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Friday, 9 November 2012

Around 60% of "Ender's Game" Will Include Visual Effects

Posted on 15:41 by woodcutter
Ivy Zhong, vice-chairperson of Galloping Horse, the company now responsible for the VFX in Ender's Game, confirmed today in an article with China Daily that, despite Digital Domain's recent troubles, the studio is in fact currently working on the film. The article also revealed a new and rather interesting tidbit: as much as 60 percent of next year's movie will contain special effects.

That might be more than many of us have expected for a movie which, while set in a futuristic world, mostly revolves around characters holed up in a space station. But think about the possibilities: we're already counting on the Battle Room being epic, but there's also the mind game (we hope), war flashbacks, and the advanced technology and gadgets we love to see in all of our favorite sci-fi movies.

It will also be rather interesting to see how they've incorporated special effects into Ender's final exam. Not to give too much away, but if the filmmakers would subject the audience to 20 minutes of Ender sitting in front of the the flashing dots of the simulator with his headset on, they'd put us all to sleep. How will they conceal the twist in the plotline yet still keep the viewers on the edge of their seats? Will there be an epic space battle? Will the simulator bring his challenge to life or will the exam appear to Ender as a super complicated version of Pac Man?

It feels really great to say this: we have less than a year until we find out.

Additionally, Lionsgate held a conference call with financial analysts today where Ender's Game was briefly mentioned - and a comment was made that might be a bit exciting for the fandom:
Like on Twilight, Hunger Games – and by the way, our very exciting franchise Ender’s Game as well – we constantly are focused on working with our book sales around the world. Fan engagement is always a critical part of the way we market these franchises. We’re constantly in communication with our fan base and we do that on a worldwide basis on an ongoing basis.
Even though it is pretty quiet around here now, we will take Mr. Friedman at his word and expect great and exciting things to come for the Ender's Game community as the release date draws a bit closer!

Anyone else loving the word "franchise" these days? :)
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Posted in Galloping Horse, VFX | No comments

Thursday, 8 November 2012

Bracelet Giveaway Update: Now Includes SDCC 2012 Pin

Posted on 10:13 by woodcutter
Okay, so, it seems I received some incorrect information regarding the amount of postage it would take to mail these bracelets and that some of you were asked to pay extra upon arrival -- I'm really sorry about this!

Here are the correct postage rates:

USA: $1.95
International: $3.00

In order to make it up to everyone, I'd like to send out a bunch of Ender's Game Comic Con 2012 pins. If you were asked to pay upon the arrival of your bracelet, please shoot me an email (endernews@gmail.com) with your name and address and I will get you a pin in the mail ASAP. 

And to keep it fair, I'd like to also offer a pin to everyone else who's still wanting a bracelet -- until I run out!



Send me a self-addressed stamped envelope with the correct postage listed above ($1.95 if you are in the US) to the following address:

Ender News
c/o Kelly Severs
202 Highland Ave.
Somerville, MA 02143
and I will send you not only a fan-made bracelet but also an Ender's Game Comic Con pin!  Read more about how to send a SASE here.

And please note: These bracelets are 100% fan made, not for sale, and are in no way affiliated with anything officially Ender's Game. They are just for fun, and hopefully something you can wear that will help attract friends and family members to the project!

Don't miss out!
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Posted in Ender News, giveaway | No comments

Thursday, 1 November 2012

Countdown: 364 Days! The Story So Far...

Posted on 12:34 by woodcutter


Hey guys! In celebration of us now being exactly one year away from the release of Ender's Game, I thought I would put together a timeline to cover some of the most important events in the fandom and on this site since the beginning of filming back in February.

Hang on to your flash suits, it's pretty long!

February 2012: It begins! The young cast met together in New Orleans with director Gavin Hood for the first time at an Ender's Game cast party. It was a great opportunity to show off their new military haircuts:

Aramis Knight
Asa Butterfield


Also in February, many members of the cast attended Space Camp at the U.S. Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama. They went through the "Space Camp and Aviation Challenge programs to inspire some quality team-building before they [started] filming."

February 27th, 2012: Principal photography began at the Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans. The Ender's Game production team issued a press release with the film's synopsis, as well as listing a a new actor for the role of Stilson -- Caleb J. Thaggard as opposed to the original Brendan Meyer.

