The battle between cats and dogs is put on hold as they join forces to stop the ruthless feline rogue spy, Kitty Galore (Bette Midler), who hatches a diabolical plan to rule the world. Chris O’ Donnell, Jack McBrayer, Alec Baldwin, Michael Clarke Duncan and — surprise — Roger Moore. Tippett Studio and Sony Pictures Imageworks did the majority of the work, with Joe Bauer handling overall vfx supervision. Tippett (under Blair Clark’s vfx supervision) created nearly all of the cat shots and a few other animals as well, including Kitty Galore, the villainess sphinx; Scrumptious, her pet mouse; and Seamus, the pigeon.
5. The Twilight Saga: Eclipse (Summit, June 30)In the third installment of the most successful indie franchise of all-time, Bella is forced to choose between vampire Edward and werewolf Jacob. David Slade (30 Days of Night, Hard Candy) directs. Tippett Studio (with Phil Tippett and Eric Leven providing vfx supervision) is on wolf duty again, adding three more to the pack for a total of eight. Image Engine (supervised by Jon Cowley) climbs aboard with on-set supervision, previs & postvis, creature effects, digital matte painting, set extensions and compositing.
"This conversation could get very science-fictional," Tippett says. Take the CG rat, Templeton, which Tippett Studios animated based on Steve Buscemi's vocalization for "Charlotte's Web." "A huge part of that performance was a bunch of animators astutely observing rat behavior. Twenty years from now -- or 20 minutes -- we'll have the technology to motion capture a real rat. Then we'll be able to dial in Steve Buscemi's motion capture and blend a real rat and a real human. Whose performance is that? Just knowing how political Hollywood is, even if everybody thought Templeton was the greatest character of all time, who's going to give a rat an Academy Award?"
