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A deep dive with researcher Paul Debevec, who has been pivotal in some of the biggest innovations in vfx, including photoreal digital characters.

The post Paul Debevec: A Name You Absolutely Need to Know in CG, VFX, Animation, and VR appeared first on Cartoon Brew.

The scene-stealing transforming-wolves in "Storks" were both a creative and technical animation challenge.

The post How the ‘Storks’ Filmmakers Transformed A Pack of 100 Wolves Into…Anything appeared first on Cartoon Brew.

The new web site explains how artists will receive the nearly-$19 million settlement fund from Blue Sky and Sony Pictures.

The post New Web Site Helps Artists Claim Settlement Money From Wage Theft Lawsuit appeared first on Cartoon Brew.

Figuring out how to make the characters in "The Angry Birds Movie" look simple was a big challenge for Sony Imageworks.

The post A Big Challenge: Making Characters in ‘Angry Birds Movie’ Look Simple appeared first on Cartoon Brew.

Will audiences defy critics and turn out to support an animated feature inspired by a mobile gaming app?

The post Review Roundup: ‘Angry Birds’ Fly Into Theaters With High Hopes and Low Ratings appeared first on Cartoon Brew.

Will Rovio's big gamble on "Angry Birds" pay off?

The post ‘The Angry Birds Movie’ Launches with $43M, ‘Jungle Book’ Is India’s Biggest Hollywood Film Ever appeared first on Cartoon Brew.

While Disney, Pixar, Lucasfilm, and Dreamworks are still fighting against their employees, Sony has reached a settlement with the animation workers.

The post Sony Takes The High Road And Settles Animation Wage-Theft Lawsuit appeared first on Cartoon Brew.

This is a significant victory for the hard-working members of the feature animation community.

The post Blue Sky Agrees To Settle Wage-Fixing Lawsuit With Animation Workers appeared first on Cartoon Brew.

No wonder they're angry.

The post ‘The Angry Birds Movie,’ Now With Piss-Swapping and Piss-Swallowing Gags appeared first on Cartoon Brew.

Take a few minutes to understand the lawsuit that industry artists have filed against the big American studios and why it matters.

The post What Is The Animation Wage-Fixing Lawsuit? An Explainer for the Community appeared first on Cartoon Brew.

Our first-look at the "Angry Birds Movie" is promising.

Whether or not the "Angry Birds" feature will be creatively risky, it's definitely a financial risk.

In the role that he held for seven years, Osher oversaw Sony Animation and Sony Pictures Imageworks.

"LEGO Movie" Phil Lord and Chris Miller turned down an offer to run Sony Animation because "it’s too hard to do great work there."

Animation veteran Uli Meyer recounts what happened when he shared his wage with co-workers on "Who Framed Roger Rabbit."

Sony tries to trick animation students with "advice" on how to be a successful employee at their studio.

The wage-theft scheme operated by major American animation studios continues to grow with no end in sight.

While the Academy still hasn't released a shortlist for the visual effects category, we identify the frontrunners in this year's Oscar race.

Shocking details of wage-theft conspiracy emerge in a class action lawsuit filed against DreamWorks, Disney, Pixar, Lucasfilm, Digital Domain 3.0, Sony Pictures Imageworks and others.

Last Friday the Scientific and Technical Awards Committee of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced a list of 21 scientific and technical achievements in 16 different areas, which have been selected for further awards consideration.

Animation and visual effects studio Sony Pictures Imageworks has confirmed what many in the industry had suspected for a long while: the studio is moving its headquarters from Los Angeles to Vancouver, Canada to take advantage of generous tax credits provided by the Canadian government. This move, combined with Digital Domain's jump to Vancouver and Rhythm & Hues' bankruptcy, prompted "Variety'"s VFX chronicler David S. Cohen to say that the Los Angeles feature film visual effects industry is "in full collapse."

At first glance, the incendiary comments about free labor by Digital Domain CEO John Textor may appear to be an isolated issue, but many artists working in the visual effects industry see it as emblematic of the type of abuses they’ve been suffering for years. These labor violations have simply become more public thanks to a vocal online community and watchdog sites like VFX Soldier. The growing awareness is also part of the maturing of the vfx industry, which is still a relatively young art form compared to feature animation. In the past decade, most of the highest-grossing films at the global box office have been visual effects-driven, yet there has been no trickle-down benefit to the artists who have helped these media conglomerates make hundreds of millions of dollars.

A group of artists at Sony Pictures Imageworks is leading a push for change at their studio that could have big ramifications for the rest of the vfx industry in Los Angeles. Their goal is to unionize Imageworks, and they are promoting their cause publicly through the SpiUnion blog, as well as Twitter and Facebook accounts.

What makes the plight of Sony’s artists particularly urgent is that there are different standards of treatment for LA-based artists working on the same films: Sony Pictures Animation artists enjoy union benefits, whereas Sony Pictures Imageworks artists don’t. In other words, if you’re storyboarding and designing films like Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs and Hotel Transylvania, you get treated better than if you animate on those same films in Los Angeles. This divide-and-conquer tactic that Sony uses is distinct from other Los Angeles feature animation studios like DreamWorks and Disney Feature Animation that extend union benefits to all their artists, including the animators.

To learn more about the situation, Cartoon Brew conducted an interview with the Imageworks artists who are leading the effort to unionize the studio. For obvious reasons (i.e. not being fired), they have chosen to remain anonymous.

CARTOON BREW: As an outsider, I struggle to understand the mindset of the vfx industry and why it’s so difficult to organize those within it. Can you shed some light into why the vfx field has been so reluctant to organize in LA, especially considering the working conditions, which involve ridiculously long hours. It seems that union representation like your counterparts in CG feature animation would be a benefit.

Artists of SpiUnion: Yes, you would think so right? It’s just as difficult for us to understand as well. We can’t speak to the economics of other companies, but we feel Sony is in a unique situation as opposed to other purely vfx facilties. We produce our own content (Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, Smurfs), we produce the 3D content our parent company depends on to sell 3D Blu-ray players and televisions, we’re partially unionized (SPA) already, we produce vfx for other studios, we have offices in multiple countries, and we’re owned by one of the major studios.

The LA vfx industry seems to based on FUD (Fear , Uncertainty, and Doubt). There is the prevailing opinion that if any artist dares to stand up and make any noise, the entire company/industry will closeup shop and leave town. Companies are not in LA out of the kindness of their hearts, they are here because there is a large talent base here. (See VFX Sol