Daniel Radcliffe’s face was inserted into the actual “Eat It” music video performance footage of Yankovic with a deepfake face replacement of Radcliffe onto the real body of Weird Al. VFX LA provided the effects.
Getting some serious visual effects work from VFX LA and Wolverine VFX is the irreverent biopic Weird: The Al Yankovic Story, directed by Eric Appel and starring Daniel Radcliffe as the real-life accordionist who became famous in the 1980s for his song parodies that include “Like a Surgeon,” “Eat It” and “My Bologna.” The team at VFX LA consisted of a trio of visual effects supervisors – Charles H. Joslain, Izzy Traub and Joseph Sperber – who were responsible of 45 shots, with most challenging being concert scenes where there was no actual stadium and doing a deepfake face replacement of Radcliffe onto the real body of Yankovic for another sequence.
Daniel Radcliffe stars as the real-life accordionist who became famous in the 1980s for his hit parodies “Like a Surgeon,” “Eat It” and “My Bologna.” Rainn Wilson, right, plays Dr. Demento.
Post-production lasted two months starting in June 2022, and the world premiere occurred in September 2022 as part of the 47th Toronto International Film Festival. “We had about 15 people on our team, and there were certain aspects that we thought were going to be easier and they weren’t,” Traub states. “We had to ask for a week extension, and they had built in some time contingencies into their own schedule so were able to give it to us.” Visual effects have become a more affordable tool for independent productions. “What can be done now could not been done five years ago, especially when you take into account of having the majority of everything cloud-based. Since the pandemic, an entire [stretch of] time has gone offline, which in turn has enabled us to offer our services at a much better price than we normally could, simply because you’re not paying the overhead that goes along with having a big studio.”
“That was part of the comedy of [the ‘Eat It’ music video]. They wanted the face to be manipulated and for the body itself be straight-up Weird Al. We trained our model of Daniel [Radcliffe’s] face on the footage of Weird Al and rotoscoped, cleaned everything up, did a bunch of other compositing stuff to it, and added the glasses back in.”
—Izzy Traub, Visual Effects Supervisor
Pre-trained footage of the Daniel Radcliffe face.
Radcliffe’s face inserted onto the original 16 celluloid footage with 3D glasses added afterwards.
Numerous references were provided by the director. “The name of the game was to get first drafts in front of Eric as quickly as possible,” Traub notes. “The best examples of look development were the CG stadium and crowd simulations we did. The first draft was, ‘Here’s the framing, layout and camera position, then get that signed off, and from there develop the look further with colors, lighting, textures and animation. Eric was thorough with what he wanted, so we had a good idea of the placement of everything, His feedback was extremely concise. We used one of the shots for look development and went through four different revisions, which is not a lot at all. From there, we replicated that look across the other shots and might have gone through one or two revisions.” The aesthetic was determined by the footage rather than studying previous projects by Appel. “We watched the film beforehand, looked at the lighting, and they had a LUT that was given to us.”
“We had access to Daniel [Radcliffe], had him look into a camera for 20 minutes and do facial expressions, but we had to create the [AI] training set ourselves from the footage in the film. Things were relatively straightforward until we composited it and saw that Daniel’s glasses aren’t working well because he’s turning his head and there’s parallax between the glasses and his actual face. We brought any tracking we could into Maya, lined up the glasses, and then manually hand-tracked those glasses to Daniel’s face. We added additional reflections to the glasses to cover up some of the cleanup work there.”
—Izzy Traub, Visual Effects Supervisor
Special attention had to be paid to the hair of the CG crowd because of concert lighting.
No body alterations were done in CG for the deepfake shots, which saw Radcliffe’s face inserted into the actual “Eat It” music video performance footage of Yankovic. “That was part of the comedy of it,” Traub remarks. “They wanted the face to be manipulated and for the body itself be straight-up Weird Al. We trained our model of Daniel’s face on the footage of Weird Al and rotoscoped, cleaned everything up, did a bunch of other compositing stuff to it, and added the glasses back in.” A data set had to be created to train the AI. Comments Traub, “Normally, we would have had access to Daniel, and had him look into a camera for 20 minutes and do facial expressions, but we had to create the training set ourselves from the footage in the film. Things were relatively straightforward until we composited it and saw that Daniel’s glasses aren’t working well because he’s turning his head and there’s parallax between the glasses and his actual face. We brought any tracking we could into Maya, lined up the glasses, and then manually hand-tracked those glasses to Daniel’s face. We added additional reflections to the glasses to cover up some of the cleanup work there.”
“You can see in the deepfake, it struggles with realistic eyes… Depending on the footage, movement, lighting and training data, the neuro network will respond differently. You’re doing trial and error. In this particular case, the eyes looked quite big and difficult to truly clean up. The 3D lenses [on the glasses] helped to integrate the face with our shot.”
—Izzy Traub, Visual Effects Supervisor
Side-by-side comparisons of the original 16mm celluloids and the final deepfake versions.
The visual aesthetic was determined by the footage of the movie rather than studying previous projects by director Eric Appel.
One thing that deepfakes do not do well are eyeballs. “You can see in the deepfake, it struggles with realistic eyes, and this is our third deepfake project in 2022,” Traub observes. “Depending on the footage, movement, lighting and training data, the neuro network will respond differently. You’re doing trial and error. In this particular case, the eyes looked quite big and difficult to truly clean up. The 3D lenses [on the glasses] helped to integrate the face with our shot.” VFX LA has its own custom neuro network for deepfakes. Explains Traub, “We were using DeepFaceLab on other projects, which is a main tool. Then we built our own Neural Network. However, a talented artist on this was responsible for using his own tech that he had constructed over the last couple of years. From there, the model output a face layer that then goes into After Effects for all of the compositing and clean up. Sometimes when Weird Al would turn his head, we weren’t actually able to use the deepfake. We were able to grab frames of Daniel [Radcliffe’s] face and paint them onto Weird Al’s face so that when he turned, we could mask that portion of Daniel’s face away to avoid any sort of weird morphing with the deepfake.”
The trickiest shots to achieve were the CG crowd shots for the concert.
“We were using DeepFaceLab on other projects, which is a main tool. Then we built our own Neural Network. However, a talented artist on this was responsible for using his own tech that he had constructed over the last couple of years. From there, the model output a face layer that then goes into After Effects for all of the compositing and clean up. Sometimes when Weird Al would turn his head, we weren’t actually able to use the deepfake. We were able to grab frames of Daniel’s face and paint them onto Weird Al’s face so that when he turned, we could mask that portion of Daniel’s face away to avoid any sort of weird morphing with the deepfake.”
—Izzy Traub, Visual Effects Supervisor
Only one panel was physically constructed for the awards ceremony set, with the remainder constructed in Photoshop.
Initially, it was thought that the deepfake would be trickiest to achieve, but in fact that distinction belonged to the CG crowd shots. “One of our artists recorded themselves dancing in a mocap suit for roughly an hour,” Traub remarks. “We took that animation, spliced it up, applied it to a bunch of different characters that we had in Maya and replicated it.” Variants were built into the CG characters such as different hair movements. “We were able to get away with 2K and 4K textures rather than 8K on our characters,” Traub adds. “The hair had to look decent and took more time than we were expecting, simply because we have lights moving across them from time to time, so you do see some of the detail in the hair.” More audience members were added in the background for the awards ceremony. “They had shot a lot of those plates on set, so we were able to use that for the modeling,” Traub states. “We took the plates, combined them and put those people in the back. Only one panel was built, so we had to extend the set. We took what they had for the back plate for the set, made our own in Photoshop, and that was it!”
For the cosmic scenes, an abstract rather then realistic approach was adopted.
Drugs, love and murderous artwork are all part of the world of Entergalactic, an animated feature created by American rapper Scott “Kid Cudi” Mescudi and producer Kenya Barris and directed by Fletcher Moules for Netflix.
The creative directive for DNEG Animation was to produce a painterly aesthetic. “When I first saw the artwork, I almost fell off my chair,” laughs Archie Donato, Visual Effects Supervisor at DNEG Animation. “I spent 17 years at DreamWorks, and while I loved working there, there was very little experimentation with the push look. I was genuinely craving not only the artistic freedom, but also the challenge of, ‘How the heck are we going to do this?’” Communication was a big factor, especially with everyone working remotely because of the pandemic. “How do we create this world that is made in CG that looks 2D and a 2.5D somewhere in the middle?” states Chrissy Metge, Digital Producer at DNEG Animation. “The anticipation was it would be hard to communicate how we’re achieving this within the time frame that we had available, and it was hard to communicate between ourselves and client, the client back with Netflix and vice versa. At the end of the day, it came down to trusting all of us, trying things out and creating a safe space.”
Reds and greens were prominent colors for the Chinatown environment.
“The energy of Entergalactic was special. The music played a big part in it… It’s important that the acting and the emotional response from the characters hit with the music. … We made sure that the animation was working nicely, but when I saw the score, it definitely made the shot a hundred times better. There were a few sequences where we didn’t know where the beat hit. Fletch would say, ‘If you hit exactly that frame, you’ll be on the beat.’ It was really hard.”
—Chrissy Metge, Digital Producer, DNEG Animation
One of the motion tests involved three characters sitting at a table together.
The red in the hoodie was kept to ground Jabari in the Nightmare sequence.
“The director said to me on the first meeting, ‘I want you to take the audience into the painting,’ My response was, ‘No worries. We’ll do that.’” A test was done to turn a concept painting of Chinatown into a 3D set. “I wanted to make it so when you’re looking at the painting it came alive. We used Mari for all our paint work along with Nuke for compositing. The painting was broken down into individual Photoshop layers and those were used as a reference to paint our 3D versions. We painted the missing parts that you don’t see in a 2D painting so [the virtual camera could move freely in the environment].”
The love interest in Entergalactic is the neighborly photographer Meadow.
It was important to make viewers forget that they are watching animated characters.
Inspiration for animation style did not come from Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. “The big difference is that Entergalactic is intimate while Spider-Verse is more dynamic,” notes Kapil Sharma, Animation Director at DNEG Animation. “I Lost My Body was one of the things that inspired us.” Establishing the visual guidelines were the paintings of Art Director Michal Sawtyruk. “The director said to me on the first meeting, ‘I want you to take the audience into the painting,’” recalls Donato, who at the time did not fully realize the extent of the request being made by Fletcher Moules. “My response was, ‘No worries. We’ll do that.’” A test was done to turn a concept painting of Chinatown into a 3D set. “I wanted to make it so when you’re looking at the painting it came alive,” Donato notes. “We used Mari for all our paint work along with Nuke for compositing. The painting was broken down into individual Photoshop layers, and those were used as a reference to paint our 3D versions. We painted the missing parts that you don’t see in a 2D painting so [the virtual camera could move freely in the environment].”
The clothing down to the t-shirts were carefully considered for each shot.
Jabari takes a selfie with Meadow.
Google Maps was consulted to construct New York City in a realistic manner.
The faces of characters were designed to resemble their voice actor counterparts.
A new pipeline had to be completely reconfigured with shaders being rewritten. “It was a mixed bag,” Donato explains. “For some effects we used Houdini, but the difficulty of it was that they wanted to make the 3D animated effects look 2D. Some of it was truly hand-drawn animation. We would scan line art and mix and match the 3D effects with the 2D effects together. Nuke was a huge part in putting the drawings back into the film because they needed to be recolored or made smokier for transparency reasons. It was reinventing the wheel from scratch in a lot of ways.” Simulations were not straightforward. “Kapil was animating on variable steps so we were not just locked to 2s,” Donato adds. “We were doing 2s, 3s and 4s. At times we had shots that were 8s, which I have literally rarely ever seen. That made our effects life absolute misery because effects cannot simulate steps. They had to come up with the tools to simulate normally and then basically start to skip around and do variable rates with the simulations. It was a major challenge.”
It was important for animators to go for gestures that were genuine rather than over the top.
Various facial expressions developed for Meadow.
Over-the-top physical gestures and facial expressions that are a trademark of animation were to be avoided. “We wanted the face to be organic,” Sharma notes. “Most of the heavy lifting was done with [the protagonist] Jabari. We spent quite a few weeks posing him. Once we knew how to deal with the character design and the art style of these faces, then it was a matter of doing different things with each character and showing them to Fletch. We wanted to make sure that the characters come close to the real actors. You’re trying to copy exactly the same but have its own look.” Most of the time restraint was shown for the BMX riding sequences. “It was something that Fletch was quite keen about,” Sharma remarks. “Right away, I was proposing, ‘Lets go crazy with the stunts, but we had to rethink because Jabari rides mostly under the influence, so it’s in a very chilled manner. Fletch has friends with BMXs. so he had a good knowledge about that as well. With the BMX, we were pushing the limits [at times], but we didn’t want to do that with the actual performance [of the characters]. We wanted to make sure that we got a genuine performance [so audiences forget that they are watching animated characters].”
“We wanted the face to be organic. Most of the heavy lifting was done with [the protagonist] Jabari. We spent quite a few weeks posing him. Once we knew how to deal with the character design and the art style of these faces, then it was a matter of doing different things with each character and showing them to Fletch [director Fletcher Moules]. We wanted to make sure that the characters come close to the real actors. You’re trying to copy [them] exactly the same but have [the character have] its own look.”
—Kapil Sharma, Animation Director, DNEG Animation
Jabari is talented in maneuvering his BMX through the streets of New York City. Most of the time he rides in chilled manner because he is under the influence.
Driving the narrative is the eighth studio album by Kid Cudi, which shares the same name as the animated feature. “The energy of Entergalactic was special,” Metge observes. “The music played a big part in it, and for us it was difficult because we didn’t have the music because of security.”A beat sheet was provided instead. “It’s important that the acting and the emotional response from the characters hit with the music,” Metge states. “We had to spend more time in the edit and come back to the crew at DNEG Animation, then get back into edit and then show it to Kid Cudi, and doing that loop again.” For the animation team, it was a guessing game. “We made sure that the animation was working nicely,” Metge adds, “but when I saw the score, it definitely made the shot a hundred times better. There were a few sequences where we didn’t know where the beat hit. Fletch would say, ‘If you hit exactly that frame, you’ll be on the beat.’ It was really hard.”
Paintings by Art Director Michal Sawtyruk established the overall visual aesthetic.
Along with the grounded real-life moments, there are the cosmic and nightmare sequences. “It was like several movies within a movie when you think about it in terms of styles,” Donato observes. “The Nightmare has a completely different feel and style to the movie all together. Jabari is being chased by his own artwork that wants to kill him. It’s a tricky idea. The rest of the movie had static, locked-off cameras, so we didn’t go into Spider-Verse territory where you’re flying off of the buildings. The Nightmare was the exact opposite. We wanted crazy cameras. It’s in black and white, with the only color being the red hoodie worn by Jabari.” The drug-induced travels through the galaxy were treated as music video and not the usual representation of what has been captured by NASA and the Hubble Space Telescope. Explains Donato, “The director said, ‘I want it to look like somebody painted it and we’re flying through the actual painting.’ I was sitting with my team and telling them, ‘This cloud will go on this layer, and [in that layer] we need the meteors flying by fast.’ Everything was broken into three dimensions.”
Shaders were written to make the 3D-animated effects look flatter and in-camera.
The Nightmare sequence has an entirely different camera language and color palette than the rest of the movie.
“The Nightmare has a completely different feel and style to the movie all together. Jabari is being chased by his own artwork that wants to kill him. It’s a tricky idea. The rest of the movie had static, locked-off cameras, so we didn’t go into Spider-Verse territory where you’re flying off of the buildings. The Nightmare was the exact opposite. We wanted crazy cameras. It’s in black and white, with the only color being the red hoodie worn by Jabari. … The director said, ‘I want it to look like somebody painted it and we’re flying through the actual painting.’ I was sitting with my team and telling them, ‘This cloud will go on this layer, and [in that layer] we need the meteors flying by fast.’”
Top: 3D buildings found in Chinatown. Bottom: Textured models of buildings in the Tribeca neighborhood of New York City.
There were negatives and positives being a pandemic production with everyone working remotely. “I’m a mum,” Metge states. “I started on the show when [son] Hunter was four and he’s seven now. From that standpoint, it was nice to be around for him, but the human nature of it was interesting because we are more in each others’ lives. Everybody knew when he had his bath time or dinner! You got to meet everyone’s dogs and cats, loved ones and in between. We were suddenly thrust into each other’s worlds in way that I don’t think we’ve ever been part of before. Because of that and all of the different time zones, the show is successful, because it brought all of us close together. We were in each other’s lives whether we wanted to be or not! We bonded as a fabulous team should bond. We all went out to make sure it was an amazing experience, even if it was virtual.”
Images courtesy of Apple Inc. and Skydance Animation.
A major effects challenge was making sure the jacket worn by Babe fit properly on her massive body.
One can honestly say that Luck prevailed despite the pandemic. The Skydance Animation and AppleTV+ movie deals with Sam Greenfield, who constantly has to overcome misfortunes and accidentally discovers a realm that manufactures and randomly distributes good and bad luck to the human world.
Bob and Sam take a ride on one of the many mechanical platforms that enable inhabitants to travel around the Land of Luck.
“For me, I needed to be reviewing the assets on the big screen before we were going into a lighting process, so I went back to the office myself in 2020, with some of the crew eventually joining me,” recounts Visual Effects Supervisor Javier Romero (Wonder Park), who was part of the Madrid team while other crew members were situated in Connecticut and Los Angeles. “That was the biggest thing. The second, animation is a collaborative effort and people behaved amazingly working from home; however, sometimes I think you work faster when you have everybody in the same room. It was hard.”
The real world had a more muted and desaturated color palette.
Special attention was paid to the eyes of Bob to make the direction he was looking at more readable.
Fred Warter imagined the Land of Luck as being like a coin with two cities that mirror each other on either side.
The hiring of John Lasseter as the Head of Animation at Skydance meant that the workflow had to be altered. “The way that John works is amazing,” Romero notes. “It’s always about getting the best note for the shot or movie. Sometimes you don’t know when that note is going to come. We had to do a lot of changes to the pipeline to accommodate this workflow. We also wanted to review the input from every department at the same time, whatever the sequence. Maya was programmed to accommodate procedural workflows favored by the other departments, such as Solaris and Katana.” Brought on to be the director was Peggy Holmes. “Peggy had an amazing team of storyboard artists working internally in Los Angeles,” Romero adds.
“The [good and bad luck] crystals go into the randomizer and are broken into dust. There is a stylization in terms of how you make that final effect for this randomizer image. Sometimes we need to be modifying the timing because this is animation. We apply weight, overlapping and silhouettes to those effects. It gets complex, but you have to keep it serving the story rather than getting yourself in the rabbit hole because it can be distracting. Creating hyper-realistic physics, in the case of light or how light travels and reflects, is important but can be expensive.
—Javier Romero, Visual Effects Supervisor
Concept art of the randomizer by Ernie Rinard examining the various shapes it creates out of the good and bad luck crystals.
A lighting key by Dominique Luis that conveys the Bad Luck World as being a mysterious and scary industrial environment.
Production Designer Fred Warter envisioned the Land of Luck having two sides that mirror each other. “We started research as to how good luck fits into the world in different cultures,” Romero states. “One side is governed by bad luck, so everything breaks and the inhabitants adapt to it, but on the other side, the good luck inhabitants have never had bad luck, so they didn’t have to worry about it.” Even stylized worlds have to be grounded in something tangible. “If you have a character walking, you need to have the cloth moving properly because we have gravity in that particular world. There are some problems we don’t want to overcome. For example, there is a gravity shift when Sam and Bob go into Bad Luck that is not realistic, but the movie needs it. We discussed whether it should be physically correct or we should add some humor to it. The reverse gravity was directed by the animation, but then we started seeing different behaviors or results of the CFX that we wanted to foster. It took a while.”
A color key of the area in the Land of Luck known as In-Between, with a scale reference of Sam.
Despite the good and bad luck crystals being stylized, the particles had to have weight. “The crystals go into the randomizer and are broken into dust,” Romero remarks. “There is a stylization in terms of how you make that final effect for this randomizer image. Sometimes we need to be modifying the timing because this is animation. We apply weight, overlapping and silhouettes to those effects. It gets complex, but you have to keep it serving the story rather than getting yourself in the rabbit hole because it can be distracting. Creating hyper-realistic physics, in the case of light or how light travels and reflects, is important but can be expensive. We were applying internal elements to some shots to be able to fake refractions, or even sometimes we were toning down the refractions because it was getting distracting.”
Animals that represent good luck from different cultures populate the Land of Luck.
Exploring different lighting scenarios for Babe’s office by Dominique Louis
“There are some problems we don’t want to overcome. For example, there is a gravity shift when Sam and Bob go into Bad Luck that is not realistic, but the movie needs it. We discussed whether it should be physically correct or we should add some humor to it. The reverse gravity was directed by the animation, but then we started seeing different behaviors or results of the CFX that we wanted to foster. It took awhile.”
—Javier Romero, Visual Effects Supervisor
Babe the Dragon and Jeff the Unicorn were special challenges. “The biggest two questions we posed about the dragon were, number one, do we need to have complex dynamics on it or is it going to be realistic?” Romero explains. “Number two was, how are we going to make this jacket work through the movie because it is massive? I wouldn’t want that to be distracting us. In terms of deformations, we decided to rely on the animation team. We spent a lot of time to make the volume preservation work properly. Jeff is a complex character. How many wrinkles do you want on the hair? We did a hybrid approach with Jeff, in terms of animation, and had some controls to modify the silhouette of the long hair that he has, and CFX had an extra subtle layer, which was not distracting, on top of it.”
An original dragon concept art by Lutgardo Fernandez.
Max Narciso reconceptualizes Babe from scratch with the help of Production Designer Fred Warter.
“Instead of [Bob’s feline eyes] being concave, we wanted to see convex [eyes] because eye direction reads better that way. The other question was how much reflection do we want in those eyes? Do we want them to look real or not? Finding the spot in the reflections was something we spent a lot of time working on. The last was making sure that the direction the eyes were pointing was respected.”
—Javier Romero, Visual Effects Supervisor
A storyboard demonstrating how Bob is able to defy gravity in the real world because of being a creature from the Land of Luck.
Demonstration of the shot development process from storyboard, layout, animation and lighting.
Sam’s long hair was difficult. “There was a lot of hair that it was affecting the silhouette of her hair,” Romero states. “We developed tools that were given to the animation team to give silhouette guidance to the CFX group, such as how much hair was covering the face.” Attention was paid to the feline eyes of Bob. “Instead of being concave,” Romero observes, “we wanted to see convex [eyes] because eye direction reads better that way. The other question was how much reflection do we want in those eyes? Do we want them to look real or not? Finding the spot in the reflections was something we spent a lot of time working on. The last was making sure that the direction the eyes were pointing was respected.”
Custom tools were written to minimize the impact of Sam’s long hair on her silhouette.
“The challenge with that [city] sequence [where Sam lives and chases Bob] was the shot planning, How do we build the city and where you want to spend the money to build the actual city? You can go crazy and say that I’m going to build a super city and then you don’t shoot there. We spent a lot of time in previs and layout to define the action with editorial because they would be cutting that scenery to work. Sam and Bob are running around different places in the city. There are a lot of cheats there. There were continuous storyboards.”
—Javier Romero, Visual Effects Supervisor
Size and scale was a major concern in particular maintaining the silhouette of Babe when she is talking to characters significantly smaller then herself, like Sam.
Jeff the Unicorn used a rig similar for the human characters, as he was treated as a bipedal.
Good and bad luck are being projected from the randomizer situated in the Land of Luck to the human world.
Boston was a primary reference for the city where Sam lives and subsequently gives chase to Bob. “The challenge with that sequence was the shot planning,” Romero notes. “How do we build the city and where you want to spend the money to build the actual city? You can go crazy and say that I’m going to build a super city and then you don’t shoot there. We spent a lot of time in previs and layout to define the action with editorial because they would be cutting that scenery to work. Sam and Bob are running around different places in the city. There are a lot of cheats there. There were continuous storyboards.” Vegetation had to be set dressed. “We started by deciding how much vegetation we had to build and instanced a number of different trees. When we went to the Land of Luck, the trees that were close were more stylized, while for some of the faraway elements we used trees from the city. We always try to find a best approach for a challenge because sometimes it can be overkill.”
Commander Kelly Grayson (Adrianne Palicki) and Charly Burke (Anne Winters) in their flying suits for a crucial mission during the battle on Draconis 427.
For its third season, The Orville got a little more serious and a lot more expansive. In 2017, the sci-fi comedy series started out as something of a Star Trek homage/parody with a lot of broad humor. During Season 2 it evolved into a bolder sci-fi adventure with its own singular personality, and that transformation has continued into the third season, The Orville: New Horizons. There is still abundant humor aboard the USS Orville, but much of it now is more understated, and the show has long action sequences with no jokes at all. Along the way, the series tackles serious topics such as ostracism, gender identity and xenophobia, in a sci-fi setting. Accompanying the evolving narrative tone is a significant boost in the production values of the show, especially in its complex visual effects.
In The Orville Season 3, Captain Ed Mercer (Seth MacFarlane), Charly Burke (Anne Winters) and three Planetary Union officials fly to the Krill city.
“The entire season eclipsed all other seasons by far when it came to budgets, scope and complexity of shots. Every shot felt three times bigger than in past seasons,” says Tommy Tran, Visual Effects Supervisor for FuseFX, which was the leading VFX studio for Season 3 of The Orville. “Not only were the space battles grander, but also many new environments were introduced.”
“The entire season eclipsed all other seasons by far when it came to budgets, scope and complexity of shots. Every shot felt three times bigger than in past seasons, Not only were the space battles grander, but also many new environments were introduced.”
—Tommy Tran, Visual Effects Supervisor, FuseFX
Looking through the viewport at the Krill city. Its layout started as previs from Brandon Fayette, the production side VFX Supervisor.
The series ran on Fox for its first two seasons, then switched to Hulu for Season 3 (it now streams on both Hulu and Disney+). The show follows the adventures of a Planetary Union ship in the 25th century, with a cast that includes creator and co-writer Seth MacFarlane (Capt. Ed Mercer), Adrianne Palicki (Commander Kelly Grayson), Penny Jerald (Doctor Claire Finn), Peter Macon (Lt. Commander Bortus) and Scott Grimes (Lt. Gordon Malloy).
A political rally takes place in the Krill city marketplace, which combined a practical set with CGI buildings, bridges, billboards and aerial vehicles.
Besides FuseFX, more than a dozen VFX studios helped with 7,000+ VFX shots spread over 10 episodes. Ingenuity Studios, Crafty Apes, Barnstorm Studios, Pixomondo and Tippett Studio also contributed some key work. Tran comments, “Brooke Noska [production side VFX Producer/Co-VFX Supervisor] deserves all the credit for finding the multitude of other vendors to finish the season on time. I don’t know how she did it because, as some of us know, post-COVID, the flood of VFX work had pretty much saturated all facilities with projects around the globe. So, to get a new vendor on board, acclimate them to a three-seasons-old pipeline and give them very complex sequences was no easy task. To me, her new job title should be ‘miracle worker.’”
The Krill city on planet Krill. Patrick Horne, a CG Supervisor, populated it with innumerable buildings, city centers, roadways, aqueducts and holographic billboards.
FuseFX went from a smaller role in Season 1 to becoming one of the major vendors in Season 2. Tran and Nosca (as Visual Effects Producer) were part of the team nominated for the 2019 Emmy Award for Outstanding Special Visual Effects for the episode “Identity Part II.” For Season 3, FuseFX alone worked on 2,100 shots that covered multiple space battles, the new Pterodon Union fighter, a USS Orville upgrade and various alien planets.
“Imagine [the Orville] flying into Jupiter’s storm eye. It was a massive undertaking by our 3D and FX departments led by Christian Gonzalez and Tyler Britton, respectively. Tons of CG hurricane-like vortexes surrounded by FX smoke sims accompanied by lightning and interactive lights made the Jovian sequence one of the most beautiful sequences of the season, in my mind.”
—Tommy Tran, Visual Effects Supervisor, FuseFX
FuseFX utilized deep learning to de-age country music legend Dolly Parton for a scene where her hologram talks to her fan, Heveena (Rena Owen), and performs the song “Try.”
The new environments were the biggest challenges for FuseFX. This included creating the Jovian planet, the Krill planet and the Science Outpost in Episode 9, according to Tran. For these achievements, “I have to give credit to Samantha Hernandez, our VFX Producer, and J.V. [Joseph Vincent] Pike and David Rey, two of our VFX/DFX Supervisors, for bearing so much of the workload.” Tran notes, “There were not only the artistic challenges of creating new worlds, but also something that few outside our industry understand, which is the sheer amount of data to manage and get rendered within the time constraints. Our environments were so massive that getting any given frame to render would sometimes take days, in the beginning anyway. This was something very worrisome to us towards the end of the season as the shots became more numerous and complex. Towards the end, through optimizing and pipeline adjustments, we managed to get render times down to a point where we were able to deliver on time.”
The Moclan Research Outpost on Draconis 427 was a major visual effects challenge for the FuseFX team.
Tran adds, “We often overlook the importance of pipelines and infrastructure when talking about visual effects. It’s so often just about the creatives and visuals, but without the support of FuseFx’s technical and resourcing departments, I don’t know if Season 3 could have been accomplished [with] the degree of success that it had.”
Lt. Gordon Malloy (Scott Grimes) pilots a Pterodon fighter, which was created for Season 3.
For Episode 1, the Orville encounters a Jovian (Jupiter-like) planet, which is an intriguing example of VFX planet-building and a treat for astronomy and space buffs. The Orville dives into the turbulent upper atmosphere of a gas giant in order to escape a pursuing vessel. “This was a fun one for us,” Tran says. The concept was “imagine flying into Jupiter’s storm eye.”
“[Concept for the Krill planet depicted] a vast, dark and dreary metropolis harkening to Blade Runner 2049 city sequences. The city layout came to us as previs from Brandon Fayette, the production side VFX Supervisor. It was a blueprint for the scale magnitude of the city. Then it was up to Patrick Horne, one of our CG Supervisors, to populate it with hundreds if not thousands of buildings, city centers, roadways, aqueducts and holographic billboards, using Clarisse to manage to build it all.”
—Tommy Tran, Visual Effects Supervisor, FuseFX
“It was a massive undertaking by our 3D and FX departments led by Christian Gonzalez and Tyler Britton, respectively,” Tran explains. “Tons of CG hurricane-like vortexes surrounded by FX smoke sims accompanied by lightning and interactive lights made the Jovian sequence one of the most beautiful sequences of the season, in my mind.”
Exterior views into the deck of the fully-crewed USS Orville set, finally enhanced with CG and dramatic lighting.
The dazzling visuals of the Krill planet began with a concept depicting “a vast, dark and dreary metropolis harkening to Blade Runner 2049 city sequences,” Tran recalls. “The city layout came to us as previs from Brandon Fayette, the production side VFX Supervisor [and part of the crew nominated for the 2019 Emmy]. It was a blueprint for the scale magnitude of the city. Then it was up to Patrick Horne, one of our CG Supervisors, to populate it with hundreds if not thousands of buildings, city centers, roadways, aqueducts and holographic billboards, using Clarisse to manage to build it all.”
Continues Tran, “Along with creating the city exterior, we made an all-CG Market Place set seamlessly integrated into the practical set built on stage. We took inspiration from the architectural language of the single-story set and built it to be an expansive multi-story city center, encompassing towering CG buildings, sky bridges, dozens of animated holographic billboards and aerial vehicles.”
An advanced alien on planet Narran 1 conjures up near-death fears for the crew, including Lt. Gordon Malloy (Scott Grimes), while held by this beast.
The surface of Gendal 3, another new planetary environment in the series, is seen in the holographic simulator on the ship in Episode 10. Lysella, a native of Sargus 4, wants to smuggle some advanced Orville tech to her home world, and Grayson shows her the danger of giving advanced technology to a civilization that’s not culturally ready for it. They see a thriving Gendal 3 and then the same planet five years later, ruined and desolate, after the inhabitants had used Union tech to seek power over each other.”
“The Dolly [Parton] sequence was something new for the team. We were very accustomed to doing all things space-related, so when we got news of this, we had to take a step back to see what routes were available to us. One was to do the traditional full CG method, which would involve head scans, 3D match moving, modeling, rigging, look development and, trickiest of all, animation. This method would have been costly and time-consuming, and we didn’t have time on our side. So, in the end, we pitched to Seth a much faster, less expensive and somewhat unconventional method: deep learning. He agreed to a test and was over the moon when he saw the initial results. The rest is history.”
—Tommy Tran, Visual Effects Supervisor, FuseFX
The USS Orville had an entire makeover for Season 3, adding thousands of panel lines into its surface and textural detail to hold up to close-up shots.
