The first of the final two Harry Potter films was recently release, and already has the largest opening sales numbers. Where will it go from here?

Harry Potter films have yielded a steady flow of money. Below is a rather interesting infographic that breaks down the film series.

[Guide to Online Schools]

Comedic actor Leslie Nielsen and Empire Strikes Back director Irvin Kershner have passed away.

Nielsen, 84, passed away yesterday (Sunday, November 28, 2010) due to pneumonia. He was known for his comedic slap stick humor on the Airplane films, Naked Gun series and countless others from the 80s and 90s.

Kershner known for the Empire Strikes Back and the bond film Never Say Never Again, passed away at 87-years-old. He was struggling with a long-term illness.

What was your favorite Nielsen quote? Let’s hope the celebrity rule of three is just a myth.

The latest trailer for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows was released yesterday. It looks amazing.

On November 19, the first part of the Harry Potter finale will be released. Needless to say people will be lining up at their local theaters and IMAX’s at midnight to get a last taste before the final piece. You know, until they decide to make a prequel involving his parents, it’s inevitable.

Tron Legacy

Tron Legacy hits theaters December 17, which is 28 years after the original.

No comments needed, behold the awesomeness.

Who would have figured Tron would ever be a trending topic on Twitter. Tron breached the trends at number five and will quite possibly reach number one at its full release.

Iron Man 2

The latest installment of Iron Man hits in May, but Favreau has released a new trailer with tons of goodies.

There isn’t much to be said on this movie, as it already is generating a mass amount of buzz on trailers alone. For those curious as to where Terrence Howard went, apparently he was quite difficult during the first film, which caused the writer to minimize his roll anyways. In comes Cheadle, the sort of terrible actor from the Ocean’s 11-10000 films. Hopefully he can take over as War Machine, but with that aside it looks bad ass.

From the new release '9'

[Jonny Volkman]

(Clemson, SC) – Director Shane Acker visited Clemson University to discuss design concepts from his recent feature film, “9.”

When asked about how he handled the journey from being an independent animator to a feature film director, Acker responded, “You must be comfortable being uncomfortable. Roll with it.”

Acker went into detail about design concepts that help save time and money when working on a tight schedule and budget. “Knowing what you want is half the battle. There is always a creative solution,” he explains that preparation is more difficult than execution. Mapping out the storyboard into segments helps pinpoint important scenes.

The film’s budget was heavily allocated to select segments that were crucial to the story. This is a very focused process, selecting 3-second clips. Typically, a digital feature film produces 3 to 5 seconds a week. Acker was able to produce 8 seconds a week by using several tricks.

When creating the characters in the film, two main problems arose. They needed to be mapped in grids and they needed to be covered in different organic textures. When metal or cloth is seen in a digital world, it is expected to act like the real objects. The grid was later seen as a solution when handling these organic textures. It is easier to “suggest” cloth by adding pinches to corresponding portions, to portray a shift in volume, rather than creating a complete physics rendering of an object or character.

High-resolution imagery and attention to detail is costly and often unnecessary. “It is a creative challenge. You have to fit it all in the box. You can let the audience fill in the details,” Acker explains the power of suggestion can and should be used to a designer’s advantage. After the audience sees a highly detailed object or character, they assume that much detail is present even at a distance. A low-resolution image can be used in place of the object when it is not in focus.

Shane Acker

“We’re just cheating on a shot by shot basis.”

Backgrounds in less important scenes have less detail which is hidden using lighting, vignettes, dust, and smoke. These elements create depth and warmth, but also blur the planes between 2D and 3D images. When these elements are sent into motion, the 3D illusion is increased dramatically.

By using smaller high-resolution images in repetition it is possible to create depth, character, and detail cheaply and easily throughout the project. A “God” image is a single object that highly-detailed and develops a scene to more realistic standards. A single “Brick God” is used hundreds of times in a pile of rubble. Because it is a highly detailed image, changing the angle and lighting will give the illusion of variation within the pile. When several “God” images are used to create an element, this is called a “Hero” image. These images are made up of many 3D images and can be used in many scenes as reference points for the audience.

Often going into extreme detail on such a large project can be counter-productive. When very specific special effects are needed, rendering them can be difficult if not impossible. By hand drawing special effects, you can actually save time and money while being able to specify detail to a precise degree when it is otherwise difficult to render. Additionally, when a previous element has already been created, it is foolish to try to do it again. Acker used a 3D person, previously rendered for a 1940’s baseball film, in his project where humans are not the main characters.

By tagging each and every object in the film, they can be called up in post production. They can be re-lighted and re-touched as needed without re-creating the entire scene. Tricks like these are essential to making an enormous project efficient and manageable. Acker, 38, has spent the last seven years on this project and generously gave his time and knowledge to those eager to learn the animation process of a digital feature film. With his advice, students will be able to imagine bigger without having to limit themselves in production.

