Creative technology and VFX studio The Mill has formally launched what it believes to be a groundbreaking new virtual production system, Mill Mascot.
The system, developed by The Mill to address the ever-growing client needs for fast and intelligent characters, enables broadcast quality CG characters that are not animated but performed, live and in real-time.
Mill Mascot combines real-time game engine technology with motion sensors, so characters can be puppeteered through hand and facial gestures. This gives directors, creatives and artists the ability to “direct” or “perform” CG character animation live and make creative decisions on the fly.
The system bypasses the lengthy timelines involved with traditional animation and pre-rendered content, reducing animation and rendering time down to 42 milliseconds per frame.
The ability to interact with CG characters and create animations on the spot, is a viable solution for immediate, culturally relevant social media content featuring brand mascots, as well as live performance and episodic entertainment–all of which The Mill has created for well-known brands using Mill Mascot, including HPE’s “Tame the IT Monster” live event in Las Vegas, the Sesame Studios animated short Seanna’s Ocean Buddies, and Monster.com’s “Vonster” social media campaign.
The development of Mill Mascot is part of The Mill’s commitment to re-define the future of the industry by actively pursuing, researching and developing product solutions that help tell better stories.
Review: Writer-Director Coralie Fargeat’s “The Substance”
In its first two hours, "The Substance" is a well-made, entertaining movie. Writer-director Coralie Fargeat treats audiences to a heavy dose of biting social commentary on ageism and sexism in Hollywood, with a spoonful of sugar- and sparkle-doused body horror.
But the film's deliciously unhinged, blood-soaked and inevitably polarizing third act is what makes it unforgettable.
What begins as a dread-inducing but still relatively palatable sci-fi flick spirals deeper into absurdism and violence, eventually erupting — quite literally — into a full-blown monster movie. Let the viewer decide who the monster is.
Fargeat — who won best screenplay at this year's Cannes Film Festival — has been vocal about her reverence for "The Fly" director David Cronenberg, and fans of the godfather of body horror will see his unmistakable influence. But "The Substance" is also wholly unique and benefits from Fargeat's perspective, which, according to the French filmmaker, has involved extensive grappling with her own relationship to her body and society's scrutiny.
"The Substance" tells the story of Elisabeth Sparkle, a famed aerobics instructor with a televised show, played by a powerfully vulnerable Demi Moore. Sparkle is fired on her 50th birthday by a ruthless executive — a perfectly cast Dennis Quaid, who nails sleazy and gross.
Feeling rejected by a town that once loved her and despairing over her bygone star power, Sparkle learns from a handsome young nurse about a black-market drug that promises to create a "younger, more beautiful, more perfect" version of its user. Though she initially tosses the phone number in the trash, she soon fishes it out in a desperate panic and places an order.
The one rule to follow is that... Read More