cadre of cinematographers, producers and post experts, and featuring never-seen-before footage.

Industry leader Vince Pace ("Avatar," "Journey to the Center of the Earth," "U2 3D"), led two panels focusing on 3D.

"Myth Busting 3D: Stop the Myths. Hear the Truth.", which featured director Eric Brevig, ("Journey to the Center of the Earth"), Doug Merrifield, ("Hannah Montana"), Glen McPherson, ASC, ("Final Destination 4"), Phil Orlins, (ESPN), and Eric Torres ("Final Destination 4"), explored and explained the facts and in some cases the fiction of 3D production.

3D Summit: Katz blasts critics
Source: hollywoodinhidef.com

Jeffrey Katzenberg opened the 3D Entertainment Summit with his usual provocative verbal flare, defending 3D successes against the recent growing tide of critics claiming it is already dying — “It seems there are some in Hollywood who are determined to seize defeat from the jaws of victory. Six of the top 10 movies this year are 3D; I guess we have to have 10 of 10.

Avatar’s success is a godsend for 3-D vendors at the Consumer Electronics Show
By Dean Takahashi | Source: venturebeat.com

James Cameron’s Avatar film is breaking box office records, coming through on its promise of combining a riveting story with good use of cool 3-D special effects. And that is a godsend for the companies hawking 3-D viewing technology at the International Consumer Electronics Show which starts next week.

Avatar has generated more than $500 million in worldwide box office receipts in its first 10 days. Were it not for Avatar’s popularity, 3-D might have been just another also ran at CES, where the big trends of the future are often crystalized. Last year, 3-D got a lot of hype from speakers ranging from James Cameron to Jeffrey Katzenberg, head of DreamWorks Interactive.

But most people, including me, were skeptical that 3-D glasses would really enhance the viewing of films and TV shows. I expressed my skepticism last year even after many executives declared that 3-D glasses had made huge improvements upon older headache-inducing technologies. Movies such as Up and Monsters vs. Aliens carried the banner for 3-D in 2009. And Intel sponsored a fairly weak demonstration of 3-D in a commercial on the Super Bowl early in 2009. All of that left me underwhelmed.

The whole idea is to create an immersive experience that makes you think you’re inside an entertainment experience. Too often, the attempts to do this have left people disoriented. But now that I’ve seen Avatar, I’m impressed with the great leaps the technology has made, at least when it comes to the experience in movie theaters. And I’m sure that the advocates of 3-D are going to use Avatar as their poster child as their hawk new gear at CES.

Of course, watching 3-D on a big screen at the cinema is a lot more impressive than watching it on a flat-panel TV at home. But the fans of 3-D are hopeful that the success in the theaters will eventually trickle down. The trend toward 3-D TVs may move forward inexorably, much like other TV improvements that started out at the high-end of the market and moved into the mainstream. At some point, much like home theaters with surround sound, the technology may be good enough for home viewing.

Autodesk University conference coverage:
James Cameron's Avatar
Excerpt: core77.com

Sadly, folks, one of the most thrilling events at this year's Autodesk University 2009 conference in Vegas is something I was forbidden to record.

James Cameron (in absentia) allowed roughly 20 minutes' worth of unseen footage and different action scenes from his forthcoming Avatar, which was rendered using Autodesk software, to be shown at the conference.

The enormous hall was packed for the event, with 3D glasses on every seat and shortly, on everyone's faces as the lights went down. Cameras were strictly forbidden, and ushers prowled about with night-vision monoculars, scanning the crowd.

I wasn't going to risk getting tossed from this event to get Core a grainy, frantically-shot scoop (above is a publicly-released production still), so I left my camera in my bag and watched obediently. It was mind-blowing. Unlike other CG spectacles like Transformers 2, Cameron's movie has at its heart an incredibly compelling, relevant and well-thought-out narrative, and the technology is used to support that--just like a good product design.

His lushly rendered world is there to help tell the story, not be the story, and his usage of 3D is not of the gimmicky Oh-no-a-baseball-is-coming-straight-at-me variety, but is instead utilized purely to immerse the viewer in the tale, removing the "screen plane." Those who know Cameron most from Titanic may not realize the man is a talented designer, having penned things both fanciful--the Hunter-Killer machines from Terminator, the Alien queen from Aliens, among others--as well as practical and real, like the submersibles he's currently designing to investigate the Mariana Trench.

