News

Click here to read the full article.

Not long ago, Brad Herman, the right-hand man to hush-hush Hollywood, invited a longtime client, legendary Motown songwriter Eddie Holland, to a private visit with another client, The Supremes’ Cindy Birdsong, who since September 2021 has resided in a Los Angeles-area care facility after two strokes that have left her unable to walk or speak. Herman, who says he’s been granted power of attorney over the singer, had worked with Birdsong’s family members to extricate her from a previous living arrangement.

“Eddie puts his hand behind her head, very delicately, sweetly, saying, ‘Cindy, I’m really happy to see you,’ then he just sat there real close and sang in her ear: ‘Baby Love,’ ‘Love Child,’ ‘Someday We’ll Be Together,’ ” Herman recalls, eyes tearing, rolling up a shirtsleeve to show a forearm prickling in memory: goose bumps. “Every­one who has a public face has drama.

Following Stan Lee‘s tragic death on Monday at the age of 95, those who knew him or were lucky enough to get to meet him have been sharing stories online that remind us how kind, generous and just generally how much fun he was as a person. Case in point, this anecdote which recalls how Lee surprised Iron Man himself, Robert Downey Jr,. at his birthday party a few years ago.

According to Lee’s longtime manager Brad Herman, the comic book legend was invited to Downey Jr.’s big 50th birthday bash but couldn’t make it. So he sent a note to the Tony Stark actor on – what else? – Spider-Man stationary. In typical Stan style, the note read: “May Destiny grant you good health and much time. You deserve so much more than this simple rhyme.” He signed off with his classic catchphrase: “Excelsior.”

As it turns out,...

Location-based virtual reality (Vr) startup Spaces opened a new Vr experience called “Terminator Salvation: Fight for the Future” at the Irvine Spectrum Center in Orange County, Calif. to the public Thursday.

“Terminator Salvation” is a high-end location-based Vr experience, which means that participants get to freely roam on a stage with physical props that are incorporated into the Vr experience. Each and every participant wears their own Vr backpack complete with an integrated computer, which in this case has been made by Hp.

Tickets for the experience cost $30 per person, and participants can get access to downloadable footage of their mission for an extra $10. Up to 4 players can take part in the experience together at any given time.

“Our amazingly fun, social Spaces attractions are built to be shared,” said Spaces Cto Brad Herman in a statement. “We’re kicking off our first Spaces Center with a prominent franchise that...

Los Angeles-based virtual reality (Vr) startup Spaces announced Thursday morning that it’s launching a location-based Vr experience inspired by the 2015 film “Terminator Genisys” in partnership with Skydance Media, which owns the rights to the “Terminator” franchise.

Similar to recent location-based Vr experiences such as The Void’s “Star Wars: Secrets of the Empire” and Dreamscape Immersive’s “Alien Zoo,” “Terminator” is a modular pop-up that can be set up in existing retail locations.

But unlike its predecessors, “Terminator” personalizes the experience by scanning the faces of guests, who play in teams of four, and applying them to their game avatars. Once they have their avatar personalized, guests play as cyborgs sent to post-apocalyptic Downtown Los Angeles to disable a Skynet Communication hub defended by a battalion of by T-600 Terminators.

After completing the mission, which features wind, motion effects and scents, guests will be given the option of downloading...

How to Train Your Dragon 2 is the first movie animated with newly developed technology called Apollo—and I was able to try it out, firsthand! At the DreamWorks Animation Studios, I became an animator by experimenting with Hiccup's expressions.

Sean Sexton, Animation Supervisor, explains that Apollo allows animators to directly manipulate characters' expressions using a stylus on the computer screen. The state-of-the-art technology pushes the bar in terms of quality and detail, expanding the color palette and range of textures.

"I was wondering, what can't we do at this point?" says writer/director Dean DeBlois, who also directed the first movie. "I think if we can imagine it, we can actually create it now. There doesn't seem to be a boundary anymore. Stuff that used to be budget breaking-ly difficult is now handled with ease. It's a wide open future."

Animating Hiccup was no easy task for me, but...