Spider-Man: Far From Home
If yer spidey sense is tingling it’s probably because Spider-Man: Far From Home drops in just four days and the hype is building with some early reviews. Here are a few snippets that we just love:
Den of Geek ‘The film sports some of the most interesting and innovative VFX sequences we’ve seen in the MCU so far; one extended set piece in particular, which throws Peter inside a living nightmare, is incredible.‘
Empire ‘Far From Home unexpectedly delivers the series’ most thrillingly mind-bending imagery since Doctor Strange had his third eye opened by The Ancient One.’
AV Club ‘The movie’s most exciting physical confrontations eschew building-smashing for a surreal bent reminiscent of last year’s triumphant Spider-Verse cartoon, as well as the MCU’s own Doctor Strange.’
The Verge ‘Some sequences actually manage to rival Into the Spider-Verse for dizzying effect and visual creativity.’
SPOTTED: We couldn’t NOT share this epic Tom & Jerry / Spidey mashup currently owning our hearts on 5th floor LDN by an unknown artist.
Don’t go bacon my heart
McDonald’s latest film saw the LDN team partner once again with ad agency Leo Burnett to design, develop and animate these cute-as-heck nodding dogs, each with their own personalities and mannerisms.
The dogs were designed by Yukari Schrickel, Junior Motion Designer who said ‘we used a droopy Basset Hound as an older, more mature dog, an alert, guard dog-like Doberman and a lopsided and excitable mutt that looks like it’s itching to bound around the inside of the car.’
Leo Costa was the project’s 2D Lead and Taekyu Yang, the CG lead who looked after the compositing of the dogs, adding another level of realism to the film by matching the lighting conditions of a moving car onto the dogs.
The Invisible Cup
Graded by Maria Carretero (CHI) ‘The Invisible Cup’ is a short documentary about blind soccer and an amazing story about people with blindness and vision loss who overcome obstacles to follow their passions.
Shadowbringers: behind the scenes
In case you missed last week’s commercial for Final Fantasy, here’s some BTS snaps of Tom Holland’s warrior training.
And no, it isn’t Tom Holland the historian. Or Tom Holland the football player. Or Tom Holland, director of Fright Night. And it certainly isn’t Tom Holland, the roofer based in Maidstone, Kent. It was Tom Holland – the guy that plays Spider-Man.
A-List Hollywood Awards
This week Framestore was named a Gold Winner for Visual Effects at the A-List Hollywood Awards for our work on The New Normal for Medmen, the Spike Jonze-directed commercial that chronicles the complex history of cannabis in the United States. Congrats to all the team that worked on it.
Putin
Ahead of last weekend’s broadcast of both pilot episodes of Tonight! With Vladimir Putin, we spoke to James Pearce, the Deputy Editor of IBC365 about the technology that went into creating the show.
Pachyderm, pack it in, let me begin
While we’re admiring lovely stuff wot we done, why not toddle over to the Framestore website to read about the work that went into Tim Burton’s Dumbo?
Suited and booted
NFTS Gala
Our fabulous-looking team attended the NFTS Gala this week to celebrate British producers. L-R: Chief Creative Officer, Tim Webber, Senior VFX Producer, Annette Wullems, VFX Producer, Jenny Basen, VFX Supervisor, Robert Allman. 📸 Stuart Penn, VFX Supervisor.
Women in Animation – The State of the Art
This week Senior Animator, Marion Strunck headed up to Edinburgh Film Festival to take part in a panel on women in animation, sharing insights into the field and talking about her own successful career.
World Cinema Film Festival
Last weekend, VFX Supe Stuart Penn headed to Dagenham for the festival to tell attendees what it takes to create world-class VFX. The event took place at the site of proposed new film studios in east London, and other talks came from DoPs, costume designers and concept artists.
Nothing Remains
Nothing Remains is a film made by a team of London Framestorians to raise awareness on global warming. It was shortlisted for the Royal Geographical Society’s Earth Photo 2019 awards – for which just 47 photos and three videos were selected out of 1000 entries.
It was written and directed by Hong Yane Wang (IA), featuring Xin Zhao (Film), with voice-over by Danielle Nadal (IA), and graded by Adam Stannard.
The video will be on display at the Royal Geographical Society in London throughout the summer before touring around the country. It can also be viewed here.
I love the smell of Aipom in the morning
Looks like team MTL have their summer threads sorted, thanks to this dapper design from Daniel Jervis Roca (main illustration) and Veronica Vazquez (logo and text). The duo won the office’s in-house t-shirt design competition, which, we guess, makes them the Pika the bunch…
Meanwhile, at Framestore…
QVFX Launch
Last night, we hosted the kick-off event for QVFX, a new LGBTQIA+ community hub where both current staff and aspiring talent can access information, events, mentorship and support.
Thank you to everyone for coming – until the next meeting on Thursday 25 July.
Chicago was also celebrating Pride this week with a delicious-looking spread of rainbow cupcakes Goddess and the Baker – for breakfast nonetheless…
Women’s Health
This week the London office welcomed Alli Godbold from Mindfulness in the Workplace for a talk on women’s health. Alli spoke about how improving your nutrition can boost your health, with a particular focus on pregnancy, menopause, menstruation and boosting energy levels. Look out for our next HR workshop in July on movement, posture and stretching.
Sounds OMMM-azing
This week Chicago held a Meditation 101 class for our monthly Framestories with Cat Aldana from EAT STRETCH NAP.
Sports corner
Flamestorm vs Amazon Amazeballs
“With last week’s opposition being a no-show, Flamestorm were hoping for a fun game this week, and they weren’t disappointed!
We took an early lead after the first innings, but after a really close, hard fought game, Amazon clawed their way back and it all came down to the last innings with the score at 10-12 and Flamestorm needing three points for the win! But despite our best efforts, we could only manage one more point and Amazon took a well deserved first win of the season, in what was probably our most tightly contested and fun game so far!
MVP for the day is Owyn Abram, for a solid 3rd base performance!
Next game is in 2 weeks time when we take on TIPi Group “Chiefs” in our bid to try and re-take the top spot in the league!”
Montreal soccer team vs Gameloft
Unfortunately this week, Montreal’s soccer team didn’t come out on top against Gameloft, losing 4 – 1. The team’s goal scorer was Jules Thebault-Dagher and everyone gave it their all, but they were just too hard to beat. Don’t worry – there’s always a next time!