The planet Draconis 427 and the Moclan Research Outpost featured a sequence that was by far the biggest and most challenging of the season, according to Tran. “Not only were all the environment build-outs gigantic, but we were running out of daylight to get the shots delivered,” he says. “We had to break up into separate teams to accomplish this within the given time frame. The sky and ground battle had to be developed in tandem, which took months of work just to get out of the development stage. By far, the base and the massive trench that ran through it took the most time and effort. Rendering such massive amounts of data made for some very long days and nights. We had to be certain that it had to be technically correct when anything hit the farm, knowing we had only so many chances to get all the shots sent to and back from the render farm. Even with all the optimizing of scripts, a massive internal farm and utilizing the Cloud, rendering it all [was] a close call.”
The USS Orville, ready to dock in Season 3. The series had bigger VFX budgets and complexity of shots compared to previous seasons.
Episode 8 (“Midnight Blue”) had a different type of VFX to deal with, that of de-aging Dolly Parton to present a 1990s version of the country music legend. Her hologram meets with the Moclan revolutionary author Heveena (Rena Owen), a huge fan of the singer. A convincingly younger Parton gives out some sage advice and performs the song “Try.” Tran comments, “The Dolly sequence was something new for the team. We were very accustomed to doing all things space-related, so when we got news of this, we had to take a step back to see what routes were available to us. One was to do the traditional full CG method, which would involve head scans, 3D match moving, modeling, rigging, look development and, trickiest of all, animation. This method would have been costly and time-consuming, and we didn’t have time on our side. So, in the end, we pitched to Seth a much faster, less expensive and somewhat unconventional method: deep learning. He agreed to a test and was over the moon when he saw the initial results. The rest is history.”
A fleet of Planetary Union ships, freshly designed for Season 3.
The ships also required a lot of intense care. “Pre-pandemic, we knew that the entire fleet would get a facelift for Season 3. I think that Seth wanted a whole new look and feel to the episodes and wanted the third season to be epic and memorable. We were concerned about how to do this development task alongside shot work. Tragically enough, the pandemic shutdown of production shooting enabled us to use this time to do the upgrades,” Tran says.
The VFX included a battle simulation with Kaylon vessels. Besides FuseFX, more than a dozen VFX studios helped with 7,000+ VFX shots spread over 10 episodes.
Continues Tran, “Since the pandemic happened early in the season, we did not have sequences to work on when production stopped shooting. So instead of working on VFX shots, we used the ‘downtime’ to retrofit the entire ship library since we did not need production footage for this. Our CG team led by John Rouse spent the good part of five months re-working the ship assets to bring them up to Season 3 expectations. The Orville and space station were the two more complex upgrades, which took the most time to do.”
The revamped USS Orville and space station were among the VFX highlights of Season 3.
The Orville’s exterior received an entire makeover. “We cut thousands of panel lines into its surface,” Tran explains. “We added textural detail to it to hold up to close-up ‘paint scraper’ shots. Its shader network was also revised to give its lighting a more cinematic feel than in past seasons. Also, we introduced an entirely new shuttle and Pterodon Fighter in this time frame.”
Planetary Union ships converge on debris of destroyed ships and a science station above planet Sabik 3.
Concludes Tran, “The highlight of Season 3 would have to have been the sense of accomplishment after all was said and done. I have to admit that it was not easy. The team and I spent the better part of three years on the project together, safe to say, the biggest of any of our careers. Not a week went by without a new challenge to overcome, whether it was creative, technical or time related. Although everyone on the team was wholeheartedly committed to the project, there comes a point in time when the soul is strong, but the flesh becomes weak. But at no time did we as a team surrender to the challenges. We kept pushing each other along and motivated each other when we sensed someone needed a breather. Together, we managed to deliver something to be proud of, something visually stunning and something seemingly unachievable by some. Only those involved will know how much effort, sacrifice and camaraderie was involved, which turned a group of colleagues into a family. I still have our daily meetings and reviews on my calendar as a reminder of my team, my family and the unforgettable journey we shared. I miss those days.”
The Walking Dead has played a major role in reviving the use of prosthetic makeup in television productions. (Image courtesy of AMC)
Getting up close and personal with zombies is never recommended unless you want to visit the Museum of the Moving Image’s exhibition Living With The Walking Dead, which can be viewed in Astoria, Queens, New York until January 22, 2023. In the section of the exhibition called ‘Making Up the Dead,’ the contributions of KNB EFX and Greg Nicotero, who serves as the Special Effects Makeup Supervisor, Executive Producer and Director for the series, are on display, in particular, busts for T-Dog (IronE Singleton) and Noah (Tyler James Williams), Negan Smith’s (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) baseball bat ‘Lucille,’ a life mask of Steven Yeun and an animatronic head for character Hershel Greene (Scott Wilson).
The television format has allowed for the exploration of zombies at different stages of decomposition and exposed to various types of environmental conditions. (Image courtesy of AMC)
“I came up with a bunch of ways to create silkscreen zombie masks that were designs that we did, printed them on silk, cut them out and made pullover masks. Then we would put wigs on them and put them way in the background. All of a sudden, we were able to populate a scene with a hundred zombies by using 60 or 70 of these background silk masks, and then the hero makeup would be up front. Even things as simple as that did a tremendous amount to allow us to fine-tune the process…”
—Greg Nicotero, Special Effects Makeup Supervisor/Executive Producer/Director
Michonne (Danai Gurira) fends off zombies in a shot taken from the AMC production of The Walking Dead. (Image courtesy of AMC)
“I have been doing this for a long time,” Nicotero states. “Even in my house, I have two rooms filled with memorabilia and props that I have saved or collected from movies. I have one of the ears from Reservoir Dogs and the crate from Creepshow. I have a lot of cool stuff that I have held onto because they have sentimental value to me.”
Greg Nicotero with one of his zombie creations. (Image courtesy of AMC)
Considering The Walking Dead deals with a virus that causes a pandemic, having to live through the global mayhem caused by COVID-19 was a surreal experience for Nicotero. “We spent years talking about how people would react and what would they do,” he recalls. “And when we found ourselves in the middle of toilet paper shortages, we all went, ‘Huh, never thought about that.’” The process had to be modified because of on-set protocols. Explains Nicotero, “The pandemic did alter certain ways of how we look at prosthetic makeup because there was a big concern about having people too close to each other for long periods of time. Also, putting contact lenses into performers was something they were not interested in doing. We worked quickly on our feet. I came up with a bunch of ways to create silkscreen zombie masks that were designs that we did, printed them on silk, cut them out and made pullover masks. Then we would put wigs on them and put them way in the background. All of a sudden, we were able to populate a scene with a hundred zombies by using 60 or 70 of these background silk masks, and then the hero makeup would be up front. Even things as simple as that did a tremendous amount to allow us to fine-tune the process, and get the makeup time down to a hour and 15 minutes versus two and a half hours.”
Nicotero serves as an Executive Producer, Special Effects Makeup Supervisor and Director on The Walking Dead. (Image courtesy of AMC)
Nine mannequins costumed as key characters in the show, including Rick, Morgan, Negan, Carol, Daryl, Maggie, Michonne, Father Gabriel and Jadis. (Photo: Thanassi Karageorgiou/Museum of the Moving Image)
“[W]hen we first premiered, I feel like it had a big hand in reintroducing prosthetic makeup to this generation of viewers. When I got into the industry in the late 1970s early 1980s, that’s what it was all about. It was Tom Savini, Rick Baker, Rob Bottin and Stan Winston, and you had The Thing, American Werewolf in London, Dawn of the Dead and The Howling, which were low budget and didn’t have big casts. The special effects were the star.”
—Greg Nicotero, Special Effects Makeup Supervisor/Executive Producer/Director
When pitching the original series, Executive Producers Frank Darabont and Gale Anne Hurd took four zombie busts made by Nicotero’s company KNB EFX to their meetings. “Frank and Gale did that because the big question mark over everybody’s heads was, ‘How are we going to do this?’” Nicotero recalls. “In Season 1, we put everything into doing as much practically as possible, including the blood rigs. We made little rigs that would clip onto the backs of the actors, that went to a tube with a bellow, and you would stomp on the bellows and the blood would spray out. There were a lot of practical head hits in the first season.” The process was changed for subsequent seasons. “We had to adapt a lot of what we do to be able to move fast. Plus, if you do a gag where there is a lot of blood everywhere, the amount of time it takes to clean up and do take two is not necessarily beneficial on a television schedule. A lot of the head hits and bullet entry and exit wounds ended up being done digitally because it was more production friendly and allowed more flexibility in the shoot because we didn’t have to cut and hide anything.”
Entrance and title wall of the Living With The Walking Dead exhibition at Museum of the Moving Image, located in Astoria, New York. (Photo: Thanassi Karageorgiou/Museum of the Moving Image)
Old practical techniques were revived. “One of the things that I’m grateful for with The Walking Dead is when we first premiered, I feel like it had a big hand in reintroducing prosthetic makeup to this generation of viewers,” Nicotero notes. “When I got into the industry in the late 1970s early 1980s, that’s what it was all about. It was Tom Savini, Rick Baker, Rob Bottin and Stan Winston, and you had The Thing, American Werewolf in London, Dawn of the Dead and The Howling, which were low budget and didn’t have big casts. The special effects were the star. I do believe that The Walking Dead, with the advent of digital effects and CGI, stopped everybody and said, ‘Wait minute. This art form is not only long forgotten but is still tremendously relevant and can play a big part in the production of a TV show.’ The Walking Dead celebrated that art form in way that people haven’t done in a long time because most people do it digitally or will fix it later. I thought the exhibit was a great opportunity not only to showcase the props but the steps that are taken to get from A to Z.”
Shown are various masks for Whisperers (left), the costume and mask worn by Samantha Morton as Alpha (center), and animatronic heads for Henry, Tara and Enid (right). (Photo: Thanassi Karageorgiou/Museum of the Moving Image)
“The Walking Dead celebrated that art form in way that people haven’t done in a long time because most people do it digitally or will fix it later. I thought the exhibit was a great opportunity not only to showcase the props but the steps that are taken to get from A to Z.”
—Greg Nicotero, Special Effects Makeup Supervisor/Executive Producer/Director
Combining digital and practical elements led to the best results, with one case being the Hershel animatronic head. “That’s how you fool the audience; you use the best tools in your arsenal,” Nicotero remarks. “We did a life cast of Scott Wilson and made an animatronic head that had four-way jaw movement so that the head can move around a little bit. We ended up digitally augmenting the eyes. We shot somebody wearing zombie contact lenses, and then composited real eyes over the puppet head because that’s probably the most challenging aspect of doing any type of animatronic, getting the eyes to have life in them. Ironically, when we shot that scene, a fly landed on the animatronic head during the take, and we had it so that the eyes looked at the fly when it landed. It was a simple execution, but was something that forever remains etched in The Walking Dead chronicles.”
Living With The Walking Dead exhibition at the Museum of the Moving Image features original costumes, props, scripts and special effects makeup. (Photo: Thanassi Karageorgiou/Museum of the Moving Image)
The makeup process for ‘bicycle girl’ is on display as part of Museum of the Moving Image’s Living With The Walking Dead exhibition. (Photo: Thanassi Karageorgiou/Museum of the Moving Image)
The execution of Glenn Rhee (Steven Yeun) had to convey the proper gravitas for the character. “We used the horrific elements of the comic book as a guide, which to me was the senseless murder of Glenn,” Nicotero reflects. “It happened so quickly and abruptly in the comic book that we didn’t have time to process what exactly had happened. That to me was the shocking element. When we got to the TV show, we had shot 83 episodes, so the difficulty was that people loved that character. There were a lot of us who didn’t want to see Glenn go because the character provided a grounded heart to the show, which I still believe to this day. I would have done it differently, but that was the script. Those were all practical elements. We had various stages of makeup on Steven, then we had a puppet head, and dummy bodies for impact. It was all to service the introduction of this absolutely despicable character. There weren’t a lot of visual effects involved in that.”
“We did a life cast of Scott Wilson and made an animatronic head that had four-way jaw movement so that the head can move around a little bit. We ended up digitally augmenting the eyes. We shot somebody wearing zombie contact lenses, and then composited real eyes over the puppet head because that’s probably the most challenging aspect of doing any type of animatronic, getting the eyes to have life in them. Ironically, when we shot that scene, a fly landed on the animatronic head during the take, and we had it so that the eyes looked at the fly when it landed. It was a simple execution, but was something that forever remains etched in The Walking Dead chronicles.”
—Greg Nicotero, Special Effects Makeup Supervisor/Executive Producer/Director
A close-up of an animatronic Scott Walker (Hershel Greene). (Photo: Thanassi Karageorgiou/Museum of the Moving Image)
A close-up of an action figure of Hershel Greene. (Photo: Thanassi Karageorgiou/Museum of the Moving Image)
Nicotero has also collaborated with the founder of the zombie genre, George Romero. “Up until The Night of the Living Dead, zombies were considered voodoo lore. It was never a creature that was a reanimated corpse that feasted on the flesh of the living. I 100% believe that the reintroduction of the zombie genre into society is solely based on two items. As soon as you add a plastic gun and create a first-person-shooter video game where you’re responsible for shooting zombies and saving yourself, that opened the zombie genre to an entirely new generation of people playing House of the Dead and Resident Evil. Then we had 28 Days Later, Shaun of the Dead, Resident Evil [the movie] and the Dawn of the Dead remake. The advantage that you have in a television series, where there had never been one before this, was that you have the ability to say, ‘This person just died, so they’re freshly dead, but now there’s a corpse over here that has been lying in the sun for six weeks, so it looks like a pumpkin two months after Halloween.’ A zombie trapped inside of a building isn’t exposed to the sun, so it would be better preserved than ones that have been outside. We would take into consideration weapons and how the zombie died. Eighty percent of the time it was up to us in the makeup trailer to concoct these backstories, and then we would tell the story in the prosthetic makeup.”
Nathan (Idris Elba), Martin (Sharlto Copley), Mare (Iyana Halley) and Norah (Leah Sava Jeffries) attempt to survive an attack from a rogue lion in Beast, directed by Baltasar Kormákur.
Whether it’s trying to reach the world’s highest mountain peak in Everest or a doctor breaking the Hippocratic Oath in an effort to protect his drug addict daughter in The Oath, Icelandic filmmaker Baltasar Kormákur has the ability to shift between blockbuster productions and smaller passion projects. Beast has him channeling the former as Idris Elba portrays a recent widower on an African trip with his two daughters and becomes the target of a man-eating rogue lion. Obviously, for safety reasons the animal had to be a CG creation, with Visual Effects Supervisor Enrik Pavdeja hiring Framestore as the main vendor as well as BlackGinger. “Baltasar had a good understanding of what he wanted for Beast, and with that in mind he allowed us to contribute and lead the film from a visual effects point of view,” Pavdeja notes. “In total, we have 240 shots; however, on this show we had eight or nine anywhere between 5,000 to 10,000-frame shots [with BlackGinger being responsible for 50].”
Special effects built a stage car where you could take it apart completely and rebuild it again depending on the needs of the shot.
A year was spent by Framestore developing the lion assets.
Master shots were broken down into what were called ‘child shots.’ “Even just 10 shots of a 10,000-frame shot is still quite a crazy number,” Pavdeja notes. “The main driving force behind the big shots was previs by The Third Floor. That’s where we started figuring out how these shots were going to come together and began to understand the detail of what the lion action was going to be, because a lot of this work relied on interaction, not so much following the lion through the frame.” Obvious stitches were to be avoided. “We try to find clever situations such as doing a paw print or a bit of car coming to a yield,” Pavdeja explains. “All of the time we’re trying to keep some sort of live element in the plate that we could then bridge the two shots.” The main cinematic reference was The Revenant, which features Leonardo DiCaprio being mauled by a grizzly bear. “That bear scene was the piece we used closely as inspiration for the fight at the end because it’s a brilliant piece of visual effects with a lot of interaction. It’s visceral,” Pavdeja declares. “We’re close to camera. And it’s a long take. There are maybe three cuts, which is basically what we tried to achieve.”
Not only did the lions have to be photorealistic, but also photo natural in their performances.
“That bear scene [in The Revenant] was the piece we used closely as inspiration for the fight at the end because it’s a brilliant piece of visual effects with a lot of interaction. It’s visceral. We’re close to camera. And it’s a long take. There are maybe three cuts, which is basically what we tried to achieve.”
—Enrik Pavdeja, Visual Effects Supervisor
Beast has 240 visual effects shots, with eight or nine of those being anywhere between 5,000 to 10,000 frames long.
The grizzly bear mauling in The Revenant was a major reference for the finale.
Thousands of reference images of every type of tree, branch and leaf were taken to digitally recreate the environmental assets.
“The claws are some of the most complicated engineering types of devices ever. It’s a fine line between having fluffy-looking claws that look cute in a paw, then, all of a sudden, the claws come out and it looks like a vicious fighting machine. A lot of development went into that.”
—Enrik Pavdeja, Visual Effects Supervisor
There were always three different iterations of simulations to get photorealistic muscles for the lions.
A year was spent developing the lion assets. “With a show like this, a lot of challenge came from creating some digital creatures that were completely photoreal and also photo natural in the way that they performed,” Pavdeja notes. “We had such long shots, we had to change our approach in how we would review the work and how we handled all of that data logistically.” Tools were created that allowed reviews of the ‘child shots,’ which were then automatically inserted into the master shot. “Lions are mostly made of muscles. For every moment and movement they make we had to create different shapes for the muscle and how you read and perceive it, and how the skin goes over it. The animators would go in and animate the different muscle shapes that would then be simulated on top of that. There were always three different iterations of simulations to get a photorealistic muscle. The claws are some of the most complicated engineering types of devices ever. It’s a fine line between having fluffy-looking claws that look cute in a paw, then, all of a sudden, the claws come out and it looks like a vicious fighting machine. A lot of development went into that.”
For obvious safety reasons the lions had to be entirely CG creatures.
“Martin Battles [Sharlto Copley] hugs some lions he has brought up since they were cubs on his big reserve. This was driven by the puppeteering guys as they built specific costumes for them to have that interaction with Martin. We did a digital-double takeover of Martin because the performance of our CG lion didn’t necessarily line up perfectly with his movements. Martin Battles [Sharlto Copley] hugs some lions he has brought up since they were cubs on his big reserve. This was driven by the puppeteering guys as they built specific costumes for them to have that interaction with Martin. We did a digital-double takeover of Martin because the performance of our CG lion didn’t necessarily line up perfectly with his movements.”
—Enrik Pavdeja, Visual Effects Supervisor
The production assembled a massive library of realistic lion reference material which was then incorporated into the rig.
There are two moments of heavy lion interaction. “Martin Battles [Sharlto Copley] hugs some lions he has brought up since they were cubs on his big reserve,” Pavdeja explains. “This was driven by the puppeteering guys as they built specific costumes for them to have that interaction with Martin. We did a digital-double takeover of Martin because the performance of our CG lion didn’t necessarily line up perfectly with his movements.” For the end fight, a stunt performer wore a big lion head and a grey suit to get the proper interaction with Dr. Nate Samuels (Idris Elba). “We kept Idris’ head when it made sense. For the most part, it was a full digital body and digital lion,” Pavdeja adds. The biggest simulation work was the sand interaction. “Simulations would take anything between 24 hours to three or four days depending on which layer we were simulating,” he says. “For example, the first thing we would have to simulate is the lion against Idris. They would be fighting together, the muscles, skin, fur and cloth, and that is one side of the simulation. When we were happy on that front, we had to simulate it against the environment with all of the sand. Then there would be another iteration on top of that where you would end up having to fix certain elements to combine the two correctly together.”
“For the end fight, a stunt performer wore a big lion head and a grey suit to get the proper interaction with Dr. Nate Samuels (Idris Elba). We kept Idris’ head when it made sense. For the most part, it was a full digital body and digital lion.”
—Enrik Pavdeja, Visual Effects Supervisor
Special costumes were created for stunt performers to interact with Sharlto Copley, which were subsequently taken over by CG lions.
Some of the environments were procedurally generated.
Idris Elba has an on-set conversation with Icelandic filmmaker Baltasar Kormákur.
Two different takes were shot of Idris Elba fighting the lion. “The idea was when we filmed that scene it was one long take, so we filmed it two ways,” Pavdeja remarks. “One way, we had a clean Idris, no wounds and blood. Then we did the same take again with full makeup so everything to do with wounds and blood and all the dressing would be on him. Then throughout the fight, we would then reveal those wounds. Idris being fully digital allowed us, once we had scanned him with all of the wounds on, to reveal those wounds and progress them throughout the shot. In the end the shot was divided into two shots so we had a cutaway, which allowed us more flexibility, but wasn’t the sort of thing you would pay so much attention to in terms of progression. That end fight is so visceral, in the moment and manic, that all you’re looking at is this crazy action-packed moment between a lion and a man.”
Images courtesy of Digital Domain and Marvel Studios.
Ms. Marvel (Iman Vellani) is the first Muslim-American teenager-superhero in the MCU.
If your dreams came true, would they meet your expectations or become an unwanted burden? This is a prevailing question that drives the MCU Disney+ series Ms. Marvel, which revolves around a teenage Kamala Khan (Iman Vellani) wishing to be a member of the Avengers and is unexpectedly given supernatural powers and abilities. With Nordin Rahhali acting as Overall Marvel VFX Supervisor on Ms. Marvel, and Sandra Balej and Sandro Blattner as Marvel VFX Supervisors, Fuse FX VFX Supervisor Kevin Yuille helped guide the visual effects for the six episodes, working with Digital Domain to create the powers of the title character, digital doubles, Ms. Marvel being transported back in time, an iconic lamppost shot, training montage and elephant toothpaste. Digital Domain VFX Supervisor Aladino Debert is proud of a particular aspect of Ms. Marvel. “The fact that Ms. Marvel is the first Muslim American teenager superhero in the MCU is culturally great. It showcases Muslim families in way that no other show has done.”
Iman Vellani as Kamala Khan travels back in time to the eve of the Partition of India.
Practical smoke and steam had to be replaced with CG because they were not conveying the proper scale in wide shots.
The powers and abilities illustrated in the Ms. Marvel comic books had to be reinterpreted. “Ms. Marvel is a polymorph, meaning she can stretch her body, grow and shrink,” Debert explains. “It is a bit of Fantastic Four and Ant-Man. The creatives wanted to stay away from that, and for powers to be more magic and energy-based than physical.” Two important aspects were grounding non-realistic effects in the familiar and creating something that looks cool. “That balance is always an interesting one,” Debert notes. “We wanted to showcase the powers as being separate, yet manipulated by her. It feels physical and solid in certain parts of her body, but not others. It also depends on what she is trying to do in a specific shot. It is like a moving target because you want to maintain a cohesive look to her powers.”
Among the various simulations that Digital Domain had to create was fire.
“The good thing about having photorealistic digital doubles is that it gives the creatives freedom to experiment with things that they couldn’t otherwise. We ended up using the digital doubles in sequences that were never part of the original plan because they looked great, like when Kamala is running through the city.”
—Aladino Debert, VFX Supervisor, Digital Domain
One of the powers of Ms. Marvel (Iman Vellani) is the cosmic, photonic and mystical Noor energy.
One of the powers of Ms. Marvel is the cosmic, photonic and mystical Noor energy. “We wanted to come up with something that felt part of the MCU universe; however, at the same time different because it’s a new character,” Debert states. “What we talked about was hard light. The idea is that her powers are essentially light made solid, so the hard light is what gives her the ability to embiggen herself and walk on it. It also enables her to create shields to protect herself. On the other side of the coin, it is what gives Kamran’s [Rish Shah] powers a sense of danger; he creates this similarly nature effect that is out of control, jagged and destructive. It’s like a cosmic cactus coming at you! We wanted to come up with something that had a similar source between Kamran and Kamala, but with a different feel as far as the color palette. Kamala’s powers are mostly cyan, amber and magenta, which goes with the colors of her suit. Kamran’s ended up being cyan and gold, which is on the opposite of the color wheel.”
“Ms. Marvel is a polymorph, meaning she can stretch her body, grow and shrink. The creatives wanted to stay away from that, and for powers to be more magic and energy-based than physical. That balance is always an interesting one. We wanted to showcase the powers as being separate, yet manipulated by her. It feels physical and solid in certain parts of her body, but not others. It also depends on what she is trying to do in a specific shot. It is like a moving target because you want to maintain a cohesive look to her powers.”
—Aladino Debert, VFX Supervisor, Digital Domain
Digital Domain was tasked with filling a massive train station with tens of thousands of people clambering and jumping the trains.
Digital doubles were created without knowing how they were going to be utilized. “We just knew that the digital doubles were going to be used at some point,” Debert explains. “We took scans and created turntables to make sure that the characters looked photorealistic. Then we did some animation and CFX to test the behavior of the character with different clothes on. In the case of Kamala, we did two different digital doubles because she changes her attire. She has a version with clothes and an early type of suit, and then later a super suit. The good thing about having photorealistic digital doubles is that it gives the creatives freedom to experiment with things that they couldn’t otherwise. We ended up using the digital doubles in sequences that were never part of the original plan because they looked great, like when Kamala is running through the city.”
Digital Domain was responsible for the battle between Ms. Marvel (Iman Vellani) and Kamran (Rish Shah).
“What we talked about was hard light. The idea is that her powers are essentially light made solid, so the hard light is what gives her the ability to embiggen herself and walk on it. It also enables her to create shields to protect herself. On the other side of the coin, it is what gives Kamran’s [Rish Shah] powers a sense of danger; he creates this similarly nature effect that is out of control, jagged and destructive. It’s like a cosmic cactus coming at you!”
—Aladino Debert, VFX Supervisor, Digital Domain
Noor energy was treated as a hard light, with Ms. Marvel’s (Iman Vellani) version having a color palette of cyan, amber and magenta.
Kamala travels back in time to the eve of the Partition of India. “The time travel was more of a storytelling technique than an effect itself,” Debert notes. “What we were tasked to do was creating the Partition shots. There is massive train station with tens of thousands of people clambering and jumping the trains. Some plates were shot in Thailand with a couple hundred extras. You’re outside with a crane, so it was nothing like motion control. They were single plates, usually with Kamala in the foreground and few hundred extras around, on top of the trains and close up to the camera. Then you pull back and see everything. You see the greenscreens, cranes and camera trucks. Especially in the wide shots, we ended up replacing most of it.” Atmospherics assisted in conveying the proper size and scale. “One thing that people don’t realize is smoke, fire and water don’t scale easily,” Debert adds. “The biggest challenge was that the plates had on-set effects such as steam and smoke, which come in handy for close-ups, but become tricky when you pull back because it has to be rotoscoped out and be replaced with our own steam.”
Kamran (Rish Shah) has a hard time controling the Noor energy. causing him to manifest something that is jagged and destructive.
Kamran’s (Rish Shah) version of Noor energy has a cyan and gold color palette to stand out visually from what is produced by Ms. Marvel (Iman Vellani).
The decision was made for the powers of Ms. Marvel (Iman Vellani) to be more magic and energy-based than physical.
“If you want to go down the rabbit hole, just type ‘elephant toothpaste’ on Google or YouTube and you’ll have a feast! When the chemical components join, they explode in volume creating an extra dimension of foam. Simulations in general are challenging, but when you’re dealing with something that is not quite a fluid, liquid or solid, such as foam, it becomes extra tricky. We spent many a month working on that until we were able to nail not only the behavior, but also the specific look. As it expands, pieces fall off. It was really challenging for our effects team!”
—Aladino Debert, VFX Supervisor, Digital Domain
It was important to showcase the powers as being separate, yet manipulated by Ms. Marvel (Iman Vellani).
Kamala situates herself on top of a lamppost. “It was one the shots we started the earliest on the project because we knew that a version was needed for the trailer, which turned out to be lightly different than the final one in the show,” Debert reveals. “Originally, she was shot against greenscreen on a live-action lamppost with wind and wires. We knew that Manhattan, Hudson River and the buildings around her had to be created, but we were not sure to what degree. In end, 95% of the shot was digital, including her body. The wires that she had for safety were wrinkling her suit in way that wasn’t pretty, and even though we could paint them out, it was tricky to get rid of every single wrinkle. Since we had a digital double that was hyper-accurate, we suggested using her head only because it was easier for us to give them a clean suit. We decided against CG hair because of how close we got to it and the fact that we could make it work. It involved a fair amount of rotoscope to replace from her neck down and keep her hair in.” The trickiest part was animating an iconic, blowing red scarf which had to interact with real hair. Comments Debert, “We simulated some CG hair so that the scarf would have a natural interaction, but getting rid of the CG hair and compositing the scarf under the real hair.”
Making Noor energy a hard light enables Ms. Marvel (Iman Vellani) to create shields to protect herself.
Training montages are a staple of the superhero genre. “What made it easier for us is that Kamala has a unique personality; she is cute, perky and bubbly,” Debert observes. “We did a full CG version of her jumping and doing parkour on this roof in New Jersey. We didn’t have her doing the performance, so we had to mimic what she would have done. This was designed way after the shoot. We looked at a lot of the footage that we already had of her and got the animators and stunt double to try to come up with what Kamala would do. How would she jump over this? How would she react? At the end we had a bunch of different versions, and Kamala celebrates in a unique way, fist pumping and jumping. It was fun presenting all of those options to the creatives to see what they felt represented Kamala best.”
Digital Domain wanted to come up with a power for Mr. Marvel (Iman Vellani) that felt part of the MCU universe, at the same time different because it’s a new character.
Ninety-five percent of the shot where Ms. Marvel (Iman Vellani) is seated on the lamppost was digital, including her body.
What proved to be more difficult was the foam for the elephant toothpaste sequence, which took a year to get right. “If you want to go down the rabbit hole, just type ‘elephant toothpaste’ on Google or YouTube and you’ll have a feast!” Debert laughs. “When the chemical components join, they explode in volume, creating an extra dimension of foam. Simulations in general are challenging, but when you’re dealing with something that is not quite a fluid, liquid or solid, such as foam, it becomes extra tricky. We spent many a month working on that until we were able to nail not only the behavior, but also the specific look. As it expands, pieces fall off. It was really challenging for our effects team!”
Eric Roth takes the stage at the 13th Annual VES Awards
“When I assumed this role, we were about 750 people, mostly situated in California; now we have more than 4,400 members in 45 countries and 14 Sections worldwide. I will proudly count our global expansion and influence as the most important part of the legacy I leave behind.”
After nearly 19 years of service as the Society’s Executive Director, Eric Roth retired from his leadership role last month. At the time of this issue’s publication, the VES Board’s Executive Search Committee was in the process of identifying the next Executive Director to helm the global honorary society.
VES Board Chair Lisa Cooke offered these accolades on Roth’s immense contributions to the Society: “We have been exceptionally proud and fortunate to have a leader of Eric’s caliber – imbued with deep passion, integrity and vision – and the unparalleled skills needed to drive this dynamic organization forward. As my colleague and friend, Eric is the kind of collaborator, mentor and cheerleader you always hope to work with. Eric has done transformational work in growing the Society into this rich global community, and he leaves an enormous legacy for us to carry forward.”
Roth had a front-row seat to the dynamic global VFX industry and a major role in the Society’s growth over the span of almost two decades as he shepherded the organization to reach its milestone 25th anniversary.
Roth’s tenure has been filled with many points of pride and accomplishment – our award-winning VFX Voice magazine, three editions of the VES Handbook of Visual Effects, extraordinary VES Awards shows, our VES Honors Program and Hall of Fame, and the many volunteer Committees who do essential work for our organization.
Roth and VES Awards host Patton Oswalt at the 17th Annual VES Awards.
Roth interviews Ed Ulbrich at the 2012 VES Summit.
Roth with several Inaugural VES Hall of Fame Honorees (2017). Former VES Chair Mike Chambers on far right.
Roth with director James Cameron and Jeffrey A. Okun, VES at 8th Annual VES Awards.
Roth giving a speech on the “State of VFX” at Tokyo Conference.
Roth kicks off the 8th Annual VES Awards.
“For almost 19 years, I have been privileged to serve as the Executive Director of the VES. It has been a pleasure to work with extraordinary staff, passionate volunteer leaders that serve our Board and Sections, and our thriving global membership,” Roth said.
Under Roth’s leadership VES’s all-volunteer Committees have stepped up to create an industry-leading mental health benefit program, numerous mentoring projects, diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, a video archive and a soon-to-be-realized VFX digital museum, and exclusive opportunities that foster education and professional development.
A key accomplishment of Roth’s tenure has been the tremendous growth and globalization of the Society. “When I assumed this role, we were about 750 people, mostly situated in California; now we have more than 4,400 members in 45 countries and 14 Sections worldwide. I will proudly count our global expansion and influence as the most important part of the legacy I leave behind,” said Roth.
