Henry Selick, director of Coraline, gives a fascinating insight into what might be a puppet’s point of view, with a cleverly worked animation as an example (00:57-1:06).

Way back before Avatar had even been release, James Cameron sat down with Popular Mechanics to talk about how he ended up inventing a completely new way of creating CG movies with his Stereoscopic-Virtual hybrid camera. He also explained how CG animation will never replace real actors because it is not the geeks behind the computers who are driving the performance, but rather the actors themselves through the motion capture technology. Taken from the Popular Mechanics article:

In fact, Cameron doesn’t even like the term “motion capture” for the process used on Avatar. He prefers to call it “performance capture.” This may seem like semantics, but to Cameron, the subtle facial expressions that define an actor’s performance had been lost for many of the digital characters that have come before. In those films, the process of motion capture served only as a starting point for animators, who would finish the job with digital brush strokes. “Gollum’s face was entirely animated by hand,” says Weta Digital effects master Joe Letteri. “King Kong was a third or so straight performance capture. It was never automatic.” This time, Cameron wanted to keep the embellishment by animators to a minimum and let the actors drive their own performances.

It’s probably this misconception that caused Avatar to loose out on best picture at the Oscars recently. Perhaps those at the Academy see CGI as a threat to future acting talent. James Cameron thinks otherwise.

A nice compilation showing the use of the chroma key technique in some popular TV and films. Using green or blue screens in the background, actors are shot and then composited into purposely shot footage from on-location by removing the chosen colour. This means production companies can save money by shooting footage in studios rather than closing down famous landmarks like Times Square (03:43) in New York.

This is the trailer for the up and coming Iron Man sequel with appearances from Whiplash (Mickey Rourke) and Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), along with Iron Man’s partner War Machine (Don Cheadle).

Trevor Boyd and Steve Ilett of LegoMatrix.com have completed 440 hours of stop-motion production to reproduce the famous bullet-dodge scene from the Matrix, just in time for its ten year anniversary.

We went to great lengths to match camera angles, lighting conditions, continuity errors, focal depths and so on, but obviously we had to work within the limitations of point and shoot cameras and the Lego medium. Not having any knees or elbows on the minifigs can make it tricky to reproduce the actor’s movements, but we tried our best.

For extensive behind the scenes info, click here.

The new extended trailer has been released for James Cameron’s Avatar, and this time there is more information on the plot and the characters. It seems that the humans are trying to mine a valuable mineral from the land of the indigenous race, and they have genetically engineered creatures that they can control remotely to infiltrate the local population. While doing so, a soldier starts to question his orders as he learns more about the culture of the aliens, and how it is being destroyed.

Disney are making Prince of Persia into a movie. The popular franchise is due to hit cinemas in late May, and by the looks of the trailer it will stick closely to the rich ancient colours, Arabian architecture and traditional clothing that featured in the game. The film is produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, who brought us Pirates of the Caribbean, so expect more sword-tastic action, minus the Jack Sparrow.

Spike Jonze, director of upcoming novel-to-movie Where the Wild Things Are speaks about Max Records, the young boy who plays Max in the film. With it being Max’s first acting job at the age of nine, Spike had to come up with unique ways for him to bring his emotions to the surface, including having members of the set stage lightsaber fights off screen.

This featurette exposes the immense planning and pre-production work that Wes Anderson and his crew have undergone to bring Roald Dahl’s beloved novel to the big screen. The use of real hair, custom made clothes (01:01) and sets (01:16), coupled with on-location sound recordings (02:00) will give a very authentic look and feel to the final movie.

Yesterday marked the online release of the trailer for 2010′s Toy Story 3, highly anticipated by Pixar fans everywhere. It is the third installment from the 1996 original which many consider the film that launched the computer animation industry into Hollywood.

The trailer features familiar characters from the previous movies who this time have to deal with their owner, Andy, moving away to college. Pixar has done well to stick to the look and feel of the original film, but advancements are noticeable especially in the animation, specifically that of the human characters – notice Andy’s teenage posture and body language as he spins on the chair (00:43). The highlight of the trailer has to be Buzz turning into a Spanish heart-throb (01:54).