Watch a 13-minute promotional short for 1982′s Blade Runner

In an effort to promote Blade Runner, the producers had this 13-minute short created for distribution at sci-fi conventions.

Let’s say you’ve been tasked with marketing a movie. It’s an ambitious film, one that simultaneously hopes to live up to the lofty standards of one of Philip K. Dick’s most beloved novels while also creating a vast, dystopian world that is equal parts unimaginably different from our own and a logical extension of current and near-future technology. In 2012 that wouldn’t be too difficult — just capture a few seconds of bombastic CGI, hire a deep-voiced narrator and cut a TV commercial that may or may not accurately reflect the film (but who cares as long as it puts people in the seats?) — but way back in 1982 it was a whole lot more difficult to entice notoriously picky sci-fi fans into the theater.

Thus, when faced by a similar situation for Ridley Scott’s phenomenal Blade Runner, the crew at M.K. Productions opted to put together a short, promotional movie to be distributed at various conventions around the country. According to Open Culture the short was a hit, and was widely circulated among sci-fi, horror and fantasy fan groups prior to Blade Runner’s theatrical debut. Whether or not it directly contributed to the movie’s success and current status as one of the all-time greatest sci-fi films Hollywood has ever created is debatable, but the vignette does serve as an undeniably cool look back at the creation of the film, and that’s a solid enough reason for us to embed the clip at the bottom of this post.

Along with the expected images and footage from Blade Runner, the short includes interviews with director Ridley Scott, special effects artist Douglas Trumbull and “futurist designer” Syd Mead. Normally we wouldn’t be this excited about what we now call a “behind the scenes featurette,” but in this case we’re utterly stoked to hear what these people have to say. If you’ve seen Blade Runner you know how masterfully crafted its futuristic world is, and there’s a very good reason why so many sci-fi movies, novels and video games created since 1982 have blatantly lifted ideas from Ridley Scott’s film.

More impressively, Blade Runner was created in an era where computer generated graphics weren’t really something Hollywood studios could use. They existed, certainly, but any CGI work was exorbitantly expensive, and few people had any idea how to effectively use the technology for making films. Thus, when you’re watching Blade Runner and being drawn in by the hyper-detailed detritus of that cyberpunk universe, everything you’re seeing was created by old-school practical visual effects work, making the film that much more stunning a feat.

Before you hit play on the embed below, we will give you a heads up that the footage is not exactly crystal-clear, 1080p HD quality. It is, after all, a 16mm movie from three decades ago, that was never really intended for public consumption. Thus, just be happy that this thing still exists, and that we can all use it to avoid dirtying our hands with any actual work on a lazy Tuesday afternoon.

Source : digitaltrends[dot]com

Epic’s latest studio Impossible Games polishing up Infinity Blade: Dungeons

Former 38 Studios subsidiary Big Huge Games is now the Epic-owned Impossible Studios. Its first project: Infinity Blade: Dungeons.

Epic Games is expanding. The Unreal Engine studio behind Bulletstorm, Gears of War, and the upcoming Fortnite is, for the first time, seeking outside investment from companies like Tencent as it builds its video game making business into a survivor. It opened yet another branch studio this week. On its homepage, Epic announced the opening of Impossible Games. The Maryland-based studio will be working on Epic’s mobile projects, including Infinity Blade: Dungeons.

Impossible Studios is a new territory in the Epic empire, but the truth it it’s a lifeboat. The studio was first opened at the beginning of June after Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning creator 38 Studios laid off all staff, including the Baltimore-based Big Huge Games. A number of employees at Big Huge were snatched up by Epic and put up in a development house that was dubbed Epic Baltimore by fans on the Internet. Impossible Games is the official name for the studio rising from Big Huge’s ashes.

“We were so glad we could help keep this great team together, and we’re lucky to have them,” said Epic President Mike Capps in the announcement, “At the time, I said that finding a full team of superstars was ‘impossible’ and apparently the name stuck! Pairing the imagination and experience of Impossible with Epic’s technology, IP and resources makes for a business greater than the sum of its parts.”

Former Big Huge general manager Sean Dunn, whose credits include bonafide classics like Company of Heroes as well as Amalur, has been named studio director at Impossible. Its first project, Infinity Blade: Dungeons, is actually a collaboration between Shadow Complex studio ChAIR and Epic Cary, with the bulk of work happening at Impossible’s home base.

Infinity Blade: Dungeons will no doubt benefit from Impossible’s expertise in action RPGs. Early demos of the iPad game have been found wanting by the press. The look of the Diablo-style dungeon crawler has been praised but the touch-only interface has been finicky, lacking the simple precision of the Infinity Blade one-on-one fighters released to date. Since most of the game is already finished, it sounds as Impossible will simply be polishing the game’s quality.

Which begs the question: What will Impossible Games’ first project be? Capps’ comments indicate that Impossible will work with established Epic intellectual properties to start with which is understandable. Epic is likely still gun-shy about letting its satellite studios develop new IP after the disappointing 2011 performance of People Can Fly’s Bulletstorm. Maybe a Gears of War RPG? A new Infinity Blade for PCs and consoles? Nothing’s impossible!

And here I thought I could get through this without a single pun.

Source : digitaltrends[dot]com