Pixomondo London has launched its first wave of pre-production creative services for feature film and high-end TV projects spearheaded by PXO’s UK head of studio Alex Webster and previs supervisor Matt Perrin.
The move follows the company’s strategic push into virtual production, which has seen PXO build a portfolio of state-of-the-art LED sound stages in Vancouver and Toronto with plans for a first stage in London.
Webster joined PXO last year and has put together a specialist visualization team creatively led by Perrin, who has supervised previs for such tent pole titles as Spiderman: Far From Home, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, and Aladdin.
Webster said that PXO is “combining pre-production, virtual art department (VAD), virtual production, and in-camera VFX (ICVFX) into one cohesive ecosystem. Along with our creative tools built in Unreal Engine, we can begin collaborating on a project at its inception and work with filmmakers to world build and visualize sequences that carry through to ICVFX shot on PXO’s own LED volumes.”
Perrin got his start on the James Bond film Skyfall and World War Z. His forthcoming titles include Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, The School for Good and Evil, The Little Mermaid, and Wonka.
At PXO, Perrin is supported by a team of hand-picked visualization artists, creative technologists, and producers who work across all aspects of the pre-production process. Among them are lead VAD artist and layout supervisor Russell Tickner, VAD and virtual production producer Andy Jamison, virtual production supervisor Samat Algozhin, asset builder Laura Frasnelli and agile virtual production supervisor James Thompson.
“PXO is creating a pipeline and toolset from scratch, which merges the traditional with the new to provide interactivity in the early creative process,” said Perrin. “We’re using the latest real-time tech to improve the creative process and drive production values beyond anything we’ve seen before. Set this in the context of our work in virtual production and ICVFX, and we’ve got something quite special brewing.”
PXO’s virtual production work includes Star Trek: Discovery Season Four and the inaugural Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, debuting on May 5. PXO’s Vancouver stage–billed as the largest LED stage globally–is currently in production on Netflix’s upcoming Avatar: The Last Airbender. The Canadian virtual production stages are built in conjunction with production equipment rental specialist William F. White International.
PXO London is taking previs bookings starting in May.
Local school staple “Lost on a Mountain in Maine” from 1939 hits the big screen nationwide
Most Maine schoolchildren know about the boy lost for more than a week in 1939 after climbing the state's tallest mountain. Now the rest of the U.S. is getting in on the story.
Opening in 650 movie theaters on Friday, "Lost on a Mountain in Maine" tells the harrowing tale of 12-year-old Donn Fendler, who spent nine days on Mount Katahdin and the surrounding wilderness before being rescued. The gripping story of survival commanded the nation's attention in the days before World War II and the boy's grit earned an award from the president.
For decades, Fendler and Joseph B. Egan's book, published the same year as the rescue, has been required reading in many Maine classrooms, like third-grade teacher Kimberly Nielsen's.
"I love that the overarching theme is that Donn never gave up. He just never quits. He goes and goes," said Nielsen, a teacher at Crooked River Elementary School in Casco, who also read the book multiple times with her own kids.
Separated from his hiking group in bad weather atop Mount Katahdin, Fendler used techniques learned as a Boy Scout to survive. He made his way through the woods to the east branch of the Penobscot River, where he was found more than 30 miles (48 kilometers) from where he started. Bruised and cut, starved and without pants or shoes, he survived nine days by eating berries and lost 15 pounds (7 kilograms).
The boy's peril sparked a massive search and was the focus of newspaper headlines and nightly radio broadcasts. Hundreds of volunteers streamed into the region to help.
The movie builds on the children's book, as told by Fendler to Egan, by drawing upon additional interviews and archival footage to reinforce the importance of family, faith and community during difficult times,... Read More