Las Vegas special effects designer Eva Jacqueline on transforming the surreal into the tangible

Las Vegas Weekly: Turning ideas, dreams and fantasies into physical form is not for the timid or faint of heart. It requires a particular strain of creative audacity, the kind that thrives in the space between art and illusion. Las Vegas artist Eva Jacqueline knows this terrain well. Through a constant evolving blend of technical skill and artistic instinct, she helps craft hyperrealistic creations that unsettle, fascinate and captivate global spectators in equal measure.

Seeing Things: How Glenn Cote and the ‘Alien: Earth’ Team Got Those Special Effects

cinemontage.org: FX’s “Alien: Earth” series captures all the vintage charm of the original 1979 “Alien” film while adding fun, new flavors to the franchise: the “Ocellus” eyeball alien creature, the carnivorous plant-like alien called the “Orchid,” the USCSS Maginot spaceship, cool new tech like Morrow’s Swiss Army-style cyborg arm, and lab equipment for transplanting consciousness — all requiring visual effects.

The Fantastic Four - First Steps: Robert Allman - VFX Supervisor – Framestore

The Art of VFX: In 2024, Robert Allman gave us an in-depth look at Framestore’s impressive VFX work on Wonka. He then stepped into a completely different universe with Deadpool & Wolverine, bringing his expertise to a much wilder ride.

42 of the Most Mind-Blowing Special Effects Sequences in Movie History

lifehacker.com: Admittedly, we’ve gotten a little jaded. Digital effects are so omnipresent in our blockbusters that we’ve come to expect the impossible from movies. Our sense of awe has been, perhaps, a bit dulled, even as we’re very easily disappointed (although I don’t see the human-feline CGI monstrosities from Cats pleasing anyone in any era). We watch movies for the rush of a brilliantly constructed moment—chasing the high of the coolest things we’ve seen in movies that we’ve loved.

Las Vegas' Star Trek Experience: Rare Behind-the-Scenes Footage

io9.gizmodo.com: If you visited Las Vegas between January of 1998 and September of 2008, you may have also visited an attraction known as Star Trek: The Experience at the off-strip Hilton Hotel. (It’s now called the Westgate.) It gave Star Trek fans the chance to experience their favorite movies and shows (years before what Galaxy’s Edge did for Star Wars fans) and despite now being closed, you can relive parts of the experience through rare behind-the-scenes videos of the attraction under construction.

Bounty-ful VFX

Computer Graphics World: The challenge for the filmmakers working on Lucasfilm's television series The Mandalorian was in creating the look and feel of the Star Wars universe. The same look and feel as the blockbuster feature film audiences have viewed for 40 years. But on a television series budget and with an eight-chapter schedule. Eight chapters with approximately 3,800 visual effects shots.

Encore SFX invests in MDG for BBC1’s The Greatest Dancer

LightSoundJournal.com: When forming special effects company, Encore SFX, George Baker and Anthony Earles, both of whom have many years’ experience in senior roles in the SFX business, decided to invest in the highest quality special effect products available, and knew exactly which company and products they wanted to partner with.

Problem Solving, Fire and THE HANDMAID'S TALE

VFX Voice MagazineVFX Voice Magazine: The first two seasons of The Handmaid’s Tale on Hulu utilized a real house to shoot exteriors for the home of Gileadan Commander Fred Waterford (Joseph Fiennes) and his wife Serena Joy (Yvonne Strahovski), to which Handmaid June Osborne/Offred (Elisabeth Moss) is assigned. But for season 3 of the series, production was no longer about to continue to use that location.

Production Notes: Haze Machines

Nevada Film Office: What Are Haze Machines and How Are They Different From Fog Machines?

Haze machines, also known as hazers, are used for creating atmospheric haze, which help make light beams more visible, soften colors, and decrease contrast.

Storage: Savage VFX’s Multi-Locale Solution

VFX Voice Magazine: The topic of storage for visual effects studios can be a dry one. But storage is, of course, a crucial part of the day to day operations of a VFX vendor, large or small.

One smaller studio that has embraced a robust storage solution is Savage VFX, founded in 2007 by James Pastorius and Brice Liesveld. It found itself expanding relatively rapidly and needing to operate in two locations, Los Angeles and Pittsburgh.

Building Massive Crowds in Movies

Tested: Movies are getting bigger. It's a trend that a lot of people complain about. "Too much spectacle!" they grumble. "Too many battle scenes!" they protest. Once the nay-sayers have started, it probably won't be long before they trot out that tiresome 21st century pejorative: "Too much CG!" Well, I've got news for you. Hollywood's obsession with size is nothing new. Ever since the dawn of cinema, filmmakers have been falling over themselves to put as much clutter on the screen as is humanly possible.