Here is the synopsis from the press release:
In the near future, a hostile alien race (Formics) have attacked Earth. If not for the legendary heroics of Commander Mazer Rackham (Ben Kingsley), all would have been lost. In preparation for the next attack, the highly esteemed Colonel Graff (Harrison Ford) and the International Fleet (IF) Military are training only the best young children to find the future Mazer. Ender Wiggin (Asa Butterfield), a shy, but strategically brilliant boy is pulled out of his school to join the elite. Ender easily masters increasingly difficult war games, distinguishing himself and winning respect amongst his peers at Battle School. Ordained by Graff as the IF's next great hope, Ender is promoted to Command School. Once there, he's trained by Rackham himself to lead his fellow soldiers into an epic battle that will determine the future of Earth and humankind.
March 07, 2012: Brendan Meyer announced via his Facebook page that he unfortunately had to step down from the role of Stilson due to a scheduling conflict. Actor Caleb J. Thaggard took his place.

March 21, 2012: The official Ender's Game production blog launched the first of what would be a series of 12 posts which gave fans a look behind-the-scenes of principal photography. The first picture:

Official Blog


March 22, 2012: Fans everywhere gasped in horror as they found out that the Battle School students are wearing socks under their uniforms in the film. However, as soon as the trailers start coming out and everyone sees the flash suits, I'm 100% certain costume designer Christine Bieselin Clark will be utterly forgiven. ;)

April, 2012: Producer Alex Kurtzman spoke to MTV.com about Ender's Game, praising the cast and claiming the film captures the book's "essence."

April 09, 2012: The Ender's Game release date was pushed from March 15 to November 01, 2013. 

April 18, 2012: We had our first super exciting glimpse at Ender's monitor:

Official Blog

April 26, 2012: The official production blog gave us a cool behind-the-scenes look at Gavin Hood making edits to a storyboard on the set of Ender's Game. Plus, we received a dare from producer Roberto Orci:



How much WERE we able to make out?

May, 2012: Ender's Game author Orson Scott Card visited the set and recorded a voice-over roll. Read his full report at RhinoTimes.com.

May 17, 2012: Part one of the official production blog's Q&A session was released. Topics included the film's visual influences, Graff/Ender's relationship, and Roberto Orci's favorite scene.

May 22, 2012: Representatives of many fan sites (including myself!) visited the Ender's Game set, where we received a day-long tour and were allowed to talk to the people who were working so hard on this amazing project.

Coming Soon
May 25, 2012: The official production blog revealed the insignia of the International Fleet and their second Q&A session with producer Roberto Orci.

May 31, 2012: Smart Pop Books announced that their Ender anthology, Ender's World, would include various Q&As with Ender's Game author Orson Scott Card and invited fans of the book to ask questions.

June 02, 2012: The remaining cast and crew of Ender's Game attended the wrap party at the House of Blues in New Orleans.

June 09, 2012: Principal photography wrapped on the film. TomKats catering created some fun ice sculptures (one shaped like a dragon!) for the cast and crew in New Orleans.

June 13, 2012:  We received a peak of an Ender's Game promotional poster used at the 2012 Licensing Expo in Las Vegas

June 24, 2012: Ender News released its Ender's Game cover art gallery.

July 14, 2012: Aidan from Ender News attended San Diego Comic Con and interviewed Ender's Game author Orson Scott Card. She also stopped by to visit Smart Pop Books and the Summit Booth where the super cool Mike Pierce Mireles gave us some t-shirts and a boatload of pins to give away on the site!

August 10, 2012: We found out that Ender's Game will definitely bit hitting IMAX theaters and that Lionsgate is eyeing sequels. This is the first time that the studio referred to the project as a "franchise."

September 16, 2012: Ender News introduced a new part of the site: a comprehensive book and movie directory, The I.F. Files!

October 07, 2012: Jimmy Jax Pinchak announced his holiday contest: designing a greeting card! There's still 9 days left to participate in this... and I've heard there are some pretty cool prizes!

November 01, 2012:  We reach the one-year mark - and what a ride it's been! The past 9 months have been filled with exciting events, announcements and revelations -- who knows what the next year will bring!

