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www.postmagazine.com 2 POST NOVEMBER 2014 SEE US ON EDITORIAL MARC LOFTUS Senior Editor/Director of Web Content 516.376.1087 mloftus@postmagazine.com LINDA ROMANELLO Managing Editor 516.931.0730 lromanello@postmagazine.com CHRISTINE BUNISH Film & Video IAIN BLAIR Film JENNIFER WALDEN Audio MICHELLE VILLAS Art Director michelle@moontidemedia.com ADVERTISING MARI KOHN Director of Sales 818.291.1153 cell 818.472.1491 mkohn@postmagazine.com GARY RHODES Eastern & Intl Sales Manager 631.274-9530 cell 516.410.8638 grhodes@copcomm.com LISA BLACK Corporate Sales Executive, Events, Custom and Integrated Print/Publishing Services lblack@copcomm.com 818.660.5828 SUBSCRIPTIONS 818.291.1158 CUSTOMER SERVICE 620 West Elk Ave, Glendale, CA 91204 csr@postmagazine.com 800.280.6446 DALE ESCEN Account Manager 818.291.1122 descen@copprints.com REPRINTS Reprints 781.255.0625 • 818.291.1153 LA SALES OFFICE: 620 West Elk Avenue, Glendale, California 91204 800.280.6446 WILLIAM R. RITTWAGE President / CEO OSCAR PREVIEW WEIRD SCIENCE s awards season approaches, it's not too soon to begin talking about this year's Oscar contenders. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences recently announced that 20 films are in consid- eration for the "Animated Feature Film" category, with the top five nominations to be announced on January 15th, and Oscars to be presented on February 22nd. Among the nominations are Big Hero 6, which had yet to hit theatres, The Boxtrolls, How to Train Your Dragon 2, Rio 2, The Lego Movie, and our cover story this month, The Book of Life. Each, one could argue, is well deserving: The Boxtrolls for its painstaking stop-motion techniques, The Book of Life for its vibrant color and style, and The Lego Movie for its box office domination back in February. As a child of the '70s, who still owns a ton of little plastic bricks, it's no secret which film I'm rooting for. The "Visual Effects" category is also guaranteed to have intense competition. The films for consideration had yet to be announced as Post went to press, but strong consideration would have to be given to a number of films, including Dawn of the Planet of the Apes for its incredible digital characters, Guardians of the Galaxy for its summer box office success, Godzilla for its scale and destruction, and Interstel- lar, for its cross between science fiction and reality. And then there's Maleficent, Edge of Tomorrow, Transformers: Age of Extinc- tion, and next month's The Hobbit. No clear winner here. This month, we've got lots of film cov- erage. On page 16, Iain Blair speaks with Foxcatcher director Bennett Miller. Linda Romanello looks at the VFX featured in Interstellar (page 18, with more online). And I connect with VFX supervisor Augusto Schollaci to discuss Reel FX's work on The Book of Life (page 20). We also have our "Oscar Outlook" on page 22, which looks at many of this year's top films and the categories in which they may be nominated in the weeks ahead. Enjoy! n this month's "Visual Effects" col- umn, we take a look at the extensive VFX work of London-based Double Nega- tive, lead by VFX supervisor Paul Franklin, on Christopher Nolan's new sci-fi drama, Interstellar (see page 18). During our conversation, Franklin spoke with Post about the various planetary environments he and his team created for the film, as well as the stunning and realistic spacecraft shots, robots, and space atmospheres (see our online article at www.postmagazine.com). However, our conversation took an interesting turn when Franklin went further into the science of re- nowned Caltech astrophysicist Kip Thorne. As one of the executive producers, and scientific advisor, Thorne was able to weave his ideas about space, black holes, wormholes and more into the storyline and helped "perfect" the science. But Franklin says it went even further. In their efforts to create accurate VFX based on real science, the team actually ended up aiding Thorne in new discoveries about black holes. "You start out thinking you're making a spectac- ular science fiction film and you discover new science as you go along," says Franklin. "Kip had worked out all the physics and mathematics behind [black holes and wormholes] and we implemented his math in our software, allowing us to actually ray trace these things — so we would be theoretically correct. Things like wormholes and black holes are common in science fiction, but what Kip tells me is that they're typically represented in an incorrect way. Black holes and a wormholes are three-di- mensional holes in space, so they actually are spheres, and they affect the universe around them. The gravity is so strong, that it produces a noticeable, physical warping reaction on the background universe." According to Franklin, the scientific com- munity has made visualizations of black holes before, but not in the same detail they needed for this film. Aside from ending up with some "powerful, compelling images," Franklin reports that Thorne credited the visualization of the black hole as being so detailed, "we started seeing things that we had never seen before. Kip maintains that we've uncovered new science, and is in the process of writing a series of scientific papers that the team at Double Negative will co-author, explaining the new science of the black hole. I think that's pretty special." Post Magazine is published by Post, LLC, a COP communications company. Post does not verify any claims or other information appearing in any of the advertisements contained in the publication, and cannot take any responsi- bility for any losses or other damages incurred by readers in reliance on such content. 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Elk Ave., Glendale, CA 91204 BY MARC LOFTUS SENIOR EDITOR/ DIRECTOR OF WEB CONTENT MLOFTUS@POSTMAGAZINE.COM BY LINDA ROMANELLO MANAGING EDITOR LROMANELLO@ POSTMAGAZINE.COM POST SCRIPT A I EDITOR'S NOTE