That sounds like a lot until you look at all the other tax credit schemes out there. According to the L.A. Times…

New Mexico offers a 25% rebate on production costs and does not have a cap. Neither does Michigan, where filmmakers get up to 42 cents back for each dollar they spend on filming.

So the question will be, which of the Hollywood glitterati is going to volunteer to spend 4 months of their lives eating Chile Con Carne in Albuquerque over the Pan-Roasted Organic Chicken With Oregon Morel Mushrooms at Spago to save the studios a measly 5%. I guess time will tell

LINK to the full article about the tax rebate in the L.A. Times

Seems like the tax breaks the great lakes state is offering have drawn some big VFX money. According to the Detroit Free Press, the facility called Wonderstruck…

would be the first of its kind in Michigan. Wonderstruck said it would deliver full-scale Hollywood productions from inception to state-of-the-art computer generated 3D software. Its content is mostly targeted toward families and young audiences.

They’ll be setting up shop inside an old MGM Grand casino so they better start trying to get the cigarette and spilled booze stench out of the carpets now. Oh, and there is the slight problem of not having anyone there to do the actual work.

Since Michigan currently lacks many workers with the skills Wonderstruck needs, Wonderstruck said it was developing an intense training program for potential new Michigan employees.

I wonder if they will keep the cocktail waitresses and nickel slots open for the new artists in training.

LINK to the full article

The folks over at VFX Nexus have nice little piece of code up that seems like a great all-in-one solution for keeping your VFX House in order. Aimed squarely at the indi-film and small studio market, VFX Nexus offers a nice suite of well designed tools (some in-house VFX tracking systems look like the control panel of Soviet cargo plane) that’s hosted off-site lowering software maintenance needs and enhancing communication between far flung artists and vendors. It even includes a “Knowledge Base” section so you don’t have to set up a separate wiki. Nice.

LINK to the VFX Nexus main site (make sure you check out the demo)

Last year Steven Spielberg spoke at the 6th Annual Visual Effects Society Awards and called for the creation of new category for Best Visual Effects in a Student Project. Well the VES manned-up and this year there are four nominees in this category. They are…

HANGAR NUMBER FIVE -Nathan Matsuda

LA MAIN DES MAITRES -Adrien CaYuS Toupet, Clement Delatre, Vivien Looky Chauvet

OUR WONDERFUL NATURE-Tomer Eshed, Dennis Rettkowski, Tomer Eshed, Dennis Rettkowski

PLASTIC – Transformation Sequence- Sandy Widyanata, Courtney Wise

When you get a chance, check out what the whippersnappers are up to. Congrats to all the nominees!

File under now I’ve seen everything, there is an entire VFX company for sale on eBay right now. For a mere $500,000 (15% back if you use your eBay master card) you too can join the ranks of…

Companies like Pixar, and Dreamworks are making millions of dollars in this industry and building tremendous wealth for their owners.

The description also claims

This is a great opportunity for anyone interested in breaking into the VFX industry and making their mark on Hollywood and the movie industry. You will own your own studio and have the opportunity to start producing the kind of work that is featured in Hollywood blockbuster films. This will also be your opportunity to become a Hollywood insider, building and developing connections and contacts in the prestigious movie industry.

The best part of the whole deal, the place is in Thailand. Half a mil to be a real honest to goodness Hollywood fatcat? Count me in and pass the Phở!

LINK to the auction on eBay

Check out this snapshot of a billboard in Studio City, Ca. It seems that all the Jericho fans that have so kindly responded to my post detailing the effects I did for the Season 2 finally have saved up there pennies to buy some public ad-space to further there cause. Seem crazy? Well, it might if the rabid fans hadn’t already brought the show back from the dead once already with a well coordinated write-in campaign. Who knows if this works out I could be on the call sheet for Season 3.

LINK to my previous post on Jericho VFX

In other words modelers are at the low end of the scale bringing in about $82k per year and supes are hovering close to $130k per year down about 20% from ’07. The string of blockbuster VFX flicks seems to be keeping demand for artists high enough to meet supply. Just remember this is a boom and bust biz folks so fill up those 401ks while ya can.

LINK to the full survey

News flash from the no duh department. Sleep deprivation effects your ability to make sense of what you see. And that’s not just anecdotal ladies and germs, it’s from a study published in the Journal Of Neuroscience. Study author Dr. Michael Chee says,

Interestingly, the team found that a sleep-deprived brain can normally process simple visuals, like flashing checkerboards. But the ‘higher visual areas’ — those that are responsible for making sense of what we see — didn’t function well

That means, the person at your facility that is always saying “Dude I was here sooo late last night. But hey, you gotta do what it takes.” is actually doing a way worse job than the bright eyed and bushy tailed VFX artist who got a good nights sleep. Go figure.

via PixelVomit

So about two weeks ago, one of my fearless readers informed me that folks searching for VFXhack on Google were being directed to a page informing them that my site was distributing malicious software (gasp!). So began the journey to clear my name and make sure that anyone accessing this Blog could do so free from the fear of being re-directed to a site that tries to sell them arabic ringtones (who is buying those anyway?). The long and the short of it is, that after a re-install of WordPress and some serious text editing of all the posts to VFXhack so far. The site is now clean, and all possible exploits have been patched. I now return you to your regularly scheduled programs of pithy posts and industry laments.

LINK to more info on other WordPress blogs that were attacked

This Bollywood style dream sequence takes you inside the mind of a CG animator faced with the prospect of life after outsourcing. It’s pretty funny but falls a bit into the category of gallows humor considering all the people in this video could be replaced someday soon by their Indian counter-parts. Ah well, if you can’t laugh at yourself who can you laugh at?

(via Cartoon Brew)