WATCHMEN/YOUTUBE CONTEST

Zack Snyder is offering you the opportunity to create "Veidt Enterprises" TV commercials that could end up in the feature film WATCHMEN, scheduled to be released in theaters on March 6, 2009.

To get started, download the standard definition and/or high definition assets from the links below, and then shoot your own original TV commercial that advertises one of the products.

Remember, the movie is set in 1985, so TV commercials should be in 4:3 aspect ratio (so it looks like standard TV, not widescreen) and they should be either 15, 30 or 60 seconds in length. The products are all made by "Veidt Enterprises," and you can download the product logos for
your use as well.

Make your TV commercial in NTSC standard definition (720x486) or higher resolution, upload it, and then others can vote on your work. The
contest ends on June 2, 2008. The 40 finalists will win signed posters
from Snyder. The top five finalists from user votes will win High-
Definition Canon Vixia HG10 camcorders. Up to 20 of Snyder 's favorite
finalists will win $1,000 and have a chance to be included in the
WATCHMEN feature film itself.

Official Site - youtube.com/watchmenmovie
Sample Tv Spot #1: Nostalgia by Veidt -
http://youtube.com/watch?v=VgVP6LoI7xw
Sample Tv Spot #2: Veidt Sport -
http://youtube.com/watch?v=VUv__WbVEBQ
Download Assets:
http://watchmenmovie.warnerbros.com/veidtadvertisingcontest/download.html
Official Rules:
http://watchmenmovie.warnerbros.com/veidtadvertisingcontest/rules.html

Via Dan Sarto

Computer Privacy

Via geekologie.com

SHYAMALAN'S AIRBENDER PROJECT GETS GREEN LIGHT

Paramount Pictures and Nickelodeon Movies have greenlit the live-action epic adventure
M. NIGHT SHYAMALAN'S
THE LAST AIRBENDER, which will be opening on Friday, July 2, 2010.

Shyamalan, the creator of the Oscar-nominated THE SIXTH SENSE, SIGNS and the upcoming THE HAPPENING, will direct and produce the epic action-adventure based on a script that he penned.

Joining him as producers are Kathleen Kennedy and Frank Marshall, who produced the blockbuster INDIANA JONES and JURASSIC PARK film franchises, Sam Mercer (THE SIXTH SENSE, THE HAPPENING) and Scott
Aversano (FAILURE TO LAUNCH, THE SCHOOL OF ROCK).

Michael DiMartino & Bryan Konietzko, the creators of the popular TV
series, AVATAR: THE LAST AIRBENDER, that inspired the film, will serve
as executive producers.

Shyamalan said, "I've always been a huge fan of Miyazaki's work. He is
one of the greatest storytellers in the world. His combination of
spirituality and super natural elements have brought depth and meaning
to his art form."

Based on the successful Nickelodeon animated TV series, the live-action
feature film is set in a world where human civilization is divided into
four nations: Water, Earth, Air and Fire.

The Fire Nation is waging a ruthless, oppressive war against the other
three nations. The film's hero, the reluctant young Aang, is the "Last
Airbender;" the Avatar who, according to prophecy, has the ability to
manipulate all of the elements and bring all the nations together. Aided
by a protective teenage Waterbender named Katara and her bull-headed
brother Sokka, Aang proceeds on a perilous journey to restore balance to
their war-torn world.

M. NIGHT SHYAMALAN'S THE LAST AIRBENDER will combine the imagination and
visual canvas of the LORD OF THE RINGS saga with the action and
spectacle of CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON.

Courtesy of Dan Sarto.

GHOST IN THE SHELL BOUGHT BY DREAMWORKS

DreamWorks has acquired the rights to GHOST IN THE SHELL, and plans to turn the Japanese manga into a 3-D live-action feature, per VARIETY.

Steven Spielberg took an active role in the deal, telling VARIETY, "GHOST IN THE SHELL is one of my favorite stories. It's a genre that has arrived, and we enthusiastically welcome it to DreamWorks."

The story follows a member of a cover ops team within the Japanese National Public Safety Commission that specializes in fighting technology-based crime.

It was first published in 1989 from author Masamune Shirow, with two additional manga editions, three anime films, an anime TV series and three video games.

The second anime, GHOST IN THE SHELL 2: INNOCENCE was released in 2004 in the U.S. by DreamWorks.

Avi Arad, Ari Arad and Steven Paul, all of Seaside Ent., will produce
and brought the project to the studio. Jamie Moss will write the
adaptation.