IFA 2009: Panasonic press conference live –
full HD 3D TV, Avatar and new micro-four thirds camera
Excerpt: stuff.tv

Show highlights reported by Stuff.tv. Half the article was the reporter trying to be a stand up comedian, so we cherry picked the real news from it. You can click on the link above for the reporter's humorous(?) commentaries.

Stuff.tv: There's a large mechanoid from the Avatar movie in the entrance of the Panasonic stand. Something tells me we might be seeing quite a bit of Avatar this morning. Abadie is talking through Panasonic's business stats.

Panasonic number 1 in Plasma HD TVs in Europe, top in digital stills camera market. Number 1 in DVD Recorders in the UK. Panasonic is working on energy generation, energy storage and energy saving products.

So lots of lovely green gadgets on the cards. Panasonic announces Full HD 3D – working on everything from the broadcast cameras to the Blu-ray disc media to the player, active shutter glasses and plasma TVs. So Panasonic is using active shutter glasses just like Sony. Is this going to be the future tech we'll be wearing in our houses? Yoshiiku Miyata, senior vice president of Panasonic's AV business is on stage. He's going to tell us all about 3D. A full HD 3D label flies on to screen as the music goes EPIC. The presentation is now comparing the excitement of the moon landings to the excitement of 3D TV.

"In real life, everything is 3D but TV pictures are 2D." Next year, says Panasonic, TV will change dramatically. Panasonic uses PDP technology to capture "real" full HD 3D pictures. Two key technologies in Panasonic 3D full HD. Delivers two 1080P images, one to each eye. "3D – you will find yoursefl feeling as if you've stepped in to the screen." Panasonic says it will be the first brand to launch a 3D Blu-ray player and 3D HD TV. Panasonic is also pushing for its 3D standard as the…well…standard. It's also got a 3D studio lab in Hollywood which it is mighty proud of.

Panasonic is going to launch 3D Blu-ray recorders and players as well as Viera 3D HD TVs and a 3D Blu-ray home theatre system. Now on to Blu-ray recorders. They record and play back HD broadcasting, recordings and discs. Trailer for Avatar. It looks pretty badass. Robot suits, blue skinned aliens, battles, monsters. Bit creepy with the dreadlocked blue skinned aliens kissing – slightly like some form of mad specialised pron. It's Jon Landau. "Avatar is a story of redemption. On Titanic, there were practical world solutions we had to come up with to make the movie."

Thinking positively at Cinema Expo
Excerpt: filmjournal.com

Positive thinking is the key to success in nearly all endeavors. And the movie industry is finding it easier than most to think positively, since it traditionally performs well during challenging economic times.

This certainly has been proven once again during the past 12 months. Conventions for the movie industry are really great big “pep rallies.”

They provide the perfect venue for theatre owners and film distributors to come together and speak about all the positive things that are happening in the industry—like new state-of-the-art cinemas, upcoming product from the Hollywood studios and the independents, and new technological improvements like satellite distribution. Conventions offer the ideal opportunity to network with your partners in business and your competition and to come away with new knowledge that will make you better at what you do. They allow executives to learn from others how they are reviving their businesses in order to maximize efficiency and to drive incremental profit through new initiatives.

And isn’t that what your business is about—satisfying your customers and drawing profits? Cinemas provide an opportunity for their patrons to be transported into a whole new world. Leave your problems at the door and escape into the greatest entertainment vehicle in existence—the magical movie. When digital cinema was introduced nearly a decade ago, no one envisioned the ancillary benefits that would come along with it, and today digital is being driven by 3D, alternative content and cinema advertising. Going to the movies is a whole new experience and continues to evolve.

Hollywood CG Masters Share Expertise at CG Overdrive 2009 Asia's CG Event of the Year to Feature Acclaimed CG Gurus from Across the Globe
Excerpt: acnnewswire.com

CG Overdrive - the iconic event for CG artists by CG artists - returns for its fourth edition from 16 -19 June at Singapore Expo. Organised by Visual Communication Order (VCO) and strategic partner, Singapore Exhibition Services (SES), the exhibition and conference once again promises a line up of prominent speakers from internationally renowned studios, making it an event not to be missed.

New segment for 2009

These six lecture-style sessions will be conducted by industry gurus from across the globe, and hail from illustrious studios such as Pixar Animation Studios, Lucasfilm Animation Company Singapore B.V., Codemasters, FZD School of Design, Double Negative and Rune Entertainment. The 2D track will feature renowned artist, Ryan Church best known for his outstanding work on Star Wars Episode II and lll, and his recent works include Transformers 2 and Star Trek. Speaking on the topic of Advanced Digital Art and Concept Development Techniques, the two-day track will give an in-depth and detailed insight of the pipeline of digital painting using paint applications such as Photoshop and Corel Painter.