The Legendary Tom Savini on a Career of Special Effects Wizardy and Unforgettable Horror

Interviews | Roger Ebert: Special-effects wizard Tom Savini is most famous for his collaborations with fellow Pennsylvanian George Romero, whose “Night of the Living Dead” and “Dawn of the Dead” are still two of the most influential modern horror films. But Savini’s work as a character actor and director continues to inspire new generations of horror fans. Savini—a Vietnam vet who received an unprecedented fellowship from Carnegie Mellon’s acting and directing program—continues to oversee a school for aspiring make-up artists in Monessen, PA (which has been open for almost 18 years now).

The World of Theme Parks and VFX

VFX Voice Magazine: Not so long ago, in a galaxy not so far away, the first guests entered the Star Wars universe with the help of motion simulation and a first-person-perspective film created by George Lucas, Dennis Muren, VES and Industrial Light & Magic (ILM). Star Tours debuted in 1987 at Disneyland and was a groundbreaking ancestor of recent theme park attractions like Avatar: Flight of Passage, King Kong 360 3-D and Pirates of the Caribbean: Battle for the Sunken Treasure, rides that incorporate ultra-high frame-rate, ultra-high-resolution digital imagery, motion simulation and/or sensory stimuli. Such attractions place guests in the middle of the narrative, usually one based on a film franchise.

New Adventures at the Intersection of Theme Parks and VFX

VFX Voice Magazine: VFX Voice asked industry experts about the technical demands and continuing evolution of VFX and video used in theme park rides and other fixed-location entertainment. Here they discuss the use of 3D, domed and big screens, and what’s coming in the future. They also talk about dark rides and LBEs (Location-Based Entertainments), such as Justice League: Battle for Metropolis, Avatar: Flight of Passage, King Kong 360 3-D, Panem Aerial Tour (The World of The Hunger Games), Guardians of the Galaxy – Mission: Breakout!, Dream of Anhui and Star Wars: Secrets of the Empire (a VR LBE).

Theatrical Effects Enrich The Experience Inside The Museum Of The Bible

Rosco Spectrum: The new Museum of the Bible in Washington D.C. is a $500 MM institution that showcases thousands of rare biblical artifacts alongside state-of-the-art exhibits that are designed to engage its visitors with the Bible.

Production Notes: Ratchet Pulls

Nevada Film Office: In film production, ratchet pulls are used to pull and launch actors and stunt performers in flying stunts. Using cables and the appropriate harnesses, a carefully rigged stunt employing a ratchet system helps give the illusion of a character flying through the air in an action scene. Stunts that typically require ratchet systems include explosions, fight scenes, or scenes where an actor is hit with gunshots.

Henry Cavill Mustache Controversy

www.esquire.com/entertainment: ustice League was a bad movie. In fact, Justice League was such a bad movie that it also somehow managed to ruin Henry Cavill's extremely handsome face. The story of his infamous mustache has been one of the most hilarious Hollywood fuck-ups of the year.

The Last Jedi: Previs, Postvis and Techvis Explained

VFX Voice MagazineVFX Voice Magazine: By now, most people are likely familiar with the previs process for big visual effects films. Previs – and its related disciplines of postvis and techvis – helps directors, crew and actors imagine complex scenes months before they are filmed or before visual effects get started. And the process continues as production on the film goes on.

Here’s how previs, postvis and techvis from The Third Floor formed part of the making of Rian Johnson’s Star Wars: The Last Jedi, narrowing in on where it was used for the space battles and the action scenes on Crait.

How Annihilation’s visual effects artists created those terrifying mutant creatures

The Verge: The last time director Alex Garland and visual effects supervisor Andrew Whitehurst worked together, they created Alicia Vikander’s Ava, the robot star of Ex Machina. For their follow-up collaboration, Annihilation, they had a much bigger set of challenges. Garland’s newest film is a heady mind-trip that explores humanity’s self-destructive impulses, but it’s also a walking tour of the gorgeous and the grotesque. The story of Lena (Natalie Portman), a biologist who joins a group of women to explore an area of coastal America that’s rapidly mutating due to an alien contaminant, Annihilation is full of improbably beautiful biological mashups, shimmering landscapes, and human-plant hybrids.

The Last Jedi Quietly Killed Another Star Wars Tradition You Might Have Missed

io9.gizmodo.com: The Last Jedi takes aim at some of the most deeply-held establishments and tenets of the Star Wars saga, laying the ground for a new generation to build something different in their place. That’s all heady stuff, but it also broke another Star Wars tradition that was a bit easier to miss: It’s the first film in the main saga not to use the infamous “Wilhelm scream.”