Digital storytelling: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

In his latest film, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, director David Fincher once again brought digital filmmaking tools to the fore to help tell the story of a man’s search for the truth about a 40 year old murder case. Fincher shot Dragon Tattoo on the RED One MX and EPIC, and relied on more than 1000 visual effects shots throughout the film. fxguide talks to Method Studios and Digital Domain about their effects contributions, and to Blur Studio which was responsible for the startling main titles.

Studio Profile: Character Animation inside ILM

Head over to fxphd.com for a studio profile video on ILM and interview with Maia Kayser, a Lead Character Animator on Rango and other ILM shows.

Driving the projection mapping revolution

Building projections seem to have grown almost exponentially in use and popularity recently. Part video art and – increasingly – part advertising, the projections utilize surveying tech, 3D animation tools and digital projection techniques to create immersive shows for audiences at building venues around the world. Late last year, Drive Productions in London orchestrated a dazzling projection onto London’s Millbank Tower on the shores of the Thames, set to music from DJ Deadmau5. fxguide talks to Drive CEO Ben Fender about this show, as well as other projection mapping work his company completed for Ralph Lauren and HP.

Microsoft’s Flight Simulator is going to be free

It seems like a lot of MMO games are now free to play now, and it looks like Microsoft is making one of their classic games free with Flight Simulator.

It will become available this Spring, and the name of it has been curtailed to simply “Flight”. I’m not certain what requirements your computer will have in order to play it, but I really hope that it is capable of the rich detail that more recent Flight Simulator games have given us.

In fact, I still remember when I first played Flight Simulator back in the mid-eighties. It was one of the first PC games that I ever played, and the graphics looked about as good as the Atari 2600. It had an instruction booklet that was over 100 pages long, and the controls were not very instinctual. Still, Flight Simulator really changed the world of PC simulation gaming as we know it, and I’m sure that it has been a cash cow for Microsoft for many years.

By the way, those who are connected with a free Games for Windows Live account will be able to have additional content which includes planes, missions, and more. You can also get in-line purchases such as aircraft, regions, as well as customization options .

Well, I look forward to many “Flights” of fancy, as this game could be my next distraction for the spring.

Want to create Hollywood-style blast in your own street? There's a mobile app for that...

Bored of your surroundings and want to liven things up? Or fancy destroying that broken bit of office machinery?

Now there’s an app that’ll add a bit of action movie magic into your life by super-imposing dramatic special effects over mobile phone footage.

Action Movie FX for iPhone comes courtesy of J.J. Abrams’ production company Bad Robot Interactive, which is behind Star Trek, Super 8 and Mission Impossible 3.

The free app comes with two effects – a missile strike and a car crash, and the results are incredible.

Simply hit record and film a scene, then use a slider to mark the point at which you want the ‘fx’ to begin.

The missile strike is gigantic and a burning pile of rubble is left behind after the initial explosion.

The car crash is equally professional-looking. Swirls of dust precede an SUV dropping out of the sky and flying into the camera.

There are even action-movie sound effects to accompany the carnage.

More effects, such as a helicopter falling from the sky, can be added for a small fee.

So far it’s proving hugely popular, with one user, Jimmo Olson, commenting: ‘I ordered a missile strike on my office calendar. Looks like I’m leaving early today.’