The blockbuster TV show Game of Thrones is meant to be pure fantasy, but a closer inspection suggests this isn’t the case. In fact, we’ve found ten sure-fire indicators that the fictional land of Västerås, err… Westeros, is actually based on Sweden. … Read More
Animator who revolutionised industry dies
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Who should the BBC cast in its “Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell” mini-series?
Earlier this week, the BBC and BBC America announced an addition to its sci-fi and fantasy line-up: a mini-series television adaptation of Susanna Clarke’s magical novel, “Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell.” The seven hour-long episides will air in 2014.From the New York Times:The BBC said its “Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell” mini-series would be presented in seven hourlong installments, adapted by Peter Harness (a screenwriter and playwright whose credits include “Wallander” and “Is Anybody There?”) and directed by Toby Haynes (“Doctor Who,” “Sherlock”). BBC America said it would show the mini-series during its Supernatural Saturday programming block, which includes science-fiction and fantasy-themed shows like “Doctor Who” and “Orphan Black.”Casting decisions have not yet been announced, so the role of magicians Gilbert Norrell and his student, Jonathan Strange, are still up for grabs. Salon reached out to some of our What To Read book critics for casting suggestions via email:Continue Reading… … Read More
“Avatar” sequel will use underwater motion-capture
Over the weekend, “Avatar” producer Jon Landau revealed a few tantalizing details into the sequels (and possible prequel) of the James Cameron fantasy story that has become the highest grossing film of all time. Speaking to the NAB Technology Summit on Cinema, Landau revealed that the sequels will continue to push the boundaries on special effects, making use of “performance capture in water”:“We have kept a team of digital artists on from ‘Avatar’ in order to test how we can create performance capture underwater. We could simulate water [in CG], but we can’t simulate the actor’s experience, so we are going to capture performance in a tank.” “We want to take advantage of the technologies brilliant people are putting out to make the next two movies even more emotionally engaging and visually tantalizing, and to really wrap up the story arc of our two main characters”Though Cameron has been aiming for December 2014 and 2015 releases, a date has not yet been set.Continue Reading… … Read More
The wonderful world of Warhammer workshops
Among the plethora of burger joints and clothing stores on 8th Street in the East Village, the Games Workshop hobby center sits inconspicuously on the ground floor of a residential building. Look past the colorful plastic figurines posed for battle in the glass display cases, past the game tables down the center of the store manned (yes, they’re all men) by players intently measuring their opponent’s next move. Way in the back is where the action is. This is where the hardcore gamers spend their days chatting about technique and preparing for battle. But they’re not clutching controllers or mesmerized by a glaring screen. They are holding paintbrushes — one of the essential weapons of Warhammer. Armed with paper towels and bottles of paint, each gamer painstakingly crafts their own army of twenty-eight millimeter models, figurine by figurine. Continue Reading… … Read More
“River of Stars”: Picture “Game of Thrones” in China
Much as I look forward to each new episode of “Game of Thrones” and the less-frequent but more even more engrossing books in George R.R. Martin’s “A Song of Ice and Fire” series on which the HBO show is based, epic fantasy’s Medieval settings can get old. There’s nothing inherently wrong with doublets, broadswords and castles, of course, but there’s also no reason why so many works in the genre have to adopt them, either. Even novels that deliberately try to break the conventions established by J.R.R. Tolkien and T.H. White have a hard time establishing worlds with a non-European flavor.Or so I thought until I stumbled upon Guy Gavriel Kay’s “Under Heaven,” a bewitching tale set in the invented country of Kitai, which is closely patterned after Tang Dynasty China. It was a meeting shaped by audiobooks, since what I was looking for when I found it was a long multi-character story read by my favorite narrator, Simon Vance. Vance has taken me through a dozen books by Anthony Trollope, the entire “A Dance to the Music of Time” sequence by Anthony Powell and miscellaneous other novels by Dickens, Hilary Mantel and V.S. Naipaul. To my ear, he strikes exactly the right balance between distinct characters and the unified sensibility of a third-person omniscient narrator. When I crave the pleasure of being entirely enveloped in the imaginary world of a long novel, I want Vance to read it to me.Continue Reading… … Read More
Prada releases short film by Roman Coppola and Wes Anderson
Chanel, which released a much-parodied ad starring Brad Pitt last year, may want to take a cue from Prada, which last year released a well-received short film by Roman Polanski for the brand. This year, Prada has teamed up with “Moonrise Kingdom” indie film duo Wes Anderson and Roman Coppola to deliver another round of engaging ads featuring Léa Seydoux, Owen Wilson’s fantasy woman from “Midnight in Paris.”Continue Reading… … Read More