But more than that, VES has created a powerful “voice” for our industry over the years by working together with a common purpose. VES has used its voice to convene industry leaders on vital topics, issue important whitepapers on the status of the industry, and annually bring the entire industry together to network and celebrate extraordinary artistic achievements at the yearly Awards Show.
With best wishes for a bright future, Roth concludes, “It has been my highest honor to serve as your Executive Director for nearly two decades. Thank you for entrusting me with this responsibility. I am more grateful than you will ever know. Thank you for allowing me to have the most fabulous ride of a lifetime on Team VES and for your unending support and friendship.
“Here’s to the next 19 years and looking forward to hearing all about the great things yet to come for VES!”
Attack on Titan is a dark post-apocalyptic four-season series adapted from the Hajime Isayama manga, in which high walls protect surviving humans from giant titans. The many varieties of anime show how it is not a genre, but a storytelling medium that includes genres like fantasy and science fiction. (Images courtesy of WIT Studio, Funimation and Plus Media Network)
In 1963, Tetsuwan Atom – an anime TV series about a robot boy with superpowers and a soul – launched on Fuji TV in Japan. Later that year, it was dubbed into English as Astro Boy and became the first anime TV series marketed in the U.S., where it enjoyed success with 104 episodes airing on NBC through 1965. Fast forward six decades and anime (Japanese animation) is now one of the world’s most popular forms of entertainment, one that has influenced many filmmakers in the West. There are an estimated 622 animation studios in Japan, according to Grand View Research, and thousands of anime movies and series have been released over the years.
“The rise of VOD and streaming, the expansion of the ecosystem around anime and the prevalence of anime in mainstream pop culture are all factors that have contributed to the growth of the global anime market,” comments Asa Suehira, Chief Content Officer for the anime streamer Crunchyroll.
Anime’s most popular franchises earn hundreds of millions of dollars from home entertainment and theatrical releases plus billions in merchandise (the most lucrative area in Japan, especially for a title like Pokémon). By 2030, the world market size for anime is expected to grow at a CAGR of 9.7% to reach USD $56.4 billion, according to a Grand View Research report.
Anime’s two all-time best-selling movie titles – Demon Slayer the Movie: Mugen Train and Spirited Away – have earned over $503 million and $396 million at the global box office, respectively. Following them are Your Name ($380 million), Howl’s Moving Castle ($236 million) and Ponyo ($204 million). Some 17 anime feature films have garnered more than $100 million in theatrical revenue. Meanwhile, a hit series can last for years or decades and create a long-lasting revenue stream with hundreds or even thousands of episodes.
Attack on Titan is a dark post-apocalyptic four-season series adapted from the Hajime Isayama manga, in which high walls protect surviving humans from giant titans. The many varieties of anime show how it is not a genre, but a storytelling medium that includes genres like fantasy and science fiction. (Images courtesy of WIT Studio, Funimation and Plus Media Network)
Leading Japanese anime studios include Toei Animation, Gainax, Ufotable, Madhouse, Sunrise, MAPPA, J.C.Staff Co. Ltd., Studio Pierrot, A-1 Pictures, Bones Inc., David Production Inc., WIT Studio, CloverWorks, CoMix Wave Films, Kyoto Animation, Studio Ghibli and Production I.G., among others.
Netflix and the other major streamers are rushing to bolster their anime catalogs. In the U.S., Crunchyroll (owned by Sony) has the biggest anime catalog of the companies competing in the market. HBO Max has licensed titles from Studio Ghibli that include renowned works by the legendary Hayao Miyazaki, such as Spirited Away, Howl’s Moving Castle, Princess Mononoke and Ponyo. Disney+ and Amazon Prime are expanding their anime offerings. Netflix has left its usual large footprint. The streamer has quickly amassed a significant catalog of existing content and is creating original programming at a rapid pace – Netflix was set to launch some 40 original anime movies in 2022. In the April 3, 2022 Hollywood Reporter article “Netflix’s Head of Anime Says Half of Global Subscribers Watch Japanese Animation, Bullish on Growth,” Netflix’s Director, Anime Creative Kohei Obara revealed that more than half of Netflix’s 222 million subscribers viewed “some anime” on the platform in 2021. In Japan, the percentage tops 90%, according to Obara.
A group of Japanese kids visit an abandoned apartment building and awake to find themselves adrift at sea in Drifting Home, developed by Studio Colorido and directed by Hiroyasu Ishida. According to Production I.G.’s Maki Terashima-Furuta, one key to anime’s creativity may be that directors – as opposed to producers – have the final say on anime movies. (Images courtesy of Studio Colorido and Netflix)
Howl’s Moving Castle was written and directed by anime auteur Hayao Miyazaki. Anime is now one of the world’s most popular forms of entertainment and has influenced many filmmakers in the West. (Images courtesy of Studio Ghibli, Toho Co., Ltd. and WarnerMedia/HBO)
PRODUCTION I.G. AND ANIME AWARENESS
Maki Terashima-Furuta is the President of Production I.G. USA, the U.S. division of a major animation studio based in Tokyo, and she has viewed the dramatic growth of anime over the last two decades. Production I.G. has produced numerous films, series and OVAs (Original Video Animations), including Guilty Crown, Psycho-Pass, Eden of the East and the Ghost in the Shell: SAC_2045 series. It has produced titles for Netflix Original, such as Cyborg 009 and B: The Beginning. It is also known for creating a sevenminute anime sequence for Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003) that gave a boost to anime in the international market, according to Terashima-Furuta.
Production I.G. also co-developed and co-produced two anime series of Immortal Grand Prix (IGPX) with Cartoon Network (2003 and 2005). “It was the first true anime co-production ever, where everything from deal-making, financing, development, production and marketing was a collaborative effort between Japan and the US. We were definitely the pioneer with that new business model,” says Terashima-Furuta.
She started the U.S. entity of Production I.G. in 1997, “when anime wasn’t as faddish as it is now. Because anime wasn’t in much demand back then, I really struggled to lock any deals, let alone pull off a meeting with major studios and distributors in the industry. That’s when I told myself that the awareness needed to spread from the non-industry crowds, and I started actively attending various anime conventions around the country in order to teach and educate the fans, who enjoyed and knew our titles but weren’t aware of or [didn’t] recognize who we were and what we did.”
For Terashima-Furuta, the global anime market is now “unquestionably better” when “compared to how I always had to be the one knocking on the doors of new clients. It is now the polar opposite. Anime is in so much demand.”
THE CRUNCHYROLL ECOSYSTEM
A recent sign of corporate interest in anime came when Sony Pictures Entertainment, through its Funimation subsidiary, completed a $1.18 billion purchase of AT&T/WarnerMedia’s Crunchyroll in 2021 (Funimation content is being moved over to the Crunchyroll label). Crunchyroll is an anime streamer withan estimated five million subscribers and 120 million registered users, according to SPE. According to the firm, Crunchyroll has the world’s largest collection of anime with more than 1,000 anime movies and series, 40,000 episodes and 16,000 hours of content, along with some 200 East Asian live-action dramas. Some of Crunchyroll’s most popular titles include Attack on Titan, Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba, My Hero Academia, Spy x Family, and The Rising Of The Shield Hero. Suehira notes that the company is more than just a streaming service. “We offer fans a variety of ways to connect to their favorite series across theatrical, gaming, consumer products, news and more. An entire ecosystem has been created around anime to give fans new ways to engage with their favorite series. Crunchyroll has helped globalize this ecosystem. Not only can fans stream their favorite series, but they can purchase the collector’s edition home video, and they can go to the movie theater and catch an anime film with their friends – like the recent Jujutsu Kaisen 0: The Movie, which we have brought to fans in the U.S. and worldwide – or they can download a mobile game title from Crunchyroll Games, like My Hero Academia: The Strongest Hero. This is in addition to consumer products, fashion, manga and more.”
Suehira comments, “Now, anime can be found across every major streaming platform internationally, but no other service offers a catalog as deep as Crunchyroll’s or curates a community experience quite like we do.” As an example, he notes, “We recently collaborated with Lady Gaga on an exclusive streetwear collection inspired by [her album] Chromatica for Crunchyroll Loves, our in-house clothing brand.”
Michael B. Jordan, who released a line of Naruto-inspired menswear, and Megan Thee Stallion, who has cosplayed as Mirko in My Hero Academia, are other well-known anime aficionados.
TOP AND BOTTOM: Studio Ghibli’s Hayao Miyazaki film Ponyo tells the tale of a goldfish rescued from the sea who wants to be a human girl. HBO Max pulled off a coup by picking up the streaming rights to the catalog of Studio Ghibli, co-founded by the renowned Miyazaki. (Images courtesy of Studio Ghibli, Toho Co., Ltd. and WarnerMedia/HBO Max)
“Many coincidental events can be the reasons behind why anime has shown [great] growth internationally, such as how people other than the otaku population also started discovering charm and attractiveness in this hidden box of gems, whether naturally or by word of mouth, but I also believe that the people who grew up watching and loving anime as children became adults and started introducing and implementing anime in business. You’d be surprised to learn how many executives and producers are fond of anime.”
—Maki Terashima-Furuta, President of Production I.G. USA
Studio Ghibli’s Spirited Away concerns Chihiro, a 10-year-old girl who gets trapped in the Kami spirit world of Japanese Shinto folkore with her parents. Hayao Miyazaki wrote and directed the film, the second highest-earning anime film of all time. Miyazaki is revered by filmmakers worldwide and has created several of the most popular anime movies. (Images courtesy of Studio Ghibli, Toho Co., Ltd. and WarnerMedia/HBO)
ANIME FANS AND FAVORITES
“Many coincidental events can be the reasons behind why anime has shown [great] growth internationally, such as how people other than the otaku population also started discovering charm and attractiveness in this hidden box of gems, whether naturally or by word of mouth,” says Terashima-Furuta, “but I also believe that the people who grew up watching and loving anime as children became adults and started introducing and implementing anime in business. You’d be surprised to learn how many executives and producers are fond of anime.”
Gilles Poitras, author of the book Anime Essentials: Every Thing a Fan Needs to Know, comments, “The number of anime/manga conventions [have] exploded since the early 1990s, providing a place where fans can gather and share their interests.” This added to their ability to purchase personal copies – first videotape and laserdisc and then DVD and Blu-ray. Poitras adds, “This meant an expansion of the market as the availability of titles increased. Greater variety and access also allow those who are not fans to have access to anime in ways they did not in the past.”
Another factor in anime’s growth is the steady release of movies and series that inspire fan loyalty: Mobile Suit Gundam, Ranma ½, Patlabor, Revolutionary Girl Utena, Dragon Ball Z, Cowboy Bebop (an animated series and 2021 Netflix live-action series), Akira, Ghost in the Shell, Blue Submarine No. 6, Oh My Goddess!, Robotech, Fullmetal Alchemist, Sailor Moon, JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, Hunter X Hunter, Naruto, and all the movies of Hayao Miyazaki, to name a few other fan favorites.
NETFLIX AND STREAMERS
“Streaming has greatly expanded access,” Poitras explains. “Companies like Crunchyroll are now a major international powerhouses. Funimation and Hulu were the [first] major places for fans to view anime. Netflix and Amazon have helped expand the audience beyond those interested in anime and foreign cinema. Then there is RetroCrush, which specializes in older shows. This is important as the other services rarely show older programs.” Digital distribution is added to this – downloading for rental or purchase, which increases on-demand access. Adds Poitras, “This has a positive impact on physical media, as fans can easily watch many shows and then decide which they want to own. Many shows would likely not get a physical release without the publicity streaming creates.”
In Ghost in the Shell: SAC_2045, a group of cybernetically-enhanced mercenaries face off with powerful “Post Humans” after a global economic disaster. The Ghost in the Shell: SAC_2045 series, developed by Production I.G. and Sola Digital Arts, is the latest addition to a vast cyberpunk franchise that includes manga, other series and movies, including a live-action film starring Scarlett Johansson. (Images courtesy of Production I.G., Sola Digital Arts and Netflix)
Jujutsu Kaisen is a dark fantasy series developed by MAPPA Studio and streamed by Crunchyroll, in which a high school student joins an occult club for fun but discovers its members are actual sorcerers, and he becomes cursed himself. Many hit anime series can last for years, or even a few decades, and create long-lasting revenue streams. (Images courtesy of MAPPA and Crunchyroll)
Netflix has become a formidable force in anime in a short time, launching its streaming service in Japan in 2015 and debuting its first original anime title, Blame!, in 2017, produced by Polygon Pictures. Netflix has licensed series like Neon Genesis Evangelion, the original Cowboy Bebop, Naruto and The Seven Deadly Sins, and released newer titles like Record of Ragnarok, Violet Evergarden, Ghost in the Shell: SAC_2045 (produced by Production I.G.) and JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Stone Ocean. It has ramped up anime production and inked deals with renowned companies such as Studio Colorido (Drifting Home).
The upsurge in anime production may cause disruption in the industry. “We all feel grateful that more anime titles are being made than ever in the past,” says Terashima-Furuta. But she also notes that, because of the rise in demand from the networks and platforms, the supply and demand chain has completely changed. She adds, “It takes years, a number of creators, and lots of money to produce an anime, and not many people realize how much work is required and put into the making process.”
WHAT MAKES ANIME ANIME
Anime titles have distinctive visual styles and conventions, but what else makes anime different from western animation? “Anime is not a genre,” Suehira explains. “It’s a rich storytelling medium offering something for every kind of fan: action, science fiction, horror, sports, romance, slice of life, and more.” By contrast, “In the West, animation is typically seen as comedy or children’s content. However, with the growth of streaming and the rise of video games, we’re seeing more fans comfortable with and interest in adult dramatic animation.” Poitras adds, “There are many stories with very serious storylines or with certain content that just would not be in animation made in the U.S.,” says Poitras. “This includes: character death, slow-paced dramas, same gender relationships, tragic death, anything in cinema and fiction for grown-ups. By contrast, American animation today is still predominantly kid-friendly fare or TV sitcoms.” Poitras continues, “Then there is the importance of the feelings of the characters – the emotional context is a crucial part of the story.” He adds that series set in Japan also are a draw, as viewers are exposed to things they often did not know about. “Many young people I know have said this is part of their enjoyment of anime and manga.”
In terms of what makes anime different, Terashima-Furuta comments, “There are many differences, such as the unique storytelling without age restrictions, beyond-imaginary worldbuilding, intricate artwork, distinct character and mecha designs, etc. However, I think all of these aspects ultimately boil down to the fact that the directors often have the final say on the picture, as opposed to the producers being the decision-makers for western animation.”
Suehira concludes, “Crunchyroll has been championing anime for more than a decade. We have always recognized the power and potential of this medium. Even so, we continue to be inspired by the caliber and creativity of the anime being produced in Japan, and we are excited to bring more anime to fans worldwide.”
Images courtesy of Blur Studio, except where noted.
Tim Miller, left, and Jeff Fowler at the premiere of Sonic the Hedgehog in 2020.
When the opportunity to make a live-action/CG hybrid Sonic the Hedgehog movie came to Blur Studio, Co-founder Tim Miller quickly suggested his friend and collaborator Jeff Fowler should direct it. Fowler had been hired at Blur as a character animator in the early 2000s and had since become a director for the studio. The two had many years of experience working on commercials, cinematics and animated shorts as Blur evolved and Miller added live-action feature directing to his animation résumé with Deadpool and Terminator: Dark Fate.
The 2020 Sonic the Hedgehog film from Paramount (directed by Fowler and executive produced by Miller) was a hit and quickly followed up with this year’s Sonic the Hedgehog 2. Here, both directors discuss their collaboration at Blur, an early Oscar nomination experience, how Sonic came to be, and their experience working together for two decades.
HOW IT STARTED
Jeff Fowler: I went to Ringling College of Art and Design in Sarasota, Florida, with the goal of getting into movies in any way possible as a character animator. As part of your senior year at Ringling, you create a short film that becomes your calling card to get a job. Mine was a short called Monkey Pit, which featured little animated monkeys at the zoo. There was not much to it, but as part of the course, you’re responsible for every piece of production, which was really great training.
Tim Miller: I hired Jeff right out of college to work on Blur’s biggest project to date, a direct-to-video Disney feature called Mickey’s Twice Upon a Christmas [2004]. Christmas isn’t my favorite holiday, but it was a great opportunity for us to grow the studio. We hired quite a lot of artists during that growth spurt, some of which are still working here at Blur. As you can imagine, several of these folks have become much more than employees; they are good friends, and Jeff is among the best of them.
A scene from the Blur Studio short A Gentleman’s Duel.
Fowler: I had put my short film out into the visual effects world, hoping to get some bites because I knew I wanted to work in L.A. Back then, L.A. was the hub of all things visual effects and CGI animation. After Tim saw my reel, he invited me to come out to L.A. and see Blur. He said, “We’re a couple of blocks from the ocean in Venice. It’s the best part of L.A.” And out I came.
THE BLUR SHORTS PROGRAM: CREATIVITY FROM INSIDE THE STUDIO
Fowler: Blur had a really interesting short film program. Tim loves to promote creativity inside the studio because it’s better to have people that you know and trust moving into leadership positions. Miller: But the shorts program was very democratic. Anybody could enter a short film, and if it won the competition, we would make it.
Inside Blur Studio where Miller and Fowler sat only feet away from each other.
Gopher Broke, a short film made by Blur Studio and directed by Fowler.
Miller on the set of Deadpool. (Image courtesy of 20th Century Fox)
“It’s really a simple idea: don’t pretend you know; just ask all the talented people around you for help. That’s what I did at the beginning of Deadpool, and Jeff did the same on Sonic. I got up in front of the crew and said, ‘Hey, I really don’t know much about how live-action films are made, but I know what I want. I just have no freaking clue on how to get it. All you folks know my job better than I do, so please help me not look stupid.’ And here’s the big secret I’ve learned about this industry: when you ask for people’s help – and you’re not a giant asshole – they give it to you.”
—Tim Miller, Director and Co-founder, Blur Studio
Fowler: The short film program was something designed from the ground up for the artists at Blur. The contest was juried by the supervisors, because they are the most experienced artists, and I saw it as an amazing opportunity. So, I submitted a short film idea called Gopher Broke.
Miller: And Jeff’s film won, and so we put Gopher Broke into production.
Fowler: I admit winning felt surreal. I thought ‘Oh my gosh, I’ve been working here only a year and Tim is offering to fund and make an idea that just literally came from a guy at the lowest rung of the studio ladder.’
Miller: We’ve been very lucky to hire great artists over the years. We’ve tried very hard to create a culture where people feel valued and want to stay.
Fowler: We made Gopher Broke, and it was nominated for an Academy Award in 2005. I remember thinking, ‘This creative culture at Blur is amazing – our whole focus was to create great work,’ whether it be our own stuff or work we’d been hired to do. In fact, that was the single biggest thing that made Blur so special.
Miller: The shorts program started with Aunt Luisa and then Rockfish, but Jeff’s film really kicked off a wave of great films done in-house, like In the Rough, and then A Gentleman’s Duel, which was created by two of our concept artists, Sean McNally and Francisco Ruiz-Velasco.
Fowler: Tim always had a great eye for what the studio should do and what the artists would enjoy working on. He would often accept work based on how cool it was, rather than how big the budget was. He wanted the artists happy and inspired.
Making Films is Hard
Reflecting on the projects they’ve worked together on, both Tim Miller and Jeff Fowler are frank about the pitches they didn’t get, the ones that haven’t been made, or just the normal difficulties of making anything.
“There were so many projects that felt like they were going to happen, that felt so close, and then in a heartbeat they fell apart, stalled or just didn’t move forward as fast as you wished,” Fowler recounts, who engaged in a Sonic re-design after taking fan comments to heart during the making the first film (which ultimately proved very successful).
“I would always take inspiration from Tim because he had been out there going after his goals for almost twice as long as I had, so anytime I wanted to throw myself a pity party because something hadn’t happened yet or there were challenges, I would look at him and be like, ‘I don’t see him losing heart.’ Love, Death + Robots – which was inspired by Heavy Metal [a 1981 Canadian adult animated sci-fi-fantasy anthology film] – took hundreds of meetings and 15 years. And Tim is going to get The Goon made or die trying! He’s working as hard as he ever has.”
Also, Miller observes the strong work ethic inherent in Fowler’s approach to all of his projects. “When Warner Bros. was going to do The Lego Movie,” recalls Miller, “I called Chris DeFaria [at Warner Bros.] and said, ‘I’d love for Blur to help with the film in some way. Are there any tests we can do?’ Chris said, ‘Well, we haven’t figured out how the facial animation will work in this Lego world yet.’”
“So, I went to Jeff,” Miller continues, “and said, ‘I’d like you to supervise a test for Lego.’ He said, ‘What dialogue should I use?’ I said, ‘Just make up some temp shit that’s funny and is good enough to do some tests with.’ So, Jeff goes home and the next morning he comes in with a three-page script about Lego characters getting lost in a freezer. It was super clever and funny with a ton of heart.’
“So, we decided on the spot to just make it. It would be a very short film that showed the world off much better than a few tests. Producer Dan Lin later told us that our short really helped show everyone the potential of the film. And Jeff eventually did a full pitch for the film which was great, though we didn’t get it of course. But this was indicative of Jeff’s character. He didn’t have to write a script. He could have just written a few funny lines – which is what I probably would have done) – but he didn’t because he always wants to make something great.”
Miller: I’m not really a businessman or at all entrepreneurial, and the reason I started Blur was so I could decide what I worked on personally and what Blur worked on as a studio. At other companies, I often saw interesting work turned down because it wasn’t lucrative enough. The shorts program grew from that simple desire to do interesting creative work. Which in turn helped the studio as a business, because Blur became known as a company that created quality and was easy to work with. We didn’t just do what we were told, we tried to make everything great.
From left: Miller, Fowler and Dave Wilson, all directors from Blur Studio.
Miller directing Terminator: Dark Fate. (Image courtesy of Paramount Pictures)
Director Fowler and actor Tika Sumpter discuss a scene for Sonic the Hedgehog 2. (Photo: Kimberley French. Image courtesy of Paramount Pictures)
Sonic (voiced by Ben Schwartz) with actor James Marsden in a scene from Sonic the Hedgehog 2. (Image courtesy of Paramount Pictures)
“[Embarking on the Sonic the Hedgehog movie] I had zero live-action directing skills at that time, but I benefited from Tim’s recent experience making Deadpool. We sat next to each other in the studio, so I basically spent our year in development picking his brain. I was very curious about his experience going from animation to live-action because Tim, like me, had always been an animator and had been working almost entirely in that industry for so long.”
—Jeff Fowler, Producer/Director, Blur Studio
Director Fowler and Director of Photography Brandon Trost on the set of Sonic the Hedgehog 2. (Image courtesy of Paramount Pictures)
Fowler: The budgets for the short films were always tight, but we still set the creative bar very high. You have to squeeze every pixel out of every penny and make sure it looks the best it possibly can. It was absolutely the finest possible training I can imagine to prepare me for making Sonic.
SPEEDING ONTO SONIC AND THE WORLD OF LIVE-ACTION
Miller: We had a pretty long-standing relationship with the Sega folks because we’d done a ton of Sonic cinematics. They came for a visit and said, “Hey, we’re going to develop a Sonic movie, would Blur want to be involved?” I immediately said an emphatic “Yes” and suggested Jeff would be an excellent candidate for director. They knew Jeff’s work and agreed. So, off we went to do a test.
We were shooting a Love, Death + Robots short in Salt Lake City, Arizona, [Miller created the Netflix series] and we figured, well, since we had all the camera equipment rented for a week and I was only shooting two days, why not shoot the plates for a Sonic short? So, we went out in the desert and shot what we needed for the test. It was a real team effort done on the cheap. I was off-camera throwing dirt and stuff in front of the lens. Jeff was shaking the cop car to simulate Sonic passing, etc. Then we did all the VFX work back at Blur, and we used that final test to sell the project. I think a few of those shots from the test actually made it into the first trailer.
Fowler: I had zero live-action directing skills at that time, but I benefited from Tim’s recent experience making Deadpool. We sat next to each other in the studio, so I basically spent our year in development picking his brain. I was very curious about his experience going from animation to live-action because Tim, like me, had always been an animator and had been working almost entirely in that industry for so long.
“The budgets for the short films [at Blur] were always tight, but we still set the creative bar very high. You have to squeeze every pixel out of every penny and make sure it looks the best it possibly can. It was absolutely the finest possible training I can imagine to prepare me for making Sonic.”
—Jeff Fowler, Producer/Director, Blur Studio
A previs version of a shot from the opening credits for Deadpool, as crafted by Blur Studio, and the final opening credits shot. (Images courtesy of 20th Century Fox)
Miller: My main piece of advice to Jeff was that you can’t pretend you know everything about shooting live-action. There’s just too much specialized knowledge and it takes years to learn it. It’s really a simple idea: don’t pretend you know; just ask all the talented people around you for help. That’s what I did at the beginning of Deadpool, and Jeff did the same on Sonic. I got up in front of the crew and said, “Hey, I really don’t really know much about how live-action films are made, but I know what I want. I just have no freaking clue on how to get it. All you folks know my job better than I do, so please help me not look stupid.”And here’s the big secret I’ve learned about this industry: when you ask for people’s help – and you’re not a giant asshole – they give it to you.
Fowler: It was great advice about being honest, and it’s also important to work hard to make sure you’re creating an atmosphere for people to do great work. I took Tim’s advice to heart and found that people really appreciate the honesty about your experience. They appreciate that you aren’t trying to bluff your way through the process by pretending to know something you don’t. That’s not a great way to build a team for the difficult effort of making a movie.
WORKING TOGETHER
Fowler: I still go to Blur once a week. I love being there. I edited some of the story animatics for both Sonic films at the studio. I still love doing some production work whenever I can – it’s a great way of digging into a scene and making decisions. Tim always helps with the story and the script. If I have a first draft I’m feeling pretty good about, I loop him in because I know he’s going to be brutally honest. He’s not a person who will spare your feelings if he feels something needs more work. So, he’s a wonderful resource for critical analysis.
Miller: For a first-time director – like Jeff was on the first Sonic film – it’s a lot of pressure. Not having any live-action experience makes it even harder. But Jeff handled it amazingly well – he’s really smart and he’s a super nice guy. The crew on Sonic, which had a lot of the same folks I worked with on Deadpool since they shot in Vancouver, just loved him. The whole cast loved him. I got a front-row seat to the whole operation because the editorial and post team were set up at Blur, and they loved him too. Literally, everybody I talked to about the film, including the folks at Paramount, had a great experience making the movie, and much of that is due to Jeff’s leadership and his calm and friendly style.
Fowler: It’s great to work with people you trust, and it all comes from this great creative place that is Blur. Actually, we had this crazy moment in Blur’s history in which three Blur directors – me with Sonic, Tim with Terminator: Dark Fate and Dave Wilson with Bloodshot – were all off making movies at the same time. When you think about how that all started at a company that, even today, isn’t huge. It’s a very creative, wonderful environment of a hundred or so artists, and that really says something about the talent and the artistry that has come, and continues to come, from Blur.
The CARES Act is the third piece of federal emergency legislation to address the coronavirus pandemic. It was signed into law on March 27, 2020.
Emergency Increase in Unemployment Benefits (Section 2104):
States can increase the weekly benefit that an individual would otherwise qualify for by $600 a week. For example, the maximum California benefit is normally $450 a week; under this program, it will be $1,050 a week ($450 + $600)
Eligible recipients may receive the $600/week boost retroactive to the date their state signed an agreement with the federal government to implement the CARES Act; check with your state’s unemployment agency for details
A temporary 39-week program to provide unemployment benefits to those whose unemployment is related to COVID-19:
Who do not qualify under their state’s regular unemployment insurance program or who have exhausted UI benefits after July 1, 2019 and before the date their state commences this program, and
Who self-certify that they are (1) partially or fully unemployed, or (2) unable and unavailable to work because of any one of the following circumstances:
They have been diagnosed with COVID-19 or have symptoms of it and are seeking diagnosis
A member of their household has been diagnosed with COVID-19
They are providing care for someone diagnosed with COVID-19
They are providing care for a child or other household member who can’t attend school or work because it is closed due to COVID-19
They can’t reach their place of employment due to a COVID-19 quarantine
They have been advised by a health care provider to self-quarantine due to COVID-19
They were scheduled to start employment, but the job no longer exists, or they cannot reach the place of employment due to a COVID-19 public health emergency
They have become the breadwinner for a household because the head of the household has died as a direct result of COVID-19
They had to quit their job as a direct result of COVID-19
Their place of employment is closed as a direct result of the COVID-19 public health emergency;
They are self-employed, seeking part-time employment, or do not have sufficient work history, or otherwise do not qualify for state UI.
The amount available will vary by state. For example, California has set its basic amount at $167 per week, plus the $600 a week boost
This program lasts up to 39 weeks, but the $600/week boost is only available until July 31, 2020
Even if your state is not yet paying PUA benefits, if you are approved, benefits can be retroactive to the date you state signed an agreement to implement the CARES Act; check with your state’s unemployment agency for details
Individuals receiving paid leave, who are teleworking, or who are otherwise employed full-time are not eligible
Individuals who are eligible for unemployment insurance cannot choose PUA; PUA is only for individuals who are not eligible for UI
Each program shall be immediately available to individuals without the normal one week waiting period.
Important caveat: States must opt-in to these programs. Since the enhanced payments are 100% federally funded, there is no reason for a state to deny these benefits to its residents, but they have option to do so. California and New York have already begun to implement the enhanced benefits.
A one-time tax credit, in the form of a direct payment of $1,200 ($2,400 for those filing jointly) and $500 per dependent child under 17 to all individuals—this benefit begins to phase out at $75,000 ($150,000 for those filing jointly), Those making $99,000 ($198,000 for those filing jointly) or more will not receive a rebate, even if they have dependent children.
Other than the income limitations, the only exclusions from this benefit are estates, trusts, nonresident aliens, and those claimed as a dependent on someone else’s tax return
As part of the Economic Injury Disaster Loan program, small businesses are eligible for emergency grants of up to $10,000 to maintain payroll, provide paid sick leave, pay rent/mortgage, etc.
Small businesses and 501(c)(3)s will also be eligible for loans on a more favorable basis than normal SBA loans
Paycheck Protection Program: Loan proceeds used to keep employees on payroll and pay mortgage/rent mortgage and utilities will be forgiven
Retirement account holders may make coronavirus-related withdrawals of up to $100,000 out of their 401(k)s without penalty Student Loans (Section 3513)
Student Loans (Section 3513):
All student loan and interest payments will be deferred through September 30, 2020 without penalty for federally owned student loans only (note this does not impact private loans, Perkins loans, and loans held by a bank)
VES Members and Up to Four (4) Guests are Invited to a Screening of Sony Pictures’ DEVOTION
Sony Pictures Imageworks guidelines require that all VES members and guests must show photo ID for admission. Masks are encouraged, but not required.
Please RSVP below (VES members must login to sign up.)
Friday, December 2, 2022 at 7:30PM (RSVPs close on Friday, December 2 at 12:00PM) The Ray Harryhausen Theater on the Sony Pictures Imageworks Lot 9050 W. Washington Blvd., Culver City, CA 90232 (Complimentary parking is available in the underground lot on Washington.)
***VES Members: Please enter your first and last name in the “Attendee 1″ fields***
In an effort to prevent the spread of COVID-19, we ask that you or your guests do not attend VES events if you are experiencing any symptoms or if you have been exposed to the virus.
Screenings are overbooked to compensate for no-shows. Seating is limited and will be available on a first come, first served basis. An RSVP does not guarantee seating.
By signing up for this on-site, in-person screening/event sponsored by VES (Visual Effects Society), you willingly accept any potential inherent risks associated with COVID-19. VES cannot be held liable from any consequences that may transpire from said risk. Therefore, signing up for this screening/event infers implied consent of yourself and your party and hereby indemnifies and holds harmless VES, its directors, its employees and any other affiliated persons from any adverse medical or financial impact that may result from our participation.
VES Members and Up to Two (2) Guests are Invited to a Revival Stereo 3D and 4K Screening of Walt Disney Pictures’ AVATAR from 2009
Walt Disney Studios safety guidelines require that all VES members and guests must show photo ID that matches their names on the RSVP list and all unvaccinated attendees must wear masks at all times indoors.
Please RSVP below (VES members must login in order to sign up)
Monday, December 5, 2022 at 7:00PM (RSVPs close at 12:00PM on Monday) Frank G. Wells Theater on the Walt Disney Studios lot
(Please enter through the Alameda Gate East of Buena Vista)
500 S. Buena Vista St., Burbank, CA 91451
***VES Members: Please enter your first and last name in the “Attendee 1″ fields***
In an effort to prevent the spread of COVID-19, we ask that you or your guests do not attend VES events if you are experiencing any symptoms or if you have been exposed to the virus.
