James McPhail

YouTube video by Vanity Fair ILM's VFX Secrets Behind Star Wars, Transformers & More | Vanity Fair

Vanity Fair asked me to talk about visual effects, and it was my great honor to show off some of ILM’s terrific work over the years.

Todd Vaziri on Vanity Fair VFX
youtu.be/ERKEsIzTFas?...

Using someone's likeness like that without their permission is disgusting.

Why do they keep doing this? They belittle the entire community of VFX industry professionals. Is Christoph Waltz film illiterate? The film had over 200 digital VFX shots.

Enough with this crap.

Guillermo del Toro refused to make #Frankenstein with too much visual effects and green screens: "I want real sets." "I don't want digital. I don't want Al. I don't want simulation. I want old-fashioned craftsmanship. I want people painting, building, hammering, plastering."

me a few weeks ago: maybe we've turned a corner and the press won't continue to fan the flames of a non-existent war between movie departments

me today: ah shit

That quote was such a tiny part of that article as well and yet that is the quote they choose to pull to try and get people to read it. Variety should do better.

Weird choice of a pull quote to focus on out of that article. It is such a tiny part of it.

Jim Cameron on digital and physical effects: “It’s really the higher question of what are you trying to show, and what are you trying to say? I don’t attach some kind of dogmatic aesthetic around in-camera or practical... It’s really just a means to an end.”

source: youtu.be/v_x3OZlnkwM?...

"Personality, knowledge, and emotion are the three things that need to exist [in art] — and I'm sorry, they don't come from a fucking app." Del Toro sums it up 🫡

A book and audio cassette of Star Wars

A book and casette of The Empire Strikes Back

Your post reminded me what was in the last box of stuff my mum sent over to me. I listened to these so many times when I was little.

That looks fantastic.

Just wait until they release 28 months later and complicate everything🤣

I got sent one of those Amazon surveys about the show after they had already announced it was cancelled. Filled it out anyway on the slim chance they are still looking at it. It was a very detailed survey going into all the characters and storylines etc. I’m really disappointed it’s cancelled.

Yeah it's even more infuriating when the director or producer are bragging about how they didn't use CGI. Sometimes while we are hard at work doing vfx work on their movie. I miss the time when cg work was celebrated in BTS features etc.

It is so frustrating that so much online commentary has made CGI = bad for so many people that you get these sorts of contortions trying to say an incredibly well executed visual effects shot has "No CGI". I would love for these folks to see the work that artists put into shots like this.

one thing the AI uptick has shown is that people resent creatives so much for what they perceive to be "not real work." and that means creating a narrative that people are overpaid for things they don't perceive as important/valuable, but still form entire consumer identities around.

YouTube video by Industrial Light & Magic Industrial Light & Magic: 50 Years of Innovation

www.youtube.com/watch?v=649P... A great reel celebrating the first 50 years of ILM. A couple of shots I contributed to made it in.

Demand naming rights.

We're expecting another update from Vancouver Police later tonight about the tragedy at Lapu Lapu Day.

After that, we probably won't know much more for many hours.

Given the global attention already on it, a lot of speculation will inevitably happen.

The best thing you can do is not amplify it.

I want to believe!

Interviewer: I recognize that some people want their preferred version of Star Wars so much that they'll jockey for position in any way they can, but shouldn't we all be rooting for a rising tide in that case? Success means we can all win and get what we want. TG: Yeah, it doesn't make any sense to me. If you love this thing, then the more variety in it, [the better]. You can't talk about the Star Wars community: it's not a monolithic thing at all. There's 25 different versions i nthere. But I do go online, particularly when we're going out to sell or there's something intense or we're getting into marketing and we're trying to figure out what to do. So I do go online and look, and most of it is fantastic. But every now and then, there's just someone saying something that's completely appalling. The people who speak with the most authority online are usually the people who know the least. That seems to be a pretty fair theorem. So I don't to piss anybody off by saying this, but it is a big tent, man. It's a big frickin' tent. It should be."

He gives good interviews. Tony Gilroy in The Hollywood Reporter. Good bit here.

www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-featur...

Season 3 is by far the best season of #theWheelofTime, with satisfying payoffs that were set up back in seasons 1 & 2. If you remotely enjoy Fantasy, or watching powerful women scheme and fight each other in fantastical magic battles, this is a show that deserves your attention. #wotskies #renewWOT

Tony Gilroy says Andor wouldn’t exist without The Mandalorian.

"No Baby Yoda, no Andor," he tells Empire. "Seriously. Don’t think that we don’t know that."

Read more: www.empireonline.com/tv/news/tony...

It's only the "Ghibli aesthetic" if it comes from the Studio Ghibli region of Japan. Everything else is "Sparkling Insult to Life Itself."

Just barge in

Looks like compatible ones are still available. It has a removable Li ion at the top of the player so just needs a new one.

A binder of minidiscs

A binder of minidiscs

Visiting my parents in NZ and I just found my old minidisc player. It still works on external power. From the disc binder it looks like I last used it in 2003.

Elbows up, Canada.

Would be wonderful if instead of dm'd apologies it was public corrections...

I have covered presidential politics for 40 years. This was the most juvenile display by a President and Vice President I have ever seen. Other presidents treated their enemies with more respect. This is a low point and a dark day for the US. Totally embarrassing.