Subtext From A Hat

Four clips of student work from upcoming Pixar animators are online now, courtesy of the Spline Doctors.

Ben Kerr's clip, Decision, is an example of the 'subtext from a hat' exercise, in which he was allocated a line of dialogue and a randomly matched emotion, which he then had to capture in the performance's subtext.

Curran Giddens' Crazy, Julie Choi's hilarious snippet, and Chris Turner's wonderful example of animated acting are all the result of the 'two person dialogue' assignment.

As we can see, the calibre of student - and of teaching - at Pixar remains consistently impressive. Turner's might be my favourite piece but Ghostbusters fans will get a real kick out of Giddens'.

[EDIT: There's more on Giddens' offical site, where you can also find links to plenty of other animators and their showreels. These are the Doug Sweetlands of the future]

Dan Aykroyd To Perform Motion Capture For Ghostbusters Video Game

Aykroyd on the upcoming Ghostbusters video game: "Universal purchased the rights from Sony for a game. I'm actually going to have to perform and do some motion capture for them. That will be next year."

The quote comes from an interview with The Edmonton Sun. So now we know.

Bill Murray Being Antisocial Again?

Dan Aykroyd has been promising a 3rd Ghostbusters film since... well, since before Ghostbusters 2. According to the man himself, interviewed by Mike Maguire on CISNFM, he's soon to get his way.

But how? Surely Bill Murray would never spend all of that time hanging out with all of those people all over again? He won't have to. The film is now being planned as a CG cartoon, with Murray already having agreed to record Venkman's voice. That way, he can do his work in a little booth, collect a cheque and leave the rest of them to get on with it. Sigh.

The plot is just the same as we heard it would be in countless previous Aykroyd interviews: the Ghostbusters invent a reality-phase-shifter and slip into a parallel universe version of New York - but not just any parallel universe, mind. The one we think of as Hell.

If you visit the radio station's site, part 2 of the interview is the piece regarding this news. Nothing on Ben Stiller, Will Farrell, Vince Vaughn or any of the rumoured new-additions.

Ghostbusters Game Off Of X-Box 360, Headed To PS3

Due to Sony holding the game rights to the the film, the infamous in-development Ghostbusters game from Zootfly is now headed to the PS3 and not the X-Box 360. This is (a perhaps insubstantiated rumour) now popping up on messageboards, so my feelers have been sent out for confirmation just now. I thought I'd pass it on in the meantime however, as a frighteningly large lot of you seemed to be very interested in the game clips.

How foolish of Zootfly to get so far into the game's gestation without sorting rights issues out. Seems that, this time, they've been very lucky.

Are Filmation The Fly In... Er... Zootfly's Ointment?

I've recieved a tip-off from a videogame industry friend that sheds some interesting new light on those Ghostbusters video game clips that turned up online recently.

Apparently, the clips do show a genuine game, in development by Zootfly for the X-Box 360 (cheer if you must). Unfortunately, it seems that the game may never get released. The story I have been told sought to remind me of the copyright issues surrounding the original film's title...

There had previously been a cartoon series from Filmation, entitled The Ghost Busters. This was obviously going to be a sticking point, so before the feature was released a little legal tussle was followed by a short spot of cheque writing, all in order to secure the use of a similar name. Now, there certainly were Ghostbusters videogame titles released in the 80s, so I'm not sure how the following adds up but apparently this deal with Filmation doesn't extend to cover Zootfly's in-development title.

At least, that's what I'm being told. It comes from a friend, but until I know his source... pinch of salt.

Personally, I would have found it more probable that Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis, Ernie Hudson or, most likely of all, Bill Murray were not wanting to sanction their likeness for use in the game - but that's not the story as I'm hearing it right now. Time will tell.

[EDIT: Zootfly themselves have issued a statement. Here it is: We are very glad to see the overwhelming response to the Ghostbusters prototype movies. What you’ve seen is indeed in-game footage of early prototypes on the Xbox 360, running on ZootFly’s proprietary engine. Due to licensing issues, further development of the game hit a bump on the road, but everybody here at ZootFly is working actively on resolving the challenges with the owners of the GhostbustersGhostbusters IP.

Not to lose the momentum, a part of the ZootFly team is currently working on an original game calleed TimeO, which is closely related to Ghostbusters. The game follows the adventures of two die-hard New Yorkers. They get trapped deep in the shadow world of a parallel New York. The city itself is a war machine threatening to wipe out our world and they have three days to stop it.

As soon as the Ghostbusters IP issue is resolved, the whole team will go back to Ghostbusters. In the meantime, please enjoy [the] two movies]