Screenings are overbooked to compensate for no-shows. Seating is limited and will be available on a first come, first served basis. An RSVP does not guarantee seating.
By signing up for this on-site, in-person screening/event sponsored by VES (Visual Effects Society), you willingly accept any potential inherent risks associated with COVID-19. VES cannot be held liable from any consequences that may transpire from said risk. Therefore, signing up for this screening/event infers implied consent of yourself and your party and hereby indemnifies and holds harmless VES, its directors, its employees and any other affiliated persons from any adverse medical or financial impact that may result from our participation.
Visual Effects Society Los Angeles Section Holiday Party
Marina del Rey Marriott Hotel
VES Members and One (1) Guest are Invited to Celebrate the Season with Us!
Please RSVP below (VES members must login to register)
Saturday, December 17, 2022
Bayview Terrace and Ballroom Holiday Cocktail Attire
5:30PM-6:30PM Cocktails
6:30PM-10:00PM Dinner party Appetizers, Buffet dinner, open bar (see times below) and prizes Open Bar from 5:30PM to 8:30PM
Cash Bar 8:30PM to 9:30PM
Bar Closed and Coffee Served 9:30PM to 10:00PM
Valet Parking $25.00 per vehicle (this is discounted for our event , parking is $45.00 normally)
VES Members and Up to Four (4) Guests are Invited to a Screening of Searchlight Pictures’ THE MENU
Sony Pictures Imageworks guidelines require that all VES members and guests must show photo ID for admission. Masks are encouraged, but not required.
Please RSVP below (VES members must login to sign up.)
Monday, November 28, 2022 at 7:30PM (RSVPs close on Monday, November 28 at 10:00AM) The Ray Harryhausen Theater on the Sony Pictures Imageworks Lot 9050 W. Washington Blvd., Culver City, CA 90232 (Complimentary parking is available in the underground lot on Washington.)
***VES Members: Please enter your first and last name in the “Attendee 1″ fields***
In an effort to prevent the spread of COVID-19, we ask that you or your guests do not attend VES events if you are experiencing any symptoms or if you have been exposed to the virus.
Screenings are overbooked to compensate for no-shows. Seating is limited and will be available on a first come, first served basis. An RSVP does not guarantee seating.
By signing up for this on-site, in-person screening/event sponsored by VES (Visual Effects Society), you willingly accept any potential inherent risks associated with COVID-19. VES cannot be held liable from any consequences that may transpire from said risk. Therefore, signing up for this screening/event infers implied consent of yourself and your party and hereby indemnifies and holds harmless VES, its directors, its employees and any other affiliated persons from any adverse medical or financial impact that may result from our participation.
VES Members and Up to Four (4) Guests are Invited to an Opening Weekend 3D Screening of Walt Disney Animation Studios’ STRANGE WORLD
Walt Disney Studios safety guidelines require that all unvaccinated attendees must wear masks at all times indoors.
Please RSVP below (VES members must login to sign up)
Friday, November 25, 2022 at 12:00PM (RSVPs close at 2:00PM on Wednesday, November 23) Walt Disney Studios Main Theater
500 S. Buena Vista St., Burbank, CA 91521
(Please enter through the Alameda gate and park as directed.)
***VES Members: Please enter your first and last name in the “Attendee 1″ fields***
In an effort to prevent the spread of COVID-19, we ask that you or your guests do not attend VES events if you are experiencing any symptoms or if you have been exposed to the virus.
Screenings are overbooked to compensate for no-shows. Seating is limited and will be available on a first come, first served basis. An RSVP does not guarantee seating.
By signing up for this on-site, in-person screening/event sponsored by VES (Visual Effects Society), you willingly accept any potential inherent risks associated with COVID-19. VES cannot be held liable from any consequences that may transpire from said risk. Therefore, signing up for this screening/event infers implied consent of yourself and your party and hereby indemnifies and holds harmless VES, its directors, its employees and any other affiliated persons from any adverse medical or financial impact that may result from our participation.
VES Members and Up to Four (4) Guests are Invited to a Screening of Universal Pictures’ THE FABELMANS
Sony Pictures Imageworks guidelines require that all VES members and guests must show photo ID for admission. Masks are encouraged, but not required.
Please RSVP below (VES members must login to sign up.)
Friday, November 18, 2022 at 7:00PM (RSVPs close on Friday, November 18 at 10:00AM) The Ray Harryhausen Theater on the Sony Pictures Imageworks Lot 9050 W. Washington Blvd., Culver City, CA 90232 (Complimentary parking is available in the underground lot on Washington.)
***VES Members: Please enter your first and last name in the “Attendee 1″ fields***
In an effort to prevent the spread of COVID-19, we ask that you or your guests do not attend VES events if you are experiencing any symptoms or if you have been exposed to the virus.
Screenings are overbooked to compensate for no-shows. Seating is limited and will be available on a first come, first served basis. An RSVP does not guarantee seating.
By signing up for this on-site, in-person screening/event sponsored by VES (Visual Effects Society), you willingly accept any potential inherent risks associated with COVID-19. VES cannot be held liable from any consequences that may transpire from said risk. Therefore, signing up for this screening/event infers implied consent of yourself and your party and hereby indemnifies and holds harmless VES, its directors, its employees and any other affiliated persons from any adverse medical or financial impact that may result from our participation.
VES Members and Up to Four (4) Guests are Invited to an Opening Weekend 3D Screening of Walt Disney Pictures’ and Marvel Studios’ BLACK PANTHER: WAKANDA FOREVER
Walt Disney Studios safety guidelines require that all VES members and guests must show photo ID that matches their names on the RSVP list and all unvaccinated attendees must wear masks at all times indoors.
RSVPs are closed
Sunday, November 13, 2022 at 11:00AM (RSVPs closed at 10:00AM on Friday, November 11) Walt Disney Studios Main Theater
500 S. Buena Vista St., Burbank, CA 91521
(Please enter through the Alameda gate and park as directed.)
***VES Members: Please enter your first and last name in the “Attendee 1″ fields***
In an effort to prevent the spread of COVID-19, we ask that you or your guests do not attend VES events if you are experiencing any symptoms or if you have been exposed to the virus.
Screenings are overbooked to compensate for no-shows. Seating is limited and will be available on a first come, first served basis. An RSVP does not guarantee seating.
By signing up for this on-site, in-person screening/event sponsored by VES (Visual Effects Society), you willingly accept any potential inherent risks associated with COVID-19. VES cannot be held liable from any consequences that may transpire from said risk. Therefore, signing up for this screening/event infers implied consent of yourself and your party and hereby indemnifies and holds harmless VES, its directors, its employees and any other affiliated persons from any adverse medical or financial impact that may result from our participation.
Visual Effects Society Presents: “Creating Lifelike Digital Humans – Volumetric Video Capture Techniques for VFX Pipelines”
Wild Capture to Demo Volumetric Video Digital Human Characters at
Metastage State-of-the-Art Volumetric Video Capture Studio
Event Date: Saturday, November 12, 2022
2:00PM – 5:00PM Click here to RSVP
Headquartered in Los Angeles, Wild Capture develops smart assets for the next generation of spatial media products that enable creators to produce high-quality digital humans with cutting-edge volumetric technologies and industry-standard practices. Wild Capture’s ‘Digital Human Platform’ offers a complete production pipeline that translates the human essence into volumetric video with the highest quality performance captures available to break the uncanny valley.
Launched in 2020 by filmmaking and VFX visionaries credited with pushing the evolution of new media productions over two decades, Wild Capture provides performance capture expertise at every stage of the creative process. From interactive CG fashion products and services to volumetric crowd kits, Wild Capture content inspires and engages realistic digital humans for use in media production, software development, and web-based applications.
Metastage is a premier XR production studio specializing in 3D capture technology — volumetric capture, or “volcap.” Metastage’s end-to-end system uses an array of 106 machine-vision cameras to capture authentic human performance from all angles and delivers a high-fidelity yet highly compressed 3D asset for streaming on mobile devices and AR/VR headsets, and allows for seamless integration within VFX workflows for framed content.
Since its launch in 2018, Metastage has completed 200+ productions with major brands, earning two Emmy nominations. As producers, technologists, and virtual world development experts, we collaborate with diverse clients to help them build and become leaders in the XR space.
VES LA Members and 1 Guest are invited on a field trip to Wild Capture’s presentation at Meta Stage, a state-of-the-art volumetric video capture stage, located at 12800 Foothill Blvd, Sylmar, CA 91342
Saturday, November 12, 2022
Demonstration is from 2:00 pm to 5:00 pm
Refreshments sponsored by:
Setellite is an industry-standard platform for on-set VFX data organization.Setellite is developed in Amsterdam by the talented teams at Planet X Technologies in partnership with Unwind Creative Technology. Additional information on Setellite products is available here.
VES Members and Up to Four (4) Guests are Invited to a Screening of Focus Features’ ARMAGEDDON TIME
Sony Pictures Imageworks guidelines require that all VES members and guests must show photo ID for admission. Masks are encouraged, but not required.
Please RSVP below (VES members must login to sign up.)
Monday, November 7, 2022 at 7:30PM (RSVPs close on Monday at 12:00PM) The Ray Harryhausen Theater on the Sony Pictures Imageworks Lot 9050 W. Washington Blvd., Culver City, CA 90232 (Complimentary parking is available in the underground lot on Washington.)
***VES Members: Please enter your first and last name in the “Attendee 1″ fields***
In an effort to prevent the spread of COVID-19, we ask that you or your guests do not attend VES events if you are experiencing any symptoms or if you have been exposed to the virus.
Screenings are overbooked to compensate for no-shows. Seating is limited and will be available on a first come, first served basis. An RSVP does not guarantee seating.
By signing up for this on-site, in-person screening/event sponsored by VES (Visual Effects Society), you willingly accept any potential inherent risks associated with COVID-19. VES cannot be held liable from any consequences that may transpire from said risk. Therefore, signing up for this screening/event infers implied consent of yourself and your party and hereby indemnifies and holds harmless VES, its directors, its employees and any other affiliated persons from any adverse medical or financial impact that may result from our participation.
VES Members and up to Four (4) Guests are Invited to a Screening of Warner Bros. Pictures’ BLACK ADAM
RSVPs are closed (VES members must login to sign up.)
Friday, November 4, 2022 at 8:00PM (RSVPs close on Friday, November 4 at 10:00AM) Screening Room 12 on the Warner Bros. Studio Lot (Please enter through Gate 4)
4000 Warner Blvd, Burbank CA 91502 Click here for a map.
***VES Members: Please enter your first and last name in the “Attendee 1″ fields***
In an effort to prevent the spread of COVID-19, we ask that you or your guests do not attend VES events if you are experiencing any symptoms or if you have been exposed to the virus.
Screenings are overbooked to compensate for no-shows. Seating is limited and will be available on a first come, first served basis. An RSVP does not guarantee seating.
By signing up for this on-site, in-person screening/event sponsored by VES (Visual Effects Society), you willingly accept any potential inherent risks associated with COVID-19. VES cannot be held liable from any consequences that may transpire from said risk. Therefore, signing up for this screening/event infers implied consent of yourself and your party and hereby indemnifies and holds harmless VES, its directors, its employees and any other affiliated persons from any adverse medical or financial impact that may result from our participation.
Infinity Festival Hollywood is the place where Hollywood meets Silicon Valley! The festival, a multi-day annual event held in the heart of Hollywood, celebrates story enabled by technology, bringing together Hollywood’s finest storytelling talent with the innovative creators of Silicon Valley’s cutting-edge technology. The Infinity Festival environment includes panels, exhibitions, screenings, keynotes, a fine art gallery and more, all driven by today’s top innovators, creators and artists. Host to a Student Lab and networking events, the festival helps drive economic opportunities for Hollywood’s thriving media and entertainment business community while supporting the up-and-coming creator economy. This year’s festival also includes exciting nighttime events, including the US premiere of “Le Musk”, a 38 min full-length sensory cinematic experience by creator A.R. Rahman, a VIP showing at LightHouse ArtSpace, and a private screening of “Signs of Life” at the Griffith Observatory.
Infinity Festival Hollywood 2022 is presented by Z by HP, NVIDIA, XLA, and Snapdragon. Sponsors include Intel, Microsoft, Verizon, Paramount, IGN, The Wall Street Journal and OUTFRONT Media.
VES members must login to VES site in order to see promo code below
November 2-5, 2022
Goya Studios
1541 N. Cahuenga Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90028
VES Members and Up to Four (4) Guests are Invited to a Screening of Universal Pictures’ TICKET TO PARADISE
Sony Pictures Imageworks guidelines require that all VES members and guests must show photo ID for admission. Masks are encouraged, but not required.
Please RSVP below (VES members must login to sign up.)
Monday, October 24, 2022 at 7:30PM (RSVPs close on Monday at 2:00PM) The Ray Harryhausen Theater on the Sony Pictures Imageworks Lot 9050 W. Washington Blvd., Culver City, CA 90232 (Complimentary parking is available in the underground lot on Washington.)
***VES Members: Please enter your first and last name in the “Attendee 1″ fields***
In an effort to prevent the spread of COVID-19, we ask that you or your guests do not attend VES events if you are experiencing any symptoms or if you have been exposed to the virus.
Screenings are overbooked to compensate for no-shows. Seating is limited and will be available on a first come, first served basis. An RSVP does not guarantee seating.
By signing up for this on-site, in-person screening/event sponsored by VES (Visual Effects Society), you willingly accept any potential inherent risks associated with COVID-19. VES cannot be held liable from any consequences that may transpire from said risk. Therefore, signing up for this screening/event infers implied consent of yourself and your party and hereby indemnifies and holds harmless VES, its directors, its employees and any other affiliated persons from any adverse medical or financial impact that may result from our participation.
VES Los Angeles and the Cat & Fiddle invite Members and 1 guest to a
Halloween Pub Get Together
Please RSVP below (VES members must login to register.) Sunday, October 23, at 3:00PM
Cat & the Fiddle
742 Highland Ave, Hollywood, CA 90038
In an effort to prevent the spread of COVID-19, we ask that you or your guests do not attend VES events if you are experiencing any symptoms or if you have been exposed to the virus.
Events are overbooked to compensate for no-shows. Seating is limited and will be available on a first-come, first served basis. An RSVP does not guarantee seating.
By signing up for this on-site, in-person screening/event sponsored by VES (Visual Effects Society), you willingly accept any potential inherent risks associated with COVID-19. VES cannot be held liable for any consequences that may transpire from said risk. Therefore, signing up for this screening/event infers implied consent of yourself and your party and hereby indemnifies and holds harmless VES, its directors, its employees, and any other affiliated persons from any adverse medical or financial impact that may result from our participation.
***VES Members: Please enter your first and last name in the “Attendee 1″ fields***
VES Members and Up to Four (4) Guests are Invited to a Screening of Universal Pictures’ HALLOWEEN ENDS
Sony Pictures Imageworks guidelines require that all VES members and guests must show photo ID for admission. Masks are encouraged, but not required.
Please RSVP below (VES members must login to sign up.)
Monday, October 17, 2022 at 7:30PM (RSVPs close on Monday at 2:00PM) The Ray Harryhausen Theater on the Sony Pictures Imageworks Lot 9050 W. Washington Blvd., Culver City, CA 90232 (Complimentary parking is available in the underground lot on Washington.)
***VES Members: Please enter your first and last name in the “Attendee 1″ fields***
In an effort to prevent the spread of COVID-19, we ask that you or your guests do not attend VES events if you are experiencing any symptoms or if you have been exposed to the virus.
Screenings are overbooked to compensate for no-shows. Seating is limited and will be available on a first come, first served basis. An RSVP does not guarantee seating.
By signing up for this on-site, in-person screening/event sponsored by VES (Visual Effects Society), you willingly accept any potential inherent risks associated with COVID-19. VES cannot be held liable from any consequences that may transpire from said risk. Therefore, signing up for this screening/event infers implied consent of yourself and your party and hereby indemnifies and holds harmless VES, its directors, its employees and any other affiliated persons from any adverse medical or financial impact that may result from our participation.
VES Members and Up to Four (4) Guests are Invited to a Screening of Sony Pictures’ LYLE, LYLE, CROCODILE
Sony Pictures Imageworks guidelines require that all VES members must show photo ID & proof of vaccination against COVID-19 for admission.
Please RSVP below (VES members must login to sign up.)
Monday, October 10, 2022 at 7:00PM (RSVPs close on Monday at 2:00PM) The Ray Harryhausen Theater on the Sony Pictures Imageworks Lot 9050 W. Washington Blvd., Culver City, CA 90232 (Complimentary parking is available in the underground lot on Washington.)
***VES Members: Please enter your first and last name in the “Attendee 1″ fields***
In an effort to prevent the spread of COVID-19, we ask that you or your guests do not attend VES events if you are experiencing any symptoms or if you have been exposed to the virus.
Screenings are overbooked to compensate for no-shows. Seating is limited and will be available on a first come, first served basis. An RSVP does not guarantee seating.
By signing up for this on-site, in-person screening/event sponsored by VES (Visual Effects Society), you willingly accept any potential inherent risks associated with COVID-19. VES cannot be held liable from any consequences that may transpire from said risk. Therefore, signing up for this screening/event infers implied consent of yourself and your party and hereby indemnifies and holds harmless VES, its directors, its employees and any other affiliated persons from any adverse medical or financial impact that may result from our participation.
VES LA Members and 1 Guest are invited on a field trip to XR Studios Hollywood,
a state-of-the-art, multi-building campus located in Los Angeles. Monday, Oct 3, 2022 at 9:30AM for Check-In Light Snacks and Coffee will be served Please login to RSVP below
XR Studios regularly pushes the boundaries of what is technically possible in the MR/XR/AR world. They are currently utilizing MegaPixelVR’s GhostFrame technology paired with some of their own IP (Intellectual Property) to achieve 2x frustums with accurate parallax, set extension, and AR at the same time. This allows them to use broadcast style transitions live to tape or live to broadcast, as well as allowing them to record 2x accurate perspectives simultaneously.
XR Studios warmly welcomes VES Members for a tour of the campus and a demonstration that includes:
A look at XR Studios’ XR Workflow for live entertainment, including workflow demonstrations, XR Studios-specific software and supporting software, and more!
The application of disguise’s xR platform for tracking, calibration, and sequencing
stYpe Camera Tracking for spatial Camera Tracking
RED Digital Cinema Camera usage and camera control conversations
Application of Megapixel VR’s GhostFrame integration, including XR Studios’ specific software integration for this multi-frustum solution.
The demonstration will be followed by an open Q&A with XR Studios’ leaders and technologists.
Join us for a day of insightful and collaborative conversations about this exciting and growing Extended Reality and Virtual Production space, plus learn more about the techniques, programs, tips, and tricks needed to tackle your innovative projects.
All attendees must show a photo ID and proof of full vaccination against COVID-19 for admission. Everyone will be required to wear masks once they enter the XR Stage.
Events are overbooked to compensate for no-shows. Space is limited and will be available on a first come, first served basis. An RSVP does not guarantee admission.
By signing up for this on-site, in-person event sponsored by VES (Visual Effects Society), you willingly accept any potential inherent risks associated with COVID-19.
VES cannot be held liable from any consequences that may transpire from said risk. Therefore, signing up for this “live event” infers implied consent of yourself and your party and hereby indemnifies and holds harmless VES, its directors, its employees, and any other affiliated persons from any adverse medical or financial impact that may result from your participation
VES Members and Up to Three (3) Guests are Invited to a Screening of Warner Bros. Pictures’ DON’T WORRY DARLING
Sony Pictures Imageworks guidelines require that all VES members must show photo ID & proof of vaccination against COVID-19 for admission.
Please RSVP below (VES members must login to sign up.)
Friday, September 30, 2022 at 7:30PM (RSVPs close on Friday, September 30 at 10:00AM) The Ray Harryhausen Theater on the Sony Pictures Imageworks Lot 9050 W. Washington Blvd., Culver City, CA 90232 (Complimentary parking is available in the underground lot on Washington.)
***VES Members: Please enter your first and last name in the “Attendee 1″ fields***
In an effort to prevent the spread of COVID-19, we ask that you or your guests do not attend VES events if you are experiencing any symptoms or if you have been exposed to the virus.
Screenings are overbooked to compensate for no-shows. Seating is limited and will be available on a first come, first served basis. An RSVP does not guarantee seating.
By signing up for this on-site, in-person screening/event sponsored by VES (Visual Effects Society), you willingly accept any potential inherent risks associated with COVID-19. VES cannot be held liable from any consequences that may transpire from said risk. Therefore, signing up for this screening/event infers implied consent of yourself and your party and hereby indemnifies and holds harmless VES, its directors, its employees and any other affiliated persons from any adverse medical or financial impact that may result from our participation.
VES Members and Up to four (4) Guests are Invited to an Opening Night Screening of The Avenue Entertainment’s MEDIEVAL
Sony Pictures Imageworks guidelines require that all VES members must show photo ID & proof of vaccination against COVID-19 for admission.
Please RSVP below (VES members must login to sign up.)
Monday, September 12, 2022 at 7:30PM (RSVPs close on Monday at 12:00PM) The Ray Harryhausen Theater on the Sony Pictures Imageworks Lot 9050 W. Washington Blvd., Culver City, CA 90232 (Complimentary parking is available in the underground lot on Washington.)
***VES Members: Please enter your first and last name in the “Attendee 1″ fields***
In an effort to prevent the spread of COVID-19, we ask that you or your guests do not attend VES events if you are experiencing any symptoms or if you have been exposed to the virus.
Screenings are overbooked to compensate for no-shows. Seating is limited and will be available on a first come, first served basis. An RSVP does not guarantee seating.
By signing up for this on-site, in-person screening/event sponsored by VES (Visual Effects Society), you willingly accept any potential inherent risks associated with COVID-19. VES cannot be held liable from any consequences that may transpire from said risk. Therefore, signing up for this screening/event infers implied consent of yourself and your party and hereby indemnifies and holds harmless VES, its directors, its employees and any other affiliated persons from any adverse medical or financial impact that may result from our participation.
VES Members and Up to Three (3) Guests are Invited to an Opening Night Screening of 20th Century Studios’ BARBARIAN
Walt Disney Studios safety guidelines require that all VES members and guests must show photo ID that matches their names on the RSVP list and all unvaccinated attendees must wear masks at all times indoors.
Please RSVP below (VES members must login in order to sign up)
Friday, September 9, 2022 at 7:30PM (RSVPs close at 12:00PM on Friday) Frank G. Wells Theater on the Walt Disney Studios lot
(Please enter through the Alameda Gate East of Buena Vista)
500 S. Buena Vista St., Burbank, CA 91451
***VES Members: Please enter your first and last name in the “Attendee 1″ fields***
In an effort to prevent the spread of COVID-19, we ask that you or your guests do not attend VES events if you are experiencing any symptoms or if you have been exposed to the virus.
Screenings are overbooked to compensate for no-shows. Seating is limited and will be available on a first come, first served basis. An RSVP does not guarantee seating.
By signing up for this on-site, in-person screening/event sponsored by VES (Visual Effects Society), you willingly accept any potential inherent risks associated with COVID-19. VES cannot be held liable from any consequences that may transpire from said risk. Therefore, signing up for this screening/event infers implied consent of yourself and your party and hereby indemnifies and holds harmless VES, its directors, its employees and any other affiliated persons from any adverse medical or financial impact that may result from our participation.
VES Members and Up to four (4) Guests are Invited to a Screening of United Artists Releasing’s THREE THOUSAND YEARS OF LONGING
Sony Pictures Imageworks guidelines require that all VES members must show photo ID & proof of vaccination against COVID-19 for admission.
Please RSVP below (VES members must login to sign up.)
Monday, August 29, 2022 at 7:30PM (RSVPs close on Monday at 12:00PM) The Ray Harryhausen Theater on the Sony Pictures Imageworks Lot 9050 W. Washington Blvd., Culver City, CA 90232 (Complimentary parking is available in the underground lot on Washington.)
***VES Members: Please enter your first and last name in the “Attendee 1″ fields***
In an effort to prevent the spread of COVID-19, we ask that you or your guests do not attend VES events if you are experiencing any symptoms or if you have been exposed to the virus.
Screenings are overbooked to compensate for no-shows. Seating is limited and will be available on a first come, first served basis. An RSVP does not guarantee seating.
By signing up for this on-site, in-person screening/event sponsored by VES (Visual Effects Society), you willingly accept any potential inherent risks associated with COVID-19. VES cannot be held liable from any consequences that may transpire from said risk. Therefore, signing up for this screening/event infers implied consent of yourself and your party and hereby indemnifies and holds harmless VES, its directors, its employees and any other affiliated persons from any adverse medical or financial impact that may result from our participation.
Please join your fellow LA VES members for a Beach BBQ!
August 27th from 2:00 PM to 6:00 PM Will Rogers State Beach
RSVPs are now closed
Event Details
Food, Games, and Fun for All Ages!
Restrooms & Free Parking (see map below)
VES Members and a Guest FREE with RSVP
Member children 17 & under are free!
Additional guest tickets can be purchased HERE
$25 in-advance online (through 8/26 at 5 pm)
$30 at-the-door (Credit or Check only)
By signing up for this on-site, in-person event sponsored by VES (Visual Effects Society), you willingly accept any potential inherent risks associated with COVID-19. VES cannot be held liable for any consequences that may transpire from said risk. Therefore, signing up for this “live event” infers implied consent of yourself and your party and hereby indemnifies and holds harmless VES, its directors, its employees, and any other affiliated persons from any adverse medical or financial impact that may result from our participation.
***VES Members: Please enter your first and last name in the “Attendee 1″ fields***
VES Members and Up to four (4) Guests are Invited to an Opening Night Screening of Universal Pictures’ BEAST
Sony Pictures Imageworks guidelines require that all VES members must show photo ID & proof of vaccination against COVID-19 for admission.
Please RSVP below (VES members must login to sign up.)
Friday, August 19, 2022 at 7:30PM (RSVPs close on Friday at 12:00PM) The Ray Harryhausen Theater on the Sony Pictures Imageworks Lot 9050 W. Washington Blvd., Culver City, CA 90232 (Complimentary parking is available in the underground lot on Washington.)
***VES Members: Please enter your first and last name in the “Attendee 1″ fields***
In an effort to prevent the spread of COVID-19, we ask that you or your guests do not attend VES events if you are experiencing any symptoms or if you have been exposed to the virus.
Screenings are overbooked to compensate for no-shows. Seating is limited and will be available on a first come, first served basis. An RSVP does not guarantee seating.
By signing up for this on-site, in-person screening/event sponsored by VES (Visual Effects Society), you willingly accept any potential inherent risks associated with COVID-19. VES cannot be held liable from any consequences that may transpire from said risk. Therefore, signing up for this screening/event infers implied consent of yourself and your party and hereby indemnifies and holds harmless VES, its directors, its employees and any other affiliated persons from any adverse medical or financial impact that may result from our participation.
VES Members and Up to four (4) Guests are Invited to a Screening of Sony Pictures’ BULLET TRAIN
Sony Pictures Imageworks guidelines require that all VES members must show photo ID & proof of vaccination against COVID-19 for admission.
Please RSVP below (VES members must login to sign up.)
Re-Scheduled to Friday, August 12, 2022 at 7:30PM (RSVPs close on Friday at 12:00PM) The Ray Harryhausen Theater on the Sony Pictures Imageworks Lot 9050 W. Washington Blvd., Culver City, CA 90232 (Complimentary parking is available in the underground lot on Washington.)
***VES Members: Please enter your first and last name in the “Attendee 1″ fields***
In an effort to prevent the spread of COVID-19, we ask that you or your guests do not attend VES events if you are experiencing any symptoms or if you have been exposed to the virus.
Screenings are overbooked to compensate for no-shows. Seating is limited and will be available on a first come, first served basis. An RSVP does not guarantee seating.
By signing up for this on-site, in-person screening/event sponsored by VES (Visual Effects Society), you willingly accept any potential inherent risks associated with COVID-19. VES cannot be held liable from any consequences that may transpire from said risk. Therefore, signing up for this screening/event infers implied consent of yourself and your party and hereby indemnifies and holds harmless VES, its directors, its employees and any other affiliated persons from any adverse medical or financial impact that may result from our participation.
VES Members and Up to two (2) Guests are Invited to a Screening of Warner Bros. Pictures’ BLADE RUNNER: FINAL CUT followed by a Q&A with the filmmakers. Panelists will include Academy and BAFTA nominated Special Photographic Effects Supervisor David Dryer, Academy and BAFTA Award-winning Action Prop Supervisor Michael L. Fink, VES, Technical Achievement Academy Award-winning Computer Engineer at Entertainment Effects Group (EEG) Richard Hollander, VES and Academy and BAFTA Award-winning Chief Model Maker at Entertainment Effects Group (EEG) Mark Stetson, VES, moderated by VES Fellow and former VES Board member Van Ling, VES.
Sony Pictures Imageworks guidelines require that all VES members must show photo ID & proof of vaccination against COVID-19 for admission.
Please RSVP below (VES members must login to sign up.)
Friday, August 5, 2022 at 7:00PM (RSVPs close on Friday at 10:00AM) The Ray Harryhausen Theater on the Sony Pictures Imageworks Lot 9050 W. Washington Blvd., Culver City, CA 90232 (Complimentary parking is available in the underground lot on Washington.)
***VES Members: Please enter your first and last name in the “Attendee 1″ fields***
In an effort to prevent the spread of COVID-19, we ask that you or your guests do not attend VES events if you are experiencing any symptoms or if you have been exposed to the virus.
Screenings are overbooked to compensate for no-shows. Seating is limited and will be available on a first come, first served basis. An RSVP does not guarantee seating.
By signing up for this on-site, in-person screening/event sponsored by VES (Visual Effects Society), you willingly accept any potential inherent risks associated with COVID-19. VES cannot be held liable from any consequences that may transpire from said risk. Therefore, signing up for this screening/event infers implied consent of yourself and your party and hereby indemnifies and holds harmless VES, its directors, its employees and any other affiliated persons from any adverse medical or financial impact that may result from our participation.
VES Members and Up to four (4) Guests are Invited to a Screening of Netflix’s THE GRAY MAN
Sony Pictures Imageworks guidelines require that all VES members must show photo ID & proof of vaccination against COVID-19 for admission.
Please RSVP below (VES members must login to sign up.)
Monday, July 25, 2022 at 7:30PM (RSVPs close on Monday at 12:00PM) The Ray Harryhausen Theater on the Sony Pictures Imageworks Lot 9050 W. Washington Blvd., Culver City, CA 90232 (Complimentary parking is available in the underground lot on Washington.)
***VES Members: Please enter your first and last name in the “Attendee 1″ fields***
In an effort to prevent the spread of COVID-19, we ask that you or your guests do not attend VES events if you are experiencing any symptoms or if you have been exposed to the virus.
Screenings are overbooked to compensate for no-shows. Seating is limited and will be available on a first come, first served basis. An RSVP does not guarantee seating.
By signing up for this on-site, in-person screening/event sponsored by VES (Visual Effects Society), you willingly accept any potential inherent risks associated with COVID-19. VES cannot be held liable from any consequences that may transpire from said risk. Therefore, signing up for this screening/event infers implied consent of yourself and your party and hereby indemnifies and holds harmless VES, its directors, its employees and any other affiliated persons from any adverse medical or financial impact that may result from our participation.
A brief history, overview, and practical advice on the Facial Action Coding System.
Click here to sign-up for the webinar and receive the link
Join us for a Zoom Session on July 23, 11: 00 AM – 12:30 M PDT
With
Erika Rosenberg, Ph.D.
Facial expression scientist, author, and educator, Dr. Erika Rosenberg, will offer an overview of the Facial Action Coding System (FACS) for visual effects industry professionals. Her presentation will include: a history of FACS’s development, a brief dive into this anatomically-based methodology for facial measurement, and a discussion of crucial considerations for the application of this measurement tool and knowledge of its parts (namely the action units or AUs) to the creation of moving faces in the arts. Finally, Dr. Rosenberg will offer some ready-to-implement, “take-home” advice on how to use knowledge from FACS research on emotion to convey feeling in animated faces.
VES Members and Up to four (4) Guests are Invited to an Opening Night Screening of Universal Pictures’ NOPE
Sony Pictures Imageworks guidelines require that all VES members must show photo ID & proof of vaccination against COVID-19 for admission.
Please RSVP below (VES members must login to sign up.)
Friday, July 22, 2022 at 7:30PM (RSVPs close on Friday at 10:00AM) The Ray Harryhausen Theater on the Sony Pictures Imageworks Lot 9050 W. Washington Blvd., Culver City, CA 90232 (Complimentary parking is available in the underground lot on Washington.)