Boondock Staints 2: All Saints Day

If you haven’t already seen Boondock Saints you won’t even begin to understand why this terribly under marketed flick may strike huge box office numbers. Much like Evil Dead 2 and Super Troopers have created a cult following by word of mouth – sadly after it’s box office release – a second chance may already be off to a poor start.  On October 30, 2009 Boondock Saints: All Saints day is to be released! Yet the only real promotion of the film has been from word of mouth and small bits on the viral web. So this is just our little part and would highly advise you to check out the first film and the newest edition on October 30.

In the mean while check out Landlord of the  Flies. The tale of an individual gettings screwed over by a crazy landlord and how he is exacting his revenge. It’s pretty funny and the conclusion is quickly approaching. (This is supposedly true stuff.)

The following is the burrito rankings and quick shot reviews of some of the most popular summer flicks

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

Burrito scoring for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

Graphics: Brilliant to say the least. Not a hint of that awkward 90s CGI crap that used to plaque the summer films.

5/5 burritos.

Story Line: Not a whole lot of action or interesting plot lines in this bit. Just a lot of puberity moments and some really cool effects.

2/5 burritos.

Music/Sound FX: Nothing used awkwardly and none of the stock sound effects that I still continue to hear in films and TV shows. Always a decent sound track as well.

5/5 burritos.

Overall: The film is generally pretty boring and not much happens till the end of it. If you love Harry Potter this is bound to be another hit for you but if you were never a fan this is not the film to prove you other wise.

4/5 burritos.

Transfomers: Revenge of the Fallen

Burrito scoring for Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

Graphics: Explosions galore! Generally something great to watch, if you are mindless or ADD.

5/5 burritos.

Story Line: There was a story? If there was I sure couldn’t spot one as I basically just saw explosions and Fox running around like a stallion. Not complaining though…. Eyyyyyyyy. The twins robots though… Reason alone why this gets one buritto. Stereotyping in this age is one thing but blatantly giving the guys gold teeth and saying they can’t read is another. Gold teeth are so out of date it’s not even funny. Seriously though it’s not what we would call acceptable. Also the parents in the film have gone insane in comparision of the last and if I hear one more annoying oneliner joke from an autobot in the next movie… it’s game over.

2/5 burritos.

Music/Sound FX: Explosions and modern music… what more could you want? Aside from a decent story line.

4/5 burritos.

Overall: The movie is fun to watch… but do so under the influence of something.

4/5 burritos.

Purrrrrr

Burrito scoring for Termanator #22322 or something like that

Terminator Salvation

Graphics: Some of the most amazing special effects I’ve seen in quite some time.

5/5 burritos.

Story Line: The final piece of the puzzle was generally stupid and boring; however, the visuals make up for any boring story line. It flowed well enough to keep us entertained. Having a CGI version of The Governator was also pretty good.

3/5 burritos.

Music/Sound FX: An ok sound track and great sound FX.

4/5 burritos.

Overall: Cool movie to watch but generally not a good story, but since when does that actually matter?

4/5 burritos.

The EFM web site has finally been updated. While there may not be to much on it, the main goal of the site is to provide EFM with a service listing and portfolio of our professionally published work. EvO is diligently looking for a Washington DC Communications job so that he may properly fund Play This once again.

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Must use ...bathroom so... bad... To flush this crap down.

Did it stick to the story line from the comics/cartoon? No.

Was the replacement “original” storyline good? Terrible.

Brief plot- A love affair between Wolverine and someone who had nothing to do with the actual story of Wolverine. So long for deathstrike (She was killed in the second movie and was not a cyborg)

Did Wolverine and Sabertooth beat the shit out of each other? Yes, at least they got this part right.

Did they add in random characters? Yes, they added a role for Will.I.am … no idea why?

Acting overall: The acting was alright, but the characters overall matched nothing like that of it’s original.

Play This gives X-Men Origins: Wolverine 0 burritos out of 5. How can they create a movie called X-men origins if this comes nowhere close to its origin? That and Gambit was only in the film for 10 minutes and was sporting a terribly fake french accent.

Don’t waste your money for the theater, not even renting it. Wait for this piece of trashmo to hit HBO or FX.

Resident Evil Degeneration director Makoto Kamiya decided to take his film on a CG route far from the previous three. In lue of the terrible other CG only films like Final Fantasty, the perfection that comes from the movies graphics is just a taste of what is to come from our video games. Sadly the script and story line was pretty shallow and it seemed more so like a large advertisement with how amazing their CG graphics has come along.

The short end of the stick is the movie looks great, but the story line just leads away from the Umbrella Corp. onto the T-virus becoming a bio-terror attack weapon and the government hiding that it was created by humans. They are also trying to hide the G-virus (Nemesis project) until someone gets a hold of it. All in all the story line was pretty much junk and the film went by rather quickly, but the graphics boost the film to a great step towards hopefully a series of new CG films that don’t suck by epic proportions.

This film is worth a rent, but as there is not much in the special features department and the movie really doesn’t have much context to it you may as well just watch it and ditch it.

Resident Evil Degeneration receives 3/5 burritos