--

Oh and guys: our friend Darian Robbins has created an Ender's Game countdown calendar to celebrate the day -- and it's free to download!

As well as featuring some of his latest artwork, it has also included birthdays of many of the cast/crew members and links to many fandom websites. We are super happy to be included!

Make sure you head over to Darian's blog and thank him for such a cool gift!

364 days to go, you guys. We've officially passed the one year mark!
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Posted in Ender News, fan art, production, production blog | No comments

Monday, 29 October 2012

The Nets Report #4

Posted on 17:09 by woodcutter

Ender's Game Cast/Crew News and Gossip

Hey, Launchies! I hope all of our East Coast friends are staying safe and dry during Hurricane Sandy (which happens to be my mom's name; she's never felt more popular). Be smart, guys!

Viola Davis (Major Anderson)

What she's up to: Viola Davis has been all over the place lately! Last month she made an appearance on The Ellen Degeneres Show where she talked about one of her more recent films, Don't Back Down, a movie about two mothers trying to improve their local inner city school. Admitting that education was extremely important to her, Davis segued into the story of her friend's struggling charter school in Rhode Island (the Segway Institute) and was surprised by Shutterfly's gift of free year books and a $10,000 check in support of the school. We hope those kids are doing well!

Fashion Bomb Daily
Last Monday, Viola Davis was honored by the Chicago International Film Festival with the Career Achievement Award via Black Perspectives, "a program within the festival that recognizes films and actors from the black diaspora." (Gapers Block)

And then, just this past Thursday, Davis attended the 29th Annual Fashion Group International Night Of Stars in New York City, a night to honor achieving designers in the fashion industry.

In Ender's Game news, Viola Davis recently admitted in an interview with BlackFilm.com that she did not read the novel before beginning work on the film. Her comments:

"[I]n the book, Major Anderson is actually a male, so by the time… I just felt like this is a different character and I didn't feel like I could learn anything from reading the book as much as I could learn something from kind of studying the psychology of people who have come back from war and experience post-traumatic stress disorder and I thought that was much more valuable for me."

What do you guys think? Did you ever consider Major Anderson as someone suffering from PTSD? Does this possibly give us an insight on Anderson's character in the film?

Zimbio

Hailee Steinfeld (Petra Arkanian)

What she's up to: Hailee recently arrived back in New Orleans to begin filming on her new film Hateship, Friendship, though she admitted on Twitter that the city simply wasn't the same without the rest of her Ender's Game cast mates.

The young actress also looked lovely at Teen Vogue's 10th Anniversary Young Hollywood Party last month. Check out more photos on Zimbio!

Our favorite recent tweet: @HaileeSteinefld I'm on my way to Fairfax High School to kick off National Teen Driver Safety Week. Can't wait to start my lessons w MBDALA. #drivesafe  !!

Khylin Rhambo (Dink Meeker)

Still hard at work on his new show The First Family, Khylin recently had the opportunity to receive singing instruction from his fellow co-star and the "Empress of Soul" herself, Gladys Knight. According to TMZ, one scene required her onscreen grandchildren to sing on key and Knight stepped up to gave them a quick on-set lesson. Here they are singing "This Little Light of Mine" behind-the-scenes:



Our recent favorite tweet: @KhyRhambo the day all my Ender's game family reunites will be an epic/legendary day.

Aramis Knight (Bean)

What he's up to: Aramis seems to be attending school, as well as spending a lot of fun time with family and friends lately: including attending a Halloween party last night. His costume? We'll let you check it out yourselves:


You're welcome.

Our recent favorite tweet: @AramisKnight88 Can't wait for next Halloween. They'll have flash suit costumes.

--

The Nets Report is an Ender News series dedicated to keeping the fandom up-to-date with cast news and gossip until the movie's release in November 2013. Updates every couple of weeks!

367 days to go!
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Posted in Aramis Knight, Hailee Steinfeld, Khylin Rhambo, The Nets Report, Viola Davis | No comments

Monday, 8 October 2012

Free Fan-Made "Ender's Game" Bracelets!