***VES Members: Please enter your first and last name in the “Attendee 1″ fields***
In an effort to prevent the spread of COVID-19, we ask that you or your guests do not attend VES events if you are experiencing any symptoms or if you have been exposed to the virus.
Screenings are overbooked to compensate for no-shows. Seating is limited and will be available on a first come, first served basis. An RSVP does not guarantee seating.
By signing up for this on-site, in-person screening/event sponsored by VES (Visual Effects Society), you willingly accept any potential inherent risks associated with COVID-19. VES cannot be held liable from any consequences that may transpire from said risk. Therefore, signing up for this screening/event infers implied consent of yourself and your party and hereby indemnifies and holds harmless VES, its directors, its employees and any other affiliated persons from any adverse medical or financial impact that may result from our participation.
VES Members and Up to three (3) Guests are Invited to a Screening of Sony Pictures’ WHERE THE CRAWDADS SING
Sony Pictures Imageworks guidelines require that all VES members must show photo ID & proof of vaccination against COVID-19 for admission.
Please RSVP below (VES members must login to sign up.)
Monday, July 18, 2022 at 7:30PM (RSVPs close on Monday at 10:00AM) The Ray Harryhausen Theater on the Sony Pictures Studio Lot 9050 W. Washington Blvd., Culver City, CA 90232 (Complimentary parking is available in the underground lot on Washington.)
***VES Members: Please enter your first and last name in the “Attendee 1″ fields***
In an effort to prevent the spread of COVID-19, we ask that you or your guests do not attend VES events if you are experiencing any symptoms or if you have been exposed to the virus.
Screenings are overbooked to compensate for no-shows. Seating is limited and will be available on a first come, first served basis. An RSVP does not guarantee seating.
By signing up for this on-site, in-person screening/event sponsored by VES (Visual Effects Society), you willingly accept any potential inherent risks associated with COVID-19. VES cannot be held liable from any consequences that may transpire from said risk. Therefore, signing up for this screening/event infers implied consent of yourself and your party and hereby indemnifies and holds harmless VES, its directors, its employees and any other affiliated persons from any adverse medical or financial impact that may result from our participation.
VES Members and Up to Four (4) Guests are Invited to a 3D Screening of Walt Disney Pictures’ and Marvel Studios’ THOR: LOVE AND THUNDER
Walt Disney Studios safety guidelines require that all VES members and guests must show photo ID that matches their names on the RSVP list and all unvaccinated attendees must wear masks at all times indoors.
RSVPs are now closed
Sunday, July 17, 2022 at 11:00AM (RSVPs closed at 10:00AM on Friday, July 15) Walt Disney Studios Main Theater
500 S. Buena Vista St., Burbank, CA 91521
(Please enter through the Alameda gate and park as directed.)
***VES Members: Please enter your first and last name in the “Attendee 1″ fields***
In an effort to prevent the spread of COVID-19, we ask that you or your guests do not attend VES events if you are experiencing any symptoms or if you have been exposed to the virus.
Screenings are overbooked to compensate for no-shows. Seating is limited and will be available on a first come, first served basis. An RSVP does not guarantee seating.
By signing up for this on-site, in-person screening/event sponsored by VES (Visual Effects Society), you willingly accept any potential inherent risks associated with COVID-19. VES cannot be held liable from any consequences that may transpire from said risk. Therefore, signing up for this screening/event infers implied consent of yourself and your party and hereby indemnifies and holds harmless VES, its directors, its employees and any other affiliated persons from any adverse medical or financial impact that may result from our participation.
Virtual Production Group (VPG) has just opened its doors to a brand-new virtual production stage standing in the heart of Hollywood at Sunset Las Palmas Studios. VPG is a collective of seasoned industry professionals with leadership and experience across all sectors of film production. Their philosophy is simple; the design and implementation of virtual production for filmmakers by filmmakers.
Operating as the first truly vertically-integrated virtual production studio, VPG’s unique offerings consist of providing services encompassing all facets of virtual production: from script/content breakdown, pre/tech vis, the design and creation of Unreal Engine based virtual environment assets from the VAD, the optimization and operation of the Las Palmas LED volume stage with specialized VPG supervision with representatives from multiple department disciplines, and post production services.
VPG is comprised of Pangaea LED Technology, Drive Studios, VFX Technologies, and Background Images utilizing Epic/Unreal Engine, and Stype Camera Tracking systems giving the Virtual Production industry a true end-to-end suite of all VP services. They will show all tech aspects and systems related to virtual production as well as driving home the importance of having the proper teams and companies in place to drive the highly technical virtual production engine.
VPG warmly invites colleagues from VES and looks forward to sharing their insight into a new virtual production paradigm.
Thursday, July 7, 2022 at 10:00AM
Please RSVP below (VES members must login to sign up)
Sunset Las Palmas Studios – Stage 2
1040 N. Las Palmas Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90038 Click here for a map
***VES Members: Please enter your first and last name in the “Attendee 1″ fields***
All attendees must show a photo ID and proof of full vaccination against COVID-19 for admission.
Events are overbooked to compensate for no-shows. Space is limited and will be available on a first come, first served basis. An RSVP does not guarantee admission.
By signing up for this on-site, in-person event sponsored by VES (Visual Effects Society), you willingly accept any potential inherent risks associated with COVID-19. VES cannot be held liable from any consequences that may transpire from said risk. Therefore, signing up for this “live event” infers implied consent of yourself and your party and hereby indemnifies and holds harmless VES, its directors, its employees, and any other affiliated persons from any adverse medical or financial impact that may result from our participation.
VES Members and Their Families are Invited to an Opening Weekend 3D Screening of Universal Pictures’ and Illumination Entertainment’s MINIONS: THE RISE OF GRU
Please RSVP below (VES members must login to RSVP)
Saturday, July 2, 2022 at 4:00PM (RSVPs close on Friday at 4:00PM) AMC Century City 10250 Santa Monica Blvd #2000, Los Angeles, CA 90067 (Complimentary concessions will be provided by the studio)
***VES Members: Please enter your first and last name in the “Attendee 1″ fields***
In an effort to prevent the spread of COVID-19, we ask that you or your guests do not attend VES events if you are experiencing any symptoms or if you have been exposed to the virus.
Screenings are overbooked to compensate for no-shows. Seating is limited and will be available on a first come, first served basis. An RSVP does not guarantee seating.
By signing up for this on-site, in-person screening/event sponsored by VES (Visual Effects Society), you willingly accept any potential inherent risks associated with COVID-19. VES cannot be held liable from any consequences that may transpire from said risk. Therefore, signing up for this screening/event infers implied consent of yourself and your party and hereby indemnifies and holds harmless VES, its directors, its employees and any other affiliated persons from any adverse medical or financial impact that may result from our participation.
VES Members and Up to three (3) Guests are Invited to a Screening of Warner Bros. Pictures’ ELVIS
Sony Pictures Imageworks guidelines require that all VES members must show photo ID & proof of vaccination against COVID-19 for admission.
RSVPs are now closed
Monday, June 27, 2022 at 7:00PM (RSVPs close on Monday at 10:00AM) The Ray Harryhausen Theater on the Sony Pictures Studio Lot 9050 W. Washington Blvd., Culver City, CA 90232 (Complimentary parking is available in the underground lot on Washington.)
***VES Members: Please enter your first and last name in the “Attendee 1″ fields***
In an effort to prevent the spread of COVID-19, we ask that you or your guests do not attend VES events if you are experiencing any symptoms or if you have been exposed to the virus.
Screenings are overbooked to compensate for no-shows. Seating is limited and will be available on a first come, first served basis. An RSVP does not guarantee seating.
By signing up for this on-site, in-person screening/event sponsored by VES (Visual Effects Society), you willingly accept any potential inherent risks associated with COVID-19. VES cannot be held liable from any consequences that may transpire from said risk. Therefore, signing up for this screening/event infers implied consent of yourself and your party and hereby indemnifies and holds harmless VES, its directors, its employees and any other affiliated persons from any adverse medical or financial impact that may result from our participation.
VES Members and Their Guests are Invited to a Celebration of the Centenary of the Late Academy and BAFTA Award-winning Makeup Artist Dick Smith (1922-2014). The evening will begin with a drinks reception plus a Screening of Warner Bros. Pictures’ ALTERED STATES followed by a Q&A with Academy Scientific and Engineering and Technical Achievement Award-winner Bran Ferren who did Special Visual Effects on the picture and Emmy-winning Special Effects Makeup Artists Craig Reardon and Todd Masters as well as Emmy-winning Special Effects Technician Kevin Pike.
This event is presented by MastersFX and the Visual Effects Society.
Please RSVP below (VES members must login for location and to RSVP)
Sunday, June 26, 2022 at 6:00PM Reception at 6:00PM, Screening at 7:15PM
In an effort to prevent the spread of COVID-19, we ask that you or your guests do not attend VES events if you are experiencing any symptoms or if you have been exposed to the virus.
Screenings are overbooked to compensate for no-shows. Seating is limited and will be available on a first come, first served basis. An RSVP does not guarantee seating.
By signing up for this on-site, in-person screening/event sponsored by VES (Visual Effects Society), you willingly accept any potential inherent risks associated with COVID-19. VES cannot be held liable from any consequences that may transpire from said risk. Therefore, signing up for this screening/event infers implied consent of yourself and your party and hereby indemnifies and holds harmless VES, its directors, its employees and any other affiliated persons from any adverse medical or financial impact that may result from our participation.
VES Members and Their Guests are Invited to an Advance Screening of Netflix’s THE SEA BEAST followed by a Q&A with the filmmakers. Panelists will include Writer / Producer / Director Chris Williams, Producer Jed Schlanger, Production Designer Matthias Lechner, Animation Director Zach Parrish, Head of Character Animation Joshua Beveridge and VFX Supervisor R. Stirling Duguid.
Click here to RSVP (be sure to choose which screening you wish to attend.) Saturday, June 25, 2022 at 2:00PM Samuel Goldwyn Theater
8949 Wilshire Blvd, Beverly Hills, CA 90211
In an effort to prevent the spread of COVID-19, we ask that you or your guests do not attend VES events if you are experiencing any symptoms or if you have been exposed to the virus.
Screenings are overbooked to compensate for no-shows. Seating is limited and will be available on a first come, first served basis. An RSVP does not guarantee seating.
By signing up for this on-site, in-person screening/event sponsored by VES (Visual Effects Society), you willingly accept any potential inherent risks associated with COVID-19. VES cannot be held liable from any consequences that may transpire from said risk. Therefore, signing up for this screening/event infers implied consent of yourself and your party and hereby indemnifies and holds harmless VES, its directors, its employees and any other affiliated persons from any adverse medical or financial impact that may result from our participation.
VES Members and Up to Four (4) Guests are Invited to a Special Fathers’ Day 3D Screening of Walt Disney Pictures’ and Pixar Animation Studios’ LIGHTYEAR.
Walt Disney Studios safety guidelines require that all VES members and guests must show photo ID that matches their names on the RSVP list and any unvaccinated attendees must wear masks at all times indoors.
RSVPs are closed
Sunday, June 19, 2022 at 11:00AM (RSVPs closed at 10:00AM on Friday) Walt Disney Studios Main Theater
500 S. Buena Vista St., Burbank, CA 91521
(Please enter through the Alameda gate and park as directed.)
***VES Members: Please enter your first and last name in the “Attendee 1″ fields***
In an effort to prevent the spread of COVID-19, we ask that you or your guests do not attend VES events if you are experiencing any symptoms or if you have been exposed to the virus.
Screenings are overbooked to compensate for no-shows. Seating is limited and will be available on a first come, first served basis. An RSVP does not guarantee seating.
By signing up for this on-site, in-person screening/event sponsored by VES (Visual Effects Society), you willingly accept any potential inherent risks associated with COVID-19. VES cannot be held liable from any consequences that may transpire from said risk. Therefore, signing up for this screening/event infers implied consent of yourself and your party and hereby indemnifies and holds harmless VES, its directors, its employees and any other affiliated persons from any adverse medical or financial impact that may result from our participation.
VES Members and Up to three (3) Guests are Invited to a Screening of Universal Pictures’ JURASSIC WORLD DOMINION.
Sony Pictures Imageworks guidelines require that all VES members must show photo ID & proof of vaccination against COVID-19 for admission.
Please RSVP below (VES members must login to sign up)
Friday, June 17, 2022 at 7:30PM (RSVPs close on Friday, June 17 at 10:00AM) The Ray Harryhausen Theater on the Sony Pictures Studio Lot 9050 W. Washington Blvd., Culver City, CA 90232 (Complimentary parking is available in the underground lot on Washington.)
***VES Members: Please enter your first and last name in the “Attendee 1″ fields***
In an effort to prevent the spread of COVID-19, we ask that you or your guests do not attend VES events if you are experiencing any symptoms or if you have been exposed to the virus.
Screenings are overbooked to compensate for no-shows. Seating is limited and will be available on a first come, first served basis. An RSVP does not guarantee seating.
By signing up for this on-site, in-person screening/event sponsored by VES (Visual Effects Society), you willingly accept any potential inherent risks associated with COVID-19. VES cannot be held liable from any consequences that may transpire from said risk. Therefore, signing up for this screening/event infers implied consent of yourself and your party and hereby indemnifies and holds harmless VES, its directors, its employees and any other affiliated persons from any adverse medical or financial impact that may result from our participation.
Please join us for an eye-opening presentation of new innovations in 3D display technology. From lasers to light fields, the panelists will decipher the physics of how we see and interpret objects in the third dimension.
Presenters will explain the differences between these next generation displays, plus the evolution of the technology and the future of the industry.
The group will also discuss best practices for crafting a holographic narrative, the benefits of light-field virtual sets, and the timeline for experiencing these new technologies firsthand.
Moderator: Brian Gaffney from Unity Technologies
Panel: Dr. Daniel Smalley, Associate Professor, Brigham Young University
Thaisa Yamamura, Head of Business Development, Sony Electronics
Jon Karafin, CEO of Light Field Lab.
Please RSVP below (VES members must login to sign-up)
When: Saturday, May 21, 2022
When: 11am to 1pm
Where: Harmony Gold Theatre
7655 Sunset Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90046
Secured underground parking is accessible via driveway from Sunset Boulevard. An adjacent lot for overflow parking is located behind the building and can be accessed from Stanley Ave.
All VES members and guests must show photo ID and proof of full vaccination against COVID-19 for admission.
By signing up for this on-site, in-person event sponsored by VES (Visual Effects Society), you willingly accept any potential inherent risks associated with COVID-19. VES cannot be held liable from any consequences that may transpire from said risk. Therefore, signing up for this “live event” infers implied consent of yourself and your party and hereby indemnifies and holds harmless VES, its directors, its employees and any other affiliated persons from any adverse medical or financial impact that may result from our participation.
VES Members and One (1) Guest are Invited On a Field Trip to PRG Virtual Production Studio
PRG rules require that all VES members must show photo ID and proof of full vaccination against COVID-19 for admission.
The film industry in 2022 has changed drastically. Everything from day-to-day operations to the very way we budget, schedule, and film productions. Virtual Production has been a big part of the continued evolution of the industry. This has been propelled further through new studies coming out of the UK showing the carbon footprint savings of shooting in a “volume” (a large LED stage). “ICVFX” (In-camera visual effects) are among the most exciting and sought-after virtual production techniques today. In light of this, we will be having various Field Trips during the summer months to new Virtual Production Studios in LA.
The first field trip will be at PRG Virtual Production Studio.
PRG has recently redesigned their Virtual Production Stage. Check out their new Mobile Modular Stage as well as their VP Production Truck that can travel to any location to set up LED Walls on an empty warehouse or stage. You’ll see demos of N-Display, xR set extensions and NCam, and tour the Brain Bar and control room inside the truck.
The PRG R&D team have further developed the Ncam offering with a unique on-set solution, seamlessly integrated with Unreal Engine and Mk2 Hardware. Ncam Reality system is integrated in the custom set cart, which all work together to blend live action and CG content in any indoor or outdoor environment.
Members and a guest will have the chance to see what an actual LED Volume looks like and be shown some of the differences between the various virtual production technologies like ICVFX, XR, AR and how they can best be used. In addition, they will be shown the difference between using playback on the LED Walls and using a tracked cinema camera linked directly with a game engine (Unreal Engine) that connects the physical world with images on the LED Wall. There will also be an open discussion on methods outside of the full ICVFX experience that are being adopted.
Please RSVP below (VES members must login to RSVP) Monday, May 16, 2022 at 11:00AM
PRG Virtual Production Studio
1245 Aviation Place, San Fernando, CA 91340
In an effort to prevent the spread of COVID-19, we ask that you or your guests do not attend VES events if you are experiencing any symptoms or if you have been exposed to the virus.
Events are overbooked to compensate for no-shows. Space is limited and will be available on a first come, first served basis. An RSVP does not guarantee admission.
By signing up for this on-site, in-person event sponsored by VES (Visual Effects Society), you willingly accept any potential inherent risks associated with COVID-19. VES cannot be held liable from any consequences that may transpire from said risk. Therefore, signing up for this “live event” infers implied consent of yourself and your party and hereby indemnifies and holds harmless VES, its directors, its employees and any other affiliated persons from any adverse medical or financial impact that may result from our participation.
***VES Members: Please enter your first and last name in the “Attendee 1″ fields***
VES Members and Up to Three (3) Guests are Invited to a 3D Screening of Walt Disney Pictures’ and Marvel Studios’ DOCTOR STRANGE IN THE MULTIVERSE OF MADNESS.
Walt Disney Studios safety guidelines require that all VES members and guests must show photo ID that matches their names on the RSVP list and wear masks at all times indoors.
RSVPs are Closed
Sunday, May 15, 2022 at 3:00PM (It is now too late to make any changes) Walt Disney Studios Main Theater
500 S. Buena Vista St., Burbank, CA 91521
(Please enter through the Alameda gate and park as directed.)
***VES Members: Please enter your first and last name in the “Attendee 1″ fields***
In an effort to prevent the spread of COVID-19, we ask that you or your guests do not attend VES events if you are experiencing any symptoms or if you have been exposed to the virus.
Screenings are overbooked to compensate for no-shows. Seating is limited and will be available on a first come, first served basis. An RSVP does not guarantee seating.
By signing up for this on-site, in-person screening/event sponsored by VES (Visual Effects Society), you willingly accept any potential inherent risks associated with COVID-19. VES cannot be held liable from any consequences that may transpire from said risk. Therefore, signing up for this screening/event infers implied consent of yourself and your party and hereby indemnifies and holds harmless VES, its directors, its employees and any other affiliated persons from any adverse medical or financial impact that may result from our participation.
VES Members and Up to four (4) Guests are Invited to a Screening of Focus Features’ THE NORTHMAN.
Sony Pictures Imageworks guidelines require that all VES members must show photo ID & proof of vaccination against COVID-19 for admission.
RSVPs are closed
Thursday, April 28, 2022 at 7:00PM (RSVPs close on Thursday at 10:00AM) The Ray Harryhausen Theater on the Sony Pictures Studio Lot 9050 W. Washington Blvd., Culver City, CA 90232 (Complimentary parking is available in the underground lot on Washington.)
***VES Members: Please enter your first and last name in the “Attendee 1″ fields***
In an effort to prevent the spread of COVID-19, we ask that you or your guests do not attend VES events if you are experiencing any symptoms or if you have been exposed to the virus.
Screenings are overbooked to compensate for no-shows. Seating is limited and will be available on a first come, first served basis. An RSVP does not guarantee seating.
By signing up for this on-site, in-person screening/event sponsored by VES (Visual Effects Society), you willingly accept any potential inherent risks associated with COVID-19. VES cannot be held liable from any consequences that may transpire from said risk. Therefore, signing up for this screening/event infers implied consent of yourself and your party and hereby indemnifies and holds harmless VES, its directors, its employees and any other affiliated persons from any adverse medical or financial impact that may result from our participation.
VES Members and Up to Three (3) Guests are Invited to a Screening of Warner Bros. Pictures’ FANTASTIC BEASTS: THE SECRETS OF DUMBLEDORE.
Sony Pictures Imageworks guidelines require that all VES members must show photo ID & proof of vaccination against COVID-19 for admission.
Please RSVP below (VES members must login to sign up)
Monday, April 18, 2022 at 7:30PM (RSVPs close on Monday at 10:00AM) The Ray Harryhausen Theater on the Sony Pictures Studio Lot 9050 W. Washington Blvd., Culver City, CA 90232 (Complimentary parking is available in the underground lot on Washington.)
***VES Members: Please enter your first and last name in the “Attendee 1″ fields***
In an effort to prevent the spread of COVID-19, we ask that you or your guests do not attend VES events if you are experiencing any symptoms or if you have been exposed to the virus.
Screenings are overbooked to compensate for no-shows. Seating is limited and will be available on a first come, first served basis. An RSVP does not guarantee seating.
By signing up for this on-site, in-person screening/event sponsored by VES (Visual Effects Society), you willingly accept any potential inherent risks associated with COVID-19. VES cannot be held liable from any consequences that may transpire from said risk. Therefore, signing up for this screening/event infers implied consent of yourself and your party and hereby indemnifies and holds harmless VES, its directors, its employees and any other affiliated persons from any adverse medical or financial impact that may result from our participation.
VES Members and Their Families are Invited to an Advance Screening of Universal Pictures’ and DreamWorks Animation’s THE BAD GUYS.
Please RSVP below (VES members must login to sign up)
Saturday, April 9, 2022 at 4:00PM The London Hotel screening room 1020 N San Vicente Blvd, West Hollywood, CA 90069 (Complimentary valet parking is provided by Universal.)
***VES Members: Please enter your first and last name in the “Attendee 1″ fields***
No masks will be required. Though unlikely, Los Angeles might still require VES members and guests (depending on age) to show photo ID & proof of vaccination against COVID-19 for admission. (Final confirmation will be announced 24 hours before the screening.)
In an effort to prevent the spread of COVID-19, we ask that you or your guests do not attend VES events if you are experiencing any symptoms or if you have been exposed to the virus.
Screenings are overbooked to compensate for no-shows. Seating is limited and will be available on a first come, first served basis. An RSVP does not guarantee seating.
By signing up for this on-site, in-person screening/event sponsored by VES (Visual Effects Society), you willingly accept any potential inherent risks associated with COVID-19. VES cannot be held liable from any consequences that may transpire from said risk. Therefore, signing up for this screening/event infers implied consent of yourself and your party and hereby indemnifies and holds harmless VES, its directors, its employees and any other affiliated persons from any adverse medical or financial impact that may result from our participation.
VES Members and Up to Three (3) Guests are Invited to an Opening Night Screening of Universal Pictures’ AMBULANCE.
Sony Pictures Imageworks guidelines require that all VES members must show photo ID & proof of vaccination against COVID-19 for admission.
RSVPs are closed
Friday, April 8, 2022 at 7:30PM (RSVPs close on Friday at 10:00AM) The Ray Harryhausen Theater on the Sony Pictures Studio Lot 9050 W. Washington Blvd., Culver City, CA 90232 (Complimentary parking is available in the underground lot on Washington.)
***VES Members: Please enter your first and last name in the “Attendee 1″ fields***
In an effort to prevent the spread of COVID-19, we ask that you or your guests do not attend VES events if you are experiencing any symptoms or if you have been exposed to the virus.
Screenings are overbooked to compensate for no-shows. Seating is limited and will be available on a first come, first served basis. An RSVP does not guarantee seating.
By signing up for this on-site, in-person screening/event sponsored by VES (Visual Effects Society), you willingly accept any potential inherent risks associated with COVID-19. VES cannot be held liable from any consequences that may transpire from said risk. Therefore, signing up for this screening/event infers implied consent of yourself and your party and hereby indemnifies and holds harmless VES, its directors, its employees and any other affiliated persons from any adverse medical or financial impact that may result from our participation.
VES Members and Up to Three (3) Guests are Invited to a Screening of Columbia Pictures’ MORBIUS.
Sony Pictures Imageworks guidelines require that all VES members must show photo ID & proof of vaccination against COVID-19 for admission.
RSVPs are now closed
Monday, April 4, 2022 at 7:30PM (RSVPs close on Monday at 10:00AM) The Ray Harryhausen Theater on the Sony Pictures Studio Lot 9050 W. Washington Blvd., Culver City, CA 90232 (Complimentary parking is available in the underground lot on Washington.)
***VES Members: Please enter your first and last name in the “Attendee 1″ fields***
In an effort to prevent the spread of COVID-19, we ask that you or your guests do not attend VES events if you are experiencing any symptoms or if you have been exposed to the virus.
Screenings are overbooked to compensate for no-shows. Seating is limited and will be available on a first come, first served basis. An RSVP does not guarantee seating.
By signing up for this on-site, in-person screening/event sponsored by VES (Visual Effects Society), you willingly accept any potential inherent risks associated with COVID-19. VES cannot be held liable from any consequences that may transpire from said risk. Therefore, signing up for this screening/event infers implied consent of yourself and your party and hereby indemnifies and holds harmless VES, its directors, its employees and any other affiliated persons from any adverse medical or financial impact that may result from our participation.
VES Members and Up to Four (4) Named Guests are Invited to a Screening of Warner Bros. Pictures’ THE BATMAN
Warner Bros. rules require that all VES members and guests must show photo ID and upload proof of full vaccination against COVID-19 to their Passcard system for admission.
RSVPs are closed (VES members can make changes until Monday at 12:00PM via e-mail to ben@vesglobal.org)
Monday, March 14, 2022 at 7:00PM Steven J. Ross theater on the Warner Bros. Studio Lot (Please enter through Gate 4 off Hollywood Way)
4000 Warner Blvd, Burbank CA 91502 Click here for a map.
***VES Members: Please enter your first and last name in the “Attendee 1″ fields***
All guests must show proof of full vaccination to attend this event by uploading their vaccination card information into the online Warner Bros. Passcard system.
On the day of the screening, guests will also be required to complete an online self-health screening via the online Warner Bros. Passcard system.
If you have any questions regarding these safety protocols and Warner Bros. Studios’ policies related to COVID-19, please call the Warner Bros. COVID-19 Response Hotline at (818) 954-2019.
In an effort to prevent the spread of COVID-19, we ask that you or your guests do not attend VES events if you are experiencing any symptoms or if you have been exposed to the virus.
Screenings are overbooked to compensate for no-shows. Seating is limited and will be available on a first come, first served basis. An RSVP does not guarantee seating.
By signing up for this on-site, in-person screening/event sponsored by VES (Visual Effects Society), you willingly accept any potential inherent risks associated with COVID-19. VES cannot be held liable from any consequences that may transpire from said risk. Therefore, signing up for this screening/event infers implied consent of yourself and your party and hereby indemnifies and holds harmless VES, its directors, its employees and any other affiliated persons from any adverse medical or financial impact that may result from our participation.
VES Members only are Invited to a Screening of Lionsgate Pictures’ MOONFALL.Sony Pictures Imageworks guidelines require that all VES members must show photo ID & proof of vaccination against COVID-19 for admission and that masks must be worn over the nose and mouth at all times indoor while on the SPI/SPA lot. Additionally, everyone must maintain a social distance of at least 6 feet while in the Ray Harryhausen Theater. (Seating is extremely limited due to social distancing.)
RSVPs are closed, as this screening is full
Friday, February 25, 2022 at 7:30PM The Ray Harryhausen Theater on the Sony Pictures Studio Lot 9050 W. Washington Blvd., Culver City, CA 90232 (Complimentary parking is available in the underground lot on Washington.)
***VES Members: Please enter your first and last name in the “Attendee 1″ fields***
In an effort to prevent the spread of COVID-19, we ask that you or your guests do not attend VES events if you are experiencing any symptoms or if you have been exposed to the virus.
Screenings are overbooked to compensate for no-shows. Seating is limited and will be available on a first come, first served basis. An RSVP does not guarantee seating.
By signing up for this on-site, in-person screening/event sponsored by VES (Visual Effects Society), you willingly accept any potential inherent risks associated with COVID-19. VES cannot be held liable from any consequences that may transpire from said risk. Therefore, signing up for this screening/event infers implied consent of yourself and your party and hereby indemnifies and holds harmless VES, its directors, its employees and any other affiliated persons from any adverse medical or financial impact that may result from our participation.
VES Members and Up to 4 Guests are Invited to a Screening of Sony Pictures’ SPIDER-MAN: NO WAY HOME.Los Angeles City Ordinance #187219 requires that all VES members and guests must show photo ID & proof of vaccination against COVID-19 for admission and masks must be worn at all times in indoor public settings.
Please RSVP below (VES members must login to RSVP)
Thursday, December 23, 2021 at 7:00PM (RSVPs close on Thursday at 10:00AM) The Cary Grant Theater on the Sony Pictures Studio Lot 10202 West Washington Blvd., Culver City, CA 90232 (Please enter through the Culver/Motor gate and park in that structure.)
***VES Members: Please enter your first and last name in the “Attendee 1″ fields***
In an effort to prevent the spread of COVID-19, we ask that you or your guests do not attend VES events if you are experiencing any symptoms or if you have been exposed to the virus.
Screenings are overbooked to compensate for no-shows. Seating is limited and will be available on a first come, first served basis. An RSVP does not guarantee seating.
By signing up for this on-site, in-person screening/event sponsored by VES (Visual Effects Society), you willingly accept any potential inherent risks associated with COVID-19. VES cannot be held liable from any consequences that may transpire from said risk. Therefore, signing up for this screening/event infers implied consent of yourself and your party and hereby indemnifies and holds harmless VES, its directors, its employees and any other affiliated persons from any adverse medical or financial impact that may result from our participation.
VES Members and Their Families are Invited to a Screening of Walt Disney Pictures’ ENCANTO followed by a Q&A with the filmmakers.
Los Angeles City Ordinance #187219 requires that all VES members and guests must show photo ID & proof of vaccination against COVID-19 for admission and masks must be worn at all times in indoor public settings.
Panelists will include Annie Award-winning Writer-Director Jared Bush, Producer Yvett Merino, VES Award-winning Visual Effects Supervisor Scott Kersavage and Annie and VES Award-winning Head of Effects Animation Erin V. Ramos, moderated by VES Board member Camille Eden.
Please RSVP below (VES members must login to RSVP)
Saturday, December 18, 2021 at 11:00AM Harmony Gold (complimentary parking will be provided)
7655 W. Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90046 Click here for a map.
***VES Members: Please enter your first and last name in the “Attendee 1″ fields***
In an effort to prevent the spread of COVID-19, we ask that you or your guests do not attend VES events if you are experiencing any symptoms or if you have been exposed to the virus.
Screenings are overbooked to compensate for no-shows. Seating is limited and will be available on a first come, first served basis. An RSVP does not guarantee seating.
By signing up for this on-site, in-person screening/event sponsored by VES (Visual Effects Society), you willingly accept any potential inherent risks associated with COVID-19. VES cannot be held liable from any consequences that may transpire from said risk. Therefore, signing up for this screening/event infers implied consent of yourself and your party and hereby indemnifies and holds harmless VES, its directors, its employees and any other affiliated persons from any adverse medical or financial impact that may result from our participation.
VES Members and Up to 4 Guests are Invited to a 3D Screening of Sony Pictures’ VENOM: LET THERE BE CARNAGE.Los Angeles City Ordinance #187219 requires that all VES members and guests must show photo ID & proof of vaccination against COVID-19 for admission and masks must be worn at all times in indoor public settings.
RSVPs are closed
Tuesday, December 14, 2021 at 7:30PM The John Singleton Theater (formerly the Backstage) on Sony Pictures Studio Lot 10202 West Washington Blvd., Culver City, CA 90232 (Parking instructions will be included in the reminder e-mail.)
***VES Members: Please enter your first and last name in the “Attendee 1″ fields***
In an effort to prevent the spread of COVID-19, we ask that you or your guests do not attend VES events if you are experiencing any symptoms or if you have been exposed to the virus.
Screenings are overbooked to compensate for no-shows. Seating is limited and will be available on a first come, first served basis. An RSVP does not guarantee seating.
By signing up for this on-site, in-person screening/event sponsored by VES (Visual Effects Society), you willingly accept any potential inherent risks associated with COVID-19. VES cannot be held liable from any consequences that may transpire from said risk. Therefore, signing up for this screening/event infers implied consent of yourself and your party and hereby indemnifies and holds harmless VES, its directors, its employees and any other affiliated persons from any adverse medical or financial impact that may result from our participation.
VES Members and One (1) Guest are Invited to a Pre-Release Screening of Warner Bros. Pictures’ THE MATRIX RESURRECTIONS. followed by a Q&A with Visual Effects Supervisor Dan Glassand Sound Designer/Supervising Sound Editor Dane A. Davies, MPSE.
Warner Bros. rules and Los Angeles City Ordinance #187219 requires that all VES members and guests must show photo ID & proof of vaccination against COVID-19 for admission and masks must be worn at all times in indoor public settings.
RSVPs are closed, as this screening is overbooked.
