Fox Suits Up for Huge X2 Release
Twentieth Century Fox is set to make motion picture history this week as X2: X-Men United gets the largest-ever global day-and-date release. The studio is releasing the film simultaneously in 93 markets.
With the impressive roll-out, Fox is apparently hoping to outdo Sony Pictures, which last year released its superhero juggernaut, Spider-Man, in more than 7,000 U.S. theaters to the tune of a record-breaking $114 million in its first week.
The original X-Men film, based on the Marvel comic book series, grossed more than $300 million worldwide and helped reinvigorated the superhero movie genre. Director Bryan Singer (The Usual Suspects) is back at the helm for the much-anticipated sequel, which hits theaters on May 2.
X2: X-Men United features visual effects by Cinesite, Rhythm & Hues, Frantic Films, Kleiser-Walczak, Grant McCune Design and FXSmith. Go behind the scenes in the June issue of Animation Magazine, coming soon with your subscription and at Barnes & Noble booksellers.
© 2003 Animation Magazine Inc.
In X2, the next adventure in the X-Men saga, the X-Men face their most dangerous mission ever, and must stand united with their enemies to combat a menace that threatens mankind – and mutantkind.
For X2, Kleiser-Walczak reprised its role on X-Men - producing over 50 visual effects shots consisting mostly of complex transformations and eye replacements for the evil metamorph Mystique played by Rebecca Romijn-Stamos.
The core of the company's work on this project involved further refining the 3-D morphing techniques the studio developed for Mystique's transformations in X-Men. In X2, Mystique plays a more prominent role and her transformations are closer and more intimate. Kleiser-Walczak's animators created an extremely detailed computer model of actress Rebecca Romijn-Stamos with anatomically correct musculature and skin deformations. Advanced rendering techniques including high dynamic range environment maps, global illumination and ambient occlusion passes helped to create a photoreal synthespian Mystique.
Left: On location in Vancouver, Frank Vitz used a turntable for shooting reference photos of the actors required for the X2 Mystique transformations. Rebecca Romijn-Stamos' legs are pictured here.
Right: Kleiser-Walczak senior visual effects supervisor Frank E. Vitz confers
with lighting supervisor Leonardo Quiles. Photo: Svetla Belcheva
VFX Supervisor Mike Fink Speaks About X2
Click here to see online interview.
Additional images and information about Kleiser-Walczak's work on X2 are available in these publications, among others.
The Art of X2: The Visual Companion to the Spectacular Movie by Bryan Singer and Guy Hendrix-Dyas
Designed by Timothy Shaner, from Newmarket Press
X-MEN 2: More Than Before, by Brad Munson, Cinefex, Issue 94 - July 2003
Frida Receives VES Award Nomination and Two Academy Awards
In February 2003, the Visual Effects Society honored Jeremy Dawson and Daniel Schrecker with an award nomination for their work on Julie Taymor's Frida. Kleiser-Walczak created the closing shot of the film. The shot depicts the last moment of Kahlo's life with a slow transformation designed to convey the visual connection between her life and her art. Artists at Keiser-Walczak sought to maintain the integrity of Frida Kahlo's artistic style throughout a shot that appears at the film's emotional climax.
In addition to the VES Award nomination, Frida received six Academy Award nominations and two Oscars, one for original score (Elliot Goldenthal) and one for make-up (John Jackson and Beatrice De Alba). The additional nominations were for performance by an actress in a leading role (Salma Hayek); art direction (art direction: Felipe Fernandez del Paso set decoration: Hania Robledo); original song (Burn It Blue by Elliot Goldenthal and Julie Taymor); and achievement in costume design (Julie Weiss).
Santa Receives 3D Awards Nomination
The International 3D Awards Committee in Copenhagen, Denmark has nominated Santa Lights Up New York for a 3D Award in its logos and identity category. Directed by Jeff Kleiser and Diana Walczak, this stereoscopic computer-animated film opens The Radio City Christmas Spectacular and takes audiences on a thrilling sleigh-ride over a storybook New York City.
The film consists of one point-of-view shot following Santa flying past famous landmarks and landing at Radio City. The greatest challenge in producing the film was creating a computer database with over 7,000 New York structures, including accurate, detailed landmark buildings for close-ups and less-detailed buildings that appear in the distance. Featured landmarks include the Statue of Liberty, the Brooklyn Bridge, Madison Square Garden, Times Square, the Empire State Building, the 42nd Street branch of the New York City Public Library, Saint Patrick's Cathedral, Saks Fifth Avenue and, of course, Radio City Music Hall.
Terrence Masson Collaborates with Kleiser-Walczak
Award-winning animation director and author Terrance Masson is now living in the Berkshires and working with Kleiser-Walczak's MASS MoCA production group on developing select projects.
