Tim Sarnoff Technicolor's President of Production, addresses attendees.
By
Mark Cerulli
The
energy was building, the drones were flying and the mood was celebratory as
Technicolor officially opened its brand-new Culver City TEC Center dedicated to
the brave new worlds of VR (virtual reality), AR (augmented reality) and other immersive
media platforms.
The
official name is “Technicolor Experience Centerâ€, and it’s been having a “softâ€
opening for almost a year, but now the doors are really open... The facility
is a collaborative lab and incubator to develop future content and delivery
platforms in the Immersive media space. “The TEC is really a work in progress,â€
explains Marcie Jastrow, Technicolor’s SVP Immersive Media and the executive in
charge of the Center. “It’s a safe place for people to come and learn. It’s part education, part production and part
post-production.†Although Technicolor is the parent company of hot VFX shops
The Mill, MPC and Mr. X, which combined work on fully 80% of Hollywood
blockbusters and 50% of Super Bowl spots, the TEC is agnostic – meaning they
welcome all producers and projects.
Mention
“Technicolor†and most people think old time movie color, but as Tim Sarnoff,
Technicolor’s President of Production points out, “We processed our last foot
of film in 2015, we’ve been growing in the digital space for years.†Technicolor owns over 40,000 patents and is
ubiquitous today. “Everyone touches something that involves Technicolor,†says
Sarnoff, “… from your smartphone, TV, set-top boxes, blockbuster movies to
Super Bowl commercials.â€
One
cool item on display was “The Blackbird†a VR vehicle designed by The Mill that
has been transforming auto advertising because it can mimic almost any type of
car and its unique 3D camera rig can capture a virtual version of any
environment. Along with making auto ad
shoots easier, The Blackbird (named because it was built in the very same
hangar where the legendary spy plane, SR-71, was constructed) can also help automotive
designers envision a new vehicle much earlier in the design process.
Over
400 people crowded Technicolor’s new space – designers, directors, executives
from gaming, TV, film studios and technologists, all curious about the night’s other
big announcement: Technicolor and HP’s new collaboration: MARS Home Planet, an
ambitious project to use VR to design a life-sustaining environment for 1
million humans on the Martian surface. Hopefully we don’t have to flee Mother
Earth just yet (!) but this will be a vast experiment where students and
members of the public worldwide are invited to participate.
Blackbird VR vehicle.
“We
wanted to tap into the collective human imagination and inspiration to reinvent
life on another planet…†enthuses Sean Young, HP’s Worldwide Segment Manager,
Product Development. He also pointed out
that while HP is known for its printers, they’ve been working in the film and
media space for 75 years, starting with building a color grader for Walt
Disney’s Fantasia.
MARS
Home Planet uses NASA’s research and footage of the Martian surface to create a
realistic backdrop for engineers, creatives, scientists and others to reimagine
what human life on another planet could be. Wanna be an astronaut? Go to hp.com/go/mars. The first 10,000 explorers get a download
code for the Fusion Mars 2030 VR Experience.
Anyone
who grew up in the 1970s fondly remembers “Chiller Theater†playing on WPIX in
the NY area. Chiller introduced me to
all the Universal classics – Dracula,
Frankenstein, The Wolfman and, of course, Karloff’s 1932 addition, The Mummy. Universal’s new re-imagining of their beloved
classic isn’t that Mummy, not by a long shot– but we’re in a different time and
a different world, so why not?
This
new Mummy stars Tom Cruise as Nick
Morton, an Army commando/antiquities raider who finds and sells priceless
relics on the black market. He’s stolen
a map from a lovely, combative British archaeologist (Annabelle Wallis) that
leads him to modern day, ultra dangerous Iraq. After he and his Army bro (Jake Johnson) call in an airstrike to save
them from insurgents, a missile blast reveals the hidden tomb of Ahmanet, an
Egyptian Princess who murdered her immediate family in a quest for power. Her punishment was being buried alive – in a
vat of mercury, which the ancient Egyptians believed prevented her evil spirit
from escaping. Tom Cruise inadvertently
raises her and all Hell breaks loose – literally.
Stunning
Algerian actress Sofia Boutella (the legless assassin from Kingsman: The Secret Service) plays our new Mummy – it was a bold
choice, but the ONLY one director Alex Kurtzman could make as no one could
out-Karloff Karloff. Boutella is
menacing, seductive and a screen presence who can more than hold her own with
Tom Cruise.
The
film has already received a drubbing from some critics and die-hard monster
fans. They took issue with Tom Cruise’s
casting and the filmmakers’ use of CGI. While I was surprised to hear that
Cruise had signed on, The Mummy is
something different from his usual action hero chores and he embraced it with
his trademark enthusiasm. He
convincingly plays a macho military guy fighting against Ahmanet’s spell,
trying to win back the archeologist and save the world from the
princess’ zombie hordes. (Did I mention
she can raise the dead?) While the
filmmakers did use CGI, the work by
Technicolor’s MPC is, as expected, top notch – from sandstorms blowing through
London’s Financial District, to attacking camel spiders and dead Crusaders stalking
the London Underground.
So
we have a new, female Mummy, we have global icon Tom Cruise, we have zombies,
chases and car crashes. What’s the only thing missing? A frame to hang it and future monster movies
on. Well, the filmmakers thought of that
too: enter “Prodigiumâ€, a super secret organization dedicated to wiping out
evil and it’s hot on The Mummy’s trail. Prodigium is run by… um… Dr. Henry
Jekyll. Cue the needle skip sound!
Jekyll,
played by Oscar-winner Russell Crowe, is a clue that The Mummy, impressive as it is, is part of something bigger – the
Dark Universe, Universal’s reinvigorated monster franchise.Take a deep breath and step back… unless
you’ve been buried alive for the last decade, Hollywood is, for better or
worse, in the mega franchise business:Iron Man, Thor, Deadpool, Kong, Star Trek,
Pirates, Harry Potter, MI, Fast & Furious, Hunger Games, James Bond, Jack Reacher, etc. Why?Because with rare exceptions, they make
boatloads of money.If you view it in
that context, Dr. J’s appearance makes a bit more sense. Crowe is fine as the good doctor and his evil
counterpart who gives Cruise a righteous thrashing while trying to enlist him
to the dark side, but I kinda wish they hadn’t crossed horror streams, so to
speak…that said, The Mummy is everything you could want from a $120 million film –
it’s fast, exciting, and impeccably made.And it isn’t all airless CGI: early on, the military plane transporting
Princess Ahmanet’s sarcophagus is hit by a swarm of crows.The resulting crash was filmed on 16
parabolic flights to show Cruise and Wallis banging around the cabin in Zero
G.There’s a high-speed ambulance crash
on the moors of England that practically puts you in the driver’s seat.Cinematographer Ben Seresin uses the vast Namibian
desert to great effect; and love him or hate him, Tom Cruise is a damn good
actor. His almost-nude scene reveals he is also as ageless as the Sphinx.So kick back and enjoy this Mummy.You’ll always
have Karloff’s classic on your DVD shelf.