Monday, December 13, 2021 at 7:00PM Steven J. Ross theater on the Warner Bros. Studio Lot (Please enter through Gate 4)
4000 Warner Blvd, Burbank CA 91502 Click here for a map.
***VES Members: Please enter your first and last name in the “Attendee 1″ fields***
All guests must show proof of full vaccination to attend this event by uploading their vaccination card information into the online Warner Bros Passcard system.
Based on the current Los Angeles County mandate, all guests will be required to wear masks while inside the theater.
On the day of the screening, guests will also be required to complete an online self-health screening via the online Warner Bros Passcard system.
If you have any questions regarding these safety protocols and Warner Bros. Studios’ policies related to COVID-19, please call the Warner Bros. COVID-19 Response Hotline at (818) 954-2019.
* Please help protect the mysteries inside of the Matrix and do not reveal plot points or twists in your social posts. Do not post any teases in advance. Social: Thursday, December 16 @ 6:30PM (PST), 9:30PM (EST) – Review: Tuesday, December 21 @ 8:00AM (PST), 11:00AM (EST)
In an effort to prevent the spread of COVID-19, we ask that you or your guests do not attend VES events if you are experiencing any symptoms or if you have been exposed to the virus.
Screenings are overbooked to compensate for no-shows. Seating is limited and will be available on a first come, first served basis. An RSVP does not guarantee seating.
By signing up for this on-site, in-person screening/event sponsored by VES (Visual Effects Society), you willingly accept any potential inherent risks associated with COVID-19. VES cannot be held liable from any consequences that may transpire from said risk. Therefore, signing up for this screening/event infers implied consent of yourself and your party and hereby indemnifies and holds harmless VES, its directors, its employees and any other affiliated persons from any adverse medical or financial impact that may result from our participation.
Join the VES Los Angeles Section for some holiday cheer!
DATE: Sunday, December 12th
TIME: 3:00 to 7:00 PM
VENUE: The Cat and Fiddle, 742 N. Highland Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90038
This is our first in person event for the LA Section. Come out and socialize with your fellow VES members, exchange ideas, discuss favorite (or not so favorite) projects.
Los Angeles City Ordinance #187219 requires that all VES members and guests must show photo ID & proof of full vaccination against COVID-19 for admission and masks must be worn at all times in indoor public settings (except when eating or drinking).
In an effort to prevent the spread of COVID-19, we ask that you or your guests do not attend VES events if you are experiencing any symptoms or if you have been exposed to the virus.
By signing up for this on-site, in-person event sponsored by VES (Visual Effects Society), you willingly accept any potential inherent risks associated with COVID-19. VES cannot be held liable from any consequences that may transpire from said risk. Therefore, signing up for this event infers implied consent of yourself and your party and hereby indemnifies and holds harmless VES, its directors, its employees and any other affiliated persons from any adverse medical or financial impact that may result from our participation.
Please login to RSVP Below. VES Members: Please enter your first and last name in the “Attendee 1″ field and your guest in “Attendee 2” field.
VES Members and Up to 3 Guests are Invited to a Screening of Sony Pictures’ GHOSTBUSTERS: AFTERLIFE.Los Angeles City Ordinance #187219 requires that all VES members and guests must show photo ID & proof of vaccination against COVID-19 for admission and masks must be worn at all times in indoor public settings.
This screening is overbooked and RSVPs are closed
Monday, November 22, 2021 at 7:30PM (RSVPs close on Monday at 12:00PM) The John Singleton Theater (formerly the Backstage) on Sony Pictures Studio Lot 10202 West Washington Blvd., Culver City, CA 90232 (Parking instructions will be included in this weekend’s reminder e-mail.)
***VES Members: Please enter your first and last name in the “Attendee 1″ fields***
In an effort to prevent the spread of COVID-19, we ask that you or your guests do not attend VES events if you are experiencing any symptoms or if you have been exposed to the virus.
Screenings are overbooked to compensate for no-shows. Seating is limited and will be available on a first come, first served basis. An RSVP does not guarantee seating.
By signing up for this on-site, in-person screening/event sponsored by VES (Visual Effects Society), you willingly accept any potential inherent risks associated with COVID-19. VES cannot be held liable from any consequences that may transpire from said risk. Therefore, signing up for this screening/event infers implied consent of yourself and your party and hereby indemnifies and holds harmless VES, its directors, its employees and any other affiliated persons from any adverse medical or financial impact that may result from our participation.
VES Members and Their Guests are Invited to a 25th Anniversary Screening of Paramount Pictures’ STAR TREK: FIRST CONTACT Followed by a Discussion with the Filmmakers. This event is presented by MastersFX, the Visual Effects Society with a print from Paramount. Los Angeles City Ordinance #187219 requires that all VES members and guests must show photo ID & proof of vaccination against COVID-19 for admission and masks must be worn at all times in indoor public settings.
Panelists will include award-winning Director-Actor Jonathan Frakes and Emmy-winning Borg Design Supervisor Todd Masters of MastersFX as well as VES, Academy, BAFTA and Emmy Award-winning Visual Effects Supervisor John Knoll, moderated by VES and Emmy Award-winner Dan Curry, VES.
Please RSVP below (VES members must login for location and to RSVP)
Sunday, November 21, 2021 at 7:00PM
In an effort to prevent the spread of COVID-19, we ask that you or your guests do not attend VES events if you are experiencing any symptoms or if you have been exposed to the virus.
Screenings are overbooked to compensate for no-shows. Seating is limited and will be available on a first come, first served basis. An RSVP does not guarantee seating.
By signing up for this on-site, in-person screening/event sponsored by VES (Visual Effects Society), you willingly accept any potential inherent risks associated with COVID-19. VES cannot be held liable from any consequences that may transpire from said risk. Therefore, signing up for this screening/event infers implied consent of yourself and your party and hereby indemnifies and holds harmless VES, its directors, its employees and any other affiliated persons from any adverse medical or financial impact that may result from our participation.
VES Members and up to 3 Guests are Invited to an Opening Weekend Screening of Marvel Studios’ and Walt Disney Pictures’ ETERNALS. Los Angeles City Ordinance #187219 requires that all VES members and guests must show photo ID & proof of vaccination against COVID-19 for admission and masks must be worn at all times in indoor public settings (except while actively enjoying concessions).Click here for theater specific terms and conditions.
Please RSVP below (VES members must login to RSVP)
Sunday, November 7, 2021 at 3:30PM El Capitan Theatre (Parking at the Hollywood & Highland Center is $3 for 4 hours with theatre validation.) 6838 Hollywood Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90028 Click here for a map.
***VES Members: Please enter your first and last name in the “Attendee 1″ fields***
In an effort to prevent the spread of COVID-19, we ask that you or your guests do not attend VES events if you are experiencing any symptoms or if you have been exposed to the virus.
Screenings are overbooked to compensate for no-shows. Seating is limited and will be available on a first come, first served basis. An RSVP does not guarantee seating.
By signing up for this on-site, in-person screening/event sponsored by VES (Visual Effects Society), you willingly accept any potential inherent risks associated with COVID-19. VES cannot be held liable from any consequences that may transpire from said risk. Therefore, signing up for this screening/event infers implied consent of yourself and your party and hereby indemnifies and holds harmless VES, its directors, its employees and any other affiliated persons from any adverse medical or financial impact that may result from our participation.
Infinity Festival Hollywood is back live this November! For 2021, the theme of “Story Enabled by Technology” continues with a new slate of innovative programming, including industry-leading speakers, panels, exhibitions, innovation labs and a fine art gallery, each with an emerging-tech focus. Reserve your tickets now at infinityfestival.com. (VES members must login to see code for Free tickets.)
VES Members and Their Guests are Invited to a Screening of United Artists’ NO TIME TO DIE. Theater rules and L.A. County Public Health guidelines require that masks or face coverings must be worn over the nose and mouth at all times in indoor public settings.
Please RSVP below (VES members must login to RSVP)
Saturday, October 30, 2021 at 7:00PM Harmony Gold (complimentary parking will be provided)
7655 W. Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90046 Click here for a map.
***VES Members: Please enter your first and last name in the “Attendee 1″ fields***
In an effort to prevent the spread of COVID-19, we ask that you or your guests do not attend VES events if you are experiencing any symptoms or if you have been exposed to the virus.
Screenings are overbooked to compensate for no-shows. Seating is limited and will be available on a first come, first served basis. An RSVP does not guarantee seating.
By signing up for this on-site, in-person screening/event sponsored by VES (Visual Effects Society), you willingly accept any potential inherent risks associated with COVID-19. VES cannot be held liable from any consequences that may transpire from said risk. Therefore, signing up for this screening/event infers implied consent of yourself and your party and hereby indemnifies and holds harmless VES, its directors, its employees and any other affiliated persons from any adverse medical or financial impact that may result from our participation.
Join us for a fun Halloween Movie Night featuring the movie classic Scream!
DATE: Thursday, October 28th
TIME: Gates Open at 7:00 PM / Movie Starts at 7:30 PM
PLACE: Drive Up at Santa Monica Airport
3233 Donald Douglas Loop S * Santa Monica Interim Open Space * Santa Monica, CA 90405
Enjoy the movie from inside your car or enjoy lawn seating.
Concession Stand: Enjoy classic cinema concessions like candy, soda and fresh popcorn, available with contactless order and pick-up. You’re also welcome to bring your own food to enjoy with your movie!
This time we are going truly GLOBAL! The LA section has arranged for an opportunity to virtually meet with VES members in AUSTRALIA, NEW ZEALAND and INDIA
You could make 5+ new international VFX industry connections in just one hour. If you have not made it to one of these fast paced sessions before, this is the one you simply can’t miss!
Friday 15th October 2021
7:00 pm PDT
Members can register for FREE at the link below (Members must login to the website).
VES Members and up to 4 Guests are Invited to a Pre-Release Screening of Warner Bros. Pictures’ DUNE, followed by a discussion with award-winning Director/Producer/Co-Writer Denis Villeneuve and VES, Academy and BAFTA Award-winning Visual Effects Supervisor Paul Lambert, moderated by Award-winning VES member Rob Legato, ASC. Theater rules and L.A. County Public Health guidelines require that face coverings must be worn at all times in indoor public settings (except while actively enjoying food and drinks).
RSVPs are closed, as this screening is overbooked (Any changes should go to ben@vesglobal.org)
Saturday, September 25, 2021 at 11:00AM Universal Cinema AMC at CityWalk Hollywood (Parking is $5 after rebate at the theater box office. General parking price is $28 payable before the rebate.) 100 Universal City Plaza, Universal City, CA 91608 Click here for a map.
***VES Members: Please register your name as “Attendee 1″***
In an effort to prevent the spread of COVID-19, we ask that you or your guests do not attend VES events if you are experiencing any symptoms or if you have been exposed to the virus.
Screenings are overbooked to compensate for no-shows. Seating is limited and will be available on a first come, first served basis. An RSVP does not guarantee seating.
By signing up for this on-site, in-person screening/event sponsored by VES (Visual Effects Society), you willingly accept any potential inherent risks associated with COVID-19. VES cannot be held liable from any consequences that may transpire from said risk. Therefore, signing up for this screening/event infers implied consent of yourself and your party and hereby indemnifies and holds harmless VES, its directors, its employees and any other affiliated persons from any adverse medical or financial impact that may result from our participation.
VES Members and up to 4 Guests are Invited to a Screening of Warner Bros. Pictures’ THE SUICIDE SQUAD. Warner Bros. Studios rules and L.A. County Public Health guidelines require that face coverings must be worn at all times in indoor public settings.
RSVPs are Closed
Saturday, September 18, 2021 at 4:00PM (RSVPs close on Friday at 12:00PM) Screening Room 12 on the Warner Bros. Studio Lot (Please enter through Gate 4)
4000 Warner Blvd, Burbank CA 91502 Click here for a map.
***VES Members: Please register your name as “Attendee 1″***
Please note that all guests of the WB facilities need to bring a valid photo ID and are required to complete their Self-Health Screening tool called Passcard. The self-health screening process is as follows:
Enter the following when prompted for the Location Code: 220-162-396
When prompted on the Vaccination Status screen, please select: “The WarnerMedia Vaccine Policy does not apply to me…” option
Upon completion of the screening tool, you will receive aGREEN or a RED result.
If GREEN, you need to show the GREENresult to security upon arrival for access.
If RED, do not come to WB facilities, and, if you are experiencing COVID-19 symptoms, you may need to contact your primary health care provider.
Your GREENresult is only valid on the date completed.
Everyone’s safety is important to Warner Bros. Your access to the Studio Lot is conditioned on full compliance with the Safety Protocols. Please especially remember the three W’s:
Wear a face covering or a mask.
Watch your distance. Stay at least six feet from other people.
Wash your hands frequently.
If you have any questions regarding these safety protocols and Warner Bros. Studios’ policies related to COVID-19, please call the Warner Bros. COVID-19 Response Hotline at (818) 954-2019.
In an effort to prevent the spread of COVID-19, we ask that you or your guests do not attend VES events if you are experiencing any symptoms or if you have been exposed to the virus.
Screenings are overbooked to compensate for no-shows. Seating is limited and will be available on a first come, first served basis. An RSVP does not guarantee seating.
By signing up for this on-site, in-person screening/event sponsored by VES (Visual Effects Society), you willingly accept any potential inherent risks associated with COVID-19. VES cannot be held liable from any consequences that may transpire from said risk. Therefore, signing up for this screening/event infers implied consent of yourself and your party and hereby indemnifies and holds harmless VES, its directors, its employees and any other affiliated persons from any adverse medical or financial impact that may result from our participation.
VES Members and up to 2 Guests are Invited to a Screening of Marvel Studios’ and Walt Disney Pictures’ SHANG-CHI AND THE LEGEND OF THE TEN RINGS. Theater rules and L.A. County Public Health guidelines require that face coverings must be worn at all times in indoor public settings (except while actively enjoying concessions).Click herefor theater specific terms and conditions.
Please RSVP below (VES members must login to RSVP)
Saturday, September 4, 2021 at 3:30PM El Capitan Theatre (Parking at the Hollywood & Highland Center is $3 for 4 hours with theatre validation.) 6838 Hollywood Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90028 Click here for a map.
***VES Members: Please register your name as “Attendee 1″***
In an effort to prevent the spread of COVID-19, we ask that you or your guests do not attend VES events if you are experiencing any symptoms or if you have been exposed to the virus.
Screenings are overbooked to compensate for no-shows. Seating is limited and will be available on a first come, first served basis. An RSVP does not guarantee seating.
By signing up for this on-site, in-person screening/event sponsored by VES (Visual Effects Society), you willingly accept any potential inherent risks associated with COVID-19. VES cannot be held liable from any consequences that may transpire from said risk. Therefore, signing up for this screening/event infers implied consent of yourself and your party and hereby indemnifies and holds harmless VES, its directors, its employees and any other affiliated persons from any adverse medical or financial impact that may result from our participation.
VES Members and Their Families are Invited to a Screening of DreamWorks Animation’s and Universal Pictures’ THE BOSS BABY: FAMILY BUSINESS. Theater rules require that masks or face coverings must be worn at all times while in the building.
Please RSVP below (VES members must login to RSVP)
Sunday, July 11, 2021 at 4:00PM Harmony Gold (complimentary parking will be provided)
7655 W. Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90046 Click here for a map.
In an effort to prevent the spread of COVID-19, we ask that you or your guests do not attend VES events if you are experiencing any symptoms or if you have been exposed to the virus.
Screenings are overbooked to compensate for no-shows. Seating is limited and will be available on a first come, first served basis. An RSVP does not guarantee seating.
By signing up for this on-site, in-person screening/event sponsored by VES (Visual Effects Society), you willingly accept any potential inherent risks associated with COVID-19. VES cannot be held liable from any consequences that may transpire from said risk. Therefore, signing up for this screening/event infers implied consent of yourself and your party and hereby indemnifies and holds harmless VES, its directors, its employees and any other affiliated persons from any adverse medical or financial impact that may result from our participation.
VES Members and a Guest are Invited to a Screening of Marvel Studios’ and Walt Disney Pictures’ BLACK WIDOW. Theater rules require that face coverings must be worn at all times (except while actively enjoying concessions). Click here for theater specific terms and conditions.
Please RSVP below (VES members must login to RSVP)
Saturday, July 10, 2021 at 12:00PM El Capitan Theatre (Parking at the Hollywood & Highland Center is $3 for 4 hours with theatre validation.) 6838 Hollywood Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90028 Click here for a map.
In an effort to prevent the spread of COVID-19, we ask that you or your guests do not attend VES events if you are experiencing any symptoms or if you have been exposed to the virus.
Screenings are overbooked to compensate for no-shows. Seating is limited and will be available on a first come, first served basis. An RSVP does not guarantee seating.
By signing up for this on-site, in-person screening/event sponsored by VES (Visual Effects Society), you willingly accept any potential inherent risks associated with COVID-19. VES cannot be held liable from any consequences that may transpire from said risk. Therefore, signing up for this screening/event infers implied consent of yourself and your party and hereby indemnifies and holds harmless VES, its directors, its employees and any other affiliated persons from any adverse medical or financial impact that may result from our participation.
Join us for an in-depth conversation with Master Production Designer, Oscar and BAFTA nominee and Emmy Award winner, James D. Bissell.
The event will be moderated by Jeffrey A. Okun, VES and will be followed by a Q&A session.
DATE:Saturday, May 29, 2021
TIME: 4:00 pm to 5:00 pm
PLACE: Zoom of Course
James’ list of credits include: Good Night, and Good Luck, 300, Mission: Impossible-GhostProtocol,E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, and most recently, The Midnight Sky.
Join us for our first LA hosted West Coast VES section members networking event!
DATE: Wednesday 26th
TIME: 7:00 pm
This is an amazing opportunity for ‘Speed Networking’ with West Coast members of the VES hosted by the LA section. This fast paced session uses Meetaway’s digital platform with targeted matching, to ensure you can connect directly with the people you want for a 1-1 conversation. You could make 5 new industry connections in the VES in just one hour!
Please login to register below!
More about the event format:
For anyone new to the Meetaway format, Meetaways are online events that intelligently match attendees for a series of 1-on-1 video calls. After each conversation, attendees automatically rotate to the next one. You just log in to the event and Meetaway will handle the rest.
Additionally, you’ll want to join the event on a laptop or desktop with a modern browser such as Chrome, Firefox, Safari, or new Edge. Meetaway does not support mobile devices because the screen movements are often distracting and having everyone on a laptop or desktop results in a better overall experience.
Join us for our first virtual VES LA Spring Membership Mixer!
This is an amazing opportunity for ‘Speed Networking’ with members of the VES LA Section. Meetaway’s digital platform with targeted matching ensures you can connect directly with the people you want for a 1-1 conversation.
VES LA Members who register by 3/9 will receive a $20 Doordash credit.
Members are encouraged to invite their industry colleagues interested in learning more about joining the VES. This is also a great opportunity for our current members, just to check in with your peers and see how everyone is doing.
The spring membership deadline is Monday, March 15th, so be sure to attend this event if you are interested in joining the Visual Effects Society Los Angels Section. The event will provide valuable information about the benefits members enjoy, as well as offering the opportunity to network with 5 or more VFX colleagues for a chance to create meaningful connections.
Join us for our first virtual VES LA Spring Membership Mixer!
This is an amazing opportunity for ‘Speed Networking’ with members of the VES LA Section. Meetaway’s digital platform with targeted matching ensures you can connect directly with the people you want for a 1-1 conversation.
VES LA Members who register by 3/9 will receive a $20 Doordash credit.
Members are encouraged to invite their industry colleagues interested in learning more about joining the VES. This is also a great opportunity for our current members, just to check in with your peers and see how everyone is doing.
The spring membership deadline is Monday, March 15th, so be sure to attend this event if you are interested in joining the Visual Effects Society Los Angels Section. The event will provide valuable information about the benefits members enjoy, as well as offering the opportunity to network with 5 or more VFX colleagues for a chance to create meaningful connections.
Please join us for special screening of the hit comedy AIRPLANE with an after show Q&A with special guest Writer-Director, Jerry Zucker!
Saturday February 13th 2021 at 4:00 PM PST.
The event will showcase a new streaming/test screening platform where all the regular items: chat room, recording faces watching the movie, and a lively discussion post the film with the director can occur.
In all cases, we record the viewer and reactions and sync them to the timeline of the movie. A link will be sent out to those who will participate with a password.
We look forward to having you attend this very special event!
The screening is open to VES LA members and is limited to 50 participants.
The Los Angeles Section of the Visual Effects Society presents:
PROFESSIONAL VIRTUAL PRODUCTION FROM HOME
Saturday, November 7th at 11 AM; PST Hosted by: James Markham Hall, Jr.
Join us as we discuss state-of-the-art virtual production tools and techniques used remotely to create professional level content beyond studio specifications.
National Geographic and Disney+ Invite VES Members and One Guest to Attend the World Premiere Drive-In Screening of THE RIGHT STUFF: THE RACE TO BE FIRST IN SPACE plus Q&A with the cast.
Monday, October 5, 2020 at 7:30PM (Doors open at 6:30PM)
Barker Hangar at Santa Monica Airport
3021 Airport Ave., Santa Monica, CA 90404
Featuring Emmy-nominated talent for Outstanding Sound Editing from What We Do in the Shadows “The Return”.
What does a CG bat fight sound like?
How do you create troll footsteps when you’ve never seen a troll?
Join us for an engaging discussion about how VFX & sound inform each other in on-screen storytelling, and help create a show that’s half supernatural, half documentary, and 100% hilarious.
Panelists include: * Steffan Falesitch, Supervising Sound Editor * Jackie Jones, SVP Broadcast Formosa Group * Diego Gat, Re-Recording Mixer * David Barbee, FX Editor * Sam Ejnes, Re-Recording Mixer * Sara McGrail, VES L.A. Board Co-Chair
Bay Area, Washington, Vancouver and Los Angeles Sections present:
West Coast Happy Hour Wednesday, August 26th
6:00-7:00pm (PST – Of Course!)
It’s time for all of the VES’ West Coast Members to step up and mingle:
* Have a great recipe to share?
* Recommendation on new shows to binge?
* Who has the cutest cat, doggie or turtle?
Prizes too! Have a chance to WIN a copy of the newly released third edition of the VES Handbook of Visual Effects: Industry Standard VFX Practices and Procedures!
To join THIS party, use Chrome desktop browser (with the Netflix Party extension installed) and click on the party URL above, which will redirect to Netflix’s website. You must click on the “NP” button next to the address bar to automatically join the party. The Chat will start around 7:00 pm with screening to begin @ 7:10 pm.
FINE PRINT: NETFLIX SUBSCRIPTION REQUIRED TO PARTICIPATE. DON’T HAVE AN ACCOUNT? SIGN UP AT NETFLIX.COM FOR A FREE 30 DAY SUBSCRIPTION. NETFLIX PARTY CHROME EXTENSION REQUIRED TO BE INSTALLED. THIS IS AN UNMODERATED EVENT. PLEASE BE KIND TO ONE ANOTHER.
Join us for your chance to WIN a copy of the newly released third edition of the VES Handbook of Visual Effects: Industry Standard VFX Practices and Procedures!
VES LA Happy Hour Wednesday, July 29th 6:00-7:00pm
Have a great recipe to share?
Best new show to binge watch?
Hookup for comfy corona masks?
It’s time to fraternize, chat & connect!
The LA Section of the Visual Effects Society invites you to its next panel:
LED Stage Production
Sunday, June 28th @ 11 AM (PST)
via ZOOM
The worlds of game development and film production have collided and created a brand new world for filmmakers to explore: LED Stage Production.
This panel is designed to give a general Introduction of LED Stages and their impact on Pre-Production, Production and Post. Additional focus will be on the future of content production in a COVID19 world.
This is a free educational webinar panel, followed by a Q&A.
You are invited to our first-ever, VES Netflix Party where you choose the movie – Click here to vote for the movie!
Then on Wednesday, June 17 at 7:30 PM we will watch the winning movie together and join an online chat with our fellow west coast VES colleagues from the Bay Area, Los Angeles, Vancouver and Washington Sections.
Look for your Netflix Party url email invitation and on this page one hour before showtime where you’ll find out the winning movie when you log in.
Fine Print: Netflix subscription required to participate. Don’t have an account? Sign up at Netflix.com for a FREE 30 day subscription. You will receive an email invite with a private URL one hour prior to the screening. Netflix Party Chrome Extension required to be installed. Instructions will be included with your invitation. This is an unmoderated event. Please be kind to one another.
This online presentation will discuss and demonstrate how new advancements in virtual production and visualization can be used to help all content creators raise the bar with creative ideas and new technical approaches.
THE THIRD FLOOR is one of the world’s leading visualization studios. It is a major contributor to today’s most popular films and TV series — from the Marvel Cinematic Universe and STAR WARS Franchise to HBO’s GAME OF THRONES.
Our speakers from THE THIRD FLOOR are: Eric Carney, Founder, Global CTO/Visual FX Supervisor; Gary Marshall, R&D Innovation Director; Dane Smith, Vice President; and Lara Cawsey, Business Development Manager
Our event will be hosted by Scott Squires, VES a VES Fellow who has worked in the visual effects industry for decades as a VFX supervisor and technical developer. He has multiple VFX Academy Award nominations and worked on such films as THE MASK, DRAGONHEART, and STAR WARS: EPISODE 1- THE PHANTOM MENACE.
The VES Los Angeles Screening of Paramount Pictures’ A QUIET PLACE PART II has been cancelled because the studio has postponed the release due to concerns related to the COVID19 outbreak.
The VES Los Angeles Screening of Sony Pictures’ BLOODSHOThas been cancelled because the studio has postponed the release due to concerns related to the COVID19 outbreak.
VES Members and Their Guests are Invited to a Screening of Warner Bros. Pictures’ THE WAY BACK
In an effort to prevent the spread of COVID19, we ask you or your guests who may show any symptoms or who might have been exposed to the virus do not attend VES events.
Please RSVP below (VES members must login to RSVP and see venue information) (RSVPs close at 12:00PM on Monday, March 9) Monday, March 9, 2020 at 8:00PM
VES Members and Their Families are Invited to an Opening Weekend 3D Screening of Walt Disney Pictures’ and Pixar Animation Studios’ ONWARD
Please RSVP below (VES members must login to RSVP and see venue information)
(RSVPs close at 12:00PM on Friday, March 6) Sunday, March 8, 2020 at 12:00PM
VES Members and Their Guests are Invited to a Screening of Universal Pictures’ THE INVISIBLE MAN
Please RSVP below (VES members must login to RSVP and see venue information) (RSVPs close at 12:00PM on Friday, February 28) Friday, February 28, 2020 at 8:00PM
**See old friends & meet some new ones**
**Learn about VES events & programs**
**Find or be someone to write a new-member endorsement letter**Beer, wine & light bites
Fabulous raffle prizes!
* Bring a potential new member for an extra ticket!Venue graciously provided by: Pixomondo Los Angeles 2055 S Barrington Ave,
Los Angeles, CA 90025
VES Members and Their Guests are Invited to an Opening Weekend Screening of 20th Century’s THE CALL OF THE WILD
Please RSVP below (VES members must login to RSVP and see venue information)
(RSVPs close at 12:00PM on Friday, February 21) Saturday, February 22, 2020 at 2:00PM
MastersFX Presents a Celebration of Practical Effects with a Special Twenty-Fifth Anniversary Screening of TALES FROM THE CRYPT: DEMON KNIGHT followed by a discussion with Todd Masters and others to be announced.
Click here to RSVP (Space is limited, so please sign up soon) Monday, January 13, 2020 at 8:00PM Arclight (Cinerama Dome) Hollywood
6360 Sunset Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90028
Todd Masters and His Special Guests will reflect on the making of this iconic movie with “tales” of the challenges of the practical effects, and how they integrated with the live action performances. Never before seen slides from behind-the-scenes of the making of DEMON KNIGHT will also be presented!
For more information, please call Dan Harary at Asbury PR Agency at (310) 859-1831
Join us at the VES Bake-Off After-Party!
Immediately after the AMPAS Bake-Off, please join us for the VES Bake-Off Bash After-Party for fun, friends, food and libations at Via Alloro restaurant in Beverly Hills.
Saturday, January 4, 2020 VES Bake-Off After-Party 9:00PM to 11:30PM **The Academy’s VFX Bake-Off is a separate event and handled through AMPAS.
Via Alloro (less than a mile from the Academy’s Goldwyn Theater). 301 N Canon Dr, Beverly Hills, CA 90210
Complimentary Valet Parking is available at the restaurant.
Tickets are non-refundable / non-transferable. All tickets are sold individually. Space is limited and this event will sell out, please get your tickets NOW!
Member Ticket Price = $65.00
Non-Member Ticket Price = $125.00
We look forward to celebrating with our members and colleagues from around the globe and making this a festive international gathering!
For Sponsorship opportunities, please click here and contact Nancy Ward at (818) 981-7861 by Friday, December 13.
Now that the 18th Annual VES Awards season is underway, we once again invite VES members to participate in our Nomination Panels. The Nomination Event will be held worldwide on January 4, 2020.
Any active VES member who can travel to one of the cities listed below may participate.
This is your chance to determine who will ultimately walk up to the podium on January 29, 2020, to collect a coveted VES Award. A single vote may make the difference between being nominated… or not… and that vote could be yours!
Past participants know that this is the must-attend event of the awards season. Not only will you view some of the most amazing visual imagery of 2019, you’ll get to see exclusive behind-the-scenes footage while participating in the single best networking opportunity of the year. It’s a chance to see old friends, meet the best and brightest in the visual effects field, and learn new techniques that you can apply to your own craft. All of that, plus the satisfaction of knowing that you have participated in choosing what will ultimately be the Nominations announced to the press for the 18th Annual VES Awards.
Judges who register to participate will receive information about specific times and locations from their local section representatives once their applications are received. If you are ready to make a difference, please submit your Panel Judge Application BELOW. Make sure you check the box indicating which of the Nomination Event locations you are applying for.
The Nomination Event is a full-day event held on Saturday, January 4, 2020 around the globe. Nominees will be announced on Monday, January 6, 2020. We look forward to receiving your Judge Application to make this year’s Nomination Event a success!
VES Members and Their Guests are Invited to an Opening Weekend 3D Screening of Walt Disney Pictures’ and Lucasfilm’s STAR WARS: THE RISE OF SKYWALKER followed by a Q&A with the Filmmakers
Panelists will include Director J.J. Abrams as well as Visual Effects Supervisors Roger Guyett and Patrick Tubach, moderated by VES 1st Vice Chair Jeffrey A. Okun, VES. (All panelists’ participation based on availability.)
Please RSVP below (VES members must login to RSVP and see venue information)
(RSVPs close at 12:00PM on Friday, December 20) Saturday, December 21, 2019 at 11:00AM
VES Members and Their Guests are Invited to a Pre-Release Screening of Universal Pictures’ 1917
(VES members must login in order to see venue information and RSVP.)
VES Members and Their Guests are Invited to an Opening Night 3D Screening of Sony Pictures’ JUMANJI: THE NEXT LEVEL
(VES members must login in order to see venue information and RSVP.)
VES Members and Their Guests are Invited to a Screening of Netflix’s THE IRISHMAN followed by a Q&A with Visual Effects Supervisor Pablo Helman, moderated by VES Fellow Paul Debevec, VES. (All panelists’ participation based on availability.) There will also be a reception off of the lobby of the theater immediately after the discussion.
Please RSVP below (VES members must login to RSVP and see venue information)
(RSVPs close at 12:00PM on Friday, December 6) Sunday, December 8, 2019 at 11:00AM
Join us for the most wonderful party of the year!
Exciting raffle prizes, great food & drinks, interactive exhibits, music, and a Sky Slide 70 floors up! (Come early! Free sky slide tickets for the first 100 guests!)
Members +1 free with RSVP (Please log-in to RSVP on this page)
RSVP & Ticket sales close Fri, Nov 29th at 12:00pm
The Visual Effects Society in collaboration with the American Society of Cinematographers (ASC) invite a limited number of VES members to attend the hands-on Practical Lighting for CG Artists masterclass at the Sony Digital Media Production Center (DMPC).
Among those scheduled to appear are 6-time Oscar nominee and ASC Lifetime Achievement Award-winning Cinematographer Caleb Deschanel, ASC, and VES Founders Award recipient, Fellow and Lifetime Member Bill Taylor, VES, ASC, who’s won the Academy’s Technical Achievement Award and the Medal of Commendation as well as an Emmy. Join us for the eighth incarnation of the wildly popular and informative one-day seminar geared toward helping digital artists develop the sensibilities and sensitivities of a cinematographer.
