Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/1455
2 Post • July 2009 A team of 80 at ILM worked on 140-plus VFX shots for the new Warner Bros. film Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. One of the studio's biggest challenges was creating the fiery vortex featured in the film's eight-minute climax. The studio also worked on the film's undead Inferi characters, as well as on the crystalline cavern set- ting. ILM wrote its own fire sims, used Maya as the main animation tool and called on Shake, Nuke and Saber for com- positing. For more on Potter, see page 14. O N O U R C O V E R 4 EDITOR'S LETTER Fighting for the right to host your shoot By Randi Altman 4 POST SCRIPT Robert Redford's brand identity By Marc Loftus 6 BITS & PIECES What's new in post 12 DIRECTOR'S CHAIR Sam Raimi: Drag Me To Hell By Iain Blair 14 COVER STORY How ILM tamed a force of nature for Harry Potter By Ken McGorry 18 ANIMATION Victor Cook discusses The Spectacular Spider-Man By Randi Altman 20 SHOOTING DIGITAL The indie A Little Help shoots Red on Long Island. By Ken McGorry 21 SHOOTING DIGITAL HI perfects Southland's Red workflow By Daniel Restuccio 37 SPECIAL REPORT Fairlight gets aggressive with VAR partnerships By Marc Loftus 46 POSTINGS A graphic glimpse of some recent projects 48 PRODUCTS The latest in hardware & software 52 PEOPLE Keeping tabs of the industry's movers & shakers 54 REVIEW Softimage|XSI 7 By Oliver Zeller 56 REVIEW Autodesk Maya 2009 By Dariush Derakhshani bits & pieces 6 director's chair 12 MEGA PLAYGROUND DRAG ME TO HELL animation 18 THE SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN J U L Y 2 0 0 9 • V O L . 2 4 N O . 7 This Month In • The techniques used on the latest Transformers • Creating ghosts for a Ghostbusters game • The advantages of cloud computing • What digital imaging has revealed about a prehistoric discovery