Universal and Sony were also interested in the story, but Spielberg made
it happen at DreamWorks.

Avi Arad also produced all three SPIDER-MAN films, the X-MEN films, the
two FANTASTIC FOUR movies as well as the upcoming IRON MAN and THE
INCREDIBLE HULK.

Moss wrote the recently released STREET KINGS.

Courtesy of Dan Sarto.

Mystery Of The Rising Tune

How does this work? A looping video with a constantly rising tune?

What Scientologist Actually Believe

Floobynooby continues it's valiant effort to bring only the most high quality video and images:

TimeLapse Video of a Guy Trapped in an Elevator for 40 Hours

Picture of the Day

YES!!!!!

NEW Never Before Seen Kids In the Hall! Car Fuckers

Awesome Ollie Johnston Tributes:

- Brad Bird on Ollie Johnston on CartoonBrew
- The Disney Company on Ollie Johnston on CartoonBrew
- John Canemaker on Ollie Johnston on CartoonBrew
- On Ollie Johnston by Michael Barrier (April 15, 2008)
- Ollie Johnston by Pete Emslie
- Disney Dinosaurs by Wade Sampson

1 kid plays the Tetris theme w/ 2 guitars simultaneously!

And here's the Zelda Theme:

Cartman's Buck Rodgers Video

FROM THE ILLUSTRATORS' PARTNERSHIP

The Orphan Works Act of 2008 is released.

The language in the draft confirms our warnings. If this bill passes, you'll be forced to clear all your secondary licensing rights through at least two government certified databases – or risk orphaning your art.

Despite its masquerade as the "last resort" to search for a rights owner, these databases will likely become the only source many users will rely on for finding a rights owner. Reason: it will give users the legal right to infringe any copyright not in the databases.

We're working with our attorney now to prepare opposition letters.

We have contracted CapWiz, a service that will allow you to send these letters to Congress with a push of the button.

CapWiz will also provide us with "digital stickers" that anyone else - organizations, individual artists, blogs, etc. - can put on their sites that create a direct link to the command center to write their Congressman and Senators to defeat this radical change to U.S. Copyright law

Please stay tuned and we'll tell you in a day or so what you can do to register your opposition.

For additional background on Orphan Works, go to the IPA Orphan Works Resource Page for Artists

http://www.illustratorspartnership.org/01_topics/article.php?searchterm=00185

If you received our mail as a forwarded message, and wish to be added to our mailing list, email us at: illustratorspartnership@cnymail.com

Place "Add Name" in the subject line, and provide your name and the email address you want used in the message area.

Both House and Senate versions of the Orphan Works Act of 2008 can be downloaded from the IPA homepage:

http://illustratorspartnership.org/

Many groups are coming together to oppose this bill. We're preparing letters you can customize and send to your representatives through our push-button link. Please stay tuned and we'll give you the tools we need to make our voices heard.

For additional background on Orphan Works, go to the IPA Orphan Works Resource Page for Artists

http://www.illustratorspartnership.org/01_topics/article.php?searchterm=00185

Recent History of Orphan Works:

On April 5th, 2008, Mark Simon interviewed Brad Holland of the Illustrator's Partnership about the Orphan Works bill and how it affects every artist and photographer in the world.

YOU NEED TO LISTEN TO THIS because you are about to lose your copyright protection. Every one of you needs to stand up and be heard in order to protect what we have all created.

Please forward this information to every creative person and group you know. Copy and transfer this audio file and play it so that everyone may learn about what is going on.

CLICK HERE to DOWNLOAD the MP3 of this interview. E-mail it to other artists!

More info here:

www.IllustratorsPartnership.org

www.sellyourtvconceptnow.com/orphan.html

The Art of Matthew Kalinauskas

The Art of Vadim Bazhanov

The Art of Abbey Paccia

The Art of Robin Hall

The Art of Jeff Allen

Tha Art of Tobias Kwan

The Art of Eduardo Avenir

The Art of James Higuchi

The Art of Mike Vatcher

The Art of Mike Barth

The Art of Anna Li

The Art of Bartek Bugajski

The Art of Mark Anthony

The Art of Arzu Fallahi

The Art of Dave Tran

The Art of Mel Chabot

The Art of Philip Rodrigues

The Art of Alex Cote

The Art of Evelyn Bailey

The Art of Vladimir Kooperman

The Art of Alan Cooke

The Crazy Art of McBess

The Art of Karen Caldicott

The Art of Michael Wandelmaier

The Art of Lauren Nassef

The Art of Truck Bearing

The Art of Hartwig Braun

What 'Little Nemo' Could Have Been!