Click here to purchase tickets ($25 tickets include Mexican buffet lunch with vegan & gluten free options) Tuesday, December 3, 2019 from 11:00AM to 5:00PM
Registration begins at 10:30AM, Masterclass at 11:00AM
(VES members must login to see venue information below)
VES Members and Their Guests are Invited to a Pre-Release Screening of 20th Century Fox’s and Blue Sky Studios’ SPIES IN DISGUISE followed by a Q&A with Director Nick Bruno, moderated by Pete Hammond
Please RSVP below (VES members must login to RSVP and see venue information)
(RSVPs close at 12:00PM on Friday, November 29) Saturday, November 30, 2019 at 11:00AM
VES Members and Their Guests are Invited to an Opening Weekend Screening of Walt Disney Animation Studios’ FROZEN 2
Please RSVP below (VES members must login to RSVP and see venue information)
(RSVPs close at 12:00PM on Friday, November 22) Sunday, November 24, 2019 at 4:00PM
WET, also known as WET Design, is a water feature design firm based in Los Angeles, California. Founded in 1983 by former Disney Imagineers Mark Fuller, Melanie Simon, and Alan Robinson, the company has designed over two hundred fountains and water features using water, fire, ice, fog, and lights.
Please log-in to RSVP.
Strict guest list required – Space is limited to first 30 members!
Please only RSVP if you’re able to attend.
Join us for a VES-exclusive look at the latest Dreamscape VR experiences!
The Vision: Combine the emotional power of Hollywood storytelling, the visceral excitement
of great theme-park rides, and this extraordinary new technology to create stories and worlds
that push the limits of virtual reality.
Tuesday, Nov 19th
1:30pm – 3:00pm
Please plan to arrive between 1:00-1:30pm, and stay for the duration until 3:00pm.
Shows last approximately 30 minutes, so guests may be able to do more than one experience.
VES Members and Their Guests are Invited to a Screening of Lionsgate’s MIDWAY followed by a Q&A with the Filmmakers
Panelists will include Director Roland Emmerich, Visual Effects Supervisor Peter Travers and Visual Effects Producer Tricia Mulgrew, moderated by VES Board member Jeffrey Kleiser. (All panelists’ participation based on availability.)
Please RSVP below (VES members must login to RSVP and see venue information) Monday, November 18, 2019 at 7:30PM
VES Members and Their Guests are Invited to an Opening Weekend Screening of 20th Century Fox’s FORD V FERRARI followed by a Q&A with the Filmmakers
Panelists will include Visual Effects Supervisor Olivier Dumont, Visual Effects Producer Kathy Siegel and Special Effects Supervisor Mark R. Byers. (All panelists’ participation based on availability.)
Please RSVP below (VES members must login to RSVP and see venue information)
(RSVPs close at 12:00PM on Friday, November 15) Saturday, November 16, 2019 at 11:00AM
VES Members and Their Guests are Invited to a Screening of Warner Bros. Pictures’ DOCTOR SLEEP
(VES members must login in order to see venue information and RSVP.)
VES Members and Their Guests are Invited to a Screening of Warner Bros. Pictures’ THE GOLDFINCH
Please RSVP below
Friday, September 13, 2019 at 8:00PM
Sony Pictures Imageworks – Ray Harryhausen Theater
9050 W. Washington Blvd., Culver City, CA 90232 Click here for a map.
Screenings are overbooked to compensate for no-shows. Seating is limited and will be available on a first come, first served basis. An RSVP does not guarantee seating.
Kids Run The Bases (kids 14 & under after the game)
Dodgers Foundation Memorabilia Silent Auction (located outside the Vin Scully Press box on Club Level 5)
Tickets: $35 (Please log-in to purchase tickets.)
All You Can Eat Right Field Pavilion, Section 306
Limited seats! Purchase today!
Tickets include unlimited Dodger Dogs, nachos, popcorn, peanuts, Coke products and water through the 7th inning. Alcohol is not included, but is available for purchase. Outside food can also be brought into the stadium, as well as sealed bottles of soda and water, up to 1 liter each.
Parking & Game Entry
Parking gates open 2.5 hours prior to the start of the game.
Stadium gates open approximately 2 hours prior to the first pitch.
Parking for automobiles and motorcycles is $17 in advance and $25 at the gate.
Preferred parking is $40 in advance and $50 at the gate. Parking for large vehicles including buses, motor homes, limousines and other oversized vehicles is $40 in advance and $50 at the gate.
For only $5 (in advance or upon arrival), purchase parking for Lots 13 and 14. These first-come, first-serve lots are located offsite on Stadium Way – between Elysian Park Avenue and the 110 – and allow for easy entrance and exit. Note that there is an uphill walk to the stadium from these lots, of approximately 10 to 15 minutes. A free shuttle is available for fans with disabilities, call Fan Services (323) 224-2611. Go online to www.dodgers.com to purchase parking in advance.
Kids Run The Bases (kids 14 & under after the game)
Dodgers Foundation Memorabilia Silent Auction (located outside the Vin Scully Press box on Club Level 5)
Tickets: $35 (Please log-in to purchase tickets.)
All You Can Eat Right Field Pavilion, Section 306
Limited seats! Purchase today!
Tickets include unlimited Dodger Dogs, nachos, popcorn, peanuts, Coke products and water through the 7th inning. Alcohol is not included, but is available for purchase. Outside food can also be brought into the stadium, as well as sealed bottles of soda and water, up to 1 liter each.
Parking & Game Entry
Parking gates open 2.5 hours prior to the start of the game.
Stadium gates open approximately 2 hours prior to the first pitch.
Parking for automobiles and motorcycles is $17 in advance and $25 at the gate.
Preferred parking is $40 in advance and $50 at the gate. Parking for large vehicles including buses, motor homes, limousines and other oversized vehicles is $40 in advance and $50 at the gate.
For only $5 (in advance or upon arrival), purchase parking for Lots 13 and 14. These first-come, first-serve lots are located offsite on Stadium Way – between Elysian Park Avenue and the 110 – and allow for easy entrance and exit. Note that there is an uphill walk to the stadium from these lots, of approximately 10 to 15 minutes. A free shuttle is available for fans with disabilities, call Fan Services (323) 224-2611. Go online to www.dodgers.com to purchase parking in advance.
VES Members and Their Guests in are Invited to aPre-Release Screening of Warner Bros. Pictures’ IT CHAPTER TWO
Please RSVP below Thursday, September 5, 2019 at 7:00PM (RSVPs close at 12:00PM on Thursday, September 5)
Warner Bros. Studio screening room #5
4000 Warner Blvd., Burbank, CA 91522 (Please enter through the Gate #4/Hollywood Way and park as directed.) Click here for a map
Screenings are overbooked to compensate for no-shows. Seating is limited and will be available on a first come, first served basis. An RSVP does not guarantee seating.
VES Members and Their Guests are Invited to a Screening of Millenium Films’ ANGEL HAS FALLEN
Please RSVP below
Friday, August 30, 2019 at 8:00PM
Sony Pictures Imageworks – Ray Harryhausen Theater
9050 W. Washington Blvd., Culver City, CA 90232 Click here for a map.
Screenings are overbooked to compensate for no-shows. Seating is limited and will be available on a first come, first served basis. An RSVP does not guarantee seating.
VES Members and Their Guests are Invited to a Screening of Universal Pictures’ GOOD BOYS
Please RSVP below
Friday, August 23, 2019 at 8:00PM
Sony Pictures Imageworks – Ray Harryhausen Theater
9050 W. Washington Blvd., Culver City, CA 90232 Click here for a map.
This film is Rated R for strong crude sexual content, drug and alcohol material, and language throughout – all involving tweens.
Screenings are overbooked to compensate for no-shows. Seating is limited and will be available on a first come, first served basis. An RSVP does not guarantee seating.
Grab a friend or two. All are welcome to join for coffee, tea, and conversation!
Topic: Diversity & Inclusion in Hiring & Career Development
How diverse is your workplace?
What are best practices in recruitment & career dev you’ve seen, or would like to see?
Are you looking for talent, your next gig, or making a career move?
Bring your VFX friends, feedback, ideas, and resumes or job posts!
Priscilla’s Coffee
4150 W Riverside Dr., Burbank, CA 91505
Grab a friend or two. All are welcome to join for coffee, tea, and conversation!
Topic: Diversity & Inclusion in Hiring & Career Development
How diverse is your workplace?
What are best practices in recruitment & career dev you’ve seen, or would like to see?
Are you looking for talent, your next gig, or making a career move?
Bring your VFX friends, feedback, ideas, and resumes or job posts!
Priscilla’s Coffee
4150 W Riverside Dr., Burbank, CA 91505
VES Members and Their Guests are Invited to an Opening Weekend Screening of 20th Century Fox’s THE ART OF RACING IN THE RAIN
Please RSVP below Saturday, August 10, 2019 at 7:00PM
(RSVPs will close at 12:00PM on Friday, August 9) Blakeley Theater on the 20th Century Fox Studio lot
10201 West Pico Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90064-2606 Click here for a map
Screenings are overbooked to compensate for no-shows. Seating is limited and will be available on a first come, first served basis. An RSVP does not guarantee seating.
VES Members and Their Guests are Invited to a Screening of Universal Pictures’ FAST & FURIOUS PRESENTS: HOBBS & SHAW
Please RSVP below
Friday, August 9, 2019 at 8:00PM
Sony Pictures Imageworks – Ray Harryhausen Theater
9050 W. Washington Blvd., Culver City, CA 90232 Click here for a map.
Screenings are overbooked to compensate for no-shows. Seating is limited and will be available on a first come, first served basis. An RSVP does not guarantee seating.
VES Members and their Guests are Invited to Attend the Art Directors Guild Screening of THE PURPLE ROSE OF CAIRO (1985) – A Tribute to Emmy®-Winning Production Designer Stuart Wurtzel
The Aero Theatre, Santa Monica
1328 Montana Ave., Santa Monica, CA 90403 Click here for a map.
Production Designer Stuart WurtzelADG created a valentine to classic Hollywood and the films of the depression era. The film’s movie-with-in-the-movie is an RKO-style screwball comedy set in a glittering Manhattan penthouse. The outer world of the film is set in New Jersey amid the dreams of a simple housewife, Mia Farrow, whose world is turned upside down when the hero of the film, Jeff Daniels, steps out of her neighborhood movie theater’s screen and into her real-life world. A beloved film by many, the expert blending of the film’s fiction and reality blur the lines between fantasy and romance in memorable ways. It’s “perfect-pitch” Production Design by a master of the New York school and a visual delight for all to behold.
Emmy winning Production Designer Stuart Wurtzel ADG will be interviewed by moderator John Iacovelli ADG, Production Designer.
VES Members and their Guests are Invited to Attend the Art Directors Guild Screening of THE PURPLE ROSE OF CAIRO (1985) – A Tribute to Emmy®-Winning Production Designer Stuart Wurtzel
The Aero Theatre, Santa Monica
1328 Montana Ave., Santa Monica, CA 90403 Click here for a map.
Production Designer Stuart WurtzelADG created a valentine to classic Hollywood and the films of the depression era. The film’s movie-with-in-the-movie is an RKO-style screwball comedy set in a glittering Manhattan penthouse. The outer world of the film is set in New Jersey amid the dreams of a simple housewife, Mia Farrow, whose world is turned upside down when the hero of the film, Jeff Daniels, steps out of her neighborhood movie theater’s screen and into her real-life world. A beloved film by many, the expert blending of the film’s fiction and reality blur the lines between fantasy and romance in memorable ways. It’s “perfect-pitch” Production Design by a master of the New York school and a visual delight for all to behold.
Emmy winning Production Designer Stuart Wurtzel ADG will be interviewed by moderator John Iacovelli ADG, Production Designer.
VES Members and Their Families are Invited to a 3D Screening of Walt Disney Pictures’ THE LION KING followed by a Q&A with the Filmmakers
Panelists will include Director Jon Favreau, Visual Effects Supervisor Rob Legato, and Cinematographer Caleb Deschanel, ASC, moderated by Michael Fink, VES. (All panelists’ participation based on availability.)
Please RSVP below
(RSVPs close at 12:00PM on Friday, July 26) Saturday, July 27, 2019 at 11:00AM
Walt Disney Studios Main Theater
500 S. Buena Vista St., Burbank, CA 91521
(Please enter through the Alameda gate and park as directed.) Click here for a map
Screenings are overbooked to compensate for no-shows. Seating is limited and will be available on a first come, first served basis. An RSVP does not guarantee seating.
VES Members and Their Guests are Invited to an Opening Night Screening of 20th Century Fox’s STUBER
Please RSVP below Friday, July 12, 2018 at 8:00PM
(RSVPs will close at 12:00PM on Friday, July 12) Little Theater on the 20th Century Fox Studio lot
10201 West Pico Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90064-2606 Click here for a map
Screenings are overbooked to compensate for no-shows. Seating is limited and will be available on a first come, first served basis. An RSVP does not guarantee seating.
VES Members and Their Guests are Invited to a 3D Screening of Columbia Pictures’ and Marvel Studios’ SPIDER-MAN: FAR FROM HOME followed by a Q&A with the Visual Effects Team
Panelists will include Visual Effects Producer Cyndi Ochs, Luma Pictures Visual Effects Supervisor Kevin Souls, Imageworks Visual Effects Supervisor Theo Bialek, Imageworks CG Supervisor Joe Pepper and Scanline’s Sequence Supervisor Curtis Carlson, moderated by VES Board member Andrew Bly. (Panelists’ participation is based on availability.)
Please RSVP below
Monday, July 8, 2019 at 8:00PM
Sony Pictures Imageworks – Ray Harryhausen Theater
9050 W. Washington Blvd., Culver City, CA 90232 Click here for a map.
Screenings are overbooked to compensate for no-shows. Seating is limited and will be available on a first come, first served basis. An RSVP does not guarantee seating.
The Visual Effects Society has Secured a Very Limited Number of Tickets for VES Members and a Guest to Attend a Double Feature of ROGUE ONE: A STAR WARS STORY (2016) and a 70mm film print of the Original STAR WARS: EPISODE IV – A NEW HOPE (1977).
It has been twenty-two years since the Special Editions of the original STAR WARS trilogy were released, effectively preventing anyone from being able to watch the 1977 theatrical version of that seminal film as it was originally shown. Join us for chronological screenings of ROGUE ONE: A STAR WARS STORY, relating how the Rebel Alliance took possession of the plans for the dreaded Death Star, followed by the original STAR WARS: EPISODE IV – A NEW HOPE, in which you’ll be among the first in more than two decades to watch Han Solo shoot first!
This is a 5 hour event with no food available.
Please RSVP below (Sign up ASAP, as tickets are already SOLD OUT.) Saturday, June 29 at 10:00AM to 3:00PM
(Be in your seat by 9:45AM or it may be forfeited, and be sure to eat a hearty breakfast!) There will be a 30 minute break between films and the Academy does not allow any food or drinks in the theater. (Security will search all bags.)
Samuel Goldwyn Theater
8949 Wilshire Blvd., Beverly Hills, CA 90211 Click here for FREE parking information and the Academy’s food & beverage policy. Click here for a map.
*You must attend the first screening in order to attend the second, and nobody will be re-admitted once they leave.
The Visual Effects Society has Secured a Very Limited Number of Tickets for VES Members and a Guest to Attend a Double Feature of ROGUE ONE: A STAR WARS STORY (2016) and a 70mm film print of the Original STAR WARS: EPISODE IV – A NEW HOPE (1977).
It has been twenty-two years since the Special Editions of the original STAR WARS trilogy were released, effectively preventing anyone from being able to watch the 1977 theatrical version of that seminal film as it was originally shown. Join us for chronological screenings of ROGUE ONE: A STAR WARS STORY, relating how the Rebel Alliance took possession of the plans for the dreaded Death Star, followed by the original STAR WARS: EPISODE IV – A NEW HOPE, in which you’ll be among the first in more than two decades to watch Han Solo shoot first!
This is a 5 hour event with no food available.
Please RSVP below (Sign up ASAP, as tickets are already SOLD OUT.) Saturday, June 29 at 10:00AM to 3:00PM
(Be in your seat by 9:45AM or it may be forfeited, and be sure to eat a hearty breakfast!) There will be a 30 minute break between films and the Academy does not allow any food or drinks in the theater. (Security will search all bags.)
Samuel Goldwyn Theater
8949 Wilshire Blvd., Beverly Hills, CA 90211 Click here for FREE parking information and the Academy’s food & beverage policy. Click here for a map.
*You must attend the first screening in order to attend the second, and nobody will be re-admitted once they leave.
(You will be able to stream this event for up to 48 hours afterward.)
Over the last 40 years, technology has advanced by leaps and bounds. But the impetus to create and inspire remains the same. This event will contrast the analog technologies developed for the first STAR WARS released in 1977 with the all-digital toolsets used to create ROGUE ONE released in 2016.
Key contributors from both STAR WARS and ROGUE ONE will share the journey of creating the impossible with their breakthrough visual effects. Our list of stellar participants includes John Dykstra, Dennis Muren, VES, John Knoll, Ben Burtt, Marcia Lucas, Bill George, Harrison Ellenshaw, Bruce Nicholson, Richard Edlund, VES and Rachel Rose. Hosted by Kiri Hart, co-producer of ROGUE ONE, this event promises to be both inspiring and insightful.
Please RSVP below
Thursday, June 27, 2019 at 7:30PM
(There are very few seats allotted for VES members, and tickets for the public are already sold out.)
Samuel Goldwyn Theater
8949 Wilshire Blvd., Beverly Hills, CA 90211 Click here for FREE parking information.
*Due to limited ticket availability, please be sure to RSVP as soon as possible.
(You will be able to stream this event for up to 48 hours afterward.)
Over the last 40 years, technology has advanced by leaps and bounds. But the impetus to create and inspire remains the same. This event will contrast the analog technologies developed for the first STAR WARS released in 1977 with the all-digital toolsets used to create ROGUE ONE released in 2016.
Key contributors from both STAR WARS and ROGUE ONE will share the journey of creating the impossible with their breakthrough visual effects. Our list of stellar participants includes John Dykstra, Dennis Muren, VES, John Knoll, Ben Burtt, Marcia Lucas, Bill George, Harrison Ellenshaw, Bruce Nicholson, Richard Edlund, VES and Rachel Rose. Hosted by Kiri Hart, co-producer of ROGUE ONE, this event promises to be both inspiring and insightful.
Please RSVP below
Thursday, June 27, 2019 at 7:30PM
(There are very few seats allotted for VES members, and tickets for the public are already sold out.)
Samuel Goldwyn Theater
8949 Wilshire Blvd., Beverly Hills, CA 90211 Click here for FREE parking information.
*Due to limited ticket availability, please be sure to RSVP as soon as possible.
VES Members and a Guest are Invited to Attend the Art Directors Guild Screening of CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND (1977), a Tribute to Production Designer Joe Alves
The Egyptian Theatre, Hollywood
6712 Hollywood Blvd. Hollywood, CA 90028 Click here for a map.
Ray Bradbury declared CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND as the greatest science fiction film ever made. Joe Alves, ADG the film’s Production Designer, began his career as an animator on the 1956 MGM classic, FORBIDDEN PLANET. A master Close Encounters, Mr. Alves will be in attendance to share highlights from his long career as a motion picture Designer and Illustrator. Close Encounters was written and directed by Steven Spielberg, and stars Richard Dreyfuss, Melinda Dillon, Teri Garr, Bob Balaban, Cary Guffey, and François Truffaut. It tells the story of Roy Neary, an everyday blue-collar worker in Indiana, whose life changes after an encounter with an unidentified flying object (UFO). Director Jean Renoir compared Spielberg’s storytelling to that of Jules Verne and Georges Méliès. Celebrating the 40th Anniversary of Spielberg’s landmark film, a special Digitally Remastered 4K version of the Director’s Cut will be shown.
Production DesignerJoe Alves ADG, will be interviewed by moderator Thomas A. Walsh ADG, Production Designer and Film Series Co-chair.
VES Members and a Guest are Invited to Attend the Art Directors Guild Screening of CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND (1977), a Tribute to Production Designer Joe Alves
The Egyptian Theatre, Hollywood
6712 Hollywood Blvd. Hollywood, CA 90028 Click here for a map.
Ray Bradbury declared CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND as the greatest science fiction film ever made. Joe Alves, ADG the film’s Production Designer, began his career as an animator on the 1956 MGM classic, FORBIDDEN PLANET. A master Close Encounters, Mr. Alves will be in attendance to share highlights from his long career as a motion picture Designer and Illustrator. Close Encounters was written and directed by Steven Spielberg, and stars Richard Dreyfuss, Melinda Dillon, Teri Garr, Bob Balaban, Cary Guffey, and François Truffaut. It tells the story of Roy Neary, an everyday blue-collar worker in Indiana, whose life changes after an encounter with an unidentified flying object (UFO). Director Jean Renoir compared Spielberg’s storytelling to that of Jules Verne and Georges Méliès. Celebrating the 40th Anniversary of Spielberg’s landmark film, a special Digitally Remastered 4K version of the Director’s Cut will be shown.
Production DesignerJoe Alves ADG, will be interviewed by moderator Thomas A. Walsh ADG, Production Designer and Film Series Co-chair.
VES Members and Their Guests are Invited to a 3D Screening of Columbia Pictures’ MEN IN BLACK: INTERNATIONAL
Please RSVP below
Friday, June 21, 2019 at 8:00PM
Sony Pictures Imageworks – Ray Harryhausen Theater
9050 W. Washington Blvd., Culver City, CA 90232 Click here for a map.
Screenings are overbooked to compensate for no-shows. Seating is limited and will be available on a first come, first served basis. An RSVP does not guarantee seating.
Mark your calendars and join us on June 18-20 for the DelliVR Conference, a hands-on 360/VR/AR training event. The conference will feature technical training, business management classes, and social activities. VES members receive 20% off passes. (VES member must login to see the discount code below.)
Mark your calendars and join us on June 18-20 for the DelliVR Conference, a hands-on 360/VR/AR training event. The conference will feature technical training, business management classes, and social activities. VES members receive 20% off passes. (VES member must login to see the discount code below.)
VES Members and Their Families are Invited to a Pre-Release 3D Screening of Disney•Pixar’s TOY STORY 4
Please RSVP below Saturday, June 15, 2019 at 5:00PM (RSVPs close at 12:00PM on Friday, June 14)
Walt Disney Studios Main Theater
500 S. Buena Vista St., Burbank, CA 91521
(Please enter through the Alameda gate and park as directed.) Click here for a map
Screenings are overbooked to compensate for no-shows. Seating is limited and will be available on a first come, first served basis. An RSVP does not guarantee seating.
VES Members and Their Guests are Invited to an Opening Night Screening of Focus Features’ THE DEAD DON’T DIE
Please RSVP below
Friday, June 14, 2019 at 8:00PM
Sony Pictures Imageworks – Ray Harryhausen Theater
9050 W. Washington Blvd., Culver City, CA 90232 Click here for a map.
Screenings are overbooked to compensate for no-shows. Seating is limited and will be available on a first come, first served basis. An RSVP does not guarantee seating.
June 12th – doors open 7:00PM (CEST) and there will be beer and pizza!
ZOOM stream starts at 7:30PM (CEST)
Masterclass starts at 8:00PM (CEST)
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The VES invites you to our 3rd MEGABRAIN Masterclass where you can learn and share your knowledge with colleagues in the VFX industry. The idea is not to simply present show reels – but to teach actual techniques that help every artist to improve their skillset. This event will take place on June 12th 7:00PM at multiple locations and will also be streamed via ZOOM.
RSVP for your specific location on the appropriate event pages please:
Efficient facial rigging tools for emotionally believable digital humans
presented by Volker Helzle – Head of Research & Development at Filmakademie
Live from Munich Using Machine-learning to classify a VFXElements Library
presented by Jonas Kluger – Pipeline TD at ARRI
Live from Berlin Camera Technology: Sensors, Noise Properties, and Raw Processing
presented by Charles Poynton, PhD
We are overbooking to compensate for no-shows.
Seating is limited and will be available on a first come, first served basis.
An RSVP does not guarantee seating.
VES-Members and their registered guests only (except for Ludwigsburg and Cologne). No admission without registration – also at the streaming locations!
The event will also be recorded for everyone who can’t make it.
The event will be streamed live from (and to) Berlin, Munich, Stuttgart and Ludwigsburg. For the first time we also provide direct access to the ZOOM stream for ALL VES MEMBERS around the world!
VES Germany is a proud Partner of the FMX Conference in Stuttgart.
VES Members and Their Guests are Invited to an Opening Weekend 3D Screening of 20th Century Fox’s and Marvel Studios’ DARK PHOENIX
Please RSVP below Sunday, June 9, 2019 at 7:00PM
(RSVPs will close at 12:00PM on Friday, June 7) Zanuck Theater on the 20th Century Fox Studio lot
10201 West Pico Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90064-2606 Click here for a map
Screenings are overbooked to compensate for no-shows. Seating is limited and will be available on a first come, first served basis. An RSVP does not guarantee seating.
VES Members and Their Families are Invited to a 3D Screening of Universal Pictures’ and Illumination Entertainment’s THE SECRET LIFE OF PETS 2
Please RSVP below (VES members must login to sign up.) Sunday, June 9, 2019 at 2:00PM (Enter from Gate 1 on Lankershim Blvd.)
(RSVPs will close at 12:00PM on Friday, June 7)
Universal Studios Theater #2
4050 Lankershim Blvd, Studio City, CA 91604 Click here for a map.
Screenings are overbooked to compensate for no-shows. Seating is limited and will be available on a first come, first served basis. An RSVP does not guarantee seating.
VES Members and Their Guests are Invited to an Opening Weekend Screening ofWarner Bros. Pictures’ and Legendary Entertainment’s GODZILLA: KING OF THE MONSTERS followed by a Q&A with the Filmmakers
Panelists will include Visual Effects Supervisor Guillaume Rocheron, MPC Senior Animation Supervisor Spencer Cook, Method Studios Visual Effects SupervisorDaryl Sawchuk and Double Negative Visual Effects Supervisor Brian Connor, moderated by VES Board member Richard Winn Taylor II, VES. (All panelists’ participation based on availability.)
Please RSVP below
Sunday, June 2, 2019 at 11:00AM Harmony Gold (complimentary parking will be provided)
7655 W. Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90046 Click here for a map.
Screenings are overbooked to compensate for no-shows. Seating is limited and will be available on a first come, first served basis. An RSVP does not guarantee seating.
VES Members and Their Guests are Invited to an Opening Night Screening of Paramount Pictures’ ROCKETMAN
Please RSVP below
Friday, May 31, 2019 at 8:00PM
Sony Pictures Imageworks – Ray Harryhausen Theater
9050 W. Washington Blvd., Culver City, CA 90232 Click here for a map.
Screenings are overbooked to compensate for no-shows. Seating is limited and will be available on a first come, first served basis. An RSVP does not guarantee seating.
VES Members and Their Guests are Invited to a Screening of Screen Gems’ and Sony Pictures Entertainment’s BRIGHTBURN
Please RSVP below
Thursday, May 30, 2019 at 8:00PM
Sony Pictures Imageworks – Ray Harryhausen Theater
9050 W. Washington Blvd., Culver City, CA 90232 Click here for a map.
Screenings are overbooked to compensate for no-shows. Seating is limited and will be available on a first come, first served basis. An RSVP does not guarantee seating.
VES Members Receive FREE Exhibit Passes to Cine Gear Expo L.A. 2019 Through May 25!
Cine Gear Expo 2019 is the premier annual event for professionals engaged in the film and entertainment technology industry. Taking place May 30th – June 2nd at Paramount Studios in Hollywood, California, Cine Gear features 300 exhibits, new product and service introductions, 30+ complimentary seminars led by industry leaders, master classes, film competition, awards ceremony, special screenings in state of the art theaters, and ample opportunity to network with peers within a studio environment.
May 30 – Film Series Competition Screenings
May 30 & June 1 – Exhibits, Premier Seminars, Exclusive Screenings, Awards Presentations, Special Events
June 3 – Master Classes
Badge registration is now open for Cine Gear 2019. All attendees must complete this FREE registration process to obtain their credentials. Registration is free until 11:59PM (PDT), May 25, 2019.
VES Members Receive FREE Exhibit Passes to Cine Gear Expo L.A. 2019 Through May 25!
Cine Gear Expo 2019 is the premier annual event for professionals engaged in the film and entertainment technology industry. Taking place May 30th – June 2nd at Paramount Studios in Hollywood, California, Cine Gear features 300 exhibits, new product and service introductions, 30+ complimentary seminars led by industry leaders, master classes, film competition, awards ceremony, special screenings in state of the art theaters, and ample opportunity to network with peers within a studio environment.
May 30 – Film Series Competition Screenings
May 30 & June 1 – Exhibits, Premier Seminars, Exclusive Screenings, Awards Presentations, Special Events
June 3 – Master Classes
Badge registration is now open for Cine Gear 2019. All attendees must complete this FREE registration process to obtain their credentials. Registration is free until 11:59PM (PDT), May 25, 2019.
VES Members and Their Families are Invited to an Opening Weekend 3D Screening of Walt Disney Pictures’ ALADDIN
Please RSVP below
(RSVPs close at 12:00PM on Friday, May 24) Saturday, May 25, 2019 at 4:00PM
Walt Disney Studios Main Theater
500 S. Buena Vista St., Burbank, CA 91521
(Please enter through the Alameda gate and park as directed.) Click here for a map
Screenings are overbooked to compensate for no-shows. Seating is limited and will be available on a first come, first served basis. An RSVP does not guarantee seating.
VES Members and Their Guests are Invited to a Screening of Summit Entertainment’s JOHN WICK 3: PARABELLUM
Please RSVP below
Friday, May 24, 2019 at 8:00PM
Sony Pictures Imageworks – Ray Harryhausen Theater
9050 W. Washington Blvd., Culver City, CA 90232 Click here for a map.
Screenings are overbooked to compensate for no-shows. Seating is limited and will be available on a first come, first served basis. An RSVP does not guarantee seating.
VES Members and a Guest are Invited to Attend the Art Directors Guild Screening of THE 10TH VICTIM (1965) Exploring a Futuristic Op-Art Classic followed by a conversation with KCRW’s DnA: Design and Architecture host Frances Anderton, USC’s Annenberg School Professor and Author of PROJECTING TOMORROWNicholas J. Cull and two time Oscar nominated Production Designer Guy Hendrix Dyas ADG, (PASSENGERS and INCEPTION), moderated by Production Designer John Muto ADG.
The Egyptian Theatre, Hollywood
6712 Hollywood Blvd. Hollywood, CA 90028 Click here for a map.
THE 10th VICTIM is a futuristic Italian socio-political sex-and-murder action comedy starring the impossibly glamorous Ursula Andress and Italian megastar, Marcello Mastroianni. Anticipating the rise of out-of-control reality TV by 50 years, the film matches the pair by computer as hunter and victim in The Big Hunt, a deadly game designed to stifle human aggression by offering individuals the opportunity to kill or be killed, earning status, fame, and money on live TV. Directed by Elio Petri (INVESTIGATION OF A CITIZEN ABOVE SUSPICION), the film is written by Tonino Guerra (BLOW UP) and designed by Piero Poletto (RED DESERT). THE 10th VICTIM takes place in a future Rome, mixing classical architecture with ultramodern Op Art design, retro-glamorous haute-couture, and pulsating electro pop jazz by Piero Piccioni.
Panel discussion will include host of KCRW’s DnA: Design and Architecture Frances Anderton, USC’s Annenberg School Professor and Author of PROJECTING TOMORROWNicholas J. Cull and two time Oscar nominated Production Designer Guy Hendrix Dyas ADG, (PASSENGERS and INCEPTION), moderated by Production Designer John Muto ADG, Film Society Founder and Co-chair.
VES Members and a Guest are Invited to Attend the Art Directors Guild Screening of THE 10TH VICTIM (1965) Exploring a Futuristic Op-Art Classic followed by a conversation with KCRW’s DnA: Design and Architecture host Frances Anderton, USC’s Annenberg School Professor and Author of PROJECTING TOMORROWNicholas J. Cull and two time Oscar nominated Production Designer Guy Hendrix Dyas ADG, (PASSENGERS and INCEPTION), moderated by Production Designer John Muto ADG.
The Egyptian Theatre, Hollywood
6712 Hollywood Blvd. Hollywood, CA 90028 Click here for a map.
THE 10th VICTIM is a futuristic Italian socio-political sex-and-murder action comedy starring the impossibly glamorous Ursula Andress and Italian megastar, Marcello Mastroianni. Anticipating the rise of out-of-control reality TV by 50 years, the film matches the pair by computer as hunter and victim in The Big Hunt, a deadly game designed to stifle human aggression by offering individuals the opportunity to kill or be killed, earning status, fame, and money on live TV. Directed by Elio Petri (INVESTIGATION OF A CITIZEN ABOVE SUSPICION), the film is written by Tonino Guerra (BLOW UP) and designed by Piero Poletto (RED DESERT). THE 10th VICTIM takes place in a future Rome, mixing classical architecture with ultramodern Op Art design, retro-glamorous haute-couture, and pulsating electro pop jazz by Piero Piccioni.
