New TINTIN Photo: Spielberg And Jackson With Virtual Cam!

Jim here. A new photo has popped up over on the Spanish site Estrenosdecine (I can't STAND sites that ruin photos with their logos!) revealing Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson working with the "Virtual Cam" within the volume set up for shooting TINTIN. It reminds me of the ancient art of divining for water! :-)

Cool photo. But it is OLD. It was taken the same day as this photo that I posted back in March - Spielberg merely donned a vest. Still - ultra cool to see the formally analog Spielberg using this cutting edge piece of Hollywood gadgetry.

For those unaware of the tech behind the Virtual Cam, it allows the directors to position the camera (a virtual camera) anywhere in the environment after the mocap (motion capture) has been shot. The environment is within the bounds of the "volume" which is a wide space usually divided into squares. When shooting mocap, infrared cameras are pointed into this volume and tracks the locations of objects (via bright dots on jumpsuits, etc).

By comparison, the SimulCam is used when shooting live action and virtual elements at the same time - this is obviously not needed on TINTIN, but it certainly was on AVATAR. Thanks to a special source for pointing out my error in haste! :-)

I can't wait to some first glimpses of TINTIN. How about it? Shall I enquire with my sources? :-)