Back in 1984 some studios were working on the Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland project--including Studio Ghibli and director Yoshifumi Kondo. Only a short test sequence was ever finished, but it's definitely worth watching!

Via Little Nemo Test Film [Cartoon Brew] & iwatchstuff.com

'The Spirit' Trailer & Posters

Adapted from the legendary comic book series created by Will Eisner, The Spirit is a classic action-adventure-romance written for the screen and directed by genre-twister Frank Miller (creator of "300" and "Sin City"). It is the story of a former rookie cop who returns mysteriously from the dead as the Spirit (Gabriel Macht) to fight crime from the shadows of Central City. His arch-enemy, the Octopus (Samuel L. Jackson) has a different mission: he's going to wipe out Spirit's beloved city as he pursues his own version of immortality. The Spirit tracks this cold-hearted killer from Central City's rundown warehouses, to the damp catacombs, to the windswept waterfront... all the while facing a bevy of beautiful women who either want to seduce, love or kill our masked crusader. Surrounding him at every turn are Ellen Dolan (Sarah Paulson), the whip-smart girl-next-door; Silken Floss (Scarlett Johansson), a punk secretary and frigid vixen; Plaster of Paris (Paz Vega), a murderous French nightclub dancer; Lorelei (Jaime King), a phantom siren; and Morgenstern (Stana Katic), a sexy young cop. Then of course, there's Sand Saref (Eva Mendes), the jewel thief with dangerous curves. She's the love of his life turned bad. Will he save her or will she kill him? In the vein of Batman Begins and Sin City, The Spirit takes us on a sinister, gut-wrenching ride with a hero who is born, murdered and born again.

Full size posters pics:

Via superherohype.com & iwatchstuff.com

Picture of the Day

Orgesticulanismus

This 9 minute film is a must-see! Orgesticulanismus by Mathieu Labaye of Camera Etc. starts out slow but quickly turns into one of the most inspiring and mind blowing pieces of beautiful and exquisite animation you'll ever see. Enjoy!

Highlights from the Conan O'Brien Late Night Show during the Writer's Strike - Genius!

The Art of Anne-Marie Cyr

Darth Vader in Monty Python

Plastic Water Bottle Chemicals... BEWARE!

Julie Doucet’s 365 Days

A book dense with ink drawings and meticulously-lettered blocks of text fill its pages to the edges, with no mercy for whitespace. It’s a quality, along with the biographical minutia that populates the book, that make it unlike traditional autobiographical comics. There’s no story here that compels you to turn the page, but I learned quickly that the real joy is in flipping around and reading random pages. Reading the book becomes a lot like randomly discovering an artist’s blog. You read one entry, and then another, until you gradually get a sense of the person’s day-to-day life as well as their creative growth as an artist. It’s at once mundane and fascinating.
See Brian Heater’s review here.
Via drawn.ca

Basic Lesson on Line of Action & Construction For Cartoons:

Sacha Baron Cohen's Brüno Nails Ben Affleck

So it appears as if Sacha Baron Cohen is still causing quite the mess in the United States as his alter-ego Brüno; getting kicked out of airports, showing up to an Easter play at a church in Kansas wearing chains, and the list goes on. First off, for those not familiar with Brüno, he's a gay Austrian fashion reporter who's wildly flamboyant in every way. The film, which marks Cohen's follow-up to Borat, will be called (deep breath) ... Brüno: Delicious Journeys Through America for the Purpose of Making Heterosexual Males Visibly Uncomfortable in the Presence of a Gay Foreigner in a Mesh T-Shirt. Needless to say, I cannot wait to hear news coughing up that title when it comes time for the weekend box office figures.

So it seems Mike Walker from the National Enquirer called into Howard Stern last week saying that Affleck called friend Sarah Silverman following an interview with Brüno. Affleck was told Brüno was a "very famous openly gay fashion journalist," but that didn't stop Ben from admitting it was "the weirdest sit-down he has ever had with a reporter." Eventually, Silverman coughed up his name and only then did Ben realize he'd been had. Part of me doesn't believe this at all, because I can only imagine the hoops one would need to jump through in order to get an actual sit-down interview with Ben Affleck. Then again, perhaps Cohen's crew have perfected their little joke by now. Either way, I'm sure Affleck will be making an appearance in the film.

For more, as well as a brief video of Brüno's crew dancing in an airport, head over to Slashfilm.

Via cinematical.com

Hulk Poster!