Panel discussion will include host of KCRW’s DnA: Design and Architecture Frances Anderton, USC’s Annenberg School Professor and Author of PROJECTING TOMORROWNicholas J. Cull and two time Oscar nominated Production Designer Guy Hendrix Dyas ADG, (PASSENGERS and INCEPTION), moderated by Production Designer John Muto ADG, Film Society Founder and Co-chair.
VES Members and Their Guests are Invited to a 3D Screening of Warner Bros. Pictures’ and Legendary Entertainment’s POKEMON: DETECTIVE PIKACHU
Please RSVP below
Friday, May 17, 2019 at 8:00PM
Sony Pictures Imageworks – Ray Harryhausen Theater
9050 W. Washington Blvd., Culver City, CA 90232 Click here for a map.
Screenings are overbooked to compensate for no-shows. Seating is limited and will be available on a first come, first served basis. An RSVP does not guarantee seating.
VES Members and Their Families are Invited to a 3D Screening of Walt Disney Pictures’ and Marvel Studios’ AVENGERS: ENDGAME followed by a Q&A with the Filmmakers
Panelists will include Visual Effects Producer Jen Underdahl, ILM Visual Effects Supervisor Russell Earl, Digital Domain Visual Effects Supervisor Kelly Port, and Associate Visual Effects Supervisor Mårten Larsson, moderated by VES Board member Jeff Kleiser. (All panelists’ participation based on availability.)
Please RSVP below
(RSVPs close at 12:00PM on Friday, May 3) Saturday, May 4, 2019 at 3:00PM
Walt Disney Studios Main Theater
500 S. Buena Vista St., Burbank, CA 91521
(Please enter through the Alameda gate and park as directed.) Click here for a map
Screenings are overbooked to compensate for no-shows. Seating is limited and will be available on a first come, first served basis. An RSVP does not guarantee seating.
VES Members and Their Families are Invited to a Pre-Release Screening of STX Entertainment’s UGLYDOLLS
Please RSVP below
Monday, April 29, 2019 at 8:00PM
Sony Pictures Imageworks – Ray Harryhausen Theater
9050 W. Washington Blvd., Culver City, CA 90232 Click here for a map.
Screenings are overbooked to compensate for no-shows. Seating is limited and will be available on a first come, first served basis. An RSVP does not guarantee seating.
VES Members and a Guest are Invited to Attend the Art Directors Guild Screening of MARY POPPINS (1964) Practically Perfect in Every Way: Celebrating the Artists Behind a Classic! followed by a conversation with Production & Costume Designer Tony Walton, VES Founders Award recipient Harrison Ellenshaw and writer-director-producer Theodore Thomas moderated by Jeff Kurtti and Thomas A. Walsh ADG.
The Egyptian Theatre, Hollywood
6712 Hollywood Blvd. Hollywood, CA 90028 Click here for a map.
Besides being an enduring motion picture classic, Mary Poppins was a masterfully creative and technical milestone for the Walt Disney Studio. We will be celebrating the visual magicians behind the scenes by sharing untold stories and a unique perspective of the film, its artisans, and their creative legacy. Joining our panel will be Tony Walton the film’s Costume and Design Consultant, Harrison Ellenshaw, son of Peter Ellenshaw, the film’s special effects and master matte artist, and Theodore Thomas, son of Frank Thomas, one of Disney’s revered nine-old men, and the animator behind the dancing penguins. For this special event we will be screening the 50th Anniversary Remastered Edition of the film.
VES Members and Their Guests are Invited to a Screening of Annapurna Pictures’ MISSING LINK
Please RSVP below
Saturday, April 20, 2019 at 11:00AM
Linwood Dunn Theater at the Pickford Center for Motion Picture Study
1313 Vine Street, Los Angeles, CA 90028,
(Free parking off Homewood Avenue, one block North of Fountain) Enter parking lot from Homewood Avenue, which is a one-way street heading east. Recommended to approach from south, via Cahuenga Avenue. Parking lot opens one hour prior to event, and will be closed and locked 30 minutes after the conclusion of the event. Click here for a map.
Screenings are overbooked to compensate for no-shows. Seating is limited and will be available on a first come, first served basis. An RSVP does not guarantee seating.
An enlightening presentation and panel discussion on the value of live, on-set prosthetics and animatronics work in the digital age, and how digital artists can work in collaboration with these cinematic artforms for even more effective creative storytelling; set in the midst of a fascinatingmuseum exhibit showcasing the work of the artists of Amalgamated Dynamics.
Panelists:Tom Woodruff, Jr., and key members of his creative team at ADI
VES Members and Their Guests are Invited to a Screening of Lionsgate’s HELLBOY
Please RSVP below
Monday, April 15, 2019 at 8:00PM
Sony Pictures Imageworks – Ray Harryhausen Theater
9050 W. Washington Blvd., Culver City, CA 90232 Click here for a map.
Screenings are overbooked to compensate for no-shows. Seating is limited and will be available on a first come, first served basis. An RSVP does not guarantee seating.
VES Members and Their Guests are Invited to a Screening of Paramount Pictures’ PET SEMATARY
Please RSVP below Friday, April 12, 2019 at 8:00PM
The Sherry Lansing Theater on the Paramount studio lot
5555 Melrose Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90038
(Please enter through the Melrose gate and park as directed.) Click here for a map
Screenings are overbooked to compensate for no-shows. Seating is limited and will be available on a first come, first served basis. An RSVP does not guarantee seating.
VES Members and Their Families are Invited to a 3D Screening of Walt Disney Pictures’ DUMBO
Please RSVP below
(RSVPs close at 12:00PM on Friday, April 5) Sunday, April 7, 2019 at 6:00PM
Walt Disney Studios Main Theater
500 S. Buena Vista St., Burbank, CA 91521
(Please enter through the Alameda gate and park as directed.) Click here for a map
Screenings are overbooked to compensate for no-shows. Seating is limited and will be available on a first come, first served basis. An RSVP does not guarantee seating.
VES LA is offering discounted group tickets for members & their guests.
MUST PURCHASE AHEAD OF TIME – Please log in for member link.
Sunday, March 31, 2019
4:00pm Self-guided Group Tour
Meet at 3:45p at the Main Box Office
3D: Double Vision is the first American exhibition to survey a full range of artworks, dating from 1838 to the present, that produce the illusion of three dimensions. These artworks function by activating binocular vision—the process by which our brains synthesize the information received by our two eyes into a single, volumetric image.
Drawn from the realms of art, science, mass culture, and entertainment, the artworks in 3D: Double Vision will dazzle the eyes and provoke the imagination. Ultimately, to experience 3D is to engage with questions about the nature of perception, the allure of illusionism, and our relationship with the technologies that create such images.
* Guests who qualify for free admission can simply check-in ahead of time & meet by the Box Office at 3:45pm (i.e., LACMA members, Children 17 & under, and registered NextGen families — child member & adult must be present).
After touring the exhibit, members may choose to go diner together at one of the many nearby restaurants, or there is a free concert that evening at LACMA:
VES Members and Their Families are Invited to a 3D Screening of Paramount Pictures’ WONDER PARK
Please RSVP below Saturday, March 23, 2019 at 3:00PM
The Sherry Lansing Theater on the Paramount studio lot
5555 Melrose Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90038
(Please enter through the Melrose gate and park as directed.) Click here for a map
Screenings are overbooked to compensate for no-shows. Seating is limited and will be available on a first come, first served basis. An RSVP does not guarantee seating.
VES Members and Their Families are Invited to an Opening Weekend 3D Screening of Walt Disney Pictures’ and Marvel Studios’ CAPTAIN MARVEL followed by a Q&A with the Filmmakers. Panelists will include Directors Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck as well as Additional Visual Effects Supervisor Janelle Croshaw Ralla, moderated by Bill Taylor, VES, ASC. (Panelists will be announced as they are confirmed.)
Please RSVP below
(RSVPs close at 12:00PM on Friday, March 8) Sunday, March 10, 2019 at 11:00AM
Walt Disney Studios Main Theater
500 S. Buena Vista St., Burbank, CA 91521
(Please enter through the Alameda gate and park as directed.) Click here for a map
Screenings are overbooked to compensate for no-shows. Seating is limited and will be available on a first come, first served basis. An RSVP does not guarantee seating.
VES Members and Their Guests are Invited to an Opening Weekend 3D Screening of DreamWorks Animation and Universal Pictures’ HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON: THE HIDDEN WORLD followed by a Q&A with Director Dean DeBlois, Producer Brad Lewis, Visual Effects Supervisor Dave Walvood, Head of Character Animation Simon Otto and Head of Effects Li-Ming ‘Lawrence’ Lee moderated by Director Bill Kroyer. (All panelists’ participation based on availability.)
Please RSVP below
Saturday, February 23, 2019 at 11:00AM
DreamWorks Animation Studios’ Campanile theater 1000 Flower St, Glendale, CA 91201 Click here for a map.
Screenings are overbooked to compensate for no-shows. Seating is limited and will be available on a first come, first served basis. An RSVP does not guarantee seating.
VES Members and Their Guests are Invited to a Screening of 20th Century Fox’s ALITA: BATTLE ANGEL
Please RSVP below Sunday, February 17, 2018 at 7:00PM
(RSVPs will close at 12:00PM on Friday, February 15) Zanuck Theater on the 20th Century Fox Studio lot
10201 West Pico Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90064-2606 Click here for a map
Screenings are overbooked to compensate for no-shows. Seating is limited and will be available on a first come, first served basis. An RSVP does not guarantee seating.
VES Members and Their Guests are Invited to a 3D Screening of Warner Bros. Pictures’ THE LEGO MOVIE 2: THE SECOND PART
Please RSVP below
Monday, February 11, 2019 at 8:00PM
Sony Pictures Imageworks – Ray Harryhausen Theater
9050 W. Washington Blvd., Culver City, CA 90232 Click here for a map.
Screenings are overbooked to compensate for no-shows. Seating is limited and will be available on a first come, first served basis. An RSVP does not guarantee seating.
Paul will present Google’s latest breakthroughs with light field technology and discuss the making of Google VR’s award-winning VR experience, Welcome to Light Fields.
Ivan Neulander, Lead Rendering Engineer at Google
Rendering Google’s Playground
Ivan will present an overview of lighting and rendering techniques deployed inPlayground, Google’s creative AR app for Android phones.
Moderator:
Scott Squires, Technical Academy Award-winning VFX Supervisor, CTO/Creative Director ofPixvana, a company dedicated to bringing VR experiences to life.
The event includes refreshments and VR demos after the presentations.
LA ACM SIGGRAPH & VES Los Angeles Section Present:
STEVE WRIGHT: THE ART AND SCIENCE OF COMPOSITING VISUAL EFFECTS
Steve Wright gives an in-person overview of VFX compositing techniques to those artists who RSVP to deepen their understanding of its critical role in visual effects.
Tuesday, January 8th, 2019
6:30 – 7:30 PM Social Hour
7:30 – 9:15 PM Program Presentation
Description
Join the members of the VES Los Angeles Section & LA ACM SIGGRAPH as we engage in a tour of the tools, techniques, and artistic requirements for compositing visual effects.
Demonstrations of how compositing is used for camera tracking, set extension, camera projection, blue/green screen keying, color correcting, tracking, clean plate construction, and multi-pass CGI compositing. Advance your knowledge of what compositors do and how they do it.
A rare look into the math and science behind the incredible technology used in Nuke, the de facto industry standard visual effects compositing software by the Foundry, coupled with demonstrations of its applications to movie magic in today’s blockbuster films. We peer behind the black curtain at how hi-tech visual effects shots are executed and what it takes to set one up with advanced concepts like Deep Compositing, Alembic Geometry, Camera Projection and CGI AOV’s.
Compositing now holds a high position in the artistic expression of visual effects as compositors are now required to not only make shots compiled from multiple disparate sources merge together photo realistically, but to also make them look “cool”. Compositors are now providing the final “look” to the shot with their blending of multiple cgi lighting passes and artistically driven color correction.
LA ACM SIGGRAPH & VES Los Angeles Section Present:
STEVE WRIGHT: THE ART AND SCIENCE OF COMPOSITING VISUAL EFFECTS
Steve Wright gives an in-person overview of VFX compositing techniques to those artists who RSVP to deepen their understanding of its critical role in visual effects.
Tuesday, January 8th, 2019
6:30 – 7:30 PM Social Hour
7:30 – 9:15 PM Program Presentation
Description
Join the members of the VES Los Angeles Section & LA ACM SIGGRAPH as we engage in a tour of the tools, techniques, and artistic requirements for compositing visual effects.
Demonstrations of how compositing is used for camera tracking, set extension, camera projection, blue/green screen keying, color correcting, tracking, clean plate construction, and multi-pass CGI compositing. Advance your knowledge of what compositors do and how they do it.
A rare look into the math and science behind the incredible technology used in Nuke, the de facto industry standard visual effects compositing software by the Foundry, coupled with demonstrations of its applications to movie magic in today’s blockbuster films. We peer behind the black curtain at how hi-tech visual effects shots are executed and what it takes to set one up with advanced concepts like Deep Compositing, Alembic Geometry, Camera Projection and CGI AOV’s.
Compositing now holds a high position in the artistic expression of visual effects as compositors are now required to not only make shots compiled from multiple disparate sources merge together photo realistically, but to also make them look “cool”. Compositors are now providing the final “look” to the shot with their blending of multiple cgi lighting passes and artistically driven color correction.
VES Members and Their Guests are Invited to an Opening Night 3D Screening of Paramount Pictures’ BUMBLEBEE
Please RSVP below Thursday, December 20, 2018 at 8:00PM
The Sherry Lansing Theater on the Paramount studio lot
5555 Melrose Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90038
(Please enter through the Melrose gate and park as directed.) Click here for a map
Screenings are overbooked to compensate for no-shows. Seating is limited and will be available on a first come, first served basis. An RSVP does not guarantee seating.
VES Members and Their Guests are Invited to an Opening Night 3D Screening of Sony Pictures Animation’s SPIDER-MAN: INTO THE SPIDER-VERSE
Please RSVP below
Monday, December 17, 2018 at 8:00PM
Sony Pictures Imageworks – Ray Harryhausen Theater
9050 W. Washington Blvd., Culver City, CA 90232 Click here for a map.
Screenings are overbooked to compensate for no-shows. Seating is limited and will be available on a first come, first served basis. An RSVP does not guarantee seating.
VES Members and Their Guests are Invited to a Pre-Release Screening Of Universal Pictures’ WELCOME TO MARWEN followed by a Q&A with Visual Effects Supervisor Kevin Baillie, Miniature Effects Supervisor Dave Asling and Production Designer Stefan Dechant moderated by VES Founders Award recipient Gene Kozicki. (All panelists’ participation based on availability.)
Please RSVP below
Sunday, December 16, 2018 at 6:00PM
RealD Screening Room
100 N. Crescent Drive, Beverly Hills, CA 90210 Click here for a map.
Screenings are overbooked to compensate for no-shows. Seating is limited and will be available on a first come, first served basis. An RSVP does not guarantee seating.
VES Members and Their Families are Invited to a Pre-Release Screening of Walt Disney Studios’ MARY POPPINS RETURNS
Please RSVP below
(RSVPs close at 4:00PM on Friday, December 14) Saturday, December 15, 2018 at 4:00PM
Walt Disney Studios Main Theater
500 S. Buena Vista St., Burbank, CA 91521
(Please enter through the Alameda gate and park as directed.) Click here for a map
Screenings are overbooked to compensate for no-shows. Seating is limited and will be available on a first come, first served basis. An RSVP does not guarantee seating.
VES Members and Their Guests are Invited to a 3D Screening of Columbia Pictures’ ALPHA followed by a Q&A with Director Albert Hughes and Visual Effects Supervisor Jeffrey A. Okun, VES moderated by VES Chair Mike Chambers. (All panelists’ participation based on availability.)
Please RSVP below
Monday, December 10, 2018 at 8:00PM
Sony Pictures Imageworks – Ray Harryhausen Theater
9050 W. Washington Blvd., Culver City, CA 90232 Click here for a map.
Screenings are overbooked to compensate for no-shows. Seating is limited and will be available on a first come, first served basis. An RSVP does not guarantee seating.
VES Members and Their Families are Invited to a Pre-Release Screening of Universal Pictures’ MORTAL ENGINES followed by a Q&A with Visual Effects Supervisor Ken McGaugh, Animation Supervisor Dennis Yoo, Visual Effects Supervisor Luke Millar and Visual Effects Supervisor Kevin Smith moderated by VES Board member Jeff Kleiser. (All panelists’ participation based on availability.)
Please RSVP below Sunday, December 2, 2018 at 11:00AM (RSVPs close at 5:00PM on Friday, November 30)
AMC Century City 10250 Santa Monica Blvd #2000, Los Angeles, CA 90067 Click here for a map.
Screenings are overbooked to compensate for no-shows. Seating is limited and will be available on a first come, first served basis. An RSVP does not guarantee seating.
VES Members and Their Families are Invited to a 3D Screening of Netflix’s MOWGLI followed by a Q&A with Director Andy Serkis, Animation Supervisor Max Solomon and Members of the Visual Effects Team T.B.A. moderated by VES Board member Richard Winn Taylor II, VES. (All panelists’ participation based on availability.)
Please RSVP below Saturday, December 1, 2018 at 11:00AM (RSVPs close at 5:00PM on Friday, November 30)
Pacific Design Center’s Silver Screen Theater
(Complimentary parking in the PDC structure. Enter on Melrose.)
8687 Melrose Ave., West Hollywood, CA 90069 Click here for a map.
Screenings are overbooked to compensate for no-shows. Seating is limited and will be available on a first come, first served basis. An RSVP does not guarantee seating.
VES Members and a Guest are Invited to a Screening of Netflix’s THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WIND followed by a live Q&A that will originate from San Francisco. Panelists will include Visual Effects Supervisor John Knoll and Whiskytree Visual Effects Supervisor Jonathan Harb moderated by VES Board member Rose Duignan. (All panelists’ participation based on availability.)
Please RSVP below Friday, November 30, 2018 at 8:00PM
Netflix’s Upside Down screening room
(This is a very small room, so please sign up only if you can attend.)
5808 Sunset Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90028
(Please enter through the Van Ness gate and park as directed.) Click here for a map
Please tweet your questions after the screening in order to participate in the Q&A panel (which will take place in San Francisco) immediately following the screening. (be sure to include the hashtag, #VESWELLES, in your tweet.)
Screenings are overbooked to compensate for no-shows. Seating is limited and will be available on a first come, first served basis. An RSVP does not guarantee seating.
VES Members and Their Families are Invited to a 3D Screening of Universal Pictures’ and Illumination Entertainment’s DR. SEUSS’ THE GRINCH
Please RSVP below (VES members must login to sign up.) Sunday, November 18, 2017 at 4:00PM (Enter from Gate 1 on Lankershim Blvd.)
(RSVPs will close at 12:00PM on Friday, November 16)
Universal Studios Theater #1
4050 Lankershim Blvd, Studio City, CA 91604 Click here for a map.
Screenings are overbooked to compensate for no-shows. Seating is limited and will be available on a first come, first served basis. An RSVP does not guarantee seating.
VES Members and Their Families are Invited to a Pre-Release Screening of Walt Disney Animation Studios’ RALPH BREAKS THE INTERNET followed by a Q&A with Visual Effects Supervisor Scott Kersavage, Character Look Development Supervisor Michelle Robinson and Head of Effects Animation Cesar Velazquezmoderated by VES Board member Charlie Iturriaga. (All panelists’ participation based on availability.)
Please RSVP below
(RSVPs close at 12:00PM on Friday, November 16) Saturday, November 17, 2018 at 11:00AM
Walt Disney Studios Main Theater
500 S. Buena Vista St., Burbank, CA 91521
(Please enter through the Alameda gate and park as directed.) Click here for a map
Screenings are overbooked to compensate for no-shows. Seating is limited and will be available on a first come, first served basis. An RSVP does not guarantee seating.
VES Members and Their Guests are Invited to a Screening of Paramount Pictures’ OVERLORD
Click here to RSVP Monday, November 12, 2018 at 8:00PM
The Sherry Lansing Theater on the Paramount studio lot
5555 Melrose Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90038
(Please enter through the Melrose gate and park as directed.) Click here for a map
Screenings are overbooked to compensate for no-shows. Seating is limited and will be available on a first come, first served basis. An RSVP does not guarantee seating.
VES Members and Their Guests are Invited to an Opening Night Screening of Columbia Pictures’ THE GIRL IN THE SPIDER’S WEB
Please RSVP below
Friday, November 9, 2018 at 8:00PM
Sony Pictures Imageworks – Ray Harryhausen Theater
9050 W. Washington Blvd., Culver City, CA 90232 Click here for a map.
Screenings are overbooked to compensate for no-shows. Seating is limited and will be available on a first come, first served basis. An RSVP does not guarantee seating.
VES Members and Their Guests are Invited to a Screening of 20th Century Fox’s BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY
Please RSVP below Sunday, November 4, 2018 at 7:00PM
(RSVPs will close at 12:00PM on Friday, November 2) Blakely Theater on the 20th Century Fox Studio lot
10201 West Pico Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90064-2606 Click here for a map
Screenings are overbooked to compensate for no-shows. Seating is limited and will be available on a first come, first served basis. An RSVP does not guarantee seating.
VES Members and Their Families are Invited to an Opening Weekend 3D Screening of Walt Disney Pictures’ THE NUTCRACKER AND THE FOUR REALMS
Please RSVP below Sunday, November 4, 2018 at 3:00PM
(RSVPs close at 12:00PM on Friday, November 2)
Walt Disney Studios Main Theater
500 S. Buena Vista St., Burbank, CA 91521
(Please enter through the Alameda gate and park as directed.) Click here for a map
Screenings are overbooked to compensate for no-shows. Seating is limited and will be available on a first come, first served basis. An RSVP does not guarantee seating.
VES members are invited to Infinity Film Festival™ (IFF) in Beverly Hills, November 1 – 4, 2018,with Title Sponsor RYOT andpresented by Epic Games, Unreal Engine, and co-presented by D-BOX. Celebrating story advanced by technology, the festival’s 80+ advisors from the leading studios, talent agencies and technology companies invite you to experience unique moments in time through more than 75 hours of screenings, 30 technology exhibitions and over 100 industry-leading speakers from Hollywood, Silicon Valley and Silicon Beach. Networking opportunities and gala evening events include an Opening Night VIP Reception, in partnership with CTA, to feature the “CES 2019 Preview,” hosted at United Talent Agency.
• Screenings, Speakers and Exhibitions to be featured at The Paley Center for Media, the Writers Guild Theater and more
• November 1 – 4, 2018
• World Premiere Feature: The Restoration of “War of the Worlds” by Paramount Pictures Studios
• Blockchain programming by Greenfence
• Art + Museums programming by Sotheby’s
• Shorts programming in partnership with Audience Awards
• Animation programming by GLAS Animation Festival and Creative Capers
• IFF Tech Lab™ Presented By Epic Games and Unreal Engine (Makers of “Fortnite”)
• IFF Student Lab™ Presented by Presented by Chapman University and UT Austin
• Luxury Real Estate Partner: Hilton & Hyland
• Media Partners: Los Angeles Times, Variety, Fast Company, OUTFRONT Media, Regan Arts, TAG – The Awareness Group, Mashable, IGN, TechCrunch
• Cutting-Edge Technology Exhibitions to include: Sotheby’s, D-Box, Walt Disney Studios, Intel, Positron, Hologate, The Third Floor and more
VES Members and Their Guests are Invited to a Screening of Universal Pictures’ HALLOWEEN
Please RSVP below
Friday, October 26, 2018 at 8:00PM
Sony Pictures Imageworks – Ray Harryhausen Theater
9050 W. Washington Blvd., Culver City, CA 90232 Click here for a map.
Screenings are overbooked to compensate for no-shows. Seating is limited and will be available on a first come, first served basis. An RSVP does not guarantee seating.
VES Members and Their Guests are Invited to a Screening of Walt Disney Pictures’ and Marvel Studios’ BLACK PANTHER followed by a live interactive Q&A with Writer/Director Ryan Coogler, Visual Effects Supervisor Geoffrey Baumann, ILM Visual Effects Supervisor Craig Hammack, Additional Visual Effects Supervisor Jesse James Chisholm and Special Effects Supervisor Dan Sudick moderated by VES Board member David Tanaka. (All panelists’ participation based on availability.)
Please RSVP below
Saturday, October 20, 2018 at 12:00PM
Frank G. Wells Theater on the Walt Disney Studios lot
(Please enter through the Alameda Gate East of Buena Vista)
500 S. Buena Vista St., Burbank, CA 91451 Click here for a map
Please tweet your questions after the screening in order to participate in the Q&A panel (which will take place in San Francisco) immediately following the screening. (be sure to include the hashtag, #VESWAKANDA4EVER, in your tweet.)
Screenings are overbooked to compensate for no-shows. Seating is limited and will be available on a first come, first served basis. An RSVP does not guarantee seating.
Get your tickets now for the 2nd annual ANIMATION IS FILM Festival on October 19-21, 2018 at the TCL Chinese Theater in Hollywood for one weekend of the year’s best in animation. The films in this year’s program include world premieres and retrospectives, studio previews and international indies, Oscar favorites and dark horses.
The Festival will present a highly selective showcase of the best animated films from around the world, plus red carpet, filmmaker Q&As, special events, receptions, and both juried and audience awards.
(VES members must login in order to see the discount code below.)
Get your tickets now for the 2nd annual ANIMATION IS FILM Festival on October 19-21, 2018 at the TCL Chinese Theater in Hollywood for one weekend of the year’s best in animation. The films in this year’s program include world premieres and retrospectives, studio previews and international indies, Oscar favorites and dark horses.
The Festival will present a highly selective showcase of the best animated films from around the world, plus red carpet, filmmaker Q&As, special events, receptions, and both juried and audience awards.
(VES members must login in order to see the discount code below.)
VES Members and Their Guests are Invited to a Screening of 20th Century Fox’s BAD TIMES AT THE EL ROYALE
Please RSVP below
Thursday, October 18, 2018 at 8:00PM
Sony Pictures Imageworks – Ray Harryhausen Theater
9050 W. Washington Blvd., Culver City, CA 90232 Click here for a map.
Screenings are overbooked to compensate for no-shows. Seating is limited and will be available on a first come, first served basis. An RSVP does not guarantee seating.
VES Members and Their Guests are Invited to a 3D Screening of Columbia Pictures’ VENOM
Please RSVP below
Monday, October 8, 2018 at 8:00PM
Sony Pictures Imageworks – Ray Harryhausen Theater
9050 W. Washington Blvd., Culver City, CA 90232 Click here for a map.
Screenings are overbooked to compensate for no-shows. Seating is limited and will be available on a first come, first served basis. An RSVP does not guarantee seating.
VES Members and Their Guests are Invited to a Pre-Release IMAX Screening of Universal Pictures’ FIRST MAN followed by a Presentation and Q&A with Visual Effects Supervisor Paul Lambert, Miniature Effects Supervisor Ian Hunter and Special Effects Supervisor J.D. Schwalm moderated by VES 1st Vice Chair Jeffrey A. Okun, VES. (All panelists’ participation based on availability.)
Please RSVP below
(RSVPs close at 12:00PM on Friday, October 5) Saturday, October 6, 2018 at 12:00PM
IMAX Playa Vista 12582 Millennium Dr, Los Angeles, CA 90094 Click here for a map
Screenings are overbooked to compensate for no-shows. Seating is limited and will be available on a first come, first served basis. An RSVP does not guarantee seating.
Join DGA members and other industry professionals for learning and networking around the creative, technical and business issues emerging from new technologies. With panels, presentations, exhibits, hands-on demos and MORE.
VES Members and Their Guests are Invited to a Screening of Universal Pictures’ THE HOUSE WITH A CLOCK IN ITS WALLS
Please RSVP below
Friday, September 28, 2018 at 8:00PM
Sony Pictures Imageworks – Ray Harryhausen Theater
9050 W. Washington Blvd., Culver City, CA 90232 Click here for a map.
Screenings are overbooked to compensate for no-shows. Seating is limited and will be available on a first come, first served basis. An RSVP does not guarantee seating.
VES Members and Their Guests are Invited to a Screening of Annapurna Pictures’ THE SISTERS BROTHERS
Please RSVP below
Wednesday, September 26, 2018 at 8:00PM
Sony Pictures Imageworks – Ray Harryhausen Theater
9050 W. Washington Blvd., Culver City, CA 90232 Click here for a map.
Screenings are overbooked to compensate for no-shows. Seating is limited and will be available on a first come, first served basis. An RSVP does not guarantee seating.
VES receive FREE Passes to the 5th Annual UCFTI Expo
Connect and collaborate at the 5th Annual U.S. China Film and Television Industry Expo, Sept. 26-27 at the LA Convention Center. Hear industry experts discuss how to capture an international audience and hear how the latest technologies are transforming the global movie industry from VES members. Click here for more informatation about the program.
(VES members must login to see the code for free passes below.)
VES Members and Their Guests are Invited to an Opening Weekend Screening of 20th Century Fox’s THE PREDATOR
Please RSVP below
(RSVPs close at 12:00PM on Friday, September 14) Saturday, September 15, 2018 at 7:00PM
(RSVPs close on Friday, September 14 at 2:00PM)
Zanuck Theater on the 20th Century Fox Studio lot
10201 West Pico Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90064-2606 Click here for a map.
Screenings are overbooked to compensate for no-shows. Seating is limited and will be available on a first come, first served basis. An RSVP does not guarantee seating.
VES Members and Their Guests are Invited to an Opening Night Screening of Sony Pictures’ WHITE BOY RICK
Please RSVP below
Friday, September 14, 2018 at 8:00PM
(RSVPs close on Friday, September 14 at 2:00PM)
Sony Pictures Imageworks – Ray Harryhausen Theater
9050 W. Washington Blvd., Culver City, CA 90232 Click here for a map.
Screenings are overbooked to compensate for no-shows. Seating is limited and will be available on a first come, first served basis. An RSVP does not guarantee seating.
VES Members and Their Guests are Invited to a Screening of STX Entertainment’s PEPPERMINT
Please RSVP below
Monday, September 10, 2018 at 8:00PM
Sony Pictures Imageworks – Ray Harryhausen Theater
9050 W. Washington Blvd., Culver City, CA 90232 Click here for a map.
Screenings are overbooked to compensate for no-shows. Seating is limited and will be available on a first come, first served basis. An RSVP does not guarantee seating.
VES Members and Their Guests are Invited to an Opening Night Screening of STX Entertainment’s THE HAPPYTIME MURDERS followed by a Q&A with Director Brian Henson, Actors and Puppeteers Bill Barretta and Drew Massey, Visual Effects Producer Melissa Brockman, Compositing Supervisor Caleb Knueven and CG Supervisor Efram Potelle moderated by VES Chair Mike Chambers. (All panelists’ participation based on availability.)
This film is Rated R, and is not intended for children. Click here to watch the trailer.
Please RSVP below
Friday, August 24, 2018 at 7:00PM Harmony Gold (complimentary parking will be provided)
7655 W. Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90046 Click here for a map.
Screenings are overbooked to compensate for no-shows. Seating is limited and will be available on a first come, first served basis. An RSVP does not guarantee seating.
VES Members and Their Guests are Invited to a 3D Screening of Columbia Pictures’ ALPHA
Please RSVP below
Thursday, August 23, 2018 at 8:00PM
Sony Pictures Imageworks – Ray Harryhausen Theater
9050 W. Washington Blvd., Culver City, CA 90232 Click here for a map.
Screenings are overbooked to compensate for no-shows. Seating is limited and will be available on a first come, first served basis. An RSVP does not guarantee seating.
VES Members and Their Guests are Invited to a Screening of Focus Features’ BLACKkKLANSMAN
Please RSVP below
Thursday, August 16, 2018 at 8:00PM
Sony Pictures Imageworks – Ray Harryhausen Theater
9050 W. Washington Blvd., Culver City, CA 90232 Click here for a map.
Screenings are overbooked to compensate for no-shows. Seating is limited and will be available on a first come, first served basis. An RSVP does not guarantee seating.
Additional Parking Information will be emailed to guests who RSVP’d before the event.
WHAT MOVIE WON? JOIN US TONIGHT TO FIND OUT!
Now that the 18th Annual VES Awards season is underway, we once again invite VES members to participate in our Nomination Panels. The Nomination Event will be held worldwide on January 4, 2020.
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