Posted on 15:42 by woodcutter
Thanks to EN reader Hannah, I have ~100 of these super cool bracelets to give away. "Enders Game" is written on one side and "Launchie" on the other. I mean, we're all Launchies around here, right?



Please note: These bracelets are 100% fan made, not for sale, and are in no way affiliated with anything officially Ender's Game. They are just for fun, and hopefully something you can wear that will help attract friends and family members to the project!

How you can get one: It's super easy! No contest or craziness this time around. Simply send a self-addressed stamped envelope to:

Ender News
c/o Kelly Severs
30 Howard St.
Cambridge, MA 02139
and I will get you one in the mail! (Plus a SDCC pin. View updated post here!) Cool, right? Read more about how to send a SASE here. :)

For international EN readers, it's kind of tricky. According to Wikipedia, everyone not currently in the US can buy what are called "international reply coupons" which I can exchange for postage stamps here. Jeremy Goh has a good tutorial on how to do that on his blog.

Here are the correct postage rates:

USA: $1.95
International: $3.00

If anyone has any questions about postage or anything else, please comment below and I'll try to help you as best as I can.

Please stick to the one bracelet per person idea - don't send me requests for bracelets for your mother, sister, doctor, pastor, etc. They can request their own. :)

388 days until the Ender's Game movie hits US theaters. We're all still excited, right? :)
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Posted in contests, Ender News, giveaway | No comments

Sunday, 7 October 2012

Jimmy Jax Pinchak's Holiday Contest: Design a Greeting Card!

Posted on 05:12 by woodcutter
Hey everyone! Fun news for you: Peter actor Jimmy Jax Pinchak has launched a Holiday-themed contest and has invited all Ender's Game fans to enter!

Taken from Jimmy's Facebook page:
Who is up for a contest? Putting it out there....Jimmy Jax needs a design for a killer 2012 holiday greeting card. "Happy Holidays" from Jimmy Jax Pinchak.

 What you can win: Winning design will receive the first autographed numbered print, 1/300. Winning artist will be credited the front of he card. $50.00 for the artist and a $50.00 contribution for a charity of winners choice. Winner will receive thirty signed greeting cards. Winner will also have the option to design next years greeting card, right before the release of Ender's Game!

Rules: Card must read "Happy Holidays". Art work must be original without using photos of other cast members. Make it fun, make it real, make it "Wiggin Worthy".

Deadline is November 10th, 2012. Winner will be announced on November 15th.
All artwork and designs must be original.Contestants are allowed TWO entries.
Ender's Game, "Peter Wiggin" are NOT be printed anywhere on the card.
Artist may use a photo, sketch or painting of Jimmy Jax Pinchak only.
We do not have permission to use any other cast members photo or likeness.
This contest is sponsored by Jimmy Jax Pinchak and is not affiliated with Ender's Game.
These cards will NOT be sold OR available to purchase.
Two hundred and eighty greeting cards will be mailed to the fans as a gift from Jimmy Jax.
All artwork will be owned by Jimmy Jax Pinchak Inc.

Stonehouse Collection
Please forward all questions and your artwork to jimmyjaxcontest@aol.com
along with your name, age and email address.

It's really great how so many of the cast and crew members are interacting in the Ender's Game fandom, giving fans opportunities to participate and keeping us up-to-date with pictures, videos, and other silliness. Can't wait to see what the next year is going to bring!

If you like this contest and plan on participating, make sure you head over to Jimmy's Facebook page and tell him so! Don't forget to "like" the page while you're there! :)

Ender News is also on Facebook. You can check us out there as well if you want to keep up-to-date with all the latest Ender's Game news right in your Facebook feed.

Thanks, Jimmy!

Edit: Jimmy has let us know that he has added a super secret prize that will especially excite Ender's Game fans -- so be creative!
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Posted in contests, Jimmy Jax Pinchak | No comments

Wednesday, 3 October 2012

Happy 13th Birthday, Aramis Knight!

Posted on 07:43 by woodcutter
"I wanted a TOON for my birthday!"


Bean actor Aramis Knight turns 13-years-old today! All of us here at Ender News wish him super well. :)

Make sure to head over to Twitter and wish Aramis Knight a very happy birthday!
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Posted in Aramis Knight | No comments
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