Over the last 13 years, Masson has contributed new and innovative creative and technical production techniques to a wide range of computer graphics projects. He has served on 17 major film projects with founding stints at Digital Domain (1993) and Warner Brothers (1994) as well as two tours at Industrial Light and Magic (1991 and 1996-2000)...all this after his early years of graphic design, commercial flying logos, large format and interactive projects.
Masson's feature credits include Hook, True Lies, Cutthroat Island, The Star Wars Trilogy Special Edition, Spawn, Small Soldiers and Star War: Episode I – The Phantom Menace. He has served on many commercial productions including the original Budweiser Frogs (1995) for Digital Domain and Dodge Molecule for ILM-Commercials. Masson also single-handily created the animation and rendering technique for the South Park television series in 1996. His large format credits include Luxor for Douglas Trumbull.
An award-winning animation director, Masson's short animated films have been featured in festivals worldwide over the past decade. His book, CG 101: A Computer Graphics Industry Reference, offers a unique historical and practical look into our industry; while his articles for VFXPro.com (a Web site he co-founded as visualfx.com in 1995) cover a wide range of visual effects topics.
For several years Terrence has been concentrating on real-time hardware (GPU) graphics for major titles such as Bruce Lee: Quest of the Dragon for Universal Interactive, SimCity4 for Maxis/EA and Batman: Dark Tomorrow for Kemco/Japan. Currently, he is lecturing on utilizing breakthrough hardware rendering techniques for “near-real-time” imagery in high-end feature film visual effects; a process that will both cut production costs and provide project leaders with much greater creative flexibility.
Terrence has been a member of the Visual Effects Society from its inception.
Gordon Dickson Hired as CEO
Gordon Dickson joined Kleiser-Walczak in the summer of 2002 to serve as the studio's chief executive officer. He has responsibility for general management of Kleiser-Walczak and works closely with Jeff Kleiser, Diana Walczak and all departments of the studio.
Dickson has a management and entrepreneurial background and has run several media and technology companies. Most recently he was the CEO of G Media Group, an integrated media and marketing company where he was responsible for overall corporate and business development. Dickson also has a legal background and practiced transactional law and litigation at the international law firms McCutcheon, Doyle and Baker and McKenzie. He received his J.D. from the Georgetown University Law Center.
Jeff Kleiser to Speak at Festivals in May
Jeff Kleiser will be attending 3D Festival in Copenhagen, Denmark (May 7 - 10) where he will give a presentation on high-end character animation and appear in a panel discussion about the history of computer graphics together with Isaac Kerlow (Disney), Rob Coleman (ILM) and Mike Milne (Framestore).
Prior to 3D Festival, Kleiser will be making a presentation in London at 4 x 4, a film event sponsored by exceeda.co.uk.
Update on Little Miss Spider Lost and Found
Kleiser-Walczak's award-winning short film, Little Miss Spider: Lost and Found, continues to screen at international and U.S. film festivals. It was shown at New York's Symphony Space in March and is scheduled to screen in a showcase for young children at the Ocean City Film Festival in Ocean City, New Jersey on Saturday, June 7th.
Former VFX Producer Launches Music Career
Photo: Erika Walczak accompanies Rod Stewart on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.
Erika Walczak, formerly the executive producer for Kleiser-Walczak's Hollywood studio, decided to take a leave of absence from the effects industry in October 2001 to pursue a career in music. She has been working steadily over the past year performing for studio recordings, teaching children the Suzuki Method and appearing on national television. Erika was featured on The Wayne Brady Show playing with the Irish tenor, Russell Watson. Shortly after that she landed a recurring gig with Rod Stewart who recently released a new album of standards. With this new album Stewart needed a string quartet and Erika landed her next gig. She has appeared on NBC's Today show, The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, a Rod Stewart holiday special on A& E and in a taped segment for Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve.
Erika is currently enjoying the lavish treatment of being on a top-notch national tour playing with Yanni. Last week Madison Square Garden, next week---The Hollywood Bowl. Erika is also a member of a newly formed string quartet called Siren. For booking information regarding the quartet, please contact: erikawalczak@aol.com.
Diana and Jeff are especially proud of Erika’s determination and success in the music biz. Everyone at Kleiser-Walczak misses her at the office and wishes her the very best.
LINKS TO OTHER RECENT ARTICLES
Diana Walczak and Jeff Kleiser have authored papers featured in the Big Thinkers section of Ray Kurzweil's Web site. Walczak writes about the future of technology in education. Kleiser writes about the history of the development of digital human characters - from a personal perspective - in his article titled Synthespianism.
X2 Explained
New York Post, April 29, 2003
For more information about Kleiser-Walczak, please visit our Web site at www.kwcc.com.