CG gurus at CG Overdrive Conference

The four-day annual conference will feature 10 international CG artists, who will share tips and techniques on specific skill sets, and talk about the intricacies of the production pipeline of feature films and AAA games. One of these is keynote speaker Alex Alvarez, founder of the Gnomon School of Visual Effects in Hollywood. He is the president of the Los Angeles Maya Users Group, and has helped change the face of computer graphics and design education. He has been published in industry magazines, websites and books, and recently worked on the James Cameron's film Avatar.

SHOWEST 2009 COVERAGE

ShoWest: 3D Is The Way Of The Future
By Katey Rich | Excerpt: cinemablend.com

You could call it coincidence that, the weekend before movie theater owners gathered at ShoWest to discuss the future of their industry, Monsters vs. Aliens opened huge, earning more than half its box office from 3D screenings.

But honestly, I wouldn't underestimate Jeffrey Katzenberg, the DreamWorks Animation CEO who has been pushing theaters to make the move to 3D for years now, and arrived at ShoWest today crowing about the results so far.

"To say we were all surprised is an understatement," Katzenberg said introducing today's afternoon panel, and maybe fudging the truth a little.

IMAX, one of the sponsors of the luncheon, also got the royal treatment. In a short video extolling the virtues of IMAX and all the movies we'll see in that format, James Cameron promoted Avatar with the line "Watching Avatar is like dreaming with your eyes wide open," and J.J. Abrams gushed that IMAX is "the most impressive and immersive experience you can have at the movies." There was also footage from last summer's newscasts, reminding us that there were fanboys who would have sold their own mothers to see The Dark Knight on the super-big screen.

Dolby Showcases Digital Cinema Solutions at ShoWest 2009
By Katey Rich | Excerpt: businesswire.com

At ShoWest 2009, Dolby Laboratories, Inc., will demonstrate its latest digital cinema solutions for audio, networking, 3D, and more. Dolby is making it easier than ever for exhibitors to transition to digital cinema with its comprehensive and reliable solutions.

These include its digital cinema server, software, and 3D solution, as well as its latest in audio processing, the CP750 Digital Cinema Processor. “As digital cinema continues to expand, Dolby is proud to deliver premium technology in digital audio and in digital cinema. With more than 2,500 Dolby® Digital Cinema and 1,000 Dolby 3D Digital Cinema systems shipped globally, we continue to be a leading contributor to the digital transition for cinema,” said Ramzi Haidamus, Executive Vice President, Sales and Marketing, Dolby Laboratories..

3D Summit in Los Angeles
Film Industry Leaders Gather to Discuss
the Future of 3D
Excerpt: 3d-summit.com

The 3D Entertainment Summit is this year's most crucial educational and networking event for developing business strategies to harness the explosion in 3D entertainment. 3D Technology has become a competitive and influential force in the entertainment industry. As industry insiders are well aware, 3D Entertainment has earned a coveted place in the film, video gaming and home entertainment markets.

Many of the major studios and prestiged filmmakers have not only embraced this technology but have committed to incorporating 3D as part of their artistic and long-term economic plans.

Calendar Highlights: December 2nd

- Panel Session: Will 3D Win Over Wall Street: Where is the 3D Market and Just How Big is it?
- Panel Session: Broadcast TV Who is Leading the Pack? All sports, when broadcast in 3D, take the fan into the action as never felt before. The experience of seeing the game will be replaced by being "in" the game.
- Special Pre-Lunch Keynote Presentation - Jim Cameron, Director; Vince Pace, Founder & CEO, PACE

3D Summit Updates:
Katzenberg continues rallying cry for 3-D cinema growth
By Jeremy Kay | Excerpt: screendaily.com

3D represents the biggest economic opportunity to the film industry in three decades, DreamWorks Animation CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg told delegates at the 3D Entertainment Summit in Los Angeles on Monday [December 1]. In a typically passionate sermon Katzenberg, Hollywood's "high priest" of 3D who announced last year that starting in 2009 all DreamWorks Animation titles would be released in 3D, noted the slow roll-out of digital cinema but said 3D would be the "game changer." Twentieth Century Fox's December 2009 release of James Cameron's sci-fi epic Avatar will be a crucial juncture.